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Find us at heritageradionetwork.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 roughly 12 to roughly 1245 from Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick. Brip Brooklyn. Joined as usual with Nastasia of the Hammer.
Lopez, how are you doing? Good. Yeah? Got Dave in the booth. How are you doing, Dave?
Also good. So I was uh, by the way, calling your questions. Uh hopefully cooking, uh cooking related-ish. Dave, you gotta talk into the microphone. Well, well, usually you tell me I gotta get back from the microphone because I'm screaming too much.
You're getting too much of a reverb. I never tell you that. By the way, by the way, by the way, like, did you have King Kong into this freaking studio? Dave's like, the shock mount on your microphone's broken and your normal chair also broken. I mean, you're one of the repeat offenders who is grabbing and twisting the things.
Maybe it's because the microphone is never pointed in the right direction. It's because the microphone's never pointed in the right direction, ever. It's like I feel like I said this before, I feel like Lemmy, except for the fact that like he was awesome and like an icon and he's dead. Otherwise, Lemmy and I are the same. We're talking into a microphone that's pointed in a crazy ass direction.
You a motorhead fan, Dave? He made it work though. Lemmy? Oh, man. Come on.
We are the rogue crew. That's a great song, right? Is that your favorite motorhead? What's your favorite motorhead song? I I I couldn't even name him.
What? Motorhead's one of those bands where it's like, you know, you know their music, but it all just sort of flows together. We We Are the Road Crew is definitely my favorite. Especially when he's like, another tube of super glue. He's all I mean, like, come on, Lemmy's good.
Speaking of which, uh, Dave before the show wasn't sure whether one of the lyrics I was quoting was Dead Milkman or Wesley Willis. I was like That's fair, right? I was like, Wesley Willis, come on, man. Do you know? I saw, first of all, Nastasia probably doesn't even know who the Dead Milkmen are.
Do you know who they are? You familiar with the song Punk Rock Girl? No. You familiar with the song Bitchin' Camaro? No.
Which is Camaro, but pronounced Camaro because it's bitch, bitchin' is not anti-family. It's bitching, it's not, it's not using, it's like bitching like awesome. Anti-female though. It's not, it's bitching. Bitchin' is awesome.
I don't think you know whether it has anything to do with the B-word. Bitchin'. It's like, you know, is that really having even anything to do with? Like, is that even related to the to the B-word? Anyway.
So the anyways, point being, uh, I the the Dead Milkman was one of a series of uh are you familiar with uh guys familiar with Gang Green? No. The disease? No. Do you guys know nothing about late 80s like comedy hardcore?
No. No. Not my bag. Anyway, so Gang Green was the Boston comedy hardcore group, right? They had such songs as I hate them already.
They had such songs as Alcohol, and uh they they got famous because they won a huge battle of the bands in Boston doing a uh a hardcore version of uh Hush Hush, Voices Carry. You know, it's pretty strong. Anyway, uh their their like kind of best album title ever was Older Bud Wiser. Huh? Huh?
Huh? Get it anyway. Womp womp. Hey, come on, man. It was the 80s.
And then um but Dead Milkmen were like down Philly Way, and they had uh Bitch and Camaro, and they had uh Punk Rock Girl was their big radio hit, and the album that I you know that came out when I was listening to them was Bielza Bubba, and I saw them in concert, and Rodney Anonymous, their lead singer, I had yeah used to have you know those miniature accordions, Dave? Miniature accordions? You know those miniatures? I mean I can picture it. Yeah, I think visualize a miniature accordion.
So you think of a normal console concertina as being that like either like hexagonal or occtagonal shaped thing, you know what I'm talking about? But a miniature accordion is like a concertina shaped like a full-size accordion, right? Okay. I don't know why I still following. I had one, right?
And I played it in a band in high school. Did you get that on the boardwalk or something? I stole it from my friend uh uh Ted, who actually is a professional musician now. Anyway, so I point is they is he signed my accordion like at the concert, and he signed it, Thanks for Saving My Life in Nam. That was how he signed it.
No, no, come on. Like the miniature accordion in c in college, like they go well together, but they they don't never end well. The same way that like my moose call never made it out of college. Was that like you you have a few drinks and then it comes out at a party and everybody hates it? No, it just gets stolen.
You have like the the first two things were accurate. You have a few drinks, you have a party, and then like the next morning there's no more moose call. There's no more miniature accordion. You know what I mean? It's right, right.
They're those things just kind of like item. They evap they evaporate like like like water. You know what I mean? Like they just gone. You can't hold on to them.
Same thing. The worst was I had a party, and this was way after college, and my navy flight helmet with the gold blast shield, which I used to wear on stage or like at parties, uh, evaporated. I don't know where it is. I loved that thing. That thing was amazing.
You know what I mean? Uh if you've never been on stage and had your lead singer uh beat you relentlessly on your flight helmet with the gold shield down while you're you know, that's that's life right there. That's how it's supposed to be. So wait, what was your band? In what in uh in uh in college?
At that time, yeah. Uh with the helmet on, I was in a band called uh Bluetooth. Bluetooth. Like Popeye. Yes.
