- [Narrator] Protein-rich and sustainably raised, American Lamb is a versatile ingredient in any dish.

For recipes, nutrition information, and to learn more about our commitment to sustainability, visit AmericanLamb.com.

- Acropolis Realty Group, providing real estate services across the industry, including commercial development, residential sales, and residential and commercial leasing.

Learn more at acropolisrealtygroup.com.

- [Narrator] Gateway to the Finger Lakes Region, Syracuse is centrally located in New York State.

Syracuse has a variety of outdoor parks, year-round activities, dining options, and seasonal festivals.

More information at VisitSyracuse.com.

- "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 guitar music) Mindfulness.

We got the river on our mind, and our mind on the river.

A lazy river, y'all.

You don't need to spend a ton of money or go far to get a great escape.

Just get your float-or-die crew, a quick, cool location, a fun lunch, and you'll be fresh to death.

It's like being in our own little world just for a few hours and everything else, work, stress kids, just float away.

All right, maybe not the kids.

But it's a relaxing day, and it's great for your mental health.

Some light exercise mixed in perfectly, just like our cocktails.

Meanwhile, some of us out here are trying to get that D. - Seriously?

- Vitamin D, baby.

Sunshine, wearing protection, of course.

- I'm sure that's what you meant.

You wanna make yourself useful?

Grab a tube over here.

- You heard the lady, grab a tube, a drink, and your bestest peeps.

This is float on.

(bright guitar music) (energetic music) One thing we're mindful of, cocktails, y'all.

And on today's adventure, what we're gonna do, is make a little drink.

We can put into a to-go container, float along with us, keep things going.

And this one is called brackish trouble.

It's basically a Salty Dog with a little bit of a twist on it.

And it's a drink that really hits me near and dear 'cause I love saying the word brackish.

My wife hates how much I say it.

Brackish though, is a place where you have some water adventures, right?

It's where salt water meets fresh water.

Some cool critters get down there.

And this drink is basically a Salty Dog, so it's got that kind of mix in it.

Let's jump in it.

We're gonna take in just a bottle of grapefruit juice.

'Cause we're batching this, right?

We wanna make sure that we don't have to keep mixing and making cocktails every couple minutes on the river, we can just have 'em pre-made.

The active ingredient, gin.

Now, that's about 12 ounces of gin.

We also made 12 ounces of simple syrup, which is half sugar, half water.

And then we threw a big mess of basil in there.

So, it's basil simple syrup.

The sweetness of it adds something really nice, another flavor that combines really great with grapefruit.

Speaking of grapefruit, we also have lime juice.

About half the amount of the simple syrup.

We're gonna stir that up a little bit.

And then what really plays with the sweetness and the sourness, is salt.

So, we've got some fine-crystaled kosher sea salt.

Now, keep stirring that.

And then once we pour over ice, when we're on the river, we can just shake it up, and be ready to rock.

But since I'm not in the river yet, I'm stuck here with all y'all, I'm just gonna roll like this.

Pour some to a pint glass over some ice.

And just because we're here hanging out, I'll garnish it with a lemon 'cause it looks cool with a color.

Brackish trouble, here's to you.

Mm.

(energetic music) One thing you need when you're floating on a lazy river or hitting the rapids, whatever it is you're doing, is have a life jacket.

And I know some people think they're too fancy and doesn't look good on them.

That's cool, I'm one of those people too.

But have one in the boat, at least, right?

So, these are what we call life preservers.

They're basically garlic-ranch pretzels.

But when you're out in the sun, you're partying, or you're relaxing, you need some electrolytes, some salt, and this really delivers that.

But basically, the whole basis is a big old bag of mini pretzel twists.

We're just gonna toss 'em in some extra-virgin olive oil.

Some dry-ranch seasoning, you can find those in the packets you find in the store.

Then some granulated garlic, toss 'em up.

When you're going on a river and you got a lot of stuff to do, worry about the boats, worry about the tubes, worry about everything else you're doing.

This is really easy to make ahead of time, it's simple and save you the brain power.

