I'm Lisa Held, a food journalist and podcast host, presenting Behind the Label with American Humane. Produced by Heritage Radio Network for Springer Mountain Farms. This podcast series dives into what the American Humane Certified Label really means. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. This week on Meet and Three, we bring you stories about how Gen Z is different from their millennial predecessors through the lens of food.
My knowledge of alcohol didn't really come from like butt-like commercials or like Project X. Yeah, and that's my gripe with the platform as well. Is that all these DIY videos, cooking videos, they're 20 seconds? What's one food item from your childhood that you wish you could have today? Dunkaroos, because they don't exist anymore.
Although the Dunkaroos Twitter was activated again a year ago, so it's only a matter of time. They've tweeted a couple times. It's pretty hype. Listen to Meet and Three, HRN's food news and storytelling roundup wherever you get your podcasts. So what is there in Darien other than a good fish shop?
There's a good fish shop I told them about. Yeah. Yeah. Like like they have like local fish, like you can get stripers and blues and whatnot. Yeah.
It's really good. But is it as good as the stripers and blues that you would get just off of your porch? Solo with no one here just by myself? No. You know, you gotta get in.
Like I said, you gotta get it. Like my stepfather, like is the only person who is actually happier during the COVID time because he still relishes his lack of interaction. Yes, all he does is fish alone. He has a wife, so he can choose to not be alone. But I'm not trolling you in the way that other people we sure remain nameless.
What I'm saying is is that he would prefer always to fish alone. So fishing alone is something that I can't kill them. I have a hard time killing them. You mean yeah, it like for those of you that don't know, and I would say, Matt, how you doing? Got Matt in the in his Brooklyn booth, Brooklyn booth right now or Rhode Island booth?
He's not going back to Rhode Island. I am going back to Rhode Island Booth, in fact. Now you're in the midst of packing, because it's for real this time. You're packing for how how long are you going? Until my lease in Rhode Island is up in May.
Mm, nice. Yeah. Rhode Island and the Providence plantations. Yeah, although she signed a decree or whatever taking that part off. Who?
The governor of Rhode Island said that there's it's no longer Providence plant. Oh, because of the word plantation. Indeed. Yeah. Yeah.
Alright. Yeah. See, I don't keep track of the uh of the small the news from the smallest state, the ocean state. The new question is what's the new like who else has a secret long but slightly shorter than that state name? Because somebody probably took the mantle now for longest.
Well, what Rhode Island needs to do is just add some other bull crap to their name so that they maintain smallest state longest name. That's as a citizen uh activist. Uh, when I move there, I will I will petition for something. You're like, the only reason I moved here was because it was the small estate with the biggest name. And I like the Cohen brothers a lot, and that's the only reason I'm here.
They live in New York and LA now, and you don't even have the longest name. I'm out! I'm out. You don't even have the corrupt mayor of Providence anymore. I don't even know if he still makes his pasta sauce like he used to.
I mean, what's the dang point? You know what I mean? I have horrible news. He's no, he's no longer with us. He died?
Yeah. Recently? Seancey? A couple years ago. Oh.
Do you know who died recently? Very sad, is Wilfred Brimley. Who's that? Whoetas? Diabetes.
Diabetes. I'm Wilfred Brimley, I've got diabetes. Oh, oh, yes. Okay. You might know him from such classic movies as Cocoon.
Or such things as looking like uh like a bullfrog character in the real life and saying diabetes. Like, yeah, he just he's 80 something, so you know, he, you know, he he I'm not gonna say he went before his time. I'm just gonna say it's always sad when somebody goes. And so now I have, you know, the mayor of Providence and Wilfred Brimley all all in one all in one McGillam. Um later on in the show, Nastasia tells me that we will have Phil Bravo.
Is that true or no? Yeah, yeah. He's a big one. What's the name of the guy from Star Knight Live? Um The announcer?
Yeah, the one that died or the new one. He's dead too? Yeah. Yeah. God.
This is a rough day for Dave. Do you need to cancel the show? Should we should we give you a minute? Wait, Dave, what's your favorite? What's the favorite name that you like when he says?
Will Forte! Like that. I love Will Forte. Chef Joanna says Don Parteau. Yes, Don Pardo.
Pardo. Yeah. But anyway, like I always wish that Phil Bravo was on Saturday Night Live, not so that I could be close to Saturday Live the way Nastasia loves Saturday Night Live, but just so I could hear someone go, Phil Bravo. It'd be great, wouldn't it? Doesn't it sound good?
He has a great name. Like, for those of you that don't know, Phil Bravo, friend of the show. Uh, no, I mean, sometimes punching bag. I mean, not as good as Peter Kim at being a like a show punching bag. Comes on once a year, Phil Bravo does to do his uh his Grinch thing.
Uh comes on occasionally to read things, has, you know, the great sonorous voice. So should I wait to make fun of him until he's on? I feel bad making fun of him when he's not. Plus, he just woke up, so he's not gonna be punchy, you know. I don't know.
Listen, listen, listen. For those of you that he's not lazy, he lives in California. Well, I don't know. I mean, okay. But he lives in California.
So he's not just waking up New York time. He's just waking up California time. I think he might be in Palm Springs right now, actually. But that is Palm Springs, California. I know, I'm just saying.
Yeah. You're like, it's not really California, it's Palm Springs. It's Palm Springs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Uh, have you been to Palm Springs? Uh, have you been on that uh on that tram? No. You've never been to Palm Springs? Nope.
You grew up in LA, you've never been to Palm Springs. My parents were like, where why we were not going there? Yeah. I mean, like, you never passed by it on your way to Joshua Tree or anything? I mean, like.
We passed by it. I literally passed by your parents' house on the way to Joshua Tree through Palm Springs. Yeah. So if you should go, they have like a really cool tram. Have none of you taken this tram?
No. I don't even know about the tram. So there's a state park at the top of the mountain where Palm Springs is. It's really kind of a nice, nice state park. It's like cool, right?
And because it's on top of a mountain, and you know, so it's not as as as piss hot as it is down there in Palm Springs proper. But you you take this tram and it goes all the way up the mountain. But the cool thing about the tram is it it rotates, so there's no bad seat in the tram as you go up this mountain. So, like Dax and Jen were like, oh, this is awesome. This is amazing.
