- [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.

(percussion music) Oh, Spatchcock Funk.

We look to do it like animals.

Party animals, that is.

Go into beast mode and let loose.

Some of our favorite beasts in the world?

Horses, baby.

We talking thoroughbreds.

Taking in beauty from other creatures makes you appreciate all that's good in the world and the track.

So get dressed up.

Nothing gets that heart racing like when that perfect filly walks by or that big stud shows up at the paddock.

But you don't need to be trackside to pick a winner now.

You can be one anywhere you want.

It's a sport of kings and queens and we're here to give you a photo finish, baby.

All you need is your people, a great outfit, and a royal spread, and you're off to the races.

Here comes the call to the post.

This is talk derby to me.

(electronic music) (keyboard music) For a race party, y'all, we wanna get things racing and pumped up.

The drink we're gonna use is gonna use bourbon because bourbon is associated with everything race related.

Any racetrack you go to, they got some bourbon there.

Now, typically you're gonna think about the mint julep, and the mint julep is a good drink.

But to me, while it's a good, tasty cocktail, it's usually something that people will try and be like, "Oh, I don't really like it," 'cause they're not experienced bourbon drinkers.

This is the great entry level gateway drug to bourbon drinking.

This is a blackberry bourbon smash, and it hits all the right notes.

So if you're just dipping your little feeties into the water for the first time and ready to party with bourbon, this is the way you get up to being one of those fancy "hello, hello" like our friend Jared, who loves bourbon and loves to brag about it.

Got a shaker.

For the shaker, we're gonna put in a real healthy amount of bourbon.

Then we're gonna put in some mint simple syrup.

This is just equal parts water, sugar, heat it up, stir it up, and then we threw a whole handful of mint in there, let it sit for a half hour.

Speaking of that, mint.

We're gonna throw a mint leaf in there, too.

Then we're gonna put in three to four blackberries.

And the secret ingredient for us is blackberry Jam or blackberry jelly.

Either one works.

We're gonna muddle it really well and break up all of that blackberry-ness, because the sugar and the sweetness and bourbon does have a really nice vanilla note and a sweetness to it, but the mint and the blackberry sugars kinda make it a little bit more palatable for the people just getting into it, and it's really a great way to start things off.

Little shaking job.

(ice jingling) Get some good ice in here, 'cause you know what's shaking?

A killer cocktail coming up.

Yeah, we're gonna garnish it with a mint leaf, blackberry, and a lemon wedge.

With this cocktail, ready to party.

Get into the bourbon game.

Mm, you're off to the races.

(electronic music) Get out your racing form, y'all, because this is the number one horse.

We've got a trifecta of snacks today, and they're all little bite-sized things so you can nosh and party, check out the ponies, check out the other dressed up people at the party and just get your game on.

And we've got a race on, too.

So these are pork belly burnt ends.

Our boy, Jared, it's his recipe, calls 'em meat treats, and they are unreal.

Kinda easy to make if you've got a smoker and know what you're doing, and we're here to help you with that.

So to honor Kentucky Churchill Downs, that bourbony, smoky goodness, it's that type of barbecue.

But let's be real.

We celebrate barbecue from California to Saratoga.

Wherever they're racing horses, they're throwing up the smoke.

So we're gonna throw it up for them and throw it down for you right now.

We got a big old pork belly right here that we cut the skin off and we're gonna cut it up into cubes.

They're gonna shrink a little bit while they're smoking, but we've got our thing laid out and we're gonna cut 'em down into strips.

So with a smoker, you can use propane smokers if you got one at home.

You can use pellets, which also works, too.

Some grills now come with smoking attachments.

We're using cherry because what cherry's gonna do is gonna add a bright red color, and that's kinda what we want on this because the sauce is gonna be red, too, but it really adds a nice little sweet flavor to it.

Now, our boy, Mike, killer smoker, runs a great restaurant, does a lotta great barbecue, really knows how to measure meat, and one of the things that we look to do that we think about him because he's always got it evenly timed out, man.

He's got smokers that are, like, bigger than this house, but he just knows what he's doing because the meat is cut the right way.

So we're gonna cube 'em up and throw 'em into a pan.

Now we take these beautiful beasties and we've got some barbecue rub.

This rub is a combination of a bunch of stuff.

We got brown sugar, paprika.

I put some Cajun seasoning in there.

