Daybar and Phillip Bugler, along with their son Phil Bugler IV – aka Burrito – are the hosts of the Eat Drink Explore Podcast, a podcast celebrating the best of the North Shore’s food scene and the chefs, sommeliers, bakers, baristas, and front of house staff that make those experiences possible. Excited by the sights, smells, and flavors of the North Shore Foodie scene, Day and Phil have made a name for themselves talking about the food they love.
They join Joey on the podcast today to talk about dining in the age of COVID-19 and about some of the best stuff they’ve been eating recently.
Controversy surrounding racism in the wine industry
In the podcast intro, Day talks about a situation surrounding an experience African-American Sommelier Tahiirah Habibi, founder of The Hue Society, had while taking her CMS (Master Sommelier Certification exam). Click here to read the news surrounding that issue.
Mentioned in this Podcast
About The Chaos Within
Hosted by Joey Phoenix, The Chaos Within is a podcast celebrating the weird, the wild, and the creative – featuring makers, doers, artists, and oddballs exploring the unknown and tapping into their creative energy.
The Chaos Within is produced by Creative Collective and is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
The Logo was designed by Anton Presents, the intro music is by Paul Senn (psenn@thetau.io) using the Theta-U Creative Circuit System, and the outro music by Chris Wilson Sound using one of Joey’s maternal Grandmother’s haunted music boxes.
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- New England Today’s Guide to New England’s Black Businesses
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- Black Trans Travel Fund
- Emergency Release Fund
- The Marsha P. Johnson Institute
- Justice in June
Audio Transcript
The Chaos Within is part of Creative Collective presents is a podcast celebrating the weird, the wild, and the creative, featuring makers, doers, artists, and oddballs, exploring the unknown and tapping into their creative energy. The intro music is by Paul Senn, and the outro music is by Chris Wilson Sound. In the beginning, there was chaos. I’m your host Joey Phoenix.
Joey Phoenix 0:03
The Chaos was part of Creative Collective presents is a podcast celebrating the weird, the wild and the creative featuring makers, doers, artists and oddballs, exploring the unknown and tappinginto their creative energy. The intro music is by Paul set, and the outro music is by Chris Wilson sound. In the beginning, there was chaos. I’m your host, Joey Phoenix.
Hi, everyone. Joey Phoenix here, you know, your host, especially somewhere beautiful outside, and actually storming, Bluff, cold days defend, pretty fitting for the way that everyone is feeling and the way that I am feeling certainly a couple of weeks off because of health things and personal things. But I think I’m ready to jump back in and start producing podcasts featuring some really great guests and their experiences.
I’m really excited to share today’s podcast with you. It is the actually two people today it’s the host of the Eat, Drink, Explore podcast Day and Philip bugler. And this thing happened this thing happens a lot. Actually, when I’m recording these podcasts I go through ask what the questions are recording. And then when we wrap, the real conversations begins. And so this this whole podcast is really fun. We talk about summertime food and the flavors of our childhoods. But when we stop recording I asked Day a question about what she feels is one of the most important things to come out of, to come out of the current civil unrest against white supremacy in the wake of you know, some of the current police brutality in this country and she shared something somewhat surprising. And I was going to paraphrase what she said. But as always, when it comes to these things, it’s better just let people who know it best speak for themselves. I hope you enjoy this podcast.
Daybar 2:19
2020 has been like really eye opening for me for wine culture. It’s something that I’ve been really excited about. And again, if you follow us on Instagram, you’re probably seeing us posting a lot because Phil and I are really curious, a little fascinated by it. We are no, like not experts at all, but it’s definitely something we’re interested in. And I was online, as we all are right now. And I was just flipping through. And I found this really powerful story post up by a Sommelier, who is African American, and she was speaking on an experience that she had when she was going for her masters. So I’m with the What’s up with that? What’s up with the CMS? Yep, but the CMS program and basically what happened was, she’s been she’s been studying she passed The first three, three courses, and she is finally going for her master’s. And she literally had to take off time from work to study and like, really do this. She was also a full time mom, a single mom. And she went to go do this test. And it was and it was a two day test. And while she was there, there were a few people administering the test. And one of them was a woman. And the woman required the entire all the students there to refer to her as master. And the African American Som just was just like she was like I was, she’s like I was frozen. I mean, I’ll see if I can send you the story because I’m sure I’m paraphrasing. I don’t want to leave anything out.