Rotating tram. And you're going around and it's really cool, and you're going from this piss hot place, because we were there in the dead of summer, up to where it's like really nice in the mountains. And I spent the entire time like at the very center of the rotating tram, like with my head in facing straight down, so that I wouldn't have to see anything. I was the exact opposite because I'm deathly afraid of heights. Deathly afraid of heights.
Anyway. And that was when I learned that uh Teddy Bear Choya are not to be trifled with. Right? They are the Wu Tang clan of like small cactuses. Like you think as a small child, I can kick that Choya, which is spelled Chala.
But you you're like, I think I can kick that Choya. And that sucker, I was there because my my grandmother was doing some sort of like uh Job's daughters slash Masonic, you know, hoo-ha bull crap in like the late 70s. And I was in my I was a small tiny child with a butt part, like a I had a a real butt part, super straight hair, long butt part, giant photogray glasses, little bit on the chubby side, like like polyester blue blazer, like cut a little bit boxy and a little bit long, and ill-fitting pants. Can you picture this, Nastasia? Yeah, I can.
You've seen the pictures, right? Also, like pre-braces, so like my teeth, like they may have a gap now, but they were like Level or blinds back in the day, and like a real, real, some real buck tooth action going on. I mean, I had it, I had it as we say, going on. And so I had my finest dress loafers on to go to my uh grandparents' things right before the the tram. And I was like, that's a stupid looking cactus, and I kicked the choya, and those needles went through my shoe and embedded through my shoe, through my sock, into my foot, and I spent like the rest of that whole morning trying to figure out how to extract uh choya needles from your uh from your is that the one that grows outside of um Jeff and Diane's the little No, those are Opuntias.
Those are um those are uh uh prickly pear cactuses. Oh, right. The Choyas are the ones that like look a little bit fuzzy and look like a bunch of little nodules. They look almost like a giant yeast cell sometimes, or they look kind of branched, but they have like little spiky balls. And like the the the we used to call this one the I don't know what the real name is.
There's teddy bear choya. It sounds friendly, is not. There's what they call jumping choya because like the rumor is that those balls will jump out and get you. That's how aggressive they are. If you get anywhere near them, the needles will like in bed, stick in you, and then they'll roll onto you and like really take you down.
But do not mess with Choyas, but do go to Palm Springs and go up in that in that tram. Not a cooking related thing, though. That tram sounds like a recipe for motion sickness. Well, so like, are you also afraid of heights, Matt? Uh no, I was when I was younger, but no.
The thing about trams and people who are afraid of heights is that if you close your eyes and just understand that you're petrified, do my classic of trying to pretend that you're dead so that you can kind of ignore like life and your fear and the sweat. Remember, fear sweat people smell so much worse than regular sweat. Like, like running around sweat is like almost like pleasant compared to fear sweat. You know who has a lot of has a lot of info on that that's so fascinating is McGee's new book that hasn't come out yet. But sweat.
Oh, you read it too? Well, he when he and I went out, he told me about the sweat chapter, and it's freaking fascinating. Yeah, different different uh different ethnicities of people have different like sweats. He also sent me a uh a paper on fear sweat, which maybe I can share with I can share with you guys. I don't I don't have it in my head enough to like recite the results verbatim now, but in terms of like I mean, I guess it is semi-cooking related since all of us sweat our frigging chonies through when we're working in a real kitchen, you know what I mean?
So sweat, and no one wants someone to sweat into their food, right? I had this discussion the other day. Like, what are your thoughts on the whole because there's whole like people sweating into the food as they're cooking? It's horrifying when you see it, right? Mm-hmm.
Anyway, we could talk about it. Uh, but what were you saying about McGee's book and sort of just bringing it up? I I don't have the information in my head as well as he could explain it either. But it's fascinating. So since he has finished his book, you think we should ask him to come on?
You think people would enjoy having the McGee back on the back on the air? Yeah. We can discuss so we can solely discuss sweat-related issues. It can be sweaty cooking issues. It's perfect for an August episode, yeah.
So for those of you that know, don't know, McGee's new book, as Nastasia says, is about smells, but a lot of the interesting stuff in the book is how different smells relate. So how like sweat smells or sex smells can be similar to certain food smells, uh, etc. etc. It's not actually a food book, it's literally a book about smells and all of the uh all of the kind of attendant molecules. Like I could see, like a lot of people do science, like science classes using on food and cooking.
I could see someone doing like an organic chemistry class for non chemistry or non premed people using this. And Ariel's book, she when she was here, she showed me she's doing flavor and smells and stuff, and she's she's watercoloring her own all the photos in the book. Oh, cool. Well, she hasn't shared that with me, Nanny Nanny. I would love to.
We should have Ariel on too. We shouldn't have we should have them on separately though. Like they shouldn't be like stealing each other's thunder, right? We gotta have them on separately. Yeah.
But um let's get to the first order to get it out of the way, Dave. Which of Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But before we do that, let me finish Fear of Heights. So I would like some advice from people. So for those of you that know, Nastasia is convinced, true or false, that uh if something were to happen in my family life such that, you know, like I don't know, they left me or whatever, then I would become the leather man.
I would become an itinerant like walker. I would just be walking around eating scraps out of people's trash cans and like. But you would but the other thing is that you would take the same route, which would allow you to see Jen's family, me, you know, so you it it works for the city. My parents exactly because they're on that loop. Yep.
It's but it's between the Hudson River and the Connecticut River, between the Long Island Sound and as far north as like where Middletown Connecticut is. So if you guys are familiar with our little section of the east coast of the United States, that little loop is the Leatherman loop. And so, yeah, you know, like, but okay, so every ten, every five to ten years, I I decide to start thinking I'm gonna do this again, but I gotta find out when I'm gonna do it. I would like to do either the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail. What do you think?
I would do one of those with you. But it's it's so long. How long? They're 2,000 miles apiece. How many days are you?
Well, the real question is you don't has to do it all in one shot. You can do like chunks of it. But the real question is like you can like it's still considered what they say a through hike if you do it like if you do like you know a third of the hike, take a break, a third of the hike, take a break. As long as you complete the whole trail in a year, they consider it a through hike. That's the the thing of a gym.
