Hot Take From The Kitchen

Good episode for you guys this week! Robert Barrigar stops by and talks about his Insurance Agency, how their program the Agent Charitable Fund helps families across Michigan. We then talk about his involvement with Rotary, and a distributing trend we are seeing with Service Clubs. Lastly, we talk about an Insurance Agent's worse nightmare: we do a Top 5 Disaster Movies! It's a great episode where we discuss the community and encourage people to get more involved!

Back to our regularly scheduled pod with a guest we've been trying to get on for a while! Chef Reid Krebs of Blue Moon Cafe took time to swing by and talk about how his first year has gone with his new restaurant. We talk about his journey to Alpena and what led him to open his own restaurant in the heart of Downtown Alpena. He talks about where he got the name and then we round out the episode with our Top 5 Kitchen hacks. It's a great episode, we appreciate all of our listeners tuning in each week and Chef Reid for stopping by!

It our annual Memorial Day Episode where just the two of us sit down and reflect. This year we decided to reflect on what all we have learned over the past five years of running a podcast. We talk about what equipment we use, what platform we recommend to use to publish the pod, and go over some of the mistakes and things that we know we could be doing better. We talk about some things we would like to see for the future of the pod and then bring it all together with our favorite movie the past year Top Gun Maverick with our Top 5 Favorite Scenes from the movie.

Have have another past guest returning this week--Dylan Wallace. We talk about what all has changed since he was on back in Episode 10 in 2018--we've put in over 100 episodes since then! We find out his involvement with Huron Shores/Little League and some hopeful future improvements to the complex north of Alpena. We round it out with our Top 5 Favorite MLB'ers. It's a great episode, thanks for tuning in!

Great episode for you today. We sit down with Ben Freeland, who moved to the Alpena area from the thumb of Michigan back in 2008. We learned where he was from, about his time at SVSU and how he and his wife, Amanda landed in Alpena. We learn about his time at the hospital and his transition to Thunder Bay Fyzical. Ben shares a great story about Steve's mom, and then we get into what it's like being a Detroit Lions fan and the hope that comes with the beginning of a new season. We round out the episode with our Top 5 Gameday meals/snacks. It's great episode let us know what you think!

What an episode we have for you all today! We have Meag Schwartz from Great Lake Great Responsibility in the house! We talk about what all led to her winning Chevrolet's Lead Dream Chaser, a 2024 Chevy Trax for three months, and of course $100,000. We learn what all she had to do, when is she picking up the Trax and if she is hoping for one of those big checks like from The Office. We round out the episode with our Top 5 Great Lakes Destinations, it's one of our best episodes so give it a listen!

Fun episode for you all today, Madison Hall, Brad's niece jumps on and fulfills a dream. We've had some errors throughout the years on the pod, and Madison's episode a few years ago was one of them, so we had her back on and can cross this one off our list. We learn a bit about her and what she likes to do and life for her at her Middle School in Alcona. We round the episode out with our Top 5 Favorite Books of all time.

HE'S BACK! We have another return guest this week--Mr. Griffin James. He updates us on all his life changes, how it felt winning Alpena Chamber's Business of the Year and other life updates. We do our Top 5 Favorite CD's & Covers and finish the episode with a surprise announcement at the end from Steve! Of course if you've been following Chevrolet's social media channels you probably already know!

Big day for the pod. Brad & Steve decided to invest in the pod and finally bought the equipment. This should significantly improve the listening experience for our fans and also streamline the backend editing process for Steve. So this week's episode we have the girls from Bluebird: Kelly & Katie! We learn about both of them how the store has grown and then talk about our Top 5 Breakfast meals. It's such a great episode! Make sure to check it out!

This week on the pod we have Ben Gould sit down with us. Ben is currently and Registered Nurse who is working towards becoming a Nurse Practitioner! Growing up Ben was quite the athlete and had the opportunity to play baseball in college. However fate had different things planned and some unfortunate injuries exposed Ben to rehab and to further understand how the human body functions. After spending some time Personal Training while work to become a nurse, Ben worked at Performance Locker and help Steve rehab his shoulder. Once the Covid uptick reached our area, Ben was by then a nurse at MyMichigan in the ER dealing with all the front-line things you heard and read about. He shares some of his stories and experiences that really helped us appreciate all the work those in his position did through that time. After Ben shares some of his thoughts, we pivot to our Top 5 Comedic Actors of all time! It's another intense episode and we are so proud to share it with you all!

