Today's show is brought to you by Bob's Redmill, sharing nothing but the best in whole grain nutrition and committed to their mission of good food for all. Learn more at Bob's Redmill.com slash podcast. Thank you for listening to Heritage Radio Network. We are a member supported nonprofit food radio station. That means that every single thing we do, from broadcasting 35 weekly shows for free, to bringing you exclusive content from sold-out food events across the country to offering scholarships to high school students is only possible thanks to the support of our loyal members.
And we want you to join the club. Become a member during our 2017 summer drive to get access to sweet swag and pledge your support to the world's only food radio station. Visit Heritage Radio Network.org slash donate to become a member now. Brooklyn. Joined as usual with Nastasia of the Hammer Lopez.
How are you doing, Stas? Good. Yeah, you have a good week. Yeah. We also have uh some we have oh we don't have uh Dave in the booth today.
We got Vitor in the booth. How are you doing? Hey man. Doing well, doing well. Doing good.
Um we have special guest, Nick Wong, uh, formerly employed, currently unemployed cook. So if you have any unemployed cook questions, call that too. Or if you need a cook. Or if you need a cook. Like a private home shop.
Wait, wait, are you moving to Milpitas? Where are you moving to? I'm Mill I'm I'm moving to nowhere right now. I'm just hanging out in New York for a little bit. Oh, cool.
All right. But he's willing to move. Not but temporarily. If you pay for his lodging. Why's it gonna be Milpitas?
Always with the Milpitas. Well, I don't know. Always Milpitas. Always Milpita's. Yeah, Booker hates to speak of special guest.
Special guest, it is uh it is international take your kid to work life. Is it that's what I'm like yeah, my it's like a my whole life uh right now. So we have uh Booker Arnold. You might know him from such things as having a bar named after him back in the day. Booker, how you doing?
Um not much is going on, but now that I don't have school anymore, it's really I I consider that a bonus, and I and now I and now I do no work at all. Yeah, I see, I see work is not my thing, it's not your jam. Work, academics, goodbye. So listen, Booker, you were the reason that uh the family went uh vegetarian recently. So pescatarian.
Okay, pescatarian. Dax is now what he calls a flexitarian. So Dad would yeah, but dad refuses because he still loves meat products. So your dad eats meat. Yes.
Yes, he does, even though you guys don't eat meat. Yeah, even though my brother is not supposed to have meat, I s when we went up to we went up to my aunt's house in Connecticut, we there was there was bacon at the brunch, and uh ate it. Even though even though it looked so delicious, I still reminded myself Booker. You know you you don't like it what how animals are killed for the for the meat, so you are not going to get your food from animals who were killed. And then Dax took a slice, and then when no one was looking, he went except me, he ran into the bathroom, closed, well, yeah, closed the door, but there was a tiny crack on like around around the door corners inside.
So I watched, I watched him eat the bacon, and I'm like, mommy, Dax was eating the bacon, even though he's not supposed to. It's his choice. If he wants to eat the bacon, he eats the bacon. If he doesn't want to eat the bacon, but it's not cool if he says, I'm still a vegetarian. He said he was, and then recently vegetarian questions or any being a picky teenager questions, you can call them.
Yes, you are super. I'm so picky that my mom doesn't let me get anything, not even ice cream because it's summer. Oh. Well, because you only eat complex carbohydrates. Yeah, that's all you eat.
Like crackers. Yeah. Like, is cheese a carbohydrate? Uh no. Cheese is not a carbohydrate.
But you don't eat that much cheese. What about fruits are not carbohydrates, are they? Sugar. Fruit's basically just a pile of sugar held together with some pectin. Well, it's healthy.
What about apples? Apples are basically a bunch of sugar and water held together with some pectin and heavy cellulose, couple couple, you know, nutrients in the world. Apples are well known for reducing the risks of many kinds of cancer. Okay, I'm glad you said that, but that's a lie. That's what we like to refer to as a lie.
Don't get it. An apple, you know what an apple a day does. No, an apple a day sells an extra apple a day from the apple industry, is what an apple a day does. I'm all for eating an apple a day because I think apples are delicious, but don't eat apples for any freaking health reason. I mean, Nick, where are you with it?
You're with me on this, right? What? It's it's an extra way to get an apple into your diet, so yeah, I'll I'm for apples. Apples are are good. Apples taste good.
But uh I know look. Let me ask you a question, Booker. Do you think that apple farmers don't go to the doctor? Uh or is it that more than one apple a day, then the doctor comes really quickly? It's like a like a bell curve like one apple a day, no doctor, zero apples a day, doctor, too many apples, doctor.
Is it like one? But then what size apple are we talking about? Too much of anything is bad. That is true. That's correct.
Uh oh. Oh my I've never heard Booker bust out the moderation. Hey, speaking of too much of anything is bad. I I I used an excuse in my old school, too much homework is bad. In third grade, I got tons of homework.
That was also three years ago, Booker. So uh no. It was s six years ago. Alright, well then why do you still remember? See, this is what I'm talking about, people.
When you have kids with long memories, that they never remember the nice things you do for them. It's only the punishment. Booker can remember punishments from like ten years ago. I remember in kindergarten getting getting getting sent to the naughty corner for calling the teacher obnoxious. Yes, well, I'm sure she was.
Anyway, uh okay, now Booker, we gotta we gotta do some cooking stuff, okay? I was only six. All right, cooking, right? From here on out, we're talking cooking. Okay.
Okay. Uh all right. So we had a bunch of questions we didn't get to uh last week. So let's uh if we start for once in our life with uh stuff from from uh Booker. Don't rub the microphone cover, we can all hear that.
That's with a guitar pick. Nastasia told me, no, I didn't. Oh, I bet you she did. You know what, Booker? I she was like, I'm gonna go.
Booker, look what's on the floor, and I bet you know what? You know what, Booker? I want to hear for everyone out there. This is exactly what Nastasia the Hammer Lopez is like. Hand a guitar pick to my son and make him do something in the hopes that I lose my mind on my son on air so that she can make me look like a bad dad.
And she's laughing because it's true. This is what Nastasia the Hammer Lopez that's Nick Wall, am I right or wrong? Those words right. Yeah. Alright.
So uh we got some stories for later, like in case we run out of time. Like I gotta tell the story about Watson in the elevator. Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah. I thought I was gonna.
Can't you tell that one first? No, no, no. But I will say this. Uh over the past week there's been some uh food news. Um a bl a blogger in uh a fitness blogger in Spain was killed with her uh cream whipper.
