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Oh yeah! Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Marl, your host of Cooking Your Shoes, coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from whenever to whenever I'm doing from the Lower East Side here in Manhattan, as is our special guest who I'll introduce in a minute. We have as usual Nastasia the Hammer Lopez uh calling in from Stanford, Connecticut on the sound. How you doing, Stas?
Good. We got Matt in the booth. How what's going on? Well, we'll get to that in a minute. How you doing, Matt?
I'm doing great. We got John from Murray Murray Murray Hill Hill Hill. How you doing? Doing well, thank you. Yeah, yeah.
And uh that by the way, that that intro was done years ago. Now, this is that is not the style of music that Nastasia grooves on, true or false. I hate that music. I think it's not cool. Okay.
It's not cool. Okay. That was by longtime uh listener, friend of the show, and someone I know in the real life, Joel Gargano, who has an amazing restaurant called Grano Arso in uh Chester, Connecticut. They are, I don't know if they're open yet for any inside business, but they have an outdoor business and a and a takeaway business. And if you like food that tastes good, I suggest going to his restaurant when you are in Chester.
And in fact, we don't have it queued up, but there is a cooking issues related jingle about it. Yes. I'm sure the food is cool. The food is cool, yes. And uh I think they John, you you independently verify this.
You've been to his restaurant. Yeah, it's uh he makes some of my favorite pasta out there. His food is really delicious. Really, really love it, yeah. Now I have a another friend of mine who is our special guest for today, who is also on a Zoom call, but I can almost throw a rock and hit him if I could throw a rock that high, because he lives in the same sort of co-opy units.
They in fact the buildings he used to live in, that he lives in, used to be the exact same co-op as as the one I'm in. There was a major fight like 15 years ago. Well, John DeBerry, friend of the show, friend in the real life, John DeBerry. How you doing, John? Pretty good.
I could talk about the uh the balconization of the uh East River housing uh co-op for an entire show, but I don't know if that's necessary. Well, give me the okay, so so it's a classic New York scenario. What they did was is there was a bunch of what they considered undesirable uh tenement style housing in the lower east side between the water, which is the East River here, and Essex Street, that they just annihilated. They just freaking like this is what they used to do, and probably what they still do is like, hey, um, there's a problem with this area. Why don't we kick everybody out and annihilate it?
So they did that and then built up a series of co-op buildings, which at the time were um they're co-ops, so you own them, but they're they they were intended they were paid for with government money, so they were intended for kind of um, you know, they weren't fancy. Uh called Mitchellama houses, and they extended from like Essex Street to the water, which is like a what, a fifteen minute walk, John total, so it's big. Yeah. It's extensive. And they were all the same kind of owned by the same kind of co-op group, and then there was a fight.
You want to discuss the fight or you just wanna like you wanna leave it over. Well, I actually don't know a ton about about the fight, but basically it was started by you know this you know, amalgamated bank. It's the same group of people. It's basically like Jewish factory workers in the fifties got together and created like a co-op um place to live. And there's women the women's garment workers union, right?
Yeah. And then there's like so there's like a amalgamated is it named one of the subunits, and there's Hillman and Hillman's the guy who started Amalgamated, and then there's Steward Park, and then we're in East River. Uh and then Stewart Park broke off and I have to say they they they're a little bit n nicer, so I think they probably got the the better end of that deal. Well, actually I think yours a lot of board drama. Your landscaping is nicer.
And you have a whole like you have the better water views. Yeah. And you have all the you have all that like playground bull. We have like nothing. I mean it's nice, but it's not.
It's no Seward Park. The the the original fight was because it used to be that houses here cost uh or co-ops, apartments cost almost nothing. Literally like 20 grand. And but you couldn't just sell your co-op to somebody else. It would like go back into the co-op.
So the people who were on the board used to do all this incredibly shady dealing where they would like deal to themselves and their family and they would build up these mega apartments where they would like they would like almost like gerbils like bust their or hamsters bust their way through apartments and like up and down and and get all the plum stuff. So there was a lot of unrest, shall we say. And uh then there was like dealing about who was gonna run the power, so they broke they broke apart. Anyway, so John and I are not in the same apartments, but they're kind of the same apartments. We've it's like we was brothers, you know what I mean?
Yeah. I think I can see your building from my window. Yeah, I can't. But you're on the other side. I'm way down.
Hey, listen, for those of you who I can keep tabs on you. Right, right. Which is smart. For those of you who are crazy enough during the COVID to want to move into New York City, let me give you this piece of advice. You either wanna be high enough up to get the good views, or you want to be low enough such that you can see trees, but not so low that people are knocking on your window.
So that's that should be your you you should like you should be looking at floors three and four or high enough to get a good view. That is my little bit of advice to you. And you know, Nastasia only wants you to look on the west side of Manhattan, not down where we live, because she believes the sun is nicer over there. But it's not true. The sun's nice everywhere.
But you you are a you're a west side girl, true. Um, yeah, I like the west side. Yeah. You lived on the east side for what, about 20, 30 minutes before you were like, I gotta get out of here? No, in college I lived on the in Midtown East.
And what and what'd you think? It was nice. It was great. I liked it. Really?
Yeah. Anyway, I've only known you to live uh over in the Hell's Kitchen area. That seems to be if I had to pick a Nastasi neighborhood, that would be it. I think if you even if you had like like boatloads of cash such that you were like, you know, rafting around in in your money pile, would you would that be the neighborhood you would choose to live in in Mat if you were gonna live in in New York? No, Central Park, because you'll never have construction in front of you.
Oh yeah? West Park. Uh anything below anything below 60th east west south. Wait, wait, would you want like one of those 60th? No, you mean basically on 59th Street then.
You mean on 59th Street? Below 72. Yeah, I guess yeah, below 55th. That's so weird. Basically, I'll only live on Central Park South.
But we're talking Rebecca. Oh yeah, we have Rebecca, the boondoggler also on the air. I forgot to call where are you calling in from? I'm calling in from my home. Dave, where do I live?
I'm just curious if you know. We live somewhere in Brooklyn, but I've never been to your house, so I have no idea where it is. That's true. I uh so I'm um basically um right near the Brooklyn Museum. So wait, the Brooklyn, the one that's right next to the botanical gardens?
Yes, yes. That's a great museum. Can I just say that like when they open again? If you have not been to the the the Brooklyn, what's it actually called? Does anyone know the Brooklyn Art Museum?
What's it called? The Brooklyn Museum. Brooklyn Museum? Yeah. Fantastic museum.
Like, I was like, well, I live in Manhattan, I've got all the museums, I got all the good stuff. Brooklyn Museum worth a visit. Also the Notanic Gardens. Okay, listen, I like the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. It is uh I have Nastasia.
That is where Nastasia perpetrated the uh the Santa Claus atrocity. So I have a love in my heart for it for that reason. I still I can now like all I'm picturing is Nastasia like bent over double laughing her behind off while Santa is bathed in his own puke dancing on the road. And you and Jack went and hid behind the bar. Like that was very cowardly.
Uh also um, it wasn't just Nastasia, it was me too. Were you also bent over double laughing? Probably. And that was also that was also the day when we when we punked uh Heritage Radio. That was the best.
