My name is Samantha Garner and I'm from Boston, Massachusetts. I'm a Cheeselandian because I take cheese seriously just like they do in Wisconsin. Go to cheeselandia.com to learn more, and if it's for you, sign up. Hello, welcome to Cookie Issues. This is Dave, older host of Cooking Issues coming to you.
Matt is in the actual bur uh booth at Roberta's Pizzeria. How's it? How's it look over there? Uh it looks kind of crazy. They've been doing some fun things in the backyard, but uh uh, what does that mean?
Oh, like crazy isn't busy. Oh no. Well, I mean, I don't even know. I don't think they're open. Well, let's let's get moving on.
We got Nastasia the hammer Lopez still in California. How you doing, Nastasia? Fine. We got uh you sound fine. Great.
Fine. We got Rebecca the Boondogler. Where are you right now, Rebecca? Are you in Brooklyn? Yeah, I'm in Brooklyn.
Boob uh uh doggling some boons, are you? You know, I have nothing to say to that. All right. I mean, you know, you wanted to come on. I figured you'd have something to say about that.
I asked her to come on for some color for some female color. Yeah, okay. That's okay. By the way, what is the what is the genesis of the term color commentary? I don't know.
I think so that it's not dull. Like black and white is dull, right? And then color is like vibrant, so color. So you think that that term goes all the way back to like the 70s when they were selling color TVs to people? I mean, like, I feel like I'm the only person here who's ever watched a black and white TV.
What I what I want the answer to be is that on black and white television, they would have one person whose job was just to describe what the color of each thing was that was being shown. That's what I want the answer to be. I love that. I love that. Especially like two.
Well, this is why, you know, I one of the reasons I think why there's such like a color contrast between uh different teams. I mean, imagine that in black and white. That's the blue person. It's the blue person. You know what I mean?
Like they both look identical in the same black and white thing. Or how the you know, Lone Ranger's t-shirt used to be a light blue, so that showed up super white. Yeah. Yeah. Uh isn't it hard to imagine like people in black and white with actual skin color?
Like Jimmy Stewart. You know, it's hard to imagine him as a person. That's not just a black and white person. I mean, he was in a bunch of color movies later on. He's got to watch those movies.
It's real boring. He was in a he was in a super boring, super like intensely boring movie called uh strategic air command, where it's basically just him chilling in a B-29, which is gotta be the most boring job on earth unless you're actually like just flying at high altitude in a B-29 for hours. Or like Charlie Chaplin, you know, like Hannah Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, you know what?
They need smell a vision for him. Apparently, one of the most intensely foul-smelling performers of all time. Just apparently, just like like swamping the chonies, like stinking it up strong. I feel like that's such a power move, you know. Like, if you're able to smell that bad and people have to deal with it, like, and you're so good at what you do, your job is like it doesn't matter.
Like, you smell awful, but we all want you here. Right. Wow. I mean, like, I have a number considered turning, yeah. A number of heritage radio engineers have tried this move and then they found out their power was not great enough.
It's like, guys, you gotta go go home. But like Rebecca comes on and be like like turning the man's stink into a power dynamic. Because it is. Think about it. Yeah, they have no choice in your life.
There's nobody better than someone not gonna say something. Well, maybe he's successful despite of the stink. I mean, like in other words, like you're making it a conscious decision on his part to be staken real bad. It's more, well, it's twofold. It could be that, but I think it's also at what point are the people around you not going to say anything to you because of how much power you have.
Oh, oh, okay. Wait, wait, there's two different things, right? There's that there's he has power because he's so he can get away with stuff, yeah, right. And then there is he is doing things to demonstrate that he can do whatever he wants. So it seemed to me to be two separate phenomena, right?
Right? Like, I think most of the time it's probably just this is me, I'm disgusting, and no one's saying anything, but I feel like I'm sure they're you know, they're testing it out, you know. Like they must know on some level. I mean, his his famous character is a tramp, right? So I mean, like it was going Daniel Day Lewis.
Yeah, exactly. His character is the tramp. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, Chaplin.
I do know I love that picture of Chaplin when he's uh giving America the the the high ho, he's like he's like F U Raggy and he like leaves because he was ejected because of the whole uh because he had his uh communist uh sympathies. You see, what exactly do you mean by a tramp? That's the name of his character, the little tramp. What does that imply? Like a street urchin.
I mean, but no matter what, it doesn't matter what he's doing. He could be in the you know, i up in the Yukon trying to like get gold and it's freezing out, and he's still Charlie Chaplin, the little tramp. You know what I mean? I think the only time he does anything different was in The Great Dictator, where I don't even know, maybe he's still playing that character. I haven't seen that movie in so long.
Um I haven't seen a Chaplin movie in probably decades. I mean, you know, I went through a phase where I looked at through all of the, you know, I went through a historical movie phase and I looked at it all and whatever. Whatever, whatever. Uh his granddaughter is an actress now. Last name Chaplin?
Yeah, Una. Yeah. Um, she was in something really good recently, but I forget what it was. Um, people can look it up. And we have not introduced, but yet he is here.
John. Uh, how are you doing, John? I'm doing well, thanks. Hanging out in uh in Connecticut in the land in the land of uh in the land of Connecticut based potato chips. Yes, that's exactly where I am.
Yep. Yeah, nice. And Charlie Chaplin was very good looking. Listen, that's a subjective thing. It's fine.
Okay. Well, also, he's not very tramp. I mean, remember, he had this. In Wikipedia, yeah, then it's not a Hitler stash if he had it before Hitler. And in Wikipedia, you know, the photos I'm looking at, he doesn't have a fing mustache.
Hey, herself. She self-centered. I heard it. It was good, yeah. Yeah.
I'm gonna start doing that too. Wait, but here's the thing. I'm looking at him dressed as a tramp, and like he's not as dirty as I would have expected. Like, this is a pretty clean tramp. Well, it might have been earlier in his career.
Like he wasn't sure he could get away with it, so he started out cleaner and then he just got smellier and smellier as he became more famous. Yeah, and Nastasia, I'm looking at that photo. He is super, he was super hot, very attractive, very attractive. I mean, uh okay. Wow, this is yeah.
Wow. This is the kind of lady content that Rebecca's on here for. Matt, Matt, put that photo as our as our photo of the phone. Yeah, is it is it public domain? It probably is as well.
Yeah, yeah, it's on the phone. I just pulled it. Just look for the one where it doesn't look like a tramp. Yeah. Obviously, you think I can't identify the hot photo?
I'm gonna be feeling I'll figure it out. Yeah. All right. Five wives. I mean, look.
He can do that. Not all at once. Eleven kids. That's a lot. I mean, with five wives.
That's kind of trampy. If you're rich and if you're if you're rich and you're gonna abandon your families, then it's not so many. Did he abandon his families? I don't know. Sort of necessarily, right?
That's an assumption. What is your assumption that on the fifth wives they spat out 11 kids? I I don't, I mean, all right. Well, I mean, you can still be present and not be married to the mother. Right.
Listen, I say, listen, I th I that is true. Well, while that is 100% true, and while the man was rich, right? Uh, I know that he had some of his families here in the US and had to leave the US and he never came back, right? But I'm just gonna say that uh there are 24 hours in the day, there are 52 weeks in the year, okay, and five sets of families to keep track of and be good. That's a lot.
Yes, but you're but you're assuming that these women wanted him around, and they're like, when's he coming back? Like maybe they're like God, he's not here and the money's still flowing. We were just in it for the abandoned. Abandoned. Yeah.
Which makes me think that you're like, oh, these women felt abandoned, or the children felt abandoned. No, that's like glad dad's not around. Nastasia, Nastasia, that that is. What did you mean? Like I'm thinking about the kids.
The women or the women. Yeah, but the kids could be like, Thank God dad's not around. He's really regularly, and then he's not by watching by watching his movies? No. But they they didn't all move to Switzerland, Rebecca.
All right. So uh guys, Charlie Chaplin is really good looking. Very good looking. I know, super hot. Oh my god.
Are you being serious, Matt? I want I want listeners to know that Nastasia before we got on was like, I'm implementing the two-minute rule. We've now done 12 minutes on Charlie Chap. This is how this always goes. We try and implement the question rule, but we spent like 30 minutes.