Yeah, like Popeye. And the band before that was drastic yellow plastic. Yeah. Anyway, that's cool. Yeah, bass, bass getting ready to roll.
I wasn't playing the miniature accordion at that point. I was never good at the miniature accordion. They gave me that just so that I would have something to play. I was that guy in the band that didn't know how to play anything in high school. You should have gone to Stanford.
You would have been so great at Stanford. Why? Everything's miniature accordions and stuff. I know I wasn't in the band at college. I had a band in college.
I know, but I feel like you could have had both. And people loved you all. This this guy, the uh the uh like the other like like well-known bass player that was around my age in college, he uh he was in the college band. Like he was in the department in the music department on account of the fact that he was a real musician, and like it's a long time ago, so I guess he stole an upright bass from from Yale, and I was like, damn, that was sweet. And he used to play, and he was a really good player, and so he used to play both uh upright and uh you know and electric, and I was super jealous.
And he was like, he didn't talk like this. He's like, no one uses the upright, Dave. I'm not stealing it because it's like it's dying where it is. It's just it's it's dying. And so then I was like, you know what?
Fair, right? Look at what they're fixated on out there. Changing that one white Christmas light bulb. Yeah, it's not even Christmas anymore. I know.
Oh my god, check this out, people. To change the light bulb, they're trying to turn off the circuit because they're I guess they're worried about getting electrocuted changing a light bulb. Dave, do you turn off electricity when you change one of them? No. So this place is falling apart.
Uh, first of all, that's not the case. It's a light bulb, Nastasia. No, no, no, no. Robert is in general. Do you need Nastasia?
Like these uh people are our hosts. What about Robert is falling apart? Because people are our hosts and our friends, and you sitting here, Nastas. By the way, people, for those of you that don't know Nastasia, this is what it's like to work with Nastasia on a constant basis is that she will just burn you down. If you do a kindness to her or help her in or befriend her in any way, she will just sit there and burn you down like an incense stick.
Heritage is doing us a favor. Yeah, but heritage and Robert is they'd be like they'd be like siblings. Yeah, we're like that. Really? Yeah, we're like that.
Yeah, come on. Jesus. She's gonna get the orange one. I bet you she won't. Uh Nastasia, Nastasia, Nastasia.
Alright, so call in your questions, cooking related or otherwise. Two 718497-2128. That's 7184972128. Before we do that, any cooking related uh anecdotes, Nastasia? No.
Uh, Dave, any cooking related anecdotes? No, nothing good. All right, so people I can't. The fruit lines are clear, so now's the time to knock out those emails. Yeah, I hold a second.
I need some advice. I need some advice. I need some advice. That's crazy. You probably don't.
I do. You need you have a cooking question? I do. I do. A cooking issue?
This is a major cooking issue. So for those of you that have listened to the recent episodes, my building has no gas and has had no gas for four or five months, at least, right? They don't give you squat. They get you know what they gave you a one uh a certificate for one pizza, by the way, at a place whose pizza my children hate, right? And then That's an odd consolation.
You get a gift certificate for a pizza place. Yeah, and and get this, get this. By the way, here's a cooking piece of a cooking advice for you. They give you a hot plate, right? But a dual burner hot plate.
Now listen, people, perhaps, perhaps you think that a dual burner hot plate is better than a single burner hot plate. Dave, you got the little uh uh family feud strike noise. Not handy, yeah. I'm sorry. Let me guess, because it gets split to two when you want it all in one.
Well, no, because yeah, because like in other words, like when they design the unit, they don't design it such that you could put all the power into one burner. So each burner is half as powerful as a single burner would be, and you can't even boil water for pasta on it. Like you can't, like, let's say you have a family and you want to cook a whole pound of pasta. No, if you want to cook like by the way, Anastasia, have you ever like cooked just like a tiny amount of pasta? Or are you a whole box lady?
A whole box. Whole freaking box. Give it to me. Yeah, whole freaking box lady. You got to.
Why would you why would you leave that box just yeah, lingering? I don't know. I I but like in other words, like you couldn't cook a whole pound of pasta unless you're like doing the Cesare or the Ideas and Food where it's like a minimal water, mah. You know what I mean? Like you know how he does his like mini water, you know how Chesra does the mini water thing and and ideas and food does the soaking water thing.
Anyways, uh point being that uh by the way, ideas and food people. If if anyone uh is listening that uh talks to them, or if they're listening, uh the freeze dryer that they gave us is gonna be installed into the new bar once everything goes. So you can come yeah, you can come hang out with a hangout with your former buddy freeze dryer. The bar where I'm gonna DJ. DJ, spin it.
And uh, and uh by the way, like Nastasia, should we name that freeze dryer? Yeah. Now Nastasia does not I'm gonna get back to my thing in a second. Nastasia doesn't like that I typically give equipment female names. No, no, no, it's not female names.
You just call everything a her. The pronoun you use is her for every piece of equipment. The refrigerator, the welder, anything. Yeah. I I I get I guess from boat talk, maybe.
How's she doing? From boat talk. Yeah. Nastasia hates it. Hates it.
