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You're listening to the Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, please visit Heritage Radio Network.org for thousands more. Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues, coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network from Robert's Pizzeria in Bushwick. Brooklyn every Tuesday from roughly 12 to roughly 1245, 1 o'clock.
No. You know how we do. Uh joined as usual in the studio with uh Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How are you doing, Stas? Good.
We got Dave in the booth. What up? No, and today, special guest from Del Posto, the only Italian restaurant rated four stars by the New York Times, Chef Mark Ledner to talk about his new book, the Del Postar Cookbook, along with the co-author, uh Michael. Michael, what's your last name? Wilson.
Wilson. No relation to like the music musical Wilson's name. No, unfortunately. So you don't have that kind of familial mess up to like because that'd be a good story if you had like, you know, weird Wilson stories. Uh I'm sure there's tons of weird Wilson stories because there's a lot of us, but I don't have any good ones.
Not related to the tennis ball people. No. Any like any weird Wilsons in your back? No, uh, probably, but I don't know any of the stories. It's sort of boring, sorry.
All right. You know what I found out my last name means yesterday? Strangely? Eagle power. Like Arnold is like some German version of Eagle Power.
Anyway, call in your questions for Mark Ladner, to uh 718 497 2128. That's 7184972128. How are you doing, Mark? I'm doing great, Dave. Thanks for having us.
And uh thank you, the hammer, for inviting us out here on the show to talk about our book. Uh we're excited to be here. Uh excited to see you as always. Yeah, yeah. Well, so why don't you give us a why don't you give us a give us a lowdown on your book?
I can't touch it yet because I'm soaking wet. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's really it's really crummy outside. Yeah, and you know what? You know what New York New York is like a choose your own crappy adventure when it rains.
It's like, you know, especially you being tall, you're gonna get poked in the eye by some idiot's umbrella. That's true. Chinatown is a dangerous place to go on any day. Oh my god. And then, like, you know, uh there's construction everywhere in New York City all the time, but they put these like theoretically helpful things to stop like bricks from falling on your head, but they funnel you through these undrained things.
So you're going a whole block under this thing with like a bunch of people with umbrellas, like, get your bell out of my way, get your bell out of my way, get your bell out of my way. And then at the last minute, like there's a giant puddle that can't be jumped or forwarded or anything. And of course, I'm not wearing waterproof shoes, right? Uh of course not. Uh and so, but the lady in front of you just stops.
Like, like there's an alternative. Lady, turn back or go. Turn back or go. You know what I'm saying? And then when you get to the platform after you wait for that lady to go, of course, you see the You see that subway pulling away because that extra five seconds that that lady stood there like a like a cow looking at the thing.
People in New York people in New York are like cattle. Like just men and women walking around, cow-like, staring off into space, moving slowly, right? Do you nostalgia, you hate that? I hate it. Hate it.
Hate. Hate. Hate. Nothing, no. So what'd you do with the public?
No offense to cows. Straight through? I mean, what's the choice? I mean, I what I did was I like I I can one of my feet I'm gonna get wet, right? So I jump in and like the the first foot hits, I'm like, that's done.
Because I'm wearing sneaks. You know what I mean? They're like totally porous. They're meant to breathe. They're not meant, you know.
And what's the what's more fun? Mark, you'll know about this. What's more fun than walking around all day with a wet foot that never drives because uh because it's you know raining out and human? What's it what's the best part? Yeah, um the fact that your foot will potentially never recover.
Because I'm still suffering from the same uh athlete's foot I had probably 30 years ago in my first episode. Wow. I didn't think about the permanent I was thinking more of the sweet, sweet stench in the evening when you take off your, you know, like you know, eight hours, nine hours, ten hours later, when you finally get home, you peel that wet shoe off your foot. This is why I tell my son Booker, socks, wear socks. New York is not a town for the sockless, unless you're one of these hipsters in those sandal things.
But if you wear sneakers, if you wear a fully encased foot, you should put socks on that thing. What do you think? The porous uh confidence clock. Listen, um, Mario Town coming in and talking to us about the crocs. Are you allowed any color of croc or do you have to go orange when you're over there at Del Posto?
No, he is reserved the orange for himself. So what's the Del Posta color? Like a like a nice native? Like a black or blue, yeah. What do you what do you rock?
The blue or the black? Uh I wear the uh Brigard slipper clog. Ooh, is that the with the black leather one? With the with the nails. They come in black or white.
With the nails in the side. Yeah. That was pretty strong. They're not they're not wood though, they're like slippers. So it's like you're cooking in your jammies.
Exactly. Are you should I buy you a silk chef's outfit? That would be sick. That'd be awesome. Like Sakai.
Oh my god, that'd be amazing. So I was talking to Jen, my wife, about this. I was like, you know, look. I was like, Dax, I was like, Dax, you know, like my skin right now is fundamentally it's sandpaper. If I touched a silk garment with my fingers, it would like be instantly shredded.
You know what I mean? Like all like the crusty like callus and everything. If it touched my face, it would just rip off and there'd be like you know, silk mess all over my face. And any second. The very the very first iron chef I ever did with Mario back uh many years ago.
We uh we did a collaboration with Sakai, the Japanese uh French uh chef, and he had like silk pajamas on and these like uh slipper clogs. The guy was like floating around kitchen stadium like it was Hugh Hefner or something. So you have to shitty yourself if you're gonna do that, right? Yeah, it was never sandpaper your hands and he really he really showed us how it's done. Yeah, Jen told Dax he wasn't allowed to wear silk.
He she's like, you can't do it. I was like, what about silk jammies? I'm thinking of getting a pair of silk jammies. I mean, anything feel better than the silk jammy? I couldn't afford it when I was a kid.
I was like, my mom's like, you can have that like weird satin stuff. What was that stuff made out of? It's like spun plastic. Silk A. Yeah, you know, real flammable back in the 70s.
You know, like in the 70s, they used to make kids' pajamas, especially to catch on fire. You know what I mean? Like that as one way to get rid of them. Anyway, okay. So uh back to the book.
Uh talk to me. Yeah, so it's you know, it's a restaurant cookbook. Uh Del Posto being a restaurant that's uh going on uh just entered its 12th year, so we have quite a bit of material that uh we wanted to cover. Uh Michael and I have been spending the better part of God, I think the first conversation might have been as long as five years ago. So not with me.
Uh not with you. Uh but it's been uh I came on improved like last week. Like last week. Quite a process, and uh yeah. So uh, you know, we chose some dishes that we felt strongly about.
And the interesting thing is that Michael really encouraged us to create a book that was uh approachable to the home cook, meaning uh getting rid of some of that professional restaurant speak. And so we actually did it in a very unorthodox way. We uh chose the dishes and photographed them first, and then spent close to two years going back and uh deconstructing and re-en engineering all the recipes so that they uh contained, you know, sort of lay uh home kitchen language, which uh I guess the only uh negative part of that is that the it it creates very, very long recipes because to long wording or like long wording, yeah, yeah, exactly. So uh and they take a long time too. Let's know what's not.
These aren't gonna these aren't like quake night recipes, but they do work. They're broken into parts and they are like our audience not scared. Our audience not scared by this. That's true. Actually, we're more scared about the questions they might ask us than them actually being able to complete the recipes.
