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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 every Tuesday from Revelate 12 to Revelate 1245 from Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick. Not joined as usual with Nastasia the Hammer Lopez because of scheduling issues. So now that she's opening uh, you know, a restaurant over there, the pasta flyer, she's gotta actually deal with scheduling issues like a real human being.
Playing the part of Nastasia the Hammer Lopez today is Dra Drak Jack Shream. Frankly, I'm okay with Drac. That sounds great. Oh yeah. So uh Jack, for those of you that don't, he's been on the show several times.
For those of you that don't know Jack, uh Jack was the uh head bar well first was a food studies graduate at NYU, then went to go work in because it's not really your style, inexplicably for Milk Bar. Not that I don't like Milk Bar, but I mean I don't know. I didn't know what my style was yet. Okay, fair, fair. Uh came on to Booker and Dax as a bar back, worked his way up to head bartender, and then when we closed, went to nomad, became a bartender at Nomad.
And if if we start a new project together, if we may or may not start a new project. Yeah. If let's say with Don and you know some other good people who I won't mention, if we're gonna start a project soon, if that were to happen, Jack might or may not be like integral, the integral player. We'll see. You know, who knows?
Yeah. So uh I know people have called in before for uh old BDX specs, or probably even I don't know if you're allowed to release nomad specs. What's it no, definitely not? Okay, those are mine. Okay, but Booker Index, like even if they're not yours at Booker Index, we are open source wear absolutely bar.
So if you want a booker index, I have them queued up, downloaded, no internet issues. And then it's you know, if you want if like, am I allowed to talk about Smoley and the Nomad Shake? I think I've already mentioned it on the air before. Is that an allowable thing to talk about? I think that's fine.
Just talk about how great Smolly Shake is and leave it at that. Okay, and uh, I don't know, uh Dave. Have we talked about that before? Uh I don't know, I don't remember. Speaking of, we got Dave in the booth.
Oh, hey there. What's up, Dave? How you doing, Dave? Good, how are you guys? Good, doing great.
Cool, cool, great. Uh all right, so call in your questions uh to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. By the way, people, I want you to know. We also asked, because really you need to replace Nastasi with two people, not one people.
Even though she says nothing, the evil energy she brings into the room too strong, just so strong. True. Dave, true or false. When you're here all the time, like the evil energy she brings into the studio gets me wound up like like like like nobody's business, right? Oh, yeah.
Absolutely true. Yeah, so it takes like it takes like a nation of people to get me as lathered up to hold you back. As I would, yeah, nation. Despite her villainy, though, I'm so excited about Pasta Flyer. It's so great.
The Times review is awesome. So here's this. This is Nastasia Lopez in a in a nutshell. She's sitting here, of course, she's reading something on her phone instead of listening last week. As Pasta Flyer's review comes out in the New York Times.
By the way, New York Times very rarely write rates that style of restaurant. Quick, quick, casual, casual. New times heard of it. New York Times. Yeah.
Then she's like, I'm like, she's like, after right after the mic's turn off, she's like, oh yeah, by the way, we got reviewed in the New York Times like dingus, dingus. You had a platform. You had a platform. She's like, eh, that's Nastasia. She also had another platform.
It was the New York Times. So I think I think she'll be okay. She'll be okay, but I mean, like, you know, take a chance to crow a little bit. Oh, absolutely. Nastasia, like, as much as she will cut down somebody else and crow about herself personally when you're stating with her alone, never crows in public.
No, no crow public crowing. And you know what? I respect that about her. But at the same time, this is a cool thing. You should talk about it.
You should talk about it. Do you think she doesn't crow because she is because she doesn't want someone to shove it down her throat later? I don't know. I I think that's just her personality. You're so charitable.
Jack is such a charity. Jack is the most charitable person. You know, let me ask you, like, for all of you who don't know, Jack worked first, like in two different, very high functioning but punishing environments. Momo and Nomad, right? And Nomad, by the way, run by Leo uh Robochek on the bar side.
Friend, I admire him immensely, not punishing because he's evil, punishing because he's exacting. Yeah. Which is a good thing. Absolutely. Yeah.
You know. Made me a way better human being and especially a way better bartender. Yeah. So. And uh, but punishing, right?
And then uh Momo, also, Momofuku, yeah. Punishing. Differently punishing. Differently punishing. But if you can weather that and still be and still give someone uh another human being the benefit of the doubt, well, yeah.
Kudos. Kudos, Jack. All right. So we got some questions in. Uh let's take a look.
Oh, we got a caller? All right, caller. You're on the air. Hey Dave, it's Matt from Mystic. Hey, how you doing?
I'm good. Good. How's the spins all training? It's fantastic. Good.
It spins everything. Yeah, exactly. Not some. All. But let me just let me just tell you something.
The next product, which I'm not going to talk about, but the next Booker and Dax product, which specifically I will not talk about, was going to be the third in my Zol trilogy. So I I was guess what it was? No. Because I can't, I'm not going to confirm or deny. So it's going to be in the Zol trilogy.
And I was extremely depressed because Chris from Hong Kong, our our our Chinese um uh uh what liaison, right, informed me that the third Zol is already a trademarked product. And so the third installment of the trilogy can only be known unofficially as the Zol. Anyway, so I'm very depressed about that. But go ahead, Matt, what was your question? Uh well, I wanted to ask Jack about what the specs for the struggler were from back in the Booker Booker Dex days.
Was the Struggler yours or Nick's, Jack? Struggler is an Ann Robinson. Oh, it's Ann's? Yes. I love Ann.