Joey Phoenix 3:38
Listeners can read the full story in the show notes.
Daybar 3:41
But the whole point was that this female Som master Som was requiring everyone to refer as master. And I’m sure some of the people were like, what’s the big deal? It’s a master Som program like that. She’s overreacting, whatever. It was a triggering word for her. I don’t think it’s appropriate for anyone to judge her and her reaction on that. And it really didn’t sit well. Her she ended up taking the test I think she passed, but it was really traumatizing. And she really tried to like get past in the moment but it affected her and kind of mess with her psyche a little bit. I don’t know if she’s how she spoke on it after the event, but the master the CMS recently is I don’t know if they’ve already decided to but they’re looking at taking out the master part of that. And master part of like, being a master Sommelier, it’s just gonna be the fourth level or they’re coming up with a new name with it. They’re not gonna Yeah, they’re not gonna refer to it as that anymore.
So I think her story is probably had a little bit of an effect on that, that kind of was really like triggering me reading that as somebody who’s African American who’s really into wine and has been watching and listening to what the wine can use doing. like yeah, it’s crossed my mind, you know, am I talented enough to like, sit for a test like that and study and is my passion really strong enough to do something like that. And hearing that story really turned me off to that organization that has so much success and people hold it so highly. And and I’m really going through this like rabbit hole of things in the food and beverage industry that just aren’t as equal as they should be, and not even like stuff that maybe you might not notice right off the bat, but I’m starting to notice it a little bit more, just because this time is so sensitive.
And then as I was going through the feed, from, from the video posts that this time had posted up, she was kind of just baring her soul about the experience. There were a bunch of women commenting, I mean, everybody was commenting and apologizing and they couldn’t believe mortified by the experience, but one female I messaged her posted on the video. She was like, Yes, the CMS I’ve had issues with them for a really long time. She said that when she decided to go take the test, which wasn’t a small feat for her. She had to put her family and everything to the side to focus on this. She was like I started out by trying to find a mentor, which is actually a major part of the experiences you have to find a mentor. And she said that every single mentor that she reached out to or she had access to was a man and they all made sexual advances on her and she He was just mortified by the experience. And she did end up taking the last taking the last test because of this, you know, she she’s like I, I’ve been studying so hard. I’m putting up with all this stuff and the stress in my family, and then to be looking for somebody who was willing to teach me and train me and just looking to them as a mentor. And I’m having sexual advances we made on me like, this is not what I came up here for. This is not what I put my life on hold for. And now I’m seeing a lot of people coming out and saying things about the CMS that they weren’t speaking on, like, you know, last couple years. They also had that scandal of cheating, where the answers got released. I think it was like 2018 that happened, or maybe 2019. So I don’t know if this whole like movement that’s happening right now. It’s making me assess all the organizations that I either want to become a part of affiliated with restaurants that I’m looking at restaurants that we’re promoting people that we’re talking to, because we have to put our money where our mouth is we really do and invest in people that we think are going to make this world better.
Joey Phoenix 7:14
Daybar and Phillip Bugler, along with their son, Philip Bugler IV aka burrito, or the hosts of the Eat, Drink, Explore podcast, a podcast celebrating the best of the worst food scene and the chef’s, Sommeliers, bakers, baristas, and Front of House staff that make those experiences possible. Excited about the site smells and flavors of the Northshore foodie scene. Dan and Phil have made a name for themselves talking about the food they love. They join me on the podcast today to talk about dieting in the age of COVID-19. And about some of the best stuff they’ve been eating recently. Welcome, Day and Phil.
