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This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues, coming to you live every Tuesday on the Heritage Radio Network, uh from the back of Roberta's Pizzeria in Brooklyn. Here today with uh Nastash De Hammer Lopez. We might be joined later by Brooks Headley, pastry chef at Del Posto, one of our favorite restaurants. Calling all of your questions to 497 What? I'm 718 4972128.
That's 718-497-2128. Because for some reason it is impossible for me to commit this number to memory no matter how many times I've said it, and I usually have a little slip of paper in front of me that tells me what the number is. Uh and today I don't have it, so Nastasha's gonna have to to say it. Do you have any blocks like that, Nastasha? Things you just can't remember for one reason or another?
No. Nothing. Nothing? Nothing. Nothing.
Alright. So uh this is uh I guess this is our Cinco de Mayo edition, even though it's uh it's not. What day is it? Third today? Third, yeah.
Third. Anyway. So but uh today Nastash and I are going to be at the Lucky Rice Festival. I think you can still get tickets, right? Although they're expensive.
What are they? Oh, it's fifty bucks? $50 for nine? So you can come by and we're going to make some uh we're taking strawberries, uh blending them actually. Uh our intern Cliff is doing it right now back at the lab so-called in the back of the milk bar commissary.
Uh we're gonna blend strawberries and uh tequila. Uh I think we have a uh we have a reposado, right? Yeah. Yeah. And uh we're uh blending that um together, uh putting it through a centrifuge with some enzymes.
We get crystal clear strawberry uh tequila. We're just gonna squeeze uh some lime into it and uh stir it with some ice and uh haven't figured out what the garnish is. Have we figured out the garnish on that one yet? No, not that one. No?
Mm-mm. No. Uh but it's called mummy juice. Uh and the reason it's called mummy juice is because strawberries are grown in Mexico? Strawberries are grown in Mexico in Juan Ju, and that's also where they have the mummies.
So because it's strawberries and Mexican, it's mummies. So uh we're doing mummy juice today, and we're also gonna take some uh Bombay sapphire gin, uh blend it with bananas, spin it for uh another version of our gin justino, a drink we we like very much, gin justino. Justino means blending with bananas and spinning in a centerfuge with enzymes. Don't ask why. Uh and that one we're gonna serve probably with uh ginger, right?
Yeah. But they only gave us twelve bottles of each. So uh Nastash and I are gonna pour tall, kick fast, and then join the party as uh as party people instead of as uh dorks behind the behind the counter. True or false? True.
True, right? Okay. Um so that order of business is out. Uh we have a question in from Scott Hansma. Uh Hansma has a uh uh some comments on what he thinks the name of our new company should be.
And he says he likes the idea that if a Scoffier wrote today, uh he would have in addition to the uh roast station and the fish station a kind of rotovap centrifuge uh cool stuff station. So that we should call the equipment company something like Future Station or Eighth Station or uh Brigade uh Brigade Technologique if you wanted to be fancy in French. Well, actually I kind of like some of these suggestions. Uh I like a kitchen brigade sounds pretty sounds pretty badass, I think. Kitchen Brigade?
Sounds pretty badass. Of course, if Escoffia was writing today, he would write in English. Boom! Boom! But uh but uh that's just me.
So the uh but uh and I like these, and and I think we might actually maybe use one of those things for a line of kitchen equipment, but I think pending the approval of our partners in this, Stas, uh I'm thinking that we're gonna go with ready. Booker and Dax. These are the names of my two kids, right? So Booker sounds like you know, kind of like an old dude, even though he's only ten, nine rather. He sounds like an old dude who's kind of smart and knows what's up.
That's also true. And Dax is the kind of guy that's like, you know, you don't want to mess with him. Like this equipment's not gonna break. Who said so? Dax, Dax said so, Dax said.
Anyway, so I think Booker and Dax, uh, which, you know, name name of my two kids together, sounds like an old school company. What do you think, Stas? Yeah, no, I said I liked it. You like it, right? Yeah, Booker Index.
But I like this, uh I like Kitchen Brigade as a line of tools. Yeah, or brigade kitchen brigade. Yeah. You know who would come up with that? Booker Index.
Right? Yes. Anyway, so I'll run that, we'll run that past and we might have an announcement on that within the week, maybe, right? Once the are the lawyers almost done talking? Yeah.
Anyway, uh, thank you, Scott, for those uh for those questions. Now, Richard uh Kokovich called in, uh, wrote in and said he ordered the Koava disc for his aeropress after mentioning it in his previous email. We spoke about it on a uh on an earlier thing. It's a basically a uh fine mesh filter that fits into the AeroPress, which is the cheap kind of like uh piston-based uh coffee maker that we've been talking about, says that he likes it uh very much, so that's good. Uh and then he uh mentioned because we were talking about the Thermomix last week, someone brought a brawn Thermomix, which is a uh an old uh mergeon circulator.
