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This episode is brought to you by Just Egg. You can't have plant-based breakfast without a plant-based egg. You can get started with a free sample. Just head to J U dot S T slash H R N. This week on Meet and Three, it's the final episode of our series on global trade.
We're thinking futuristically from China's ambitious plans for a new silk road to the future of borders and automation. They love food trucks and they love growing your own food because these things are not dependent on essentially government systems. So there's a whole politics to pretzels on the dark web. Tune in to Meet and Three, HRN's weekly food news roundup wherever you get your podcasts. Hello.
Hello. Yeah. Uh John, of course, is still doing his grand jury duty, uh, down there in um lower Manhattan. Uh, and uh he can't obviously tell us anything about it, but he says it's kind of bru it's he says it's brutal. Yeah.
Yeah, 'cause you're in for like, isn't it? You're in for ten or twenty days and they're like full days, and you are really you're actually doing stuff on like normal jury duty where you just kinda sit around and wait to get dismissed. Well, he tells me now I've never been in a grand jury, right? I've only been on a regular jury. And but he says it's like, you know, because the basically a grand jury all they're deciding is, is it worthy going to trial, right?
So he's like, they'll do like four day or four or five a day. And and you don't hear anything good or or like there's no redemption ever because all that happens is the defense doesn't even show up. It's the prosecutor shows up and shows you a bunch of horrible stuff. So, like, here's a video tape of someone being murdered. Here's a blah blah because we know all the security footage.
He says it's just a f it's a freaking, like he says it's a freaking living nightmare show. And they don't show you things that are like, yeah, maybe the guy isn't guilty, or maybe the guy didn't kill the guy. It's always like, no, that guy definitely. Yeah, yeah. Or John was like, he's like, well, that guy's definitely dead because I can see him on the ground in a pool of blood, and they have enough evidence that the other guy beating the hell out of him is a uh is the guy that they're trying to charge.
So uh yeah, let's uh just uh let's uh take that to trial. This is like a very it's like a slightly toned down clockwork orange. They're showing you like tons of violent things in sequence, just like a little bit slower. Oh yeah. I don't know what John's for those of you that haven't seen Clockwork Orange, it's uh it's uh McDowell.
What was his first name? Roddy? Roddy McDowell? And uh Andy McDowell? I can't remember.
Anyway, so like the So he's an ultraviolent guy. The only thing he actually likes in life is Beethoven, and so they what do they strap him in a chair and like peel his eyes open and play Beethoven and they somehow they ruined Beethoven and violence at the same time for him, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Although I don't really under I don't I haven't seen it in a long time.
I saw it when I was too young. I saw it when I was like maybe thirteen, and I haven't seen it since. So maybe I should watch it again. Yeah, I feel like this is ripe for a rewatch. You ever watch that, Nastasia?
No. No interest? No interest. Because you don't have interest in that era of movie or that particular movie. I just never never got around to watching it.
But I do you go did you go through a period in your life where you try to watch like like all the classics of particular eras, and just that one you're like, that one doesn't appeal to me, or did you just never do that as a thing? I just never did it as a thing. Ah, I see. I used to do that. I mean, yeah, it makes sense, right?
It makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Uh anyway. Uh okay. So Dax wanted me to do this last week and I uh forgot. So here he he wants to write this book. See what you think, Nastasia.
See what you think, Matt. Right. He wants to write this book, but he's never gonna do it. So he wanted me to ask whether anyone else thought this was possible. He wants to write a book such that the first it's a 300 page book because that's the longest book that Dax, you know, who's sixteen, that's the longest book he can conceive of.
It's 300 pages. He can't imagine a book longer than three hundred pages. So the first two hundred and ninety-nine pages of the book suck. They're terrible. Right?
You with me so far? Yep. Yes. Worthless. Garbage.
Trash. Filth. Anyway. But that that last page makes the entire book into the best book you've ever read. Okay.
But you can't just read the last page. If you just read the last page, it still sucks. You need to have read the 299 first pages in order for that last page to make any sense. But if the first pages suck, why wouldn't I mean the chances are you stopping are high, right? Oh, very high.
The chances of it getting published are very low. But like if it becomes known that like of this phenomenon becomes known. I told him that he said that this was now again. This is going to give you some idea of Dax's uh literary taste, but he's like, I was inspired by To Kill a Mocking Bird, where the first half of it I thought sucked, and the second half of it made the whole thing good. He's like, but I want to do that where it's like, you know, all but the last page sucks, and then the last page is good.