I'm pulling it up right now. So this the funny thing about the struggler is it's the least Booker and Dax cocktail that has ever been on the Booker and Dax movies. By the way, for those of you where like you how many programs does she run now? Uh she does cocktails for Andrew Carmelini wherever he needs her to do cocktails. Okay.
All the no-ho hospitality. Okay. So it's a big deal. She's a big deal. She's good.
Anyway, she is the most friendly, stubborn person I know. How stubborn is Ann Robinson? Uh fully. As stubborn as I am almost. Yeah, differently, but absolutely.
I mean, and do you know anyone more stubborn than I am? No. No. So like me neither. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. So. All right.
So the specs for the struggler is two dashes of orange bitters. We use Regans at the bar. Uh a bar spoon of. Well, why do we first of all, why did that happen? I love Gary Regan.
Yeah, right. I have a perfectly good orange. What? Hey, I hello. I have a perfectly good orange bitters recipe.
Why didn't we not use it? You guys are too with I'm not going to say you were too lazy. Not you personally, too lazy. But it takes literally 45 minutes to make a like a year's worth of orange bitters. That's true.
And we did it sometimes. Do you like the Regans better? I like mine better. I'm just saying, but it's mine. I like both.
We need to make it again. It's been too long. I actually only ever made one batch of it ever, and then we used it for a long time, but it it didn't. We I remember there being a problem with some kind like something with pectin. I had to spin it a bunch of times.
It was kind of a nightmare. The one time, one of the times I did it. I obviously screwed something up. You add the SPL at the get go, let it settle together. I didn't add the SPL at the get go, and then I was like, what's going on?
What is this? What so that's the problem. All right. So go ahead. We'll do it again.
Okay. Okay. So orange bitters of your choice, two dashes, whatever you like. Uh bar spoon of frambois, so raspberry liqueur. Which by the way, not Booker and Axe, but P.S.
We didn't we have to buy it or did we like like No, that's something we inherited. We inherited that whole shelf of Rando liqueurs, and then we ended up buying Raspberry Liqueur because of this drink. What did we use? The uh Roth um what did we use? Uh Rothman?
I think so. No, I think it was the Masinez. Okay, go ahead. All right. So bar spoon for Amboise.
I do you by the way, we were open for five over five years. Yeah. Right? And we never ran through that inherited shelf of liqueurs. We did not ever.
Uh all right. I'm gonna start over and say the whole spec. So that's the one. I will not interrupt. All right.
Uh two dashes of orange bitters, a bar spoon for Amboise, a half ounce of Dolan Blanc, three quarters of an ounce of Bonal, and two ounces of bourbon. We used Old Forester 86. Now, if you don't if you don't want to go out and buy yourself a bottle of frambois, what do you think about what do you think about making your own uh like just taking some raspberry jelly? Jelly. Jelly, not jam.
I was doing a demo with someone, but not preserves, because you're trying to get something that's totally clear, right? And adding a finite amount of that to one of the base ingredients and then dissolving it in. Like what about making let's say you want to make a lot of this over time. What about making like a raspberry bourbon? You only have to add a little bit because you only have to make up for a bar spoon of this stuff.
I think you might end up adding more sweetness than you're looking for. I mean, I guess you don't need to. Well, depending on it. Then you got a whole bottle of raspberry bourbon. Here's what you here's what I would do.
I would take you just want bourbon. I would take 300 or 200 mils of the bourbon, dissolve into it like a couple of, you know, like you know, three spoons of it, and make like a raspberry bourbon syrup. And that you could probably use in more stuff than you could use for Embois, no? Yeah, that's probably true. You're gonna go spend what?
How much is a bottle of the uh I don't know. And if you're buying the good stuff, it's expensive, right? If you're buying the nasty stuff, why are you pouring it into your drink? Yeah. You may uh consider buying the St.
George Raspberry Liqueur because that is delicious. They make a great product. Alright. So fair enough. Anything else, Matt?
Um, so one other thing I was wondering is uh so like in the Dr. J, when you milkwash the rum. Yeah. Uh can you could you just like put a little whey powder in there to get the same sort of frothingess? I don't think so.
Uh we tried it once and uh our results weren't good. I think because the the I think the whey powder that's made is uh I think it's been heated. I don't know. I don't know whether it's gonna dissolve. Okay, let me put it this way.
When you take uh when you take milk washed liquor and you let it sit, whether you put it in the fridge or whether you put it on the shelf for a week or two, you'll start seeing a flock, flocculation. And that's the whey proteins coming out of solution because they don't really want to stay solubilized in the liquor, right? And so my feeling is you might have trouble actively properly dissolving the whey powder into the booze. And I don't know, what do you think, Jack? I I think that sounds right.
It doesn't want to be there to begin with, and like any milkwashed application really makes sense in a large format, like either in a bar setting or for an event or a big party, because you can only really use it for like five days or so, and then the the whole milk washing process is dead because the whey flocks out. Right. But I'll I'll give you the spec you should use at home. Ready, everyone ready, peoples? Everybody ready for this?
Here's the Dr. J recipe spec uh for home use. Take yourself uh 500 uh grams of sugar, take yourself 500 milliliters of whole, whole. Whole. Whole.
Whole milk. Blend them together until the sugar is dissolved. Add to that an ounce and a quarter, because that should be a little less than an ounce and a quarter of 15% citric acid solution. That is 15 grams of citric acid brought up to 100 grams with water, right? That's roughly it's like two and a half times lime acid strength, two and a half times lemon acid strength in the surface.
Stir that into the milk uh syrup, it will immediately thicken. And that pre-thick, but it will not break. And that pre-thickening is what makes this not be grainy when you shake it, and what stops it from ever breaking even after it's shaken. So now you have milk syrup. Remember, it's a little bit tart.
