Guidefitter Spotlight Episode 05: Jennifer Scism, Co-Founder/Head Chef at Good To-Go

Transcript

Bryan Koontz (00:02) Hey everyone. Following is a conversation with Jennifer Scism. She's the founder and CEO of a backpacking camp food company called Good To-Go. I enjoyed this conversation with Jen. It's pretty clear that the passion she has for food comes through in her company. Jen was a classically trained chef at an institute in New York, worked in several very fancy restaurants in New York with Michelin ratings, and then decided to...

get out of the city, escaped to beautiful Maine where she really enjoyed backpacking and still enjoys backpacking and fishing and being outside along with her husband and turned her love of the outdoors and her passion and experience for great food as a chef into a company called Good To-Go as a great dehydrated food company. So join me in this conversation with Jen. We delve into the differences between freeze dried and dehydrated foods and talk a whole lot more about her and her company. Welcome to the Guidefitter Spotlight.

Bryan Koontz (00:00) Hey Jen. I'm well. I have to tell you and I'm a little bit sucking up to you but also because I was hungry. I literally just slammed this before I got on the phone with you. I slammed some smoked three bean chili. I didn't.

jennifer (00:08) Hey Brian, how are you?

Oh, nice.

Bryan Koontz (00:28) We are at altitude. I'm at about 5 ,000 feet. And so I needed it to be another five minutes, but I didn't want to be noshing while talking to you. So anyway, I'm a big fan of the smoked three bean chili. So just, you know, yeah. So I'm stoked to talk to you because A, I'm a consumer of Good To-Go for sure. We'll get into like how I'm using your stuff and all that. But also I think,

jennifer (00:40) Oh, awesome. Great. I'm glad. I'm glad you like it. Thank you.

Bryan Koontz (00:57) A lot of the Guidefitter audience, you know, I think that, I think there's some that use camp food all the time and they love, you know, backpacking food and they understand its conveniences and how yummy it can be and all that stuff. And I think at the other end of the spectrum, there's people who have maybe like walked by the rack at a store and, you know, they know about it, but maybe have never tried it. And so I think there's a whole lot of education just about what is camp food, different kinds. And, and then obviously getting to know you because I think your story is pretty unique.

jennifer (01:03) Mm -hmm.

Bryan Koontz (01:27) You, your stuff's not made by a whole bunch of machines. You, you are the machine and you're, and your colleagues that work with you. So I'm excited to dive into all of it, but maybe just start off by like telling us a little bit about you. Like you, you know, you didn't start off as a chef. You kind of got there through a serendipitous route. So yeah, I would love to hear more about that.

jennifer (01:30) No.

Sure.

Right. Well, I kind of, I was forced to be a chef probably by the age of five, being that my mother hated to cook so much so that out of the desire to live, I just started cooking for myself.

Bryan Koontz (01:58) the desire to live. OK, got it. Right.

jennifer (02:01) She hated cooking and she went to work, I think, when I was seven. So from then on, I kind of came home and started cooking for myself. And I would definitely rip off restaurants that we went to. So we went to this one restaurant called The Samurai that was kind of like Benihana. So I would come home and make, you know, sesame chicken. And I loved fondue. There was a place called the Fondue Pot.

And so I was probably 10 and saying, mom, can you get me some Swiss Cheese and Chablis at the grocery store this week? And, you know, because all white wine at the time was Chablis. So, yeah, I started. I'm like 10, I'm 10, I'm 10, I'm 10. Exactly, exactly. So I started cooking really, really young. It's just something that I always loved and I was I was good at. And it was funny because my

Bryan Koontz (02:40) Okay. And wait, wait, you're how old when you're asking your mom to buy Chablis? Okay, mom, buy me some wine so I can cook with it. Okay, got it, yeah.

jennifer (02:58) my family was not into food. I'm actually adopted. I was like, it's so clear I'm adopted. And they, they were just not foodies. And they, they, I'd be like, do you guys want to have whatever I'd make like tacos? And they're like, no, we're just going to have catches, catch cam, which would be like nuts, cold cereal, and like either hot dogs or something. And I'm like, okay, no, no, not my thing. So I always loved to cook. And it wasn't until.

when was it? 1990 that I was really into it and decided to go to culinary school. So yeah, my life changed then because it became a career. But it was, I love it. So.

