Valentines Day is almost here! 10 Unique Food and Beverage Gift Ideas
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and we all know the drill — flowers, chocolates, candy, rinse and repeat.
Although a lovely sentiment, it’s not exactly the stuff that legends are made of, right?
So, we dove deep into the web and came up with a list of food and beverage items that say “I love you” in an unconventional and out-of-the-box way.
These gems are not your garden-variety tokens of affection; they’re off-beat, they’re fun, and they scream “Be Mine” in the most deliciously distinctive ways.
From quirky snacks to sippable surprises, here’s our list of
10 unique food & beverage gifts for Valentine’s day
Olive & Cocoa Chocolate Heart Pretzels
Imagine a dozen crunchy pretzels, each smothered in a dreamy mix of milk and white chocolate and then dotted with playful pink hearts.
Both salty and sweet, as most relationships are, these tantalizing treats arrive in a chic, handcrafted wooden crate, tied up with a red ribbon, and just in time for Valentine’s Day.
Trust us, they are the yummiest way to say “I heart you!”
It’s like nature’s own love boosting superfood – the Ayurvedic secret often dubbed as a ‘natural viagra’ for both ladies and gents. And, it’s not just about cranking up your libido and vitality; it’s also great for knocking down stress and anxiety, which are the usual, and unfortunate romance killers.
Sprinkle some of this 100% USDA Certified Organic magic powder into your daily routine and get ready for a more sumptuous and satisfying sex life.
We’re talking about Lou Malnati’s heart-shaped deep dish pizza for two, with your pick of cheesy goodness or savory sausage, paired with a giant heart-shaped chocolate chip cookie. And this cookie isn’t just any cookie – it’s the same recipe used in Lou Malnati’s iconic pizzerias.
It’s like a big hug from Chicago, sent straight to your door this Valentine’s Day. Who can resist that?
Get ready to fall hard for these delicious hand pies, bursting with juicy Montana huckleberries and blueberries.
Elle’s Belles country kitchen whips up each small-batch bakes with love, making these some of the tastiest treats you’ll ever devour.
And here’s the kicker — each pie is handcrafted, ensuring your gift is as unique as it is delicious. But remember, all good things take time, and these handmade beauties need 24 hours to bake and package before heading your way.
Whisk your taste buds to Italy on Valentine’s Day with Nonna Dora’s heart-shaped ravioli, a beloved staple for 25 years at New York City’s I Trulli!
Handcrafted with special Italian flour, these beauties get their charming stripes from beet puree and are filled with creamy Italian ricotta. Boil them up, sauté with butter and sage, and voilà—a romantic dinner to remember.
Behind these gems is “Nonna Dora” Marzovilla, a pasta-making legend for over 70 years, now delighting NYC with her own spot, Nonna Dora’s Pasta Bar. It’s like getting a squeeze from an Italian nonna in every bite!
What better way to say “I love you” than with an elegant bouquet of long-stemmed candied bacon shaped roses. Perfect for anyone who can’t resist the sweet and salty combo of maple syrup and bacon, each rose shaped flower is topped with a red sugar coating to keep those roses a brightly blooming red.
Seeking a little romantic tea time with your honey?
Jacqueline Aliotti’s heart-shaped tea bags are the perfect choice to heat things up. Inspired by her childhood in Lyon, France, surrounded by the warmth of her parents’ tea shop, each boxed set includes 5 English Breakfast, 5 Earl Grey, and 5 White Berry tea bags, perfect for sharing a romantic afternoon with your Valentine.
Below, Alexander and Monica Howell visited for a conversation about family, flavor, health benefits and the magic of honey.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Find the full, unedited conversation on the FlavRReport YouTube channel.
My understanding going back to the beginning is, this whole company was a COVID baby, meaning the idea of it launched during the pandemic. Is that accurate?
Alexander Howell: So I’ll give you a bit of a backstory. We had, like you said, started around the boom of COVID. During that time with all the sickness going around, one of the things we decided to do was to figure out how we can stay healthier and keep the entire family more healthy during that entire time.
One of the things we decided to do was to cut out a lot of white and processed sugars because it’s the cause of a lot of health issues, cancers, things of that nature. After that we [realized] we can’t just not have any type of sweetener at all. We’re not that strong.
We went across a couple of different sweeteners. We tried agave, we tried monk fruit. We tried all those, [but] they didn’t hit the spot for us.
Then we were at a farmer’s market [and] tried some raw honey. Once we had tried that, it’s like the entire world just opened up for us because.
We started researching it more and found out there were tons of health benefits tied into raw honey itself.
Once we started consuming it ourselves, we felt the changes. A lot more energy naturally, our skin started looking a lot better, our hair started looking better. Then we decided instead of keeping this a family secret, we can share it with the world.
Monica Howell: So I’ve got a slightly different angle on it. Everything Alex said is definitely true. Pre COVID, I had always been an entrepreneur at heart, always dabbling in something, always doing a little side things. They say you have to have multiple streams of income.
So I was always looking for the next best option. Prior to COVID, I was creating body butters and detox masks and sugar scrubs; and just looking for things that were positive for your skin in a natural manner. Honey was one of the ingredients that was always on my shelf.
[Honey] is one of those ingredients. It’s a wonderful connector. I had really only ever thought of honey as this thing that was on aisle number eight of the grocery store always next to the maple syrup. A condiment to get with your fried chicken.
But once I started having success with personal skin care, the products that were most sought after, that had the best outcomes for my skin all had honey in them.
During COVID, we just really started to come together more, having more conversations. Bringing together the things that we were doing individually as a group and kind of figuring out
We started minimizing ingredients. Looking at that 20 line ingredient list on the back of everything and saying what can [remove]?
Something you both touched on was the zero to one aspect. Talk a little bit about the process from idea to reality.
Monica Howell: So for me, it was checking boxes. Throwing something on the wall and seeing what sticks, that old spaghetti adage.
There’s so many layers, so many things that I wasn’t aware of honey as a whole.
Figuring out how we could integrate this into our lives, and then how we then convert that and transition that into something that was revenue generating, seeing there was a niche.
We started with friends and family. Letting people that would trust us, try things out.
A lot of the response was ‘I don’t like honey’ or ‘I already have sugar. I don’t need to do this.’
But we said, it’s open your mind, let’s look into something a little different. Let’s consider it in a different way and move forward from there.
One thing that I think stands out for us is the fact that everything that we do, all the honey options that we have available are all beneficial in some way, shape or form. You get the benefit of those things that are being infused into the honey. So everything is purposeful.
Everything added is to expand the benefits of the honey into something beyond.
Each honey is different, with different infusions. We call them varietals. Essentially a varietal is a honey that the beekeeper and the farmer have integrated hives into that particular crop. The honey has a flavor and nuance. Then we have our infusions.
Local honey is where I go. That’s all I want. Our local [honey] in Maryland is not the same local that’s in Texas. What’s local to California is not what’s local to Utah. What’s local to Utah is not local to Maine. But when you look at it, all those honeys have a slight variance and nuance in flavor because of what’s being pollinated.
Our plants aren’t the same here as in Hawaii. So when you say I enjoy wildflower, the enjoyment of your wildflower might taste completely different than what I’m used to because of the plants that are growing. It doesn’t necessarily all taste the same.
When you started with this idea, were you aware of the different varietals, the regions and how that affected honey?
Alexander Howell: We definitely didn’t know how intricate and how deep this kind of rabbit hole of honey goes. It’s a very nice and very informative learning experience for two reasons. One, just so we are aware of the benefits and can tell our family, but also so we can now have those kinds of conversations with our customers.
Monica Howell: Even something as a variance from season to season. Literally your spring honey can be a completely different product from your fall [honey] and your winter honey.
The amount of moisture that’s in the air, that can even be from location to location. April showers bring May flowers. Those April showers are happening, there’s a ton of moisture in the air. And then when you’re getting into the fall, you’re having the bees that are pollinated when you’re getting into the fall, there’s a variance in that same region.
That same area has shifted the temperature. You’re just coming out of 90 degree weather. There’s still flowers out. But the pollination process that’s happening, the bees are what they’re collecting now, it can be different.
In the U. S. alone, there’s over 300 different types of honey. Over the world, there are thousands.
The interesting thing is when we’re bringing those varietals together in one place, you actually taste them side by side, [you can taste and notice] there are definite differences that you may never [have noticed otherwise] .
Someone says, “I don’t like honey. I say, “Well you haven’t tasted my honey.”
They find out, they dont like wildflower from North Carolina, but they love sage from California or macadamia nut from Hawaii – it’s amazing.
You’ve both mentioned farmer’s market experiences, sampling and buying. Let’s talk a little bit about those experiences.
Alexander Howell: As far as farmers markets goes, we’ve gotten the entire spectrum of reactions – ‘Oh, this is some of the best I‘ve ever had in my life’, or ‘This is nasty’
I appreciate either side of the spectrum, it’s just very honest and blunt. In person, you get to actually see that emotion, you get to see that interaction, you get to not only see what they think but maybe they brought a friend or a family member of theirs – their husband, their wife, their kids, their dog.
We get to see what your dietary needs are, your favorite flavors, your favorite vegetables. If you have a health issue, what type of things we have that could possibly help.
It’s even as simple as someone getting a gift for somebody who’s a pescatarian who likes to cook so, ‘What do you have for this?’
And I can then give them a whole range of stuff [to browse].
Monica Howell: We’ve been selling at farmer’s markets for 2.5 years. By far, it is my favorite. People who grew up going to farmer’s markets. Beekeepers that have grown up in their Grandma’s backyard.
We always get somebody that says, ‘Oh, my grandma had honey. And I’m already familiar.’ I always challenge them to taste something that’s a little different,
We get people who are extremely health conscious. They are looking for natural options.
On your website, there’s a lot of products What are the major categories and what are one or two or three that you really want to highlight that are currently available?
Monica Howell: We do some switching out from season to season, but for the most part, 25 items. A combination of the varietals and the infusions.
We’ve got an amazing macadamia nut honey that comes from Hawaii. You get a honey that has a certain butteriness to it, a nice weight to it. A little nuttiness at the end. It’s amazing in coffee. It’s amazing on top of a banana bread, really good in yogurt. Also good to cook with.
Our blueberry is from Maine. A little bit of a nuance of that blueberry flavor. It’s a little sweeter than some of the other honeys. It’s amazing on bakery goods and breakfast. So instead of using traditional maple syrup, we’re using the blueberry honey on a Belgian waffle on a pancake. Amazing on yogurt and things like that.
Then we’ve got our infusions. So the infusions essentially are different botanicals using a particular honey.
I’m using an extra white honey from Iowa. If you’re looking on the spectrum of honey, not only does honey change area to area, there’s water white honey, all the way down to your dark amber honeys. So there’s an entire rainbow of different types of honey, based on what’s being pollinated and what’s growing.
Your darker honeys have more of a molasses flavor, probably 10 – 20 x the antioxidants that you’re getting then like a water white honey. But when we’re considering what to use to infuse, I’m usually going with that lighter honey.
Our elderberry honey is super important. We’re taking a ground elderberry from the actual berry, not the elderberry flower. And we’re grinding that up and then infusing that into honey over a period of time. That allows you to then take that elderberry on a regular basis, either in as a sweetener for your tea or actually adding it into a yogurt.
