Feeding on energy and great food with Vaynerchuk and Zimmern

Over 28 years of Super Bowl Radio Row dominance, the best segments are the ones where folks from different worlds collide on the WNST set. World-renowned chef and foodie Andrew Zimmern bumped into wine wizard and serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk at Miami Super Bowl LIV.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, night, problem, city, baltimore, community organizers, years, eat, botswana, msnbc, longer, andrew, food, human, places, super bowl, country, taste, america, friends

SPEAKERS

Andrew Zimmern, Gary Vaynerchuk, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome back wn st and Baltimore positive and I can’t think of anything more positive than the the confluence of events here. Gary Vaynerchuk joining me as Andrew Zimmern joins me had both you won last year separately not together. And I’ve since traveled the world I have the Baltimore positive initiative going for guys like you motivating me last year you motivated me. We got to talk sushi. We got to talk Kobe steak. We got to talk me going to Japan and all that, but I gotta get all you guys on together. What do you guys you’re promoting? Let’s get that out of the way because I know your hunger and taste always right.

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Andrew Zimmern  00:36

Yeah, it’s it’s interesting. I mean, when when Gary walked up, there’s the two of us work on a lot of very similar things have a lot of friends in common. And I learned as much as I do about entrepreneurial thought and action about how to run my life, how to how to do what I need to do and retain the right mindset. From people like Gary then welcome Gary in particular than just about anybody, so it’s always great to see him anyway. Oh, what do you what are you doing here? My friend?

Gary Vaynerchuk  01:07

I am here because I’m just practicing for the day the New York Jets get here. Your practice?

Andrew Zimmern  01:15

Just in the season? Je

Gary Vaynerchuk  01:17

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Super Bowl three. Yeah, I mean, obviously Vayner Sports, right? My brother and I four years ago got officially into the business that we love so much. So we have a we have DJ Reed, who’s a San Francisco 49 are in the game that we wrap at Vayner Sports so we’re here to support him. And then and then then you build them around that right you know, and, and honestly like this right to Andrews point, we will DM on Twitter, or Instagram and throw a like or heart or a positive vibe towards each other. But we don’t you know, when you’re running fast and hard and living your lives and family like what’s great about the Super Bowl for me is that the serendipity of who you get to run into and say hello, and for me, I’m such a human Do you know it’s so funny, I’m such an enigma this way. I’m so prolific on the digital stuff. But both of you I think your your set you I think your senses you know this, like I love the human part. I use digital as the gateway to get to the human part. Using digital to build the relationship that leads to the way we feel towards each other right now. This is what people miss. They think digital is bad. I’m like you don’t understand. We would not be feeling the way we feel about each other right this second. How do we not have the 17 digital interactions last six year you raise

Andrew Zimmern  02:26

a really good point because people are always condemning social media. We’ve met one one other. Okay, here’s here’s the people always condemning social media. And I’m always saying when I go away, I don’t want to unplug, I want to unplug during the day. So I’m focused on my son because we’re on vacation. But at night, I want to plug back in and touch base. And the reason is, is I get to follow and learn and explore and I get to expand my mind by everything that I see in the digital space, whether that’s social media, websites, you know, videos, whatever. And then it enhances the physical connection when I see someone, I have never met Joel Osteen, we travel in completely different worlds. I’m a nice Jewish kid from New York. You know, his thing is his thing. Yep. True. Huge respect. You know, I don’t want to yuck on anyone’s yum. But we’re in two different worlds. Yeah, I just met him. I know who he is. He knows who I am. We shared a hug and 15 seconds. And it’s it was hysterically fun. And it’s one of the things that I love about coming. There’s no other place that I can think of where for four or five days, there are so many fascinating people all in town, all doing things. And you get to touch base with stuff and you get, I don’t know, energized when I leave here, I’m filled with new thoughts and new ideas. And I feel better than when I got here. Always

Gary Vaynerchuk  03:47

also in control. Like when Andrew was talking, and the best part of that was, if he wants to plug in, he should be able to plug in, what’s the alternative? He’s gonna read a book, all of a sudden, we have to put a book on a pedestal, like why should I impose my book reading value on him? Why should he watch TV? Like, is it better to watch Netflix than it is to go on Twitter like, this is about options. This is about accountability. If you feel like you’re burned out, stop using Instagram. You know, I’m just fabulously super

Andrew Zimmern  04:19

healthy by the way to take breaks just with everything and you can overdo anything, right?

