- [Michael] Tonight on WPBS "Weekly Inside the Stories," Johnny Spezzano of "The Border teams up with Eric "Senior" Soluri "Full Throttle Saloon" TV series to make you killer chili you won't soon forget.

And when we think of an octopus, we think of an eight-legged creature with more than one heart and blue blood.

But there's so much more to learn about this incredible creature.

Your stories, your region, coming up right now on "WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories."

(inspiring music) - [Narrator] "WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories" is brought to you by...

The Watertown Oswego Small Business Development Center, The JM McDonald Foundation.

The Estate of Grant Mitchell.

And, the Dr. D Susan Badenhausen and Legacy Fund of the Northern New York Community Foundation.

Additional funding from the New York State Education Department.

- Good Tuesday evening everyone, and welcome to "WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories."

I'm Michael Riecke.

It is comfort food season, and tonight we catch up with Johnny Spezzano of "The Border" in his kitchen as he teams up with Eric "Senior" Soluri of "Full Throttle Saloon."

Maybe you've seen the TV series, "Full Throttle Saloon," about the world's largest biker bar.

Together, he and Eric fire grill an unforgettable award-winning chili that you'll definitely want to add to your comfort food list.

- Hey, come on!

(upbeat rock music) Hello my friends, and welcome to another edition of "Johnny on Fire."

I'm Johnny Spezzano, and we're cooking with fire.

And we're cooking with Senior, from "Full Throttle Saloon."

- What's up brother?

How are you?

- What's up my friend?

Living the dream, brother.

Living the dream.

- I mean, this is a guy's meal, right here.

- It is.

A couple of guys having chili, bro.

- Couple of guys having chili.

- It's my world famous, 'cause I've traveled in the military, chili recipe.

I've been making it for years.

It's done very well.

I've won a lot of chili contests with this chili here.

- Really?

And you're willing to give it up?

- I'm willing to give it up for the people of the north country.

That's the amount of love that I have for everybody, yeah.

- All right.

So let's talk about our ingredients.

What are you putting in your chili?

This looks like three different kinds of meat here.

- It is.

So we got Gianelli sausage, we have sweet sausage, we have hot, and then we have hamburger meat, ground beef.

- [Johnny] All right.

- [Eric] So that's the meat that we're using.

We're also using some diced peppers.

Green chili peppers.

- Green chilies.

- [Eric] Yep, we're using the pinto beans.

We have some dark kidney, red kidney beans, and then some dark red kidney beans.

- I like that.

So a little contrast.

- A little combo.

Three different meats, three different beans.

- When you look down at your bowl of chili, you want that contrast.

- And what's great about it is if you are not a meat person, right, if you're a vegetarian, you can just take this out, and have the beans themselves.

- I like that.

- Absolutely.

- We got some tomato paste.

We got some tomato puree.

We got some fired, diced red tomatoes.

We have every ingredient that you can imagine as far as spices go.

We use... We're gonna use the McCormick mix for sure, right?

But I make my own.

- Is that what's in there?

- No, that's brown sugar, that's oregano, that's parsley, that's basil.

A little bit of Rudy's Rub, if you've ever been to San Antonio, Texas.

Rudy's Bar-B-Q is a big thing.

But you can use any kind of steak seasoning with that if you want.

The key to it, much like making a Italian sauce, is the brown sugar.

It takes that tomatoey bite out of it.

It won't burn your throat.

So I like to use brown sugar with mine.

- Keeps it from being too acidic.

- You got it.

Kills the acid, absolutely.

We got some red and green peppers, and then we have some onion.

A lot of onion, because you are an onion lover.

- I said a little extra onion, for me.

- You did.

The recipe will be posted for everybody to enjoy.

Johnny just likes a little bit more onion.

- All right, let's dig in.

Okay, so what we're gonna do, we're gonna saute our beef first.

And we get to do, oh, look at our pan, it's smoking back here.

- It is.

Beautiful.

