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Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from my house in the Lower East Side. We got a big show for you today. It's the 10th anniversary special, even though it was actually our 10th anniversary like two and a half weeks ago, but we're so disorganized here that we just can't get stuff done on time, as you will see for the rest of the show. Joined as usual with Nastasia the Hammer Lopez in Stanford, Connecticut.
How are you? Good. We Oh, that's great. Why don't you give me some 10th anniversary vibes, S. Happy anniversary?
Yeah, you sound it sound sound overjoyed. Overjoyed to be here. What? Always forget our anniversary. What does it have to do with anything?
Again, nobody cares about anything that happens outside of the 45 minute window of the show. Everything else is just is just noise. You know what I mean? Anyway. We got uh we got uh John from Booker Index hanging in uh Murray Hill.
How you doing? Not too bad, thank you. Of course, we got uh Matt in the in in his booth in Brooklyn somewhere. I'm assuming you haven't gone back to Rhode Island. I'm actually closer to I'm in Alexandria, Virginia right now.
Close to Jackie Molecules. Oh nice, I assume. Alright, well, and for our two special guests we have today, the very first man in the booth, Jackie Molecules! How you doing? I'm great.
Listen to Jack. Jack, Jack, of course, you know, a professional recording uh personage has a real studio mic that he's calling in on. So even though he's, you know, doing this out of the kindness of his own heart, he's gonna sound uh the best of all of us. How are you doing? I have a reputation uphold, you know.
Yeah, you do sound amazing on that microphone. So smooth. You sound great too. It's almost like being in Bushwick. You know, I was never really in the same room as you guys anyway.
I was always in the booth, so it's not that different. Well, I guess, but you had that like glass, that plexiglass window that you could look into, you know? Yeah, it's true. Knock on the window when it's things were getting out of hand. Um how did you come by how did you come up with how did we end up calling you Jackie Molecules?
How did that end up happening? Oh, that's a you don't remember that story? It's so good. I don't want to I don't want to trash the sponsor, but there was a sponsor that offered to support the show. Oh and they had the word molecular in their name.
And you were like, yeah, I'm not reading that. You're like, if you want to read it, you can read it. You can be Jackie Molecules. Oh, I just cursed. I'm sorry.
Oh, you know, family show. Nastasi doesn't want to be a family show, but whatever. I'm the worst. I'm sorry. I come from a different time.
Well, also in Washington, DC, where why don't you want to plug your uh you want to plug what you're doing down there? Well, I'm not doing much of anything right now because the space in which full service radio exists is uh temporarily closed. Uh, but I do have a radio network called Full Service Radio. And uh yeah, there's plenty of good stuff to check out there. Are you doing are you doing uh you're you're not doing it uh from people's houses?
You're like just on a hiatus, or it's just uh what's going on? Mostly a hiatus, some things are continuing. Um I'm doing a music show every week still, but yeah, it's pretty calm. I'm cooking most of the time. Oh, what are you cooking?
What have you cooked recently? Cooking through the PacPac book. Oh, nice. I just spoke to Andy Ricker a couple days ago. Yeah.
Oh, it's it's a great book. Yeah, I'm making trips to Falls Church and getting all the ingredients and it's a blast. Nice, nice. And uh our other by the way, that w they were a mismatched sponsor for us because you know they're there, they threw the word molecular. For those of you, I haven't gone on this rant in a long time because nobody has talked about this in a long time.
But everyone used to call everything molecular, molecular gastronomy, molecular debaggery, molecular, you know, skullduggery, whatever it was. And it I just used to get so ticked off by it, and I would just like immediately explode, and then the sponsor came in and was like, they were called molecular something, and I said, I was like, you understand that I can't say the name of your company without also making fun of it. And Jack, correct me if I'm wrong. They were like, ah, we're okay with it, we're okay with it. But then when they realized I was actually going to do it every single time.
Yeah, basically. They finally, they finally uh Well, so that that I think that's why I did the sponsor read and thus Jackie Molecules was born. Yeah, sweet Jackie Moles. And I I still I there are still moments, I mean, not now obviously, but if I'm traveling, I go to bars and somehow it comes up, they're like, You're Jackie Molecules, what? Yeah, dude.
It's it's stuck. The legend, the molecules. Uh, which is so funny because I can't imagine you like chilling with a whole t uh ton of hydrocolloids. It's just not your jam. Yeah.
It's not my thing, man. No. Anyway. Uh, and special guests, and this one I know a lot of people have been waiting for, and she's time limited, right? Time limited.
We have life coach, friend of the show, currently from Tulum, Mexico, broadcasting out of some sort of jungle paradise. Claire Sellers, how you doing? Hi. Oh my gosh, I'm so good. I'm so happy to be here.
And I just can't believe it's been 10 years. I mean, it feels like 20, right? It feels like 20. It feels like a hundred. Yeah.
I remember when when Stas, the hammer first started doing this. Weren't you guys doing it like in a weird place? Same place. Yeah. Yes, and same place.
Well, it feels like it's been a really long time. Um, and I've loved being part of it. Excited to celebrate you all today. Well, you know, Claire has a special skill of being able to instantly set me off. I don't know what it is about you, Claire.
I don't either. It's so it it must have been a past life situation or something between us. Yeah, I don't I don't know. I don't really understand it, but I do know this. I know that like the last time Claire was on, which was Nastasi, how long ago was that?
Oh god, a couple months ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Apparently, apparently I went off. Yeah, you are. We're not gonna replay that one on this air right now.
It was it was hard to get me back on after that. That's what I'm saying. I heard it was that, and you gotta understand, people, that like once I'm on a roll, it's like it's like a snowball. It just gets worse and worse and worse as it goes down the hill. It doesn't get better.
I don't like I don't suddenly moderate myself as I'm rolling down the hill, right? Yeah, that was bad. That almost yeah, Claire and I had a bad friendship for a couple weeks. Yeah, I was that was top three maddest I've ever been at you, hands down. That means you know number two.
They all happen in a very concentrated period. So Stoss must have been on bad behavior during that time. Well, I mean, duh. Duh. Wow.
But uh, yeah, well, I mean, the the the real problem with that one, Claire, and you guys will have to go look this up because again, we're not gonna play it on the air, is uh that the boondoggler, Rebecca, Rebecca the Boondogler, our our uh flack extraordinaire for Booker and Dax, she like was on my side. I think that's what tipped it to the evil zone for you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's not what we're here to talk about today, Claire.
No, but Dave, I'm not gonna be a little bit more than that. We're not here to talk about your love of Chardonnay. No, not love of Chardonnay, but are we here to talk about vegetes? I believe that you are here today to discuss the Vigetti Chronicles. This the Vig the Vegetti Chronicles, uh, for those of you that don't know what a vegetti is, it is a spiralizer.
It is a it's something it's a handheld. You jam your you jam your hard vegetable sticks into the vegetti, twist them off, and they get spiralized. Zero calorie zoodles is the result. Okay. So somehow Claire starts calling in with vegetti stuff, and then should we just listen to it?
Should we just listen to the clip or no? Let's just listen to Vegetti number one. Oh my gosh. My friend just got a vegetti. That is the grossest word you've ever done.
Ever. Do you know what it is? Yes. Why don't you describe to our like a spiralizer for vegetables? I want to spaghetti.
Like you can't really. No. Well, I mean like squash, including like zucchinis. Yeah. Yeah.
That's all. And then you make like veggie pastas and stuff like that. Yeah, pastas. Uh, what kind of non-English speaker was like vegetti? That's a good name.
Vigeti. Jack, would you ever like knowingly eat something that came out of a vegetti? I'm not gonna answer that question. Why would it? Not gonna answer that question.
Oh god, vegetti. Moving on. Yeah. But anyways. Answer the question, Jack.
Well, look. Maybe. But the stupid thing is it's supposed to be like healthy for you, but all the recipes say like use the vegetti and then fry the noodles and then, you know. Well, I hate any I hate anything who's pineapple. No, but it's stupid.
Yeah. Uh Wow, Vegetti. You just threw me for a loop. You threw me for a loop. I'll tell you what I don't like.
Uh here's what I Okay, okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. You know spaghetti squash? Yeah. You can't.
In the 70s, right? When I first became aware of spaghetti squash, because that's when I first became aware of anything, because that's the you know, I was born in 71. So uh what they would people would do, and by people I mean my mom, who's a great cook, great cook, and I actually just went to her, like uh I went to her anyway. Her she just got honored recently because she started the pediatric heart transplant program at Columbia University. Who, by the way, I did not realize this, did the first pediatric cardiac transplant successful anywhere.
Yeah. She did incredible days. Look, here's the thing. Everyone, uh, look, if for any surgeons that might be listening, you're not going to take an insult to this. Everyone's like, oh, it's the surgeon, it's a surgeon.
Listen, the surgeon comes in, they cut the heart out, they put the new heart in, they they they sew it back together, and then they're done. Like the the care beforehand and afterwards, right? Is there gonna be whether or not this person lives for a long time or doesn't? You know what I'm saying? More vegetti ever.
She's a cardiologist. Surgeon's a surgeon, cardiologist a cardiologist. Oh, is that the secret? You can't listen to your own tangents. Uh my point is, uh spaghetti squash.
So my mom used to make the spaghetti squash, but the problem is spaghetti squash can be delicious if you steam the sucker, right? Or whatever, roast, whatever. Shred it into its little noodle lips or whatever you call those things. And then like butter, like lots of butter and other stuff, maybe some crunchy stuff in. You know what it's not good as?
It's not freaking spaghetti. You don't put a can of uh or a jar of pasta sauce into the spaghetti squash. This is why they shouldn't have called it this. You know what I mean? Spaghetti squash carbonara.
It's gross. It's gross. It doesn't taste like spaghetti. I would go back to like uh to go back to what Jack was saying earlier. One of the few things uh I learned about making pasta.
I mean I may have made a lot, lot, lot of it, but you know, never I became very good at it, was that you could add anything to it to add color and it doesn't change the flavor. So, you know, originally I would care what I added to it to, and then eventually I'm like, ketchup, whatever. I want it to be red, I'm gonna dump a bunch of ketchup in. Because it doesn't matter. Like the vast majority of the ingredient is the flour, and there you're not gonna get any flavor out of it.
It's all left in. Agree, Stas? Yeah. Yeah. The the wine Santa.
No! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is very conf it's very confusing to hear ourselves talk about ourselves over ourselves. Oh yes, yeah, but you know, got it. It's like it's like mystery science theater, except it's you in the movie as well.
Well, yeah, no, except mystery science theater, mystery science theater episode. Yeah, exactly. It's like infinite regression of mystery science. It's insane. So listen, Claire was not satisfied with my, and now that I listen to it, I can see why, not satisfied with my clear non-response to the question of what to do with her vegetti.
So she called back in for the Vigetti Chronicles number two, which is actually the more important one, and I'm not able to go on tangents here because here it is a back and forth on the phone with Claire about her vegetti. Should we listen to it? Absolutely. This is this is the true payoff. So I hate to have to say this, but I have a caller on the line who's upset with the way you treated her vegetti.
