Today's program has been brought to you by White Oak Pastures, a five-generation Georgia-based beef and poultry farm determined to conduct business in an honorable manner. For more information, visit WhiteoakPastures.com. Broadcasting live from Bushwick Brooklyn, you're listening to Heritage Radio Network.org. Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from Roberta's Pizzeria on the Heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from 12 to 1245.
Joined in the studio with Nastasha the Hammer Lopez. And of course, Jack and Joe in the engineering booth. How are you guys doing? Doing alright? Yeah, microphones aren't working over there, but they're doing good.
How are you doing, Stas? Yeah, Nastasha is trying to find someone who's willing to move uh the crap out of our uh studio area in Brooklyn in the back of Milk Bar Commissary. To our new space on 54 Eldridge Street, which until Eater actually showed up, they did not believe that we were not trying to open another bar there. Yeah. And when they showed up, we're like, here's one desk, here's another desk.
Look, a third desk. And they're like, oh, so it's not gonna be it. We're like, no. No. No.
It's our it's you know, it's Booker and Dax Equipment Company. It's our test our test place. But anyway, turns out that movers here in New York, unlike when you move it yourself, which is what Nastasha and I had to do last time, uh, make you put everything in a box. It's it's equipment. How the hell do you put a big piece of equipment in a box?
Am I supposed to just go get giant like washing machine boxes to put everything in? They said or shrink wrap it. So we use that like or shrink wrap it? Yeah. What is shrink wrapping doing?
I think you cover it in plastic and how's that helpful other than I get to destroy the earth a little more. They don't want to scratch the trucks with the equipment, the insides of the trucks. They don't want to scratch the inside of a moving truck. Right. They yeah.
With stuff that they're moving. Mm-hmm. This is it. This is happening in the real life? Mm-hmm.
This is what's really happening. Yes. Okay then. Hey, our mic works and we're doing well. Yeah?
Nice. Yeah. Good. Strong. Good.
I was a little worried about you. I was pretty sure that there was still air in the booth though, and that you were breathing. Hey, do you know about our fundraising party? Can I shamelessly plug that right now? Yeah, you are.
You must say uh plug away. Yeah, you're you're uh you're doing drinks. I am. Yeah. El Buho Mescal.
And uh we've got Absolute. We've got a whole bunch of stuff. September 9th at Roberta's from 5 to 8 p.m. It's our first fundraiser. How much are tickets?
150. And and uh where do they purchase said tickets? That is Heritage Radio Network.eventbrite.com. Yeah. Nice.
And we'll take some of our techniques and put your money where your mouth is with our beverage, right? We've got Grammarcy Tavern and El Posto. I think Brooks is doing desserts and um You wrangled Brooks into doing it? We wrangled Bro, yeah, Brooks will be there. Nice.
Yep. Back 40 West, China Pacifico, uh Inside Park, St. Bart's, uh inside Inside Park at St. Bart's. Bunch of other chefs.
It'll be really cool. Nice, nice. And it's here at at the at the Robert's Pizzeria? Yep. In the backyard.
Yeah, so if you've never made the trek out to Brooklyn, now's your chance. Now's your chance to cross that river. You can meet us. And maybe Indie Jesus may be working in the event. I'm just putting that out there.
I don't know. Oh, we now you have to make it happen, Jack. I might have to make that happen. Yeah, you know, I'll see what strings I can pull. It's not an easy get.
Yeah, Nastasha, you're you're gonna come to the gig, right? Yes. Yeah, so you can come see Nastasha and like I think everyone should wear their best hipster outfit to come and visit Nastasha at the And you can get pictures with me and Indy Jesus. If Indy Jesus actually shows up. Right.
Well, he's works on Sundays. That's what we it's he's anti anti-Jesus. He's moving on a Sunday, but. No, look, you gotta get your your your your Bible straight. First of all.
That's supposed to work, but like one of the things that if you read the if you read the um kind of uh you know the apocryphal gospels, like one of the things Jesus used to get in trouble for all the time was healing people on the Sabbath. Well, no, that those gospels never made it into into Jersey speak. But uh yeah, so he used to do things like you know, cure people on the Sabbath, and that's one of the things he got in trouble for. You know, curing people at work. Work.
You think that stuff just happens curing people? Work. Anyway, okay. Um catch some stuff from before that I missed from a couple weeks ago. Barry Munkasey wrote in, because I don't think I got this.
Uh question on Twitter. Clearly, I am overcooking or people are overcooking shrimp in a shrimp boil. I didn't talk about this, did I Sas? I don't think so. Uh shrimp, sausage, corn, onion, potato, garlic, and Zataran spice.
Uh perfect sous vide timing recipe. Did I talk about this? I don't remember. I don't know. I don't remember whether I talked about it or not, but I think you might have.
Did I? Really? I feel like it might have. Well, don't cook shrimp sous-vide. Just cook all the parts separately, perfectly, and then recombine them at the end.
Yeah, yeah, you're right. I did. I talked about shrimp shelves. Delicious, delicious shrimp shells. That's right.
Yeah, okay. Alright. Alright, Barry, I got you covered. But I know this I did not mention. Pavlov at Pav1 Love or Pav Oneov uh on the Twitter sent in a picture to us of uh how he cooked 25,000 lobsters in a five-day period at a festival in Maine, using something that looked like a steam c giant kind of steam cleaner, huge pieces of equipment.
And his exact quote is, I felt bad until I ate them. Hopefully he did not eat all 25,000. The most I've ever eaten in one day is 10. Uh and uh that was the same day I found out I was allergic to cherries. So they thought it was lobsters for a long time that I was allergic to until cherry season came around the next year and sent me to the hospital again.