Hates that. And yet, I don't know, she never like erases that and then like and gives me like the he pronoun. Nastasia never Nastasia never thinks of the stuff that she works with as a person. That's why maybe. Like she's never like, oh, how's the oven feeling today?
You know what I mean? Anyway, getting back to the oven, which is what I'm talking about. So they ruined the gas in my building. They gave me this crappy hot plate, which I immediately pitched because I have a brevo control freak and I have another decent induction burner. Uh by the way, you know, IKEA is selling induction burners now for 29 bucks.
29 freaking dollars. If anyone out there has experience with the $29 dollar IKEA uh induction burner, please let me know. I'm super curious to know whether an induction burner at that price point performs well. Please let me know. Chat room, speak up.
Yeah. So uh, anyways, so some idiot punctures the gas line and the whole building's been out of gas for like four or five months. They come and inspect uh my apartment today because they're trying to get it back together, and it failed. Why? Because I have a commercial oven.
And even though I bought specifically a commercial oven that was a brand that sold both commercial and residential, so they could be like, it's a wolf, man. It's residential oven, it's a wolf, you know, wolf, they make residential ovens. I bought the commercial one, and the guys who did the inspection caught it and were like, this is a commercial oven. So now I have to get rid of it. Oh no.
They didn't even know, by the way, by the way, people, they did not even know how heavily modified this commercial oven was. Like, if they had seen, if they had opened the metal plate over it and seen that I put a direct bypass of the thermostat into the main oven so that it could function as a pizza oven, they would have crapped their pants. You know what I mean? Like I'm evicted? No, they they did what they did now.
They what they did is they they said basically, you fail, they put a lock on my gas line, and I have to put in some sort of garbage oven. So then the question is, people, here's the question. Should I actually get rid of my oven, right? And find some sort of like, you know, minimal acceptable threshold home oven to to replace it with. No.
Or uh put this oven in the corner, throw a really dirt cheap, disgusting oven into it right now, so I pass inspection and then put the old oven back. The latter. I don't know. Like maybe there's a decent home oven out there. I look, I am gonna do whatever my wife wants, but I want to know what the crew thinks.
You think they're not gonna give me good advice. Nastasia's gonna tell you, like, oh, do this balls out thing, but do what your wife wants. What? Yeah. Because that's our crew.
They're gonna be like, oh man, yeah, do this, but in the end, do it what your wife wants. Man, Nastasia, see what I'm saying? People, she's cutting you down. She's cutting you down in the same way she's cutting Roberta's down. Do you know cuts everybody down?
How does it feel? That's even worse. How does it feel? Yeah, well, Nastasia, now you know how it feels. No, I'm always the singer like a multitask.
You cannot multitask. That is a lie. Nastasia is the worst multitasker in the whole world. This is like when Donald Trump. This is like both of you.
This is like when Donald Trump says I'm the least racist person you know. First of all, that can't possibly be the case that he's the least racist. Is this gonna be the political show now? No, but I'm saying that has nothing to do with politics. It's just clear that like whether or not you think he's a racist, he can't possibly be the least racist person that you know.
How come? A, I don't know the guy. And B, like, come on. I mean, like, if you if you include people that you know, that includes the Pope. I mean we've all heard the things he said and the seen the things that he's done, so yeah, it is impossible.
It's impossible. The least See this thing, it's like these hype hyperbolic superlatives that get pulled off. Anyway, point being that Nastasia respects women more either. No, nobody, nobody, and Nastasia very similarly likes to say that she has X, Y or skill that just aren't she has skills. I'm not good at darts.
People, very, very angry, like virulently angry at me. Because she said she's good at darts. I'm like, you're not, you're terrible at darts. I play her, I beat her handily. And she's like, see, I am good at darts.
You didn't even beat me by that much. And I was like, yeah, but Nastasia, I suck at darts and I beat you. And she was so angry at me. How angry are you? You were so so angry.
So angry. So angry. She does suck at darts, people. If any of you guys are dart sharks out there and you want to like hustle her on the dart game, you can just meet her at um crappy bar. What's the name of that bar again?
You don't go to the gaff? Why not? Nobody lives in that neighborhood anymore. So you gave up. I gave up on my bar that I was a regular at when I moved out of the neighborhood.
When you move out of the neighborhood, you don't feel like you belong anymore. And what am I gonna get? Sounds like a Springsteen song. Oh my god. What are you gonna do?
Go like you know 45 minutes to go to the bar that you used to live around the corner from and be a regular at? Just doesn't feel the same. Hey, so there's a caller, you missed your chance to do uh email questions. Well, maybe it's the caller who had an email question and said that they were gonna call in. Caller, you're on the air.
Hey, Quinn? Yeah. Yeah, okay. So let me read uh well, do you want me to read your question or do you want to just uh you want to just ask me the question? You can read it.
Alright, so we had a call in it said uh question and it said, um, I'm wondering if the cooking issues team has uh any advice, and this is actually one chat room, listen up. And uh also I should call at some point. I have a friend uh who like works for the government on this, and she might have some ideas too. Anyway, basically, I was wondering if the cooking issues team has any advice for a passionate cook with a physical disability. I can explain my situation further, but essentially I just come up with ideas uh and other people uh actually do the cooking.
