This episode is brought to you by MoFad, the museum of food and drink, inspiring public curiosity about food. Learn more at Mofad.org. This week on Meet and Three, we bring you stories about the coldest, darkest season. We start in a California vineyard. It's cold, but it's wet and things are still alive.
There's a lot of life in this soil. We explore two frontiers of cocktail culture: luxury ice and the rise of non-alcoholic drinks. The rocks traditionally becomes 25% of your drinks volume. And as such, it imparts smells and tastes. And we investigate the risks facing New York City delivery workers during the harsh winter.
In the wintertime, after two hours of biking, it's quite easy actually for the bikes to sing upside down or slips or slides. Tune in to this week's episode of Meet and Three. That's M E A T plus Sign T-H-R-E-E for some food for thought to sustain you through the dead of winter. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick Brooklyn, joined as usual with Nastasia the Hammer Lopez.
How are you doing? Good. Who, even though we actually had the opportunity to start at 12 on the on the button for once, she's like, I gotta go pee. You know, look, I gotta go pee. And then she's like, you're always late.
Why can't I be late? It's like, because I am researching your questions, people. That is why I am late in the morning. And she's like, but I have to put it together at midnight. Which means people, I don't have the questions until I'm already getting ready to go to bed because.
Why don't you pee earlier? Oh well, that was our that was our special guest, Joshua David Stein. And I can tell, even though we've never met that I like this guy a lot. And we got Matthew in the booth. How are you doing?
Oh, excellent. Yeah. Strong. Alright. Call in your questions to 718 497 2128.
That's 718-497-2128. So you go by you go by just by Josh. Josh or Joshua. What do you like? Joshua.
Joshua. Alright. So you used to be the uh restaurant critic at uh The Observer. That's the pink one. Yeah.
Well, it's the pink one. It's not pink anymore? It doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, well, that would make it not pink. Yeah.
But you resigned before they stopped existing, right? Correct. Yes. Because you it was political. Now not a political show.
A few ground rules. Oh, yeah. Let's go over them. Ground rules are family show, no cursing. So I noticed that uh I listened to your podcast with Jamie Oliver and the man likes to curse.
Let me tell you something else. I also, Nastasia, do I enjoy cursing? Yeah. Nastasia also very much enjoys cursing. I love cursing for the record.
How many like eight-year-olds are listening right now? Shouldn't they be in school? Couple. Oh, they listen to the backlog. Oh smart.
So anyway. No cursing. No cursing. And we are in general apolitical. Occasionally our views will seep through, but very rarely.
You're apolitical. On the show. Right. In the real life, I am not a political. Right, but this is show Dave.
The show, Dave. Yes. Show Dave's apolitical and PG. Other than other than the cursing and Nastasia, too. Nastasia is also mostly apolitical here and also doesn't curse.
So you're getting. I will say this, though. Pretty much, other than that, we're pretty much the way we are. Okay. So, you know, if you know Nastasia from before, she is pretty much still nostassified minus the cursing and the political views.
Arms crossed, legs crossed. Just very angry at us for poking fun at her about the pee. So she's got a although I was also peeing. And I will say something. You know, I used to have a show on Heritage Radio.
Yeah. Uh the Joshua David Sun Variety Hour, half hour. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and when I was here, those bathrooms were not nearly as nice. I have never I have I I used to go to the bathrooms here every once in a while.
I have a an aversion to public restrooms. I did test them. Yes. I have at my own bar I have to go into them to make sure that they're not filthy and disgusting. But otherwise, I mean, that's why I have a home.
Yes. So that I can pee and put it. That's the only reason. Yeah. Right.
Honestly, like if you said to me, hey Dave, although I have a very nice bed, but you which you don't peer poop in. I don't peer poop, not usually, no. Uh, but if you said you could choose between the bathroom and the bed, I'd be like, bathroom straight up. Yeah. Well, what do you mean?
In other words, if you had to solve for like the better room in an apartment or home, you would get a nicer bathroom. Yeah, in other words, like let's say there was two, let's say there was two. This is a no brainer. Let's say there was two bedrooms, one with a bathroom, but it was like like a garbage room. It was actually somehow uncom mentally uncomfortable to sleep there.
But it had its own bathroom. That would be my room. Right? Versus the super nice one where you had to share the bathroom with like whoever else is in your house. I feel like I'm a bedroom kind of guy.
Yeah, not me. No. Because I'm so involved in my own phone when I'm using the toilet that like the out the outer external ex you know, external environment doesn't affect me as much. Well, so let me put it this way. Uh so uh Joshua's uh editor editor at large or editor?
Editor at large. Editor at large of a website called Fatherly and hosts a podcast with the same name which deals with dad issues. Nastasia hates fathers, by the way. Yeah, I read on text message. Yeah, yeah.
She detests fathers. I would like to dig into, but she says we can't. It's good. We do a whole thing. We totally can as long as we keep it on the semi-food side.
You'll notice that this is ostensibly a technically related food show. We will get to it. But uh very sensibly. But as a father, I would think that you would appreciate having two doors between you and the world. So in the bathroom, first of all, like my kids, especially Booker and my my older son, who's been on the show a number of times, former employee of Nastasi Lopez's.
Didn't get fired, people did not he did not get fired. They're still on good terms. Uh so he doesn't quite understand the I'm in the bathroom, don't speak to me. Oh yeah. Yeah, you know what I mean?
Like, I'm in the bathroom, I am this is it's the only me time. Yeah. This is me time. Like, the dogs aren't there, kids aren't there, no one's there. Me time.
I really hate being talked to while I'm in the bathroom. Yeah. But I feel like some people it's okay with. My son, well, he's seven, so he's not listening. Yeah.
Although he might listen to the backlog. Um, he demands company while he's going to the bathroom. That's his choice though. Yeah, but it's his choice, not mine. And like, and like it's not super.
I mean, we talk, it's like good quality time. I was also thinking this morning, um, how old are your kids? Uh, they're 17 and 14. Oh, so they're too old. Mine are five and seven.
And so they're just getting out of it, but watching a five, watching a little kid poop is like the most touching thing. Because their face, they're trying so hard. You know, like they're just really pushing it out, and uh, it's adorable. If they're trying too hard, you gotta soften up that stool. Let's talk about food and diet.
Well, no, perfect transition. First of all, a little another fact, and I'm not speaking out of turn here, Nastasia, so she's not gonna get mad at me. She will she loves Italy, the place. Yeah. Does not like Italians because they only talk about two things.