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Gary Vaynerchuk  04:24

And then and then to that point, much like let’s say food, some people can eat a certain amount of food and be one way and to others. My capacity for the, you know, invigoration I get from human interaction is higher than others. I’m deeply extroverted. I wildly love people. I’m super curious. It’s super enjoyable to me.

Andrew Zimmern  04:46

My spiritual guru once said something to me when I came into sobriety 28 years ago, I was a user of people and a taker of things. I hid i i didn’t want anyone to see me. I was I had so much shame. Now I’m big exact opposite and it’s because one of my sponsors early on first year 2728 years ago said to me, Andrew, all those shadows out there that you see and I’m like yes, he says they’re people. Those are other people and literally it changed my mindset I am a people guide people don’t ask me all the time is oh you do this food show as you know I do what people show I do a show about exploring culture. All my shows are about it. My new show on MSNBC is about exploring politics and civics but I do it through food. But at the end of the day, it’s about the people it’s always about the people people are endlessly fascinating to me whether it was the guy men on the street standing in line, you know, moving in here with 1000 other folks whether it’s you The my server last night, the restaurant doesn’t matter planning for Baker Mayfield, who was much smaller than I thought he

Gary Vaynerchuk  05:47

I am wildly on the same page. I I am visceral to people pegging people on different levels of pedestal. You can be excited to see Joe Montana. But to treat Joe Montana, in a certain level of humanity versus the way you would treat the person that’s serving you at your fancy rayos pop up dinner tonight is unacceptable. It’s called Tea not that’s not true. It’s less about culty it’s about do you treat humans the same? And and what does that actually grounded them? So for me? Yes, it was good manners that my mom taught me. i It went way beyond that. It’s that I like people.

Andrew Zimmern  06:25

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I would guess that for you like me. At a certain point in your life. You had to decide how do i Gary? How do I Andrew want to show up? How do I want to show up and be seen in the world? Do I want to be someone who is seen as a user of people and a taker of things? Or do I want to be seen as someone seen as someone who always bring something to it? Do I want to be someone who’s who represents blindness or don’t want to be someone who represents take it’s my entire

Gary Vaynerchuk  06:49

take on life. All I care about is legacy. All I care about its reputation All I care about is how many people are gonna show up to my funeral how much like it’s why I’m successful. I’m

Andrew Zimmern  06:58

gonna say nice things.

Nestor Aparicio  07:02

Baseball Coach with

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Gary Vaynerchuk  07:03

you. Listen, listen though this is very important cuz it’s gonna give value to people on the show because people every a lot of people trying to figure out this new world we all live in. There’s a very easy way to build an audience on in life let alone on social it’s the same game. If you’re the one that provides more value you win 99% of the posts from this Super Bowl from people is going to be look how fancy I am look who I’m with look where I went What value does that bring to the other person? For me it’s how do I put out something that actually brings value

Andrew Zimmern  07:32

it’s it’s so if I was having this discussion with someone yesterday who was saying why am I getting no relevance and I hate to you know, sidetrack into a how to do social media thing but I just looked at him I said, you know, there’s nothing in there but look at me. How about me you know, elevating someone else to grow? How about when you can you can have a call so

Gary Vaynerchuk  07:49

follow the people that bring value yes Instagrams fault and always

Andrew Zimmern  07:53

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people and always have some kind of call to action. That doesn’t mean closing the sale. That doesn’t mean closing a sale that just means a call to action like hey, investigate this book. Hey, follow this guy. Read this you know blog.