Oh my goodness. Hi, Dave. Hi, God. Oh my goodness. I thought you were so embarrassed.
That's the greatest. That's the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. So, Dave, I was listening a couple weeks ago, and I heard you were talking badly about the vegetti. Uh just the name. The name.
The name. But you don't trust the noodle, the the product. Uh no, you don't trust the product. You said that noodle the you said that you didn't trust the product. We were talking about vegetable examples, and now they're not a mirror.
I think it could be an interesting, I think it could be an interesting, look, I mean, I think like shredded, like like daikon shreds and strips are delicious, right? Yeah. Many shredded things. Shredded. Or like strips, noodles.
Spiralize. Oh my gosh. You know what? All right. All right.
Uh and so you have a you have a you have a a vested steak in the in the vegetti device, or more just a love for it? I have a what? Are are you like part of the vegetti corporation, or do you just have uh just just have No, I just I got one because I'm, you know, trying to cut back on the carbs and it changed my life. I mean, you can you can use it for everything. Like um, vegetti carbonara, vegetti and meatballs.
I mean, it's like wait, did you say vegetti and meatballs? I mean, it's amazing. You can do vegetti fritters. Yeah. Dave looks like he wants to kill himself.
You ever done like sausage and vegetti, sausage in the gravy with the vegetti? I'm not gonna I'm not well here's the here here's uh okay. And what's your favorite things to v to to vegettiize? Or spiralize, as you would say. What are your favorite things to uh to spiralize in the vegeti?
Uh well I pretty much exclusively spiralize zucchini of the green and yellow variety. But doesn't that just turn on? I've never really done anything else. I don't I think that you know it has to be um a little bit soft. I think that like a potato or a carrot would be a little too much for the spiralizer tea, you know.
Now, how how big is the opening to the vegetti? How big is the opening to it? Like what what size of a veg can you stick into that thing? I mean, like a zucchini size. You could do a cucumber.
You could do like a cold cucumber salad. So you can put a cucumber in the vegetti. Okay. All right. All right.
All right, hold on. Here's my question then. Dave, I'm gonna send you one for your birthday. Uh all right. Well, we'll play around with it.
We'll play around with it. And and why don't you experiment with it and then you know, I'll I'll call back in and we can go from there. That's a fair deal. That's a fair deal. That's a good deal.
All right, we'll do. I have I haven't busted out a lot of like uh we haven't done a lot of side-by-sides or like you know, culinary tests in the past year or so because I've been you know focused more on bar and the cookbook and everything and the sears all. But we will definitely reopen our testing, uh, our the testing phase of our career with the vegetti. I look forward to it. Thanks, Claire.
Well, thank you. And I'll say that the Searzol and Vigetti are a great match. Well, we'll test it for you. Uh when you send it, send send your favorite things that you like to do. Bye by the way.
Oh my god. I would like my God. Okay. I would like to note that let's remember Claire likes a slightly soft thing to get shoved into her vegetti. That was my takeaway.
She likes, like, you know, if it's too hard, it doesn't really, it hurts the vegetti. You gotta go with a slightly softer, like a zucchini. That was the craziest thing ever. Claire, how much did you realize what you were saying as you were saying it? Well, now that I listened back, I'm like, why is Dave such a perv?
Oh, oh, oh, because I had to go such a long way to get there, right? Like, it was so hidden. The entire studio, we like could barely speak because it was so crazy. To answer your question, I didn't. I don't think I realized it.
I've never heard it. I never listened to these shows after, unless I'm on them. And go ahead. What? So I never realized.
I mean, yeah, it's it's highly sexual, but I don't think I realized that at the time. Uh-huh. So when you're talking about it. It's kind of awkward. I feel a little bit uncomfortable listening with that back, I'm not gonna lie.
When you yeah, when you saw the word vegetti, and they you were talking about shoving cucumbers and zucchinis into it, really nothing popped into your head? I mean, I'm sure something did, but I don't think to the to the degree that I was articulating it at the time. I had forgotten about the slightly soft Nastasia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my dude.
I mean, it was like send a vegetti. Yeah, I did. I'm a woman of my word, everybody. And I believe there was a Vegetti Chronicles part three at some point where once we spent the entire time talking about quote unquote things you could shove into the vegetti. Yep.
Yep. Yeah. I believe was the terminology that we used. Where Claire has to go. Claire, plug your stuff.
Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Plug away. Plug away. Well, as you all know, if you're following me on Instagram at Claire underscore Penelope, I am a life and career coach, and I help people find more fulfilling and meaningful work and create more freedom in their lives.
So would you say you help people choose what the right things to stick into their vegetti is? That's actually not part of my practice, but have you have you considered like some sort of like vegetti consulting, like the how to get good results out of your vegetti? No, but I mean after this, I feel like maybe that's something I should look into. How to love and care for your own vegetti. No, but I it's I that's a great um suggestion, B.
I appreciate that. Yeah. Ugh Tlume is so amazing. It's been yeah, it's just like really nice to be in paradise and relaxing and yeah, I'm very, very grateful. Hey hey, Claire, here's something you might like for entirely different reasons.
You're in Tulum. Well, so in Tulum, you can get the Melapona honey. That's where it's from. So like in fact, right outside of Tulum, I've never been there, but I've seen the pictures and wish I was there. There is a a shop, like a a a building that is a the Tulum kind of honey shop.
And inside of that, you can get the Melopona honey. Melopona honey is a is a stingless honey bee. There's actually less sugar. It's slightly less sweet than American honey. So American, well, the rest of the world's honey, not America.
The rest of the world's honey is about 82% sugar. And Melopona honey is somewhere like 70 or something, so a little more than than maple syrup. But uh it's made by these tiny uh stingless bees that um are you know becoming endangered. It's but people think it has health and medicinal qualities, and you know I don't care or agree with any of that stuff. But I love the taste of it, and you can really only get it where you are.
She went to go get some. Wow, that's no, no, Dave, do you know what's so crazy? I'm not even kidding you. Right now, I'm look I'm gonna send you guys a picture. I'm looking at a sign.
It says, Did you know these bees are called melopona and do not sting? They are not harmful. They are also known as the Mayan bees. They were raised by the Mayans. The honey they produce is rich and uses medical treatment in the Mayan communities.
There's a sign right here, and my friend got wait, she must have gotten stung by one of those, but she did get stung by a bee the other day. But anyway, source that honey for you. Oh well, here's the thing. Why don't you you know what if here's what I want you to do since you're down there, Claire. And since you're an entrepreneur, here's what you should do.
I am is uh is look on eBay in the United States and see how much people are charging for that. And then like that's it. That's your that's your money now. Wait, that's your money. Actually, I'm very interested.
Maybe we could partner together on that. I don't know. You gotta be careful. I don't want to exploit that. I like.
Here's the thing. I I know someone who knows someone who knows someone who used to smuggle in that stuff, but you we don't want to be in a in a quinoa situation where like you know all of a sudden no one who has you know culturally depended on this honey for centuries can't afford it anymore because some jerkweed in in San Francisco or New York wants to buy it all you know what I mean? Oh no we wouldn't we would do it ethically for sure let me do some research talk to some people and then we can definitely recruit on that I love the idea stuff that would be fun for us to do together too do you know that the very first business that Nastasia ever started was actually with me do tell well it's called borrowed horses and it was we got the idea because I have photo proof of this I got the idea well we got the idea because we were working in Switzerland where we met in case you don't know our origin story I'm sure we've talked about it before that we met working in Switzerland and we found we were cooking for like a hundred and fifty foreign children and at this camp and we saw we were going on a walk one day and we saw this field and there were all these horses in the field and I'm uh somewhat accomplished equestrian some would say and so I just like hopped the fence and started riding these horses and Nastasia like took all these pictures she never rode them I feel like but it was just like the most magical situation ever. And so then a few weeks later we were on the beach in the south of France, and on the back of a baguette bag, we wrote out our business plan for this like food experience company called Borrowed horses. And we actually found the email the other like a few weeks ago.
And the stuff that we've put on the menu is just like shameful. Like it felt like it was from the 90s. It was so like not cool anymore. But that was like beat beaten goat cheese salad while you steal somebody's horse. You know they kill horse thieves.
Well, I what I made friends with the farmer after. Uh-huh. Friends. It's hard to get mad at me. You're the only person I know who actually gets mad at me.
That can't be true. Literally, I I honestly can't think of the last time anyone was mad at me except you. Yeah. Well, I'm not allowed to talk about it, but okay. Well, Stas gets mad at me too.
Well, let's not forget. I mean, okay, okay. I'm not gonna bring up the count chocula. I won't bring up the count chocula. There'll be no mention.
Yeah, but with count chocolate, I I freaking bought her five boxes of count chocula to replace the half bag I ate. Listen, I still don't understand that. When you punch yourself in the face, it doesn't mean you didn't punch that other person in the face first. I don't want someone's anger over, you boil their anger over, and then you do something to make up for it, doesn't actually make up for it. Nastasi, am I right on this or no?
Yes, it does. We're not getting into it. Clearly appreciate so illogical. Okay. Okay.
Listen, Nastasi is building up all year. She's like, it's gonna be count chocolate time. It's going to be count chocolate time. And then like she buys the count chocolate, she like puts flowers around it. She makes like you know, like uh like in that movie Midsummer, like the flower garland around it, and people are getting murdered all around her, but the count chocolates in its own cabinet.
It's like count chocolate. She comes back and boom. Desecrated with face cream. But can I also just I I don't even like remember how this came out, but just for sake of painting the full picture for the audience here, since I know they typically do side with me. I was actually on a train at three o'clock in the morning from New York City to Connecticut to go be with my friend, my dear friend Nastasia, to go be with her so that I could be present or in the early morning to help her set up for our Halloween party.
That's an interesting lie to tell. You know the train stopped before. Yeah, I did need a snack. You know the train stopped before three? No.
What, Amtrak? Metro North doesn't I it was literally like it was literally the middle of the night, and I was on a train in Connecticut on the way to Connecticut. And I took a car, a cab, whatever. Oh, she was on the first morning train. So I like the three 40s and just sit with that.
Oh, um, when you're when you're thinking about the situation, just sit with that. I'll sit with it. Yeah, because I mean I can already tell by your energy that you feel bad. So I think thank you, Clara, for coming on. Dave, I really miss you so much, and yeah, it's just always so nice to be on the show and to be with you guys, and you know, to connect in this way.
If there's ever a live show again, you can you're welcome back anytime, Claire. Oh Dave, I love that we're ending on such a high and special note. I never want to speak to you again. A high note is you're welcome to come back on the show. That's it.
And I'm honestly like, I'll come back next week. You can't get a plane over here, but I don't mean uh on this kind of stuff. Yeah, alright. Well, anyway, so uh next time though, you know, come up with something fresh to set me off. I'm sure it'll be easy for you because you have a magic ability.
