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This episode is brought to you by Brooklyn Botanic Garden, a stunning 52-acre garden in the heart of Brooklyn. Open year-round. Learn more at BBG.org. I don't know. Not every Tuesday.
What the hell, Stuas? We got all this stuff going on. Stash, Stas, Stas, read it later. Read it later. There's no cash in the envelope.
Don't worry. There's paper. There's an envelope from Heritage Radio Network on our chair. She shows up and immediately on air starts ripping the thing open and shaking the envelope like she's like it's her birthday and it's 12 years. She's 12 years old.
It's her birthday. You're not supposed to read the card, right? Oh no. You don't want to rip the card in half because your parents want to look at the card. Yeah.
But you somehow want to open the envelope and shake out the card. The card gets read if money shakes out. If the money, if there's no money shaking out of the envelope when you're a kid, right in the trash. Right? Doesn't even read it yet.
Envelope? You mean cash vehicles? Uh so uh we have to get off the air exactly at one today because there's another show coming on. Uh so this is going to be in a brrr abbreviated show. Yep.
Um, calling your questions to 7184972128, 7184972128. I don't even know if anyone's listening today because I didn't tweet out that we were back on and we missed last week. We were supposed to do it. For some reason, whenever Nastasi and I are with Harold McGee, and we're like, we're gonna finally get him live on the show. Live on the show.
Something comes up. I don't know why we didn't do it. You know why we didn't do it? Because the engineer we had hired thought we were gonna do it two days earlier and we couldn't do it. So listen.
I don't know why. It's because we didn't have an engineer. I forgot he left. It was all a blur. Everything last week.
Alright, listen, listen, listen. Uh at the end of the uh show, I want to talk a little bit about a friend of mine. So we're gonna do this whole show in semi-reverse order. So let's do this. Let's not talk about our week or anything yet.
That's gonna be the middle of the show. Let's just answer some questions. Let's just answer some questions. Hey, Nastasia, every interval of time has a beginning, a middle, and an end. You're gonna go into questions.
You're gonna go into a tangent and we're gonna get off the air. How much money do you want to put on that, Matt? This no, this show is a well-oiled machine. It goes in a straight line. It's definitely a point B.
Well oiled in the sense of greasy. It's greasy, it's slippery, it's hard to get a hold of. Exactly. Uh hello, Nastasi and Dave. I have a question and can't remember if there is a show today.
There is. Uh I make a I made about 10 pounds of bratwurst of various types, and I'm curious as to the best way to store them for reuse later, since I won't like I likely won't use them all before they go bad. Uh you're just not eating enough. You can't you can't take down 10 pounds of bratwurst. Don't you have friends?
Uh no, I'm not saying anything. I'm not saying you don't have friends. Um I likely won't use them all before they go bad. Uh I did not use curing salt on any of them. I did use garlic in two of them in case that matters.
Uh for this, I don't think that ma I don't think that matters. Um, the three options I've considered are one, freeze raw. Two, cook low temp at around 57 to pasteurize, then freeze. Three, cook low temp at 68, which seems to be a good temp for eating, then freeze. Uh I have enough of each type that I could test this, but I wondered if you had any initial thoughts slash experience here.
Enjoy the show and look forward to making it back to existing conditions next time I'm in NYC. Tyler, now, uh I don't have any specific, specific um experience. However, I will tell you this. It is a well-known fact. It it now uh it is a well-known fact that salted or cured, salted or cured uh meats, uh especially pork, when frozen, have the tendency to go rancid.
And so, like the higher the salt content, and I I think also curing salts might actually accelerate that even more. So it's probably good, but I can't remember, you're tugging on my memory strings. But salted meats definitely go rancid um faster in the freezer. So what happens is is that when you freeze, you're never really freezing the product down to the temperature at which there's no uh free water in there, right? Your freezers down at around minus 20 uh Celsius, which is about minus four Fahrenheit.
Uh and what happens is that as it starts freezing, you get very concentrated, salty uh areas, and those those areas are much more uh prone to um oxidative changes to the fats and for rancidity. So salted meats definitely are more apt to go rancid now. I would guess that uh, and I think there's some stuff that vacuum packing would somewhat pres uh prevent that because it would reduce the amount of oxygen present uh to cause those rancid flavors. I've also there's some anecdotal evidence that a pre-cook is gonna stabilize it somewhat, at least for color on the rethaw on freezing down. I don't know whether or not it will on the um on the rancidity part.
I mean, because it part of me thinks that you know uh cooking it regular cooking, obviously, will start the lipid oxidation, uh, and then therefore that will get vastly accelerated. That's like warmed over flavor kind of a situation. But a low temperature cook in a bath followed by freezing might be the way to go, but raw also. But really, I think importantly, get rid of the air. Um you know, don't freeze it for too long because it's gonna and also try to put it in the coldest part of your freezer because um the freeze thaw up down, up down is gonna also cause a lot of degradation over time.
