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

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- 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.

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Four seasons for everyone.

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- "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.

(funky music) Shell, yeah, dog.

We're repping the mighty folks of New England with an old school clam bake, done right.

Not just with the steamers, but how we got 'em.

(bubble popping) Sustainability is a secret ingredient to feeling good about eating good.

Alright, mother shuckers.

No time to clam up now.

We've got super fresh seafood and even fresher outfits, both sourced locally.

We've got a lot of sea monsters here, not just the clams and lobsters, but all the sirens and sea serpents you can handle.

Hey, make sure you rinse those clams.

- Of course, dude, nobody likes a dirty clam.

- Food chain responsibility is vital.

Be pro the planet.

Proteins and produce should be grabbed locally from people you know that love the earth just as much as you do.

From beaches on Cape Cod to backyards in Rhode Island, front yard, side yards and block parties, this is how you throw a clam bake.

We getting fresh to death, baby.

This is in the raw.

(upbeat music) (lively music) A clam bake, y'all, my favorite thing in the world, my favorite way to party.

It's actually super integral to who I am as a cook and as an alcohol mixologist, right?

So the first time I was at a clam bake, I was seven years old and my dad and his buddies were having so much fun.

It was the first time I actually had a clam.

Loved it.

First time I had a beer, turns out 7-year-old Matt Read was not a fan of beers.

(bubble popping) However, I got my first sip.

I looked at my dad and I'm like, Ew.

And he's like, trust me someday you're gonna love these.

And he was right.

The beer was actually a beer called Matt's.

And honestly, until I was 10, I thought he named me after the beer.

(bubble popping) So a Shandy, the perfect drink for a clam bake, it's light refreshing, and it uses beer as the base.

Many people will tell you it was invented in Rhode Island.

Not true, they make a good one there though.

Others will tell you, there was a pirate in Nantucket that invented it.

Also, a cool story, also not true.

Actually, it was the 1850s in England.

They created a drink called the Shandy Gaff.

But it's a combination usually of beer and lemonade.

It helps the beer go longer, which is why they used to make it back then.

But we're gonna make it this way because it's actually a little bit lighter.

So the key ingredients, beer, lemonade, and we're throwing in watermelon, y'all.

So it's refreshing.

(bubble popping) Watermelon is a key ingredient for us.

It's a watermelon lemonade Shandy.

Watermelons are awesome, they're perfect at any summer party.

And as a boy and boys are stupid, being a stupid boy, I used to love 'em with the seeds though.

You take one and spit the seed at people.

Watermelons are great.

(bubble popping) So we're gonna juice this watermelon.

And when you juice a watermelon, actually you can buy that in the store.

It's $8 an ounce, right?

We can make this stuff super cheap.

So this is one whole watermelon that we're just gonna juice up.

Got our blender ready, we're gonna drop a bunch in with the rind off.

And first you gotta create some liquid in it.

So it actually starts to pulse a little bit.

And then we can just add it as we go.

The stuffer, which was also my nickname in high school.

Just get it going (blender whirring) and once you've got some liquid in there, (blender whirring) now you can add the rest in and grind it out.

(blender whirring) Now we've got it blended up and it looks good and it smells good, but we wanna make sure it's clear.

So we're gonna take it and strain it.

And sometimes what we'll do is let it settle down because it's got that thick stuff to go through it.

You can take a spatula and push it through.

The Shandy can be served two ways.

You can make it in a pitcher, which is cool, but we like to make it by the glass.

We have a pint glass, 16 ounces that we like Shandies on ice.

(bubble popping) Some people don't, but we do.

So the measurement of it is important because a Shandy actually is great on a drinking day, all day long in the sun (can clicking) 'cause it's actually pretty low ABV, low alcohol.

So you're gonna go about six ounces of beer and we're using a pilsner here.

So it's 4.2% alcohol.

The glass itself will be half of that, right?

So it's lower alcohol in it, so you can drink more of 'em.

Then three ounces of lemonade, tart and sweet.

Then three ounces of our watermelon juice.

Perfect color.

Garnish it with a bright little lemon.

Refreshing, (grunting) delicious.

Pairs, well with a hundred clams.

A really good bisque is not a chowder.

So chowder is cream based and there's cream in a bisque, but a bisque means there's been a roux in it.

You use flour in it.

So the lobster bisque, though, y'all, the flavor goes throughout, right?

It's not usually huge chunks of lobsters, though we're gonna throw that in there too, it's the actual flavor of the stock.

So we're gonna make a seafood stock, y'all.