Daybar 7:44
Thanks for having us.
Joey Phoenix 7:45
I’m so excited you’re here. I’ve been wanting to have you on the podcast since I started this, but it hadn’t got around to it. And then I listened to a podcast you released on June 4 called change is in the air and I just sat there after it Listen to it just crying. And like really was just like delighted that you all were talking about these things and also like, you know, Sous Vide and like Sommeliers and just like wine it just I don’t know I love, I love the interplay of what you do.
Daybar 8:15
We appreciate you listening. We really do. That’s awesome. Thank you so much.
Joey Phoenix 8:19
So what does it been like hosting a food podcast when restaurants haven’t been open?
Daybar 8:23
It’s been weird at first when it when we heard that things were really going to be shutting down. The first thing we did was we ran out and we bought a mic, and we went to Best Buy and it was the most like, pandemic-y vibe, you can get the best buy like everybody was frantically shopping for electronics that would help them go virtually, whether it was like at work in the office or doing classes online. Like everything was getting swiped off the shelves. So it felt really panicky, and we didn’t know what the future was gonna hold for our podcasts. It’s like we’d even have guests or if it would just be me and like Phil and I, and then Starting off was really weird.
So we had a couple, we had two podcasts we hadn’t released yet when the stay at home order started. So first thing we did was edit those guys and then get them out. And then a week or two later, we really had to buckle down and figure out what we’re going to do going forward. And I mean, severe, like depression and anxiety hit week like to wind three of being stuck at home and we just didn’t even want to communicate with the outside world. We were still trying to figure out what all this meant for our family. So we decided to just do our podcasts, just the two of us because it was just less stress. We already had so much going on, which is a massive change. Because before this pandemic, every episode we had a guest on it was like both around bringing guests on. So we had to totally change that format. And it was it was tough at first it was it was tough. At first we had to get creative we had to depend on like our conversation back and forth without bringing like our marital stuff. Because there’s only so much bickering people listen to on your podcast.
So it was interesting. And then we decided that’s when we did the first one where was just the two of us. And it was this veto episode. And it ended up working out pretty well because it was something we wanted to learn more about, we got a really awesome partner in that episode with a company called VISTA position. So it was actually really fun evolution for us doing things on our own. And then like really, really digging into what we want to know, as foodies out here in the world. That was really interesting. Now, like moving up several months down the road, we are finally starting to have guests come back on, we’ve started to do like a slow roll. Most of our podcasts are done on zoom now so you can definitely hear a difference in sound quality. But it’s it’s still It’s nice having that human connection and that like back and forth. Again, it’s starting to feel a little bit more normal. And one thing we really struggled with was like length of our podcasts because there was only so much fun I could talk about so if you notice going through our pot podcasts during the pandemic, they’re like a lot shorter What we’re typically used to doing because like we have that third person dialogue, fully cut out, so lots of adjusting,
Joey Phoenix 11:06
but it sounds like a lot and I’m sure you’re eager to have new voices come back on. And I think like, general mood of the day right now as people are kind of like tired of being cooped up and tired of waiting for things to reopen, returned to normal, and we all know that’s kind of like we’re kind of far away from that being actually available to us. So how do you how do you feel about this whole like, phase two reopening indoor dining thing happening right now?
Phil Bugler 11:32
It’s weird because like that’s like, obviously how everybody lives their lives up until about three to four months ago. So it’s like, now that you say like, you can go back into restaurants and eat like you normally would like, you think a lot of people would be excited, but it’s obviously times are different now. Personally, I think it’s like very, it’s generally to a lot of issues of, you know, when you eat inside, you can’t be wearing your mask. Oh, like how would that work?
You know, if you’re trying to eat, you need to like pull down your masks between every bite. And then it’s gonna lead to a lot of people who are just getting back out. Like you were just mentioned people cooped up. So like, there’s, I just feel like it’s gonna lead to a lot of problems. And personally, I almost feel like it’s too soon.
