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EDEN: Today on Log On and Eat with Eden Grinshpan...
The show where get to meet and dine with the internet's
most fun and fascinating food personalities.
I meet with the original food guru of the web.
It was good for me.
I bite into an insane burger
with a celebrity food blogger.
Oh, my God. Cheers.
I meet the King of Cowboy Cajun Crawfish Festivals.
It'll make you go, ayee!
TOGETHER: Ayee!
And I eat Off the Eatin' Path
with a fanatical food blogger.
Love At First Bite.
Boom. I was done.
I am Eden Grinshpan and I'm fanatical about food.
And I'm not the only one.
Today, anyone obsessed with food
can share that passion online.
So I'm crisscrossing the country
to meet up with the kings and queens of social media.
The online reviewers and the all around
food blogging stars who really know
how to find a good meal
because we all share one delicious love.
We log on and eat.
I can't wait to meet them up.
I meet a lot of food fanatics on my travels,
but in my quest to find
the foodiest foodie of them all,
there are few who can compete
with online food guru John Bryan Hopkins.
If you've ever wondered where apple strudel originated
or how many pizzas are eaten in each year,
then you've probably logged onto the site
that celebrates food every day, Foodimentary.
John Bryan Hopkins is one of the original
internet food stars.
He started his blog Foodimentary back in 2005,
and now has close to a million followers
who check in regularly for more fun food facts.
He is the real food guru of the web.
Guru John Bryan,
teach me what you know.
Did you know that the average American family
barbecues once a month?
So cruel.
Over 51 billion eggs are produced in America
every year, year, year.
Ooh.
Did you know that a brown egg and a white egg,
they come from chickens with different earlobe colors?
White or brown.
Weird.
Nutritionally, they are the same.
I did not know this, guru.
Are you hungry?
You know it.
Welcome to Alabama.
Thank you so much.
Now I'm gonna bring you to a place
that's got the best barbecue around.
EDEN: Ooh, perfect.
But what they're really known for
is their awesome barbecue tater.
Oh, barbecue and taters.
Amazing.
Welcome to National Loaded Potato Month.
I've never--
It's like a Turducken of potatoes.
It's got everything in it.
Okay, you have to be honest with me
and tell me everything that's in here.
Just from what I'm seeing obviously, pulled pork,
we're in a barbecue house.
JOHN: About a cup of butter, cheese, bacon bits.
Smoked chicken. Ooh.
Chicken. You name it.
It's sort of like they threw everything in there.
Yeah, everything but the kitchen sink,
pretty much has been stuffed into this amazing potato.
Oh!
What's down there?
What's down there?
Now you got to get to the butter
because that's what tastes good.
A man after my own heart.
How did you get into the food world?
Purely by accident.
I was a blogger early on like, 2005, 2006.
That is pretty early.
Yeah, just started talking about food
and what I was cooking and what I was eating
and I came up with this word Foodimentary
Mm-hmm.
And lo and behold, it had never been uttered before.
I created a word and I can spend like,
the rest of my life defining it.
So it's sort of like happenstance.
So what are the most amount of people
that have seen a post that you put up?
Oh, gosh. It's got to be in the millions.
I mean, every day when I post something,
at least a million people see it.
That's great.
But every single day I celebrate a food holiday.
Like, this month is of course,
National Loaded Potato Month.
And I cannot even tell you.
And National Barbecue Month, so we got them both at once.
So far, John celebrates 74 food holidays
with his followers and counting.
The holidays are usually made up,
but are always seasonally appropriate
and carefully researched
using the internet and his collection of food books
that date back to the 1600s.
So what is the craziest thing that you've learned
doing all these posts?
Go.
What?
That an apple, an onion and a potato
taste the same if you hold your nose.
Here we go.
We're gonna try it right now.
No.
Yes.
Why do I always get myself into these crazy situations?
You really want me to bite into this?
Just hold your nose.
Here goes like my entire social life.
I've got a tic-tac.
Uh, don't think that will do the trick
but here goes nothing, guys.
Seriously, I'm plugging it.
It might be a little dirty.
Thanks a lot, Bryan.
What the frigging hell am I eating?
But mainly it's--
Oh, now all flavors.
Wow.
Actually, I have to be honest.