You can buy one and there's no shame in that whatsoever.

But here's how to make one from scratch.

The key to seafood stock, seafood, duh.

So we have a bunch of shells.

We already made five lobsters and we boiled them up.

So these are leftover shells.

So what we're gonna do is we're eventually gonna put as many as we can, but we're gonna take a couple of the big lobster heads and put 'em in the bottom of it because that's where a lot of the flavor comes from.

And we save the water that we boiled the lobsters in to actually build the stock from.

So you add some garlic, you've got four cloves here.

You can use minced garlic that you get out of a jar, there's no shame in that.

That's jarlic and we'll use more of that later.

But for this, we make smashed garlic.

So take your clove and smash it.

The goal for all these things is we want as much surface area (bubble popping) of our veggies as possible because this really lets the flavor seep into the stock.

So what we're gonna do is break 'em up and throw it in and then get that garlic flavor in there and all the other veggies that we throw in there.

We break 'em apart and get as much surface area as possible like this red pepper.

(food cracking) Celery, (bubble popping) carrots, onion, fresh thyme, a few peppercorns, couple bay leaves.

Then we add in six cups of our stock (liquid pouring) and from there we're gonna layer as much as our shells on (shells clanking) as we can, really get 'em in there.

Bring it to a boil and let it simmer for 30 minutes covered.

Yo "Spatchcock Funk" is all about taking risks and making bisques.

A bisque is something that really stands out at a date, as an example.

We knew Elaine kind of remembers the bisque and nothing else.

But also if you're entertaining (bubble popping) a new boyfriend, a new girlfriend, meeting the parents for the first time, make a bisque.

This bisque starts with a lot of butter.

We're gonna heat up our butter, now we're gonna add in some veggies.

We got some celery, a couple carrots diced up and some Sweet Vidalia onion.

We're gonna get these good and coated in the butter and cook 'em till they get soft.

Then, while we're doing it season as you go, it adds a lot of great flavor to it.

We're put some salt and pepper in there.

Stir that up too and let it go for around 10 minutes or so.

We're gonna add tomato paste, a good amount of it too because this adds depth of flavor.

The next thing we're gonna add is fresh tarragon, which sounds like a super cool ninja warrior, but tarragon (bubble popping) is an awesome herb that is super complimentary to lobster.

If tarragon sees lobster is like, yo, great shell today, dude.

That type of complimentary stuff.

Then, of course we're going to add in a couple shakes of hot sauce and yeah, I always carry it on my person because you never know when you're gonna need it.

Then you're gonna stir this until it's mixed evenly.

Add in flour and the flour and the butter that gives us the roux that starts with a velvety thing.

So keep stirring that until that's evenly mixed too.

We're gonna add in a dry white wine.

This is a dry Pinot Grig, 'cause we like that, especially at clam bakes.

Have some of that too.

Now we're making a lot of seafood, so make sure you have food that other people that don't like seafood can eat.

I'm not one of those people.

We're also gonna add in cream sherry.

Cream Sherry is like sherry wine that you can buy in a grocery store, but the one in a grocery store is regular sherry and it's gonna be around 51% salt.

We don't want that.

The cream sherry gives us more of that velvety texturing we want.

So we're gonna stir this until it's evenly mixed, looking creamy and good.

We're stirred up well, we're gonna add in a bay leaf.

With bay leaves, by the way, a woman taught me New Orleans cooking with her.

(bubble popping) She doesn't even remove them.

She said, if you're not smart enough to take a bay leaf out of a dish we serve you, you shouldn't be eating anyway.

So we're gonna leave the bay leaf in there.

We've got a bunch of thyme.

And now look at this beautiful seafood stock.

So now we're gonna have this lobster flavor.

Every single bite has a whole bunch of lobster.

So we're gonna stir this again until it's evenly mixed.

Now we're gonna cover it and simmer it for 20 minutes.

(metal clanking) Yeah, we're looking right and tight and mixed and warm so we're gonna add in some garlic, some paprika, smoked paprika 'cause we want it smokey and a little bit more salt and pepper.

Maybe three, four more minutes till it simmers again and good to go.

We want this bisque smooth, y'all, smooth is my game.

To do that, we've gotta use a blender.

Now this part can get a little messy.

You can wear a full apron, which I'm not doing.

Or have one of your friends come and help you out.

Here we go.

Okay, so we're gonna slowly add it into our blender.

(liquid splattering) Great work, dog.

- Thank you.

- Okay, now blend it up.

(blender whirring) (bubble popping) (blender whirring) Perfectly blended and smooth.