But uh yeah, so they're incredibly thorough, and something that you probably don't see very often. And uh we spent a tremendous amount of energy, you know, uh laboring over the language to make sure that it was understandable from people that were enthusiasts but not necessarily experts. So is a hundred layer lasagna in there? Of course. Okay.
Now let me ask uh that's like like what are your most most favorite like you you sh you show up at the restaurant you get the you get the Arancini with the with the gold thing right is that in there? Yeah Marcese it's in there. Yeah. And then you got your hundred layer lasagna you got your little that's easy. What about like your like uh your house pastas are they in there?
Like yeah we have a couple different recipes. Your DP coins what are those called I don't remember. We're working this new one now that's actually little toys so they're all different shapes which is pretty interesting. Like what like but like extruded shapes or like actual fish stuffed stuffed shapes but like mix match measty kind of thing. Yeah.
Like donkeys and puppets? Only if only we had uh you know don't start 3D printing pasta mark we'll have to have a fist fight right here. People that nimble if we'll beat me I'm sure I don't know. Yeah. Where's the uh where's this uh this uh centrifuge we'll talk about it in a minute we're talking about let's talk more about this thing dude even Stasia says you carry it on your back like an infant is that true I did last week I I brought it here because we had to do something but like I'm printing out I'm printing out some uh I'm I'm um remaking the lid so the centrifuge is designed to constantly feed new product in so I I had to print so there's a thing called a feeder tube part of the patented process of making the spinzall.
It's the reason why no one else can build the spinzall the way we can do it because we got a patent on it or patent pending. Anyway so it's this tube feeder that feeds the thing in and um that's what allows it to do continuous feeding. So I was uh building a new a new tube system on the bottom to you know increase the clarity of continuous versus batch mode. And I did like, I don't know, I did like uh oh like two and a half liters of strawberry in a row yesterday, and it was perfect. I actually took it to Otto.
I was making uh strawberry cordial for the uh drinks I was slinging at Oto last night. But uh it leaves me to uh this. So like I'll just say but we should talk about the book and then come back and talk about the center. That's that's uh that's about it. So it's you know broken down into chapters, uh antipasti, premi, secundi, uh dolce.
There's an entire chapter just on gelato and sorbetti, which is unusual. And we have a question about that actually. I really okay, cool. Yeah. You want to hear that question?
Sure, I'd love to. All right. So the and didn't we have a question last week, Nastasia? But we answered it, right? We theoretically answered it.
But then do you, yeah. I'm hoping that Chef Ladner is going to be on the show this week. Well, you are in luck, Ellie. Um I just received the Del Posto book this week and I'm enjoying it very much. What caught my eye are the gelato recipes.
They use egg yolks but are not cooked. This seems peculiar. I like the word peculiar. You like the word peculiar? It reminds me of Marvin Gay.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh this seems peculiar and I've never seen it before. Why? Do they s uh still thicken the mixture like a custard would?
Are they left raw for texture or flavor? I'm looking forward to trying the recipes out soon, but would like to hear Dave and Mark's thoughts about this topic. Thanks, Ellie Nasser. Now I have my own thoughts on this going way back from other you know, from pastry chefs I've known one particular one. Uh no, well, uh make Sam Mason, actually.
Of course, yeah. Yeah. Um but anyway, go ahead. You give give your g give your spiegel. Well, you know, uh definitely making more.
You know, most of these uh recipes were at least uh initially formulated by Brooks Headley, the uh pasta genius, I mean the pastry genius now at uh Spearity Burger. And then um our current pastry chef uh uh Justine McNeil sort of completed the initial thought. But um, you know, Brooks has always been a firm advocate of the hang and of the really chewy viscous uh texture so that it uh you know hangs around your mouth a little longer, you can taste it a little uh a little better. Um you know, you can really similar to mayonnaise, you know, sometimes you're you're rolling the dice. I mean on uh on the safety, yeah, but what functionally why not cook it?
Uh graininess. So Sam Mason. Yeah, uh back when I first got to know him after WD opened in like I don't know, like oh three or whatever, whatever. It opened right around then, right? Oh two or oh two, oh three, yeah.
When I got to know him, uh, you know, I came to realize that he had a bunch of ice cream recipes where he wasn't cooking uh the egg yolks, but it was still a custard base, wasn't Philly style. Basically, no one in New York makes Philly style uh none of the big restaurants I know do a Philly style ice cream, um which is weird, even in a Paco Jet, you think someone would do a good Philly style ice cream. Maybe you can't, maybe it overturns in a pot. I don't know. I haven't tried it.
But anyway, uh I love good Philly ice cream. You do you like, yes. But has to be super fresh, has to be super fresh. Um anyway, so I was like, yo, Sam, uh, why you don't cook your egg yolks? And he's like, I don't like the aroma and taste of the cooked egg, but I like the texture that they the kind of like smo the smooth uh texture that the egg yolks bring.
And so the the deal with not cooking the egg yolks is what they're not gonna bring is the thickness of a cooked creme on glaze. It's just not gonna have that thickness. That said the thicker you cook your creme en glaze, the more eggy it tastes. So you can't like win on that account. Like if you're trying to thicken up your uh your on glaze base and thickening on glaze base is really good if you're gonna serve it as a sauce, right?
Or if you're really worried about meltdown. So like you know a thicker en glaze base will do a slower meltdown than a thinner on glaze base. And you know basically all this is creme all these ice cream recipes is a flavored creme en glaze, right? So um but uh the ex the what you pay for with that thickness is egg taste and he hated it. He hated that egg taste and you know what I'm talking about.
If you especially like for a pastry chef who cooks with eggs all day long that residual egg nose that you get like after you wash out a stainless steel you know when you wash out a stainless steel bane that's had eggs in it and you're like freaking that egg smell you know what I mean it's more like a Sabillon or a hollandese or something. Yeah so he didn't he didn't like it so he didn't cook the eggs and then later on you know um he started pasteurizing the eggs low temp so he would use pasteurized yolks. Yeah. So they would still uh be they would be safe but they uh ish but they wouldn't um have that cooked note because you can take a an egg yolk you know up to uh 57 pasteurize it for like an hour and and it still is raw smelling you know what I mean it doesn't have that cooked kind of egg thing. Um Michael do you remember any of the conversations happening when we were developing these recipes related to the the yolks um I remember s I remember it being brought up as a potential safety issue.
Um and then we decided there probably wasn't that it would be pretty rare that anyone that was cooking out of this book was gonna have a safety issue with their eggs. But um also if it tastes too eggy, it doesn't taste Italian. I mean there isn't like a there isn't any sort of inher inherent egginess in Italian gelata. Are are your gelato recipes like you said Brooks likes the chew, are they heavily stabilized? So that's like true Itali it's like there's all these it like people who are like true Italian no true Italian gelato has stabilized to the freaking gills, right?
So you don't need the melt protection from a thick on glaze base when you are uh if you're going to add uh stabilizers. The one thing about adding stabilizers, obviously, depending on which stabilizers you use you use, is uh that you need to uh you need to punch the flavors up. I mean that's why like Italian flavors, they're smooth but they're so punchy, because they have to add so much flavor for that level of uh of hit Hey, you know what I want you to try? You know what we should try sometime? Uh maybe in the next week or so.
