#106: Jeremy Umansky (Larder)

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:00:00]:

Come to it. We wanted people to walk in and kinda feel this, like, little bit of a not just a time warp, but like a societal warp. Like, we wanted you to come into larder, experience something from a sensory standpoint that was nearly overwhelming and overstimulated. Right? From the smell to the sights, to the sounds, and everything. So we wanted that to be hyperamped up because eating is a sensual act.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:30]:

Let's discover the Cleveland entrepreneurial ecosystem. We are telling the stories of its entrepreneurs and those supporting them.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:36]:

Welcome to the lay of the land podcast, where we are explore what people are building in Cleveland. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern. And today, I got to sit down with Jeremy Umanski, the renowned chef and owner of Larder. Larder delicatessen and bakery, as it is known in full, is an absolute staple and favorite of many here in 1 housed in the historic Ohio City firehouse where the from scratch Eastern European deli embodies Jeremy's philosophy with a focus on the use and promotion of sourcing and foraging local and wild food, cooking as seasonally as possible with minimal to no ecological impact on the environment, all without sacrificing on the intensity and the deliciousness of flavors and the overall experience. Larter was nominated by the James Beard Foundation as the best new restaurant in America in 2019, and Jeremy was further recognized as the best chef in the Great Lake in 20 20 and in 20 23 with his wife and co owner, Allie. Jeremy has a fascinating mind, and it was a genuine pleasure to hear his thoughts on things far beyond the realm of Larder. Although we do talk a lot about Larder 2 and his interests, in mushrooms and foraging, Koji, fermentation, culinary technology, sustainability, in Cleveland's food scene, fulfillment overall, his motivations, and and much more. This perhaps was of the most wide ranging and varied conversations we've had on the show so far. And as a big fan of Lardner myself, I had a lot of fun learning a lot more about Jeremy. And his story. So I hope you all enjoy my conversation with Jeremy Oumansky.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:29]:

The closing question that I will ask everyone who comes on the podcast is for their favorite hidden gems in Cleveland. And in my back of the napkin math here. My my feeling is that, perhaps, we've got the the Cleveland metro parks as the most widely loved gem. I'm sure. Which is, like,

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:02:50]:

duh. That's not really a hidden gem, yo.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:53]:

I well, I'm okay when people call it out because it is pretty amazing. But I think the The close second right after the metro parks might be lardered. Oh, man. Well -- People, you know, myself included really love larder. And I don't know if it is so much of a hidden gem anymore since since you had started it. But to start, I I did wanna, you know, let you in on this fun statistic.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:03:19]:

Thank you. Because there there's a lot of love for Lardner in the community. My light's a little washed out. Here, but I'm sure I'm blushing as red as my flannel is. So thank you.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:31]:

So, yeah, with that preface, you know, I I'm very excited to learn more about your own story and about the story of Larter and, you know, how how it came to to be, you know, 1 of most beloved Cleveland gems.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:03:47]:

Yeah. That's a really good question. How did it

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:51]:

Big tongue to be that. Yeah. And may and maybe to set the stage before we dive into all of it. You know? Assuming someone tuning in has never heard of nor been del Arder before, you know, What is Larder? Maybe let's just start with that, and we'll go backwards.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:04:05]:

Yeah. So Larder is an Eastern European Jewish deli. That being said, those have been many things in America at different points in time. So we wanted Larder to be reflective of 1, you would have found sometime in the nineteenth century as opposed to the twentieth or even the 20 first century. So from an aesthetic standpoint, Larder is in a building, a pre civil war building that was opened in 18 54. So they started construction on it considerably before then. It's in 1 of the older parts of Ohio City that was existent before Cleveland annexed Ohio City, and they became 1 city. So we kinda, you know, did that sort of neighborhood building, you know, we wanted to find things of that time period. And then we walk in, you know, Larder we retain as many original materials in terms of like wood and the molding and the walls and stuff as we could from the time period. And then things that we had to bring in like some of our shelving, our bookcases, that sort of thing, we found things of that period or within it that we could could bring in. And the idea was for someone to walk into a space that was gonna be brand new and feel like it had potentially been there for a hundred years already. Be. I think we did a pretty good job with

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:35]:

honing in on on that -- III would say so. Yeah. I mean, it it has AAA pretty unique aesthetic and and just feel to it. And then the the whole structure I mean, the Ohio City Firehouse is kind of this, like, iconic building.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:05:50]:

Yeah. I I mean, it is in itself. So and we wanted to honor that too. So it's it's really interesting that firehouse, at least in relatively modern times before it was decommissioned. So it was decommissioned at the bicentennial in 76. The cruise that were working in there were known for their cooking, and they would have, like, these open party. They'd open the doors and, like, be cooking, and they had picnic benches set up on the patio there. But what we have now is a patio. And they eat out there, and people from the neighborhood would come eat out there. I'm also told that this group of firefighters of that time period, kinda like a 30 year block leading up to the the house being decommissioned, was relatively known as, like, a Good Times party house. So they had a good time there. They cooked food. In fact, 1 of our neighbors in the area whose father was a firefighter at that station brought us a copy of the Sunday magazine that the plane dealer put out. Well, a photocopy of the cover from, I think, a year so before the firehouse was decommissioned, this might have been from, like, 74 midway through the year or so. Yep. They were on the front page of the Sunday magazine. Because they had just won, like, the national firefighters cook off for, like, the second or third year in a row with, like, their chili or something. I forget what the food item was, but They won the national firefighters whatever. So a lot of intentionality went into to finding larder, finding things from the period, and then also, like, cultivating this continued spirit of that neighborhood and what it was and what it's becoming. We just wanted to have all of that in 1 place. And and there's many places in Cleveland that have, like, those types of feels. You know, they've been around for a long time. So when we looked at we wanted this concept to be part of a revitalization of existing infrastructure. Like, where would we put that? You know, what type of building would it be in? What type of neighborhood and all that stuff? And we were fortunate enough to find find Grand VC and and Marika Shore Clark, like, the the couple that owned the Ohio City firehouse in it, everything just worked.

Jeffrey Stern [00:08:07]:

Yeah. We actually had Graham and Fisk on a while back to hear a story of their their wine in a can and their home in in the firehouse. But, you know, maybe as a as a way to, you know, hear the the story of of Larder. How is it that you guys came to connect? Did you have, like, Maybe, you know, just let let's go backwards a little bit. How how does Larder come to be going back to the original question? So, yeah, looping back in, my

