The following program has been brought to you by Rolling Press, a family-run, eco-friendly printing company. For more information, visit Rollin Press.com. I'm Damon Bolte, host of the Speakeasy. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit Heritage Radio Network.org for thousands more.
Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is your guest radio announcer, Phil Bravo here, live from Roberta's Pizzeria on the Heritage Radio Network from Bushwick, Brooklyn. Call in all your questions to 718-497-2128. And now, Dave Arnold. Whoa, yeah!
Yeah, Phil. That's right. Joined not only by the inimitable voice of Phil Bru. His body, who cares? The brain.
Doesn't matter. The voice. The voice of Phil Bravo. Exactly. What is that?
A combination of humpback whale and Godzilla? What is that? It's an air horn. Well, Phil Phil's a huge gator fan. I'm sure he has stock in an air horn company.
I I absolutely do, and Vuvozela's exclusively. What's a is that at the brand of Airhorn to Beat? No, the Vuvuzela. It's the thing from uh South Africa from the World Cup. Yeah, too much.
Oh, that irritated the crap out of everyone? That's the one. Yeah, yeah. What kind of noise does that make? Uh it's like more like a kind of thing.
Uh Phil, by the way, teaches recorder to small children. Uh, and works at uh at the Hall of Carne car Hall of Carnegie, right? Yeah, well it's Carnegie, though. Carn Carnegie and uh Well, you know how Booker pronounces it, right? I know.
Carnegie. Carnegie. Carnegie. Which I think is fitting for what the guy did. You know, he's a robber baron, so Carnegie.
But then he gave it away. He invented philanthropy. Well, kind of Carnage Hall. Kind of. It's like, you know, uh I mean, we all like libraries and stuff, but I don't know that it's like I don't know it's okay to like kill ten people to give a third, you know, uh 11th person a book.
Hey, you know, it's uh you know uh whatever we call that. Yeah, carnage. Yeah. Uh but the uh look, I love the Robert Baron era, I do. I love it.
Uh also joined in the studio by uh Nastasha the Hammer Lopez. Can you say the hammer in Phil voice? Oh, I can do a Nastasio the hammer Lopez. Oh yeah, and Jack in the engineering booth. Jack, you loving this announcement stuff?
Yeah, this is awesome. It's awesome. I mean, Phil, Phil, I'm not gonna make any insults about you personally. Your voice, though, built for radio. It's true, yeah.
I feel like I'm just here to like dance for you, Dave. Uh well, you well, one last dance before we get into some questions. And uh obviously, I don't know if you know this, uh, Phil, because Phil being a friend of uh Nastasha does not listen to this program ever. Sometimes I he listened. When we call him out, she fast forwards to the part where we're calling him out, and then you know, we've said some choice things about Phil in the past.
Uh but as you know, uh when you're on the show, like you're expected to chime in at various points, you know, no silent even announcing bystanders. Uh but before we uh before we go any further, can I please have sad Tony the Tiger? Oh no, see, this is the thing. You said sad Tony the Tiger. I could do happy Tony the Tiger.
No, you no, you'd have the best sad Tony the Tiger. You can do like a like you did this awesome one before. Ava Nastasia. They're great. I mean, you can do that.
Do the do the real Tony Tiger. Well, you have like what do you what do you want? Like, do you enjoy Frosted Flakes? I do. Frosty Flakes.
They're great. See what I'm talking about? You know what I'm saying? They're fine. You know what I mean?
That's a, by the way, uh, for those of you, and I'm not gonna make him do this because he only does this when he's way drunk at the Christmas time. But the voice of Tony the Tiger, the late great Thurl or Ravencroft, who uh was one of the lead uh uh kind of like novelty voices for Spike Jones, not the movie maker, the original musician, because Spike Jones, right? Who did, yeah. And uh also the voice, often misrepresented. The the Grinch, the real one, the cartoon one, not that BS Jim Carrey, you know, nonsense.
The voice was of course Boris Carloff of The Grinch. Everyone thinks Boris sang the song. Nope. Nope. That would be incorrect.
That would be Thurl Ravencroft. He also had a band, but I forget the name of it. I'm sure it was awesome. Wasn't he also the voice in Monster Mash? Uh that I don't know.
I think he was the It Happened in the Lab Late One Night guy. It would make some sense. Have you ever done that song in karaoke? I haven't yet, but now I know it's uh it'll I'll add it to the list. October's not that far away, Phil.
The band is the Melloman. The Mellow Mellon. Can you do me a favor, Jack, and check to see whether my man Thurl did uh the uh it was working in the lab late one night when when his eyes beheld a scary sight. I will look that up. Yeah, nice.
But it doesn't seem like it. You don't think so? I would think it's a good one. I'm searching, it doesn't seem like it. But the thing is it's not a question of whether or not because he was a he was a serious like session guy back then.
So his voice was used in a in a bunch of stuff, like commercials. I mean, a lot of the guys in uh, you know, in that business back then, they were just like, yo, Thurrell, we need someone with the low voice. Why don't you come and record something for me? You know what I mean? And that's yeah, I'm trying to basically uh fill fill that role.
So if anybody wants to want to call it Phil Bravo, that role. And the other thing, you know, like people like uh like some of the great music from the 70s, and I'm not just talking or like 80s, I'm not talking like, you know, the different strokes theme, which is fine as far as it goes, but I'm talking like Sanford and Sun. That's musically great stuff. Yeah, it's fantastic. And you know, it's just like a bunch of like session dudes just showed up in the place when they're like burn, burn, burn, br, burn, br.
