Watch Steven Rinella's "Never Before Told" about his new book, "The MeatEater Outdoor Cookbook."

Welcome to all of us here because, in partnership with Premier, we bring you signed collectible copies of the new Mediator Outdoor Cook

book

. Wild game recipes for the grill, smoker, camp stove and campire. Now Steve, you've recorded over 400 podcast episodes. You filmed more than 100 television episodes. You have appeared live. You've been in conversations. Do you have a story you haven't

told

yet. I thought about this carefully and I have a story I mean, I have a story. I have

told

it a thousand times. I have a story that I don't think I've told publicly in its entirety, so this is just a story that I told but didn't tell.

It's what gave me faith in the United States. I mean, I was. I was born patriotic, but it's what really made me have great faith in America, quick summary, quick questions and I think we should mention that we are selling signed copies of the mediator's

outdoor

cook

book

at the signed

outdoor

cookbook

, that's right, go to the signed outdoor

cookbook

. comom and you can get a spicy new signed copy of the Me Eater Outdoor Cookbook which is a follow up so we had a very popular fishing game cookbook and this is the follow up book we've been on working. for years uh it's beautiful yeah I'm not going to show you all the pages now because I want it to continue to be a gorgeous, engaging book so we have quick questions here you have 60 seconds no Don't think too much about this just give me the first one answer or story that comes to mind, are you ready? favorite color I don't have any favorite color I don't have any favorite food hamburgers good favorite dish hamburgers if I had to eat favorite food if I had to eat one The rest of my life I would eat nothing but deer, but if I could prepare myself, I would eat hamburgers the rest of my life.

The best trip you have ever taken. River trips in South America with propane or coal, we're talking convenience or what you should really ask is a quick question: propane for convenience coal, when I mean it, uh flip-flop, MH is a hot dog, a sandwich, no hot dog is a hot dog. I'd put it on Americana before I'd put it on Sando. uh what other foods in the Americana category and Compass Burgers are the favorite pastime besides hunting and fishing? Reading about hunting and fishing is what bothers me the most my friend. I mean, lately you have an hour.

What bothers me the most is this lately. My last concern was when, when you say. someone one thing like this whole thing in food where you're spinning you're taking food now and you turn it into what are its constituent parts the other day some guy says what's your favorite breakfast not even in this kind of format what's your favorite I said that I like eggs and toast in the morning I guess I eat a lot of eggs and I'm like oh carbs oh you I mean someone says hey I gotta go in and buy gas oh fossil fuels you know what I mean? that whole trend yeah I thought you were talking about the culinary trend of this is deconstructed this is a deconstructed cheesecake no the other day my little one my 9 year old I'm not kidding last night my 9-year old sat down and ate my 9 year old says: is there any starch?

I'm not kidding, man, we had uh seared kobia, Cobia grouper cheeks, broccoli, iceberg lettuce with ranch and he's like, is there any starch? that's my pet peeve, did you ask him why he asked that and no because you said there wouldn't be if you had said you could have some bread? I said yeah, that's okay, most embarrassing moment of my first book, The Scavengers Guide to O. Kitchen I think it got more reviews than purchases. In the end I made up for it like it was a slow process, but at first it was humiliating, man. You know, I thought: how could there be more people writing about this than buying it?

It's not even like that. Makes some sense, it was like an inverse correlation between like coverage and purchases. Irrational fear. Lately I don't have any rational fears. I have been very afraid of avalanches, but I have been trying to catch up on avalanches. Ask Seth. If I'm driving and I see dangerous activity dangerous driving I'll say that's dangerous driving if I see dangerous boating I'll think it's dangerous boating if I see dangerous uh canoeing on a river I'll say that's dangerous but when it comes to avalanches. I'm not as tuned into what a silly move is in the mountains from an avalanche perspective, so that's my rational fear.

The first thing you do when you wake up. I press Brew on my coffee maker because I like to tinker. If this is if I'm at home, you don't have a timer, I

never

thought about that, there are probably a lot of buttons that I haven't touched, that's what you do, no, I get up, I go there, I press the button because I understand it. fixed the night before I press the button then I go back to brushing my teeth and then I go back in and look for some favorite childhood memory. The two forwards shot me with a blowgun.