Have any of you ever like you don't even you guys like barely even know what he looks like? You don't even know, like you've never seen one of these movies apparently. You don't even know the characters in the movies, it's gross. It is literally his true face with a fake mustache and a hat. No, uh it's just not the same.
And also, uh he is in movies. I think the great dictator he doesn't play, he's not the tramp, but I f I think he probably has the mustache because I think he's literally doing a Hitler thing because that was in the 30s. And modern times, I I don't think he's dressed that way. I don't remember, but it's because having actually watched all of these movies. You can say he's not.
Also, I just want to say that we talked about a variety of things with under the guise of Charlie Chaplin, right? We talked about family dynamics. We talked about it. We talked about Nastasia assuming that I was talking about the women. Yeah.
Women and you know, yeah. The children. No, I was referring to the children, Nastasia. Yeah. Okay.
Children. So do we have uh cooking things? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm gonna try to rip through all of the eight billion questions that we have, and Nastasia is only gonna keep us to 12 minutes when it has to do with Charlie Chaplin and his relative hotness.
Uh you know, which which picture are you looking at, by the way, where he's so hot? Wikipedia. Just the I'm actually working here, so I can't Wikipedia. I'll look at it later. Uh I have like you know, everyone's questions up and like recipes that I have to talk about, but you know, you guys talk about Charlie Chaplin.
Is it the picture where he's leaving on the boat now giving the F U? No, just sending the picture, Rebecca. I'm sending it right now. Young Charlie Chaplin. Also, I Googled Charlie Chaplin hot, and these are the images that came up.
So I'm just letting you know. It's it's a thing. All right, so you're self-selecting. No, I already did the regular no, I already did the right. No, well, I mean, I did the regular search first, and then now because we determined that he's hot, and you know, I made that conclusion on my own.
I did the Charlie Chaplin hot search. No one's saying you're not your own woman, Rebecca. You can come to your own conclusions on the hotness of chapter. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Uh, I wonder whether he's ever appeared in a diaper. Then he would be triple hot, right? What? We all know. We all we all know Rebecca.
I'm not gonna say anything more about this, but Rebecca likes a man in a diaper. Not that he needs a diaper. Dave, I have no idea what you're talking about. I have no idea what you're talking about. Wait, does no one know?
Oh, oh, by the way, by the way, by the way, uh, what you've just witnessed is two people lying at the same exact time. And in the same exact way. What do you need? This is a family diaper. I want everyone to know.
I want everyone. There's nothing. Rebecca, there is nothing more family than diapers. There is nothing more family than diapers. Like life begins with diapers and life ends with diapers.
I'll leave it at that. Dave, you're right on that one. Yeah. Alright. It's like it's like the famous uh riddle of the of the Sphinx.
Like, you know, who poops in a diaper in the morning, like poops in water in the in the afternoon, and poops in a diaper again in the evening. Oh, it's people, it's people. I say hot Charlie, by the way. That's not the hottest one, Rebecca. Yeah, but that's like a this is a pretty nice one.
First of all, Rebecca has sent me a picture of uh just like a random 20s guy with like a like like a Houdini brow that uh and I I don't know. I would not, I would you don't think this is Charlie Chaplin? You think I'm sending you false. No, I just don't think it's that hot. I just don't think it's that hot.
I think like, you know, if you would sent me a picture and I was like, oh, that's Paul Newman. Do the other one, Rebecca. Do the other one. Okay. And and people, but by the way, I don't know if you know this.
We're not in a visual medium here, people. This is not a visual media. That's true. Yeah. Yeah.
No one knows what we're talking about. I mean, they can look at the video. They will, because we're gonna put photos on uh cover, the cover. Okay, Dave, look at that one. Look at that one.
They also have Google. Uh no, no, we we'll talk about this later. He just looks like a guy to me. He looks like a guy. That's a breakout room.
We'll do a breakout room where we only discuss trolley jobs. Oh my goodness. Yeah, but I encourage you guys to actually watch a movie first so we can discuss it based on the person's actual talents. Watch um the Yukon one is famous because he's got the little thing where he picks up the here's a food thing. He picks up the rolls with his forks and he does the little can can dance with the uh with the with the rolls.
Anyway. I think I'm gonna go with the dictator. I feel like that feels more appropriate for what we're going through these days. Nobody liked it when it came out because he was making a lot of a political statement. I look again, this is my memory from a long, long time ago.
But they were like, make a funny movie already. Which is funny, but it's not like you know what I mean? Yeah. John, have you watched any of the chaplain stuff? I have, yeah.
What the gold rush is political, is that what you're saying? No, no, no, no. The dictator. Uh, yeah, yeah. Okay.
The gold rush is the classic one where he just like he's in the cabin, it's snowing, he does the thing with the dinner rolls. Like, that's the classic stuff, right? And then uh, you know, he did the one where the but then his political ones are the one where he's in the factory, right? Which where he shows his his leanings there, and the other one is the obviously the dictator, which was done, I believe. 1940.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, I thought it was the 30s. I didn't realize it was that late, but yeah, that's right before he you know gave us the heave ho. And I actually did he leave the US after the war. Did he leave before or after the House on American Committee?
Can't remember. Unclear, but I just want to let you know that when I was um finding additional images to send you, there are a lot of very creepy Charlie Chaplin dolls. Um as well. So he had to add the word Charlie Chaplin. There are a lot of very creepy dolls out there.
But it's the dollars. Specifically Charlie Chaplin dolls. Um Stasia is a collector of dolophonnalia. I'm not. Really?
What do you mean? Applehead dolls? Applehead doll books. Oh my god. Every Apple doll head book I own is yours.
Uh a gift, you mean? It's not mine. It's yours. Once you make you make me keep all that stuff so that you're not the applehead stereotype. Now the stereotype of the middle-aged man living in in lower Manhattan who making apple head dolls.
Yes. That is a vicious stereotype. That's right up there with uh, you know, person who storms the capital, right? Middle-aged man in lower Manhattan making applehead dolls. Nastasia, you're the one that didn't want to be the stereotype of the uh of the hell's kitchen uh lady who instead of cats has apple head dolls, right?
And yet you made me do that three times. Made you no longer chose to do that. We haven't actually discussed this. So the not well received Netflix series, Nurse Ratchet. Um they feature Applehead dolls in it.
See, Dave, I told you it was gonna catch on. I mean did you not hear what she just said? Not well received. So not the app. There's um there's a scene where they're they're making apple heads.
I think it's to soothe the mentally uh ill patients. Nothing is less soothing than uh an apple head doll. I mean, it's they're horrifying. I mean, the first time Dax saw an applehead doll picture of it, he was like, get that away from me. I never want to see that picture again.
And then you did it in real life. Well, I was threatening to give it to him as his Christmas gift. He's like, I'll burn it, I'll crush it, I'll put it in the in the in the garbage disposal. Dave, are you gonna use um Rebecca's sous vide technique in your sous vide book? Why are you trying to first of all, why are you trying to get me to say negative things about Rebecca?
And why are you cranking me on the case? Yeah, Nastasia, is that why you brought me on? No, I just thought of it right now, thinking about our. And first of all, how is that Rebecca's fault? Yeah, that was your mess up, not mine.
Not my mess up. Yeah, because you were the one that first said it took us, people. Here's some cooking pointers. You read between the lines, what happens? First of all, don't use food as a doorstop.
I'm just gonna go ahead and say, don't use food as a doorstop, right? Especially food that you're gonna eat soon, right? Why? Not just because you might step on it or gross stuff might fall into it that could get on the bag and then get in, although that's also true, right? But because you're not looking at it because it's not at eye level anymore, right?
So don't use it as a doorstop. Uh secondly, learn the difference between Celsius and Fahrenheit and have some sort of mental idea of like at what temperature things need to be to start cooking. And then lastly but not least, why don't you check on the food you're cooking every once in a while? These are some tips from Dave. Uh and I'll leave it at that.
But Nastasi, why are you trying to crank me? Yeah. So mean. What's up? What's up with this?
I was thinking about your book, and then I Rebecca and I were talking about sub parties earlier this morning. No, we weren't. We were talking about what I'm doing for Mike's birthday, which I hope is not a sub party. Yeah. Uh well, uh again, just to let you guys know, this is c this is classic.