Bryan Koontz (03:45) And I think there was a story there, you were working at another completely separate, different industry entirely, I think.

jennifer (03:48) Yeah, yeah, I was working. My degree in college was in design, so I was a junior designer at an architectural firm and I'd been there for four years. It was in New York and there was a bit of recession. They were laying people off in my office and I kept thinking like, oh, what am I going to do? And I started looking around in New York City and there was a cooking school called the French Culinary Institute. And so I went down there and I spoke to them and I said, well, you know, I can I can.

come to your next class if I get laid off, but I need to be laid off. I can't just quit." And they're like, oh, you seem like good head on your shoulders. You're not going to get laid off. And I was like, oh no, I will. It's just a matter of time. And so literally, I think it was the next week I went in and they did it in mass grouping. Like three or four people would get laid off at a time in a conference room. And I got called in and I was like, yes. And then when I left, my boss was outside the conference room with this really sad face like, oh.

I'm so sorry. And I was beaming. She's like, could you act sad for one minute? And I was like, mm. So yeah, exactly. So I started cooking school. It was a great program, six months. So I didn't have to be in there for years at a time. So I got out and I started working. I think my second job was at a restaurant called Blu -Lay, who at the time had four stars from the Times. It was the top rated Zagat restaurant in the city.

Bryan Koontz (04:52) How's that?

jennifer (05:14) So yeah, I got a really great start and cooked in several New York Time rated Michelin Star restaurants. And in 2010, I, sorry, 2000, I opened my own restaurant with my business partner, Anita Lowe. And at that point I actually moved to the front of the house and I became the general manager in the sommelier. And we had a three -star.

Bryan Koontz (05:23) Yeah.

jennifer (05:40) New York Times restaurant with a Michelin star and I had that for 10 years in New York. So I was definitely the whole restaurant route was my was my thing. Never, ever thinking that I would get into food manufacturing for backcountry and hikers, campers, guides. Yeah, never in my wildest dream. We actually have a store up here in Kittery called

Bryan Koontz (05:44) Wow.

Totally.

jennifer (06:09) KTP, Kittery Trading Post. It's a huge store. It's iconic. And when I first moved up here, I was coming up in 2006 as a weekender and my friend Joanne took me in there and we started just cruising around the store and I was like, wow, this place is amazing. I got upstairs and she showed me the whole line of camping food and I didn't even know what it was. I had to pick up the bag and read it. I was like,

What do you do? She's like, you add water to the bag. And I'm like, God, that's just so weird. AKA, you know, eight years later, I'm starting my own company and I'm doing that. So yeah, that's.

Bryan Koontz (06:42) Ha ha ha.

Sure, here you are.

Well, as a Michelin star, it was probably maybe even almost like somewhat sacrilegious. You just add water to food and you call that good as a Michelin Star rated restaurant person.

jennifer (07:00) After I started Good To -Go, my motto was changed and it's like, I will make the best food in a bag that's ever out there.

Bryan Koontz (07:10) Perfect. I love it. Isn't it just as a slight aside, I still think it's funny that the Michelin rating for restaurants is like somehow related historically to the tire company. It's still so funny just with traveling around and how that's become a thing. Yeah. There's a crazy history there for anyone who's interested. Go Google it. It's pretty wild. And I know that gives me an idea. Like, I wonder, maybe at some point you could start some sort of a rating system for for camp food, because, you know, I bet you'd win.

jennifer (07:21) Yeah, the big white balloon -y guy. Yeah. Yep.

Bryan Koontz (07:39) So, you know, that was that was without.

jennifer (07:40) Oh, thank you. Well, there's plenty of writers out there that are giving their input. The interesting thing about food, which I appreciate, is it is subjective. So that what one person likes, another person may not like. Actually, when we first started, one of our first meals was our Thai Curry. And we did a tasting event locally in the...

an area called Pinkham Notch, which is in the White Mountains. And we had people try it. And so I kept asking everybody, you know, zero to 10 heat level. What what do you think it is? And I literally got people that were like, whoo, that's a 12 or like two. And so I'm like, OK, this is this is just how it goes. You got to listen to the masses. But everybody has their own opinion, which is the beauty. It's like.