Got it all mixed, take a cookie sheet that's been sprayed, spread 'em evenly.

275 for about 10 to 12 minutes, right in the oven.

Yo, we got these life preservers.

And the salt, electrolytes, we got a friend of ours that has to get salt to keep herself going, and these are gonna keep us going too.

Perfect when you're pulling on the side of the river, pulling over to the side of the road, if you get stopped by the cops, just offer some pretzels, you're good to go, keep it safe.

Water is like the Wu-Tang Clan, it ain't nothing to (beep) with.

So, we're here to get safe, y'all.

Because we're gonna be in the river, lazy, maybe having a drink or two.

We need to have all our ducks in a row and make sure we're all gonna get back safe and sound.

(upbeat guitar music) - Yo, really excited about this float, thanks for inviting me along.

- Yeah, dude, it's gonna be sunny, nice, maybe be a drink or two.

It's gonna be a good day, bro.

I'm looking forward to it.

- Absolutely.

- Hey, I'm Matt.

- I'm Christine.

- All right.

- Kevin.

- Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- So, we need some help.

Tomorrow, we're going on this little float ride.

We've got tubes, kayaks, and beers, gonna have some lunch.

But we wanna make sure, 'cause things get a little dicey sometimes, that we get everybody back on shore safe.

So, we're hoping for some safety tips.

- Absolutely, well, I'm glad you guys stopped by, 'cause safety is our number one priority.

And my first tip for you guys would be to pack your first-aid kit.

Gauze pads, Band-Aids, ice packs, all that kind of stuff.

'cause you never know what could happen and when it could happen.

- For sure.

- It's like you say, always bring protection.

- Great thinking, man.

Always use protection.

And on top of that, where are we gonna put it?

Right?

We can take a beer or two out of the cooler and put a first-aid kit in there.

- Store the beers in my kayak, I'll take good care of 'em, make sure they don't go to waste.

- Team player right here.

- Absolutely, sounds like a plan.

On top of that, we have reach, throw, don't go, which is our number one rule that we follow around water.

Is that the last thing you wanna do, is actually jump in in an emergency.

So, I have a couple other activities that we could do in the water to help with that.

Would you guys like to jump in and try?

- You know this.

- Absolutely.

- Let's do it.

- Absolutely, let's go.

- Awesome.

- All right, so we're gonna start off with some reaching assist.

So, who's gonna go in the water first?

- Not me.

(water splashing) - Oh, I guess he is.

All right, so for our reaching assist, I'm gonna give you a noodle here.

- Thank you.

- So, what you're gonna do, is get really close to the deck so he doesn't pull you in.

And you're gonna extend that noodle, have him grab on.

Got him, bring him back.

- Not the first time I grabbed your noodle.

- Yeah, you're a natural at grabbing it.

- You got me safe, though.

- Well, it's funny here in the pool, guys, out in the real world, somebody could really be in trouble.

So, we wanna kind of take this a little bit more seriously, please.

- Understood.

- Absolutely.

Okay, so for our next goal, we're gonna do the throwing part.

So, grab on the rope, grab on the tube.

And this is for somebody that's a little bit further away that you're not gonna extend a noodle to or your arm-- - Well, we all know Matt's way out there.

- Well, we're not talking about his mentality today, we are going to actually physically rescue him.

- Okay.

- All right.

- Matt, pretend like it's a donut.

- Yeah.

- Just grab onto it.

- Now I know why lifeguards look so good, in good shape.

- Well, round is a shape, and you don't spend a lot of time in the pool.

- Nice little ride, though.

- I held my beer and everything.

This is safety at its finest.

- All right, so our last tip is, don't go.

So, your safety is number one.

So, you never wanna actually jump in after somebody, save that for the professionals.

- Perfect.

It's like you're on your own, Matt.

On your own.

- Yo.

- Oh, I'm just kidding, I wouldn't leave a homie stranded.

(bright music) (water splashing) (bright upbeat music) - If you wanna start out a day being mindful, chilling and relaxing with your peeps, you need to be mindful with your dish.