He wants to know about the Thermomix proper. Uh Thermomix proper. Um he said he's been interested in the device. It looks like they're no longer distributed in the US, though there's a Canadian distributor who allegedly shipped to the U.S., so there's not much in the way of reviews. Um he sees that most reviews that are written are not by the type of people who would heat uh silicon carbide bricks in the microwave for steering.
That would be us. That'd be us. Uh have we ever had the opportunity to put a thermomix through its paces? Um and you know, it's yes, I have. We don't have one anymore because it got stolen.
So what the thermomix is, for those of you that don't know, it is a blender with like a little almost like a food processor blade. Um, but the bowl is also a scale, which is useful. Um it's useful. It's not a very accurate scale, but it's pretty useful. And also a heating device.
So it uh it can heat while it blends, uh, which is useful for certain things like uh in hydrocolloids, like if you're gonna do gel-an, you can heat and stir at the same time, agitate and keep it hot so you don't have to worry about it uh you know gelling up on you as it cools down. So, yes, it's useful for that. It's useful for making certain kinds of hot foams. It makes an awesome kind of cheese sauce that because it keeps stirring it when it doesn't burn while it's cooking, so it's great. Uh it's good to weigh things out.
It's not the world's greatest blender, but it is really cool, but it's very, very, very expensive. It costs in the US roughly what two Vitapreps would cost. Okay. Um I don't think it's worth two Vitapeps. I would rather have two, like, like unless you're at home, I would rather have two Vitapeps in my kitchen than one Thermomix.
Now, all of the European uh chefs, they love the Thermomix because in Europe, the Thermomix is it's around. It's a it's like consumers use it like they would use a Kitchenator or anything else. I think it probably is a little bit cheaper in Europe, where conversely, Vita Preps are very expensive, which are the high power blenders that we all use, they are very expensive over there. So there's very few vita preps in Europe and very many thermal mixes, the exact uh opposite of here. Uh the Vitapep kicks the crap out of the thermomix as a blender, but there is other there are other things that uh the thermomix can do.
We're actually uh Brooks just showed up, so he's gonna I'm gonna pass do you guys have any thermal, you know, the thermal mixes? You ever uh play around with them? Uh no, actually we don't have one. Um I'm terrified of them. Right really?
You say that's funny. But they you know they like a lot of the stuff that they serve at the Thermomix that they sell with it is is like hoo-ha, it's nonsense. Like you don't need the steaming basket because you can just steam with it. I don't know anyone, like even if you're a pro, I mean, are you really gonna like time everything right so that the stuff that's stirring in the underneath is done at the exact same time that your broccoli is steamed right? I mean, it doesn't make so much sense to me.
But if you have $700 in your pocket and it's burning a hole in your pocket uh and you don't already own a vita prep or a good blender and you're looking for something, it's pretty interesting that a lot of people in Europe like a lot of Thermomix. It's good, right? I mean, it's okay. No, no, I'm I'm never I'm completely fascinated by them. But again, I would rather s take that 700 bucks and buy two vita preps with it.
Um because you can't ever have enough vita preps. Um okay. So uh any uh any any so by the way, for those of you that don't know Brooks, Brooks is uh the well the pastry chef, but is there like a title that goes above pastry chef at Del Posto? Uh no, I'm just uh I mean technically it's executive pastry chef. Executive pastry, that's what I was looking for.
I'm not m very much of an executive, so uh pastry chef is fine. Right. Guy that makes desserts. Guy yeah, right. Dessert dude at Del Posto.
Del Posto, one of our favorite restaurants uh in Manhattan. It's uh the only um Italian restaurant that has four stars, true? True? Yeah. Yeah.
The only Italian restaurant that has uh four stars. Uh our good friend uh Mark Ladner is the is the chef there, and it's uh it's a a great meal. I think one of the interesting things about Brooks's work, I'm gonna put him on the spot because I didn't say I was gonna do this, is that even though um you know a lot of the dishes um have traditional bases to them at Del Posto, even though they're not necessarily a hundred percent traditional, I think that it's some of the like most interesting, freshest desserts out there that Brooks is putting out. I think what do you think, Nastasha? Yeah.
Yeah, I mean like not that they're the flavors aren't wacky, it's not about being wacky, but I think just like very literally fresh presentations, uh interesting using uh flavors that aren't necessarily uh crazy, but I think just you know pretty interesting stuff. Uh but for some reason the guys at Del Posto don't like being thought of as as innovative comments. No uh no Wow, yeah. Um, it's just it's it like we're I I don't know. I just I consider myself like like a like a grandma.