Bryan Koontz (08:25) Yeah. Yep.

Totally right. That's like my dad can taste something and he's like, oh my God, so hot. And I taste it. I'm like, I don't really taste any spice. My mom, usually when I go visit my 82 year old mom and my dad, and she makes stuff a little bit more spicy for me. And then my dad just isn't able to eat it. And I'm like, I don't even taste any. So anyway, to your point, it's all over the place. And by the way, that is, I think this is one of your first, but that is my favorite good to go. That right there.

jennifer (08:38) You know?

Yeah, yep, the Thai Curry

Bryan Koontz (09:03) I have not had the Pad Thai, I haven't had that yet. But the Thai Curry is killer. So, super killer.

jennifer (09:11) It's funny because we always, every batch that's made, we test it and try it. And some people love to eat certain things, so they'll try it. But every once in a while, nobody's around and they're like, oh Jen, can you try the Thai Curry? And I try it and I'm like, wow, this is really good. It's like, oh yeah, I forgot. Or I do tastings. Every once in a while when we do like...

jennifer (09:39) you know, there's the outdoor retailer show and we'll do a tasting and I add boiling water to the bag and I look down and I'm like, God, that's a lot of water. Is this going to work? And he looks at me and then we wait the allotted time and I'm like, Oh, it did work. And they're like, why do you act like this is a surprise? And I'm like, I don't know. It just, it just seems like a lot of water in the beginning.

Bryan Koontz (09:55) There it is, yeah.

It same with me. It always seems like I added too much. I'm like, well, if it's kind of soupy, that's that's better than it being dry. But the thing the thing that's good about stuff like the Thai Curry and and some of the other things, the recipes that you make is, you know, I mean, I ever since I was little, I love being outside and anytime I can. And outside to me has always been like hot dogs over a fire or like a hamburger or like meat and potatoes. Like we'd make these things where you put it in a tin foil and it's like onions, potatoes and a little ground beef. And then you.

jennifer (10:08) I'm sorry.

Bryan Koontz (10:31) Overdone, overdone, overdone. The first time I ever used backpacking, what's the proper term? Camp food, backpacking food, what's the category called?

jennifer (11:24) Yeah, I mean, I would you can camp food backpacking food. I mean, it's it all really depends on you know, if you're backpacking, it's backpacking food. If you're if you're guides, it's camp food, you know.

Bryan Koontz (11:28) Camp food, okay.

It's backing pack. OK. Yeah, right. The first time I ever had any was years ago now when a couple of friends and I, I got talked into hiking Mount Whitney. It was great, great experience. And that was the first time I like a bottle of the tents and the backpack. And, you know, I first time I experienced like altitude sickness. That was not fun. But that was the first time I crammed a bunch of food. And I don't remember what it was because this was a long time ago. But I crammed as much as I could into my little bear vault. And.

jennifer (11:47) Mm -hmm.

Ha ha!

Bryan Koontz (12:04) And we cook, you know, that was my first experience with it. And then kind of fast forward to recently in the past couple of years, I moved from Austin, Texas to Montana. I didn't do a whole lot of camping in Texas, always hot. But when we came up here to Montana, my wife and I started camping a lot outside. We have a Jeep and we'd find all these amazing trails and public land. And when we first started doing that, you know, my wife, Susan, would take a couple of days before the trip and she'd start cooking, right? Prepping and...

jennifer (12:15) Mm -hmm.

Bryan Koontz (12:33) putting stuff into Ziploc bags and having everything ready to go. And we have our little table with the propane stove. And it was great. Don't get me wrong. But the prep and the cleanup, and then of course we camp in bear country sometime. We're like, oh my god, we're cleaning out all these dishes and they absolutely still smell like the stew we just ate. And so it was through Guidefitter. We have partners like you and I was like, I'm just going to try the camp food thing. And.

jennifer (12:46) Oh god.