You know what I mean? And then that's it. That stuff was awesome. Rockford Files, intensely good tune. You know what I mean?
Session guys in the 70s laid down pretty much uh ton of good music, didn't get paid for. Yeah, we're about in this in the 60s. You got your mission impossible. That's in five, isn't it? Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
Yeah, awesome stuff. Although the new movie, they changed it to four. Yeah, because those D-bag remixing douches couldn't sorry, it's family program. By the way, Phil, it's a family program. Family program.
They're like, no one, no one can move the butts in in five. We've got to put it in four four. Gotta let it be in four four so the butts can move. It's Mission Impossible. Your butt's not supposed to move.
You're supposed to be on the edge of your seat wondering whether these guys are gonna get their faces blown off. Or ripped off as the case might be in uh in Mission Impossible. Exactly. Anyway, a lot of questions to get to. However, you can call into questions to 7184972128.
That's 71849728. Trying to try a little bit of the fill, but I can't go with low fill. I'm more like 7849. That's my my normal radio voice. That's a good Dave impression.
Yeah, squeaky, squeaky, squeaky McGigan. Uh okay. Uh got a call in from Philippe. Lately I've been making fruit juice meringues in the style of El Bully, which translates roughly to the bully. I'm kidding, it doesn't.
Uh El Bully's meat uh beat meat meringue. That'd be kind of awesome. Stars had an I've I for once wanted to be vegan face. That's the only time you've ever had the for once I want it to be vegan face. But you would like a beef broth meringue, right?
Uh in a savory pres. Like you have a savory presentation and like a little puff of like F fifteen? No, no. No? Mm-mm.
I mean, I've had Nori. You like Nori, right? Norian. I don't like the I don't like meringues. I really like You don't like sugar meringues?
I just don't like the texture. I never liked your F50 things. But you don't like also regular egg meringues? No, not really. What about like uh meringue on a soft meringue on a pie?
No. Don't like pies. You don't like pie? You don't like pie? I don't really like pies though.
You don't like freaking pie? I don't like hot fruit. Uh lemon meringue pie is served how jack? Not hot. Not hot.
Phil, what do they serve that? What's that other word I'm looking for? Cold. I'm gonna go for cold. Cold.
I'm gonna go for cold. I'll say fria. Yeah. What about key lime pie? It's not hot fruit.
What the hell? It's not hot fruit, it doesn't mean to be hot. You don't need to heat a pie. You know I don't like puff pastry. Uh what is wrong with you?
Yeah. I I'll eat it. I just don't like it. Well, uh chalk it up on the list of things. Like the only thing that Nastasha really enjoys sour catch goods.
Uh human pain. And pasta. And pasta. Yeah, but how do you not like pie? How do you like pie?
I'll eat it. But like a when you mention key lime pie, does it your key lime pie with a either a meringue or uh a whip topping? That's correct. So although I can eat it, I like it straight. I'm not just I can eat it.
I enjoy almost any form of key lime pie. I prefer not to have the fake green coloring in it. Uh oh, but by the way, uh Phil Florida. Florida. We were trying to get him here the day that Lenny was here because she hates all people from Florida, so we thought it might be awesome.
Yeah, we wanted we wanted not to tell her you were from Florida to see if she hated you. Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna surprise. Oh, uh, you shouldn't. If you're from Florida, she doesn't really hate Florida people, you should still buy her product.
Uh I'll be actually in Key West in two weeks. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah, living the dissolute lifestyle. Exactly.
What's that one song? Uh Largo. No, that's key largo. Montigo, yeah. No, no, you're she's thinking of uh it does say and the Florida keys.
No, no, she's thinking of uh we had it all just like Bogey and Bacall. Yeah, different. Yeah, you know, down where the tray winds blow. Say away to Key Largo. Key Largo, yeah.
Say it away to Keelago, don't get it through my head. My god. Nastasha hung out with the son of that singer. Apparently does not like references to that song. No, it gets angry.
By the way, Bacall's still having it all, not dead yet, which is awesome. I saw her on the street, like maybe she is now, but I saw her on the street like two years ago. It's like Laura McCall. Did you say hi to her? Of course not.
She she saw the look on my face and started shuffling a little faster. Get the hell out of my way. You know what I mean? Lauren Bacall, awesome. Okay, wait a minute.
We're back to the question here. Uh but uh again, I w you know, why don't we get any callers in? Oh, but say say Nastasha, what the hell? How do you not like pie or biscuits or puff pastry? Callers are scared of her, that's why.
Well, I guess with a nickname like the hammer. Right. You know, how can you not be scared? Um, okay. Um, in the style of the El Bullies beet meringue.
I don't think I'd like beet meringue, though. I think most beet juice products taste dirty to me. Like like Jasmine, like dirt. I am using centrifuged strawberry juice. First of all, I would say when you're making a meringue, what you really want is the uh see, because we I'll finish the question first.
I blend it with a s with uh isomalt and uh albumin powder. That's egg white powder for all of you people who don't speak albumin, and isomalt which acts like sugar but is not as sweet. So it's a semi sweet. But if you eat enough, it sure gives you the runzo because you can't digest it. But everyone's like, oh, I ate the ice malt and I poop my brains out.