Uh i it's not like commercial quantity, like you couldn't do it in a restaurant, but the paste that's left over in the Oh, I can only imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you take a centrifuge, you spin it, you get the paste, spin that into an ice cream. It's got a uh it's got like a a grainy like pumpkin pie texture, at least a peach that we did.
Um, but it's so freeing smooth and dense because what you do is you take your fruit, your fruit of choice, you hit it with the pectanex, it wipes out the st the structure and everything. Well, and then it just all oh what the sweet potato is nuts. If we do the sweet you even like the sweet potato puree. And Nastasi hates everything. So the sweet potato puree, what you do with a sweet potato is you take the sweet potatoes, you cook it, right?
And then you um just blend the hell out of it with the same enzymes that distillers use to do sacrification for their warts and stuff, and you get this hyper, and then you spin it to get rid of the liquids, right? And then you just have this like hyper uh concentrated, super sweet, no sugar added sweet potato puree. Just add like a little cream to that mother and spin it. You want to do it? I'm sure the applications are just infinite.
We can make this puree. We can make a small amount, like just in a kitchen aid because you have LN over there uh at Del Posto. It'd be fun, right? Yeah. And we'll do it.
Uh tell people about it. But like even just um like uh fruits like um strawberry and whatnot, like you're just not used to having something that's so smooth but so high solids. I mean, that's the thing so high. For instance, I'll give you an example. So when I did um I did uh 1.75 actually, I did 1.75 kilos of strawberries yesterday in a batch to do continuous mode on my centrifuge.
And uh I got 13 I got 1350 uh mils of juice. So if you think about it, that's like 70 that's like 70 something percent yield, which means that the residuals that left over are sa lit. You know what I mean? Because there's no water. Yeah, I mean it's like I mean there's yeah, I mean, like compared, it's like compared to what an original strawberry was.
So, like anyway, it'd be fun to play with. And is that just like a Driscoll regular available commercial? Uh you could say garbage strawberry, yes. It was a garbage strawberry, but it still tastes good. Well, there are some advantages to garbage strawberries, and we can talk about that now.
So uh I'll get to the I'll say something about the spinzole. I should give the pitch, right? Because Nastasia is like, we're all nervous about this. So listen, so for those of you that don't know, uh, we are pre-selling the spinzole. Should I give it I'll give it the spinzall?
It's the only centrifuge designed specifically for the kitchen and bar. So we're pre-selling this thing uh for six ninety-nine. Make sure you check out the videos on Instagram there. Yeah, I'm gonna put up some more. We have a bunch more videos uh that we're gonna put up.
In fact, I'm going to Chef Steps uh on Thursday. Tomorrow. I mean on Wednesday, and uh and then I guess maybe we're meeting with Kenji in San Francisco on Thursday to try to push it out. We'll do a video on Facebook Live with the Chef Steps and show it. But what is Nastasia's uh spinzall uh pitch look sound like just buy it.
Come on, Stos. Buy it. That's Nastasia right there. Right. So I'll say this.
So like the spinzall does 500 milliliters at a time batch, which is the more than most home people need for most applications they're doing. But it also does what's called continuous mode, where you just stick the pipe, uh you stick a tube in it, it pumps it through and just feeds it through and continuously operates it. And so, like orange juice, you could probably do you could probably do like I don't know, a gallon or two at a time uh without stopping. And then what would you know to change the basket? It depends on the solids ratio.
So for something like strawberries, I probably wouldn't do more than like uh th two, three, three liters maybe at a time because you don't want the solids to overflow the rotor. Um but something like lime juice or grapefruit juice or orange juice gallons because there's not a lot of solids in there. Um so really everything depends on the on what you're on what you're doing. Really, the best application, one of the best I'll give you some applications for chefs. Let's forget the bar application.
By the way, yeah, I will say this. Uh you go to modernist pantry.com forward slash spins all to pre-order it. Now, I want to say something to people so they get this. Uh if you do not pre-order, if we do not sell a thousand of these pre-order, then we can't afford to build it and we won't build it unless some angel comes in, which we don't expect, right? So if we don't sell a thousand of them, they just don't get made.
I mean, that's it. Uh, and then I'm just left with that one prototype, wah wah. I call the people in China that Nastasi and I have been working with for two years on this project and tell them, you know what? Sorry, folks, we fold it up, we walk away. I mean, that's unfortunately, yeah.
I mean, that's that's what's gonna happen. Yeah. So if you don't order it, we won't build it. But here's one of the people, someone came up to me. I'm not gonna say who it is.
It was Don Lee, uh the cocktail guy. Uh then he goes up to me, he's like, hey Dave, hey, why didn't you just use Kickstarter? Why didn't you just Kickstart this? Why do you gotta use your own crowdfunding that's not oh that's if wow? So Don doesn't talk like that, by the way.
Uh but the point is is here's the reason, one of the reasons why. With Kickstarter, part of it was uh Nastasia, I mean to be honest, Nastasia hates Kickstarter, but uh but she hates everything. She hates biscuits, like that's gonna stop me from making biscuits, right? But the the point is uh we're really taking the risk on ourselves. And this is what I think is not clear.
With a Kickstarter, if you if the campaign gets funded, you all of your money is gone into a hole. And then you either get the product or you don't. Whether you know, you know, if depending on whether or not the people who are making it are competent, blah blah blah. Uh, you know, that money is gone. You can't get it back.
That's part of the thing about Kickstarter. One of the reasons we did this is we didn't want people to feel like they were taking a risk. It's one of the weird kind of incorrect peop notions that people have about they feel safer on Kickstarter somehow because it's because kick pe I know about Kickstarter, right? So they feel safer on it, even though literally as soon as that campaign is over, your money goes into a pit that may or may not, and you may or may not ever get your reward. Well, the other misconception is that money gained uh earned on Kickstarter is free money, which is the most certainly.
But in our campaign, you can get a refund up till the up till the very point at which we ship you the unit. So there is zero risk to uh pledge in the spinzall campaign. Zero risk. So you pledge now, what you're telling us is that I'm gonna want we're gonna spend the money, right? Because we need to build the the spinzalls, but at some point you're like, you know what?
Uh I don't uh it turns out I hate awesome things. It turns out that like it turns out I am an enemy of quality after all. And uh, you know, uh you could be like, you know what, Dave, you know what, Nastasia, I want my money back. And we're like, okay, fine, boom, here's your money back. And that's one of the main reasons we did it is that the risk, the risk is on us.
So you should feel like super uh safe going out there and uh and and getting it. Anyway, uh and remember, you don't you don't buy it, we don't build it. So what are some of the other applications aside from bars? Right. So it like so what Rennie Rizepi did I tell you about the thing with like everyone who's chasing stars.
We're like back in the day. Or anything, but the thing is he does he does he what does he have? Does he have two or three at NOMA? He has two, but yeah, but he's got like the Pellegrino, like he was like the top restaurant in the universe, which you know I hate all those ratings, right? I need to test them.
They're stupid. They make no mean oh, unless we have one. But like you know what I'm saying. It's like the idea of the I mean like I like anything that helps my uh the people I know are good people, like get more business. I'm for people getting business, and if if like awards and like accolades like this are what it takes for people to go to someone's restaurant who works hard, great.