Yikes. Yeah. And it was, I mean, it's serious, and she had like a like a like a lot, a lot of followers, but uh, she was using uh a cream whipper. I forget the brand she was using, uh, but it wasn't it wasn't the you know, EC, which is the brand I use. So like I went on um I went on the uh Twitter and I was like, look, only buy the EC ones.
And the reason I say that is because there are probably other manufacturers that go through the same safety like checks that EC goes through. I just know that I visited their factory in Austria, I saw them build them, I saw how they control the steel, I saw how they, you know, how they do their hydro testing, I saw like all the safety, like um multiple safety uh things they have, like the like the blowout um the blowout threads, etc. etc. And like all the testing they do. And I was like, okay, these guys, in fact, EC would not let me, they would not publish recipes of mine that uh contained chargers that were safe in their unit, specifically because they were worried someone would try it in somebody else's unit that didn't have the safeties and blow themselves up.
And so I don't know what this uh I don't know what she was making, this this blogger when she when she was killed, but she was killed um with a um I apparently also there was a recall on the unit she had but it's just uh you know and especially as manufacturers nostasi we've we think about safety all the time it's horrifying any time you have a product that you do they buy a lot of insurance well it's not just why you buy a lot of insurance I mean you have to buy that anyway because stuff's eventually gonna always happen no matter what but uh you know someone will someone will stab themselves with a butter knife if you give them a chance because because people are what Nick? Idiots there you go but the um hey what who are you calling idiots I'm a person well I'm also an idiot there you go yeah we have we have one question uh from a caller all right caller you're on the air hi David George uh the question is my girlfriend is a lactose intolerant right usually she takes lactate fills before meals to help with it but I also found you have like the lactase free melt where they add the lactate lactase enzyme to like deactivate the lactose right when I can't find information on like how much to use or how much time you gotta wait or even a supply for it. Of this of the of the straight enzyme that's a really interesting issue. So there's not that much lactose and it's not going to change the taste that much to break down the lactose right so anyway you you say you have not found a source for the enzyme or you have I've if I search Amazon I could find some but I was wondering if there's like any differences between like brands of it. There always is and so like uh any enzyme so there for instance, when someone says, like uh I'm most familiar with the enzymes I use, like pectanex to break down pectin.
So like there are like pectanex is actually a a whole bunch of different enzymes, of which some are pectinases and some are hemicellulases, and like so there's a bunch of different it's not just like one enzyme, it's a bunch of different enzymes. And even when you have a singular enzyme, which lactase may or may not be, I probably probably is, I don't know. But even when you have one singular enzyme, um what they do is they rate based on the um activity of it. I haven't I haven't looked at it in a long time, but for instance, when you buy uh usually what you do when you buy an enzyme preparation is they're standardized to a certain level of activity. That's how uh like meat glue is sold, for instance, transglutaminase.
So what they do is that's only one enzyme, but they standardize it to a certain level of activity so that you can dose it out all the same time. So uh presumably like if you find one brand and stick to it, I've never bought any. I wonder whether monitors pantry guys can can uh carry or have carried any of that, but it's it's uh it's interesting. I also wonder whether they add the lactase before pasteurization to the milk or whether you still have active enzymes in that milk. Be an interesting question.
I don't know. If the if they add the enzyme after the pasteurization step, then odds are you still have good enzyme in that milk. And I don't know whether there's enough residual enzymatic activity to uh like bust down more milk or not, you know what I mean? And you wouldn't necessarily want to run a test on your on your girlfriend's GI tract to find out. But um that's an interesting question.
I'll I'll try to look into it. Do me a favor, tweet me back. Um next week, I'm actually I won't be here, I'll be in Ireland. So, like if you remember like the week after, like the drop it's per plus the radio station is closed for the fourth. But the um just drop me a a line and I'll try to check out uh on Twitter on cooking issues uh on Twitter, and I'll try to find a supplier of that stuff, and maybe someone in the chat room has a supplier.
All right, we'll do thank you. Thank you. All right. So uh yeah, so we have the uh the EC Whipper and the other one that came in is that is that uh now people are anti-coconut uh oil again. It's so crazy, man.
I know, that's great. I love it. Uh uh, you know what? You like the thing is I've gone through so many of these cycles in my life. Butter is terrible.
You need to eat only margarine. And then they're like, Margarine is terrible. You need to eat only butter. And I'm like, what? Like when you see enough things change, like back and forth, not just change, but go from being the the the bad guy to the good guy to the bad guy to the good guy.
It's like just ignore. If you want to use coconut oil because you want a solid fat, then use coconut oil because you want a solid fat that's a vegetable fat, right? Right, Nick? Hold on a second, right? Yeah, yeah.
What do you want, Booker? Margarine tastes like cardboard. Uh yes, you know why? Margarine, when margarine goes rancid, which often it does, margarine uh rancid oils taste literally like cardboard. And uh Booker used to make fun of me because he used to always throw margarine in my shopping cart just to just to mess with me.
He knows I hate it. He knows it tastes terrible, and he would always buy this one specific brand, Happy Boy. Yeah, the boy is happy because he's cheating you. Yeah, yeah, because he's selling you something that tastes terrible and you're paying money for it, right? Happy boy, huh?
Yeah, yeah. The boy is happy because he's like, ooh, I cheated on I cheated a lot of people with my disgusting margarine. That's right. That's right. Well, at least you know people have trained him somewhat well.
Um anyways, so uh here's our first question in. Uh this is uh Judy from uh Malden. Uh is there really a bad time to drink a gin and tonic? I used to drink them all the time before I started drinking darker, more bitter things. However, if there's no craft cocktails in sight or kitschy stuff like Blue Hawaii is around, it's my go-to.
So I don't order them that often anymore, but tell me if I'm being a jerk. Um I mean, I think it back in the day it was considered like okay, look it. Back in the day, like a very particular sort of like, like hyper, like uh, I don't know, like yacht club kind of a person would be like, so goosh, so goosh, so gooseh. You know what? These days, drink what you want when you want.
You know what I mean? What do you think, Nick? I'm having a gin and tonic right now. Yeah, what do you think about old norms though in general, things like that? I mean, it depends what they're based on.
In reality, like those kind of norms, I think are based on this old, like pretty like white male English society crap. And pretty much that whole society, like if it got knocked down 30 or 40 or 50 or all pegs, it wouldn't be a problem. No offense. You know what I mean? But it's like, so I I don't think it's a problem to go against that norm.
What do you think, Stas? What about like how the Italians have their pair of TV and their DJs TV, like that stuff can't really be messed with, can it? Okay, so here's what I think about that. I think that those the the Italian, that culture is hilarious because they literally if you had a gin and tonic when they were having their I think we've had this discussion, but if you had a gin and tonic while they were having their uh epitv, if you had that, right, they would be like, you're an alcoholic. I'm not even drinking.