Yes, yes. So for those of you we didn't tell this on last week's show, but Nastasi and I were like they they Heritage kept on calling and pestering us about whether when we were gonna show up and in make our cocktails. We were doing a frozen drink machine at the time. We were making frozen Courseras, which is a preserved lemon drink, and uh Nastasia sends uh it we were talking about it. It wasn't that she was doing this on her own, so I'm not trying to say that she's a bad person.
We were both doing it, right? But she sends a um a text to Heritage basically saying, uh so like what time tomorrow is it was the day of the event? What time tomorrow is loaded in, right? And I'm gonna we're gonna go non-family for just one second, right? We're gonna go non-family.
Yeah, remove your children if they're listening, at least 37. So Nastasi goes at and then they they write back, it's today, it's right now. And she goes, Oh sh. Sends that text, oh and that was it. That's a horrible.
But question for you, Dave. Why do you think that Heritage um was checking in on you? Like, why do you think they felt the need to see if you were gonna be there? Hey Nastasia micromanagers. Nastasia.
In your whole life, in your whole life, how many times when you said you're gonna do something have you not done it? Always. No, I mean, like you've never got that, right? Keeping that, that there's nothing you can say now. That's the end of the show.
Yeah. You always do what you're gonna say. Likewise, like if someone's if I say I'm gonna do a demo or something like that, do I do it? Yeah. Okay.
Yeah, but you might be late, but you'll do it. I think it was more about like the timing in general, you know. And but I will say though, that um that was an incredible party. And the fact that wine Santa got relegated to the end of it because he was uh spewing red wine on himself was pretty much the highlight of the party for me. And Matt, I know I I I saw you the next day, right?
Because I came back to pick up wine Santa and you've got to be a little bit more than a thing. I think I had his head and you had the rest of them or the other way around. I can't call it. I there were there was there were some horrified children in the botanic garden being like, what is happening? So I we got on this because we're talking about the botanic garden, and I was just gonna say I'm more of a New York Botanic Garden Bronx fellow myself, but I do like the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
But going back to what you just said, that Wine Santa was puking up wine all over himself, and then we switched him to vodka. Now, John DeBary has just written a book called Drink What You Want, which is one of the reasons he's on this show. It's an amazing book. And so is that a valid thing to want to be throwing up red wine over yourself, boot and rally, and go on to straight vodka, or not a valid thing in the in the context of drink what you want. I'm presuming that that is not the meaning of the book.
So why don't you tell us a little bit about the book? Well, I mean, I guess the meaning of the book is like if it works for you, then good for you. Um so if that's the transition you want to make, you know, I'm not here to judge you too much. Um but yeah, the point of the book uh was to really kind of democratize or sort of like break down uh what makes drinks good on a few different kind of axes or you know, measurement ways of measuring. Um and then show people that the reason why a lot of drinks succeed or fail um is sort of based on the same principles and whether or not you're doing something, you know, super elaborate, like with like let's say a rota vap or something like that, you know, or you're sort of throwing something together with what you have on hand, like you're kind of still using the basic principles and the skills are kind of the same.
Um so you don't have to worry too much about like doing something necessarily wrong because you don't have the right setup. It's more about well, you're using the tools you have and you're finding drinks that taste good um given what you're able to do at the time. So it's kind of like it's this sort of like after being regurgitated through like the high-end bar and restaurant world for 10 years, I like came out of it on the other side being like actually things are really a lot more similar than they are different. Um, here's how you know here's why the daiquiri is you know the like kind of primordial sour, and you can riff all these drinks on it, but they all kind of work in the same way. And here's how to sort of like demystify a lot of this stuff.
Cause I think that like a lot of people tend to feel like if they're not an expert at drink making, then they're just like completely hopeless and they shouldn't even try. You know, so it's trying to trying to get to the point where people are really discomfortable because kind of like basically around in their own the comfort of their own environment. Um and then saying you can build on that if you you know if you want to get get get fancier uh or more elaborate. Right. So you start with a you start fun.
So first of all, let's talk about the are we not are we not doing a family show or yeah, we are, we are. He's lived come on, Sad. I mean, yes, yes. Oh, I think I didn't who did the illustrations for this book, by the way. Uh her name is Sarah Tennant Jones.
She's the artist based in the UK. Um, and I feel really uh lucky that my publisher found her because I think she like weirdly nailed my my personality based on like not a whole ton. Like she started working on the illustrations like before the manuscript was finished. So it was kind of like this parallel process. And like I don't think we even spoke on the phone, you know, we like sent a lot of emails back and forth and like shot lists and sort of like basic ideas.
And I think she mined my Instagram pretty nicely as well. Um, and then just like this the whole kind of sort of sketchy uh but sharp um kind of personality of the book, it was really just captured really, really expertly. Um and I I knew I didn't want um photos because I did enough uh cocktail photo shoots that I have like a pretty um like pretty good PTSD from how long that takes and how expensive they are and how it's really only to me it's a lot about the glassware than the drink itself. Um so I'd rather just have more fun with it and kind of have a more presentational um depiction of drinks to show like okay, well you could do this, but if it doesn't look exactly like this, it's not wrong. Like you're still gonna have a good time if it's if it works for you.
Um so I I was really adamant about illustrations and originally I wanted to do kind of like a comic book thing, but that was like way too elaborate. Um so we've kind of like settled on this, and I couldn't be happier. So for those of you that don't know that have never had to do it, like shooting endless amounts of cocktails for a book is completely soul crushing. It's like the actual worst. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, so uh I know you know our you know mutual friend partner Don Lee had to do a bunch of that because he worked on with Jim on me and uh who wrote the forward for this book on one of on one of those things. But it's just like making everything look different or interesting in the context of a book where you're doing bazillion cocktails, it's just like what are we gonna do with this one? Right? I mean you know what I mean.
It's just like like it like it's the opposite of like coming up with like an interesting new cocktail recipe or a twist on a cocktail where you can feel interested in what you're doing, like being forced to make something look vi especially for someone like me anyway, where like I don't do garnish. Yeah, same. I was like, money though, all these drinks are so simple, like you're just gonna lost. It's basically just pictures of glassware. Yeah.
Yeah. So it's completely nice. Which yeah, it's a nightmare. So but like I didn't actually um I should have known this, I guess, but like I didn't know that you were kind of into the kind of 50s, 60s vibe. Because it's interesting because the illustrations and John, you commented on on how much you like the illustrations, right?
Yeah. Yep. Very big it's got this like 50s, 60s like specific Americana vibe, but then obviously the cocktails could be part of that, but then you know, the illustration of you on page 132, and God, I hope you own that outfit, right? Where you're like some sort of like party vampire. Mm-hmm.
Uh more or less shoes. Do you own that outfit? Because that wouldn't be in that normal 50s 60s book. And I want to see you in that outfit at all times. Like which aspects of that outfit do you own?
Do you own the loose site cane? Oh I wish man the cane would be great. Um I um I only what do I have that's looseight nothing. Hmm shopping list. Um the funny thing is that a lot of that stuff was just was was with Sarah like I we didn't give her a ton of guidance on the um the feeling you know depictions of me you know like feeling I think that's feeling fancy and then there's desperate and you know festive and all this stuff and really it was just like you know this is the basic idea.