You know what I mean? Anyway. I think it does, it helps. It helps, yeah. I mean, like, I wish that wasn't what helped, but it does, and so therefore I'm glad when you know my friends get these things.
But um, you know, fabulous and uh Jeremiah got their first Michelin star recently. Well deserved. Yeah, yeah. At uh Contra Contra got the star, right? Yes, Contra.
Yeah. Uh although while they're deserved one as well. Yeah, because I mean they're they're joined kitchens, basically. They share their like not joined, but like there's a just one wall between them. Anyway, not talking about that.
So uh proteges of yours, though. What? Proteges of yours. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Uh what we're talking about. Oh, wait, Rennie Rizepi. So Rennie, we used to Nastassi and I, when like someone was like trying to get all those awards, we'd be like, and we didn't think the someone was gonna get it, we'd be like, yo, wake up and smell the red Zeppi. You know what I mean? Because it's like it's like, you know, hey buddy, you're not gonna get there.
You're not gonna be Renny Rizeppi. Wake up and smell it. You know what I mean? Just be yourself. Anyway, uh, anyway.
So the uh that's neither here nor there. So uh uh Ariel um Johnson, who was at the Nordic food lab for many years before she moved to MIT recently, uh, she said that one of the main things that they do in the centrifuge is herb oils. So but they they do crazy herb oils. So like I asked her, they do like almost like one-to-one herb to uh herb to oil. So it's it's like pesto thick, yeah, right?
And then they spin the solids off. So like I don't do it that thick because I think it's kind of absurd, and I'm not like you know, I'm not trying to, but we'll do like I'll do like two two to one. So it's basically pesto. Uh you know, you take all the water out, and it's super stable. Yes.
So what you do is is you blend, you can like in the in the in the spinzall, you can blend any oil batch that has up to about four hundred uh grams of herb. Like it's its sweet spot is around like two or three, like three hundred grams of herb, and then um, you know, the balance uh oil, but it can be any amount of oil you want. It doesn't have to be within the 500. And then uh you add like so you just subtract out the weight of the rotor. So let's say you use 400 grams of herb, uh, you take like 75 grams of water, put it right in the spinzole, start it, and then feed the oil in, all the water goes into the rotor and you get this pure, intense, green, highly stable uh herb oil with no water in it.
And it's like you can't possibly make this herb oil without a centrifuge unless you sit there and you twist uh uh you know, like one of those fine bags, and you get like three drops. You're not gonna get any yield. We get we get something like eighty percent of the oil back. So it's like super awesome. And so uh I did a pasta actually with uh I did a I did a basil oil and a parsley oil and mixed them and just because my kids are like my kids are like I don't want any uh like herbs in my in my pasta, but I love that kind of fresh parsley or fresh basil thing.
So just toss the oil in, yeah, did it with the finishing oil, toss it off at that, and they were like, okay, they didn't complain because they actually don't dislike the taste, they dislike the idea of a of a leaf. Green leaf, yeah in their in their free product. That's common. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so uh that's good.
I really like um again, maybe not for restaurants, but I really like centrifuge butter. Wiley used to make centrifuge butter because it's they were really excited about seeing that today, but we couldn't find any cream in any of these hipster stores out here. But I'll come to Del Postos, like uh when I get back, maybe like I like I don't know what your schedule is, but I'll come back maybe next week when I when I'm back. Sounds great. Yeah, the the butter is good.
Uh another classic chef one, I'll tell you so you take a fruit, right? And uh let's say you want to make a really reduced uh pure uh really reduced like fruit thing. This is why I brought. So, like the s the garbage strawberries I had yesterday. What's good about them is they're relatively low bricks, which means if you uh they have l low sugar.
And the good news about that is is that you can boil it way the hell down before the temperature gets too high, so it stays pretty close to the regular boiling point uh so it doesn't get brown notes, and you can reduce it way down and then dope the sugar. Well, no, yeah, right. And then at the end, you hit the sugar back in to balance out the acid because a garbage strawberry is low bricks high acid. But I didn't reduce it enough, but yeah, you could try it. I didn't reduce enough.
I could have gone twice as much, but you can't reduce strawberry puree with pectin in it, right? So I only reduce this by like twice. I could have done it by like four and hit you know and hit it with uh with some sugar, but or you could hit it with a hydrocolloid. Kind of tastes like shit, Dave. You're like?
No, I'm kidding. It tastes really good. I mean it's good, right? Yeah. I mean, but you could have reduced it like it's like jam almost.
But anyway. So like really fruity, it's really bright. Yeah. It's good. Yeah.
So like uh, but I could have, like I say, reduced it by another, like if I had taken literally, I was like, I thought about this as I was walking out the door, I was already late. So I put my widest fry pan on my stove, cranked it, dumped the strawberry, and was like tried to take it as fast as I could, and then like as I knew I was gonna, by in fact, I missed that subway, the one that would get me here on time. I poured it into that container, took a couple spoonfuls of sugar, it was like sugar and cane. But there's no there's no residual flavors from the enzymes or any other. Oh, zero.
You're using like, you're using like zero point uh like zero point two to zero point four percent. They have a vaguely kind of a ferment uh fermented aroma, but they're you know, and this one only uses one enzyme anyway. Also, the color is so brilliant. Right? It's incredible.
Dave, did you say what the size of the device is of the spinzel? It's about the size of a food processor. Here's the thing. If you're looking here's the other thing, right? Let's say, let's say you want to have a centrifuge in your restaurant or bar, right?
What are you gonna do? You're gonna invest $8,000 on something that takes up half of your prep area? No. That requires training for someone to balance it? No.
Because here's the other thing. Let's say you could afford it, right? Now, Mark, what's the worst thing that happens when you're relying on a piece of equipment? Some knucklehead goes and tries to use it when they're not qualified. And they and they break and they break it, then you're out two things.
You're out the money, and all of a sudden you're 86 on all the products that use it. Exactly, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, you can't make it on uh an another way, right? Right.
So you have two or three vita preps, so when a knucklehead breaks the vita prep, which invariably happens. That's exactly what we do. Yeah, you have another vita prep there. So the good thing here is you can test out to see whether you like having a centrifuge, right? And then you could get a backup because they're so cheap compared to like the big size centrifuge.
You know, anyway. That's what because I think that like when I was thinking about it, like one of the main um aside from the size and the cost, is just the lack of backup. I was so nervous, like at the I always had two centrifuges, real ones, big ones, at Booker and Dax, because I needed them. And when one died and we were down to one, I like I flew I was f constantly on edge that it was gonna die. It in fact did die, and I had to run Borrow Wiley's centrifuge.
Uh and so like I borrowed his centrifuge, but it's a real kind of a nightmare to be so dependent on such a large uh, you know, 300 pound thing that costs you know eight grand. It's very And a lot of your production is coming out of it. Yeah. I mean, like l well, some 80% of our menu had something that's gone through the centrifuge. Like not necessarily like huge quantity, but like all the clarified citrus, all the um, you know, all those things.