So like in terms of like the style of the food or the way that I cook it or whatever. Like um and I I definitely think of it as cooking. Like a lot of pastry chefs think of they're like bakers or whatever. Like I'm I'm a cook, so yeah, and I innovative I uh I don't really invent anything, so I don't know. Well, I mean yeah, that I mean I think that but that's the thing.
I think um here's the thing. People who get labeled as innovative who right are are pushing certain boundaries of techniques and uh you know ingredients, to me it's enough to be innovative if I haven't tasted something like that before, or it's surprising, um surprising and yet surprising and yet familiar in terms of it's not outside of my uh bounds of comfort, but uh yet I'm still surprised. Like these are the kinds of things that I enjoy tasting um kind of the most. Like in particular, like it's dead simple, but your celery sorbet is a butt kicker. Is it still on the menu?
In some form. Yeah, I I I I'm not gonna take it off anytime soon, so it's a delicious product, right? I don't think I've had it. You haven't had it? You haven't had it?
Crazy. Uh and uh, you know, the dish you did for the why don't you talk about the dish you did for the uh for the museum uh event, the uh the Hebrew food in Italy. Uh that was the artichoke. Yes. Um well it's funny, like uh I actually uh I had a chef maybe like ten years ago that wanted me to do an artichoke dessert.
And I did and it was terrible. So I chose to do it again as like a challenge to myself, like making an artichoke into some sort of sweet thing, you know, so I I mean I think it came out pretty good, so why was the last one terrible? Oh it was I mean I had no idea what I was doing, so I I don't remember what I I think I like like chopped it up and caramelized it and like hammered it and put it on some ice cream. It was it was pretty gross. Really?
Yeah. But that was, you know, I've evolved since then. Yeah, a little bit. I hope. I hope.
Little bit? So listen, call in your qu what's the what are the uh right there. Okay. 718-497-2128. 718-497-2128.
Call in um any questions you have for Brooks or for us. And I can either talk more, we can go to our first break. What do you think? Jack, what do you think? Break or talk?
Break or talk, break or talk. Break. Talk. Talk. Alright.
So uh Ben, I'm gonna try to pronounce his name. Schwanier. Schwaniere. You like that? Yeah.
Schwanier. Ben Chuanier um says, Have I ever tried one of the wonderful uh French fry so cal uh burritos? It's basically like a breakfast burrito with a bunch of French fries jammed into it. Uh I have not. You got one as local Mexican spot.
This is you know, continuing our Cinco de Mayo theme. Uh got one as local Mexican spot and it and it took him back. But we are burrito, we like burritos. Uh I do. Nastasha doesn't because she hates anything she had growing up.
All right. I swear to God. She doesn't like like limes because they grew in her backyard. She doesn't like uh uh freaking what is it you don't like? Anything that you had as a child.
She's like, I ate a peanut when I was a kid, so I don't like them anymore. Right? It's crazy. So she doesn't like burritos because she grew up in LA and she ate them as a child. Most people on earth like stuff that they ate as a child.
She's the exact opposite. She's like, my mom's shortbread tasted like hard tech. Not that she's ever had hard tech. Right. I made her hard tack, so she now has a reference to it.
But beaten biscuits are basically hard tech. Anyway, um so sorry uh for that little tirade. So uh I have not tried the French fire, butter, that would be delicious, but I am a fan of speaking of frying burritos of the chimichanga. Do you enjoy the chimichanga? Oh, a fried burrito?
Amazing. Yeah, right? Amazing. Right? So I don't know if we've ever discussed this on the show, but uh we had uh we did a pilot for uh like what's did we ever talk about this?
Yeah, for what's donors, like what stoners would do, and these stoners came in, and it's not actually the first time I've heard this idea, if you can believe that, of for like burrito tape your burrito together, you know, tape it like some sort of tape so your burrito won't come apart. This is a pilot that they never picked up the show. But I think the greatest invention maybe of my whole life was something we did for this. It's called the semi-changa. Have we talked about this on the air before?
The semi-changa? Anyway, so that what this okay, why don't you just eat the chimichanga walking around? The answer is because the top, when you eat it will shatter and then the parts will fall all over the place, right? When you eat a burrito, the problem is the burrito like kind of slimes out and then gets crappy all over your hands. The semi-changa, huh, is where you make a burrito and you fry only like the bottom third to half of it to make it crispy like a chimichanga.
You wrap that in the paper, and now the top is still soft like a burrito, right? And then you can eat the top like an ice cream cone, because it's a burrito, and then when you get down to the bottom where it's crunchy, it's not so tall, so it's not gonna explode and go flying all over your shirt. The semi-changa, you heard it here first. All right, now we will go to the break. We'll come back with questions for Brooks at 718-497-2128.
