Chef Peter Olsacher from Carolina Gourmet

On this episode of “Simplifying Life Through Technology,” Michelle and Andrew from SoundVision sit down with  Chef Peter Olsacher from Carolina Gourmet.

Prepare for an enlightening journey as we walk in the shoes of the masterful chef Peter Olsacher. Get a taste of his humble beginnings on a farm in Austria, the grueling training in a Michelin-style restaurant, and his culinary escapades in picturesque ski resorts. We'll explore his adventure across the pond, where he found his calling as a celebrated private chef in the Lake Norman area. We spotlight the time he cooked for Dylan Dryer on the Today Show, which catapulted his reputation to national recognition!

The second half of our chat delves into the inner workings of Peter's successful culinary service, Carolina Gourmet. His business focuses on Private Chef events, meal prepping, and catering, specializing in vacation homes. Carolina Gourmet has become a staple in Lake Norman, thanks to Peter's partnership with Stay Lake Norman. Get a glimpse of how he's creating unforgettable dining experiences with his innovative menus, earning rave reviews and a stellar reputation along the way. From Austria to America, from farm boy to famous chef, Peter Olsacher is a testament to the power of passion, dedication, and culinary excellence. You won't want to miss his captivating story!

Watch Chef Peter's Spotlight on the Today Show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEUw-BTkaCI&t=229s

For more information on Carolina Gourmet:

https://www.carolinagourmet.com/

To learn more about SoundVision:

https://www.svavnc.com/

Listen to more “Simplifying Life Through Technology” podcasts:

https://www.svavnc.com/podcast/

Check out SoundVision’s Podcast with Ben Aymami from B&O, as well as our other podcasts, on Apple and Spotify. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Simplifying Life through Technology. Joining me today in the podcast room we have our Chief Operating Officer, michelle Furlato, and a very special guest, chef Peter Olsacker from Carolina Gourmet. ["the Chief Operating Officer, michelle Furlato, and a very special guest.

Speaker 2: 0:29

Chef Peter Olsacker. Welcome Peter, we're happy to have you here.

Speaker 1: 0:32

Thanks for having me, I'm really excited about this.

Speaker 3: 0:35

We're very excited.

Speaker 1: 0:36

Peter brought lunch so I'm also very excited. You're very excited for this and after the podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:40

Andrew told me if I bring lunch, the questions will be easy to answer okay, exactly, food makes everything a lot easier.

Speaker 3: 0:47

We need to make that a standing rule for a podcast guest.

Speaker 1: 0:50

We must bring lunch.

Speaker 3: 0:52

Or the questions will not be easy.

Speaker 1: 0:54

So, Chef Peter, why don't we get a little bit into your background? How did you get into the culinary world, as you may notice doing this conversation.

Speaker 2: 1:03

I have a little bit of an accent. That's because I'm from Austria. Okay, Not Australia, we don't have kangaroos, but we have Arnold and we have Wolfgang Buck as well. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and there was no internet. There was none of that social media as we know it today. So I didn't go in the culinary field because I saw a lot of chefs on TV as we do today, which I think it's great. I got into it because I fell in love with cooking at a very early age. My grandparents had a farm and on that farm I spent a lot of time doing my childhood. We only ate what we harvested. We only harvested what we planted. We had pigs and chickens that we eventually killed and ate and processed, and everything, Everything was eaten. It was really eating very, very local, eating organic. It wasn't because it was hip and happening, it was just a way of life. I really liked that. I also never liked school all that much In Austria. You have to make a decision at 15.

Speaker 1: 2:17

15? Very young.

Speaker 2: 2:20

It's way too young to make a decision what you want to do for the rest of your life.

Speaker 1: 2:24

Right.

Speaker 2: 2:26

But they pretty much say do you want to learn a trait or do you want to go further to school? And that leads you in the past to probably a college degree here after a couple of years. So school wasn't really my thing. So I said I'm going to learn a trait, and it was very simple I wanted to be a cook, not a chef, I mean just a cook, and this is what I like to do.

