SPEAKER_01 0:19

Welcome to the F3 Podcast, where we talk food, football, and fantasy football.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Okay, welcome back to another episode of the F3 Podcast. Tonight we've got week three of our team of the week, the Indianapolis Colts. We've got fantasy chaos, and you can't ignore as we pick the food of the week for this season.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

I'm excited. Are you ready to go? I'm ready to go. All right.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Well, this is a total new thing for us because this will be our first podcast that we do in two different provinces.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Well, it might be our second. Oh, that's true. This is true. Because I know we did one remotely last season when I was in Florida, but that is very true. That's a fair point. So we are in two different provinces at the moment, and I have inherited your cold from last week. So thank you for that gift.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Oh, a hundred percent. No problem, my love. Uh, I'm just glad you left the province to not uh make me feel bad about it. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Love that. Love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

So yeah, I guess to let everyone know you are in uh Manitoba right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Yes, that's right. I feel like I've been kind of all over our lovely country as of late, doing some work meetings and things like that. So in Quebec last weekend, in Manitoba this weekend, but hopefully back in BC for the next little while. So I'm looking forward to uh to heading back home and uh watching some football there.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yeah, it'll be nice to have you back on the couch with me so we can catch up on some games. So I mean, my my morning started with watching uh the Chiefs play, actually. You did down in the hotel room. Uh, because I was in Duncan for the first first of hopefully many to come, but the Harvest Table Festival supported by Food Day Canada. So that was an incredible opportunity. With we had, oh, let's say uh probably about 40 chefs. No, probably about 25, maybe 30 chefs all cooking around, lots of lots of students helping out as we did this amazing dinner for what we did a lunch for about 300 people, and then the evening was for another 150 people. So it was a really, really fun event. And so I was thinking something that's gonna build over the years, but that's not what we're here for. We're here to talk about football and get into a little bit about and food. Don't forget that. Yeah, and get into the into the Colts and find out a little about the Colts because we know they're coming up this week, they're playing Houston Texan.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Is that the next and they actually ended up winning? So thank you, Colts, for a perfect segue into our podcast episode this week. You did us a huge favor because they were not looking very good this season. Let's let's be honest with that. So they did end up winning over the Texans this week. It was pretty close, it was 1917, but hey, a win is a win is a win in the NFL, and uh, and they will take it because they did not start the season very strong this year. They were looking at maybe going three and oh, so they pulled off a victory this weekend, and uh now they're sitting not so comfortably, but average at uh one and two so far. Only three at three games into the season so far.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Well, it's it's really early, right? So there's there's lots of gameplay to happen and lots of things to go. So maybe we can get into a little bit about what happened with you with your fantasy to start. Let's not talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

I know we have to, but let's oh man, if I could avoid it, I absolutely would. This was not a good week for fantasy football. And like any good fantasy manager, I'm gonna blame this entirely on injuries and not on my own choices. Let's say that. It was a really, really bad week for injuries. I just had like Mike Evans and Dallas Goddard, and just it's been not great. I mean, I still have a possible redemption uh with you know Matthew Stafford if he does well, but it was just a really bad week of fantasy football. I had uh, you know, just waddle barely got me any points, and it's just yeah, one of those weeks where you're just I knew early going into it it was not gonna be good, and it proved me very true. So let's just say this week is a bit of a write-off. We'll blame it entirely on injuries and perhaps um 1% on bad decisions, but mostly on injuries. Hopefully, next week it will look a lot better. So, and as a side note, the Seahawks did lose, and I did not wear my Seahawks shirt today. So I am blaming both the Seahawks loss and my fantasy football loss on the fact that I did not wear my lucky Seahawks shirt. So, you know, any more tips than that I cannot offer, but superstition is a hundred percent a thing.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

So, as being a fantasy player or a manager, I should say, not a player. What do you what do you take from this? How do you turn it around for next week when you get into it?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Well, I think for me personally, I know um injuries, like I said, was a bad thing. And that that really got me early. And I and I will take the blame 100%. My um my bench players were not super strong, and I didn't have a ton of variety or a ton of choices to swap out some players, which is entirely on me, and I get that for sure. I probably should have done a little bit more planning when it came to that, but you know, I'm hoping to make a few better decisions for players next week going forward. And there's some possibility about some players maybe getting a little bit better and going back into the lineup. So for me, I might have to take a hard look on some of the players that are still available, maybe putting a bit on some of them just to uh swap out a couple of my benched players in the hopes that uh next week we'll be a lot better.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