And we're gonna kick this thing off with big river energy balls.

A recipe some friends gave us, man.

And it gets you a lot of energy in the morning, goes great with coffee, it's just a really great dish.

Now, a lot of flavors will play together, but gives you some protein, some oats, other sweetness that kind of gives you what you need to kind of push through the things, you know what I mean?

And really focus on you because we're taking care of everything else.

Take a big metal mixing bowl, cooking spray, because things are gonna get sticky.

And sometimes we want things sticky and messy, but we wanna make sure we control it.

So, get it good and sprayed up.

Next, we're gonna add in a whole mess of oats.

Also, some sliced almonds.

More of that protein, and it's got a nice little crunch to it too.

For some sweetness, we've got some sweetened, shredded coconut.

We've also got a bunch of cinnamon.

Now, cinnamon provides some warmth in this.

Especially in the morning, you wanna warm up, it really adds a nice little flavor profile too, but creates a little bit of warmth as you're taking it.

Some kosher seas salt too.

And then for some more protein and the binding agent for this bad boy, is gonna be almond butter.

So, we're gonna put a bunch of that in here.

Then we've also got maple syrup.

Pure, baby, 'cause you know, we wanna keep it pure.

And we're trying to get pure mind and relax, some really good ingredients like this bring it all together.

I wanna get all of it out of there, 'cause I love this stuff.

We got some pure vanilla extract.

Now, vanilla extract, we're gonna put a bunch of it in here, because vanilla extract in this, yeah, it adds to the sweetness, but it really is a great aromatic for foods.

It adds some smell to it, and it really brings things up.

Because when you're eating something, the smell is just as big as the taste.

All right.

For us, we're going on a fun date today with our peeps.

So, we've got dates.

Dates add something really fun to this thing, right?

A little bit of new texture, and again, more sweetness, and some health benefits too.

So, dates are great, but they're dried.

So, we soaked some in water for 10, 15 minutes.

So, we're gonna take 'em out and get rid of the stems.

And then we're just gonna chop these up as small as we can get 'em.

And they're sticky, so be careful with it.

But just keep chopping, and chopping, and chopping.

You know, like you're gonna be out in the river today, we're gonna chop it up with our friends, so we're gonna chop this up here too.

Got our dates in there.

Now, to keep everything moving at a great pace.

Because here's the thing, some people relax by just chilling, which is cool.

Some, by firing things up.

This can get you both directions.

But to keep it going, right?

We're also gonna spray a big spoon with cooking spray.

Again, to reduce all the stickiness, or at least prevent super stickiness.

And then mix it up as much as you can with your big spoon.

And you're gonna see that the spray, the cooking spray, is allowing it to move a lot better than you'd expect it to if it was just by itself.

Nothing sticking to the side as much as it normally would.

So, really, the big part of this mix, is the almond butter.

You wanna make sure that gets the most spread evenly.

Everything else will kind of follow suit.

The binding agent has to be the bigger thing.

Feeling pretty good about this mix.

I'm just gonna scoop the spoon out, make sure we got all that goodness in there too.

So, here's the thing, right?

The best part about chilling, hanging with your friends, is the variety, right?

The diversity, different ideas, and coolness like that.

So, whatever you wanna put in here, man.

Our friend Robert, who likes to get swole, he put some protein powder in here.

Amelia, who we love, she'd throw some chocolate chips in here.

Banana chips work too.

If you're gonna use something like that, make sure it's dry, that'll add some crunch to it.

But really, it's your adventure, y'all, so you pick the path.

Now, we've got it all ready here.

And cooking spray, baby.

We're using the heck out of it today.

We're gonna spray our hands.

And now we've got a cooking spray coated can of cooking spray, little meta action.

And we're gonna form them into tight balls.

Around a golf-ball-size shape.

And the amount of balls that Alex loses in the golf course, he's familiar with the size.

We pack 'em in tight.

Then we just put 'em on parchment paper.