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:08:34]:

maternal grandmother was a kosher caterer in Cleveland. I had 1 of the cinegags on the east side. So that's kinda how I got into this realm of food, like, specifically, like, Jewish deli, you know, kinda falling in through that. Line of exposure. I mean, I started working for her 11:12, 13. Like, it was before my bar miff. I'm not exactly sure of the age, but it's somewhere in there. I was definitely in the double digits. So, yeah, I that all imprinted on me very early. I left Cleveland for a while to go to culinary school and worked in New York City and all this. I met my lovely wife, who's a pastry chef, and my full partner at Larder and everything. Eventually, we got to the point where we were gonna go home, 1 of the 2 of us. And my wife was very adamant that we wouldn't go to her home, which is Norman, Oklahoma. And she really she fell in love with Cleveland and the community here and the people here and just everything about it. And she loves the 4 Seasons. She didn't have that growing up. So, you know, we we we ended up back here. And around this time, you know, a lot of information in the Jewish food world is coming out about how the delicatessen is going extinct. And the advertising store is disappearing, and now these food traditions, even though they're beloved by everybody, people wanna eat the food, but people don't wanna carry the torch. And our an original concept that my wife and I wanted to do when we relocated a Lin involved, like, kinda something similar to Larder, but not necessarily Jewish deli, more just broad delicatessen, you know, European imports, that sort of thing. And baked goods, and we were thinking about doing it at the west side market. So, you know, even before we just started Scott you know, saying, hey. We're gonna do another Jewish deli or do a Jewish deli. We kinda had this idea that we were gonna focus on, like, this kind of mass market European style quick cuisine, which is delicatessen fare, you know? Just done Right. Done in house and not done with, you know, bags of food that other people are producing, and then you're putting on a slicer. So Larder kinda morphed out of that as our careers got to a position when we were ready to take on something of our own instead of working for other people. We wanted to also people are nostalgic for things of a certain time in place. And that's great. But that makes food stodgy and uninteresting and uninspired and doesn't play against seasonality and and just natural variance in food and cuisine and a time and place. So we wanted to make sure that why we would use some of these archaic practices and method and technique within food production that we would still put modern sensibilities on the food we were we are creating. And it's evident in things like our black and white cookie is not the black and white cookie you find in New York City and New England. It's different. But it's the same spirit, same foundation. We just we love that cookie, but we wanted more butter flavor in it. So we had to do a different cookie base and You know? So there are things that we've put some newer sensibilities on through our lens of where we are and the ingredients we have and the people we feed. You know, so there there have been some modern changes to some of that thing. But, you know, come to it, we wanted people to walk in and kinda feel this, like, little bit of a not just a time warp, but like a societal warp. Like, we wanted you to come into Larder, experience something from a sensory standpoint that was near really overwhelming and overstimulated. Right? From the smell to the sights, to the sounds, and everything. So we wanted that to be hyperamped up because eating is a sensual act. Right? It is very romantic. It is very sensual. Whether you eat for food or you eat hedonistically, it's still a sensual act for anybody. You can't eat without engaging your senses. That's what sensuality is. So, you know, we really wanted to kinda fine tune, like, these foods, some of them are being forgotten and people are describing this type of food establishment at risk for going extinct. When we are going to, from a business standpoint, take a concept or mode of food or something that people don't know or is falling out of favor, that sort of thing. Like, realistically, how are we gonna be profitable if we're we're opening something that's going extinct? So we had to make sure we put some of these modern sensibilities on the food, local sourcing, which is important to us, deciding too that, like, we were gonna focus on in house production. And if it wasn't something that we could make, we weren't necessarily gonna offer it with a few of, you know, some really specialized local producers that do a great job. You know, we decided we would when it came to seafood, we live on the greatest fresh water resource in the world. And outside of a report that came out last week about, you know, these supposed PCBs and the not supposed, the concentrations of these forever chemicals. Piece fees and other things in our fresh water is way more dire than we thought it was. Outside of that, established me on Terra War for the products on our doorstep what is here, using what's here, instead of using fossil fuels and all sorts of other inputs to, like, fly things from the coast and this and that, We're like, no. There's people. There's an industry here. We can support it. And by our support, we can make it better. You know, we we decided we'd fine tune and dial in on all these things with our modern sensibilities and our approach to economics and food use and not throwing things out and or even composting them, like, find a way to sell them, get them into people's, but it bodies. You know? Just because some old textbooks says we can't eat this part of that doesn't mean it doesn't have culinary value. And so in another application that we can capitalize from an economic standpoint. And when we do that through our Motive Cuisine, we do that with uniqueness, rarity, you know, but also, like, this is simple. We made it. We made it some ingredients that are here, that are local with the technologies that we have here, which very similar to what you have in your kitchen. Yeah. So this is kinda all the things that went into what Larder is and why it is.

Jeffrey Stern [00:14:58]:

Amazing. So many fascinating topics here. I'll ask you about a few of them. Yeah. You mentioned, you know, the the carrying of the torch. Like, you know, may you could have just not had that desire. Like, where where did that impetus come from to be like, I will champion what is a becoming extinct concept.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:15:20]:

Sure. So I don't know why my brain is hired this way, but I'm hired with I'm I'm wired with a profound attachment to individuals and my my species, like humanity. And for whatever reason, I have a shared love for a direct individual just as much as I do all of humanity. And where I feel that we fit into the world. Right? Like, everything has a natural order, a balance. Like, we've proven this with harmonization and mathematics and astrophysics, like and then we see real life examples of this before our eyes just looking at our backyard. We see you know, this scientific concept in play out in the real world. Right? We have we have codified explanation for these things. So through that attachment and through my lines of being a Midwestern Jews family fled persecution several generations back, whether it's the classic joked about Jewish guilt, or this love I have for others in humanity, which has always been for me, as a person, has always been easier to love others than myself too. That's a you know, we all have our our personal defects. So through that, I've really been like, well, if nobody else is gonna do it, why I mean, I could do it. Like, I why not? Like, this could work. I have a skill set to do this 1 thing that in the grand scheme of humanity, let's face it. Like, I'm part of a religious group of people, an ethnic group of people we now know. There's a a some DNA markers that Jews have that others don't. Let's say they're actually Jewish. So I'm literally part of a we could argue a subspecies of humanity. That is about to go extinct. So the more I can do in my time and place to document, to engage, to preserve, some of what I think are the most beautiful aspects of my heritage and my personal culture and who I am. Through the intimacy and sensuality of eating, like I said, III could do it. Like, why not? It just made sense with all these things. Right? With, like, my individual burden I put on myself against a society with my my ingrained Jewish guilt and then with my passion, my obsession, and my skill set, like, this is what made sense.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:47]:

Was the the medium of expression always culinary arts? Like, did that develop from your time with your grandmother, or were you always just really passionate about food?

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:18:00]:

Looking back, it's always been food. And as a kid, it was very extreme. I remember yeah. I was like I I remember I was working for my grandma at this time. I but I was not in high school yet. I don't even know if I was in junior I might have been in, like, fifth or sixth grade. I heard that people eat insects, so I saved my allowance and went to the pet store and bought a bunch of crickets and meal worms and, like, was, like, toasting them in the oven with, like, spices from my mom's cabinet and, like, eating them and feeding them to other people. I think I read in an encyclopedia that people ate insects, and I was like, oh, this is cool.

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:40]:

Give that I was like, I'll eat a bug. Yeah.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:18:43]:

Yeah. So so, you know, even as a kid, I was doing that sort of thing. I think I did a lot of drugs as a kid, and I had this fascination with glass and glass pipes from wanna use and that sort of thing. But it parlayed into, like, other types of glass, and I became, like, really fascinated with mason jars. And I would, of course, like, store my drugs in them, but I don't know. 16, 17, 1 year, I baked, like, cakes and mason jars. I, like, canned them too after they were baked. Like, I soaked them in syrups and then canned them and gave, like, family, like, a trio of each 1. You know, for holiday gifts. I think I made, like, 40 sets that year. And I was like, oh, this is great. I don't have to, like, buy people things.