You know what I mean? Because it's so culturally ingrained that they don't even consider that like to be drinking. They're doing what you do before the meal. And so, like those cultures, I think like um I see like a pretty bright line difference between like uh just like a culture where you're like you go through specific rituals versus a culture where it's so it doesn't seem to me that that culture is a way to distance yourself from somebody else. It's not like we all wear white after a certain you know after a certain day in the summer but before a certain day so that we can prove that we are a certain group of people.
I don't see that that the aperitivo culture is like that versus the you know the gin and tana kind of thing. I think is more just like a show whether or not you were part of a certain class or not. And I think all of those cultures pretty much I mean I don't care about them. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Um if you hear snickering in the background, that's my son Booker, who cannot help himself. And we have one more caller. I caller, you're on the air. Uh yeah, Dave. Uh Dan, Seattle.
How are you doing? Um I am trying to copy Panda Express's beef stir-fry as closely as humanly possible for the simple reason it's like the only protein my younger kid will eat. Well, I have not had it. Well, so what's the what's the problem? First of all, like almost all of the the stuff.
So uh I learned a lot about uh Chinese American restaurant cuisine, of which uh Panda Express is a very kind of streamlined uh and you know, often let's be frank, over sugared version of, right? But um I mean, I don't know this particular recipe, but like the recipes, most of the recipes, the mother sauce, quotes quotes, is like cornstarch and water. Like, like and then to that is added flavor. So it's like it's almost the opposite of everything else. You start with a liaison and then you move into the flavor basis.
But what's it what's it like? What's in it? Okay, so the whole issue I'm having is I mean, I've got the sauce, I've got the broccoli, I've got this. I'm having a very hard time getting the texture of the beef right. Hmm.
And what what is it like? I and I I mean I know the basic Chinese restaurant process is that they're putting it, is it they're marinating it and soy sauce and something, they're putting it in egg white for some period of time, blanching it in oil, and then stir frying it. Uh it depends. So like velveting can work. Right.
Right, but the velvet the velveting can sometimes be egg white, sometimes cornstarch. Uh so like, you know, like it the velveting thing, I think really is like to add like a protective layer. Some people also add um basic things to it, like some like bake like baking soda stuff. Um I don't I don't know. Is there anyone Nick, you ever experiment with this stuff?
None of that. With velveting. Didn't uh didn't Chango on a velveting tirade once make all you guys learn velveting? No. Uh I've never had the Panda Express one.
So uh is it is the meat not squashy enough? Are you looking for like kind of squashy yet overcooked meat? Is that what they have? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's you know, it's certainly overcooked by modernist standards, but it's um but it's not it's not too overcooked, if you know what I'm saying.
Right. So I'm I I mean, you know, if you accept it as what it is, it it it's as opposed to what you'd like it to be. I mean it's something that actually works. Right. I mean I mean I've taken fifteen tries of this with different amounts of egg whites and trying to souve it in either in the egg white or trying to souve it, drain it and souve it.
Yeah, I mean like the thing is they don't do that. So if you want to imit m imitate what they do, so listen, when I'm going for like really mushy meat, so like like good good meat that's kinda mushy and overcooked is like tandoor style overcooked mushy meat. And the way you do that is with uh acidic marinades, because the acidic stuff turns the meat mushy and you don't notice the mushiness when you got thin strips because it's not enough meat for you to notice that it's mushy, and then when you overcook the outside, it still holds together okay. So that's how you work like um that's how you work like an overcooked piece of chicken in a tandoor and still have it taste good. Um the but I don't think that they're doing an acidic marinade for in in the maybe ginger will also do that to meats, but I don't think that they're doing that there.
They're probably just doing some form of like quick velveting, like a boil to get the coating on, which I would bet is like another corn starchy thing on velveting to get that locked out layer on the outside and then the stir fry, uh stir fry afterwards. But I'll look into it. I'll look into it. Do we uh Vitor, do we have anyone in the chat room that's live on uh velveting techniques and mimicking and uh mimicking Pand Express? Also, boatloads of sugar.
This kid, I'm just messing with you, but not really. I ordered something there once 'cause uh I was like, I'll try this because we were doing the Chinese restaurant thing. And I was like, literally, I was like, I this tastes like dessert. Like, this is sweet. Is it is the beef dish that they make super sweet?
Yeah, uh like like like they're they call it Beijing beef, but it's orange beef. I mean, y yeah, you know, some of their stuff has way too much sugar on it. But in terms of trying to copy it at home in a way that's A, not quite so sugary and B um something that my kids will eat. Um I mean, like I said, I've got something that works for every other stage of this except the texture of the beef. Does the beef have a coating on it?
And I've made 15 or 20 semi-scientific tries at this. Alright, well, I'll do I'll do a little more poking around. I'm sure. And uh have you like uh have Googled like uh Panda Express clones? Has anyone tried to clone the recipe?
Because a lot of times like you can get pretty close with like an online recipe clone, like Twinkies have good recipe clones. None of the recipe clones seem to be even trying to get their texture-wise. I mean, you I mean, there's 25 recipes out there to copy their sauce, all of which more or less work. But nobody's getting the texture that I can tell. Right.
Well, I guarantee these well, maybe they are in large batch. They could probably do sous vide for pasteurization reasons, but they're not doing it for a texture reason. You know what I mean? Um is there a coating on it or no? I i I'm uh I I I I'm morally certain it's velveted with something.
Yeah, probably cornstarch, right? Yes, cornstarch. Yeah, I'll look I'll I'll look into it though. I'll look into uh texture of uh Panda Express. What about like freezing if if it is if they're doing larger batches and freezing the meat, can that also affect the texture?
Yeah, velvet then freeze and then thaw, you'll get drip loss. It's true. Um it's true. Obviously, the cut is gonna matter too. Um like you almost might want to like get like a like a um a cut.
The thing is is like is it shredded or they stay nice pieces? No, the no, it's they're intact, they're intact pieces. I mean they're the the raw slice is probably a quarter inch thick. It comes out a little less than that. I mean, but by the time they cooked it.
I mean it's it it's clear clearly pretty clearly sliced on the bias, quarter inch thick. And it looks like meat. It doesn't look like pressure cooked or anything at it. It looks like meat. It looks like meat.
I mean I mean it looks like you know, it looks like very classic Chinese restaurant stir-fried beef. Hey, you know what else? You could just jack hard the hell out of it. That's another thing. Just get like a jack hard and jack hard the ever loving hell out of it, and then and then like do a quick velvet and a stir-fry, and that'll pulverize the snot out of it.