Speaker 2: 2:52

and I, then you, as the chop seeker, you go out and apply at different hotels, restaurants and whatnot that you can get a job and I was very fortunate that a Michelin-style restaurant in the city close to where I grew up they had an opening and I did a little internship with them. I guess they liked me and then they hired me to do the apprenticeship.

Speaker 1: 3:18

Wow, that's a great start.

Speaker 2: 3:20

It is a very great start, but you have to grow up very, very fast.

Speaker 3: 3:25

I can imagine.

Speaker 2: 3:26

It's quite an adventure. You go there when you're 15 and they don't treat you like a kid, they treat you like an adult. You have tasks to do, you got to work, you got to show up to work and there's no excuses. It's a job, it's very serious, right, and the higher the level of cooking, the more the intensity in the kitchen. But also the benefit is that you learn from a very early age how to do things right, how to be very precise about doing things, not compromising and really trying to work with the end result being excellent in mind. So that goes on for three years and then during that time, we also all of the apprentices go to culinary school or del school for two months out of the year.

Speaker 2: 4:14

So that puts everybody on the same level, that everybody understands the basics. Because you also can have Brenton's, a joey's pizza place, and when you're done after three years you make a great pizza, a great lasagna and a great chicken pom, but you really don't know all that much else. So the school really teaches everybody the foundation, all the recipes, all the mother sauces, a little bit of baking, a little bit of service, just a little bit of everything to make you pretty well rounded.

Speaker 1: 4:50

Yeah, and refine those skills a little bit.

Speaker 2: 4:52

Absolutely, absolutely. And then after three years you take a test and it's like a practical exam and a theoretical exam that lasts pretty much a day. Almost everybody passes because it's again the very basics. But when you finish that you know you're going to be a cook you're not going to be a chef. You're not going to apply for a chef position anywhere. So I worked the winter seasons in ski resorts because I liked to ski and that was pretty cool. Are they ski resorts in?

Speaker 2: 5:24

Austria, oh yeah there are many of them, actually why I come from. It's called Carinthia. We have a few of them, but if you go to Thiroll and Fadelberg, which is on the border to Switzerland, the mountains are super high. It's absolutely beautiful. And I worked in a little little tiny village called Lech, which is just skiing on steroids. You can ski there for an entire day and not use the same slope twice, so it's absolutely gorgeous.

Speaker 2: 5:56

And then in the summer I worked around the lake, because obviously it's curious what is only busy during the winter? Right, and then the summer found a job somewhere around the lake, enjoyed the lake, life, kind of like leg Norman here, and yeah, life was pretty good. So then I had an opportunity to go to permuter. I didn't know anything about permuter, I didn't speak a lick of English, oh boy. But the person who had the job offering was actually an Austrian as well and he pretty much sold it. Hey, we have a great Austrian restaurant here and we do a lot of catering and we need some cooks. So I got to permuter. He picked me up from the airport, he showed me the restaurant and I was like yowza not exactly as advertised.

Speaker 2: 6:50

I said you know what? I'm gonna stay here for three months. I'm in permuter what the heck? It's summertime. I started to really like the island. I met a lot of good friends there and I ended up staying for a year before I moved to the Cayman Islands and I spent about eight years in the Cayman Islands there. I always had really good job, always worked in private restaurants. There was very few hotels and hardly any chains there, and if they brought the chefs there, they all came from the states, from the properties that they already had.

Speaker 2: 7:26

During that time I got married. I met Christine, who later became my wife, actually my first wife. We eventually wanted to come to the states, but again, it was now the late 80s, early 90s and there was no internet and I really didn't know where I was standing with the cooking and even that we cooked, at what I saw, at a very high level, especially in the Cayman Islands. I really wanted to go back to Europe to ground myself and see where I'm standing, where's my skill set and I'm really up on trends and all that, and went back to Austria and I connected with a very well-known restaurateur who asked me to open his Mediterranean restaurant and I opened it up and I stayed there for about two years and after one and a half years we actually got a Michelin star in that restaurant wow yeah, that was very, very exciting and I was on the height of my career.