It's back in the pot over medium heat.

And now we're making things creamy, y'all.

Cash rules everything around me.

Cream get the money.

(bubble popping) Add your cream in slowly as you stir it.

When you look at it, it's pretty thick and we like it that way.

But if you wanna make it thicker, I'm gonna show you how to do that.

Take a tablespoon of water, a tablespoon of corn starch and just mix that together.

And that's a slurry and it won't detract from the flavor, but it'll add a thickness to it that we want.

Got our slurry mixed in and we're gonna add in a splash of sherry vinegar.

(bubble popping) I can't wait to get in this bisque, y'all, feeling biscy and frisky.

This is the lobster meat of five lobsters that went into the shell stock.

So we are feeling good.

That's a garnish because there's so much lobster flavor in here.

This way we can serve a lot of people.

I laid myself up a little something, something this bisque.

(light music continues) You notice we're serving this in cup sizes that's because we're gonna make room (bubble popping) for those clams, baby and that dessert.

Now how we garnish it, we made sourdough giant croutons.

Sourdough pairs beautifully with lobster bisque.

Some people wanna use rye, but rye is too earthy for the creaminess of it.

Sourdough is where they make the bread bowls out of it.

We didn't wanna make 50 bread bowls, so we just made these, but they're awesome.

So we drop one of those in there, looking cool.

Take a nice fat piece of lobster as a garnish on the top.

Now we're gonna top it with some green onions.

Get some cool looking color in there.

Let's see how this all work out.

Bisque, y'all, lobster bisque.

(light music continues) (swanky music) Shuck yeah, the star of our clam bake, besides our guests, they're the major star.

The supporting actor I guess are the clams themselves.

And today we're using Littlenecks.

Now we love clams of all shapes and sizes.

We like Top Necks, we like Soft Shells, Quahogs, all that stuff.

But the Littleneck and the Mahogany are the two ones we love to have at a clam bake.

Here's a hot take, but it's just how we stand at the Spatchcock Nation, we are firm believers for a clam bake to be an official clam bake, you gotta have raw clams, y'all.

And trust me, I am the king.

I am the undisputed champion of eating raw clams.

(bubble popping) In fact, we had a clam bake at my house once and a kiddie pool full of ice and raw clams, we were drinking til late in the night, you know how it is.

My wife can't find me.

All my friends are inside playing cards, having a hat party.

They come out and I'm in the garage sitting in a lawn chair in this kiddie pool, just shucking raw clams and throwing 'em down with a ice cold beer (bubble popping) on my hand.

That's how you do it.

You take a clam shucker and I go through some of these things like I go to the clam shucker store and the guy's like you're back again?

There's two ways to do it.

You take the thinner end, not really sharp, but it's thinner and you start with the heel (shell cracking) and roll it through like that.

And then you flip it open, take the knife pointy part and that's how you do it.

Now, I don't need anything on it.

Man, so good.

But you always wanna have cocktail sauce anytime you're serving fried seafood or raw seafood.

The main ingredient, obviously standard ketchup.

So you throw that in there, I got about a half cup.

We've also got about a tablespoon and a half of fresh squeezed lemon juice.

Seafood always takes in lemon really well.

Now we also have jarlic.

Our friend Nicole calls it jarlic.

It's the minced garlic that comes in the jar.

We use that here because you get some of that little oil that's in there and really spreads the garlic around.

I've got a little bit of Worcestershire Sauce.

(bubble popping) Okay, we're gonna mix that evenly.

Now, this hot stuff, a little cutie I took from a clam bake, if you know what I mean.

We're gonna take that, a couple shakes of hot sauce in there.

The biggest part though is the horseradish, y'all.

It's like a rating scale.

So that starts out one scoop of horseradish, that's a G rating.

It's cool, it's entertaining, (bubble popping) you know what I mean?

Two scoops, now it's PG-13.

That's like you got a cuss word in there or something, which is cool, but we go harder than that.

Now we're talking rated R. We got some nudity, some violence, that's more our speed, but we really wanna go the way we love it.

And that's rated X, y'all.

And that's putting in another scoop of horseradish.

So much of this stuff is almost pink, y'all.

That is a perfect horseradish.

But you can dial back the way the cocktail sauce works 'cause it's a perfect cocktail sauce and the horseradish is perfect.

So we're just gonna take another one of these beautiful Littlenecks and put it in my big neck right now.

Just a little dash of this beauty.

Yes, they say there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Personally, I think that's mean, I love cats, but I do know there's more than one way to steam a clam.