Obviously, I'm never going to be a chef, but I would love some kind of career in the food world. I hope to eventually sell some food products, but I also think I have some potential as a consultant. So, how would I get in the door without uh the ability to get restaurant experience or go to culinary school? Currently, I document my experiments on YouTube and Instagram, but that's about it. So uh so why don't you give a shout out to what your uh what your YouTube and Instagram handles are so that people can on YouTube, you should be able to find me cooking with here and on Instagram, uh-huh.
It's a little embarrassing because it's an old handle, but it's uh here dragon one three three seven. But at QDragon what? One three three seven. 1337. So Instagram is at QDragon1337, and your YouTube handle is cooking with Q, and that's the letter Q, right?
Yep. Okay. So now the the now you said you'd discuss it more, but but so before we get into it, like what like what are you like uh like specifically like what is it that you can and can't do in a kitchen? Pretty much nothing. Like yeah, like I direct.
What did you say? I couldn't hear you. I direct people. Okay, okay. So and but like your your your your palates, your palate, your sense of smell, all all all good, you're good with it.
I already make that excellent, but okay, yeah, but in other words, like okay, so that's all uh so and and do you have any um you have any allergies or anything like that? Nope, what's a polynomial where I'm I'm quite lucky. Okay. So if you this is an interesting, I've never had quite this question before, but back when I was at the French Culinary Institute, um, you know, when they did their kitchen renovations, um now remember, so I know you say you know you're not gonna go to cooking school, and that that's fine. Um it is gonna be extremely difficult, obviously, getting uh restaurant experience, but cooking schools might actually work with you.
I don't know if you've looked into it, because I know that cooking schools have to give loans uh to people, and the loans are given by uh the federal government, and cooking schools are um regulated under um you know under uh statute such that they kind of have to try to provide education to anyone that wants it. So, you know, we've never we never had someone to my knowledge that um you know, for instance, couldn't do the knife work or anything like that, but we definitely had people who couldn't couldn't walk, uh who were who were there and and working. So there might be something that some you know a cooking school is willing to uh work out for you if you just want to get the experience of what it's like to be in that environment, right? Or be around one of those kitchens. Or I'm sure there are some chefs, and maybe you've already done this, you know, who would set up some sort of a non-working stage where you could kind of absorb some of the environment of what goes on in one of these uh kitchens, which would be useful for you if, you know, as you say, someday you want to be a consultant or uh, you know, maybe an owner even of a restaurant of of that type.
It would be useful to get some just physical time in one of these uh places, just so you can um because you know, kitchens, as much as you know, they can be awesome and they can be horrible, right? The kind of uh, you know, the the camaraderie of the kitchen, the feel of it, like you know, what professional cooks are like in the kitchen, and it's widely variant depending on what kitchen you're in, but uh you know it's it's quite different, I think, than you'd get from watching the TV about it. Wouldn't you say this is true, Nustasia? Yes. So then comes the question.
So we know you know that it's not you you don't feel that you know you're going to be, you know, on the line, obviously. So, you know, what what what advice? Well, you know, taste as much as you can. Um can you go out to like you know, uh restaurants? Is that a problem for you or or not?
Uh a little bit. Again, I'm not in a big restaurant town either. Um but you know, again, I pre import a lot of interesting ingredients and I I cook a lot. So that's sort of my version of that for the moment. Right.
And now if you if you can, you know, like uh if you know, if you have the ability to take a trip to um you know, one of the you know, larger towns or you know, and go, you know, to some of these restaurants. And by the way, I know it's a you know, it can be a huge hardship to do that, like because it's expensive. Like no matter what, like even if you even if there were no kind of barriers put in your way at all, it can be expensive, so it can be a hardship. But um the advantage, and you know, and may you know maybe I don't know your I don't know your uh your econom you know your economic position in life or or you know, but it's the kind of thing that if you if there was a problem, this is something I guarantee you could probably get like a a go go fund me to go do because there's really not I mean tasting, cooking, experimenting, watching, uh these are all like super super super important, but you can learn so much having somebody else's food, right? There's there's um I've always kind of marveled that certain groups of uh American cooks, for instance, hamburger joints, pizza joints, uh places like that, these kind of people tend to not go and taste other people's stuff because they're like, I make the best hamburger, why would I go taste this person's hamburger?
You know what I mean? Whereas in the chef world, normal chef world, you know, the people that I know, it's the exact opposite. You know, I you know, I fall off the grid sometimes because I don't go out and eat enough. You need to go taste other people's stuff because looking at it isn't the same thing as uh actually seeing what somebody does, even just on the plate, even if you're not in their kitchen. And so, you know, the advice of uh Jeffrey Steingarden, who was kind of one of my uh, you know, early, you know, models uh in terms of like, you know, his palate and his brain, right?