That's 718-497-2128 cooking issues. This is a public service announcement from Heritage Radio Network. Take a swig of Beer Sessions Radio every Tuesday at 5 p.m. with Jimmy Carboni, the owner of Jimmy's number 43, and Ray Dieter, owner of DBA. Beer loving Rack and Tours offer toasts, share craft beer news, and swap anecdotes about their lives on the front lines of the craft beer movement.
Again, Beer Sessions Radio every Tuesday at 5 p.m. on the Heritage Radio Network. Calling your questions to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. But I have a question in from um Oh, I don't have who the question is.
Can you can you look it up who it came from? Unfortunately. So uh the question, oh Nick Feela. Uh hi, Dave and Nastasha. I currently go to Schoolcraft College uh culinary school, and they are known here in Michigan for having quite a few master chefs.
Uh I'm assuming he's meaning certified master chefs. Does this title really mean much to most chefs or any of the other titles like certified executive chef, etc.? And I would eventually like to work in New York restaurants, but from what I hear it's hard to get in some of the restaurants without contacts. Do you have any tips? Thanks, Nick.
Uh well, the school where you are, I believe, has Brian Poulson, who's very well regarded charcuterie uh chef who also I believe happens to be a uh certified master chef. Uh there aren't that many certified master chefs. There's only I think like sixty or seventy certified master chefs, and you have to go through a preposterous battery of tests to do it. And it was famously chronicled in that uh Ruleman book uh Soul of the Chef, right? Wasn't that about certified master chefs?
Yeah. Um and I think uh and you know, uh Brooks will come in in any minute here, I think it's an amazing accomplishment to be able to pass all those tests, but I don't think it necessarily I mean d in New York it's more like is your restaurant good? Where have you worked, right? Yeah, yeah, I mean, absolutely. Let's it's all about like was your last dish good.
Right, right. I mean, in other words, uh you well, okay, so we'll we have a caller, so we'll discuss this more after after we take the caller. Caller, you're on the air. Hi. Um I was just curious, do you have any tips for like avoiding cracks in cheesecakes?
Oh, Brooks. When you bake them. Brooks, do you have any tips for avoiding cracks in cheesecake? Ah, that's a tough one. Um it depends on a lot of things, like like the temperature and obviously the uh whether it's uh whether you're cooking in a water bath or there's so many different like variations the in terms of like the cracks though, um like in like a classic like New York cheesecake or whatever, um it's uh no it's it's it's it's it's really it's really it's really it's a really I I have no Well are the cracks happening because the top like sets and dries out too soon and then splits as it cools or when it's like what is what's causing the cracks.
Not a big cheesecake. Do you cook it in a water bath by the way? I have not cooked in a water bath. I when I make my cheesecakes, what always happens is I get a big crack and then I just cover it with cherries or something. Yeah, actually that's what I do too.
I think that that makes sense though, that it the heat probably cooks it too fast and it doesn't know what to do, but just split. Or if it dries out a little bit on top from the oven, if it's not there's no moisture in there, I would assume it would get a little bit tougher and then then it might it might uh split instead of giving I'm not sure. Right, like you know, I mean in in like a in a like a st a still oven at home, like you don't have I mean you you have one setting basically on, you know. Like I mean if you have like a like obviously we have super fancy like comvy ovens and stuff where you can adjust everything, you know. So like technically I could probably get a cheesecake that doesn't crack, but oh you mean like a convection oven?
Uh yeah, I mean like at the restaurant we have like super fancy ovens that do all sorts of things, but the funny thing is is like if I was gonna bake a cheesecake, I would just bake it in a still oven the same way that you would bake it at home. So do it the four-star way and just put some cherries on top. Yeah, okay. But if I if if I think of anything, I'm I might see uh McGee uh later this week and he thinks about those kinds of things a lot. So if I if I come up with anything, then I'll uh I'll I'll mention it next week.
Yeah, if anybody should know it'll be him. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well anyway, thanks. Thanks for the call.
We'll we'll try and figure out some more stuff for you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye. So back to the certified master chef thing, right?
I mean, I I definitely have respect that someone can accomplish it, but it's not necessarily gonna get them I mean a certified master chef is not like looking for a line job right on at a restaurant. Uh yeah. That they're probably mainly working for larger institutions or teaching or I think mostly like when I hear about people with that a title like that, they're either like yeah, they're working for a school or they're or they're like the corporate chef for like a big company or something, you know. So right. But it i it it is a great achievement.
So I'm not uh No, no, of course, like and as to I would eventually like to work in New York restaurants, but from what I hear it's hard to get into some of the restaurants without contacts. Do you have any tip? It definitely helps to have in the high end restaurants, it definitely helps to have some human being that will vouch for you and say that you're a good worker. And I'm gonna say something, and then Brooks will s tell me whether I'm right or wrong. Uh but uh it's very compelling argument to uh write a bunch of times saying I'm willing to come work for free to do whatever to be in your kitchen, and then and I will work like a dog and expect nothing and I will do it for free is fairly compelling argument.