Bryan Koontz (13:01) It's so convenient and we'll never go back. It's just, we carry a little rubber made, small little rubber made container in the back of the Jeep. And sometimes in my truck when we go in the truck and it's got a, like a Jet Boil style thing. It's from Camp Chef called the Striker and some extra fuel and a whole bunch of food. And anytime we're hungry, whether or not we're camping or just out on a long drive, it's there. And I think I'm bringing this up because I'm betting I'm like maybe a lot of people, a lot of our members at Guidefitter and other people that,

I've maybe never really even tried or thought about the camp food. And the camp food game has gotten so good lately. It's not like it was probably not like it was 10 years ago even, right? I guess like.

jennifer (13:38) Oh yeah.

Yeah, when we started 10 years ago, I remember...

I met my husband in 2008 and he started taking me out on like, you know, one overnight trips and overnights I would bring like steak tips, like mashed potatoes, I'd put cryback everything. I'd, you know, it was the full nine yards, but then we started going into like long weekends, full weeks. And I was like, okay, I can't. Cause he started me out on some of the, you know, the, at the time.

the camping food that was out there and then his like rice and beans. And I'm like, dude, I can't do that. And so when it came to longer trips, I just started making stuff that was my comfort food and drying it on a little tabletop dehydrator. We'd go out and it worked really well. And I did that for years, literally probably five years. And then it wasn't until 2013, we went on another trip.

It was actually a bare boating trip and everybody was a sailor except for me. So I was made as the chef and I'm like, okay, but at the time where we were is, you know, at the end of a sail, everyone wanted to sit on deck and have cocktails. And I'm like, I don't want to be below. So I made all the food beforehand and brought down all Jen's camping food. And we had that for a week while we were in the BVI sailing.

Bryan Koontz (14:50) Ha ha.

jennifer (15:12) And people were like, oh my God, you should start selling this. And so it wasn't until that that I was like, really? And they're like, yeah, definitely sell it. So we did the research and there was the bar was very low at the time, very, very low. So there was, you know, Pasta Primavera, Biscuits and Gravy, but not Thai Curry or Pad Thai or things that were.

Bryan Koontz (15:26) Hmm.

jennifer (15:41) really my comfort food. So it wasn't until that that I was like, oh, I can do this. And we started off with three meals. Now we actually have 20 different meals, but it was a really a need that I saw. And that's how we were received. We were picked up really quickly by a lot of chain stores because they were like, oh, there's nothing like this. Now there's a lot.

Bryan Koontz (15:44) Yeah.

That's awesome.

Yeah, there's not that, that's. Sure.

jennifer (16:10) There's a lot more competition out there, but I still have my own story and I'm still cooking and I'm still coming up with stuff. So, I'm not going anywhere.

Bryan Koontz (16:16) Yeah. So you were really one of the first to bring more of like the gourmet different flavors of the world. It's not just your meat and potatoes stuff. Combine with like really good ingredients and that kind of stuff. And then you mentioned, so I think this is something that would be helpful to touch on and it's, you you guys live and breathe it and the whole industry, but there's still a lot of people that don't understand. You mentioned you started with a tabletop dehydrator. So I think in the world of camp foods, backpacking foods,

jennifer (16:24) Yeah, absolutely.

Bryan Koontz (16:46) There's dehydration and then there's freeze -dried. Maybe there's a third, I don't know, but it seems to be freeze -dried. Can you maybe just talk about like, what are the differences? Why do people care? What are the pros and cons? You guys are dehydrated, I think. So yeah.

jennifer (17:00) Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So we're dehydrated. And that came, was developed really because out of default, I didn't have a large scale freeze dryer. It wasn't something that I was familiar with. I had been drying fruits and vegetables and what, you know, whatever anyways. So it wasn't until I'm like, Hey, how about trying drying just meals? But so.

Dehydrating is a slow process. It takes for us kind of start to finish in our dryer, it takes about 18 hours. And what it does is our dryer actually works on kind of reverse refrigeration. It's not just blowing hot air over food and then it dries it, it actually comes off as the air.

moves over coils and then it condenses out. So it's a very efficient system as far as electrically it's a lot better. No, no for the it's actually made in a company here in Maine which is really nice so they they're just up the street so they can service us when we need help. And then freeze...

Bryan Koontz (18:07) Doesn't use a lot of power and juice and right, okay, okay.

Great.