That's actually not as bad.
Look at what I just frigging did.
How did you-- Who are you to make me do these things?
I am the Foodimentary guy.
Seriously.
Okay, do you know what it is?
They all kind of have similar textures
and the same kind of like watery crispiness to them.
That's a really fun little trick.
And about the same amount of sugars in them.
So you really-- They have just sort of a mouth texture.
And your nose is so important in tasting.
It is actually.
And for those of you at home that want to try this,
peel your potato first.
Just saying.
I can't breathe.
Oh.
It was good for me.
Oh, goodness. Oh, goodness.
Oh.
My mans banks just gave way.
That's cute because my jeans have been unbuttoned
for the last 30 minutes.
Just saying.
Thank you for teaching me the ways of the loaded tator.
Guru John Bryan.
I hope you take it with you.
Oh, yeah.
It's legal here. Come on.
Absolutely, let's do this.
Coming up next, Haylie Duff shows me
that real girls eat with their hands.
You have straight egg yolk running through your fingers.
My fingers!
I am in LA, home of the eternally dieting actress.
Luckily, there is one actress in town
who loves to eat as much as I do.
Haylie Duff comes from a Hollywood acting family
along with sister Hilary.
Haylie was in the television show 7th Heaven
and the cult classic Napoleon Dynamite.
Hi.
Thank you.
But what you should really know about Haylie
is her amazing food blog
called the Real Girl's Kitchen,
where she shares her food knowledge and recipes
with real gals everywhere.
With 300,000 online followers,
her blog is so successful,
Haylie is now turning it into a book.
Tell me a little bit about your blog.
I started my blog about two years ago.
The first thing I posted was like,
a turkey burger or something like.
EDEN: Yeah.
And it was like a cell phone photo
that I took in my cell phone and I just put it up.
I didn't even think it was gonna grow into anything.
Yeah.
Two years later, I'm like, finishing my book.
That's insane.
It's like, such an incredible creative outlook for me.
I love it.
So tell me why did you call your blog
Real Girl's Kitchen?
Nobody has ever asked me that before.
I like real ingredients.
I don't like a lot of processed stuff.
I wanted my food and the recipes to be relatable.
And anyone that's never cooked anything before
can look at it and be like,
"Okay, I can attempt to do this", you know.
One thing that I love so much is when I get people
sending me pictures of their version of my recipe.
Oh, that's so cool.
It's like, literally my favorite thing.
So why is Plan Check one of your favorite spots?
So I do restaurant reviews on my site, right?
Mm-hmm.
And I had this burger with my friend Hannah
and I love anything with a fried egg on it.
Bun has like, panko breadcrumbs on it,
so it's like a little crunchy.
It's like so dirty.
And there was a parmesan crisp and bacon.
And is there anything else here that we need to try?
I think we should try the blueprint.
Okay.
Mainly 'cause I want to know what pig candy is.
Plan Check is the brainchild
of Chef Ernesto Uchimura
who envisioned a casual neighborhood restaurant
that would serve modern American comfort food.
I feel like I'm walking into like, a holy land in here.
It is a holy land.
This is burger heaven.
To make the chef's favorite burger,
Ernesto takes an awaki beef patty
and American cheese that's been melted in dashi broth
and places it on top a panko encrusted bun
with Ernesto's own signature condiment,
dehydrated ketchup.
A.K.A., ketchup leather.
Ketchup leather.
Oh, my gosh, it's thick.
It's firm.
Forget about it.
That's so good.
But it doesn't stop there.
Two strips of bacon, homemade bacon dressing,
a fried egg, gorgeous.
A parmesan cheese crisp and homemade hot sauce.
HAYLIE: That is wild.
EDEN: And there you have it.
ERNESTO: So the idea is, guys, just so you know,
when you eat it, smash it down first,
lift it up, let it drip and then you go proceed.
That's why I call it the jewelry remover.
You have to take all your jewelry off
'cause it drips down.
We're calling it that from now on.
For the blueprint burger, Ernesto spreads
smoked and whipped blue cheese on the crunchy bun,
adds steak sauce...
It then gets topped off with watercress.
Watercress.
Here is our salad.
We were healthy today.
And tops it with buttermilk fried onions and pig candy.
Yay!