Crazy, right? Nutty. Anyways, uh, so I had something else to say about that. Oh, yeah, when I was a kid, check this out. For any of you that um, I don't know, clean aircraft equipment for a living.
There used to be in Oshkosh, every year in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, there's what's called a fly-in, where all the kind of experimental aircraft lunatics from all over everywhere, and also the old war bird uh nutties and everything show up and they fly in, and Oshkosh Airport is for that couple of days the busiest airport in the world. And you go there, and uh my dad used to fly seaplanes uh a lot. So we used to go to the seaplane party, which was a little off the way because he had to have a lake, and those guys had a giant like bro beer brats in 55 gallon drums and corn that they would cook in the steam cleaners that they would use to steam clean parts, like giant steam cleaned corn. That's what I used to eat as a kid. Maybe that's part of what influenced me to get to use dumb equipment to uh cook with.
Maybe. What do you think? Yeah, possible, right? Okay. Now, on to current questions.
Uh hi, Dave, Nastasha, and Jack. Shout out to Indie Jesus. And I'm gonna have to add the shout out to Joe. Remember, guys, give the shout-out to Joe. He he is a singer in a he's the front man of some sort of like hardcore punk band, true or false.
True. I've w why have we not heard any of the music on the on the radio program? Um maybe one of these days. So if you don't give him a shout-out, he is going he he is going to come find you. Pretty much, right?
I'm I'm extr I'm extremely scary person as well. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you probably don't know him unless you're here in the studio with us. I mean, you might know him separately, but in other words, yeah, odds are you don't, and he's a he's a scary man. He'll come find you.
I'm just telling you. Just telling you you should give him a shout-out. That's all. Okay. So Eddie Shepard writes in, I have a quick question, and also below a free uh well, free from me, not for you.
Anyway, kidding. Uh a link to the copy of my ebook. Um okay, as a longtime listener and having uh asked the odd question on the show before, I was hoping it was okay to ask a question slightly away from the tech side of things and more on aesthetics and subjectivity. Uh, I wonder to what extent uh you thought about the presentation of food affected the experience of eating it, whether it is something you see as critical to a dish, and if there are any examples or anecdotes you have relating to food either looking horrible and tasting amazing, or vice versa, beautifully presented but let down in flavor. I personally think that the setting you're in and the aesthetics of a dish can potentially have a big psychological influence on your enjoyment of the food, but also the flavors first and foremost.
If I can make a delicious dish look nice, then great, I will. But if altering it look uh compromises flavor, I wouldn't. I wondered what your thoughts might be, and also if there's anything you might favor stylistically in food uh presentation. Okay. Uh that's a great question.
Uh I think there is a very famous uh Spanish chef, uh very famous m mercurial Spanish chef, actually, that uh Nils and I were doing I think it was Nils and I. Might have been even before Nils was at No, I think Nils was there. Anyway, it's this huge event uh we had at the French Culinary Institute years and years ago, and uh all the big wigs were coming, like Ferran and and uh one Roca and all these guys. This is n none of those guys. Another very famous mercurial Spanish chef.
And uh not that Juan Roca is actually not, he's like a totally mellow guy. He didn't yell at anyone the entire time. The man the man's a complete uh he's he's very um he's a he's a gentleman, Juan Roca. Uh someday I'll get to go to his restaurant. Um anywho.
And Jordy, too, the brother, pastry chef. Very nice people. Anyway, um the So this guy uh is well known for kind of like hyper presentation with you know like lots of tweezers and whatnot. Um, you know, tiny, like you know, early on uh adopter of the the like the micro mini micro micro micro green tininess, right? And um he literally said during his demonstration, and it's stuck in my head forever, that uh it is not only important for the food to look good, it must taste good also.
And this stuck in my brain, and I've not been able to pry it free because it's exactly backwards. It's exactly backwards. It is important, like it's not only important that the food tastes good, it's important that it looks good too. That is a true statement, right? But um I kind of the my problem with food that's for presentation only is I think it leads to especially we're in an era right now where um you know a lot of food work is done on the internet, it's done in books, it's done on television programs, and it's done in demonstrations.
And so uh there's a lot of work that's done that um where you can tell that it was done for the look and not necessarily for the for the um for the taste. Like I call it, you know, cooking for demonstration. It's like you specifically make it so that it looks good in photos or in books or in uh in demos. And I mean I'm not saying you should shy away from the presence, but that's why like in a demo, I l I think it's important to give tastes out so that people actually know that you know what you're focused on is cooking and the flavor. Now, I think that you know, look, if you're cooking at home, it's it's one thing, it it has to look appetizing.
I don't really do a lot of plated work at home, except for I I used to on special occasions, but I don't really do it at home. At home, it's it's more about you know something that looks appetizing, but you know, in in a home style. But when you're doing a demo or a dish or a cocktail, I think it's a very important to have to have it look enticing and appetizing, or in a cocktail scenario, that have the pres the presentation of making it be something that um wets the person's appetite for what you're making uh and that looks good or looks compelling. And um there are dishes that obviously the your enjoyment of them is incredibly augmented by how they look. Things can be enchanting, captivating, uh, just in their look, and then um that makes it makes an already good tasting thing taste better.
Uh but you know nothing is worse than something that they've obviously spent a billion years making it look great and there's no flavor to it, or or the flavors uh clash and they don't work. I mean you've had that happen, Stas, right? Yes. Do you enjoy that? No.