So that's what I would that's what I say is my recommendation. Good job. You weren't even listening, you're looking at zappos. I'm listening. What are you looking at?
Look, what it's like so disconcerting. One hour or 40 minutes a day, you can't be off of your phone. Storing thoughts. I you know, what? What?
You gotta Dave get to the questions so we can get to other stuff. I need you to get through the questions. Well, stop looking at your phone! What does it matter to you? Because you're we're doing a radio show!
She's prepping for the no, she is not. No, she definitely is, yeah. I can tell. I'm looking at the web traffic. She's prepping.
She's not on Zappos. I don't even use Zappos. Every day from 12 to 1. She's like, why would I do that? I can now get most of those shoes Amazon Prime, and you know that I'm good at the uh, you know, returning them if they don't fit.
So why would I use Zappos anymore. Tangents. We're big Amazon fans here on the show. No, she's not a good thing. Oh, I have a good shirt.
Anyway, go. Do you want to talk about your shirt? No. Alright. Uh.
Oh, I didn't even see this one. Okay, so we're gonna have to do this one uh just you know, on the fly. Uh, what's this what's this question about, Nastasia? You don't know because you're looking at something else. You're looking at something else, you're not paying attention.
Or the one from uh Elden. No. Nope. Okay. Uh pay attention.
Hi, Dave, and it's how do you expect people like who aren't even in the building with us to pay attention if you can't even pay attention during this one section of your life. Dave, I put the questions together. Kind of, you don't even remember where they are. All right. Hi, Dave and Nastasia.
I recently got promoted to executive chef in an assisted living facility. This was an important question to me because the word question wasn't in the email. So I re-forwarded to myself two weeks ago, and I put question in the subject line so that I would find it. And that's why it's important to you. Yes.
Because of the case, otherwise it would have gone to the case. Not because of the contents. Not because of the contents of the question. Uh what is he? Executive Sioux Chef or something.
Executive chef, whoa, don't demote him. Yeah. Anyway. And like, you know, Matt's never read this shit. He's just lit stuff.
That's my real question. Wow. Thank you for your commitment. Uh still on her phone, people. Still staring at the phone.
I am listening. I am doing something so mindful. Listen, I want everyone out there to know something. There is no such thing as multitasking. What you can do in your life is do a bunch of brainless things.
You can do a bunch of idiot work, brainless stuff, like walking, chewing bubblegum, rubbing your stomach, right? Isn't we? Like sitting there staring into the distance. You can do all of that. You can multitask that.
Your brain is a single tasker. You can only really think about one thing. Everything else that you are multitasking on is subconscious or unconscious stuff, like breathing, walking, defecating, whatever you're doing. So don't ever look at me and tell me that you are multitasking when you're staring into your damn phone and that you're listening, because that is, as we say, physiologically not true. It is garbage.
What do you think, Matt? What percentage of the cooking issue issues listeners are defecating right now, do you think? 100%. As they listen to the show. And is that upsetting to you to think about?
No. No. No, why not? Like it's listen, half the time when you're on a conference call, I'm sure people are muting. Either Nastasia is, whenever Nastasia's on a conference call with you, she's either in the bathroom on mute, if you're lucky, or she is like dropping a package off somewhere, or in the middle of like the loudest place in the center of New York City.
They're the worst. You know what? And like everybody knows this, but like the more people are on a conference call, like the less anyone is listening. And so, like, everyone's on mute, everyone's zoned out, everyone's surfing the internet like Nastasia is right now, and pretending to be quote unquote multitasking. So, this is what will happen.
Hey, uh, so did you get the did you get that data? And then you hear this. Hey, hey, and then like it'll like their earphones they'll suddenly hear that you're addressing them, and they haven't heard any of the rest of the conversation. So then you'll wait a while, and someone else will go, I think they're on mute, they're trying to get off mute, and they're fumbling around with their phone because they're doing other stuff. They get back off of mute and they're like, What are we talking about?
Like, honestly, that's every conference call I've ever been on. Have you ever been on a good conference call? I cannot stand Amazon. What the hell? That is not related.
She's not listening. She's not listening! That is our life. That is our life. I would think I think she was multitasking.
Zero tasking. It's a new thing. Like, I want to call this new modern thing. It's called zero tasking. It's doing zero tasks well.
Also, whatever. No, say, speak your truth. The Amazon person, I'm writing scathing emails to them. Okay, okay. And he's only addressing the other two people on the chain.
Is now the time to write scathing emails to Amazon. Did you not exist a half an hour ago? No, that's a good thing. And will you not continue to exist? A half an hour ago.
We need our money or we don't exist. We need that money now, but this is Okay, go. This is the time. That is for the show. It's only for the show and not for Amazon.
Alright, question. Yes? No, I mean like, can we get the colour? Uh-oh. Okay.
I recently got promoted to executive chef. Executive chef. Go for you. At an assisted living facility in the central coast of California, in charge of providing food for 60 residents and about 20 employees three times a day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, seven days a week. That's a lot.