Bacon that has been slowly cooked with brown sugar
till it's nice and caramelized
and it has a nice sweet and salty element.
I love the way your head works.
That's why he makes these burgers.
Yes, exactly.
Okay, so this is the moment
where we have to remove the jewelry.
Hence the jewelry remover burger.
Okay.
We're about to get messy.
Oh, my God, it's sliding.
Oh! Oh, my God.
Cheers.
Okay.
Good thing I took off my rings.
Oh, my God.
I love the bacon and that meat is just perfect.
Look at your fingers.
My fingers!
We're done.
Rings back on.
I love that we had to take them off, because seriously,
thank you for telling me to do that.
That was like a tsunami of egg yolk
going through your fingers.
That's never happened to me actually.
And, you know, what I think is really impressive about Ernesto is--
We were like totally crushing on him.
No. Sshh, don't tell.
Cheers to Ernesto.
We love you.
Cheers.
Coming up, crawfish with the King
in Mauriceville, Texas.
Y'all are in Texas now.
I'm in Cowboy Cajun Country.
A.K.A., Mauriceville, Texas
where this girl is about to learn all she can
about that little crustacean, the crawfish.
Hey, how are you doing?
Good. Where are you going?
I'm going to the Crawfish Festival.
Me too. I'm Jim, King of the Road.
Hop in.
Thank you.
This is exciting.
And I was never heard from ever again.
Just kidding!
♪ King of the road ♪
Jim King, my food fanatic,
is the host and producer of the King of the Road Show,
an online food show in which he drives around
in his white Caddy
and presides over all the Southeast
Texan food festivals he can.
Constantly winning both local and national awards,
Jim calls himself Jim, King of the Road.
After the song King of the Road.
♪ Jim, King of the Road ♪ ♪ Jim, King of the Road ♪
Here we are.
Yeah, let's go in.
With 27 years in local broadcast,
his popular online show now has over 300,000 hits.
Today Jim's taking me
to the Mauriceville Crawfish Festival
where he has come for the past 14 years.
He thinks this will be the best place for me
to understand his passion for the food, people,
and culture of Southeast Texas.
What's the background? What's behind this?
Obviously this is Cajun cooking.
It's a Cajun thing. Cajuns will eat anything.
Literally--
And there is a huge Cajun Community right here
in Texas, I take it.
Yeah, and it just gets bigger every year.
I love this guy's royal head wear.
He put the crown on his cowboy hat one day as a gag
and Jim, King of the Road has never looked back.
This one's a big guy.
I think this guy is scared of my crown,
the glare from my crown.
Your crown is too blingy for your crawfish.
It's the crawfish king right here.
Good to see you, David.
Hey, Jim. How are you doing?
Mauriceville, Texas is full of Louisiana transplants
who love their crawfish.
So I'm going to learn how to cook this food,
Cajun style.
We're making crawfish.
Oh, this is so cool.
Okay, so we just put it in?
Okay, here it goes.
Bye-bye.
Quick and painless, they didn't feel a thing,
I promise.
Approximately 35 pounds.
You have 35 pound of crawfish?
You could eat 35 pounds I think.
I bet you could.
He has so much faith in me.
Actually, I could eat my weight in crawfish
and I have.
Apparently, the crawfish is done.
Yeah!
You're gonna have to-- Oh, that's cool.
JIM: It's being seasoned now. What's in there, David?
What is in this?
We have mixture of red pepper, liquid fire, cayenne.
Cayenne, which is
a quintessential Cajun flavoring.
Absolutely.
And is liquid fire quintessential Cajun or is the--
Well, it looks like an oil almost.
It's the extracts of peppers.
Oh.
Like a syrup.
Oh, that's cool. Oh, wow.
Give it a little taste.
It's not hot, is it?
It's warm.
Pretty warm.
Ooh.
That's it, man.
That is spicy.
You feel it in the back of your throat right there.
Yeah, that is hot.
It'll make you go, ayee!
There you go.
Ayee!
There you go.
After five minutes of sitting
in the sinister sauce,
our crawfish are ready
to be served to the hungry masses
and everyone seems to have advice
on how to eat them.
Twist, pull and eat.
Suck the meat right out.
That's true Cajun technique right there.