An attempt to get me to spool off into Zanyville and look like I'm the ogre. Well, I think it's just both of you guys would be ogres in that situation because you you know are in control of your words and what you choose to do. And Nastasia is the one bringing it up. So I would say two ogres. Hypothetically, if we were to have this conversation, which we're not.
So get to the questions. Oh, now get to the questions. All right. Joe Thompson wrote in a long time ago, and I'm and I'm gonna use this as an opportunity to talk about something uh similar to what you asked, Joe, because I never heard back from Adam Leon. So Adam Leonti wrote a book called The Flower Lab, in which he talks about uh fresh grinding, uh, you know, baking bread with uh freshly ground flour.
He grinds all of his own flour, and I have to say his bread is delicious, right? Nastasia, we can we say this. But uh, but we had this question, and for weeks Nastasia tried, I tried, no response. He doesn't have to be a good idea. The man does not want to talk to us about your question, Joe.
So I'm just gonna use this as an opportunity to how to teach all of you, you know, if if uh what's what how does it how does it work if I teach you how to do this, you can do it? Is that a fish that thing? Yeah, but I I usually mutilate it into something horrible. Like if you get punched in the face once, you get punched in the face once. But if you buy a uh anyway, whatever.
Joe wrote in, good morning, Nastasia, and the rest of you have the sense up on air. A few months back, I listened to an interview with Adam Leonte about his new book and was inspired to hop onto the sourdough bandwagon once the worldwide grain mill supply rebounded after COVID hit. By the way, it's still hard to get one. They're still like will sell out as the as they get sold. So, you know, kudos to the the grain mill people.
I'm glad you didn't end up going out of business, and I'm glad that people actually buy your products now. Uh now that I've lost any shred of your meaning Nastasia's respect, I tried out the flower lab recipe, rye bread recipe, and it was a complete disaster. Uh after cleaning up the dough waterfall that cascaded down my kitchen cabinets while the bread was rising, the final volume, the final product was more dense, gummy, rye pudding than bread. By the way, anytime you overload uh the high okay. Anytime you overload the hydration on uh bread past the point where it can structurally hold, right?
So it's it's too liquid, and it will just the bubbles will boil up and out before it sets and it collapses. So, you know, you'll uh you'll get lighter area, lighter area, and then boom, super dense. Um rye pudding, then bread. Uh the volume in the recipe seemed off from the beginning, and I was wondering if you had any word of passing uh these questions on to Adam to help me. Uh and so here's the thing, right?
Uh by the way, the uh Joe is squarely in our demographic mid-30s, white guy engineer living in the burbs with wife and kids, in case you were curious, Nastasia. Were you curious? She's gone. Uh so not curious that she is in fact gone. So I'm gonna go to the house.
I'm here. Wait, I didn't hear what you said. What did you say? Of course not. What'd you say?
It's like the one hour where we actually need to listen to each other. They had to close the window because there's someone drilling. Oh my god, even in California. Yes, I can't. They've been jackhammering every day at my apartment outside the window, and they're like, you know, what's a good time to start jackhammering?
7 a.m. You should wake up. Right right outside my window. Uh Nastasia, when you move back, you said you're gonna specifically look for places that are entirely built, right? Well, yeah, or have like a park in front of them.
Oh yeah. Well, well, let's get rich. Um I mean, like, I don't know if you know this, people, but if you want to live with a view of a park in New York, like the best the best thing to do is to get rich. Well, you could do Grammarcy. Oh god, that's eat no, that's douchey.
Yeah, also that's douchey. Well, hold on, hold on, hold up. Nastasia Lopez just said that people who live on Gramercy are douchey, and all the people who live on the upper east side overlooking the park aren't the douchey people in all of Manhattan. Yeah. No.
Well, it's not about the park, it's about looking out on something that's green instead of looking out on something that is a jackhammer. I'm just gonna jump in here and say that, and this is from I I don't know, I guess like years of experience, which I know you have way more than that with the Nastasia, but like trying to convince Nastasia to live in a different neighborhood or uh anything of the sort is very challenging. Oh no, it's a losing battle. I'm not trying to I'm not trying to convince her, I'm just saying I was just listing parks, and she was like, that's not even a park, because you need a key. Like, I don't even I know she's not gonna live there because for those of you that don't know, Nest like Manhattan is an island that's only a couple of miles wide.
Like if, right? It's a thin long island. It's not long, I want to get a scientist on this. Because I thought about it the other day, and I was getting angry in the clip. I want to get a scientist on it.
Let people know. Nastasia Lopez. Is it what I'm thinking about? Yes. Yes, yes, but people don't know yet.
So let me tell them first. Nastasia Lopez believes that the sunlight on the west side of Manhattan is better than the sunlight on the east side of Manhattan. No, I didn't say better. Yeah, I didn't say better. It's longer.
You get it longer. Okay, that's even more nutty. But and she says that this is true regardless of what buildings are between you and the setting sun. If any. If she has not discussed what happens if you live in Battery Park City, where you are both east and west side.
We have not discussed this. No. Okay. But I would like I want someone to confirm a scientist to confirm that if you live on the west side of something. The earth is a ball.
It is a ball. I want a real scientist. No matter where you live on that line. In terms of east and west, you are on a circle that is spinning. Right?
Therefore, you can choose any place on that circle, and you will experience the same number of hours of daylight and nighttime. Now, if you move up or down, if you change your latitude, sure, you can change the stuff. But remember, Manhattan is a roughly north-south-oriented thing. And so when you go east to west on Manhattan, from the east side to the west side, you're pretty much staying on the same radius circle of rotation that the Earth is on. So you know, it might be something with the reflection of the light though.
Like it would be a scenario. So by but you know, by this, Nastasia, I know where Nastasia needs to live, Rebecca. Elizabeth, New Jersey. It's right across the river, it's slightly more west. So they get slightly more.
And now that you're in California, like every day eight days long. Every day is eight days long. Hawaii. Because it's longer. The further west you go, it's longer.
So now your days are eight days long because you're 3,000 miles further away. Although the sun does set later than it does where you guys are right now. Whoa, whoa. When the sun sets. I mean, obviously, obviously the sun sets depends on where you are, but also the sunset depends on where you are in your time zone, right?
So like you could be, if you're all the way on one edge of a time zone, you can see your the sun sets almost an hour different from when you're on the other edge of the time zone. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yes. How about that rye bread question? Yeah.
Rye bread. Let's try it. Okay. So uh it does look to me like the the numbers in the Leanti thing, like there might be uh like a typo on on one of the things, but here's what I typically do when and this is this is hopefully perhaps the only useful thing you're gonna hear out of my mouth today, because clearly nothing else has been useful. Uh and you know, if the future is like the past, I will say nothing more useful today.
Um, like the child abandonment stuff was pretty good. I don't know how useful it is. Just keep going, don't respond. Um I'm gonna talk a little bit about how like how I check recipes and how I develop recipes, right? And John and I actually spoke about this uh on the on the phone yesterday, and John, you said you use a similar kind of a thingamajig, right?
Yeah, yeah. So first first thing you need to do before you do anything is you need to go out and taste somebody's product that you like, right? Find a product, find something that you like. You need a target, right? Now sometimes you can't have the target, and you need to you need to kind of cook in the dark, but it's very difficult to know what you're trying to achieve if you haven't had the thing in the real life.
Now, again, you can't always do that. Uh, but actually nowadays, it again it's not the same. You can go to someone like Gold Belly, let's say you're researching Naccatish meat pies, which are delicious, but you've never been to Nacadish over to the Cane River in Louisiana. You can go on Gold Belly now and someone will ship you frozen Naccatish meat pies, and you can at least see whether you're close to what they think a good one is, right? Okay, so first of all, get your toy.
Or you can just buy the product and eat the product and be like, this is the best ever. But what did I just say? Didn't I just say buy the product? Yeah, and then stop there because you're never gonna achieve what they're doing. Okay, that's uh really helpful in a cooking advice show.
That's really helpful information in a cooking advice show to tell people just don't bother cooking. No, but again, that's it, people, we're done forever! No, we're gonna be able to do it by all your food. We're beetle beep beep. This episode is brought to you by Wisconsin Cheese.