It hurt me a lot, but it's a good story, what are memories for? not to say guilty pleasure I don't have any I stopped drinking that was one yes I had one but I don't have any anymore this might be a bit You didn't ask him about my favorite national park oh I I just cut it off because I thought you didn't like them. I don't like national parks. I just deleted it from my copy. Well, you deprived me of my chance to say I don't like them. Your favorite national park actually doesn't have one. No, I like the National Forest.

I'm a national forest man. Okay, this is maybe a trick question, but what's the best cookbook you've used recently? You're going to think I'm lying when I tell you it was like that. our fishing games cookbook, yes, ours, in fact, my little boy, not my little one, the oldest, uh, he went with his friends, his two friends, and they caught three trout on Saturday and they took their three trout home and they wanted to make smoked trout. so I had them prepare the brine for hot smoked trout in our wild game cookbook and then my son was a little surprised when he realized my name was in the book and he thought it was interesting and he had a handful of questions about how that came about. be, but I want to remind everyone that autographed copies of the book are now available in the Signed Outdoor Cookbook.

Where was that outdoor cookbook signed by Randall? that's s i g n d o t d o o r c o o k b o.com. You're only signing a limited number of copies now, so I recommend everyone go out now and pre-order your book. I want to hear a little about how this cookbook is different from previous ones. Written this cookbook is different from the previous ones because as its name tells you it is the outdoor cookbook, what does that mean? Well, I'll tell you that the previous cookbook was called the catch-me-to-eat game cookbook. All the correct recipes and techniques for every Hunter angler. now that it was designed more for home use, in the kitchen, the outdoor cookbook is designed for outdoor use, when we were working on it we had this working title that we didn't want to continue using because it was too cheesy, maybe it was of the backyard for The Back Country means whether it's outdoor cooking running the game, from cooking burgers in your backyard, you know, smoking a ham in your backyard, uh, Backyard Barbecue, frying in the backyard, It's okay up to what you would eat on a mountain living in a backpack, so it's like the full range, but it also ends up being kind of a history lesson and kind of a geography lesson because it contains a lot of outdoor cooking techniques that They go back to the Ice Age, well that covers things we know about Native American cooking styles to things I've found in Vietnam or in Mexico or whatever, like the different ways people handle food in the outside, using everything from a Weber grill you bought at Ace Hardware, two homemade gadgets, like how to make your own stove.

Gadgets made of crazy things could be like recycled things you found lying around, how to turn them into cool kitchens, um, how to cook with nothing but native materials, which means Willow's limbs move, how to cook everything outside, for which really covers you from parties to just. like totally crazy experiments, everything from the Ice Age to the present, from the backyard to the back country, can you tell us a little about your collaborator Christa ruin? The first thing I will tell you about Christa is her last name, Ruan and we have known each other for a long, long time.

I started. I first met Christa when we started the show me eat me eater it was kind of a joint venture between me and a production company called 0.0 Production, they made the most famous of all the Bourdains. the shows are okay, so zpz liked the Cooks tour um No reservations. Parts unknown, they did those shows and I met Christa through zpz um. I worked with Christa, we work with her as a food stylist and otherwise we go back to our full guide projects. The Meat, Fish and Game Cookbook. Christ and I worked very closely together on that book and she had a huge impact on that and this, so when we did the outdoor cookbook together, now you'll see it on the cover with Christy Ruan because it couldn't be ignored. , like her participation and her contributions and her guidance in working on these books, was so important and couldn't be ignored, uh, ignored, and now her name is on the front because she kicked so much.

Very, very incredible attention to detail and there's one thing she does too. Many times when you do something, you just do it sooner. I mentioned that last night I made, I made broccoli with sesame oil and sesame seeds. Cobia seared with this little Cajun spice. I made a French dish called iceberg lettuce with ranch dressing and when you do that you're just doing things right, so at some point you have these preparations that you make. but you need to explain to someone how they can do it in a way that's replicable, so part of the experience of someone like Christa is being able to take something that you're doing but just don't do.