Daybar 12:18
So this is where Phil and I really differ because for me, I’m actually like, when I first heard this was happening, I definitely was a little skeptical. But I was also really optimistic because we had to put a pause on our Supper club and our Supper club is based off of interaction interacting with other foodies and establishment that film, I think, is doing a phenomenal job. And that really has a lot to do with gathering and gathering right now is, is not really encouraged if you don’t have to. So for me when I heard that I was like, okay, we’re getting a little bit closer to getting our supper clubs back on. I am a little hesitant and I want to see how the first couple weeks of indoor dining goes but for me, I’m still really trying to do as much outdoor dining as I can possibly Do if that’s if that’s an option. If not, I don’t know how I feel yet about navigating eating inside a restaurant. But the other scary thing is like turning on your TV listening to the radio or your podcasts, all I keep hearing is that people are under estimating a second wave. And that freaks the hell out of me like I’m so freaked out about that. So as much as I want to navigate like as much as I want to push forward as an entrepreneur and like reopen the really awesome fun supper club we have started before I am also in the back of my head thinking okay, do I really want to be part of the second wave like risking a group of people who trust us to bring them out to really fun dining experiences exposing them to something like that? So it’s, it’s it’s really nerve racking because you don’t want to be wrong.
Joey Phoenix 13:47
I totally get that and like, it’s just a hard thing because like, it’s beautiful outside people aren’t really having cookouts or going to like our dining outside and like for us to have to see how beautiful it is. And then have to think so critically about like okay, What’s my impact? It’s very complicated. It’s like this weird internal dissonance that happens through all that do you do cook often is like, you know, you go out to eat like you have these lovely experiences.
Daybar 14:11
So we actually, we love cooking. I mean, we we truly, truly, truly love cooking. And that’s kind of how we started our relationship is from a level of like actually preparing food. When we had our condo in Providence we had our kitchen was like the meeting place for everything. We enjoy trying new recipes. And then we constantly had people over there, we could always host some events. Food shopping is something that we both actually find really, really fun. And we probably do it more often or did it more often than the average person because we didn’t like to keep a ton of things like stored in our fridge. So if we were making a meal, we’d go on by the rents and bring it look kind of like a European style. It’s been kind of nice revisiting that, because being on the North Shore, we’ve been living with my in laws, Phil’s parents, so we don’t have as much use of the kitchens. We didn’t properly So, smaller kitchen, not a lot, a lot of space to like hold things. So yeah, during the pandemic, everyone being home we had more opportunity to cook and prepare foods and stuff and explore recipes like we used to
Joey Phoenix 15:11
Food is an important part of our culture. I it’s something to be excited about actually. And like right now for me like, this whole year is all about like watermelon and like pineapple weirdly. And like I’m just thinking about, like, all of the flavors of my like childhood. And it’s like summer always brings that, that need for certain flavors of me. What are those things for both of you?
Daybar 15:33
For me for summertime? I mean, this is super like basic B but rosé is like really fun. Dude, I’m saying like I want to, like forget the red one for a minute. You know, don’t be boring. Try all the weird orangey pinky yellow, like alcoholic beverages that are out there. And then also, I’m not a salad girl at all like because I just don’t like the color. Whole salad vibes but I do play a lot around with spinach and like steaming that and doing I call them warm salad bowls. So I do a lot of that because there’s so many things that are growing that you can harvest and as many like vegetable dishes like as I possibly can do is something I enjoy doing like spinach, peppers, onions, mushrooms, that kind of stuff.
Phil Bugler 16:20
I gotta say for me it’s anything grilled like there’s never a bad time to grill. I mean I’m a firm believer that but you know obviously grilling is associated with the summertime so grilling meats, hotdogs, hamburgers, all that stuff but what I like what I really the bottom is like, you really don’t get a chance to like grill vegetables all that much in LA times of the year because you know a lot of the good vegetables to grill and available outside of the summer season like squash and zucchini and eggplants and all this stuff it’s not as readily available. So I really love like having just a like I got downs plate but like everything’s built on it. I Just keep leaving nothing. Nothing can beat it for me.