Uh looking to upgrade kitchen to incorporate the use of uh sous vide circulator and steers all, of course, who was wondering what kind of sous vide vacuum sleeter you use, and if you uh and if there was a setup you would recommend for me to install. Love the show, and can't wait to hear back. Kevin A from Central California. Okay. Well, Kevin.
I used to cook for kids in Switzerland. Uh breakfast, lunch, and dinner for about a hundred kids, and I didn't use any CB cooking, so you don't really need it. Next question. What a jerk. He's a guy.
It might be the right answer, though. But it's absolutely not. First of all, like I know Nastasia. I know what she does to other people. The last time I put Nastasia in charge of cooking something, it was raw on the floor, and then the rest of the stuff she handed off to someone who incinerated all the meat.
Assisted living has specific problems in that the people who are there are immunocompromised. Okay? So it's like that Nastasia should not be cooking for children or immunogee. Definitely not. Definitely not.
Because Nastasia would be like, you know what? It was their time to go. No. There was a grease fire that broke up. Yeah, okay.
So let's talk about uh what to do. He's like Nastasi was like, I had no idea. Nastasi was like, I was 20 at the time and had really no idea what was going on. But I cooked for the kids anyway, and they didn't die. I made rat tattooy.
So what? First of all, rat tattooing for a hundred people. Rat tattoo-y for a hundred. Okay. So the pot was slightly larger than if you made it for 10 people.
Okay, how did you cook the chicken? I strung them all up. Where was this then? And then we had like a big outdoor spit. So you cooked once.
No. You were not. I've seen you try to hook up a rotisserie before. You were not cooking rotisserie chickens every day for a hundred kids. Not every day.
Once. You did it once. No, I did it three times. In your life. For the kids.
She's like, every meal in the channel. Every meal. Every meal, rotisserie chicken. See, why why should I answer questions? When you only denigrate anything I say.
I'm not denigrating you. First of all, you just said Fine, you know, my experience in Switzerland was crap. Really? You're right. Really?
I did a bad job. I should not have been cooking for children. Go ahead, Dave. Answer his question. You know what?
I'll. Oh, Nastasia. No, no, no, you're right. You're totally right. I'm not feeling sorry for myself.
You put me in my place. You should see her face, people. What place? Oh, I put you in your place? Yep.
Go ahead and go. Listen, go ahead and give it to you. Nastasia and I's place and give him the Nastasia and I there's no correct answer ever. Nastasia and I are in the exact same place, garbage can. 100% of the time.
Anyway. It's great that you're together though. Oh no, please. Couldn't we just be stored in separate garbage cans? Separate garbage cans.
Not your fate. I'm finding the photo. Okay, great. I'm sure, Nastasia, that it was the chicken delicious? No.
Oh. It was bad. It's bad. Matt believes you. So that's the thing.
Like Nastasia, like the fact of the matter is, I just I'm I I can't, I can't. Okay. Uh I would get if you're if you're cooking for uh 60 residents, okay? 60 residents and 20 employees, that's 80 people. Uh so you don't want to get a super small vacuum uh machine.
I would get like the kind of medium-size one. I don't have the number off the top of my head. I typically, I don't have a deal with them, but I typically use mini pack just because they're much easier for me to deal with than multivac and they have a real presence here as opposed to a lot of the European companies, uh like uh other than multivac and mini pack, which are both European companies, but I would get a real one with a vacuum pump. They cost a little more, but you're gonna be uh a lot happier. The thing about a getting not the smallest one, but this the next size up is that you can get it with two seal bars.
And the important thing about getting it with two seal bars is that the main problem with vacuum packaging is actually waiting for the machine to run through a cycle. So if you have two seal bars, right, if you need the full size, because you're gonna do something large, you can remove one of the seal bars and you get the entire chamber uh width. But if you need to uh package a lot of stuff, it's literally twice the speed. So if your vacuum cycle is running like 45 seconds, then you can uh then you can have the amount of time. And if Nastasia, you remember when we were bagging all those cookies?
Mm-hmm. How long did that take us? A very long time. Right. And we had two seal bars.
Nastasia. Just don't use it. That's the easiest way to do it. You know what the easiest way to do? Become a raw vegan.
Actually, it's not a lot of dehydrators for that. Um and then it says vacuum sealer. In terms of the circulators, I mean, all the circulators work, to be honest. Um what you should look for is a, I mean, really, they all work. I I like the ones if you're gonna work uh you know professionally, I prefer ones that are a little bit more robo.