Well, but there's some pretty restrictive timing issues. You can't go up Mount Catan at the end too late in the season. It'll just be closed. I mean, like, you can't start. There's there's a limit to how early you start and how late you end.
Yeah, so the the power move is to is to do the like the the midway up and then do a southbound later. You know what I'm saying? Whoa, okay, I did not realize that. Or or to do a reverse. So the problem is is that people start the Appalachi sorry guys, Appalachian Trail.
So the East Coast of the United States, there's a 2,000 and change mile uh trail that runs from Georgia to Maine. And it sounds puny because we don't have any mountains here, but uh in the East Coast compared to that what they have over there in the Sierras, which is where the Pacific Crest Trail is, but what they make up for in not having heights, they have a massive amounts of elevation change. So like hiking the whole Appalachian Trail is like going up and down Mount Everest, like some unbelievable number of times. It's crazy. There's a lot of elevation change, even though no particular mountain.
You know what I learned? So I watched them at the beginning of quarantine. This is partially why I stopped eating meat, but there is this one um documentary called like I don't remember life changers or something, but it was all about um vegetable plant based diets, and the guy got on the did the Appalachian Trail in record time, uh, and he and he thinks it is because of his plant-based diet. Hmm. Or is it that okay?
I know you would dispute, refute. I mean, do you think that Brady is like one of the great quarterbacks because he doesn't eat tomatoes? It's not about the tomatoes, Dave. It's about the plant. Oh, and Phil Bravo's on now, so let's not get into football because this is gonna be a thing, and that we don't need that.
Yeah, we only know we only have so much time. Is Phil Bravo still the commish of fantasy football? I don't know if fantasy football is still on. I guess it's the perfect sport for this type of pandemic. It's a fantasy.
It's truly fantasy football. They are imagining all the games. Phil unmute your microphone. There you go. I know.
I'm very unmuted. Uh fantasy football started because it's not football season. It's baseball season, and yes, fantasy baseball has started. What's this new? I hear there's an uh here from Don Lee, my partner at existing conditions, that there's some sort of new fantasy baseball thing online where you pick random teams and then random games are like theoretically played in some sort of alternative Lovecraft universe.
Have you heard of this, Phil? I've alternative games and I mean I think it's just fantasy baseball. I think they're doing like a daily thing these days, but that is just to scam people out of money. I don't really understand what you're talking about. Are you do you do fantasy baseball?
Are you also a commish of that? Are you the Bartlett Giamatti of fantasy baseball? I am I am only Bartlett Giamatti, the commish in uh only in football. In baseball, I am just a lowly team. Sorry, that wasn't great payoff there, but yeah, just team owner, yeah.
Team owner, yes. I manage my players that aren't Marlins, uh, because all of the Marlins are infected with COVID. Oh, like for real? Are you serious? You don't know, man, you guys don't follow sports.
So the Marlon I told you not to get on this stage. Well, here we are. Go for it, Phil. But use your best Phil Bravo voice, please. Yeah, yes.
Alright. So the market's like a sports center thing. 17 players who have been uh players and coaches. They wait, say 17 players again. That sounded real good.
17 players. Uh and then but then it just happened with the Cardinals. Baseball is nonsense this year. They are they set this thing up terribly. Okay.
A food journalist and podcast host, presenting Behind the Label with American Humane. Produced by Heritage Radio Network for Springer Mountain Farms. This podcast series dives into what the American Humane Certified Label really means. We're looking inside the farm certification process, beginning with the moment a farmer expresses interest in becoming American Humane Certified, all the way to a consumer seeing the seal on store shelves. And American Humane is our country's first national humane organization founded way back in 1877.
Now we certify nearly one billion farm animals each and every year. Despite that growth, uh roughly 90% of US farm animals are still raised without the benefit of independently verified science-based standards. Subscribe to Behind the Label with American Humane, wherever you listen to podcasts. That you, first of all, for those of you that don't know, Phil Bravo, one of the things that he has done, I don't know if you're still doing it, is teach small children how to play crappy instruments, right? And quality instruments, but generally crappy ones.
Yeah, and as everyone knows, the crappiest instrument of all time is the recorder. Right? Sounds bad on a good day, blow too hard, and it sounds like dying animals. It's a it's a garbage instrument. Right or wrong.
I mean, it depends I mean, like, uh, you have a lot of of wonderful people in Amsterdam listening right now who would disagree, and they love some Baroque music. Okay. Is there a most famous recordist? Like who's the yo-yo ma of the recorder? I can't remember.
Well, there's this girl whose name I can't remember that is like a recorder virtuoso. She's like 25 and just is insane. I can't remember her name. And then there's this guy. But can she still only get one note out of that thing at a time?
Does it still lack nice overtones? Uh it it I mean, yeah, it does really have I think there's overtones in there. I don't know. I didn't really prepare for this. I can I can try and get a uh I can try and get a PowerPoint deck ready for you.
Did ACDC ever use a recorder? No. I mean, if they didn't, they're missing out, is the main thing. They've used bagpipes. They have used backpipes.
Yeah. I love a bagpipe. But Phil, tell tell me what your new hobby is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, let me ask you this.
If you are a professional recordist, uh uh a recorder teacher, what would be the only the only lateral instrument move you can make in terms of instrument quality? The only one. Well, we had said triangle, Dave. Yeah, yeah, but then like your your uh friend Min Young said that triangle trying the triangulist is actually respected in an orchestra. Why?
I don't know. Right. Yeah, Phil, do you know why? Yeah, because they're a percussionist, and also the everyone can hear what they do. You mess up everybody here.
You're a backstand violinist. You could budge a few things. All right. So Stas, what's the only lateral other than triangle? Ukulele.
Oh ukulele! This is like literally the only skill that I worked on in quarantine. I know! I told Dave, and then he was like, Are you kidding me? Yeah.
So, so is it because you have a deep voice and you want to cover tiny Tim songs? Well, it's I like to be able to do that. So complicated. There's a lot of strings on that. Ukulele, there's only four.
