This episode is brought to you by WisTale. Ever wonder how winning brands like Shake Shack, Chopped, and Torchies Tacos scale their business and train employees, all while delivering an exceptional customer experience? They do it with WisTale. Learn more at WisTale.com. Welcome to Jupiter's Almanac.
I'm Matthew Rayford, the great great great-grandson of Jupiter Gilliard, a former slave who bought the land I now farm in Georgia nearly 150 years ago. Through the years, my ancestors have passed on some essential and hard-earned wisdom about growing and producing the food we eat. It's my great honor to share that inheritance and to invite other farmers from Georgia and around the country to share their tips with you. It's an opportunity for us to slow down and to connect and to plug in. And the farm does that in a way that lets you connect and appreciate the life that's exists and nurture and cultivate that and then extend that to the relationships to the people who are in that house with you and your community.
So if you were just starting out, reconnecting with the land or a seasoned farmer, join the conversation. And to be honest with you, it was like, would Warren come out and say, hey, I want to be a farmer? Probably not. I I consider myself a city kid. You know, when we initially got a horse, you know, I have that New York City mindset, a horse, I'm thinking Thoroughbred horse, aqueduct racetrack, Belmont Racetrack, those type of things.
You know, and and slowly but surely, I'm starting to understand a lot more. I do remember early on, like, you know, the first month or two of dating, how we would daydream about starting a farm together, and it's kind of like, hold on, let's like pump the brakes and get to know each other first. And then talk about that. You know. So what got me into chickens?
Um, I always joke and say that a chicken saved my life. Um, and it very much so did. I'm interested in black liberation that's ecological and that's not contingent upon these systems giving us anything. There's also something that's beyond this that I want and that I seek for our for our people, and that's intimacy with the land, and that's reliability. And so for us, it's also this idea of connecting people back to the land and connecting our um folks back to their ancestries.
So, what does it mean to organically sustainably farm in our current economy and time? Please subscribe to Jupiter's Almanac wherever you get your podcast. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Its coming to you live from the Lower East Side of Manhattan on the Heritage Radio Network. I got Nastasia the Hammer Lopez in Stanford, Connecticut on the sound. We have Matt in his Rhode Island Boothie McBooth, and of course, we are John Liszt today, because he is in Maine taking his vacation.
Right, Stas. Yeah, he's the only one of us who I think has he talked to you? He's already abiding by vacation rules. He's abiding by vacation rules, which I you know I appreciate. Like it's like, listen, like, would you prefer like here's the thing, right?
Like, I remember when we and this is gonna bite us again. I know it. Remember when the I was like, I'm only I'm only gone two weeks in the last three years, I'm gonna leave. Remember this when the series all was coming out? I was like, I haven't taken a vacation in three years.
I'm gonna be gone for like two weeks tops. Yeah. And in the middle of it, uh, our former business partner starts lobbying. Like, literally, I only had cell service. I was on the Pacific on the coast and Pacific Northwest.
I only had cell service for like a 50 mile stretch of the highway I was on, and he starts lobbing bombs at me. And I was like, What? Remember that? Yep. Yes, I was with him.
Yeah, yeah. Wait, what is what is lobbying bombs mean in this context? There was a problem with the product. Like that, like here's the other issue is like you're like you try to schedule your vacations when you're working on a business for things that aren't gonna impact your business, but you never know. You never know.
So you have to just make plans, right, Stas? Yeah, I don't think I've ever had a silent vacation ever with us. No, you just you're supposed to say, and you have said, it's like I'm dead. And it's like you're dead. Well, I know, but it's never ever.
I don't call you on vacation. Yes, you have. No, I don't. I'll send you I'll send you friend stuff because we are friends, but I don't send you business stuff. Before we had John, it was like I don't see the questions for the radio show.
Like, shit, like I'm sorry, stuff like that. That's classic friend stuff. I send that kind of thing to my friends all the time. Well, like the thing is like, even when you're on vacation, you have to send me the questions because I had no way to get them. Like, literally, I had I have literally no way to get them.
Like, you can log into my email. I can't log into your email. You've never given me the password. Like, I can't I literally, like, even if I hired someone, I would have to hire like the NSA to get it because I don't have it. What?
My only point was to say that I haven't had a silent vacation. Well, that's not I tend to not bother you. I tend to not call you even when we're working. But uh your calls today. What do you say?
I don't know why I didn't get your calls today. Yeah. Just do it normal. Don't do audio anymore. Like, I can get normal calls.
Why, you on Verizon now? No, but I'm on Wi-Fi calling. Let's not forget Nastasia's father works for ATT and has for how long? A million years. And yet you cannot get any decent service from these people.
No. I feel a little bad switching too. I think that that's the mental block. I'm like, oh man. You're shafting your dad?
Yeah. That's like my um Jen's family is uh Scott Scott tissues and you know Kimberly, you know, Clark, that kind of stuff, because her grandpa was their uh was the head of their fixing their like uh HVAC stuff for decades. And so for years, they'd like wipe their butts with substandard toilet paper just to stay true to brand. Years after he was dead. Yeah, it's like you know, what the hell, man?
You know, if you want to wipe your butt with something else, wipe your butt with something else. Loyalty. Loyalty. Loyalty, yeah. Let me tell you something.
Uh you know, like Stas, I I'm cheap, right? Yeah, you're real cheap. Yeah, you're also cheap. I'm cheap for myself, but I'm generous with others. So am I.
What do you mean? What do I what am I cheap on for other people? I mean, like I'm willing to get into it, but whatever. Um, you should see what I spend on, you know, freaking sushi for my kids. But the uh point is is that I think that certain things you should spend the money on.
Like decent mattress, I think decent toilet paper is worth the money. Not crazy, you know what I mean, but like decent toilet paper. What do you think? Uh I never spend money on toilet paper because I go through so much of it. It's not about the money, it's about I don't want to go back to the store constantly.
Yeah, so do you buy that like super thin? Yeah, I buy super thin. Super thin. Oh my god, but I look, I get where you're coming from, and this is all the this is the kind of math that all of us have to do every day, right? I don't want to go to the store.
But the thing is, don't you feel you have to use so much more of the thin stuff? Yeah, but I still think because even when you squeeze the good stuff, they could put more of the good stuff on there if they they rolled it tighter, you know. And I would pay for that if it was rolled tighter, like a Scott was. Like tight but soft. Tight but soft, but they do it loose so that you go through it faster, and I do it's the going to the store.
Yeah, also like a little bit of a tmi here, but like I am a I am a hard, vigorous wiper. So I like I feel that uh I feel that a lower quality toilet paper would be Oh Jesus bad. That's quite a thank you for that. Tight image. Little little bit of the TMI action.
A little bit. I'm just I'm imagining you going at that activity with the same vigor that like you used to have when you would walk into the studio later just in time and just like at 110%. Yeah. Yeah, well listen, if you're gonna do something, yeah, do it. You know?
Like no, no one goes into the bathroom and is like, I'm gonna do a mezzo mezzo wipe job. Right. No, that that hurts you for the rest of the day. The mezzo mezzo wipe job? Yeah, yeah.
Especially, yeah. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get into it anymore, but yeah. I mean, whatever. Yeah, we we we we are done talking about this. We are we are so off the rails.