A little more stronger. Well, maybe that's something we can get into about maybe we can just talk about what's happening around around the league before we get into the collision.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

And see what are the stories that you're hearing out there right now.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah, no, it's it's sort of like um, I guess a fairly predictable week in terms of the games that went on. I think one of the biggest stories, and we talked about this a little bit last week, was just the injuries to a quarterback so early on in the season, it seems like there have been a lot of quarterback injuries. And so, you know, that's something to kind of keep an eye on. But just looking at some of the games that happened this past weekend, nothing too surprising. There's a couple of teams, you know, that are still 0-3, the Buccaneers, being one of them. And on the flip side of that, there's a couple of teams that are still at 3-0, which is the Vikings, which is kind of surprising. You know, good for them. That was not something that I would have put on my bingo card. The Chiefs, of course. And again, like I said, speaking of 0-3 teams, the Dolphins and the Titans and the Texans. So we'll kind of keep an eye. Like I said, it's still pretty early on. Maybe one team that might have been a bit surprising at the Chargers that are sitting at 0-3. And um, you know, I do really like their quarterback, Justin Herbert, but we'll see what that team has to bring. The Eagles are currently, or sorry, not the Eagles, the Rams are currently playing as we record this this evening, and uh, they're playing the Broncos. And so I was kind of like to keep an eye on uh what people were saying were a possible Super Bowl contending team. So we'll see how that game plays out. But so far, so good that for the Rams, they are looking like a pretty good uh solid team, as experts had predicted.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Okay, well, it looks like there's there's lots of exciting things happening around the league and a lot of fun games going on right now. And I know I've I've been so busy I haven't even been able to catch up on a lot of the highlights from this week. So, as in, I saw the game start, and that was about the end of my day as I started driving home for that one so that we could talk today. But let's get into our team of the week. Yes, you want to go with this one?

SPEAKER_01 7:48

I'm actually kind of excited about this one because I know it was low on our list in terms of teams that we talked about, but it's one of those teams that um I honestly, I'll be completely honest, have not really paid a ton of attention to, but it's the Indianapolis Colts. So I have, you know, they've had some really good players come through the Colts over the years. I think they originally started started in Baltimore, hence the name, the Colts. And that's where they train a lot of racehorses. So that's where the name came. And when they moved to Indianapolis, they just ended up keeping the name. So, you know, it's just one of those teams that really I wouldn't necessarily say fly under the radar per se, because they've had some pretty amazing players that come through the team and they've won some Super Bowls, they've made it to the finals, but it's one of those teams that is sort of in the, I don't know if you would say in the Midwest or sorry, Mideast kind of of the country. Never a team that I'm like, oh, I should pay attention to them. But then you look into them and you realize how many incredible players and coaches have come out of Indianapolis. So yeah, no, it's it's it's kind of exciting. And especially for me personally, um, what really caught my attention with the Colts, I would say with within the past couple of years, with the transition with their new owner. I'm really excited because she is one of, I want to say, very few female owners of an NFL team. And it's Carly Irsay Gordon, and she got the team from her father and her grandfather, who previously owned the Colts. And she's kind of in her mid-40s, I think. And she's an extremely involved owner. And it's amazing when you watch one of the Colts games, she's on the sidelines with a headset, she's listening to plays, she's talking to players, she knows so much about her individual players, her coaching staff. She is like such a hands-on owner, and it's really incredible to see. And you know, if ever you catch a Colts game and they'll definitely pan the side of the sidelines with the cameras, you'll see her there. She's taking notes. She's got a clipboard, like I said, headset. It's really amazing to see and to have a female, a young female owner of an NFL team. It's is really interesting and really uh amazing to watch. So I I hope that that expands throughout the league. But that's just something about the Colts that I know personally I've always been really interested in. So just that's kind of a bit of a side note. But uh yeah, right. It's it's a it's a neat team to watch. So I mean, this season here in particular, they haven't started so well, but they they do have the potential to really get going. Um, you know, they've got some incredible players, and of course, Jonathan Taylor, the amazing running back, and he's done really well this, particularly this year. But you know, it's it's easy to say that they haven't started the season well, but to be honest, they played some of the two hardest teams in the NFL. They started off playing in the Ravens and then the Chiefs, which they lost to the Chiefs in overtime last week. So it's easy to kind of write off those two games, but you kind of have to put it in a bit of context, to be completely honest. So, I mean, of course, Taylor, he is the focal point of the offense for them. Uh, he just signed a, I think it was a two-year extension with them through I think three games already. He's carried uh 66 carries for quite a few yards. And I think he's already got four touchdowns so early in the year. So he's of course the player to watch there. If if they were to make it deep into the playoffs, I think he's gonna be carrying the team, to be completely honest. Because again, I don't have uh a glass ball or a crystal ball to look into, but I know we've talked about this before. Daniel Jones, their quarterback, not one of my favorite quarterbacks, I'll be completely honest.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