Nastasi, what are those two things? Eating and pooing. You're not even talking to your microphone. Yeah, you're so off mic. Eating and pooing.
Yeah. Pooing? Yeah, digested. Is that true? Yeah.
That's all they talk about. If you listen into any conversation Italian is having, yeah. It's about food or whether they digested. And two things Nastasia never speaks about in pu in when she's not working, food, yeah. And digestion.
And digestion. Well, she does talk about digestion sometimes. Well, you know, uh, maybe Italy already had its cultural moment. Yeah. Oh, by the way, is that northern and southern or just I because this is uh publicly aired, I'm just gonna push back on that a little bit.
I feel like I've talked to a fair number of Italians about subject matter falling outside of that criteria. Food. Not for yeah, about other things. Politics. Yeah, but I mean, I look, this is Nastasia's point, not mine.
So you have to go to with Nustasi on this add nothing to nothing to do with it. Yeah, okay. Well, you know, your truth is your truth. You should speak it. I don't believe it.
We have a caller on the air with a question about Italians. Really? I don't believe in separate truths. Oh, yeah? You're no postmodernists?
A pl uh all right, caller, you're on the air. Let's talk about Italians. What do we got? Hi, Dave. This is Chris in DC from the Green Zone.
Oh, how you doing? Good, man. I was in New York this weekend once the book rent or once the conditions played. Nice. I loved it.
Yeah, man. Try to find almost every drink on the menu and have some questions about vinos. Um pooping. Yeah. Um, first of all, um, I wanted to know I have a spinzall, but I know that the solid, the amount of solids that the rotor can contain is around 300 grams, right?
No, more well, it can contain more. It can contain up to the full capacity of the rotor. The issue is is that um the issue is is that the puck doesn't distribute evenly. So once you get over about 300, like odds are it'll start leaking out over one of the areas where it's built up more. You know what I'm saying?
Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah, because you know, uh, I figured I could do, you know, a liter or two of, you know, whatever Hustino at a time, but if I wanted to do enough for, let's say, a week's worth of service at the bar, I would need to do multiple, multiple loads. And I was wondering if there's any way to do it in volume without having uh multiple spin zones. Uh well, I mean, if you have infinite time, you can just do an initial spin, let a little bit leak out, and then do a polish spin.
And so that you'll you'll increase your ability to do without touching it. Depends on the Houstino, but like for banana Houstino, you can't really do more than about two liters before you start getting some banana leaks. But if you do like a bunch of liters and only stop it once it starts getting violently pissed off, it'll eventually get violently pissed off at you. But once you uh or and it'll start leaking stuff out of the aeration cup, right? But it's you're gonna capture enough of your solids so that you can then just get it all on a polishing run.
And it takes a lot physically longer, but it's no it's not uh attended time, if that makes sense. Right, that makes sense. And so for the polishing one, I could just stick the you know, it can do the whole batch on continuous. Yeah. Yeah.
If there's only a little bit in there, like there is in let's say apple juice or grapefruit juice or orange juice, then you know, I've never like usually the the limitation is just my patience. Well, I mean, I was thinking something more uh substantive, like bananas or dates or other dried fruit. Sure, sure, sure. But on the second spin, right? So if you're just like letting it get a little bit cloudy before you stop it and clear out the puck, but then on your second spin, then you can polish the whole second spin without touching it once.
Right, that makes sense. Um on the same subject, um, one of your bartenders mentioned so I have Tectanex Ultra SPL for modern pantry. Yeah. But they mention it called D1 and D2. Yeah.
What is that? That that's the Kiesel Sol and the Kitasan. Those are the wine finding agents. And you can buy you can buy you can also buy them on Amazon, but Modernist Pantry is the only one that sells the fungally-based kitesan, otherwise you'd be putting shrimp into people's stuff. But it's not allergic.
I have both of those anyway. So for so for banana and casino, he said he was using those as well. Nah, does he? Nah, he doesn't need to. No, that's nah.
I mean, you can, but nah. Right. Banana, like, banana wants to clarify. Banana wants to clarify, dude. Yeah, yeah.
Banana totally wants to clarify. That's Joshua, by the way, he's talking to me. I'm an expert on clarification. Really? For real?
Yeah. He's he's I is that true? Because I am an actual expert on clarification. Are you also actually an expert on clarification? I mean, like, I'm a writer, so I try to write clear, concise sentences.
Oh. Okay. Oh, I get it. I get it. Uh, it will help it settle faster on the polishing run, though.
So, what I recommend is I would do the entire initial run, just SPL, clear out your solids, and then if you want to flock that stuff harder, you can hit it with the D1, D2 while you're waiting. Someone looked at us, held their stomach, and made the I feel sick look. Like they looked directly at us and gave us this. Those guys? Yeah.
Yeah, they're Italian. They're Italian. He's like, I look at these guys. I want to eat, but I need the poop. I think the guy with the scarf.
The movements are a little loose in him. That's like Star Wars Star Wars mixed with Italian poop represents. The movements are loose in this one. Yeah, we're getting super meta here. Anyway, let us know how it works.
And it was uh glad you made it to the bar. So the Keepersong Cut it are useful, not just in high acid applications? Uh yes. In the in the large centrifuge, they are mostly used in high acid applications, but in the spinzall, I tend to use them in any application because they increase settling and compacting. They really they increase the compacting rate.
Okay. Alright, good enough. Alright, cool. Alright. Now, what we what was we talking about?
Italians, and you didn't agree. Alright, so uh before you get into it, you actually have another caller on the air. Is this one actually gonna ask about Italian? It cannot be that caller. Yeah, no, they promised there was the question was about Italians.
Wait, can I ask one question? You're not a caller. What? What was that guy talk? I don't what was he talking about?
I did not understand any. It's per personal calls between Dave and just tell me. And B a political, I should have also mentioned we're very niche. Yeah. We're like an extremely niche show.
But can you just tell me, like in one word, what just what? So listen, listen when we first started Umpteen Million Years ago, I would have said, for those of you who don't know, we're talking about clarifying juices and liquors and centrifuges which separate out solids based on density using teethable force. I would have prefaced everything with the city. So who do you think the dude was? He owns a bar in DC, I know.
Yeah, yeah. He owns a bar in DC. So uh and they they work with mint, etc. etc. Anyway, so I I should maybe go back to the way we used to talk because at this point I'm like, anyone whose ears happen to be hitting this are like, I don't know how many times I gotta hear about the damn centrifuge.