So some of that stuff won't take the carbonation properly if it's not clear. No, none of it, none of it. You need to clarify everything that you're gonna carbonate, especially gonna pre-carbonate. I mean, if you're gonna squeeze a lime into something afterwards, I mean fine, but you know, if anything you're gonna pre-carb, you need that. Uh you know, and plus I just enjoy clear things.
Anyways, so those are like uh, you know, for example, at your new bar, how many of these spinzels would you perhaps have on premise? Uh four. Four. Four. Because what if we have four that matches the actual like real-time capacity of the big centrifuge, but you could task it with four different products, or you could do continuous.
So if you have four spinzalls, you have the actual like real-time um, it's actually faster because they clarify faster than a normal centrifuge because they have less distance to go. So yeah, you're actually at a faster throughput with four sear uh four spinzalls than you are with one uh ten thousand dollars and you don't have to worry about the balancing. No balancing. Yeah, you can run the product separately, you can open it, you can look at it while it's running. Yeah, yeah.
You know what I mean? So it's uh I mean that that's what I'm gonna do. I'm not even gonna buy when when we reopen, which by the way, I'm looking at space, you know, uh, but when we reopen, it won't be called Booker and Jacks though, unfortunately. I don't know what's gonna be called. What do you do have any good bar names?
I don't know. What was what did you say the Arnold name means again? Yeah, uh I I uh I uh what's it called? What's that called? I fo I focused on some of the people at the bar last night, uh Eagle Power, and they're like, no.
I was like that's like here's how it works. Here's where Eagle Power is, right? So you walk into whatever the actual bar name is, right? Whatever it is, right? Uh what do you think about Rochambeau?
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so you're you walk into Rochambeau and you're like, I want to go to Eagle Power. And they we take you downstairs into like a little like boiler room thing with just one seat, and like you were at the Eagle Power Bar. Like, that's it. That's it.
You are Eagle Power. Or alternatively, we just like clear your service. So you know how when you walk in, like we give you the glass, we give you the everything, right? You just say, Eagle Power. And we clear your service and your menu, hand you like a special service and the eagle power, and we put like a box around you.
So you are in the eagle power zone there. Uh the other the other uh specialty bar, because we could have multiples if if you know creamy tins. Because I have so many recipes with like cream syrups and you're like creamy tins. That's a bartender's worst nightmare. Yes.
It's creamy, creamy tins. Worst. Uh okay. So uh should we take a break? Yeah.
Well, let's take a break. Come back with more uh del posto and cooking issues. This episode is brought to you by Jewel, the immersion circulator for Sous Vide by Chef Steps. If you're listening to this show, you're probably a pretty good cook. Maybe you already know that Sous vide is the best way to get a kick-ass juicy steak.
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You know you'll get great results, so you can focus on sides and sauces, or just pour yourself a cocktail and chill until you're ready for a delicious dinner. For more information and to order yours now, visit Chefsteps.com/slash J-O-U-L-E. And we are back. So um actually, Mark, you saw us use the spins all right live. I did.
Yeah, yeah. I was super impressed because I had seen uh just video of some of the earlier prototypes, and the thing looked like it was gonna take off to Mars. I was scared for your life. Trying to operate that thing. But this other one is like really tame, it's quiet, it's like the spin uh is uh is like a a pleasant uh noise.
Yeah, and you you value uh some sort of calm in the kitchen of it. You're a con you're a con you're a calm cook, right? I mean you're you're you're you you get when things go wrong, you get sad, right? Not like Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, oh the food.
I picture you more as a takes too much energy. Yeah. You've hurt the food years ago. You hurt the food. Why did you hurt the food?
Yeah. You know what I mean? I mean, my my my general philosophy is to remove a variable for error from the equation prior to service so that when you're in service, you can just go. And are most of the times those variables for error the cooks? I'm just messing with you.
Not our not our cook. No, no, my your c I've met a bunch of your cooks. Your cooks are fantastic. I think you do. How many do you have?
Eight million? Uh yeah, quite a few. Like seriously how many people work in the house. Many dozens. Many dozens.
It's but you like over a hundred people work there, right? Two hundred. Two hundred, yeah. Two hundred people work there. And you have what, eight thousand seats?
Yeah, you have eight thousand seats. How many seats you have? Four hundred seats. Come on, really? Yeah.
400 seats. Yep. That's like that's like a high school. It's big. Yeah.
Like a whole high school could have their graduation if they had the money, the whole high school could have their graduation party. It's twenty-four thousand square feet. So it could actually be many more seats, so I'm actually considering myself fortunate to only have four hundred. Yeah, so also like uh I was thinking about this the other day because uh and we've talked about this. Remember WD 50.
Of course I do uh Wiley's restaurant. Uh Wiley's restaurant uh was kitchen wise a cook's paradise. It's crazy. It was like his ratio of uh of uh back to front of house, I was like I was like, like a kitchen that luxurious will never be replicated again. But then your kitchen is pretty freaking luxurious.
I mean you have it is I mean, but you do a lot of you do like uh a lot of work in there that doesn't necessarily go out to the floor, right? Or do you use it just very luxurious? I mean you just have like a super luxurious the the the the actual story that uh probably most people don't don't know about was that one time I took a walk with Mario early on during the demolition phase before the construction actually started, and he simply took a look at the room and took his orange clog and drew an imaginary line and said no dining room past this point. Um and that's how the kitchen was done. And you're like, what am I gonna do with all the space?
He's like, I don't care. I don't care. Pretty much, yeah. Wow. So how so what is it like just basically like not having to like not having to be in kind of crushing evil death for kitchen?
What's that like? It's it's it's palatial. I mean, that's one of the things that I realized uh you know before I accepted the the position was that you know, if I'm going to be working in this profession as a chef, I'm gonna be working many hours and I'm gonna be toiling away and I might as well be in a nice nice environment. Um it's it's bigger than than it than it needs to be, and I don't think all of the necessarily all the young cooks really appreciate what that what that means and what reality is like because it's it's not reality. Um but we just try to be sort of uh you know gracious about it and not take it for granted, and uh yeah, we're we're lucky.
I mean, assuming you can do your numbers on the front of house because you have more than enough space, right, for what you want to do. So assuming that like and I guess the bigger your space is, the lower the rent per square foot is probably right. So assuming you can juggle the numbers, do you think that having a a really nice, in other words, like pleasant kitchen, it makes the restaurant more sustainable because you have less turnover? No. You have the same turnover you think?
You don't think they appreciate it that's no, I don't think it matters. Do you get a lot of people who leave and they're like, Man, I wish I hadn't left and they come back? Sometimes, yeah. Yeah. Actually that happens quite a bit, which is pretty great.
I love that. And do you uh do you then punish them for having left? No, I mean we also treat our people well, you know. We believe in a new sort of world order of altruistic business and uh personnel management, you know. So we treat people well.
Have you met your girlfriend Nastasia? Yeah. Yeah, she's the enemy of altruism. It is not true. No, she just it's not that no, look uh let's be on let's be fair to Nastasia.
It's not that she it's that's not it. It's that she just enjoys stirring the pot so much that she can't she can't stand that is true. Like a lack of strife. If there's no strife, she's not happy. Peter Kim from Museum of Food and Drink has turned uh coined a term for you.