And they're full of crap. They ate a little bit of isomalt and they think they're gonna poop their brains out. It's like the same thing with I ate two Olestra potato chips and my body was stripped of vitamin D and I was pooping all day. No, that's not how it works. You know what I mean?
But uh, anyways. Um having done these tests myself. Uh now, uh, I let that hydrate overnight, which is a good idea. Egg white uh powder needs to rehydrate for a long time. A lot of times people have trouble uh whipping the egg white powder, they just haven't let it hydrate long enough.
Uh and then I whip it. Give it some whip. Whip. Come on, Stas. I know you like that right now.
Whip. Uh whipped it to stiff peaks. I pipe little kisses. Do you hate that even more? Kisses.
Little kisses. Stas has her I hate kisses face on. Uh onto a dehydrate, dehydrate, dehydrator tray, and dehydrate. They are crisp within three hours. Do you like the word crisp?
Crisp. Uh they're crisp within three hours and they're nice and airy. Except as soon as I take them out, they go soft quickly. I realize this could be Oh! Oh, family program.
Family program. I realize this could be a humidity issue. Whenever anyone says humidity, I think of uh lethal weapon three where the guy goes diplomatic immunity and I say diplomatic humidity. And then like I imagine myself getting shot by uh with that glover, right? Uh no, no, it wasn't a Gibson that shot him.
Was it Gibbs in the shot? Someone will tell us. Um I could realize this could be a humidity issue. I keep them in a deli container with a silica pack. What can I do to keep what else can I do to keep them crisp?
Uh well, uh, you can just leave them in the dehydrator for as long as you want during service. So during service, what I would typically do is leave them in a dehydrator. But you're gonna want to turn your dehydrator way down. Way down. So, like if you're dehydrating, it, let's how do you say way down?
Say way down for me. Way down. Yeah. Uh so like uh if you're normally rocking somewhere between 135 Fahrenheit to 125 Fahrenheit, uh in that range, up to maybe 140, uh, you're gonna really blast them out if you let them go that long. But if you turn it down to like 100, 110, assuming your kitchen's not 110, you'll drive off, you'll keep the stuff uh from uh sucking up too much extra humidity, and you can just keep them for service in the dehigh.
Barring that, what I used to do is get uh mason jars and uh not the not the ones with the little crappy thin lids, the ones with the actual thick rubber seals, and I would put them in uh I would put the the products in mason jars in a vacuum machine, suck a vacuum, and the lid gets sucked down when the air comes back in. Just make sure that the air coming back in doesn't puff the lid off the top, which you'll see what I mean when you do it. And they stay forever in those mason jars, and they don't require the silica packs, and you just open them as you go if you're gonna use a bunch for service. But if you need them to keep going during service, you can use a silica packs or the best way is to just have a dehydrator that you keep out there for service. Yeah?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Try the F50 instead of the meringue. Try the F 50. But I wouldn't centrifuge the uh see.
Here's what's happening. Uh you're you're using the egg white powder to add the protein that you and and the structure that you you took out all the structure when you clarified the juice. So now it's just sugar with some flavor. And so you're adding the egg white powder so that it has the actual like structure that an egg white foam would have, because it literally is an egg white foam. And the sugar to add the bodying uh and the you know the kind of textural effects of the meringue.
If you just you if you just keep it uncle uh if you don't clarify the strawberries, you have all that pectin in there, and that pectin can help provide structure for the uh meringue itself. And then you could just use something like F50, and you wouldn't have to add any extra sugar if you wanted to keep them uh like less sweeter. Do whatever you want. I'm just saying there's alternate ways to do there's alternate ways to do everything, and then it's vegan, but not natural because metal cell ain't natural, baby, it doesn't come in the in the real life in the nature. Okay.
Uh a collar. A color. You're on the air. Hey, Dave, this is Johnny from Memphis. How you doing?
Doing all right. Um, I have a question about uh circulators. Uh-huh. Um after you cure an item, pork belly or whatever, and you wash the salt off. Um will it damage the circulator to like fill it up with the cured item with like cold water, 70 degrees or so, and put the circulator on like 90 Fahrenheit and let it rise up uh to 90 with the uh post-cured item in there.
Wait, see, see wait, so we're gonna get this straight before we go on. You want to you want to keep the item in water, not in a bag, and just have the actual thing circulating like kind of commando style in the in the bath? Correct. Like instead of uh rinsing the item, you know, after transition after the cure. I get you instead of like running water over it for a couple hours.
I get you um, you know, just bring it up to 90 degrees, change the water out, fill it up with cold water again, maybe two or three times. Right. What's your what brand of circulator do you have? Uh a polyfile, I believe it's a classic, just like the first one that came out. Metal?
Yeah. No problem. Here's what you do. Uh you're gonna want to wrap the cage in uh cheesecloth so that uh things like uh, you know, whatever you have in there, mustard seed or whatever, doesn't get sucked into the thing, because that can be a pain in the butt. Uh I've done it before I've circulated wood chips, I've circulated lobster shells and butter, I've circulated everything.
The the only thing you don't want to do is suck particulate matter in through the bottom of the bell because it clogs up quickly. I mean you you'll know when it gets clogged. Uh I've even done it with you know the new plastic guys, they're just a little bit harder to you know clean out. Um but yeah, I would I would go ahead. Because once you once the stuff gets into the bell, then you need to disassemble the bell.