I'm just gonna tee that up right now because I've been doing something very interesting called food combining. Have you ever heard of that? No, go ahead. It's where and stop little stosis. I did a 22-day detox, and part of it is doing food finding.
So I did a I did a 22-day like food um detox. So it's what were you detoxing from? All the bad things that we eat. So it's SOS free, salt built. Oh god.
Salt oil sugar-free, SOS free. You know your body doesn't function without salt. You know that, right? Actually, you know, you can't get your ion channels going without salt. Yes, there's not an there's not a food in the world that doesn't have some level of sodium in it.
That's like a scientific fact. Do you have salt-induced uh high blood pressure? No, but I take iodine supplements. Why? Because you don't use salt?
Well, I've started to use salt since. Are you familiar with the with the the three six mafia song in which they eat so many shrimp they get iodine poisoning? And then if you go research that, the number of pounds of shrimp required to get iodine poisoning is like 50 or 60 pounds of shrimp in one sitting. Oh, love that. Yeah.
That's a song. It is. And it is the greatest uh it's the greatest blimp shrimp rhyme couplet, I think that has ever been uh sung by any group ever. Wow. We eat so many shrimp.
And notice they didn't end on the shrimp. They built the rhyme into the next line. Keep the dopiends higher than the good year blimp. We eat so many shrimp, we get iodine poisoning. And amazing use of the correct plural shrimp and not shrimps.
Yeah, well, I think we all know it. I I think we all know that shrimp is not a word. What, shrimps? I I I will like in in by when I'm by myself, I will say shrimps. Yeah, me too.
I don't is that even a word though? I mean, I don't know. I won't say it in public. In public, I know it's shrimp, but to myself, I'm like, shrimps. What are you gonna have tonight?
Shrimps! Like that. I mean, I like shrimp. You know, there's a British there's I just saw there's a British woman's wear clothing design brand called shrimps. Of course there is.
Shrimps.com. Free plug for them. Claire. Oh man, sweaty. I don't want to get into this detox because I'm gonna lose my mind.
The whole idea of detoxing. I'm vibrating so fast that I could play the flash on TV right now. You know I hate the idea of detoxing. And I want to call I wanna I I want to write a whole book on retoxing because I think that we all need to retox up, right? Well, I really just want to like key that up for you.
It's not like it's not like whatever. I don't I'm not gonna get into it, but let me ask you this. What is your favorite shrimps preparation? Um, like very simple with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, done. Raw one minute eat no.
Head on, head off. Off everything off. Ooh, okay. For sure. Um, okay, I really do have to run, but I'm definitely going to ew no, that's disgusting.
That's like actually expensive. You bit you've been to Spain. You've never had the the awesome head on shrimp where you rip the head off and suck on the head. I do it if it's necessary, but not by because I enjoy it. Oh my god.
Stas, what do you think about sucking the head of the shrimp? I'm gonna leave you guys on that note. Dave, I love you so much. It's such an honor to be here for y'all's anniversary. And I'm so excited that Dave and I are, you know, back in cahoots and yeah, excited to continue the journey for another 10.
Let's do it. Yeah, yeah. Amen to that. Stab me. All right.
Sending you all love and blessings from Talum. Bye, Claire. Bye. Bye, Claire. I I know what you did, Dave, by the way.
You you career coached Claire about the honey plan. Oh my goodness. So you've like, you've become the master. See that? See that?
I don't even think she realized what was happening that you usurped her. Well, you know. I like to slip around, slip around. I take the I I take the the the back road around there. Anyway, alright.
So uh DB Nichols wrote in, uh, Matt McGowan, uh, one of my cooks gave me the buttons of the sandwich line, and I was prepared with a capital P because of all of our screaming about sandwiches. Thanks for the memories. We're not gonna get into the sandwich debate, correct, Stas? Right. Yeah.
Somebody else also said that uh Sergio Torn wrote in and said, favorite moment is is me giving a dictionary description of a sandwich and defending it with lawyers' arguments. Okay, listen. Listen, listen. Uh okay, okay, okay. I gotta calm down here.
Let's let's just let's look at this in a from a number of different perspectives, okay? Define sandwich, Don. I believe a sandwich involves two things of starch. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Rice?
Something in between. Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. Squish rice? All right, right. Arranged horizontally.
I think you can make things with rice crackers. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That is a no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. You could make a you could make uh, what is it, uh, a mozzarella?
Rich crackers with peanut butter. Is that a freaking sandwich? Is matzah with peanut butter in between a sandwich. You know what an Oreo is? A sandwich cookie.
Not a sandwich. So sandwich is an adjective as well as a noun. Sandwich is a category of the way you stack. First of all. It could be a bad sandwich.
No, no, no. First of all. Sandwich you don't want. Sandwich is sandwich is made. Here's a sandwich is with bread.
Bread. Break. Once again, I go I go to the matzah example, then. It is the the bread of suffering. It is the, you know.
Are you going to deny the Jews their bread when they're running away from the Egyptians? Two pieces of pizza flipped on themselves. Are they a freaking sandwich? Only if there's something in between, but it's not pizza. Is a calzone a sandwich?
No, because it's round. It's calzar. What? It's like it's like a burrito. What?
Burrito, definitely not a freaking sandwich. Clearly, much like a wrap. Oh, zone. Oh yeah, wait, wait, wait, wait. Quesadilla not then, because it's it's folded.
Okay, here's the question then. What about a freaking if you if you were down to the last slice of bread and you wanted to make a sad grilled cheese, and you folded that last piece of bread in half with cheese and you've made it on a griddle, is that still a grilled cheese? If you believed in God, you would cut the bread in half rather than fold it. Or even if you were an atheist with like uh iota of self-respect. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like but I don't know that this folded thing. For instance, a lobster roll is a sandwich. And it's made on a split bun.
Definitely not. It's a freaking sandwich. It's a hot dog a sandwich then? Obviously not. I mean, in other words, it is a sandwich, but it gets its own category.
Right? It gets its own category. The only the only thing that gets its own category is hamburger. Hamburger gets its own freaking category. What's a paddy milk?
What's a patty milk? It's a kind of hamburger. My question is now a matter of horizontal versus vertical and how you actually consume. How would you construct a vertical quesadilla? No, that's the that the hot dog is vertical.
Or or long, then it is like split. The split in the bread is vertical, is what you're saying. Exactly. Okay. So whereas a Italian sauce is a little bit more than a few years ago.
So when you buy a crappy when you buy a crappy hot dog freaking bun, and you open it too much to toast it because you're one of those people that toast their freaking hot dog buns, right? And it breaks into two and you hand them that crippled hot dog that falls through the thing. Is it now a freaking sandwich? No, you have to hold it sideways. No, because if it's fallen through, it's still vertically stacked.
It's not horizontally stacked. But then if you have to like rotate it 90 degrees. Now it's a sandwich? Now you now you have a failure of a hot dog. So the Oxford dictionary, what do we think?
An item of food consisting of two pieces of bread. Two pieces. Mm-hmm with meat, cheese, or other filling in between them. Eaten as a light meal. So when you say that's oxygen, it shows what they know.
Oxford, by the way. Sandwich not a sandwich. Oxford English Dictionary, world renowned for being crappy when it comes to definitions of food or etymologies related to food or historical timelines related to food. World renowned for being the worst. Where did he go?
Where'd she go? To life. To life. The company subway, right? Do they manufacture sandwiches?
A sub is a subcategory of sandwich, yes. Even though they're not split all the way in two anymore? Look, in the old days, they would take the knife and then it would go shippy shippy shippy shippy shippy and rip the V out, and then the V would be a pseudo-top to it. Now they just slice it in half because they're too inept to use the V slice anymore. And that's why if you get a subway now versus a subway 15, 20 years ago, it used to be you could eat them without it spraying all over the inside of everything, and now everything sprays everywhere because it's just a little bit more.
Because I get lots of toppings. I enjoy mayonnaise and mustard. And so, like, this stuff like they they put it at the end and it freaking extrudes out of the side like the most important thing in sandwich is not the definition, it's the construction, the layering that goes into a proper sandwich. That's true. It's true.
The worst thing you can do somebody is to silo their uh burrito. Have you ever done this as a joke? No, what is it? When you give them when you make a burrito for somebody, you make them in silos of all the different ingredients the wrong way. No, but that shows why a burrito is a piece of crap.
Because it's got just too much freaking like I want my rice and beans separately. I want a small object, like that I can consume. Burrito's e burrito, first of all, uh like a burrito is an inferior chimichanga. Right? And an inferior enchilada, it's like an inferior, it's an inferior product, no?
It's an inferior product, I agree. Yeah. What do you think, Ariel? Inferior to what? Well, like, for instance, like it would be better just if you deep fried it and turn it to a chibichanga.
That's true. I would always rather have like two or three tacos than a burrito. Oh, a hundred percent of the case. Yeah. I'd rather have taquitos than a burrito.
I would rather have enchiladas, even though it's totally different than a burrito. And I would rat I would rather have a quesadilla, frankly, than a burrito. But is it a sandwich? Quesadilla? Here's another thing.
Like, is this is an open face sandwich, even though it's called open-faced sandwich, a sandwich. Not according to the Oxford English idiots. I would say yes, because the normal form is closed, and you have to denote that it has been opened. But it doesn't serve, they don't start it with an extraordinary. But don't a sandwich you have to eat with your hands?
Oh. Here's an interesting question. Bill de Blasio would say you can eat anything with a knife and fork, including pizza. Well, like in the wrong about that. In i i in Denmark, where I usually live, we have like open face sandwiches.
See, I guess it's more about you. Which are impossible to eat with your hands. Oh, yeah, smorabrot is always, always open. It is the net the normal form of a smorgas is already open. Yeah.
So you didn't take a sandwich and open it to make a smorgas. It always. But then if you ask a Danish person what a smorabrot is, they're oh, open face sandwiches. But why would you ask a Danish person that? They're just being polite.
They're trying to translate it because they all speak English and they're not worried about the like the the nicety, the fine points of the language, right? You mean right? And we're putting it in, putting in for reference for the people. It's gonna it's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna show up. It's gonna show up.
Now Justin wrote in and said, uh uh, of the all of the dumb song things that I bust into. By the way, you missed it uh before when before we were live, I was doing some uh Dan Fogarty stuff, right? I was doing my Dan Fogarty imitation, but uh Justin's is my uh favorite is my Bobby Womack's uh 110th Street stuff, which I don't even we couldn't find it. We looked for it and we couldn't find it. Someone, I forget who it was, one of our uh listeners very kindly machine transcripted everything, but oh wow the machine the yeah, yeah, you can search it.
Uh uh John, what's the website? Do you know? I think it's just cooking issues. Cooking issues transcript.com. Yeah.
But like, for instance, and this is now my favorite thing ever, and I can't believe I didn't introduce her as such. Nastasia is is transcribed by the machine as Miss Tasha the Lopez. Excellent. Miss Tasha the Lopez. I didn't oh god, I didn't look at enough of them to know that.