But again, this is Dax's opinion, not mine. Again, I haven't read To Kill a Mocking Bird since I was probably 13. But I told him I'm not sure. Somebody was just telling me that they were reading a book that they were really super into. Uh, you know, they got it from the strand or something, they and they get they get to the very end and they realize somebody's ripped the last page out.
So that would be especially effective with uh Dax's book. Oh yeah. Well, the problem is that any critic reading it, right, would just would they would never make it to that last page to get the integration. It would have to become known. Yeah.
It would have to become known. I told him the reverse happens a lot. The reverse happens where you have a really great book and then the author destroys it in the last couple of pages. This happens constantly. Yeah.
Yeah. Anyway. The other thing is uh is that the kids his age now are playing uh so Nastasi and I used to play a game called How Much Would It Take To, right? So like Nastasi and I would think of something unpleasant and then figure out how much it would cost for you to get that to do that, right, Nastasia? You say that's true?
Yeah. Yeah, great game. It's a great game, actually, frankly, because uh you also get an idea of whether someone's a liar. I find that almost everyone who plays this game is a liar because their numbers are like ridiculous. Like how much to drink that gallon of oil, and they're like, No million dollars.
You're like, crap on you. If I showed up with a thousand dollars, put it on the table and said drink that oil, you would drink it. You know what I mean? Anyway, so like, whereas like I feel like I'm more realistic with my numbers. Did I ever give you the how much would it cost for you to eat a live s sea slug that's like the size of a shoebox?
The size of a shoebox? Mm-hmm. Do I get a knife and fork? Yeah, you get a knife and fork, but it's live. And and any I can I can dry gag, but I can't throw up.
Right, and you have to finish it all. And I and you really have to know like these things have wings and antennas and like so How much how much time do I have? You have six hours. Oh do I have condiments? No.
No. Oh, Jesus, Jesus. Or hold on, I'm I'm thinking, I'm thinking. I get a knife and fork, a good knife. I can get the knife of my choice.
Um let's think. No, you get you get just a knife. Let's just say like a regular steak knife. Oh, Jesus. So I I can't even I don't even have like I can't even sashimi this stuff.
No. As though it's possible with its writhing, disgusting body. Okay. Well, you have six hours, so you have the chance to sort of kill it and then like let it, you know actually expire. No, but yeah, yeah, but I mean you still I mean the problem with the knife, the reason I asked the knife question is because you can do a lot for palatability with amazing knife skills.
Like, you know, talk to any decent, like, you know, sushi chef, you know, fish cutter. You know what I'm saying? So like I'm not gonna be able to do like paper thin like slices and just like like let them slide down my throat. I'm gonna be hacking at it with some sort of like bonanza or sizzler grade steak knife, yeah, you know, and uh and like jamming a fork into it and then like shredding pieces off with this with this steak knife that can barely cut butter and then jamming it. So that that makes it more money, right?
And uh I'm just worried that I get halfway into it, accidentally throw up, and then lose all the cash. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's possible. So then have you seen them before, Matt?
No, I've never seen them before. A C S C slug? Yeah, but it it it doesn't come up online the way that it should. It's it's very different. It looks like an or like a human organ.
No condiments, beverages? No. Do you have an image, by the way, that you can share with me? I'll try to find on my phone, yeah. Okay, okay, cool.
Uh yeah, that's I would be really worried that like I'm gonna set a price, I'm gonna start in on this, and not be able to finish. Shoebox. So how much is a shoebox? That's also like probably like five pounds. Yeah.
How much is it? It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot of things. In six hours, I'm gonna say twenty five grand.
That's it. I'm so saying I'm being real here. Yeah, that seems pretty legit, actually. If you showed up with a shoebox, one shoebox had $25,000 in it, and one shoebox had a C slug and a and a and a steak knife from Ponderosa and a fork, I get a bib, right? And then like I'd be like, well, I'll go for it.
Wow. I'll go for it. Because then like I'll know by the end of hour one, after I've gone through like, you know, a third of the C slug, whether or not just to call it quits and see whether my bet was wrong. Right? Yeah.
It's it's not like it's like this is what I like to say to people. I was like, what percentage of people nostasi do you think do for money for a living? Something that they'd really they don't really care about. Okay. So 92% of the people are basically selling the vast majority of their day of their life for money.
Yeah. So I get yeah, six hours, 25 grand seems like a good deal. If if if if the average person is not doing what they want to do with their time anyway, why not just do something horribly unpleasant for a very short period of time, and then that frees up the rest of your time to do whatever you want. Yeah, but I don't know. I think that that's a very small amount of money for what you gotta do.
Okay, I mean, you know, I mean, it depends. I still use my college brain when I'm like, I'm like, that's more than I make in a year. And I get a whole sea slug out of it. You know what I mean? It's like Yeah.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, you know, when I got out of college, I was making 20 grand a year. And we're happy to get it. Real college brand.