Speaker 2: 8:25

It is huge. But at the same time I was working my butt off and I didn't have any free time. We had a baby I never saw.

Speaker 2: 8:33

Her was working six days a week, 12 hours a day, and I paid a lot in taxes oh geez so I didn't see myself getting ahead financially, and Austria at this time was also before the EU, so it wasn't all that easy to work in another country. It is pretty small. I was, you know, working in one of the best restaurants in town now and I said, hey, what's next?

Speaker 2: 9:04

so we decided to come to the states and, as luck had it, I got a job offering to work for a big hotel chain in the Orlando area oh nice yeah, never worked for them, micky, I did not work for Universal Ida, it was the Renaissance hotels and I worked there in a fine dining restaurant and, hey, life was good. I really, really enjoyed. It was my first job in the States. I felt I got a really good job being the you know chef, the cuisine and a real good restaurant during that time. Darden restaurants Darden those are the guys that own were founded by Red Lobster.

Speaker 2: 9:45

Then they also own Olive Garden, longhorn out of the big notable names yeah, and it's a big company it's, I think now it's like a five billion dollar company. They also have a high-end restaurant division which includes the capital grill seasons 52, the Yard House, and now they just bought root Chris as well. They started a Caribbean chain and they recruited me to lead the development, the culinary development for the menu for that Caribbean chain, which eventually became Bahama breeze oh and it was a super exciting time.

Speaker 2: 10:24

I mean starting something from scratch that you know is going to become national, semi national chain If it all works out, and it has the potential, you know, to grow to 50, 100 restaurants. It's just something very, very special because you really can take a cuisine that is really not that known here in the states to a lot of people here in the states to have a better understanding, to enjoy the flavors.

Speaker 2: 10:55

We worked on it for about a year and a half, just under development, to get it all right. We opened the first one. It was a huge success. It was super busy, got great reviews. People loved it. It was an authentic Caribbean. It was what we call Caribbean inspired. So we took dishes that are authentic in the Caribbean, like, say, jerk chicken, but we made it a jerk chicken pasta Interesting. So you had all the flavor of the jerk chicken but the pasta took you to the comfort level that people say, hey, I'm gonna try that. Because we also had the authentic jerk chicken on the menu but that sold way, way less because people really didn't want it to go all the way.

Speaker 1: 11:45

Right a little nervous.

Speaker 2: 11:47

It's a little nervous and hey, you're going out for dinner, you're spending your hard earned money. You know you want to make sure that what you get you like Right. But there's quite a lot of people who you know first started with the jerk chicken pasta and then went further, and then they had the jerk chicken and then it went further and the authentic dishes and we introduced, I would say, a good part of the east coast of America to very, very good Caribbean food and drinks as well.

Speaker 1: 12:15

Because those are important too.

Speaker 2: 12:17

Yes, absolutely Bahama Braves. To this day, they still have the best mojitos because they actually use real sugarcane juice. It's called Gorapo and we took sugarcane stalks and we had a machine and squeezed it in the restaurant and it is super sweet, but it has a very unique flavor and that was made in the original mojito and we doing the same way because we really wanted to have an authentic product. Right, even authentic drinks I still love my mojitos to this day.

Speaker 3: 12:49

Me too. What was the drink you guys brought for one of our parties?

Speaker 2: 12:54

So my wife is Puerto Rican. That's my second wife and, I believe, my final. It sounds like mojito but it's called Coquito. Coquito, there you go, and Coquito in Spanish means little coconut and it has a lot of coconut flavor in there. It has coca lopes and coconut milk and of course rum, because if you're Puerto Rican, that sounds so good. And it's their traditional Christmas drink.

Speaker 3: 13:25

Yes, christmas party. They brought that. I think I had like half a pitcher. It was so good.

Speaker 2: 13:30

Hot Lianni alcohol in there, michelle, and no calories.

Speaker 3: 13:32

No calories.

Speaker 1: 13:38

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Speaker 3: 14:00

You now have a business, carolina Gourmet, which we utilize your services for every event that we Thank you. Phenomenal. It seems like you've gained some national exposure recently. Do you want to tell us about that?