That's great. The Lopez. And then sometimes it's like Miss Tasha the Lopez, the hammer. Like it's like some series of titles, which I love. You think you could ever go with Ms.
Tasha the Lopez? No. No. I mean, you will in the show notes for this show until I forget to stop doing it. Has anyone ever called you Tasha?
No, no. Oof. What's the worst of all of the manglings of your name? What's the worst? Natasha.
I don't like Natasha because it's so lazy and it's as if they don't see the S's. Or they're not even looking at the. It's it's crazy. There's no H that stands out, you know? I don't I don't understand.
Lazy. I have I have been in meetings with you where I will say, hey, Nastasia, and then they will say, Natasha, and I'll be like, hey, Nastasia, and then they'll be like, how many times has that happened to us? A lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. Yeah. It's like because people are no better, and I can't say their names, or they'll start talking, but the A word that Amazon uses and the S word that Apple uses, like, one of my gripes, they they they kill John's name, they kill Nastasia's name, and I will sit there, I will pronounce it correctly.
It will hear what I am saying, right? And then it will assume that it knows better than I do, and it will mispronounce their name back. I hate it. I hate it. Like John, John, I'm like, call you know, call pronounce your name correctly for the people.
Jean or John, yeah. And and then in the last name. Right. John Nihul. Now, you say that to see to okay.
When you say that to the S person, she's like, you say it just like that, and she's like, calling Gene How. I'm like, no. Jerk? Anyway. Jerk.
Um, yeah, she's terrible. She's a terrible person. Um, what's Nastasia? Do you have a favorite dumb thing that I sing over and over? I love that one.
I like I like when you do um Ario speed wagon stuff. Uh yeah. Can't think of who else. Alright, what's okay? We what what's wider?
Aryo Speedwagon or Boston. No, no. You know what I really like? I really like your association stuff. Oh my god.
It's because that's because we were sitting there in in the house where they had recorded. Did they they did Cherish in that house? Where which ones did they do in that house? I think they did all of the like Cherish and Wendy and Which by the way, Wendy, when you were a kid, didn't you think it was Wendy? No.
Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. I bet you Claire likes that freaking song. Are you gonna do 110th Street right now? I don't know. I don't know whether I'm feeling it.
Yeah, we don't have the clip. You gotta do it. You gotta do a lot. I don't know. I'm feeling it.
We'll see. I liked this one so much that I kept it, and here we go. If through Chester, you should junt go to Grano Arso's restaurant. Oh yeah! There's my man uh putting out some props for my man uh Joel Gargano, who by the way did a heavy metal cooking issue thing, which we couldn't find to cue up right now, but he did the cooking issues!
Remember that one? Stas did not uh she's not that it's not her kind of music. Not down with the metal. It's not her kind of music. Wait, wait, say what?
It just goes out to the demographic of who our audience is when we use that song. So Jackie, so the the current beeny peen teeny penny penny put it like that is, I believe it was Jackie Molecules did a non-copyright number of the colours. Oh, that wasn't me. That was another listener. I don't know who did it, but some generous listener put that together.
Right, because the original we were using was the cocktail jazz, uh, you know, great Amos Milburn's Vicious Vicious vodka, oh you dirty rat. Vicious, vicious vodka, oh you dirty rat. He also did such classics as Milk and Water, Milk and Water Now. Um, I don't know if you can tell this, most of his songs about drinking or eating. Which is why cocktail jazz, by the way, for as much as people make fun of that uh whole genre of music as as an art form, for someone who likes songs about food and drinking, like that's all they're about.
You know what I mean? Really? Really good at it compared to whom? Um a week ago, or compared to someone who does it professionally? I thought I was good, but I guess I'm not saying you're not good.
I'm wondering what you're what you're judging against. In other words, are you saying that you're making rapid progress? Or are you saying you're ready to play out? I'm trying to figure out what you're saying. I'm making rapid progress in my jazz playing.
Ah, that's awesome. You should play for us. Where's the where's the no? I don't feel like it anymore. What?
No. Come on. What kind of jazz? Nothing. Oh, give me a what the heck is this?
I was just trying to get a read for where you were, and now all of a sudden you're gonna get all insulted. Let's move on with the show. What? She's just trying to she's trying to like do that to again to make me look bad. You walked into the trap, dude.
I did. I walked into the trap. What is your is what keyboard do you have? Do you have a real piano or a keyboard? I can't remember.
Keyboard. What keyboard do you have? Um, I'm upstairs right now. I don't know what it is. But does it have like touch sensitivity?
Is it like a nice one? Yes. Yeah. You want to say it's if if it's better than we we got, you know how like uh everyone like for an entry-level keyboard for years would buy the Yamaha because their piano sounds were the best sounds for the money. Anyone know what I'm talking about?
Yep. Yeah. So I have one of those, uh, you know, and Booker refuses to play it. So if you want if if you are not happy with your piano sound on your keyboard, you can use and I forget whether it's a full 88 or whether it's like one octave short. I can't remember.
I'd have to look at it, but yeah, I like who needs mine. I think mine's a Yamaha, but yeah. Oh yeah. Why why I guess it's because they make pianos for a living that they were like, we're gonna get this piano sound just right. You know what I mean?
Yeah. So when you say jazz piano, we're gonna go back to this because I'm not gonna let it go. What era, what style? Well, I have to play a lot of basically I'm just learning jazz chords. So I had to do um.
Hello? Wait, what happened? Did we just lost her? Did she run downstairs to get the keyboard? Got so excited talking about jazz chords.
I have to do it like this. She just like she turned into a cloud. She like vaporized. That was crazy. Anyway.
That's I don't know. I don't understand it. She was like literally in the middle of talking about the chords. I remember Nastasia. Well, like that was a cooking issue.
That was it. But she's just she she vaporized. She's she turned to a vapor. The deep state jazz lobby didn't want the secrets revealed. And uh they're like, they're like, no one talks about the fake book.
And that was it. Damn, I love the idea of Saz playing jazz piano, the rocks. Well, uh, so the the like that's the question. I'm wondering whether she's like getting interested because it's kind of a sad time to get interested in playing jazz because how are you gonna be with somebody else? Are people getting online?
Is the latency low enough that people can get online and play jazz with each other? Oh yeah, definitely not, right? Can it be? No, I don't know. I don't think so.
But you know, sitting around the house playing some nice seven, nine chords, so that's cool. Spices things up. It also is something to look forward to. You'd be like, I'm gonna get good enough at this during quarantine that I could go sit in with some people once I'm allowed to do that again. That's how I learned bass, by the way.
I was uh I was at home uh in the summertime. Oh, she's back. My computer went on the Wi-Fi network that isn't my Wi-Fi network, and then it's so we were saying, like, so is like uh I'm assuming that what's what is interesting because Nastasia, I'm gonna tell you a secret about Nastasia, that Nastasia loves reading musicians' uh biographies. Yeah. So is it that you love the idea that like they're all improvising together at the same time?
Why I like playing jazz? No, you know why? Because I realized so I learned piano when I was little, but I never learned chords and chord progression and stuff. And I realize that when I play music, I do not think about anything else. I am so focused on it that I don't my mind just stops thinking, and I really like that feeling.
Oh yeah. That's why I like playing music. But I but it only works for me when I'm playing live. Yeah, it works for me whenever I play. It also works for me when I'm giving talks.
But my brain is when I'm giving a talk, my brain is basically off, and I'm a I'm a complete stream of consciousness. I don't know if I don't know if that's clear. You don't say. All right. Uh Jenny Calamus wrote in and said, uh, favorite thing is when I go into a tangent and it leads to another tangent.
Well, you're welcome. Wow, what an enabler. What an enabler. I know. The vast majority of cooking issues duration.
Well, it's just tangent after tangent. Tangents on tangents, yeah. Tangents on top of tangents inside of another tangent. Well, it's you know, whatever. Um we gotta figure out.
Apparently, Nastasia, uh, James Hine wrote and said that we were gonna write a Searsol cookbook. Oh, Piper was supposed to do that. Here's what happened. He quit. That's that.
And they're endeth the cookbook. Look, I I I'm supposed to write a cookbook for uh Norton uh Norton and Norton about the miracle of moisture management, and I am indeed working on it, but like the odds that I write a Sears all cookbook um on a scale of like of like laughably low to zero, I would say like what do you think, Stas? Zero? Yeah, zero. You're not writing that.
You're not even gonna write your fing C V cookbook. Yeah, laughable. Oh, cursing. I am writing it, and it's not gonna be just about C Vide. I've decided it's not just gonna be about C Vede.
It's about the miracle of moisture management. Do you hear nothing? So you're going so it'll be out in like 10 years. Why are you so mean to me all the time? John, what do you think?
Wanna play some baths? Yeah, laughably less. I don't think we're gonna happen. Are we talking about my my book or the Sears All book? Uh your book.
Yeah, now we're taking bets on the timeline for release on moisture management. Yeah, miracle of moisture management. I don't know. I'll say two more years. Okay.
Let me just tell you. Let me just tell you, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me tell you how this works. For those of you that have never written a book before, and maybe it's changed since the COVID. I don't know.
You write the book. After you write the book, you then do the uh you then do the uh the photos for the book. Some people shoot at the same time, whatever. Once that's done, once you hand it in, it's about a year before it comes out. Now, you might not believe this, but because you're used to like something happening in the news, and then like there's a book about it the next week.
That is a whole different style of publishing than people do for cookbooks, right? So like those like you know, straight to paperback or like mass market fast things. Like they, you know, they hire a reporter who you know wakes up, starts typing, you know, the stuff comes out of their word processor basically, edited. It takes you know, minimal stuff, minimal design work, shoved into a book, printed instantly, and sent out so they can do a book in a couple of weeks. But real real, like regular books, like from the minute I hand it in, it is a year before it comes out.
So your bets are when I hand it in or when it when it is actually on the presses and people can get busy not buying it. My bet is ten years, people can buy it. You're so mean. So mean. I'll probably say like three years to write it, a year to get the photographs done, because I know how long it's taking you to Photoshop those pictures for Amazon.
No, people, I stopped doing that. Here's the thing. If just so she's know, if it doesn't happen, it means I'm not doing it. I'll I showed, okay. So here's the thing.
We sent out, so we make some products. The Searsol, is it blessedly back in stock yet, or no, Stas? No. Okay. Soon though, right?
Any day now? No, hopefully. Anyway. The spinzall is out of stock. We you can no longer purchase a culinary centrifuge.
And we've been the factory, is this long sob story? They they changed factory buildings. The company did literally, there are giant metal molds that are used for them to inject the plastic in for our parts that we paid unconscionable amount of money for, right, Stas? Yes. Like for those of you that have built things in the past, like professionals, like we spent like 10 times as much as we were supposed to on tooling.