We got a whole bunch of things that we just mix up, but we're gonna really be generous with it, get it on top of it, and then we're just gonna toss all of them around in it so they're all generously coated so they look a little something like this.

Hit it like that, right?

So just get 'em all tossed up.

Make sure your smoker is set between 250 and 275.

We're gonna put these things in there for two and a half hours.

(electronic music) We got these beautiful burnt ends, baby.

Pork belly, y'all.

Time to belly up to some butter.

So we got about a pound of butter or so, maybe more, and we're gonna sprinkle that all across evenly.

Take a bunch of honey and we gonna zigzag it all the way across.

Take some brown sugar.

We're gonna sprinkle that liberally all across everything.

Wrap it in some good heavy duty foil.

Wrap it tight, y'all.

Keep it tight.

Then just back in the smoker for an hour and a half.

Yo, the unmasking, the unboxing, like, taking the top off.

Taking the top off of this.

Beauteous.

We drained the liquid outta here so it just, ugh.

Now, you think it's dumb, but it's not, y'all.

We're gonna hit it with some of this beautiful glaze, Jared's recipe.

We got apple jelly, apple juice, barbecue sauce, some hot sauce, too.

And we're just gonna pour it over this and stir it around a little bit.

Make sure it all gets covered.

Then throw it back in the smoker for 10 more minutes.

Sauced 'em, smoked 'em, ready to crush 'em, y'all.

This is what's up for Kentucky, all the races everywhere from California to Maine, baby, this is a winner guaranteed every time.

From Jared, Mike, and all your smoking thoroughbreds.

Giddy up.

(electronic music) You wanna make a great dish?

Get fresh local ingredients.

And that's what we're here to do.

(Beethoven's Fifth Symphony) (Beethoven's Fifth Symphony techno remix) Hey, Bob.

- Hey man.

Good to see you.

- Good to see you, too.

- Hey Alex.

Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

So we're making these awesome little mini cheesecakes and we're gonna put a honey blueberry compote on top.

We need the fresh honey and you're the guy.

- Well, let's go see how the girls make it.

- All right.

- This is where it's made, huh?

- Wow.

This is really sweet.

(group laughs) - Honey pun intended?

- All right, so you ready?

(someone laughs) - There's no way you were catching that, either.

- I would've caught it.

- I would've stuck to him.

- How many bees does it take to make, like, 12 ounces of honey?

- One bee spends its entire life making a teaspoon of honey.

- Wow.

- What?

- Yeah, and they don't, they live 40- - What do you think the answer was gonna be, like, each bee makes 50 jars of honey?

- Yeah, I thought it'd be, like, oh, 800 bees.

- How do you even track that.

- One bee, one teaspoon of honey its entire life.

I say when a bee leaves a hive, it's out grocery shopping.

It's out looking either for pollen from the flowers or nectar.

And the flowers use a trick to get a bee to come visit it.

It's reward, the flower's reward is it gets pollinated.

The bee's reward is it gets a little sip of sugar water that that plant makes, and they take it back and that's what they use for food - That's what Alex uses at Bar is a sip of water and do some pollination, you know?

- So how does the honey come out of this?

- Well, we take those frames we just saw and we take it over to the extractor and that's where we get the honey out of the frames.

Let's go check it out.

- So this is a frame that's fully capped honey.

It's ready to be harvested.

- Wow.

Look at that.

- And what we're gonna do is take this big ninja knife.

- Love it.

- We'll slice off the wax cappings on both sides.

- Yep.

- Then we'll put it inside here.

Find someone that's in much better shape than me to spin this for 15 minutes.

All the wax will, all the honey will fall off on the sides, come out the spout through our mesh filter, and we fill up a jar just like that.

- Wow.

- And then we have honey.

- How much honey comes off of this plate?

- Each one of these frames holds about four pounds of honey.

- That's incredible.

Awesome.

Well, thank you.

This was so cool.

I was just expecting to come get a jar of honey, but- - So that was straight from the beehive right into the jar.

- Yep.

Beautiful.

- Yeah.

- Thanks a lot.

Appreciate it.

(percussion music) - Okay, race fans, coming up on the second leg of this beautiful trifecta.

What we're working with now are crab cakes, reminiscent of the mighty Pimlico racetrack where they run the Preakness.

And crab cakes, now, we're going a little bit Maryland style.