I have a wood-fired oven in my backyard as well.

So there's nothing better than using this to cook with.

- All right.

So let's do this.

Hopefully we don't set the smoke detector off.

Okay.

- [Eric] We'll just do halfsies.

- We'll do half.

- Half the order, you got it.

- Okay.

- Because it's just two guys.

- Just a couple of guys having some chili.

- All right.

Now this pan is good and hot, so you can tell it's just searing up already.

Again, cast iron, greatest food implement ever made.

So we do want to kinda mix these together, right?

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

- You want your Italian, your sweet, your hot, and your regular ground beef.

- For sure.

Once you get that broken up, then we'll add in some red and green peppers, and then we'll add in some onion.

- Well, this is called "Johnny On Fire," so let's take it to the fire.

(groovy rock music) Okay, I'll tell you, it takes absolutely no time at all to cook.

- It's so fast.

- So we're gonna add... - We're gonna add the mix.

- Okay.

- And then we're gonna add the peppers and onions, so just sprinkle this generously around.

- Oh, this is how you make it at home?

- Absolutely.

- On a Sunday.

In February.

Watching some...

Some of the game, whatever you choose.

- [Eric] Oh, and I know you like onion.

We'll add a little bit more.

- [Johnny] Oh, please.

You know, you can even add, you can even add the espresso now, my man.

- Wanna add just a little?

Just a little.

- You got it.

- 'Cause it does have sugar in it, I'm sure.

- Yep, for sure.

- So we don't want it to burn.

- High fructose.

- Just a little bit.

- That's good, that's good.

- [Eric] There you go.

So that meat will take on that body of that espresso.

And it's phenomenal.

- Alright.

We're gonna put this back in the oven now, just for... - Is that great or what?

Is that crazy?

- I wish you could smell this right now.

You know what's great?

I love the espresso shot with the chili.

Because I have a recipe that adds Hershey cocoa.

- Okay, gotcha.

Same principle.

Yeah.

- And kind of that nutty, caramelly kind of thing, it works so good.

- Absolutely.

Now, I tried to convince you to add a bottle of beer.

- Yeah.

I'm not a beer fan, believe it or not.

I mean, if you want to, we can.

- [Johnny] No, this is your recipe.

- This is "Johnny On Fire, not "Senior On Fire."

- We'll leave that out.

- Okay.

- And let's try to stay not on fire.

- Okay.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

- All right, so, - we should be able to cook this in one pan.

- Absolutely.

- And just have an amazing meal.

- Great.

Can't wait.

Now let me ask you a question.

- Yeah.

We always, when we cooked chili, we always had it, my dad called it con carne, which meant bread with cheese.

- Okay, gotcha.

- Absolutely.

- And then you pour the chili over the top of that, are we gonna do it like that?

- Well, we're gonna put some cheese on there.

Being Italians, we're not gonna use your normal cheddar.

We'll use what we got, Parmesan, right?

- [Johnny] Yeah.

- We'll use that, and then, no chili, especially in the north country, is complete without Alteri's bread.

And I brought us some Alteri's bread.

You gotta have that.

- I love it.

Let's see how it's doing here real quick, 'cause this, it just cooks, oh, look at this.

- Oh, that's beautiful.

- Cooks so fast.

All right, so, we could add the tomatoes to this, and have it be a skillet, or we could put it in the cast iron dutch oven.

What do you wanna do, bro?

- For the sake of room, let's put it in the dutch oven.

- Okay, let's do it right now then.

(pan sizzling) Oh.

Are we gonna add more Full Throttle?

- We can, if you want to.

- I can't wait to tell you the whole story about "Full Throttle Saloon" too, if you don't know about it.

- [Eric] Okay.

- All right.

- All right.

Get this outta the way.

- Yeah, yeah.

So we'll add, we'll add about half of this.

- Okay.

- So already half of the beans.

- All right, hang on one second, we'll move this right over here.

We'll move this right up here like this.

- Okay.

