I try to be steady for my family. And my head's usually in the game, but after the abortion, I wasn't okay inside. I carried it like a hidden weight. Some days angrier, other days numbness. And I didn't know where guys were supposed to go for this.
Support after abortion. Helped me find support that fit. One-on-one, group or self-guided, virtual or in person, secular or faith-based. If you want to help men and women heal, visit support after abortion.com slash iHeart Dash Compassion. That's support after abortion.com slash Iheart Dash Compassion.
Today's show is brought to you by Bob's Red Mill, 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 dot com slash podcast. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network. We're a member supported food radio network, broadcasting over 35 weekly shows live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. Join our hosts as they lead you through the world of craft brewing, behind the scenes of the restaurant industry, inside the battle over school food, and beyond.
Find us at heritage radio network.org. Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from early twelve to roughly twelve forty five from Roberto's Pizzeria in Bushwick Brooklyn. Joined as usual with Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How are you doing, Stas?
Good. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Tell tell him why you're good.
Oh, uh alright. Well, we'll get to that in a minute. We got Dave in the booth, how you doing? Um good. Yeah?
How about you? Doing all right. Alright. And before I say we have some special guests, but uh call in all of your cooking or other kind of any kind of question, really. Nastasi, do we really care what kind of questions I think?
Any issue. Any issue. So we're going beyond just straight cooking issues and we're just any issues. Call your issues. Call in your questions to 718 497-2128.
That's 718-497-2128. And I guess uh it's been kind of a rough week for a lot of the countries, so we should start out just, you know, our thoughts are going out to everyone who's been, you know, hit either by Harvey or Irma or any one of the other things that's going on right now. Um but we have uh two guests, long time uh recurring guests. We got uh Paul Pote uh Adams from uh What are you at now? What are you doing now?
Cooks Illustrated. I don't read my emails. No, he you give his email address. Oh, I don't read oh that's not I didn't give his full email. So you're at Cooks Illustrated now full time?
Yes. Are you an illustrated cook full time? Do you live in Boston now? No. I live in Queens.
Let me ask you a question, Paul. Any question? Uh okay, so I have the entire first several years of Cooks Illustrated going back to 1993, which is when it started. Wow. And some of the original Cooks Illustrated recipes from 1993, like for instance, their muffin recipe.
Still, I use that muffin recipe. It's a good muffin recipe. Yeah. Uh here's what I don't like about Cooks Illustrated. They're always like the best this, the best that.
You can't say anything's the best anything. It's like it's like here's a path. Clickbait. Here's the path. Have you had better muffins?
Uh I haven't really tried. I was like, I was like, these muffins are good enough. It's the best. But then how do they then then like here's the thing if you've been reading it since 1993, they'll come back like 20 years later and they'll write the best, and it's a different recipe. I'm like, can't both be free and true.
Well, you have to check the date. So wait, it's new bests. Now supercede just say just say here's an interesting take on what the journey to muffinhood looks like. First of all, like a better muffin than any preceding muffin. Do you like muffins?
No. What the hell's wrong with you? Who is partner in the Empayon Empire, formerly pastry chef at the Empayan Empire, but now just General Empresario and Wizard. How are you doing? I'm lovely.
Yeah, and and this is awesome because this is for the first time in a long time. It is take your kid to work life, but kids, but not mine this time. So who do we got here? Jackson. We've got Jackson, who's two and a half years old.
Hey Jackson, that's a good age. Stay that way. On his second day of school. So super exciting. Yeah, nice.
And we have Parker who is three months old. She's he's got a question for you. Yes, darling. He's gonna ask a pastry related question. Alright, so what do you got going on?
What's what's going on? What's shaking? What's interesting? Well, um, uh you know, I've uh had two kids, so that takes a bit of a toll on working the line in a in a restaurant. I bet.
Uh so pretty much once I was pregnant enough with Jackson and more of an inconvenience in the kitchen than a help, uh, I've kind of been on a little retirement, but uh doing cakes on the side, you know, helping out friends with birthday parties, and uh then uh it just so happened that a cake was Instagrammed by uh DJ Natalie from Baby DJ School in Brooklyn, and then all of a sudden a few of her clients were reaching out to me via Instagram. Oh, I want that cake too, I want that cake too. So kind of spiraled into a little side business of uh kids' birthday cakes, and so like like first a couple things. What's what's baby DJ? What is this?
Oh, baby DJ. Yeah, it's um it's actually a quite a phenomenon in Williamsburg. Uh really cool young lady named Natalie uh started this group uh she just teaches kids anywhere from ta like infants to young toddlers I think to four years old or something like that um how to DJ play with DJ equipment like scratching she has like all this different you know equipment that she brings with her to other someone's house with if they're hosting it or if they come to her apartment where she hosts it as well. Um she even did it in McCarn Park a couple summers ago please tell me they're like rocking like the Technics platters with wiggles on it with the wiggles please please no it's it's actually like she has old school records like things that you I've never even heard of but uh just not like one little duck no but she'll like uh what was it? I think she played oh she actually played um you down with OPP the other day or at one time and I was like should we be playing that for children well I've noticed that A A kids don't understand what that means and for some reason over the past five years when I was when it was actually relatively current when I was in high school college like it would get played but like it wouldn't get played at weddings.
Now every wedding class it and I saw I was at a wedding for a friend of mine a couple weeks ago uh and they literally they played OPP not really appropriate for a wedding and uh for those of you that don't know what this sounds about not appropriate for family show well some people say it stands for property Nastasia but then the uh but then the minister was freaking getting down to it. No the freaking minister was like was like other people's you know, it depends. It can be, but it depends on the phone. He has no idea what it means. The good thing is it's gender neutral because it gets 'cause they both they both start with P.
Yeah. Well, or certain euphemisms for them both start with P. Yes. Uh-huh. Yeah.
Anyway. So uh the point is, but that's one of those, like now it's like a wedding standard thing. Which I had no idea. Like who why would you play that? What I've been noticing, every wedding I've been to this year, the DJ is a baby.