That's fair enough. You can't like them all, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:27

You can't like them all. And I know I've sounded like a broken record before when I say like quarterbacks to me in the NFL are divided really into two categories those really elite players and then a bunch of average quarterback. There's only a handful of elite quarterbacks, in my opinion. And there's a heck of a lot of average quarterbacks, and Daniel Jones, unfortunately, in my thought, falls into that average category. So I think for this team to make it deep into the playoffs this year, they're gonna definitely have to rely on Jonathan Taylor for a lot of that.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Is that the that's the goal? And of course, they're playing at Lucas Lucas Oil Stadium, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

They are, yeah. Formerly the Hooser, Hooser Dome, I think, is where they used to play. So yeah, which maybe segues well into some kind of Midwest or Mideast food.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Yeah, like I really got interested about food. So if we want to get into food for this area, and actually lift dish of the week is uh literally a classic old favorite of mine. So some of my first days working in the kitchen is the old staff meal for us a hundred percent of the time. But of course, let's talk about Indiana food and the strong connection to like agriculture, particularly corn, soybean, and of course, livestock. That's where this area is known for. And a lot of the food is just emphasizes simple, filling, and familiar foods. As when I got into a lot of these dishes, uh particularly pork is uh very revolent in a lot of dishes there. And I just thought, you know what, this is like a place that you know has a lot of traditional hardy foods, and I feel like this is probably one of those communities that if you get into a great tailgating party, it's gonna be absolute blast because everyone's gonna be getting up bright and early in the morning, getting the barbecues and grills going and cooking off a feast for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

So, what I'm hearing is you're saying farmers know how to party.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Uh well, I think so. Well, and farmers know how to feed, and actually, we got into a discussion today. This is the problem with farmers and chefs, is that we love to create amazing food and we love to share it. And we may not be the best people at figuring out how to make money at it. You know, but you know how to entertain a crowd, you know how to entertain a crowd, and you know how to make the best food uh possible, right? So I definitely started looking at this, and there's lots of different interesting foods that I kind of looked at it. So going through just some classic dishes that I thought kind of came close, but didn't quite sort of signify what this area is about and didn't fill that role of what is that perfect game day food to see their sit around at the uh down on the field in the tailgate or you know, at home as you're watching the game from the television. But there are some nice ones. I got uh St. Almo's shrimp cocktail, which is actually a classic. The old shrimp cocktail comes from this area. Definitely wouldn't see that coming, didn't see that one coming, but chilled shrimp with horseradish cocktail sauce, famous for the heat in that, and it is part of a food that would be actually a nice little appetizer as you started getting into the first games, or maybe just got the little warm-ups going on. Another one I was looking at is classically known there as the Rubens are actually really clean known there with the corned beef, Swiss, and sauerkraut. But you know what? There's a lot of places that do that, and it sort of signifies a good immigration of Eastern, Eastern European and that coming across. The hoser or the hooser, we say, yeah, Hooser fried chicken, right? Was another classic Indian comfort food, right? Pan-fried chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy, buttered corn, and biscuits. So there's some good flavors that go along there. But the other thing that Indiana is known for and is really one of the biggest places, is we're talking about popcorn. Right?