She's not paying any attention. Okay. I got this guy to move our stuff, I think. Oh, well, okay. All right, so Nastasha's not paying attention to what I'm saying during the radio show, but did in fact find a place a guy that's gonna move our stuff, so kudos there.
Uh now there's another side to it, which i is also true, and you allude to in in in your question, and that is that I have things that we have made that are freaking delicious, like delicious, great, and yet I won't ever serve them. Why? Because they're hideously ugly. You know, like a drink that looks like a murky brown mass and not like brown in a good sort of whiskey way, like just nasty. And so, yes, there are there are situations where you know looks trump how good something tastes just because I s I won't be able to get it past someone's lips.
Same way, like I can make you a piece of chicken that looks like it's still bloody, cooked through all the way, no one will eat it. Why? Because it's visually repellent to them. And so I think both uh both are important, but I think you know, you're gonna steer yourself right if you focus on flavor first, and then uh after that, like, you know, like how can this presentation be um best achieved, right? I mean that that's my feeling.
Now, the second thing we have in from Eddie is Eddie just has a new book available, I believe, exclusively on the iPad through your uh through your iTunes, and it's called uh Modernist, uh what's it called? Modernist Vegetarian, right? Modernist vegetarian. Let me look at the exact title of the book because I downloaded it. Um Modernist Vegetarian, right, by Eddie Shepherd.
And uh, so it's it's yeah, I read it. I read yeah, I didn't read it fully because I only got it this morning, but I I looked through all the recipes, and uh a lot a lot of uh a lot of interesting recipes, some that you can use without a lot of heavy-duty equipment, some that require a lot of heavy duty equipment. Um, but you know, very well, very well clean photographed, a lot of interesting stuff. And I think you know, one of the first times I've seen someone exclusively try to do a modern a modern take on uh strictly vegetarian. So good.
Kudos. Everyone, you know, should go check it out. You can get a free sample on the iTunes, uh sent to your iPad, and then decide whether you want to pay the paltry meager price of I think it's like $6.99. So it's not a giant, it's not a giant investment. Um thing he uses quite a bit, actually, that I haven't used, I'm ashamed to say it, we haven't experimented with it, is uh the per Purecoat B790, which is um, you know, it's something from National Starch and uh can be used to make like films and leathers and glasses and stuff.
And we haven't really played with that, I don't think too much, uh, Styles. Maybe I should you know I hate it when someone brings something uh out like this, and then I'm like, man, I haven't I shouldn't have used that more. Man, there it is. So we'll we'll try to get some practicing with the pure code B790. And uh we appreciate that uh you gave me a uh a shout out on uh a couple of techniques in the book.
Uh one thing is on your methyl cellulose, I'd like to know are you using F50? It looks like you're using F50. Remember to always call out the brands of the methyl cell that you are using. All right. Uh this is a shout out to uh Michael in Oakland.
I still have your Leucuma Pure problem on my mind, but I'm gonna wait to answer until I get back from the Columbia because I'm gonna mess with uh Lukey Lucima Variants while I'm down there and figure out really good solutions for you. And with that, let's go to our first commercial break. Call your questions to 7184972128. That's 7184972128. So I could love you twice as much as I do.
I'd have 11 arms to embrace you. For us to idolize you each time. You're listening to I Wish I Were Twins by Plexophonic. What couldn't full lips do? When four is here, you say that I'm yours.
I wish that I were twins. You great big baby kins. So I could love you. Wide Oak Pastures is a hundred and forty-six-year-old multi-generational family farm that works in cooperation with nature to produce artisan beats that is safe, healthy, nutritious, and good to eat. Well, I feel we ensure that our production practices are economically practical, ecologically sustainable, and that the animals are always humanely treated.
We never falter in our determination to conduct our business in an honorable manner. For more information, visit Wideopastures.com. I wish that I would twins. You get big baby kins. So I could love you twice as much as I do.
I'd have four loving arms to embrace you. For eyes to idolize you each time I face you with two hot five And uh welcome back to Cooking Issues. Okay. Uh Matt writes in, hey Dave and Stas. Uh I recently bought a centrifuge on the eBay.
And I was wondering if you guys had any suggestions or resources for cool things I can do with it. There are a few ideas in modernist cuisine, but I want to take it further. Also, do I need to buy special bottles for the rotor or will a uh basic mason jar, etc. do the trick? I see there are centrifuge bottles for sale around the web, but they are expensive, and I hate to lay down that kind of cash if I can go cheaper.
Any thoughts? Matt. Okay, do not put a mason jar in there. Do not put a mason jar into your centrifuge. A couple of things I need to know uh before uh before I go on.
Congratulations, first of all, on uh the centrifuge purchase. Um you know I I use a centrifuge every day, uh, and we do mainly juice clarification with it. You're gonna need to go out and buy uh the enzyme Pectanex Ultra SPL, which is available at ModernistPantry.com. Even though, like, are they they what's the story? They they're no more love for us, huh?
Anyways. Anyway, you can buy Pectanex Ultra SPL at modernistpantry.com, and you're gonna need that with your centrifuge um to do a lot of the clarification work, assuming that you have a lower speed centrifuge. Remember, the guys at Modernist Cuisine have a centrifuge that can easily do like 48,000 times the force of gravity. Most likely yours doesn't do that. If it does do that, you definitely shouldn't think about putting a mason jar anywhere near it.
Second thing is the centrifuge, you need to make sure that the rotor and buckets are in good shape, that they're not dented or messed up. Thirdly, you need to clean the hell out of that centrifuge. You need to bleach the hell out of that centrifuge, and you need to take the rotor and pressure cook it to get rid of any sort of biological craziness that might be going on and then bleach the hell out of it again. I think that large amounts of bleach soaking will kill almost everything. I need to I need better information on how to properly sanitize something against prions, for instance.