I think this all goes back to Natalie. It does. So now, okay, so what style of first of all, is this like is this like intentionally rich people's cakes? Um, well, no, I mean like it I kind of charge as as I as detailed as they need it to be. So um I don't even have like a set pricing yet.
I'm still working on that. But uh like one party I did was actually for a woman for one woman who had two boys, and so I had basically this this cake that on top of it there's a rectangular smash cake, which's a smash cake. Oh, for for first birthdays. What what is this? The kid gets their own individual little cake that they can destroy and get all over themselves and just thinking about that makes me queasy.
But that because then you know you're not ruining everyone else's cake bite. Yeah, yes. So is it on top though? So now I have mangled particles. No, because so what what I do is I have the regular cake, which is like maybe a big rectangle, and then um the rectangle a smaller rectangle on top, which is the DJ booth.
I cover that in like Bondant. Uh, and then I make a little gum paste avatar that is similar looking to the child. Nice. And they're like with headphones on, but like for real mate, not like 3D printed. You're not like 3D printing the child's head.
And uh they're standing up like spinning, and um, and then when it comes time to serve the cake, I just take off the DJ booth, give that to the individual birthday kid, and then everyone else gets clean cake that's not nice, not mangled. Yeah. No one really wants that mangled cake. Although the fonant's a nice touch because you can brush off most disgusting things. Of course.
I, by the way, I'm this guy, I love actual fondant. Like I like it with the 1% in the world. With the almond paste underneath, like old school stuff. Yeah. I love that.
Yeah. I I absolutely love it. And you know what I don't like? Buttercream. But apparently I'm the only guy.
I mean, like, uh, I'm not afraid of grease. You know what I mean? So I don't know why I'm not a huge buttercream fan, but I'm just not. But there are different styles of buttercream. That's there's that whole literally butter powdered sugar and vanilla extract.
But then there's also what I do is an Italian meringue buttercream. Yeah. Or an egg white buttercream. I mean, thank you. I would actually, you know what I I love, like, okay, so you I like fondant icing.
I love the even though you can't do it on a this kind of cake because it doesn't last. I like the old school straight up meringue icings. Those are delicious. Oh yeah. I like cream cheese icing on a carrot cake.
I like do you like that? Do you like the uh that crunchy coconut uh German chocolate cake icing stuff? I've always loved German chocolate cake. Really? I do.
Just I've that's like one of my one of my favorites. Really? Paul, where are you standing on this? I like it. I imagine this is the thing that Estasia does not like.
You like it? Mm-hmm. See, LA Girls Unite. Wow, that's crazy. That's crazy.
Like that's like right up the it's got like little things in it. Nastasi hates things with little things. Pistachios and coconut. Or not pistachios, um pecans and coconut, usually. But you hate pecan pie, right, Stas?
I don't like pecan pie. Okay. I don't either. Oh Jesus. We're from the same area of LA.
Love it. Uh there you go. We were actually born in the same hospital. Oh, come on, really. Like a month apart from each other.
Really? I found out because she was listening to the same music that they played in LA. What does that mean? I don't know. Like a certain area.
Like what? Like Sublime? Possibly kind of. Deeper. Yeah, like obscure.
You were listening to the thing. There's nothing deeper than sublime. Like literally, if you take its name at face value. I think you actually even said also that you I was talking to someone and I said like a word or something. And you were like, wait, that's my area.
Yeah. Like Covina. You're also from Covina? I was technically born in uh Arc well in La Cañata. I don't know what that means.
Is that good or bad? No, except the air the town. But uh I grew up in Arcadia, California. Also, is that good or bad? Now it's just it just is.
Yeah, it just is. Alright, so so back to cakes. So like there's a long-going thing with cakes in my mind. Maybe I'm just because I like to I like to like create fights in my mind. You know what I mean?
Between groups of people. So the fight that I have in my mind is the uh like the the image cake, the cake as like object, and then the cake as flavorful thing that I eat. Right. Do you A, do you think that's a real dichotomy? And B, where do you stand on that?
I always, and and my husband is very much this way too, is flavor is the first thing. You have to have a good a good cake that's nice and moist, that's I mean, doesn't matter what it looks like at the end if it tastes great. By the way, she mentioned her husband, that's Alex Stupak, and just to let you know, if if you said something tasted good and it wasn't, it was low quality, he might. I'm not saying he would punch you, but he wouldn't be. He's not he doesn't he'll death stare you.
Yeah, he doesn't enjoy things that he thinks are bad. We say it's accurate. He doesn't enjoy things he thinks are bad. In other words, he doesn't like he can't like let things slide so much. That's sort of just like you.
Yes. I don't know. We're different about it though. I mean, like he's really like, I feel like I've seen him, I don't know him that well, but I feel like I've seen him be kind of like deeply emotionally hurt by a low quality dish. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Well, other people's acceptance of a low quality dish. I was gonna say, but at the same time at home, he'll like eat a mayonnaise sandwich, you know. Uh mayonnaise is delicious. It's a good product.
We've actually talked about instead of him having a man cave, having a mayonnaise cave. Ooh, I like that. Uh I'm not gonna I mean I'm not gonna give too much out, but you know, I'm working on a new new barp right now, and we will have a mayonnaise program. Oh my goodness. We're gonna have a mayonnaise program.
Which we won't call it out, but like we are gonna have a wide variety of mayonnaise. I have found that uh mayonnaise is delicious. And for those people who do not enjoy mayonnaise, I'm not saying you have to have mayonnaise on a French fry, but if you don't like mayonnaise on a French fry, just grow up. Just grow up. You know what I mean?
It's like it tastes good. It does. It tastes good. You know, not on like when I was a kid, I would put now this is bad. I would put mayonnaise on hot dogs when I was a kid.
Why is that bad? Because you're supposed to put mustard on a freaking hot dog. Well, yeah, there are those those diehards that only mustard or mustard and relish, maybe. Uh mustard and kraut. Oh, yes, that yes.
I'm a mustard and kraut fellow. I mean, I was the kid who put mustard and ketchup on my hot dog. So Yeah, I did that sometimes when I was a kid. I sometimes would put all three in. But uh let me tell you something about uh about sauerkraut.