Alexander Howell: Some of the things that I like to highlight, because I’m a foodie, I’m always trying to find honey that would elevate the taste.
One of those is Hot Honey. Anything from chicken, to beef, to pork, to seafood, to shellfish. I love it all. One specific thing is strawberries. It sounds a little out there, but it’s amazing.
And also the vanilla. I love it on my baked goods, banana breads, cornbread, really good on cinnamon rolls. Instead of the sheet icing I’ll put the honey. Even simpler like a latte or a cup of tea. Put some of your pancakes or crepes.
It’s the two different honeys on two different ends of the spectrum, but at the end of the day they both serve their purposes
Monica Howell: We are working with a few bartenders and mixologists that have taken our honeys and creating mocktails. Super fun.
One thing to acknowledge, the audience is a large majority of our conversations are wine based. So it’s with winemakers and chefs.
Do any of these honeys pair better with any specific kinds of varietals of wine?
Alexander Howell: One of the best ways I do like to enjoy wine with honey is charcuterie.
Monica Howell: Charcuterie and honey go hand in hand. It’s like a whole little puzzle of delicious-ness.
I like Merlot. Something becoming more popular are meads. So mead is wine essentially made with the foundation of honey versus grapes. There are a lot of brewers that are starting to play with mead. So you’ll find mead in all different varietals, some that very much tastes like wine and some that tastes closer to beer.
We’re not necessarily pairing the wine so much with the honey as helping the person that’s hosting the event, creating that perfect board, that perfect accompaniment to it.
What’s the best way to learn more about you? Website, social media? How can we follow you more?
Monica Howell: Definitely the website is the easiest way. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram. The unique feature of what we do in-person. That’s the benefit of coming to see us at a farmer’s market. We also are actually on a couple of stores in the local area, local by design, which is an Annapolis mall in Annapolis, Maryland, where our product is available on their shelves.
Below, Alexander and Monica Howell visited for a conversation about family, flavor, health benefits and the magic of honey.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Find the full, unedited conversation on the FlavRReport YouTube channel.
My understanding going back to the beginning is, this whole company was a COVID baby, meaning the idea of it launched during the pandemic. Is that accurate?
Alexander Howell: So I’ll give you a bit of a backstory. We had, like you said, started around the boom of COVID. During that time with all the sickness going around, one of the things we decided to do was to figure out how we can stay healthier and keep the entire family more healthy during that entire time.
One of the things we decided to do was to cut out a lot of white and processed sugars because it’s the cause of a lot of health issues, cancers, things of that nature. After that we [realized] we can’t just not have any type of sweetener at all. We’re not that strong.
We went across a couple of different sweeteners. We tried agave, we tried monk fruit. We tried all those, [but] they didn’t hit the spot for us.
Then we were at a farmer’s market [and] tried some raw honey. Once we had tried that, it’s like the entire world just opened up for us because.
We started researching it more and found out there were tons of health benefits tied into raw honey itself.
Once we started consuming it ourselves, we felt the changes. A lot more energy naturally, our skin started looking a lot better, our hair started looking better. Then we decided instead of keeping this a family secret, we can share it with the world.
Monica Howell: So I’ve got a slightly different angle on it. Everything Alex said is definitely true. Pre COVID, I had always been an entrepreneur at heart, always dabbling in something, always doing a little side things. They say you have to have multiple streams of income.
So I was always looking for the next best option. Prior to COVID, I was creating body butters and detox masks and sugar scrubs; and just looking for things that were positive for your skin in a natural manner. Honey was one of the ingredients that was always on my shelf.
[Honey] is one of those ingredients. It’s a wonderful connector. I had really only ever thought of honey as this thing that was on aisle number eight of the grocery store always next to the maple syrup. A condiment to get with your fried chicken.
But once I started having success with personal skin care, the products that were most sought after, that had the best outcomes for my skin all had honey in them.
During COVID, we just really started to come together more, having more conversations. Bringing together the things that we were doing individually as a group and kind of figuring out
We started minimizing ingredients. Looking at that 20 line ingredient list on the back of everything and saying what can [remove]?
Something you both touched on was the zero to one aspect. Talk a little bit about the process from idea to reality.
Monica Howell: So for me, it was checking boxes. Throwing something on the wall and seeing what sticks, that old spaghetti adage.
There’s so many layers, so many things that I wasn’t aware of honey as a whole.
Figuring out how we could integrate this into our lives, and then how we then convert that and transition that into something that was revenue generating, seeing there was a niche.
We started with friends and family. Letting people that would trust us, try things out.
A lot of the response was ‘I don’t like honey’ or ‘I already have sugar. I don’t need to do this.’
But we said, it’s open your mind, let’s look into something a little different. Let’s consider it in a different way and move forward from there.
One thing that I think stands out for us is the fact that everything that we do, all the honey options that we have available are all beneficial in some way, shape or form. You get the benefit of those things that are being infused into the honey. So everything is purposeful.
Everything added is to expand the benefits of the honey into something beyond.
Each honey is different, with different infusions. We call them varietals. Essentially a varietal is a honey that the beekeeper and the farmer have integrated hives into that particular crop. The honey has a flavor and nuance. Then we have our infusions.
Local honey is where I go. That’s all I want. Our local [honey] in Maryland is not the same local that’s in Texas. What’s local to California is not what’s local to Utah. What’s local to Utah is not local to Maine. But when you look at it, all those honeys have a slight variance and nuance in flavor because of what’s being pollinated.
Our plants aren’t the same here as in Hawaii. So when you say I enjoy wildflower, the enjoyment of your wildflower might taste completely different than what I’m used to because of the plants that are growing. It doesn’t necessarily all taste the same.
When you started with this idea, were you aware of the different varietals, the regions and how that affected honey?
Alexander Howell: We definitely didn’t know how intricate and how deep this kind of rabbit hole of honey goes. It’s a very nice and very informative learning experience for two reasons. One, just so we are aware of the benefits and can tell our family, but also so we can now have those kinds of conversations with our customers.
Monica Howell: Even something as a variance from season to season. Literally your spring honey can be a completely different product from your fall [honey] and your winter honey.
The amount of moisture that’s in the air, that can even be from location to location. April showers bring May flowers. Those April showers are happening, there’s a ton of moisture in the air. And then when you’re getting into the fall, you’re having the bees that are pollinated when you’re getting into the fall, there’s a variance in that same region.
That same area has shifted the temperature. You’re just coming out of 90 degree weather. There’s still flowers out. But the pollination process that’s happening, the bees are what they’re collecting now, it can be different.
In the U. S. alone, there’s over 300 different types of honey. Over the world, there are thousands.
The interesting thing is when we’re bringing those varietals together in one place, you actually taste them side by side, [you can taste and notice] there are definite differences that you may never [have noticed otherwise] .
Someone says, “I don’t like honey. I say, “Well you haven’t tasted my honey.”
They find out, they dont like wildflower from North Carolina, but they love sage from California or macadamia nut from Hawaii – it’s amazing.
You’ve both mentioned farmer’s market experiences, sampling and buying. Let’s talk a little bit about those experiences.
Alexander Howell: As far as farmers markets goes, we’ve gotten the entire spectrum of reactions – ‘Oh, this is some of the best I‘ve ever had in my life’, or ‘This is nasty’
I appreciate either side of the spectrum, it’s just very honest and blunt. In person, you get to actually see that emotion, you get to see that interaction, you get to not only see what they think but maybe they brought a friend or a family member of theirs – their husband, their wife, their kids, their dog.
We get to see what your dietary needs are, your favorite flavors, your favorite vegetables. If you have a health issue, what type of things we have that could possibly help.
It’s even as simple as someone getting a gift for somebody who’s a pescatarian who likes to cook so, ‘What do you have for this?’
And I can then give them a whole range of stuff [to browse].
Monica Howell: We’ve been selling at farmer’s markets for 2.5 years. By far, it is my favorite. People who grew up going to farmer’s markets. Beekeepers that have grown up in their Grandma’s backyard.
We always get somebody that says, ‘Oh, my grandma had honey. And I’m already familiar.’ I always challenge them to taste something that’s a little different,
We get people who are extremely health conscious. They are looking for natural options.
On your website, there’s a lot of products What are the major categories and what are one or two or three that you really want to highlight that are currently available?
Monica Howell: We do some switching out from season to season, but for the most part, 25 items. A combination of the varietals and the infusions.
We’ve got an amazing macadamia nut honey that comes from Hawaii. You get a honey that has a certain butteriness to it, a nice weight to it. A little nuttiness at the end. It’s amazing in coffee. It’s amazing on top of a banana bread, really good in yogurt. Also good to cook with.
Our blueberry is from Maine. A little bit of a nuance of that blueberry flavor. It’s a little sweeter than some of the other honeys. It’s amazing on bakery goods and breakfast. So instead of using traditional maple syrup, we’re using the blueberry honey on a Belgian waffle on a pancake. Amazing on yogurt and things like that.
Then we’ve got our infusions. So the infusions essentially are different botanicals using a particular honey.
I’m using an extra white honey from Iowa. If you’re looking on the spectrum of honey, not only does honey change area to area, there’s water white honey, all the way down to your dark amber honeys. So there’s an entire rainbow of different types of honey, based on what’s being pollinated and what’s growing.
Your darker honeys have more of a molasses flavor, probably 10 – 20 x the antioxidants that you’re getting then like a water white honey. But when we’re considering what to use to infuse, I’m usually going with that lighter honey.
Our elderberry honey is super important. We’re taking a ground elderberry from the actual berry, not the elderberry flower. And we’re grinding that up and then infusing that into honey over a period of time. That allows you to then take that elderberry on a regular basis, either in as a sweetener for your tea or actually adding it into a yogurt.
Alexander Howell: Some of the things that I like to highlight, because I’m a foodie, I’m always trying to find honey that would elevate the taste.
One of those is Hot Honey. Anything from chicken, to beef, to pork, to seafood, to shellfish. I love it all. One specific thing is strawberries. It sounds a little out there, but it’s amazing.
And also the vanilla. I love it on my baked goods, banana breads, cornbread, really good on cinnamon rolls. Instead of the sheet icing I’ll put the honey. Even simpler like a latte or a cup of tea. Put some of your pancakes or crepes.
It’s the two different honeys on two different ends of the spectrum, but at the end of the day they both serve their purposes
Monica Howell: We are working with a few bartenders and mixologists that have taken our honeys and creating mocktails. Super fun.
One thing to acknowledge, the audience is a large majority of our conversations are wine based. So it’s with winemakers and chefs.
Do any of these honeys pair better with any specific kinds of varietals of wine?
Alexander Howell: One of the best ways I do like to enjoy wine with honey is charcuterie.
Monica Howell: Charcuterie and honey go hand in hand. It’s like a whole little puzzle of delicious-ness.
I like Merlot. Something becoming more popular are meads. So mead is wine essentially made with the foundation of honey versus grapes. There are a lot of brewers that are starting to play with mead. So you’ll find mead in all different varietals, some that very much tastes like wine and some that tastes closer to beer.