My name is Samantha Garner, and I'm from Boston, Massachusetts. I'm a Cheeselandian because I take cheese seriously just like they do in Wisconsin. Cheese Landy is a community for loud and proud cheese lovers brought to life by Wisconsin Cheese. I know that I can always cook amazing food with their cheese, and it's even good enough just to snack on. As a Cheeselandia member, I know there is always a supportive community behind me who always gets as excited as I do about cheese.
Go to Cheeselandia.com to learn more, and if it's for you, sign up. Check us out on Instagram at Cheese Landia. This episode is supported by Nourish and Flourish. Nourish and Flourish features behind the scenes stories about artisans, producers, farmers, growers, and other makers in America, along with delicious and wholesome recipes. The latest issue of Nourish and Flourish is a special artisanal gift guide showcasing some of America's finest products, including everything from the farm and garden to eco-friendly home goods, kitchen and cooking essentials, bath and body, original art, blown glass, seasonal recipes, and so much more.
Shop online to support local and buy local. Together, we can make a difference. Learn more at Nourish and Flourish. We're done! First of all, Nastasi, here's where I think you're wrong.
Here's where I think you're very, very, very wrong. And I've been thinking about this a lot because you say this all the time. Yes. There is a lot to trying to do something at least once to see what the issues are in in making something and then saying you never need to do it again. But to like figure out, it's like I went through a thing with cheese.
I'm never gonna make the world's best cheese, but I went through it so I could understand kind of like what was going on, like how hard it is, like what the different variables are, and it helps me appreciate other people's products more. So actually doing something actually helps you appreciate other people more and is a good thing to do. I can see that. I can see that. Alright.
So, uh, what I do then is I research, and it used to be much harder. It used to be I used to go to the New York Public Library back when they had books in the New York Public Library and not just computers to type out your resume on. Uh I would go and I would read every single book on the subject and write down the different recipes. But now it's so much easier. Get an Excel spreadsheet or you know, word or whatever if you can't use Excel, and then go look at a bunch of recipes, a bunch.
And you can look at the reviews if you want. A lot of times I look at the reviews, and if if something has a lot of bad reviews, I see why they say it's bad, and then I look at their recipe and I see whether or not what they have in their recipe is different from other people's recipes. And what you'll do is if you look at, let's say, five, six, seven recipes, you'll will you'll notice trends, and then you'll see where particular recipes are different from trends, and then when you read reviews, you can see kind of how that difference from the from the rest of the recipes in that same trend, how that difference translates to how other people were making the product in the finished uh thing. Now, again, ignore anyone who was like, I didn't have flour, so I used buckwheat. No, it's not, it doesn't work.
You know what I mean? Like you have to like focus on reviews where people have actually made the recipe. Um, so I just did a single recipe uh look. I looked at Leonti's recipe for rye bread versus um uh King Arthur's uh recipe for uh full corn brood. I would for rye for what he's doing here, I would look at full corn broat as the as the standard.
I didn't look at the picture of what he's doing, but it looks like it's a full corn broat thing, and indeed, the hydration is is way higher. Interestingly, um both have starters or preferments that are at 100% hydration. Uh, but then um Adam goes on to have a much higher amount of water such that it makes more sense if it was the water, the 900 grams of water were for both the 500 grams of flour and the 500 grams of course rye in the bread dough, even so be a relatively high hydration. Uh, when you're doing bread specifically, when you're putting all of the data points into your Excel spreadsheet, what one of the things I like to do is look at total liquids versus total solids, and then also certain ratios. Recipes that have eggs, look at the egg to water or egg to milk ratio so you can kind of because that's important.
So, like when I'm doing like le like brioche or or or liège waffles or things like that, I'm looking at um overall hydration ratios. I'm looking at fat to starch ratios, and I'm looking at uh milk to egg ratios. And without even like knowing like a lot lot, by just lining up all of the ingredients in like you know, across five, six, seven columns of an Excel spreadsheet, you can then choose your own starter recipe of which one of those you want, and then make sure you write it down and then take notes on it, and then uh you can adjust, and then after you're finally done, you can pitch the Excel spreadsheet and just keep your own recipe. And that's how I do recipe development. All right, that makes any sense.
Perfect. That may John, since you actually enjoy recipe development, that make it sense or no? Yes, that makes sense. All right. Now, are we on our two minute clock now, Styles?
Wait, we need to just mention that our newsletter's coming out today. Quick mention it. Newsletters coming out today. How do they get it? Um I'll put a link in the show notes.
Thank you. And and by the way, the one's in the newsletter. You are talking about something you got for Christmas. Uh John's talking about New Year's recipes because poor guy wrote this thing before. Which New Year's which which New Year's recipes did you do?
I thought so much New Year's recipe. Well, there's one for um beans, you know, and uh like Mashama Bailey's recipe for beans. That recipe for New Year's. It was great. Okay.
Can I tell you something about well, finish what it is and remind me beans. Remind me of beans. Uh well, I don't know. Then I also included a history of toasting and the science of like when you pop open the champagne bottle at a certain temperature, there's a little blue cloud that happens between the cork and the and the bottle. So you're talking about toast of things you do with friends and family with glasses of uh of champagne and not the pieces of bread that become crunchy.
Correct. Yeah. All right. So beans. Beans.
He's like, I don't care what Nastasi and Rebecca had it. Oh, she is the case. No, it's fine. It doesn't matter. Oh, come on, please.
Go on. Well, I actually I'm interested for Dave to know about Booker actually has a violin Nastasi. Do you want me to go have him get it and play something for you? Please. I think actually I talk about the violin in my section, so that's very relevant.
For real? Yeah, I do. About a violin. Well, I talked about two care packages that I received for the holidays. One from Nastasia, which was pretty incredible and very thoughtful, and included a like a watercolor paintingslash card that she made for me and a scrub made with sand from the beaches of Malibu.
So I just wanted to say thank you, Nastasia. What do you mean a scrub? Like a body scrub. And the body scrub has actual sand in it. Yes.
Nastasia sends me very nice care packages of things like citrus and like little tiny banana guavas. Uh don't ever send anyone out there don't ever send me sand. Do not ever send me sand. Well that's why she sent it to me. Yeah I'm just saying I'm just saying I obviously know this is why we're gonna win the colleagues show yeah the colleagues yeah the colleague show yeah um but the other the other package I received is from one of my best friends from growing up Eliza and she moved to Florida like a year ago and all of us in our friend group looked at her like she had you know two heads we're like what are you doing?
Um but she especially during you know COVID and everything she's living like a very you know charmed life. She has a huge garden that she made outside and so she's just constantly sending us photos of all of these amazing tropical fruits she's growing and she's in South Florida. So no she's so she's in uh she's outside of Tampa like that's relatively north for tropical stuff. Yeah. So it has to withstand a light frost then I guess so I mean she's also she went to Warren Wilson college and has worked on farms for a long time.
So she's you know if anyone can do it it's her um but she also likes goes swimming with manatees on the weekends, um, which she did this past weekend. Um, but she made me a shrine to our old orchestra conductor. Um, was the holiday gift that I got. And it was pretty incredible. But I played the violin and Eliza plays the harp.
Um so if you want to learn more about what a shrine to an orchestra conductor conductor looks like, you should check out the newsletter. Harp, huh? Hey, I want to learn an instrument where it takes up my whole house, but I don't want it to be as versatile as a piano. What do you got? How about she didn't live in an she didn't grow up in an apartment in New York, so they had plenty of room for the harp.
But um, anytime like she still plays it, like she'll play it for weddings and different events and stuff. But moving it is such a challenge. Harp is great if you're like really rich. Like when I was like a little kid, I took piano lessons, and my teacher, she had like you know, the Steinway grand, not the baby grand, like the full grand, because I guess her she was rich, I guess. And she had the full-size harp.
And when you have that giant, you know, that giant living room with the windows with the fancy curtains, and over near one corner you have that giant kind of like gold gilt harp. Like it's a serious, it's a serious sign of wealth right there. Again, not a poor person's instrument. It's a power move. It is a power move, much like smelling real bad.