My God. I loved it, but it was like rarely in my life do I hear a solid block of 10 minutes where I it which I know is in English, but I have absolutely no idea. Welcome to my life, bro. But I really like the line that banana what is it, banana seeking banana houstino, yeah. That's a no no no no bananas seek clarification.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They they want to clarify. They clarify hard. It just happens Bananas want to clarify. It just so happens that one of the like first of all, like half, at least half the stuff in life is luck, right?
So it happens to be that the first thing I attempted to clarify was bananas, and they happen to clarify very well. So who knows where Nastasi and I would be in life if we had chosen something that's more difficult to clarify? Let me ask you. I know we have a caller, but like um are some things in the world they tend towards clarification, and some things in the world tend towards obfuscation. For sure.
Liquidy, liquid wise? Oh yeah, sure. I guess like also medical. Well, both probably, huh? Yes.
Yeah. Do you tend toward clarification? Uh so here's the thing. I tend to be very clear about very obscure points. So I wrote a book.
This is first of all, I don't know. I wrote a book where literally it's about minutiae trying to make clear points about stuff that very few people care about. How did that sell? Uh it's it's pretty well, actually, but um Nastasia uses it famously only to keep hot and cold foods separate. It's not too heavy, and yet it is oh, you know what?
I should just make you a piece of styrofoam with two masonite boards. Be lighter even than liquid intelligence. Are you someone, Nastasia, who tends towards clarification in your life or obfuscation? Oh, hell no. She's clear telling you how she feels.
But everything else, pretty much. What do you think? I guess that's true. Call her. Yeah.
You have a question about Italians, I hear. Uh no, I do not. Oh my god. Matthew's a liar. Oh my god.
All right, Matthew, you're a liar. I no longer trust you. I don't believe you. You're a liar. What is your question?
No, or hey y'all, this is Devin. I called in uh a couple of weeks ago about that gumbo sausage. Don't have an update on that, but had a question that sort of physics related. Uh starting with uh experimentation on pressure, marinating some meat. Okay.
Real quick, I was thinking I have a chamber vacuum machine, and if I pull a full vacuum on that, uh what would be the pressure equivalent uh that the meat would experience if I were to put just the unsinkle bag into a corny keg and pressurize that? It's not just the atmosphere, or this is a good question. And it's not, it's okay. It's a good question. I'll go back to my old old Dave, old cooking issues.
And I will fill it. So we're talking about here is uh using shifting pressures to increase either marination or penetration of flavorful things into, in this case, meats. Now, uh when you're using a vacuum, what you're doing is you're removing all of the air. So if there's zero air on the inside of a product, you get there's like zero net effect on it. Then when you release the pressure, when you release the vacuum, the 15 psi comes in and it's like hitting it with a 15 psi kind of wave of pressure.
Now, what's the effect on the product? Well, uh when you're putting something under a high vacuum, it tends to boil apart, so you're actually separating the fibers. So there is some effect of fiber separation due if you have a high enough vacuum. There's some uh effect to fiber separation due to the boiling uh out of the of the water as it as it turns to a vapor under the low pressure, and then you'll get some injection into that space when the when the pressure rehits. Now there are prof now in the professional world, they use vacuum tumbling and it opens up the pores and interstitial places inside of the meat, and then they tumble under a vacuum.
And those people, and I've never run the tests, claim that if you suck too hard of a vacuum, it actually hinders that sort of action because instead of just opening it up, it'll open and then collapse the meat back together again. Is it true? Is it false? I don't know. But what happens under pressure is you're taking something and forcing past atmospheric, way past atmospheric.
So the most pressure you're ever gonna get, let's say you had a sponge, the most pressure you're ever gonna get in a vacuum scenario is 15 PSI over pressure to inject into something, right? In a pressure scenario, you could easily do 60 PSI, which is four times more pressure than you get out of a vacuum. So pressure is always more effective at jamming something into something than is uh than is a vacuum. Does that make sense? Yep.
Yeah. Now, um, if I were to just use CO2, do you know what effect that has on the meat? I don't. It will have some effect. It'll shift the pH.
Uh also when you cook it, the CO2 is going to vaporize back out uh uh of it. I don't know what it's gonna do, for instance, to the color of it. If I don't it might have no effect on the on the redox state of the meat, I don't know. Um realize though that the CO2 will go into solution in the meat, and when you release the pressure, you'll get some bubbling of the you'll get like some bubbling. So if you fully carbonate the meat, it will like I remember back when I was first doing forced carbonation, people were like, everyone wanted to carbonate solids.
And I was like, first of all, I don't really like the taste of carbonated fruit because it tastes like it's spoiled. Food critic, back me up. Yeah. Yep, say spoiled. So I'm like, nah, I don't like that.
So um, but they're like, can you carbonate ice cream? Answer, no, you can carbonate the liquids that are not frozen in ice cream, but it's hard to get, and also I once blew up a Taylor ice cream machine at the French Culinary Institute. Sam Mason, ice cream savant, came over and we tried to hook a CO2 tank up to a Taylor ice cream machine. We blew all the seals, it sprayed, sprayed base every first of all, if you're gonna do it, what kind of a moron starts with with ice cream base instead of with uh like like a like a sorbet? This idiot.
This idiot. Anyway, so uh and I was never forgiven by the pastry department, but the point is that uh carbonating is a pain in the butt. But I did eventually do uh wine jellies, so like gelatin set. So I would do is I would I would force carbonate warm gelatin at very high pressure, very high pressure, uh like 100 psi, in uh soda bottles with carbonated wine and gelatin, and then you would cut the bottle open to get out the the carbonated uh champagne jello jello, and it was so much force on the inside of it that like the the gel would if you didn't make a hard gel, it would self-rupture. It would sit there and like, you know, it would like alien on you, it would like brrrh break apart.
Great. It was good, it was good. It's dramatic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, everyone likes everyone likes dramatic.
If you're trying to make ice cream in some imaginary scenario in like a hyperbaric chamber, pressurized with CO2, freezing the base in there and whatnot, there's no way to get a carbonated ice cream. If you go with extremely high pressure, right, you will get some sensation. The issue is is the question you have to ask yourself is how cold is it? Right? So if you're taking it at, you know, um, if you so if if if you're taking it at draw temperature, which is about what, 22 Fahrenheit, something in there, uh, you're gonna have that's what you would draw it out of the machine at.
It, you know, you're gonna have X, I'd have to look at the curves, but you're gonna have X liquid left in it, not frozen. That liquid can be carbonated, the solids cannot. So people are like, but they make carbonated slushies. Yes, there are ice crystals and there is liquid. It is the liquid that is carbonated, not the ice crystals.