I'm not a smart man, Dave. Here's the other thing, people, in case you don't know, ukulele is one of is of the two open chord instruments I can think of, the lesser by far. It's no banjo. You know what I mean? Like the banjo is an open court instrument, so like I can pick it up and just slap at it like a monkey and it'll make a chord.
But it, you know, at least it's a banjo, and there's a whole technique of picking around it, you know. The ukulele, I mean, aren't you just holding your finger in a bar and going up and down the neck and strumming? No, no, no. Dave, you're embarrassing yourself. Like you have like I'm not sure.
You're playing ukulele and I'm embarrassing myself. One of the one of the one of the first people that I ever met in in the wild that actually listened to your show is uh and runs an orchestra program in Hawaii and is a bass player, and like you you gotta you gotta respect Hawaiian ukulele. I will say the way that the ukulele is generally played, terrible. The ukulele itself, awesome. Me playing I'm not saying right, okay, okay.
That that is a fair statement, right? Like the tiny Tim style open chord strumming ukulele. If that's all banjo was, also the banjo would be a joke, but clearly the banjo's a great instrument because of what people do with it, right? And you and because you're coming from Brooklyn, so you gotta love a banjo, it's required. Banjo and a xylophone.
Xylophone? Mm-hmm. Now, what's the difference between a hammer dulcimer and a xylophone, Phil? They're comp hammered dulcimer. I mean you hit it, yeah.
Fair enough. I mean, like, but also. Who's the famous Dulcimer player? Is that Yanni? Did Yanni play Dulcimer?
Is that who that was? Is that Yanni? I don't think that Yanni Yanni would just be at the Acropolis, right? He just like sang loud inspirational. I I thought he dulcied.
Was he I thought he was one of those dulcy do people. Someone look up some Yani live at Ecloplus. What? I thought he was saying. No, he's uh Greek keyboardist, composer, and producer, so keyboardist.
Keyboard. Keyboard. I feel like like talking to you about music is like a Jack Handy thing. It's like everything is like some kind of half fuzzy re fuzzy version of reality. What?
Wait, who's Jack Handy? Could you not remember Jack? Jack Handy wrote for SNL and thoughts. And he also did Emery. Yeah, yeah.
Dave, say Phil's voice with uh what's Don Pardo. Phil Bravo. Damn it now. Well, Nastasi and I believe that Phil Bravo needs to quit. First of all, Phil Bravo lives close enough to Los Angeles that he could actually do what we're about to say for a living.
Not that you can't do this remotely anyway with a decent microphone. When are you gonna quit teaching recorder and ukulele to small snot-nosed children and become like a a voice professional? Come on, give me some more Phil Bravo voice. Seven years. I know.
I waited too long. Now everybody's just sitting at home. So they're getting there. All of the uh all of the people that would have been acting are now just uh voice acting. I've it's like they flooded the market, Dave.
Yeah, but you still have the voice. It's true. It's true. You would never guess that you come from Florida. I have that voice.
You should see the gene shorts I'm wearing now. Oh my goodness. Um now I'm horrified. Now I can't even listen to you. Give me some give me something to wash away the gene shorts.
Are you in Palm Springs, Phil? I'm in Palm Springs right now. I am on my one, this is my this is how I'm spending my vacation, Dave, talking to you. Oh, joy. Joy.
Uh so listen, why don't you read what you came on to read? So Phil Bravo uh had an experience with one of our with one of our oh, before we get into this though, uh, Wes Hendrickson uh uh listener went on the uh, what's it called, uh, Twitter last week and rightly pointed this out. I just want to say uh for those of you um out there that the antigen tests for COVID, the antigen test, which is the normal point of care kind of test that you can get, are not accurate enough, especially in the absence of contact tracing to uh to allow you to forego social distancing measures. So I just want to be clear that we're not saying that um that kind of test is a a valid uh a valid test to have you stop social distancing. So I just want to not forget to say that before the show is out.
Now, Phil, what do you got for me? That was that was the transition to me. Phil, bro! Brand new transition. There you go.
Classic cooking issues intro. Yeah. Uh all right, so I'm gonna read an email that I received uh and it was to my work email, so I apologize in advance if this isn't professional. So I'm gonna uh names have been have been changed and altered to protect the innocent. All I'm saying, Phil, is if you're gonna do the voice acting, you've got to speak into the mic.
You're they're like waving in and out like you're like uh well, this is I I have uh I even used my good quality phone microphone, all for you, Dave. Let me ask you a question, Phil. But before you get into what you're saying, do you think if let's say, let's say three people are doing a radio show on the regular, let's say it's called Mooking Bishes on the Rareitage Mateo Network, right? And two of those people buy their own microphones, but one of the people refuses to buy their own microphone for so long, and the sound quality is so bad that the network buys and sends them a nice microphone on the network's dime, and the other two people get nothing. What are your thoughts on this?
Well, I guess if the uh if the first two just weren't confident enough in their self-worth to demand the equipment that they rightfully deserve, you know, I guess that's on them, Dave. Yeah, but what if the third person didn't demand it? It's just the network got so pissed off at how bad that third person sounded that they sent her, let's say her name is Mastacia Glopez. They sent her a nice microphone. I'm just saying, I don't know.
I think that Nastasia is a very clever person, and she understood that eventually I would crack. Exactly. Uh-huh. What I would say is it sounds like that third person knows the way the game is played. Uh okay.
By the way, we have not had one cooking related thing this entire time. Yeah. Oh, I can uh I made a I made a terrible horchata ice cream that we can talk about. Oh, just do it now. Let's do it now.
Rice or shada or choof and nut? Uh rice. So uh I I thought I was being clever. Basically, I found some recipe where it wants you to steep the the cream with so basically you don't actually blend in the rice, almonds, and cinnamon. You steep the milk, but I was like, no, that's gonna be just lightly flavored, no one wants that noise.
I'm gonna use my new Vitamix, and I am going to blend just the crap out of the rice and the cinnamon. And then I also didn't use Mexican cinnamon because I'm a heathen, so I just use regular stick cinnamon. Uh, and now I have this this uh I haven't made the ice cream yet, it's in the fridge. Just pudding, Dave. It is pudding, and it's because of the rice, I'm guessing.