So then you could use a um, you know, a cut that's got some more structure to it, and then just maybe they jackard it. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I mean try I would try like getting the intact piece, jack carting it to death, slice velvet, and then uh stir fry, maybe in conjunction with like a little like you could try an acidic marinade that'll soften it.
Like I say, that's how tandors work. I don't happen to like that texture, but um, you know, it is a texture. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean no, I mean the the combination, the classic tandoor combination produces something that's like generally acceptable, even if it's not ideal.
Yeah, yeah. So those guys, yeah, so in a t and I mean, I'm I know much more about how to do tandoor stuff, and in tandoor stuff, the marinades are some combination of yogurt, perhaps citrus, um oil in the marinade, uh uh often ginger, and then whatever your spice base is, but like you know, all of those things together. So even if I'm doing a non uh Indian flavored stuff, I always make sure to have some citrus acid, oil, um uh yogurt, and then um sometimes ginger. So I I always like no matter what ginger I only add if usually if I'm doing some form of Asian because like you know, in a euro flavors, a lot of times ginger can be weird in a in a savory dish, but um yeah, and a little bit of sugar, actually, a little bit of sugar and salt in the in the in the tandoor th thing. Typically, though, when I'm doing marination, I don't know why I do this, maybe because I'm stupid, Nick, maybe, but like what I'll do is is I'll salt the meat like a normal thing, like a nor like I'm salting it, and then I won't add salt to the marinade, and then I'll unless I'm making a lot of marinade, because I'm usually using small amounts of marinade in a vacuum bag, and I think it's easier to get salt on the meat than it is to get salt in the marinade, but it could just be that I'm a moron.
I don't know. I don't know. But anyway, so but uh give it give those things a shot, and also I'll look into it and see what next time we come back in a couple weeks, I'll see if I have any more information on it. Thank you very much. Alrighty.
Um okay. And then uh what do we got here? We got uh this is Dave Nastasia et al. from Kieran. I recently bought a pasture raised pasture raised pig uh and opted into keeping all the scraps in addition to the meat.
As part of this, I was wondering if it's possible to approximate tankatsu broth with just bones and skin. Hmm. What do you think, Nick? You've you've probably made a boat ton of tankatsu broth over there. Didn't they didn't used to do that?
Some you never made what do you just bought it from noodle bar? That's a different restaurant. You didn't never serve a ramen based thing ever? You never had one freaking soup at Sambar, not one? That would be that would be the noodle bar, Dave.
And you never did a stuff, you never stodged over there even for a day and a half. No, that's the noodle bar. You know what? You know what? Bad person, dude.
Who? You. Why am I a bad person? I don't remember this. Don't remember what?
Nick's I know where Nick worked. I just find it absurd that uh that at Sambar that they didn't even once as an homage situation make a ramen broth. Like ever. It like never came up. They're like, this is not a skill we need to have.
Like it's like, you know what I mean? There's a noodle bar just down the block. There's no need to compete. We have other noodles and other broths, but not tonkatsu broth. What kind of broth do you make?
There's none on right now, but you won't even admit to like making a broth at all. Alright. You enjoy just throwing like massive amounts of pork into your combi oven. That's all you like to do is throw massive amounts of pork into your combi oven. How much pork did you guys cook in that combi oven every day?
Or was it only when you're doing bow sump? No, you had it for the buns. Yeah. How much pork do you think goes through that combi oven? You have the full person-sized combi oven, right?
You could put a cook in your combi oven. I could put a couple of cooks in there. Yeah. Um, probably like 120 to 180 pounds of pork belly every week. Oh, that's not as much as I thought.
Yeah, all right. Um anyway, uh, if it's possible to approximate tonkatsu broth with just bones and skin. In my head, I feel like the bones would provide a good amount of flavor while the skin could provide body, but that's all theoretical at this point. Additionally, a while back you mentioned that there's good porky and bad porky with regards to skin. Nick, were you there when we were making the uh the chicharones at the French culinary?
I think so. Yeah. Do you remember how nasty that smelled when you're boiling the skin? I don't know like the beaver ones. The beaver ones at least smelled like beaver.
You know what I mean? But like the uh just smelled real funk. Yes, like that like pork skin. I kind of don't mind it that much, but it's very potent. Let me ask you this.
When you were having your shift drink after work, would you want the beer as it came up to your lips to smell like the like the pork skin pot? No. No. You would not. Yeah, and like in other words, you can tolerate it when it's in the kitchen, but it's not a smell you want hanging around.
Like salmon skin. Like salmon skin and like scam salmon bones. Like, it's okay when you're butchering them. When you're eating them, but you don't want that on your hands all the time, do you? No.
No. Uh anyway, good porky and bad porky with regards to skin. So do you think this would contribute adversely to flavor? And then uh lastly, would a pressure cooker be a good option for making this broth? The uh this adaption, which is uh on the web, so you can't see it because you're listening to a podcast, uh, J.
Kenji Lopez Alt's Tonkatsu broth recipe uses lecithin, which I know you're not a huge fan of to help emulsify the finished product, uh, so I might give that a try. Uh finally, there's lots of skin in this delivery, pounds and pounds of it. Any suggestion on how else to use it? Twenty pounds of pork rinds doesn't sound like a reasonable option. There, you are wrong.
This is where you have made your largest error. Twenty pounds of uh because you gotta remember, you're thinking of twenty pounds of the skin as being that's like the weight of the chicharron, but you're gonna get rid of a lot of like wit weight out of that. You're gonna render out a lot of the fat and all that. So like the actual weight of the of the finished rinds are gonna be a lot lower. And and they last a uh uh uh uh uh long time in pre-fry zone.
Uh uh. Yeah, yeah, that's booked it with this echo. Uh they last a long time in pre-fry mode. So you can do them and then you mean a long time. Yes, yes.
Um, so anyways, so that's not uh too much. Uh any suggestions how else to use it? Um I might try my hand at Cotokino, but any suggestions are welcome. So, pig skin. So, like some classic pig skin dishes are like pig skin.
You ready for the uh for the jersey pronunciation? Yes. Brajo. A brajole, yeah. Like so now all the so now all of the um all of the uh people make their brajole with meat, but like originally I think it would like skin and like he'd roll it up and you cook it in the broth, good, right?
Good. Although my so my stepfather used to make something with skin or have something made with skin called, I don't even know what it is. He because he he has an even weirder, it's his English speaking pronunciation of his like maiden aunts, like crazy American, but like one generation removed like Southern Italian, right? So who knows what it actually is? Gorda, gordiga, gordiga.
He was like, that's also like a rolled up skin thing. Gorda. Do you have any like you speak Italian? Does that make any sense at all? I don't know.