Joey Phoenix 17:04
I totally agree and I’m definitely lucky I grew up mostly live in the south so like I got to grill all year round. Are you both from New England like what’s kind of like your culinary background when it comes to like regional food?
Phil Bugler 17:16
I was born and raised Massachusetts my whole life up until I was when we moved to Providence is the first time I lived anywhere else learning math, so But Daywas a little bit different.
Daybar 17:28
Yeah, so Phil’s from the North Shore but my family came here from West Africa. I was born in Ivory Coast, but my family’s originally from Liberia. So I have a lot of different food influences. And I think because of that I’m I’m more willing to risk and like try different things. And I like unusual foods. I thoroughly invite them and encourage people to try different things. But it’s funny like the last couple months, I’ve really been trying to learn how to cook as many of my cultures food as possible. And the irony is Burrito loves it like Burrito… I mean for a while we couldn’t figure out how to give him like dinner like solid dinner foods that he would enjoy. And my I went to my sister’s house my mom and my sister and my mom was just making rice and soup and she made this dish and Burrito ate the entire bowl. Phil and I almost passed out because we’ve never seen him. I’ve ever seen him eat an entire like bowl of anything for dinner. That was like the bane of our existence was giving him dinner foods. He wouldn’t eat anything. And also there he is eating African soup and rice and I’m like, Wow, dude, like, why did I not think of doing this before? So he’s reignited my curiosity, like learning how to cook for things. And while I have my mom, I’m just trying to soak up as many recipes from her as possible.
Joey Phoenix 18:47
That’s so exciting. Like, what what sort of things are you planning to cook like soon? Like, what are some recipes that you’re just like, Okay, I’ve got to do this.
Daybar 18:53
So I’ve been trying to do an elimination diet. This isn’t really cultural at all, but I’ve been trying to do an elimination diet. If you follow me on Instagram at all, I had a couple of weird reactions to things and I think they’re food related and I still haven’t figured them out. So I’ve been working with this really cool doctor on the north shore to try and figure out what the hell it is. And we both are completely like stopped. So I’ve been trying to do different elimination diets, and this has been really sparking me looking for new recipes for things. So I’ve actually started doing a lot of like grain bowls, things with portobello mushroom in it because it’s big. It’s got that like meaty bite to it. It’s thicker and chunkier makes me feel a little bit more full. So I’m looking for like vegetarian vegan alternatives to things but which is weird because that’s normally not what I do. So that’s what I’ve been really into as far as like, recipes and I’m always on the hunt for something. I guess the main thing that I look for is something that looks really filling. I have this thing in my head that like just eating but it must be an African thing. I don’t know. But eating meal with just vegetables and no like protein or meat on the side isn’t like a real meal. So I’ve been really looking for sturdy, vegetarian and vegan options.
Joey Phoenix 20:08
Yeah it’s so hard. I’m actually a vegan. So like, I totally recognize the difficulty. Because like, there’s no way to replace meat. Like it’s just not a thing that’s possible. I definitely recognize that challenge. I think like food is nourishment and like, it’s definitely something that I’ve considering, like, you know, currently finding ways to like recharge and like refresh ourselves, like take care of ourselves, like food is an important part of that. And I think like both of you probably fundamentally understand that like, how to use food to recharge, and I kind of want to see like you could speak to like, why it’s so important to consider what you put in your body when taking care of yourself during like a pandemic, for example.