No, no, it's totally totally works. Especially like if you're relentless, like like one letter like that, maybe you look at it like eh, whatever. But if you get like ten letters from the same person, like eventually they stop being a crazy person. I mean, maybe up up until a certain point they're a crazy person, but then you're like, Well, maybe they're just really into it. And like definitely if you're relentless with it, and that it can definitely like get your foot in the door.
So you have to be willing to do whatever, work like a dog, right? And just or just basically show up and expect anything, you know. Like I mean, like when we have trails or stodges come in, like sometimes the the nature of the the day or whatever, they're just rolling chocolate truffles for like four hours, you know. So and that's usually like a good gold standard or a litmus test, whatever, for like if if someone comes in and just and like rolls truffles really fast, and it's like, all right, what can I do next? Then you're like, ah, okay.
Maybe this maybe this is a a good person or whatever. And then sometimes people will just roll the truffles really slow, and I'll be like, Oh, is that your f is that your third tray? Like, no, it's my first trade. And they're like, really, like then you know, like, well, what's going on here. So yeah.
But uh so what if they're one of those unfortunate people like me with hot hands and they're smearing all the truffles. Um well we we then we will move you into the walk-in freezer. It's a known thing for pastry people, hot hands, my Yeah, I know hot hands is it's a it's it's a rough one. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, hot hands.
Not much of a chocolate guy, never have been. Hot hands. I'm not making this stuff up, Nastasha. So anyway, uh Nick, I I hope that that uh helps you out and uh start making the list of places you want to work at and then just start piling emails on. But if you go to a culinary school, one of the main things of a culinary school is that there are people there who know chefs, and I guarantee you there's someone there who knows someone who can get you vouched into a place, so you might not have to write a thousand letters, but I would be prepared to do it if you have a particular place that you want to work.
There are some places because their kitchens aren't very big where they actually it can be hard to get a stodge even working for free, but usually if you pester them long enough, like Brooks says, you you can make it in because event you know, they uh kitchen people seem to enjoy persistence. Yeah, no, of course. Like it it it shows that you're like committed to the cause, which is exactly the kind of person that you want working for you in a kitchen is someone completely entirely committed, like like a soldier without any question, you know. So what percentage of the people who come in as a stash you think burn out? Um I mean like people that start as a stash?
Or in other words, like yeah, people that really want to, you know, go the you know, high-end perfectionist fine dining restaurant route, come in, do a stash, and then they're like, wow, this really wasn't what I thought I I wanted it. It wasn't what I thought. Oh, you mean like right off the bat? Um a lot. Yeah.
A lot of people, yeah. Like a lot of people will be like, I had no idea this is what it's gonna be like, or or I mean it usually like I find for like for for a lot of my staff it it comes at the end of the night, where you know they think of like working in like a a fancy fine dining restaurant as like this very glamorous thing, but at the end of the night, like, you know, you're on your hands and knees like scrubbing out the low boy, like and and every s and especially for dessert people, like every single other person in the entire restaurant is gone. So you're there basically by yourself scrubbing out the low boy, and it's it might be like two in the morning, and that's that I find that that's like a crack like a cracking point for people, like 'cause I like looking around and like they're just like, what is going on? They're like, this is bull crap. This is bull crap.
I didn't yeah, I I I thought I'd be making like beautiful cakes. Yeah. I went to college. What? Like that you get that a lot too, right?
Someone who's like like I worked like especially people who've career changers, right? They're like, they don't feel like do you ever have that happen? You have someone who's a career changer, comes in, doesn't feel like they should have to do all that? Um yeah, every once in a while. I mean m I would say more in the past.
Like in recent times, like I think people seem to like kinda get like working in a fine dining restaurant is going to be pretty tough. So I mean but the idea is though is that I mean everything you do down to cleaning the the the low boy out is actually uh a a quality thing in the end, right? It's like keeping the the quality high like there's no No no absolutely yeah. I mean so it's it's important. That's why like Yeah it's like cleaning out the low boy at the end of the night is is probably more important than being able to like roll fondant to a certain thickness to make a wedding cake, you know so someone who's gonna make it understands that there basically is nothing that's beneath them, right?
I mean there's not no nothing, nothing nothing at all. Like um yeah. So if if there's if if something's on the floor, grab a mop and clean it up, you know. So uh you know I know Dave Chang is com complains a lot about um the people coming out of cooking school nowadays saying that they're not willing to do all that stuff anymore. But you think that that's that's passing?
Uh I mean it really d it depends. I mean it depends on the person. Um it's uh it's almost like a case by case thing. Like sometimes sometimes you you you you get people that are like just complete all stars and like you're like wow where'd you come from? You came from space or something.