We want a picture of me doing something that represents the the mood of each chapter, you know um and I think we probably at least I didn't give her a ton of like direct like explicit guidance like oh I want you to depict me in like these these clothes or like you know this you know pit position or anything. It was just you know, it just really um I feel like it just came down a lot to this the chemistry between the two of us in terms of just like she understood what I was doing without having to be given a lot of like really explicit instructions. I mean, I'm sure there was a lot between her and the art director in the book, but um it just felt very it just felt very natural. Like any if you look at her past work, it's all has this really nice um like you said, like kind of mod 50s sort of feeling to it, but it's so it's sort of timeless, but also calls to like it feels very specific, but it doesn't feel like dated or like kind of periody. Um so you're telling me you don't own the Fred McMurray My Three Son shoes on page 102, and you don't own that easy chair.
I want you to own that easy chair because it's in the feeling classic, it's in the classic cocktail section. There's a picture of John DeBerry in white white bow tie. If a by the way, for those of you that know Jimmy. Probably have a big white bow tie, yeah. A demure JDB, you check out his Instagram, you see what I'm saying.
That is a very demure JDB. In like uh, I mean, I would have that. I mean, it wouldn't really fit, you know, my wife being a kind of more modern architect, that chair wouldn't fit in with her aesthetic, but I would sit in that chair. I want you to have that chair and those shoes, you know. Anyway, uh wait, one last thing I have to ask about the pictures.
Does that mean so John writes about a glassware and he includes a section on coffee mugs, just so that he can say that he wishes that you would throw away your mismatched coffee mugs and get matching coffee mugs, or not throw them away, but have but then he has two mismatched mugs. Oh no, those are the tiki glass sections, those aren't mugs. Because I thought of that octopus as a mug, and I want that octopus glass real bad. Do you want that octopus glass? No, I don't.
Um the thing with the tiki mugs is that I I find like the kind of like kookamonga like tribal imagery to be a bit racist. So I was like telling her, I'm like, these are tiki mugs, but please don't use any tribal stuff. Like, probably you use like other imagery. Like I couldn't use Star Wars, obviously, but I do have Star Wars tiki mugs. Um, and I just tried to find a bunch of tiki mugs that didn't um have this sort of like tribal mask or Easter Island or any of that kind of like stuff that I think is a little kind of dated for a lot of for a lot of reasons.
Um but you know, I think that the the coffee mug bit was sort of like I don't know if you know if you had experienced this as writing, but like a lot of times if you just sort of write and you only realize what it is you want to write until you're like done writing it. And I just sort of started writing about coffee mugs, and then I just kind of like blacked out, and I was just kind of like, who has matching coffee mugs? Like what kind of like deranged energy do you need to like not, you know, like everyone just sort of accumulates them in a sort of like, oh they have like one mug from like a newspaper from like 1990. Um, and then like they sort of accumulate these these random one-offs. Um, but like no one else does that for any other kind of glassware.
So I just thought that was a really interesting phenomenon and uh basically just an excuse to write a stupid joke in the book. Um do you have a set of matching world's best bartender mugs? That would be amazing. Yeah, I do. Yeah.
Now definitely now before we get into too much, like one of your most famous drinks, which I think they still serve at PDT if you ask it. So you have a tiki mug illustration here of a shark, and I'm looking at this mug, and it would be physically impossible to drink out of it. So I'm assuming that is just there as a teaser for your drink, the shark. You want to talk about this drink? Yeah, uh, the shark is uh I think it's actually even though PDT is like basically just doing to go, um, they actually have it in a little to-go version, so you can still get it, even though you know their menus down to like four drinks.
So I feel like I feel very validated in that. And I I came up with that like a really long time ago, back when I don't know probably like 2012 and I think everyone was very serious about cocktails um and the idea of even like having blue curaca like in the premises of a bar was like kind of heretical um and I think that we actually had a bottle of blue curacao um like by accident like it wasn't like an authorized purchase um so I was just kind of looking for ways to like do something stupid and I kind of started with the with the the shark is like butter infused rum and like cream frangelico and like blue curacao. So it's just kind of this like abomination of a drink um that doesn't make sense with any of the kind of fancy sort of like ornate and the kind of precious drinks that you find at a lot of cocktail bars. And it was sort of a one off like not one off but it was sort of like a like a like a like a flame war with Jimmy in because I was kind of like well how far can I push this like how far can I make this drink like as ridiculous as possible. And it just kind of like spiral out of control from there and then we ended up with the blue drink with cream on the menu that's been there for probably eight years now.
Yeah well whenever I go like someone I'm with invariably because I have a well known hatred for blue Curacao not mainly stemming from the fact that I think you should just add blue food coloring to the drink if you want to use blue. Right? That's that's my main it's the same thing. Well but you would never choose you would never choose that spirit right to make to make blue. Right.
You would choose like you would choose like whatever your actual favorite orange liqueur is and then just put a few drops of blue in it, right? And I always my gripe and I I should just say it like my my gripe has always been that like it's not the blueness that bothers me or the fact that it's fake, I just prefer more honesty in the fakeness. Now, where you're coming from is an entirely different place. It's a it's an F you on being precious about it, which I get. And there and like to be honest, in the bar world, and you you you can do it, you can do all of the spirit nerdery, right?
So I feel I guess at a certain point you feel that you've earned the right to do whatever you want. You don't have to be full spirit nerd, you can be a little more fun, a little more like playful. Um I am actually I don't have the spirit nerdery that uh a lot of people have, like this producer, that producer. I haven't spent my time, you know, traveling the world, going to different distilleries to visit all the different places, like that's because that's just not my wheelhouse. And I've never had to, because I never really worked behind the stick on the regular, I've never had to have those kinds of discussions with patrons because if you're not a spirit nerd in a high-end cocktail bar, patrons will rip rip you it rip you a new one.
They'll they'll try to they try to sniff out your your lack of knowledge in any one little category. Am I right about this? Sometimes, yeah, there's a there's a particular kind of person who who gets pleasure from doing that, right? Right. So, like kind of I had this place where I didn't like I didn't need to be able to kind of cut loose and say I'm gonna make something delicious with this ingredient that you hate.
For me, it's more like, well, I would never choose that spirit other than for the blue, and so like I would rather just use blue, so that's where I'm coming from on it. You know what I mean? So it's not but that's it. I think that the senor Curso, which this isn't sponsored or anything like that, but like the brand that we used originally, I think it's probably still the same. I think actually tastes really good.
Like it's actually a very good like Curaçao like liqueur. And then it just happens to be blue. Huh. Well that's good to know. Senior Curacao.
Go try it out. The other thing is also this I've noticed and um things that taste the best on their own are not necessarily the things that taste best in a melange. You know what I'm saying? So um and this has happened to us time and again when you're doing recipe testing. This is goes for cooking and for drinks by the way is that you'll test a recipe with whatever you have on hand and then you'll be like well now I'm gonna go buy the good stuff thinking that that is inherently gonna make your product better.
Not necessarily the case. Yeah things can definitely be less than some other parts. Yeah yeah and things that taste bad on their own can make things taste good in the in the levels and concentrations that you're using them. I definitely learned that doing you know all of my distillation work back in the day. Stas, I've never asked you what's your opinion on blue drinks um I like the one Nick Bennett serves.
Yeah what's that one called as soon as he so Nick Bennett was the head bartender at Booker and Dax where there was a s like a strict no blue rule, right? Although now we have well now when we reopen in the real life like we'll you know um we have a a couple of but we just had food coloring food coloring to it. But what's the name of Nick's drink over there a porch Light, the blue one. I can't remember the name of it. I can't remember.