If if if it stops, if you actually put enough particulates into the bell to stop the impeller from running, then you gotta open up the belt. Not the end of the world, but you know, you don't necessarily want it to happen. So I would just you you know make sure that uh you know that you normally if I'm gonna circulate spices in a bath like this, I stick the item in a cloth. And you can actually do that in this case. You can just take the cured thing, wrap it in cheesecloth, tie it, and you'll still get good circulation through, and you'll rinse you won't rinse off solids, but you'll rinse out um soluble items.
You know what I mean? Um but the the other alternative is to wrap the actual circulator itself so that nothing gets stuck in now you you you you don't want to wrap it such that you don't get good flow anymore. That's the that's the the flip side of it. Right. All right.
Thank you. No, also remember if if you want everything to rinse evenly, make sure to keep all of the pieces of meat slightly separate so that water can get in between them. As long as water can get even a little bit in between all of your stuff, you it's everything's gonna even out pretty well. But as soon as two blocks of meat get stuck next to each other, the parts that are stuck together might as well be the thickness of of the both things put together. There's no there's no action happening on them.
You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I'll do it. All right, very good. Good luck. Let us let's know how it works out.
All right, appreciate it. Cool. Thanks. All right. Um wait so Stars, what's this question here?
What am I supposed to do? Uh don't worry about number one. So why'd you put it on the thing? Why do you tell you? What?
I was gonna tell you. Okay. All right, but you didn't. Alright. Thanks, all right.
We got uh this is from uh Brian Garrick. Do we know where you remember where Brian lives? No. No? Good job.
All right. Uh do you know where I could find a three to seven? I sorry it's not from Brian. This is uh this is from uh our boy B. Muncasey.
But where does he live? They don't say. They used to, and then we've Some do, some don't. Anyway, long time question asked. They put it on there, I put it on there.
Yeah, anyway, whatever. Do you know where we could find a three to seven day vacation cooking school to learn modernist techniques? Well, I mean, I used to teach those kind of classes. Uh the FCI or the ICC now, the International Culinary Center, might still teach those classes. Do they still teach us?
Does anyone know whether they still teach those classes? I don't know. Jack, do you know? Because Dorothy was on. Yeah.
I don't. I've kind of fallen out of that kind of you know, the cooking school world. But I'm sure Chef Steps probably does something. I don't know whether they do they do live classes. Do we know?
They probably do some sort of live classes, or if they don't, they'll probably would set them up. But the ICC, I'm sure still runs the low temperature cooking class that uh, you know, we used to teach. They may run still the hydrocolloids class that we used to teach. I know they don't do the Harold McGee class that that we used to teach because then he would call me and say that he was doing that class. And the but the other the other alternative is of course uh see what they got on the chef steps, right?
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Uh okay, and three, what would be uh appropriate streamlined scientific approach to figure out the best in quotes sous vide technique for bull peanuts? Do you uh coming from Florida? Do you like bull peanuts?
I love a boiled peanut. Yeah. I'm telling you. And it's more Georgia. Yeah, but like you ever if you ever go to Northern Florida, that's Georgia.
That's yeah, no, no, absolutely. Gainesville. Yeah, give me give me some give me some southern give me a bull peanut. No, I bull boiled peanut. Yeah, it's not boiled peanuts.
Bald. Bald peanut. I'm like, what the hell is it? Aren't all peanuts bald? I mean, they're kind of sure, no, no, sound boiled peanut, boiled peanut.
And I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? The first time, by the way, that you've had a boil a boiled peanut, you're if you're from the north, uh, like I am, uh, you're like, this is gross. And then, you know what I mean? Do you like boiled peanuts? I don't think I've had one.
Magical. Yeah. So, but like, the first time you have it, you think it's gross, and it's part of the classic American uh not really American, it's kind of worldwide problem of people have expectations, and if something doesn't exactly meet their expectations, like, yeah, it's gross. You know what I mean? Uh, because we're like, peanuts are supposed to be crunchy.
You know what I mean? No, boiled peanut is not supposed to be crunchy. We forget that the peanut legume, peanut legume, and can be cooked uh as such. Boiled peanut tastes not like a peanut. So don't walk in.
If they just called them boiled sack of goodness, you'd be like, oh, those are really good. It's still sold by a guy out of a pickup truck on the side of the road, though. I think it still has the same issue. Well, I mean, in other words, like your two choices down there are those sausages that are soaked in that red goop with a red goop's gun on, like half the way through it, and the boiled peanut. I'd say the boiled peanut's the safer route.
Gonna go with you. Yeah, at least it's boiling. It's not in some vat with like a bunch of weird floaties that who the hell knows what it is. You're like, I think that floaties an onion piece. I'm not sure.
And he's like, Jig it out. I threw some uh boiled eggs in with the sausage vat. You're like, nah, nah. Nah. What's that called?
God knows. God knows. Like, you know what I'm talking about, though, Phil. Boiled vat. Yeah.
You know what I'm talking about. Uh, anywho, uh, the best scientific approach for a sous vide boiled peanut. Well, the first thing you gotta do is you have to decide exactly what constitutes a good boiled peanut for you. First thing I would do is is get a bunch of different kinds of peanuts to do it on. And you're gonna want to get like a good uh uh raw peanut variety.