What about smelling real bad at the harp? Um that I guess if you I don't know. Does anyone have the power to do that? Like if you're I don't think the real power move is to talk about nitrogenating coffee cocktails. Well, another thing, beans.
See, you guys tried first of all, Nastasia got out of saying what she wrote about. Nastasius is incredible. Talk about lines of surprise. Very good. Okay.
Okay. It's very good. So on beans, how many of you, and I think this is a family friendly word, uh how many of you have uh fart problems with beans. Really? Yeah, nothing.
Like in general? In other words, like I don't eat like I don't eat beans every day. So like I'm not saying that I walk around going, but like when you have beans, I feel I feel the bloat. You know what I mean? Like when I make beans, I have beans, I feel the bloat.
If I eat a lot of beans, like for instance, like this going back to New Year's. Like New Year's, I do the hopping John every year, I get a little bloated. I'm not saying like it's a nightmare, but I get a little bloated. You know what I'm saying? Uh none of you guys have that problem?
No. I'm the only person or you still want to admit it. A lot of people say I just don't think it's noticeable enough I can't say let me just put it this way. Harold McGee started writing on food and cooking because beans make people farther that was the whole thing. Shoot Dave, we're supposed to talk about gene lester.
Okay, let me finish beans and then we'll talk about gene lester. I thought you were going to have Harold on to talk about uh gene less no we're not having Harold on. Okay. So uh beans have uh non-digestible uh polysaccharides in them that you can't digest them but then when they I think raffinose is one of the ones that they look at for you know to to to look at to see like what its fart potential is right and um but your gut bacteria can, right? And so if you eat a lot of beans, so you know Matt as a vegetarian, maybe eats more beans than I do on a on a date on a you know weekly basis.
And so he's built up the ability to have non-gassy responses to beans, which is true, right? So the more beans you eat, the less gas you're gonna get every time you have beans. That's just a true fact. Now, uh, for those that are very affected by it, right? You can use this pill called beano.
And beano is an enzyme that you take right before you eat the beans, and it breaks down the sugars in your gut, right? Uh, so that you uh don't have this problem. Now, other people, what they try to do, and one of the reasons to pre-soak beans isn't just cooking, but a theory that you'll leach out some of these uh you know, water soluble polysaccharides and then dump them down the drain with the with the drain water, right? So, like uh and a lot of people, when they're adding things like bay and other things, are trying to do things that are gonna break down these polysaccharides, break down the filming ability of the beans. Bino is um not uh beano is not doesn't survive cooking, so they don't tell you to use it beforehand.
But I did a study, a small study, because I only did it once or twice, of adding of doing a warm water pre-soak at uh 100 degrees Fahrenheit for uh an hour and a half in beans that have been like so. I soak the beans for an hour to get let the water in so that the beans were somewhat hydrated. Then I added the beano and I let them soak for another hour at 100 before cooking, and I have to say, almost no bloating on that sucker. Almost no bloating. So I'm working on, I'm working on a beano-based fartless bean uh situation.
Interesting or not interesting. I mean, you guys don't have problems, so maybe it's not interesting to you. I think a lot of people do. I think a lot of people. Yeah, I want to know what exactly is the scientific process for this.
Like how many times are you gonna do this? Well, the real way to do it, right, is that I would need to find someone with uh a GCMS who's interested, and you cook a re a sample using a regular one, a regular technique, and then you make a sample, and they just test it for rapnos levels and uh and other you know um undigestible polysaccharides, and then they can just tell you, oh yeah, like the the technique that you're using knocked uh the rapnos levels down from you know X to Y. And if you really want to do it, you'd do you'd send them like four samples, like uh, well, you do you do replicate, probably like a like a replicate of three, but aside from the replicate of three, you'd probably want to say, okay, listen, the the repeated soak, I'm gonna test that with and without the enzyme versus not you know not pre-soaking at all, etc. etc. You ever notice how all the people who say that you shouldn't soak beans, the test they do is on quick cooking beans.
They never do the test on real long cooking beans. You ever notice that? No. Okay. Well, that would make sense as to why they say that then.
Nastasi's like, Nastasi's like, why cook beans? I can just buy beans cooked. True. Okay, Gene Lester. Uh so Nastasia Lopez likes, well, okay.
So Nastasia Lopez, Harold McGee, and I went to uh Eugene Lester, who is a former IBM exec. Uh, he had like, I, if not, I mean it's the best I've ever seen, but like one of the greatest collections, private citrus collections anywhere on earth, true or false. Yeah. Uh, just you know, up the mountain from Watsonville, which is where they grow a lot of the strawberries in California. And uh every year the fruit explorers would go there and they would have like a citrus party, and Harold McGee got us a semi private hangout with him.
This is like five years, five or six years ago now, with him and with a couple uh of other people who were like we were horny in. He was showing his two friend the owner of the place, Eugene Lester, was showing his two friends this, and Harold convinced him to let Nastasia and and you know the three of us horn in, is what happened. And so then we we ate lunch with them, and Nastasia has never forgiven anyone for this lunch, even though like this comes up all the time. It does. It's it's the weirdest thing.
I don't understand where the where the enmity comes from because the guy didn't have to let us into his house at all, and you know, instead let us taste like you know, a hundred varieties of citrus, and after you know, lunch we had free reign of the didn't have lunch, Dave. That's the thing. Everyone had lunch and they didn't feed us, so we just sat there for three hours. It wasn't three hours, and who cares? Yes, it was.
It wasn't, and who cares? Anyway, uh he died. Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what Nastasia wanted me to say.
Well, he meant something to you. I mean, his collection. I I only met the guy once. I was super psyched. I think about his collection of citrus quite often.
And uh, you know, he had a good fruit knife. He also collected us, I forget whether it was Mercury's, like oh like uh old Mercury cars and blocks of wood and a specific kind of uh classical uh music recording, although I don't remember which one it was. He was a collector of things, he collected citrus, I believe it was like 39 or something mercs, uh, chunks of wood from all over the world, and a certain kind of classical music. Was am I missing anything, Nastasia? Yeah, we didn't get lunch.
But he also, you know, opened up his home to you guys, which is very nice, and shared his collections. Yes, yeah. And I didn't want to eat any food anyway because I there was more space for citrus to shove in my face. And then what happened, Dave? I pooped pure orange juice.
It was amazing. In my bathroom. Your bathroom. Harold McGee's bathroom. It was Harold McGee's.
Poor Harold. Poor Nastasia. That was the best smelling poo ever. It was the only time I was like, I was like, my poop don't stink. Boom!
I loved it. Uh if I could currently not poor Dave. Wow, okay. No, it was amazing. He was like, This is the best day of my life.
I was like, I was literally like, this is amazing. Like, oh, a little bit of a I'm not gonna go too far into depth on it. But let me just say, in the ongoing, if you're keeping track of the Carpenter Arnold household, that's my house, the Carpenter Arnold household consumption of squid ink. Let us just say that the that that inky that inky color from squid ink sticks with you all the way through when you consume ridiculous amounts of it. Most leave it at that.
That makes sense. I'm not shocked by that at all. Yeah, no, apparently, you know, um it's unpleasant, but yeah, not not necessarily shocking. All right. Wait, can we just go back to this for a second?
So when you were experiencing this, you know, pure moment of bliss on the in the bathroom next to where Nastasia was sleeping, like 4 a.m. Yeah, first of all, Nastasia's conflating two different things. No, I'm not. You are. That was that was the Merle Haggard trip.
You are. Well, when did I wake up and I say what said that was the Merle Haggard trip? That was the same thing. No, it was not. Okay.
Okay, but then why were you in the bathroom again? And I had to say, Are you okay? You didn't, as that was the first. I came out and told you about the orange shoes. So I'd like to say that.
I need to share this. There was three people staying in Harold's basement that first day. Both of us tried to be polite and wait for everyone to be asleep and go, and Nastasia woke up for both and then like never stopped talking about it ever. Stop, stop, stop. Consequently.
Consequently, consequently, I will never stay anywhere near a room with Nastasia ever again. Ever. And then for what for years. For years, she's like, What do you mean? You're being you're so mean to me.
I'm like, no, I'm not. No, I'm not. And then the one time you got your own room in a hotel, you left the bathroom door. And the short time. This conversation has proven to me that you guys have known each other for too long.