There is no carbonated in the normal pressure regimes, there is no carbonated ice. There's carbonated liquid mixed with ice crystals. So slushies are easy. Ice cream, not as easy. You could probably get some sensation of it if you used extremely high pressures, but then how the heck are you gonna freeze it?
Yada yada. Josh, very good. This is interesting stuff. I appreciate it. Oh, but you can use pop rocks.
You can fold pop rocks, but they might melt. So you probably have to coat the pop rocks and fold them in. Anyway, let us know how your uh gumbo sausage works. Alright. So are we done with Italians or you want to talk more about how you uh Italian poops?
No, what's going on on your phone, Nastasia? I think she's so see. I'm glad, Joshua, that you are here because she doesn't pay attention to anything I say, anything the callers say. She sits there. It used to be she shops for shoes, never buys.
For real? Yeah, never buys them. I don't know why I'm gonna be able to do it. Never buys them. I've never done zappos.
Joshua, this is the most on mic time Nastasia's had in any show in like the last six months. Is that true? She just sits there, stares at her phone and hates. So checked out. I know.
I know. I know it. I know. You participate sometimes, but like four feet away from the microphone. But today you, sir, got her to be on mic.
Well, it's such an interesting dynamic to walk into. Like, yeah, not food. So that this shows out. Mostly hatred. Hatred.
Yeah, hatred. Yeah. Okay. She got called out. We won't get back into like her recent hatred rants because she got called out by a number of people on the Twitter.
Oh, no, but now that lady will be happy. She'll be really happy. So I I hate, I hated on beta males. It turns out that it's not a f it's not a beta fish that happens to be male. Right.
It's like the opposite of an alpha male. But everybody's supposed to hate alpha males. Right. Culturally, it's a male. Everybody will love this.
That hates on me. I was dating a beta male for how many dates? For a couple weeks. How many dates? I don't know.
Two. No, more. Four. And he dumped me. Oh.
Well, he he knew what you didn't like. He's like, and he's a friend of yours. He's my friend. He's like, I I have to, I have to assert myself. We're done.
Don't you feel like beta male. So I got my, I got what I I told him in the beginning, I was like, I don't do you. And he's like, turns out I don't do you. Wait. But a beta A beta male is an approach.
I mean, also, he's my friend. I mean, you might have you might have misread whether he's beta or alpha. Self-proclaimed. Yeah, well, I'm not sure. Wait, he's a self-proclaimed my friend.
Oh, see, beta males, beta males do not self-proclaim as beta males. So you're an anti-beta male. He's a beta in alpha. No, an alpha in beta clothing. 100%.
No beta male would say, I am a beta male, which is a clear, concise, forceful statement. Right? Only an alpha male would say that. I have to say, I like this guy. Yeah.
Making excellent points. Alright. So, back to food. You have uh written several books as now what term do you prefer when you're writing with somebody? What term do you prefer as your what's the term of art that you use?
Co-writer. Co-writer. Because I mean, it's something that we negotiate in the contract as well. Like, if I'm not listed at all, which hasn't been the case thus far because my ego's way too big, I would be a ghostwriter. Right, right.
But um, you know, whether you're on the cover, what size your name is, is it width, is it end? All those things are subject to endless negotiation. So when your name's on the okay, so let's just talk about it because it's not out yet. In fact, uh normally, by the way, Joshua, if you do this again, I need a copy of your book so I can read it, we could talk about it, but apparently you don't have a copy of your book. I don't I'm that guy that will actually read your entire book.
I'll send it to you for the future. He won't read it. This is not Nastasia's fault, by the way. This was 100% mine. Uh-huh.
So uh the chef, and now he was on what, Top Chef? He was on Top Chef, yeah. Which I have not seen because I don't watch food TV. Yeah, understandable. Uh Kwame uh Anwachi.
Yep. Had a restaurant in DC, like a high concept restaurant in DC. Yeah, Kith and Kin. Right. Which no, no, sorry.
It was called the Shaw Business. That's the new one. Yeah, new, but it's now about to, like in the next 25 seconds, open another place, right? Like, like right now. Philly wing fry.
Yeah. So we got the book deal two years ago. The book is called Notes from a Young Black Chef. It's out, I think in May. How old is he?
March. He's 29 now. I think. Yeah, he's really young. And we got the book deal two years ago, so he was 27.
Cool, cool. Um, it's out by Kanop. Uh yeah, so two years ago, he was about to open this uh restaurant called the Shaw Bijou, which is a was a 16-seat, super expensive, the most expensive restaurant I think in DC, apart from Mini Bar. Um, we got the deal, the restaurant opened, shut virtually immediately, three months. Just it was an unmitigated, I would say, disaster for a lot of reasons.
And were you there the whole time? You know, I live in New York, so I was like making the the trip, but I was the you know, I was down there for opening night. Opening night when Tom Seatsma, the critic of the Washington Post, Washington Post, um, he was the second person through that kitchen. And it was just a it was the partners weren't restaurant people, they didn't understand restaurants. Kwame was young and didn't have a lot of institutional support to run a restaurant at like the EMP level that he wanted.
It was just kind of impossible. And because DC's the market that DC is, because Kwame is not from DC, he was met with extreme hostility, I would say. Ooh. Like, yeah, 195 for a tasting menu from a young chef with no track record without uh wine and service, that's aggressive pricing. And like I'm of two minds.
One I'm not of two minds, I'm of one mind. You charge that much money, and you have to be on your A game. There it just there's no excuses. Yeah, you have to you have to comp any anything, anything bad happens, you have to comp out because it's not supposed to that's someone's money, yeah. Yeah, you know, it's not like you can have a like if you if you needed a period to get your feet under you, charge less, or do like a one-year friends and family or something, yeah.
But he didn't do it. Well, so it so here's the question because this actually, if it's about this kind of stuff, yeah, Stasia's still reading her reading her zappos. She's on Amazon shopping for it hurts my feelings a little bit. Really? Yeah, oh getting used to it.
Well, I feel like I should tell her that I it's distracting. Come on. Yeah, it's terrible. Uh it's it is horrifying. But uh, I feel like this is actually an interesting story.
Is this in the book? Because then you know it makes me want to read it. Yeah, that's the whole thing in the book is so basically, so the restaurant closes, he kind of goes on this journey and opens another restaurant called Kith and Kin, which is like vastly more affordable and kind of and and has been very successful. It's at the Intercontinental Uh Hotel in the wharf, which is like a new development in DC. Yeah, that's a big part of the book.