Jeffrey Stern [00:19:26]:

You can create them, man. I just give them food and love. People that's really all people who won. Yeah.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:19:32]:

So, you know, my my grandmother was a, you know, I guess, a professional cook even though she didn't cook so much as she directed the show. My mom is a a great cook. My dad would put together great salad night. He made he makes good tuna salad, and egg salad, and he does his salad bar. Right? So he loves, like, dicing the peppers and opening a can of garbanzo beans and some olives and sets up a whole salad bar, and everybody can make their own salad. Nice. So it's a little bit in the family too. You know, things get imprinted on you at an early age, and it's really fascinating too that we're gonna time and place in the 20 first century where I can take a feeling, an idea, and emotion, and turn it into an economic driver.

Jeffrey Stern [00:20:13]:

It's amazing. And I I'm I'm personally very grateful that you've been you've discovered this path because, again, the larger is amazing. Well, thank you. But but I'm just talking to humanity in general that we can we're at the the point in time where creativity

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:20:27]:

can be an economic driver. Does doesn't have to be based on the needs of society, like clean water, housing, industry revolving around those. Creativity is its own own industry. And we live in a period in time. Arguably, this has been going on for several hundred years, but humanity up until this point. Civilization up until this point couldn't enjoy that. So we're ridiculously fortunate. Incredibly so. I mean, we were just talking about somebody that can from home on a beach. Right. They don't have to be anywhere. All the work they have to do is in the another digital, you know, spaces. And as long as they upload to there and do what they need to do when they need to do it. They can be anywhere in the world doing anything they want. It's a it's a pretty wild time to be alive. It's amazing. Everybody should be really grateful. Let's treat the planet and each other better so we can keep doing this sort of thing. Right? Don't we all wanna get to a point where we can just be wherever doing whatever and still generating income to support our families, like,

Jeffrey Stern [00:21:25]:

let's do it. We gotta do it together if we all wanna do it, though. Everybody's gotta do it. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about creativity because, you know, 1 of the things you mentioned was how you try to balance paying homage to tradition and the traditional ways of doing things and respect for that. But you're also innovating and you're mixing in all these other influences

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:21:49]:

and and perhaps that's the creative part. How do you think about that? Innovation is something that for for me and how we work is is very logical. Because every time we Creativity is about creating delight and also solving problems. Right? A lot of times, they overlap. So for me, it's a very logical step. Because every time we solve a problem culinarily, right, what's the best cook on this or combination of flavors or this sort of thing. Like, we nail in, like, 1 key variable, but then there's all these others that are in flux. When we solve 1 problem, we inherently create all these others that we need to answer the questions for. So the creativity, the the finding new ways to do things and and and answer and solve and well, that's just a consequence of being in a time and age where these tools and resources are available. It's also being in settings where tools from 1 industry weren't necessarily prevalent in another or nonexistent. Now we're seeing crossover like the past 20 years of a lot of medical and chemical grade scientific laboratory equipment finding perfect homes in in kitchens. Things like immersion circulators, water bath holders, sous vide, you can get 1 for 79 dollars and have it in your home now. At 1 time in my career, 1 of those machines cost 1500 dollars and looked like it belonged in a laboratory instead of in a kitchen. So all of this, you know, has happened during my time and place. So creativity for us, access to simple technologies that we can because all these complicated technologies were extrapolated from simple ones. Right? We can always go back to the simpler versions of things and find ways that that work for us based on what our financial and general resources are. Mhmm. For example, I may not be able to afford the 10000 dollar version of a piece of equipment. But maybe the thousand dollar 1 can do the job I needed to do up to a certain level that's good enough for our quality standards. So, you know, these are these are things that we dissect, that we look at, and it's not necessarily about make things exciting and new. But for us, it's always about making things more delicious. Mhmm. And in and in economic standpoint, it's about efficiency too. So for example, if I invest 2000 dollars in a piece of equipment called a rotary evaporator, which allows me to remove. It's a distillation mash machine. But the distillation, we often think alcohol. I can distill water out of something. So For example, if I were to make a demi gloss, which is a sauce we use a lot, demi gloss is simply stock a lot of stock that's been cooked down to so little. Like, we're talking at the restaurant when we meet Demi, we will cook 5 gallons of stock down into 1 quart or 1 pint. We remove that much water. Yeah. So when we do that in an open pot, it takes a long time. So when especially as it gets down to the bottom when thing there's a lot of solids in there and things can burn, It has to be nurse. Someone can't walk away from it. It's very sensitive. This is hours of work. I can do the same thing in this rotary evaporator under a vacuum where I don't move any aromatic molecules to the air, so I can keep them all in the food itself. Inherently, before I've even started, my food will be 30 percent more flavorful than boiling this out in a pot. Because I've done it in I'm doing it in a vacuum. And time wise, it takes me maybe an hour to do the same thing that it took me 12 to 16 hours to do the conventional way. I can do this with a 2000 dollar piece of equipment, and this isn't the only thing I can do in there. I can do so many other things. That's just an example. So we can harmonize modern equipment and sensibilities with all these archaic traditions, flavor profiles, rooting in recipes, put all these modern efficiencies on these, and really be we're a 20 first century kitchen in a space that looks like it's out of 18 50. This is where we are looking at, you know, progression of innovation and what it means so many people have innovated. I think the innovative part now is the proliferation of information and data and technology. 2 wider groups of people. That is the innovation. That is the advancement of humanity.

Jeffrey Stern [00:26:26]:

This is why the printing press is the most important invention ever, and you can't argue that. You know? Well, someone said, some wise, person. I don't know who said it, but, you know, the future is here. It's just not evenly distributed.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:26:38]:

Exactly. In the future, it's been here. So, you know, that where we feel a lot of our innovation is is bringing more delicious through food through innovation and technology to you with with these archaic and and and Rudy cultural sensibilities. So, you know, that's that's where we look. If we're considered innovative for saying that we live in Cleveland and we will only source fish out of the Great Lakes, because we've been showcased by this fish council and that and written up about that sort of thing too. You know, if if that's innovation of saying like, no. I'm gonna use what's in my backyard. Because it's delicious and it's really, really low impact on everything else in the world compared to, you know, other ingredient inputs. Like, if that's innovation, okay. Right. It it doesn't need to be complicated to to be in -- It doesn't need to be complicated. Like, for like I said, a lot of these things for me are just very logical. It makes sense to only use seafood out of the Great Lakes if my restaurant is literally 3 breaks blocks from the greatest fresh water resource in the world. Like, why Right. I mean,