I wouldn't go for the like the the cheapest, the cheapest one possible. I haven't had a lot of experience with the with the jewel when you're using like multiple units off of one phone, so I don't really know how that works if you're gonna be using multiple units, but I would definitely consider getting uh a couple of circulators, and uh obviously try to trick out your baths to work properly. So, like a lot of see the biggest problem I see with people with circulators is using the wrong kind of uh uh circulating bath, like they're putting stuff in metal, or they're not making sure that uh the product is off of the the bottom of the thing or not touching the sides or is fully submerged, or they're not putting enough uh separation in between the layers of product so that they're getting uh kind of incorrect cooking. So that's what I that's what I would say. Uh or as Nastasi would say, just don't use it, just don't use the technique, do something else.
Cook rotisserie chicken. So, do you have the picture of rotisserie chicken? I can't find it. Okay. I want this picture for the episode art.
Oh, I'll refined it then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh this is Elvin. So we had Kevin before, we have Elvin now. I'm curious if you have thoughts about unshaking a drink using clarification.
Unshaking in quotes. So uh Nick Bennett, who uh was with us at the party, which hopefully we have time to talk about. Uh what? Mm-hmm. Uh I was curious if you had any thoughts about unshaking a drink using clarification.
So Nick Bennett used to take shaken specs and turn them into stirred cocktails, and he would call them unshaking them. I recently played around with milk washing stuff like daiquaries and sidecars, but well, but if you're milkwashing it, you're gonna oh I see, like milk washing, but you would still shake it to get the foam. I don't quite understand. Um but it seems like a standard ish spec doesn't map perfectly into an old-fashioned template drink. I'm wondering if there's a standard three ingredients sour would usually work by itself in general.
I'll get around to playing with uh centrifuged citrus juices very soon. Thanks, Elvin. So uh whenever you're converting a um, whenever you're converting a uh shaken drink to a stirred drink, you're going to uh like radically decrease the sour component and also decrease the sweet. You're gonna have less overall sweet, and like so like I would start in in the range of uh like two of the spirit and like half of uh simple less even half or less of simple and a quarter or less of acid and start balancing because uh the reason is is it it's a warmer drink. Um so you're gonna decrease the the sugar, the acid's gonna pop harder in a stirred drink.
People aren't used to having that much acid, and uh also uh the alcohol content's gonna be high, the dilution is gonna be lower than in in a shaking drink. So it's gonna require more sugar than it would acid, but less of both sugar and acid than you would have in a shaking drink. Does that make sense? So so the the way the drink is made when you're shaking it, like the the entire amount of acid and sugar is gonna be far lower than in a shaken drink of the same spec. And also the acid is going to be shifted down relative to the um to the uh sugar just because the uh the uh because of the way the dilution works.
And at least that's been my experience. Um and then P.S. I've heard rumors that the Japanese translation of liquid intelligence is heavily redacted due to its perceived incompatibility with traditional Japanese bartending. Can you confirm or deny these allegations? I've never heard this before.
Have you heard this, Nastasia? No. I have not. She's definitely now this is this one's my fault. This one's on me.
This one's on me. This one's on me. This one's on me. The fact that Nastasia is looking through look, didn't I? Even if you don't believe me, even if you don't believe me, you can't do me the common courtesy.
This one's on me, though. This one's on you, but so I heard that you're Japanese, but was heavily redacted. Is this true? No, no. Maybe we're I don't know.
I need to find someone who speaks Japanese who will look I have to say that the liquid intelligence in Japanese is the most beautiful of all the liquid intelligences. The way it's put together, the way it's boxed, it like it looks amazing. It's crazy that they do. You have a copy. I have several copies.
Your permission to ask me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when I think about the process with you and Maria. When you think about what uh like just like a rancid bastard I am during anything. Right, and then they just do this, and you're like they just do it.
Okay. Um yeah, I mean, I have them at the bar. They're really I mean, they look great. You know what? Also, people, the honest truth is they might have asked me stuff in my email, and would I have seen it?
No. I would not have seen it. I didn't see anything. He only answers questions from you, listeners. Wow.
If the if the publisher had asked me on Twitter, yeah, I would have seen it. That's true. Alright, so now uh you what we're gonna do classics in the field? No, we're gonna talk about LA and MoFAD. Then Classics in the Field?
Sure. Alright. I found the photo. Oh, that's it. And then and while we're doing that, I'll be looking at the photo, and you will be talking about the party we just did in in uh Los Angeles.
Alright. I see a team of people cooking. No, I did it all. They just wanted to take a photo of me. Uh-huh.
Alright, people. What I'm looking at is a bunch of chickens. When you said string it up, they are literally on a piece of string. Yes. Not on a spit.
On a string. Yep. So how did you turn them? Manually. What do you mean?
She's making a crank motion, but there is no crank. It is a piece of string. So how did you did you fist them? You fisted them. Yeah, so how often were you turning them?
Every 20 minutes. Every 20 minutes? Well, they they look like they would taste good. They tasted good. They look like they would taste too good.
Now let me see. How many kids? A hundred. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight chickens. No, that's not true.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight chickens. No. Okay. I'm looking at the picture. I can see the chickens.
There are eight chickens. Oh, there's another string behind it that you can't see. Dave, just trust her. An entire generation of Swedish kids owe their existence in the Swiss. Swiss.