It's a lot of starch you have in that, my friend. I know. Like how much rice per unit liquid? That's a lots of lots of starch. So basically, it's like we've got uh two and a half cups of cream, one and a half cup of milk.
I usually do a two, two cream, one milk, but it was uh I I was like, it was just thick, it was like a viscous, just kind of blobish thing. Uh but then it was basically a cup, uh, a little bit less than a cup of rice and a cup of cup. A real cup or a rice cooker cup? Uh real cup. Oh, okay.
I was I was using so what I did is I looked up a recipe for horchata, and like, but I think that even those recipes assume a blender that's not gonna like do its full, like, you know, dirty, sinful business. It's gonna like kind of like leave chunks that you can then sieve out. But no, my Vitamix did its job, and so I've just got like a wonderfully tasty, very heavily cinnamoned sludge. Phil, now you know that the vita prep means business. It does.
I think at this point you should just heat it and turn it into a pudding. You should just cook the starch out and have it be a pudding. I think you should get the real nuts and not use the rice. Well, that's a whole different thing. I like the chief and nut sauce.
What? Yeah, you you prefer the cheese and nut to the rice? I do, I do, I do. Yes. I like the word choof and nut.
But but what happens if I put it in the in the ice cream maker? Like what's what's gonna be wrong with it? What kind of ice cream maker do you have? It's probably a Hamilton Beach, I'm gonna guess. No, it's the blackened Decker.
Um it is uh it's a Kobe brand. It's a Kobe. It is a lovely queas and art. It's my friend, so it might it might break it, but it's not mine. So it's yeah, it's gonna be too thick.
So, like the the issue on motorized things is that uh one of the ways a lot of these things work is they judge how well they've been freezing by the kind of viscosity, and when the motor stalls out, it knows it's done. Uh and so that's why I'm asking. I don't know how that particular unit does, but you're gonna stall out your your dasher motor like much earlier because it's so thick. So uh it's it's just if your viscosity is like really, really wrong, it's just hard to get anything but the most powerful ice cream like prof like commercial ice cream maker to get it to work right. Um so you might want to, like I say, just heat this, turn it into a pudding, right?
Uh like cook the starch out, right? Because you haven't cooked the starch out yet, right? So now it's also chalk, it's also chalky. It has the benefit of being chalky and pudding and sludge like, right? All right, so this I would heat.
Gotta slow down for one second here, just because like again, I I teach the recorder. Uh cook the starch out. Explain to me. The heat it. Yeah, but like doing a double boiler, it's gonna scorch like a mother.
How does the starch come out? Like I'm I like this is you gotta speak to me like I'm gonna, yeah, Dave. You got how does the starch come out? Just by heating. Right now you have a pile of of raw rice.
I do right. So if you heat it up close to the like boiling point of water, then you know, the starch will swell, soften, and cook in the way that like a cornmeal slurry slurry would. And then when it cools back down, it'll turn into a solid like a rock, but at least it'll be cooked. You know what I mean? Solid as a rock.
Yeah, nothing's changing it. The thrill is still ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hot. Solid as bar rock. Oh. And that's a great song, by the way.
This mic is already paying dividends because I heard every bit of nostalgia. You heard Nastasia also singing. Yeah, yeah. It was worth it. Was that less than a few years?
Those of you that only hear Nastasia and I arguing with each other on the air, and by the way, we also do that in the real life off. It's strange the things that we like in common. But we also know, like I knew you were going there. We've done it many times. It's like a hive mind issue.
I don't know what that is. Do we have a hive mind? I don't know what that is. Alright. Okay, so uh any any more cooking questions, Phil Bravo?
I think that made sense to me. I'm I'm I'm on the show. Send us a photo when you're when you're done. But listen, Phil, welcome to the land of Vitapeps because or Vita Vitamix, I guess uh no one they don't even call them Vitapeps anymore, right? No, nobody calls it that.
Just me. I'm the last sole survivor of the Vitapep. Back in the day, they used to make a model just for chefs. It was a Vitamix and they wrote Vitaprep on it, but I think they stopped doing that like I don't know, 10 years ago or something. But I you know, I don't I don't change.
Anyway, um yeah, they're pretty sick instrument, right? You love that thing. I love that thing so much. I make uh I make many a flower out uh of random things, just like paper clips and are you trolling Nastasia? No.
Are you trolling? He doesn't listen, he doesn't listen to the show. He doesn't listen to the show. Yeah, but I'm sure you've complained about it to him. Yeah, like we don't talk about work.
Alright. I like how I've just been relegated to work. But just so you know, Phil, she does talk about you at work. What was that? She does talk about you at work for sure.
I am clear on that. It is one of the reasons I don't listen to the show. I don't uh I feel like there's a whole fiction version of me out in the world. Flour is a trigger word for Nastasia. She doesn't like to think about it or talk about it.
No, it's only because Phil, everybody's making bread at home, and people that make bread are usually in a couple, you know, so it's Pat's making bread. He's uh, you know, Pat's not making bread. I think it's mainly because uh without burger. Yes, Pat is a prof Pat is another friend of uh Nastasia's friend of the show, professional didgeridooist. It's true.
Uh he's a professional di first of all, he plays many, many instruments. What's the word for like a like a polyglot for instruments? I think just polyglot for instruments, I guess. Alright, anyway, he plays a whole lot of instruments professionally. But what what Pat Pat has a really cool job in that there's a couple of things that all of the famous orchestras only know him as the only guy that plays it.
So, like, right or wrong, when an orchestra is like, I need a digeridoo, they're like, I don't know. The only guy I know who plays it is this Pat guy. And so they fly him out to do his diggeridoo and then he goes home. True or false. I have not heard that.
It's a version of the truth. So there was one concert with the didgeridoo, but it's generally he does a lot of ocarina, but he plays the saxophone. Have Arena is the thing he had a bunch of gigs on. Does he enjoy the melon ocarina man? I believe that he.
I mean, how could you not, Dave? Smash Mouth on the melon-based ocarina is one of the better YouTubes. I don't know that. No. You've never seen All Star played on Ocarinas made from melons?