All right. Anybody got any questions? Well, I'll say so uh I got some follow-ups. Uh so someone asked, I forget who it was, uh uh listener asked a while ago, a couple weeks ago about a recipe uh from my favorite pie book, Pie Marches On. By the way, Stas, do you like Petey's pies?
Are you familiar with Petey's pies? No, I don't know what they are. Oh, a lot of people, it's like uh it's like a very popular pie corporation right now. I hear they're coming out with uh a cookbook, so I have to now get it and read it and then like look at the new Petey's Pies pie book versus of course my gold standard for pie books, pie marches on. So uh Monroe Boston Strauss, and by the way, uh I'll go through this first.
Bonro Monroe Boston Strauss invented this aside from chiffon pies, invented this thing called the black bottom pie. And one of the um, it has a very it's small amount of chocolate in it. And uh I did what I almost never do ever, which is extremely carefully followed a recipe instead of like making my own corrections as I go, because I did read his recipe for it, and it was preposterously low in chocolate. You can find this on the internet, by the way. Um so I made his black body bottom pie, and I will say this.
That pie, you should not make that pie as a single pie. It's just the quantities are too small. You're gonna have to change the way it's constructed because making the filling with such a small amount is very difficult. That's one. Two, um, when I ate it, so the idea is it's like a it's like a a chocolate layer, it's like a graham cracker crust, his style graham cracker crust, a chocolate kind of pudding layer, an eggnog layer, and then whipped cream on top.
Alright? So you got it, like the three layers. You with me so far? So um, so I made it, went through all the you know, mishigash, all the stuff, made all the things, blah, blah, blah. Cooked it, sliced it.
I was like, oh, the black bottom pie, the world's greatest pie. And I was like, this tastes like pudding from a box. I was like, I was like, this is pudding from a box. But I'm not a pudding pie kind of a guy. So then two other people, Miley Carpenter, my sister-in-law, who is also the editor-in-chief of the Food Network magazine, and my wife were like, no, this is really good.
I would eat this again. This is delicious. So it might be just that I'm not a big pudding pie guy. I don't know. Where are you guys on pudding pies?
Like Boston cream and whatnot. Didn't know that was a thing. Oh, Boston cream. Oh, okay. I mean, pies, pies where the filling is basically pudding.
That's not my thing. I don't like it. No. No? No.
But you're not a pie person in general, right, Nastasia? Right. You're talking to two non-pie people. What the hell? How do I have two non-pie people?
Like, if you had there, then you'd have two pie people and two non-pie people. That's true. What? Either. Did you say vegan?
No, no. No one said vegan. Even. Oh, even, even. I'm like, are you trying to you trying to taunt me?
I'm trying to tell you I only like vegan pies. Were you in lime, Dave? What do you say? Were you in Lyme? No.
No. Ridgefield. Um, but the was I forget, Nastasia. Was there any kind of pie that you enjoy? Uh no.
Is cheesecake a pie? Ooh. I'll tell you what, it may not be a pie. Some, you know what? Some idiot is gonna get on here and say that it is a pie.
Someone is gonna say, because it's got a crust, someone's gonna say that if pumpkin pie is a pie, cheesecake is pie. Although I will say this. Do you enjoy pumpkin cheesecake? Which is like a direct split between a pumpkin pie and a cheesecake? I'll eat it.
But you would you would rather have a regular flavored cheesecake. Yeah. I've told you the story a million times how I used to hate cheesecake, right? No. So when I was a kid, there were two things I didn't like on earth.
Melons, foodstuffs. Plenty of things I don't like. Foodstuffs. Melons, and uh, except for watermelon, and cheesecake. And my thing I always say was, I love cheese.
I love cake, but I hate cheesecake, right? I don't know why. I love it now. Um, but like, this is what I try to tell my kids. Like, when I see Nastasia, I'm sure you're the same way.
And you know, Matt, you chime in. Like, when you went to somebody's house and they served you something, you weren't like, I don't like that. No. You ate it. No.
That's where you find out you actually do like something, you've been an idiot the same place. Right. Yeah, for me, like it wasn't that. I knew I was gonna hate it, but you still you power through it, right? Yeah.
So like kind of this moment of my my life, like the hardest eating thing I ever had to go through, because no one puts like eight piles of melon on your plate. It's like melon is always something that's sitting in a dish, and you could take just one piece and then kind of ch jam it in your throat and deal with it, right? No one's piling melon on your plate. So um my my uh stepfather's stepmother, Didi, was famous for her cheesecake in Boston. She's part of the Boston Italian side, right?
So she's famous for her cheesecake, American style cheesecake. She also made a you know a pizza dolce, like a ricotta style cheesecake, but well known for her cheesecake. So at dessert, I'd already plowed through this giant dinner. At dessert, she hands me this giant piece of cheesecake, and and of course I dutifully eat the whole thing. She sees that I've eaten the whole thing is like he likes the cheesecake.
Did you like the cheesecake? I'm like, Yeah, the cheesecake was good. Gives me a whole nother freaking slice. And I had to eat the whole thing. And I realized my kids would never ever just plow through something because it was the right thing to do.
I'm not saying at your parents' house, right? Where you have some sort of say. I'm saying when you go to somebody else's house. You know what I mean? Totally.
Even I mean, even when I was, you know, vegan and whatever. If somebody it's a whole different ballgame. If somebody is serving me food at their house, I am eating the food. I don't care what it is. Right.
I mean, like, if you give them some heads up, I mean Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. If it's that kind of situation, sure. If it's friends, you let 'em know. But like if it's, I don't know, whatever. Somebody's family or something.
Uh Crookshank is in the chat, wants to know two things. Indiana sugar pie. You have thoughts. And also he wants to know uh he wants an update on how Booker's baking is going. Uh Booker wants to start a baking business where he bakes cakes for local people, but Booker is a strange combination of hating his parents' authority, but like somehow bending to outside authority.
So he's like, I wanna ask the, I want to ask the co-op, which is you know, the the apartment buildings where we live. She's like, I want to ask the co-op for permission. We're like, they can't grant you permission. Don't ask permission. If you're gonna do it, it's gotta be illegal.
You don't have the ability to do this legally. He's like, no, well, I'm like, I didn't say don't do it. I said you can't do it legally. Anyway, he doesn't seem to get you know what I'm saying, Stas? You know him, you know what I mean?
Yeah. Yeah. Goodbye, but you never book bake me my German chocolate cake. He did bake you that other cake. You want me to get on his case again?
He doesn't have time. Doesn't have time. I mean, I'm leaving. I leave next weekend, so you're actually gonna be away for a long time. So this is a place where I am allowed to call you uh work-related things, correct?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. The only person I took was Ohio for the two days. Yeah. So uh Nastasi and I, by the way, got to hang out with John and uh Jack and the Boondogler because uh was it last week?
Was our was our wild air pop-up? Did we talk about it last week? I don't you didn't really talk about it, actually. Huh. Well, it was it wasn't a PTSD thing.
I mean, it was fun. I thought it was fun. I thought people enjoyed it. We made some good cocktails, I thought people enjoyed it. It was good to see uh, you know, uh Fabian and Jeremiah from Contra Wilder.
Fabian, I call him fabulous, so I'm gonna continue to do so. Gave me a giant side of bacon on a whim, which is now in my fridge, and I s and I still haven't had the time. Do you take the skin off of bacon stuff? I know you don't eat it right now, but do you like skin on bacon or skin off? Um I don't even know.