It's something I feel like it's something up right now. Yeah, it's it's so good. Yeah. Yeah. Well, like I said, it's like for me, I don't use it for my own reasons.
And I, you know, um, I don't know if you remember, John, you were in the audience, but we when we saw um the the Cocktail Kingdom put on the Japanese bartender series, and um, and you know, I you're for those of you that don't know, you spent how long living in Japan? Like a year or something like this? Oh, no, not that long. I mean, I spent about the max amount that you could spend on a tourist visa there, which is 90 days. Oh, you speak.
But yeah, I mean, I studied uh Japanese history uh in college, so I had to take uh a lot of the language course for for the major. So yeah. Uh were you were you part of that, like I want to say like 20 and 12 or was that I think that's around when it was, right? 2012, like Japanese cocktail wave that was hitting the hitting the US, or no? Yeah, you know, I did that there.
I think that's the course. I think maybe we were both in it. I think Lynette was in it. It was like a whole like Japanese bartending course taught by this like Romanian guy. I don't know what's who I think.
Oh no, no, I didn't go to that, but that was the yeah, yeah. I remember what you're talking about. Stanislaus. Yeah, he he did it, he did a Tales of the Cocktail, a Japanese so okay, ancient history I know, but I'll give you a little bit. So everyone in the cocktail world was trying to figure out like what their kind of mystic connection to the drink was gonna be, such that their combination of three ingredients served in a glass was gonna be somehow magically and mystically better than your mixture of three ingredients put into a glass and served is gonna be.
Would you say it's an accurate portrayal? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of sort of like storytelling and mythmaking involved in like the craft cocktail revival, if you will, of the last decade. Which is fine. By the way, it's okay. Yeah.
Because like, you know, it a good myth, like literally can make someone enjoy the drink more. Absolutely. Yeah. Right? And so anything you do, whether it's a story, myth, like the truth and false, you know, the falsity of it isn't really the important thing.
It's the enjoyment that the that the guest has. So I'm okay with it. I'm okay with stories. But there was this story around kind of the this and it's not really the fault of the bartenders that they were highlighting, right? That for instance the the hard shake or these very specific Japanese styles which were built around a very specific set of kind of cultural like um I don't know a cultural system in Japan for how those bars came to be the way they are how the apprentice system works in Japan, you know, how everything works over there has generated this stuff that to an American or a European is in some ways like very attractive, right?
Very like, you know, like extremely uh what's the word I'm I can't come to the word I'm looking for, but like compelling, right? And so it kind of hit the world by storm and there was a group of Americans and Europeans who were like, I've tapped into the mysticism of the cocktail and they were doing this kind of work. And so you know you're an interesting case because you're not like that, right? But you were also like literally tuned in tuned in, i.e., you could speak and you'd been over there and done this stuff to kind of what they were talking about. So I mean, what do you what do you think about how that kind of shook down?
Yeah, I mean, I think that there's like a it's a little bit problematic in terms of just like a like an American person, like goes to Japan for a week and then tries to teach people the hardshake. I think that's the case with kind of any you know body of knowledge. Like a lot of people get an exposure to it and they think they know a lot about it, and then they go and like kind of try to claim it as their own. Um, and that just sort of makes you look foolish and can be harmful in many contexts. Um so for me, it's like I knew enough to know that this was way more than I was willing to get myself involved in.
And in order to claim any kind of expertise or sort of any kind of like authority over this, it would be a lot more work than I was willing to put in. Um just knowing what I know about the about Japanese culture, you know, my limited amount of awareness. Like I knew it's not something you could take like a seminar, a weekly seminar, and just all of a sudden be able to be teaching other people how to do it or to even claim that you know how to do it. So for me, I was just like, that's a no for me. Like I like I this is cool to watch, like I like it's interesting to hear about.
I don't believe a lot of this stuff. I feel like a lot of the stuff is like gets like sort of telephone gamed out of like the real authentic sources, and then people start repeating it, and then it becomes this weird, like bastardized lore about like ice chips and air bubbles and you know, all these sort of silly things that that can get really um kind of more about the bartender than the person who's who's drinking, which goes back to like the kind of storytelling thing where it's like, yes, it you want to be like tell a compelling story with something you're serving as a bartender, but also if it's just about you showing off, then that's like really the opposite of hospitality. Um so I just knew that it was just I was just never gonna get there, so I just didn't even bother. Um, but I appreciate it. And I think it's I think it's cool and I love it, but I'm not gonna tell you tell people how to how to do a hard shake.
And I can never get those Paris and Shakers open anyway. So that was also just big, big dude disqualifying on a practical standpoint. Well, when they were doing their demos here, right, so pr like so Parisian that the are the weird ones that like mesh in a way that doesn't seem like it's gonna be physically possible for those to go look it up, it's a thing. Um and and the cobblers also like you know, and any American's gonna want to be able to do two, two and a half drinks per run, because that's just the way we operate, you know what I mean? So like those cobbler shakers and the giant cobbler shakers, have you ever had one that doesn't leak?
No. Yeah. So the first one I ever saw, Plymouth Gin, uh back when Simon Ford was running Plymouth Gin, made these giant shakers. I don't even know how much they hold, but like, you know, like those at some bar, yeah. You could I could I made like probably 10 drinks at once in one of those things.
Yeah. And they are impressive. They leak like a mother. You know what I mean? There's just they leak.
Anyway. Um, anyhow. All right. So now an interesting thing here that it's kind of like a the book we're talking about now again, drink what you want, is you're trying to kind of make people feel like a little bit less nervous about doing things. And I think there's something that you touch on that I think would be very useful for a lot of our listeners.
A lot of the kind of questions that we get on the people who kind of call in or that I talk to kind of off air, um, you know, like it seems that there's people who are like very well versed in technique or in um in spirits lore or in spirits or food lore, but then when they have to go do something outside of what would be their normal comfort zone, they get very nervous. And so this idea of going to like a relative's house or an in-laws' house and having to make something from whatever they have can be kind of nerve-wracking, right? Because you don't want to uh insult them by saying, I can't work with your filth, you know what I mean? But on the other hand, you want to do something that is good. So this is something you address.
You want to talk about it? Well, yeah, I mean, I think that you have to sort of, I mean, I think that there's like a uh element of like knowing your own limitations too when you when you do things, and um with like I I think you're referring to like my in-laws flow chart, which sort of like is a nice way of like looking at how I think in terms of like backup plans and like catastrophic anxiety fantasies, but like you know, if you're in if you're in a place where you think you can pull something off, like a drink, you know, if you're like rummaging through someone's house, or if you're like at the beach, or if you're in these places where you just don't have everything at your fingertips and you want to do something with what you have rather than planning and going shopping and all that, um it's clear about managing expectations and you know you're not gonna make you know like a perfect rain of Stinfiz or something super elaborate with you know whatever you have on hand. But if you sort of set yourself up to be okay with like surprising yourself and sort of like being cool with like being having things rough around the edges or or even just be having it be a total failure. I mean, there's like so many times I've thought I'd made an amazing drink and it tasted like and you're just like, well, you know, you're not really risking a whole lot. Um so you know, the idea that you're gonna like like you're probably not gonna create anything, it's gonna explode.