Then I will take, I would take acid-adjusted orange juice. The way to acid adjust orange juice is for every liter of uh orange juice. You will add 32 grams of citric acid and 20 grams of malic acid. Dissolve it. You now have lime strength, uh, what's it called?
Orange juice. Yeah. Then you do your uh two ounces uh regular rum in this case, then uh three quarters on the milk syrup and three quarters. You might have to adjust a little bit. I have to test it because there's a little bit of acid in the milk syrup, and there's a little bit of sugar in the orange juice, so I'd have to test it, but it's roughly three-quarters, three-quarters, three-quarters.
Me personally, I tend to shy everything back as I get older because that's me. But remember, don't shy too much on the syrup because the syrup is what's bringing you the texture in this case. Uh, and then add a couple drops of vanilla tincture and salt, right? Yeah, that's it. And then shake that sucker, and it's very, very close to a milkwash Dr.
J. And the milk syrup will last a long time in the fridge and can be made in any quantity and doesn't ruin any boots. That is a great product. All right. Oh, the one thing the one thing I didn't say about the struggler is stir, served up, no garnish.
As all Booker Index drinks, yeah, no garnish. No garnish. Except this Corsair, which had a beer. The beer, the pony high life. Yeah.
The champagne. That's a great garnish. It's the best garnish. Yeah. You know, a little mini beer.
Uh well, when we opened, we had a garnish. We had a horse head uh peel when we opened, but we stopped real quick. I mean, we still had peels for things, but yeah, but that's not a garnish. I mean, I'm not sure. It has a function.
I don't consider functional garnishes to be garnishes. I I went and worked somewhere else, Dave, and some people say that an aesthetic purpose is also a function. Like if it looks good. But I'm like the Donald Judd. Not really.
I'm like the Rothko, maybe of without the depression, I think. You know what I mean? Like I like color. I like drinks that look pretty. I feel pretty.
Oh, so pretty. Right. But I don't, I don't like I don't I don't mind going to other places and and having my drink hookered up. Absolutely. You know what I mean?
But like I I don't like to do it myself. I was already agreeing before the the terminology was set in stone, but I'll agree with you. No, he really agrees. What? What?
I just I wasn't prepared for the term hookered up, but it's strong. I mean, I don't know, is that bad to say? Am I not allowed to say that? Yeah, no, it's fine. All right.
Well, you know, something where you're adding a bunch of stuff to catch someone's attention because you want to be perceived as an object. Right? I mean, that's you wish to be objectified. Or not you wish, but the the system wants you to be objectified, so you add stuff such that you are objectified. Anyway.
All right. We're with you on this. All right, all right. You never know. You never know.
Like people could take things the wrong way. Yeah. I want people to take things the wrong way. Uh all right. Anyway, Matt, thanks for calling in.
Thanks for uh being a supporter. Thank you. No, thanks for the answers. That's great. Um, okay.
So we have I don't know who wrote this in because they added it to Nastasia late and she just sent me the email. I don't have it, but it's a hot sauce question. No, I sent it to you. Nastasi's on the phone? I said hello and you said hello, and then you're like, I didn't tell it was you!
I thought it was like someone in the background. Yeah, I thought it was someone in the background and Matt Mystic being like, hello! I was pretty positive he didn't know you were on the phone. I was like, what we had no idea. I I honestly thought that Dave dropped it in.
Well, so we do have Nastasi the hammer Lopez via telephone. I don't like the hookered up raise. Why? Because it's like it's so sexist. Why is it sexist?
Well, you're talking about male hookers? If you if your point is to sell your body, yeah, if your point is to sell your body, not your point, but if if the point is your body is to be sold, then you augment it in a way that you're objectified. Okay. Well, how can a male hooker hooker himself up? Real tight pants, showing the package, like adding extra stuff to the package.
Okay, well, it sucks. Yeah. And we've all seen Spinal Tap people. Listen, if you're gonna shove a cucumber in your pants as you're going through the uh metal detector, do not wrap it in aluminum foil. For those of you that have not seen Spinal Tap, which is one of the all-time great movies.
It is. I love Spinal Taps so much. Our life is like the scene where they order the Stonehenge, Dave. It really is. Oh man.
First of all, anyone out there who has not seen this is Spinal Tap, first, first. I'm not saying you should go smack your mama in the face for not making you go see it. Smack yourself in the face, then go see it. Yeah. You know what I mean?
And then watch the rest of the Christopher Guest catalog and have a great time. Although, have you seen Chicken People, the documentary Chicken People? No. It's like that, but it's But it's real. But it's real.
No, no tongue in cheek, just chicken people going to the Ohio Nationals, which is in their own words, the Westminster of Chickens. We gotta go. Why haven't we been to the Westminster of Chickens? Because we are low quality individuals. True.
All around. It's unfortunate but true. Unfortunate but true. That's like, you know what I missed this year? Bobby, I miss Bobby Burns Day.
I was gonna, I was talking to big game about Haggis. Frankly, I was depressed because I thought the bar would be open. And uh the new bar, whatever name it might have, if it should it exist, will have a Bobby Burns Day with Haggis and bagpipers. Jack and I are going to learn to play bagpipe. You heard it here first.
Jack and I are learning, as soon as we get like in the bar space, I'm gonna hire a bagpipe teacher to come in and teach anyone at our bar who wishes to learn to play bagpipes how to play bagpipes. And we will to the as early as possible be playing our own pipes at Bobby Burns Day to pipe in the haggis. And Dave is already pretty good. He's got some moves. Uh well, okay.