- [Johnny] Peppers, beans.

Oh.

Okay, good.

- Now seasoning, already pre-mixed.

This is what I made.

Gotta have about that much in there.

- Again, brown sugar, you said.

- You got it.

Brown sugar's the key.

But oregano, parsley, basil, some garlic.

- [Johnny] Okay.

Some more tomato now.

- [Eric] Yep.

So we'll do these.

These are roasted tomatoes.

And then we're gonna need a spoon here.

- [Johnny] Okay.

- [Eric] Some tomato puree.

- You're not gonna use your hand?

- Nah, I'm not using my hand, bro.

Tomato puree.

And tomato paste.

- I've seen you use your hands to throw people outta Full Throttle Saloon.

- A little different.

A little different there.

Not as messy, believe it or not.

(Johnny laughing) Well, sometimes I guess it could be.

- [Johnny] Oh, look at this.

- [Eric] And then we're gonna add a little bit of water.

- Okay.

- Okay?

Oh, you got some?

- I got some.

- Oh, handy.

All right.

Now this is where I would add beer.

But that's okay.

That's how I do it.

Alright, so this looks phenomenal.

We're gonna stir it up, and we're gonna throw this in the oven.

And then I heard you're gonna make me another treat.

- I'm going to, so we have an apple pie moonshine.

And, once again, being in the north country, Burrville cider, apple pie moonshine pairs perfectly.

I'm gonna make you a Burrville apple cider drink.

It's popular at the Blue Heron.

I think they kind of sort of created it with me, and it's phenomenal, you'll love it.

- Okay, so let's get this in and get it started, then we'll lit it up.

(groovy rock music) So while that chili is cooking, we'll hang out a little bit.

And, first of all, a lot of people don't know this.

You were born and raised here in northern New York, grew up on the north side.

- Yep.

North side of Watertown, yeah.

- Served in the Air Force.

- 23 years.

Retired Chief Master Sergeant United States Air Force.

I was a cop.

- And one day, your destiny changed when you decided to volunteer.

- Right, we were trying to raise money.

I was the superintendent up at Ellsworth Air Force Base, and I was a senior master sergeant, where the name Senior comes from.

And we were trying to raise money for an orphanage up there.

70 little kiddos that didn't have anything.

And I had watched the first season of "Full Throttle Saloon," which was on truTV.

And I knew, man, that's a great opportunity for us.

Their security was not up to par.

I went in there and met with the owner.

Next thing you know, I was hired to run their security and I was giving 'em all my cops for free.

We've done that since 2011.

And then you ended up on a reality TV show.

- Yeah, then I ended up being a character on the TV show, and I think we've raised about $650,000 so far for random charities, and the military charity and the orphanage up in South Dakota.

- Now Sturgis, Full Throttle Saloon, it's still up and running, even though it did burn down a number of years ago.

- So 2015, we had a fire, a keg cooler caught on fire.

And we were self-insured.

Michael Ballard was the owner.

So $15 million gone.

We rebuilt the very next year, we were up and running in 2016, we're bigger and better, We were 30 acres, now we're 600 acres.

You can camp out there.

We have Pappy Hoel Campground, the name of the individual that started the rally.

You can come out there, sure.

We're actually in talks right now to go back on the air, with our reality TV show coming back.

So that's gonna be great.

I mean, it was one of the most popular TV shows at the time.

We have two or three episodes logged in the Library of Congress as the most watched episodes, it was a great show.

- Amazing.

- It was a phenomenal opportunity for me, and a phenomenal opportunity for all of my airmen to be able to volunteer and do great things in that community.

- And the Full Throttle Saloon lives on year after year.

People converge on it.

You also have this Full Throttle product that you brought to us today.

- Absolutely, so the espresso that you've seen while we're making the chili, and then we have a full line of- - I feel like we should add a little more.

- We could if you want to.

(Johnny laughs) I gotta drive home.

- Oh, all right.

So we have a full line of moonshine.

