More Diners, Drive-ins and Dives Page 2

  Meanwhile, the people in the office are working on multiple shows and segments. I’m holding story meetings with writers and the senior writer to discuss how they’re going to take the ten hours of tape that was shot in the field and turn it into a six-minute segment that’s honest, coherent, and most of all, enjoyable. I’m reviewing scripts in progress and partially edited segments to make each piece come together just right. We usually go through multiple revisions, then further revisions based on notes from the network. Finally, after only twenty-seven hours of audio postproduction to make sure the viewers hear every fork clank and sauce sizzle to truly share what Guy experienced, we lock it all up, send it to the network, and get back on the treadmill to do it all again.

  HOW WE FIND THE FUNKY

  BY DAVID PAGE

  For a show about visits to restaurants all over the country, nothing is more important than deciding which restaurants to include. That’s the job of the Page Productions research department, a team of five uniquely talented individuals who could find a homemade meatloaf in the middle of the Gobi Desert.

  The first step is deciding which cities to visit. We want to cover as much of the country as possible in a season. Wherever we go, the plan is to shoot seven different locations and mix them up into different episodes in coming months. So the challenge for each researcher is finding not just one suitable location—hard enough in some towns—but seven. And all of them must meet the highest culinary bar, as well as offer history, story, and characters viewers will want to spend time with.

  So how do the researchers do it? Well, each works on one city at a time. Once a city has been selected and the researcher assigned, she or he digs into every available resource—reading foodie websites, blogs, and local publications, including newspapers, weeklies, and local and regional magazines. But that’s just the first step. The people behind those resources—bloggers, food writers, and so on—all get called and asked for their suggestions and opinions, and the names of others we should talk to as well. They’re also very useful in warning us away from popular places we’ll probably hear about that folks love but where the food really doesn’t hold up. The researcher also calls local businesses, museums, chambers of commerce, visitors’ bureaus—and anyone we know and trust—asking for suggestions only locals would know. We routinely ask Guy for any places he knows about in a given town, and he also reaches out to his friends who may live in a specific area. And we comb through every single e-mail we’ve received from viewers about joints in a particular city (we’ve received hundreds of thousands of e-mails to date—and every single one is filed by location to be used as a future resource). In some cases, we’ll select a location suggested by e-mail as a Viewer’s Choice segment and ask the viewers who wrote in to visit Guy on set and be included in the segment. We also rely heavily on the recommendations of restaurant owners we’ve already featured on the show. When we return to a city we’ve previously booked, those individuals are at the top of our contact list and, considering their firsthand knowledge of our process, they’re some of the most helpful, most knowledgeable sources we have.

  At first the list of possible locations is enormous. But it’s whittled down through an exhaustive process of contacting each restaurant and speaking with the owner and chef to determine the authenticity and originality of each location. Is the food legit (homemade, fresh, culinarily interesting—even if it’s basic and simple)? How can we be sure? Is the place real? What’s the history, the story? What’s the passion that drives the owner and chef? We find out what they do, where they’re from, and what inspires them. We learn about their menus, the stories behind their recipes, and the history of their restaurant. We learn about their customers, their traditions, and the philosophy behind the food they prepare. We work with each prospective location to collect photos of the restaurant, the food, and the “characters,” and to gather sanitation reports, menus and, most important, detailed descriptions of how key menu items are prepared from start to finish—with unrelenting attention to every detailed element of the process (freshness of product, validity of cooking methods, and so on). The researchers have a keen eye for what food is legitimately homemade and which locations are organically real—as opposed to themed replicas of the gems we seek out on DDD. The strongest locations are closely examined by coordinating producer Kat Higgins and me, and with the selection of the most suitable locations in a region, a shoot pod is born.

  THE DUDE WHO DROVE THIS TO G&A HAS BEEN IN THERE FOR TWENTY YEARS…

  THE HOME TEAM

  Meet the krew who are the wizards behind Triple D’s curtain, doling out heart, courage, and brains 24/7.

  DAVID PAGE

  Creator and Executive Producer

  Senior Writer

  MARIA CARRERA

  Senior Production Manager

  ROBERTA BRACKMAN

  CEO and General Counsel

  KAT HIGGINS

  RYAN DODGE

  Assistant Production Coordinator

  MARGARET ELKINS

  Coordinating Producer

  DREW SONDELAND

  Post Production Producer

  WADE BARRY

  Writer

  BRAD KEELY

  Editor

  KRIS AUSAN

  Researcher

  ERIN HALDEN

  Writer

  IAN LOGAN

  Editor

  KATHRYN BROWNING

  Researcher

  RICK BERLAND

  Editor

  ELIZABETH WINTER

  Editor

  JEFF MANDELL

  Researcher

  JAMIE VINCENT

  Office Production Assistant

  MEDIA KREW YEARBOOK

  DAVID CANADA

  Location Sound Engineer

  NICKNAME: “Big Bunny”

  FAVORITE PRANK: Picking just one moment would be like trying to count all the fish in the ocean—it just can’t be done. But any time Guy cooks with uncommon animal parts that at one point had a job…Well, you’d best keep on your toes, if you know what I mean.