Are you familiar with it? I don't think so. Stasen Freud. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. That is a good one. It's a genius term. So well. Yeah.
Get to that. Oh, yes, okay. So uh, you know, since I feel like we're on freaking NPR. We're just asking people for money con freaking constantly. Buy my spinzall, buy the buy it, buy you should buy the Doposta book.
Not a big, not a big investment. How much does it cost? 50 bucks. And you can get it. But how much is it away?
You can get it way cheaper than that. How much is it on Amazon? Like 25, maybe. Really? No, it's like 40.
Really? 40? Yeah. They only cut you 10 bucks, huh? Yeah.
No, strand. Listen, listen, listen, listen. Listen. Nastasi and I, we've gone, they they sold all the ones they had. Listen, listen.
The uh listen. Uh the strand used to be a freaking mecha. I still go. I l I love going and like looking at it. But in this internet era, it used to be that everything at the strand was half off, basically.
You know what I mean? Even new stuff was like half off. And like they would take old books and they would market half off of what it cost in like 1963. And so I would pick up I bought I like my uh you know the um uh my old LaRouce, my old uh Pel Prat, you know the uh the old like Peloprat uh French the classic French one. I picked up my uh 70s edition there for nothing, five bucks, you know what I mean?
Uh and then you know, as the internet started creeping in, and as price checking happened, as all these their prices actually creeped up. So you probably got a rent increase, so I don't know, man. You don't think they own that building? I mean they must own that building. My point is that it's not the bargain that it used to be.
I still love going there. I used to like more going there when it was so piss hot in the summer because it wasn't air conditioned back in the day, and the employees would almost like like shoot you as soon as talk to you because it was just so freaking hot. Everyone was just dripping, and it smelled like hot, wet, humid book all summer. And what I liked about it is there was no people there. And you know how I like you know, how I hate dealing with you know people.
So I was like, you know, I uh you know I love it, yeah. That's freaking, get out of my way. I'm trying to look at books, get out of my way. You know what I mean? You don't hate anyway, I'm not gonna get into this on the head.
So the uh I'm like, you know, dude, I'm looking, get away. You know what I mean? Or like the you know what I hate also? I says another one. I hate when like you're being quick and you're not really in the way, and the person gives you the excuse me.
If there's an excuse me because they they don't want to touch you, whatever, but they're like, excuse me, I need you know, you're like, no, no, I'm also doing this. By the way, I I am getting so much uh meaner in the kitchen, I found over the years because uh I've taken the same attitude with uh my family that I take with like any anyone when I'm in even a regular kitchen, and I've just realized at Thanksgiving. Oh, we gotta talk about Thanksgiving. I just realized at Thanksgiving that um why they think I'm a jerk. Because when you're in a kitchen and you say, excuse me, what that means is, or or um, you know, excuse me, what that means is I'm about to continue walking through you unless you move.
It doesn't mean I'm going to wait for you to move out of my way. It means this tray of stuff is is headed in a straight line, and if you're in that line, you're gonna get shouldered. Like even if it's your family. That's what it means. That's what excuse me means in the context of a kitchen.
Am I right about this, Mark? It's not rude, it's not, it's not about police. Behind you or beside you or something. Well, yeah, but like they don't even understand. But like you used to smack people on the ass, but you can't do that anymore.
Oh, in exchange, yeah, I don't know. Anyway, but but you get my point. I told you about the guy, I met a guy who almost died. This is another thing going back to the stupid bro crap in the kitchen that we're talking about last week. I hate the the the spoon to the nuts trick.
I don't like you know what? I hate it. I've always hated it. Uh first of all, it hurts like hell. And I like I I don't I don't like I don't I don't get it.
You know what I mean? Like, uh I don't know, uh like I you know I I'm okay with like a nice pat uh pat on the shoulder. It's a salt. It is a pat on the shoulder, but like the whole like grabbing someone's junk from underneath from behind or the hitting with the spoon. So I met a guy who got uh spooned in the nuts and got an infection, got blood poisoning, and almost died as a result of nut.
Yeah, from a spoon, yeah, spoon hit to the nuts. And it's just it's just you know, if you weren't going to get rid of the bro stuff in the kitchen to make it like a a decent place to work for women, like do it for your own nuts. You know what I mean? Like the the nut you save may be your own. I don't see that stuff happening so much anymore.
I well, good. Yeah. It's stupid. It's stupid. It's also like being constantly on edge that you're about to get hit in the nuts with a spoon when you're trying to work is not conducive to uh good uh work.
You know what I mean? It's true. How do we get to this? No, in the thing. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Did you do the charity bus thing yet? Come on. All right, all right. So uh this is over, Dave. When's this over this thing?
Thursday at three. What's the website, Dave? Thursday, 3 p.m. Eastern time. Uh the URL is not a Dave, not a Dave Arnold three, like like three on the dot.
302 p.m. Eastern Time. It's charity buzz.com. Slow wait, that's a long URL. No, Jeebus.
Hold on. Oh God. All right, well, it's Charity Buzz.com slash support slash heritage radio. You want to throw any asterisks and like numbers like dash one, two, three, dash nine. I'll say one more time.
Charity Buzz.com slash support slash heritage radio. I mean, it ain't no monster's pantry slash spinzall in terms of tripping off the tongue, you know what I'm saying? Anyway. But like here's what you're gonna get. So uh Nastasi and I have uh apparently donated this.
Uh this is what you get. Uh your experience will take place on a mutually agreed upon date between December 1st, 2016 and December 1st, 2017. Experience will occur on a mutually agreed upon Tuesday. Uh this is valid for one person and uh has an approximate duration of three hours. This is a private meeting greet.
The winner may take a photo. Of course the winner can take a freaking photo. Nastasi, why don't you just tell them what do they get? You get to go on the radio show with us, and then you get to eat lunch with us. It makes a lot of sense.
All this cost of the meals included, the experience cannot be resold or re-auctioned. I mean, please. Was that really gonna happen? The estimated value is five thousand dollars. What we have one bid for five hundred.
Yeah, that's getting there. Yeah, yeah, ten percent. All right, whatever. That's a lot just to come on the radio show? Yeah.
And have lunch with you. That's the value. If only I told my kids, you know what? You should sit and finish your lunch. You know why?
This is this is five thousand bucks that you're throwing away right here. Anyway, go on, donate Tuesday. On a Tuesday. On a Tuesday, lunch on a Tuesday. The most expensive pizza you will ever buy is uh to come eat with Nastasi and I.
So anyway, so back to uh where we're talking, kitchens, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving. Yeah, we don't have that much time. Okay, well let me let me do this question real quick. Uh from Tom Fisher in Philly. Last summer in 2015, I spent about a month making large amounts of clarified strawberry and raspberry juice in my centrifuge and stored it not in a spinzall, though.
Now it wasn't a spinzall. Uh and stored it in my refrigerator in my garage, intending to make sazirup later. I made the strawberry cesira, but never got around to making the raspberry. Imagine my surprise when today I found about two liters of raspberry juice at the back of that fridge. It's still crystal clear and smells delicious.
Delician, delicious. The question is, is it safe? You see the Marathon Man, the movie The Marathon Man? Great movie. Is it safe?