Uh and if you know, if people if they haven't read that, the man who ate everything is still a classic book, you know, go go read it. Um but you know, his advice to people was always go more places, eat more stuff, and only through eating a bunch of other people's food can you actually gain knowledge. And so a story that I've told here a bunch of times is that I thought I knew about this was decades ago, this is like you know, 20 years ago. I thought I knew about you know espresso. This is back when you know nobody knew anything about espresso.
So I thought I knew everything about espresso until I went to Seattle, which at that time was the only place in um America that did a good job at espresso, you know, that that basically by and large. And it blew my mind. I was like, oh, there's all this stuff that I don't that I don't know, and just experiencing what someone else can do that you that you didn't even know about is a mind-bending thing and helps you grow quickly and immense uh immensely in terms of what you can do. Um so if you can somehow arrange your life to get out to the these places to s to go eat at places that you admire from afar whose whose work you think is something that you'd like to emulate, I think that's the first real step because that's the palette building step and also the mind building step on seeing how um how people do things that I think takes almost everyone to the next level. Whenever I know Anastasia gets really mad when people like come up and you know ask how to how to do X, Y, or Z when they haven't actually just tried to do it, right?
So isn't that your That's your biggest that's your biggest uh peeve, right? And so I think you know, in in in this, I mean it's obviously more of a challenge, but I would try to organize my life such that I could go out and do those things. Now then you have okay, well, what's my end game? Like, are you uh do you like to write? Uh yeah, I'm uh I'm a decent writer.
Actually, I'm a I don't have a favorite writer actually, but I guess my my other question would be does there exist any like consulting service that doesn't work remotely? Like is that you've already a thing or or all consulting people in the restaurant? So the thing about consulting is I mean, look, there there's as many different kinds of consultants as there are people because the when you're doing consulting work, it's just a matter of convincing the person who's gonna write a check that you're worth the money, right? But in the food and bar world, typically, you know, they like s there are many different kinds of consulting so you know I've been called uh for consulting where someone's like we're gonna build a new piece of equipment um we want you to come in and uh just sit down and talk to us about what you'd like to see in equipment right why because I have a niche for knowing how cooking equipment works and so they'll come in now do I make a living off that no could I maybe I don't know Stasis if we want it if we wanted to do that full time could we do that? It's not always secure it's and it's super hard.
Yeah now chefs right chefs usually build their consulting career on I opened these three restaurants I ran it it was a pain in the butt because it is and now I just want to do some consulting work those folks can make sometimes some decent coin because what they're doing is they're going into a failing restaurant or into a new restaurant they're building the program and then they're getting out but you know those people a usually have that like kind of chunk of experience behind them because when you're consulting they're paying you for a chunk of experience they're either paying you for one a skill that you have that nobody else has which is usually built off of some experience that you've put under your belt so that you have it and other people don't that's why theoretically you're worth the money to them. So from a chef standpoint uh it's very rare that someone's gonna get a consulting job just for like writing a recipe right because you know, most people with the consulting money w want someone who can set up a program, figure ordering, do hiring, make sure that the and then come back on a on a regular basis and make sure that the cooks are performing adequately, that X, Y, and Z is happening. At least for the consulting jobs that I normally see, right? But the the great thing about the food world is if in you know, 19, you know, in the year 2000 or 2001, 2002, when I started getting interested in uh trying to be in the food world, right? I didn't want to be a chef.
That's not what I wanted to be. Uh, but I I loved the food world. I wanted to be in in food. And so the thing was, you I had to find a niche, right? So I thought the niche was going to be the museum of food and drink.
I was like, this is what I'm gonna do. But then I realized that look, that there's no um I have no clout in the food world. Why would someone help me start the food museum? So, you know, luckily my my sister-in-law was just getting started in the food world right around that time. She now runs the Food Network magazine.
Uh, I was able to meet people like Jeffrey Steingarden. I eventually came to the you know attention of Michael Batterbury who ran Food and Wine, and you know, he introduced me to Harold McGee. Uh, you know, I I started building up uh experience, you know, in writing and in knowledge that then got me hired to the French culinary, where I built a niche in kind of new techniques and technologies based on my friendship that I had um uh built up with Wiley Dufresne, where I was working at WD 50, not working at, but you know, getting stuff for Wiley at WD50 and working on those kinds of problems. So I found a niche that allowed me to work in the food world without being a chef, right? Because why would anyone hire me to be a chef?
Or why would anyone hire me to do a TV show when there was already people who were doing TV shows that had proven track records? So you need to find what I would recommend is you need to find a niche that's uh either not currently populated and build the niche yourself, or like find some place that already exists where you can build up the experience that makes your that makes you valuable to someone who is gonna write uh check, right? So my main skill was I cooked a lot, I knew I knew a lot, and I just read an intense amount and absorbed an intense amount of information at a time when information was harder to get, and I was able to get equipment and fix equipment better than other people because I am basically treat myself like a piece of equipment, not like a human being, right, Nastasia? I'm like a Nastasia d hasn't decided whether I'm more animal or more cyborg, but uh you know, but it's so anyway. I'm I'm I'm working on cyborg.