Ask some sort of Boston person. Um but yeah, Codacino is good. Um here's what I'm gonna say. I would make a whole bunch of pork rinds, but as for the broth, I mean, look, we bought really bad pork skin. It was like the pork skin that had been ripped off of like the 12th quality pigs and then like thrown into uh a case and frozen, and then like, you know, it was always like, you know how you ever been around a professional meat delivery area where like the guy throws the meat uh on the ground outside and it's thawing into the disgusting New York City sidewalks, and then they stack other stuff on top of it.
And they always put the low item crappy stuff, like the cheap stuff, if they're smart, like on the bottom, and that's what everything's dripping into it. That's where the pork skin goes in the delivery on the hand truck. You know what I'm talking about, Nick? That's the bottom of the totem pole. They're the bottom of that of that of that totem pole of nastiness.
Now, when you're boiling those skins, they're uh completely uh they're completely nasty. They're completely nasty. They smell nasty. Now, maybe that nastiness would go away, but often I I'm not a huge fan of completely, I mean, maybe you could skim the hell out of it or blanch it once to get rid of that initial funk. I would blanch it once, get rid of it, and then and then put it in.
I mean, uh uh Kenji's uh tonkatsu recipe is like has like a lot of scrubbing of the bones anyway to get rid of the the blood and everything. Because like unround use roasted pork because he doesn't want it, he wants it to be blonde, he doesn't want it to be dark. So he uses unroasted pork. I find unroasted or uncooked pork, like unless you do something to rinse away stuff or to blanch it out, is na has like a nasty uh top note on the on the broth. So you need to do some form of thing like that with the skin, and then maybe it would gonna work out.
I don't think it's gonna add a lot of flavor. I think it's gonna add a lot of gelatin, and a lot of people just add gelatin. Like, so like a lot of people, if there's not enough body in their broth, you know, like the purists are like, me, me, me, me, me. But they just throw gelatin in, and like, you know, as far as you know, that's then the end consumer's not gonna know the difference. Now, on the pressure cooker and the lecithin, the idea of the tonkatsu broth is it's exactly uh opposite of what you attempt to do in uh European style broth is you're trying to emulsify all the stuff that's coming out into it.
And so for that, typically you need a rolling boil, which is why Kenji says that a pressure cooker doesn't work. So, this other person that you talk about used his recipe but then pulled it out and then uh blitzed it with lecithin uh to emulsify it. It may or may not work, it may or may not taste the same. I don't know. A lot of times when things are done in process, they taste differently from if you do it one way and then just try to blend the stuff together at the end.
So it might be different. But here's a test that no one's run. Because pre- I think pressure cooker stocks taste can taste better, right? Can taste worse, can taste better. I've written many thousands of words on this on the on the cooking issues blog years ago, and I haven't done any new experiments.
So if I said anything now, it's it's basically just my distant memory of doing the test years ago. So I'm not even gonna try to like comment on that. But here's what's not tested. Inside of a pressure cooker, there is very little boiling. Why?
Because it's already at pressure and it's sealed. So once it comes up to a boil and pressurizes your container, it's no longer gonna boil. But if you were to sit there and press the button while you were cooking, so that it and I know venting is bad for the in general, long-term venting is bad for the aroma of the and flavor of the stock, according to my old test. But it might be interesting on a tankatsu broth to just walk up every like three minutes, let's say, and go and have it like just boil like a lunatic because it boils so violently when you hit that button because all of a sudden you're going from it being like at the boiling point to being like wildly hotter than the boiling points. You'll get super violent bubbling with no chance of scorching, so it's pretty cool.
So like I would say I would run a quick tonkatsu test in a pressure cooker with occasional venting to emulsify it and see whether or not you can get a decent result that away. Do you think you think that's it's worth a shot, right, Nick? If if you want to keep going and pushing the vent every three minutes if you have that much time on your hands? Well, presumably you're still cooking other stuff. Presumably you're still cooking.
So it's just well, maybe this isn't in a in like a restaurant kitchen, maybe it's just like a home kitchen. Yeah, but like when was the last time when I'm pressing do you have that much time to just every three minutes just go and push this thing? Well, like, okay, so when I'm usually if I'm pressure cooking stock, it means I've broken down whatever meat I'm gonna use, and then I'm working on other stuff. I'm working on other prep, and so you get that stock going because you know you're eventually gonna have to cool it, strain it, adjust it, do all that. So you the stock gets done early.
So there's usually prep work to do while it's on the stove. And like, so like if you sit there, you're like chaka chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, chaka, tackle with your carrots, although you have to have some carrots in a stock or you're a bad person. You walk over and go back, check it, check it, check it check, it check it, check it. No? Those are the sounds of the kitchen.
If for those of you that didn't know. Check, check, check. Are you guys were you guys totally uh anal about the the no noise with the knife, or you guys noisy knife people? Or do you not care? Do you not get I don't I don't really care.
You don't care? You're not like you're not like you're hitting the board too hard with your knife, you're a tool. Or you know, like uh if it sounds like it's wrong, then obviously I'm gonna go correct that. But do you like those? You know those people, those weirdos who sit there and like slice in silence?
It's takes takes too long to slice in silence. It depends on where you're working on it. To put the exact amount of force into your knife such that it makes no noise when it when it goes through your object. A waste of my life, no? What do you think?
It depends on where you're working. How loud are you? I think I'm average. I don't know. I never really thought about it.
I mean, you we all hate that the check check check chuck check. We hate that person. You make fun of them, make them stand in the corner with like a towel around their head? That's not really my jam. Oh.
How do you how did you work there so long if that's not your jam? Nick was the Nick was the what was your title over there back when you were there? Chef de cuisine. Chef de cuisine at Sambar. Famously Rough Kitchen.
Famously rough kitchen. So call me. We're gonna take a break. We'll call back with your uh ex-famously rough kitchen people. Uh I'll be back in a minute with cooking issues.
Pigskin spaghetti. Look that up. Oh Bob's Red Mill has been milling whole grains since 1978. When you mill whole grains, you get all three parts the bran, the germ, and the endosperm. The bran, or the rough age, makes up about 14% of the whole grain.
It's the outer skin of the edible kernel. It contains large amounts of B vitamins, some protein, trace minerals, phytochemicals, but most importantly, dietary fiber. Learn more at Bob's Redmill.com/slash podcast. Hi, I'm Sam Ben Ruby, host of the Grape Nation on Heritage Radio Network. Tune in every Wednesday at 6 p.m.
to hear some of the best people on wine tell you about what's going on in the world of wine. Support my show and all of Heritage Radio Network's programming. Go to Heritage Radion Network.org and click on the beating heart to donate. And we're back. So Nick's is saying uh pig skin uh spaghetti.