And then every once in a while you get someone who's like really doesn't get it at all. But I would say for the most part it's kind of like in the middle there. So and uh another thing that people don't think about is you know you you're going to a place, you're working for free, right? Which is it's kind of crazy. Not that many, you know, uh what would industries work that way.
Right. Where you're working like like a dog, getting yelled at uh and doing it for free, and long hours and many days a week, right? So okay. Um but on the other hand, the flip side is that um the restaurants also putting an investment in you as well because you might mess up product, you take time away from the cooks who have to explain things. Is there do you see that side of it too?
Like, do you feel that you're actually giving them something? Yeah, I mean, like when like in the past, like I I I mean, before I say before I worked at Del Posto, I did that all the time. Like I would I would work for weeks for free places, or if I found a place that I that I really wanted to be, I would do whatever I could to like just hang out there for work. I mean, yeah, I mean if if I could like log all the uh like free hours that I've worked in like the past 13 years or whatever, like I'd I could probably buy a house or something. In New York.
Wow, that's rough. Any uh any tips on uh how to get the most out of a stage? Um honestly it's just uh like you can totally tell after about an hour if someone's like gonna be an all-star and like they can you just know, like just the way I I usually just watch their hands. I think it's like a I think I heard um like Payard say that one time, like like just watch people's hands, like if they if they're constantly moving and constantly working, like um you know that they're gonna be like a good a good person to have on the team. So nice.
All right. So should we take another uh commercial break or push this? Take a commercial break. Alright, call in your questions to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128 cooking issues.
This ample. Oh no. You make a choice. Now it's up to me. Whenever you call me, I'll be there.
Whenever you want me, I'll be there. Whenever you need me, I'll be there. I'll be around. That's a new one, huh? I like that, Jack.
Nice, Jack. Thanks. Welcome back to Cooking Issues. You have uh another couple of minutes to call your questions in for us or for Brooks at 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128.
Not for me. You can ask. I just take care of issues. Well, uh, what is it when? I don't know.
We tried, but she sits there texting too much, so it's not. Wow. See, that's the thing. Like, here's the problem. Like, I'm like, I'm all nice, sweet, sugar, and candy.
That's that to me. No, well, that's also true. But until someone tries to call me out, like in a public situation, and then I'm just like, oh, really? The gloves are off. I hadn't realized that.
All right. That's kind of where I'm at with nostalgia, too. Wow. Boom! Anyway, uh well, we would love a we've had like we've had a couple of nostalgia questions, right?
So calling like, are you single? What's your sign? Yeah, I think. Your sign has changed, right? Aren't you on the didn't we talk about this?
Oh, geez. Let's not go by that. Oh my god. All right. Uh so if you have a legitimate question that's not asking Nastasha for a date, or about I mean, you can ask her why she hates everything that she ate growing up, or why she has such a conflicted relationship with uh, you know, the foods of Los Angeles.
You said that. Not me. Not me. Anyway, uh uh but you're welcome to call in for a question for her. Um so Naveen Sinha uh wrote in and he's uh one of the TAs, he might be the lead TA, is he?
I don't know. I think he's the lead. Uh of the uh Harvard class that uh Faron did last year, Faron Adria. And uh I'm going um to assist McGee actually on the first lecture of the new year coming up in September, which should be fun. Uh I don't know what I'm gonna do there, but something maybe you know, blow blow blow everyone up.
Everyone thinks I'm gonna go to places and blow everyone up, but I've never blown up another person. You know what I mean? I've never blown up someone other than myself. Um anyway. So Naveen writes in and says, Hi Dave, I'm fascinated by chocolate, especially the transformation from the bitter seeds, the cacao tree, uh, to a tasty chocolate bar.
That is a an a a very interesting transformation. Are there any other foods that undergo a similar set of steps? Fermentation, roasting, grinding. Also, do you know of any other tropical fruit seeds that could become delicious through such a process? Thanks, Naveen.
That's an interesting question. I mean, obviously, coffee, right? Coffee goes through uh, you know, a similar uh similar set of procedures, uh quite literally, uh, fermentation, drying, roasting, grinding, uh, brewing. Um vanilla goes through picking uh fermentation, right? It's dipped in usually in boiling water, uh, and then wilted and then fermented, so it's similar, and then I guess it can be ground to form a paste.
But vanilla doesn't taste like vanilla until it goes through its its uh its paces um to be fermented. And in fact, the vanilla that's uncured is called red vanilla. You can get it. Uh it's interesting, but it's not it doesn't taste like uh vanilla. Uh I don't know offhand, although I'm gonna do some research because we're gonna do a tropical fruit tasting in July, so uh we we could do some do some tests, but I don't know of any other tropical fruit seeds other than those that go through these kinds of processes.