So let's walk through that.

We're gonna show you the easiest, best, cleanest way.

Now some people will take a turkey fryer and submerge it and pull it out.

That's cool.

(metal clanking) You still gotta clean the turkey fryer.

Another way is your old school steamer pot.

These are cool too, but (metal banging) (bubble popping) gotta clean those too.

The best way for us is to steam 'em on the grill.

Now do not, I repeat, do not just put clams in their shell on your grill because they'll cook up and they'll taste good, but they'll pop open and all that salt water will just destroy the insides of your grill.

Here's how to do it that makes the least mess and the best taste too and the best time.

So we've got about 50 clams here, 48 'cause I ate two of them.

And a bushel of clams of Littlenecks, anyways is around 400 clams.

So usually you can go a little bit more than this, but we're gonna start with 48 of these guys.

(clams clanking) And we're gonna put 'em into a tin foil pan.

(clams clanking) We rinse 'em with cold water first, just to make sure there's no extra sand or dirt on 'em.

But they're fine and beautiful.

So we're gonna spread 'em out evenly on here.

Then we're gonna take a little bit of water, right?

Just enough to cover the bottom of the pan.

(water pouring) The heat of the grill will create steam, boiling this water.

The steam happens, the steam will open the clams.

The clams themselves (foil crinkling) will have some water in their shells anyway, so we're gonna tighten it up.

(foil crinkling) Before we put 'em on, make sure your grill has been preheated to about, I don't know, man, three, 400 degrees and medium heat.

We'll probably do that.

Also, in the house or on your side burner, heat up some butter, slowly so it melts 'cause we're gonna dip in that later.

So what we do is open our grill up, (foil crinkling) throw our clams on for 10 to 15 minutes so they start to open up.

(foil crinkling) Let's see where we're at.

Yeah, they're all opened up perfectly.

It's been around 11 minutes.

So next, we just take 'em off the heat, let 'em cool a little bit (bubble popping) so we don't burn our mouths.

Got our tray of clams, which we serve with some melted butter.

You can also use clarified butter and ghee, but we like the real deal, that frothiness, take one of these beautiful little guys outta here.

Or girls, we don't judge, we don't care.

Right in the butter.

Steamed clams at a clam bake, they're not actually baked, they're steamed and they're delicious.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) Every great cookout and summer party needs a dessert.

For us, we always knock with our elbows.

We bring something.

Recently I was at a party with Alex and Nick, we all made brownies.

Mine were the best.

(bubble popping) This dessert is even better than those.

These are sexy blue angels.

We named it that for two reasons.

One angel food cake and two blueberries, y'all.

Blueberries are all over New England.

There's lowbush, which are the ones in the wild and Highbush.

Hello.

Hello.

(bubble popping) They're grown on a farm, but they're everywhere and they're awesome.

Also the sexy blue angels, y'all, those awesome planes, I saw 'em as a kid, it was amazing.

In fact, they flew over Cape Cod in 1987, a little bit after the Red Sox lost to the Mets in the World Series.

(bubble popping) This is a killer way to have an end to a party.

This dessert is easy to remember, not just after you eat it, but to make it.

We've got two pints of blueberries.

We're gonna start with that and we're gonna mash a lot of 'em, not all of them, but a lot of 'em this will get the juice out, you see them break apart a little bit.

We're gonna mash 'em up until most of 'em are broken up and see them split open.

Get that juice coming out.

We're gonna add in four tablespoons of softened unsalted butter, four tablespoons of Limoncello because we put booze in everything.

Four tablespoons granulated sugar, a splash of vanilla extract, and a splash of orange liqueur.

If you're making margaritas that day, you'll have this on hand.

So orange lemon are two flavors, vanilla that all bring out blueberry's goodness.

So mash that up real good and get it all stirred together evenly.

We've got a greased pan and we're gonna take our beautiful mixture in here and we're just gonna put it all the way in there.

Then we're just gonna throw it on our grill, over medium high heat and we're gonna grill it for eight to 12 minutes until everything starts to look beautifully syrupy.

So we're gonna leave half our grill on and we're gonna take some of our angel food cake and we're just gonna put it on for about a minute each side.

Just get some grill marks.

Get it nice and toasted up.

Angel food cake grilled.

Amanda's beautiful (bubble popping) lemon, ginger, honey, vanilla concoction.

All the flavors that make blueberry just pop, y'all.

We got that on the side.

Yeah, look at that.

All right, now what makes the blue angels, the blue angels?

The blueberry syrupy sauce.

Put that on it all over this thing.