So let me tell me about some pig skin spaghetti. Um this is something that I saw when I worked for Chris, a Chris Costantino. I'm sure he would be the pig skin spaghetti man. Yeah. Yeah.
But you're saying it's hard to pick up because it breaks. Once you've cooked the skin, it gelatinizes and it's difficult to deal with. So I'll say this. I mean, I don't know how he does it, but like when you let it cool down all the way, if you gelatinize your pig skin and then let it cool all the way, it gets kind of tough again. I wonder whether he then you can slice it and handle it.
Yeah, it's after it's cooled. It's cool. Right. And then you can probably re-therm it and have it hold as long as you don't re-therm it all the way. You know what I mean?
As long as you don't melt 100% melt it all the way, you could probably re-therm it, no? Um or was it break like hell on the plate? Was it just I mean, you can still get it to look like noodles on the plate. It's just you'd be very quick if like you're picking up a little bit of broth or like a little bit of butter or whatever. Like last minute, everything gets tossed together, just needs to get warmed through, and then you put it on the plate.
So you toss it with the hot stuff, and then do you do like a quick warm like in the sally or like in an oven and out, or just like in the pan, just like broth and butter, like chucka chaka chaka. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when Nick comes, we bring sounds of the kitchen. That's his next album, Nick Wong's next album, Sounds of the Kitchen.
It's my debut. Yeah, yeah. But it's your debut uh when you when you drop in it. Check for that drop uh late 2018. Yeah, late 2018.
Sounds like Nick Wong, sounds of the kitchen. And you can do it like it's like uh across different parts of the country. You could do like a Milpitas Kitchen, you do like your New York kitchen. Never milpitas. Milpetis.
Maybe you can tell your story now. I will tell the story towards the end. I have some stuff I have to get through. We had another update uh on uh a while ago. People were calling in about the uh Ayu and Ishiri.
The Ayu is the sweet fish sauce, uh Japanese fish sauce, and the ishiri is the uh the one that I get the squid gut sauce, also from Japan from uh in uh Ishikawa, and uh and it is in fact available at Mutual Trading in Los Angeles. So you can call ahead, go in there, and they're in stock. You get them. They're the my favorite, probably fish sauces. Did you guys ever stock that stuff?
You had it when we used to work with it at the French culinary. They're my favorite fish sauces, like by a lot. I can check it out. By Mucho. Anyway.
Uh all right. So we had a follow-up from uh poor guy in Montana. Remember that last week, Sas? So poor guy in Montana tried to use his Hobart uh clone as a pasta extruder. And actually, it's the pasta, like it looked pretty good.
You know that, like uh looks disgusting. It looks great. What's wrong with you? Don't you like micro that's not micro, that's macro. You don't like those like southern, those like southern Italian, like those like Sicilian or like even those like Sardinian pastas that have all that like ropey stuff coming off of them.
Yeah. They're such sauce magnets. They're awesome. I love that texture. Oh man, it got it went away.
But it looked you know what I'm talking about. You know that like it looks like ripped up on the edges? And that's from going through the wide dye that on uh on the thing. But anyway, uh so what happened was um I tried making pasta in the Hobart. Mixer was fine, it's a beast.
The Chinese grinder attachment did not like it so much, broke the retaining pin for the grinder plate. Did make some kind of cool looking noodles. Oh, there it is. They got twit twisted and rotated. What do you think, Nick?
I like that look. Like it catches sauce like a mother. If you dry it down a little bit and like and then like cook it off and like it catches sauce like there's nobody's business. I can tell you it'd be good for catching sauce. It just looks very unappealing.
Yes. It's just a close-up picture. You guys are low quality individuals. You guys both like if I'm why we're on your show, Dave. Yeah, that's true.
My shirts are on the way, by the way. I ordered my shirts, but they haven't arrived yet. Otherwise, I'd be wearing it right now. Booker didn't order Dax order as a low-quality individual shirt. What shirt?
The low quality individual shirt. Oh imagine when people see me with that. Yeah, well, you know, I'll be wearing it, so that that's fine. Anyway, so I like that kind of uh you guys can't see it, but you know what it looks like, people? You ever seen a super magnified human hair?
Yeah. Like it looks like a super magnified human hair. You know what I'm saying? Like under a micron electroscope. Yeah, uh electron microscope.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it looks like it looks like that, which is good for catching sauce, just like your hair is. Great for catching sauce. Um, all right. So we have uh let me see, got a basic fit got a basic physics question.
This is in from Harlan in DC, uh, that I'm too dumb to figure out. When I use my cheap hardware store infrared thermometer to measure the surface temperature of fluids, I find that it's a reasonable approximation of the reading I get from a probe thermometer deep in the same environment, but obtained with less fuss. Chiefly, this is how I check my coffee water on the range while stumbling around in the dark each morning. But when I try the same technique on a dry pan, I get wildly low readings. For instance, a skillet may read 150 degrees pointing the thermometer at the dry cooking surface.
However, after the oil is added, the surface of the oil may read 275 degrees within seconds. My intuition here is that if I were to test the surface of uh of the dry pan with my hand, my brain would not read the temperature as a mere 150. What gives? Thanks, Harlan. Okay, you're dealing with an emissivity problem.
So the way infrared thermometers work is they measure the amount of um amount of uh wavelength of light coming off of it uh off the object in a particular wavelength. And I forget exactly what it is somewhere in the infrared. But every object, every like material has a different, what's called emissivity. And if that emissivity is different, you're gonna get wildly different reading. So it's calibrated for a particular temperature at a particular emissivity.
And this is another reason why. So like most things in our in our life uh are that we measure for cooking are between 0.9 and and like 0.96, 0.98. So one being a like black, black, black like piece of construction paper, black. Like that's one, right? And zero is like nothing comes out, it's perfectly reflective, it doesn't do anything, right?
Uh so the problem is is that water, oil, all that is like 0.9, so it's very close to one. And they all measure relatively accurately, they're gonna be a little bit different, but once you measure a surface, it will always measure that one the same way because the emissivity is, you know, it stays the same on the surface from time to time. And by the way, you can get fancy, fancy pants uh IR thermometers where you can actually change the emissivity of the uh reading so that it'll correct for the temperature, but I don't know anyone that actually does that. Uh problem is is that like polished aluminum, polished copper, anything like this has very low emissivity. So, like if like water uh is above 0.9 and oils like 0.95, then like aluminum pan is like 0.2, 0.4.
You know what I mean? Like lower, like much lower. And so, like, even a relatively dirty aluminum pan is still a lot lower emissivity than um than most foods that we do. And so it's gonna read wildly different. So when you're testing pans, you can uh put a strip of uh like like heat proof tape down.