Any have you ever heard of anything that goes what else goes through that kind of no, I mean like uh that tea, tea leaves, right? Tea leaves go through a fermentation process like that. I mean, there's olives, but that's not fully like the same kind of process, but still have to be like processed to make them edible. So right. I mean, yeah, I mean, is that the thing is is is it just uh yeah, is it things that need to be processed to make edible?
There are a lot of things like that, right? But I'd have to think more about it. It's an interesting question. I like the whole like I'm fascinated by uh how we figured out that, for instance, ackey fruit will kill you if you eat it unless the pods open up all the way and the fruit's ripe. Some dude must Akifruit is you know the like kind of the national fruit of Jamaica.
Aki, how would you say it? Is that the A Q C A? A C A-C-K-E-E. Akian saltfish is like the classic. But you can only buy canned ackee here in New York, as far as I know, I've never seen fresh acke.
And um, but if you eat it uh and it hasn't opened up, it's poisonous. But if you and you shouldn't eat it at all, apparently if you're pregnant. Uh but uh Akeen saltfish is one of the Jamaican national dishes. So some dude ate a like probably a whole tree's worth of ripe acke, right? And was like, this dove is good.
You know what I mean? And then like his buddy picked it too early and died. And it was like, oh, yeah, you know, don't do that. Um so anyway, I'm fascinated by this kind of stuff, Naveen. So we will look uh more uh into different things like this, and people call and write in with your with your various various you know, fermentation and deadly poison things.
Alright. So uh I think being posted this week on Eater is gonna be our our burger extravaganza. Is that true, Nastasha? Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Today. So um so basically, eaters doing like a whole, they have some sort of like burger festival week, some crap. I don't know. What not cra it's not crap, you know what I mean? Some burger festival.
Everything's crap. I say crap a lot. Anyway. Uh, and so they wanted some sort of fantabulous fancy burger, but it turns out that the burgers that I typically like to make aren't that fancy. My favorite, one of my favorite burgers is patty melt.
I think patty melt is delicious burger. Patty melt, for those of you not hip to patty melts, patty melt is rye bread. Uh it's gotta be a rye bread, right? Yeah, rye bread. If it's not rye bread, it's like a something else melt, right?
Right. It's like it's like a grilled cheese with a burger slid inside. Right. I mean, it might be delicious, but it's not a patty melt, right? Right?
Anyway. Uh caramelized onions, Swiss cheese, and the whole thing, you cook the burger, and then you put it in and you cook it like a grilled cheese sandwich with the onions, so the bread gets toasted with you know, mashed with butter. Fantastic. I like mine with ketchup, delicious. So I did a slightly high-tech version of a patty melt where it was all pretty much traditional, except I cooked the burger low temperature in a Ziploc bag in butter and made the burger thicker than it normally was.
And I I grilled it like a grilled cheese sandwich with the onions and then separated it and put the burger in between so the burger didn't actually get smashed, but the bread did. I thought it was good. I thought it was delicious. But eater came back and they're like, listen, we wanted something wacky. We went to you not for something that just to taste good.
We want something that's wacky, so then they had to go reshoot something that was wackier. Is this true or false? Yeah. True. Yeah.
So I was like, all right, well, I wanted to keep some of the patty melt uh stuff, so uh I was like, okay, we're still gonna use the rye bread, we're still gonna do grilled cheese. But uh I'm gonna add uh meat glued bacon sheets, right? So we you know we mean we made the sheets uh out of bacon laminate with meat glue, vacuum it down, uh, and then we cut everything into rings so that it all looked perfect because we figured that was fancier and wackier. So the the rye bread was cut into a ring. We then took conte, which is like gruyere, and uh cut it into a ring, and then the bacon sheets cut into a ring, and then so that was the basis of the grilled cheese sandwich.
We didn't put the caramelized onions on it this time, so it was bacon, grill, all made like a grilled cheese sandwich. The burger, we also took pickle sheets and turned them like you would Japanese style with like an usuba, Grace did, or intern Grace did that, and they cut that into a ring so that you had a ring-shaped pickle that was the size of the burger, which was nice. And then for the burger to make it all fantabulously fancy dancy, we reduced veal stock down until it was really thick and beefy, and the gelatin was really, you know, very strong. Added ketchup to it, added calcium lactate gluconate, right? Set it into a sheet, uh, cut the sheets into uh rings, and then threw those into alginate.
So that formed a layer around the gelatin. So now we have like a little hockey puck of uh of uh beef ketchup gelatin with a layer of alginate around. We chose alginate because it's a little bit tough. It's gonna needs to withstand this kind of rough handling, and it's also uh heat proof. So then we built a burger around that uh around that sheet of uh of uh that like gilet, and then low temp fried it to set it, low temp cooked that in butter and then roasted it over charcoal to get a nice charcoal outside, put that in between.