I have I have caused like uh people who are experienced in this to do spit takes when they hear how much we paid for the tooling. Laughably, it's because at the time our agent was a company that was taking a much bigger cut. They were buying it from someone who's taking a much bigger cut. So by the time it got to us, we were paying like three times normal normal price. So we pay this unconscionable amount of money for these giant hunks of metal that are used to inject the parts to make the uh spinzall, and they straight up lost them.
You know what I mean? Yeah, they straight up lost them. They couldn't find them. They're like, hey, hey, we don't know where they are. We'll find them someday, but the good news is you're not a priority.
Stas, is that basically how it went? Yeah. So they have found them. And here's another thing. Here's another thing you might not know.
In every factory, for everything like this, there is straight up, this is real, a set of binders with the pieces of paper in it that have all of the things that they have to do to make a product. This screw is this, it's made out of this, this is this, but all of the testing, all of that. They also lost the notebook. But I think they found the notebook, right, Stas? Right.
But we don't yet have uh um uh what's it called? Uh an ETA on when they can make a batch because we're trying to negotiate with them to make a couple of changes. Don't worry, still backward compatible people, but um so we don't have any real word on when that's gonna come back. So we did some some product shots for that for the Sears all uh and for the this you know, the cocktail cube, the the little texturizer cube. But the thing is is that that was kind of an added bonus picture.
We didn't know that people were gonna, you know, that we were gonna get that shot. They and so they they put branded liquor bottles in the picture and then defocused it a little bit, thinking that was enough. But any liquor person would look at the label and be like, oh, that's that. You know what I mean? And it's not cool to have other people's products in your product shot.
So then I was like, well, I could go into Photoshop and just you know, erase the label, but then it looks weird, right? And so I looked at it, I'm like, that looks weird. I don't know what to do. And so every literally every day, Nastasia has John call me and this is true, every day. Well, no, she doesn't tell me to do.
I mean, yeah, no, I do that to work. It's part of your work. I'm reminding you to do it. Yeah, yeah. But until I figure out how to make it not look weird, I'm just not gonna do it.
Okay. But like, I appreciate the the writing. No problem. Uh so Scott wrote in and said that uh his favorite thing was uh when I argued that the cumulative cost of a family cereal consumption over time is the same whether everyone shares or each person gets their own box. Wow, I don't even remember that, but that is true.
Uh at this point I knew his genius and have listened ever since. Well, I appreciate it. Uh so yeah. Oh, and he adds Alaska did not erase the scars from the ridicule I faced from fishing for prizes in family cereal boxes over the years. Now, you guys who are who are left with us, what are your what are your policies on diving for the prize?
As a kid, I was definitely pro. I would try and get in there before my siblings could. Yeah, of course. As a kid. Yeah, it's a no-brainer.
I was an only child, so for me, like I was gonna get that dang prize anyway. We weren't allowed, we weren't allowed to do that. We had a wait to see which either my brother and I which one it would fall out in on its own. Nastasia, I've known you a long time. You're telling me that you didn't set yourself up for success.
No, I didn't. I was a really good child. Hmm. So when did you change? With you, I guess.
I say the same thing about you. You're saying that like we bring out the worst in each in each other? I guess. Awesome. Uh I used to when I when your problem when you're a kid is you do the fist, you fist the cereal, and you go in, and somehow the box never looks flat enough again.
And then how good I became very good, even though I was an only child, I'm also I don't know if you know this, I'm impatient. Yeah, yeah. And so like I would sit there and take the box and go up on the sides of it and make it kind of flat again. You know what I'm talking about? Yes, I can imagine.
Uh yeah. You really wanted those. Were those toys that good? They were that good, huh? Yeah.
Alright. No, they were always disappointing. But the the the wish for them. All right. Yeah.
What are your favorite cereal toys that you've ever received? I actually don't recall any of the specifics of cereal toys. Yeah. Low quality individual there, Matt. Nastasi, what do you got?
Silly putty. You got silly putty in cereal? Yeah. Yeah, what? How?
That's pretty awesome. Little, little, little, a little one, you know. That's amazing. Oh, and speaking of speaking of someone else's favorite, here's Booker. He can't hear you, but here's Booker on our 10th anniversary show.
Booker, say hello. Hi. Hi, Walker. Booker, by the way, is like eight feet taller than I am now. Booker is like six foot like one or something crazy.
And this is exclusively off of eating sushi and candy. Like sushi and candy is all the kid eats, and yet he's still like way taller than I am. What a life. Right? Sushi and candy.
Umly putty. That is so badass. Huh. What about you, Jack? What do you got?
I feel like some kind of action figure, usually, right? That was all I can really remember. Some like no action figure though, right? It's just a piece of cardboard with like a rivet in it. Or like a bootloading parts for a lot of things.
Like a boot like a bootleg troll or something, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The worst was that where when they said it was a prize inside, but it was something that you had to then actually cut the box apart and like put together with some sort of like joker thing that was inside the box. Worst. Worst.
What about you, John? What do you got? What do you got for cereal prizes? I don't remember anything good other than just like those crappy wash-off tattoos. Oh, those suck.
Let me let me let me. I thought you were gonna pull up me. I was in Paris. We didn't have those cereal prizes. No, they the French had cereal prizes too.
Like what? Like a baguette inside of your cereal box? I don't know. I don't remember. I remember one year we got a bag of dog food and there was a pocket knife in there.
Oh yeah, dude. Yeah. Oh man. Let's move to France where you get a pocket knife in every bag of dog food. That's sick.
I love that. Yeah. I love that. Um see for me, there was a there was a box of Captain Crunch once, and I can remember it because uh where we used to store this. This is in uh in New Jersey when I used to live in New Jersey.
We had the the the cabinet where the cereal boxes were, which is like right below where the giant coffee grinder was that I pulled onto my head when I was a kid and split my head open and had to go get stitches. And then next to the cereal is where we kept the jar of tang, which I don't think we ever made liquid tang. I would just spoon that stuff. I was one of those spoon tang kids, you know what I'm saying? Where you just like sit there and like like pound Tang with a spoon.
Any of you ever had Tang? Yeah. Yeah, tank. Anyway, Captain Crunch had in it a submarine, plastic submarine that you fill with baking soda, and it would like putter around with the baking soda somehow. It would like make some fizz.
I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it was supposed to like travel around in the bottom of a glass. And although it didn't work and it sucked, and I threw it away instantly, the idea that I would have this miniature submarine, this blue plastic submarine from the Captain Crunch box was, you know, I still remember the anticipation was better than the disappointment of it of it being terrible. I'm Ethan Frisch, co-host of Why Food and co-founder of Burlap and Barrel, a public benefit corporation working directly with smallholder spice farmers around the world to source unique, beautiful spices for professional chefs and home cooks. We set our partner farmers up to export their own crops for the first time. And they get access to a whole new market here in the U.S.
And we get access to spices that other companies can't source. We're honored to work with restaurants including Eleven Madison Park, Blue Hill, and Chapanese, as well as thousands of home cooks across the country. Visit us at burlap and barrel.com. Ooh. John Secord's favorite moment, Nastasia.
And this is one that uh, you know, our our friend uh Steven from La Pinultima was there for in the real life. Hands down, my favorite story was the death of wine Santa at the botanical gardens. Man. That was good. Do you want to cue that?
Do you want to cue that at this uh cue it when it gets going at 6 15? It's at the Heritage Radio thing. We're filling it with red wine. This is at the gala, which was a fun event, right? Yes.
Yes. So she fills it with red wine. Uh, we get it going. Uh, we have she makes me go out to a hardware store. Hours I have to think about this crap and like get a screw to screw the bowl into Santa's chest, into Santa's sternum, so that the bowl won't flip around.
Yeah. And uh one of the event organizers, I don't even remember who, uh, I don't know whether they were on the Brooklyn Botanical Garden side or on our side. Anyway, I I'm walking behind her because I have to get napkins to continuously wipe up the dripping red wine all over the floor. And the giant splash of red wine, which thank God did not get on the felt plant art that was all over the wall. It almost did, and I spent Tuesday cleaning wine off the wall.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So, anyways. It was it was not bad. So this lady is walking, I'm walking behind her, and she goes, That's horrifying.
I want it 86. And then the guy from the botanical card was like, I don't know if we can you know the guy I'm talking about. I don't know if we could 86 it. They brought it, it's from the people. Anyway, so she's like, uh so they pull wine Santa, we drain the wine out, and they say you can't bring wine Santa back out until 9 p.m.
Okay. So at 8 30, Nastasia's like, it's nine somewhere. And she goes, and first of all, there are pictures of this wine Santa, which looks all beat up, like all like silicone glue and spray paint, nightmare. And it's turned against the wall like it's being punished in elementary school. She goes, she there's pictures.
So she goes and she pulls it out this time, Jack Shram from you know, uh uh existing conditions. He's like, Let's fill it with vodka instead. Thank God for Jack Shram. Well, I mean, horrifying in a different way, a warm vodka spout is hard gross. Yes, but it was with the remains of the Malbec that you had had it in earlier.
It's hard nasty all the way around. So they turn it on, it's, I don't know, some form of cool in the gang or something they're playing. Santa's dancing. All of a sudden, you see Santa's like, oh, oh, whoa. So Santa starts, Santa all of a sudden's like, I can't do this anymore.
Blah! And Santa just starts tipping forward. So Steven Hoppy from uh uh La Penultima, who came to the event, he's standing next to Santa. He's like, I'm gonna save this. Only Santa had already crossed like the 30 to 40 degree tilt.
So he iron palms Santa in the chest. As he iron palms Santa in the chest, Santa's head flies right off. Santa's head just goes tumbling through the air, flying across the hallway, and then and then like just goes around Steve's hand and just hits the ground and then keeps on dancing in a pile of his own vomit and and vodka, like at least it was vodka. And like you can't see on the radio because it's not a visual medium, but just imagine your hands just slowly pumping back and forth while your face, well, not even face down, doesn't have a face anymore, head fell off. Like chest down, dying in your own pool of vodka blood and vomit.
And that was the wine set. So then the next day Nastasia's like, So you're gonna help me build that again? I was like, what? What? Or 9.2 anyway, so like whatever.
So I'm like, you know what? So no, she's this is how Nastasia gets you. This is how terrible Nastasia is. I have all of the things she doesn't talk like that. She's right here, you know what she talks like.
She's like, I have all of the things we need to build, yeah, pasta flyer. I'm like, you have nothing, that pasta flyer with which to build this. She plans on building it out as we're getting. She's like, I have a hand auger and like uh and like a screwdriver. I'm like, listen.
It's all like, I'm like, and then she's gonna take Jack Tram, the head bartender from existing conditions, and waste his free time. What? He did not want to do it you force people in, and then you say they want to do it. Don't anyone say I wanted to do this. I never want to hear that I wanted to do this.
So I'm like looking at her and at Jack, and I'm like, you're both idiots. Neither of you, A, have the skills to do this, neither do you have the tools. So we went to New Lab with a shop that Booker and Dax, you know, has a is a member of, and we had to build it, but then we ran out of materials. Oh god. So we stole some well, he didn't steal.