SPEAKER_01 15:10

I guess that makes sense with all the corn.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Yeah. So, and I mean, excellent with a movie, anyways, especially that strong strong agricultural connection, right? It's a center of farming in that area. So, anyway, some of the major popcorn producers in the United States come from that area. So, you can think about that. And of course, when you're sitting around for dessert, sugar cream pie is another excellent, excellent do. So, nice crusty pastry with a nice creamy uh sugar butter vanilla custard inside there, maybe with a little nutmeg and cinnamon sprinkled on top of it. Just an excellent, excellent sweetening up of the day. But when I came to it, we gotta talk about pick of the week. Indianapolis pork tenderloin sandwich.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Oh, all right.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

So now we're talking about a huge piece of pork loyal tenderloin that's pounded flat, breaded, and then deep fried. So it's nice and crispy, and then in a hamburger bun. And of course, this meat should be hanging out all sides of that bun so that all the flavors there for you to enjoy. And so it's a traditional for Nick's Nick's kitchen in Huntington.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Indiana. Oh, Huntington.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Huntington, Indiana. And it started around, it's became famous around 1908, right? Definitely inspired by, and this is where I comes to my connection with my cooking is sort of a schnitzel burger, right? So that that nice, nice piece of meat pounded out, nice and big and flat, and then right in there. So, of course, very easy recipe to do, a little salt and pepper, pounding out a nice piece of pork loin, and then you're gonna add or dip it in flour, then dip it in egg wash bread crumbs into some uh into some beautiful golden oil to fry up crispy and golden, and then just let it out, dry off a bit. It's all about the flavor in there. You want to make sure nice and thin, and I think that just sort of signifies. It's just that perfect handheld dish to be sitting there watching a game and just an oil enjoying, right? That crispiness, maybe a little bit of uh mayonnaise, mustard, you know, lettuce tomato on top of that. And I think that is just the dish of the week for us.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

It's interesting that you mentioned a bunch of those foods. And what came to mind when we originally picked uh Indy to talk about today, and I was thinking about like people that I know from Indianapolis, or just like, you know, when I hear about that, I always think about you know the Indy 500, which is what naturally comes to mind. But the other thing, and I think we chatted about this earlier before we started recording, was I said when you said Indianapolis, I said that's where David Letterman's from. He's one of my favorite comedians, and I knew that he grew up in Indianapolis. And uh, and so I remember one of the segments on his show was he always went and he had a camera at his mom's house who still lived there, and he would always like catch her making pies, or it was like this very, like, you know, in the kitchen, very rustic cooking, but it was always pies. It was Dave's mom's pies that came to mind, and that was like a long-running sketch on his show for years and years and years. So yeah, that totally checks out.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Yes, and I bet you she made mini sugar pie. Yes, I'm sure she did. All right, well, I think this is kind of wrapping up this episode of the F3 podcast, and we thank you for joining us. Um, what have we learned here in fantasy that uh sometimes it's all about injuries, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:34

It's all about injuries and making sure you wear your lucky shirt, let's be honest.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Because it can go any way, especially two winning weeks, and now week three has been a bit of a disaster for an absolute disaster of a week.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

And you know what? That fantasy football for you. So you just kind of have to roll with it and then yeah, make sure I wear my lucky shirt next week.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Yeah, and of course, this week we had the Colts actually got their first win they did of the year, which is a big thing. And and we're gonna be looking at Jonathan Taylor for what he does in the next little bit too.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

And if you have him on your fantasy list, you are in very good company.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Yes, and of course, and you can get our recipe because we'll post it to the site, but the Indianapolis pork tenderloin sandwich. That's our our pick of the week for the sandwich this week.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

So I guess we need a sweet, if you have a sweet tooth.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

That's true, that is in there too. So I guess we have one last thing to do. We do. Are you ready for this one? Here we go. I'm gonna reach up and grab our wheel and do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do. Are you ready for this one?

SPEAKER_01 19:35

I am ready.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

We got the steel steelers this week.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Oh, we're going to Pittsburgh.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

That's right. It's time to head over to Pittsburgh and find out what kind of cuisines and what kind of tailgating food would be great in that part of the world, and maybe learn a little bit about the team and what you can do to fix your fantasy team when you have all injured players.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Absolutely. It'll be a good week. I'm feeling it.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

All right. Well, thanks for listening to the F3 podcast. I'm Chef Jonathan Fraser.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

And I'm Aaron Halstchek.