(light music) - This program is brought to you by the members of WCNY.

Thank you.

- Nationwide, Hungry for History markers from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation highlight unique foods and traditions, including salt potatoes and Berry Dairy Days, available through grants for communities and nonprofits.

More at wgpfoundation.org/tv.

- Syracuse sits in the heart of New York State, with access to the Finger Lakes and the Adirondacks, from city vibes and great local eats, to live music and festivals that roll on year-round.

Four seasons for everyone.

- Liberty Tabletop has been crafting flatware in America for over 20 years and is dedicated to supporting our community and preserving the craft of flatware manufacturing.

- Spatchcock Funk is in the house.

Our house and your house too.

You know where the party's at?

Wherever you're at.

We're gonna teach you how to throw the best parties, the best dinners, the best get togethers.

All you need is the people you love, and we'll take care of the rest.

Spatchcock Funk, dope food, strong drinks, great stories.

(gentle somber music) You never know when your last day on this rock is gonna be.

So you gotta rock each day like it's your last.

We're all about cheating death, but that's the only time we cheat, y'all.

To make the best of every sunrise, roll in some creativity.

Stretch yourself, your crew, and keep your mental health up.

Even if you ain't doing so hot physically.

You can break out to your normal routine on your own, but sometimes it gets forced on you.

So change before you have to.

Stay fresh and sharp.

That holds true for fighting off the undead or rolling with a real-life trauma.

Be flexible, stretching your creativity will help you be ready for anything.

- So, when are you gonna start the makeup?

- We want y'all to shake things up.

Do something different.

Keep yourself and your crew on their toes.

You've got two choices in this world, you're either on the menu or at the table.

And we built a spread to die for.

So break the norm and get creative as we get partying during a zombie outbreak.

This is "Eat the Dead" (upbeat music) (gentle brooding music) - Time to get spooky, y'all.

We got a killer cocktail for some killers and a killer hoard.

Every zombie outbreak I've been a part of or seen on TV anyways, everybody's just fiening to find that cure.

But we got the antidote, y'all.

And that's this drink.

And it uses some magical stuff, man.

We're all about that.

The key to it though, to any cocktail, really if you wanna do it right, is the right glass.

And we procured, AKA borrowed, AKA stole, AKA whatever some actual beakers.

I think this is a beaker.

From a laboratory.

So that looks very cool.

People like to have something cool in their hand, and I can't blame them.

That is the big part of this drink.

The other big part of it though, is actually active ingredient.

So we are using absinthe.

This is real absinthe.

Meaning it's made with wormwood.

And wormwood, a lot of people think absinthe is hallucinogenic.

It's not.

I mean, it can be if you drink a ton of it, and I've drank a ton of it.

One of my buddies, Jimmy and I were once partying one night.

We split a bottle of absinthe and maybe we were catching trails.

But in reality, you're not.

It's not gonna happen.

Wormwood has thujone in it.

And thujone is a psychoactive ingredient, but the dosage is super duper low.

So it would take a lot of it to actually get you to trip.

That being said, it's been banned in a lot of states and countries.

So it's a pretty cool thing just to have.

So we got a shaker full of ice.

In the shaker, we're gonna put a healthy dose of absinthe.

Because absinthe is awesome.

On top of that, because we can be partying.

And when you're dying and you're a zombie, you tend to dry out.

Your skin gets a little flaky and stuff like that.

So we've got some energy drink, right?

Like your refreshing electrolyte drink you drink after working out.

So this will help you stay hydrated.

A good splash of that.

And we want the green color in here too.

We've also got some limeade for some sweetness and tartness.

And finally, we've got a little bit of just cold-pressed juice.

We've got lime, cucumber, a bunch of stuff in there.

So this drink is pretending to be healthy, and I like that.

I like when things pretend to be healthy.

Like I pretend to be healthy.

I work out a lot, but I eat and drink my face off.

So... But I still pretend.