Nestor Aparicio  08:05

Alright, so the epicenter of all this was New York, I met you a blog with balls. I’m gonna tell a New York story. And in New York guy, look at this.

Gary Vaynerchuk  08:12

I love you, pal. Hey. Happy to do it. Appreciate

Nestor Aparicio  08:16

it man. Jets. Not next year. Mickey Gary’s mic down he seminars. So I have to thank you. First off, tasted the NFL is coming up. We’re gonna kick car hunger. We’re gonna do all that cool stuff in a minute. The reason? And last year had you on it was under circumstances for someone else sat down in a Super Bowl winning wide receiver and Santonio Holmes. I you sent me to New York. For Korean snow ice on an episode right off of Madison Square Garden in Koreatown in New York. It is put me on this journey that took me into downtown Seoul about eight weeks ago, finding Korean barbecue and Korean wings and Korean things. And I just want to say that you know, thanks for that because I’ve had a lot of Korean snow ice free plug for Saru out on 40 West. And you know I eating does to jump on to what you were talking about. It takes around on I’m going to Cologne to get schnitzel in about eight weeks with my wife and I just can’t wait to get there and have schnitzel and Koelsch and

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Andrew Zimmern  09:23

the the the crispy veal and pork Shanks in Cologne were better than the sniff semi

Nestor Aparicio  09:31

somewhere. Let’s go. Let’s I’ll let

Andrew Zimmern  09:33

you I have to. As much as I’d like to pretend that I’m a human encyclopedia. I actually have to look in my IQ. Well, no, I remember a lot of stuff probably more than most people. But for some smaller cities that I only get to a handful of times. But I’ll look at my computer when we’re done and I’ll let you know. All right, but Kelowna is an amazing it’s an amazing city. It’s the show. I mean, look, schnitzel is good all over Germany but you know if you’re in Cologne, there’s certain other things Is that? Let’s

Nestor Aparicio  10:01

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go, I would steer you to Yeah, I gotta have you on my phone. So I know what’s good and what’s ugly for you. Let’s get back on to the hunger thing. And I’ve known Wayne Ostrovsky. All these years, you’ve been kind enough to come over here and spend a little time and give me some food tomorrow night perhaps if I make it down to the diplomat that I love, because it’s beautiful thoughts about where we are in the world because I’m, I’m doing Baltimore positive now. And as you can see, here, we do, here’s the cheating people feeding PTSD issues,

Andrew Zimmern  10:27

right, here’s the issue we’ve been, you know, for the last 20 years, we’ve not been able to get that far ahead of the hunger food scarcity issue in America. Roughly depending on what stat you pay attention to anywhere between one quarter and 1/5 of Americans don’t know where their next day’s meals are coming from. That includes the same percentage of children in the greatest country in the history of civilization that is no longer a national embarrassment. To me, that’s criminal. So we have, you know, hundreds and hundreds, maybe even 1000s of organizations, institutions, human beings, working day and night to solve the hunger issue. One of them is taste of the NFL, which is a hunger relief organization best known for its Saturday night party for the Super Bowl, because that’s where we raise our most oneopinion