But you if you don't know what was in the centrifuge, you have real problems. Second of all, I don't know what kind like again, what kind of centrifuge you have, but um the the bottles that go into centrifuge rotors are uh they're tough for a reason. They're gonna go undergo a lot of stress. I spin directly in my buckets, right? Although I'm the only guy that does it.
Everyone else is like, really? You spend directly in the buckets? I'm like, yes, I spin directly in the buckets. Um never let detergent touch your buckets. You know what I mean?
Because the detergent can uh negatively affect the aluminum uh buckets. Uh I have purchased the expensive centrifuge bottles and I have found plastic uh bottles that work in centrifuge rotors, but they tend to fail somewhat. So it you like uh back at the FCI, I had a super speed centrifuge that I could do like 22,000 times the force of gravity in safely, and we used to use uh ketchup squeeze in uh in that thing. And the ketchup squeeze, they worked okay, right, Stas. But every once in a while they would collapse and then they would collapse.
And then guess what? They've collapsed. Um, so it you know it's a matter of be careful. Go on to cookingIssues.com, look at the centrifuge section specifically related to safety. You need to be safe with a centrifuge.
You need to balance the centrifuge before you spin it, and don't put anything in there that can break and fly apart. And uh, because there's a couple of things, right? There's not just like the broken glass and your centrifuge. If you break something in the centrifuge and then you go unbalanced, then your centrifuge becomes unbalanced, which then becomes a secondary danger. So you have to really make sure that everything is okay and in tip top shape.
On the notion of centrifuge, though, so here's the thing. I think I mentioned this on the radio show a couple times is that when I whenever I go do uh demos, they're they're always like, yo, come to a tech demo. And I'm like, okay, what can you get me? Can you get me a centrifuge? And they're always like, no.
Unless it's Japan. Unless it's Japan. They park high at Tokyo, baller. Even Nastasha, by the way, Nastasia does not like basically thinks that everyone is like a useless moron. Pretty much.
Right? Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's fair to say. Yeah.
So for her, especially people that help us out in demos. No offense to those of you that have helped us out in demos. But like, uh, but like the Japanese guys at the Park Hyatt, it was the only time I've ever heard her say, man, these guys are on top of things. They're good people. They're good people.
They're good people. And like for Nastasha, like that means you walk on water. That's like, that's it. Yeah. You know what I mean?
You're like, you know, that's it. Okay. So uh so centrifuge is tough to get. Now, here's the reason why centrifuge is tough to get. They're big, they're expensive, and they're not yet uh in uh a lot of kitchens, so not a lot of kitchen people have access to them.
Now, centrifuge I use at the Booker Index and at the lab and at the school, they're all basically the same unit. The one that Wiley has, same style unit. Um most people are using you know, crat Chad uh and uh Christy, Tad Solomon, Christy Pope, same same kind. It's three liters bench top, does four thousand times the force of gravity, right? And that's what I've always called the sweet spot in centrifuges.
Uh now that is unreasonable uh for uh most people at home because it's too large, it's too expensive, and you're not gonna use it that much, right? That's clearly in kind of the divorce/slash breakup with your significant other for bringing it into the house kind of range of things to do is to bring a centrifuge like that into the house. Even I do not have one of those suckers in my house, and I have pushed very far with weird crap in my house before. There is a centrifuge I just purchased to take with me to Columbia that I'm gonna run some tests on this week and see whether or not it's okay. It's available Amazon Prime for under 200 bucks.
And it it only does, I think 1300 times the force of gravity, but I've done some initial experiments with Pectine X Ultra SPL and other clarifying aids, and I think I can get it to work at that uh level. Not as well and not as fast as the one that I have at Booker Index, but pretty good. Also, uh the cool thing, I mean the centrifuge is very small, so it really does a small amount uh per spin. It does a hundred and twenty uh milliliters per spin, which is a little a little over four ounces. And this is useless for a bar because please, four ounces, come on.
But uh for testing at home and for making a couple of drinks for you know you and your family, uh this could be a viable thing to at least let you play with centrifugation and and what you can do with it. And so I I'll be testing this week the hundred and eighty dollar um, you know, you know, 120 milliliter centrifuge. It weighs 10 pounds and is less than a foot on each side, so could be good, right? I'll let you guys know next week whether it works or not. I hope it does because otherwise I'm out 200 bucks.
Uh but didn't that be cool? Oh, yeah. See, Nastasha's really good with this stuff. This is why I have her around. Be like, just send it back if you don't like it.
Yeah. Um, but uh, but this way we can always have one of those things when we go do demos. Yeah? How much does it weigh? 10 pounds.
So it's nothing compared to the crap we carry around. Mm-hmm. I'll carry the if you can scrap it to my back, I'll carry the world. Okay. Uh okay.
Uh Rob uh Trapaz writes in about uh a couple things. Carpano uh and antica formula vermouth, which is one of our favorites. Anyway, uh we use it, uh we use the hell out of it at the bar even though it's uh absurdly expensive. Not absurdly expensive, but it's not cheap. Right?
Right. Okay. Uh I recently discovered uh Carpano Antica Formula Vermouth, and I've been enjoying uh Manhattan's with it like never before. My problem is that by the ounce, it takes a long time to go through a bottle. You should drink more, Rob.