And I mean dehydration, right? This is like people have been dehydrating food for thousands of years, right? I mean, this is not a, okay.

jennifer (18:26) Oh, sure. You just yeah, you you take food and put it out in the sun. And yes, it dries. Although to explain freeze drying actually has been around for centuries as well. But just in a more rudimentary phase in the high mountains where things would have sun and freezing that that's how things would be like fro like freeze dry. They'd be dried out.

Bryan Koontz (18:32) Yeah.

Hmm.

jennifer (18:56) from the sun, but they'd also be quote frozen. So it's a different process. So it actually is a, back in the day, it was a natural process. Not everybody had the ability to be, you know, at 15 ,000 feet and being able to do that, but it's an older process as well. Just much lesser known. But so, so dehydrating is really as simple as,

Bryan Koontz (19:12) Sure, right. Wow.

jennifer (19:25) taking whatever we cook and we usually cook almost everything before it's, we cook everything before it's dried. Just because it brings out flavors, we can combine flavor profiles. The cooking process is unique to our business. We call it the secret sauce. We might have some things that we buy that are already dried by somebody else, like our rices are made by another company.

But when it comes to like our flavor profile for the risotto, we make the pesto in -house. We cook fresh mushrooms. It's a process that really integrates the flavors into the Good To -Go meal. For freeze -drying, the process is somewhat similar and different. In the way that it's similar, some companies actually cook full meals like we do.

And then they go into large, they're kind of cylindrical tubes where you can walk in them. And those are then, and they usually run on a long period of time as well. It's not like just an hour or two, it takes several hours. And then those are then brought down to a very low temperature. My belief is somewhere around like negative 30 Celsius.

Bryan Koontz (20:50) Oh wow.

jennifer (20:50) And when that happens, what's the water that was in the product then actually turns into a vapor and that's then sublimated out. So the process leaves carrots, peas, you know, puffy and orange and bright green and they all look fantastic. The one downside that for my...

Bryan Koontz (21:02) Got it.

jennifer (21:20) for my belief, this is not across the board, but what I believe is when that happens, the freezing actually breaks down the cell structure of whatever you're talking about. So if it's a vegetable, when you rehydrate it, it rehydrates quite quickly, but because the cell structure has been broken down, it becomes mushy. There's no way around it. Like it's just the kind of the process.

Bryan Koontz (21:33) Hmm.

Hmm.

jennifer (21:49) It works better for certain ingredients like meats end up doing well because they can rehydrate really quickly. But for vegetables or anything that you want like a little bit of chew, it doesn't come back as well. So we have, you know, big florets of broccoli and cauliflower in our Thai curry and those, you know, when they're dry, they look like little shriveled up.

Bryan Koontz (22:02) Yeah.

jennifer (22:16) But when they come back, they look like broccoli and cauliflower and they have a toothiness that I really appreciate. I believe that you first you eat with your eyes, your smell, and then also you want some tooth. I have teeth and a jaw for a reason. I don't need to drink all my food through a straw. So exactly. So those are kind of the difference of the processes. And then some companies,

Bryan Koontz (22:31) Yeah.

Through a straw, right. Right, right, yeah. That makes total sense.

jennifer (22:45) rather than cooking their food as Good To -Go does, they'll procure individual ingredients that are dried, either freeze dried or dried, and then mix them together and create a meal. So they're never cooked in the sense that they've,

Bryan Koontz (23:13) the flavors milled. Yeah, right, yeah, right.

jennifer (23:13) let the flavors meld exactly. And that's where as much as I would love to cheat and say like, Hey, let's try that. It's the secret sauce kind of always wins in the end. It's like, you need the secret sauce. So, so we do the secret sauce.

Bryan Koontz (23:28) Sure. Yeah. Well, that feels like a heavy shortcut, too. That's not really cooking anymore. That's putting puzzle pieces together. Yeah, it's combining. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Yep.

jennifer (23:38) It's combining. I mean, it's a way that you can make more cheaper, but you know, the secrets also has some love in there, so you know, you can't just buy that off the shelf.