It's gonna be beautiful and it's gonna be one of those things, again, bite-sized, we can dip and talk and do all the things we wanna do.

Check our race card.

Check out the filly next to you.

You know what I'm talking about.

What we wanna do, though, first for us, making a really good crab cake slider or most fried seafood sandwiches is make a kicking remoulade.

Just like a horse kicks, this thing's gonna buck a little bit.

So we got a bunch of good old mayo in here.

Then we've got a whole mess of chopped up sweet pickles.

We also throw in some garlic chili lime sauce, a little bit of heat, a little bit of flavor, pinch of some sea salt, and then a shallot all diced up.

Then also the juice of half a lime.

Just stir that up and we're gonna put that in the fridge and then let it sit while we get the rest of the crab cake slider going, babe.

Now, the key to a good crab cake, you just want more crab than breadcrumb.

That's the basis for me.

But we're gonna get through it the right way anyways.

First, though, you also make your wet ingredients on one side and then do your dry.

So for our wet we're gonna put in a bunch of mayo, some Dijon mustard.

Dijon mustard is critical for the brightness.

We're gonna throw in some fresh lemon juice and we put a lemon out here, don't need it.

Couple of eggs.

I'm gonna mix up those wet ingredients.

Put the wet aside, grab the dry.

So we got a couple cups of panko bread seasoning.

We like panko the best for the absorption, the fluffiness, the lightness.

I'm gonna throw in a bunch of celery, red pepper for a little sweetness, too, but also for color.

Couple green onions chopped up.

Salt and pepper.

Then also we're gonna use some Old Bay.

Get it evenly distributed.

Get the color all even.

So we're gonna take our wet ingredients, pour it into the dry.

Gonna mix that up, too.

So we're going a little over a pound and a half of crab meat, and we like to mix things up.

We've got a whole slew of basically different cuts, different parts of the crab.

Got some good old claw meat we're gonna throw in there.

Actually, that's the lump.

We got some claw in there, too.

Normally we wanna say use whatever you want, imitation crab and those things.

In this dish, you don't wanna use the imitation crab because that's actually flavored fish and it cooks it a different way.

But for the crab, this is the temperatures and the stuff you wanna work with.

So now you wanna mix all this crab and all that stuff in there, and you're gonna notice that it's gonna be more crab than anything else, and that's how we like it.

Everything else is a decoration and a vehicle for the flavor of the crab.

The race is a combination of things, right?

It's dressing up, it's having cocktails, it's partying with good looking people, laughing with your friends.

But the real deal is the horses are the star.

So the crab is the star of this dish.

Take a good scoop and you're gonna form a ball a little bit at first to make your patties, flatten them, and then use your fingers, in my case, my big round fingers, to make a firm edge on the side of it.

On a sprayed cookie sheet, we're gonna lay 'em out there and then throw 'em in the oven at 350 for about 10 minutes.

Ooh, look at these baddies ready to go.

Heat up some canola oil.

Three to five minutes each side over medium to high heat.

Get 'em crispy.

We got 'em outta the fryer, man.

And what you gotta do, what April taught us, hit it with salt right oughta the fryer.

Brings out some more flavor.

But these beauties are ready to go.

Got our slider roll.

Set that down.

Take one of these beautiful babies right there.

Got some lettuce, tomato, then the top of our sammy.

Now, you know, when we serve it, we're gonna toothpick it.

Put a little cherry tomato on it.

Look all fancy.

But right now we about to get up in this thing.

Let's see how we do.

We're doing all right, y'all.

(electronic music) (upbeat music) For the third and final leg of our food course for this banging race party, we are celebrating the third and final leg of the Triple Crown, baby.

The crown jewel of that race is the Belmont, y'all.

It's in New York City.

Well, technically it's in Long Island where the end of New York hits Long Island.

And they are known for great things in that city, baby.

Cheesecake is one of them.

So we're making these mini cute little cheesecakes and we're putting them in a rose cup because the Race for the Roses is important.

The reason why they call it the Race for the Roses, which is the derby, is because a rose represents all that hard work that the animals put in and the beauty and triumph of both man and animal, and that's pretty dope.

And this dish is a triumph for animals, too, because I'm an animal and I'm gonna eat it.

The first thing we're gonna make is the crust, and the crust has to sit and set.