No. Mm-mm. Oh, we've definitely talked about this on the show because I remember Googling it after it's worth it. I think, yeah, I think Nastasia probably rightly tuned us out there in this conversation, but this guy, I think he makes like ocarinas for people like Pat Posey, but also makes them out of things like melons, so that he can play Smash Mouth's All-Star on the Melon Ocarinas. It's it's classic.
But am I right or wrong in that Pat Posey was in fact paid cash money to play didgeridoo for an orchestra and thus is a professional classic diggeredoist. I I bel I believe that that that is true. Yeah. You see, although I don't present the complete truth, what I always say is the truth. Yes.
Also, I feel like I feel like we need to do, I have an ad in the making of just like, do you have a melon but need an ocarina? Yeah, well, you talk to this guy. I mean, this guy is like better than all of us at the YouTubes. He has like 8 billion views. Because unlike Nastasia and I, he knows what people want.
They don't want to hear people talking about like cooking and their friends. They want someone to take a melon, what used to be a watermelon, or a honeydew or a musk melon, and all of a sudden now it plays Smashmouth. That's what they want. Clearly. Do you have a do you have a theme song for the for the show, Dave?
I never listened to that. Yeah, it's uh it's uh it's uh someone redid uh Amos Milburn's Vicious Vicious Vodka uh, you know, cocktail blues uh legend Amos Milburn redid one of his things and that's our intro. Well uh because Nastasia didn't like the the kind of uh the the screamy metal uh Joel Gargano cooking issues go intro. Well depending on Nastasia, you'll have to pressure Pat uh and I into putting together an ocarina and recorder uh I would love that, but you guys can't get your crap together fast enough for some of the things I request. I don't know about it.
But we've been doing it for 10 years. Sometime in the next 10 years would be good. Just try and work it out. Now listen, people, I want you to write into the chat room or to whatever, to Nastasia or to John. Like, of the here are the instruments you can choose from.
You got your your saxophone, your ocarina, your digeridoo, your recorder, your ukulele. Any combination of that, the Phil Bravo slash Pat Posey team can can make if they choose to, a theme song using those instruments. So doesn't he play, doesn't he have like a baritone sax he goes? Isn't he like a hired gun on Barry? Yeah, he does a lot of berry.
That's a sick instrument. The baritone sax is freaking sick. And then Phil, you should sing you should sing over it. I'll think about that one. Phil Bravo, you are the bass trombone of human beings.
I feel like I don't know if that's a compliment or the worst insult I've ever had. Well, this Nastasi and I were bonding this earlier this week over our shared love of Sly and the Family Stone. Oh yeah. And Sly and the Family Stone has some sweet, I believe, bass trombone parts. Wa wah wah la wah, wah, wah, wah.
That stuff's awesome, right? Isn't that it? Doesn't he have bass trombone in some of those arrangements? Now I'm gonna have to go and listen. I don't know what that is played on.
I believe you, but you also you again, this is probably some fuzzy version of the truth. Look, as long as my version of the truth contains a bass trombone, I'm happy with it. I will get back to you. I'm gonna do some research. All right, you do that.
Meanwhile, why don't you do what you came on to do, Phil? All right. And so we have an email entitled Odd Question. Hello, Phil. I'm not sure if you remember meeting me at the Systema USA conference in Detroit last year, where we presented on Systema Toronto's social curriculum, which as an aside, Dave, was really impressive.
What the heck is Systema? Oh, uh, so that's what I actually do. So it's uh it's a uh we'll we'll do the sh the short version. It is a approach to teaching music for young people that basically blends music education with uh social justice, with the idea that everyone should have access to high quality music education. Um that sounds great.
It's great, yeah. That's that's uh and and it's done, Dave, through recorders. Um not in now you lost me. But a little bit, but a little bit. Uh this is also I thought you said high quality.
We had a nice lunch afterward, if I remember correctly. It was at the music. It's a big email. Oh, all right, right. I'm reading the email, Dave.
All right. I'm watching you right now, which wasn't creepy. Uh I'm watching you right now on the YOLA webinar. I was I was hosting a webinar, Dave. Uh, and it reminded me where I recognized your name from.
My apologies if I am totally wrong, but your voice also sounds familiar. Are you the same Phil Bravo that has appeared on the geeky food podcast, cooking issues? If so, this will be one of the most hilarious small world moments of my life. Cooking issues is my absolute favorite. Uh, he's from Canada, so there's a you in there.
Favorite podcast, and I've been listening to it every week for years. Again, sorry to waste your time if there's a Phil Bravo voice alike out there. And then that's there is not. There is only one Phil Bravo. So uh you have reached.
My apologies. I didn't really get approval to read that online, but I figured that that would be okay. Phil, can you can you give the little short thing of when you started at the LA Philharmonic and you needed an email address? Oh, well, oh, the the short version is basically IT the IT department, would never set up my email, and they kept on turning it off because they kept on thinking that that uh Phil Bravo was a fake name. That's like in the system is like a catch-all.
They're like, ah, some would just put that in there. That's not real. Phil, Phil Bravo, so good. I mean, it's it's a great name, and you have a great voice, and you're throwing it away. It's true.
You're throwing it away. You're 40 years old, Phil. Get it together. Just withering on the vine, Nastasia. Get it together, Phil.
Um, I will say though see what's happening. Uh, listen, so I'm gonna give you some more advice so that we have some cooking in here. Oh, perfect on your Vitapep. Things that people a Vita mix, things that people don't necessarily know about it. It's actually better for the equipment to run it on full high speed.
So when you turn it on, always remember when you're turning it off, make sure both switches, if you have the classic style, are down the variable speed and variable speed and the off switch off. Make sure the knob is turned all the way to slow. So just make it a habit when you're done of just swiping down on the face of the unit with two fingers to put both uh paddles down and make sure that knob is all the way to the to the left to um uh counterclockwise. And making that a habit that you ingrain in the way that you use the Vitaprep is Vitamix is going to save you someday from the the very least that will happen is you will be shocked when you accidentally turn the switch on and it ejects an entire pitcher of like very stainy crap all over your kitchen. Hypothetic.