Speaker 2: 14:16

Yeah, we were very, very fortunate Dylan Dryer and her best friend Dylan Dryer, from the Today Show. They were vacationing here at Lake Norman and they rented one of those beautiful homes and they reached out to us to make lunch for them. That's a big part of our business, where I go into homes, vacation homes, and I cook a really nice meal, sometimes something simple as lunch, like I did for Dylan, or a really 10 course gourmet dinner. You know, whatever the occasion is, whatever the client wants. So they reached out to me and said, hey, we would like for you to come over and cook some lunch and I really thought I'm going to go there and you know they're going to hang out and have lunch. But, as it happened, it was part of the segment that the Today Show shut and so they were coming in from the water and having a great time off the water Sitting on this beautiful patio overlooking Lake Norman, and then they actually asked me to come out there and say, hey, my name is Peter, you know, this is what you're having for lunch.

Speaker 2: 15:28

They had some salad, nisoise, which is a french tuna salad, very nice and very light, and then they had a panzi at Brancino. They wanted the seafood being here, being on the water, I introduced the dishes. They shut it and I never, ever thought it's going to make the cut, but it happened and it did. It did. That was huge for us. It was a very popular segment. A lot of people watched it. I got a lot of calls from people that I know I never expected, you know, right Knowing of it, and they're like hey, you are. And even now a lot of the clients that are contacting me saying hey, so I'm going to come over Contacting me saying hey, so you really cooked for Dylan Is that really you?

Speaker 1: 16:12

Yeah, it's really me. That's amazing.

Speaker 2: 16:16

So it was very, very fortunate and I'm very grateful that I made it and it's a fantastic exposure for us.

Speaker 3: 16:24

You mentioned the private chef service for the luxury vacation rentals. Is that one company that you work with exclusively, or how do they find you?

Speaker 2: 16:35

We do it for vacation homes, but we also do it for everybody local as well. With the vacation homes we have a great partnership with Stalic Norman.

Speaker 3: 16:48

Oh okay, stalic Norman.

Speaker 2: 16:49

Stalic Norman is one of the premier rental companies here around Lake Norman. I can see it because I go in a lot of different homes, anything from BMW to other rental companies to Stalic Norman. Their houses are top notch. They're super nice, very well taken care of and the kitchen is beautiful. Sometimes I go in other kitchen it's like, okay, scratch my head. You really got to sink on your feet because it may not be what you expect and or the client wants this super nice menu.

Speaker 2: 17:27

And then the kitchen is not really up to par to create that super nice menu. That's why we do all of our prep work and preparations in our professional catering kitchen, and no matter what equipment shows up, I know how to finish it, you're ready to go, yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:46

So Stalic Norman is a great partner for us and they do refer a lot of their guests who are looking for the private chef experience to us. The other thing is we only open for two years and you really focused on that private chef for the last 16 months. We are getting a really good reputation. We have a lot of five star Google reviews.

Speaker 1: 18:11

That's awesome.

Speaker 2: 18:11

And I'm going to tell you one thing I worked for 25 years in corporate America and the one thing when I started my own business, I quickly realized I don't know anything about marketing and we really fumbled around in the beginning and so on, and then I'm like I got to find somebody who knows about marketing and we found a company. They're called Supersonic Sites. They also helped us recreate our website and through that they also said hey, you know, we also do marketing. I'm like I have no idea. So they proposed this marketing plan and it's pretty much all about Google search and search optimization and I have absolutely no idea how that works. You got a check with Srinol, but he's doing a fantastic job. A lot of people are finding us and we get a lot of inquire, especially about private chef and catering from local people around the Lake Norman area, charlotte, and then people who come on vacation as well.

Speaker 3: 19:21

When you're asked to do a private chef event, what is your favorite thing to make or what is one of the favorite things that you have made?