Oh god. Unlabeled wood. Uh-huh. Is community property. But this guy had just brought it in there.
He was still there, but he was working on something else. So I was like, yeah, literally, how long did it take me to turn that thing into pedestals? Five minutes. I took a four by eight sheet and I was like, crap on a beam, beep. Stable gun.
And like with like it's all there, you know what I mean? And like the guy was like, he literally turns around and goes, hey, nice pedestals. Where's my wood? Oh no. So we had to buy him wood.
And now Anastasia wants me to make more because someone rented. Here's what she says. Dave, this is gonna be big money. I'm like, first of all. For one month a year.
No. I was like, oh, really? You've made three this year. It's cost like it's cost eight years off my life in terms of the anger scale, plus like my actual time, money, her time that she could have been spending, I don't know, selling freaking Sears all's and centrifuges, stuff like this, getting more of them made. Instead, we're doing this.
I was like, oh, how much grand total did you make this year? Well, nothing this year. This is like the fourth year of just, you know, building up interest. Next year is when the real money comes. This year's been the year of the Instagram for Wine Santa.
Yeah, yeah. Wine Santa. Death of Yan Santa. Strong. Uh Elysio wrote in and favorite was uh our discussions, which Nastasia will never let me forget this freaking lunch at the Citrus Farm.
Right. But the useful advice I gave there was the pretend you're dead advice. So, you know, which I think is good advice. So for those of you that aren't gonna go listen to it because we don't have that cued up. The idea is is that when you're in situations where you wish that you weren't there and there's nothing you can do about it, instead of like constantly thinking, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, just I'm on the radio books.
I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored. Just pretend you're dead, and then it's fine. You're just like, oh, I'm dead for like the next half hour, I'm dead. For Nastasia, the half an hour lunch that we had to wait was like eight years of of uh of of mental stress for her, right? Two and a half hours, but whatever.
It was not two and a half hours. First of all, there's no videotape of this, and no one's gonna know. We we'll get Harold McGee on soon. And we will ask him how long that lunch was. Have we ever discussed this lunch with Harold McGee?
I feel that we should bring this one up again with Harold McGee live on the radio. Speaking of, not Harold McGee, but in two two weeks, John, we're gonna have Steven Jones from the Bread Lab on, and we're gonna go nitty nitty nitty nitty gritty on uh different wheats and and whatnot. Um Patrick Chicone wrote in and said, long time listener, can you find Dave's rant against raps? Rant against raps. It's too long to put in, but I think you're gonna add that one later.
Am I right, Matt? I hate raps. A man I hate raps. For as much as I hate like uh spring roll, as much as I love tortillas of almost any variety, although I do prefer corn for most applications, man, raps suck. They really are bad.
Everyone needs to walk around and then every once in a while like think about the fact that raps are so popular here in the US and they're really just they're just viciously bad. They're horribly, horribly bad. I mean, you if you think about this, uh you're taking an undercooked flour tortilla, which if you were going to do any reasonable kind of cooking you would reheat on a griddle to kind of make it taste more cooked, right? And then serve it right away in some sort of cooked thing. And instead you're wrapping it with a bunch of other dense wet crap, right?
And then wrapping it in such a way almost invariably that you have too much uh kind of flowery mess on one section and not enough in another and serving to someone as though there's something they should eat. Have we discussed this before Nastasha on the air? I think so have we? Well it kind of bears repeating Peter, we've never discussed it before what do you think? Am I am I off base here with my with my rap hatred?
No, my my soul just crumbled away a little bit just imagining biting into one of those cold mealy crumbly tortilla things like it's no so somewhere at some point right and I can't remember when the rap thing happened but I remember before there were raps, right? So like you know when I was a little boy, we didn't get raps. That didn't happen, right? That was not that was not on the race. So some point between the late 70s and the mid 90s, some person who hates food, some person who absolutely detests all that is good in life, came up with this kind of horrible rancid idea and has perpetrated it on hundreds of millions of us.
Because we've all been served one of these nonsense wraps before. And I think, you know, right after you back the Mofad Kickstarter, go tell a friend not to buy wraps. You know what I'm saying? I will say this. You know, a lot of times, uh so back when I was working as an attorney, you know, we'd have these business meetings, right?
And there'd be catered food. And I'll be honest, a lot of times I opted for the wrap over the sandwich simply because I didn't want to make a mess and it was just easier to eat. I still didn't like it. I still prefer a sandwich. I don't necessarily think that this was an uh a crime against humanity as you're suggesting, but you know.
It's there is something to be said about how it keeps your hands clean. All right. Well, okay, so let's let's go on this for a second. That's true. However, here's the here's the thing.
Most a poorly made sandwich, right, is still better than a well-made wrap, right? And but the problem is is that there it's very hard to actually construct a sandwich for best taste and also best eatability. You know what I mean? So most people they'll overstuff the hell out of their sandwich, and then it tastes good because the fillings almost always taste good, but it's completely uneatable in a kind of a friendly or not friendly, but the public or business environment because the stuff's gonna be falling all over your plate all the time. The flip side is people that manufacture sandwiches for either maximum eatability or their maximum crazy hairbrained idea of health, right?
Like those guys, when they when they make the sandwich, it's like horribly dry. And all like a dry sandwich makes me almost as sad, maybe in some situations more sad because it could be so much better with the simple addition of the condiment like mayonnaise or oil as a wrap. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. How sad is a dry sandwich?
How sad are these two things? A dry sandwich or an undersalted sandwich where they like someone made the chicken salad and they didn't put enough salt in the chicken salad, and it's also a little too dry, and they pack it on that like horribly bad, badly made wheat bread that they think is good for you, but it's not because it tastes bad. And there's like the bread the bread to fill in combo is just way off. I mean, I I think the solution really for this is to have tea sandwiches at all business meetings. I love tea sandwiches.
That's a good business meeting compromise. Yeah. But I think the other issue with bad sandwiches, you know, there's so much bad like so much of the kind of things that are put out for people to eat are horrible. I mean, I don't know what got me into this mood, but here's another one for you. When you wrap a breadstick with uh with ham, right, you gotta realize that uh, especially the thin breadsticks, like their ability to stay crisp is extremely minimal because any amount of water at all uh migrates out of that ham into that breadstick, and now you have like a mealy gooey breadstick, and then you have to try and extricate this ham from around it.
And it and it's just it's another problem. People need to think about moisture migration and putting different products together. Uh they're gonna sit around for a long time when they're worrying about catering things like business lunches. What are your thoughts on the bread sticks and ham? Just moisture migration uh ignorance.
Yeah. I agree. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've always got a lot of people. I mean, I don't think I would describe it that way myself.
I mean, I I agree with you in spirit, you know. I'm I'm right there with you. Just perhaps the uh the uh magnitude is uh you're further out there than me. Well, I also noticed that uh what you're telling me is that at the business meeting, you're too much of a sissy to take the sandwich that you like and instead taking the rep. Oh, the hate's being directed this way now.
Yeah, yes, yes. Well, you know, if you ever come work, anyone who's listening, if you ever come work with us, you gotta realize there's gonna be a certain amount of hate down getting thrown around at all times. We just can't we can't help a little bit of the friendly hate down uh here uh at either at MoFad uh or booked into accident cooking issues. And Patrick, you'll be glad to know I still hate raps, they're still gross. Now, a rap, the the the main difference between a wrap and a good like flour tortilla thing is that a good flour tortilla thing doesn't have a fundamentally uncooked, gummy sack of crap being the thing that contains it.
That's the main difference, but we will go into it. Uh Angela Gabach wrote in with, you know, oh, by the way, go buy her book. Uh go buy her go buy her book. Um oh my god, the title just went out of my head from Goldenrod Pastries. Remember the title of the book, Stas?
The title of the book just went out of my head. Um I'm such a jerk. We'll add it in post. Uh anyway, uh, she also just bought a copy of Nastasia won't let me talk about it, but Pie March is on my favorite old cookbook, probably of the last three years. Um, I have a lot of favorite memories of cooking issues because it reminds me of great times working with the crew and Dave.
Uh when our friend Eng Su died, Dave made sure to go on air and talk about the mental health strains in our industry. Uh Nick uh Nick Mindy and I, that was the old that's the pre-Nastasia actually um FCI crew. I I don't uh yeah met in New York City a few weeks later to pay our respects to Eng Sue together and join Dave on the show. We had a chance to talk about uh a great man and his contributions to food in Singapore and beyond. And while I love cooking issues for the rants and laughs, I always always appreciate that Dave and the crew never steer away from tacking tackling uncomfortable, sometimes sad topics.
We are we are often uncomfortable, am I right, Stas? Oh yeah. Yeah. Uh perfectly golden, by the way. Perfectly golden.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfectly golden. And uh, and and she has these tote bags that say buns buns buns that Nastasia uh that uh Jen carries around with her uh to like picnics and whatnot. Mike Memran wrote in and said, Hey all, ten years, wow. Dave's uh favorite is Dave, my refusal to believe that Nastasia actually prefers crappy coffee from the cars.
Oh, I I believe it. I just you're right, I don't believe it. Uh the time that you guys had all that quasi-illle game meet, uh any time uh that we would bring Booker on the uh show, uh, and that time that I went off on a tangent, dot dot dot. All right. Thanks us for trekking out to Bushwick.
So, Nastasia, I know you didn't like trekking out to Bushwick, but what's worse? Doing it this way or the trek out to Bushwick? You didn't like doing it either. I don't like going anywhere. Uh you specifically this is better.
Did you hate no come on? It's not nearly as much fun to not be all in the same room. You actually like it better, you become that much of a hermit. I thought my stepfather was the only person who's actually enjoying the full enforced solitude of COVID. No, I'm saying I enjoy doing the show like this.
I don't enjoy the solitude in all the other parts of my life. So you would like to see everyone but us. Um I just don't like going to Bushwick. You took that the worst way, and you know it. Yeah, I did.
I did. I did. I miss all the nicknames Stas used to give Roberta's employees. I know. Oh god.
Oh my god. And you guys don't even know the half of it, people. Yeah, and like a lot of off-air stuff. Yeah, so so Jack, what are your favorite? What are your favorite uh nicknames that you remember?
I'm trying to think of ones that were said on the show. I think Santa's little helper was Well, what'd she call him off the air? You came up with that, Dave. I did not. You think that I did.
That was yours. I'm getting off the air now, if you can't admit that. That is ridiculous. You always do this. You always do this where I'm like, you came up with Harvard and Stone being called the drug front.
You're like, no, I didn't. And I'm like, yeah, you did. And then you blame it on me. And the same thing for this. Like I would never come up.
I didn't even know what a Hitler youth was. What? You never learned about the Hitler youth? We call well, so basically, I what must have happened is some of these things, I have to be honest, are combinations of Nastasia and myself just bing bing binging off each other, and then we end up somewhere. So to give the credit to any one of us doesn't really make sense because it's more just this is the kind of conversation where this person is dressed like an elf.