Uh you're you know, you're not gonna kill anybody, probably um so like you know just like try it out and here are some principles that you can apply across many different kinds of of scenarios like you know balance like dilution like temperature like if you can kind of achieve these these goals in terms of like getting your drink cold enough or mixing it with enough water or aerating it in the case of a certain drinks like you can kind of use your ingenuity and use like your knowledge of like the endpoint um rather than getting too hung up on like oh I don't have a shaker or I don't have the right bar spoon or oh I should I have like gin instead of vodka like you can sort of you can sort of see through the kind of immediate limitations and kind of get to this endpoint. And it's a little bit more kind of liberating um and it just makes it more fun I think. Do you think it's I think it's hard maybe though sometimes for people to give themselves permission to be liberated right. So like for instance like for us like if you go somewhere and you're like oh big cocktail person make a cocktail you know you're like uh jeez you know what I mean it's like and then you gotta deal with thinking about see that's like a verbatim quote from people yeah yeah yeah I mean it happens and then so like if you know if in and this is gonna happen to a lot of people I think who you know are listening is when they go to somebody's house right they are going to be the person ooh foodie drink person blah blah and then you're like and then if then you feel if you don't give something that knocks their socks off you're a dick. Yeah you're yeah, right.
And so like I think like what what uh I think you know it's it's hard to give yourself permission to F up, right? But I think it's kind of necessary for your own sanity and also to do a good job with what you have on hand. Yeah, and I think it also has to do with like the way that the craft of bartendering has been sort of perceived over the years. And you know, if if you heard someone read a c read a cookbook and they came over to your house, you wouldn't be like, ooh, like make me a big Delaska and then like look at them funny when they didn't do it. You know, you understand that there's like a lot of preparation and expertise that goes into it.
But I think people don't have a lot of the same background in terms of cocktails, so they're like, oh well, you know, you're just a bartender, you just like throw them in together, like whatever, that's it. And it looks easy or you don't understand kind of the expertise or complexity that goes into it. And so you think it's just this thing that you can just kind of do wherever, um, which is true to a certain extent, the same way you can like make a sandwich, um, in a lot of places that aren't a professional kitchen. Um, but I think it sort of has to do with like this kind of catch up that the public is playing with like actually the skill and the expertise and and the kind of like lots of hard work that goes into making like really excellent cocktails look very easy when you go into like a cocktail bar and some bartender just you know does two seconds, throws together something that's that probably took like, you know, who knows like a week of preparation in the in the back and downstairs, barbacks, etc. Um, but you just don't see that.
So I think people have this kind of warped view about like what it takes to make a drink. And I think I had that too. Like I talk about it in the book where I thought I knew everything, and so I would just go to a friend's house and be like, oh, I'm gonna make you something and I'm like I don't even have a shaker, I don't even have like simple syrup. You know, it's so you have to like kind of catch up with your own like what you don't know about what you know. So I think that we're kind of in that still um where it's either it seems like really either really inaccessible or like really simple and easy, and there's no there isn's a lot of like middle ground and like nuance.
John can we talk about my favorite part of your book um if you don't the whole thing cocktail shaker well the whole thing uh but the uh alternative for a cocktail shaker um oh that's your favorite yes well I don't well I don't I don't go into this in like super detail in the book I I talk I talk about it a little bit uh but you know if you think about what a cocktail sh like what you're trying to achieve by shaking a drink you want to get it cold you want to get it diluted and you want to get it aerated so you want to like shake it around with it with something that will whip it into whip air into it you know whether that's a Booker and Dugs cocktail cube or some ice or whatever like a rock you know you you can kind of get creative um and so there's a lot of things in your in your kitchen that can that are like sealable containers that you can hold in your hand. So for me the the trusty quart container that is like the backbone of every uh restaurant along with cambros that are usually they're very large cambras but you have like small these like small square containers that are that like everyone kind of uh uses uh in restaurants but you don't see them a lot in homes um and yeah you basically any tupperware you can like I mean I mean I just thinking off the top of my head like you could even use like a Ziploc bag if you were like really desperate like there's a lot of ways around it. Um but to me the the four quart camber oh actually the the two quart camber and the uh the quart deli container are like they're high up there. Just make sure you hold that lid down dude. Just make sure you hold it.
Well if it's if it's a fresh if it's a fresh if it's a fresh camber, it's nice. Also, also remember, when you actually buy them, okay. We get them for real. We're talking about quart containers, what was called here a deli or a quart. They don't have them all over the country.
I don't know why. Because you can reuse them again and again. It seems like it's wasteful. It's not. No.
When you buy soup from somebody, they will invariably poke a hole in the lid. Yeah. Which just put your finger over that hole. It's not even gonna leak that much, but like I wish they I know why they poked a hole in the lid, but I wish they would not poke the hole in the lid. Also, you can just order them.
Like you can just they're like the belly containers, you can just get like a sleeve of like 15 and they last forever. The only thing you have to watch out for is that there's actually different this is something I've learned working in restaurants for too long, is that there's actually like a few different purveyors of core containers and they all have a little bit of a different fit. So you have to look at the bottom. There's like a few different manufacturers. Sometimes they have a logo on it, sometimes they don't.
So sometimes you're gonna mismatch. And that drives me nuts. So I actually buy I actually bought like a whole set from the same purveyor all at once. So they all matching, matching set. Yeah.
So you you refuse to have matching coffee mugs, but quart containers are like absolutely. I'll help you guys some more core container knowledge because I am also an aficionado of the quart container. Quart containers weigh ru they standard core container that we get. I think we buy fast cathy, I'm not sure. Uh the they weigh 32 grams.
Yep. Maybe summer's gonna weigh one more, one less if you get a different brand. Core containers without a lid weigh 32 grams. This is something you should commit to memory so that you just don't have to worry about thinking about it, right? When you're tearing stuff out on scales, or if you need to figure something out.
32 grams. Second, core containers, the containers themselves are made of polypropylene. Polypropylene can handle heat quite well, which is why it's fine to nuke in one. You can even put one into better be careful it doesn't start floating, but you can put it into a water bath and heat it and heat around to like thaw that stuff out to pop it or whatever you're gonna do. Polypropylene, great.
Polypropylene, very, very bad at cold temperatures. Yeah, they get really brittle. Really brittle. So when you freeze a quart container, right, and you pull it out, you have to be very careful because if you set it down too hard, you'll crack the core container. Now, if you set it down real hard, or if you drop it, it'll shatter and there'll be little pieces of core container all over the all over your floor.
But if you just hit it and crack it without shattering it, which can happen as it thaws out, you'll get a leak. I've had this happen to me more times than I care to think about. The other thing is the lid on a core container is not made of polypropylene. The lid on a core container is made of polyethylene. And polyethylene, right, while it's got good flexibility and compliance and fits on, makes a nice lid, is not okay with super high heat.
So if you've ever noticed, if you put something into a quart container and nuke it, if you nuke it a little bit too long, like the the lid will turn into a chef's hat and then eventually explode off the top of the core container because you've expanded the the gas. But the reason that it expands out is because and deforms is because it's made of polyethylene, which has a much lower service temperature than polypropylene. Polyethylene, you're not even really supposed to boil it, the stuff that that is because not because it'll melt, but because it'll deform and become real kind of uh plasticky, which is why do they do that? So that it can seal over the edge of the bottom part? I guess, or you know, maybe it's on purpose, so that's the the first thing that blows off is the lid if somebody overheats it.