We’re not necessarily pairing the wine so much with the honey as helping the person that’s hosting the event, creating that perfect board, that perfect accompaniment to it.
What’s the best way to learn more about you? Website, social media? How can we follow you more?
Monica Howell: Definitely the website is the easiest way. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram. The unique feature of what we do in-person. That’s the benefit of coming to see us at a farmer’s market. We also are actually on a couple of stores in the local area, local by design, which is an Annapolis mall in Annapolis, Maryland, where our product is available on their shelves.
Sofitel Saigon Plaza Celebrates Its 25th Anniversary, commemorating a quarter century of Joie de Vivre in Vietnam.
Sofitel Saigon Plaza is delighted to commemorate a significant milestone this October with the celebration of its 25th anniversary.
Drawing inspiration from local Vietnamese culture and traditions while embracing life with a French zest is what the hotel successfully stands for a quarter century.
Daniël Stork, Consul General of The Netherlands, Mario Mendis, Sofitel Saigon Plaza GM and guests
Since its establishment in 1998, Sofitel Saigon Plaza has consistently delivered a 5-star luxury experience marked by heartfelt service and hospitality excellence in the heart of Ho Chi Minh.
Globally acclaimed through the decades, Sofitel Saigon Plaza has welcomed dignitaries and political figures, from the former French President Francois Hollande to the US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Ambassador Lesly Benoit of Haiti performing with Jazztown
On October 5th 2023, Sofitel Saigon Plaza hosted an enchanting Anniversary Dinner at its opulent Diamond Hall in presence of Mrs Maud Bailly, CEO of Sofitel.
Maud Bailly, CEO of the Sofitel, M Gallery & Emblems Worldwide
At this extraordinary soirée, the hotel had the privilege of hosting esteemed guests, ranging from international diplomats and government officials to renowned celebrities, CEOs of prominent corporations, and dedicated Heartists (Accor team members) who have passionately served Sofitel Saigon Plaza for over two decades.
Chef Kieko Nagae
The honoured guests were thus invited to enjoy a sumptuous six-course dinner crafted by Michelin-star and celebrity chefs from Asia and France. This exquisite evening was topped off with spectacular performances blending these two cultures. To mark the occasion, Heartists whom are within the property since the opening have been highlighted and recognized for their exceptional commitment and remarkable work.
“Founded almost 60 years ago, Sofitel was the first French luxury hotel brand to develop an international network of hotels and resorts…
Maud Bailly
CEO of Sofitel
“…Each of the establishments now artfully blends the French art-de-vivre with the essence of the local destination, offering chic design, the best of culinary arts, and exceptional personalized service. The 25th anniversary was truly an illustration of the cultural link between France and Vietnam, exemplifying the symbolism of the Sofitel logo, which signifies the seamless blending of French and local cultures. Over these two and a half decades, we have not only celebrated the excellence of Sofitel but also the enchanting partnership of Saigon’s vibrant spirit with the elegance of French heritage. At Sofitel, we want to inspire people to celebrate life and its beauties with joy, impertinence, and, most of all, pleasure! This celebration embodies the essence of our vision, where the rich traditions of Saigon meet the sophistication of French savoir-faire, creating a world of endless delight and unforgettable moments”, commented Maud Bailly, CEO of Sofitel.
“It is a privilege to be part of an establishment that has redefined luxury, elegance, and service in Ho Chi Minh City. Our gratitude goes to our valued guests, passionate team, and partners who have been unwavering supports in this journey. This anniversary not only pay tribute to our past but also reaffirms our dedication to offer unforgettable experiences to our guests in the future”, said Mr. Mario Mendis, General Manager of Sofitel Saigon Plaza.
The festivities will continue during the 5th Saigon Gourmet Week, taking place from October 6th to 8th at Sofitel Saigon Plaza.
Event Curator and Producer Tracie May-Wagner
This event promises a delightful array of culinary experiences, including immersive cooking classes, exclusive lunches and dinners, and an unforgettable brunch featuring renowned chefs.
Phoung Nam Art Theater
The lineup includes Sébastien Voelker (French Pastry Chef), Truc Dinh (Vietnamese Chef), Shozo Tsuruhara (Japanese Chef), Victor Savall (Spanish Pastry Chef), Sakal Phoeung (French-Cambodian Chef), Keiko Nagae (French-Japanese Pastry Chef), Vuong Vo (Vietnamese Chef), Adrien Guenzi (French Chef), and French Michelin-Star Chef Thierry Renou.
Sofitel Saigon Plaza
Sofitel Saigon Plaza harmonizes the sophistication of French art de vivre with the vibrancy of local Vietnamese culture, delivering a luxury hospitality experience enriched by genuine heartfelt service. Conveniently located in a tranquil enclave on Le Duan Boulevard, Sofitel Saigon Plaza places you in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City’s business, cultural, and shopping district.
The hotel boasts 286 rooms and suites adorned with refined décor and deluxe amenities, a fitness center feauring advanced exercise equipment, and an outdoor swimming pool with breathtaking city views.
Sofitel Saigon Plaza also features five dining establishments serving local and French cuisine, seven polished meeting rooms, and an opulent ballroom equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, making it the ideal destination for business, leisure, meetings, and gatherings.
Sofitel Hotels & Resorts
Sofitel Hotels & Resorts is an ambassador of modern French style, culture and art-de-vivre around the world.
Established in 1964, Sofitel is the first international luxury hotel brand to originate from France, with more than 120 chic and remarkable hotels in many of the world’s most sought-after destinations. Sofitel exudes a refined and understated sense of modern luxury, always blending a touch of French elegance with the very best of the locale.
Sofitel also includes a selection of heritage luxury hotels under the Sofitel Legend banner, renowned for their timeless elegance and storied past.
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New York Wine Studio starts classes this October in NYC, Wine Expert Alan Tardi reveals why you need to Enroll
He’s worked as a chef, a restaurateur, a sommelier, a consultant to some of New York City’s biggest and best fine dining restaurants. He’s also written for magazines and publications, such as Wine Spectator, Wine and Spirits, Decanter, of course, the New York Times.
Today Wine Expert Alan Tardi visits us for a conversation about NYC, restaurants, Italian wine and his new classes starting this fall (October) at New York Wine Studio.
As a get to know you question for everyone out there who loves food and wine and spirits, but they don’t necessarily know your background so much.
You’ve been in the wine world, the hospitality world, the restaurant world for many years. Tell us about a celebration in your life that inspired you to join these industries?
Alan: Sure. First I should say that, when you introduced me, you said I was a chef and a restaurateur and all that’s true. But before I was a chef, I was a cook. And actually before I was a cook, I was a dishwasher. I took a little bit of a break from college and went to Europe and traveled around and then came back and wanted to come visit my sister in New York City.
And so I did. And I ended up staying. And at a certain point, I thought okay, I’m going to go back and finish my undergraduate degree, but I also want to get a job. So I walked into a place that could have been a shoe store or whatever. A gas station. But it happened to be a restaurant.
One of the new, the first restaurants in this area called Tribeca, when it was just starting to take shape and walked in there and said, ‘Hey, I’m looking for a job.’
The person who was in the back that they sent me back to talk to in the kitchen was washing the dishes. And he said, Yeah, I’m the owner. You want to wash dishes? Yeah, sure.
So I started washing dishes there in this restaurant. And then after a while I would, I became a bus boy on the floor. Then when I would come into work, oftentimes the kitchen was a little bit behind. So I would help them out. I ended up going to the kitchen while I was going to school at the same time.
For me, it was a job and while I was going to college in the village after my classes in the evening, I found this tiny little restaurant on Greenwich Avenue in the village called Chez Brigitte.
It was like a counter basically, they had two little tables on the side, but there was a counter there with maybe eight seats. And there was this French woman named Brigitte who was cooking food back there. I started to go there, so I didn’t go home by myself and have supper.
I started to get half bottles of wine from a nearby wine shop and took it to this place, Chez Brigitte. I spoke French. I was talking to the woman cooking there.That was a celebration for me, and I was there all by myself. I would go there after, after my schooling before I went back home.
So that was like a celebration. I would go there two or three times a week. And that was my own sort of really like dining. But it was very casual. It was an open kitchen. But that was my celebration factor. And then after I finished my degree I thought I’m actually into cooking.
I was cooking in this restaurant in Tribeca. And so I went and knocked on the door of a little restaurant in Soho, which was called Chanterelle. It was a legendary restaurant for about 25 years. And the woman, the manager, the wife of the chef, Karen Weltuck, and David Weltuck was a chef.
She hired me. I was the third person. Before that, there were two people in the kitchen. I became the third person in the kitchen doing Garde Manger. Then after six or nine months, I was promoted to he sous chef. So I went from a Garde Manger to the sous chef in this really legendary restaurant.
So that was my celebration.
The fact that you grew up behind the scenes in the back of the house makes me curious.
For a couple – whether it’s a date night, an anniversary or a business dinner,
do you have any tips for how to take that fine dining experience and make it really truly memorable
Alan: First of all, we talk about fine dining. To me, sometimes you have the best experiences in a very simple, very unpretentious place. When I was working at Chanterelle, I was there for a little over three years. Every August, the restaurant would close for the month and most of the staff would go off on a gastronomic tour.
I went with some of my colleagues to France two years in a row. We would go through all the three star Michelin restaurants. At that time, you had to write a letter in French asking for a reservation at a certain time.
You had to reserve ahead of time because you had three star Michelin restaurants, highly sought after. Three or four days a week we would be eating in these fancy restaurants, sometimes lunch and dinner. It’s crazy. But there would be the down days too, right?
When you’re just traveling somewhere, you’re going to a different part. Some of these meals were amazing, that it was a whole new world for me. You get the menu, all the service and the cheese and the wines and everything. It was a great experience.
On the off days, you would just find a place to eat. And sometimes we would go to a little aubergine. I remember one in Normandy, walking into this place. It was just a few doors down from where we were staying overnight, waiting for our next kind of big meal. We went to this little aubergine and they had the most banal dish, trout almondine, right?
Trout almondine. It was in Normandy, however. There were women in the kitchen, not men, and usually in these three star restaurants, it was all male at that point.
I realized that some of those down meal nights and simple places, they had no stars at all. You had amazing food.
The meals were on the same par as some of the best three Michelin restaurants I had. So that was an important distinction for me to make. When you’re talking about how to really create – whether it’s in a very simple environment or kind of more fancy – how to really make it special. I think it has genuinity.
Just being what you are and trying to take care of your guests as best as you possibly can. That can really make it very special. You need to have good food, you need to have good wine, you need to have good service. All of those factors play in. But the most important thing is really trying to take care of your customer.
And I think you can do the same thing at home, your customers, whoever’s coming to your home and you’re going to offer them something and you want to try to make it as special as you can, even if it’s just hamburgers, but that can be really great and memorable.
We’re going to stick with the restaurant for a second, but move toward the wine list.
What are some tips for someone who wants to have a nice bottle out at dinner and they just don’t even know where to start?
Alan: That’s a great question. When I had my restaurant I decided to take a certain approach to the wine program, which was to find the best regional wines that would really best accompany the food.