Very impressive.
Now you really want to be a Cajun?
Yeah!
Suck the juice out of it.
Squeeze it.
That's good.
You have on your chin.
Cajun style.
You got to get it all over the place.
Is it on my face?
Hey, it's just the way we eat it.
Let me show you how to speed eat, okay?
I am ready.
That's amazing.
Gone.
Huh?
You can really eat a lot of crawfish
when you know how to do it.
I think you can eat your weight in crawfish.
Clearly. It's taken me like 10 minutes to eat one.
Ayee!
Mah!
ALL: Ayee!
Whoo!
Chuck it.
Whoo!
Y'all are in Texas now.
Coming up, big bites,
big food with my new buddy Monte.
Monte-licious 100%.
I'm in the Caribbean influenced neighborhood
of Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
I'm here to meet food blogger and stand up comedian,
Monte Lemonte who runs a hilarious
and quirky food blog called Off the Eatin' Path.
Sick and tired of un-passionate food critics?
Then escape the norm and check out my food ***.
Monte loves taking pictures of himself eating,
refers to his favorite foods as Monte-licious
and many of his fans become his friends,
and even meet him for meals.
Good morning, everybody.
Today, I'm talking about one of my favorite
and most unique interesting hotdog stands ever.
Monte first got into blogging
by driving around his hometown of Chicago,
looking for hole-in-the-wall restaurants
that make that one phenomenal thing really cheap.
Today, he will go anywhere to find it.
He's been known to drive 3,000 miles for a $5 burger.
I mean, look at that thing.
It's ridiculous. It's bigger than my fist.
And people eat it up.
So far Monte's site has had 36,000 hits.
And me, Monte, your host, king of all foodies.
Who knew?
His latest adventure brought him out
to Crown Heights, Brooklyn
to a Caribbean joint called Gloria's.
And his review of the chicken roti,
kind of like a Caribbean burrito, made me run.
Not walk, run to Brooklyn.
Hey! How are you doing?
Excellent.
My good buddy told me about this.
He's a total jerk, lives out here.
And we came here, and like it says right there,
Love At First Bite.
Boom. I was done.
We're gonna get the boneless one because
no bones is the way to go.
I like the way you think.
There'e be a lot of picking.
Unless later in the night.
But, yeah, definitely some boneless curry kitchen.
What else? What's Bhaggee?
What's Bhaggee?
That's spinach.
Spinach.
And I see you have some like frothy,
delicious juice over there.
What is that?
Well, that one is mauby made from a bark of a tree.
Lots of froth. I just want the--
I just want the froth.
Okay.
Today, Monte and I order up a chicken roti,
a spinach roti with chickpeas and a sweet pumpkin roti.
Yum.
So we're just gonna-- We're just--
Yes.
This is looking under the hood.
See, open it up.
Look at that.
Oh, my God. This is insanity.
This smells absolutely ridiculously delicious.
Oh, my God.
Delicious, right?
So why don't you tell me a little bit about
your blog Off The Eatin' Path?
Okay, so basically it's a blog that features
mostly like your ma and pop.
Yeah, like this.
This is local.
It's owned by someone who lives here.
It has to be inexpensive in price, but rich in flavor.
Uh-huh.
By the way, I'm getting at this
and you need to speed it up.
Or I'm gonna finish these.
Actually, I'll show you what I do.
So I fill up-- I'll fill up a nice big bite
and I go like this.
You got the shutter speed on high on that thing.
I got the shutter speed-- 'cause I have it set up--
I have it set up to take rapid fire photos.
It's rapid fire, it is.
It's rapid--
So is my ducking of the food.
Oh, wow.
Clearly Monte can barely hold back his enthusiasm
and passion for food.
I say what I want to say, I do what I want to do,
and people, either they like it or they don't.
And if they don't like it, beat it.
And if you like it, come along for the ride.
Well, I definitely think that these rotis are Monte-licious.
I'm gonna be following you.
Oh, great. Thank you.
Because you definitely know what you're talking about.
Hey, cheer.
Our bark drink.
Cheers.
Roti, Monte-licious.
Bark drink, not so much.
That's so delicious.
So bitter.
So good.
Find out more about Off The Eatin' Path with Monte
at cookingchanneltv.com.