That's the problem. I'm kidding. I'm not I'm not advocating that. Okay. Um the bottle is kept in my refrigerator with a vacuum stopper, but uh it takes on an oxidized flavor towards the end of the bottle and takes up a lot of room.
How would you recommend I rebottle it? I have a bottle capper for glass bottles and a CO2 tank available. Should other lower proof uh liquors like Lilae, Cookie Americano, Dubanay, or Aperall be stored in similar quantities or under refrigeration? Uh and then there's a separate question. Let me deal with this one first.
Okay. This is an excellent question. Uh Vermouth definitely does oxidize. And uh this is a problem we come across in the bar all the time. I wouldn't use.
Here's the problem with CO2. If you purge out with CO2, you're apt to get like a light tingling in eventually in the bottle. What we use in the bar, we make a bottle of Manhattan. When we do a bottle of Manhattan, we dilute the vermouth in in the whiskey, and it ends up being a lower proof when we're done than the vermouth was on its own, I think. Or it's about about the same.
But the upshot is that it oxidizes even more in uh in a pre-diluted Manhattan than it does in its own bottle, and so we have to have a way to keep them from oxidizing. So all of our low-proof things like vermouth in the bottle, anything like that, not only do we store it uh very cold, actually a little bit below freezing, but not below its own freezing point, is we'll drop a little bit of liquid nitrogen into the bottle open. Uh the liquid nitrogen will then rest the cap on top, and you'll see a bunch of vapor coming out of the top of the bottle that's purging out the air, and then as soon as it uh stops uh actively uh pushing nitrogen out, we cap it, right? Um there are other commercial systems based on nitrogen that you can buy that are fairly cheap, like wine saver um things, and that you can use to purge out the headspace. If you've purged a head space out of your uh drink and cap it, you're good to go.
Here's the problem. Uh nitrogen, I mean we use it in liquid nitrogen form, so it's sitting on top of the drink and getting all the air out. Nitrogen itself is actually slightly um nitrogen is slightly uh lighter than air. So it's gonna float out of the bottle, and so you can't actually just dump liquid nitrogen into it and then uh wait a long time and then cap it. But you can buy on the internet, you can just look it up.
Uh you can uh buy uh argon based system. So if you look at roughly the the molecular mass, average molecular mass of air, it's about 28.97, right? Uh so oxygen heavier than air, you need to per purge it out heavier than the average air, nitrogen slightly lighter, carbon dioxide heavier, so you could actually roll carbon dioxide in there slowly and purge out the air, which is how I make uh carbonated cocktails. But again, and that'll work. I'm just worried that you might have a little residual kind of uh Pringly thing.
Although try it, it might work, you know, like just like like snuff some carbon dioxide in there a couple of times to purge out the headspace and then cap it. I mean, that would technically work. But argon is a real money maker rocking in at 39 uh 39.9 um as a molecular weight. So it's it's heavier enough, not quite as heavy as carbon dioxide, but much heavier than air. You can buy fairly cheap little argon cartridges and purging units uh on the internets on the Amazon, and you can use that to purge out uh all of your bottles.
If you want to just do it the way that you said you're doing it, I mean that you have with carbon dioxide, you don't want to purchase anything extra. I'd be interested to know uh how that works. But we I don't do it to Aperol, by the way. Aperol is the one thing on that list that I don't really worry about. I also don't worry that much about my Dubonet, but maybe I should.
Uh we definitely worry about Cokey Americano, we definitely worry about our Lilae, and we definitely definitely definitely worry about our carpano, especially after it's been mixed with um with with the booze and diluted. I'll say this. Uh we have run tests uh for a couple of weeks with uh diluted uh vermouth in bottles that have been LN purged, and I would like I say recommend Argon or perhaps CO2, and then capped with no oxygen in them, and they are dead stable. Uh at least under refrigeration, they're dead stable, so you can handle it and and it's okay. Um especially you said you had a bottle capper, right?
Yeah, you got a bottle capper for glass bottles, boom, you're done. Uh I have to remember in my head whether Carpano will accept a bottle cap, whether the Carpano bottle accepts a bottle cap. Champagne bottles accept a bottle cap, but the carpano bottle might not accept the bottle cap. Okay, listen, I'm gonna go to my second commercial break and then come back with Rob's second question. 718497, 2128, cooking issues.
Every night you'll hear croon of a Russian. Just a plaintiff little tune when baby starts to cry. Rockabye, my baby. Somewhere there may be a land that's free for you and me and a Russian lullaby. You're listening to Russian lullaby by Plexophonic.
Every night you'll hear crown of a rush. Just a plaintiff, the little tune when baby starts to cry. Rock goodbye. And welcome back to cooking issues. We have a caller.
Caller, you're on the air. Uh hi Dave. Uh this is Martin Woodhouse calling from Germany. Uh I had a couple of uh equipment questions, just uh equipment recommendations I was looking for. So the first one uh was for uh what we would call in the UK a barbecue, but I think you would call in the US a grill.
Correct. Yeah, don't don't tell uh don't tell a Southern American that uh a barbecue is a cooking instrument, because then you have to like listen to them for half an hour about grilling versus barbecue. You don't want to do it. Yeah, so a charcoal grill basically. So we I I had a Weber before, uh and and then and it was it was okay.
I had it a long time, but uh I'm getting some I need to get a new one basically, because I I moved countries and and left the old one behind. So uh have have you is there anything particularly that's any good or or are they all much of a much north? That's a good question. Uh you know, on grills, uh for instance, Jeffrey Steingarden hates Webbers. Hates them.