Many of them were wines that people were unfamiliar with, they were just not among the top 10 that people would go to automatically. This is some years ago when a lot of the wine lists in the restaurant were the most famous ones you see all over the place because people are comfortable with that. So sometimes it threw people off and they would ask questions. What is that? Don’t you have this other one that’s very popular and all over the place?
No, but we have this and – we didn’t always say this – but it’s actually much better and it costs less.
So people would try it. They would take a leap of faith and for the most part they always loved the wines, and they went very well with their food. Not only was I the chef and the owner but I was also the sommelier as well.
We tried to train the staff very well about the wines and inform them. We had monthly tastings with them so they could taste the wines.
If people were really interested, I would come out of the kitchen and explain, make a suggestion based on what they said they liked. Sometimes it’s very difficult for people to explain what they want, so you have to read into that a little bit, but it’s something that really worked.
I know you love Italian wine, you’re an expert in Italian wine. Are there some Italian wine regions that deserve more attention?
Alan: Absolutely. I love wine from all over the place. Initially I spent time in France, delving into the wine regions there and they’re amazing and superb. When I was working at Chanterelle after the two first years going to France and the three Michelin restaurants, the third year I said maybe I’ll go to Italy and just try that out.
When I actually went there, it totally blew my mind. We rented a little house outside of Siena and explored the area. We went to a fantastic restaurant and it’s still in existence, La Chiusa, in a tiny little village called Montefollonico.
That really blew my mind completely. Because it was in an old olive oil mill, outside of this tiny little village up in the hills. The food was both very traditional and also very kind of cutting edge. They were trying to expand a little bit, but there was a really great balance of that. I actually went back there to do a stage, a summer stage working in the kitchen.
What really blew my mind was the fact that everything there was local. It was right, very close to Montepulciano and I would go walk in the vineyards. A lot of the food they got was made from grapes in the vineyards outside the restaurant. And the cheese was the pecorino.
The cheeses in Tuscany were made locally and everything was from that particular area. This was long before farm to table.
So it was a tremendous experience and that was just the beginning because Italy has 20 different regions, each one of them very different.
We think of Italy’s being old, the ancient Romans and the Etruscans. That’s true. But Italy is a country just a little bit more than a hundred years old. 150 years old. It was formed in 1861 bringing together the Italy that was once where it was fragmented after the fall of the Roman Empire.
Up until that point, you had all these different city states that had their own language, their own identity, their own cuisine, their own architecture. And while it’s been now collected into one country, each region is very independent and different from one another.
It’s changing a little bit now. At one point the dialects were very strong. When I moved to Piemonte. In the village where I lived for over 12 years, when I moved there in 2003, most of the people – who are over 50 years old, spoke Piedmontese as their first language. They had gone to school, so they learned Italian, but they spoke Piedmontese whenever they could.
In Italy there’s an incredible diversity of different places within the country. And it goes into the wine. The wines are very different. The grape variety, there are more grape varieties in Italy than most any other place.
I appreciate how you fit all these areas together: the wine, the food, the identity of the people themselves. When people Google you, they can find a lot. Your videos, your books, your webinars.
What do you think is a tip to being a great speaker when it comes to food, wine, travel, these types of genres?
Alan: I feel like I’m very humble, especially when you’re talking about wine, there’s always something new to learn and it never really stops. So I’m learning too, as I go along..
I approach it as I want to learn about something myself. Then I want to explain it and talk about it to other people and fill them in on it as well, because it’s exciting for me it might be also interesting and exciting for other people.
The other thing is really trying to share that information in a meaningful way. I’m not trying to be an expert. I just want to share that excitement that I’ve felt myself.
Tell me how your background and the learning we’re talking about informed your decision to launch the New York Wine studio?
Alan: As you alluded to, I’ve been teaching for quite a while. All these things just happened almost organically. I didn’t say I’m going to become a restaurateur or a chef. I just started. From there, I really got interested in wine because there’s a very strong correlation between wine and food.
I got really interested in wine. I was doing a lot of panel tasting with Wine and Spirits magazine, whose office was very close to my restaurant. Josh Green, the editor there and a friend of mine for quite a while. At one point he said, Hey, do you want to write an article? I said, sure. So I started writing for them a lot and it just went into other venues as well.
Teaching is the same thing. I started giving presentations at wine conferences like Society of Wine Educators annual conference I started teaching around 2015 for the Wine Scholar Guild. I was teaching for about six years.
I’ve been doing it in many different forms. Italian Wine Scholar. French Wine Scholar and Spanish Wine Scholar as well.
I thought maybe it would be a good idea to offer this program, the IWS, Italian Wine Scholar program, in New York City. No one is doing it here. Why? Why is that? So rather than doing it online, I thought it would be really great to do it in person. Where you can actually interact with the students that are there rather than just having them in the background on a computer from many different places in the world.
So I wanted to offer that along with wine because that’s a very important component. Obviously, if you’re talking about wine and explaining different Appalachians and different growing areas and different winemaking traditions, it’s good to be tasting the wines while you’re learning about that.
I came across a place that was willing to host these presentations, a beautiful wine tasting area, right in midtown Manhattan, close to Grand Central.
In addition to the Italian Wine Scholar Program, to start things up, do four individual classes that are theme oriented.
Is it fall and spring, or what’s the schedule?
Alan: Right now we’re going to be starting this fall beginning in October, I want to ease into it. I’m not loading up an entire schedule of things, but I’m going to be offering part one of the Italian Wine Scholar program, because There are two parts to this certification program.
The first part of the Italian Wine Scholar program will be this fall. Six 3-hour sessions live in-person with wine once a week during October and November.
Then to add something else, in the evenings, we’ll be doing four courses. One in October, two in November, and one in December. Two hour courses with wine, as well, and they’re not regionally driven, they’re thematically driven.
The first theme class is going to be: the many faces of Sangiovese because Sangiovese is a grape variety, Italy’s most widely planted grape variety, and of course it’s very closely tied to Tuscany, where there are at least five major appalachians that really focus on that grape variety.So we’ll be showcasing 10 different San Gervasio based wines. Five of them from Tuscany and then other San Gervasio based wines from other regions that, that really featured that like Umbria and Marche and even up in the north, Romagna, which is part of the Emilia Romagna region. Emilia and Romagna are completely different places.
There will also be individual classes on volcanic wines, Appassimento wines, which are wines that are made from grapes that have undergone this drying process.
Then also sparkling wines, which I’m a big fan of. My second book was about champagne and I’m really deeply into champagne. It’s going to involve sparkling wines from three different countries.
It sounds like this might be the most in-depth Italian class you can find in Manhattan.
Alan: To be careful, I would say it is “one of”, the most comprehensive program in Italian wine anywhere.
This program has not, has never been offered in New York City. It’s kind of a first time for that. It’s very comprehensive. It covers all 20 regions, all of the significant Appalachians and there are many of them.
All of the significant diverse grape varieties and I say significant because it might even be a little bit more now in the Italian National Register of Grape Varieties. Many people think that there are more than 2,000 different grape varieties. They just haven’t been genetically defined before.
Because it’s so deep with knowledge, it’s great for trade. New York City is a huge foodie and restaurant dining scene.
Alan: If you want to have all these post nominal certifications, that’s good. Nothing wrong with that. The most important thing, however, of course is knowledge and understanding. that you can use if you’re in the trade.
The understanding, the awareness of wine that you can then transmit to your customers in a restaurant or to your customers in a wine shop where you’re selling to.
It’s a very comprehensive program, but you don’t have to be in the trade to do it. There are a lot of people who are just really fascinated and interested in wine. This is certainly a great comprehensive program for people who just are really fascinated by Italian wine and they want to learn more about it.
What are the goals for the New York Wine Studio? What’s the future for you? What’s the future for the studio itself?
Alan: For me, it’s this and I’m very excited about it. I like this sort of counterpoint between the really focused credential certification course with an exam at the end, and then the other ones that are more mixing it up and comparing / contrasting these different wine regions.
Next spring I plan to do Italian Wine Scholar Part Two. There’s also an introductory course, used to be called Italian Prep, now I think it’s called Italian Essentials. It is for people who aren’t ready to jump into a whole certification program with all that detail, but it’s an introduction to Italian wine.
I would also love to do the French Wine Scholar, along with some additional classes in the evening.
Tell us where we can find more. Websites? Social Media?
Alan: Check out the website www.NewYorkWineStudio.com. It talks about the programs, the IWS program with the schedule mapped out and the four individual classes.
Secret to BBQing a Juicier Chicken? Shark Tank’s Turbo Trusser revealed by Brian Halasinski and Kirk Hyust.
Want juicier chicken? Yes. More flavor? Yes. Get it all setup in seconds? Yes. Two guys who love good food decided to tackle the problem.
Luckily, a Chef and a Builder were on the team. And luckily the team has business smarts, creativity and can-do spirit. Lastly, the team got global attention by winning their way onto hit TV show Shark Tank where Kevin O’Leary got excited by the flavors, the team and their product.
Today Turbo Trusser partners Brian Halasinski and Kirk Hyust stopped by for a conversation about delicious food, creating a great team and the secret to cooking.
The below conversation was edited for length and clarity. Find the full conversation on our YouTube channel.
Can you guys share a memory about how being in the backyard with your family and friends inspired you to create the Turbo Trusser?
Brian Halasinski: Kirk and I have been working together on inventions for the last eight years and oftentimes we’ll have an idea that’ll come up and we’ll text each other and we’ll write it down in a notebook and then we’ll come and visit it later.
It just happened that I was getting ready to make chicken for my family and I was going to do a rotisserie chicken and I was trying to figure out how to tie this bird up with traditional strings. So I got my iPad and I’m watching a video.
I have to pause the video. My hands are covered in chicken juice. And after it was all done, it wasn’t done well.
I texted Kirk because he’s a trained chef from the culinary Institute. There’s gotta be a better way. We started working on the Turbo Trusser from there.
After your success on Shark Tank, Turbo Trusser has become a global hit. How have your backgrounds inspired where you are today?
Kirk Hyust: I’ve been a building contractor for 25 years. Before that I was a chef. I got burnt out [being a Chef] and then I started building things and that’s how Brian and I met. I renovated his house for him.
I was in the middle of inventing a wrench and Brian saw it [and said], ‘I want to start inventing too. You want to be inventing partners.’
We still haven’t quit our day jobs. We work seven days a week. Luckily working for us a lot of the time is cooking. Which is good.
You mentioned you are a trained chef. Tell us about your chef side.
Kirk Hyust: I went to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Classical French cuisine. We’re from Ohio, so I like meat and potatoes and hearty casseroles.
Do you have a favorite dish?
Kirk Hyust: Fettuccine Alfredo and Turbo Trusser chicken.
Brian, can we touch on your background and how how you ended up with TurboTruster?
Brian Halasinski: I have been in the pharmaceutical sales industry for the last 20 years. I have a fairly flexible schedule to where I’m on the road and can be on the phone and be multitasking quite a bit when I’m working.
I’ve had that entrepreneurial spirit in a way. Then when I met Kirk, he had invented this wrench and he was working on my house and he was there for it was a pretty decent sized project.
So over time we became friends. I became interested in the whole process of inventing.