Everybody, uh, can you name more than one? I cannot. Can you name more than one uh rock and roll tune with bagpipe in it? Um the whole pogs catalog. No, and also A C D C stuff.
Nastasia, you are correct. Long way to the top if you want to rock and roll. Yeah. Also, some echo in the bunny man stuff. Really?
Yeah, I think so. To me, long way to the top if you want to rock and roll is everything that is good about the bagpipe. Absolutely. Because it's meant to be, even though it's very simple bagpiping, uh, so bagpipers don't probably like it very much. In fact, last time I was in Scotland, I said to the bagpiper, I was like, yo, you listen to Long Way to the Top if you go rock and roll.
He's like, I don't know what you're talking about. And I was like, Oh, I'm so depressed. Because bagpipe is meant to be stirring, it's meant to be stirring music, and that's a stirring song. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Better as an accent ingredient than a lead instrument. Although in Long Way to the Top, it play it, it takes the part of like that guitar hitting the whale. You know what I mean? Beatle, bad. You know what I mean?
It's like, it's like so right there. Yeah. Yeah. Great song. It's rough and main.
It's long way to the top if you want to rock and roll. Anyway, uh, so we did not do Bobby Burns Day this year. Next year. Because we didn't exist. If we do, eventually exist.
Yeah. Nastasia, what's your favorite hot sauce? Uh just the uh, I don't know, Talula. Well, okay. Strong.
Uh Jack. All right. Hot sauce is a it's a category with subcategories. Oh, okay, okay, okay. I like Tapatio.
Okay. If I want like you're a bartender, clearly no. All right, okay. What else? I use Sriracha in some situations.
What kind? Hotcock? Yeah. Yeah. All right.
Yeah. You know, standard. Uh Tabasco has a place. And then, you know, sometimes I'll have a crazy extra hot, you know, secret secret basement hot sauce. I made hot sauce recently.
Uh my uh my partner McKenzie and I made hot sauce recently, and it was uh we let it we let it go too long. It was a lacto fermented sauce and it got super floral. That's bad? I mean, not not like over floral. It was aggressive.
I'll bring you a bottle. We have way too much and we're never gonna go through it. It's kind of coming back around. I tasted it again recently, and it was like, you know. This is a good point, people.
When you have something that doesn't technically spoil, i.e. doesn't become unsafe, but changes over time. Just because it goes in quotes, bad, don't throw it away. No, because it's getting better. It could get better again.
I've had this happen many times with many products. We also bottled and saved the brine, like the brining liquid. Yeah, which is also funky and coming back around and is great dashed on like a salad or chicken or you know, something that needs a little moisture. Nice. Dave, what's your favorite hot sauce?
Uh hard to say favorite, but I guess Chulula is probably a go-to. It's two cholulas in one day. Yeah. That's that's easy. Crystal and a crystal.
Yeah. Uh Frank's. Frank's is good. Yeah, Frank's is good. Yeah.
All right. But so I'm here, I'm f I'm hearing a favoring of like Southern American, Northern Mexican, vinegar based, peppery stuff. Definitely. Yeah. All right.
Okay. So uh the question here is uh fan of the show, wanted to reach out for a quick question. I've been making a lot of hot sauces for a couple of years. His name is Trafton. Okay, hey.
I thought it came through. All right. I've been making hot sauces for a couple of years and occasionally have issues with separation. Now I have to admit, when I first read this, I was thinking emulsified sauces. Like I was I've been making like the Hollandaise for a long time and it was breaking.
And then I was like, oh, hot sauce, not like hot temperature. Like picante, like as the Deutsch would say, Sharf. You know what I mean? Like hot sauce. By the way, did you know I once ate uh uh at the same falafel place for an entire summer?
The summer where I one of the summers where I was uh killing pigs at uh uh at um Columbia Presbyterian uh when I was working in the labs there. The other summer was the summer that every day I had to have a BLT to prove I could still eat pork while I was uh working on the pigs, anyways. So I'm sitting there and uh we're dealing with the falafel guy, and literally I would set it's like the guy was like almost like my cousin because I would talk to him every day. Yeah, all the only interaction I ever had with him was this falafel, I would say that. Then he would say, hot sauce?
I would say yes. And then he would say, nice day. And that was it. Every day. But how'd you know how much to pay?
I just watched the person in front of me, and I think it was written on the cardboard on the falafel thing. So I just hand him the stuff. There's never he never asked me for money. I would just hand him the money. Dave, I feel bad for your cousins if that's a cousin-like interaction.
Well, I mean, in other words, like in terms of the frequency with which I know, I'm just I'm just messing around. Okay, Jack, do you know about uh Jen's dad and Jen's mom? No, I don't I don't think so. What what should I know? Wow, Nastasia pulling out some personal information now.
All right, we'll get to that after I finish this question, because I'm actually going to finish this question. Okay. All right. My process is to ferment the mash for a month, no water added, just pepper, fruit, uh koji, shiokoji, and salt, thin out with some vinegar, bring to a simmer, then vitape to be Jesus out of it, which is a setting on the vita prep, by the way. Um occasionally, though, the solids separate out in the fridge and it just kind of looks unappetizing.
Is there a technique to prevent this from happening, or should I just use a thickener like Xanthan gum? Uh if so, what percentage? All right, okay. Uh I forgot to actually look up the percentage, sorry. Uh but the trick with Xanthan, when you're by the way, the trick with using Xanthan gum, first of all, I'm gonna go into a couple of things.