Jeffrey Stern [00:27:42]:

the the things that have worked for thousands of years, you should expect to continue. You don't need to, like, create all this new stuff Yeah. Yeah. Wait. Which actually I I know another influence that that you have, and I'd I'd love to hear about it and how it's how it's kinda layered into the larger technology stack, if you will, is is your your interest in in foraging and and fermentation. Yeah. -- as kind of a a separate strand here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:28:12]:

and luckily for me, like, as far as career wise go, like, the the foraging was something even as a little kid, my mom knew, like, half a dozen plants that just grew in the garden or the grass. She was a a very active gardener. So she knew a few of the quote unquote weeds that were edible. She knew the the local blackberry patch. She would take us to go pick in this little you know, thicken eat blackberries up the road. And so that was kinda even though we didn't do mushrooms or do a lot of stuff, That that all was, like, as a little kid. Like, yeah, there's food everywhere. It's just we gotta go to this trail to the berry patch or you know, this part of the yard for the what she called, Lemon Clover, which is Axales with SORL. You know? So that that was always there. The fermentation, the meat curing, and and all this stuff and working with molds and and everything. When I was in culinary school, was doing a lot of stuff. I was a full time student. I was pretty close to a full time land manager of a vegetable farm. That did a lot of work with the state ag school in New York, which is Cornell. So we did, like, seed testing of new hybrid varieties but we also did seed saving of old heirlooms and all this stuff in between. So I'm like working with like plant development for like flavor, and taste. I'm I'm working with a mycologist because we were like, well, what if farmers learn how to identify, like, 5 species of mushrooms concretely. And there was a verification program so they could, like, get these on their property. Or even help them in their fields because there's mycorrhizal inoculants that help with the soil and then the mushroom comes up and you got food too and all this stuff. So I was working with with Bill Bacaitis on that. He was a mycologist out of SUNY New Paltz, farming, And at that same time, I met a gentleman named Sander Katz. Sander is not a chef. He actually was He worked for the city of New York in, like, urban development or something like that, urban planning -- Mhmm. -- and a series of events in his life brought him to fermentation, and he is now known as the inspiration. I know he hates the term grandfather or godfather. But many people consider him that of the modern fermentation revival and movement we've seen over the past 20 years. At least in the western world, it can be taught, you know, brought back to Sander in his writings and everything he does. So I was literally doing all these things at the same time. Working I was killing animals on farms or I should I'm sorry. Not killing. Lottery animals on farms and butchering them and learning about charcuterie making and aging meat and all this stuff. And it all happened as I was getting this formal culinary education, and it just made sense me that, like, all these things go hand in hand. They all synergize with each other. They all go hand in hand. 1 technique can benefit another. And over time, you know, we've developed something where, like, and now I'm running a restaurant where our food cost hovers around 17 percent. The industry restaurant standard is 33 percent. Wow. Yeah. Now my labors through the roof because we do all these things to work with ingredients. But just through synergy of technique and byproduct, or leftover amounts of something from 1 recipe or yield can feed into something else and transform with time and some microbial activity and a little bit of salt. You know, we're able to pretty much not throw anything away, or I should say, we don't even throw organics away. We compost them. But not even compost organics until we've gotten a multitude of uses amongst many different components of any different ingredient. So that's that's, I guess, the non hour lecture version of kinda how all that met and and harmonized together and, like, why Larder is the way it is. And that was all imprinted on me very early in my formal career as a chef, and it all just just, you know, connected so many dots all at once. I mean, literally, it sits at the intersection of all your experiences and interests, and it's the manifestation of it in in some ways. Yeah. And from a historical context too and places where these types of food production are still just very widely and overtly produced as opposed to being, like, specialty like they are in some parts of the US. You know, these are all, like, normalized, widely accepted, widely distributed food waste. So it it shouldn't you know, we're not doing anything new per se. We're just doing things a little differently as we should be.

Jeffrey Stern [00:32:46]:

Right. What what does the commitment to using local Cleveland produce actually look like? How how do you go about sourcing and thinking about, you know, the the kind ingredients that that you have available and that that you want to use? Yeah. So we have 2 tiers of sourcing based on of seasonal availability.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:33:06]:

We have our first tier sourcing, which is direct with the producer in season, obviously, whatever it is. And we've worked with farmers in different organizations to do different things. So, like, for example, Ohio City Farm, we bought out, I don't know, 200 roughly pounds of carrots from them. They agreed if we bought it out at a certain price point that through the winter, they could store it in their cooler on the farm. And once a week, when I need 30 pounds, I can just text them and somebody comes up. So and we've done that with many different farm partners for many different ingredients, Yellow House cheese, which is in Medina County, we bought out the remainder of their turkey flock after Thanksgiving. So we have, you know, 50 locally raised turkeys that are nice and big. They're all like 30 pound humongous birds. And once again, they have them on their farm. They have cold storage. So, you know, they're it's not peak freshness. Right? But these animals were raised by those people, went to the processor. The processor froze them on-site, and they've been preserved in that state, you know, since they were slaughtered. So, you know, this idyllic of, like, well, let's kill the animal and then serve it right away. It doesn't work that way. You know, for many, many reasons. Because, essentially, too, and as far as animal slaughter is concerned, fresh meat is not good tasting for various reasons because of different enzymatic changes and fluid flush out of the body and all these things. There's flesh actually has to go through kind of like a little bit of a resting period before it's actually meat. Otherwise, it tastes like flesh, and most of us do not like that taste. It's raw. It's very irony. People now kinda describe that as, like, really gamy. Sometimes there can be musky or monkey musty sense on there from different glands in flesh that have different aromas. And, you know, when the animal's alive, it uses them. That's it produces BO in different scents and but those tissues originate in the muscle, and sometimes I gotta shrink up and enzymatically change and all this. So, you know, there's a a lot there's a lot that goes into kinda, you know, what we're gonna do, how we're gonna source. But we try to create partnerships with any of our farmers and say, if you plant this or raise this, like, we guarantee we'll buy it, you know, this much, or we'll say to them, if you're happening to do this, you know, we don't wanna see you lose money. We wanna get a good price. End of the close of a season, you know, a lot of farmers raise things specifically for seasons, lamb for Easter, turkey for Thanksgiving, that sort of thing. If we can go to a farmer and say, hey. Listen. Anything you have left over, we love your quality. We love what you're doing. Don't worry about your leftovers. We'll buy them. If we can come to a store solution. And that works out really, really well with a lot of partners. So, you know, not everything is always, like, as local as we want it to be. So we have different kind of specs based on some industrialized produced foods. So we do get certified Angus beef. We try to get the Ohio spec as first and foremost. It isn't always available. So sometimes we get from the other pool, but we identified a specific production method and, quote, unquote, brand, you know, of a way of producing and a quality standard that meets what we want. So that's what we can sub in, you know. I can get oil produced locally for my fryer. I have to buy it from somewhere. You know, there there's there's some of these things. We like vanilla. Vanilla doesn't come from here. You know? Right. We do there's there there are plenty of things that that we use outside of our sphere. But when we use those things, we try to use them in really appropriate and impactful ways. And if there is a season to things where they do come from, we try to get them within that season. But, yeah, you know, we're we're using as much local as we can at any given time. And during growing season here. We buy as much as we can, and we do various things, like, we'll make a sauce and we'll freeze it. You know, we preserve in different ways. We'd hydrate them so we can reconstitute them later. You know, we do all these this stabilization manipulation with with these ingredients so that we can use them as much of the year as we can without having to be like, oh, crap. Now I gotta order to us from California because it's not local season or something like that. We simply say, well, when they're these ingredients aren't available here, we're not gonna really use them. I'll have ketchup year round and it's Heinz. We've tried to do the artsy farties and the ketch ups and all. People don't like them for various reasons. You know, Heinz is it. So we'll have that year round. But outside of that, you know, any tomatoes on my menu right now are, like, green or pickled or something of that matter.