I feel that the average American hasn't had I'm sure the listeners here are otherwise, but the average American has not had good sauerkraut. The sauerkraut that you buy that's been like like uh like preserved and stabilized and whatever the hell else they do. No offense to the Sabret Corporation, but they're like Sacco sauerkraut that the average person is buying in a supermarket. It's garbage. Compared to real sauerkraut, I mean it's straight up garbage.
It's not even the same product, it doesn't taste the same. It's like it's not right. No. The sauerkraut we make at our house, it stinks up the entire fridge, basically. Yeah, but that's what you want.
That's what you want. That's what you want. Okay, so back to the cakes. Okay, so back to the cakes. Yeah.
Um so flavor, of course, is the first thing. Um I'm personally not a fan of too much gum paste and fondant as more so than the cake. Like, you know, you see all those things where it's like they have these beautiful sculpturesque cakes and stuff, but it's like 75% fondant or gum paste and for structure or just for looks. Just for like the looks. Right.
And to me, that's I mean, it yeah, it's art and all, but the kids, if it's for a kid's party, they want the cake. I mean, unless you have a sheet cake in the back, which I'm totally down with. But you you are down with that. So you're down with like you're down with like the cake as like a hat. It's almost like an Easter bonnet, and then you have like a sheet cake in the back.
I never thought I was, but then when I lived in Chicago for a year, I was working at a bakery bitter sweet. Um it's called bittersweet. Um, and uh we were all about making these faux cakes that you know are made of styrofoam and they're just decorated, and then you just have one little wedge cut out uh that you insert real cake so that the bride and groom can do their ceremony on that. That's creepy to it's creepy though. But it's no, because then in the back, everyone has not fondant covered delicious cake.
Okay, okay. Okay, they reuse that cake. That's what's creepy about it. So No, no, you don't reuse it. Maybe you didn't.
No. Where's the wedge cover? Come on, yeah. You're big and individual. They basically have like a plywood styrofoam cake, and then they just insert the fake wedge for the cut and the face smash.
I do not believe in the face smash people. Does anyone here believe in the face smash? What is that? What are the room feed each other the first time? And then and then you're like, oh oops, and you shove it in their face.
No, no good. And they no good. And but they the thing is, is it like I've heard that you like re that people reuse the blank. Oh, I've never ever heard that. Because I'd be like, 'cause they because it's a big thing.
Do those people get divorced or not? Did it stick? Was the marriage good? Because I don't want a cake that has a bad record. No.
No, because why would you pick like the bakery wouldn't go back and pick it up? Like once you drop off a cake, that's that's it. You never see those people again. Oh, I was thinking, well, because I I I associate it with like big houses that do weddings, like where they have like three weddings a day and they're just crank a lank and out. You know what I'm talking about?
No. You've been like it's like it's like nch wedding. No. You know what I mean? Wedding machines.
I I I've No, because you can't also do that because the cake, the faux cake is already is is completely covered in fondant, and then once a slice is taken out, you have a I'm making air quotes people. What about the top three layers? Uh you know, I when I've done wedding cakes, um like I actually my husband and I never did that whole ceremonial each or one year anniversary cake that's been in the freezer. My cousin ate my cousin went into my aunt and uncle's house and took it and ate it. Oh yours?
Yeah. Oh really? Yeah. Which was it? I'm not gonna call them out on it.
Well, but my mom actually did save that top layer for us to have that ceremonial thing, and we never did it. And I think just last year she finally threw it out, or maybe this this past year she just threw it out. We've been married for 10 years. You didn't just eat it? No, we've been married for 10 years.
I'm not gonna eat it. It's been frozen. Yeah. Frostbite. Might as well lick an ice cube.
I mean, but yeah, but you know, for tradition, I would lick an ice cube. I'm the guy who might one of my greatest desires in life is to cook a woolly mammoth as it gets pitched out of the permafrost in Siberia because of global warming. All time life goals, people. If you know anyone in Siberia who has access to any sort of woolly mammoth that's just starting to come out of the ice, so it's still frozen? You know, it's a mere 12,000 years old.
Oh my that would be sweet. Wouldn't you eat that, Paul? Yeah, that'd be great. Do you know Paul has been on the Vomit Comet? Are you familiar with the Vomit Comet?
So the Vom Parker's apparently familiar. Definitely familiar with the Vomit Comet. But the uh so uh vomit comet is what they use to train astronauts. Do they allow fo and so what they do is is they fly uh parabolic trajectories so that you feel weightless when you're in air. And then I was like, well, maybe we could serve food on the vomit comet as part of a museum of food and drink kind of a thing, but then Peter was like, it's called the vomit comet.
You can't serve food on something where half the people are projected to vomit. Paul, did you eat food on the vomit comet? I didn't, but I would have. I certainly would have. I don't think they would allow that stuff on the plane, would they?
Would they allow you to bring like uh a capri sun pouch on the uh on the vomit comet? Yeah, definitely. If you're paying. Did you vomit on the vomit comet? Only one person vomited.
Out of how many? Out of at least 45 people. Interesting fact for you vomit comet folks out there. Uh you actually go weightless on the up trajectory, which I didn't realize. Hi.
What's up? All right, so so we're talking about cakes. So, what's your favorite cake? What do kids like these days? Um do you like you said you like sheet cakes.
I understand it's like it's it's the best like icing to cake ratio, and it's the best bake off. In other words, like you're only if you mess up, you're only messing up the edges, and the vast majority of your sheet cake is okay. There's something not as enjoyable about the square block of cake as the sweet, sweet wedge of like good old fashioned American cake. But I still double, I still do a layer uh with the with a sheet cake. So it's it's you still get a good cut in.
So it's not like it's not like entomints aluminum foil. Oh no, no. Uh no, I I like to do a again, it's it I don't do that for kids uh so much, but uh I uh she doesn't like the wall there. What are you doing there, miss? Sorry.
Um, like what's your favorite flavor there for the for the kids? What do they what kids I want chocolate? You know, I I do serve devil's food to kids and tell the parents that there is espresso powder in there. So he's there? Oh yeah.
You ever have kids running around and pooping out of everything? Uh I I drop off a cake and leave. So if that happens. And then they drop it off and leave. So funny story a friend of mine who uh once babysat a small chihuahua.