(blowing) That's what's up.

You just gotta dive in when you've got a nice sexy dessert like this.

Get some of this ice cream, this angel food cake, the blueberries.

(upbeat music continues) Highbush, lowbush, don't matter none.

That's a dessert for a clam bake, baby.

(upbeat music) - Dude, what a great day.

What a great party.

I mean I've been to some clam bakes in my day, but this one is, this one is at the top, just awesome.

- Pretty good.

Pretty good.

- It's good.

And there's no drama.

- Not yet.

- Yeah.

- I could start some if you want.

(bubble popping) - It's still early.

(person hissing) - Boom, yeah.

- Yeah.

- I actually caused some drama at a clam bake.

- Tell us.

- Yeah, go on.

- Okay, so I was a youngin.

I was in college and this guy on my football team a little older than me, was like my big brother took me under his wing.

So got me a summer job working construction.

- Cool, alright.

- Yeah, yeah.

Making money.

This dude was awesome.

So we go to the company clam bake.

He's like.

- Wait, nothing crazier than construction workers at a clam bake.

- Oh, yeah.

Beer's flowing, country music.

- Getting loose.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Lobsters, clams.

Everybody's having a blast.

- Butter.

- I got my jorts on feeling it.

- Nice, yeah.

Nice.

- So we roll in and as we're getting outta the car and we're staying at a house down the street and all his family's down there and he is like, look dude, just one rule.

And I'm like, name it.

- Sure.

- And he is like, do not hook up with my cousin.

(person laughing) I'm like, yeah.

- Anything other than that rule.

- It's me, dude.

I wouldn't do that.

You know?

So we go in the party and all of a sudden we start drinking beers and mingling.

And I start talking to this girl who I think she's funny.

We're having a good time.

And all of a sudden I see him across the way with just daggers, bro.

- Yeah.

Surprise, it's the cousin.

- It's the cousin.

But we're having fun and all of a sudden at one point now, we're shooting horseshoes and we see him coming and she knows the game.

So now we're at the dance floor and he's over here and we're just basically playing musical chairs.

- Grab some more clams.

- Yeah.

- A couple more beers.

- Totally dude and he's having a blast.

- Yeah.

- And at one point she drops one of Nick's lines on me, she's like, man look, I'm here for a good time, not a long time.

- That's a great line.

- I'm like, say less.

- A real bro.

- Yeah, here it is.

So she's like, wanna get outta here, go somewhere, have a drink?

And I'm like, I could do that.

So we're dipping outta the party and he sees it and she knows he's looking, but she's smart, smarter than me.

And then goes out the door and she's holding my hand and I turn and all I see is him looking at me with the most utter look of infuriation imaginable.

- Disgust, whatever it is.

- Yeah.

- So we go have some drinks, have a good time, and then we get back to the place.

Me, not with her.

And I decide to sneak down to the giant barn where they serve all the clams.

- Of course.

- Because know there's some in there, right?

- Yeah late night snack.

- Of course.

So I roll in there, it's like three in the morning.

I fire up the steamers, I drop a couple bags in there.

(bubble popping) I'm like, alright, - Yeah, - Matty's gonna have some clams right now, you know?

(person laughing) So I'm feeling good, having a good night, and all of a sudden I hear behind me (whooshing).

- Oh, oh.

- And I'm like, oh no.

- The greatest noise, but also possibly the worst noise.

- At this point the worst.

- And I thought it was the woman that ran the kitchen catching me.

And I turn around and it's him.

- Which is worse.

- Right?

Way worse.

- Way worse.

- And I think this dude is about to fix my wagon.

And I'm like, oh no.

And I'm like, I didn't say a word.

And he just handed me a beer, open another one, and he's like, one rule man.

And I'm like, I know, but you know me and rules, we're not super tight.

- They're meant to be broken every once in a while.

- Yeah.

- True.

- You can't figure out where the line is unless you cross it.

- No doubt.

- But the rest of the night though, he and I just talked, had some beers, ate some clams, here's to crossing lines.

You know what I mean?

- And you had clams two or three times that night?

- Maybe so.

- Cheers.

- That is how you throw a clam bake, baby.

Feed people sustainably caught seafood.

Give them water, sunscreen, make sure the day's perfect.

Have a nice little game in the yard.

You know how it is, sometimes you wanna take care of the people, you gotta take life as it comes.

Sometimes it comes hard, sometimes it comes soft.

But you crank it (metal clanking) and just keep things going, y'all.

"Spatchcock Funk," game over.

♪ Yeah and I need it all - 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)