- It cooks off.

- It does, it will cook off, right?

You'll just have the flavor from it.

- Yeah, yeah.

- A full line of moonshines.

We have vodka, three different margaritas.

We have whiskeys that are available at our distillery, and we're coming out with five brand new creams.

And they'll be out, they'll be out now.

They're out now, actually.

So, yeah, you can grab our cream, Full Throttle Sipping Cream.

They're phenomenal.

Best in the business.

So you can grab those as well.

Nothing better than mixing one of them with a little bit of espresso, put over ice, and enjoying the winter.

- What are we gonna make?

We're gonna make one of these beverages today?

- We are.

We're gonna make the apple pie and the cider.

It's a recipe I came up with along with the Blue Heron.

Carrie Green and her people, they made it as well.

It's phenomenal.

You have to use Burrville cider.

'cause if you're in the north country, there's no other cider.

It's like Alteri bread.

We'll make that.

We'll enjoy that while we're eating some chili.

- I can't wait.

- It's gonna be great.

It's gonna be awesome.

- All right, well, let's check on the chili, and then let's get the mix in.

- Cool.

(groovy rock music) - Oh, man.

We've got some amazing stuff out.

I think we should take the chili out and then make a quick drink.

- Let it cool.

- Okay?

Yeah.

'Cause it's gonna be super hot, and, we whipped up some, some bread and cheese - Yes, absolutely.

- to put in.

Let's see.

Woo!

All right, we're gonna let that cauldron settle for a second.

All right.

So what are we making?

- Right, we're gonna make the Burrville cider Full Throttle apple pie drink.

- What's up with this?

- It's a pour lid.

- Someone said it looks like a sippy cup.

- Yeah, it's a pour lid.

- Okay.

- The bars get the pour lid.

I didn't want spill it all over your countertop and have you get mad at me.

- That's kind of cool.

That's kind of cool.

- We're gonna rim it with caramel.

- [Johnny] Oh man.

- [Eric] And then cinnamon sugar.

(Johnny laughs) So once you got those two looking like this.

- Real quick.

- Yeah?

- That caramel's just like a Hershey's caramel syrup?

- That's all it is, yep, yep, right next Hershey's chocolate.

- Okay, yep.

So you have these two here.

- Okay.

- You have them done.

And then you're going to have a shaker, you can just mix it without a shaker if you want, but you're gonna add the best Burrville cider.

And then you're going to add the Full Throttle apple pie.

- And it's a moonshine?

- It's a moonshine.

I know you'd want a lot of it, so... (Johnny laughs) - Okay.

- It's delish!

- All right.

- So we'll shake that up and get it mixed.

Get it nice and chill.

- Moonshine is awesome.

Never ever did I think- - Here, you shake that, my man.

- I would want moonshine.

(tumbler rattling) - Some ice.

- But this is great.

- Okay.

- Yep.

Pour it right in.

- Pour away.

Oh, that's beautiful.

- We're gonna cut an apple for garnish.

(knife chopping) - This is a good way to enjoy your chili.

- [Eric] It is.

- With a nice cold- - You gotta have a good drink.

- [Johnny] Nice cold beverage.

- [Eric] And not a beer.

- [Johnny] To enjoy along with it.

- Even though you're a beer lover.

I am not.

- That's all right.

- All right.

So yeah.

- Takes all kinds.

- We'll make it look fancy.

(whipped cream spraying) We'll Cool Whip it up.

- While you're doing that, I'm gonna put the cheese bread in, and get it melting, it'll just take a second.

Finish that off.

- Top it with some candies.

Add your cinnamon stick.

Add your apple.

Why?

'Cause that just looks cool.

And then why not top it off with two cherries?

- I mean, why not?

- Drink for you, drink for me, my man.

Doesn't get any better than that.

- Look at that.

- Beautiful.

- All right.

- Cheers.

- Love you, brother.

- Love you too, brother.

Mm.

- Is that not the best thing ever?