I mean, obviously I'm partial, although who knows? Like, who knows whether Virginians are the best for boiled peanuts? I don't know, I haven't done the extensive study because you don't need them to be crunchy because they're not gonna be crunchy. But the Virginia peanuts are huge, and so they'll probably be good for boiled peanuts, right? So your first thing is they're gonna be gonna get a good set of uh a good a good supply of the peanuts.
Like that's gonna be your first thing. I mean, I'm sure like when you go to our Chinatown and you get the raw peanuts, they're still in shell, but they've been sitting there for like eight billion million years. Like, just like you know, growing that sweet, sweet aflatoxin. I'm sure that that's not gonna make the best boiled peanut, right? So then you figure out like, okay, okay, I got a good source of peanuts, and then you gotta, well, what do I want out of a boiled peanut?
What is it about a regular boiled peanut? Boiled, what is it about it that you didn't like? You know what I mean? And uh my guess, and you know, I've done this a long time. My guess, not boiled peanuts, but I mean cooking, uh low temp, is that the temperature control on the peanuts is not gonna be that important.
So the advantages you're gonna get out of going sous vide aren't gonna be from a temperature standpoint, they're gonna be from a flavor concentration standpoint because you're gonna be cooking them in substantially less water. Uh I don't think you're ever gonna want to do an out-of-the-shell boiled peanut because God didn't want boiled peanuts to be eaten that way. God wanted you to shell the weird kind of papery wet shell and then put them in that little bowl or throw them out the window of your car. Or just eat them. You eat the shell?
I eat the shell. Wow. Real southerner. I love that. That's where the salt is.
Wow. Alright. So, anyways, my point being figure out what it is you like about a boiled peanut. And then I wouldn't worry about temperature control. What I would do is figure on water level first.
I would choose I would choose without any spices at all. Three different uh water to peanut ratios in a bag. Uh I would uh do it uh at three different vacuum levels, one in a ziploc bag, and then oh actually, you know what? No, don't do plain water. Do salt so you can figure out salt penetration on this, get two tests out at once.
Choose the same salt level on uh for your brine, do three different brine ratios on the peanut and then three different vacuum levels on each brine ratio. Start with Ziploc bags, then a you know relatively full vacuum, like 99%, let's call it like 15 millibar, and then one where you suck the living crap out of it and then inject as much in almost like you were doing uh vacuum infusion. Cook those um those nine bags in at in simmering water at the same time for the same amount of time. Uh pull them out and test them and see whether you can see any difference between them in terms of salt penetration and in terms of peanut flavor. And from there on out, you're gonna start honing in on which of the columns and rows, you know, vacuum level and brine level that you like the most, and you can start honing in on uh kind of where you want it to be.
Once you've done that, then if you want to add spices, you can add them at that point to see how much kind of penetration you get through the shell. Then, yeah, fair? Mm-hmm. Take a break. Uh I can't I can't say it.
Guess announcer has to take us to a break. Uh and now we'll be taking a break. You're supposed to say coming right back with cooking issues. Oh, sorry. Uh we'll be right back with cooking issues, hi everybody.
I'm Phil Calicchio, the host of the Business of the Business here on the Heritage Radio Network. And this summer we are turning five. The Heritage Radio Network is five years old. Since our launch in 2009, we've continued to bring you food and culture content like nobody else in this business. And we need, and when I say need, I mean need your help.
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You're listening to Heritage Radio Network.org. Welcome back to Cooking Issues with Dave Arnold and Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. Hey, Reggie Reggie Watts, got nothing on you. I love him. I mean, he knows how to.
I can't, you know, my favorite song I can't do on the air because this is a family program, but it's a sugar honey iced tea and then other kind of stack. This has not been a family program thus far, as promised. It is a family program. So uh Phil had a Phil, of course, saves his best story for during the break. So I give it a give a little 30 second uh shout out to your uh to your boy peanut friend.
Oh no, so I have uh I just have a very good friend who had a uh in this is in northern South Florida, kind of West Palm area, but would always drive home every day, and there was both the boiled peanut person who was also doubled as the shrimp guy, and he so he would have like shrimp just in the back of his pickup truck, and so it was always the internal debate of is it a bald also bull and bald peanuts. Yeah, but the shrimp also the shrimp were on i know the shrimp were on ice. They were just raw shrimp that you were buying to like bring home. Like he was just like your shrimp monger. So, like, is it okay to buy shrimp from the back of a truck on a random road outside of like Okeechobee?
I don't know. But it turns out Oh, it was great. Yeah. Like after a it was a long Facebook debate, and uh everyone everyone uh was on both sides of the fence. So the new the New York version of that is we used to have a mini meat packing district up at like about 125th Street near where the fairway is now on the west side.
And uh so when you used to come off the west side highway there, there would be dudes in white, not talking like 70s, 80s, I think maybe as late as the 90s, but I don't remember it when I was actually up there in the 90s for grad school. So it's like 70s, 80s kind of thing. Dudes would literally just be on the street, you'd pull off the West Side Highway and 125th Street. This we're talking about by the 24 hour McDonald's for any of you guys who know the neighborhood over there, and just standing out there with meat in their hands. Like meat, like a steak, like a raw steak, like on 125th Street, and you're like, I ain'm gonna buy a steak.