One, when you're working with uh sauces, right? There's uh, or anything really, when you're talking about there's stabilization and there's emulsification. These are two separate things. So you add, if you're gonna have something that's separating because they are actually uh they repel each other, like oil and water is the classic, uh, or like air and water. Anything like that where it automatically kind of repels each other, you need an actual emulsifier.
Emulsifiers are what they call ampiphilic. In other words, they uh have an affinity, a philic, ampi, you know, both for both water and oil. They're usually double-sided kind of molecules. And what those things do is actually lower the energy it takes to keep unlike things together. What sauces like this need is actually not an emulsifier, but a stabilizer.
And what a stabilizer does is just thickens the stuff so that the solids can't separate out, or things can't separate out. So Xanthan gum is a uh stabilizer, which is what everyone uses in this scenario. Now, Xanthan has the interesting characteristic that it's hey, Nastasia, what's with the beeping? Uh Xanthan has uh an interesting characteristic in that it forms a light gel that breaks when you move it. So that's why it's really good and can be used in very low percentages, but it's also why when you overuse it, everything feels looks like snot because it's a solid and then suddenly breaks free, so it looks like snot.
It's terrible. And has a slimy mucus-y texture, which is terrible. Uh so in general, you try to use it like you know, in the quarter percent range, uh, if you just want to do a stabilized any anything above half in your serious snot range, so like a quarter of a percent. Anyway, the trick with Xanthan is this weight. Like add the Xanthan, stir it in, wait, wait.
Let it fully, you know, stir it, hydrate it, let it ful put it in the vita prep when you're doing it, and just wait. If you add a lot and it takes like, you know, 15, 20 minutes and doesn't reach its full thickness for like an hour or something, then you could add now and later have snot, and that's not what you want. And I'll tell you the other secret on how to do this. The professionals, uh, commercial professionals who make things know really well how to make stuff work. So if you have, and this goes for anything, not just hot sauces people.
Any of you out there that have cooking-related questions, whenever I want to know how to do something, the first thing I do is I find a product that is similar to what I want to do, but is made professionally. I turn the can or bottle around and I read the ingredients. So if you go back and you look at, for instance, Tabasco sauce, which is the only one I look down there in the radio, which is similar to the ones you guys are talking about in what it is, right? Tabasco sauce separates. Frank's uh separates.
All these guys separate uh into rather unappetizing uh McGillas when they are left to sit around. So you shake the sucker beforehand, right? But they're relatively low solids. That's why people don't get freaked out by it. But if you look at the recipes for this, you have Tabasco.
The ingredients are vinegar, pepper, salt, right? So they add no stabilizer and it separates. Now, if you go to look at a higher solids brand where separation would be bad, let's say you were going to look at sriracha, right? The ingredients there, and this is what I do. I go look at the ingredients.
They have in it chili, right? So there's a high chili, right? Lower liquid, right? So liquid, typically, if you have a very high liquid uh preparation that has solids in it, people expect the solids to settle. They're not as uh freaked out by it.
If you have a high solids preparation and liquids settle out of it, A, it's harder to get the liquids back into it by shaking it, and B, people freak out a little bit more. Anyway, so sriracha, uh chili, sugar, because that stuff is sweet, don't even want to fool you. Yeah, garlic, then vinegar, then potassium sorbate and sodium uh bisulfate. So that with those two things, one is an antioxiding as an antioxidant, that's a bisulfate, and assorbate is there to prevent mold growing in that sucker, right? Uh then your boy Xanthan gum is there.
So they add Xanthan straight up. And so, like if it's good enough for like the billion dollar hot sauce, yeah, probably good enough for you. You know what I mean? Uh, if you want to look at more pasty things in some things, like if you take a look at uh Gochu Chang, right, those are starched thickened. Or if you look at uh like Sichuan Brah bean paste, these are starch thickened.
And so, you know, some brands of Kochichang just use wheat starch because they're cheap and they want to make it fast. Some use fermented rice paste. You can use like, you know, whatever, whatever you, whatever you want. But if you want a thicker thing like that, those are usually thickened and prevented by separating by actually using starch. Anyway.
That's my answer. So my answer in general is find something whose characteristics you think are decent, but either you want to make your own or you want to make it in a less kind of industrialized way. Figure out how they do it. That's the same thing. Like people are like, how do you make a coconut cream that doesn't separate?
I'm like, have you looked at the back of a Coco Lopez can? Like the back of the Coco Lopez can is like a shotgun poop spray of freaking ingredients because coconut is a difficult material to work with. But Coca Lopez, delicious. Yeah, uh you know what I wish? Here's what I wish.
Anyone out there who works for the Coco Lopez Corporation, we're not talking about Anastasia, who I also sometimes call Coco Lopez. But like, but like anyone out there, if you hear me, make for me a slightly less sweet version of Coco Lopez. Not that I think that your product is too sweet, but it's too sweet for me to use in a lot of preparations. If you made a low, for instance, I use Coco Lopez in drinks. I use Coco Lopez in sorbet bases because I'm very lazy.
And if I'm gonna make a sorbet tonight, I'm not gonna go through a big rigmarole. I'm gonna get a can of Coca Lopez. But I'd like to be able to have a higher percentage coconut cream without all that dang sugar because the the sugar load is so high that I have to scale back my coconut. Uh I have to drastically scale back my coconut, otherwise I overshoot my sugar bill. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. So it's okay, Dave. Tell tell you tell Jack about Gen Zon's dad. You know what? This is not a cooking related question, but I know, but it's so good.
Tell it in two minutes. All right. Within two minutes. Go. Okay, so uh it's gonna give the long, long story.