Some of his child, you know, he grew up in the Bronx. Um he's half Nigerian, went to live in Nigeria for two years as a teenager because he was getting in trouble up in the Bronx. Came back, hustled his way through culinary school, worked at Kraft, worked at EMP, worked at Per se experienced a lot of racism in fine dining kitchens. Um that's no shock. Yeah, but interestingly, I don't feel like it's talked about.
Um names aren't often named. So he doesn't you're not you're not mentioning who it was that was evil. Yeah, we do. You'll have to get the book to I mean, it's uh But actually the The Kitchens can be horrible places. I think everyone, a lot of people who listen to this who work in kitchens know that like a lot of people are trying to change the culture, but it is not has not historically been.
Yeah. But I think the first step is, as I'm sure a lot of people know, is just being honest and open about what's going on, you know, and not sugarcoating it or not feeling any sort of shame in calling it out for what it is. Right. The journey, the interesting part for me of writing the book was as a co-writer is and wearing my hat as a critic and sort of like a judgmental person in general, is like I wanted Kwame to be apologetic and like cop to his hubris in opening the Shaw Bijou. And he never fully does because he doesn't see it that way.
And as a writer, as a co-writer, I eventually came around to seeing why he thought the way he did and why he wasn't really willing to issue a me a culpa and say, Oh, I shouldn't have done that, I should have been more humble, I should have followed the rules and all these things. Because when you look at the path of his life, you know, he's like a poor kid from the Bronx. He's a black, poor black kid from the Bronx. If he had followed the rules and done everything according to the system, the system is not designed to reward him. You know, the sis there's there's systemic and structural structural inequalities that if he didn't hustle, and if he didn't follow his own rules and go out and then break rules, he probably wouldn't get to the place where he is.
So it was like a learning experience for me to check my own gut instinct of what a failure, what the proper response to a failure should be. So how so when you're writing something like that, are you trying to write it in his voice, or are you writing so you so you have to get into his head, yeah? You have to understand his position. Yeah. Because if you don't, you can't write the book.
Right. So it was a process. Um, I think so I'm writing a I'm now co-writing a bunch of other cookbooks as well. Um at one point I was trying to just do his spoken voice, but that's not really it's a different voice, it's a different medium. So he uses a different voice for writing, and he needs to.
That written voice wasn't quite developed yet because he's not a writer, you know. Um, so I think I veered a little too informal, then I veered a little too formal, too writerly, and then we kind of reach this good ground, which it's it's kind of his voice, his soul, his spirit, but my words and like I'm not a chef, it's not my story, but I am a professional writer, and so I can try to shape and tease out aspects of the story and make it flow. I don't know if you know this. Most chefs don't actually want to be presented with what they sound like. Most everyone doesn't want to be presented with what they sound like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like you're like it's not unique to chefs, though. Well, I mean, I only hang out with them. Yeah. And like bar people.
But you know what I mean? Like, anyway. Um, but like, are you interested in in becoming like long-term? Like, so there are some writers who become the voice of particular people. No.
Like, I'm doing a book now with Donna Leonard from Ilbuco. And I haven't been there in a while. It's great. You should go. I I remember when they first got hit.
What? You don't go places. I don't really go out. That's not a dad thing. I'm either working or I'm home.
But the same. The uh I remember what they remember, I don't know, no one remembers, but when the board of health first started nuking people on uh on having vacuum machines in restaurants, like a year after it, Ilbuco got nailed, very first people in the city to get nailed for doing their own charcuterie, yeah, doing their own salumi. And we were all like, oh man, now this. We're and I'm sure they were also. I tried to interview them about it because I was writing something for food arts, now defunct food arts back in the time, back when the great Michael Batterbury was still alive.
And uh yeah, we were all like, we were, you know, everyone had been waiting for that shoe to drop, and then the we're like, oh my god, is the pickle shoe gonna drop? Is the like so many shoes to drop in the city? But that raid and uh the the guy named the guy's name is Bernardo Flores, he's uh the head of the slumi program. He lost his entire program, it was just cleared out by the DOH. Yeah, yeah.
And that was actually the impetus for opening Alimentari, which has its own very by the book, very like code driven Salumi program. Was that raid? I mean, that was a huge blow, I think, for Donna. Yeah, well, for her and for a lot of other people that were looking to to them uh for you know what was gonna was gonna happen. I mean, it sucked.
Uh to be honest, it sucked real hard. But the I mean the what sprung from that is a line of kind of much more educated chefs of the next generation who started knowing that they were gonna get their behinds handed to them, and so they start with Hasset plans and they you know it's I guess it's good. I mean, there are some people who I know uh in the early days, you know, wanted to do a lot of kind of interesting, uh a lot of interesting Salumi projects that probably wouldn't get HACC approved, so like slightly less acidic, uh you know, slightly less of a pH drop off of their off of their sausages. Uh you know, but whatever. I mean, it's not the job of a DOH to allow you to do everything you want, it's the job of them to make you safe.
Right. I mean, it's balancing innovation and public health. Definitely. So I'm doing the Donna book, I'm doing uh Wilson Tang's book for Noah. Oh, nice, which is uh they work with the Museum of Food and Drink on who by the way, Nastasia is sponsoring this show.
You were in the bathroom when it happened, but how the heck is a museum of food and drink have money that sponsors? Does that mean I'm sponsoring my own show? They're asking me for money at the end of the year. They're like, did you you're on the board of directors? You gotta give you money so I can pay for what?
For my own show. It's like it's it's perpetual motion machine, people. It doesn't work. Anytime you try to present a perpetual motion machine, well, you got it's like a Ponzi scheme. It's like you're gonna put money in, you're gonna get more money back out.
No, it doesn't work that way. But the real winners are the listeners. Uh well, I don't know about that. But I was just gonna just to finish up that thought, those they have different wildly different voices, you know. So I'm more interested.
Like Donna has a different voice than Kwame. Kwame has a different voice than Wilson. Wilson has a different voice from Donna. And something that I like as a writer is to be able to find their voices and work with them to craft that. Um that to me right now seems more interesting than being long term with one, you know, with one chef.
Yeah. Uh I see you also wrote Food and Beer with uh Daniel Burns. And I can never pronounce his name from Evil Twin. Yepie. Yep.
Uh so that must have been fun. He's a cool guy, Daniel Burns, math and fi math and philosophy major. Like interesting. He's working on the. Did you cross paths with him?