Is it safe? Remember that? Awesome. Dustin Hoffman. Dustin Hoffman and uh oh my god, his name went out of my head.
The uh the the is a safe guy, the dentist. Oh my god, crazy. I'm losing my mind. It's like gone. Not losing, lost.
Uh it's still crystal clear and smells delicious. Delicious. Gosh. The question is, is it safe? Given how many raspberries it took to make that much juice, I'm hesitant to just throw it away.
Drink that sucker. What you have is raspberry wine, my friend. If you've sealed it well enough, it'll probably be carbonated and you'll probably see a yeast layer at the bottom. But I've had OJ that I've left in my fridge for months and months just to let it ripen up, and that stuff is good. That soda that you make is amazing.
No, yeah, and it won't kill you. It won't kill you. So I mean, look, uh if you're if you uh if you reply next week that it was delicious, I'm assuming that I was right and you didn't die. But I'm just saying that I will I I would eat it if I were you. So what would uh Mark, what'd you do on the Thanksgiving?
Uh I I went to uh Boston and saw my family and enjoyed someone else cooking for Thanksgiving. Good. How how overcooked was the turkey? Uh it was it was overcooked. Yeah, it was um I brought with me though, uh to save the day one of those M wells tortillas.
Do you know these things? No. That Hugh and Sarah make us with the right ketchup. Oh it's like this Canadian uh um meat pie. Oh, I like meat pie.
It's not good. Stars your Thanksgiving? Portland with my brother and my family. And how was the turkey? It was good actually.
Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Michael, you?
South Coast Massachusetts. Oh, yeah? Turkey was good. Yeah? What style of stuffing do they make there?
Do you know you're not some sort of weird oyster stuffing person, are you? No. Just it's like celery, bread, onions. Sausage in that thing? No.
Whoa, no sausage in your stuffing? No? Sausage in your stuff anymore? No, sir. Stas?
Sausage and stuffing? Stas is like, yeah, American. Hello. But by the way, uh, while I'm telling you what I did, I want you guys to think on this. Are we the country of gravy?
Is there any other country that makes American style awesome gravy? I'm not talking about like Sunday gravy for your Massachusetts people, uh, you know, Italian like gravy, which is actually sauce. But does anyone make American style, I want to call it kind of God's gravy. Gravy, real gravy. Anyway, while you're thinking about that, uh here's what I did.
This maybe was the smoothest without a hitch uh Thanksgiving ever. What I did was I bought three 14 to 16 pound turkeys instead of one giant one. I took two of them, boned them out, cut uh I cut them all into chicken sized pieces. So uh I also then I uh I cooked the I salted them down and cooked them in uh like milk milk, small amount of milk and sugar under vac until they were cooked, pulled them, ripped the tendons out of the leg pieces, so now we're all boneless except for the thing. It's took them out hot, let them flash off on uh racks so that the skins got real nice and dry.
And then uh I buttermilk breaded them like like chicken fried turkey pieces. Then I took the other turkey that was left whole because you need to present a whole bird, and but it was only like 14 or 15 pounds, so it's easy. Let it air dry for like uh well, first I when I took all the bones that I ripped out of the other birds, I hacked them up, cooked them in the uh you know roasted them, made a double uh pressure cooker stock so one half the bones uh started with chicken stock one half the bones boom vent boom another one boom added you know freshened up the uh the veg in that and then took some of that injected that added a little salt injected that into the whole bird into the breast so brining it with its own you know with its own kind you know cannibal brine and then uh let that air dry for a couple of hours turn the other stuff back into gravy with the roux uh I misjudged a little bit how much roux so I had to add some bermini at the end. You know what I mean? Sorry about that.
Anyway so then I had the chicken so then I I deep fried at a lower temperature the whole bird in my commercial deep fryer outside with propane deep fried that whole bird till it was done you know then pulled that and then while that was resting at the table did all the like crank the temperature and did all the precooked uh chicken fried turkey and then pulled it out so we had these giant table full of uh freaking um yeah turkey a lot of turkey you can only imagine the uh turkey frying explosion you could be uh responsible for this is why I air dried the yeah I air yeah you air the trick with the first of all with any bird that you're gonna fry whole fry I think a lot of the mistake people make is think you dry it you know what I mean otherwise you get really kind of nightmare scenarios and the other thing is that when you're frying in a commercial deep fryer as opposed to in one of those uh the the problem with the the the um the turkey fryers that they sell you where you're cooking in those five gallon uh jugs and you go down is that it orients the turkey such that if you have any moisture on the inside you create a fountain. And I think that's what a lot of the reasons they overfill the oil and they get this like boiling fountain effect coming through the center of the turkey and it overflows. And and miscalculate the the um displacement of oil, right? Yeah. Whereas in a commercial deep fryer, you're going horizontally, so you still get some foam up, but it's not like it's not a big deal.
You know, in fact, the top of the breast was out a little bit, so we were doing we were ladling, ladling over the top to get it done, which is actually not bad because that part of meat you don't want overcooked anyway. So back to the gravy question. Does anyone do gravy the way we do gravy? I don't know. Is it like a cray thing?
Did it come from New Orleans? I don't know. But it's like I mean, they like their roux for sure. Now, Nastasia, if you don't like gravy, that might be the end. Do you like gravy?
Really? Oh my freaking god. Oh my freaking god. Oh. What do you like, Nastasia?
I like lots of things. I don't like I don't like gravy. Do you like mashed potatoes? Yes, no gravy. I bought well, but thank God I'm sure Mark puts enough butter and cream to kill uh five horses.
I do. Wait, are you an anti-cream in your mashed potatoes guy, Mark? No, I think dairy is helpful. No, but like, so I know some people, I'm not gonna mention them, Wiley, who is like butter only. I don't want to add any liquid to my potatoes.
I want to add all of the viscosity with butter, Robushol style. It helps. But I like cream in my I like the cream in it, yeah. I bought a milk or yeah. I hate food mills, by the way.
I I hate them for potatoes. For potatoes. I detest them. I hate them. JJ, who used to work for uh Wiley, uh is now doing ando.
He went uh a couple of years ago he was cooking a feast with his mom, his mom handed him a food mill, he opened the door to her house and threw the food mill out into the I'm convinced. So food mill, this is food mill is the one of the biggest enemies of quality that's out there uh in terms of your life. I don't think there's any cook who likes food mills that uses them. No, it's not true. You have cooks that will use the food mill for you.
When was the last time you sit there and like took the food mill and you're cranking it and you're cranking it and there's only that tiny freaking wedge that works and it gets it gets clogged and then you have to back it up every two seconds. It takes 18,000 years you're scalding your knuckles the bowl's sliding around it's garbeg. It's garbage it's garbage and I know they use it at Del Posto every freaking day because I was talking to your cooks at Otto last week. No but for tomatoes they make tomato strainers dude it's like No it's not the same. Wait you're telling me that your cook's putting the tomatoes to a tomato to a food mill is better than one of those mechanical like kitchen aid tomato strainers or the large version of it.
I don't know what that is. I tell you what it is it's a lot freaking easier to use in a food mill. Well what else are they gonna do? There's like 60 of them. They gotta do something.
That's true. Anyway I hate food mills I think anyone that actually has to use them hate them. So I bought a really good ricer. I bought because I you know I've told you this I b I I like potatoes in a ricer. Some people don't like them.