For this drink, we're gonna use a funnel which can be used for all sorts of stuff.

But in this case for preventing a mess, which I'm pretty great at making.

(liquid pouring) Now, we're gonna get this up to almost the neck.

Now remember, this cocktail, like our fearless host, it's pretty strong.

So be careful when you're working with it.

Now, to make this thing really work, there's a couple other things we like.

We've got some dry ice, which is super dope.

We're gonna drop that in there.

And now we get that cool effect.

Now, dry ice is awesome to work with 'cause it looks cool.

But be careful because it can burn your lips.

So if you're gonna use it, make sure people know that they've gotta be careful with it.

After you've had two or three of these, no more dry ice.

But to really sell the effect, we also threw on a coaster that lights up.

That will probably give me a seizure, so not that one.

That one right there.

That's the antidote to all your problems, y'all.

Get this drink.

Now I mentioned the danger in this.

'Cause we love things dangerous.

But we gotta take care of our peeps.

So at the party, we're gonna serve 'em with straws.

But let's just make sure we're looking good here.

Yeah.

I'm ready to party with the dead.

(suspenseful music) (upbeat music) When you're gonna party till you die, you gotta go hard, y'all.

And we're making a dip in a beautiful display that you'll see later.

It's gonna look like a giant skull, but the dips themselves are fantastic.

We've got guac, pico, but the other one we're gonna focus on today is mole negro.

And "mole" means kind of sauce esque.

And then "negro" means black or dark, right?

What we do first is we turn on our broiler.

And we've got a whole bunch of cut veggies.

We've got some plantains, white onions, some garlic, some tommys, and we also have tomatillos.

In the oven, 5 to 8 minutes, broil 'em.

If they get burned or brown, I don't care about that.

That's fine.

Now comes the next part.

A pan of bacon grease, because bacon makes everything better.

We're gonna heat the bacon grease up.

And we are going to add in a bunch of raisins, a bunch of dried prunes with a bunch of cinnamon.

And we're gonna keep stirring that up until it gets this beautiful, beautiful dark color.

So my raisins are now plumping up a little bit from the bacon grease.

And they're turning a little brown with the cinnamon.

I'm also gonna add in out of a can, a couple of adobo peppers.

And keep mixing that up too.

We got our blender.

We've got our blistered, roasted vegetables.

So we're gonna put about a third of that through.

I'm gonna take some of that awesome mixture here and I'm gonna add that in there.

That's gonna create a really dark color.

I'm gonna put in half a can.

We've got some Caribbean-spiced black beans.

Also gonna add in some chicken stock.

And I'm gonna save this chicken stock in case I need it by spilling it all over the place.

And keep blending it until it's like a chunkier smooth consistency.

I'll show you in a second.

(blender whirring) So I wanna thicken this up.

And by doing that, I'm gonna add in more of my raisins and prunes.

I'm gonna add that back to my pan.

So I'm just gonna slowly heat it up low and just bring it together a little bit.

Dips of the dead, y'all.

Got the mole with two of our favorite dips.

Guacamole and we also made a pico de gallo.

Some cilantro to garnish the cold dips for the mole.

Some toasted sesame seeds.

Now for the party, instead of serving on a platter, we're making this awesome tray that looks like a skull.

So we're gonna put the guacamole in one 9-inch cake pan.

We're gonna put the pico, another 9-inch cake pan.

And we're taking a heart-shaped cake pan flipping upside down.

That's the nose.

So we're gonna put the mole in there.

And then we're gonna put it all in one tray and surround it with chips to make that skull shape and chorizo as the teeth.

And that's what's up.

We're gonna try this, y'all.

And one of my favorite things to do with dips is use chips.

One is a serving device.

So I'm gonna, I'm going crazy on this thing.

I got some guac, got some mole, I got some pico.

Don't need a double dip when I'm tripling it up in the front end, babe.

It's like a ménage à trois of beautiful dead craziness.

(chip crunching) Dead.