- That's dangerous.

- That's crazy.

- With a capital D. All right, move this out of the way, we're gonna bring the chili out now.

(plates clattering) I'm just gonna have another sip.

Mm.

(Eric laughing) - Yum.

All right.

So, we've got our simmering pot of chili, which is always great on a cold winter day here in WPBS-land.

Got our bowls.

And let's see if the bread is ready with the melted cheese.

- [Eric] Looking pretty good.

- [Johnny] Does it look good to you?

- [Eric] It looks good to me.

- Yeah.

- Oh yeah.

- Oh yeah.

Just like that.

So we're gonna just drop it in the bowl.

Go ahead, man, if you wanna take yours.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Okay.

Okay.

And again, we've got three different delicious meats in this chili.

That's a meal right there.

- It is.

Well, we do appreciate you tuning in today.

Thank you absolutely to Eric "Senior" Soluri for stopping by, don't forget, the "Dinner at Johnny's" podcast.

You could also check out all the episodes.

You know, we got a ton of these "Johnny On Fire" episodes.

- Every one of 'em's great.

- At WPBSTV.org, and we'll see you next time.

You ready?

- I'm ready, buddy.

- I'm ready, let's dig in.

(groovy rock music) Salute.

- Salute.

Mm.

Bro.

- Doesn't get any better than that.

- That's so good.

You killed it!

- And I love the espresso, the hint of espresso in there.

- You got it.

Absolutely.

- That coffee flavor.

What a great addition.

Try it at home.

Thanks for tuning in.

Mmm.

I'm gonna get some bread now.

Go deeper.

There it is.

- If you're looking for more great fire-grilled recipes from Johnny, visit wpbstv.org and scroll through our library.

Also, if you'd like to be a guest on the segment, drop us an email at wpbsweekly@wpbstv.org.

Make sure you include your name, and your fire-grilled recipe idea.

Well, from the fires to the waters.

When we think of an octopus, we think of an eight legged creature with more than one heart and blue blood.

But these unique water creatures are so much more and have an intelligence that's undeniable.

From the archives of "Science Friday," Here's more on this incredible creature.

(mysterious music) - [Dominic] We are not the only kinds of intelligence.

It's important to consider the diverse forms the mind can take on earth and in the universe beyond.

- [David] I think we need to understand how brains evolved to work.

So what we're looking at is a completely different neural architecture.

(mysterious music continues) - I first gained interest in the mind of the octopus when I was in a lab full of marine invertebrates.

There was one of those animals that seemed to be studying me as much as I was studying it.

I'm Dominic Sivitilli.

I'm a graduate student in behavioral neuroscience and astrobiology at the University of Washington.

- The octopus fits into our research program because they stand out as an extreme example of intelligence that has evolved along a completely different trajectory than that of the vertebrates.

Yet the octopus is solving many of the same problems that you or I would solve.

My name is David Gire, I'm an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington.

And my lab studies comparative systems neuroscience.

That means we study how different kinds of brains process information.

In a broad sense, octopus nerves do function like ours.

They have physiological properties that are very similar, and yet they're forming networks that are completely different from the networks we see in our brains.

- [Dominic] So it takes more time for information in the octopus's nervous system to get from point A to point B compared to vertebrates, whose neurons can fire a lot faster.

Because it takes so long, how these systems are designed plays a much bigger role in how they can compute.

- The octopus brain is distributed, with two thirds of its neurons in its arms.

There's actually this dense network of neural clusters or ganglia that are locally controlling the muscles.

So you can have a bunch of little individual decisions being made along the arm, which don't necessarily agree with each other.

This creates a unique form of movement that the octopus is able to possess.

If we're watching a rodent look for some food pellets, we're seeing some nice rhythmic motion.

But when we watch an octopus, it's almost like watching the fluid environment itself moving across the surface of the rocks.

There's an extreme density of chemoreceptors in the suckers of the octopus.

They literally can smell and taste with their arms.