Uh because uh you can't adjust the uh coal height effectively in them. You know what I mean? I mean what Weber what Webbers are good at with that kettle shape is kind of allowing a pile of coals to radiate out uh kind of either side. They're also relatively inexpensive, which is I think why a lot of people um use them. And you know, for me, I mean like the the problems with grills, uh you know, I prefer like a nice heavy grate that can that can really absorb a lot of energy and then and then give it back, but a lot of it's about versatility I always want the biggest grill I can possibly get but the flip side of having a giant grill is that you know you basically need to fire the whole thing or or you lose lose a lot of heat a lot of the grilling I tend to do a lot of super high heat grilling like very fast especially like finishing off sous vide and stuff like that you know so at any rate like larger grills give you more versatility because if you're going to do a high low situation or have the coals on one side and cook in the other you have more space to do it with but the problem is is they tend to consume a lot of charcoal.
So if you're only going to be like how many people are you cooking for uh no more than sort of I mean eight at the absolute max but usually more like but sometimes down to two. Right. Yeah I mean two uh I mean like but that's a huge difference right like cooking grilling for eight and grilling for two is a is a is a giant giant difference. Um you know I've never used any of the smaller like theoretically more fuel cons uh conserving uh grills like uh for instance the the egg that a lot of people seem to like uh yeah I saw those on Aki and Alex's blog right do they like 'em yeah but uh but they're really expensive. Yeah I mean how's a coal cost in in uh like hardwood charcoal how is that expensive in Germany or no?
No not really but like I think the the the eggs can be up to like five six hundred euros. That's quite expensive for a grill. Yeah. I mean, I I inje like, you know, I've grilled on um a grill is really a lot about how how you handle it. I I would go for one with a big with a nice like I like cast I like the cast iron grates.
They're not necessary, but I like them a lot better than those thin wire craps. Um and I usually go for a larger size just because it gives me more flexibility, just be willing to suck up a lot of extra charcoal because you're gonna go through a lot more charcoal than you ordinarily would. I have never used a grate that has like uh uh I mean a a grill that has a really nice system for adjusting the height of the grill surface, but Bobby Flay told me once that he had one that did that, and Steingarden once told me that he had one that that did that. Um, which would obviously be useful because it would allow you to get different different heats without having to lift the thing and shuffle the coals around, which as everyone knows is a messy pain in the butt. And I know it's sort of a a dirty concept for food snobs, but like gas is Yeah, you know what?
Like I like uh so I've used gas assists in uh look, here's the other thing, right? I mean, like everybody knows that co coal is great, but sometimes you just want to fire the sucker up and run, right? Yeah, because it's dirty and it takes time to heat up and stuff, so yeah, I mean f you you've used chimney starters before though, right? Pardon? You've used a chimney starter before, right?
For coal. Yeah. Yeah. Uh but it's it's just it if if it was gas, I'd use it more often, I think. Right, right.
I mean, uh I've I used to have a unit a long time ago that I could go either way with, and I don't know whether I was legally allowed to go either way or whether I literally just threw an extra grate over top of the burners and went went crazy. I think it might be the latter. So that I could do I I'm a big fan of flexibility, and so you know, if you're gonna use the grill more often, especially in the summertime, if you have a gas thing on it and you fire it up. I mean, the one issue with most gas burners is that they just don't have the uh the oomph that you need, right? Yeah.
And so, you know, and if you, you know, and as I as I do believe kind of the modernist cuisine mantra on uh what's going on, which is that the flavor of grilling isn't really from the coal itself, but from fat dripping on said coal, uh vaporizing and coming up, then if you have enough power in your burners, then you can do something like chuck lava rocks onto it and then use those lava rocks to get that kind of uh feeling of the of the stuff hitting it and going down. I think that most people's gripe with the gas uh grills is that just they're just not hot enough to get that kind of a uh of a thing to to happen. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Um But no, I don't think I don't think you're a bad person for wanting a gas grill.
You know what I mean? I I I prefer charcoal, but gas is just you know, it it just it's just more convenient. And then the second equipment recommendation is is my wife broke my immersion blender, which isn't too bad because it was crappy. Uh but she's she's she she said she'd buy me as kind of a combo compensation and birthday present, uh uh pretty much whichever one I want. Uh what would you go for?
Uh seeing as I don't think you've you and Dave Chank have built your new one yet. No, I haven't. Um I look I only have uh I mean not crappy ones, but I don't have really the the good ones. I don't have a good one either. Uh you try the BAMX or I was about to say the Ban the Bamex seems to be the one that it's the only one I've heard people say that they everyone loves having an immersion blender, but I've never had anyone say that they actually liked the one that they have.
The exception is the BAMEX. Um the downside of the BAMEX is that it um it obviously the the the shaft doesn't pop off of the BAMEX to clean is kind of the one the one downside it has. The upside uh for my uh just vi never having used it is that it's got a lot more clearance around the bell for um for fluids to go in and out, and one of the main problems well the first main problem with with immersion blenders is splashing in improperly sized cups with not enough liquid. The second main problem with them is cavitation around the bell in thicker products. For instance, you know, I use immersion blenders to do pancake batter, you know, stabby, but I do, you know what I mean?
Uh and um uh and you get a lot of cavitation issues with the standard stamped steel bells that are on most um kind of consumer grade immersion blenders, and the and the BAMX four-prong open kind of blade guard, I think is not gonna have as much cavitation problem as those. And so if I had to go out and spend my 99 bucks on one, I'd probably get that. Not having not having tested it, I might take the jump and get it. Is that I mean also like you know, like some of the other ones, like I happen to have a KitchenAid now, and I don't hate it, but I don't love it. It came with a bunch of other attachments, which I don't even know where they are.