I think I think most people like it off. If you've ever had bacon with where the the fat side had that kind of real chewy section to it, that's skin on bacon. But I think 99% of people prefer it with the skin off, I would say. Anyway, so I gotta skin it, par freeze it so my crappy slicer can slice it and slice it down. So I haven't used it.
But I did yesterday with not his bacon. I used the last of my you know, bacon that I had, make the last of the season BLTs. I put that up on the Instagram if you're if you're curious about how I think a BLT sandwich should be made. And the answer is toast bread on one side only, because I hate it when a sandwich scrapes the hell out of the top of my mouth. Does that bother you guys?
I usually protect for that. What do you say, Sas? I usually protect for that. What do you mean? Like gently put in the right amount so it doesn't scratch it.
No, and I meant like the toast. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Oh, we mean toast it the right amount. No, like oh put a piece in my mouth that is small enough to not scratch the entire roof of my mouth. Oh, yeah, I don't even understand how you would go about doing that.
Oh, by the way, speaking of that, I've been eating everything on one side of my face because on Friday I had a wisdom tooth taken out. I'm like the only 49-year old guy, like anywhere that gets a wisdom tooth taken out. Get this, Stas, you're gonna love this. So one of the things that's ornery in me, other than me, are my teeth, right? So my teeth are well known for having long, curly roots, right?
And like I'm not joking, like corkscrew, like they turn. The teeth want to stay in my head, right? So I got this wisdom teeth tooth that was partially erupted after all this time, who knows why. I have one that's still way up in my face. And I had a nightmare experience when I was a kid.
Getting I went when I got my braces, they pulled out four normal teeth, and I can still feel the guy yanking at my jaw, feeling my whole jaw bend, him telling me to stop fighting him while he's ripping my teeth out of my head, like I can hold him in my face. The jerk, the butthead, sadistic weasel. He ripped four of my healthy teeth out. Nightmare. And then I went to the, and I've told this before on the air, I went to the NYU, like supercuts of dental schools for them to remove my wisdom tooth, and these two student dentists couldn't oral surgeons couldn't get the freaking tooth out of my head.
And so, like I had to watch, and of course, no one gives me real anesthetic. They give me the local because they're like, it's just a tooth distraction, it'll take like you know 20 minutes. And then, like an hour and a half later, I'm there, like, you know, like blood all over their all over me, blood and teeth fragments all over their face masks, like freaking, like that smell of burning bone, like cracking noises, like all this stuff as they were mangling my. I was like, forget it. And that's one of the reasons my other wisdom tooth has stayed in for another 20 years.
So, like, 15, 20 years. So I go, and uh I had she's a very good oral surgeon. She's also a doctor. She'd been doing it a long time. So she was able to successfully rip my teeth tooth out, but in one piece.
So she didn't have to hack it or put, you know, did I tell you this? When they bone graft you, like if your tooth shatters and they're gonna put a uh a cap over it so that your gums can grow back over the fragments of the tooth, like they they use cadaver bone. Did you know that? Yeah, that's what I said. I was like, aren't there any pleon problems?
She was like, no. I was like, okay, geez. Um so anyway, but she was worried she didn't want to go in there because my root is so big, long and curly, like it was right next to the nerve. So she's like, if I dig in there like I would with someone with smaller roots, I could jam your nerve and your whole jaw and like your tongue and stuff would go numb for who knows how long. I'm like, no, no, no, thanks, no, thanks.
So anyway, she finally rips the things out. And by the way, I'm so terrified of this procedure. And by the way, in order to get full anesthesia, she said that it would be an extra thousand dollars, eleven hundred dollars, and insurance wouldn't cover the general anesthesia. So I'm like, I could buy a lot with you know, a thousand dollars, you know what I mean? So, for instance, the x-ray that she took the week before and didn't tell me was gonna cost a thousand dollars because insurance didn't cover that.
I could have I could have bought that anyway. So I did it under local, and she halfway during the procedure, she's like, your eyes are freaking me out. Because like apparently she's like, your eyes look like from Gremlins, the movie, like because they were like open so wide, and I was like staring straight at her as she was ripping the tooth out. You would do the same thing, Stas, right? I asked for extra Novocaine even when they ask if I if I can feel don't feel shit stuff.
Yeah, well, they should do the same thing to me. So she gives me all the Novicane. They put in a couple of extra what they call blocks, and then like as she's like got her whole body in there, she like drilled a thing into it and then like looped something in, was twisting out. I was like, yo, this hurts. Like, but it sounded more like this.
You know what I mean? And so she she stops, and she's like, that's just pressure. I'm like, that's not pressure. And she's like, listen, listen. She's like, when the pressure gets to be as intense as what I'm doing to you, your body can't distinguish between pressure and pain.
And then I'm like, what's the point? Yeah, wait, what? What's the point of the anesthetic if my body can't distinguish between the two out? What? Why didn't they knock you out completely?
A thousand extra dollars. Thousand extra dollars. Should have been like a BYOA option. Yeah, I know. There's some places that let you bring your own anesthesiologist.
I mean, I will always do that forever and ever. Yeah, but no, it wasn't she wasn't qualified, but then you still have to pay the anesthesiologist. She was saying for a dental procedure. Well, that's the thing. I should have paid the thousand dollars.
I mean, now he knows he wanted to pay the thousand dollars. Well, but I you know what? I'm glad I have the thousand dollars. I need the money, frankly. Nastasi and I are about to go out of business because Amazon won't pay us.
So frankly, I need the money. You know what I mean? It's like, how much do they owe us now, Stas? Do I mean, oof? Uh you really only say it?
I mean, look, bear in mind, people, that the only reason Nastasi and I haven't invested our last two bucks in squeegee's and gone out on the highway is because of this loan that the government gave us. Like, and that we've blown through because Amazon owes us about a third of a year of money. Yeah. Okay? So, like a third of a year, right?
I saw a message from them this morning, and they said, you know, we're still working on this. I hope that you'll release your next P.O.s to us and do business as usual. You know what? I feel you know, I feel for Bezos because I know he's hurting, you know? He's like hard.
It must be it must be hard. You know? I feel bad. I feel I feel real bad for him. His, you know, private flight attendants probably have to wear masks now, and that's just a lot.
That's just a lot for him to have to deal with, right? Yes. Oh my god, did you see last night on the news? Holy crap. What happened?
What Trump did? Oh, with taking the mask off and saying I'm I'm Superman now, it's not so bad. We should all get that that thing? Yes. Yeah, please.
Uh yeah. Please. Uh please. Uh oh, wait, so back to the I didn't finish my BLT. Hold on one second.
BLT. All right. So I toast one side only because I don't like when my mouth gets ripped off, and I don't have the self-control nostasia has. So I'm gonna shove a giant piece of sandwich in my mouth, and that much toast against the roof of your mouth is like sandpaper. So I toast one side only, and I put the toast inside to act as the moisture barrier.
Now, some people don't like moist tomatoes in their uh in their BLTs. Then why eat a BLT? Then just eat bacon and lettuce. Like get a good tomato. And so my favorite, I've said it before, I've said it again, Stokes Farms in uh old Tapan, New Jersey.
Uh, farmer uh Ron Benagi there. He is how do you pronounce his name? Anyway, he I just call him Farmer Ron. I've never said his last name to him. So uh his Aunt Ruby, their Aunt Ruby's German green, which is like grown there.