So it seems like the way the octopus deals with having eight independent arms and having to process all of that sensory information is that it has located a lot of sensory processing as close as possible to the external world.

- In a way, the octopus has sent its mind out into the environment to meet it halfway.

Key to understanding their intelligence is to understand how this distributed network is sharing information with itself.

(otherwordly music) (water splashing) (intense music) (mysterious music) - Legos are a form of enrichment in the lab, much the same way they are for my 4-year-old kid.

We try to give them a variety of these kinds of textures so that this extensive peripheral nervous system they have is always kept occupied and active.

- No matter how hard one can work in that lab, we'll all still spend a few minutes playing with them.

This is really important to them because they're very exploratory.

They're very curious animals.

And at the same time as enriching them, we can also study how their arm is processing information, and how their suckers are processing information.

- [David] In designing puzzles that these animals will solve, we're looking to challenge different parts of the nervous system, and to see how information is gonna be integrated across the arms.

- [Dominic] Where we begin with two dimensional tracking, now our methods are more sophisticated.

We now use three-dimensional tracking cameras, which are stereo cameras.

And this is helping us understand the strategies that the octopus is using to control its distributed mind.

And we can interface that with virtual reality.

This will help us pick up patterns that we may not have seen before.

It gives us an entirely different perspective on our data, and the movement of our animals.

(static buzzing) - So we can infer what might be going on in their brains by using puzzles and motion tracking.

But to really test that, we need to move towards electrophysiology, and make recordings from the nervous system while the animals are making decisions.

You can imagine trying to fit electronic hardware onto an animal like that is probably nearly possible.

Yet, we're at a really exciting point now in the lab.

We're using techniques that have been pioneered by Josh Smith's lab in computer science and engineering to use a wireless, battery-free system to implant tiny electronics into large octopuses.

So once we do a small incision and implant the device, the animal will never have to think about it again, and we as researchers can stream the data, and power the device without ever disturbing the animal.

In some ways, this is a watershed moment in general for science.

If we understand how a neural structure like the octopus nervous system can solve difficult problems, we might be able to design better ways to solve similar problems artificially.

- We reach out to them across the evolutionary divide, out of curiosity to understand this unknown, as they are.

So it's like we're meeting each other halfway through our mutual interest in novelty and the unknown.

(mysterious music) - Before we wrap things up tonight, here's a look at what's happening in your community on both sides of the border.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) That does it for this Tuesday night.

Join us next time for a fresh look inside the stories.

Get to know Matilda Lind, a fiber artist in St. Lawrence County.

Her colorful woven works just might inspire you.

Also, Canadian filmmaker Mitch Beattie shows you the Thousand Islands from a completely different angle.

Plus out of Kingston, the music of Kasador, a rock and roll band that shares how the relentless passage of time shapes us.

Meantime, if you have a story idea you'd like us to explore, we'd love to learn more.

Drop us an email at wpbsweekly@wpbstv.org, and let's share it with the region.

That's it for now, everyone.

We'll see you next time.

Have a great night.

- [Narrator] "WPBS Weekly: Inside the Stories" is brought to you by...

The Watertown Oswego Small Business Development Center, a free resource offering confidential business advice for those interested in starting or expanding their small business.

Serving Jefferson Lewis and Oswego Counties since 1986. online@watertown.nyssbdc.org.

Additional funding provided by the JM McDonald Foundation, the Estate of Grant Mitchell, the Dr. D Susan Badenhausen Legacy Fund of the Northern New York Community Foundation, and the New York State Education Department.

- Add your apple.

Why?

Because that just looks cool.

And then why not top it off with two cherries?

- I mean, why not?

Drink for you, drink for me, my man.

Doesn't get any better than that.

- Look at that.

- Beautiful.

Cheers.

- All right.

Cheers.

- Love you brother.

- Love you too, brother.

Mm.

- Is that not the best thing ever?

- That's dangerous.

- That's crazy.

- With a capital D. (bright music)