I don't really know how you've done it or you've

never

done it the same way twice you know sometimes you make a dish why if you make roasted venison and shoulder so one day you do it you're like man I wish I remember what I did it because it was phenomenal or you do it and say I should have written what I did because it wasn't as good as when I normally do it well. Christa finds a way to capture the best version in a replicable fashion so that someone who isn't looking at you can have good luck doing it so we'll spend a lot of time talking about things I like to do things I'm curious to do do it together and then she'll find a way to really capture it in a systematic and replicable way because making recipes meant to be picked up by a stranger thousands of miles away is something very different and executed to perfection, it's like a skill set, yeah right.

It's how you handle quantities, how you handle substitutions, how you handle just the format, it's a kind of language that we've all learned to read over a lifetime of reading recipes like that, it's not by accident, it's intentional and that's it. your SK. set and he's also a great cook and how long have you been working on this cookbook? to remind you that there was a part of this oh what am I saying we did? Yes, she asked you to ask that. Yes, and I was TR. We got that we had a lot of stuff. They went bad trying to get them organically.

We had a lot. A lot of things broke down during Co and then we had to take cookbook photos, we had to photograph some of our photo shoots, we had to use Co protocol and it was fire season so we had to have firefighters there and the firefighters wanted be there. Great, firefighters get credit here. Oh, good, because we're doing a lot of things like cooking over high heat, so that would end up helping. Hey, try it, see if you like it, uh, yeah, they never had to put out any fires. Can you tell me what unique message or approach you explore in this book that you haven't explored in previous ones?

How have you changed since your last cookbook? Can you share how your growth as a person is reflected in this new job you have asked for? There's a lot of stuff in there, let me try to take it away in small pieces. I have changed my way of cooking. My relationship with cooking changed a lot when I had kids because I used to be able to spend a lot more time every night. Prepare dinner before having children because it would. I would do it if I was working. That means I was just writing and if I was writing I would get tired.

You start in the morning and by 4:00 I was already fed up. and then at a time when my wife was working very late, you know she didn't get home from work until 9:00 p.m. 10:00 p.m., yeah, which means I had 6 hours to make dinner, so I did a lot of that type. of things, having children changed me as a person because there is a punctuality like we like to have them in bed earlier than before ourold dinner time, right, it just changed, the cooking changed, um, that wouldn't be reflected in the There are a lot of books, but I think what is reflected in the books and what makes them different from a lot of cookbooks is that we talk a lot about methods and strategies.

Okay, I could come and give you 100 recipes, so this cookbook has about 100 recipes, which means 100. detailed blank tablespoons of these blank cups of that cooked for so long at this temperature, as recipes, it's Well, it has 100 recipes, but it has a lot of methods, strategies, thoughts to the point where some of the things in the book are not captured. like recipes, they are explained more as inspirational strategies like that that you can reuse, yeah, here's a way you can make things, like you can take things you can dig a big hole in the ground and stick a big Ripper in there, a big fire , put a big Ripper with a bunch of rocks and bury things underground, yeah, and then let it sit for 6 hours, 12 hours, 20 hours whatever and cook it underground. and then it's very hard to say and talking about that kind of thing it's hard to say oh and don't forget three and a half teaspoons, it's just different because it's strategy and method so we spend a lot of time on strategy and Method and balance with recipes, so what this book is different in that sense, it's like it opens your mind, it opens your eyes to all these things that can be done, which means you can cook things on a hot rock, yeah, or if you're cooking things on a hot rock, don't grab a rock from a lake or river because it has a ton of water in it and when that water gets hot it will explode you and all your friends in the face with hot rock shards.