Now, things that chihuahua should not have chocolate and coffee. And this dog got into a couple chocolate covered espresso beans, and apparently it was jumping. I don't know, in a chihuahua. Apparently the dog was jumping into the air and then projectile pooping onto the wall. Wow.
And so now like I have this image of this like it got. I don't know, like maybe like armadillo jumping height. You know how armadillos bounce? Like in my mind, this this chihuahua is like boing, boing, ps boing, ps like all over the wall. That's my image.
It sounds amazing. I know, but it's not really safe to do to a dog. A very small amount of chocolate can throw a dog for you know a pretty bad look. Alright. Oh yeah.
All right. What about carrot cake? That was my wedding cake. I love carrot cake. That's my favorite.
Except I don't like it with raisins in it. Like in general? I don't like raisins in cake, yeah. At all? No.
Do you enjoy raisin cinnamon bread? Yeah. But yeah, for some reason, I don't know. Because the crumb is is much fluffier and finer on a carrot cake, and then you've got this raisin that just it bites too much with meat. Do you like panettone?
Toasted, like a slice, not like just straight cut from the cake. Because of the fruit? I think so. Do you like dense things like fruit cake? You know, I honestly don't know that I've had a legit fruit cake.
I really don't know that I have. Paul, fruit cake? It's good. Nastasia? I don't think I've had a real one.
Why? Because you're just opposed to the idea of it. It's a gummy, dense block of sugar. You buy it this year and eat it next year. Mail order.
Oh the the cake of record is Claxton's. Yeah. But I don't know whether or not uh anyway, okay. Let's get let's answer some questions. You ever made uh uh buckwheat uh galettes?
No. You think of crepes, they're like crates, but they're made of buckwheat. Yeah, so anyway, I have a question. Should we get to some questions? Sure.
Paul, do you have any cooks illustrated stuff? You ever worked on crepes? Never worked on crepes. I make buckwheat pancakes. Yeah, but you cheat, you add regular flour to it, right?
Or you go straight. Yeah, okay. Okay, well, that's the whole point of this freaking question. So, like the thing is, is okay. First of all, uh, I would have this is from who's this from?
This is from Caleb. I would have tested these recipes myself, except for I have no gas in my building. These idiots, I don't know, they're maybe they're good people, maybe they're good people and idiots. You know what I mean? You could be you could be an idiot and be a good person.
You know what I mean? They broke through the gas line while they were working on our building, and now the whole building is out of gas, and they're like, I was like, okay, so like you're gonna fix it like tomorrow, and they're like, Well, uh, well, uh the permitting's gonna take like six weeks. The permitting's gonna take six weeks. Now, people, I don't know if you know this. We live in New York City here.
We pay a buttload of taxes to live in this freaking city. If an entire building with like 500 people in it, like is not on like has no gas, maybe you could expedite the freaking permit because you know it's just some person sitting in a room somewhere going, yeah. You know what I mean? So it's like, why can't they just like accelerate that for all the people that are there? You know what I mean?
It's not like I'm trying to get a gas permit for a building that is like being built in three months, and you're like, if you needed a permit now, why didn't you ask for it six weeks ago? You know, this like the thing just broke, like emergency permit. And there are people living there. Yeah, and you know what? Like, sure, like, you know, like I can go like go out, or I in fact I have a really nice induction burner, so I can cook without it, you know what I mean?
But there's plenty of people who can't afford to necessarily eat out every night who like rely on their gas. Because it's not like we have an uh, you know, a lot of electricity in our apartments, because New York City apartments, one of the reasons we don't uh often have like electric ovens or this kind of stuff, it's just because we don't have a big enough electric service into our units to be able to do it. But what if six weeks, anyways. So Caleb, I couldn't actually test this, but also, you know, I used to have a real crepe maker, crampus, a real crampose crepe maker gas. What?
It's that big thing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't have it hooked up right now. I I had it hooked up at the old place. I'm gonna get hooked up again.
Dax misses it. I love it more than almost any other piece of hot side equipment because it just screams like a mother. It's so much better than any electric crate maker I've ever used or any wussy. Everyone's like, I make crepe cakes on my stove with my crepe pan. I'm like, no, you don't.
You know what I mean? I'm like, like a real, like, I mean, you do, I'm not saying your crepes are bad. But if you like the actual like giant French style street crepe. Do you have that big wooden dowel thing too? Replet, yes.
I love the replet. So the replet looks like a squeegee, like like a like a s like like if you're driving down the Bruckner and there's traffic and someone comes with a squeegee to it's like that, but made of wood. Wait, where did you get this crepe maker? I went to France. I was on the street, and I had a crepe, and I was like, oh, this is the piece of equipment you need to do this.
This stuff we have in the United States is garbage. And and uh at you know, at that time, this is you know, like like two decades ago or something, you couldn't really get uh, you know, you could maybe you could get them here, but they were really, really expensive. But like cramp the actual brand crampus wasn't really brought in here yet. And so I was like, um I'm just gonna buy one, put it in my backpack, and it's heavy, because it's like heavy, heavy. And I just trudged around Europe with this giant crepe maker, and you know what?
Worth it. Totally worth it. Amazing piece of equipment. It has so many spider arms of gas underneath, it's so even, and when you flip the cast iron piece uh over the the top, it has like a a bunch of fins to spread out the gas flame so that it's really even and it can scream, scream, scream, screen, scream. So here's the thing about crepes.
The thing about crepes when you're making regular crepes, we're about to go into this question in a minute, is recovery time, right? So people are using a a little stove, and then you're putting a crepe on, you're like, well, the crepe's not that big, so it what kind of it's can't be that big of a deal to cook it. But you're covering the entire surface of your cooking area with wet. And when you cook the cover the entire surface of your cooking area with wet, and you need it to be like a relatively even shade of brown from the middle to the outside, and you're using a regular stove, you're hosed. You're you're ruined unless you have like a giant thing.