So we're gonna take two cups of graham crackers, all crushed up, a half cup of melted butter, then a third cup of dark brown sugar that we packed real tight.

Now we're gonna mix it up until it gets to be the consistency of wet sand.

The butter is gonna help it set into the cups.

Then we're gonna take a big tray of mini muffins.

Remember, we want these bite-sized little bites.

And we're gonna take a spoon and we're gonna fill each one about a third of the way.

And then we're gonna bake it at 350 for 10 minutes.

And this is super critical because the hardest part of this dish, it's pretty easy to make, actually, but we wanna make sure that the crust itself doesn't fall apart.

So baking it first helps it set.

Yo, while it's setting up in the oven, we're gonna set up the base for the cream cheese part of the cheesecake bites.

So we've got a big cold metal mixing bowl we put in the freezer for at least 20 minutes.

We also have about a cup or so of heavy whipping cream that we're gonna put in the base of this thing.

And then some mixers, that was also in the freezer for about five minutes.

Then we're gonna put the mixers.

These were in the freezer, too.

We're gonna take the mixer and whip it real good until it gets stiff peaks, 'cause, you know, gotta get stiff to make it hard.

(mixer whirring) Okay, we beat the cream up, beat the cream up.

Now we're gonna get the cream cheese to make this cheesecake filling a cheesecake filling.

Two bricks of cream cheese left out at room temperature 20 minutes.

Third of a cup granulated sugar.

We're gonna beat that up, too, with the mixer until it's evenly distributed and creamy.

(mixer whirring) Yeah, we in good shape there.

Here comes the fun part.

This is the remix to the remix.

We've got that whippy cream type stuff in there.

We are gonna squeeze out all from our beaters, that's a technical term, y'all, into this mix, and we're gonna use this spatula, so hang onto it, 'cause we're gonna use it to push stuff down the sides, which is important.

But we're still gonna use this mixer, too.

Now, the cream cheese mixture, with your spatula, get all of it out and into this bigger mix.

We're also gonna throw in the juice of half a lemon.

And, you know, our boy Nick actually eats lemons like oranges.

It's one of his many quirks that we love about him.

Got a couple tablespoons of vanilla high-fat yogurt Low-fat yogurt, what's the point?

I know, I know, it's good for you, but we ain't doing that today.

Also gonna put in a healthy amount, at least two, but we're gonna go maybe four teaspoons of vanilla extract.

Yeah.

Now we're gonna keep beating this thing up, too, and while we do it, we're gonna use our spatula and push down the sides to get it all in there and evenly mixed.

(mixer whirring) Yeah, we're really digging this remix.

Now we've gotta figure out a way to get this beautiful filling into our little cups.

And typically you'll use a pastry bag with a little nozzle at the end of it.

But that's fancy, man, and we don't stand on circumstance here at the funk, the pomp and circumstances for the party.

So what we're gonna do instead, we're gonna take a food storage bag, make our own bag.

We wanna save money for the outfits, not on the very expensive bags, I guess, pastry bags.

So we're gonna take it and get it all into a food storage bag.

Squish it all down to the bottom on one corner, as much as you can.

As much air out as you can.

And where this is gonna become our pastry bag.

We've got our makeshift pastry bag here and we've got our beautiful crust ready to go and we're just gonna cut the point off.

There's the tip of our bag.

Then fill each one to just about the top so we have room for our blueberry compote.

Then we're gonna stick it in the fridge for at least three hours.

We usually make this a day in advance and add the topping the day of.

Give 'em a chance to set.

But this has gotta set for at least three hours.

Closing out the menu, I think we picked a winner, y'all, for the finale of the day.

We've got these beautiful little things outta the fridge.

Sat there for three hours.

Got all set up like we're setting up this party.

Our compote, blueberry compote.

Compote is just cooking fruit in simple syrup, sugary type things.

We did this with honey.

Mix it all up, little bit of cinnamon, and we're good to go.

So if we did it right, it's gonna set out, which it did.

And take some of our compote, dollop it on the top just a little bit.

And we're gonna serve these in our tray and then just crack it out.

Got our bottom all set.

Nice little bite.

Perfect as I'm walking through the party with my cocktail.

One bite here, a bite of that.

That's what you want.

Little bite of everything to make the race go smoothly.

You can bet on it.

(upbeat music) Man, two of the animals that I party with are these two animals.