This is free food. I mean, can't turn that down. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's theoretically nourishing. There's no cultures that eat it.
Oh, God. So what's what's your number, Nastasia? I don't think I could do it. I really think I could do it. How much to try?
If okay, if someone showed up with a million dollar briefcase of cash, you wouldn't be like, I'm gonna give it the old try. No, Dave, because I nope. See, this is That's not. Come on. I really I know I would gag.
I know I would cry. I know, I know me. I know, but that's all acceptable. That's all an acceptable risk to take. That's what I'm saying.
It's like my whole life. That's that's my that's my uh my college band, gagging and crying. It's actually there's a Southern rock band people call driving and crying. I'm I'm ripping their name off a little bit. Driving Crying was a famous band, and so gagging and crying.
Gagging and crying would be the other. Uh uh. Oh. Yes. So anyway, so Dax Dax is now playing, instead of that game, he's playing kind of disturbing variants of would you rather?
That's what the kids on the internet are doing. But like, like much more crazy than we used to do when we were kids. Like, he's would you rather have someone chop off both of your hands, or or and this is an the your answer is gonna depend on how old you are, I think, right? Or would you rather have someone tattoo a swastika on your forehead and you were never allowed to explain to anyone why it was there? Do you have to feel the chopping of the hands?
This wasn't a question, but I didn't ask him, so I don't know, but I'm gonna say no. Yeah, I think I'd rather have my hands not have hands. That is nuts to me. That's nuts to me too. Have you heard of hats?
I don't know. Part of it is everything ruin your life. The idea is, well, so but the thing is is that like I really enjoy my hands. Yeah, hands are really important. I'll go to the body.
Imagine you're not going to be able to do listen. Like you can't tell someone why you have a swastika on your head. Like no move to the part of the world where this means nothing to them and still have hands. Or just be a social pariah. I am anyway.
When was the last time you saw a human being, Nastasia? It doesn't matter. All I'm saying is that like until you live it, Dave, you can't say crap. So he's not saying he's not saying Dax is not saying that you have to like not be sympathizing. And you don't see people.
Yeah, but Dax is saying Dax is not saying that you have to take on any sort of ideology. You just have that determination. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does not matter. I had a good strategy.
You can't explain it, right? Someone's like, What's that on your forehead? You say, What? No. Like you have a swastika on your head.
What? Just say it like that. What? Like that. I don't know.
Hands. That's interesting. Aesthetics. There's a lot of good prosthetics out there. Also, you're like no what?
But you're all your hands. Oh, that's fine. Like swastika's, you know, a swastika, whatever. No, no. Well, they chose he chose swastika because it's a like obviously it's I think it's an obviously clear answer, I guess.
For me. What? I don't know. Oh. The notes.
Let's put a pin in this. If we're still doing something i even remotely similar to this in ten years, right? When you're, you know 10 years older. Let's see whether you would choose your hands. Okay.
I okay. Anyway. So is Dax, by the way, even though he's young, I don't know, he didn't tell me what he chose, but his friend chose no hands over Nazi symbol. I think it's a generational thing. Yeah.
You are no one. The generational component makes sense to me. Oh I am actually the last generation that like I'm the last generation where like Nazis were more real. Like there were literally Nazis or like around when I was like a like old school like Nazis still alive who escaped to like South America, and like that that was all more real when I was a kid. World War II was very you could still get World War II surplus in surplus stores when I was a kid.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Anyways. Oh wait. You had me.
What was the thing we put a hold on for uh also? Wait, somebody's asking if they could do hold on, I saw this pop up. If you could do half a swastika in one hand, is that an option? I will ask Dax. That's Clayton, that's Clayton Patterson's question.
I will ask Dax whether it's uh whether it's possible. Thinking outside of the slug shoebox there. Um what was the question? Ice icemaker. You ask I asked you like, oh yeah, I made you turn off the ice maker before we started because it was making this like uh high pitched sound last week, and then later I thought, uh oh, I never reminded him to turn that back on.
I hope that's not causing some issue. And then you said that your answer might be illuminating for the so like I have an ice maker in my house. It's like, you know, everyone chooses what their luxuries are. I have two luxuries. One of them isn't even that that hard to get anymore.
I have the Japanese toilet seat, which every living human being who has a toilet should get a Japanese toilet seat. Like if you if you don't like toilets, if you're like more of a poop in the hole, poop in a hole situation, then I guess forget it. But if you use a regular toilet, get a Japanese toilet seat. The second luxury is having a machine that makes ice for me in my house. And I use it to chill my seltzer and whatnot.