And then with that, you could actually take your invention and license it to somebody, basically renting out your idea and collecting a royalty. Kirk and I always thought that would be great.
We did a couple of products and we licensed them. Didn’t end up working out […]. We learned a little bit about the failures. And then ultimately that day I texted Kirk and said, listen, we got to come up with a better way to trust a chicken or Turkey. And we looked out there and there was nothing available other than butcher’s twine, which has been the way it’s been done for a hundred years.
A huge majority of people cook chicken and turkeys the wrong way. That’s my assumption.
When we compare your final chicken to a poorly done chicken what’s the difference?
Kirk Hyust: Trusting actually is a technique that brings all the meat together. If you don’t trust a bird, you’re actually cooking five pieces of meat separately. You got two wings, you got two legs and thighs and a breast. What you do, when you truss a bird, you actually bring all the pieces together and it cooks as one piece of meat, so it’s cooked more evenly and it’s juicier.
If you don’t cook it, if you don’t tie it up, if you just throw it in the oven or on the grill, what happens is all the meat cooks separately. The breast is gonna be done before the legs. The wings probably are going to dry out and they’re going to be inedible. Because when you use the Turbo Trusser the wings are great.
It makes one ball of meat essentially and cooks it as one piece of meat instead of five.
Is it the ego of the grill master? Or how do we help people realize they can have a better bird?
Kirk Hyust: That’s a really good question because we get that a lot. People have never even heard the term truss. To truss a bird.
Your bird’s gonna be a lot better, but it’s gonna take you about five minutes to do it when it takes 20 seconds to use our product. Especially a Thanksgiving Turkey because that will dry out a lot faster than a chicken.
Brian Halasinski: With the Turbo Trusser, the way it’s designed it’s going to hold the stuffing in place too. So the stuffing’s not going to dry out the way it closes the cavity.
If you’re going to do a rotisserie, you absolutely have to tie that bird up or your legs and wings are going to be just flopping around the whole time.
Can we talk a little bit about the process going from zero to where we are today?
Brian Halasinski: It was when we came up with the concept.
First, we started making prototypes. We made them out of cardboard. Then we made them out of wood. Kirk’s got all these tools so we could easily cut things. Then through trial and error with prototypes that we could make cheaply, we ended up with a very similar design to what we have today.
Then from there, we found a local fabricating shop that was able to laser cut out some samples for us so we could actually cook with them. We did all these things, refining the process and refining the product down to where we wanted to make it. Then we had to make a decision: make this here in the U.S. or go overseas.
Kirk and I made a decision based on our beliefs and our values that we wanted to make it here in the U.S. Being in Ohio, we were close to Cleveland, Ohio. This was the rust belt. There’s still a lot of manufacturing here.
So within one hour of our headquarters, we were able to source everything we needed to mass produce and launch this product to the world from Canton, Ohio.
Kirk Hyust: We had six prototypes by the time we got to our seventh one. That was the one that we stuck with. We just kept refining the prototypes until we landed on the seventh one, which is that what in the stores or online.
Can you tell us a little bit about from prototype one to seven? How did we get there?
Kirk Hyust: When you’re doing a prototype, obviously you have to solve a problem. When you build a product, it has to work correctly or you’re going to get bad reviews.
But we started out with a couple different designs. We bought a chicken and a turkey; and we put this contour gauge on the leg, so that made the dips that you see now where the legs go into. Then we were in my shop, cutting it out and it looked like [bird] wings so we ended up putting the heads on it because it already had wings that the legs sat into the cradle.
It’s a lot of detail.
Kirk Hyust: Yes, exactly. We just got our patent […] issued for the very first time. Even if it’s a piece of stamp metal and 2 wires. How intricate it really is.
Kirk, between your chef skills and your contractor skills. A perfect combination of bringing those two skill sets together.
Kirk Hyust: It is. We have sales and numbers and Brian’s also creative. […]The technical stuff, the websites, we develop everything together, but we have our strengths, he has a master’s degree in business. So he’s trained really well for that.
So it’s lie our strengths and weaknesses definitely fit together with each other.
Can we just talk through in the most simple, basic steps, how to use the Turbo Trusser?
Kirk Hyust: It’s really very simple. I usually buy a five pound bird. [With] smaller birds, it still works. It goes up to a 10 pound chicken.
Then you take the plastic off, pull the packet of giblets and everything out of the inside. Rinse it off. Pat it dry with a paper towel and if you have time, put it in the refrigerator and let the skin dry out. Put the Turbo Trusser on it, hook the legs in, hook the wings.
Use duck fat or some kind of a binder to put your spices on it. Salt and pepper, your favorite rub, something spicy, something sweet. Coat it with some kind of oil, or ghee or olive oil.
Put it in the oven at 375 for an hour and a half until it hits 165 degrees. That’s pretty much in a nutshell how easy it is.
Brian Halasinski: The Turbo Trusser is just three pieces. You got the main piece. Then you have two hooks. The hooks are going to go through the holes on the body of the chicken. You’re going to put the sharp end through the hole. It’s going to lock into place with the other end.
So it’s simply, put the two hooks into the Turbo Trusser body. You hook them onto the wings. The legs go into the cradle and in 20 seconds, you’re done.
How do we get that strong-willed Backyard Grillmaster to give the Turbo Trusser a try?
Brian Halasinski:Just telling them to keep it simple and go back to what people have been doing for 100 years. And that’s using string to tie it up. Only we came up with a simpler solution. So it’s what everybody’s been people don’t do it because they’re intimidated, but now they don’t have to be. The turbo truss are so easy to use.
Anybody can use it. Even if you have dexterity problems, you’re never going to figure out how to, you’re not going to be able to tie up a bird if you have problems with your fingers, right? older people, maybe they have arthritis and it’s hard for them to tie a knot. Now with the turbo trusser, you can do that without fear and you can, it’s simple and effective.
As we wrap up, tell me about the Shark Tank experience.
Kirk Hyust: It was crazy.
Brian Halasinski: I’ll give you a high level view. We launched our product on November 1st of 2021.
Right away we went online and we applied for Shark Tank. It was 100% online. Before COVID they would do open casting calls like Like American Idol.
About 50, 000 people apply. They narrow that down to about 125 people that tape [a TV segment], and maybe 100 or so will end up airing on television for the season that you’re in.
So we apply, we have no sales, we don’t hear a word from them for a couple months. So we launched the product. We did pretty well. We sold like $50,000 worth of Turbo Trussers in the first two months of being in business with nobody ever heard of us.
We went back and we re-applied again, we got some sales numbers. Eventually they called. I Six months after we initially applied, they called us.
You basically work down through the process every week. They’re giving you something new to turn in, to make a video.
Our first video, we came up with the idea to wear the chicken and turkey costumes. We said we wanted to stand out. We know that Shark Tank is television. If it’s not good TV, people aren’t going to watch it. They loved it.
We made it all the way down through. We went all the way out to California and taped [our episode]. We ended up getting a deal with Kevin O’Leary, which was incredible.
Kirk Hyust: Brian’s a salesman. I’m not used to that. So when I was on Shark Tank, I messed my lines up. I went blank for a couple seconds. I missed my cue to go over to my spot and I was really flustered, but I recovered, but man, that was the worst part.
Tell us the website, social media, where to find you, where to browse your products, where to learn more about you.
Brian Halasinski: The first thing for our product is TurboTrusser.com.
You can make your decision if you want to buy from our website, or you can go to Amazon Prime across the country.
You can find us on all the regular social media at Turbo Trusser on Facebook, Instagram, TikToK
You can find me, Brian Halasinski on LinkedIn, connect with us and be happy to chat or answer any questions with anybody.
You can reach out if you have any questions. I write a lot of the PPAs (provisional patent applications) and stuff. So any kind of questions, how to cook a good bird we’re accessible. We want to help we want to help anybody out there that we can, because we’ve had a lot of people help us along the way.
As we witness the impacts of plastics and other waste on our planet, more and more people are looking to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Creating a zero-waste kitchen involves adopting a mindful and sustainable approach to reduce waste at every stage of your buying, cooking, and eating routines, and it is an impactful way to minimize your carbon footprint.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get started:
Plan Ahead to Leave Less Behind
Look through your pantry and kitchen to see what you have on hand. Assess areas where waste is generated and rethink your shopping list.
Food waste can be prevented by effectively using your ingredients. Make creative use of leftovers. Freeze excess food for future meals. Don’t over-purchase perishable items. Make a shopping list and stick to it to avoid impulse purchases.
Buy in Bulk and Refill
Stock up on staples like grains, pasta, nuts, and spices in bulk. If you are heading to a store with bulk bins, bring your containers to avoid excess packaging.
Another way to reduce plastic packaging waste is by shopping at stores where you can refill cleaning and personal care products.
Choose products with minimal or sustainable packaging. Opt for glass, metal, or cardboard packaging over plastic whenever possible. These items can be repurposed or recycled.
Avoid individually packaged items and single-use packaging.
Shop Your Local Farmers Market
Shop Your Local Farmers Market
Farmers markets facilitate zero-waste kitchens.
Here’s how:
Reduced food packaging: Farmers markets offer fewer packaged and processed foods than grocery stores. Buying fewer single-use plastics keeps packaging waste out of landfills.
Local and seasonal produce: Farmers markets prioritize regionally grown and seasonal produce. By buying from local farmers, you support sustainable agriculture practices while minimizing the environmental impact of long-distance food transportation.
Bulk purchases: Many farmers markets offer the option to buy produce in bulk, allowing you to choose the quantity you need without redundant packaging.
BYOB (bring your own bag)
BYOB (bring your own bag)
Those flimsy plastic bags from the grocery store are no match for a reusable tote. Reusable bags made from canvas or recycled plastics are larger and more durable than single-use bags. Plus, more states are implementing fees to curb the use of plastic bags.
Go Green with Reusable Kitchenware
Most people know about reusable water bottles, but there are tons more reusable items on the market (many are dishwasher-safe too). From reusable K-cups for your morning cup of joe to stainless steel straws, there are lots of eco-friendly ways to eliminate kitchen waste.
Reusable products not only cut down on the production and consumption of new products, but they also save you money.
Consider Eco-Friendly Upgrades
With all the money you’ll save by going green, consider upgrading your appliances. New technologies use less water and electricity. The money you spend on energy-efficient appliances will be recuperated over time.
Freeze as You Please
A high-performance freezer is a powerful tool for keeping your food fresh. Food waste often comes from leftovers. Rather than throwing away leftovers, you can freeze them. These frozen meals can be quick and convenient options on busy days, especially when stored as pre-packaged meals.
Freezing foods can significantly extend their shelf life; this way, you can buy in bulk and take advantage of sales without worrying about ingredients spoiling.
If you have produce nearing its expiration date, freeze it before it turns. Freeze fruits, vegetables, and other perishables. Sauces can be frozen too.
Your freezer can also store dry goods. Freeze bulk items like nuts, grains, and flour for later use.
Reimagine Your Food Scraps
Reimagine Your Food Scraps
Almost all organic material has multiple uses. For example, banana peels make great hair and skin masks, banana tea is a powerful sleep aid, and plants love the potassium-enriched water of peels soaked overnight.