And I gotta tell you, dude, like, I think we've all experienced some debauchery and the racetrack kinda brings it out in me.

You know what I mean?

- Hell yeah.

- Absolutely.

You know, like, horses, debauchery, I feel like they go hand in hand.

Years ago I was rolling down to Baltimore with a buddy of mine for weekend down there, baseball game, and he's looking on his phone.

I'm like, what's this guy doing?

And he goes, hey, we're gonna be rolling by Pimlico Downs here in a little bit.

I go, Pimlico Downs?

- Preakness, baby.

- Preakness Stakes.

So I'm like- - Here we go.

- All right, now my level of excitement goes up, right?

I'm like, Preakness Stakes.

It's gonna be a good party.

The cocktails flowing.

We walk in and it is like a ghost town.

It's, like, a Friday afternoon.

- No way.

- I'm like, ugh, okay, we'll make the most of it.

So get a couple drinks, go down, watching the races, comes to the end.

He goes, hey, gimme 25 bucks.

I'm like, dude, I'm tapped out.

I've lost all day.

I'm tapped out.

He goes- - You were young then, too, right?

That goes far at that age.

- Young, 23, 24.

- Oh, that's a lot of money.

- Gimme 25 bucks.

I said, okay, slide it over.

Walks away, goes up to the counter, puts his bets in, comes back, sits down.

I go, who have we got?

He goes, don't worry about it.

- Oh my God, doesn't even give you a number or a color?

- Okay.

Nothing.

So the horses go off.

They're running around the track.

They come around the bend.

- And you don't know who to root for.

- And all the sudden, I don't know who to root for.

I'm just clapping, right?

- Go everybody!

- So he stands up and he is slapping the rail with his newspaper like he's a jockey on the horse.

They come across the finish line.

No, like, cheering, no nothing.

Just walks away.

- 'Cause there's, like, five people there.

- Cashes in his ticket, comes back out, kisses me on the forehead and says, you're welcome.

- No kidding.

- I open it up, $2,000 in there.

So we hit a nice little trifecta, feeling good.

- Damn.

- Go to the game, downtown Baltimore.

Buying drinks, buying shots, you name it.

- Bellying up.

- Bellying up.

Head back to the hotel.

We're walking in and all of a sudden I hear a little commotion in the bar.

I'm like, what's going on there?

I mean, let's go check it out for a night cap.

We walk in, there's just this big group of guys hanging out, drinking, doing shots, playing cards.

So walk over, they're like, hey, have a seat.

Okay, have a seat and go, you ever play liar's poker?

I said I have, actually.

- Wait, what's liar's poker?

- So liar's poker is you take the bill, you look at the serial number, and if you have, say, three fours on there, you say, I have three fours, and then the next person can either call your bluff or they can one up you and say they have four fives, right?

- Awesome.

Okay.

- So we start playing, playing for ones, then the fives, then the 10s, then the 20s.

All the sudden we are just progressing in this game.

And when I tell you that we didn't win one hand.

(group laughs) - Oh my God.

- We finally call it a night, wake up the next morning.

Of that $2,000 we had $25 left.

- No.

Terrible.

- $25.

- You know what, so- - That barely gets you a ride home.

- Barely got home, but you know what?

That's a price of a good time right there.

So here's to a good time tonight.

- Cheers to that.

(glasses clinking) - Keep your eyes on the prize, babe.

Check your race cards and your closet, then turn your backyard into a clubhouse and you're on the home stretch.

Great food, a reason to get together, and the right people, that's a trifecta guaranteed.

That spike of adrenaline from a little gambling or a good old hug always gets us right in the feels, and watching the ponies usually involves a lot of both if you're doing it right.

- Matt Read, you owe me some money.

- That's my cue.

Time to pay the piper.

♪ This is my country ♪ My damn country ♪ Give me my country ♪ You can keep the rest ♪ This is my country ♪ My damn country ♪ And it don't mean a thing ♪ If it don't pass the test ♪ Country like lightning and hillbillies ♪ ♪ This is my country ♪ My damn country ♪ Give me my country ♪ You can keep the rest ♪ This is my country ♪ My damn country ♪ And it don't mean a thing ♪ If it don't pass the test ♪ If you can't sing along ♪ With a tear in my beer ♪ Then don't forget your coat ♪ And get the (silence) out of here ♪ - [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.