Yeah. First of all, like I'm a grown man. I want my own room. I want my own bathroom when I'm away from the house. Right?
I think I think I've achieved that level in my life. Dave, do we want to go get the violin for you too? I don't know. I'm not whining about it. I'm just telling you a fact.
I mean, that's just a fact. We need to get Peter Kim on the show. Yeah, yeah. Peter Kim. And talk more about this.
I haven't spoken to him in a while. All right. Charlotte. Uh I hope I got the right email address for you guys. I have a question about nitrogenating coffee cocktails.
Not carbonation, Nastasia, so you can mellow out. Wait, two minutes. Well, it's a little late for that at 12 52 to start your two-minute timer. Yeah, I hope I got the right email address. I have a question.
I've made a coffee Americano cocktail that I nitrogenate with the uh EC nitro whip using nitrogen, not nitrous oxide. So this is a thing that EC started selling, I don't know, maybe three, four years ago, where they use nitrogen uh canisters instead of nitrous oxide. And people get very confused about nitrogen versus nitrous oxide. Nitrogen is what's in the widgets in Guinness, and the idea is it's very, very not soluble. So you put it in in under relatively high pressure, and then when you suddenly release the pressure, either in a carbonated or not carbonated situation, the nitrogen forms many, many, many, many, many very small bubbles and creates the creamy head in a Guinness, and that's how the widget works.
Anyway, uh whereas what I use for infusions is nitrous oxide because I want it to be soluble. Let's just be clear. My friend uh has a pub that is currently closed and has a canister of nitrogen in the tap room because they're making their own beer gas, uh, I guess. They also make carbonated cocktails using your carbonation cap and plastic bottle method. We were wondering if we could hook up the nitrogen canister and use that with uh your method on my drinks.
The uh nitro charges are very expensive. So the nitro charges require the pressure to be released very quickly and also uh probably want some whipping. So you have two things you can do. You can either buy the adapter to screw the tank onto the EC cylinder. People sell that.
Just be careful, make sure that you don't have the pressures go too high. Buy it from a reputable source. That should work exactly the same as uh the canisters that you're using, but does require buying the adapter. If you're gonna do it in the bottles, you're going to have to put a small amount of carbon dioxide to provide uh like some extra volume of gas coming out. So I would I would put a light amount of uh you and you need to mix some gas.
So I would do like a light pre-carb, release it, and then hit it with the hard nitrogen, shake it and let it foam out. But light carb, you have to do some testing to see uh what you get it right. But I'm guessing that you're gonna need a little bit of CO2 in it to get the same effect if you're doing it in a bottle. How many minutes was that? Seven seconds left.
Perfect. Oh yeah. Uh Peter Hill wrote in about making uh orjah, but I'm not sure I'm gonna have the answer. So I'm just gonna read the question and let other people chime in. Uh hey Dave the Hammer and the rest.
It's Pete from St. Pete. I'm wanting to send a friend some Orjan tiki bitters. I'm going to attempt to make it, but I'm worried about the Orjah. My first thought is to try making uh an orjah base with almonds and D Serono from a recipe I found on the internets, but emitting the sugar because of the D Serano has it, and water it calls for.
It would be 90 grams of almonds, 25 grams of D Serano, and a little salt. Uh the rest of the recipe calls for a white sugar, uh, Dem and another 155 grams of water with the 20 grams of orange blossom water added after everything else is steeped. Would I need to add a little water to get full extraction of flavor from the almonds? What ABV would the solution need to be to be shelf stable to ship? Any other ideas on how to make it would be great?
As always, love the show, keep up the great work. You know, I never tried doing this before. I would keep any alcohol level above 20. If you have a high enough sugar, if you have a high sugar and you're above 20%, it should be relatively stable for most things. But that doesn't necessarily for you know, that doesn't necessarily mean that the quality is gonna stay high.
Obviously, the higher the ABV, the higher the quality is gonna stay. Um, you know, look, the fact that there's alcohol in the DeSorono is actually gonna uh increase the extraction of certain things from the nuts, but decrease the extraction of other things from the nuts. It won't hydrate it. So I can say give it a shape. Yeah, what nuts?
Okay, you know, Stas. Every once in a while we're on the same page for like in the real life because I was gonna forget to say these nuts. Yeah, and then it would have been wasted opportunity. It would have been wasted. So if any of you out there in the chat room universe, uh tweet tweet me the answer and we'll read it to Peter if you have any experience doing this.
Uh Nick Carlson wrote in via email. Uh recently moved to Indiana, Pennsylvania. Uh I I've never I don't know about in Indiana, Pennsylvania. Do you? Have you ever heard of this?
Uh and we'll be splitting a whole cow and pig with my family in the area. This means that the grinder attachment for my mixer won't cut it anymore. I'm in the market for a dedicated grinder. I already did this question last week. I did this question.
Did you anyway? Okay. Yeah. I talked about it. And then um uh Caprice Sun wrote in with a with a bunch of recommendations.
Some people said use the LEM, which is like the stuff some people said buy the uh grinders from Cabela's if you're not gonna use it a lot. Um, but guys, go tristen, Nick, go troll my Twitter feed about last week after I mentioned uh this question, and a bunch of people chimed in with grinder recommendations, and much better to listen to somebody who's actually used a piece of equipment than someone who's theoretically used a piece of equipment like I have. All I know is, you know, again, take eight steps up from that from that KitchenAid thing because it is a nightmare. Although I have their new metal one and I haven't uh tested it yet. I have been testing the KitchenAid ice cream maker.
I have a lot to say about that, but I don't have the time to say it right now. Uh Peter Flanagan wrote in dearest hammering co. What do you think about that, Nastasia? It's weird. Hammering Coast sounds like you sell.
I think it's very nice. I think dearest hammering co. I like that. But hammering co, do you sell tools or or garden equipment? Uh tools, I think.
Hammering Co. I like that. Dearest hammering co? Hmm. I had an above-range microwave that has failed.
Somewhat entertainingly, it would only work when the door was open. That's real bad, Peter. That's real bad. Um, this was not ideal for obvious reasons, so I'm looking to replace it with a toaster oven. By the way, did you guys know that you can buy microwave leak detectors?
That people, there's a whole there's a whole movement. I don't know whether they still make them, but they used to make them. Everyone was freaked out about microwave leakage, right? Everyone. So uh they would sell these things, and then people go around their microwaves and be like, it's leaking microwaves.
The truth of the matter is is that the the holes in the front are so small that okay. So can you picture a microwave oven door, people? Can you picture it? You have the mesh on the inside, then you have a layer of thickness of, and then you have another piece of glass that is like a couple centimeters, like an inch or like you know, three-quarters of an inch away from the mesh. And the idea is is that the wavelengths uh of microwaves are long enough that they can't penetrate through that mesh opening further than that outer piece of glass.
So it's inherently safe. You could put you you could rub your chonies against the front of a microwave and be fine with your junk in it and not like scramble your eggs. You know what I'm saying? We don't need to do that. We're not convinced.
I'm just saying, but you can. Yes. It's designed to be safe to do that, right? Yes. Uh now, uh, the whole reason for the interlock is as soon as you open it, right?
Yeah, then you're hosed. And then it takes only a couple of seconds of exposure to microwaves to completely like your your eyes will turn white like an egg white does. Not the whites of your eyes, the cornea. And then your hosed. You can't undo that.
Your toast. Not in a good way. Not in the not in the yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's real bad.
Uh so obviously uh don't use it. Uh do you have any preferred brands slash models? Additionally, I'd like to get some closure regarding uh ventilation options. Uh there is no closure. Uh Dave Key's coming back to roof-mounted fans being the bee's knees.
Uh, where would one shop for this kind of setup and how many CFMs is appropriate for venting a setup to be adequate? Thanks. Peter, again, I would go online. There are a bunch of calculators for how much CFM. Really, when you're extracting with a hood, um, how effective your hood is is also going to depend on whether you can supply air to it.
