0:00 [Music] who are you and where are you going what do you want for the next 24 minutes we're going to design and attain your ideal life [Music] on the way to wow show together we'll find the ideal path to get you back on the track to success and happiness
0:36 on the way to wow show with your host kevin bemel this week on the way to wow it's going to be a special episode has nothing to do with blossom though my daughter is going to join me and help me understand the fascination she has for online video games which frankly i just don't get and it's been a point of contention for us for quite a number of years now we're going to see if we can
1:11 lower the boiling point a little bit but first christine bocchino is going to mix up something special for me so that maybe i can take it a little bit easier on my daughter christine bucchino has done pretty much everything you can do in the hospitality business she's been a beverage director a general manager a sommelier a consultant a writer a restaurant owner both in the united states and in europe if there's something else
1:47 she could have done you're gonna have to write into the show and tell me what it is because i i you you've you've literally done it all well this today caps it off i'm so happy to be here with you well thank you we're really pleased to have you be our wow tender on this week's episode of the way to wow show so what what are you gonna mix up for us well i'm going to do a variation on a sour considered a sour because it's got the acid from the citrus it's got a little bit of a sweetener to it it's got an egg white um but i'm going to incorporate two spirits into it okay it's going to be a gin and a calvados i'm super into calvados
2:23 these days so i love to incorporate it where it makes sense this is going to have a little bit of a holiday spice note to it okay so i've got the barhill gin which is out of vermont um one of my favorites right now they're super eco-friendly and they actually just got awarded a hundred uh points in a national spirit competition so that's not too bad um so the barhill gin i'm going to add that first and then calvados is really really great apple's awesome for fall and with the cinnamon and ginger that we're using
2:59 and the apple really adds something nice yeah so if people can't get actual calvados it can they use applejack or they could actually it's gonna you know add a little bit something different to it but you know there's definitely a lot of options out there apple brandies are a little bit more popular so they're a little bit easier to find these days than they used to be but yeah they're slowly creeping their way up yeah good yeah absolutely so now we're going to do some unfiltered apple juice add that into the mix and about an ounce there some egg white
3:35 now not everyone's going to be into this this does give it a really nice texture mouth feel that like frothy foamy layer on top if you don't want to use that or if you when it's vegan you can actually take the liquid from a can of garbanzo beans we call that aquafaba in the industry and that is actually a thickening and foaming agent as well so oh wow kind of a fun way to do it it does add a little bit of an interesting smell um that some people notice as they're drinking the cocktail but it's a great great option so next we're going to do the citrus which is going to be the juice of
4:11 an entire lemon wow nice and citrusy uh-huh yeah i saw the the oil kind of spray out yeah i can smell it actually yeah it makes for a great cologne just put a little behind your uh and your ears on your wrist and you're good to go in the seafood business now and this is going to be a homemade uh honey syrup that's got a little bit of cinnamon in it oh so that's where some of that fall spice comes in as well put that in just top it with ice and we're going to give it a really hard shake to try to incorporate all of those uh great flavors in it got some ice here
4:49 and let's say probably about halfway full can smell it from here yeah it's interesting i wouldn't thought of of mixing lemon with apple it doesn't quite seem that they go together but yeah i just you know having that balance of uh some kind of acid or citrus is super important from balance for cocktails and you know out of all the citrus and different things that you know were an option i feel like lemon was the best okay best fit all right so we're going to put the cap on tightly give it a good shake if you're doing it at home you want to get it so cold that
5:25 you can almost not hold on to it and then you know you've gotten it cold enough so roughly like 20 to 30 seconds is good um you'll see the yeah the shaker start to do its thing yeah and anytime you're incorporating egg white you want to shake it a little bit longer just to get that foaminess to it so we've got these beautiful coops which are great for this cocktail as well absolutely i know i can't tell which color i like better yeah they come i have them in five five or six different colors i think i have a dozen of them yeah they look vintage i'm not sure if they are
6:00 but they're actually not but i thought they were i mean i mean they're about uh gosh about 30 years old now but but but maybe that is vintage but i don't think vintage in the way we mean it that makes me vintage yeah well that makes me double vintage so all right so a couple drinks here and you'll see the it'll kind of separate yeah it kind of does it on its own and then you can do candied ginger on the edge of it if you want um i usually will just do a cinnamon stick i'll give you that
6:35 all right well i'm going to delicious right now thank you make it so full that you have to take a sip right away or you'll spill it so that's oh this is just the cinnamon and the everything goes together yeah and ideally you smell the cinnamon as you're taking a sip of it as well bar hill's got a tiny touch of honey in it and that's why i did honey syrup instead of a regular simple syrup they're super eco-friendly and they're they're uh have a whole philosophy of helping save the bee population which is great oh yeah well my wife is really into that herself yeah absolutely