It's a I'm not vouching for this variety grown by anybody else, but their version of them are fantastic, and their German stripe is my second favorite tomato. And some people actually prefer the German stripe, although I'm an Aunt Ruby man. Uh so I got this season, they've had a terrible time because that storm knocked down all of their tomatoes. They lost a lot of them, and they they had a relatively small harvest here this year, but even though it was small, it was delicious. And I just picked up what I think are the last ones, and yesterday I made the BLT.
So get a nice, juicy, the best tomato you can get, one that tastes like a tomato, right? And then, okay, so you have your bread, toasted side, is gonna be on the inside, mayonnaise on both sides. The grease actually prevents the tough stuff from sogging out, right? So it actually helps there. Plus, it adds flavor and a little bit of lubricity against the uh of non-moist non-wet, non-water-based lubricity against the toast surface.
Salt, pepper, the mayonnaise. Now, lettuce and lettuce. These are two non-permeable things that provide crunch and prevent sogging from the incredibly juicy tomatoes. So lettuce on both pieces of bread, then the big juicy, delicious tomatoes, more salt and pepper, bacon, sandwich it, eat it. That's the way I do the BLT.
By the way, I know that you have no opinion on this, Matt, but Stas. Bacon on a BLT, crispy or not crispy. Do you like a softer or a harder bacon? Um just right? Crispier, I think.
Yeah, but in other words, like that's different for different people. You prefer a crispier? Yeah. By the way, I have an opinion. It's crispy, man.
Crispy? Sandwich. I mean, it's definitely crispy. Alright. Well, there's a point where I think some people in their in their zest for crispiness take it to the point where it has no moisture in the bacon at all, and then it just tastes like carbonized pork.
That I think is a mistake. I think Nastasia got it right when she said just right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.
That's right, it's cheating. No, you know what I mean. Like, you know what I mean. What you mean is you want some crisp. You don't want to, you don't want to, although I have to say, I do enjoy eating flaccid bacon.
I do. Because the flavor of the bacon is the best when it hasn't been desiccated. But the texture flavor combination of bacon, I think in the sandwich is best when it's got a a little bit of shatter on the outside. So I think depending on what the bacon is for, you know, you can do it. You could do it different ways.
And I'm not going to get in because we don't have time into different ways of cooking uh uh bacon. I also went apple picking this weekend, Nastasia. So nice. I went two and a half hours to Samuscott Orchards up in Kinderhook, New York. Not overrun.
It was almost empty. And they had uh pick your own ash mead's kernels. It's the only place I've ever seen pick your own ash meats kernels, although someone tells me there's others. They also had Northern Spies and Nastasia. Hold on one second.
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, hold on a second. Uh yeah, I got it. I'm back. Uh I had to stop some noise generation in the background.
By the way, everyone obviously we're we're all together in the same house because that's the way it works. Anyway, and school's back in. Um, so they also had pick your own pumpkins, but I didn't pick your own cauliflower. Who needs to pick their own cauliflower? Who needs to pick their own kale?
I mean, I don't really understand why. I mean, like picking your own apples makes sense to me, picking your own cherries, like like even picking your own pumpkin if you're a kid, getting to pick your pumpkin and cut it, like that's cool. Pick your own cauliflower. Who needs this? Anyway, um, their prices, first of all, the people were very nice.
It wasn't crowded, so it felt good for social distancing. And Ash meats kernels, pick your own a dollar a pound, Nastasia. A dollar a pound. Such a good deal. And um line to get in.
They also had pick your own chestnuts, which is a little bit of a it was a little bit of a pain in the butt searching for chestnuts, but anyway, we picked some picked your own chestnuts too. So uh I recommend Samuscott's orchards uh wholeheartedly. They've got the good apple varieties. Their map is bad, so you have to go look for them, but uh the apples themselves, delicious. So I'm gonna make a uh a pie maybe with either spies or ash meads kernels or some combination, and I'll let you know whether the pie marches on, or maybe peas, pies if their books come out, which one of those uh works out.
And I found a tiny apple. I would like some reader uh listener feedback on this, a cane, which I believe I've had before, but as grown and samuscot are tiny, like sour power patch kid apples that were kind of interesting. I got those for Booker because he likes really sour apples, and I wanted to teach him that green apples aren't the only sour apples. Anyway, you were gonna say, Matt, about a question. Oh, I mean, chat is just blowing up over here.
All right, uh in roughly in order. Chef Joanna reminds us that we're supposed to be talking about this guy who OD'd on licorice. Oh yes. Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Uh so John, by the way, hates licorice, black licorice. What are your thoughts? I have not acquired the taste.
Same. This is a good way of putting it. This is like uh, this is like what's his name said to Caligula. Remember that? I forget who it was.
Some famous, some famous writer. Uh anyway, I won't get into what it's it was a very diplomatic way of putting it. I have not yet acquired the taste. Um yeah, I love licorice. This guy ate a preposterous amount of licorice.
And it turns out that if you eat a preposterous amount of licorice, uh, it can uh be bad for you and in fact can kill you. This guy died as a result of consuming too much licorice. Now, I haven't researched it for a couple of weeks, so I don't remember exactly what the reaction is, but it's a well-known reaction that if you eat too too much licorice, um, it's gonna be a uh a problem. Now, the reason this happened is this guy apparently would eat several sacks, sacks of red licorice a day, right? And red licorice doesn't contain licorice, so it is not a health hazard other than you're consuming that much licorice, right?
Uh probably to the exclusion of other things that you should be eating. Uh and so then one day he's like, I'm gonna try the black one. And so he switches, like direct switches from red to black, and it just turns out that because he wasn't building up to it over any period of time, his body over the course of a couple of weeks was just inundated with with lit actual licorice. And um, yeah, but my problem with it is is that everyone's like none of none of the articles I found, none of them, uh stated like the licorice cont like the the I forget w what it is, like licorizic, whatever it is. Like the content.
First of all, I didn't even find the size of the bag, right? So who knows how many pounds or kilograms of the stuff he's eating. And then furthermore, different black licorices have different amounts of actual licorice and their and their kind of their principles in them, right? So to say they gave nothing that you could count on, right? And and until you eat a dangerous amount of licorice, licorice is not dangerous.
In fact, licorice in small amounts, some people think is very good for you. You know what I mean? So it's like some people say. Anyway, so my point is is that like all of these places were like we need to issue more warnings about the licorice. Why don't we just issue warnings to be reasonable?
Do you know what I mean? I mean, yeah, you could do like a blanket warning, like don't eat an absurd amount of any or drink anything, because it's probably not good for you. Yeah. You know, uh, this guy, this guy was drinking uh he was drinking vitamin water. He was drinking like two gallons of vitamin water a day.
That's a lot of vitamin water. Yeah, and yeah, it's a lot, but he was fine. He was drinking two gallons of vitamin water a day. Then what happened? He switched to red wine and he died.
I mean it it that doesn't mean that the red wine's gonna kill you is you don't drink two gallons of red wine. You know what I mean? Just anyway, uh my point is is that Dave, do you want to try the thing that we talked about where we give you two minutes to talk about each subject? Yeah, yeah, sure. Okay.