Phil Bugler 20:51
I’m gonna start this off by saying that this is something I’m still learning about. I always been a person felt like a My adult lifetime like I’ve never really cared about what I ate I’m just like you know what? Oh new food let’s try it or like this food like let’s have it like I don’t really care like I didn’t really care about like what I put in my body I guess. Um But now that I’m in my 30s I’ve been forced to change that I’m like oh yeah it’s like not as easy and like, if I have a big meal at like 11 o’clock at night because we’ve had a late night like I feel it the next morning where five years ago I’d be up and getting ready to go so I for me, I would say like, my big thing is like I’ve been trying to work on a cutoff time on like, after eight or nine like only like water and maybe some foods or something. Because I know that they say like when you eat doesn’t matter, like for on calorie intake, but for how you feel the next day I feel like it makes a huge difference for me.
Daybar 21:55
I’d have to second that because for most of my life, I’ve never really had to worry about Like eating or think about it very much knife like always had this really great metabolism. And then after I had Burrito just like a slippery downhill slope, like that was what I had before having him I if I even put in my body, it was just like, who knows what kind of reaction I’d have. So I feel I feel like 2018 after March, after March of 2018, when Burrito was born is when Phil and I really started thinking more strategically about what we’re eating when we’re eating it, how it was making us feel, because I think we both started to feel different action, and we were definitely not getting any younger. That’s, that’s for sure. Um, but we do reserve some leniency when we’re exploring new things. We recently went to Providence for Father’s Day, and we we might have overdone it a little bit. That was like a special day and, and we’re kind of like balls to the wall. It’s Father’s Day. But typically, like during a normal week, we really try to be mindful now since having read about what we’re doing and how we’re when it comes to food and stuff.
Joey Phoenix 22:59
That sounds like A wonderful day like I love days where you’re just like, I don’t care what happens it’s just like enjoy all of it and you’re like rolling around later. Kind of miserable but also really happy. It’s a good feeling
So what what’s exciting about food on the North Shore right now what are like some places that you just like can’t stop thinking about?
Phil Bugler 23:15
I’m gonna start off by saying like everything because now that like, most places won’t, at least the places that survived because not all of them did. Sadly, most of the ones that survived to open it back up like I just want to hit all of them. And I know that like we need to pace ourselves a little bit like I can’t do seven meals or 10 meals in one day. But I really like him personally I’m really looking forward to getting back to like just walking down down Salem and during the day when we stop into like five different places and just like check them out a little bite at each.
Daybar 23:49
What I’m looking forward to is Uncommon Feast. We did go there I want to say in April, just like show, show support and then try some of what she was doing up there and Check out the marketplace, but we haven’t been back since and now that it’s opened back up, she’s doing a lot of these really fun pop up dinners and they’re like, it’s like private dining events. So it’s kind of like basically we’re doing for our supper club, but like a little bit different, and they’re all themed, which I think is amazing. She doesn’t have the luxury of having like a massive outdoor dining space like some of these restaurants do. So she’s had to be really really creative. I also am excited to see what her indoor marketplace looks like she’s done produce that was for sale kind of like an indoor grocery store. But uncommon fees is 1,000% a place that I think they had like a variant pop up like that just very pop up on the North Shore like whirls can you get that? And in the not the entire thing was planned down to and pared down to the alcohol. First quarter, second quarter, third quarter, so I wasn’t there. I’m sure she killed it. I was a little envious. So that’s one place. I’m definitely looking to get a private dinner.
Joey Phoenix 24:58
It’s really exciting. I’m a huge fan of Uncommon Feast, I think like the Lynn food seem to have been really surprising recently. Yeah. So I was just grateful to you both for taking time to talk to me today. And I’m really excited to see like, what new podcasts can be released over the next few weeks with all the changes? For sure. Yeah, it’s really a pleasure having you both.
Daybar 25:20
Thank you for having us!
Unknown Speaker 25:24
The Chaos Within is produced by Creative Collective. Creative Collective connects creativity, community and commerce across the North Shore. As a collective of creative professionals, small businesses, organizations, and individuals. They coordinate a series of events, traditional and non traditional marketing initiatives, resources and best practices to define why creativity matters in all aspects of life.
Joey Phoenix 25:47
In the beginning, there was chaos. Then you make it yours.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