This is what Madonna was talking about when she said New York in the 80s, uh, you know, had more danger. And you know, it was the meat gong and meat guys at 125th. Well, the awesome thing is is like that's like the safest thing you could be doing is buying street steaks, uh, you know, at that at that time. Uh I miss the street steak. You know, it's like I don't like what I never knew was I never knew whether the guy was like, hey, oh Eddie, go out and sell some of these uh steaks.
They didn't pick up the order, they're gonna go bad. Or whether it was, I'm stealing these steaks, I'm gonna sell them because the boss is so drunk, he's not gonna notice. Yeah, right. I mean, I used to have a guy that that kind of happened like with uh parts for sculptures that I was building. So I would go to this place, and I I won't I won't call out who it is, but I would go to this place, and he used to basically, I'd be like, I need like um, I need like some bearings and some sprock, and I would get all this stuff, and you'd be like, Yeah, you come back in like uh half hour, meet me outside, but you know, um cash.
And then like he would give me these great discounts on like uh bearings and stuff. That's that's the way New York used to run. We were so much more like, you know, not like now. Yeah. It's like uh you need bearings?
I got a bearing guy. Yeah, I got a bearing guy. I got a guy that can fix that. But you know what? You're gonna want to bring some cash.
You know what I mean? And uh we're not gonna mention this. Um anyways. So uh let's get some of the questions I missed from last week, yeah? I'm gonna rip them out.
Pierre writes in, hey Dave, Nastasha and crew, and if you knew you were gonna be here, Phil, Pierre would have called you out as well. Thanks, Pierre. Uh thanks for all the great show so far. I'm just about ready to take the plunge and buy an immersion circulator from my home kitchen. Uh I don't even need to, I don't need to explain that anymore for our audience, right?
You know, they they cook things at a very accurate temperature, you know, most important, like culinary advance in the past, you know, couple hundred years, blah, blah, blah, blah. Uh one thing I haven't decided on yet is the packaging method. After reading your Sous vide, it seems that the simplest way to get started uh would be with a Ziploc freezer bags. You are correct, sir. Uh however, I'm not sure how I feel about going through that much plastic in the long run.
Are there any decent reusable options out there? I've heard of people using mason jars for smaller items, but that hardly sounds practical for things like steak, unless you want them to be jar stakes. You know what I mean? I'd notice I didn't say Stas has the don't say tube steak look on her face. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, you did have the look. I don't know whether that's what you're thinking. But that hardly sounds practical or desirable. Not just practical, not desirable for things like steak. The only other option I've come across so far is the and how do you pronounce that Lek U thing?
The Lek you, whatever, uh silicon bag. Uh reviewers weren't too thrilled about the seal and the size, though. Any thoughts? Uh thanks, Pierre. Yeah, there are no good answers to your question uh yet.
I mean, if you're gonna there'sn't just no good answers to your question yet. I mean, I think people are working on it. Uh I know people are working on it, uh, but no one's come up with it yet. I don't like the the the resealable silicone, that's just gross. That's it's just gross.
Like having reused like uh zippies before, which is what we call the ziplocks and the trade, we call them zippies, go get me zippy. Remember when you're buying the ziploc bags. Do not buy buy the freezer bags, the storage bags are uh weak in the technical sense of the term. They're weak. Uh and uh not just in the they are puny and don't do a good enough job.
I mean, they are physically weaker than the uh freezer bags. Do not buy the ones that have the double layer of film. They suck. Also, do not buy the ones with the little uh zippy-doodle thing across the top, that little zippy-doodle, that that that slot racing zippy-doodle across the top. That's for people that what can't seal a bag like a human being.
And they don't hold uh uh a seal as well. So stay away from all of those things. Uh and you know, you could try those those resealable silicone jaws, but they're also thicker, so it's gonna take a little bit longer to get your heat transfer through them, yada yada. The people are working, let me just say people are working on it. Like in the next six years, there will be.
Here's my prediction. My prediction is this. Uh, and maybe I can get Phil to say it. In the next six years there'll be a biodegradable sous e bag. In the next six years, there will be a biodegradable Su V bag.
There you go. And so while we're waiting, if I were you, I would just stick with the uh with the polyethylene uh zippies, and don't worry, we will get around to saving the world in the next six years, right? Yeah, all right. Uh okay. Let's get some more of these uh questions that I missed from before.
We get some short ones, so I'm making a good I always you know what sucks is when I miss the short ones because like I sit around yapping for everyone and then uh you know, whatever. Uh hello everyone. Uh this is from uh Mildred Cady in Albany, New York. Uh I like when people tell me where they're from in a thing. You know, don't you like that, Phil?
The number people are from. I like that. If only Anastasia would uh would put that in there for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless it's unless it's Lena who doesn't want to know that you're from Florida.
Although she loves people who like gluten-free products from Florida. Those are the those those are the good kind of Floridines. They're the good ones. Uh I've been enjoying the show. This is uh this is uh Mildred actually.
She she she didn't enjoy the show, she had a uh a different question. Um I think wait now I'm getting all confused okay. Okay, I'm a new listener, but I've been avidly progressing through the back catalog of my daily commute. Uh I already love the show. I've been spreading the good word to others, so thank you for doing what you do.
I love eggs. I didn't answer this question alright, did I? Okay. Uh I love eggs and eat them near every morning. Good call.
The Incredible. Edible egg. There you go. I have a Volrath Steelcoat X3, 7-inch nonstick pan. They're starting to get a buildup of materials that don't seem to come off with dish soap.