Oh, yeah. I know at Momofuku. Uh yeah, he was at Mammafuku. He was in the research kitchen for a while there with uh Dan Felder, and uh, you know, he's been at all the right places. It's true, though.
You know what I mean? Like uh he did the Noma, he did the Mamafuku, Fat Duck. Yeah, the Fat Duck, he did the uh uh he did Noma, right? Yeah, all the all the fanciest places. Oh, not even just fanciest, like all of the O'Curron places.
Yeah, he's a super talented chef. Um how was that book to write? You know, again, the that was a book where I had no idea about beer going into it. I had written a review for The Observer about uh Tourist, and I think I wrote something for the Times too. Um Tourist is still open, right?
Tourists is still open, yeah. And now they're actually venturing back into the tasting menu land. Um but I just got to. For those of you that don't know, it was uh like a pairing men like the it was a pairing menu, but done only with beers, but incredibly well chosen beers, and you know, it was kind of a new concept. Yeah, it was a new concept.
If it opened today, it would be a new concept. Yeah, I was blown away. I mean, I was an M. I was blown away by it, and I'm still in awe of that that those those meals were some of the best meals I've had. I did I do feel like there's still a residual prejudice against high-end beer pairings, even though more and more people are doing it.
The idea of I don't the it just didn't cohere for them. It's also for that. We have eight million people here. The thing is if they opened it in a place that had more footy foot foot traffic, they could have because like if you can tap into the eight million people that are here, you can be at, you know, like we are niche. By the way, Nastasia is so bored by our conversation and not able to use her phone, she's hitting her forehead against her mic.
Is that true? What is going on? Hold on, let's just take a Nastasia check in. What is going on with you right now? It's no, it's it's all the time, it's not right now.
Really? No, she's look also, Joshua. I'm gonna pay for this later. Yeah, you are. Not me.
I'm gonna waltz out of here. It's gonna be a good one. Oh, he already ate. Oh, man, that's garbage. I thought I liked you.
All right. Why? What? The whole real is that you know you worked at this radio station before, is that we eat the pizza afterwards. That's the only thing we get.
That's where I pay money to the museum so that they can do it. You guys only get one pizza. They did it for my own show, and then we get a pizza. And that's what we get out of here. I'll eat pizza twice.
Uh so wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's just say that that was a master of all deflections from Nastasia from Anastasia check ins. Uh hello, and welcome to what Nastasia does. She's like She's like, she's like, if I get something shiny and wave it in Dave's face, he'll start ranting about that and forget that I just shafted him. Outrage machine.
Outrage machine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh so speaking of outrage, I was on the Amazon I don't own a copy of that book, uh, the the uh um beer and food, and uh I went to the Amazon and I'm reminded at how much I hate most Amazon reviewers. So some a-hole, this is like you're not allowed to, you're not allowed to search out people's usernames, find their homes, and cut their cut cut them into tiny pieces. But some reviewer wrote some reviewer bought this book thinking it was going to be about how they could at home pair like Budweiser with like what kind of buffalo wing sauce.
Yes, yeah. It was like, no, not what I way off base. I'm like, I'm like, literally, that was all this idiot wrote, way off base. All the other ones were like talking about the book, about like the program, about this. I I got to eat there.
This book encapsulates my meal, amazing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This one guy, way off base. Off base. I was like, first of all, so intellectually lazy. Yeah, I mean, but I have a lot of books on Amazon, and some of the the some of the like the four stars are just like a little bit disappointing.
You're like, can I have some more? Like, what the f what the fuck? Ding ding. What do you mean? Yeah, yeah.
Well, I hate it too. It's like, it's like I used to get that. So the thing is like the longer the corresponds to his own. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no.
I get other people to do it. The uh the uh the thing is this. I don't, but it uh for those of you out there reviewing things, if we read what you're writing, try to be a human because it hurts us. It does hurt. It does hurt.
And also, if you're writing something niche, right? Like, so in five reviews, it only takes one a-hole to like totally bump you down. Yeah. Like two, three stars. Because I had one guy.
Book book arrived damage from Amazon. And then you flag it, not helpful. Not helpful. And if and I actually now do go, they it they no longer have something not helpful. They just have a report.
But I now make it a habit, like I did now, of going through and being like, this review is not helpful. This is a good idea. You should review reviews. He does. Occasionally.
I used to, when we do would do something, I would read it and I would go, I would go banana lama ding dongs on people. But the thing is that, you know, now that uh, you know, anyone, anyone in their, you know, can doesn't have to put on uh, you know, uh, you know, pants or whatever to you know write a review. Take a break. What? I'll take a break, we'll be right back with a little bit more.
Cooking issues. This episode is brought to you by Mofad, the Museum of Food and Drink. Featuring a variety of interactive displays, Mofad encourages eaters of all ages to be curious about food. The museum currently operates MoFad Lab, a 5,000 square foot experimental space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where Chow, making the Chinese American restaurant, is currently on show until the end of March 2019. This exhibition celebrates the birth and evolution of Chinese American restaurants, tracing their nearly 170 year history, and sparking conversations about food culture, immigration, and what it means to be American.
It highlights the evolution timeline of Chinese American restaurant menus, dating back to 1910, and also highlights a tasting section where participants get to enjoy tastings created by the country's most talented chefs who specialize in Chinese American cuisine. Make sure you check out Chow while you still can. The exhibition closes at the end of March 2019. Check out Mofad's tastings and extensive event calendar at Mofad.org/slash events. So that was my money to pay for that.
My money totally paid for that. Yeah. Not that much though. Anyway. Okay, so let me just hit a question, uh, a couple questions right off the bat.
Uh so the Pharos is a coffee grinder. Sam wants to know if I can modify the CAD drawing. Sam, I would love to. The problem is that the Pharos lives in Connecticut and my CAD program lives in New York, and I would need to. I literally took my old drawing and used a drill and a knife and made it my my old printout used a drill and knife and made it work, but I will try, it's gonna take me a while, but I will try to get an updated 3D drawing available for that.
Um's interested, uh Chris is interested in making a white vermouth like Dolan Blanc or similar, like to avoid oxidizing the wine too much in the process of adding the additional alcohol, sugar, herbs, and spices. Would it be reasonable to use ascorbic acid for this purpose and then seal it in topped-off bottles tightly? Uh, we guess the extra alcohol and sugar would balance the additional minor acidity of the scorbic acid. My goal is to avoid sherry or other oxidized off leverages. You know, I've never used ascorbic acid to stop oxidoxidation in wine.