Cyborg, yeah. So but the so the thing is is like what you have to find is you have to find out that you have to find some niche. So the niches that already exist that aren't in I would look first at niches that already exist that aren't working in the kitchen on the line, right? What town are you in? What city are you in?
Uh I'm on Vancouver Island in Canada. Oh, you have great food over there. There's there's so much good food in Vancouver. Oh, you're in a great place. You know what I mean?
Like, oh, is that not Vancouver? Well, so basically you live in was is it Vancouver Island just like all they have is oysters and nothing else? It's just oyster after oyster after oyster. No, there's like a bunch of towns, but I'm in like a small city. Right.
Do they grow oysters where you are? Are you like, how big is Vancouver Island? It's big. Uh so you're not actually near the water then. I mean, uh there yeah, we are, but it's like no one grows oysters here.
No, all right. Because I thought when I think of the Pacific Northwest up in Vancouver, I'm like, oysters, they grow oysters, right? And they have like good sushi restaurants. But okay. Uh I've never been, I guess, to Vancouver Island.
I have been to Vancouver. A lot of great restaurants there. Um so the um so anyway, so like one of the big niches is writing. So a lot of people will go to cooking school to get some experience, and then they'll start writing, right? Another thing is um, you know, if you are interested in in in in equipment or you know, I don't know, like what like what's your need?
Maybe your niche is uh accessibility. I don't know. You know, maybe there's some niche, something that you have that nobody else has that makes your skills and your ideas worth money. That's the thing you have to kind of hone in on. And it's it's like so personal, you know, that's why people ask me, like, how do you get into cooking and technology?
I'm like, well, it was easier back, you know, when I was doing it because there weren't a lot of people doing it. So you get to build your own your own niche, but it's very hard to see forward into what the future niches are going to be, do you know? Yeah, and also I am going to start offering people my knowledge at least for free, basically. Yeah, that's always a good way. If you can build up a following, followings are worth money, right?
So, like it like uh if you look at ID so ideas and food, those guys, Alex and Aki, right? They had a you know, they had a restaurant, right? But it's very small. And by the way, I don't like again, I don't know your your economics. So if you get really into it, it is possible for you to start a restaurant.
It's just gonna cost you a lot of money, right? A lot. But you could you could theoretically, and that's an instant way to get credibility in the restaurant world is to run a restaurant that works. I'm not gonna recommend to you that you do that because it can be an an incredible heartache. And I would definitely if I were you, if you're even thinking of doing it, you need to go like find online a chef who's simpatico with you who will let you at least just like hang out in the kitchen for a while with them to figure out kind of what's the deal there and what what's going on.
Read up on margins, read up on staffing, read up on ordering food on how this thing works because the actual nuts and bolts of being in a restaurant are like you know not necessarily fun. No. I do have a bit of a cheat code in that um my brother went to culinary school. Okay. Yeah.
But still, you're gonna need so here's the thing let's say you and your brother were going to open a place. That's like instant credibility. So Alex and Aki, they opened up a place, I think in Colorado I think somewhere, right? That was very small, very high end. They did their niche thing.
They had a uh you know a blog that became very well known but they they were kind of new techniques and technologies when very very very few people were doing it and they built up a following and that following they now I think have they have a donut shop. They they they open things occasionally that are to the public but they actually do make a a good living off of being consultants and um you know putting out their knowledge and and ideas and you know they've managed to make a good life of it. They're well regarded and you know and and they do their things. They're a model I would actually you know if you well I would contact them if I were you. A little bit yeah so the point being that yes, if and if you if you build a following the way they built a following, that following is is is monetizable.
The mistake people make, I think, is that you can do everything for fun, kind of without a plan, and then all of a sudden you'll have money. And that that doesn't happen. I think you have to do everything with a mind to, you know, yeah, I'm doing this for free now, but is there a way, is there someone eventually who'll pay me money for it? And that's the you know, that's the thing that I think a lot that's the part of the puzzle that a lot of people just kind of pray that that puzzle piece is gonna fall in, and it turns out no one will pay you money unless they have a reason to pay you money, right, Stas? Yep.
That is true. Do you think you think that a little trajectory trajectory would work with a pop-up and not like a full restaurant? Uh I don't know. Like like the like look, a lot of chefs, if you go to like a chef, someone who's been working for, you know, you know, 10 years, 12 years, and they just opened their own restaurant and they were working on a line, uh, they have less than charitable things to say about people who only run pop-ups. That's just been my experience.
I don't I think that everything has its his its own challenges, right? And chefs are very friendly, like in front of you, they can be a snarky group when they when they sneak off by themselves and are and have a few beers in them, right, Stas? Yes. Yeah. Um, you know, it's kind of a code.
No chef ever says anything negative about another cook uh in public. But it can be difficult. Like most most chefs only respect huge amounts of work and they hate anyone that tries to get ahead with, you know, without putting those huge amounts of work in, and they definitely don't see a pop-up as the same as a uh a full-size running permanent restaurant. True or false, Nastassian. True.
But your case might be different, right? I mean, everybody is different. If you can sell yourself to the to the if you even care about selling yourself to the chef world, like, you know, who make who cares really? I mean, like the question is is can you sell what can you sell yourself to someone who's gonna write a check? Because you know who's not gonna write the check?