And oh, this is not this is not Mildred's question. Shaq. This is uh Michael's question. I get all confused. You know why people?
Because I'm stupid. Uh this is Michael's question. Um with soap and hot water. Do you know what I could use to get it nice and clean again and still retain its nonstick properties? Uh or could you recommend a better nonstick pan for eggs?
So the question is like, I guess for eggs. Uh do you even like nonstick pans, Michael? Uh P.S. I saw the patty melt video uh that I did recently, and all of the home kitchen. I don't have that kitchen anymore.
Styles like my new kitchen better. Uh and your zero compromise approach. Uh Stas definitely hates my zero compromise approach. Um okay. So the deal with nonstick pans is um they have uh a coating on them, and what you don't want to do is uh scratch the coating because that's that's the kind of what you don't want to do.
So uh I mean, quick and simple, like just go buy Scotch Bright pads. Uh let the pan soak for a little if you have deposits on it. Like certain things are gonna stick to a nonstick pan. So, for instance, like the the one thing that I have that is completely nonstick, and I I don't I have one regular nonstick pan, one. It was a scan pan, I've beaten the crap out of it, and it's useless now.
I use it only to cook things that I don't care about. Like, this is gonna sound bad. Like bacon. I don't really care how bacon cooks because I don't cook tilapi I don't cook tilapia at all. I cook that using my garbage can.
Like, that's the best way to cook tilapias with the garbage can. But the um the uh, you know, speaking of tilapia, uh I am going to be at uh Toron in Toronto tomorrow, uh doing the Toronto International Food and Film Festival or something like this. TIFF, not TIFF, the uh the graphics format, but TIF the Toronto International Food and Film Festival. And so like is this hilarious? Uh so the person who set it up that like they're like you could they're gonna ask you why you chose the movie.
I'm like I didn't chose you chose the movie for me. Don't you remember? But no anytime you do something you have to pretend that you chose the movie. So the movie I'm doing is Soil and green. And so what I'm just gonna say is that tilapia is like right it's one of the soilants.
You know how there's multiple soilants there's like soil and red, soylent you know soylent whatever and soylent green. It's green by the way I don't want to spoil the movie for you. It's made of people it's the only one that's made of people apparently well who knows we don't ever figure out what the other soylants were made of. Tuesday is a Soil and green day by the way in the movie. Like you get the different soylents on different days.
Oh okay anyways. It's like a six minute warning. Oh Jesus uh tilapia right up there. Um right up there. Uh okay uh so uh but the one thing that you do need to have non stick is your waffle iron.
So like I have a boatload of cast iron sizzles that I use sizzles like uh you know little sizzle pans that I've used for you know well over a decade and right now like I use them exclusively for eggs but they've been uh you know I seasoned them well the first time around and I use them constantly and I keep them in good shape and so you know they're amazing for eggs. Uh but you know your waffle iron uh the amount of time it takes to get it properly seasoned so that a waffle actually releases from them is longer than I have patience to do. And so uh I've tried using cast iron waffle irons and they suck this by the way do you know that's why waffles have such a high fat content in the old recipes, is they were built for uh old school cast iron waffle irons, and so they need uh a uh an abundance of oil to release properly. And a modern waffle recipe doesn't need qu nearly as much uh oil in it just for organolectic properties to get it to uh to work. And so you can, you know, that's one little known fact about waffle recipes.
I don't cut the fat down because I don't care. Uh but anyway, so like uh but those like if you make the mistake of putting blueberries in I mean, not taste mistake, they're delicious. Although he's not gonna like waffles, right? No, I do. Uh whoa.
Uh put blueberries in your waffles, they will burn onto the non stick because the sugar will stick and burn onto the nonstick, and that is a business to get off of that uh thing. So I I feel where you're coming from. So, what you want to do is like soak it in water a little bit, buy the specific Scotchbrite pads that are made uh to be non-stick. I mean, sorry, to be non-scuffing. They make specific non-scratch scotch bright pads that are made for non-stick pans.
Don't believe anything anyone says about it's okay to use metal utensils. The particular one you have has steel uh particles mixed in with the non-uh stick coating, and the idea being that when you're scraping a spatula across it, it won't get damaged as much because the steel on steel will resist, and so that's why they do that. They also have one that's one level above yours, where instead of steel particles they use slightly more expensive ceramic particles, and everyone now is moving away from Teflon so that uh because because apparently it can release uh PFOA or periphlo perfluorooctinoic acid, and people are worried it's gonna cause cancer. So people are moving away voluntarily from using Teflon in their pants. Hopefully, by 2015, they're supposed to have uh people are supposed to voluntarily have taken it away.
But anyway, uh there you have it. Is that a good good answer? Semi-good answer. Okay. Uh now on to Mildred's actual question.
Uh I'm gonna have to do it quickly. I've been enjoying the show and working through the back episodes uh because I've been enjoying it so much. I'm writing because I have a dilemma. I'm currently living with my two best friends, conveniently they're married to each other. He's half Korean and cooks like it, and she's allergic to soy sauce and other forms of soy.
Uh soy. By the way, soy lent, supposed to be a mixture. I I heard of soy and lentils. Soy lent. Uh not soy that you eat in Lenten times.