I've never used them. Yeah, you know, they're they're more expensive over here, so like the the price difference between a BAMEX and the Kitchen Aid, there really isn't gonna be one when you buy it here, so really, yeah. And that little chopper that they sell to me is fundamentally useless. Uh the the whisk is fundamentally useless. Have you ever seen someone use one of those?
Nothing looks more ridiculous than using that whisk on the end of an immersion blender. It's crazy. Yeah, it's yeah, whatever. It's it makes no sense. And eventually, the the um eventually that the connection starts going wonky where it clicks in, and so now mine makes awful grinding noises when I when I when I'm using it.
So all said, I do like being able it makes makes me allow allow me to be a lot lazier to just pop off the end of the stick and put it into water. So I'm not gonna lie to you and say that that is not a benefit, but I might go with the BAMX uh the next time around. RoboCoo makes an incredibly expensive commercial one where the actual bell pops off to clean, which seems like it would be nice. But uh I believe BAMX also has the feature that you can remove the blade. Is that true?
I think so, yeah. Yeah, that seems like it's gonna be a bad idea because it seems like uh something's gonna break there, but the biggest downfall, even with the removable stem uh immersion blenders, is trying to clean underneath that blade, which is a huge hassle. And so the ability to remove that blade, uh, assuming that it it's not a failure point for the mechanism, which obviously it has a possibility of being, it would be a huge boon to cleaning. I detest cleaning out the uh bottom of the blades of uh of immersion blenders. And I had one equipment recommendation for you.
Uh you you mentioned tablets and and that's what I do for a living. So if you're looking for a small scale tablet press, the the the thing you want is called Arriva R I V A mini press. Write that down, Stas. You got that? Mm-hmm.
R I V A mini press? Uh you'll uh probably they're quite expensive. They're about ten grand, 20 grand new. But if you can pick one up from a pharmaceutical company, uh sort of from an auction. Right.
Uh you you probably get one for way less than that because there's pharmaceutical companies going out of business left, right, and center. So uh and if you get one, it will probably be pretty clean. Uh because they they have to have log books and stuff for when you're using them to produce products. So I wouldn't worry too much in terms of uh too much in terms of contamination, as long as you can kind of get it all visibly clean, uh and then and then wipe, you know, clean it with uh uh some some solvent, uh something like uh isopropile alcohol or or something like that, uh you'll probably not be too bad to go. And how big is it?
Dishwasher size, small enough? Uh it's probably about the size of uh uh I'm trying to think of uh something about the right size. Uh uh probably the size of uh floor standing Apple Mac. Ah, nice. That's that's totally doable.
So it's it's a it's a bench top unit. It's a single station press, but it's it's a really really nice piece of kit. There Reaver is an Argentinian company, but they're they're one of the standard sort of research and development tablet presses. So like it's it's not really really fast or anything, but you you it's it's because you only need the one punch, it's it's pretty versatile in terms of you don't have to buy s stacks and stacks of the the tooling for it. You only need one set.
Nice. I appreciate that. Hey, you weren't uh you you didn't call in with the question about trying to get your kids to eat things, did you? Yeah, I did. Okay, listen, you this is a lucky day that you called in.
We have someone who has responded, a very long email. I think uh we're gonna get Jack to read the response, correct? Well, we I might have to substitute. I I mean I can't really feel Jack's shoes, but I have I have the email here. Alright, so Joe, the front what's the name of your band, Joe?
Oh, it's called Big Ups. Alright, so he's a front man. I'm sure you can do a good read job. Joe's gonna read the response to your question on how to get your kids to eat stuff from Geek Goddess. Go Joe.
Dear Dave and Nastasha the Hammer. I have all kinds of food issues myself, and I was thinking of that family in Germany whose kids have lost their minds and will only eat pasta. Has said father tried sherimi? You know that delightful crab like seafood product that serious chefs loves a hate? Well, my brother, master of picky eaters, I of course would eat anything anyway.
Uh my mother or my brother was getting desperate and found the stuff and brought it home. He got to it before she even had a chance to feed it to him, and because I won't eat anything day. So have you tried the Surimi? Will your kids eat the Surimi? What's Surimi?
So it's that crab it's that imitation. It's it's what? Imitation crab product. Okay, how'd you spell it? Uh S-U-R-I-M-I.
And it really it's the stuff that they put in fake California rolls and whatnot. I mean it is Oh, like crab stick type shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, sorry.
That's alright. That's alright. I agree. Look, it is a st it it is like a crazy, like processed food stuff. And then and it's like, you know, uh, they evaluate various fish products for their ability to be pressed into surimi because it's all about you bleach out any sort of natural flavor it has and then you turn them into kind of uniform sticklets.
Uh but uh d would your kids uh would your kids like that maybe? That was that was her first. They might not dig the texture. Yeah. Uh but we can we can try it.
We can try it. She also she also suggested string cheese. String cheese. Spring cheese, which string cheese we already do. Yeah, but and then insulted the quality of pizza that you're able to obtain in Germany.
I believe she insulted the quality of pizza. Is that true, Joe? Uh yes, that she definitely did. Yeah, in fact, she's condolences. Yes, condolences to you for your like what was the next one?
Um then there's uh a quinoa pasta. Oh, yeah. But she said that your kids might not like the quinoa because of the uh the the taste of the quinoa. That's kind of a bit worthy for our family. Yeah.
There's a coin she also recommends corn-based pasta, right? Um I'm just kind of scanning through here. Yeah. Well, she says that there's uh that it does contain corn, yeah. Or something I would try.