And when you cut the burger, it's like a soup dumpling, it explodes ketchup and and veal stock all over the plate. And uh the we did one without when you do it with a bun, it like sprays out a little bit, kinda like when you take a cherry tomato and you bite it, and like if you don't close your mouth when you do it, you spray your buddy. You know what I'm talking about? Anyway, uh kind of like that. But when we did it by itself, it was kind of like almost obscene.
We we just cut a burger and it was like it like shot up like a fountain, like the like the like the burger couldn't hold it in, I'll put it that way. Okay. So uh so that's the I don't know what they're gonna use from that. I don't know what they're gonna use from that. Um it's actually gonna be online today.
I f well supposedly like a photo is there a photo of it of it of it exploding? Uh there's a video, so there might be I mean I would actually prefer like I I'm a firm believer, and by the way, uh it's it goes back to when I was doing art for uh you know, trying to do art for a living, and uh we're in a uh cooking issues in an art show now. I'm in an art show at Columbia. I just put a post up today on the blog. So you can go look at the post on the blog and see what we put into the art show, including something about our uh our uh you know, someone we met in California, Roy Fong, who owns the uh Imperial Tea Court and does a lot of really interesting stuff with tea, including he's gonna he's growing his own tea on a tea farm in California, which I think is really cool and uh unprecedented.
Anyway, so uh uh where this goes yeah supposedly there's gonna be a video but when I was doing art sometimes a good still photo is better than a video like if you just had like a sick still photo of the burger with the sh stuff shooting out of the top of it and you caught it like just as it was like in midair like somehow that's more badass than the video of it happening. Because it's very hard I mean these guys are good so I'm sure it's good but like if for me it was very hard to get videos that were as compelling as a good still shot. Like I always preferred the one good still shot like take the video and then choose the one awesome still from it and put that up I don't know. It's like it seems to me because then your mind fills in the rest of everything. You don't need you don't need the actual whole whole video a lot of the times.
But this this is my theory as it when I was doing uh performance art anyway. So what else we do last week, Nastash did we go to Martha last week? Yeah why don't you talk about that why don't you talk about it because apparently you don't you know you can't you can't be bothered not to lean back in your chair with the gangster league the stash has got a serious gangster lien going on in the in the studio. Talk about it too. Alright so uh Martha Stewart wanted a centrifuge we bought her the damn centrifuge and I fixed it and then uh it was a nice one I paid I think like I don't know 300 bucks or something like that which was her limit uh on eBay.
Yes yes she only wanted to pay $300 for the centrifuge which is like you know I've paid more for dinner and she that's what she wanted anyway whatever. So we bring it to her uh studio and she wants to learn about it and the one we bring when we show up sucker literally breaks. And I was like, you know, this happens with stuff that you get off of eBay. Like, even though I fixed one problem, there was another problem in the machine, and it turned out that it's an it's a nine hundred dollar, it's a nine hundred dollar problem to fix. So I was like, oh man, crap.
So we ended up taking well what does Nastasha describe the situation. We were both pleased. Wow, that's that's all you're gonna that's it. That's all Nastasha's gonna say. She was not pleased.
Wow. Alright. Yeah. And so basically I gave her the hardest part is that you're like singing and laughing to yourself and talking to yourself. What am I supposed to do?
Sit there and look depressed because the machine is broken? Brooks. But I'm am I supposed to look depressed? Tell me that. What am I supposed to do?
Am I supposed to I don't have a hair shirt with me that I can put on. What's a hair shirt? Yeah. What's a hair shirt? She's this woman who's not used to punishing herself.
That's why she hasn't, you know. That's why she hasn't, you know. She's you know, Catholic too, doesn't know what hair crazy. Anyway. So uh yeah, you know, uh I didn't have something to beat myself with.
I didn't bring, like, you know, the the the you know, the little small whip to like whip my back and apologize that the $300 centrifuge that we had spent hours fixing broke again. She did not throw it. She did. She did not. She said, I'm gonna need to get my money back, Dave.
Do you remember that? No, you made that up. I swear on a few. I did not hear that. Well, thank God.
Anyway, so uh I gave her a different centrifuge, and so hopefully she's happy with it because she has it now, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, we haven't heard anything. I haven't heard of it. So hop hopefully she's happy with it, but now I'm stuck.
We have what's uh what what was she gonna do with it? What's what's her plans for it? I don't know. They thought she was gonna make baby food. Because she just had a baby.
But she did not have a baby. First of all, like I don't know how much it is his privilege, and we're too here talking about like Martha listens. Martha, if you're listening, I'm sorry. This has been Cooking Issues Vicious Visions. Oh, you didn't.
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