(upbeat music) We're prepping for a zombie invasion, y'all.

We're gonna have zombies everywhere!

So we can get ready for battle and be able to save ourselves.

I got my guy who I'll roll to the death with my man Nick.

And we are here right now with a zombie simulator learning how to take down all these monsters and keep ourselves in the party safe.

Today, we're gonna do an experience called "Outbreak" right?

It is a free-roam VR experience.

You're gonna be using up to 1500 square feet.

- Wow!

(person jabbers) - We have this whole space to move?

- Whole space between you guys.

All right.

- So what if it's like an old lady do you still shoot her?

Like?

- Everybody's gotta go.

- Everybody's fair game.

- We shoot anybody and everybody, yeah.

- I love it.

- Except for each other.

- Feels natural.

- Does it?

- Yeah, yeah.

- It looks natural.

- This is wild dude, seeing through this.

I think I'm just gonna shoot this dead body right here.

Let's just see what happens.

(person laughs) - Oh!

What the heck?

We gotta work on our communication.

(upbeat music) - I'm just chewing up zombies.

Oh, I just got a crawler all over me, dude.

- A crawler?

I don't even see the crawlers.

- Yeah, these ones in the ground.

Okay.

Watch out.

There might be some in the water.

I feel it.

Wrecking these zombies, dude.

- I'm interested in seeing how much we are wrecking them.

- Man, I'm hammering this thing with grenades and it's just not doing nothing.

- It's going down.

- Yeah!

- How was that?

- Wow.

That was pretty intense, man.

- It was!

- You wanna like step up - So do you guys think you're prepared for your party?

- Oh, yeah.

- I'm ready, dude.

- They don't stand a chance.

- Zombie have no chance, baby.

(soft music) - Now, for any zombie party, you need a killer protein, y'all.

And that's what we got here, baby.

This we call the "Dead Man's Femur" It's also known as the "Thor's Hammer", but it's basically a beef shank cut to look like- Well... This, right?

Like Thor's hammer.

We like it because it looks like, you know, a human leg.

And that's pretty dope.

The trouble with cooking big cuts of meat like this, like powerful cuts of meat is getting it to cook evenly.

But we've got a trick for you.

And that's using the sous vide device.

You've got a sous vide stick right here.

This is a French technique.

What you're doing is we're gonna create a water bath that creates one temperature that stays the entire temperature for a long duration of time, allowing it to cook perfectly across the board.

I've got a blend that our boy Steven just mixed up.

This is room-softened, room temperature butter, mixed with garlic.

I'm gonna take it with my bare hands and I'm gonna work this in to the entire thing.

I'm just like, schlack it on there.

Rub it in, don't miss a part.

So this looks like a human quad.

I mean, it's not as big as my quads, but it's pretty good size.

And you wanna decorate a quad nice tattoos, maybe a short skirt, maybe some dope jeans, whatever.

We're gonna decorate this thing up with some really fresh flavors.

Flesh too, though.

I'm gonna lean a bunch of fresh rosemary twigs right up against it.

I've got a whole mess of thyme, because we're gonna have the time of our lives.

And if we're gonna die from a zombie bite, have a good time in the process.

I've got some butcher twine.

Butcher twine is an essential in any kitchen.

So I'm gonna tie it kind of tightly with a square knot.

Now to bag your meat up.

And you should always bag your meat up.

You want people to be safe at all times.

I've got a 2-gallon sealable bag.

I'm gonna take this bad piece of meat.

We want to try to remove as much air as possible out of there.

So first we're gonna squeeze out as much as we can like that.

Then we're gonna put it into the water.

And the displacement method is we're gonna use the gravity of the water to help us push out as much oxygen as possible.

Well, or carbon dioxide.

Now once it's sealed, you want to keep it submerged the entire time during the sous vide process.

So what we use is something that I like to call my cooking rock.

I've had this for years.

I used to put husk of corn under water when I'm soaking 'em.