So the answer is is that these people who are making their awesome crepes at home have to be making it into relatively small pans. Like that's the answer. You know what I'm saying? Or if you but you know, if you maybe if you had like an accuSteam would be the ultimate thing to make crepes on, but no one make accusteam does not make a crepe maker, but I guess you could make it in their regular square griddle. Because act you know, accuSteam stars, that's the company that what they do is is they literally have a a double walled stainless uh like uh sandwich when they heat the steam up on the inside to such a high pressure that it actually can cook pancakes.
But the cool thing is they have it at such a high pressure that it can cook pancakes up at like you know 350, 360. It's amazing. You ever use one of those, Lauren? They're amazing. I I like I think I had we had one in culinary school that yeah, I think they did it.
Culinary school, like companies are like they're they're like crack dealers. They give you your first hit free in culinary school, and then you're like, oh, that was awesome when I was using that, and then you want to buy one in your in your restaurant, but apparently it did not work. But anyway, I can make it. They should send you one, Dave. Uh that would be nice.
Every time I'm on the air with you, you name check accuSteam. Really? Yeah. Really? Maybe it's just something about you, Paul, makes me think of AccuSteam.
They have a don't they have a deep fryer too? They maybe they make a deep fryer. I don't know. Like I'm buying a. What?
Really? Yeah. That would be sick. But like, I'm like, uh, no, but like right now, like, we're probably gonna get a CVAP for the new place for a hot wheel. Why are you gonna buy our old 3D printer?
That giant one. Oh, Nastasia now is bringing up old, bad memories. I thought I did buy it. You just have to deliver it. Okay.
Anyway, so back to what are we talking about? Cakes? Buckwheat creep crepes. Buckwheat crepes. So anyway, so the deal with a crepe is is a standard crepe batter is like relatively fluid, like one to one or similar, what with eggs and uh you know, milk.
Milk flour, like similar to one to one. Eggs, uh, whatever, I salt, and then I add a little sugar because I'm monkey nut or whatever. Everyone has to add sugar. Yeah, whatever. I add a little bit, and I'm sure I'm a bad human, but whatever.
I add vanilla flavor too. Silent kill. Yeah. I add vanilla flavor and occasionally like a hit of liqueur and or and or sherry because you know why? Because it's my freaking house and I can do what I want.
Do you do the Grand Marnier kind of thing? Uh I've never no, it's just so much money. You know what I mean? To actually flame it out. Anyway, anyway, so like uh and yeah, you know what, like I I hate to say this because like you never know where your bread's gonna be buttered next.
Speaking of bread buttered, I was at Kansas City, and we could talk about like their Texas toast machine and the auto buttering. They have you seen these machines, these toasters, and they use the top of the toaster. They have a roll in it that goes through the butter, and it's just basically like a steamroller of butter. And it's just like it's just like I'm looking at it, and like my mind is going back to the 1970s. They had this advertisement for cheese where they're like, hanker for a hunker, a slab of a slice of chunker, hanker for a hunk of cheese, and they say, Look, a wagon wheel, because they want you to eat cheese in the form of a wagon wheel because they think kids will like it.
And so I'm sitting here in Kansas City, and this is a complete non-sequite. My brain's just going wagon wheel, butter, wagon wheel, but I'm looking at it, I'm watching the toast go in toast by toast by toast by toast by toast. And I'm pretty sure that there's something in there for me with a Texas toast steamed cheese combo. It's gonna be freaking, that's gonna be the money in the bank right there. That's gonna be the money.
Anyways, uh okay, then we'll get to buckwheat crepes after it. Oh, they're gone. All right, so I couldn't wait to go. When you when you get them, when you get them back, uh just let me know and we'll do it. But but back to crepes.
So the trick with crepes is you make that batter, you you, you know, you you beat it up, and then you let it you let it sit for a long time, you strain out the lumps, you get rid of the bubbles. Bubbles are your enemy because they pop and mess up your your they they mess up your rapletting action. And uh if you have any uh unhydrated particles of flour at all, they just tear through your crate when you're working, right? The other thing about crepes is that the you're better off making the batter, letting it hydrate, and then thicker than you need, letting it hydrate a hundred percent for as long as you want, and then thinning it to exactly the right consistency beforehand so that it's right. So uh so anyway, so that's a regular crepe.
But regular crepes are relatively easy to work with if you follow those simple instructions. You you know, you take your ladle, you go brup, you put it onto your crepe maker, and you just take your raplette and you drop it down and you gently wipe it in a circular motion. The crepe gets large, it gets beautiful, you see it get brown, you flip it over, maybe you paste it with butter or spray it with Pam or whatever in the hell you do. I don't know what you do. It's your house.
You flip it over, you take it off, and then you know the thing is, what do you think about reheating the crates? What do you think about people like making the stack and then reheating it as opposed to just making them? They're better when they're just made. They oh absolutely. Yeah.
Um I mean, I'm not gonna lie and say that that's never happened, you know, and and I'll eat them and everything like that. But yeah, and honestly, I I kind of think you only really notice if you did it side to side, like side by side. Like if you had them fresh earlier that morning and then later on that day you reheat them. Yeah, you're like, okay, it's not as good. But if they didn't, if you know Right.
Okay, how about this one? Best crepe, best dosa. Where do I find them? No, no. No, like which would you eat right now if I hand it to you?
Um right now, crepe, I would say, because I haven't had a crepe in probably two years. Paul? I would eat ten doses really while you were still trying to hand me the crepe. Yeah. And Nastasi's like, I don't like either crab on you.
Uh so am I right or no? No, I would eat the crepe. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so let's get to the actual question after. You know what that's the secret, I think, is like is first of all, like the interesting thing about doses is doses, and the reason I bring them up is that unlike a standard crepe, they are a gluten-free recipe, and they rely on the natural hydrocolloids in the doll to create their texture, and use a mixture of doll, like, so you have like uh an you know, an Urad doll and like the rice, and then like, but like this one place out in Queens, they're like, our secret is we add a little bit of chano, chickpea, to it, and that's how they get their texture.