It's not part of a recipe, it's part of a methodological strategy, yes, like why certain Woods do certain things, how to make a good fire burn more consistently, as if it were a great life skill as much as a recipe. I think we should remind the viewers on this. Point out once again that you can get a signed copy of Me Eater's new outdoor cookbook Wild Game Recipes for the Camp Stove and Grill Smoker Campfire from the Backyard to The Back Country in the book signed outdoor kitchen. comom that is a signed outdoor cookbook. comom now let's get to the reason we're all here today, the story I've never told and that's to hear the story you've never told here it is and I thought a lot about this story and I thought about how it's actually a food story if you listen to me um you went to college you're a college student you went all the way to get your uh your doctorate too much some some might say too yeah, I did it too much I went to graduate school and um if you're a college person you know the feeling of when you go through those years where you go from house to house to house to house to house and so it ends up being that you remember a house there just a few like a fleeting glimpse about it, yes, for example, we rented a house for a while in Sue St Marie Michigan and the bathtub leaked a lot and no matter how much I cajoled the owner I was going to get him to rectify the leaking bathtub and I went. and I bought a gallon of roofing tar and tilted the tub with black roofing tar which held it very tight, yes but that's code, the tar took so long to dry that every time you put your shampoo bottle down it wanted to leave rings of tar everywhere. but the owner had been so bad that he couldn't even complain there's nothing if someone took a shower it was raining in the living room so anyway when I think about that house I can't, I don't remember the address I have a hard time taking you there now, but just I remember cocking that sucker with Roofing Tower, the house I'm going to tell you the story about, remember because there's a couple of reasons why there was no garden and everywhere I've ever gone, this is it. it's the truth everywhere I go I make a garden mhm this was in Missoula Montana on Pine Street I rented this house with no garden and in fact the yard is nothing but rock it wasn't grass it was Rock River pavers mhm okay I dug like you I know how You got the river cobbles, they are big and there is dirt around them, yes, but they are just river cobs.

I started removing the river cobs and cleaning the dirt off them when I had so much topsoil that you were in a hole in the ground that was. kneeling deeply, you went down to the garden because he had thrown all the stones away and he had a pile of stones about the size of a small car, yeah, and that was the garden bed that he had these two, uh, these two hippie kids for. neighbors and they were trying to figure out how to tan their own deer hides so that was happening in my life and the other thing that was happening in my life at that time is I had a black bear and I got the test results and it was positive trichosis, but I didn't want to throw it away, so I bought a meat thermometer.

I remember my roommate and I ate for a while. There we ate in addition to the whole roast loin and the hind leg, we ate 87 pounds. of ground beef and we were very careful with our meat thermometer and I went outside because I knew I didn't want to hear the noise from TRN, which I then contracted and acted on anyway, but not from that bear, you could have gotten over it. but I went and bought a meat thermometer MH I had never used a meat thermometer before and what surprised me was how hot everything I made was H you know what I mean yeah I would say well I didn't need a thermometer for meat I mean, that's pretty good, you know?

That was what surprised me the most, not that I needed to cook things more, but that I was already achieving them, I was already achieving them quite well, yes, because you are you. You probably remember this too because you were a college kid who moved around a lot. Remember how you would sign leases mhm and then you would want to get a new place and it would be difficult because they would want you to sign a lease. right, so you always had to try to balance how you end a lease, yeah, well, this place comes up that's so nice, so much nicer than our old place, that we're willing to double the rent, which is not something we normally you want to do.

Commit, my roommate's name was Jay, he, uh, you could find him. I'm not telling you his last name, uh, it's not like I'm trying to hide anything about him. The name was Jay at the time he was a fly. He pulled, tied flies. For Grizzly Hackle, whoever bought the flies, he was a graduate student and became a well-known writer on fly fishing. Jay and I live in this house and we're upstairs and there's a downstairs and for a When I was a kid and his girlfriend and he had one, he was restoring an Indian motorcycle and then he became this other guy who really I didn't know very well and his girlfriend and we were upstairs, the sweet house comes up, uh. on Orange Street near Orange Street and we had to pay double the rent, yeah, okay, because you can't get out of this, so in the long run we think this is a better house, less expensive, MH, a lot of B, party larger.

The house is much more dilapidated, this place is dilapidated, it's not as bad as that place, so we wanted to move to a more dilapidated place with more parties, so we have to pay the first month, we have to pay the rent there, yes, security deposit, security deposit and rent, mhm. Remember one time our landlord came to a party at our house and said, "I have a joint in one pocket and an eviction notice in the other, let's see how it goes, I thought that was funny." we're renting that house and we're renting this house we moved mainly from yes, house to, follow me, yes, we mainly moved from house to, but there are still some things there his fly tying bench Jay's fly tying bench is in the house a and he was doing this, this is the dumbest thing in the world, he's doing grad school, whatever it's called when you're finishing grad school, on James Joyce, like you, whatever, hell, one of his books you don't know, D students like it. one of the big, big, thick, bad boys, so he's got all these James Joyce books lying on the flight time bench and I've got some junk in there.