Yeah. Yeah. Kiddings corn. I've had corn-based pasta. It is not pasta, but it tastes okay, actually.
Okay. It's like it like rice pasta is horrible. Uh corn pasta is like I say, it's not pasta, but it's uh it's it's okay. But yeah, you're trying to get away from the the kind of boiled starch in general, right? Yeah.
Like not just you don't want to just switch the boiled starch, right? In which case I could just, you know, make you make soba or something like that, which I've been working. I'm working on the soap. I don't know if I mentioned that on the air, but I've been working on the soba problem. Uh but uh yeah, hopefully you're trying to switch to it.
She had another another kind of a loony lunier thing towards the end, didn't she? Uh uh yes. Um wait well There's something about kangaroo on here. Oh yeah, she's been cooking kangaroo meat. Maybe maybe your maybe your kids can eat some Joey.
She she's like, I don't know. This is an incredible email, by the way. It is several pages. I think we should just put that email. We're gonna put that can we put that email, Joe, up just as a response on the Heritage Radio site as a response?
Uh yeah, I can't I have to check with the higher ups, but I don't see why not. It's it's long, and anyway, you can read her entire response. You can read her entire response there. I'm not sure if your kids are having trouble eating other things, I'm not sure kangaroo is gonna be the best. I think that's the answer.
I mean, hey kids, remember that cute animal that you like? Here it is. Eat it. You know what I mean? I don't know.
Like even my kids who will eat almost nothing but will try weird stuff and don't mind like dead animals, I think they might pause with a kangaroo. Yeah, I think I we we we haven't really got to the link between furry things and what's on the plate yet. Yeah, that's a tough one. That's a tough one. Well, I tend to reinforce it.
I tend to reinforce it with my kids. I'm like, hey, eat your hamburger, a cow died for that. And they're like, and then but then it comes and bites me on the butt because they're like, Daddy, did a cow die for my hamburger? Yes, a cow died for your hamburger. Like, did it does a cat does any animal have to die for the pasta?
No, no animal has to die for the pasta. So yeah, you have to keep on going on. So once you make a statement like that, you have to live with it for the rest of your life. You know what I mean? Or at least for the first, you know, five years, whatever.
Anyway. So we're gonna try and post this on the web, and uh, we hope that helps, and thanks for the tablet press uh info. All right. Alrighty. I got one more that I'm gonna handle Rob's second question before on my way out.
He says, uh, also, how do you make shelf stable maraschino style or bourbon cherries? All the recipes I call uh for uh refrigerated storage for a period of weeks, and I want to keep them in uh at cellar temperatures for up to a year. Rob Traz. Okay. First of all, uh Toby Chicchini, the bartender, like uh better known as the bartender who kind of you know made the Cosmo to drink.
Um also writes for the New York Times, nice gent. He uh has been making uh cherries for uh many, many a year, and his recommendations are that you uh first of all, you need a high proof uh liquor. If you want it to last a long time, you gotta use a high-proof liquor. But second of all, it's the type of cherry you use. He tried various different types of cherry.
He happens to have uh, I think morellos, I'm not sure, some type of sour cherry in in his uh in his garden, and those are the ones that he uses, or he sources. Uh he says he's tried to do his cherries with uh sweet cherries and that they're insipid, useless um things. I will tell you this. Uh back before I was allergic to cherries when I could test these things, I had a cherry once that was uh 50 or 60 years old that had been stored in um like almost straight, like super high proof uh alcohol that um my stepfather's grandfather kept in the basement uh in in Connecticut, and they were put up uh in the in the 20s, and I was eating them in the in the 90s, uh uh 80s or 90s, and they were still good that number of years later, and the secret I think is the high proof ethanol. Now, if you want to use a little bit of technology to make sure that you're gonna be okay, uh this his secret was not don't remove the uh I mean whatever, it's like old Italian wives' tale, but don't remove the stem.
If you remove the stem, it goes mushy, it turns to crap, you gotta leave the stem in. That's the secret. That's what they used to say. Not with that accent, though, because they're from Boston, but I can't do a Boston accent. Anyways, uh, but you might want to try, if you uh do want to remove the stem or whatever, you might uh and the issue with it is I don't know how long you need to soak it because um it's very hard to get um things to permeate the uh cell walls, I mean the uh skin of things like cherries, but you might try a soak in novo-shaped pectin methyl esterase and a little bit of calcium.
Um that enzyme along with calcium will firm up the fruit immensely, and I've used that enzyme to uh make, for instance, uh raspberries that you could boil without them breaking. Uh so it really does firm up cell walls quite a bit. Um, and it's not readily available, but uh, you know, it is available. It's called Novo Shape is the brand name uh from um novozymes, and it's a pectin methyl esterase. Uh now, so I don't know how long it would take to soak through a cherry.
We're gonna run some tests ourselves at the bar, hopefully, if we can get around to it. Um, but it definitely works on other things. Then high proof ethanol, and you might want to dope a tiny bit of calcium into that high-proof ethanol if you can. It's not gonna be very soluble because calcium will help help also crosslink the pectin and keep those suckers uh nice and uh you know not have them break down and turn to mush. Good luck with it!
Cooking issues. Thanks for listening to this program on Heritage Radio Network.org. You can find all of our archived programs on our website or as podcasts in the iTunes store by searching Heritage Radio Network. You can like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at Heritage underscore radio. You can email us questions at any time at info at heritageradionetwork.org.
Heritage Radio Network is a nonprofit organization. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.
Timestamps may be off due to dynamic ad insertion.