Jeffrey Stern [00:37:42]:

Yeah. Well, that's I think 1 of the the fun things is there's always something different. You have Staples, but it's, you know, whatever you have access to, it kinda determines what

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:37:52]:

what you can offer. Well and that's it. And that's where I think as society has progressed, this is where we've lost the This is where us, as we're working to create a society where everybody does so good so we all can have these awesome things. Right? We've gotta put the fun in the hedonistic pleasure back into food and stop commoditizing it and trading it as a future.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:15]:

Say a bit more about that because I, you know, I want like, the the funny, you know, joke version of that is the the sexual leanings of your your Instagram posts. But, like,

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:38:24]:

Is that is that what you're getting at? Or like Well, no. No. What I'm getting at is, like, a larger structure, like, we've gotta take food subsidies that we as taxpayers say, for our government to to put into certain areas, we gotta take them out of, like, corn and soy and switchgrass and that sort of thing. And we've gotta start maybe not even completely take them out, but start putting some of that money into, like, tomatoes and lettuce and fresh meat for people that don't have access to it and you know, we complain about the true cost of food and inflation and what it is to go dining. The true cost of food, oh my god. If wheat and soy in corn production were not subsidized in America, do you realize how expensive these things would be? I don't I don't think I do. No. Yeah. I I mean, magnitudes of tens to hundred times more expensive than any of them are now. So and in some cases, we have the federal government paying farmers not to plant specific crops or grow nothing at all on their fields. So that they can qualify for some of these subsidy programs and this and that. So we've just gotta put that money in the smarter locations. You know? If we're gonna feed people. And if we want to recognize that, like, you know, economically, a tomato could make a lot of money, we've got to start restructuring our food systems too because we've got to put deliciousness first. That's the only way we can really charge more money for the things that we create. If they are that much more delicious than something else, then we can truly do it. So we've got to get back to food systems that focus more on deliciousness instead of transportation and shelf stability. Right? We picked tomatoes when they're green in the field, and we put them in the big trucks that are filled with ethylene gas to ripen before they get to the grocery store. And because if it's a forced ripening, it doesn't happen with the on the plants and the sugar development and all the flavor development, it's all different. Right? It's just an aesthetic ripening, not a deliciousness. It's not a quality standard. It just means we can ship them without bruising them when they're ripe and soft and everything and get them to the market and make our money. Well, if we kinda realized that we should probably eat as seasonal as we can based on where we are, and we can enjoy foods from other places, you know, as kind of a treat or not a normal thing all the time. You know? We can still have our Great Lakes version of cuisine from Oaxaca with some preserved tomatoes instead of some fresh ones. Like, it's Like, we can still create those great tacos and all that stuff here. We just have to think about how we're doing these things differently and use what what we have. Right? Or create great systems that are going to allow us to have more without doing any damage to the outside world. Simple things like putting covers on our crops, literally putting a blanket on your crop will allow you to grow lettuce in Cleveland right now. It's that simple. And maybe a little space heater if if your garden's big enough. You know? So very simple straightforward technologies. Like, we we can do that. We've just gotta start reevaluating all this stuff from the top down. And these are big conversations, and they're gonna take up a lot of combating different special interests for various reasons. And what you have to understand is access to good, clean, fair food is an inalienable right for any individual. So when we first certain communities to live in certain neighborhoods for certain reasons, and those areas become places where people are afraid to do business, don't wanna do business, or don't think to do business. And the people living there are being forced to live there, have to suffer and don't have access to fresh food and medical services and things that everybody in the suburbs and this and that gets, like, we've got some big problems we gotta we gotta look at. It can all be done through a lens of of food.

Jeffrey Stern [00:42:10]:

Right. So just to peel it back a bit and and think, like,

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:42:15]:

more holistically. Because, like, these are these are big problems. You know? And and and Larder Larder But the the point I'm trying to make is -- Yeah. -- with Larder, as a small in Cleveland, Ohio that does less than a million dollars in sales, employs 6, 7 people. If we can do this, Everybody else can do this on varying levels of scale. Nobody has to do it a hundred percent. Okay? And and this is the carrying of the torch. If if Hines, and they do to some extent, solely said, we will only buy tomatoes grown within 50 50 miles of any of our ketchup producing factories or a hundred miles, that's a huge win. Right? If -- Yeah. -- Gopher's in Solon, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, You know, Nestle's there, and and they're they're looking at all this stuff now. If they can redesign how they produce food on industrial scales, to refocus on being able to pull food from many different places as opposed to air centralizing everything. These now we're noticing with scale there's contamination on the line and there's a foodborne illness, the whole line's gotta be if we can have distribution broken up now, right, we we we thought, like, centralized all in 1 location was great, then when things go bad, they go really bad. So if we can kinda separate. Right? We've learned this post 09:11 with just everything. From terrorism to food security, like it's all so if we can kind of start to decentralize and have these smaller hubs that are sourcing, from these different communities and and keeping money there. And there's ways we can all start to synergize and harmonize. There's room for Nesli's and McDonald's with you know, Kevin and Kristen Hensley from Yellow House Cheese and the Ripman boys at at Rimman Orchard's. There's room for everybody at the table to work together. So we've got to just start doing it. Yeah. And and even Nestle makes this 1 little change on 1 ingredient and says we're gonna source it only within a hundred miles of each food production facility. We have 20 of these food production facilities across the country. Each out of those 20, 17 can handle this specific food. Alright. That's a lot of local tomatoes we're feeding to a lot of people. Absolutely. And that's a good thing, and it's keeping that that those agricultural dollars where they need to be in agricultural zones. You know? Any of our packaging that goes out the door to customers is is, you know, biodegradable or compostable. You know, our benefit package. We do offer for our employees, our work life balance, like, all of these things. Like, this is Larder showing, like, look what I can do. Just like Nestle is showing, look what we can do. Everybody's gonna have a different thing, but we all have to do something.

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:51]:

It's a bit inspiring to hear you talk about it. I'm curious, like, how given Larder is just this 1 place, and and and I feel I feel like you're carrying the torch, right, as, like, a beacon of, like, here's how here's a here's a place where we've figured out how to not sacrifice on deliciousness at the expense of, right, like having a good business that's sustainable. But, like, what what does success look like to you? Like, what you know, like, what what in retrospect, what is the impact you're hoping to have? Yeah. So that's that's the

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:45:22]:

the the as me, a, I think success is for any individual to determine for themselves. Right? So, like, anybody going into business, you know, you do need to decide how much money you wanna make, what's acceptable to you. Do you wanna be a millionaire, or do you wanna be comfortable? Do you wanna have something to pass on, or do you wanna enjoy everything now? Like, what what goals do you have? And we all have these to some people are like, no. I wanna be a millionaire right now, and that's important to me, and I want a nice car and good looking shoes. And that's that. Other people are like, I don't care how I look right now. I want my kids to have whatever they want and need. You know, we all all have these different reasons we we come at different things from. So we design Larder to be a small business and a 1 off small business at that. You know? So That larder is we just closed on the first portion of our lease and we just resigned for another 5 years. Like, that success So right there, like, Lard are successful.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:20]:

Yeah. Well, that was that's exciting. Thank you. Thank you.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:46:24]:

Yeah. We we kept it open, and my wife and I live the life that we almost want. You know, none of us are truly there. But this is, like, this is the goal. Right? So that, I think, is larger success. But I think a real measure is gonna be, who knows when I'm dead, when I'm you know, whatever. I put some literature out there that people can reflect on in, you know, 25, 30 years from now. And who knows? People might say some certain things are ahead of their time or that I was part of a field experiment. You know? That in short run burst looked great, but in the long run didn't have the type of viability that he needed to. You know? So so I don't know, you know, how that's gonna plan out. But for the time being, things are working.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:09]:

Things are working. Yeah. Are are you optimistic at that, like, at scale, things could change in in the right direction?