So the reason my current hood at my current apartment is not very good, is because it's my old hood was great because I was working with the way air wanted to go. Air wanted to come into my kitchen and go out, so my hood was helping it. In my current setup, um, I need a lot extra because I don't have a natural supply of air. Air wants to go the wrong way in my in my house. And so, like, I should have a supply of fresh air that went in and then got sucked out by the hood.
So a lot depends on all of those things. The main thing with a hood is is that the bigger your fan, the slower it can spin, and the slower it can spin, the less irritating it is. Home hoods are just so not only do they not suck, i.e. they don't have enough uh um CFM and they don't have enough extraction, but they also um they also are like that jet wine loudness, which is really irritating. And furthermore, um they the the one of the problems with me recommending it is, of course, fire hazards.
So you want to look, and uh the the ones, the ones that are mounted above your oven, the assumption is is that you can turn it off, and the ones that are external, it's much more important to be fire rating. Brone, who makes crappy equipment for home ranges, also makes an external mount. Just look it up. I'm sure there's something better now than there used to be. Regarding microwaves, I had to buy the smallest, I'm in an apartment in New York.
So I had to buy the literally the smallest microwave possible, and I don't use it to cook. I use it for mainly for melting, so I can deal with a very small wattage. I detest, detest, I'll say this again. I hate uh I hate those little carousels. Do you guys hate those carousels?
Yeah. I hate them, right? Hate them. Uh they never work. They always they get filthy, they're nasty, they're gross, like they the motors are weak.
They they when I look at something and it's then it spins and it and the corner of whatever it is hits the edge of the microwave and it stops spinning and then it makes that thing and it moves, irritating, right, guys? Yes. Yeah. Panasonic, I've never used it, but Panasonic makes a carousel free professional microwave oven that's relatively small. That has, so there's two ways you can do this.
You can use a carousel, or uh, there's three ways actually. There's a carousel, there, and then some people put a literal inside of the where the where the microwaves are generated, a little metal fan. And that metal fan actually evens out the microwaves by like they call it stirring the microwaves, so that you get a more even uh um distribution of microwaves without a lot of hot spots. I believe that's the way the professional Panasonic works. There's also another thing, which I believe Panasonic uh has also done, where they try to put um microwave shaping like weird shaped cavities on the inside to try to make it more even.
But I would take a look at I believe it's Panasonic with the stirrer in it. I don't know whether it's visible or not, but like look it up where it stirs the microwave for you, so you don't need that rancid carousel. Uh how am I on time there? Uh Janet. Over by how much.
Thank you. Now, you guys, you guys, but uh but she also meant a fast one, so we should do it. All right, Joe Ankowitz wrote in via email I just purchased a new Profitech 700 espresso machine, and it is the most money I've ever spent on a kitchen gadget, so I want to take good care of it. To that end, I was thinking of buying a water filtration system. I was wondering if you had recommendations.
I live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Thanks, Joe Ankowitz. Look, Brooklyn water, you don't want your water to be too soft. If your water is too soft, your coffee is gonna taste terrible. Uh, you know, that's been that's research that's been out there for decades and decades and decades, right?
So you don't want your water too pure. Uh you just don't want there to be a bunch of chunk in it, and you don't want like so much um calcium that you scale up your boiler all the time. Luckily, here in New York, our water is extremely soft. In fact, so soft that uh, you know, some of the Ely family were making fun of me years ago when I was interviewing them because they said you can't make decent espresso with New York City water because it's too soft. I think they're wrong.
I've had good espresso here using New York City water, but it doesn't require filtration or softening to get rid of the deposits that are gonna F up your machine. What you do want to do is get rid of chlorine, and so I would use a standard uh chlorine and sediment filter in case you have rust in your pipes and whatnot, but the water itself, I wouldn't do any too much treatment before it goes in your machine. Right? Fast? All right.
Uh Dan uh Dan Doo wrote in via email, hey cooking issues crew, Dan from England, big fan of the show. Always had a great time in existing conditions whenever I was in New York. Oh, existing conditions. Uh my mom, I don't know if I'm gonna have an answer to this one either. My mom is a big fan of a cocktail called a snowball, which is avocat, which is the Dutch egg uh yolk liqueur, which I've never really used.
You guys ever use that? No. Even with your Flemish background, you never you never tried the avocado. I have not now. I don't know, man.
I don't know about you now. Uh lime cordial and lemonade. Not my kind of drink, but she puts them away like nobody's business over the holidays. My grandma used to drink grasshoppers like like like liquor was going out of style. I've actually done like Jack uh at the bar and I and I did a really good grasshopper.
Do you guys like the idea of a grasshopper or do you hate mint drinks? I'm all about that. You're all about the grasshopper? So my grandma's name on my mom's side was Madge, and she looked like a Madge, even up until the in like the like the late 90s. She had that kind of like 60s, like like way up high beehive hairdo.
Like she was thin as heck, but still pulled her pants too high and cinched them too tight around her waist and had like wore wore 60 style tops like up until the day day she died. And she weighed like three pounds, maybe, right? And man, could she put away grasshoppers? Anyway, um okay, for a Christmas gift. Ooh, too late.
For a Christmas gift, I wanted to make uh homemade all the ingredients instead of store buying them. Wow. Oh no. Sorry. No, no, Christmas comes every year.
That could mean next one. Horrible. It's unclear from the context. You're defending. You did try and answer this closer to the holidays, but you got sidetracked halfway through.
So I have horrible. What is it? I like how that's the best defense you have of me. You tried, but then you got sidetracked. It's like when you try to make that birthday gift for Jen that one year, Dave remember.
Okay, what is it with you today, Nastasia? Seriously. Um stir in the pot. Yeah, right. She doesn't like she doesn't want anyone to cook, but she yet she wants to stir the pot.
I have a decent recipe for lime cordial and found a recipe for homemade avocado, but where I'm stuck is the lemonade. I want it to be soda style clear lemonade as opposed to the cloudy fresh still lemonade. I have access to agar, citric acid, and uh CO2, and figured either I'd agar clarify some lemon and add water and citric or maybe forego the actual lemon and just use citric before carbonating. Any advice tips. Uh I would use a combination of lemon cordial, right?
The problem is if you're gonna make the ingredients and and give it to your mom, right? They have to be stable. And um, fresh lemon tastes nasty uh after it's been sitting around for a while. So I would if you're gonna clarify it, Nagar clarifying it is fine. Um you can add a small amount fresh, it's gonna go a little bit detergent y, but maybe you like that detergent taste.
And then uh I would cordialize some of it and use that uh in the lemonade, and then uh if you want to back off that a little bit, you can dope it with uh a little pure citric, and it should uh work. That makes sense. Is that a good answer? Yep. All right.
Um wow, let me see. Okay, this one I'm definitely not gonna be able to answer. For uh, Forrest Foster wrote in via email. I'm working with a small team consulting with a leaseholder to open a restaurant in Manhattan. Good luck with that right now.
Geez, Louise. Uh, the space was completely finished and inspected before we what's the only thing to do in Manhattan right now, Nastasia? Uh botanical gardens, both. And it's not even in the Manhattan. I have to leave Manhattan.
Oh, MoMA. Seen some very, very nice exhibits at the MOMA. There's currently a PS1, which is of course not in Manhattan. Uh, an exhibit about uh art mostly by incarcerated people, amazing exhibition. And then there's a yeah, it's great.
Go to PS1, and there's another uh great exhibit that just opened at the MOMA called Artist Engineer Constructor, which is uh a lot about mostly Soviet, Eastern European, but communist-based art like in between the world wars. And it's amazing. I've always loved that work, but man, they kind of it makes me a little nervous because they whitewashed the whole kind of communist murder thing. Anyway, back to back to where I was the space was completely finished and inspected before we started. The work was also completed several years ago.
We are currently struggling with a rationale combi oven that is not functioning. Yeah welcome to the welcome to the club dude. Apparently rationale combi ovens nowadays work a lot better than they used to in terms of not breaking but they used to be if you have an older one an old an older SCC, they were well known for having their electronics uh fry. It turns on and allows us to begin the startup test, but right after uh the altitude adjustment it trips at the outlet and turns off as far as I can tell it's not an issue with the outlet it's the right voltage. And then the model number is SCCWE 61 G.