The chef. The chef's not gonna write you a check. So it's like, you know, uh it's hard for me to kind of say what the the right answer is here. Um, what do you think, Sus? Yeah, so we gotta you want to take a quick break while then think about it.
Also, why don't we why don't we do this? Uh why don't like uh we gave out your the you are um cooking with Q and Dragon Q13, that's it, uh YouTube. And uh and QDragon1337 at uh Instagram. Why don't we do this? Why don't you um we'll we'll we'll come we'll if we'll let second line well you know how about this why don't we let the chat room look at this mull over it for a week and maybe some people have some suggestions and we can revisit it next week.
Does that sound good, people? Yes, sure. All right, cool. All right, thanks, Quinn, and uh we'll talk to you soon. All right, we'll take a break, be back with more cooking issues.
Heritage Foods USA is a farm to table online butcher and found and sponsor of Heritage Radio Network. Heritage Foods got its start when Patrick Martins first step foot onto Frank Reese's Kansas farm in 2001. Back then, Frank was the only farmer in America raising true heritage turkeys with recorded lineages tracing back more than a hundred and fifty years. Patrick knew instant Lead found a unique moment, an opportunity to go beyond acknowledging these breeds as being jeopardized and to actually do something to save them. Patrick asked Frank to ramp up production and made a promise to him that if he would raise them, Heritage Foods USA would sell them.
That was the moment that Heritage Food slogan, eat them to save them was born. By creating a market for delicious meats from Heritage Breeds, we can ensure they'll be around for generations to come. Plus Heritage Breeds just tastes a whole lot better. Learn more at HeritageFoods USA.com and use the code HeritageRadio for two free pork chops with your first order, brother. Alright, I'm gonna get in huge trouble for this.
I'm gonna get in huge trouble, Dave, for this. But when someone busts out that accent and says they can trace their heritage back over a hundred years, I'm like, what is this? A white supremacist freaking Turkey. Come on, man. We're trying to combat that perception here.
Heritage does not have anything to do with that BS. It's not like eugenic. No, I don't mean like America, but it sounds like some sort of eugenics thing. You know, some sort of like, you know, I can trace my bloodline back 100 years. No?
We're just talking about tasty pigs and turkeys. That's how it all starts, Dave. That's how it all starts. It starts with, well, you know, it's not that. It's just you.
First they came for the pigs. It's like Pat Pat Buchanan. Pat Buchanan's like, I just feel more comfortable about white people. It's not that I'm a racist. I just feel more comfortable around white people.
Wait, he said that? Yes, he said that. Wow. Yes. Like recently?
Uh I think fairly recently. Like that's how his mind works. His mind works. It's not racist to just feel more comfortable around a particular group of people. Well, yeah, it is.
I mean, like the definition. Yeah. I don't know whether he prefaced it with I'm not racist. So, like, that's the only part where I don't know if that's what he's saying. And the preface is in itself an immediate red flag.
Yes. Yes. I'm not racist, but. Uh okay. Yeah.
Alright. Uh, uh this is from Nick. Just finished doing my taxes. Uh man, what are you? Like super organized?
I do my taxes like in October when they're on extension. What do you do them, Sas? Like I'll do them in February, end of February. Yeah? Anyway, my man Nick has already done his taxes.
Uh just finished doing my taxes and wanted to treat myself to a fun new purchase with my return. The worst thing for an impulsive shopper is a sudden inflow of unexpected money. That is true, right? You ever are you a money spender like that, Stuz? Are you like I just got a whole throw it into savings.
Really? Yeah. Huh. Alright. I already have my spinz all and my Sears all has an expected ship date of May 24th because Amazon can't get their head out of their ass.
That is true. Is it so is there any any sort of uh word on how far up Amazon's assing we're still looking into this unprompted because they know that if they shove their head any farther in there behind won't they be able to see out of their former neck hole again? Yeah. Right? They'll just pop up through those like their head will pop up through where their neck used to be and they'll be able to see again.
How Nastasia just so people know how many Sears alls have we shipped to those fools? We now have what's four six eight zero plus two four three zero almost seven thousand that they have. Yeah. Yeah. So when are we gonna get our own stock again?
Um I just got the quote for the boat ship so that should be going out today. So in a month and a half we'll have our own? Yeah. Alright. In a month and a half, we'll have our own.
So unless they take them again. Remember we sent ourselves fifty and then they lost them. Yeah. Yeah. No.
Awesome. Anyway, uh, because Amazon can't get their heads out of their butts. Uh, do you know there's some people who think butt is as bad as the A word? That's crazy. They just don't like the word butt.
Even though you could just use it as an interjection, but you know what I mean? That one's fine, but if it's got two T's, no good. What do you think about that? I I think it's weird that people refer to it as the A word. Oh, Jesus.
Okay. I guess this is a family show. Family show. I mean, I said it when I was reading the direct quote because that's a direct quote. Although certain words you don't use even in direct quotes.