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:47:19]:

Yes. I'm very optimistic. I'm ridiculously optimistic. I mean, even even with, like, any given day, roughly, how many dozen life forms are going extinct on any given day right now? We're we're in a a hypersped my mass extinction. We're pretty conclusive. It's because of things we've done. You know? Even though there's idiots out there that wanna argue otherwise, in our society too, everything has to revolve on our own money. So we've got if we can incentivize things. If we can make the better for us technology harmonizing with nature in the world, less expensive both for entry and ease of use, then, like, then we we don't have problems. So let's let's innovate. Let's develop. Let's get it done. And just start dropping off everything. You know? Like, let's we we no know what to do, and we have a lot of ability to do it. It's just gotta be done. People gotta everybody's gotta do their part. That's it. You know? And some people only care about themselves, and that's totally cool. Then the rest of us have to set a standard and make sure that that individual has to abide by our standards. Clean energy, sustainable agriculture, whatever it is, universal health care? Who cares? You know, pick an issue. But we just gotta start doing this. And I wanna hear things like, why Cleveland or what you know, things like this happen in Silicon Valley or this or that or, you know, these more it's like no. Like yeah. What do you mean why Cleveland? Why not? Why not here? Why not do these things here? Why not be a model for other places? Cities similar to us. Other places around the world. Why not? Let's just let's just do it all.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:57]:

Yeah. That's that's a good mentality. I like that.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:49:01]:

Yeah. So I'm optimistic things will happen. As humans, we have a limited lifespan. So a long time to us is not a long time in the sense of Yes. None none of us make it out of the cosmos. Right? So I always have to think about this because I'm like, this is gonna take, like, the 20 years for this and that, and we've we've got them nonprofit project. I mean, we're we're gonna you know, we're not gonna see results for 20 years from certain a certain thing and but we gotta start it now if we wanna see it to come with fruition and, you know, work and it seems like a long period of time, but it's it's not a long period of time. So I think we just have to constantly, like, just step back from the progression of time through our eyes and look at it more on a cosmic scale. Because of this whole question, where do we fit in the world, the universe, where it's going, James James was face telescope, looking as far back in time as like, where where are we in all this and what what happens and and you know, we we really just just just start doing stuff right now. Just work on it. Just get it done. Let's let's change things. Let's make a difference. Let's clean things up. You know, you may not get to enjoy it. But many people after you are going to. Yeah. And that's a it's a humbling perspective. Yeah. As opposed to, like, destroying everything now and not leaving anything, like, I, for 1, would like to see humanity grow and prosper to a level where no where every single human across the planet their needs and even some of their wants are met at a basic level. Think of any advanced civilization we would come across you know, as we're gazing out into the stars and exploring the cosmos and this sort of thing, like, your envisioning of how advanced they are is, like, you know, right out of sci fi movies, and they got fancy shifts and artificial gravity and food and breathing, and they can fly

Jeffrey Stern [00:50:55]:

Like, we can have this shit. So we could do it. Yeah. You can do it. I don't know if you've ever read or encountered Buckminster Fuller. If this is a strange rabbit hole, I'll take us on for a sec. But he he's just kinda like this this mad lad of a human being -- Yes. -- in in his scientific explorations. But he had this line, and again, I'm gonna butcher this quote too. But it was something like we are the the stewards of this vessel, meaning the earth that our descendants will inherit, and it is a a sobering responsibility considering our descendants comprised of infinitely many generations if we operate responsibly. Yeah. But only if we operate responsibly.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:51:36]:

Yeah. Yeah. It's like I was I got a oil change this morning. Talking to mechanic, and he said something about, you know, the futuristicness of some of the new cars. And, like, even for them, they're none of the the pop up screen technologies. They're not the car makers aren't designing them intuitively for people that really control the car and the mechanics to work on them and stuff. And I was like, yeah. And back to the future too, said we'd have flying cars by now. Like, where are they? Well, we do know. Like, there are some small car esque vehicles now you can buy and fly around. They do exist. And we can get to that that future of those flying cars, but we gotta we gotta buckle down. Gotta get together. -- down. We gotta make sure that every person's basic needs are met so that we can all not worry about this shit and be really productive, and everybody start working on the flying cars. Everybody start being able to, you know, create and innovate in anything they want because they're being housed, fed, and cared for. This is what we need to we gotta list lift up the, you know, the base level of acceptability in society

Jeffrey Stern [00:52:44]:

is what we have to do. I I love it. Yeah. And we can do it. Freaking Vivianity

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:52:49]:

food and just having a good time together.

Jeffrey Stern [00:52:51]:

Yes. Yes. I don't know. I like these eaters, but I'll I'll bring it back to Larder for a sec. Yeah. And I don't know. Like, we were talking about the beginning. You know, it's it's not so much of a a hidden gem anymore. And even, you know, outside the the kind of joking nature of that. You know, you've you've garnered some real recognition in in the industry and in the space. And I'm I'm curious what are the biggest, you know, misconceptions maybe people have about, you know, what it is that you're doing and and What has surprised you most about this journey so far in in the creation and building of larder?

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:53:29]:

I happen to be born in a time and place where the food traditions that I think are most delicious have been largely, like, forgotten about in day to day use. Just how our society's evolved. Right? We've evolved enough careers that people can focus on creative, scientific, and art artistic and economic pursuits. Solely to for enjoyment or to make money from. We no longer have to worry about, like, do I have enough wood to start a fire to cook dinner tonight? You know, and keep the house warm. You know? Or hunting an animal and making clothing from the skin, like, we don't have those kinds of worries anymore. You know? So we can we can we can focus in on on these creative things. So I look back and I'm like, I'm just doing things that other people have done. Yeah. Because everybody forgot about all this stuff. They think it's new and exciting. Unique and special. So every day, I'm just like, you can do it too. Like, this is this is like the the root of my ethos of cooking and, you know, working with food and being able because Cooking is not just about cooking. There's so much tied to cooking for an individual. Okay? Economic responsibility, like having to budget and feed yourself, understanding basic biological principles, how is it do I know if this is cooked right, bad, Does it smell off? Has it spoiled? Is this good for me to eat? You know, like, those basic things, right, that we all take for granted? Especially with refrigeration technology that wasn't even I just read an article this morning that refrigeration technology in China wasn't widely available, did not hit 70 percent of households or above until 19 81. The refrigeration's pretty new. You know? So, like -- Yeah. -- you know, these basic things, you have you have your economic responsibilities, things like time management, basic use of biology in organic chemistry, like, all the these are all happening every time you cook. You know? It's a interdisciplinary science and art and craft. So I like to sum it up with, like, you can do it too. You know, if I can do this and keep in mind, I was born with a club foot. I didn't walk out fully on my own till, you know, I was a few years old. Had braces and stuff up my legs. Student with learning disabilities, so I had, like, tutors and had to go to special classes all through elementary school and middle school and high school. Like, if I can do any of this stuff and people are like, there's this world class, what like, you can do it too. So it it kinda you know, I'm in recovery from drugs and alcohol. Like, I've got a lot of I was born at Cripple with learning disabilities, and I'm an alcoholic. Like, odds are against me. So if I can do this, you can do it too.