And I have to say their stuff's pretty on point. But what's interesting about the and again, the reason I bring Dosa up is because Dosa does have that crispy texture, and it is a gluten-free kind of a situation. And so like you look at Dosa technology. But anyway, so let's see what let's see what problems Caleb is having with uh with Gallette's aka buckwheat crepes. Part of my perfect Sunday morning involves a big batch of crepes with various accompaniments, both sweet butter, lemon sugar, and savory egg and gruyere.
Ooh, I like myself some gruyere. Even Nastasia likes herself some gruyere. Yeah, hell yeah. Do you know what I like? I like cheesesteak with gruyere.
Oh yeah. Yeah, it's good. It's good. Fancy. It's not I mean, it is fancy in the sense that it costs money.
What? You have a cheese fridge. I have a w I have a wine fridge that was given to me, and I put cheese into it when I have cheese. You know what else is good on cheesesteak though? Queso.
You like queso? Love a queso. Is there anyone that doesn't like queso? Alex Stupak. No, just kidding.
He doesn't like queso. No, he actually no, he actually uh at Cosino. At Cosina, he redid his, he he redid a version of a Tex Mex queso, but of course he schmancied it up. I believe that, but I'm saying if he goes to somebody's house and they have Rotel and Velveeta and chips, does he dip into that's why? But if anyone Instagrammed him doing that, he'd be like smash your phone.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love that. That's what I love. Don't do that to Stu Pac. You know what I mean?
Don't don't you know what? Like, imagine if Nastasia hung out with him every day that he would be dead because you would boil his blood on a constant basis. Because there's nothing Nastasia loves more than finding someone who she can make like their blood boil and then like set on boil, jet boil, jet boil, jet boil, jet oil. You know what I mean? She's like uh like you know what?
It's like it's like Nastasia likes to play people like Joust. You remember that video game Joust? I love Duft. Yeah, it's it's a you're it's it's nights on ostriches and they flap their wings, and you have to keep it at just the right level because if you let go, they crash and you can't get them back up again. But if you go too high, they fly up, and Nastasia is the master joust player with people's anger.
So she keeps people like right at the layer and then where they're flapping at that like one level of anger. Anyways. Uh I have long mastered basic crepes. We're back to the question. Uh, and produce pleasing, delicate lacy key crepes based on a batter of AP flour, eggs, and milk.
Occasionally I'll go 50-50 with rye, whole wheat, or buckwheat. Whole wheat actually is a pain in the butt with crepes unless you have very finely milled. That's gonna tear your crepe. Yeah, you know what I really like for whole wheat, soft flour is like um is like uh chipati flour because it's like it is, I believe, whole or gram, but like it's it's very fine, like floury. It doesn't have those like brand particles that are gonna mess your stuff up.
How are you doing there? Boring. Uh okay. And yet the traditional buckwheat galette eludes me. This savory crepe made from uh in uh made in from Brittany, made only with buckwheat, flour, and chwater.
Most articles on them seem to suggest they are impossible to make at home without adding eggs on their milk. But uh to me, this creates a different product. When I mix bu whatever, when I mix buckwheat flour and water and let it sit overnight and try to make crepes the next day, they don't spread well, they stick, and they come out too thick despite thinning the batter. Uh and then, you know, the um he comes out with uh says look at David Liebowitz's um uh article, uh Pimp My Crapes. I'm not sure, like I don't think it's acceptable anymore to say you're pimping.
Like if you really think about what pimping is, it's not cool. Like you don't want to pimp your, you know, turn your pimp in a you want to turn your crepe into a sex slave? Back to the question. Okay. Um what's going on here?
Some suggest that the creperies have higher heat than home stoves. That is true. Yeah. That's just straight up true. Uh but I'm not buying it.
You should buy it. Their stuff is sick. Those crampooses are sick. Doesn't mean you can't make it at home. Uh yes, buckwheat has little or no gluten.
No, I think. Uh, but you know what? Someone's like, it's not a grain. I read this on the internet. It's not a grain.
It's a seed. What do you think freaking grains are? If you plant one of those things, it grows. And you know what that makes it? A seed.
Anyway. Um. Are there any uh tricks, suggestions, or thoughts as to what's going on and what make uh what magic the creperies have that I am missing? Many thanks. Look forward to seeing your lecture in Cambridge next week.
That's too late. That was last week. And then P.S. Nastasia, I also dislike cumin. Do you are you a cumin or a cumin sayer, people?
I'm a cumin sayer. I'm cumin. We're all cumin here. Yeah. But you say aunt.
You say aunt. Really? That's true. I say my aunt Sandy. Uh-huh.
We were born in Stanford. Auntie Jen. If it's auntie, it's not auntie. No, I say auntie. I would never say auntie.
I'd say auntie. I do say auntie matter. That's that would be that would be my like my drag science teacher name. Auntie Matter. Um, but the okay.
So uh I dislike cumin and thought I was the only one. To me, it smells like B.O. Not that that stops my wife from using it all the time. Well, you can't have chili without cumin. You can't.
It's not chili. What is it, Nastasi without cumin? Soup. Tomato soup. Uh, you know, tomato beef stoop soup.
Do you like pork chili? I think so. Yeah? I like pork chili. Like, not like, you know, a traditional like thing, but flavor of chili, meat of pork.
It's good, right? I agree. Yes. Very good. Okay.
So uh my tips and tricks. One, I went I went on the internets and I looked up to see some actual, how do you pronounce Brittany Breton? How do you pronounce those guys? Anyway, like the Brittany people, right? Breton.
Uh making uh their their galettes, and uh they do not use the same raplette technique as a standard AP flour crepe maker. So I would look at what they do. So when you're like I told you, when you're making a standard crepe, you're like putting you're ladling it down and then you're like you're wiping it through. These folks, they put it on pretty hard. It spreads out like pretty good from the get-go, and then they do like a double push to push it out into a wider thing, and then they just do a touch-up with the replet to get it around.
So they're not using the standard wiped around technique that you would use. They're using a different push technique. One. Two, I really think the key here is long, long hydration. I really think the key is gonna be letting the batter making it thicker than you want, resting it, not a hundred percent thick, but thicker than you want, letting it rest overnight.