7:10 awesome well my guest is my daughter so you know she's not into cocktails quite yet we're working on it but definitely well this will get me ready to confront video games good good but maybe you take two uh i may make for a more interesting interview yeah absolutely thank you so much so glad you like it and thanks for having me [Music] so this week on the way to wow we have a little bit different show i want to introduce you to my daughter
7:45 madeline i don't want to give too much of her biography because i might embarrass her but i will tell you the story that i think she most likes to hear which is when i found out that my wife was pregnant i started praying for a daughter and lo and behold that prayer was answered and and so now we have uh we have madeline rachel and uh she's really been one of the truly
8:20 great delights of my life so you know those of you who are parents and have been parents longer than me madeleine is 13 you probably know this better than i do at some point our children actually become separate people from us and they develop likes and dislikes that we have at least in my case i just i really can't understand and one of the bones of contention between madeleine and me for a number of years now has been how she loves video games especially online
8:56 video games and and i frankly i don't understand them so we thought we would do a little uh segment here and really madeline is gonna teach me hopefully um about what what these video games are about why she likes them what you know what the attraction is and and for um i think for some of you out there maybe you're having some of these same struggles as me um you know with with uh everything that's been going on i think kids have been spending a lot more time online
9:31 i know when i was a kid my parents would tell me get out of the house go play on the freeway you know that kind of stuff um but but young people you know play these games online quite a bit and so it's an opportunity to learn a little bit more about it so madam why don't you tell us about the the game that you've chosen to to play um today i've chosen a game called celeste it's a it's a game that is centered around story um those are my favorite games because they actually mean something and they're also fun so yeah so you do want to you want to start the game and
10:12 okay keep watching keep going show us okay so you i guess you climb is is the main thing there i'm going to read the dialogue should i read no the the camera will catch it but spelling your name wrong interestingly enough but that's okay the character in the game is named madeline oh okay this is the default name okay and it's asking questions why are you so nervous in this sort of thing madeleine is talking to herself at the
10:47 moment oh okay this is the game uh you move around with the arrow keys do you how do you jump there you go okay the music was soothing i'd be asleep so she almost what got killed there is are these blocks of ice or something oh dear i died oops i guess you don't want to do that huh keep dying um so that block in the middle just fell uh if you stayed under it you would have gotten squashed
11:23 hold z to climb where is z [Music] oh i keep pressing [Music] i'm not used to these controls okay see okay so um what is it about this game that you find enjoyable i like the relaxing well the beginning is relaxing anyway um
11:59 i like the music and the uh the look of it but i like the story most of all because some some video games tell happy stories others tell us sad ones this one tells the story of a girl that's battling her inner self and i think that the prompt is original because instead of like instead of it being i need to forget you it's i need to work with you to move past this i need to forget you you meaning you need to forget yourself or i need to forget my my terrible past that's not what this game portrays this
12:35 game portrays the i need to work with my past to overcome my past instead of leaving it behind and so okay that makes a lot of sense and and i think we all need to do that so how do we how does this game help you learn to do that um well in this game the past is portrayed as a girl and the character that i'm playing right now oh dear oops i have entered a cutscene um the girl that i'm playing right now this
13:11 girl madeline um and the girl that i just described her past part of her um throughout the game they fight and then at the end um part of her works together with madeleine and they they climb this mountain which is madeleine's goal this mountain is celeste mountain and she has to deal with her past self in order to be able to climb the mountain is that it her past self who is in a human form is physically preventing her from climbing the mountain um through magic and just
13:46 force oh okay so in order to climb the mountain she has to win her over [Music] and so i guess people at period they don't make actual [Laughter] i told you that i told you it was stupid the noises that they make was stupid
14:22 so they interact with different characters uh throughout the game yes so now it's getting more exciting oops oh so why did she get to uh hang in the air like that um possibly just so that you could like um calm down from the sudden burst of energy it's not
14:58 uh what's called canon it's not correct it didn't actually happen oh i see okay so so what kind of things do you feel like you learn from from playing these games um with some games i don't exactly learn things like skills but i do get ideas for things in a creative setting and in games like these i learned to better understand myself so um would you share something that you've learned about yourself from
15:34 you know playing one of these games recently has there been anything i've learned that to overcome to overcome bad things you must work with them when you choose to play a video game as opposed to other things that you you can spend your time on why are you choosing a video game versus say reading a book or something like that