Bryan Koontz (23:50) Totally, yeah, yeah. I get it, I get it. Well, I think that, you know, camp foods in general, and you know, certainly good to go, but I think that with the guide community, you know, I've certainly been on my share, fair share of guided trips, hunting, fishing, and other things. And I think there's so much opportunity for a guide to really stand out.

by doing real little things. Most of them are already clued in. The style of hunting I do here in Montana with a great outfit called Raw Hide up by White Sulphur Springs, they have a lot of access to private land and it's really great, some leases. And so we drive around in trucks a lot with them. And so you spend a lot of time with your guide in a vehicle.

And oftentimes if you see something, then you jump out and you might end up all day not by the vehicle at all hiking and all that. But the point is you have kind of a home base, which is the vehicle, and you're sometimes an hour or two hours away from the actual camp. And so I've often thought like, man, I just wish this guide would offer me like, do you want a hot cup of coffee? Like, yes. Or do you want like a minimum? The minimum is you want a bottle of water, you know, and and and wouldn't it be great to like, say, you know, like, because we get up really early and if it's like.

jennifer (24:50) Mm -hmm.

Bryan Koontz (25:05) 10 a .m. it would be great for that guy to say, hey, let's take 20 minutes. Let me make you a hot meal in the back and pull out just like I have my little Rubbermaid thing. I said, you know, pull out something like would you like some oatmeal? Do you want some scrambled eggs? And how awesome would that be? And I don't know of anyone who does. I'm sure there are people who do that. But I think, you know, to all the guys listening, like that's a little thing to do.

jennifer (25:19) Alright.

There are guides that actually not as much hunting guides, but more backpacking guides that we've known that my husband David worked with for years. And they turn on their clients to like, here's our meal. This is what we're having. And then they're like, oh my God, I got to get this stuff. So yeah.

Bryan Koontz (25:34) Yes, true. Yeah.

That's true. I think, right, the hiking community and maybe even some of the fishing community, like I've been on some drift boat fishing trips and they'll stop and whip out a little cooler and there's some sandwiches and stuff and, you know, prepped and all that. But I think there could be more and certainly in the hunting community.

jennifer (26:05) There could definitely be more. I remember the, the, my first guided fly fishing trip I took when I was doing a food event in, I think I was in Breckenridge and we went out on this fly fishing tour and the guide was like, okay, do you see the fish? Do you see the fish? I will admittedly say I, I love fishing and I'm a, I'm a bait caster, but like I suck.

that day. I couldn't see the fish. I couldn't. I my casting. I was like, my God. And thank God for him, because I was like, can you just catch some fish so that I can see this happen? Because it's beautiful. And I'm having no luck anyways. So he ended up catching this beautiful trout. And I'm like immediately thinking like trout, almond, Dean with, you know, sliced almonds and brown butter and capers and some fresh parsley. And he's like, it's Colorado.

Bryan Koontz (26:36) Yeah.

Right.

jennifer (27:04) This is Catch and Release. And I'm like, I'm like, what?

Bryan Koontz (27:05) Catch and release, yeah, right. Yeah, that's right. Well, if you want, you know, what you could do, like we go sometimes way up in the mountains. There's little mountain streams and I'll catch these little tiny like Yellowstone cutthroats that are fun to catch and or on lakes and stuff. And so, you know, we were, as you and I were talking before we started the interview, like that's a cool thing to just cook up some fish that you caught.

jennifer (27:12) That's criminal!

Bryan Koontz (27:34) and maybe have a side as one of your packaged foods like the mushroom risotto or something like that. It doesn't have to be the full meal. Cook that fish. Bring your butter and your salt and pepper so you can in a little frying pan and do that kind of thing. That makes a ton of sense. So what's next for Good To-Go? I mean, one thing I was thinking is, so I have a good friend of mine I've known for now 15 years. He's Turkish.

He lives in California now, but he's Turkish. And I just had the chance to visit with him. And usually when I visit with him, we go have amazing Korean barbecue. But then we usually go have some really authentic Turkish food as we did this time. And he's ordering in Turkish. And we explain everything. I'm just, we over -ordered as we always do. And then he sent me a really thick Turkish cookbook for Christmas. And it's amazing. And I'm leafing through it. And it's just like all these flavors and everything. It looks good. And I was just thinking and anticipating talking to you like, you know,

jennifer (28:18) I'm sorry.