And there's two things that are going on here. I don't know the and this is why another reason I brought up doses earlier. I don't know the actual chemistry of what's going on here, but I know that other gluten-free things like millets, if you ferment or even lightly ferment millet for let's say 12 hours before you use it, you have a much better rheology texture in your batters and doughs that are made with the millet because as they ferment, they make other stuff that actually helps the batter, right? And so my guess is is that if the standard full-on like you know, Breton galette is with a batter that is at least overnight or possibly longer old, that it probably don't work unless you do that. They also uh w you know, the Libowitz thing said that they use organic flour.
This might mean French for bad flour, i.e. damaged flour. And so maybe the damaged flour is helping out. I don't know. Because uh often recipes, if you have damaged starch granules act very differently, right, Lauren?
Right? Absolutely. Yeah, so like the flour they're using might be different than the flour you're using. So I would look to buy like a similar kind of flour to the one they're using. I would look to rest it overnight, because uh for two reasons, like I said, there's probably some fermentation going on, which will change the rheology, and it they will also finish the hydration and like hydration and letting it like like hydrate properly, I think is a key in many recipes that don't involve gluten.
It just is like doses like take forever because you have to soak them, then grind them, then ferment them to get them to work right. Um so I would say those are the two keys, and I would look at videos on the internet for people's raplette technique to see whether you get it right. Absolutely, yeah. And they're everywhere right now. I mean, honestly, you go on Instagram and you can see a ton of them.
Really? Yeah. Yeah. I love I yeah, I love me. Like I've learned so much.
You know what I haven't learned from YouTube yet? The accurate uh uh Turkish coffee technique. I'm just not good at it. No. But you know a lot about what's his name?
Dax's favorite guy. Oh my god, Dax watches these terrible YouTube people. And then he gets mad, he's like, they're my idol. I'm like, so there's this guy, he's like the most famous, like one of the top paid YouTube people on earth. Paid for what?
For being being up, yeah, being on YouTube. His name is uh Luke Paul Luke Paul and his brother, Luke Paul? One of these Paul brothers. Anyways. RuPaul.
Not I wish it was RuPaul. If it was RuPaul, that'd be awesome. Yeah, but like, no, this is just a guy who is like a 21-year-old like like guy who breaks plates and has millions of followers. Who like walk into a hotel and break a plate on internet. Anyway, so you want to take a quick break on your tongue?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So here's the thing. So, like, so Dax's dirtbag buddy, one of his friends, has a shirt from this guy, and it says Maverick. I'm like, you can't glom on to someone's internet personality and be a maverick. They don't fit.
It doesn't work. I'm wearing a t-shirt that just says what I am. Low quality individual. That's just true. You know what I mean?
Maverick. Alright, we'll take a break. We're right back with more cooking issues. Bob's Red Mills products stand the test of time. Even if we're talking about the beginning of time.
Bob's has a wide range of paleo-friendly products. But what is paleo anyway? So, yeah, I've been doing the paleo diet for a couple months now, and I'm feeling great. I think I'm gonna stick with it. I keep hearing about this paleo diet.
Doesn't it just mean you like eat a lot of steaks or something? I love brunch too much to stick to one specific diet. I get that. But it's mostly about cutting out processed foods and simple carbohydrates. According to the Paleo diet, our bodies weren't genetically designed to digest that stuff.
Well, I don't know about the whole genetic argument. Besides, I don't know why anyone would cut out bread who wasn't allergic to it. I love bread. You're just mad because you wouldn't be able to give it up. I dare you to try paleo with me for the next week.
I know you love bread and sweets made with traditional flowers, but Bob's red mill makes a paleo baking flour. So you can make cookies, muffins, even pizza crust while sticking to the caveman diet. Cookies and pizza. Okay. That changes things.
I'm in. No matter what diet you follow, Bob's red mill has you covered. Learn more at Bob's Redmill.com slash podcast. Wait, what? Why is that on our show?
Wait, what was it? Pale what? The reason I've been avoiding pizza is because it's processed. Yeah. You know what was really a net loss for humanity?
Agriculture. I know. You know what I mean? Because you know what? You know what?
There is there's so many paths that would have led to the iPhone that don't go through agriculture first. That's true. You know what I mean? It's like, you know what? It's like I'm pretty sure, yeah, that we would still have music and culture if we were gathering berries.
Oh, wait. We would only be able to live in like the five places on earth that have food all the time. You know what I mean? No, we'd be nomadic. And our apps would help us find the food.
Anyone take a call? Caller, you're on the air. Hey there. Uh what's up, Nastasia, David, Dave, uh crying baby, and uh I believe I heard Paul in the background there. Yeah, yeah.
This is Paul. And Lauren. Uh I'm this is Marcel calling from the a uh bed of Kohlrabi in the Hudson Valley. Oh, nice. Yeah, you like so instead of using hemlock boughs to make your camping beds, you're just like lying in Kohl Rabi?
That'd be amazing. Exactly. Awesome. All right. So my question is uh I've been there's a lot of uh really nice wild grapes that grow up here.
Uh and I've been making wild uh grape syrup. And uh I like when I make it I do it at a lower temperature, like I I do it in sous vide at like one thirty or one twenty sometimes. Um because I feel like when I cook it it gets this sort of like the flavor almost of when you think of fruit on a pie, um that really cooked sort of berry flavor. Uh huh. Um and I want to make some kind of jelly out of it because I really uh like I think it would taste good as a jelly, but I don't want it to have that classic sort of cooked flavor.
Um and all the recipes I find involve like boiling it with the pectin um and other steps like that. So I'm basically wondering for advice on uh something that's sort of like a jelly but is made without boiling it uh at any point. All right. So I mean the thing is at those low temperatures, you're just really pasteurizing it, right? I mean you're just looking to pasteurize it.
They at those temperatures they won't even pop, right? Well, so basically I'm putting all of the grapes in a bag with sugar, and then I sous vide and I massage it every once in a while to get m as much of the juice out as I can. Uh so yeah, I'm not really cooking it. Got it. Here's what I would do.