Today's episode we have WATZ's Mid-day host & Promotions Director, Shannon Roeske! We learn a bit about her, how she made her way to Alpena and all the amazing things that they are up to at Midwestern Broadcasting. We round the episode out with an Era's Tour inspired Top 5 Taylor Swift songs. It a jam-packed episode but nice and compact as we are working on shortening up the episodes!

What a great episode we have for you all this week! This week Jeff Konczak sits down with us and gives us a little background on how NOAA came to Alpena, updates on a few of his properties that are in the works, with a super cool Sancutary Cinema update and rounds out the interview by getting me excited with a Biggby Coffee soon to be in the neighborhood of my job! We round out the episode with our Top 5 Favorite Buildings in Alpena. It really is a fun episode, and if you enjoyed it as much as we did, make sure to leave us a comment!

Pretty exciting episode for us this week as we have on Alison Jakubcin and Raelyn Szatkowski!  We've had Alison on before, so we get an update from her and then get to learn about Raelyn.  Both of them have significant day in/day out battles so we get to understand what all they have they have to deal with daily.  We then do a Top 5 Favorite Places to eat outside of Alpena.  We then finish out the episode with the girls announcing that they'll be starting their own pod soon--so stay tuned for more details of that! 

Season 5 marches on with our second episode of the season!  This week's episode finds us revisiting with a prior guest, Cristi Johnson, who has had a lot change in her life since she was on back in 2018... wait a sec... have we been podding since 2018???? She talks about the new venture, SkellaFit, that life has presented her and the importance of believing in ones self.  We then discuss how SkellaFit has grown into a new opportunity and how she's excited to bring that to not only our community--but the whole damn United States!  We round out our discussion with her happy announcement that the Shipwreck Alley Rollers will be back this summer! After we catch up, get into our Top 5 Martial Arts movies of all-time.  It's one of our most inspiring episodes to date, so make sure you drop in! 

We are back!  As we begin our Fifth Season of Hot Take From The Kitchen, we are pumped to kick this season off right!  We sit down with Alpena Varsity Hockey Assistant Coach Cam Givens!  We learn how he made his way to Alpena, his journey in hockey and what all he does at his job at REMAX here in Alpena! Once we get through all that we have an epic Top 5 this week! Our Top 5 War Movies of All-Time!  It's a great top 5 and just a great episode to get back in the Kitchen! 

New episode drops with Brad and Steve as they recap March Madness and Steve deals with Coach K finally retiring.  He vents his frustration about this year's team and then the guys discuss the insanity of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars.  We answer our mailbag from our listeners and round out the episode with our favorite photos that we have each taken.  It was supposed to be a quick episode, but before you know it--an hour goes by! 

That's right Lions fans!  Our beloved (at least by Brad & Steve) QB went to another team and won the whole damn thing.  We talk about what punishment should Coach Howard receive, the amazing Steph Curry and NBA All-Star weekend.  While we are there we discuss what's wrong with these all star games and Steve gives his idea for the NFL Pro-Bowl.  We answer all the questions from the Ask Us Anything, and round the episode out with our Top 5 Man-Crushes.    

We usually take a long break in the beginning of the year with the Pod but since we've been spotty at best, we decided to just start early and continue Season 4 for a bit.   We catch up with all that has gone on in our lives.  Steve survived Covid, and Brad is still working from home--find out how much longer on this week's episode.  After we catch up, we talk about our New Year's Resolution for 2022.  

Another episode that took Steve three months to edit, but he didn't want to give up! On our 100th Episode we have on Mitchel Dipzinski co-Founder of the Poetics Lab.  While the recording of this pod might have taken place back in October, it's amazing how much of the episode still carries over into 2022.  It's an important pod, so you should definitely give it a listen. To finish it out we draft our Top 5 Pokemon! We appreciate everyone's patience as we navigate trying to keep the pod alive! 

So we decided to finally fired the pod back up!  New mics, open & honest conversation about what the pod has become and where we want it to go.  But so much stayed the same.... we fire off a few Hot Takes, get into what been happening in both Brad & I's lives since the last episode and we then talk about the future of the pod and where we would like to see it go.  We round out the episode with our Top 5 Movies we would want if we were stuck on an island.  We are reunited and it feels so good!