I love right I love rice potato because it you're gonna break up those little rice pellets as you stir but it like maintains as much texture as you want. I think I love the rice get like a last I don't know there's something about it that's just right with the ricer. The problem is I've broken every single ricer I've ever used because I'm just like like a an like a man somehow on equipment like I it's not that I'm physically strong but I can break anything especially if there's a lever arm on it. So I bought the scene you take down a tree. Yeah yeah yeah well I uh I I bought the cast aluminum one because I thought it wasn't gonna bend and so far NorPro yeah they NorPro makes a stainless one but someone was like I bought the stainless one and it bent so I was like I'm gonna go with the cast one and if it breaks I'll go get the stainless steel one.
So uh do you want me on the way out, you want to tell you what my my pot how I did the potatoes this year? Alright. So what I love, the way I break my ricers is uh uh cook the potatoes, I ro I bit you know, I roast the potatoes in their jackets, right? And then I rice them whole, then I save the squash skins and I fry them up as a leftover. Yes.
Right? But it's a huge pain in the ass, and you have to cut all these hot potatoes and like nightmare and all this. So this year what I did was I peeled all the potatoes like standard, foil wrapped them, threw them in the oven, baked them so they wouldn't take on any extra water, and you could do a long bake without them breaking apart. Then all you had to do is like quick snap the foil off and throw them in the ricer, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and you never had to clean out your ricer because it didn't have the all of those skins on the inside. So that was my that was my Skazil's trick on the potatoes.
Anyway, that was uh that's Thanksgiving at my house. Thanks to Michael and Chef Mark Ladner for coming in and talking marginally. I could I it's like pulling teeth, getting you guys to talk about your cookbook. Go buy the freaking cookbook, learn how to make the fabulous hundred layer lasagna. Oh, on the way out, uh here's what I didn't ask you.
So you re-jiggered all the all the talk and the way the recipes are organized for for for home folk. Uh and I will vouch for you, knowing you for many years, that you don't like things that aren't the way you want them, right? Sure. Yeah. Uh and so I'm sure that you put in eight boatloads of work to ensure that the results that the people are gonna get are pretty damn close to what you want them to get if they follow your instructions.
Is that true? Do you feel you've achieved the same? And in all honesty, uh Michael put in more of the time than I did, but um I would absolutely agree that it's uh it's like Yes. So it might not be the same. But I'm saying, like, so if someone wants to make the hundred layer lasagna here, the workflow might not be the same because workflow in a restaurant is different from workflow at home, right?
And like the PLOS is different, everything's different. But if they follow the instructions, they are going to and they're and they are and they're not enemies of quality. They will be able to produce with this recipe. Absolutely no question. The recipes were tested like three times each one.
I mean, each piece of the recipes were tested as we went along, but then the final recipe was tested three times. Umce in metric, once in American. Um, and all this was done, all the final testing was done on a floor burner stove in an apartment with our recipe tester. Nice. So it works.
You ever set off the detectors, the smoke detectors? Sure. Nice. Yeah many times. But the point is that it works.
So we know it works because we we literally did it as if someone at home would be giving it. And the language is digestible, although alone. And dirty secret, by the way, that I guess it's not a secret, everybody knows it, is that like most cookbooks ain't nobody testing those recipes. Your editors aren't like, did you test the recipes? Editors don't care.
Like they shockingly, shockingly. I mean, like, you know, my editor cares, but like the vast majority of people they don't care. So like a lot of the cookbooks you get out there, they're just completely untested recipes, especially this is I'm not knocking chefs, but like what happens is chefs you know don't have a lot of time, and so what happens is is that you have your internal specs, and then you try to butcher those internal specs directly into a home recipe, it doesn't work. It doesn't freaking work. Also, because there's a conceit of like, oh, well, they'll never even get this piece of equipment, they'll never even be able to really get this ingredient the way we want it.
So why bother? I'm talking about cookbooks from you know, restaurants like Del Posto, sort of the top tier stuff. So that so they say, well, really this we should just write this down because it's another outline for chefs and for people to look at how the food is put together and all that stuff. Um there's some cookbooks out there with a fine print in the back. I mean, sort of some very high-end restaurants to say, basically you can't make this at home.
Right. I mean, that's in the fine print. Like, well, so I'm not suggesting that that's a back at all. Well, I'm not suggesting that that's necessarily a bad cookbook or a bad thing, or people aren't taking away something from it, but that isn't what this is. I mean, a lot of times people buy chef's cookbooks just to see how a chef thinks or how a restaurant operates.
Yeah, sure, absolutely. But you know, look, there's a long tradition, and uh you know, years ago, Mike when Michael Batterberry was still alive, he had me like write something about this. There's a long tradition in Europe of chefs' books that are written by chefs for chefs, not so much here in the US. In the US, almost all cookbooks are published, even by like hardcore restaurant chefs. Like your hardcore restaurant chef, you know, like like are are published for non-prose.
They have to appeal to non-pros. And what that means typically is things get dumbed down. And one of the first ones that uh, you know, that's kind of Pajora's way to put it, but you know, it's like the chef doesn't really want to alter their recipes and doesn't really like know what it means to cook at home because they're a chef, and so like it's hard, it's hard to get that get that balance. One of the first cookbooks that co broke the American mold, uh, and actually was just like, I'm just gonna give you the professional recipes, and if you don't want to soak all your anchovies in milk, then just don't make this recipe was French laundry cookbook, uh, way, way back in the day. It still sells like crazy.
Yeah, well, I mean, it was a great book. You know what I mean? I mean, like whether or not you like are a fan of uh of TK or or you know, any of the stuff, is like that is like they were like, I'm just gonna tell you how this thing works. But I think this, like, like what you're trying to shoot for here is different. You're like, I want you to actually get this result without having to operate like I'm in the French laundry, which is or at like uh at Del Posto in your case.
So it's like I think it's a different and almost harder task. Yeah, completely. And we alone re-engineered all the all the recipes without dumbing them down. And the reason for doing it. I mean that the real question is why do the work?
For that is that we felt like Mark's food comes, all the foundation of Mark's food comes from very, very traditional regional Italian cooking. And a lot of that cooking start is sort of passed down through the homes and home chefs. I mean, our home cooks, let's say, and the families. So going back, so we're like, well, this is we should make this work in homes. Like this is Italian food that's sort of founded.
The foundation of this food is home cooking if you keep going back and back and looking at these regional recipes. So we've got to make this work at home to carry on that tradition in some sense. So it's also it's just a you know, like if you go to Del Posto, which I encourage you to do, uh, you know, everyone there is very uh, you know, keyed up on you having a positive experience. Like the overwhelming sense you get is like a respect for the diner and for the customer. And I think the same thing's flowing over to the book here.
It's like a respect for the person buying the book that they're gonna get the information that they need. Absolutely. And to me, really, that's the defining kind of uh service, uh, and even in back of house, also characteristic of Del Posto. So makes Del Posto. Traditional hospitality, it's yeah, yeah.
Anyway, well, thanks so much for coming, guys. Thank you. Cooking issues. Thanks a lot. Thanks for listening to Heritage Radio Network.
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