Nestor Aparicio  11:21

However, more Remember, you’re in Baltimore, don’t robbing however, we are

Andrew Zimmern  11:25

364, five day your organization. So we’re raising millions of dollars and tons of awareness every single year to fight this problem. But the numbers don’t really go down that far. We have an endemic problem in this country that as we’ve been pouring more money, as we’ve been pouring more resources into helping the hungry, those less fortunate those who are on the lopsided on the equity table. The people who are marginalized, the people who have fallen the furthest away, one of the big challenges that we have is that we keep widening the gulf between the haves and have nots, and we keep adding to our population. So it’s kind of like pouring cups of water at a time into a bucket that has a couple of holes in it. And are we gaining traction? Yes, some years more than others? Is it enough? No, because I think this is a relatively easy problem to solve. We have to have civic mindset that it is no longer okay to have hungry people in America. Once we have that civic mindset. And we get our our representatives in government to start talking about real kitchen table issues during election time, then we can make some change, because then we can put some legal teeth behind this where it’s no longer Okay. I’ll give you one quick example. We have a horrific problem with feeding kids in schools, MORNING SNACKS breakfasts. After school, I’m just picking one food issue just one Yeah, school lunch program. Every single thing in the American public school system, public school system is free. The bus transportation, the morning is free, the teacher shows up, you know, kids don’t have to take $1 out of their pocket and give her the money or him the money. And we think because fundamental fundamental.

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Nestor Aparicio  13:16

Food not fundamental,

Andrew Zimmern  13:18

has to be paid for our card. And it’s run like a restaurant, even though it’s a restaurant in sheep’s clothing. So the problem for me becomes one of if we don’t put some legislative teeth behind this, if we don’t move to and for those not well versed in it, the solution is eliminate the SNA eliminate all of this pay for eat stuff, and just have a National School Lunch Program. The same way kids take transportation at school. You know what I mean? This is this is not it’s actually not them that people think ketchup is a vegetable or those that are trying to make the numbers work. They’re part of the problem. They’re a symptom of it. I think the the problem, the real root cause of the problem, the tree from which the poison fruit is fallen is that as Americans we’ve been we’re accepting the con, that we can’t change how our kids are fed in school. We can change the way it’s always been right? We can change how our kids are fed in school. And once you get into the nuts and bolts of the problem, and this is the kind of stuff that we tackle on my new series on MSNBC starting February 16. All right, Eastern.

Nestor Aparicio  14:29

I didn’t have it, Mary. He just likes me and comes by no it marries

Andrew Zimmern  14:33

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it. Here’s the thing it marries, you know, for I’ve been doing TV for 15 years at lifestyle networks. I’m still working at lifestyle networks. I’m making a show right now that there’s an October on a lifestyle network. That’s part of the family of networks that Bizarre Foods was a part of. But my new show on MSNBC is about civics and food because there are so many of these issues where the best way to tell someone about our problem with food inequity in America is not with a talking head behind a desk with a 32nd clip and a 32nd soundbite. The best way to illuminate these issues is to send a human correspondent out on the road, telling stories through something everyone can relate to, in this case, actual food stories about the civic issues. And there you have what’s even in America and me being in it. Alright, something

Nestor Aparicio  15:26

in the last year someplace, you’ve gone. That’s really cool. That’s a place I need to experience and the world is big. And I’ve been a lot of places in the world, but you’ve been more so don’t say Paris or London or you know, something like that. Like I want to chase the Northern Lights. Yeah, my wife wants to go to Cape Town in South Africa, and I’ve done some stuff on that this week. But you know,

Andrew Zimmern  15:46

what’s so funny? You mentioned you mentioned two places I was gonna go to extremes. Go ahead. Lapland northern Finland.

Nestor Aparicio  15:54

Okay, go for it. Let’s

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Andrew Zimmern  15:55

try the Russian border. Let’s go. Fantastic. And winter fantastic and summer fish even more interesting in summer because the the explosion of fruits and vegetables there and people don’t understand that even on a country that well used to have some permafrost in the northern northern part of it. Even though the growing season is very short. It makes the I’ve never tasted better potatoes. I’ve never tasted better strawberries. That intense, intense, short season that they have. But remember, it’s a 20 hour a day sun that goes across the sky. All night long. Just make sure it makes for a better tasting fruit and vegetable then and because I love the northern part of the country and love it you know Helsinki too. But at the end of the trip, if you’re in northern Finland, you hop on the night train to Helsinki 1416 hours depending how far north you are, get asleep or cabin there, just deck to the nines. It’s only like 80 or $90. You have a full bed electricity and there’s