That's what I said. They were international. Anyway. But the point is, is that she's doing some loaves and fishes action. She's like, I love loaves.
You'll get you'll get one piece of chicken. They're like, so like a breast. No, no, no, no, no, no. A piece, not like a full piece. You get like like just one piece.
A delicious morsel. A morsel. Morsel. All right. You gotta send me that picture.
I know. Well, I can't send anything to you here. So I'm gonna go. Because there's no internet. I'm gonna hey.
Listen, I'll go on record. The chickens look fine. Thank you. They were great. I was a I was a happier, better cook back then.
That's the nicest thing you could come up with. How wait? Why would you have been a better cook back then? Because I didn't care as much. Then you're not a better cook.
No, no, I didn't care about what people thought. You know? And how does that make you a better cook? Because I wasn't, I don't know, because I was just like, I'm gonna just throw it all together and see what happens. And now I work with people that don't let you do that.
What do you mean? No one stops you from the way you cook at home. Who stops you from doing anything? People have expectations of me now that I work in food. Yeah, but how does that make you in other words?
What you're saying is you're less happy cooking. Yeah. Not that you're a better cook back then. You were more happy. Yeah, but isn't that cool?
Is it just because you're busier now? Yeah. You have more crap to do, like Amazon and whatnot. Okay. Okay.
So so put the phone down and let's talk about the party. Okay. Put the phone down. The phone is for closers. This episode is brought to you by Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
A stunning 52 acre garden in the heart of Brooklyn, featuring spectacular plant displays year round. Mark your calendars for Saturday, September 28th, when the Chili Pepper Festival returns to Brooklyn Botanic Garden. At this all day celebration of all things hot and spicy, indulge in sizzling bites from 40 food artisans. Enjoy spicy food demonstrations, foodie friendly tours and talks, activities for kids, and live performances by musicians and artists around the garden. Stay through the evening for a special concert that brings New Orleans to Brooklyn.
Festival goers can jam out to the legendary New Orleans musicians, John Papa Gross, Walter Wolfman Washington, and New Orleans Queen of Soul, Irma Thomas. Joining the fun will be Big Chief Monk Boudreau, bringing the traditions of the Mardi Gras Indians to the heart of Brooklyn. Learn more about Brooklyn Botanic Garden at BBG.org. Alright, so what did we do? We did a lot.
We uh we did a party, a big party. Where? At the Houdini Mansion. Who? And it was for Mofad.
Right. And a lot of people came, and everyone thought that Harold wasn't gonna dress up. Harold McGee. His Harold McGee famous writer of on food and cooking, like, you know, the godfather of uh science as it relates to uh the making of delicious food. Dave was like, we're not putting him in that $50 Amazon Zoltar costume.
And I left it on the table, knowing he's not gonna put it on. And then when we looked in the bedroom and first of all, first of all, people. Like Harold McGee not only dressed in Nastasia's like pantyhose. Yeah, the whole whole outfit was made from pantyhose and like I don't know, things that were recovered from like a used car dealership. But like, not only did Harold McGee put on the Zoltar outfit and the cardboard Zoltar.
Zoltar's a he's a fortune-telling character. You might recently have seen him on, I think, some sort of it's either progressive or Geico, I think. Geico or something commercial. Anyways, so he he not only put on the outfit and and like the clothes and the and the box, but Harold McGee, for those of you who don't know, Google a picture of him. Harold Harold McGee has a has a beard already.
He has like I don't know. He discovered this last night. It's not a it's not a, it's not his beard's not like a technically a goatee. It's not pointy, right? But it's kind of goatee-ish, right?
Right? And a mustache, right? Right. Costume comes with a Zoltar goatee. And beard.
Yeah, the goatee's bear. Yeah, and eyebrows. And eyebrows. McGee has eyebrows. McGee has eyebrows and the beard and the mustache, but he glued the No, he used my boob tape too.
What? What's boob tape? The things that keep your like your your dresses so that your boobs don't pop out. Okay. So like you they make special anti-side boob tape?
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So learn something new every day. So like he glues or boob tapes his Zoltar facial hair over his real facial hair. His only complaint was that there was like a little plastic strip that said Zoltar at the top of the costume.
And since he was tall, like he like it was right at his sight level and he couldn't see through the thing. He's like, Can you cut off the piece of plastic that says Zoltar? So we cut off the plastic, and he wore that dang thing all night. All nightwalk. He ate in it.
Somebody thought we hired him as like a like a Hollywood off-the-street type guy. No, they called him a human prop. And we're like, oh no. He's a godfather of food science. That's Harold McGee.
And at that party, also we met David Carp, who's like the preeminent fruit explorer, works at UC Riverside. And we could talk more about that in the make new apple heads. We had we went, uh, so who was cooking at the party? Your friend, you want to talk about your friends? And Fabulous.