Bryan Koontz (28:31) I'm not aware. Maybe there are companies like yours that are sort of expanding their product line to different cuisines of the world. You know, you're already doing that obviously with a lot of your stuff, but I wonder is that part of the future of Good To-Go? Or what is the future of Good To-Go? Where's this going? Where's your company headed?

jennifer (28:46) Well, that's kind of the, that's the inception of good to go and the future of good to go. So, um, in 1998, I took a year off and my business partner and partner, Anita and I traveled the globe, literally traveled around the world for an entire year with the, the only intention to eat. And we went through Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Greece, Spain,

France, like we just traveled and it was all about what we could eat and what we could learn. And even though we were in New York with a lot of really great restaurants, restaurants that were, you know, made by first generation immigrants, there's still nothing like going and eating chili crab in Singapore. That's, you know, just like blew your socks off.

Bryan Koontz (29:15) Wow.

jennifer (29:45) So I've spent a lot of time traveling and eating and my husband and I always joke around like he'd be like, oh my God, I had this amazing blah, blah, blah here. And I'm like, well, I, when I was in Vietnam, I had a Banh Mi sandwich on the beach that was served to me. But, you know, and so we'll, we, we always talk like he's talking about his cool trip, you know, as he like,

Bryan Koontz (29:45) Wow.

jennifer (30:09) he climbed Akakanga with his first wife. I'm like, thank God there was a first wife to do that with because the second was not going to be that. And so like, yay, thanks for her. And but and then I'm talking about like, oh my God, when I went to Japan and I had this amazing like chicken barbecue in the in the basement of a restaurant in Tokyo as there was an earthquake going on and you know, it's just like all this crazy stuff.

Bryan Koontz (30:15) Not doing that. That's funny.

Gosh.

jennifer (30:39) Not crazy, but there's a lot of earthquakes in Japan, which I did not know that until I spent some time in Japan. So so that is definitely my premise of being in New York. I moved there and, you was just blown away by the Indian food. Like I said, Thai food, Vietnamese food, mostly the the the Eastern food that I never got.

Bryan Koontz (30:40) OK. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah. Very true.

jennifer (31:09) growing up in Cleveland, Ohio. So, you know, there was, there was very, there was Italian restaurants, but not even like Italian Italians, Italian Americans. There was Mexican, you know, there, so I never really got amazing food until I moved to New York. And then I was just blown away and I couldn't, you know, and you could go to like a hole in the wall and not, you know, I was broker than broke.

Bryan Koontz (31:11) Yeah, right.

jennifer (31:37) but you could spend $20 and have like an amazing meal. So yeah.

Bryan Koontz (31:41) Well, those holes in the walls are usually where you find the little authentic gems with grandma in the kitchen or something, you know? Yeah.

jennifer (31:47) Absolutely. So that was that was my that was my passion. My go to I mean, I you know, people come into my my kitchen and they're like, oh my God, you must have 500 cookbooks. And I'm like, yeah. And and the problem with that is, you know, and that's so I just love to to to try new things wherever I go. Actually, the the risotto that.

Bryan Koontz (31:59) Yeah, right, right.

jennifer (32:17) we have in our line was inspired by my trip to, I went to Vin Italy, which is the, I think it's the world largest wine fair. And it's in Vin Italy. It's in Verona. And if it's still there, I don't know, but I went there in the 2000s and I went there and we went to this amazing restaurant in Verona that they served wine as you got.

Bryan Koontz (32:29) Venna? You said Venna? Vin. Is it north, south? Where is Vin? I don't know. Okay.

jennifer (32:47) better and better wine, the glasses got bigger and bigger. Literally, they were like the sides of your head. And one night we were, our hosts had us in the cellar in the basement of this restaurant and we had multiple courses, but one of them was this amazing mushroom risotto that I was just like, this is to die for. And so that's kind of where I get my inspiration is like, oh my God, actually,

Bryan Koontz (32:53) Oh my gosh.