I think that's fair. Stas probably called him an elf. Yeah. Oh, for sure, Stas called him Santa's little helper. Yeah.
And I was like, yeah, like Santa's little helper from uh from a Hitler youth. And then we were like, because he kind of had this kind of like Hitler youth look about him. And it did. You know. Yeah, he did.
And so then I I don't know who actually said the word Hitler's little helper, but it ended up at that. We couldn't use it on air. Yeah. Yeah. And then uh you still see him, uh Matt.
Well, I mean, I I'm never there. No, I don't I don't even know. I don't know who he left before I did, probably. Yeah. Who came up with Indy Jesus?
Yeah, Indy Jesus. Somebody just wrote in on the chat for Indy Jesus. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Who Jack actually knew him personally, but Nastasi, wasn't that you, Indy Jesus?
That sounds like you. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That one stuck. He's a very nice guy, too. Well, as Jesus. As Jesus. You know, and he's not, he's not big label Jesus, he's indie.
That's right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
No one likes big label Jesus. No. God. Always ripping people off, making you do music just to suit the masses and to sell a couple of records. You need indie Jesus.
That's right. Yeah. What other nicknames did we have? Those are the two that pop in my mind that are like actual nicknames. Nastasia would make choice comments about individual servers, but like those are the ones that she would look out for.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any other ones you remember, Stas particularly? No, I can't remember right now.
My favorite Roberta's memory is the like right when we started, right? So right when we start, Nastasi and I'm like, I don't know, man. Because when Patrick asked us to do the radio show, so uh the again the the birth of this was uh you know, my mentor Michael Batterberry had died, and uh Patrick was doing a Patrick Martin's, you know, fearless leader was doing a um like a memorial show, and you know, he knew that he had been kind of my mentor, asked me on, and I did something. At the time, there were only like four shows on Heritage Radio Network. So Patrick was like, do a show, mean you want to do a show.
And like there was no like you didn't have to write out what you want to do, nothing. And I was like, you know what, Patrick? It's like, you know, you guys, you're not uh you're not really our scene. Like I do technology and you're more like you know, crunchy crunch and the get crunches. You know what I mean?
Like you're more like, you know, you know, not really like you kinda you hate everything that I do for a living, so I don't know that you kind of want me to have uh a show on your network. And he was like, it's fine, just like uh I wish we had Peter on to uh do his path. Peter Kim. Yeah, he doesn't favorite punchy bag. Peter Kim does the world's greatest Patrick Martin's imitation.
Anyway, I want that next time. So that's how we started. Uh that's how we started doing the show. So what happened was is Nastasi and you're like, all right, we're gonna show up, we're gonna do this show every week. Uh what do we get?
Are you gonna do the show during close to lunchtime? Yeah, all right, you get a pizza. Right, Sas? I think all the hosts got pizzas. I don't think so because most people weren't recording during service time.
Um there was a time where the pizzas were flowing. Yeah. And we just kept on the pizza parade. Yeah, you uh you got you got good pizza treatment. Yeah, yeah.
Well, it's good to know. But Nastasi and I were not allowed to sit with the real people. Oh now listen, if you can imagine that Nastasia and I aren't cool enough to sit with the Bushwick crowd. Alright? So like we were forced, rain, shine.
This is before the tent outdoors was considered a cool zone, right? Nastasi and I would hang out in the tent. And like I think the second episode we ever did, Stas, remember this? Yeah. Cats and dogs.
Raining, raining. Yeah, man. Cats and dogs. And you know, and Nastasi and I are both freaking drowned rats. We made it from Manhattan over to uh and we were still at the French culinary at the time.
So, like, you know, we made it from Manhattan over there. We went together back when we were working at the French Culinary Institute. And we're in the thing. We get out. They're like, go wait in the tent.
Now, at the time there was no covered way to get from the restaurant to the tent. It was all outdoors. So Nastasi was sitting there under a tent, you know, in that in that kind of New York raining dark, if you've ever been in New York in a rainstorm like that. And you hear this. Hello, hey.
What? What? Hey, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey! Come get your pizza, it's ready.
We're like, what the f he's like, what am I? Gonna bring it out to you? What am I? A waiter? We're like, okay, yeah, yeah.
Remember that, Stas? And that's when we knew the level of treatment we were gonna get at the Heritage Radio Network. Am I right? Right. Right, right, right.
Nastasi and I and like, I think that was the genesis of us making fun. And I love the Robertus crew, but that was the genesis of us making fun of that crew was when we got called over to pick up our pizza, because God forbid they bring it to us in the in the in the little, like, you know, in the little punishment room that they made us sit in to eat it. Yeah. Uh wait, I have one. I just listened to this the other day.
Live from the Bass Pro Shop? Why were you guys there? Why did that be a good one? Oh my god. Man, that was awesome.
That was so much fun. That was Nastasia's idea. Yeah. You want to talk about Stas? We just like the Bass Pro Shop and we decided.
You loved it. You got me onto it. You turned me on to it. Okay. And um, yeah.
Because you went to which one? You went to the one uh the one outside of uh well no, no, no, that's where we went. Oh no, we went to I was at the one in uh outside of the Patriots Stadium. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what's that?
Soldier Field? What's that called? I forget the name of it. Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, Sheila went to this Bass Pro shop, and she's like, I love it, and you will love it even more.
And somehow, how did you convince the Bass Pro Shop that we were somehow a related industry? Yeah, I have no idea. Was it even sanctioned? I feel like you guys talk about the cowboy grill or something like that. You guys talked about one of the properties.
I mean, we probably did, but we were like Was it sanctioned though? I feel like we were just in the phone. No, it was in the parking lot where it was. Did you have extra access to it or something? Do you remember the lady with the perm who came out and like gave us that like 10 minute tour?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then set us up in the parking lot. In the parking lot. And like, it was in the parking lot, and there were these people coming by. They didn't know why we were talking to them.
And we were and they're like, this is in Bridgeport, Connecticut, right? You're calling it Fairfield. It's in Bridgeport, right? And so the funny thing about it is is that Connecticut is a big hunting state, but like that particular area of Connecticut, because it's coastal and it's um, you know, it's urban. It's not a but like there's a lot of people who want, and it's right, but it's right on the water.
So there's a lot of people who kind of hadn't been served with a place where they could get kind of outdoor gear. So it's a really interesting mix of people who were sick of going to the Cabellas in Central Connecticut who came down for the opening, people from on the coast, like local people from Bridgeport. And we were just, and of course, absolutely zero people had any idea why we were there. And we were just accosting random people, asking them questions about cooking. Remember that?
Yeah. It was real weird. Or there was somebody who had like a hot tip about a restaurateur who was gonna open a place. Do you remember this? They're like, they were trying to, you there was the cooking issue scoop of like this like new New York restaurant tour that was gonna open a place in Connecticut, and this lady in the parking lot at Bass Pro Shop was like your your source.
You don't recall this? I don't remember who the restaurateur was, though. Well, oh, it might have been, I think it was Mario Bitali, actually. Oh wow, that sounds weird. And it was just like, who knows?
Like this lady had no idea. It was very funny. Yeah. That was good times. Good times.
Yeah. Uh well, you know why I don't go to Bass Pro? It's so expensive, dude. Bass Pro, you'd think that like it's a big shop, it's gonna give you some kind of a discount. It's consistently expensive.
And also they didn't get on board, but I'm not gonna get into it. Not a political show. Not gonna get it. All right. Uh Joshua Kuhn wrote in favorite uh was when I don't even remember doing this, but apparently uh I joked about someone fatting fattening me up to feed me to their dog.
And uh, and then I went ape about uh people not realizing that meat comes from animals. But I mean, I that sounds like something I would do. Sounds bad. But I I have no I and their their favorite quote from you. Oh, I guess it was from me asking you whether or not a cooked raccoon actually looks like a small child, which it does.
Yeah. That was Nastasia's, I think, favorite thing that a you want to tell that, tell that quickly that story about what the uh the tour guide said. You cooked a raccoon in one of the classrooms at the FCI, and the one of the FCI instructors was giving a tour, and then the person on the tour was like, what is that guy? What is that guy making? And then the tour guide that represents the school said, I don't know, baby.
Uh oh, and then the other favorite rant, which I can't believe we didn't call up, but I I'm so glad we didn't talk about this when Clara was on the air. But the wedding officiant rant. Oh, that was very cool. Yes. That's my favorite.
Well, we should uh all right, you know, uh maybe Matt will find uh or John will find where. I I should be able to find it. I I listened to that, and I will have to admit I was a little harsh. All right? Yeah.
I was a little bit harsh. I will say, I still think what I said was correct. I stand by what I said. However, a little bit harsh. A little bit harsh.
Um then uh Matt wrote in, Matthew Clark wrote in. They uh want to hear one of my MSG rants. We don't have the time to go into it now. I don't know if you're gonna find one to plug in later. Uh and uh the rant on tilapia where in the episode 144, Chug in Diet Coke, where uh where wherein I say that tilapia is best cooked in the trash can.
I believe it was your friend Phil Bravo who was calling in to ask about uh tilapia cooking techniques, and I told him to uh prepare it by throwing it into the garbage can. Yep. Uh, which is what I still believe. But then John and I went on to that transcript, cooking issues transcripts.com. And if you type tilapia in that, I basically say tilapia is garbage like what, 30 or 40 times over the course of our existence?
That sounds about right. Yeah. I mean like it it's like people say that I go crazy about sandwiches and hot dogs, but really you bring up tilapi and I'm like garbage fish. Yeah. And uh they the the machine transcript believes that I'm saying jasmine.
It's not jasmine in case I'm not pronouncing correctly it's Jasmine is the dirt and jasmine is the flower. Do you like jasmine stuff? Yeah I do a lot. As a flavor and a flower both um no it is as a flower smell. Like the smell?
But you but what about like tea with it? You're okay you like as a tea? Yeah the tea's good. Okay. Um Joe Joe Ankovich writes in I don't know if we have it or whether you don't have time to play it now I don't know if you can insert it later.
But uh in episode 333 where I talk about the Juspiti. Oh I love that one. I can say this because both my grandparents are dead but I still have never forgiven them for uh making me leave my mom and stepfather's wedding early so for what really oh yeah because oh my God I never told you this story? No. Okay.
So my stepfather's family, you know, uh you know they're Italian right the father who died last year is butcher right and you know Gerard was you know Gerard is the you know the son and even though typically you know my mom's family would have paid for the wedding you know, grandma and grandpa were too cheap. So, and you know, they didn't have the money. So, Gerard's dad throws this huge wedding, goes all out on the food, all out. So, for months, I'm hearing about the food at this wedding, the food at this wedding, the food at this wedding. And how old were you?
Uh, how old was I? This uh 12, 11, 12. So they tell me, they're like, We're getting this special Italian pastry from the North Espidi. We're getting Juspiti. I'm like, Juspeedy, what's just speedy?
They're like, it's this thing. It's like this, it's like this ethereal, amazing, it's the speedy. Oh man, oh Laddie, you're getting the speedy for the wedding, you're getting the chispiti. Oh, there's just speedy, oh, there's just be just speedy. Everything, everything.