I don't know. But I mean, that's why you know, for years people said that not to use uh Ziploc bags, which are polyethylene, to do reheat on sous vide, and they made it seem like that because the company that makes the Ziploc bags didn't want you to put it in boiling water. Because if you've ever had Ziploc bags into really hot water, when you pull it out, you're like, oh my god, this feels weak, this feels wrong. Right? It's it's because it's approaching its service temperature.
So you really want to keep those lids below around like 70 Celsius, uh, you know, 60, 70 Celsius in that range to have their full structural integrity, and that that's why that happens. But I like this term service temperature. Service temperature, yeah. Very useful. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Um, I keep uh the other problem with core containers is, and I've seen this a million times, is please dry your core containers before you restack them. Oh god, yes. Please. And also, if you work in a restaurant like Sombar, where everyone's going to be packing core containers with chopped scallions, like try to segregate.
Try to segregate your your alliums from your from your grapefruit juice, especially something like grapefruit juice. Because like grape for some reason, and I think I'm reading uh you know an advanced copy of Harold McGee's new book, which is you know, when it comes out, we'll talk about, but like I think there are some sulfur y notes in grapefruit and like minor, like kind of not and so that when you have other sulfury notes like onions, it just really takes it in a wrong direction. You know what I mean? Like, especially grapefruit juice. It's any anything that but really like we had so many liters of gin and juice, which is grapefruit juice for us, ruined by pouring them into scallion tainted sambar quart containers.
Um so buy a sleeve of core containers, like John says for yourself. Get the lids, right? Don't throw them away unless you crack them. As soon as you crack them, please throw them away. Nothing's worse than pouring a liquid into it and having it pour all over your counter, right?
I also, John, you might not believe it, but I use uh or agree with this, but I also use them for storing my leftovers for food and whatnot because I think it's much more efficient. Yeah. So I also get the the pint containers and I have a couple of the eight ouncers around because it it's very sad and they all take the same lids if you get them in the same purveyor. It's sad for me to see a quarter-fold core container in my fridge. Real sad.
Yeah, that's that's the that's the restaurant life. Yeah, and drilled into you. Yeah, right. And if you've ever worked also, like here's more restaurant life. Uh don't first of all, you should have a station in your kitchen with plastic wrap, a decent quality plastic wrap.
I also have a bar sealer, not a vacuum sealer, a bar sealer to like reseal bags and tater chip things and and flour and rice packages and whatnot, right? But keep a roll of blue tape and a sharpie there. Yep. Right. And just, you know, just put a piece of blue tape.
It takes an extra second, but then you know when you put that in. So you're not, when did this go in? I don't know. What is it? Ba ba ba.
Just label it and keep that stuff in the like resist the temptation to take that sharpie and blue tape and put them elsewhere in your house. Keep them in your kitchen next to the plastic wrap, which is the classic place where you're going to be packaging everything to put back into your fridge. And uh remember my other piece of advice, which is if you wrap food in aluminum foil, just throw it away now. Right? Unless you label it with blue tape and you write what's on it.
As soon as you put something in aluminum foil and put it in the freezer, you would have been better off just throwing it away now. Because that's what happens. The reason I put things in quartz and and clear plastic is because if you can't see it, unless you're a different kind of person than I am, you won't eat it. You know what I mean? What do you think about that, JDB?
Yeah, I'm trying to think what I use for uh tin. I only use tin foil now when I color my hair. Yes, I would believe that. Yep. It looks really like you do your own coloring job?
Yeah, I do know. Yeah. And do you feel the quality is the same? No, absolutely not. I did it yesterday, and now the hair that's like the ends of my hair, it's like I've been combing it and it's like literally falling out.
Um because it's been bleached like four times. Uh and if you go to a real place, they only will they only will put the bleach on like the new parts of the they use like a brush, it takes like five hours. It's like a huge pain in the ass. Um but if you just slather yourself and in bleach and sit there with tin foil on your head for like 45 minutes, like your your hair will will burn off. But you know, it's pretty short, so I don't really care.
I can just shave it if the worst thing is. So Booker had his hair dyed like straight green, and we paid the full pri this is before COVID. We paid the full price to get it done by someone with talent. It's worth it. Yeah, well, she had this technique where she like put it in in such a way.
I don't know what she did, because I don't it's not my I don't understand how this works, but she did it in such a way that when it grew back, I mean obviously you're gonna see it, but it looked okay. She did some. Yeah, well they do is they like they like paint it sort of like in a gradient, so it like fades into the end. So it's not just like the sharp line when it grows in. Um so that's that's what they do.
It's like that's like it's actually like sort of like they like color your hair in a way that looks like it transitions back to your natural color. See what I mean? Like it is good. If you can pay for someone with the skill, pay for someone with the skill. You know what I mean?
Yeah, definitely. Oh, the uh the Gregorian monk. No, no, why? Friar tuck? You're gonna shave the top ball and leave a little red?
Yep. Yeah. I would I mean why not? Yeah, you should do it. Yeah, but like I mean, quarantine's the best.
And if you do that, can you also get the the line the line beard that runs from where you're still? I don't do I don't do facial hair, sorry. I'm trying to get my facial hair removed, so that's a deal breaker. Yeah. Yeah.
How long does that take? Lasers. I've gotten four treatments so far. Oh my god. Oh my god.
So can you let it just grow where they haven't treated it? I would love to do it. No, they'd like they basically it's like the it you have to do it like a bunch of times, and it like you have the hair grows in and the laser zaps the follicle, so it like the hair itself heats up and then kills the follicle, and you have to do it a few times because their follicles aren't all active. Um it's not like today I do the upper left side. No, no, they do the whole thing, it takes like 20 minutes.
Oh my god, I would have loved it if it was the other way. That would be cool. And then you could just grow these patches. It'd be like half your face has facial hair and the other half doesn't. Well, but then if you were like committed to the mutton chops or something, you could just be like, I would like permanent mutton, I would like it to not grow in anywhere that's not mutton chop.
I think you can do that easy. You can request that. Okay, so uh are there people because everyone like it's the it's the under beard that is the biggest pain. The neck is the worst. Well, I went in, I went in and I'm like, can you just take the hair off my neck?
And they're like, you might as well see your whole face. And I was like, sure. So they they they upsold me real real hard. Yeah. So how much extra is it for the whole face as opposed to insane?
That's why they were like basically you're here, you're already doing it, and it's an extra like 10 minutes, like of just like they just go beep beep beep beep all over your face. And then like the whole thing takes like maybe 15 minutes because your face is relatively small. Does it make that noise? It actually does, kind of. And it's like a little snap.
Ooh. Yeah. It like hurts a little. Like my my the person who does it is like, you like this a little bit too much. And I'm like, I thought results.
Like, come on, do it. And does it work equally for if they can do it to any skin complexion? I think it works better if you have the higher contrast between your skin and the color of your hair. So I have very pale skin and I have rather dark chestnut hair, so it works particularly well. But I think it's different.
These if different frequencies of light depending on your skin color. So are you gonna get your hair lasered into a fryer tuck? That's a commitment. Yes, sight on scene permanent tuck. Yeah, perma tuck.
I would like I think we should take up a collection with the cooking issues crowd to get JDB with a perma-tuck. Like that would be amazing. I would love I would love to see that. Basically, this male accelerated uh male pattern boldness. I mean it looks different.
You want the edge, you want the sharp edge. It's a sharp edge and it's real full all the way around. You know what I mean? Like, that's the thing. That's why it's different.