So Nastasia Nastasia has said that she's like uh like uh after like once we start something now. Now here's the question though, Stas. Well, after we start something, she's gonna give it like a uh uh like a two-minute boxing timer. I'm just trying to stick by it. So let's try it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it starts after I read the question when I start talking about it, right? So that means I have to try to not go on a tangent in the middle of reading the question. Right. Alright.
All right. We're gonna try this, Pete. Let's try it. Back to the chat. So let's try it with the chat question, okay?
Yeah, sure. This episode is brought to you by WisTale. Ever wonder how winning brands like Shake Shack, Chopped, and Torchy's Tacos scale their business and train employees, all while delivering an exceptional customer experience? They do it with Wisetale. Wisetail is a state of the art learning management system built to engage and empower your workforce.
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That's Wisetail.com slash H R M. W I S E T A I L dot com slash H R M. Terms and Condition apply. Visit their website for more details. Alright, um Juran Sandstrom.
Oh, I have his question here. Alright, you you read it. You read it. You read it. That makes it easier.
How can I make syrups for cocktails containing plant material, in my case, strawberry, last longer in a fridge? I've been experimenting with potassium sorbate, but unsure it's the right choice. Are there other methods I should be aware of? He also followed up with also how does sugar to other ratio affect shelf slash fridge life. Some claim a certain sugar content inhibits mold.
Alright. So you start a suspicion? Yes. Alright. So, like, look, obviously, we know that mold can there's mold and bacteria are the two things you're worried about.
All right. So you got to separate the the two out. Above a certain sugar level, bacteria is not going to grow. But even up to about 50% sugar, you're still going to get mold and yeast, not yeast, but mold growth on top. Ask any simple syrup that's ever had mold grow on it, right?
So sugar does help as a preservative, but you have to ask yourself what you're preserving against. You're talking about sorbate. Sorbate does not taste bad. Potassium sorbate doesn't taste bad. And it's good against yeast, somewhat good against yeast, but it doesn't do so well against bacteria.
So if you're worried about bacteria, that's you're gonna need to add something else as well. You could try maybe pasteurizing it. That will help. That was two minutes? That wasn't two minutes.
No, no, no. Keep going. Benzoate does tastes terrible, right? And some people think it has bad uh things when there's ascorbic acid, it creates benzene, but it is both antibacterial and anti-yeast. So a lot of people who make syrups for things like soda at a small amount, less than one tenth of one percent of benzoate and sorbate in combination to get uh preservation.
But I'm gonna say try sorbate and then try pasteurizing. You don't need to sterilize it, you just need to pasteurize it, and that will kill uh yeast and uh molds, and then the sorbate uh in it will will help with that, and the sugar level should stop bacteria from growing too much. So I would try that. Where was I? 26 seconds left.
Woo! All right. All right. Uh all right. Hmm.
So what are we doing next? You got more chat or are we going to written in four? Well, do you have this one from Andrew about building a fire pit? No, go. Okay.
Uh Andrew from Atlanta writes in to ask, I am looking to build a fire pit to enjoy and cook over. I'm considering those smokeless. Um, yeah, no, I don't think so. I look, most of the flavor what people say is um is from fat dripping down and then combusting and going up. So I, you know, I don't think you're gonna lose too much.
I mean I don't know. I'm not familiar with these, uh I'm not familiar with these smokeless things, but anything that's gonna increase combustion is gonna be good. The the biggest thing is using dry wood. Uh over uh up to half of the BTU output of wood will um is used to boil the water off and in wet wood, and that also creates a bunch of smoke. So, like moving to a smokeless fire pit, great, but I think dry wood is the first thing most of us can do to try to get a better job when when cooking over wood, but I just don't have uh uh a lot of experience about this.
And if your fire is really hot, once it gets hot, like it's only throwing smoke at the periphery where it's not hot. The hot part is almost like coals, and it's gonna be uh fine. So I don't have any particular experience with that. Is that okay, Stas? Yeah.
Hold on one second. Minute left. And uh Yeah. Okay. Uh Greg background.
What? Someone has a Yeah, Greg. Yeah, I know. I told I I tell Booker every week, I'm like, I have this one hour. I need you to not make noise.
He's come in three times to like rifle through the freezer. Is it okay if he's making a German chocolate cake for you know, but otherwise this is not a good idea? Yeah, Booker, you can only make noise if you're making Nastasia's German chocolate cake that you promised that you never made. Because I didn't have time. Well, you don't have time.
What are you doing? You're rifling through the freezer now. That's the thing, people don't understand. It's like if you have time to do anything, you have time to make a chocolate cake. Hold on, hold on.
Oh boy. Oh boy. I try, Nastasia. I try to. All right.
Um, all right. Greg White wrote in uh via email. Do you like via or via? Via. I don't care.
Via? Yeah. Nastasia's the poetry major, so I'm gonna, if she likes V, I'll go with Via. Uh this is a question that maybe I purposely haven't answered because it's about carbonation, and we all know how that goes. So this is gonna be a perfect two-minute timer ding-ding, right?
This is the perfect type of yes. Go. All right. Uh this is from Greg, uh, big fan from Norfolk VA. Uh thanks for continuing the cooking information during the COVID.
I have some questions about carbonation and ads to taunt you, Nastasia. Sorry, not sorry, Nastasia. There's a taunt. Well, can't you just direct him to the video you made? No, because it's not about that, unfortunately.
I planned on making mineral water and dispensing a-hour video on carbonation. Didn't answer this question. Oh, geez, Louise. Listen. Oh my god.
So we had this guy. Sorry, sorry, not sorry, Stas. But like I did this other hour long video of taking apart a spinzall. Yeah. By the way, working on the spinz all hard, so we'll talk more about that in a couple of weeks once we get.
We should have within a month information on when the next spinzall batch is going to be, right, Sas? About? Uh yes. Probably about a month. Anyway.
Um, so I did this hour long video where I take apart a spinzall to show you everything inside and what can go wrong, mainly for like the, you know, people out there who are out of warranty and you know can't ship the parts in and all this other stuff. And some guy gives me crap about it that it was boring. I'm like, well, why'd you watch it? Like, I wasn't making it for entertainment purposes, you dingus moron. And then he was like, he was like, you know, who spends $799 on something and then and then takes it apart.
Oh, you know, I won't be buying it. I'm like, well, if you paid any attention, jerk us, we were now selling it for $499. And sorry for trying to help. Suck eggs and die. You know what I mean?
Or as uh, or as uh David Rose, Daniel, uh Daniel Levy is David Rose says, eat glass, which is I think a great insult to give people. Don't you think so? I think it's a good insult. Yeah. Uh all right.
I plan on making mineral water and dispensing it through my kegerator. I remember seeing CO2 pressure should be near about 105 PSI per year video uh for soda water, but also red five gallon corny kegs are only rated to about 60 PSI. Well, a little higher. Uh, do you have any experience with pushing the boundaries on uh PSI and corny kegs? If this is a bad idea, I will likely fill a Sankey keg instead.
Um second, I wanted Well, no, I'm gonna read all three. You give me two minutes for the full thing. Okay. Right? I'm gonna do all three questions, which are part of the same thing, and then you're gonna give me two minutes for the whole thing, right?
Yes. Okay. Uh second, I want to make a homemade perlini, which is a carbonation thing. Rather than spending buku bucks on the real deal, I wanted to fix a corny keg uh post, which is the the you know little connector, a ball connector or pin, uh on a mason jar lid and use a ball lock connector and serve carbonated beverage directly from a mason jar. Do you know what PSI mason jars will hold?