Like I never never direct quote like the C word or the N bomb. In any event, there's four minutes left. Okay, okay, okay. I've had my eye on a coon recon pressure cooker for quite some time, and I think it's about time to purchase one. Dave has been using his with a poly science slash brevel control freak and was wondering if he had some pointers for cooking on both that specific induction hob.
By the way, Nick, are you European? Because Americans don't call them Hobbs, do they? Do Americans call them Hobbs? We call them burners, yeah? I thought it was only British people to call them Hobbs.
On this show, do I ever call them Hobbs? Never heard that word before. Yeah, Hobb is Hob is English for burner. Like, anyway. I once said aluminium as a joke, and someone's like, Well, you British?
I'm like, hell no. Anyway. Uh Dave has been using this with a poly science brevel control freak, was wondering if he had some pointers for cooking on both that specific induction burner and on induction burners in general. I have a control freak, but I am sure I am a small minority. I know Nastasia detests second questions.
But if there is time, I wanted to pose a question to all three of you and any guests. Uh what would you buy with your tax return money other than a spinzall, of course? Well, you hit that one first, and I'll talk pressure cookers. Put it in my savings. Oh, jeez.
We'll let Dave think about it while I answer this question, right? Yeah, if I spent any money right now, you know what I want? I want uh I want a decent, like um I wanted maybe that remarkable pad, but I'm thinking like, or an iPad, something I can write on because I've been doing all of these things that require notebook paper, and it sucks having to switch between a PDF reader on my phone and like paper to write on. It's been a huge production issue for me. So that's what I would do.
Anyway, induction. So the issue with you cooking on an the great thing about cooking with an induction burner and uh pressure cooker is that one of the main problems with non-electric pressure cookers like Kun Recon and whatnot is that when you're cooking something thick and you're trying to get it up to pressure, you put high heat into it to get it up to pressure fast, right? Especially because you don't want the cooking time to get thrown off too much. And then you have to throttle it down really low in order to uh maintain that pressure. During that initial ramp up time, especially if you're cooking things, and a lot of old pressure cooker recipes will actually tell you not to cook things like tomatoes because they scorch on the bottom of the pan, and nothing's worse than scorching your pan with a pressure cooker when you're getting it up to pressure because you can't smell it because the thing is sealed.
You can smell a little bit when it starts leaking, but you tend to burn it and not know how horribly burnt it is until it's way, way too late. The great thing about an induction burner is you can set it to ramp quickly to a temperature, but choose a temperature that's only about 20 uh or 30 degrees higher than your finished temperature. So that's what I do. I set my induction burner at like two 260 or so uh uh Fahrenheit, let it get up to pr a little higher, actually, sorry, like 275. Let it get up to pressure, and then usually with the control freak, you have to maintain a temperature delta of roughly 10 to 15 degrees between the uh thermostat and the actual pot temperature because you can't use a probe with it because it's sealed.
So that's what I typically do, and it's very even and you can do very thick things in a pressure cooker that way without having scorching. The problem is if you're cooking something that's extremely thick in a pressure cooker, it can be hard to build up pressure because it's so thick that um it doesn't have convective forces. So that's like one issue with cooking things that are extremely thick is the lack of convection uh inside of the stuff, but eventually you you can get over it. Uh, and also you'll get like blurps. If you're doing like like pea soup, you'll get blurps uh from the bottom onto the top of your of your lid, even though technically it shouldn't be boiling too much.
So, what I tend to do is I'll put the pressure cooker, I'll seal it, and I'll sit there and I'll just shimmy like it'll start coming up to pressure and I'll shimmy it back and forth. I'm making a like a shimmy with my hands and ship not like a shake weight, like a shake weight, shimmy it on the burner to kind of move the stuff around because of the lack of convective forces, and so that's kind of what I do. Uh I was I still love my Kun Recon, you know, all these uh you know, decades later, having used it. Uh I still recommend it, even though I broke the handle off of it and had to weld a handle onto it. Which by the way, I welded it without uh without actually damaging the pot.
So I wasn't stru I didn't weld onto the structure of the pot, I welded onto the rivets that held the handle down. So I don't want to hear anything about how I made my life dangerous. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. Um people seem to like this thing from Fissler, the Vita, whatever.
Um the Vita Vita Vit, which I've never used, but it's a good thing. Oh, on the way out, Colin asked me for big pressure cookers that don't vent. I've never seen one. The only big pressure cookers, really big pressure cookers I've ever used are the that doesn't vent is the American pressure canner. Two problems with it, it.
It's all aluminum. Also, it's a pain to seal. And here's the thing: there's a website. Sorry, Dave, this is on my way out. Website said the wrongest thing in the world.
They said this. You can cook anything you want in a big pressure cooker the same way you can cook it in a small pressure cooker, but you can't cook a large amount in a small pressure cooker. That's only partially true. When you get a pressure cooker the size of the American pressure canner that's like 50 liters, 40 something, 50 liters, it takes forever to come up to pressure. So uh unless you really need bigger, I would just get the biggest style coon recon that's built.
It can do small amounts of stock and you're good to go. If you only buy the giant pressure cookers if you actually need to cook a giant amount of stuff, 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.
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