So I have a uh I I I have a stepfather, Gerard, okay, right. And you know, my stepfather, I've known him since I was three. He's you know, he's basically he's he is a dad to me. Like I have my father, and Gerard is also like my father, right? So, like, but because I've known him since I was three, and I was like, you know, I've always just called him Gerard, right?
But I always call my parents, so Gerard is like a title to me. Girard is not like a name, it's like a title. He is your Gerard. He yes, yeah. Right.
Yes, right? So anyway, so like, yeah, so my kids call him grandpa, all that, right? So it's like yes, it's a title, it became a title. But it happened because I knew him from when I was very young. So I called him Gerard before he was my stepfather because I knew him beforehand.
So this is that's the the background. So you don't go go from calling someone anyway. So we're at that, we're at this point, right? So then I start going out with uh, you know, my future wife when I'm I don't know, like 20, 20, 20, 20, right? So I start going out with them, and then just I never referred to her parents as anything, right?
Literally never referred to them as anything. Not even their name. No, but not even like no, never directly re I would never I never directly by the way, you can do this as a test. It's very easy to go through life not directly referring to someone unless you're working with them in a work environment. In a work environment, you need to be, yo, Jack, you know what I mean?
Like if I didn't refer to you, it would be awkward, right? But m in most uh home and personal settings, there is very there's rarely, if ever, a need to refer to someone. And in fact, I think it's really weird when people overly refer to to people in personal settings. When like when someone sits there and says your name to you over when they're talking to you, you're like, I can see you're staring at me. I know you're talking to me.
You don't need to use my name. Like I know you know who I am. This is not necessary. Anyway. So this is to set this to set the scene.
So then, you know, a couple years later, we get engaged, we're we're getting married. I still have never referred to them because of all, like, I've always felt very close to them. Like, I always really like them. Like, you know, they they've always felt like they're part of my family. Like Jen and I were very serious, very fast.
And so, like, you know, it was always kind of a serious thing. So I never really wanted to call them by their first names. Yeah. Right? Even your Girard.
Right, but that but that I'm just bringing that as a as a separate thing because that's a part of my life that you need. So, like, I already have this weird thing with honorifics and and names, right? And I'm not the kind of guy who normally thinks it believes in calling your parents by their name, which is why I'm saying Girard is a uh a title, right? So then I have this new family, right, that I'm becoming a part of. They embrace me, I embrace them.
What am I gonna call them by their first names? No, it's not respectful, I don't think, for me to call them by their first names, but at the same time, I'm not gonna pull a mom and dad on them when I have Gerard over here and I'm calling Gerard Gerard. So I can't call them mom and dad because that's a slap in the face to Girard, right? But uh at the same time, I can't, I'm not gonna call them by their first name because it doesn't feel right to me. So instead, and bear in mind, I started going out with Jen in the year of our Lord, 1992.
All right? Valentine's Day, 1992. Is that why? Is that the year you were? I'm 91.
91. All right, okay. So I started going out with their 92, and I have never once ever referred to them at all. I see them all the time. I see them all the time.
Everyone's like, everyone's like, but what if your father-in-law, what if your father-in-law was on fire? This is Nastasia. What if your father-in-law was on fire and you had to tell him, I was like, first of all, he's gonna know he's on fire. Believe me, as someone who is caught on fire. An easier one.
All right. You and him are the only people in the house, okay? And the phone rings and it's for him, but he's on the other side of the house. How do you get him? It's for you.
What if there's two people in the house? And they're both on the other side of the house. It's never hey, this has never happened. I go get them. Not for them.
You go get them. Or let's say Dax is there. Get your grandpa. Right? Or like you can always you always have someone next to you that you can use as a through furl.
So you're like, if if Jen's there, you're like, hey Jen, you're mom, bah. There's always a through furlough. It's not hard, people. The fact that you've developed so many workarounds rather than just having something to call these people is the most it's one of the most Dave Arnold things that I have ever heard. It's fantastic.
Anyways. Thank you, Nastasia, for bringing us to light. It's fantastic. You know, it's not usual that we go this personal on the cooking issues. And I know how I feel about it.
What do you think, Dave? Uh a little personal, but I like it. Yeah. Kit wrote in, hey, Nastasia, Dave, Dave, and also Jack, although Kit did not know this. You think it's I have a simple question regarding the lime acid and champagne acid recipes in liquid intelligence.
What is your recommended uh storage vessel? Glass Cheaters? Yeah, just a glass bottle. Non-reactive. Yeah.
Do I need to be concerned about UV light or a particular material? I mean, I wouldn't put it in a metal that's gonna react with the acid. But other than that, I mean I've never done long-term storage in stainless, but I've done short term, maybe in tins and stuff. When I keep it at home, if I'm gonna use it for anything, I just keep it in like a clear glass swing top bottle, and I keep it in the fridge. Yeah.
Is there a time frame within which I should use the product once in solution? Uh finally got my Searzole in November. Love it. Can't wait to buy a spinzall. Thanks.
Nice. Uh speaking of which, Searzol's back in stock, people. Uh back in stock. Oh yeah. All right.
Now here's the thing. So lime acid, I'm assuming you mean lime acid and champagne acid in things. Uh champagne acid we tend to use on its own. It's it's the weird one that we tend to use on its own. Yeah.
It tends to come out of solution. Yeah. So it's got crystals. You'll see crystals in the bottom of it, sometimes a slight haze in it. It's still good.
Shake it. Shake it. It's still good. Yeah. Yeah.
Um. Oh no, Dave, it's not back in stock. It just went off again. Oh. People, we have our own ones coming that are going to be here in under a month, and we control when they're on when they're in stock.