Every day I hear, oh, oh, are you sure you're gonna have the chuspe? Yeah, we have the shuspidi, we get the shuspidi, and then they're like the day of the wedding, did you pick it up? Did you get speedy, yeah, just speedy? And so, like, you know, I'm waiting for this whole wedding. It's you know, I'm not, you know, I'm young, I don't drink, it's boring, I'm it's not boring.
My mom's getting married, and Gerard and everything. So it's great. But we're all sitting around, I'm like, I'm like, the whole thing. I'm like, okay, the dinner, great, yeah, the lamb, great, great, great. Oh, full food, good.
Juspiti, just speedy, just be speedy, just speedy. They start doing the dancing, they're getting ready to bring out the thing. And grandma and grandpa are like, we're leaving now because we're getting in the motorhome and we're driving back home now. I'm like, no! And I never got to have the freaky Juspidi.
And here's the worst part about it. We get in the freaking motorhome, leave the wedding early, we drive. By the way, my grandparents lived in my driveway for three years in this freaking motorhome. One day they just showed up, put the motorhome on blocks, and plugged into our house and didn't leave for three years. When they finally got that thing out, there was dent.
There was a dent four inches deep in our freaking driveway from the blocks of this motorhome. Grandma, who only like used electric blankets, she used electric blankets constantly. We constantly blow out the circuits in our house because there's freaking umbilical cord coming out of this motor home, which contained, get this, grandma, grandpa, two dogs, and a parrot. I swear to God. Anyway, so they drive back from this wedding, and we end up in the bottom of the driveway, and then they look at me, they're like, Do you have keys to get into the house?
No! I don't, Grandma. I'm 11. Why did I leave my mom's wedding early so that we could drive through the night and end up in a driveway, and I can't even get into my house, and now I've never had just speedy. And to this day, I don't even remember what a speedy is, but it was someone said like I like I just walk around sometimes and just goes, just beady, just beady, just beady, just beatty.
Never have I tried it, and I've never been able to figure out what actually the pastry is because that entire generation of Italian uh people from Medford, they're all dead. Every single one of them is dead. And so I cannot find out what in the heck an actuality is. I just know it's the world's greatest pastry, and that I will never have one. Right?
You can't even what? How about how do you how do you even spell Juspeedy? I don't know. I don't know. I mean whatever the auto-transcribe says is the way to spell it.
It's a right. The other one the other one is it like there was a there was a pastry that was that I've never had, uh, the real one. I've made it, and then my stepfather was like, no, not right. Where the pronunciation in Medford was shijdauddly. What?
Chija dauddlee. What? Chija dauddly. And so, like, and and then I'm like, well, what was in it? It's like chestnuts and like in a ravioli with wine fried and then with uh with sugar on the outside.
I was like, honey, like a struvoli? They're like, no. And so, like, yeah, but I it's so like I tried to find, and there's all these like funny restaurants, uh, sorry, recipes in the in that part of Italy where sometimes we'll have chestnuts and sometimes they'll have chickpeas, right? So I'm thinking the original is like chi chi, like chick chickpea, right? Or checchi.
How's it actually pronounced, Daz? Chechi. Chechi. So I'm thinking it's like Chechi, like a chickpea thing, but I don't know. I can't find it.
If one of you can help me out, I'd appreciate it. Um let me see. Uh oh. So uh Michael, uh Nastasia, what uh he enjoys is uh when you ask for the demographic information about listeners. And he would like you to know that he is 30, married, and that his wife supports his equipment purchases.
And over the years he's built a meat room in his basement with a small commercial meat grinder. So where does that fit with uh with your with your list? Sounds about right. I mean, sounds about right. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is our I wish you would just accept that that's what our audience is, Dave. Why what you're saying that, like, what is it that you think that I you think we have a diverse and equal, like man-woman ratio, and we do.
I never said that. Well, whenever I tell you who our demographic is, you're like, that's not true, that's not true. And I'm like, okay. Oh, well, first of all, no, you say a lot of things, not just like that it's mostly male. You say a lot of things.
Yeah, I say most of them. And like that's what I you know, I it it's it's not that we're I would like us to be more diverse and more equal. I would enjoy that. That would be better. Then you should stop mansplaining to me, and maybe we'd get more female.
What am I mansplaining? You say that, but you won't give me an example. Telling me who our demographic is. I am telling you that I'm not doing that. Okay.
You can't do that. You can't just bust out a trigger word. You can't just bust out a trigger word and then be like, okay. We're very, very close to the end of the show. Well, hold on, hold on, well.
Just give like so, like me disagree me disagreeing with you you consider to be mansplaining? Well it's never a disag it's never just I can't hear you. It's never just a no that's not like I don't believe what you're saying. It's like no and let me tell you why I'm right. Like always.
It's never just a I don't think that I don't believe what you're saying. I don't agree with what you're saying period. Let's move on. It's like you're wrong and let me explain why every single time. So so the way that you have a disagreement with someone is you say something I say something you disagree and then that's the end of it.
There's no back and forth. When we're on a radio show I mean why don't you isn't the point of a radio show to have back and forth? Why don't we just move on though? But isn't the point of the radio show to have a back and forth? Yeah.
Yeah but you won't rest until I see it your way every single okay you're right oh you're such a jerk such a jerk you know what I mean? Warm and fuzzy anniversary show. Yeah no this is so on brand it's fine it's great yeah mansplain all right and that thank you to Claire who's chilling somewhere in uh Tulumny trail right now. She's on the honey trail uh is is her favorite still a super buttery, super okey Chardonnay? Oh yeah.
Yeah. And am I allowed to talk about Nastasia? Like we should have some goals. We should have some goals for the future. So one person said that they hope that you know we make a lot of money with our next products, and that our you know, our choice is which which helicopter we get to uh ride in uh you know when it's 10 years from now.
Although I've never ridden in a helicopter. Nastasia's the helicopter aficionado. Do you even like what like is do you notice a big difference between the different helicopters you've been in? Yeah, that's yes. Let's not talk about that.
Well, what do you what's the good brand? Is there a known good brand? Who cares? Apparently the listener does. Who is that's the reason why we're here?
Um so what what do you want to have happen in the next 10 years? Uh we will have sold our company. Um Here's the thing. What how much money in 10 years' time when your friend comes over to your house, what kind of bottle of wine are they bringing you? I think it's some kind of real champagne.
Alright, so that's like they're bringing what what is it? It's like a it's like a Krug. It's a $30 invest. Oh. What?
Right? I said Krug, but yeah, $30. Oh, Krug, Krug. You better get a new set of friends and coworkers. I like I I can bring it.
If if if we're both rich, then it's not a problem. But like, you know, you're not gonna like, you're not gonna not invite your friends who aren't at crew level, right? Right, right, right. You won't bring it up. You would still prefer the friend that's at crew level.
Yeah, but like you would prefer nothing to the yellow tail, is that right? Yeah, definitely. I mean, yeah, duh. Yeah. Yeah.
Yellow tail. Wait, is yellowtail? They make all the different flavors, right? I think so. Dan, that's is that your least favorite of all of them?
Chardonnay yellowtail or Shiraz yellowtail? Oh, sounds gross. What do you want in 10 years, Dave? Wait, let me guess. You're gonna say, I don't know.
I don't really know. Explain to me what I want. No, I don't see. No. You I say you're gonna say that.
No, explain to me, explain to me what I want. I have no clue. I just asked you. Uh-huh. What do you want?
I don't know. Seriously, what are you gonna say? What do you want in 10 years? Um, I want you to have been wrong by many years on when the book is finished. Okay.
Um I I want I want the next product to be successful and in, you know. Yeah. I also agree. I wish we I uh I would like for us to get in a position where somebody with some money wants to uh buy the business so that they it can expand more, right? Yeah.
So that we're not having to worry about every shipment of a thousand spinzalls and so that poor John doesn't have to FaceTime a bunch of people who have trouble getting their spinzalls open. Am I right, John? Yep, I'll have to do that in 20 minutes, actually. Ah jeebus. Uh yeah.
That's pretty much it. Oh, I know what I want. I want uh Jen and I to get another place outside the city that she designs and we build fresh, so I'm not dealing with anybody else's quote unquote existing conditions. And we're gonna have the sick outdoor kitchen, and if I'm super dupe rich, I'll I'll get that Kalamazoo grill, that $8 billion Kalamazoo grill. I don't even know if it cooks better.
I just want that thing. I want a grill where everyone signs the inside of it after they build it. You know what I mean? What uh is your bar opening? You want to give it a plug?
Uh well, we're supposed to be opening for uh takeout and outdoor dining this Thursday, uh, assuming that you know everything doesn't get shut down again. Everything, everything is always in flux as the rest of the country keeps getting rehit again and again and the numbers go up and down. Everything's in flux, but the plan is to be open um on Thursday with outdoor dining. We have a platform with some planters outside. Um, so that should be fun.
Uh I won't actually be able to be there this week weekend, unfortunately, but I'll probably be there the weekend after to uh check it out. Um what about you, Jack? What do you got for the next 10 years? And I just want to be happy. I want to learn jazz piano.
Wow. Playing a group with stats. Wow. I just quit like a half hour ago to Jack. So damn.
I'll take your place. Yeah, I want to be happy. That's it. Matt, what about you? I actually hope to open a place in DC.
Um that's kind of like 2024. I'm looking at some kind of small venue bar situation. So that's my next project. My word of advice. Plan for social distancing.
Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, the thing about DC, right? The thing about New York and DC is that we're so tourist-driven for different things. That's what that's what I don't understand.
That's that's why it's kind of hard for me to figure out the future because I don't know what the future of the tourist business is. Right. You know, correct. So, like, you know, you I visited some small towns, and I feel good about their um their hospitality business in the sense that you know, as soon as people can go out more, you know, those places are local, and I think they're gonna, you know, you know, do well. But it's the places that require um, it's the places that require a lot of tourism and travel that I'm just kind of, you know, or like you know, financial hubs and things like that like New York or government hubs like DC.
I just don't know. So I'm I'm I'm hopeful, but I I don't know. It's hard to plan, it's hard to plan for the future, you know? Sure is. Yeah.
What about you? What do you about you, Matt? You gonna be heritaging for the next 10 years or what? I have no idea. I mean, I I I would mostly echo the sentiment.
I'm having a hard time predicting things out for four weeks from now. So no, I don't know. I have no idea. Yeah. Yeah.
What about what about you, John? Uh not a club. No. Right now. Yeah.
Well, my hope my hope, my hope is that uh, you know, that the museum gets going back strong again, the museum of food and drink from whence we got, John, and that uh, you know, those jobs just uh keep coming, and that, you know, everyone can go back and work at the museum and their jobs will grow with the institution. That's what that's what I hope for the institution. So anyway, we'll look back in ten years if we're alive and see where we got. Thanks for listening, folks. Cooking issues.
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