Orange peels can be boiled as a room deodorizer or baked and ground into a vitamin-packed powder.
Bones can be made into bone broth, and new plants can be grown from viable produce seeds, while herbs can be propagated for an endless supply of seasonings.
Before you toss it in the compost bin, perform a quick search and scope out any additional uses.
Compost is King
Composting is the backbone of the zero-waste kitchen. Once you have re-used your food in every imaginable way, it’s time to give it back to the earth. Create a compost pile in your yard; use a tumbling bin or a countertop composter.
Benefits of composting:
Reduced landfill waste: Food scraps account for a large chunk of landfill waste. When these materials decompose in landfills; they release methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Composting diverts these materials away from landfills, reducing their environmental impact.
Enriched soil: Compost improves soil structure, water retention, and nutrient availability. By composting, you’ll foster healthy plant growth, reducing the need for excessive watering and fertilizers.
Minimized odor and pests: Properly composting food scraps and yard waste reduces the likelihood of attracting pests and generating foul odors in trash bins.
A zero-waste kitchen is one way to live a greener, moreeco-friendly lifestyle. Once you hit your stride in the kitchen, you’ll likely find other areas to cut waste. Small changes add up, and you’ll make a big difference.
Caleb Leonard is a freelance writer and marketing professional. A graduate of the University of North Texas, his interests include gardening, podcasts, and studying Spanish.
Incredible Bordeaux wines from Chateau Haut Grelot leads the way with Julien Bonneau
Today Chateau Haut Grelot’s Julien Bonneau visited to talk Bordeaux winemaking, their legendary wine region, his family’s pioneering legacy, his favorite food and wine pairings.
Chateau Haut Grelot’s Julien Bonneau
Can you tell us a little bit about what inspires you about the wine business? Maybe a memory or wine celebration.
Julien: As you imagine in Bordeaux, or even in France, most of the wine business is a family business. It’s very father and a son or daughter. There’s always this kind of takeover.
Chateau Haut Grelot’s Bonneau Family
I grew up with my father and he was always into wine, tasting wine. ’Oh, you should smell the wine and making me discover the wine from when I was a very young child. And so I didn’t want to take over the company.
I didn’t wanna take over the story about the wine, but I had one weakness: I love wine actually. I like wine very much, so it was very hard to say no.
Chateau Haut Grelot
I don’t want to take over. But I like wine anyway. I went to business school. I went to New Zealand and England to learn the wine trade. It was a very nice experience.
Then I came back to the wine business and started again to make wine, to discover the wine business through the company. That was probably my first step. When you start taking a foot in the wine business, then you never go back.
Obviously, it’s a passion to grow and grow because making wine is like growing a child. You start from the vineyard and then you go to making wine and then to age the wine in barrels. Then you put it in a bottle just to show your wine to your customers.
Chateau Haut Grelot’s Julien Bonneau
Looking at your winery’s history. 1920, 1927 was a big year for your vineyard. 1975 was a big year for your father.
Can you tell us a little bit about the background of the vineyard? Up to the more modern technology your vineyard has pioneered.
I’m the fourth generation in my family’s wine business. So my grandfather used to have cows for breeding. Vineyards, asparagus, as well. So it was just a culture after the war.
My father started in 1978 and he focused on the wine business.
He wanted to make and grow quality wine. Very tasty wine. [His goal] changed a lot of things about the process of winemaking to develop very aromatic, long aging. So we started to make a range of wine: white wine, rosé, a bit sparkling as well.
He went to see the customer directly in the north of France, in Europe. He tried to sell directly and not through negociants. That’s the main story because in AOC Blaye which is north of Bordeaux on the right bank of the river, negociants were necessary through the distribution to sell the wine.
The big challenge was, ‘No. You don’t want to pay more for my wine, I’m going directly to the customer. I don’t want to go and to carry on sitting through a negotiation because you don’t trust me on quality wine and you don’t pay more for the wine. So we’ll stop sending to negociants. And go directly to the customer, private customers, wine shop, restaurant, wine importers.’
That was 1984 and 1985. It was a very different direction. It changed a lot compared to what happened in Bordeaux at that time. We started to control our distribution. From that time, he developed a lot of quality wine, he invested in new vineyards, bigger and bigger, and also buying some barrels and new equipment to make very good quality wine.
He loves saying ‘I was the first in 1990 to make green harvesting.’ Green harvesting is cutting some grapes in August. So one month earlier than the harvest to remove a bit of quantity and to make better quality. So he removed grapes in the vineyard to produce better concentration on the grapes left on the field.
That was his focus, it was an improvement in quality wine. From that time, we carried on. What I changed is, I make more wines, different wines, different quality wines. But still focusing on quality wine. I do more than 30 wines – different quality, colors, and winemaking process.
Let’s talk about your region, and how those elements inform the wines that you’re making?
Julien: We are located in AOC Blaye, north of Bordeaux, one hour driving up.
On the right bank of the river. So opposite to Saint-Estèphe, you have AOC Saint-Estèphe, you cross the river, the main river, and you are in AOC Blaye.
Where we are located we are mostly very gravelly. We have two types of terroir. For the red grapes Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec.
Gravelly soil to help have early harvesting and early maturation for nice harvesting. The second is more on clay soil, for the Sauvignon Blanc for the Semillon and Muscadet to make more powerful wine. Two very distinguished terroirs.
The climate is very moderate, oceanic influence but also very warm during the summer. We are very hot right now. It’s a very hot summer so that’s helped a lot to have very ripe grapes.
North of Bordeaux is quite hilly so it helps to have very nice exposure to the sun. For us, it’s very important to have ripe grapes. So we need to look for the sun and remove the leaves in front of the grapes. It helps to keep the freshness in the wine and still have very ripe grapes.
Let’s talk about your winemaking process.
AOC Bordeaux or AOC Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux, we have very strict rules. We need to have the vineyard on a hill. You need to respect 6,000 bottles per hectare of production.
Then we have nine months of winemaking before bottling it. So for us we make one year, even sometimes two years after, focusing more on quality wine.
AOC rules are just a basis. We try to make higher quality by aging and also to decrease the quantity of grapes per hectare to focus on sun contact for the grapes to have very ripe and very juicy grapes before harvesting. So we are very much challenging and controlling this aspect.
For example, in September, I walk every day, all my vineyards, just to check on the quality.
We try to get the aroma window. According to the evolution of the aroma on a grape, on a palate, we say ‘the window is there’, so we need to get it. It’s not only analysis from a laboratory, but it’s mostly from the palette. ‘How’s it taste?’
It’s the same as when you cook, you taste your sauce all the time.
Let’s talk about your wines. Can you talk us through some of the wines that you have?
Première Cuvée Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux
Première Cuvée Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux
Ruby red in the glass. Lovely nose with red berries, vanilla and spicy flavors. Very drinkable. Fruit forward with medium body. Well-balanced with long and aromatic finish
Château Haut Grelot Sauvignon Blanc Côtes de Blaye 2022
Château Haut Grelot Sauvignon Blanc Côtes de Blaye 2022
Classic Bordeaux blend: 90% Sauvignon Blanc, 5% Sémillon & 5% Muscadelle. Floral, crisp, elegant. Exotic fruit on the nose with grapefruit and wild herbs. Generous citrus on the palate. Full body, almost velvety with a decadent finish.
Perfect to pair with seafood, chicken, fresh salads and cheese boards.
Pin Franc Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux, red wine
Pin Franc Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux
Big gush of red fruit, red currant, raspberry, blueberry on the nose. Big body, well-balance. Very muscular with silky and structured tannins. A long finish.
Enjoy as an aperitif or pair with game, pigeon, lamb, turkey, or as a dessert with chocolate.
Chemin de l’Estuaire Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux
Chemin de l’Estuaire Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux
Powerful, bold, muscular. 100% cabernet sauvignon. A v ery special bottle, aged for 16 months in small oak barrels. A lush, velvety mouthfeel with medium tannin and a long, vanilla finish.
Boir Pour Voir 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux, Orange Wine
Boir Pour Voir 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux
100% Sauvignon Gris
On the nose, citrus and orange zest aromas. Light body, light tannin. A tart bitterness on the palette with medium finish. Enjoy as an aperitif, or pairs with hard cheeses and desserts.
Julien: We have a wide range of wine. But I’m going to start with…
[Première Cuvée Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux, red wine]
Which is very fruity wine. This one is more classic Bordeaux style.
For the white is [Château Haut Grelot Sauvignon Blanc Côtes de Blaye 2022].
For 90% and very fruity, juicy, very aromatic fruit, grapefruit, and also passion fruit and it’s very easy drinking very easy drinking, very crisp.
The red is 70% of Merlot, 30% of Cabernet sauvignon. Wine aging on the lees a bit just to bring a bit of fatness. Strawberry character.
Both wines are very drinkable. Don’t need to age too much. Lovely with sushi, seafood, tuna, all fish. It works pretty well with meat. So that’s my two first classic range of Bordeaux style.
Then I have Parfum, which is 100% Malbec. [Chemin de l’Estuaire Red 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux]. Fruity, easy drinking, not too heavy as Argentina wines or Malbec wine. It’s more of a freshness and very licorice character.
The Cabernet Sauvignon is aged in barrels for one year, very select grapes.
We make a very good balance between the fruit from the Cabernet and the barrels. From aging typical from wine. That’s two different wines which is this one a bit more on the liquorized fruit freshness side, and this one is very elegant.
Lastly is orange wine. Bois Pauvoir, which is a sauvignon grape. [Boir Pour Voir 2020, Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux]
The story of this wine was Bois Pauvoir. It’s orange wine. I never made it before, but I wanted to make a wine which says let’s try to see how it’s going. And that means in French, “let’s try, you will see.”
Going back to cooking, what are some of your favorite things to eat with these bottles?
Julien: I’ll say for Sauvignon Blanc, this one is lovely with tuna. Rare tuna. Even tataki tuna. It has a very fresh character, very nice acidity and it’s very well matched with tuna.
This is one who can match pretty much with many things, but if you like pasta with tomato. Easy drinking freshness. Very drinkable. Not too heavy and you have acidity in a tomato with pasta and that keeps your freshness.
It pairs well with game. I like pigeon with a side of onions. Even lamb is very nice. It works pretty well with white meat. You can say beef as well. Roasted beef on a barbecue with carrots and peppers.
That’s very long, which is very a bit unusual, but it’s lovely with cheese. Even with fish in tomato sauce. Sea bass or grilled octopus. Yeah, it could be a very nice match.
How can we find more about you and your wines?
It would be fantastic to go on Instagram and follow us and follow our story about how we try to develop in the U.S. You can also visit our website to learn more.
Fathers Day is coming up and every family is searching for Dad’s perfect gift. Chris Jankulovski’s book Near Death Lessons offers story of family, adventure, motivation, and life lessons.
I had the opportunity to sit down with Chris Jankulovski (via zoom) to talk about his Father’s Day wishes, business success, family, health concerns, empowerment and more.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Watch the full conversation on our Youtube channel.
Congratulations on your new book, Near Death Lessons.
Thank you. Been a journey to get it out there, but I am so honored and privileged to do this work.