Uh, I expect this to be a dangerous experiment and wondered if you might have already explored this. I'm also looking to do this to a spare Vitamix cap to make carbonated Miami Vice cocktails. Uh if you know any other sources where I can read more on pressure and vacuum cooking, I'd appreciate the help. For any statistic needs that Nastasi may have, I'm a 30-year-old male bartender. I live with my girlfriend who is also a bartender, and she doesn't necessarily encourage me to do these kinds of experiments or buy things, but she likes to see me, so she tolerates our lack of space due to uh due to my DIY contraptions and cooking bar uh equipment.
All right. Um I'm gonna go ahead and guess that her girl his girlfriend is can is trying to convince him not to pressurize a mason jar. Yeah, yeah. So okay, you tell me when you're gonna start, Sas. Okay.
Let's go in reverse order here, semi reverse order. Don't do it to the mason jar. Just don't do it to the mason jar. Just don't do it. Carbonate, like get a bottle, a c uh like a carbon liquid bread carbonator cap and use your ball lock, carbonate in a bottle and pour it in a mason jar when you're done.
It's super cheap, and your eyes and your chest will thank you from not having to pick shards of glass out of them. Um, on the Vitapep, it's almost impossible to add any overpressure to a Vitamix container. You can blend a cocktail, pour it in a funnel into a bottle, and then carbonate it. It's gonna foam, but you'll be able to get some carbonation on. Do it that way.
Use small amounts in a two-liter bottle with a keg with a with a uh a liquid bread carbonator cap. Now, to your main thing, uh you do not attempt to go full pressurization in a corny keg because as you say, it sucks. Once they go over pressure, they leak violently and they spray and it's a huge nightmare. But if you're gonna put it into a kegerator, you don't need a hundred and fifty 105 psi. 105 psi is only for liquids that will be stored at room temperature at refrigerator temperature, it's closer to 50 psi, okay?
50, 45, 50 psi. So that that should work. Don't put too much pressure on a corny. It won't hurt you because the vent will turn on in time, but it does suck. How is that?
Good. All right. Yeah. All right. Uh this is working, right, Sas?
Yes. Yeah, all right. Uh all right. Uh Garrett Rotel wrote in via email, Rotel. I wonder, is Rotel tomato like a human being's name, or is Rotel have a meaning that I don't understand?
Uh what wait, I'm sorry, what is the tomato thing? You don't know Rotel? No. Uh uh. Neither of you know Rotel?
No. So if you've ever spent a lot of time with anybody from Texas, the only way that they make queso dip there is with Velveeta and Rotel Tomatoes, which is a mixture of diced tomatoes and hatched chilies. And it's Rotel. And like that's, I think it's hatch. It's green chilies.
Maybe it's not hatch, because not in Mexico. Anyway. It's Rotel is a green chili tomato thing. And it's like go look for it in your supermarket. Next time you make queso, try the rotel.
Let me know what you think. But I never really understood what the what Rotel meant, if it had meaning, or if it was just like something. You know what I mean? Anyway, it was in c it was in college that uh that I was turned on to the Rotel because I was talking about making queso, and uh I was slapped across the face uh for not knowing what Rotel was. And ever since then I've been, you know, I've given my due my due uh what's it called?
Um due uh respect to uh to Garrett Rotel, I'm assuming no relation to the Rotel family that I'm hoping exists somewhere, like on their tomato and chili fortune. Uh longtime listener, first time caller, well, writer, uh Chef in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I have a question. I'm opening a restaurant next month next month. Good luck.
I hope it works out. It's a tough time to open a restaurant. Anyone that was like working on restaurants during this time or opening it, like, you know, I hope this stuff turns around you know quickly so that you guys do well. Um I have 30 pounds of Nanking cherries, which I had never heard of. Nanking cherry is like a bush cherry.
Apparently it's softer, and the reason I've never heard of it is you can't buy them because they don't ship well. Uh, I want to preserve. I I obtained said fruit from a friend's tree in his backyard, and they seem to be a little overripe in comparison to your standard cherry. Uh, probably because they were picked two weeks ago. That's a long time.
Uh, that being said, I've done some reading and have found they tend to be softer textured cherry, best suited for jam or jelly. Uh, I tried poaching them uh in one-to-one simple, and they tasted great, but they were a little uh bitter, and I would prefer a firmer texture. So my question is: what is the best method to preserve them, and are there any additives that could help with the texture, but not in part a flavor? My plan so far is to stem and score them. Can them make one-to-one simple.
Uh, not sure what the intended use is, but most likely for a dessert and would like to keep them whole. Any suggestions on cooking time and temp would be appreciated as well. I have quite a bit of experience canning fruit, just not with these cherries, and was super sad to hear about existing conditions. Had hoped to make it there someday. Well, yeah, I'm sad too.
Uh, so on the cherries, uh, I found for you uh a really cool one. If you search cherry brining and finishing, circular of information 624, June 1966, from the Agricultural Experiment Station at Oregon State University in Corvallis. Uh they talk about cherry brining and finishing. And the trick that you might expect it, well, maybe you don't, is that cherries get soft because their flesh breaks down, and you have to strengthen the pectin in the cherry using uh calcium, right? So these guys use a little bit of sulfur dioxide and also hydrated lime, which is uh a calcium source.
I think I think what they mean is like cow, like calcium hydroxide, which is a relatively insoluble, so the calcium will just get added if it's needed. The calcium and the fact that the solution is a little bit alkaline will cause the cherry to strengthen up, and the sulfur dioxide will um stop it from going brown and might bleach it a little bit and will also kill uh some of the yeast in it. Now, I don't know how bad that sulfur dioxide is gonna taste, but the hydrated lime is a good idea. Nowadays, um, you might want to try just calcium, a little bit of a little bit of calcium chloride, or uh not so much that you can taste because it does taste bad, but it's that calcium that's gonna help. So if you read that section on cherry brining and finishing, you should get some ideas.
And the answer is calcium. Um now, uh, if you can get a hold of Novo Shape, I don't know if anyone sells it. I don't know if Modernist Pantry sells it. Novo shape plus calcium will enzymatically strengthen the cell walls on the cherry and stop them going mushy. But some cherries also go brown, so you'll still need to add something to stop that browning, which is I think what the sulfur dioxide is for in this case.
Although a lot of people don't like sulfur dioxide or the smell of it. How'd I do? Uh good. 19 seconds. Woo!
Mark from Camloops wrote in. Sorry to hear you about the bar, but mainly for selfish reasons. What compelling reason is there to visit New York City now? Plenty. Like, like uh, I don't know.
Um geez. Wow. Like what? I mean, I don't know. You don't know.
I mean, I I live here. I don't know. I mean, yeah, everybody come to Dave's house. Yeah, what do you do? City.
Well, uh Jen and I, that since they've reopened the botanical garden, Jen and I have been going to the botanical garden quite a lot. Uh they just reopened the conservatory, which is amazing because you need advanced tickets. So it's been very not crowded. Uh there's also the botanical garden I've been going to. And then I haven't gone to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden yet, mainly because that's all I do.
That's all I do. Okay. All right. A lot to do. I mean, like, uh what else is there to do?
Uh I mean, you can go to parks, you can eat outside. They it apparently they've started indoor dining. I haven't done it yet. Um, outdoor, I'll put it this way: once things loosen up, the ability to have out I had I haven't done the question yet, by the way. The ability I haven't read it yet.