Anything I gotta hold down when I'm cooking, I do.

I've cleaned it, it's beautiful, it makes me happy.

And it can weigh down meat like this.

It's also good to weigh it on a body too, if you have to do that.

So I'm gonna set this to 145 degrees.

And then I'm gonna put the time for 12 hours.

Something that's really important in the squad?

Gravies and sauces.

And we're about to make a killer gravy right now.

Speaking of that though, what's it's important to us is showing mad respect for our people.

Our boy Alex Balstra, somebody we die for a great chef, great cook.

This is his recipe from the shank all the way to the gravy.

But let's start that gravy.

We got a bunch of butter right here in the pan, melt it up.

Heat it up.

Then I'm gonna add in a bunch of shredded carrots.

So these carrots, I used a box grater, like a cheese grater to shred that up.

Same thing with shallots, a couple shallots.

And also some shredded fresh garlic.

And I'm gonna cook this stuff until it gets fragrant.

We got these brown bits in here looking good, which is awesome.

And it's starting to smell aromatic, y'all.

That means you are going in the right direction.

You're getting the flavor to come out of that.

To be in the right place next, we're gonna put in a nice healthy amount of tomato paste.

And we're gonna stir that up and break it up quite a bit.

And I'm gonna let it go a little bit.

So it starts to actually like kind of leave some brown burned stuck parts to the bottom of the pan.

We want that.

This is called fond and we're gonna deglaze it in a second.

To deglaze, our boy Jimmy Schug gave us this.

It's a California Pinot Noir.

We're gonna put this in the bottom.

We're gonna put a whole half bottle in here.

Now, as it's cooking, I'm gonna use my spoon and scrape up all of the fond and the brown, beautiful goodness in the bottom.

And I'm gonna keep stirring that for a little bit.

I'm gonna put in some fresh thyme.

Put in some fresh rosemary, chopped up.

Throw in a bay leaf.

Then I'm gonna put in a whole mess of salt and pepper.

And each time you're adding these new ingredients, you're gonna start to smell it, which is fantastic.

What I've got here is veal stock that I made with veal bones.

I did it the Anthony Bourdain way by rubbing tomato paste on 'em and roasting in the oven for 40 minutes before putting 'em in with veggies and boiling 'em for hours and hours and hours.

So all we do now is stir this up a little bit while the heat's on.

And then, we're gonna let this lower to simmer.

And let it go for an hour or two, maybe two hours.

Yes!

Yo, if you got a thing for legs, this is a leg right here.

Beautiful.

We're gonna take some beef tallow.

And I'm gonna brush beef tallow on this thing a little bit.

Now for me, the best way to sear anything, the way how we do at Spatchcock Funk is with blow torches, y'all.

Like our girl Julia Child said, "Everybody should have one."

I'm gonna pick it up.

(blow torch flaring) Cast iron skillet, put it right in the center.

We shredded a bunch of yellow carrots, orange carrots, purple carrots, and some green onions.

And we're gonna take it and dress around the sides.

Now, that gravy we made.

It's thickened up after a couple hours.

So I'm gonna be generous and just pour this over this beautiful cut of meat.

Yeah, we looking right and tight.

Let's see how we did here on the cut.

With gravy.

Willing to die for this meat right here.

And this cow gave his life for this party, y'all.

Let's go get loose.

(soft music) Yo, when you're throwing a party that's fresh to death, bring in some fresh to death help, y'all.

Go to the experts.

And this person right here, my home girl, this is Jackie.

Jackie's a professional baker, right?

She started this business, man when she was near death's door.

And rose from the dead to make this awesome business.

Makes great cakes, great cookies we use all the time.

But dude, I can't wait to do some baking with you, man.

- I am wicked excited to be here right now.

And I'm super excited to show you how easy it is to make a creative, theme-inspired dessert to go along with whatever party you're throwing.

- Yeah.

And we've partied together a lot before, and you know how it goes down.

- I sure do.