Hmm.

jennifer (33:16) our marinara, my boyfriend in, I can't remember when, Michael Salvatore, his mom made the best, yep, his mom made the best gravy. It's not pasta sauce, it's not marinara, it's gravy. And gravy. And every Sunday, we would go over to her apartment on, I think she lived on McDougal, and she would make,

Bryan Koontz (33:24) This one, La Pasta Marinara

Gravy, okay?

jennifer (33:43) Pasts Fazool she makes all kinds of things, but this big pot of marinara was always on the stove and she taught me how to make it. And it's very simple, just a lot of patience. And so, all of, like literally everything that I make is somewhat inspired by my love of food and something I've loved in the past. So right now we're releasing,

we're going to start shipping it in the next couple of weeks, our stove free meals. And these are meals that you just add water, tap water to and wait 10 minutes. And so they're more like salads. So wrap your head around because people I've explained this to people know that they're like sans gross and it's not like cold soak. Like it's it's the process is the same, but it's meant to be a salad. It's meant to be served at room temperature. So it's not something.

Bryan Koontz (34:24) Hmm. Okay. I see, sure.

jennifer (34:42) that you're like, oh, I'm choking this down because I don't have a stove. No, it's meant to be stove free. And so the first meal that I came up with for the stove free is called the carrot ginger power bowl. But really what it is is my love of the Japanese carrot ginger dressing, you know, like that orange dress. I...

Bryan Koontz (34:48) I see. Huh. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah.

jennifer (35:10) That's it's like crack for me is like literally it's crack and I make it by, you know, the gallon and keep it in the refrigerator. And so I was like, oh, how can I make this dressing for our, our recipe? So through the secret sauce, we now have the carrot ginger, powerful, lots of ginger. Your mother might be like, Ooh, this is this is, or your dad might be it's spicy, but it's ginger.

Bryan Koontz (35:12) Hahaha.

jennifer (35:36) And it's got, you know, it's got carrots and hemp seed and wakame or seaweed. And so it's really delicious. But, you know, it's kind of where I now that everybody and their brother has jumped into the dehydrated, freeze drying food world, I'm like, OK, well, I'm going to go back to my old school, like coming up with innovative things, things that aren't everybody. Not everybody's doing it now.

Bryan Koontz (36:03) Totally.

jennifer (36:06) Everybody can get out there and try, but I'm the only one that makes the secret sauce for Good To Go. So.

Bryan Koontz (36:12) That's awesome. That is really, really cool. And you live in a beautiful part of the world. Like it's something from going from New York City to Maine. I've spent a little time in Maine. Many years ago, I did a project with Unum Life Insurance. I was a consultant type thing in Portland. And I remember Four Street and Street and Company. I ate more meals at those two places. Oh, man.

jennifer (36:35) 4th Street, did you have their smoked mussels?

Bryan Koontz (36:37) I think I had almost everything on the menu at the time because I ate there so many days.

jennifer (36:40) Smoked mussels with almond. Oh my God. They still have it. It's to die for. Yeah, I agree with you.

Bryan Koontz (36:44) Yeah, I could eat there I think every night. It was so good. It was so good. Well, this has been an awesome conversation. I could talk to you for a long time and I can see and feel the passion and I look forward to the menu continuing to expand. Look, there's always going to be folks that are like,

jennifer (37:04) Absolutely.

Bryan Koontz (37:10) Hey, when I'm camping or I'm out there in the back country on a back country hunting trip, I don't care what I eat as long as I'm full and all that. And that's fine. I do get that a little bit. But then there's going to be a whole bunch of other people that are like, well, if it's the same effort and it can taste amazingly delicious and I know I'm not eating a bunch of garbage, like, why wouldn't I do that? And if I can feel like I'm in another part of the world eating some awesome meals that I wouldn't otherwise even make for myself or have access to at a restaurant in town, why wouldn't I do that? So.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with in your experimental kitchen and in your head and whatever experiences you have. So, yeah, I'm sure it does. Yeah. Well, Jen from Good To-Go, thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate this. And again, Good To-Go is available at Guidefitter. Go check out all the recipes. When is the new stuff coming out? You said that's soon?

jennifer (37:43) It starts all up here. Excellent. We'll be releasing the the stove -free meals at the end of the month.

Bryan Koontz (38:05) End of the month. Awesome. All right. Thanks again, Jen. Appreciate it.

jennifer (38:09) You're welcome. Thanks, Brian.

Bryan Koontz (38:14) All right.