The ability to have outdoor dining in New York as a permanent thing for everyone, I think is gonna be 100% plus, especially when we come back. It's going to be like the one thing that Paris had, all that outdoor dining, well, plus the Eiffel Tower and the good cheese and whatnot. Anyway, but like one of the things that Paris had, that outdoor dining thing, we're gonna have permanently, and these things aren't gonna be uh just like you know, pieces of plywood that people put on the ground because we had nothing else to do. I think that's gonna be a net plus. Don't you think that's gonna be nice, Doz?
Yeah. My neighborhood was so nice in the summer with that. It was great. Yeah, yeah, that's good. I think that's good.
That's something to do. Um, all right. Uh so uh Mark had a question from uh about barbecue. I have a question about barbecue. I've been trying a hybrid low-temp smoke method.
I'm curious about the temperature that is recommended by one and all for final internal temperature of the meat. I can't find anyone who recommends an internal temperature of 205 Fahrenheit for the final smoke product. Why is this? And why would I not want to keep the core uh below, I guess I mean below 205? Why would I not want to keep the core below, say 160 to reduce liquid loss?
I'm curious. Thanks for keeping up the podcast during COVID. I've been going through the back catalog again and I'd forgotten about the funk-filled commercial breaks and the sweet sweet NPR delivery of the first few episodes. People didn't like the NPR. Wait, I gotta go back and listen to the NPR delivery.
Well, for a while, like we were like, hey, maybe, you know, if we tone down the crazy and just went to uh welcome to cooking issues, something like this. I don't know. You have to have a lot of mouth noises and sound metrosexual. Wait, hold on. Let's leave that for a second.
I want to know on episode one of cooking issues, did you come in and you just had that intro, like ready to go? I have no idea. Like I don't even know what it sounded like. Do we have it anywhere? Can you call it up and play it?
Yeah. Uh well, not yes, I'm gonna insert it right here. Uh can you play it so we can hear it over the microphone? Yeah. Yeah, three minutes.
Give me a second. But well, we'll do my two minutes and then we'll come back. Yeah um okay. So listen, I think uh Mark, the issue is this. Like if you're gonna low temp it, you gotta keep it real low.
And if you're gonna high temp it, there's no reason to kind of go in between. And that's why I think most of these recipes um are on the on the higher end temp of the range. Because if you do, which I used to do when I was teaching low temperature sous vide, and I will go into this in the book. If you do a lot of side-by-side tests of meat that is cooked very high, like high enough to have the collagen breakdown uh in a relatively reasonable amount of time, like in the 205, right? It it tastes meatier, it has a meatier taste, and people like the flavor of it better, right?
And so, uh, if that's what they're looking for, that very savory, meaty taste. On the flip, if you're doing lower temperature, the texture is very different because the the f the meat has never been so drastically overcooked, so it is moister, but also the collagen when it breaks down kind of stays stationary. It doesn't move around. So you don't get the second time I've used lubricity this time, this thing, you don't get that added lubricity from the the gelatin melting into all of the meat. So I think it's a it's it's different.
And I think anything kind of in between the two is um kind of not worthwhile. And I think the higher, higher temps um have a meatier taste that a lot of people work. So I think most people just shoot for those high temps, and then even if they're doing it in a bag, they're doing it to control. And this is now I've finished the question. I don't know how much time I have left, but I did comfy.
I did comfy. Uh I just opened it, I aged it for a couple of weeks. I used one of the stasher bags, which is those silicone bags, and I did a pressure cooker comfy to get the kind of medius flavor. And remember, you're not losing a lot of moisture because in the pressure cooker, there's nowhere for the moisture to go. So I just salted the duck legs and then put some thyme and you know, pepper and whatnot.
Uh and then I put them in this in the this silicone bag upright because these bags can't hold pressure. They they they open themselves when under pressure. And I put it in the pressure cooker, I pressure cooked it for 10 minutes, opened it, did the dip in water to get the fat around it, fat that it rendered, and pressure cooked it another 10 minutes and let it age. Then after it was done, pulled it out and it popped again. So I did the water dip again to get rid of all the air so it wouldn't oxidize.
And then I stored it for uh like a couple of weeks and made the confie and it tasted delicious. So I might do some silicone bag comfi in the future. Remember, I told you that wasn't part of the question though. Well that was a whole separate thing. Yeah.
Remember, I said this is not part of the question, I'm talking about something entirely different. So you want an extra two minutes on that? I don't know about two minutes. I got it all with only like 15 seconds uh over, and I talked about how to do comfi pressure cooker bag. I think doing pretty good.
Yeah. Uh okay, you got me? I found the thing. We might have to do a couple minutes of music here. Not a couple minutes, you know, a couple seconds.
That's the original Vicious Vicious Vodka by Amos Milburn. I don't know where I'm at supposed to be my own. Gotta hear the voice of someone who still hadn't been crushed yet. Ready for it, Stuzz? Someone who still had hope for the future.
Yes. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network. This is Dave Arnold with Cooking Issues, uh show where you call in and talk to us about your cooking issues. Uh every Tuesday from 12 to 10. Wow.
Wow. I like it better this way. Good job. After 10 years. Well, well, here's the thing is like we like we we went into the crazy.
I don't know how it happened. Was it when was it when Joel Gargano first sent in the heavy metal version? And I and I I started doing a mixture of that intro and Yonker's Raceway. You know, like which is uh, you know, uh what was the equivalent of Yonkers Raceway in uh in Covina? What was your like local where did the monster trucks go?
What was it called? Uh the Santa Anita racetrack. And did they have someone at the Santa Anita racetrack? Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. Did you have that?
Yeah. So everyone has it, right? It's just a question for us. It was Yonkers Raceway. Raceway Park.
And then there's also like the guy at the end of Raceway Park. That guy? Anyway. So I think when Joel did his thing, like I started going more Yonkers Raceway, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday monster trucks, and that's how it all happened. I don't know.
That's why I think. And then we tried to switch off again. Remember, Stas? And people are like, no, don't. Remember?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. From Isaiah Myers on the Instagram. Hey there, my name is Isaiah.
I live in Phoenix, Arizona. I have not been to Phoenix in 18 years. How messed up is that? I used to go to Phoenix constantly. What?
Why would you want to go there? I mean, you ever been? Yeah. You don't like it? I mean, like, I love that whole Wiley Coyote Sawaro thing.
What? Phoenix, just stay in Phoenix. Like, just stay in the city. No, no, no, no. I mean, around Phoenix, like the desert with the Sawaro.
Yeah, yeah. Well, when you say Phoenix, I imagine you mean Phoenix. Well, I mean, that's where my in-laws lived. They lived in in Lichfield Park near the Air Force base. And so we go out there, but like, you know, they had a giant Saro in their in their front yard, you know, and an olive tree, and like really delicious um uh grapefruit trees.
You'd pick it right away, you know. They had to paint that there was sour orange trees lining the streets, and so I would just like we would just run up and down the streets picking free sour oranges and making marmalade and and sour orange drinks, and um yeah, I always had a soft spot for it. I like I like the desert. It's so hot, but I always liked it. Anyway, uh I'm just surprised I've never been back.