So I'll I'll tell you a uh a technique that I did never for service because it's a huge pain in the butt, and but maybe it'll give you an idea uh based on it. So I once took uh strawberry, clarified it, um, removed like looks like enough water that I was up uh at like 70, 70 something percent uh solids in the liquid, it was like, or even a little bit higher, so it was like like a syrup, it would have set, and then I like heated a bunch of sugar until it was you know just starting to blonde out, right? So it was like would have been candy, and then I mix the two things together to make like a taffy, and that because I never cooked a strawberry because it was low temperature, even though I was mixing it into a high temperature thing, right? It still retained because it cooled off relatively quick quickly. So, what I'm about to recommend to you is this.
I would make a like sugar pectin, some grape or grape juice with some sugar, reduce it, add a boat ton of pectin because you're gonna need it, right? Then like do the boil out, then fold in your warm, uh I wouldn't go cold because you're gonna get pre-gel and all this other stuff, but I'd then I'd fold in your warm uh grapes so that you maintain now that is not gonna last because you haven't cooked those grapes. So if you've pasteurize them, you're probably not gonna get sick, but it's going to weep like a mother over time. And I know this because my classic strategy for blueberry pie, because blueberry pie, Lauren, right around, you gotta eat it right away anyway. Absolutely.
So I cheat, I cheat on my pies, I blind bake the crust. Why? Because I suck, and then I make a blueberry basically jelly fundamentally, I pour it hot into my blind baked crust, and then I throw a bunch of fresh blueberries into it, they sink down, and it's good for exactly one day. And then the fresh blueberries turn to garbage. What do you think?
What do you think about any any suggestions, uh Paul or Lauren? What's going on here? With the pie? No, no, no. With the grapes, I'm just saying the things that I've done that's similar.
Like like what make that jam with don't cook the grapes, but cook the pectin and keep it in the freezer so it doesn't weep. Freezer? But you can't eat frozen jelly. Yeah, you can. Really?
Yeah, it's gelatinous. Do you know you're familiar with Sam Mason's awesome uh frozen like uh liquid nitrogen jelly technique in ice cream? No. He freezes the jelly in liquid nitrogen until it shatters like glass, then puts it into the ice cream and then lets it melt out in these awesome blobs. It's that's why, I mean, like, you gotta love Sam, right?
Oh, totally. Sam, good man, smart man. He's in supermarkets now. Man is man. Him personally or his products.
I saw him in the supermarket. Imagine that. I'm going to check out. Yeah. I'm like, Sam, what's up, man?
You imagine like the kind of coolest checkout guy ever. Like this like tall pastry chef. You know, like he's like a younger kind of like an alive, like Chris Cornell. He's got that Chris Cornell vibe, doesn't he? A little bit?
Some sort of he's got a rock and roll vibe. He has a rock and roll vibe. All right. Anyway, is this making any sense, grapes? Yeah, that makes sense.
Uh my only question would be if there's something else you could think of that I could add that would somehow prevent the weeping, or there's no way to do it. No, but you're not cooking it. Oh, you're smashing them though. Yeah, you could stabilize it with uh what hydrocolide would I use? Uh but I'm I'm a kind of like any hydrocoloid you stabilize.
The good thing about pectin, pectin's very good with flavor release. Very, very good. That's why those like uh, you know, those those pectin-based candies are pretty good, is that they have a very high flavor release, or like uh what do you call those pet pate fruits? Which I love those suckers. Well, well that's actually at first when when he was asking the question, I was in my mind saying, well, he said jelly, but is he talking about like jellies like pet de fui?
But it clearly was. Yeah, but that would be really hard to do. Yeah. Well, and also I was questioning are the grapes green or red or what do you got? These are like they're wild upstate grapes, so they're basically like tiny concord grapes kind of.
Oh, okay, good. Because I was gonna say one of the biggest issues with not cooking the grapes too would also be that they would oxidize and look brown and gross. Right, but he's taking them to like yeah, he's pasteurizing them, he's killing the yeast on them at this temperature. By the way, have you read The Grapes of New York uh edited by UP Hedrick? No, I think because I'm pretty obsessed with them.
So yeah, so you need to go on the internet right now, Internet Archive, and look up the Grapes of New York, part of the Fruits of New York series, edited with the exception of Apples of New York, which was edited by S.A. Beach, edited by UP Hedrick, and it is available on the internets, and the Grapes of New York, I believe has wild type varieties and also all the weird obscure uh ones with plates. I can't remember the year of Grapes of New York, but uh my guess is it's somewhere like 19 It's either like like 1920 or 1919 or something like that, but go check it out. UP Hedrick. And believe it or not, he's from the upper peninsula of uh of uh Michigan.
1908, the internet's 1908. Well, thank God for the internet. There you go. The last one, the last series they did was in the 20s, and it was the vegetables in New York, but they never finished it. And my favorite title of all of the series is The Cucurbits of New York.
Because it's like melons, cucumbers, cucumits. And so like uh like the ha like there's a couple like um are you familiar with uh uh the group culture from Jamaica, the reggae group? Uh oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So in my head, like I have all whenever I hear that word, I'm like, cucabit, cucker bit, cucabit.
Taking all that. I don't know why. For some reason it's in my head anyway. So I have reggae cuckoo bit going through my head right now. Anyway, tell us what goes on with this and uh let me know.
Uh let me let me know how it works out. And uh maybe someone in the uh chat room here has some uh suggestions. We're out of time. Awesome. Thank you guys.
Have a good one. All right, cool. Well, we have no time. Yeah, through one question. Uh no, I gotta say bye.
What say? We got we gotta say goodbye. Oh, all right. Listen, uh, on the way out, uh spinzalls have started showing up. Uh we hope you like them.
We've shipped uh apparently all of them have left Hong Kong, but we don't have individual tracking numbers for uh non-US and for about I think 40 of you guys that are in the US. Uh but like Southern California, SoCal, where you guys are from, they've already received uh most of the people in SoCal have received their stuff. Um let us know how it works. Uh email Matthew at Bookerandax.com if you have any questions or comments. Uh we want to hear from you.
We want to help you uh use them better. And thanks for coming, Lauren. Thanks, Paul. Absolutely. Thanks, guys.
Now they're happy. What are you playing there? Anyway, uh cooking issues. Thanks for listening to Heritage Radio Network. Food radio supported by you.
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