Listen, I know this isn't a baking question but any insight would be great. Thanks for us. Okay there's a couple of things one the voltage the odds that you get the voltage right are high because you're gonna get the voltage right but you might not have the number of amps right so if this was a new build out and these people like haven't done it right I would check the circuitry and make sure that um that your breaker is big enough. Right? So like breaker is both amps the phase right so you know the the rationale I don't know whether I I didn't look I guess the G maybe is a gas but even the gas ones take a lot of electricity so I would see how many amps you go into it.
So I'm assuming that it's not uh a ground fault interrupted circuit, if it's a ground fault interrupted circuit, sometimes uh I would swap out the G uh uh GCFI because um certain certain pieces of electronic equipment if they send uh if if the power factor goes off wrong, which is too complicated to explain in my two minute window, uh it can trip a GCFI. So we used to have a Hobart at the school that would trip all the GFIs in one room but not in another. So I would swap out or plug it into a non-GFI or remove it temporarily and look at it if the GFI is the problem. If not, your amperage is probably not adequate. If your amperage is not adequate, remember you not only have to replace the socket and the breaker, but possibly the wiring in between because you do not want to run too many amps through too small a wire to fire hazard.
And if you have a fire as a result of that, your insurance will not pay. Good answer or not, good answer. Good answer. Luke Mezzer wrote in via email. Uh I'm going to be making herbal tinctures to eventually combine into a homemade Amaro.
By the way, I've been drinking so much cap course. What do you guys say? Is you know, you what are you guys drinking? Are you drinking anything different from what you normally Jen and I have been drinking Cap course like almost like every night before dinner? Not drinking anything.
I know because someone who you thought was gonna come drink with you ended up that they're in a teetotaling mood and it pissed you off, correct? Yes, and I'm alone. Yeah. Well, I mean, you went to California so that you could see your family, correct or not correct? Correct, but it's like once a week, and it's very carefully.
Yeah. Uh my concern lies, well, what do you guys drink? Anyone else drinking anything interesting? Cap course. So I'm like, that's what that's our thing now.
That's our COVID thing. I've just been making it. Yeah, it's a good thing. Yeah, I'm trying to think. I mean, uh Mike doesn't really drink that much, so it's usually oh, well, we saw his family this past weekend.
There was a lot of Pinot Grigio, and I had fringelico for the first time. So my God. Speaking of these nuts, yeah. Um monk nuts. That's that's like, you know, that's like the monk.
I was definitely feeling it the next day. We'll just drink that you were mentioning, though, Dave that you've been. Cap course? I don't know what that is. Oh my god.
So like it's like it's like it's like a sweetened wine-based uh herbal thing with a little bit of quinine in it. There's a red and a white. And a lot of people were like, oh, it's like a summertime thing. Uh I'm here to tell you, you can drink it in the wintertime. And so, and people make spritzers out of it, but I we just drink it like on a rock.
We drink, we switch off between the red and the white. It's real cheap. It's like not real cheap, but it's like $20 a like for the big bottle, and you just have a little bit before dinner. It's a nice little thing to have before dinner. That sounds delightful.
I'm gonna look at it. It is. It is. It's a good product, and it doesn't cost that much. Brought to you by the people at House Alpens.
Hey, people at here, people at House Alpens, why don't you come? Well, we like drinking your products. Why don't you pay us? Anyway, um Mike, so whoa, whoa, I gotta finish so that I don't have to come and do Luke Mezzer's question again. I'm almost done.
All right. All right, two minute clock after I finish reading. It's like uh Leslie Jones on supermarket sweep. And when you after you read the question, that's when the timer starts. I love her.
Oh my god, I watched that show religiously with with uh question. Yeah, there we go. There's a team, team barbecue. Oh my god. Oh second, on the on last week's supermarket sweep, and they ripped it up.
They ripped it up. Like Jen Dax and I were both like normally we think we're pretty good at this. These people are crushing us. Like, I feel like I've never been to a supermarket compared to the the teen barbecue people. Anyway, um my concern lies in the safety of using some of the ingredients I have planned.
The main one I was concerned about are licorice root and wormwood. I also have gentian, kinchona bark, chizandra berries, devil's club root, which I've never used, angelica, and wild cherry bark. If I'm making a tincture of each, then combining small amounts of them with other tinctures, including things like dried fruits, simple Cyric water, etc., the concentration I think should be relatively low, especially if you only have one or two ounces in a cocktail or neat in a night. Do you think there's any real danger here? Or would it only be a problem if you're drinking 750 milliliters at a time or something else crazy?
You're fine, dude. You're fine. Like that that guy who died from the licorice, he was eating an obscene, an obscene amount of red licorice every day and was like, what if I just switched to black? This is like what I said with with Booker. Like, no one has ever eaten as much squid ink as Booker has in a day, and so nobody knows what the effect is.
They've tested it on mice, so we think it's gonna be okay, because the the squid ink consortium manufacturer wants to say that it's helpful, so they stuff mice full of squid ink, and then there must be spraying black squid ink poo all over their little cedar chipped cages. But it's been tested on that, but but no one tested that on black licorice. There's no one ate that much. You're not gonna eat that much. Don't worry about it.
Shizandra berries are drunk in quantity by uh, you know, a lot of uh uh Russians, like over on the Siberian side, and also in China, so it's got a long history of use there. I think you're fine. Kinchona bark, you know, uh it if you made it dangerous, it would be so bitter that it would be unpalatable. So uh, and wormwood, the amount of foodone that's in wormwood, you're much more likely to overthrough joan someone with sage, uh, although I mean who can eat that much sage? So, in short, don't worry about it.
And the and the Swedes sell the wormwood uh liqueur called Basca, uh like the Basco drop bar is so bitter that it's like it's like malort, basically, which is malorts the ripoff of basket drop art. So, like, and and that doesn't kill people in the quantities that you can consume. So, if this stuff has enough of that stuff to kill you in it, it would also be so unpalatable that you'll be using it by drops and not in something you would drink. So, Luke, you're fine. How's that?
Very good. It had to be under two. Yeah. It was, yeah. All right, so uh maybe we should do these, like kind of like maybe what we should do next week is like just say before we even start talking, before we even introduce ourselves, we'll just rip through five of these on a two-minute thing, and then we'll do our normal like hey, how's he's doing, and then we can what do you think?
And then we can just sounds that sounds very promising. And we're gonna try it for next week. So we're not gonna talk about Charlie Chap. How Rebecca, how do you think? We can talk about him, but after the after you do that.
All right. Just saying. I'm not saying we have to or that we want to, but you know, don't forget to do that. For any of you that are interested, like you why doesn't anyone just start like requesting that we talk about like random information that is interesting? Like, for instance, they don't care about that.
Like panko, panko. I could talk for a whole hour about panko crumbs, but no one cares. No one's asking about panko. That's one nostassio that would be hard to make yourself. Do you know that it's made with electrically uh it's panko is cooked between two electric plates, and they do that so that it never it's a resistance heating method, and they do that so that it doesn't have any crust.
The panko bread that is used has no crust, so they can grind the entire thing whole, which is how they get that texture. Anyway, no one cares about panko. Instead, they want to know about something else. I don't know. Well, I I like the idea.
Like, if there's any random topic that you want to hear about, you know. Let us know. All right. Well, we knocked some of these questions out, but I feel like still, John, is the list getting shorter every week or not even? It's saying about the same because you're not Devin the dude.
I don't have like you you I'll do this one last. Get us as what's a good brand or type of chicken bullion? I'm assuming you mean bullion cube. Um, just so you know, they're different. It depends on where you live.
The recipe is like usually different, it's same in a whole country. But I uh uh I once was hanging out with Unilever and they own uh Knorr and Noor, and their bullion recipe is vastly different from country to country. So it's it's not just a brand, it's like where you get it. Um, but you know, I never use them by themselves. I always use them just as a as a base.
I think right now I do have uh Knorr in my in my uh pantry. Just you know, that's what I have now. Um, and even though normally I don't, I've been moving towards lower salt varieties just because they give you um the ability to use more of it uh and and redu and reduce without having to worry about because they do contain can contain a lot of salt. All right, uh so I got rid of that one too, and we'll c I'll talk to you guys next is there we're gonna be here next week, right? There's nothing uh stopping us from being here next week, right?
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