When I used to do it, I used to like quickly just paint some stuff uh on it that I knew I could wipe off that was matte and that you could see it, but you cannot register the uh temperature of a bare metal pan accurately with an infrared thermometer, which can't be done. Uh another thing that people make mistake with the thermometer, and Nick, you've seen this. How many times have you seen this? Someone try holds a thermometer like five feet from what they're trying to measure, and they pull the trigger, and they think that the laser dot is telling them what the temperature is. No.
Like what happens is every thermometer and most of them have a picture on the side of a cone, and that cone, the aspect ratio is kind of what's being read. And so you have to imagine in your mind a cone coming out of your thermometer. So usually if you want it accurate, you have to get up on it. Like I have some very narrow, uh, very narrow spot ones that are very narrow, but most aren't. Most are pretty wide, and so you gotta get uh closer to your object than you think.
And if you're not, then it's just gonna average whatever it's inside that cone that it's reading. So there you go. Two mistakes people make with infrared thermometers. Uh the other mistake is to hand it to your kids and have them run around flashing lasers in people's eyes. That's the other mistake.
All right. Um okay. So we got let's see what else we got here. Uh here's a weird one. I didn't have time to analyze this one.
So see what you think, Nick. I'm a mathematician and was recently, this is from Tyler, and was recently surprised to find a mushroom recipe section on a colleague's professional web page. I am perplexed because this is uh called a mushroom dough, a mushroom pie, but it doesn't make any sense to him. So you want it, we're gonna analyze it. You ready, Nick?
Okay. All right. So uh this is uh Yuna's mushroom pie for the dough. Four tablespoons of kefir. All right.
You're right with that. Four tablespoons of kefir, four tablespoons mayonnaise. Okay, you ready? All right. Two eggs.
Alright, just sinking in. Half teaspoon soda, baking soda, right? Then four big tablespoons of flour. Now, why the hell are you measuring four big tablespoons of flour? Once you're on four, then you're already at like, you're already over a quarter cup.
And then big, I mean, what does that mean? Are we talking like now? Are we like, is this really like eight tablespoons? Is this like a half cup? Is this like, this is why you should only measure in grams.
This is an absurd measurement. Like, like if one tablespoon big, then you just say, you know what? Four teaspoons. You know what I mean? Or like give a gram measurement.
But like three, three big four big tablespoons is exactly the kind of measurement that makes me want to punch myself in the face. It's like, I just like it drives me nuts. What do you think, Nick? I also would like to punch you in the face. There you go.
Because of this or for multiple reasons. This is not helping. Yeah, it's not helping. Not helping. Uh and then check this.
Four big tablespoons of flour, yet 200 grams of cheese cheese, e.g., mozzarella. Right? Okay. Then you fry a pound of mushrooms, one or two onions in oil, add spices. One or two onions.
One or two. One or two. Okay. Uh, mix the mushrooms into the dough, and bake 30 or 40 minutes until a nice crust is formed. What do you think about this, Nick?
I don't I can't imagine what you're making a goopy, relatively loose dough with grains, just enough flour to hold it together, and then you're mixing this mushroom product into it. Mushroom, presumably, as it bakes, stays at its own texture, which is m meaty but tender enough to not be too tough. And so I'm thinking you have to me this sounds like like an overly bound haggis. Mushroom haggis. It's like an overly bound mushroom haggis and not really a dough, right?
Like a pudding. Yeah, more like a yeah. Like a hard pudding, like like a spotted dick or something like this in terms of its ratios. You know what I mean? What do you think?
I'm looking at Nastasia's face for the first time. What do you think? I I looked it up when I read this. See if what it looked like. And what it looked like.
I couldn't find any pictures of the finished. But like what do you what is your feeling on it? If someone said, hey Stas, I'm glad you're coming over. Here's what we're making. What would you do?
It almost sounds like someone like you could just open up a can of like cream and mushroom soup and just put it into a pan and throw that in the oven. I'm gonna make this thing. Just like put a little bit of flour in it. I'm not gonna make this right now because I I'm I'm traveling, you know, pretty soon, but I'm gonna make this dang thing. I'm gonna see what's going on.
You know what this is crying for sauce? This sucker wants a sauce. It feels like it feels like it wants to be, yeah, like a pudding or almost like a scrapple or like a meatloafy kind of a thing. You know what I mean? That's what it feels like.
Can like but pie? Like a cage. But it doesn't smell like a quiche. Not enough eggs to be quichy. Everybody likes a quiche.
But there's not even like a crust or there's no because everything just gets mixed together, right? What's your favorite pie that's not a pie? Frito pie. Oh. Frito pie.
Very strong. Yeah. What about you, Stas? I don't know. Do you not like frito Pie?
Is that just the bag with the That's Frito Pie in a bag? But like you don't have to have it in a bag. I don't think I've ever had it. What? God damn it.
Can you tell your story now? Vitor, what about you? You a Frito Pie fan? Um I haven't tried it. What my God.
Do you agree that Fritos are an incredibly delicious snack product? They are incredibly delicious snack product. They are, right? They're terrific. Um anyway.
Uh we also had uh someone write in. This is uh Jeff Heaton from Atlanta, Georgia. Uh I've been listening for a while, uh, but never had a question. Uh I do, however, have a submission for the non-existent enemies of quality t-shirt contest. We do actually have an enemy of quality t-shirt now, along with a low-quality individual uh shirt.
Uh but um so the the the shirt that uh Jeff made, it's kind of cool. Here we think, Nick, it says enemies of quality, and it's got an exploding tomato behind an open fridge with a tomato in it. Now there is recent, i.e. the past couple of years, arguments with between Daniel Gritzer and the rest of the world on whether or not, in fact, putting tomatoes into your fridge makes you an enemy of quality. And I think at this point it's very complicated, but I do like your tomato enemy of quality t-shirt.
And so, you know, look, we can we can make it, we can add it to our Shopify. Like, we have a Shopify. What's it called, Stas? What's the what was it called? I don't know.
I should look it up. But anyway, you can buy your enemy of quality t-shirt. You could buy your uh low-quality individual t-shirt, which is one I'm gonna be wearing. I hope it comes by the time I'm traveling, because I want to travel around Ireland wearing an enemy of quality t-shirt, because who doesn't? Um also quick update on the spinzall.
I'm almost done with the user manual, and we're still on track spins, all people, so it's looking good. Have you seen the new one? I've not seen any of them.com. Yeah. So, anyways.
Alright, uh, oh, one more thing before I tell my story. Nastassi, you're gonna enjoy this. There's a I got you you have the news feeds that come through on your phone, right? So, like, check this out. What?