Speaker 2: 19:29

Every menu is a little different and if somebody reaches out to us and say, hey, we want to do a private chef, typically the groups anywhere from eight to 20 people. I have a variety of menus. I have one that is like Asian inspired, where it starts off as a nice tuna tart and avocados and it has a salad, it has a sorbet, it has a middle course for the entree it's Chilean sea bass, that is Hong Kong style with some spinach and a real nice soy and sherry sauce. It's more like a broth and stir fried rice. That's a popular menu for people who choose seafood. And then the most popular menu that I have is what I call the shrimp and the beef tenderloin. The reason for that is because, as the organizer of that dinner, you're looking for something that everybody's going to enjoy and unless you're a vegetarian, you're probably going to like a beef tenderloin, and I never met a lot of people that don't like shrimp either. So I created that menu in mind really to be pretty mainstream, very approachable, but also very appealing to a lot of different people. And that is a nice menu.

Speaker 2: 20:55

We start off with a jacuzzi, then we give him a salad, or be also very seasonal right now that's a peach design season fresh peaches and burrata with some micro arugula and then H Balsamic vinegar. Then we have a PLT salad which is bacon, lettuce and tomato. We pick up the tomatoes from the local farmers market For all those private dinners we are very, very local. You know we only have on the menu what's in season. We change them all the time, but now that tomatoes are nice we pick them up at George's Farmers Market. We have some nice bibletters and then we take a hickory smoked bacon and put some brown sugar on it so it gets really nice and crispy and sweet. So it has the smoky from the hickory and the sweetness and you put it all together with the green goddess dressing and then it has grilled shrimp. As an appetizer it has a roasted beef tenderloin, maybe with some truffle mac and cheese and some seasonal vegetables.

Speaker 3: 22:02

Phenomenal food. I can't recommend it enough. But I'll tell you there's a trust factor. I went roughly 40, some odd years of unwilling to try avocado. I didn't like the way it looked, the texture skieved me out, wasn't going to do it. And then we ordered lunch from you one day when you were still doing lunch service. And you have this turkey avocado, mashed avocado with the peppers.

Speaker 2: 22:29

Correct.

Speaker 3: 22:30

And it was at that point, Andrew, that I fell in love with avocados. I've tried to compensate for 40 some odd years. There's a bag of avocados on my desk right now. So you were 100% to credit for expanding my very limited palette, because I and one of those people, that's very picky.

Speaker 1: 22:50

One thing I must say too about your catering is how beautiful the presentation is.

Speaker 3: 22:56

Oh my God, yeah, it is stunningly gorgeous.

Speaker 1: 22:58

Your presentation as equally as delicious.

Speaker 3: 23:01

And it's not just Myra. The food is incredible, everybody loves your staff, everything is always top notch. It's a no brainer, especially for us when we do special events and we have all of our best customers and we want to give them the best experience that we possibly can.

Speaker 2: 23:18

I'm very, very fortunate to have a great staff. Actually, we are a small company and a lot of the staff is pretty much friends and family.

Speaker 2: 23:27

You know that we have some family, and then friends and other people are reaching out to us and say hey, you know, have a job for us, and most of it is part time because it is very seasonal for us and it is also on Friday, saturday we are super busy, but Monday, tuesday we are not so much. But we are very, very fortunate with the people that we call our team members or our friends that helping us out. They're really a big part of Carolina Gourmet. When it comes to the food, you know it has to taste good. That is the number one, but it also has to look good.

Speaker 2: 24:03

We spend actually quite a lot of time outsourcing the right ingredients because I don't call a big vendor and say send me a case, this, that and the other. We really go to the farmers market and we go to other places where I know I can get the best product, whatever it may be. So we spend a lot of time doing that. Call it the foraging part. You know, when you put all that effort in procuring the product, you know it's going to be good in the end, because it all starts with ingredients.

Speaker 1: 24:34

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 24:35

But then you also got to put it on the plate or on a plate of. You know, if you do it for face style, that it is appealing to the eye as well, because that's what the client pays us for. We want to have something where, when we leave, to say, wow, this was really good or this was the best meal I ever had, and we have a lot of those reactions and because of that, they're giving us great Google reviews and because of that, our ranking rises and because of that, more people know about us. But you can't rest on what you do. You always got to become better. It's the same with Soundvision. You guys are great company, but you're probably not the same as when you started off.