Nestor Aparicio  17:05

a little glow domes you lay in and oh no lights wonderful up and

Andrew Zimmern  17:10

they’re fantastic. Then on the flip side, I’m a big fan for southern and southwestern Africa. So that means Namibia, Botswana and the country of South Africa. If you’re going to go that far to so far,

Nestor Aparicio  17:24

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that’s what we’re gonna do. That’s that’s the where are you doing? Where are you doing? We have looked at Kruger I’ve looked at you know, under the

Andrew Zimmern  17:29

No, no, Botswana, Botswana. The best if you’re I mean people who are doing a once in a while people who are doing once in a lifetime trips. I know that part of the drawers the animals. So don’t go to the place that was good. 50 years ago or 30 years ago or 20 years ago, the Okavango Delta in Botswana probably has the greatest diversity of wildlife numbers of wildlife. So if you want to see animals, and if you want to see Africa, my wife’s away, it was a generation two generations three generations ago. Botswana is one of the last places that you could do it. And my friend Ralph boughs field that has a company called Uncharted Africa. And he has, he has both and my wife goes spend my own money, I go to pockets. This is not a promotion. But Rouse Company they have. They have sedentary camps, where it’s a permanent location, tend to that you can travel out of but they also have camps that are true Safari where you pick up every couple of days and move to a different location. And it is as thrilling and as exciting a trip as you will ever have.

Nestor Aparicio  18:47

And maybe last thing for you because I know you’re moving around Baltimore positive and things that we’re trying to do in the city, We’ve obviously had a corrupt mayor, we’ve had all sorts of problems, education, crime, all of these issues, feeding people in cities in America, something that’s near and dear to your heart. Tell me about fixing cities that are thought to be broken or need more healing or need more leadership. Where are some places where you’ve seen major change over the course of a decade or two decades, where a city has markedly improved from a bad state and kids go to school and eat better lunches that maybe they did 10 or 20 years ago, people on the streets are being better but we have food deserts in our city in our city and in taking away from the most disadvantaged people are having their food stamp privileges taken a it’s it’s an incredible thing that’s

Andrew Zimmern  19:37

Washington come to Washington DC has done a lot of stuff over the last couple of 15 years most notably because there’s a lot of organizations based there. Ones like Arcadia farms that takes mobile market think they have farms. They train farmers, they train vets to be farmers. We have 400,000 farmers who are going to be leaving farm mean over the next 30 years because they age out who’s going to replace them? By the way, this is, this is at a time when we’re trying to decentralize food, not centralize it. So we need to be training a new generation of farmers to take over. So places like Washington, DC, Oakland, California, obviously, one of the advantages that Oakland has is they’re a stone’s throw from some of the best growing regions in the country. So people there became connectors, you know, in the inner city of Oakland, where they were having problem feeding people with a problem with their school system, you had so many folks willing to change that you had local leadership on the street community organizers who said, you know, something, you know, 40 miles away is some of the most fertile growing fertile lands in America, supplying the vast majority of fruits and vegetables to the rest of the country, I get my strawberries leaving, and they’re leaving, you know, 1015 20% of the food either in the field, or in the warehouse. Let’s take some of that and bring it in and start feeding kids. Right. So you had connectors who were working there, I think the same thing can happen in Baltimore, Maryland is you know, it’s not so far north, that you’re out of touch with the growing regions. You are a city that’s on the water, you have a ton of passion, I think local leadership is going to step up and be step up and become citywide leadership. Because that new job the one thing that I’ve observed, I mean, I’m 58 years old. So I’ve just been around, you know, a little bit longer just to see some stars homefree window, Minneapolis, Minnesota, when you see city wide leadership change, for whatever reason, and leave a gap avoid? What steps in is almost always better. It’s almost always better. That’s great. Well, I really think when I when I look at all the people crapping all over a city that I love, I’ve shot a lot of TV there. I’ve spent a lot of time in Baltimore, I’m there every single year. I have a lot of friends, I have a lot of friends who who live in and around the city. Well, you know, that breaks. It breaks my heart because the kindest, nicest people in the in the whole world that have loved me up every time I’m there. And I you know, I really think that out of the I mean, I look at all the people that are crapping over that city. And then I turn the page on, look at the flip side, and I see that dozens of community organizers, the city wide nonprofits, this incredibly invested committee that says, community that says no, no, no, no, we are not going to go gently into that good night. All right, I belong to more is a vibrant, compelling community filled with people who were there three, four or five generations, they are not going anywhere and I think from those ranks of community organizers is going to rise someone who has the the the cult of personality necessary to galvanize all those other leaders right in minutes. It’s just part of politics, right? You’re gonna run a city you have to understand the culture, personality, you have to be someone that everyone is willing to get behind. You have to be a good compromiser. You have to engage other people in compromise, and from this mess will come i i would bet you everything I have in my pocket. A decade from now we’re having a much different conversation about Baltimore. I felt well, the last time that I was there, that there was within the city itself a community Renaissance. I think that’s going to be tangible. 10 years from now to the outside looking in to that city.