The problem is that they are incredibly wasteful ice machines because they keep running water uh all the time and they make noise all the time because they're running their compressor. So they're relatively wasteful. And my wife like has progressively over the past five years gotten more and more hatred for the sound of the ice machines. And it's a known problem that ice machines make noise, right? And so the one that I have, and Nastasia, we never got our monocles.
You were gonna get your I forget why you needed a monocle, but you totally did. You were like, Why can't you just fly to Belgium and get your mustang? Yeah, it was that's where the whole monocle thing came from was from you saying that like we could just jet out. Yeah, all right, whatever monocle lady, whatever. I will jet off to California.
Where's my monocle? That is uh yeah, Nastasia, you are the monocle lady. Anyway, like my because of like that whole attitude, oh if I want a jar of mustard, I will just land the plane in Belgium. Also, it's a little monocle to turn down a million bucks to eat the sea slug. It is but you until you see it, I really really don't know.
I have to say, yeah, the video was a little it didn't look like there it was just like size. Yeah, yeah. How big was that? It was kinda hard to tell. That was like six inches.
Yeah. Oh, that's wait. Wait, do I still get the money? No, I'm saying shoebox. I've seen shoebox sized sea slugs, and they are disgusting.
Speaking of things that are large and disgusting that I really, really, really want to eat, but only if they're legal to eat, is uh the coconut crab. I've discussed this before. It's the world's largest terrestrial crab. They are huge. It looks like someone put like a like uh uh uh an enlarging ray onto a hermit crab, and the thing just like went pow and blast its shell open and just got giant, and like they'll like hang out like on trees and on trash cans, and they're just big, big, big, but I hear they are tasty, tasty.
What isn't the largest extraterrestrial? Mommy underwater crab? I don't know, probably the king crab. I bet the king crab is probably bigger by weight, but it's a lot harder for a crab to exist hold hold on a second. The kids have locked the dog into a room.
Hold a second. When Dave says kids, they're like 18 and 17. Yes, yeah, yeah, yes, of course. Um I don't remember seeing these on the beaches of San Diego. Where were you seeing these?
Malibu. They were mostly in Malibu, and like it was they were everywhere. It looked like someone had killed bodies and like their organs were everywhere on the shelf. What are you talking about? Oh, I was just wondering where she saw these because I never saw them in San Diego, but yeah.
So anyway, uh ice machine. So the sh like the one that I have, and uh you know they pull out my monocle has what's called a boardroom setting. And then the boardroom setting, you can turn it off for like you push your button and it turns off for two, four, or six hours, depending on what you want, so that you can have your board meetings in silence, and then the ice machine comes back now. So it's nice. Yeah.
That's a good feature. It that's a good feature, yeah. So Jen comes in and um Yeah, Jen comes in and and puts the board, you know, when she w comes into the house after work, she just presses the you know, the boardroom feature and we have our nightly board meeting without the ice machine going. I was having flashbacks because it's a classic like radio freelancer thing. Well, they don't do it anymore because of COVID, but you used to do um what were called tape sinks where you go to people's houses and workplaces and record like one end of an interview while they're talking to somebody else elsewhere to get a high quality recording, and it's like a classic maneuver to want to kill their refrigerator while you're there.
And so you you you stick your keys in the fridge so that you don't forget because it's like huge faux pas to go to your interviewee's house, have them turn off the fridge, forget to warn them to turn it back on at the end, and then like leave and spoil all of their food. You're you don't you don't grenade your way out of out of those situations? Like once you get the interview, it's over. You're out of go flashbang fine done. Don't dump uh, you know, take a roll of paper towels into the into the bathroom, wad them up, throw them in the toilet, and drop a load on top and leave.
That's the move. Right? Yes, that's how you get repeat work. Yeah, well, no, the interviewee is not hiring. They're they're a chump.
They're like someone like like, you know, you or me who's being asked to be on someone else's show, it's over. Oh, you're still. And are they really gonna bring this up? Like, are they gonna complain about that? Like, come on.
They they they can't be sure that you intended to do it. Are they gonna like come back to that person who hired you and be like, I think that they intentionally poo-bombed my uh bathroom? I mean, I mean, it was the entire roll of paper towels. I don't see how you could do that by accident. Like poo bomb through a paper towel, poo bomb through a pile of paper towels means you are going in there with gloves.
There's no other way to do it. This show has just from start to finish been things that like technically are kid friendly, I guess, but like really aren't. On a separate, we don't say curse words, but we teach kids. But we but we like talk about Nazis and you know, whatever. Hey, Nazis were real, man.