I just use oxygen exclusion. So if you can uh, you know, just put them in a bottle, like put them even in a in a try to get the British uh soda bottles. They have a higher vapor barrier than American ones do. Uh I think if they're using the good ones, and then squeeze out all of the air and/or exclude air with solids until there's almost zero air, and you'll get very little oxidation. Um I'm assuming.
I'm assuming your herbs are already dried, so they're probably not gonna oxidize that much. Uh you could try adding a scorpic acid. I don't think it's gonna hurt you, but I don't know how much it's gonna help. Nastasi, wait, you weren't listening, you don't care. Um Brett, and and Joshua, you could talk to this too.
Can you talk about your method for knowledge acquisition when you have to learn about a new domain? You seem especially good at knowing where to go and how to uh uh appraise the relative quality of information you find. Maybe get an example of how you go about learning about something you don't currently know to give a sense of how you work through it. Well, uh Nastasia hates that I do this. It actually takes uh like a good chunk of my life.
First of all, what I am my hobby is to learn things. Like that's my hop. That's what I enjoy doing. So um I just go into deep holes, and nostasi gets real mad. She's like, oh my god.
And my wife also, my Jen's like, Dave, are you going into first of all? Because when I go into a hole on something, it usually involves buying something so that I can test out the thing. Tell about the Leatherman. They know about the Leatherman if they listen to the show. Anyway, so like it the issue is what I first do, I've stolen if it's a scientific thing, I've stolen access to um a I won't say which university, but to their online library system.
And I will go look at Trump universe. Yeah, Trump University. Real scholarly. I will look at you know as many articles as I can find. I'll just do a basic search.
And if once in a new subject on the scientific side, once you read 20 or 30 articles in something, you can kind of get a feeling for kind of where the scholarship is trending. And you can also get a feel if you look at the bibliographies kind of uh or they're not called bibliographies, but the sites, the references, you can kind of get an idea if three people are all or four or five people are all citing the same study, and then you can make a judgment as to whether or not that study is garbage. On the non-science side, usually I try to link in, I have a very keen BS detector, and so as I have a certain group of things where if I hear people start saying those things, I instantly discount a lot of what they say in general. So certain health claims, if people make certain health claims, instantly I'll I'll kind of throw away a lot of what they're saying, other than just opinion. I'll throw away a lot of the fact-based information that they have.
Or if they if someone's making serious scientific mistakes or mistakes of fact, because honestly, most of the stuff that I'm reading, that information doesn't need to be in there. So if someone's adding information that they don't need into their writing, and that information is incorrect, usually in my mind, that means I'm not trusting this person. They're not writing from something that they actually know deep. What they're doing is gathering information that they have only tangential uh kind of knowledge uh about and are injecting it into their writing to try to make it more real, right? Nastasia doesn't care, that's why she's on her phone yet.
I'm not on my phone. Okay, she's playing with her phone. Anyway, um so there's that, and then um often there are one or two people that you trust, you see what they think, and then you go read their stuff, and then you burrow down, and then you just boom, you go wide. Uh that's how, yeah, I feel like I'm trying to think back on what you know, it's interesting you say your hobby is to learn things, because I would say my hobby is to create things, and it's a little bit different. I wish I was more like you, but I feel like I I have this urge to create sometimes before I know enough to actually create the thing that I want.
But the way that I gather information, like right now I'm thinking about I've been on a Buddhist journey for some years now, but it's like I start reading one text and then I see all the text, mostly books, but all the texts they reference, or one teacher, and then who was their teacher, and then like what was that lineage and kind of trace it back that way, or if I'm reading about a literary scene, you know, I'm I I try to catch all the little references that whatever the author is making contemporaneously and then going wide in that way just to get an understanding of like what was in milieu that they found themselves in, and trying to get as many viewpoints into that room as possible. Yeah, and I'm sure then also like in Buddhism, I'm sure you also seek out people so that you can bounce what you found off of them, right? Or with with writers, you talk to other writers and you talk about it. I never talk to other writers because I'm filled with jealousy. Oh.
Well, so let's take that to food. Yeah. So in food, like let's say your domain is within food. Yeah. Right?
You have to go eat. Right? And so there are whole styles of, and it's I'm interested to hear what you say about writing on this, because there are whole styles of food in the United States where my main gripe is that the person is so like hamburgers and pizza specifically are two American, American style hamburgers and pizza. Well there is no other styled hamburger, but pizza. American I'm talking about American style pizza.
Yeah. Uh other people's hamburgers are garbage. Have you tried the canned hamburger by the way? You heard about this? The Germans make it.
You know what the Germans don't know how to make? Hamburgers. They don't know how to make them people are like, but they're from Hamburg. I'm like, I don't listen the hamburger is an American thing. Yeah.
And in Germany they they put meatloaf in a bun. Anyway, so they make like a can't Which could be a great meatloaf sandwich. Yeah. But it's not a hamburger. It's not a hamburger.
Anyway, but like a lot of people who like have their own hamburger thing or their own pizza thing, they don't eat other people's product. Right. So how are they going to get reference? Well I think that's hard, right? That's called like um like uh agon.
It's like uh you don't want to you have a uh you have an anxiety it's called the anxiety of influence right and I think Harold uh bloom was a literary critic who talked about it where you don't want to learn about what came before because you do have this anxiety that you don't want to repeat it. Now as a writer and I'm sure it's the same and I think this is what you're pushing up against. It takes a certain level of like maturity and security in yourself to be to be able to expose yourself to other you could look at them as competitors and I think that that's why where I fall short, and I think that's where a lot of other people fall short too. But so you try to isolate yourself. So what you're doing is so original because you feel insecure that if you go eat something else, you might be influenced by it unduly, or you won't um you'll fall short in some way.
Right. So like like in kind of in my niche, right? Yeah, you know, I have I think, by the way, I think not smartly put myself in this, like, in a creative mode where, you know, I'm trying to not do what everyone else has has been doing, right? So I got caught up in that kind of wave of innovation and technology, you know, in the early 2000s, and I'm still riding it, you know, in kind of food and cocktails. And I don't think it's healthy, honestly.
But having done it long enough, it is nice. It is nice to be in a position where I am never worried. In other words, like the like innovation is great, but also just having absorbing enough of other what other people are doing such that you don't feel like anyone's gonna come out of left field and throw you for a loop. Or if someone says to you something and you're like, man, I don't know. I don't know about that, you're not gonna feel embarrassed because you're like, I know I know enough about this that like I feel like rock solid, I feel like I can speak, you know what I mean, without having to worry about having to take it back.