You want to give a shout out to your friends? My friend Nina from Ziza. Catering. What kind of food is really beautiful. Fabulous and Jeremiah, which is uh, you know, from Contro Wildair, they came in and did the cooking.
So the funniest part to me was they they had from uh tacos 1980. 1984 or 86, 84, 84. Like one of those. So, like, you know, well-known taco joint uh in uh in LA that I think is opening a place here in New York. So they they had a you know one of those uh portable um uh al pastor units.
You guys know what I'm talking about? It's like kind of like a hero, like a gyro or hero or schwarma burner, but like if you check out my Instagram saved stories, all right. So what it is, so it's it's like this like like very high heat, almost it looks like a flower pot planner in the back, cranks, and then it's a vertical rotisserie spit. And so you layer the meat up on the on the spit, and then it rotates and cooks, and you slice off as it cooks, and you make sandwiches or tacos or whatever you're gonna make with it, right? So they get this this vertical al pastor machine, and uh so and they're cooking with it for a long time, and so at a certain point, you know, and Fabulous, by the way, had shattered one of his arms.
Like one of his arms is in like some sort of RoboCop, like some sort of bionic thing, because he was riding a scooter in DC and smashed into a wall and like broke his arm into a million pieces. So we were calling Fabulous the one-armed bandit the entire time he was there. So he's sitting there with one hand tending this spit, and Jeremiah comes up like right before the party, like right before the party started, right? And was like, I think I want to increase the heat a little bit. So the way that these spits work is there's a little square plate with a with a hole in it.
And that just slides along on this air on this like kind of like uh flat area that you can scrape off. And in front of that is uh like a sizzle, like like a like a gas-fired like griddle sizzle plate. And then over the top is like it is a big fat bar with holes drilled in it. And before you cook, I let me reiterate this before you cook, you set the distance to the fire by lifting the bar and figuring which one of the holes you're gonna put it in. It's like a belt loop, right, Nastasia?
It's like it works like a belt. So anyway, so like five minutes before the party starts, Jeremiah's like, yo, I'm gonna move this thing closer to the fire. So he lifts the bar, and immediately, I think he doesn't realize that the bottom piece that is not firmly attached, immediately the thing goes, shoop, and the meat starts like flying out of the thing. He catches the hot meat, right? And then he's like, help, help, help.
And so what happens is Fabulous runs over and he's like, I need someone with two hands. And so like I run over and they had they had put like 18 million pounds of like spice mix on the outside of this meat, and the fat had started oozing out, so it became like spice fat. And I'm like, I know I'm wearing all black, but still I'm not gonna get this all like all over me, right? So I have to strip down to my t-shirt. And for those of you that know me, like I'm wearing like 85 layers of clothing, even though it's a billion degrees, right, Sas?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I like stripping down, and then we're trying to muscle this meat back in, right? And of course, what is Nastasi doing? Filming for posterity instead of helping.
Fair, there was enough people around the machine. Didn't need to be any more people around the machine. So I'm not knocking you here, Stas. Right. So then so we finally get it back back in, and we're like, oh my God.
And then Nastasi shows me the video, and it's a video. You have to go on to her stories. You have to make it more permanent. It's a permanent story. All right.
So you look at it, you wait for it, and then at a certain point, Nastasi, I don't know how she knew this was happening. She pans back, and there's McGee in the Zoltar outfit, just watching, having a calm drink. And it it basically sums up the entire entire McGillakuddy right there. Oh, okay. And shout out to Dan the Automator.
Dan the Automator, shout out to uh who spun during the thing. Shout out to Barry, who is Mark Ronson's guy. Engineer, who showed up, and we thought we would have to do our own playlist before and after. He's like, well, we can just. I think you can say that.
I didn't say anything. Okay, I take it back. He didn't say anything. So then uh a big shout out to Prono Ricard. Yeah.
And a big shout out to the LA Times. Yeah. So Perna Ricard was the prime uh payer for the party, and we went out there and then we did a shoot video shoot with the LA Times at the farmers market. So the Santa Monica Farmers Market is amazing. The Wednesday Santa Monica Farmers Market is amazing.
And actually we saw some uh some cooking issues people out there, so I was really psyched about that. But the fruit was nuts. So we bought uh Kinno, which is out of season now, but what's the name of the of the farm we used? Do you remember? Yeah.
So there's this one farm in uh in SoCal that like has a very weird microclimate, so they can do weird things, they do weird things to citrus. So they had kinno, which is this awesome, I can't remember whether it's a tangerine or mandarin or what. I think it was a tangerine. But they had this awesome fruit that way past when anyone else would have it. So Nastasia Mud Creek Ranch.
Mud Creek Ranch. So Nastasi and I, and they also are the ones that had the Mandarin quads the last time we were there, that they were just finished. Those mandarin quads were some of the best citrus I've ever had. So we were like the idea of this party was sustainability, right? So we were gonna make a cordial, because a cordial takes a fresh fruit and makes it last forever, uses a lot of the peel, et cetera, et cetera.