The one of the things that was kind of sad at the time was is that Arizona was I think the one of the last states that still allowed leaded gasoline and like had kind of like weak um emissions kind of standards compared to everyone else. Um, and so you know, Phoenix is in a basin, so when you would fly into Phoenix, you could just see yourself flying into the kind of pollution, but I bet you that's a lot better now than it used to be, right? I don't know. I mean, don't you think LA is cleaner than it used to be, Nastasia? Airwise?
Yeah. No. Have you read what's going on there? No, no, I don't mean because of fires. I mean in general.
Uh I don't mean this second. I mean like in general. Obviously, not this second. I don't think so. I remember I used to fly in in the 70s to see my grandparents, and it was like purple in the daytime.
It was gross. You think it's still like that? Yes. I mean, not with the fires. Yes.
We gotta go after this question, too. Alright. Uh wait, where'd I get to that? Oh yeah. My name is Isaiah, I live in Phoenix, and I work for a specialty coffee and cocktail company called Provision Coffee.
Found your show about a month ago and been thankful for all the knowledge I get to take to my wife and impress her with. Anyways, the question is do you have any recommendations for a pumpkin spiced cocktail? I was thinking of pairing with bourbon, but just wondered if you have ever encountered any great one. Thanks for cracking me up and teaching me on the weekly. Alright, Isaiah.
So uh we never did a pumpkin spiced cocktail. Bourbon sounds good. Stas, what are your feelings on pumpkin spice? I don't really like it. Really?
Because other people like it or because you don't like it. In other words, do you like it in pumpkin? You don't like pumpkin pie? Okay. Do you like other things with nutmeg and uh ginger and send it?
So I started the two-minute thing, but we're I'm asking you a question. I like certain pumpkin spice, other pumpkin spice I don't. Do you like spice cake? Yeah. Alright, so you like things like that.
Okay, okay. Uh uh, I'm where you are now. Okay. Um, what we were doing towards the end is uh Damon Harjoey Rogo at the bar, one of our bartenders, was uh working on a pumpkin spice cream syrup, which is good. So what you do is is you mix uh I don't remember whether we did equal parts because it's real thick of cream and uh and sugar.
You might need to add a little more cream because it's gonna be real thick, and then you thicken that with uh a little bit of citric acid until it sort of pre thickens and breaks a little bit. Now that cream syrup has to be pumped. You then add your pumpkin spice mixture to that and do pumpkin spice like cream syrup drinks with bourbon, like you're gonna be winning all day long, Kevin. You're gonna be was that Kevin? No, sorry, Isaiah.
You're gonna be winning all day long, Isaiah. Uh I don't know if it gets cold enough. In I guess it's nice. It gets chilly. The nice thing about Phoenix is that like at night, if you get in a pool and you get out, you evaporate so quickly that even when it's in the 90s, you're like, oh I I feel a little bit of a chill.
I will keep my towel around me. You know what I mean? Anyway, uh so try that. I have to say, I would like to go back to Phoenix. I would.
I like Phoenix. Uh do I have time for one more? We're on one two-minute thing. Come on, do we got it? Well, you got one more two-minute section.
Go. Kevin McHugh writes in via email. Sorry, Isaiah, for calling you Kevin. I was just looking at the next question that's coming down. Uh, I read about making cirrus with the pits of peaches, plums, apricots, etc.
earlier in the summer. I started saving those pits in a deli container in the freezer. Yesterday, I used them to make a one-to-one simple syrup. I left the pits hole and strained them out after the syrup cooled. Someone has told me this might lead to cyanide poisoning.
Are you familiar with the triple six song in which you eat so many shrimp you get iodine iodine poisoning? Is there any reason to worry that the sh uh syrup might contain dangerous amounts of cyanide? Is there any part of the process that might be dangerous or could be made less dangerous? I made a Mai Thai with the syrup and feel fine for the record. Love the show, Kev.
This is super complicated. Um I didn't have time to research it again. I've heard many alternate things. I just don't I didn't you're not using a lot of the syrup, right? You're using a little bit of the syrup.
My feeling is is that you will not die. This is my feeling. What do you think, Stuzz? Um, I don't I don't actually know. Can someone search on the cooking issues?
I dealt with this and I went through all of it. And Harold McGee, here you know what? Kevin, Harold McGee is gonna come on to push his new book. And if someone reminds me in advance of when Harold McGee comes on, Harold McGee is the cyanide man, and he actually spent a lot of time uh like thinking in his new book about the fact that cyanide, everyone says it smells like uh like almonds. He's like, doesn't smell like almonds.
Cyanide doesn't smell like almonds. So we'll talk to Harold about the smell of cyanide and about your your cisnerup when he comes on, hopefully pretty soon to push his new book, which is coming out this month. Sound like a good idea, Anastasia. Alright. So then I get another one.
I get another one. Uh I get another one. Umtey Zukowski wrote in via email, greetings and good wishes. What is the science behind uh stuff getting stuck to your pan? Again, with McGee, he says uh it's the proteins what are bonding with the with your with your pan.
There's a Shesteps recipe for paella where you blend 600 grams of stock with 200 grams of rice and pour it into a pan to uh reduce before putting the rest of the rice on top. With so much liquid, how is it even feasible you won't be able to that you will be able to separate that from a not uh nonstick pan? It didn't go so well for me in my cast iron pan. Thanks, Monty from Jacksonville, Oregon. Alright, Monty, uh first of all, how you gotta ask yourself how seasoned is is your pan?
What the Shesteps is doing, I've never seen before, is kind of interesting. They're par cooking or basically cooking their rice with the paella flavors, they're chilling it, right? And then they are blending some of the cooked rice with stock and then pouring that into a pan and then turning it into kind of a rice pancake, but it's very liquid. So I think what they're doing there is they're trying to heat it evenly and have it kind of reduced down into a batter. Then that batter sets almost like an injira, and you see them like jamming around to loosen on the edges and then pouring oil in.
I think that's the key to get the oil to slide underneath to get that film to release. Because at the end, after enough water is evaporated from it, it fundamentally turns into a rice pancake. And so then the question is can you get a rice pancake off of your off of your pan? And if your pan's not non stick enough to get it off that way, then it's not gonna work in this situation. Now, that is a strange it was a strange way they cooked all their meats separately and then put some rice on top of the uh this pancake that they had made sure was gonna release beforehand by constantly jabbing the edges of it and then pouring oil in to get the oil underneath.
And I think that's that that's the the key. But I have not tried their recipe, so I can't say it looked interesting. Uh, but most of those rice things you need to somehow manage to get oil onto the bottom so that the rice can crisp up and then release. So it's about cooking it dry, separated, and then getting your your oil underneath. And um, I need Serena uh you think it's Gereffi?
Gireffi? I think it's G E is ju or Go Reffi. Jorefi or Goreffi. Uh, I would say. Gh.
Serena Gareffi. Uh via email. I don't have the answer to this, so I'll be asking people for recommendations. Do you have any bar recommendations for the Dallas Fort Worth area? Since having moved here, I've been avoiding going out because you know, COVID.
However, I figure I should start accumulating a list and see if there's any places to do. I have never been to Dallas Fort Worth Serena. So if anyone could write in their uh Dallas uh Forth Worth recommendations to us or put them in the chat room and Matt will send them to us. We'll put them on out to you next week, and we'll have to deal with the last couple of questions uh next week, including camel milk. I don't know anything about camel milk, but I'll try to find it out.
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