Yeah. You know, it's a fine line there. I think like I just think like from a restaurant standpoint, for instance, the tendency from a journalistic lens is to make comparisons. Like there's awards, and then there's trend pieces, and there's all these things. And it's almost like I can tell from a restaurant restaurateurist perspective, there is an in-baked sense of competition.
And when you're really struggling, I think it's hard to um see other restaurateurs sometimes as your cohort and your colleagues. Well, i it's funny to the detriment, I think, of each individual restaurant. Like, so it's it's funny, right? Like in the bar business and you know, back, you know, before the sh chefs, most of the time, if someone becomes very successful, other people will carp on them. That's just the way it is.
But on the other hand, they're gonna support them in public because you you have you have to support them. You genuinely want other people to do well, but there's always a sense there's there, yeah, there's always a sense of competition, but I think it can be healthy as long as it's not as long as it's not kind of pernicious, as long as it doesn't stop you from being friends. Because I think they, you know, a lot of these, a lot of these people actually like they are friends. You know what I mean? But that doesn't mean that you can't be like, I still do a better job than doing that.
Yeah, well, it's like what you do with that competition. It can spur you to do better. Yeah. Um, all right, Nastasia, because Nastasia has uh a lot in her mind going on, uh, not having to do with anything any of you care about. But I I have a little time left.
I want to talk about this. Food mills. Do you like them or dislike them, Joshua? Uh food mills? Food mills.
I like them. Okay, I hate them. Because they they always jam up and they don't clean out right. Right. First of all, let me just say this.
I don't like cleaning food mills. I don't like using them because they have to back up, you have to go backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards. I hate it. JJ Basil, friend of mine, chef, uh, he went to his mom's house. I don't know whether I told this story on air.
I went to his mom's house, was making, I think, mashed potatoes. She hands him a food mill, he opened up the door of her house and just threw it as hard as he could into the street and shut the door and was like, now you don't have to worry about that anymore, Ma. Yeah. I was like, you know what, JJ? A little aggressive, but I'm with you.
I will have to say, I recently uh moved and I don't have any kitchen equipment. Like I'm starting from scratch. And it's been amazing. How'd you move? What?
Why'd you move? I'm separated. Um it's been amazing. She knew that she was just making him say it on air because she's yeah. It is what it is.
Yeah. Um but it's been amazing how many recipes that I don't need to use any equipment. Like just whether, you know, I do a lot of baking and I don't need anything but my hands. And it's liberating because I used to be such a slave to, you know, if the recipe called for a food mill, if it called for a uh like uh whatever specialty equipment, I would go get it. Yeah, if the recipe calls for a food mill, get get get you a different recipe.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but it it is true that you don't need any of that stuff. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know if that's going against brand for you. No.
I mean, look, like like Nastasia, what kind of technology are we? Uh trailing edge. Yeah, we're the stuff that could fall off the plane and you'll still land safely. Yeah. Anyway, uh, but I hate food mills for a number of reasons.
But I'll wait, wait, which one do you hate more? Puppy mills or food mills? Uh I mean, I guess if I had to get rid of one, I'll get rid of puppy mills. Wait, you didn't go into the thing. Virginia.
What? Virginia. Oh, Virginia. Well, we're in political. I guess we could all right, we could talk about it a little bit because no one likes it.
But let me talk about this first and we'll end on that. Hold on. Tell me about puppy mills. I hate puppy mills. I hate puppy mills.
I also hate food mills. And you're like a dog or cat person. I'm not dogs. I have two dogs. So the um.
So anyway, I bought a potato ricer attachment because I'm testing it uh for testing purposes. And I have acquiring knowledge. That thing was sick. It was amazing. No one in the U.S.
has one of these. It's like it's like a a stick attachment, potato ricer. And I was like, this is garbage. I was like, oh my God. And if the listeners at home could see it.
I was like, well, I'm ricing something. It's not a potato. But like, like the uh like the but the thing is, like, I thought this was gonna be garbage, and I want to hear if any of you out there have used a potato ricer, not the hand one. I have hand ones, and they're a nightmare because you have to load them in. Here's the thing in a food mill, here's what a potato uh a potato ricer on the end of a stick can't do, right?
It can't do what a food mill can do, which is kind of trap seeds and skins. So something that all of us who live with high-powered blenders, we're like, I could take a tomato, I could blend it. You can't see the seeds anymore. You can't see the skin. So I no longer need to peel or seed my tomatoes.
And I'm bolstered by the fact that Heston Blumenthal proved that there's more umami in the jelly around a tomato seed than there is in the rest of the tomato. All true, but the seeds themselves have no flavor and the skins are intensely bitter. So you should peel those suckers and you should get rid of the seeds and just keep the jelly that's around the seeds, which is actually good for a strainer or in a pinch. Like who uses a Tammy anymore? Now that we all have Vitapeps, we've lost the benefits of Tammis and food mills.
But anyway, I want to know if anyone out there has used uh a potato ricer or can come up with a different use for a potato ricer, because I am interested in potato ricers now because I something I thought was gonna be garbage was in fact uh was in fact good. Go over the Virginia thing real quick. Go. Uh, so Nastash and I, because we are not apolitical when we are humans, uh we were talking about the Virginia, and if you sh happen to live in a hole under the ground, every apparently politician in Virginia has either been in blackface now with the last minute, has either been in blackface or for all of you living in Virginia, Virginia has become a real life would you rather. You know what I mean?
Like when you're like, Alexa, let's play Would You Rather. And it's always like, would you rather have like, you know, feet for hands or hands for feet? Like things that are horrible, and you have to choose between them. So now it's would you rather have uh uh you know someone running your state who dresses in blackface? Or would you rather have someone who's at least a sexual assaulter?
At least. Food mills are puppy mills, man. I'm also like blackface? Like if I had to choose, like if I had to choose between a rapist and a blackface person. You're asking the same thing.
I'm not a defender of Fairfax. I'm just saying that he's not being a he's being accused of sexual assault. Let me ask you this. Yeah. Known blackface or sexual assault, yes, possible rape, because that's what we're dealing with right now.
I think that's the choice. I think the voters of Virginia deserve better, and they don't deserve to make that choice whatsoever. There you go, because you shouldn't have to play Would You Rather with your real life. That's right. Same with puppy mills.
I don't have to have either. I can have no puppy mills and no food. Thanks for listening to Heritage Radio Network, food radio supported by you. For our freshest content and to learn more about our 10-year anniversary celebration happening all year long, subscribe to our newsletter. Enter your email at the bottom of our website, Heritage Radio Network.org.
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