So boo mic yah. Anyway, so uh back to the champagne uh lime lime acid. So if the question is, is if you dope a fruit juice with uh acid, what's its shelf time? And this is entirely subjective. Let me ask you a question, Kit.
How long do you think orange juice is good for? And uh, or how long do you think or uh grapefruit juice is good for? And the and then whatever that answer is, it's the same when you acid adjust it. So like it doesn't, I don't think change it much in one way or the other. So there are some people who think orange juice is only good right after it's pressed.
And if you believe that, then the acid ain't gonna change it. But uh there are other people who believe orange juice lasts for weeks and lime acid ain't gonna change it. And uh, you know, the the the thing is, and I should never say this because uh of something which I've referred to before, and I don't have time to get into it. If someone cares about it, ask me, I'll talk next week. The the law of incremental crappiness.
So, you know, in general, I try to organize my life around not violating the law of incremental crappiness, right? Not putting myself on that slippery slope to Dreckland. But one of the things that I will incrementally crappy myself on, and when you do do things that are incrementally crappy, people, you have to put a big flag in it and be like, okay, I understand I've done something incrementally crappy here. Don't let yourself slide further. But uh there's someone lit a match.
Was that you, Dave? Or someone had a birthday cake? Smells like sulfur in here. Are we about to die? Uh yeah, luckily that exit isn't real.
So okay, good. Uh so the the one thing I will say is is that the quality of juice in a three-quarters use as uh an acidifier in a cocktail is not as important as when you're downing a glass of OJ. The OJ you use in uh a shake on a three-quarter basis, that I don't think is as important as it would be if you were drinking. It's not that it's not important, but it's not as important as it would be when you're drinking a uh a glass of orange juice. If you can use high quality orange juice, use high quality orange juice.
But I'm just saying, and but where where it says the three quarters of crappy over the hill lime juice, I think spoils the cocktail. Yeah, absolutely. So that's what I'm gonna say about that. And the the adding of acid to the orange juice is it tricks your brain a little bit so that it's harder to recognize the quality of the juice after it's been acidulated. So that I think that's the reason that it matters less because you're not used to tasting orange flavor at that high of acid levels.
Right. So what do you say, Dave? What's that quick break? Uh sure, take a break back with more cooking issues. Heritage Foods got its start when Patrick Martin's first step foot onto Frank Reese's Kansas farm in 2001.
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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. So how do you track people to make sure they don't just re-sign up and get two free pork chops? I don't know. I'd have to talk to accounting about that.
Yeah, also, did you did you sample the banjo part from the Land of the Lost theme song? No, uh, but I can't say where it's from. Marshall Will and Holly, Routine Expedition, Greatest Earthquake Ever Known. Ever known. That's a really good theme song, by the way.
For those of you that don't know the original Land of the Lost, it is a very strong theme song. I feel that 70s theme songs, maybe it's because I was a kid, but I feel they were so strong back in the day. Gilligan. Gilligan. They were just more than a little bit.
A little early, yeah. Different strokes. Oh, different strokes is great. Sanford and Sun. Yeah.
Rockford Files. By the way, I just listen to the Rockford Files in Sanford and Sun sometimes on my on my phone just to hear them because I think they're so good. You know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. Like, where are those theme songs now?
I don't know. I feel like the theme song is a lost art. I feel, yeah. Yeah. It's too bad.
It's very, very too bad. Uh, speaking of uh, not not too bad. Speaking of the opposite of that, uh, you guys uh I just for the first time uh a week or so ago went to the Brooklyn Museum. Uh and I talked to you about this yesterday, Jack. Uh Dave, you ever been to the Brooklyn Museum?
Uh no, actually. I know Nastasia's never been because she hates Brooklyn. Uh it's true. Can you hear me? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh but the Brooklyn Museum turns out is a fantastic museum. Like, it is a gem. It's awesome.
In fact, they have a really cool uh feature where where you're in, they have live art historians. And you can you can do their app, but I was like, hell no, I'm not downloading the app because they give you just a text number, and you just you're walking around the museum. You you could take a picture of anything in the museum, text it to them and be like, hey, what's up with this? And they're like, and they're like, and they answer you live, real art historians, they'll do the research, ask their other art historians, and give you answers. So I was like, yo, this fallen angel, his sword's melted.
What's up with that? And then they answer all this stuff. Wow. And it's like the coolest museum thing I think I've ever experienced. The ability to have a live expert without having to go through that the monstrosity that is the walking tour of a museum.
You know what I mean? It's like not that I you know, if you give walking tours museums, I'm sure your walking tour is great. And obviously, Ben Stiller needed that walking tour in that at the museum, so it's not all bad. But I'm saying, like, you know what I mean. I don't necessarily want to do that.
So but on your own time, you can just walk around amazing, amazing. But uh the reason to go there, and the reason I'm talking about this for food is uh through March 4th, they always have the main thing, but uh so there's uh an artist, her name is Judy Chicago, and uh her most famous work is uh the dinner party, and it's this big triangular table with uh plates on it, and it's representing the contributions that women have made uh to like history, society, you know, through history, starting with ancient times and going up to today. Now, uh it's and it's amazing, and it took like a lot of uh took a lot of work. Uh and so every woman, there's uh I forget, it's like 400 women, and they're represented by like 32 plates, and so the big triangle had the names of them are all written on tiles on the floor, and then the 32 or whatever representative people have their own place settings that's done personally for them, about them. And like it's been you know, there's a lot of modern criticism about it because the the women that are chosen are it's basically you know very Eurocentric uh and very kind of uh rich, like skewed, rich upper class woman uh uh contributions.