We're gonna put 'em in the fridge for 45 minutes, so they really solidify.

So, about like that.

Fresh outta the fridge and into the fire.

Maybe my mouth instead.

But this is the energy, the sweetness you want to kick off a day of relaxing with your friends.

Or if you're firing things up to relax too, going down the river, paddling, whitewater rapids, or chilling on the side of the beach, this'll get you there.

And it's rare to me when things that are healthy taste so good, but this does all that, so get it started up.

(energetic music) For our day in the river, we're gonna get big, y'all, like a giant monster.

This is one of my favorite inventions.

This is the Kaiju roll.

It's like a crawfish role, but we'll get more into that in a bit.

A Kaiju is a Japanese giant monster.

Growing up as a kid, one of my favorite things ever, speaking of mindfulness, way to relax for me as a little boy, was watching Godzilla movies.

These giant rubber monsters fighting just made me super happy.

And one of Godzilla's big enemies is Ebirah, who is a giant crawfish.

And spoiler alert, he does not farewell against the big green guy.

Anyways, as a kid too, crawfish are just awesome.

But as a kid, I remember chasing around in little rivers finding crayfish.

So, to this day, if my wife and I are going for a hike or I'm out somewhere, I will always look in cricks, here or there, to see if there's a crayfish because it makes me happy.

So, this sandwich makes me happy, but it also gives you a lot of protein and flavor to get through a busy day.

Or if you're whitewater rafting, a break before you hit the rapids, it's just dope.

And it goes great with pretty much anything, particularly, giant-monster adventures.

For any seafood salad, that's basically what we're making, you wanna have a base, we're gonna use a mayonnaise base.

You can use butter bases if it's warm.

So, this is kinda like a lobster roll.

And if you can't find crawfish, you can also use langostinos.

We're gonna use those today, as well as crawfish.

Or you can buy imitation crab, that works too, or shrimp.

We don't go with lobster because that's its own animal, lobster rolls, and we love those too.

But there's no shame ever in using imitation crab.

Especially if you're trying to ball on a budget, you can totally do that.

And if someone shames you for it, they ain't the people you should be chilling with.

So, our mayonnaise base here, actually, is not American mayo, it's Japanese mayo called Kewpie.

And Kewpie, unlike American mayo, uses more egg yolks instead of egg whites, so it has a richer consistency to it, which we like.

And come on, if you're gonna fight with giant monsters, or fight with a lazy river, or fight with your friends, you want to have some egg yolks in that thing.

So, we gotta a basis of that.

Then, for some more flavor, we're gonna add in some Dijon mustard.

Because Dijon mustard is a great ingredient, and it also will help some other things kind of come together, but it's got that spicy bite that matters.

Some chopped up parsley from the garden, and also tarragon.

So, tarragon is a great fresh herb to use that pairs really well with any type of seafood you're gonna roll with.

We also got some garlic, because garlic is just garlic, right?

It should be everywhere.

Also, some horseradish.

So, the horseradish you might see it looks almost like a paste.

That's because we took it, put in a paper towel, and squeezed all the water out.

That way, it'll mix better and not get a watery consistency.

Salt and pepper, 'cause you got to.

A little bit of cayenne pepper, that also adds a little bit of bite-ness with all that rich fattiness.

Some white-wine vinegar, also goes well with everything.

And then a little bit of lime juice.

For us, we like a little bit of heat.

Especially if you're dealing with fire-breathing monsters, that works.

So, just a couple squirts of that.

Again, doesn't make it too hot, but it jumps in.

Then some celery.

So, before we get into our other stuff, we're gonna mix it a little bit.

And then also, another trick that we like to do in the kitchen, is have a pair of scissors.

Got some green onions.

And if you don't wanna sit there and chop the entire time, just take the scissors, and have some skills with it, unlike me, and just chop those into your dish.

And it saves you some space, so you can still reuse the rest of 'em somewhere.

Another thing about green onions and scallions, and this is true, I didn't believe it when my mom told me.

So, if she's watching, sorry mom, you were right.