  BEST THING YOU’VE EATEN: There’s no way to choose the best thing I’ve ever eaten, but if you get a chance to go, the Red Iguana in Salt Lake City has the best-tasting and biggest selection of homemade mole sauces I’ve ever come across. I had three servings of the puntas de filete a la norteña. The Red Iguana also happens to be the one location where my mom and dad were able to come and see me work. Hi, Mom and Dad!

  FAVORITE ROAD STORY: It’s always the next one…. I’m incredibly fortunate to work with my friends, who have become part of my family over the years and thousands of miles we’ve all traveled together.

  BIGGEST TURN-OFF: Noisy vent hoods. (I have to make sure you all hear Guy burn his mouth.)

  BRYNA LEVIN

  Producer

  NICKNAME: “Pirate”

  FAVORITE “GUY MOMENT”: I don’t have a favorite Guy moment (I have many), but one thing I always enjoy (sometimes a little tensely) is watching Guy walk into a place for the first time. He walks around the kitchen, lifts lids, opens doors, and asks a few questions. In just a few minutes, he’s able to get a really good read on what kind of place it is and almost immediately gauge the quality of what they’re doing in the kitchen. What’s their proportion of dry goods to fresh refrigerated ingredients? How clean is the line? How much food are they holding hot? It’s where his experience as a restaurateur really shows up. Often people we’re shooting with think he’s mostly a TV guy, but the reality is, he’s a chef and restaurant guy first, and as soon as he starts talking to the owners, they realize he’s one of them.

  FAVORITE ROAD STORY: I don’t have a great story, but I will say we have an amazing group on the road and I’ve made some true friends traveling with the crew the past two years, including Guy, who is a wonderful person to have in your corner. Guy is one of the funniest people I know; he makes us laugh so hard we have to stop shooting until we can recover. Once we were trying to shoot a simple shot of Guy walking
across a parking lot. It was raining, and Guy was having trouble finding his motivation and started doing these goofy, funny walks. It was hilarious physical humor; we were all laughing so hard we were crying and all he was doing was walking. If it weren’t for Guy and the crew, it would be so much harder for me to leave my family so frequently. They make being away from home a lot less difficult and a whole lot more fun.

  FAVORITE OVERALL LOCATION: There is really no way to pick just one. I have so many favorite locations, some for the food, some for the people, some for the great rapport Guy has with the owner. I work so closely with the owners for a few weeks, then spend two very long shoot days with them, virtually taking over their restaurants and bossing around everyone in the place. It’s a great experience (I’m bossy by nature—all producers are), and the people who can cope with that and do everything we need them to do (make the same forty-gallon batch of chili four times in forty-eight hours), maintain a good attitude about the experience, and have fun with us will always have my deep appreciation.

  JEREMY GREEN

  Producer

  NICKNAME: “Silent Bob”

  FAVORITE “GUY MOMENT”: We’re at Mambo’s Café in Glendale, California, outside shooting Guy’s stand-up with the Camaro. Across four lanes of traffic, on the opposite street corner, is a full-scale film crew shooting a scene for an episode of a TV drama. Guy begins laughing at our usual high jinks during the stand-up, and this builds in volume until he’s asked—from across four lanes of traffic, mind you—if he could hold it down because they’re filming.

  FAVORITE OVERALL LOCATION: It would have to be Sonny’s Famous Steak Hogies (sic) in Hollywood, Florida. Not because of the food or the restaurant in particular, but because of one moment. This was my first location to shoot for Triple D, and I’ll always remember the look on the face of John, the owner, when we wrapped with Guy that day. These were good people doing honest food, and I just remember the smile on John’s and the entire staff’s faces after we finished shooting. This is when they began to understand just what Triple D was all about and what was in store for their little restaurant in the future. I guess this was when I began to understand it as well. Always will remember that.

  BIGGEST TURN-OFF: Anything that’s high maintenance.

  BIGGEST TURN-ON: Aviator sunglasses.

  KARI KLOSTER

  Producer

  NICKNAME: “KareBear”

  FAVORITE “GUY MOMENT”: I had so much fun watching Guy cook potato knishes with Angelo at Flakowitz in Boynton Beach, Florida. Guy showed great respect for Angelo’s fifty-five-plus years of baking experience. They had so much fun together that Angelo often forgot the camera was even there.

  FAVORITE ROAD STORY: One of the chefs we had a great time cooking with this year left us with some lasting memories and a few catchphrases. No matter what question we asked him he answered with “cool, cool” or “totally, totally.” So now whenever anyone says either the word “cool” or “totally,” everyone else chimes in with the opposite word in duplicate: “cool cool” “totally totally.”

  FAVORITE OVERALL LOCATION: Super Duper Weenie in Fairfield, Connecticut, will always be near and dear to my heart since it was my first location. The dogs were dynamite and the laughs between Gary and Guy were nonstop.

  BIGGEST TURN-OFF: Coming back to my computer and finding that the crew had changed my screen background from Care Bears to a photo of Hannibal Lecter.

  BIGGEST TURN-ON: Showing up at a restaurant that has a big cup of coffee waiting for me.