It is an inspiring and a motivating book, and I would say equally important is not only is it inspiring and it’s motivating, but for somebody who wants to break-through, you actually give us the lessons that you use to accomplish it so we can follow those lessons as well.
What was the hardest part of writing the book for you?
Friends tell me, Chris, you gotta write a book, man. Seriously, you’ve got some wild stories. It almost killed me when the tumor bursted in my head. I couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk. I was in bed for three months.
I knew that the moment I could stand upright, I wanna write a book for my sons. I want them to know who their father was. Because yet again, I just confronted a serious adversity where 60% of people normally die on the operating table. I somehow survived it. I’m the lucky 40%, and I just had my operation one month before the birth of my second son, Billy. And I wanted my six year old and my new son to know who their father was.
I’ll give you a timeline. We’ll plot it all, and then we’re gonna give it to a ghost writer who’s gonna somehow be able to direct our story. Then we’ll put the muscles in it, and then we’ll build it all up.
And that’s the journey I went on until I gave it to an editor who completely shut it down and it took me about a a year to correct everything. No kidding.
Okay. So how long from the moment you started with your writer through the editing process, what was the timeline from inception to on the shelf?
Oh wow. So the first year after my brain operation, I’m still writing this book. A year later, I’m in the pool, rehabilitating [with the book notes] still in front of me.
I’ve got this diagnosis of doctors telling me, Chris, you gotta have these cancers removed asap. They’ve taken off. I don’t know if your kidney is gonna survive removing six cancers. You might be on dialysis. Doom and gloom.
I’ve just gone on a journey of learning how to walk and talk for eight months. I’ve got so many defects going on.
My tongue didn’t half work. I couldn’t even talk. It was affecting my speech. So I’m there in this scenario and at the height of my worst moment in life, I’ve got this outlook. That’s a disaster.
I’m trying to run in the pool because I’m learning how to walk properly and I’m about to confront this adversity again.
I’m thinking: Why am I buying a future that no one knows? This is all just estimates, predictions, guesswork. I don’t have to accept this. What if I dare hope that the best is yet to come? Why don’t I look forward to the life ahead of me? That it’s the best?
And that was the most pivotal moment in my life because, I went from a $4 million house to a $16 million house.
Eight months later, I go off to double my business from 8 million to 16 million. I go off to do all these things, and now I’m in America taking it to another level.
I was in the hospital room, that’s year one by the way. I bargained for my life because things were not looking good, that’s when I decided to take my story public.
And since the moment I’ve taken the story public. I wrote the book initially because I didn’t want to give any advice to my sons because I didn’t want them to hate me from the grave. I didn’t wanna just share my story. I wanted to share the lessons.
I wanted to share the things that have transformed my life. So I hired a resilience consultant, and I said to her, can you please read my book? Put a spotlight on how I respond to adversities compared to a more common response because I just keep bouncing back stronger.
She read my book five times. We ended up having 26 zoom sessions, and then from that we unearthed 11 distinctions. We gave those to instructional designers which then they came back to me with the five life lessons that I shared in the book.
That’s a heck of a journey. Tell us about some of the diagnoses you’ve had all the way back from your teenage years.
So at the age of 19, we went to a specialist clinic to understand what was causing tumors in my eyes. The doctor was puzzled. There was this new genetic testing going on. So I had the genetic test done. I [was diagnosed] with Von hippel-lindau syndrome. A hereditary condition, means maybe your mom and dad have got it. I go, no one’s got it, okay?
The average life expectancy is 30 years, so you’re probably gonna have a short life and you’ve probably got cancers now.
I was like, what? I’m gonna be dead by 30. What do you mean? That was my brutal wake up call and I went to my car and I cried.
I couldn’t relate to anyone with this problem. I told my parents, I told my friends, I couldn’t connect with anyone about this. I just decided to ignore it. I thought if I pretended deep down I never got this, perhaps it would disappear.
So that’s what I did. I ignored it from the ages of 19 to 32 when my first brain tumor finally caught up. And when it did, it almost killed me. It was so big – five centimeters. I had to contour my body to go to the toilet and had these weird electric shocks running down my spine.
When I got the operation, I transformed. I looked at the sky and I said, God, kill me. I’ve had enough of living this victim life. I’ve had enough of being disempowered, always reacting to my circumstances.
I choose to focus on life. I choose whatever happens. I’m gonna choose to make the most of whatever life I have, but I’m not living like that anymore. So that was a pivotal moment.
I’m now 50, so I’ve had a good run for the last six years. At age seven, my appendix burst, almost killing me. Two weeks in hospital. At the age of 21, I almost drowned.
But one of the first times I crossed over, out of body kind of experience and a different time dimension was a few years later, 25, when I woke up [during] an eye surgery, I felt the needles sliding on my eye, like on an egg, and they’re poking in.
I woke up and flatlined. I was looking down at myself. I could see the machine flat-lining until everything went white. And then I felt like I was in a different time dimension. I just felt ‘Whoa. Where am I? Let’s go. Hey, I’m not going anywhere. It’s my sister’s wedding soon. And then I snapped back into life again with the nurses all about to zap me.
So that was at 25 and then at 32 is the brain tumor. And then two months later was the removal of my right kidney because it was occupied by cancers. Some as large as four and a half, five centimeters. Which is way too dangerous. They’re all very aggressive..
The reason why I called that a near death experience as well is because I survived my cancer battle and it didn’t spread. It killed my dad, it didn’t kill me. And then two years later, I had to remove four large cancers from a remaining left kidney.
A decade later, another six cancerous kidneys. Before that one was the second brain operation to remove two tumors in my head, and that was the most serious.
Let’s talk about a deliberate life. You mentioned it in your book, what does a deliberate life mean to you and what are the main steps? How do we get there?
I have nearly died, came back to life, and every time that happens, it’s like a reset button in my heart.
Everything’s up for grab: my values, my behaviors, my patterns. Because I’m back again. You go through many of these experiences.
Everything you’ve been holding true gets re-evaluated, and therefore, all of it – fears, insecurities, all gets washed away. And what remains is what’s most important and true. For me, every time I go through these experiences, I get an onion layer experience. I get more to the core of who I am and who we are.
All of us, including me, are remarkably powerful. I can’t believe the more I get to me and the core of my authentic me, the more energy, the more light, the more vibrancy, the more drive, the more of everything is there.
I’ve always been spending money looking for advice and solutions outside myself. Deep down, the biggest lessons I’ve learned in my life was when I meditated in silence for three weeks in India. Silence. Every time I nearly died, I’d go into this black void. Vibrancy, energy, and I don’t understand why I’m still consciously pressing, but then when I return, now I know I’m gonna say something really taboo, but life and death coexist in my mind because when I close my eyes and I’m in this black void, if I can meditate to a point where I’m outside of my sense of skin, brain patterns, feelings, and just be presently alert of my awareness.
Man, that’s the same space I go to when I’m in a different time dimension. Hence why I believe that life and death coexist and that fuels me. That just fuels me even more because our mortality is what should fuel all of us. Why? Who are we to take our time for granted here?
This drop of time that we have here, how selfish of us to be caught up in our own doubts and fears and insecurities. We are so much more than that.
There is just this magic and energy in us that wants to drive. Follow that drive, follow that energy. Don’t restrict it. It communicates in feelings and glimpses of vision.
I live a deliberate life because of these adversities, and I keep coming back to life. I wanna optimize. If I’ve got anxiety. If I was to listen to Steve Jobs, live as if it’s your last day of life. I get anxiety. I can’t be strategic, I can’t plan. I’m always challenged every year with my scans.
So the way I play this game is every year when I get a MRI scan for my brain and spine and kidneys and all this stuff. When I get the results of those scans towards the end of the year, I see them as a certificate to go live life to the fullest. So I get this scan results. I go, yes, I’ve got a free run. Then that following year, I’m bolting. I’m a hundred percent, I’ve got one more year to live. I see every year as if it’s another year to live.
What I’ve realized over 30 years of doing this is, I can’t live deliberately, so I can’t live my life to the fullest every year unless I’m living deliberately and I can’t live deliberately unless I have clarity with what I wanna do, because otherwise I’m spending time on all these things that aren’t important.
I linked my goal to an image and I put it on a board because visually I know that the only way my subconscious relates to this is by image and feeling. Now, I know people call it vision boards, but they’ve got it all wrong. You gotta really link an image to a goal. That image needs to excite you. That simple solution allowed me to focus my energy throughout the whole year towards these things.
You offer a ‘free gift’ in your book. Can you give us a sneak peek of what it is?
Since I’m talking about life so much and living life to the fullest I wanted to show people the 10 things that were often affecting me and stopping me from living a life to the fullest.
What does success mean to you? It’s different for everyone and so is living life to the fullest. But, for people who are driven, success-oriented, ambitious people, they would relate mostly to this because that’s who I am.
I wanna spend more time with my family. I wanna smell the roses. I wanna see how far I can go and I wanna see the kind of impact I can make because I don’t wanna just pass and it never even be known that I even existed.
So living life to the fullest means you are embracing your true power. You are embracing and optimizing your most important resource, your time. You are embracing the fact that you’ve got an ability to create.
So if we can do these simple things, we can achieve our dreams. That’s as simple as that. If we’ve got the right mindset, if we stop responding to life as if we have got no control, if we are always victims of it, I’ve been thrown these incredible blows from the universe.
So many battles outside of my control. I refuse to not take responsibility. I actually take responsibility. Look, the tumors happen genetically, but I take responsibility. It’s a game. Okay? It’s just a game. It’s a game of self-empowerment.
If we want more from you, where do we find you? What’s your website? Where do we find you on social media?
I’m building ChrisJankulovski.com and then you’ll be able to access other things.
What does the future look like for you? What are you gonna be up to next?
I’m developing my personal brand and what that represents to the world. What that represents to the American people. What I strive to do in terms of impacting..
I’ll be working very heavily on my business, but I’ll also be putting myself out there to meet people, to talk to people and more media of course.
When I said I’m gonna inspire millions, this is the deal. And that deal isn’t just writing a book. That deal is to connect with people. One-on-one or in groups or to speak, and not because I’m looking to become a speaker, but because I’m looking to deliver this incredible energy, this incredible passion, this incredible lessons and distinctions with no bullshit on what gets results and how what you gotta do to optimize your most important time here on Earth.
Chris, I wish you huge success with the book Near Death Lessons. I think there’s so many lessons about either launching a new life or breaking through. It’s a great New Year’s. Gift and a great Father’s Day gift.
Moulin Rouge! The Musical at Philly’s Kimmel Cultural Center Wed July 5 – Sun July 30
Part of the 2022-23 Broadway series, this larger-than-life musical tells the story of star-crossed lovers who fall in love at the Moulin Rouge, a place where Bohemians and aristocrats rub elbows while relishing the electrifying entertainment.
Dive into the world of celebrating truth, beauty, freedom, and most importantly, love, as this musical-remix extravaganza comes to life in front of your eyes. Moulin Rouge! The Musical is more than just a musical – it’s a state of mind!