Um he has a Korean BBQ sauce marin uh uh marinade. That's three-quarters soy sauce that we all miss him being able to make. So I'm looking for a soy sauce substitute that can be made in bulk. She doesn't like fish sauce, which is one of the more common Asian umami sources after sources after soy sauce. She barely tolerates Worcester sauce because she can tell it has anchovies in it.
Yes, you can. One thing you could do is get wheature sauce, spin it in a centerfuge, and the anchovy drops to the bottom. But you need a centrifuge for that. Uh we tried Vegemite slash marmeat since it's another fermented grain condiment, but it's so thick we've had problems thinning it enough for a sauce because uh we lose the umami tone. Do you have any suggestions?
Or did I already kill the other options? Thanks for your time and keep it uh awesome. Mildred Katie from Albany, New York. Okay, here's some quick things because Jack's gonna rip us off the air in a couple minutes. Uh if you have money to spend, uh coconut aminos, which you can get in uh the Whole Foods are pretty good, and they're like some sort of like fermented coconut product, and they don't contain soy.
Uh I believe Bragg's uh liquid aminos do contain soy, so you have to stay away from those. Um another thing is make some of the old school fermented mushroom uh sauces. So if you go look up any of the old uh like like catch ketchup like recipes, like from uh from like George Washington Times, uh you they have like mushroom ketchup recipes that uh you can look up, and those um can be fermented, and you can and you can get them to you because mushrooms already have a lot of umami, so then when they when they're cooked and then uh allowed to steep and do their own business, you know, you you you can get that much out of it. You could you could also use them as a fermentation source to make your own Worcestershire sauce as opposed to something like anchovies and fish look Worcestershire sauce is the modern equivalent of a fish sauce for British tastes they also have a really other one could called uh the gentleman's relish pipperums whatever it's like it's like anchovies and butter and pepper mixed up in a little tin. Can say gentleman's relish for me please it's a gentleman's relish.
Oh yeah but I let my wife have it anyway stuff's good uh so uh try one of those things and you know anything that has some form of substrate uh with proteins that uh breaks down over long fermentation period you're gonna be able to get those nice uh umami things but think mushrooms uh think coconut aminos uh and uh you know work with it and those things are a good although you know what you gotta get is is it I forget is it is it the it's the wife that doesn't like the the that can't have the soy and doesn't like the fish right I think so yeah I would just do like a little bit of fish sauce every day and just work her up to that sucker because fish sauce is yo delicious and you can also look for this uh Japanese fish sauce called ishiri the ones made not don't tell her made exclusively of squid guts that stuff tastes like liquid meat oh another thing people sorry not to blast your ears out uh another thing uh people do is they make soy substitutes by using concentrated uh broth like bullion if it doesn't taste the same but you know uh what they're really doing there is jacking the MSG so it's like another thing you could do just saying is add something like like that has a little bit of that protein amino action and then a little bit of the MSG. But Nastasha is one of the people that think she's allergic to MSG. By the way, you know, I have a capsule uh remember we yeah, we got the cap we got this let's write in if you give a crap about this. But they have the we we bought a gelatin capsule packer or or vegetarian, you don't have to be gelatin' uh for the event we did in uh at UCLA. And uh we were thinking of actually doing a double blind radio, like male uh double blind placebo controlled uh MSG study with our own packed gel caps where like I would pack them with numbers on the packets, Stas would mail them out to people, and then we get reports back on the radio.
And I know it's not scientific because I can't control whether you guys are liars or not, but I feel that our radio listeners are good people and they won't cheat, right? And then we could have like a uh it's not legal also because I'm not allowed to do research, but if we're just having fun, then we're just having fun. Do we have the insurance for this, Shaq? Uh yeah, sure. Yeah, anyway.
So what I'm saying is is like if if if there's if there's interest in this, we could run a uh controlled uh thingamajig. Right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I don't have three minutes?
No. I don't have three minutes. All right, so let me just go over the list of questions that I didn't answer and we'll have to answer next time. Oh, jeebus. No, jeebus.
This is how we're gonna end the shows from now on. Simon, Simon, I s I swear on several stacks of Bibles. Your question on um your question on carbonation will be the very Simon from the UK. Well I might be there in November for the book. Okay.
I don't know. Uh will be the very first question that I'm gonna answer uh next time. Nastash hopefully will remember to tell me that. And we had uh two qu uh a couple questions we didn't get to today. One on shad berries.
They had a question on mulberries. Uh listen, the trick with mulberries is uh I'll say really quickly, I'll do it more in in depth next time. I'm gonna get to the ice cream question uh that that's also here that I didn't get to. Uh but on mulberries, uh when you're looking for mulberries, uh the problem with mulberries is the black mulberry and the white mulberry hybridize very readily between each other. So a lot of the mulberries you see on the street here are combinations of the two different mulberry varieties because they so readily hybridize, and the taste is radically different from tree to tree.
Sometimes even within a tree itself, you'll get tasteless mulberries and mulberries that have a good acid balance. So what you need to do is wander around the city, and stars and I did this one year. Uh we wander around the city, and whenever you see a mulberry tree, taste one. If you like that mulberry tree, go back there next year. Get everything you can, and then go back uh next year.
But you cannot judge a mulberry tree by the first even five trees that you taste. And that is Phil Cooking Issues with Dave Arnold. Thanks for listening to this program on Heritage Radio Network.org. You can find all of our archive 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 anytime at info at heritage radio network dot org. Heritage Radio Network is a 501 C3 nonprofit. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.
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