Speaker 3: 25:16

No.

Speaker 2: 25:17

You're so much better now, and that's our goal. Our goal is to grow moderately, but to keep the quality, because without the quality you're nothing.

Speaker 1: 25:28

Yeah, you're absolutely right about that.

Speaker 3: 25:31

You won't get old bread with Peter. He makes this focaccia. He only bakes it certain days. He knows he's going to be cooking for you and it's always fresh. And it's just incredible, like, how did you get the recipe for the focaccia?

Speaker 2: 25:45

I have that recipe for many, many years, but tell you how many, you will find out how old I am. During my apprenticeship the hotel restaurant where I worked they had pretty much a sister hotel in Italy, in Mordernan, and they sent a couple of us apprentices down there like for two or three weeks at a time, always in the off season.

Speaker 2: 26:15

They could get away without one or two of you and the hotel from Mordernan would send the same amount of apprentices up to us. It was kind of like a student exchange. In that hotel they bake that bread and that's where I picked up the recipe.

Speaker 3: 26:31

It's incredible.

Speaker 2: 26:33

It's quite simple.

Speaker 1: 26:34

You say that.

Speaker 2: 26:38

You got to use the right ingredients and the thing is what really makes that bread and what makes a lot of bread? You just can't use a regular store-bought flour. You need to buy a flour that is called Ciro Ciro. Ciro Ciro is a different grind and the flour reacts better when it's baked at a high temperature. Then it gets to get up with all the other ingredients that you put in there, like water and yeast and sugar and a lot of olive oil and good olive oil at that. Then it has the right reaction to come out that nice and moist and that light like a pillow.

Speaker 3: 27:17

Yeah, normally focaccia is at least the focaccia I've had can be very tough to eat. You did not have Right exactly Not, until I met you.

Speaker 1: 27:26

Soft and dull. Have you ever cooked for any notable figures or celebrities?

Speaker 2: 27:34

Oh boy, there were a few. When I was in Cayman they shot the movie the Firm, so all the crew from the Firm, tom Cruise, gene Hackman, were down there, nicole Kidman, who at the time was married to Tom Cruise. They were very frequent customers in the restaurant that have worked.

Speaker 1: 27:56

That's awesome.

Speaker 2: 27:58

Yeah, but they wanted to be, especially Cruise. You wanted to be very, very secluded in a corner. Just leave me alone. Let me have my dinner, please. Right, and it was funny, the channel manager was Italian. If Mr Cruise walks in, stay away. Stay away, Nobody close, nobody close. I kill you. Nobody ask for autographs, franco, especially you. Okay.

Speaker 1: 28:25

Oh that is so funny.

Speaker 3: 28:27

That's awesome. I've seen the movie think back to that time. That's so cool.

Speaker 2: 28:33

I cooked for a number of politicians. It's always who walks into the restaurant, you know, especially since, for the last, prior to opening Carolina Gourmet, I was on the corporate side for 23 years, so I didn't cook in the restaurant, so I never had the opportunity, you know, to really interact with the clients that came in but, I know, especially in the higher restaurants that are known, we had quite a lot of notable people quite frequently. That's awesome.

Speaker 1: 29:04

That's awesome it's really awesome.

Speaker 3: 29:07

Do you guys have anything you know kind of coming up as far as new offerings, or are you still doing the meal prep surface?

Speaker 2: 29:17

Yeah, that's a good question, michelle. Right now we are focusing on three different things. Number one priority is the private chef and catering. And I'm going to tell you, private chef I enjoy the most. It's more groups, right Eight to 20 people, and you really get to interact with the clients. You know they come in the kitchen and they watch us. When we get there setting up and preparing, they're asking questions. It's typically a very casual atmosphere. They're just happy that we are there making them a great dinner and every course I go to the table and I explain and they ask questions. So it's very, very interactive and I really enjoy that. So that is a big part that we focus on. Everything is another big part because catering in the end of the day, it's taking care of people and it's really good money. You know I'm getting a little older, so I hired a couple of younger guys who can schlep all the stuff around.