Moulin Rouge! The Musical
Inspired by the greatest popular music of the past 50 years
Inspired by the greatest popular music of the past 50 years, Moulin Rouge! The Musical not only includes many iconic songs from the 2001 film such as the Oscar-winning hit “Come What May,” but also features renditions and mashups of more recent hits from artists like Adele, P!nk, Katy Perry, Beyoncé, and Rihanna.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled to host this energetic and grandiose Tony® Award-winning production for the first time in Philadelphia,”
said Frances Egler
Vice President of Theatrical Programming & Presentations on the Kimmel Cultural Campus.
“Born from the Oscar-winning Australian movie, the stage adaptation of Moulin Rouge! The Musical has captivated audiences’ hearts, bringing the love story of Christian and Satine, and the characters that inhabit the famed Moulin Rouge, to life.”
Directed by Alex Timbers (Tony Award® nominated for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Peter and the Starcatcher, and Director of Warner Bros.’ forthcoming TOTO, the animated musical film adaptation of Michael Morpurgo and Emma Chichester Clark’s 2017 book), Moulin Rouge! The Musical has a book by John Logan (Tony Award® for Red); choreography by celebrity choreographer, Sonya Tayeh (Lucille Lortel Award and Obie Award for Kung Fu, and Emmy winner), who has worked with celebrities such as Miley Cyrus; and music supervision, orchestrations and arrangements by Justin Levine (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson).
The design team for Moulin Rouge! The Musical includes Tony Award® winner Derek McLane (sets), Tony Award® winner Catherine Zuber (costumes), two-time Tony Award® nominee Justin Townsend (lighting), Tony Award® nominee Peter Hylenski (sound), Drama Desk Award winner David Brian Brown (wig and hair design), Sarah Cimino (make-up design), and Matt Stine (music producer). Casting is by Jim Carnahan and Stephen Kopel. The Moulin Rouge! The Musical original Broadway Cast Album, which debuted #1 on Billboard’s Cast Albums Chart, is now available at all digital and streaming providers by Baz Luhrmann’s label, House of Iona, and RCA Records.
A physical edition of the album was made available on October 25, 2019. Global Creatures (Carmen Pavlovic and Gerry Ryan OAM) serves as Lead Producer and Bill Damaschke is the executive producer. General management is by Foresight Theatrical.
Co-producers of the Broadway production include Aaron Lustbader, Hunter Arnold, Darren Bagert, Erica Lynn Schwartz/Matt Picheny/Stephanie Rosenberg, Adam Blanshay Productions/Nicolas & Charles Talar, Iris Smith, Aleri Entertainment, CJ ENM, Sophie Qi/Harmonia Holdings, AF Creative Media/International Theatre Fund, Baz & Co./Len Blavatnik, Endeavor Content, Tom & Pam Faludy, Gilad-Rogowsky/InStone Productions, John Gore Organization, Mehr-BB Entertainment GmbH, Spencer Ross, Nederlander Presentations/IPN, Eric Falkenstein/Suzanne Grant, Jennifer Fischer, Peter May/Sandy Robertson, Triptyk Studios, Carl Daikeler/Sandi Moran, Desantis-Baugh Productions, Red Mountain Theatre Company/42ND.CLUB, Candy Spelling/Tulchin Bartner, Roy Furman, and Jujamcyn Theatres. Released by 20th Century Fox, Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. At the 74th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, and won two.
The Moulin Rouge of Paris is a dazzling and spectacular universe, the symbol of the Parisian way of celebrating since 1889. Starting life as a popular cabaret and dance hall, the venue became an iconic music hall in the Roaring Twenties and then a theatre where numerous famous French and international artistes stepped out into the limelight.
Moulin Rouge! The Musical is currently playing on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre where it opened to rave reviews in 2019.
In-person ticket sales can be conducted daily from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. at the Academy of Music Box Office, located at 240 S. Broad Street. See www.kimmelculturalcampus.org for more information.
Please visit or follow @MoulinRougeBway on Twitter Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.
THE SHUBERT ORGANIZATION The Shubert Organization is America’s oldest professional theatre company and the largest theatre owner on Broadway.
For over 120 years, Shubert has operated hundreds of theatres and produced hundreds of plays and musicals in New York City and throughout the United States. Under the leadership of Robert E. Wankel, Chairman and CEO, Shubert currently owns and operates 17 Broadway theatres, Six off-Broadway venues, and the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia.
Notable productions and co-productions include Cats, Sunday in the Park with George, Dreamgirls, The Heidi Chronicles, Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, Amadeus, Children of a Lesser God, The Grapes of Wrath, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Spamalot, The Elephant Man, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Band’s Visit, Come From Away, Dear Evan Hansen, Company, and the new musical Some Like It Hot.
In addition, Shubert’s innovative ticketing solutions offer unparalleled distribution and marketing to the theatre industry and beyond. Its consumer-facing brands—Telecharge for retail ticket sales and Broadway Inbound for group sales and the travel industry—sell millions of tickets each year. The Shubert Foundation, sole shareholder of The Shubert Organization, Inc., is dedicated to sustaining and advancing live performing arts in the United States.
The Foundation provides general operating support to not-for-profit theatres and dance companies. Foundation grants in 2021 totaled $32.1 million. For more information, visit www.shubert.nyc.
KIMMEL CULTURAL CAMPUS Located in the heart of Center City, Philadelphia, our mission is to engage the region’s diverse communities with art through performance and education. Our Cultural Campus serves more than 1-million guests per year and includes Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts (Verizon Hall, Perelman Theater, and SEI Innovation Studio), the Academy of Music, and the Miller Theater (formerly the Merriam Theater) – representing more than 160 years of rich history for the performing arts along Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts.
We are home to The Philadelphia Orchestra and esteemed Resident Companies: Opera Philadelphia, Philadelphia Ballet, PHILADANCO, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and Curtis Institute of Music. With nearly 9,000 seats per night, we are the region’s most impactful performing arts center, and the second largest in the country. Our Cultural Campus serves as a preeminent and inclusive place to enjoy exceptional experiences that reflect the spirit of our region by cultivating a creative and socially responsible environment where our community shares experiences that are delivered with pride, integrity, and respect.
As a 501 c 3 nonprofit organization, we collaborate on, present, and produce a broad range of relevant and meaningful events, we serve as an active gathering space for social and community events, we educate the region’s young people through access to quality arts experiences, and we provide support to artists in the creation of new work. Read Kimmel Cultural Campus’ vision statement, world view, and mission statement here. Learn more about our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and how it encompasses our mission, coworkers, and programs here.
The Lumineers, ODESZA, Alanis Morissette and The 1975 (Weekend Two only)
along with Hozier, Kali Uchis, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Maggie Rogers, Labrinth, Cigarettes After Sex, Niall Horan, Tove Lo, Thirty Seconds to Mars and many more.
The nine-stage, two-weekend extravaganza will take place October 6-8 and October 13-15, 2023, at Zilker Park.
3-Day Tickets for both weekends will go on sale today at 12pm CT at www.aclfestival.com.
New in 2023: No surprises at checkout – all fees and shipping costs are included upfront. Layaway Plans are available starting at only $25 down.
Kendrick Lamar, Foo Fighters, The Lumineers, ODESZA and more! Headline Austin City Limits Music Festival 2023
nine-stage, two-weekend extravaganza
Austin City Limits Music Festival’s stages are where the next generation of headliners are born, and where music fans can experience an abundance of artist discovery across the diverse and inclusive bill. 2023’s roster features 45% female performers, LGBTQ+ artists, allies and icons, multiple Latin stars including Ivan Cornejo, Kevin Kaarl, Eddie Zuko, and much more.
At the heart of Austin City Limits Fest is its Texas pride
At the heart of ACL Fest is its Texas pride, and this year the festival is proud to showcase a long list of amazing homegrown artists including Cigarettes After Sex, The Mars Volta, Tanya Tucker, Ben Kweller, d4dv, Jimmy Vaughn, Asleep At The Wheel, Penny & Sparrow, Randall King, Abraham Alexander, Angel White, BigXThaPlug, Katy Kirby and Goodnight, Texas, Calder Allen, Kathryn Legendre, Arya, Grace Sorenson, Sunrose, Blackchyl, We Don’t Ride Llamas, Jane Leo, Ellis Bullard, Rattlesnake Milk, Shooks, QUIN NFN, Caramelo Haze, Die Spitz, Nemegata, Huston-Tillotson Jazz Collective, The Moriah Sisters and The Disciples of Joy.
While taking in all that ACL Fest has to offer, be sure to slip into the shady grove and enter the world of Bonus Tracks, the biggest party on the smallest stage at Zilker Park. Programming at Bonus Tracks creates a hub of culture, connection, and positive vibes between music performances. Past appearances include beloved local Austin favorites Kate Waitzkin, dance parties with Outdoor Voices and DJ Mel, drag shows curated by Extragrams!, and a hilarious and lively swearing session with legends Brett Goldstein and Brené Brown. Stay tuned for the 2023 programming announcing later this summer.
3-Day General Admission Tickets, 3-Day GA+ Tickets, 3-Day VIP and Platinum Tickets and Hotel Packages will go on sale today at 12pm CT at www.aclfestival.com, with all fees and shipping costs included upfront. Layaway Plans are available starting at only $25 down. 1-Day General Admission Tickets, 1-Day GA+ Tickets, 1-Day Tickets will be available at a later date. Music fans ages 8 and under will be admitted free of charge. Austin Kiddie Limits programming information will be announced soon.
GA Ticket Holders will experience a new amenity this year! For the first time, premium cocktails will be available on bar menus throughout ACL Festival, not just in select areas. GA+ will include a full-service bar with preferred pricing for all beer, seltzers, wine and cocktails. VIP guests will enjoy complimentary beer, seltzers, wine and cocktails in two private lounges, which also feature viewing decks offering elevated sightlines of the two main stages. Platinum guests will receive complimentary beer, seltzers, wine and cocktails, as well as the best seats in the house with exclusive viewing at six stages. A full list of GA, GA+, VIP and Platinum amenities can be found at www.aclfestival.com/tickets.
Hulu returns as the Official Streaming Destination of ACL Festival! Catch three days of select live performances, interviews and much more during Weekend One, October 6-8! Full broadcast lineup and schedule to be announced later this summer.
Austin City Limits Music Festival is proud to call Zilker Park home. Since 2006, ACL Festival, in partnership with Austin Parks Foundation, has generated nearly $55 million towards improvements to Zilker Park and parks across Austin. In 2022, through a percentage of ticket sales, fans of ACL Fest contributed $7.2 million to improving Austin’s public parks, trails, and green spaces. In the coming year, APF will utilize ACL Fest funds to help design and complete park improvement projects across Austin including projects at Earl J. Pomerleau Pocket Park, Rosewood Neighborhood Park, Onion Creek Metropolitan Park, and McBeth Recreation Center. For more information about Austin Parks Foundation’s work in the Austin community and how fans have contributed to Austin’s parks, please visit https://austinparks.org/acl-music-festival/.
Fans can sign up for the ACL Fest SMS and Email Lists to be the first to get new information at www.aclfestival.com and follow social media to stay in the loop on all festival announcements. Instagram || Facebook || Twitter.
Austin City Limits Music Festival 2023 thanks American Express, Honda, T-Mobile, Miller Lite, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, BMI, Karbach Brewing Co., and Hulu for their generous support.