You can take these and plant them in your garden, and they'll keep growing, so save you some money too.

So, stir up our dressing.

And you're gonna start to see the color change a little bit, which is totally dope.

We wanna make sure, poke it around a little bit, because sometimes you gotta poke things, but poke this stuff because you wanna break that horseradish up so it evenly distributes.

So, langostinos, which are kind of like lobsters, right?

They're smaller and, I dunno, cuter, they're still pretty cute.

We've got about a pound of this.

And this is important because for that, you're gonna have a a couple pounds of meat.

The crawfish though, because they're hard to find.

These crawfish we have are left over from a crawfish boil.

So, what I did, was rinse 'em to get a lot of the Cajun seasoning so it doesn't get too salty.

But all those tails go in.

Now, this what the crawfish looks like.

He walks around, he's got his little feets, and he is doing his thing, and he is got his big claws.

But how you typically eat a crawfish, or if you're gonna pluck the meat out of it, is squeeze the thorax, twist the tail, and then pull it, there's your meat.

Now, typically, what do, is you suck the head.

Get some of the flavor out of it.

Then you crack the bottom of the tail off.

And then pull it out, and there's your meat.

So, we're gonna mix this up evenly and get ready to roll it out, babe.

Time to make this thing.

So, we took a roll and buttered it and then toasted it 350 for a few minutes.

Because we wanna make sure as we're gonna wrap this in foil and carry it down the river, it can sustain being soaked with the beautiful dressing.

So, that's why that's done.

And plus, butter makes everything better.

We're gonna take a good old healthy fat scoop of this beautiful salad, and we are gonna press it down on the bottom side.

But we don't mind if some of it falls outta the side because, come on, sometimes things are messy, and that's the way we like it.

Then we're gonna put a layer of baby spinach on here.

Adds another flavor combo, a little fresh crunch too to it.

But we ain't done with the crunchy flavors either.

We also got another monster bite in here.

We also took some bacon that we cooked to bite-size pieces.

We're gonna put a good healthy layer of this.

Maybe not healthy fat, but you know what?

We're talking about mental health today.

And sometimes, mental health requires some comfort food, and I am comfortable eating this.

So, we've loaded it up.

I'm gonna fold 'em on over.

I might rip it off the hinge, like I did there.

Turn.

I'm gonna cut it in half so we can see the beautiful cross section of the Kaiju roll monster style.

There we go.

All right.

Hopefully, Godzilla and all of his friends will be proud.

Kaiju roll, one of my new favorite things in the world, besides hanging out with my peep ♪ Cuz every day I lose myself in it ♪ ♪ These rides and games are makin me so sad ♪ ♪ Owww I better go ♪ Yeah (bright upbeat music) - Ooh, what a glorious day, y'all?

- Dude, it's beautiful out.

- Super chill.

- It's nice when the rivers are chill.

- Yeah, this is real chill.

- Yeah.

- They have tendency to be dangerous on days like this.

- A dangerous?

- They come outta nowhere.

- This river isn't dangerous.

- No, some rivers, I said.

They come outta nowhere, and just take you down.

- What river?

- A river.

- We won't mention it by name.

- We're no speaking again.

- Oh, we can't, oh.

- But that was a funny day.

- We don't talk about each other anymore.

- Oh, you and the river don't talk about each other anymore?

- Yeah.

- All right.

- Well, the river probably talks about me.

It's a common story at gatherings.

- Okay.

- No.

So, we're going around the river-- - At the river river-family reunion?

(all laughing) - We're going down the river on kayaks, and we had beer coolers, hanging out.

- Sure.

- Awesome, beautiful day.

- Yeah.

- And we had to maneuver around the currents as the bends, we go around this bend.

- Sure.

- And I'm trying to correct, 'cause I'm going hard at the left.

So, in an effort to let her and Nick by-- - Ah, heroic.

- Ought to say then.

- I saved myself.

- I don't quite know if that was the reason.

- Was it 900 cubic feet per second?

What was the current?