Speaker 2: 30:17

You gotta take it out of your kitchen, put it in the van, drive it over there, unpack everything, and it's not the food, but it's also the plate, it's all the props, it's all the things to keep the food hot and everything. It's actually quite a physical job, but we're doing quite well at that as well. With the meal prep. We're really focusing on the vacation homes because we think that if you come to this Lake Norman area and you're staying in this beautiful house where you spend a lot of money for your vacation, why do you ever want to leave?

Speaker 1: 30:53

Right.

Speaker 2: 30:54

Why do you want to go to a restaurant on the street if you can have the same experience in your rented home?

Speaker 1: 31:02

Right.

Speaker 2: 31:03

So with the meal prep we really focus on what we call the family meals and we really have a nice variety and they also are our best value. So we have like steak and chicken tacos on it, but the steak it's a flank steak, the chicken is chicken breast, so there's nothing that we grind. It's more upscale. It comes with everything that you need in a taco. We have a mojo marinated bootbork that is very Caribbean. That comes with rice and beans and plantains and chicken and bananas. We have chicken palm because everybody loves.

Speaker 1: 31:40

Yeah, gotta go to the masses.

Speaker 2: 31:43

We have some gluten-free items like some Mediterranean chicken kebabs with rotatouille and basmati rice. So we really try to get that into those vacation homes because they can order it. We bring it and we bring it cold, but it's made fresh and it's made just for you. So if you want to say hey, you know, I want it spicy. We can make it spicy because we cook it just for you.

Speaker 1: 32:09

Right, it's personal.

Speaker 2: 32:10

We bring it chilled, goes in the refrigerator and they can take it out at their leisure. Pop it in the oven for half an hour and you have a fantastic, great restaurant quality meal that you can enjoy while you're sitting on the veranda, have a cocktail and look over the water, right.

Speaker 1: 32:30

Sounds amazing.

Speaker 2: 32:32

So this is really what we are focusing on. You know, we keep updating the menus and that's pretty much based on what people are telling us what people are asking for. I realized a long time ago you don't make a menu for you, you make a menu for your customers, right, and that's what we're trying to do.

Speaker 1: 32:54

That's awesome. Well, if any of our listeners wanted to enjoy one of your delicious meals, how can they find you?

Speaker 2: 33:02

That is quite easy, and thanks for asking that question, andrew. Go ahead and visit wwwcarolinagourmetcom. That brings you to our website and you have all the contact information. You have all the information about private chef, about catering, about our meal prep there's a little story on it and, of course, there's the clip of me cooking for Dylan.

Speaker 1: 33:28

Dwyer, of course, the highlight of my recent career at Carolina Gourmet.

Speaker 3: 33:32

We'll provide the link as well in the show now, definitely. Well, thank you for joining us today. It's always a pleasure to see you and get to spend time with you. Normally, you're busy when you're here.

Speaker 2: 33:45

You make me busy.

Speaker 3: 33:49

We can't say enough about how great Carolina Gourmet is and how much we appreciate our relationship with you.

Speaker 2: 33:55

Thanks, michelle. We do the same. We opened up two years ago and I just moved here, so we really started something new, very new, without local connections, and we tried to build local connection and you, mark, and the team at SoundVision really embraced us and you're a big reason why we are today where we are. So thank you.

Speaker 3: 34:20

We couldn't be more welcome.

Speaker 1: 34:23

We couldn't be more welcome.

Speaker 3: 34:24

I'm going to go have an avocado now.

Speaker 1: 34:26

Oh, I know Lunchtime so excited. This made me so hungry. Well, thank you again for joining us. This has been great.

Speaker 2: 34:34

Thanks, Andrew.

Speaker 1: 34:39

Thank you for joining us. You can learn more about SoundVision at SoundVisionLakeNormancom. You can follow us on Twitter at SoundVisionLakeN. Find us on Instagram and Facebook at SoundVisionLLC.