And at the yeah, and and and the flip side of that is someday you will pour hot soup into this and hit go. And if it does it with hot soup, it can be I've seen it, it can be a very, very, very nasty, nasty burn. So just make sure that before you turn it on, that you do uh the both down, turn knob to the left, and when you turn it off, just make it a habit of always doing that so that the odds are, even when you're working, that you're never gonna be in a situation where you flick it on when it's on high. Also, uh everyone like does this, but if you rat when you rattle the pitcher as it's going, you're uh messing with the bearing on the bottom of the thing, and that's what's gonna cause over time your pitcher to get leaky, which will happen uh over time. The bearings now are much better than they were eight or nine years ago, but it's still not considered good practice.
That said, like when I get mad at it and I don't want to bother plunging, I will sit there and smash the top of it like like uh like a bongo drum to get it to do what I want. Another thing uh with uh the Vitoprep is Vitamix is remember not to dishwash your uh your your pitcher. And the reason again is the bearings. It's not good. There is no ball bearing, even though they're sealed, that are designed to be continuously and constantly dishwashed, and also it will fuzz out the um the plastic on the outside over time.
So your best bet is right after you're done uh blending hot water, start it on low, blend it up, and then dump it out. That should clean the blades out and the rest you can clean by hand. Am I missing anything, John, on uh on Vitamix uh care? I like to include a little soap and uh that final blend. Just does it all.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But don't dishwash. And by the way, that also goes for uh spinzalls.
Uh you you're allowed to, and we say in the manual that you're allowed to dishwash the lid, but just be aware that it will shorten the life of the ball bearing. So John uh was telling me we're talking this morning before the radio program. We don't know why Searsols are not in stock in Amazon. We've sent them two orders and they just haven't put them online. True or false does.
Yeah, that's true. And do you know any reason why they are shafting a soft? No idea. It's not us people. Amazon has it.
Uh this morning, by the way, just so you know, uh, we can talk because we have the patents. I'm working, I'm working on some interesting Searsol related stuff. Maybe in a couple weeks we can talk about it. Um, but we have some interesting movement in the in the Sears all space. We don't know when we're gonna have the next round of uh spinzalls for sale because the factory just won't get back to us.
Like everything, like all over the world, obviously, is problems with corona, but I actually don't think this is a corona problem. Do you think it's a corona problem, Nastasia? I don't think so. I really don't know what the issue is. We are trying to get a date for when we can get more spinzalls in.
Uh they just don't exist right now. So they don't exist. But everyone should keep emailing spinzall at Bookerindex.com or Sears All at Booker Index.com, and I can put you guys on the wait list and then notify you as soon as they're available. By the way, I'm not encouraging you to waste John's time, but John literally, like John is like the best customer service representative, I think. Like he's he's crazy.
He we have the best customer service of like any company because John is like, is like so freaking conscientious about handling problems. So please, if you do have a problem, uh uh let us know. But we were actually, you know, whatever, whatever. Learning to troubleshoot people's problems over the phone is a fine art. I'm actually not bad at it.
I'm bad at calling people back, but once you have me on the phone, I'm real good at it, right, Stas? You're really good at it. You're better than the people that they send out to the house. I know. It's not a skill that I really want to have, because what it means is that I've spent the majority of my life dealing with people that have things wrong.
So I have to be hold on. The weather is not good. I'll be right back. Oh, yeah. Well, actually, yeah, Nastasia is turning into a uh Yeah, we're about to have a tropical storm hit us.
So uh Phil, thanks. Oh, let me let me hit one. Oh, you do not know what's going on. Nastasi, we're gonna head out. One question from the chat, too.
All right, and then I'm gonna rip two real quick uh real quick uh questions. What's the question from the chat? Uh John Sickor wrote in he's asking if you have any tips on juicing a pineapple in the champion. Uh he has trouble with the restrictor plate getting clogged. Yeah, well, it just gets clogged after a while.
Anything so what we're talking about is the champion juicer has an auger and then little teeth, and then it scrapes it as you push it through it. The teeth scrape it and masticate it, but chew it up, like masticate gross word. I'm sure Nastasia hates it. I don't know if she's still on, but I'm sure I'm sure you hate the word masticate, right? It's not that bad.
Really? All right. So uh chews it up and then pushes it through a plate with tiny holes, and then the fiber don't don't doesn't make it through the holes and they go out. But things with shreddy fiber, like things like ginger, like celery, whatnot, um, really tend to clog it up. So when you're juicing something like celery or rhubarb, the trick is to cut them in short pieces so that the long threads don't uh clog it.
But with pineapple, I've never really had that much of a problem. I usually chunk it before I put it in. But um, yeah, that's all I don't know. Like I don't I've never had a problem with that clogging, but it is relatively quick to swap that uh plate out. So in general, like as soon as it starts getting too hot, I or clogs too much, I swap it and pull it in out.
We should get going. This weather's getting really bad, and I'm a bit like a little bit. Alright, give me one second. Uh don't juice. I did a test to see how bad it was to juice apples without taking the little um peel off of not the the label off of the apple.
Don't do that. They all get stuck on that plate, and then that becomes uh a nightmare. All right, so I have to do hold sec. Uh this is from the chat room, L Burns. Hey Dave, cooking issues crew.
Thanks for the show. Uh I know how you feel about vegans, so apologies in advance. We love vegans, right, Stas? I'm vegan, celibate, and sober. Whoa.
Yeah, Stas. That's a good one. Not by choice. Not by choice. Well, you're vegan by choice.
Vegan by choice, too. Yeah. Yeah. And like, for those of you, like, maybe I'll look if it means you can have a glass of wine, I'll do more Instagram lives with you, Nastash. Okay, that's good.
All right. I mean, if that's the reason we need to do it, then I'll do it. Okay. Um. So uh I know how you feel.
Do you like to see that shirt that someone made with me as Leatherman? And you're right. That shirt is so good. So good. That's a great shirt.
Who am I? I'm uh uh what's his name's wife? Del say no. I can't remember. Who?
The one of me is what? Nothing too. It looks like Scarlett Johansson, but is it? No, it's it's some Russian dictator's wife. Like Oh, yeah, yeah, no, that's the younger, that's the young Stal.
Is that the young Stalin? Yeah, maybe. Is that Stalin's daughter? No, I I have to look it up, but go on. All right.
Uh it's not uh Lenin's wife, is it? I think it might be Lennon's wife, yeah. Let me see. Huh. Well, she'll look that up.