Jeffrey Stern [00:56:26]:

Well, thank you for for sharing that. It's it's very cool. And -- Yeah. -- and Larder is a thing. So Well, thank you.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:56:34]:

You know, I I really think, you know, some of the things that Larder is doing too, so we use the core of our cooking is based on the use of naturally occurring enzymes. Enzymes are like these Pac Man powerhouses that that create all these actions and reactions in the world, okay, on chemical levels, very small levels. The next, I think, phase of cooking in the 20 first century is gonna be enzyme optimization. Because through this and through this type of cooking, we can create to infinity based on whatever expression a chef wants. And we can actually create food that's more flavorful, more delicious, and has more bio available nutrients for our bodies to use instead of ones that can potentially just pass through us. So we can help create diets that are more nutrient dense, essentially, allowing the body to absorb more nutrients in a food that it normally couldn't work out of a food. So in actuality, in the long run, people actually have to eat less food. From a volume standpoint because we can unlock all these things in the food on a microscopic level that our bodies really need and that maybe we don't get or get enough of. These sorts of things. So I really think the next 10 years, refocusing on techniques that take advantage of using these enzymes, whether they're found inherently in an ingredient or added through most commonly different types of molds and fungi and single celled you know, beneficial bacteria, have them. That is going to be the biggest thing in cooking, I feel, in the next 10 years. And that's where we are rooted within our cuisine.

Jeffrey Stern [00:58:16]:

Yeah. I you know, we've we've hit the every order of magnitude in this conversation from the the cosmos at a macro level to the the micro, you know, biological

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [00:58:27]:

underpinnings of it. Yeah. So my problem is I think about all these things all at the same time. Khan recently. So I'm like, honestly, suffice I ever get anything done. Yeah. Well, let let's let's bring it to to Cleveland as as we wrap up here at at, you know What a lovely place. Isn't Cleveland amazing? Frankly, we need more of that kinda championing spirit, I think. There's a but So and let me you know, let's I know we're trying to bring it bring it local again. Right? But, like, big picture, the UN climate report that they just released recently, pretty much says, like, give or take sometime in around 20 50, you know, plus or minus a decade or so. The Great Lakes region is gonna be the 1 part of the US that's somewhat insulated from the drastic effects of climate change. So It's a hedge. It's a hedge. Forecasting for our population to, like, increase by 6 or eightfold by 20 50. Of people fleeing wildflower fires and damaging storms on the coasts, droughts in the middle of the kind like, people are gonna start flocking to the Great Lakes. Cleveland is right on the Great Lakes. Someone is looking to set up long term to sustainable, viable infrastructure for an influx of people. Cleveland's a great place to start doing business right now. Mhmm. Right? It's a great place to raise a family. It's geographically stunning. And -- It is. -- you can be anywhere I'm gonna say anywhere in Cuyahoga County, which for those listening that aren't from Cleveland or the Cleveland area, if you live in the county that the city of Cleveland is, you say you're from Cleveland because there's all these little villages and hamlets and little towns. And outside of Cleveland, who knows Parma Heights's and Solon and Gates Mills and Yvonne, like, nobody knows. You know, you say you're from there, Ohio. So everybody, if you're from Cuyahoga County, if you're listening, you just say you're from Cleveland. Even if you live, like, 30 minutes away from downtown, but you can get anywhere in Cuyahoga County in, like, 30, 35 minutes. It's great. It's very I look at the other city, man. There'd be times just from our apartment in Brooklyn if we wanted to go upstate for the weekend or something. So it was like a 11 mile stretch. Marvin in Brooklyn to, like, the border of Westchester County, like, right outside New York City, there'd be times that would take us 2 and a half hours. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's like I I grew up in in New York as well, and so that's Yeah. So so the fact that no matter where you live, South, North Coast, East West. You can be anywhere in Cuyahoga in 35 minutes. Cuyahoga County, city of Cleveland, and it's amazing And within that 35 minutes to go from, like, the heart of, like, East fourth Street and, like, bump in party urban lifestyle awesomeness, Right? Arts, culture, entertainment, drive 30 minutes south and be in the middle of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. That's pretty special, man. That is it is pretty special. It's pretty amazing that we can have that duality in under 30 minutes. So there's everything here. Major sports teams. We got every major sport here. You know? Yeah. All of them. The rock and roll hall of fame. Like, we've got the Cuyahoga River. You know what's a national success story? It went from regularly catching fire. Imagine how much petrochemical Flammable things have to be in water to actually set the water on fire. And roughly now, you can eat fish out of there. Not a lot all the time, but we went from a burning river to something that supports an organism that we could eat and not

Jeffrey Stern [01:02:05]:

die. Right. Right. Well, you know, that defeats your optimism.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [01:02:09]:

Yeah. But that's that's a incredible success story. No. Absolutely. You know, like -- Absolutely. -- you know, we have plenty of other things we gotta clean up and deal with. But, like, yeah, it's happening in Cleveland

Jeffrey Stern [01:02:19]:

now. An improvement. Yeah. Yeah. That's an improvement.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [01:02:22]:

Right? You know? Right. It was really bad, and then it got better. Yeah. And and, like, let's please stop calling ourselves the rust belt. Like, we we've we're I'm working on this big writing project right now, and it's all about people are using this term food waste. Right? How are we gonna solve this food waste? All this extra food we have, it's waste. It's waste is trash is garbage. It's food misuse. We can't call it waste and then be like, I'm gonna feed you that waste. Nobody's gonna buy into that shit. Right. Different brand names. We can say when you misuse your ingredients, this is when we have a problem. Here's how you don't misuse them so that nothing is left over. So trying to do these things, you can do them all in Cleveland. You can take a holistic approach to business in an area that's gonna be relatively insulated from the effects of climate change that are really coming a lot of people and they need to flee from. I used to think of how many people me as a business owner in near downtown Cleveland, the amount of people I meet that have relocated to Cleveland during the pandemic from Chicago, LA, and New York, big cities, whether they're boomerangs coming back home, or some other Thai brought them here, it's I'm meeting a lot of people relocating already, and that was just a a puny pandemic. You know, that's nothing compared to, you know, the San Andreas Fault ripping open and tearing California apart. That's gonna happen sometimes too. Different scales.

Jeffrey Stern [01:03:54]:

You know?

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [01:03:56]:

So Cleveland's a great place, whether you're into arts, you're into culture, you're into the natural environment where you want a good place to raise a family with whatever your values may be and tolerance for others. Cleveland Cleveland's a pretty good place, man. As far as Midwestern middle tier cities go, I'd I'd argue we've got a good amount of diversity different ethnic populations that share who they are with the rest of us so we can experience them and celebrate them in our community. For making a stronger and better. It's a great place.

Jeffrey Stern [01:04:30]:

It is. And and perhaps the the perfect segue into the the traditional closing question that I have, which which is for hidden gem in the city. Okay. So

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [01:04:43]:

I'm hoping I'm about to give you 1 that you haven't heard before, but it could be totally wrong. Because it's so awesome. I just don't know why more people don't talk about it. The Cleveland aquarium is great for an aquarium of its size in the city of our market. It it really is. It's immersive. They have great displays there. They have a wide variety of fish. But I think 1 of the coolest things is, and I am not licensed, but I want to do this. If you are licensed as scuba, they have a big tank there with, like, a shipwreck, and that's where the sharks are and all the big, you know, big aquatic stuff is. Did you license Scuba, you can, like, rent out and go Scuba ing in there with, like, all their sharks and stuff. Oh, wow. So that's on my that's 1 of my keyword bucket list things. Is to go scuba with sharks on the shores of the Cuyahoga River.