- No, no it was not.

- Okay.

- It was probably like 1,000, if that's a measurement.

- Okay.

- Nah.

- If that's an actual measurement.

- Yeah, so we go around the bend, and they get by this tree-- - 'Cause you saved them.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Well, I let them by first.

- All right.

- So, I get into this tree, and I couldn't do it.

So, I just ditched-- - How big was the tree?

- It was a full tree that was over, with a couple branches.

- Wow, full branch.

- So, I grab the branch.

- Whoa, wow.

- And as I grabbed the branch, 'cause we were moving so fast, the Kayak took off, and my cooler of beers got wrapped around and the beers took off.

- Just slingshot out of-- - So, all my beers-- - So, he is splashing around, he's making all this noise.

- Like there's a shark attack.

- He's yelling for us as if we're gonna back back-- - I was grabbing the beers.

- And get him.

There's a whole family here fishing, and there's a little boy that keeps yelling something, and we're like, what, what?

The kid's like, stand up.

And Alex stands up and the waters just to his kneecaps.

- Oh, my God.

(laughing) - It was fast, it was fast.

- Oh, my God.

- It was probably a little higher.

So, this kid was probably from me to you.

- The six-year old's kneecaps, or yours?

- This kid was probably from me to you-- - And far tougher than you are.

- And there was no movement in the water near him.

None, not a little bit.

So, he was fine.

- You know why?

'Cause the river was afraid of that kid.

- That's right.

- He showed the river who the boss was.

- So, I was trying to get my beers, my sandal flew off.

And I get up, and they cheered for me.

They didn't help me, they cheered for me finally, like I was clearly struggling.

- Look at this guy.

- But there was no help.

- They were cheering, we were like, he's so big.

Hey, good job, buddy, good job.

- So, I had to swim-- - We were laughing too hard to help with anything.

- They didn't help at all, I could have been in trouble.

- Did you get the beers at least?

- Uh-huh.

- Most of them, I think.

He lost the sandal, gone.

- It goes right by her kayak.

And I go, grab my sandal.

She just let it go.

- Well, she was embarrassed.

- I had to swim-- - She wanted to act like she knew you.

You're like, April, and she's like, looking around-- - I had to swim all the way to my kayak, and it was pretty embarrassing, the swim of shame.

- The swim of shame.

- The swim of shame.

- So, I, you know?

- Oh, man.

- The swim of shame past the 6-year-old kid.

- I wanna hang out, this river sounds awesome.

- The moral of the story is, it's calm now, but be ready.

- Is that the moral the story?

- At least, be prepared.

- Or is it, don't go kayaking with Alex?

I'm not sure what the lesson here is.

Quality time and a quality place with quality people, that's what qualifies for a great day.

And we're in the middle of one right meow.

The right cats, the right food, a drink or two, and we're hitting the right spot, and we're ready to party or to chill.

You know what?

To raise a ruckus sometimes, look to party with a little peace and quiet too.

So, what do you do when you're headed up the river without a paddle?

Change direction and go with the flow, baby.

It's true on a lazy river, and it's true in life too, find a way to keep going.

So, I gotta roll, I mean, float.

See you down the river.

♪ Smokin in my heart when you move with me ♪ ♪ Smokin you're my energy ♪ Smokin in my heart when you move with me ♪ ♪ Smokin you're my energy ♪ I said smokin ♪ Smokin ♪ I said smokin ♪ I said smokin (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Protein-rich and sustainably raised, American Lamb is a versatile ingredient in any dish.

For recipes, nutrition information, and to learn more about our commitment to sustainability, visit AmericanLamb.com.

- Acropolis Realty Group, providing real estate services across the industry, including commercial development, residential sales, and residential and commercial leasing.

Learn more at acropolisrealtygroup.com.

- [Narrator] Gateway to the Finger Lakes Region, Syracuse is centrally located in New York State.

Syracuse has a variety of outdoor parks, year-round activities, dining options, and seasonal festivals.

More information at VisitSyracuse.com.