I haven't moved, yes, and I have moved a lot of things. I remember one of the What I got out of there fortunately is that I had a banana tree and one time it was sick and I remember digging a hole in that banana tree and throwing up inside that banana tree and covering it again with dirt and I never had to address it. the situation where I moved a lot of things I moved like on the 10th of the month mhm house burned to the ground okay because downstairs they called the fire department when the house caught fire they want to know what happened oh yeah, the fire department comes in they determined that the house burned down due to a wiring problem in the bathroom, yes she had a hair curler or whatever, a hair dryer plugged in, not the appliance, yes the wiring in the house and it turns out the house didn't It was properly insured and it turns out that the house was owned by the son of the owner of the rental agency, so here is a rental agency that is run by this woman, her son owns the house, right, he is not insured, It burns, we live in house B, yes, yes, now.

I waited a respectful period of time and went down to house A and thought I need my 20 days rent back, yeah and it's going well, you didn't live there anyway and I said that has nothing to do with you, it's not none of your business could be out whatever I'm renting the house if I wanted to go there if I had a fight with my roommate and I wanted to go to my house it's like it's my house it's like we have things there and it's none of your business it's as if your house that I was renting was gone yes, I want my I was renting a house of yours it is no longer here it is no longer there it is simply gone yes, I want my money back there has been a breach of contract because there is no longer a house , they don't give me my money back.

I do all these kinds of things. Eventually I go to court. I don't remember exactly how it was, but I go to court and ask, how? Take someone to the claims court because this is what happened and the first thing you should do is send her a certified letter by certified mail, yes, explaining her complaint, so I explain it. I went to the fire department and they turned me on. report, oh that's good, put the fire report in there. I'm like I know that this house burned down, it was poorly connected, I was renting it and I had 20 days of use that they deprived me of because of the fire, so again I want my rent back MH um, it still doesn't work, time passes by that now I have to go, we can go to small claims court, yeah, and we get to small claims court and there's the judge sitting there and I can go first and she wasn't prepared for how prepared I was, so I was like everything, friend.

I received the fire report. I got all these leases and pay stubs, you know, and like I was never late on rent, I rented it for 18 months. I violated the terms of my photos Okay, like the bathtub, the firefighters are trying to put out the fire through the bathtub through the door. I have photos of everything. He just filled out. The whole Los Angeles file, man. I was like OJ's dream team and I was done. my speech and the owner is so overwhelmed that he decides not to make the move on him and decides to take a stance of not understanding why he was there today oh, that's what this is about, oh, I'm sorry, but they had received the certified mail . and she had some things that she decided not to present, so this is what Faith in America gave me, yes, the judge turned to her and only Justice, yes, they say, oh yes, every month that check comes, no problem for cash that check, the moment it arrives. a problem, I mean, that was raised with the owner, yeah, oh, that's beautiful, I got my money and I walked out of there, proud to be an American, in a college town that should make you like a parade, sticking it to an owner and , uh, my old man once took American Motors to court and for a Jeep Grand Cherokee.

I don't remember the problem and he took them to small claims court in Mosan County, Michigan and they sent a lawyer and when my dad got there to close his deal, yeah, years before me, my dad goes up there to do their deal and they made the wrong move because you know what the judge called them out for when he pointed out that you spent more, they spent more money to send you than it would have cost to pay the guy the money and read them the riot act, so you two, this runs in the family, yeah, I was going to say, yeah, don't mess with us, be small, previous record on a small CL court, that's pretty much what I told you before about Seth, yeah, it's nice.

I never, ever wrote in any book. I can tell you it would be a long book, so this is the first time this has been said publicly, again, sign copies of Meater's Outdoor Cookbook, tell them Randall signed the Outdoor Cookbook. Comom which is a signed outdoor cookbook. comom from the backyard to The Back Country Wild game recipes for the grill, smoker, camp stove and campfire, everything you wanted to know from the Ice Age to present how to cook crazy things outdoors and just thingsnormal, even burgers, even Ice Age to Americana burgers and hot dogs thanks for your time today Steve, thanks Rand