So these kinos actually have delicious peels. So we were able to use the twist, the peel in the cordial, and the clarified juice and last last forever. But here's the interesting part. So most many mandarins, by the way, David Carp, who we met also came to the party, but we met him at the farmer's market, says that anyone who doesn't live where they grow mandarins has no idea what a mandarin is supposed to taste like because mandarins are waxed, and every every waxed mandarin uh starts going into anaerobic uh respiration and creates kind of off and fermenty flavors. So what 99% of us think is normal flavor in let's say a clementine or whatever we're buying, whatever mandarins we're buying at the supermarket, he's like, that's like the difference between like making a guacamole fresh with a delicious fresh avocado and buying those packaged, because you don't like packaged guacamole, right?
You you at least have that standard. So like um, so anyway, so he says none of us really know what a good mandarin tastes like, and he says that mandarins are the no most noble of citrus. But the problem with them is is that if you are converting them into juice, you need to drink the juice right away, because almost all of them, to a greater or lesser degree, um, exhibit what's called delayed bitterness. So there's a reaction which is I believe partially enzymatically um uh what's the word, catalyzed, that will take a delicious juice and make it go bitter over time, therefore unusable as a drink or a cocktail. There are some studies currently out on using wine finding agents to knock the bitterness out, and apparently agar and gelatin uh can do it.
But my hope was that by turning this delicious thing into a cordial, the heat from cordializing as well as the clarification would cause it to not go bitter and ding ding, it does. So if you have some fancy uh citrus and you want to use it in a cocktail, consider making a cordial. It will not go bitter if you clarify and do just like the quick heat cordial. It's possible that just clarifying it will be enough, but we didn't run that test because we wanted it to taste like a cordial. Uh, and so uh that's what we did.
We also picked up uh $80 worth of Jimmy Nardello, Jimmy Nardello peppers for Fabulous and Jeremiah to cook with, and they didn't end up cooking with them. Now these peppers are in the arc of taste, these peppers are incredibly delicious. Nastasia hasn't had it yet, right? They're what they're what's called a frying peppa. They're like an Italian frying peppa, right?
So they don't have a lot of seeds, they have a lot more seeds than a normal full eating pepper like a shoshito or a padron, which they also had a whole we bought a whole bunch of those when we're out there as well. So I bring these two giant bags of Nardellos back home with me on the airplane because I wasn't gonna let them go to waste. By the way, for those of you that have never worked at a big event, what ends up happening is no matter how good the products are, at the end of the night, you're so tired and you're so spent, and you need to get out of the place, and everyone's trying to leave, so that no matter how good the product is, what happens to it, Nastasia? It gets dumped. It gets dumped, right?
There's nothing that takes care of a hangover like pushing a dumpster, right, Dave? Oh my god. So Nastasi's like, we had We stayed up until three or four. We spent uh like a lot of money like to throw the party, but still we were doing it on a heavy budget. So Nastasia is like, Dave, you need to get up at 6 30.
So we go to bed at like four, we get up at 6 30. I'm like, Dave, get ready. Yeah, so they like we drive over there and pushed a dumpster. Three yard dumpster. It was sucked.
Anyway. Oh, our car didn't break down this time though. Nastasia uh gave Nastasia a lot of so we bought last time we were in LA, we rented a Peace Bus. Well, not really, it was like a Vanagon, right? It died.
We talked about this on the air. It died dead. No alternator. Dead, dead, dead. So we finally get it back to the house after we jumped it three times from Austin Hennelly's uh who helped us this time at the party, his like like miniature new fiat, and then uh they came and take it and they gave us a credit for $120 for the Peace Bus.
And so with this credit, Nastasia rents for two days. Not three days. Oh, a Chrysler from 85. Yeah, yeah. Uh okay.
I'll just leave it at that. For those of you that think that the Chrysler Baron, and then she buys me this like beat fake top hat, and because I forgot my real hat, I have to go, I burn and I don't use lotion, right? I run around like douches. You're wearing a top hat. We made everyone look good.
Like, so like like we would like people would roll up on us, which was really easy because like to the floor, this Chrysler did about five miles an hour. Like, this is not your like B-52's got me a Chrysler. It seems about 20. Got me a Chrysler, it's as small as an otter, right? Not as big as a whale.
And it did feel like it was sailing at the speed it was going, and it was like tiny. Anyways, people would roll up all us and be like, nice. And then go past. Am I right, Stas? Yes.
Alright. So listen, they're gonna kick us off the air. Next week, we'll do uh the the classic in the field for today was going to be Drina Dodson's Apple Head Dolls. I have the book with me, but uh, and I will try to convince Nastasia for next week. We can also talk more about the party because there's more to talk about.