- So the zombie finger idea is we want to basically have, you know, something that looks like a finger on a plate.

But you came up with a cool idea for us to make some magic happen.

- Yeah, let's do it!

- Okay.

How do we get started?

- Well, we're gonna be making these sweet finger cookies.

And so, I'm gonna start with the wet ingredients and I would love for you to help me out with the dry ingredients.

- Got you.

- So, you're gonna be mixing together flour.

- Yep.

- You're gonna grab some cinnamon.

- Yep.

- We have some baking powder.

- Yep.

- And some salt.

Over here, I'm gonna be mixing together my sugar.

I'm gonna put in some butter here.

We're gonna mix these together to make our cookies nice and light and airy.

- Now is that why- Why is the sugar in the wet side versus the dry side?

- I like to mix it in with the butter, 'cause I do think it makes a difference in the consistency of my cookies in the hand.

So vanilla, would you like to do one?

- Let's do it.

- All right, let's do this.

Oh.

- All right.

- All right!

So here we go.

I'm going to go ahead and just kind of mix these together.

- All right.

- Give our butter softened a little bit.

(blender whirring) All right.

I'm gonna hand that over here if you want us to do a couple little squirts in here.

Whatever you're thinking.

That's great.

- More?

- Nope.

(blender whirring) This is probably good, honestly.

- Okay.

- And we can start to pour in the dry ingredients.

I'll put this on slow.

We might make a little... (blender whirring) Make a little dust here.

So, this is actually pretty good here.

- That looks great!

- You can see it's starting to come together.

- Yep.

- And, so, we're gonna wanna make sure that we chill it for a little bit so that our cookies don't spread.

- Okay.

How long minimum chill?

- Minimum, 20 minutes.

- Max?

- Max, couple days.

All right, so we're gonna pull our dough back out 'cause it's been chilling for just a little bit.

And I'm gonna cut us each a piece to make our fingers!

- Cool.

- We'll make this into a little finger competition.

I'm gonna keep on doing this until I get it like pencil thin.

Yep.

So I'm just gonna kind of cut 'em.

This is what I do.

Maybe like three inches.

You're gonna pick out whichever kind of nail.

I kind of, I have fun with it.

Some of 'em are round and not chipped.

And then others, you know, if you wanna- - 'Cause some people's nails are chipped.

(person jabbers) Mine are always nasty-looking.

- This is how I'm gonna make the top of it.

I'm gonna stick it right in there.

- Okay.

- And then, you're gonna make your hands.

So for me, I've kind of gotten in the groove of doing, you know, the same sort of thing.

I do one back and forth, three for the knuckle.

Put 'em in the oven for 3 to 4 minutes at 375!

- Cookies looking good, dude!

- I think they came out pretty darn good.

But now, we have to make them just a little more horrifying to fit with your theme.

- I'm down.

- So, I'm gonna grab a cookie here.

If you wanna pick out one.

And I'm gonna use our cheesy little cutters.

And I'm basically gonna make a nice little stab or cut mark.

And then I'm gonna do two things.

One, I'm gonna very carefully take the nail off.

- All right.

- I'm gonna get our little bottle here.

And drop a little dollop.

- You just heated this, the candy up in the microwave?

- That's right.

30 seconds, stir it.

Keep going till it's nice and smooth.

And you have a liquid that you can dunk in to kind of resemble our blood here.

So, now that we have our nail on, I'm gonna go ahead and just literally do a little diagonal.

And I like to flip it, so it can kind of fall out once.

- Yeah.

- Spray it on there.

- All the way across.

Like?

- Yeah.

Do it however you want!

This is your murder scene.

- Yeah.

I can't wait to put your fingers in my mouth.

- Oh my gosh.

(laughing) We were going for the same one there too apparently.

We'll go here.

(person exclaims) - They're so good.

Thanks a ton, homie!

- Thank you!

(soft music) (song playing) - Is there something on my face?

- Little bit.

- You guys look great though!