It's like it's it's a different look. Only a young man can pull off bangs type thing. You know, like it's amazing. It's a it's definitely definitely a young man's haircut the full tuck. I would pay, I would pay a hundred dollars to see Nastasia rock the tuck.
Hundred dollars. $100 does not seem like enough to make that happen. It doesn't sound like a lot. I'm saying what would be the price to make that happen? I'm just curious.
I don't know. I guess a million. Million. See, this is how we get in this guy. Nastasi and I get into so many arguments like this, because she'll come up with a number that's just like so like.
Okay, we're not gonna family show, but like any disgusting thing, right? She'll ask me what a family, but not a family. I don't know 30 grand. What? Why is it a family show when you talk to me, but not a family show when John talks?
Technically, it's a retroactively a family show for John. I have every utterance of a swear word uh timestamped, and it will not exist in the final thing. No, but what I'm saying is is that like we the actual subject matter is not appropriate. I don't know what you're gonna bring up. I do, and let's not go there.
Any number of unpleasant things, we're like, how much would it cost to get you to do blah? Right? And for me, my number's always like what, Stas? Way lower. Way like way lower.
And my thing is is that like someday I hope that we're I don't want to do this because you don't want to walk to someone who doesn't have money and offer them money to do something bad, right? That's that Robert Redford movie. But it's like it's like I feel like if someone was actually to offer that Nastasia's number would actually be lower. If someone actually showed up with the wheelbarrow of money, I don't think it would be a million dollars. I think if someone showed up with a suitcase with 80 grand in it, you'd be like, yeah, I'll go tuck.
Well, the nice thing with the tuck is that I think you could basically cover if you have long hair, you could cover the tuck with the remake. And just put it in a ponytail. Well, he we have a point tail at the bottom, so it's uh so it's like a rat tail fire chuck. So it's an allagher haircut, it's not a gallagher, it's tucked. Don't bring up Gallagher to me.
Oh, I hate him so much. And Mike loves putting on a Gallagher like clip on YouTube, and it's I hate it. I hate it. It's the worst. Aerodical bliss ruined by Gallagher.
I feel compelled. We're not that far from the end of our time. And the chat is like a wash in uh just speedy theories. Okay, well, listen, listen, listen. Alisio wrote in on Instagram with I and this, by the way, thank you, because uh I was looking it up last week, and I think it was so for those of you that didn't hear the Juspeedy story.
We talked about it on our 10th anniversary episode. We talked about it before. It's the pastry that I've never gotten to eat. Everyone that planned the wedding is dead. Uh I can't figure out my stepfather doesn't know really what a Juspiti is, and he was the and my mom, they were the ones that got married.
I never got to taste it, thanks to my crazy uh dead grandparents and the motorhome and the parrot and the two dogs, and what I didn't mention is that. What are you talking about? This is the just being just gotta listen. Go back and buy them one episode. You just gotta listen to the last episode.
Yeah, one thing I'll say is that I've had to miss the Juspiti at the wedding, right? That I've been hearing about for months, that this was the only pastry that you ever needed to taste. And when my grandparents made me leave the wedding early before it was over, who does that? Who makes you leave your own mom's wedding before your mom's wedding is over, right? Assuming that you know you're alive at your mom's wedding.
Um so, and then we drove, drove to make it to back to my house in Mount Kisko and parked the motorhome in the driveway where not then, but later on it would live for three years, where my grandparents lived in my driveway, which is a true story. Um they didn't have the keys to the house. So I just had to sit in the driveway in that motor home for like a day waiting for you know my mom and my stepfather to come give us the keys. Anyway, just speedy. So Elisio wrote in, I guess it's Alizio.
Uh, uh, hi Dave. Just listening to the podcast and wondering if uh the pastry at your mother's wedding is uh Sosa Sospiri. How do you pronounce this stas? You see this, Sospiri? I share it with her.
S-O-S-P-E-B-G-B-G-B. I R I. This is what I instantly heard. My parents are Italian and speak dialect, and a local bakery sells these, and S O S P I R I, Italian wedding pastry filled with uh a lemon thing. This has to be it.
Before the next best guess was uh Zeppelita uh uh Zeppelina uh San Giuseppe, right? But this has to be it. I think you have solved it. I think this is the answer. So now I just have to find someone in New York who makes it.
Chef Joanna was in on the chat and said this. I was listening to the 10-year anniversary podcast and realized that you may not have seen my previous reply. Oh, it's the same person. Okay, yeah, it's previous reply. Yeah, she's that's her that's her theory.
Perhaps bastardize the way that Capacola becomes gabagul. Oh my god. Don't get it. What's our what's our favorite stuzz? Uh well calamari, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, that's my favorite. Like then they first of all, San Gennaro feast, like one of the only good things about COVID is that that didn't go on this year. Like that I hate that feast so much. It's in September, so I could still have time.
What? It's in September, so I could still have time. Anyway, like I hate it. I hate it. Um there's another person with a Connecticut theory, though.
And I mean this one sounds better, I think. But here we go. Uh is it possible that the speedy pastry was was or generic reference to a pastry from Gispina's Italian bakery in South Windsor, Connecticut? N I don't know, but no, this is more Boston, and I guarantee you that uh Arcangelo Adonizia Arcangelo Adonizio, the butcher from Boston, did not go to South Windsor, Connecticut to get his pastries. That sounds good.
Um but the now I'm pretty sure that this is correct. This uh this uh spirit thing is correct. But San Gennaro's like yeah, Don de Barry needs to run. Oh, well, John, uh thank you for for coming on and go check out drink what you want. Uh his his new book.
Can I run through a couple of questions or no? Because I have answers to all the questions that I have. Questions for me? No, no, no, no. These are just questions that you could weigh in on or not.
No, John, you can yeah, you you can go and it won't be a good one. I'm getting I'm getting kicked out of my house for the afternoon for some work. So I believe that. Alright. Well, anyway.
Thanks for watching. All my love. Uh check out his book on uh fine fine books selling platforms. Uh do you have a particular place you prefer people buy it or just Amazon? Uh Amazon's probably like my fourth choice.
Um you can just uh go to like Penguin Random House and they actually have like a whole smorgasbord of vendors where you can do like they'll help you find like independent bookstores near you. So just search search for drink what you want, John Deberry, and then it should it should pop up. Yep. Thank you for uh coming on. Yeah.
All right. Oh, before you go, what are you gone? No. So your your daiquiri, your classic daiquiri, two, three quarter, three quarter. Do you actually do that or do you shy the lime up when you're making it for yourself?
I did the lime up. Yeah. Okay. And so I sh I don't shy the lime up, I shy the sugar down. And also like older I get, the more I come closer to a half half.
Well, obviously for gin stuff, I'm half half, not three quarter, three quarter, but even on the daiquiri, I shade the stuff down now. Like, are you changing as you as you I mean, you know, you're a lot younger than I am, but are you do you change as you as you age or no? No, I mean I think I kind of like having the sugar bumping the um the lime up rather than putting the sugar down because the sugar is that's a nice like texture to it, and then it gets the dilution, whereas it can just be a bit hot if you're lowering the proportion of non rum ingredients in it. So I just like to keep the volume up. Right.