Um, but if you were forced to try making the best possible vegan quote unquote bacon ever, how would you go about doing that? I know conventional suggestions like smoke paprika, liquid smoke, but wondered if you had any other ideas. Thanks. Uh so listen, uh L Burns, I don't have any ideas off the top of my head. This is something that we should I would definitely put out to the um put out to the chat.
And also maybe we'll throw it on uh John. Maybe we could throw it on our Twitter feed to get people to respond because we have plenty of people who worry about this stuff. Yeah, I would like to say to maybe look at uh Jeremy and Rich's work. Jeremy Umansky and Rich She, Our Cook Quest and at TM Gastronaut on Instagram. I know Jeremy's done some cool stuff with uh mushrooms in the past.
I mean, also, but why don't we uh John, why don't you reach out to them and we can have them just call in on the next show if they have a good recipe and give it give us their their answer for it. Yeah, can do. Another thing is that I am not a vegan, but you know what I do love, and I've said this before, and I'll say it again: bacon bits. Texturized vegetable protein bacon bits are better than actual bacon bits on a salad. I'm gonna go ahead and say that.
Because they are crunchy, all get out. Am I the only one that likes bacon bits? Indifferent. I haven't had one in a while. Okay, listen.
Bacon bits, don't think of them as fake bacon. Taste, think of them as crunchy, salty smoke, right? So they're like crunchy, salty, smoky, proteiny, like umami crunchlets. They taste good on salad. Even if you had real bacon.
So for instance, if I had a cob salad and there was bacon on it, right? I would still be like, you know what tastes good? Bacon bits on this, son of a gun. Hell, I'll put salad. First of all, Nastasi, you still, if you were to have pizza, are you still salad on pizza?
Please tell them you haven't lost that. I might have lost Nastasia, but Nastasi and I like salad on a pizza. I'll put bacon on that sucker. Anyway. Alright.
Since Nastasia is gone, if I have 30 seconds left, I'm gonna do this because Nastasia hates carbonation questions. Daniel Wallingworth wrote in uh after a year and a half of binging the show, I'm almost caught up. Still got 40 episodes to go. My wife really likes uh say say the uh the French word uh seltzer water with your with your fancy French accent, John. Say that again?
Say the fancy uh French uh water name, the American uh seltzer water name. Say it with a French accent. Perrier? La Croix? No, no, no, no.
Yeah, say that. Yeah, Lacroix. Yeah, yeah, you go. Uh you see, the thing is is like I would say like La Croix, but it's just not the same because I can't do the I can't do the C R O I X the way that a real uh francophone can. You know what I mean?
Can't be done. Nastasia lost power. She's texting us. Uh uh crap. Yeah.
I told her before this thing happened that she needed to get her generator in order. I'm hoping she did. I'll call her in a minute and see how she's doing. I recently made a carbonation rig uh with a 20-pound tank and a carbonator cap. This produced cheaper, affordable results, which is why I went this route, but the flavor is a little lackluster.
I'm using water from my fridge door, and which I regularly change the filter. Those uh fridge filters are garbage. What I recommend you do is get a uh house filter and filter the water through a big filter before it goes into your fridge, and then just throw the filter away in your fridge. Uh, I think in the long run, you're gonna have a better result that way, but whatever. Do what you want.
It's your filter, it's your water to your life. And I store it in the freezer for a couple hours before I carbonate it. How can I make the water taste more like the that word? Uh I add essential oils. They use water-based things, and they have systems that are made specifically to go into water by large flavor houses.
Very hard to duplicate that stuff by yourself. Um you can just I just squeeze limes and lemons into my seltzer, which reduces their bubbles, but I drink it so quickly it doesn't matter, and it's extremely fresh. Another very good thing, if you don't mind slight amounts of alcohol, and I'm sure John, you like this, is bitters. You like bitters in your uh in your seltzer? Not really.
I don't like bitter flavors in general. Not a big bitter thing, yeah. Well, if you like bitters, celery bitters in seltzer are delicious. Just a couple of dashes of celery bitters in seltzer, great. Uh even ango, ango is a little overpowering for some people for a standard seltzer, but try a couple of dashes of celery bitters or anything like that and give it a shot.
Uh I'm using my fridge cave. Uh, how can I make it taste more like that or the mineral flavor of Topo Chico? Well, you can just, or San Pellegrino, you can just use mineral water. I haven't had a good fake mineral water, although you can read um fix to pump Darcy O'Neill's books on soda, or go to his blog wherein he has lots of recipes for uh fake mineral waters. And then also, how is Topo Chico so carbonated?
And last, I don't know if you still do this, but I'm 27 male and my wife is supportive of my cooking shenanigans. Well, Daniel, I'll give you this little piece of advice before uh all of our power cuts out and we're forced to go. Um, one of your problems with getting a high level of carbonation is that uh when you remove the water from the bottle and do your double carbonation, which I always recommend you do two carbonations and make sure you squeeze all of the air out in between if you really want the full amount of carbonation. One of the problems is actually doing the carbonation is raising the temperature of the water while you're doing it, as opposed to the way they do it in commercial situations, which is they carbonate it at room temperature and then chill it afterwards at a very high pressure. What I would do is take one or two ice cubes and put them onto the rim of your bottle and then smack it with your palm to smash the ice cube into the bottle.
So you actually have a couple of nuggets of ice in there. Make sure it is ice cold, and then those two little or three little nuggets of ice will keep the temperature of the water extremely low while you're carbonating and allow you to get that really, really bubbly result you want at 42 to 45 PSI. So I hope that's been helpful. Uh if you're caught in this storm, uh stay safe. I'm gonna check on Stas and see uh how she's doing with the power.
Anything else, guys? Thanks, Phil Bravo. You got anything else to say on the way out, people? I uh just the realization that the uh the Vitapep is your didgery dude, Dave. I am I am I wish someone paid me to use it, so I'm not quite a professional.
I haven't made it to the Pat Posey level of of Vitamix uh instrumentation instrumentation, but like I would say I am a mid level ocarinist of the of the Vitapep. Love it. I'm gonna make some pudding. Cool. Cooking issues.
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