16:18 it just seems more appealing i suppose it's like instead of just watching through a window that's how i perceive books as you get to fully interact with the world and make your own decisions you get to steer the path as steer the path you get to steer the story in a direction you want so you're you're writing the story rather than just reading it you're altering the story there is a set story but in some games you can get multiple endings in this game you can alter the story
16:55 but you can't alter the ending okay and do you feel that there are some problems or any problems with video games um i feel like most online and multiplayer games attract a very for lack of a better word toxic or unhealthy um fan base a fan base is basically an audience that makes things for the game those fan bases usually consist of
17:31 people who are very immature for their age [Music] and because they're immature they they infect the the fan base so that anybody else anybody who joins kind of gets wrapped up in this whole argument i suppose so they create kind of a negative environment yes multiplayer games and online games aren't really for children they're for adults
18:07 who can take this constant i am right you are wrong and there is nothing you can do to change my mind because i am right so the interaction is is is not not very pleasant it sounds like um do you think that um your interest in video games sometimes makes it more difficult for you to get your schoolwork done or do the other things that you have to do does it sometimes get in the way of
18:43 these other things or um when i was younger i used to prioritize video games a lot to the point of it becoming an addiction i'm still working past that but as i grow older i've been setting more boundaries for myself because i understand that it's important to prioritize other things and video games are just a fun past time that can sometimes teach you things so for parents out there who have a child that they think maybe is neglecting their schoolwork or something like that what would what would you suggest to those parents in terms of what they can do to help
19:18 their children maybe achieve better balance between things like school schoolwork or or family responsibilities and and the time they play um video games well um as much as i dislike it bribery usually works it's not my first choice though if i were being completely honest if your child hasn't gotten too wrapped up in the addictive cycle that is video games i don't know why i did air quotes um then you should probably start limiting their screen time but not in a sense when they get home from school
19:56 you should tell them that they can only start playing video games or go going on the internet after they've completed their homework and school work and do you think do you think that'll work in most cases or do you think it worked in your case it did oh okay i mean i kind of did it for myself yeah well that's what i was gonna say because i i didn't perceive setting those limits frankly worked very well and i basically came down to hoping that at some point you would limit yourself if i'm being perfectly honest it's more of a two-way street you can't
20:33 force your child to um comply with these rules so it would be best if you i guess the word i'm looking for is let them down easy maybe or maybe negotiate a solution or negotiate a solution or um slowly adjust them to the idea i just gave you don't just enforce it right away just slowly let it sink in make it a habit i guess okay and the last thing is um this is kind of bringing us full circle are there um video games
21:10 that you think are better for young people children to play and maybe others that they shouldn't at all be playing or how do you how do you look at the overall reality definitely um games like storytelling games like celeste and uh hollow knight are ideal for uh children because they don't have other human interaction and if you get them educational games uh depending on their age it'll um educate them on stuff on things and you you brought a a thing
21:46 for our collage right so what is this you brought us this is um an action figure from a game series called splatoon splatoon while it is a multiplayer game you do not come in contact with anyone and it's purely just game play with other people and it's not communication with other people so this would uh splatoon would be the one game that is the exception to the multiplayer games or bad for kids rule i guess okay you wanna do you wanna put it up there
22:24 someplace okay well so you should know i i found this very helpful i i you have a much more sophisticated understanding of video games um than than i thought certainly maybe mommy knows this but but i i sure didn't um and and i think it was good i'm you know we probably should talk like this um
23:01 more often and and uh you know in in injustice you i should probably just ask you some questions and then just listen to the answers because it it it actually reduced my anxiety level about you playing video games a little bit so i can see how you know these could be you know actually useful in in in with some of the you know challenges that you have so thank you i appreciate it you're welcome don't give me a hug
23:39 that's our show for this week i i hope you enjoyed the session with my daughter i know i learned a tremendous amount and i think her advice is really apt the tendency is for us to think that because there are children they don't have a lot to say but indeed at least in this case she knew a lot more about something that i was concerned about and was able to reduce my anxiety much better than i could have done on my own or even working with my wife let's let's talk to our kids let's negotiate with them when we have to but
24:15 most importantly let's just listen to them so that they have an opportunity to know that we understand them stay tuned next week my guest is going to be david kim of apex partners and also the co-founder of children of fallen patriots foundation we're going to talk to him about how he got from the military to a very successful life in private equity business courage at all times my friends marie you are still my pal darling
25:03 [Music] you