  NEIL MARTIN

  Production Assistant

  NICKNAME: “Boy Band”

  If I may…I’d like to first take one short moment to express my most sincere level of gratitude for the opportunity to be a part of such a unique experience. I really feel as if I’m doing charity work for great people all over the country. I’d like to thank Guy, David Page, my fabulous crew, and the person who got me into this thing, my roomie Maria, who deserves a lot of credit for taking care of all of us and our needs while we’re away from home.

  FAVORITE ROAD STORY: We were shooting in Sacramento at Jamie’s Broadway Grill, across the street from an ABC affiliate, which invited Guy to be on a morning show while we did the setup. We turned on the TV in the bar at Jamie’s and watched Guy talking. Then the camera switched to a live traffic camera positioned on top of their tower, and it was pointed straight down at Jamie’s parking lot to show the Camaro. In that same shot, Fraggle (Ron Gabaldon) was outside sweeping the lot for the shoot. I immediately ran outside to let him know there was a live camera on him. I ran back inside to keep watching, and he started doing a waltz with the broom! When he did a little dip, we almost burst a gut laughing. They went back to a shot of Guy talking, and then back to Fraggle, who had put down the broom and started doing snow angels on the blacktop. The shot stayed on him for a good seven seconds before the host checked her monitor to see what was going on.

  BEST THING YOU’VE EATEN: Also a very hard question to answer. But I do have an answer. I love French toast, it’s something I had all the time when I was a kid growing up, and when I got to taste the Cap’n Crunch french toast at the Blue Moon Café in Baltimore, I made sure I made it the moment I got home!

  BIGGEST TURN-OFF: When Matt or Anthony tells me that I suck at forking. At the shoots, the close-ups of all the dishes being forked usually show me. My advice for them is to shoot it right the first time…

  BIGGEST TURN-ON: My biggest turn-on is easy: shooting beauties!

  JEFF ASSELL

  Audio Engineer

  NICKNAME: “Butterbean”

  FAVORITE “GUY MOMENT”: When we show up at a location there’s a great deal of fun to be had, but a good amount of seriousness as well. The chefs sometimes feel the pressure of having a camera on them as they present their wares not only to Guy, but to the millions of DDD fans. We were in the Midwest, and one such owner was shaking like a leaf before the camera started to roll. We did our best to assure him that he’d do fine, but he was so tense! Guy walked in and saw how nervous he was and engaged him in a very eloquent conversation about why they’d each decided to spend their lives cooking and giving the best experiences they could to their customers. He made him realize that they shared common ground—that Guy wasn’t just the “rock ’n’ roller,” but also a thinking man and a very serious chef. Instead of shooting a twitchy chef and a larger-than-life TV personality, we watched two chefs just hang out and have fun. They went over recipes and had a ton of laughs. By the time we were done we had a seriously great segment, the food was spectacular, and you’d never be able to tell that our chef was nervous at all. They had a ball, and so did we!

  BEST ROAD STORY: We often work long hours in challenging locations, so after shooting we occasionally have a few drinks and just decompress. One such night was at the Havana Hideout in Lake Worth, Florida. We were sampling some of Chrissy’s sangrias (along with her awesome Cuban sandwich) and enjoying the night air after the sun went down and the gear was put away. It was my first shoot, and I was enjoying hanging out on the patio when open-mike night began. With a bit of prodding, Meltdown borrowed a guitar and went to the stage. The twist was that to participate people had to sing original songs that they’d written. Meltdown, being quite a talented musician, began crooning out songs that were either very touching or downright hilarious. He rocked that guitar and had everyone’s attention. By the end I had a damp napkin from mopping up tears from laughter. I walked away that night knowing I’d found a special enclave of personalities, and I knew there’d always be another surprise around the corner. Thanks again, Meltdown.

  BIGGEST TURN-OFF: The sound of metal on metal drives me nuts. Let’s say there’s an aluminum spoon. And this spoon is going to be used to scrape the stubborn remnants of an ingredient from a stainless-steel bowl. And my mike is three inches away from the offending contact. Need I say more?

  BIGGEST TURN-ON: I love to laugh, and the DDD crew has many different kinds of senses of humor. We
have PG jokes, and we have the Unrated. But one thing’s for sure: if you’re going to spend long hours for days on end with the same people in tight and often sweltering places where knives are readily available, you better be able to tell a joke, and laugh at one.

  RON GABALDON

  Trailer/Camaro Driver, Production Assistant

  NICKNAME: “Fraggle”

  FAVORITE “GUY MOMENT”: I don’t have one particular favorite, but I enjoy watching him give advice and guidance to the restaurant owners he likes. Having DDD come to a place has grand effects on the business operations, and Guy has a lot of experience and business sense to pass on to restaurant owners who want to expand.

  FAVORITE PRANK: Guy seems to have a penchant for throwing food with uncanny accuracy. I’m not sure where this stems from, but I suspect he didn’t have enough sports toys growing up. I guess there was no league for Roast Beef Football, so he went into the culinary arts instead. At any rate, his aim is so keen that if there had been a Pastrami Sandwich World Series he would be the Mr. October of the National Deli League.