- Oh, I've looked better.

- I feel, I feel like I've never looked better.

- I was gonna say, this is the best I've ever seen you before.

You know?

(all laughing) Man, I hope I look this good at my funeral.

- Amen!

- You'll both be there, so it is what it is.

- It's kind of true.

- I gotta say, like... if I was a grave digger, and not a really good one, I might look at y'all and be like, "All right!"

- That's so weird.

- Matt, is this your first zombie party?

- You know, ironically enough, it is not.

I've been to two, but they weren't like this.

They weren't planned zombie parties.

So the first one, I had been... You know, rolling with my crew in a club all night.

Dance club will like, you know, shake it a little bit like this and that.

And all of a sudden, I'm walking out of this club, it's 8:30 in the A. And the sun is up, people are on their way to work, and we're staggering outta this man.

It was... Like it was morning of the living dead.

- Well, every party's a zombie party if you just try hard enough.

- Yeah.

Amen.

(person laughs) - Well said, well said.

Everything is a zombie party if you try hard enough.

- You try hard- (laughs) - Well, we're gonna try hard tonight.

But the other time was I was walking home from a bar.

I was engaged in some, some revelry, you know?

Some merriment.

- Of course.

- Yeah.

Really to celebrate just life in general.

'Cause it's better than the alternative.

- Right.

True, true.

- So we're hanging out and all of a sudden, I have to bid farewell to my friends and allies.

And I start rolling home and there's a cut to my apartment through this cemetery.

So I'm walking through.

You know, and kind of shuffling my feet.

And lo and behold, I walk through this row and there's like seven or eight people there partying.

And they've got an old school boombox.

Like at one point, like, I literally remember flipping the tape out and putting the cassette back in.

You know, with the forward rewind thing?

- They let you do that?

- Yeah!

I walked by and I'm like, "Oh my God, am I about to be murdered and am I gonna die in this graveyard?"

And this guy's like "Cervesa?"

and I'm like, "Si, señor."

And they had chips and guac.

And they had some really cool costumes on.

So I sat there on the tombstone very respectfully.

You know, poured some out for the peeps and had a few drinks and laughed and talked.

And I was like, "All right y'all, it's time to call it an evening."

Or at that point, an early morning.

- Right.

- And I rolled back to my apartment, you know?

The next day tell my roommates and my home peeps like, "Yo, this party was sick!

I rolled up on it."

And they're like, "Who were they?"

I'm like, "I don't know."

And to this day, I never saw those cats again.

- Maybe they weren't there!

- Yeah.

- Right?

Like it was- - Yeah.

Real zombies.

- Real zombies!

- Well, I'm hoping they weren't real zombies because I would've been infected probably by- Or like- Like this guy's.... Actually, I'm so tasty.

They would definitely take a bite.

(person laughs) Well, you know what?

I'm glad I take a bite with y'all because y'all are awesome.

So, I'm glad we partied alive and let's party when we're dead too.

- All right!

- Something that brings us back from the dead?

Seeing our people be happy, having fun, and being creative.

You don't know what you're capable of unless you just plain try!

That's only how this party got dreamt up with this whole dang show too.

Change things up.

Take a picture, memorialize that life.

We don't know how long we're gonna be here.

So be with your people, be creative, live your life with the people you love every single day.

We about to party till we die.

See you in the afterlife.

(upbeat music) - Hungry for History markers from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation shares stories behind regional dishes and local food festivals, including Smith Island Cake and Spiedie Fest, available through grants for municipalities and nonprofits.

wgpfoundation.org/tv.

- Syracuse sits in the heart of New York State, with access to the Finger Lakes and the Adirondacks.

From city vibes and great local eats to live music and festivals that roll on year-round.

Four seasons for everyone.

- Liberty Tabletop has been crafting flatware in America for over 20 years, and is dedicated to supporting our community and preserving the craft of flatware manufacturing.

Liberty Tabletop.

(bright music)