So like kind of classic second wave like criticism of second wave feminism. But remember, it was done in the 70s, so you know, cut it some slack. I think a lot of people now, a lot of people make a mistake of trying to view things that were done before through today's eyes, which you know you should try to put yourself in the whatever, but it's a good criticism, level the criticism so people know it's there, but I still think it's a thing you should go see. Still enjoy the work. Still enjoy the work.
Yeah. Uh but only through March 4th, they have an exhibition attached to it called the Roots of the Dinner Party, where you can go see about it. And um, but is there a caller or something? Let me say this one thing. There's one of the things I think is really interesting, and we can discuss after whatever Dave is gonna tell me.
But uh, and this has to do with restaurants, not so it's not just dinner party like a about you know, food-related food show, but on the outside of the exhibition is a huge, and it was exhibited at the time with it, a huge mural of a picture of everyone that worked on the project and a bio of it. And I thought it was really interesting. This is why I was talking to Jack about it yesterday, an interesting idea in the 70s on how to still push your own brand, Judy Chicago, but give credit to everyone who's worked on uh on a project. And I think it's a a very interesting time now in the food and beverage world about how how credit works, what credit means, uh, and how to give it to people. What are you gonna say, Dave?
Uh sorry, I was just gonna say we got time for one more question. We got five minutes. Five minutes? That's it. It's only 54 over here.
Were you kicking me off beforehand? Well we got a suck. First he schedules someone. Hey, because I'm always late. He schedules someone in the slot right before us.
You know? You know what I mean? Not cool. You could get here at noon. I mean, that's an option.
I actually was here at noon today. Was I not? No, no, no. And then I had to wait for the show beforehand to get off. Yeah, all of like two minutes.
Oh. Oh. You're wasting time right now. You got time for one more question. Come on.
What am I gonna do? All right. So listen, uh, we got Nils from San Francisco. I don't know the answer, so I'm gonna have people uh Jack will know what book to look at. My question is about making my own vermouth.
I keep a kosher diet, so I cannot use most commercial vermouths because they're wine-based. Unfortunately, the kosher market in this area is still small, and so there aren't any non-crappy options available. Do you have any advice recipes on making a vermouth in a home setting? Uh thanks uh for making my Tuesday commute so much more enjoyable, Nils. So would you have any good books on making vermouth, Chad?
No, I don't, not on making vermouth, no. I mean I've never made my own. I mean, I I I have theories about how I could go around it, but I was hoping you would have a book. Chat room, hook us up. Hit me back on Twitter on uh on a good vermouth thing, and then we'll send it off to Nils on the next week.
Uh so Jeremy wrote me in about replacing my uh range, but I guess I'll read that next week because I don't have time to even read it according to uh you know grandpa Dave over here kicking me off. So should I talk about uh I didn't make time, I just live by it. Oh should I talk about uh in the next couple of minutes? Should I talk about tree exudates? Should I talk about whatever you can do in three minutes airpods?
AirPods. AirPods. Not really cooking related. All right. Well, I here's my quick AirPod review, right?
I like the AirPods. I just got the AirPods. This is a non-hipsters review of AirPods, right? Functionally fantastic. Makes calls a lot easier.
By the way, I'm not a believer in using earphones in the kitchen. You should never use earphones in the kitchen, I think. Music playing is fine, but you need that, you need the call in response of the kitchen. Yeah, no earphones in the kitchen. No, that's just severely dangerous.
But anyway, so everything everyone says that the air airpods are good for is true. Everything they say it's sh crap for is true. This is my one point. If you use ear protection in your job, for instance, chainsaw helmets, they do not work well with chainsaw helmets. Ain't nothing worse than being knee deep in muddy Pakassandra garbage with a chainsaw, like tripping over yourself when it's wet and crappy outside, and then like having you know that antenna sticking out of the ear pods, rip it out of your ear every time you flip the earmuff over the dang uh things.
And this, by the way, this goes with anyone that uses two-stroke engines or is on a tarmac anywhere, airpods, no good. No good. So quickly, in the two seconds I have left, tree exudates. Uh, I've been recently getting back on the Frankincense. What are your thoughts on Frankincense in cooking?
I actually have no thoughts. I have no experience. No? No. My wife Jen hates Frankincense.
She's like she's like, she's like, smells like Catholic Church. I'm like, how do you know? You're not Catholic. Anyway, but like, I mean, she has been to Catholic Church. But point being, I you think it's too strong, Saz?
It's like it's Catholic Church. It's absolutely Catholic Church, yes. Yeah. Well, all right. What do you think on Kios Mastia?
A Mastika. You like that stuff or no? No, not really. Anyway, I'm here to make a pitch for tree exudates and other stuff that oozes out of things and solidifies and is used. This was super important stuff in the ancient Near East and uh, you know, in Greece, that entire whole area there, super important.
Think about all the stuff. When G when baby Jesus was born, two things that they brought that guy were tree exudates. You got your myrrh and you got your frankincense, right? Think about this gum Arabic, all from this area. Uh mana from heaven, tree exudate, right?
Uh you got your uh what's it? You gotta say myrrh, you got your uh sh um mummy, the word mummy. So, mummy was originally an exudate out of the ground that was mistranslated as mummy, the the preserved human. Yeah, and that's why Europeans chummed up mummies and sold them to people to consume as a medicine. But another exudate.
So I'm just gonna make a small plea here for uh, you know. Consider the exudate. Consider the exudate people cooking issues. Thanks for listening to Heritage Radio Network, food radio supported by you. For our freshest content and to hear about exclusive events, subscribe to our newsletter, enter your email at the bottom of our website, heritageradionetwork.org.
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