Um I'm gonna and also more to talk about about apples, right? Uh but yeah, I'm gonna try to convince the doll book too. I'm gonna try to convince Nastasia to allow me to post on Instagram the entire applehead dolls for pleasure and profit. I'm also uh Applehead dolls as they are made now are not edible because they're heavily salted. But Nastasia and I are gonna come up with a procedure that we'll call it the Nastasia method, whereby we can make apple head dolls that are in fact edible.
Okay. Alright. So that that's my goal. Maybe we'll have it by next week. Nastasia and I are gonna have the Nastasia method of Appleheads, and then I'm going to very artfully place Nastasia's head into Drina Dotson's head position on this book, and then possibly No, I don't want that.
Why not? Because of your to be her. You can't be her. You don't live in Anaheim. Anyway.
Oh. Or pass the. Best bar in the world, Star Wars bar at Disneyland. Oh, yeah. Oh, she didn't take me.
You would not. You would never have gone with us. Of course I would have gone with us. No, you wouldn't. Why?
You would never have gone with us. Why would I not have gone? If I said, hey Dave, come to LA a day early, we're all going to Disney. Yeah. But if we had a day in the middle and you said let's go to Disneyland.
I've done it. What? You didn't know what you'd say. Isn't there some work we could be doing or I should be with my family? I know that I know because I've gotten feedback that people think I'm an overly angry individual on this radio program towards Nastasia.
I'll just have you know that she spends her whole life pushing my buttons so that she can get me to flare up because that's what she enjoys doing. But I am not a monster, I don't think. Alright, now uh no, I have to talk about Eng Sue. Oh. So uh on the way home, uh well I'll I'll say this.
So years ago, when I first started getting into, you know, a couple years after I've been working with Wiley Dufrein, I started working for, not, you know, not for money, but working with him. Uh I started working at the French Culinary Institute as their director of culinary technology. And one of the best parts of the job, or the best part of the job really, was um this the intern program. So students would come in and uh they would, you know, after class, they would, you know, work with me. And originally the you know, one of our original interns, her Mindy, Mindy Lavoff, who you know, we're still obviously good friends with, she became the original leader of the interns, and then eventually Nastasia came in and became the you know other leader of the interns.
So that's how Nastasia and I started working together. Um so one of the every once in a while we would just have uh an amazing, an amazing group of uh students because they would be always they they would be there for their you know nine months, I guess it was, right? Six, nine months, whatever the program was. They would be there and then they would move on. Uh and so we had this amazing group, and in that group were people like uh Peter Schweigert, who last time I checked was the uh GM and Spirits person at Marvel Bar, worked at a Linea for a long time, uh, had you know had a lot of rotovap knowledge.
Nick Wong, you know, who's like you know one of the best of the best, who's now the chef at UB Preserve in Houston. Um Angela Angela Gubots, who's uh at Goldenrod Pastries and doing like amazing stuff at Goldenrod Pastries. Um, you know, all fan fantastic people. Um but then also was uh Eng Su. And Eng Su was an amazing guy.
He's from Singapore. And he was, I actually probably learned as much from him when he was an intern as as he learned from me. So he was, I remember a couple of weeks ago I talked about bat nuts here, bat nut chestnuts. He was the one who introduced me, uh introduced me to those. He also was one of the rare people who could rare people who could go toe-to-toe with me with saying kind of absurd, ridiculous things.
So if you've ever hung out with me in the real life, like I will have a tendency to just say completely off-the-wall things. And Eng Su was one of those, one of those people who could totally uh keep keep up toe-to-toe with me on that. He was uh very interested in all of the different cultural inputs that went into making Singapore what it was. It was kind of funny because he was already an amazing cook. He came to the FCI to do uh pastry, uh, in fact.
Uh and then, you know, a after he uh left, uh he did some work uh in Israel and um for a couple of years, and then several years ago opened up his own restaurant in Singapore called Coconut Club, and where he um he was doing uh Nasilamak, which is the coconut rice with all of the uh the omele dish, coconut rice all around. And he did a lot of uh, he was made a big kerfuffle because he was charging, he was basically a street food, and he was charging, I don't know, some like exorbitant amount, like six or eight or ten times what it would normally cost on the street to serve it at at his restaurant. And he was doing it, and he was like, no, crap on you. I want to pay respect to this dish. And so he was having, you know, he was sourcing special coconuts from one specific place, having his own coconut milk uh made, was trying to build a factory to do that.
He was paying his workers a lot more than anyone else was paying them because you know, at his core, he was uh not just a great cook, not just extremely funny. And I really, for all of you who never been in a kitchen with him, you're missing out. Like there are there are, you know, people that you meet in your life who make the kitchen just a much more fun place to be. Uh, you know, who can handle pressure, who can handle being a perfectionist, who can handle uh, you know, tense situations, but just make the kitchen, even when that's going on, just an incredibly fun place to be. Uh Aang Su is one of those people.
And he, you know, we lost him last week. He was only 40 years old. Uh, cookie issues. This program is powered by Simplecast. Thanks for listening to Heritage Radio Network, food radio supported by you.
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