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Nestor Aparicio  23:36

I love your hope, man. Thanks for coming by. Let’s I want to eat some it makes me want to eat something with him. I’m gonna get some stone crabs. I’ve had the best Cuban food down here. It’s better to have a little Cuban pie. I had. I had Venezuelan rapists last night with a proper ice cold polar. Yes. Where to go. I that’s what I did last night right?

Andrew Zimmern  23:58

Here. I did. I did. I did stone crab from a local seafood shop that I stuck in the fridge at my hotel and went down to the beach and sat there at 10 o’clock at night toes in the sand cran and eat stone crab and answered emails was really exciting.

Nestor Aparicio  24:16

Makes you the coolest guy and so it’s really exciting. Thank you. I appreciate it. I really appreciate it to Wayne and everybody lay in this year you know who

Andrew Zimmern  24:26

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am I see? Now you’re gonna ask me a trick question. I don’t know. It’s all I know is taste the nfl.com Go check it out. But they always have

Nestor Aparicio  24:33

great bands. So I just I just great, incredible news at the end great bands because Wayne was in a band. Correct. Remember when Wayne was a restaurant? Oh, yes. I almost didn’t want to believe there

Andrew Zimmern  24:41

was a long, long time ago. But yes, he was the bass player in in a very serious rock and roll

Nestor Aparicio  24:46

band and he’s got the cover. I’ve seen his daughter

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Andrew Zimmern  24:49

is that he loves to carry that around.

Nestor Aparicio  24:51

And when he came on 20 years ago, he would always tell me so we would always be into the bands. So

Andrew Zimmern  24:56

yeah, it’s part of why remember what it is. With so much Great music here in Miami, this city moves to a musical beat. We have a super group put together. I think it’s by one of J. Lo’s producer one of these, like just the lat heavy, famous, you know, music guys here has put together an all star band that is performing tonight. I mean, it’s it’s between like the 12 of them. There’s like 100 Grammys on the stage. It’s insane. I mean, not hard. It’s insane. And I thought that was a really fun idea for tonight. All right, let’s go

Nestor Aparicio  25:31

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eat something good. Andrew Zimmern here always walk away. You said MSW, you had it. Yes, Sunday

Andrew Zimmern  25:35

night, Sunday night, February 16. The premiere of wetsuit in America with Andrew Zimmern, nine o’clock Eastern, eight central MSNBC go to Andrew zimmer.com For all things Andrew Zimmern

Nestor Aparicio  25:47

man gave me Korean snow ice. It changed my life. That’s all I can say. We’re live at Superbowl 54 All of our coverage brought to you by our friends at sports culture, and our friends at Liberty pure as well as Raskin global. We are doubly going to sit on that am 57 Eight wn St. Baltimore positive we never stopped telling great stories that make you hungry.