I think I saw it. Which one? Did you post something? Oh no, that's a different one. Wait, which one which one you're doing?
I don't remember what it is. Oh, uh check this out. So there's a recent study. The question is if you die and no one finds your body, is your dog gonna eat your face? Yes.
Answer, yes. Yes, dog is gonna eat your face. Dog will eat your face. But here's what's interesting it doesn't mean that they don't love you, because in the wild, a dog would eat your stomach. It would rip out your insides and eat your soft organs first.
But pet dogs, by the way, tend to eat more of their owners than cats do. Although I do know someone who a cat ate their fingertip once. They chopped off their finger in the studio tip, and the cat was like nom nom nom nom nom. And then they couldn't get it back, couldn't reattach it. But the um yeah, the dogs end up just like nibbling part of your face off and then not finishing it.
And my do they eat the rest of your body? No. Do they go for the eyes? Because the eyes are soft? No, they I think they're just trying to lick you awake, and it turns out you're dead.
So they just like are like, mmm, and then they kind of nip at you, and then they're like, okay, that's kind of tasty. And then they like take some. But my point is, why not? I don't feel bad about that. Do you feel bad about that?
No one's ever gonna find you. I mean, but like people are now worried about it. People are like, What this is a thing, this is our like published that people are worried about. Who cares? Who cares?
Like, if you're gone, you're gone. You know, I hope I'm delicious. Like, I hope I'm tender and delicious for my dog. You know what I mean? Yeah, this is why I don't exercise because I want to stay tender and delicious so that my dogs can have a good last meal if I happen to go when I'm alone with them.
Speaking of dogs, this is the story Nastasia wants me uh to tell. Ready for this? Yes. Okay. So I have uh two dogs Major, who's a lab, and Watson, who's like a little like terterior mutt thing, right?
That you know, and Watson's like a crazy little dog. So I'm getting ready to go to China a couple weeks ago and uh for the spinz all, right? So literally I'm packed, I'm dressed, I got I always wear overco I always wear like a jacket when I'm on a plane, so I can take everything out of my pocket and throw it in my jacket and throw the jacket in the bin and go. So I got everything, I'm ready to go. Last thing I have to do before I go is walk the dogs, and then uh I'm I'm uh about to head out to the airport.
So uh I'm like, Booker, Dax, put the dog's leashes on. They put the dog's leashes on. Somehow the door gets left open. I'm like, Where's Watson? Where's Watson?
Where's Watson? And then I run outside, Watson's not in the hallway, he's gone. So I run down I live in an apartment building. So I run downstairs. Oh, by the way, you have to understand what the Sabbath elevator is.
So for those of you that don't live in uh New York City or never been in a New York City apartment, so if you live in a building that has uh like a orthodox Jewish community, if uh the Orthodox Jewish uh community cannot touch, cannot activate electric buttons, one of the many things they cannot do on the Sabbath. So from Friday night until Saturday at sundown, like all of the elevator like one of the elevators of the two open and shut on all the floors. They open and shut on every floor. This way, if you're, you know, if your legs, if you're tired, or if you're older and firm, have a you know, your handy, whatever, whatever you have a problem, you can just walk into the elevator and it'll take you to your floor without pushing a button. It's called a Sabbath elevator.
So uh anyway, so like it happens to be a freaking Saturday morning, and so the Sabbath elevator is running, so I'm like, oh my god, Watson went in the Sabbath elevator. So I run downstairs to the security guard. I'm like, oh security guard, uh, do you see my dog in the in the elevator? And he's looking at the at the at the you know security screens. Nope.
I'm like, what? And so then I run back upstairs, run upstairs, and I'm like, and then as I run upstairs, my wife Jen is in the hallway. She just goes, ah, points up and points at the at the at the elevator, and all I see is Watson's leash dangling from the top of the closed elevator. So it's like, it's like you see closed elevator doors, and the leash is dangling down. I'm like, I'm like, he's dead!
He's dead! So I run downstairs, and somehow I'm like, okay, look, I know he's not in the elevator, right? Because we looked at the security footage, right? But somehow his leash is on top. So my rattled brain, because you're not trained to think logically, like when you're all freaked out, right?
I'm like, he's on top of the elevator. So I had him recall the elevator. I'm trying to like jam the door open because it won't stop. I'm like cursing and screaming, dropping F-bombs, and then trying to like chin up to yell up to Watson, who I somehow think is on top of the elevator. By this time the manager has showed up, he's like, dude, there's no there's no possible way that he's on top of the elevator.
How's he gonna get there? I was like, you're right. There's no possible way he's on top of the elevator. So I'm like, but I'm assuming he's decapitated, he's dead. I'm like, he's not in the elevator.
Why is there no bloody like pile of dog with its head ripped off in the in the elevator? And what the hell? So I so I'm like, oh my god. So I just run to every floor in the building, like one after another. By the time I get up to like the eighth floor, seven, seven, Watson runs out, and he's there, and he's fine.
Here's what happened. This crazy little dog, the door shut, and the thing starts going and ripping his head off. And so he's like and he bit through his leash. Oh. He bit through his leash in like two seconds flat.
Or the leash could have snapped. But how's it gonna snap? He bit through that thing. He's done it before. He bit through the leash like this, and then that was it.
He was fine. And but here's what I'm thinking. Here's the upshot of it. So what if he had been dead? Then what?
Then I would have cried. Yes, but I mean I still would have had to go to China. I'd still have to go to China right away. Not in an hour. I only had like 10 minutes.
I was about to go to China because going to China would not have made the dog less dead. And yet it would have been a horribly insensitive. And yet if I had done that, I would have thrown off the production schedule for everybody's spinzall. What would you have done, Nick? Just gotta go to China.
Gotta go to China. Now Nastasia thinks I'm a bad guy. Nastassi is like, no, I would not go to China. I would be devastated if I think you'd have to. What if I went to China or just in general?
If Watson did. Yeah, but would you need me to be there? Well, of course, I would need you to be at Watson's funeral if he had one. All right, listen, happy Fourth of July, people. I'll be back in two weeks with cooking issues.
Thanks for listening to Heritage Radio Network. Food radio supported by you. For our freshest content and to hear about exclusive events, subscribe to our newsletter. Enter your email at the bottom of our website, heritageradio network.org. Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Heritage Underscore Radio.
Heritage Radio Network is a nonprofit organization driving conversations to make the world a better, fairer, more delicious place. And we couldn't do it without support from listeners like you. Want to be a part of the food world's most innovative community? Rate the shows you like, tell your friends, and please join our community by becoming a member. Just click on the beating heart at the top right of our homepage.
Thanks for listening.
Timestamps may be off due to dynamic ad insertion.