Whereas your whereas your margarita recipe is considerably drier. Right. You prefer a drier margarita. Yeah, I'd say that's true. And it's because it's got a lot more going on, you know, with like the cursor or the triple sec or whatever you're using um in the agave, so it's just has a nicer um like to me the balance is different.
I feel like a Dakar is supposed to be chewier. All right. All right. But anyway, thank you so much for coming on. And uh Matt, do uh do I have a second to uh rip through some of these questions?
If there's anything that's very time sensitive, do that. Save the rest for later. This episode is brought to you by Dashable, an app created to help you find deals, discounts, and coupons for local businesses in New York City. Dashable will help you find the deals worth dashing for in a variety of categories, from food and drink to art, health, and pets. Support local and save money when you download Dashable today.
That's D-A-S-H-I-B-L-E. I'd like to see what Dave considers time sensitive with these. Well, no, are they do they have a normal thing? A wedding, etc. etc.
What what it like John, do you remember any being specifically time sensitive? No, no. Dave Foster did send us a bottle of uh Idaho spring water in a Perrier thing. I did get a hold of it. It it was delivered.
Uh, but I wanted to wait until we were all together to taste it. Does that make sense? Mistaz, you want to taste it, right? Yeah, we still have lemon cello to taste, but I don't know when I'm ever gonna see you. We should do uh like a socially distanced but all together like thing.
That would that even work? What is what is thing? Yeah, what is thing working? Radio show. Like we're all yeah.
Yes. Like of course. So we could all talk into our own mics, it wouldn't get confusing. Or I guess we do it in the radio show. We do it in the studio.
Yeah, it probably would end up not being live live, but yeah, we could do it. We could do it in uh we do it in Connecticut. Yeah. I have a couple calls on pressure cooking. I'll get to Cess uh next time, I guess, because that's gonna take a long time.
Uh Matt Hall writes in uh I've heard Dave state a preference for non-venting pressure cookers. How do I tell if my pressure cooker is venting or non-venting? Thanks. If it goes or when it's using its venting. The Kunricon only does that when you've really jacked the pressure higher uh than you are uh supposed to.
Um uh Tyler Lynn wrote in uh about the HVD A57, says uh we actually bought the HVD uh waffle iron like you and even brought it through my brother-in-law. Uh I saw you said you could swap it from one ten to two twenty. We bought it as a one ten and are actually interested in changing it now to two twenty. Do you have any idea how to do that? Also, your recipe is amazing.
We've tried a few, and yours is easily the best. Well, thank you, Tyler. Um, you gotta call the guy who you bought it from, who I will just refer to cryptically as Ray Waffles. Now the problem with Ray Waffles is Ray Waffles, as we say in the trade, got the COVID, and he wasn't he was uh kind of sick. I haven't spoken to him since, but my brother in law has.
But uh get back in touch with Ray Raffles. He can he can do it for you. I hope he's okay. I haven't spoken to him since um all that stuff went down. Um I guess the rest we should yeah, one more.
No, no, no. No, no, no. When we talk popsicles? All right. Alright, Aaron.
All right. I'm gonna get to all your popsicle backpack, vacuum machine, roto vapping, uh stuff uh next week, I guess, because uh, but next week Nastasia is not gonna be on. So who are we gonna get who we're gonna get to stand in for Nastasia? There's an ice cream man, and John will be on. Oh, yeah, we're getting milk cut milk cult coming on.
Next week will not be the uh the next uh flower Armageddon uh episode. We're trying to schedule that for later on this summer, correct, John? Correct. All right. And Nastasia, on our way out, have you had any interesting cooking experiences this week?
Because I know that you've been trying to re ramp your interest in cooking. And someone wrote in actually, which we should have I should have said this before I I I let you have the last word here. Someone said, and I can't find it. Uh maybe John will remind me. Someone said that along with uh classics in the field, we should do a whole thing on cooking for one and trying to keep interest up when you're cooking for one.
But uh what do you what do you got? Ooh. Uh no, nothing this week, but this weekend I might have something cool. Yeah. John, do you remember where that question came in from?
I think that was Devin Patel, the pasta troll. Oh. I'll read that then on the way out, and then we'll leave you guys thinking this. This is Devin, the pasta troll. I hope everyone is staying safe.
I write to you because I want to make a request. Can there be a new segment on the show, like classics in the field for cooking alone issues? I often wonder how much pasta sauce is the right amount to make for oneself, or how many days can leftovers stay in the fridge and still be non-toxic. Uh, and last but most important, is it okay to eat out of the pan you just cooked the meal in, including dump meals? One stop pan, am I right?
Or maybe uh tips for the budding home cook, like salt your tomato slices or slicing an onion with a butter knife for no tears. Much appreciated, Devin. Oh, Stas. Before we go, so I think this is something that maybe you could take on. And I think it's a lot of it's also just maintaining interest when you're cooking for yourself, right?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, every day it's like, oh, I gotta cook dinner. But do you eat directly out of the pan? I'm having a very positive outlook on it now.
I like that. Can't wait for dinner. I like that. Well, because that's gonna be helpful to make you feel better all around, isn't it? If you feel better about like your daily routine, isn't that make it better at all?
Yes. Do you eat right out of the pan? No. What? Doesn't that doesn't seem like a nostalgia thing.
No. Well, I'm just asking. This is the question, one of the things Devin wanted to know. So you don't eat directly out of the pan. To me, eating directly out of the pan is one of the big payoffs of cooking for one.
Wow. Okay. This is a different mental attitude. Nastasia, Matt, a little bit more of an adult. No, likes to eat off of a plate.
It's really hot. Yeah, the carryover heat's gonna mess up what you've got in the pan. Wow. And also then, like, do you have to stand like where are you sitting with this? Are you standing over the stove eating?
Yeah, yeah, I probably didn't probably didn't move very far. And the carryover heat, screwing up the like what I've done is exactly the kind of thing I don't care about when I'm cooking for myself. It's true, and if you just eat it quickly enough, it doesn't matter. Maybe we'll end with this Nastasia's story. See if she remembers this.
But I was on the phone with her, and she almost punched herself in the face because she became so debased cooking by herself that she made one of the first, one of the biggest fundamental prep errors ever. And she was like, What am I? A useless rookie? I should jump into the freaking sound. Do you remember what you did, Stas?
Yeah, I cut I cut the onion before I cut the strawberries. Oh on the same board, right? Yeah. People. People.
And like you what I love about, and this is why Nastasi and I can work together, because instantly she's like, why am I breathing? This is ridiculous. Yes. No, well, I had people coming over, so it was like major major blunder. Well, it's probably what saved you.
Like if you didn't have people over. True. Are your boards wood or plastic? Wood. Do you do the same thing I do?
I stick it in the sink and I sit there and I scrub it down and then I put my nose right against it and scrub and nose, scrub and nose. It takes so long to get that onion out. No, I don't do that. I don't do that. Yeah.
And remember, if you use a relatively porous knife like a carbon steel knife, and you make the mistake of cutting onions, not only will you get that weird color on the onions, but that onion flavor will stay on your knife for a good long time. Am I right? Am I right? Anyway. You want to just take care of that segment?
You want to be the cooking for one person? Can I think about it since this is the first time I've heard of it? Or should I? Of course you can think about it. Okay.
I don't know. But you know, we have two weeks, so if you want to do it, we'll do it. If you don't want to do it, we won't do it. Alright, cooking issues. Cooking issues is powered by Simplecast.
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