Jeffrey Stern [01:05:39]:

I love that. I I think that might be a a first

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [01:05:42]:

Yeah. I really wanna do it. It's in the whole powerhouse building, which is a cool cool historic building, you know, down in the flats there and So I say, if the hidden gem would be scuba diving with sharks -- In Cleveland aquarium. -- in the Cleveland aquarium. Said said no 1 ever. That is the first. That's my hidden gem. There's so much good food out there. I talk about food so much. So I I didn't wanna give you a restaurant or anything.

Jeffrey Stern [01:06:08]:

Yeah. I we we could do a quick lightning round if you want, but we -- I'm all I'm all about it. We can do that. Alright. So just just a a quick quick lightning round here, and we'll we'll we'll do Cleveland food. Yeah. What what is your personal favorite meals? Top top 5.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [01:06:25]:

I recently do that have stood out Cordelia doing the chef's menu. There, which is down on East fourth, and Andrew Watts, and Chef Vinny Semino. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And then out in Mentor on the Lake, Ninja, Sushi, and Hibachi. Oh, yeah. I forget. I think it's, like, Tuesday, Wednesday night, they offer a Chef's Omakase, which is a tasting menu. And it can vary from a hundred to a hundred 50 dollars ahead depending what's in season and what the chef's making. But you cannot find a dining experience like that any closer than Chicago or New York City, and definitely not for that price. It's incredible to think in Mentor on the Lake, there's this chef that's making some incredibly, incredibly progressive contemporary Japanese cuisine. Like, a little strip mall next to a dairy mart. It's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Those are those are probably 2 of the the biggest standouts as of late. But there's just so many great eaters. There's so there's so much. Yeah. Like, pizza. It's an unfair question. Yeah. Like pizza? Like, what style. There's SENSE pizza. There's El Rioni. I just ate a chef Benbenbrath. There's opening Boom's Pizza in Lakewood that's stunning. On the east side here, we've got Viro. We have Scorpacciata. We have Michael's genuine. They're all doing a flower. Oh my god. On the Far East side, some of the best like, so many people are doing so many great great things. But I'd say if if I could just instead of a top 5, top 5, top to that -- Yes. -- Cordelia and and Ninja sushi

Jeffrey Stern [01:08:01]:

in Mentor on the Lake. And then maybe 1 more, which is What are you most excited about from the Cleveland food scene going forward?

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [01:08:11]:

Overall, what I'm generally most excited about is that you can go almost anywhere in America and find a world class meal. And that has nothing to do with dining has nothing to do with, like, you know, with cuisine and and all that stuff. Like, it could be the best chicken sandwich you've ever had. It could be the french fries. Or it could be just the most stunning, you know, steak au poff or, you know, roast duck or what whatever it is. But you can literally be almost anywhere in America and have that experience. And what I'm most excited about is more often than not, some places, you really have to seek it out. And it it whether it's well known or not, more often than not, I can blindly go into some place in the Cleveland area and have what I consider someone who's creating food at the top of their craft with skill, love, attention to detail, no matter what they're making, I find that more often than I don't find that. And that's what I'm most excited about in Cleveland. Right? Like, we're only you can only get off the ground as far as the bottom wrong or the chains only as as strong as as the weakest link, you know, that sort of thing. So seeing that more often than not, I can I can get and world class food, I means, like, food cooked passionately by consummate professionals? Right? That's what I mean. People who are putting their all all their resources, financial and and internal. Into that, making something beautiful, whatever it is. More often than not, I go into a place in Cleveland, and that's what I find. So my prediction is more and more. That's more of what we'll find. And, eventually, there's not gonna be any of this talk about what's a Midwestern diet. They're all eating cheesy potatoes and chips and, you know, they just eat beef and corn. You know? Yeah. It's gonna be like, no, man. Like, we're as much of a melting pot and as much as a metropolis and and, you know, we're as metropolitan

Jeffrey Stern [01:10:14]:

as any other of the big areas. We're sure. You know? And we're as off the grid as all the small areas, and we've got it all for everybody. That's what we have to say about. -- about. It is very exciting. And with that, I I feel, though, we'd have to do a better job with our branding and championing of the Polish boy. That is that is a good sandwich. And it I I don't think it gets the respect it deserves. It's it's a great sandwich.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [01:10:38]:

It's more it's more than a good sandwich. The the problem is I don't think a Polish boy is as uniting in Cleveland as it once was. So you used to be able to get it at a soul food cafe or at an Eastern European place and everything in between. You know? And I used to find, like, Polish boy flavored pierogi, and that like, I don't see a lot of that stuff anymore. I don't see the Polish boy isn't and I think what it is is we all have this ethos of, like, what the Polish boy is, who made it, what it should be, that, like, anytime anybody does their own spin on a Polish boy or just makes a Polish boy that that they would like. Everybody's like, that's not a Polish boy. So stop fighting amongst yourselves. You know, we don't have to be best Rally behind the Polish boys. Yeah. We we all don't have to be best friends, but we've gotta we've gotta know each other and get along enough that, like, if I have to raise your arm when I'm walking past you, you're not gonna be like, what's up, bro? You're gonna be like, oh 0, excuse me. So yeah. Yeah. The Polish boy definitely needs, like, definitely major uplifting, but I think that's 1 of the problems for whatever reason. And I don't feel that any other food in Cleveland is judged as partially. Yeah. I mean, maybe it's because there's I don't know where act actually, where the name comes from at all, but it is a Cleveland food, is my understanding. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, The the name kinda comes from the the hot dog you use is called the Polish sausage. And a Polish sausage in the Midwest is an all beef sausage that was heavy on black pepper and other spices in a natural casing, and they're a bit bigger around than a hotdog. So Polish sausage is a style of sausage that's made in, like, Poland and Germany and Ukraine. Just here became known as the Polish sausage for some reason. And then someone made a Polish boy. You know? I forget what restaurant was first. I used to know all this. It used to be locked in here. It probably still is someplace. Somewhere. The first restaurant to do it and popularize it. And, I mean, it's just a brilliant food. Amazing. Yeah. Really, really good. Yeah. Yeah. It's fantastic.

Jeffrey Stern [01:12:43]:

So Jeremy, I I really appreciate you coming on and and giving us your musings and and perspective on on life and larder. This this was awesome.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [01:12:53]:

I hope it was everything you expected, Jeffrey. Thank you for your time, man. So much more. Yeah. If folks had anything that they wanted to

Jeffrey Stern [01:13:00]:

follow-up with you about I mean, other besides going to Larder Yeah. Just come to Larder and say hi.

Jeremy Umanski (Larder) [01:13:07]:

Yeah. Perfect. That's all I got time for now. I'm like, I do all the social media and everything, and I'm like, ugh. I just a requested message? I don't even open. I just can't even get to that you right now. Yep. Yeah. Well, it comes to Just stop me. Say hi. I'll shake your hand. We can talk. Maybe sip on an egg cream together, and, you know, it'll be all good. Well, thank thank you again. Jeffrey, thank you, man.

Jeffrey Stern [01:13:31]:

That's all for please send over an email to jeffrey at lay of the land dot f m or find us on Twitter at pod lay of the land or at sternJE FE. If you or someone you know would make a good guess for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on Tunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of The Land.