And they were real completely off limits with all this. A lot of violence. Whoa, curses. Anyway, uh another thing I've been noticing, people have been asking me uh a lot of cookbook recommendations on uh Twitter and whatnot. Do not forget that Kitchen Arts and Letters exists for the reason of telling you which cookbooks are good for a particular application.
So try calling them and talking to them, but then please also buy the book from them. For the extra freaking $10 for that book, can you just buy it from Kitchen Arts and Letters, please? Kitchen Arts and Letters in the 90s on Lex in Manhattan, they'll pick up the phone, they'll talk to you, they'll give you an excellent recommendation that will fit. You tell them what your parameters are. They're like a bartender for books.
You tell them what your parameters are, and they will tell you in their vast experience of doing nothing but reading cookbooks all day, like which one of those books is gonna be ideal for you, right? Right? Anyway. And the answer is probably liquid intelligence. Oh, that's that's always the answer.
I've been looking for a book on uh on roasting a chicken. Have you tried liquid intelligence? Right? Yeah. No, I get not I I get nothing out of it.
Anyway, uh, all right. Alright. Also on a note, uh, after last week or the week before, people have been trying out um putting their bread when it comes out of the oven into their vacuum machine, and people have been getting good results. Currispy crust. So, like I'm uh I'm trying to figure out if any of you guys run experiments uh on uh putting your bread, remember to put something around it, like a super bag or put it in a paper bag or shield it somehow from not destroying, not destroying, but infiltrening the inside of your vacuum machine.
Um but when I do it, I do it on full vacuum because I'm trying to boil it and and get it to go down. Everyone tell me what your results or experiments are. I wouldn't try it on bread you didn't want that like a Pullman loaf where you know aren't looking for a thick crust. But if you're trying for a crusty bread, let me know what your results are. I want to run some tests, get some parameters.
Um and another thing I uh I'm working on, uh people ask me a lot of pressure, pressure cooker questions. Usually, although not so much here. People ask me like uh elsewhere. When was the last time we had a pressure cooker question, Nastasia? I don't know.
Been a while, but yeah. Um so I've been running into the uh I've been running into the issue of um like having liquids that are too thick that that for some reason don't build up pressure until the temperature is too high. So I'm working on this for the for the book. So if you have any questions about pressure cookers and how they work on the inside, now's a good time to ask me because I'm gonna be drilling holes in the top of one of my pressure cookers and putting all a bunch of monitors in and doing a bunch of tests. So if you ever needed a test run on the inside of a pressure cooker to figure out what's going on, ask me now because I'm gonna be uh doing that kind of work uh as we go on.
Now, John, when he's back, said he was gonna get an oyster person on, but we had uh so someone asked us a question about apparently when you're shucking oysters, occasionally you'll get these little crabs on the inside. Someone said, Can you eat can you can you eat them? And uh we had uh Eric Strode, well, Eric, we're gonna get uh an oyster shucker on to talk about it. But Eric Strode, who who does shellfish farming research, wrote in, and someone that's gonna give it to you here. Uh sorry, Spencer Roberts.
Eric Strode asked the original question. Spencer Roberts uh gave me the answer. Spencer Roberts from Philadelphia, the the shellfish uh farming expert. Greetings from Philadelphia. Uh the last week of January, the topic of oyster crabs came up.
Uh working uh in the shellfish farming and research worlds for five plus years. I have some info, a few tips, and opinions. Uh oyster crabs or pea crabs uh represent a couple of species. Pinotheries and zeops ostrius, and can be found in bivalve shellfish like mussels, clams, and oysters. These crabs find their way into the bivalve shells as larvae and live inside of the bivalve, stealing food from its host as both grow.
They can be found in many coastal waters, and depending on the environmental and or ecological conditions, can be fairly common. Totally edible. They are totally edible as long as they are still alive when you sh uh shuck or cook the shellfish. But of course, if you cook it and only find it later, how are you gonna know? Yep.
Uh, you know, how you gonna know? So uh, unless you shuck your own oysters, you may never see them since raw bars almost always remove them before serving. Um some people uh set them aside while shucking to cook up later. When shucking oysters, I prefer to eat them as I go. That said, I would avoid eating if they are already dead and sad when you open up the oyster.
Mean, I mean, I mean, sad in what sense? You mean like limp? You mean like not lively? Not like, I mean, I'm sure they're it, you know, to the extent that crabs have emotions. And there's been, by the way, so many papers on whether.
Do you guys know the difference between nociception and and pain? No. Do you remember you talking about this? That's close enough. But so for Matt's benefit, and anyone who wasn't listening to that episode, or I don't know whether it was episode of real life, nociception just means that something that you and I would uh interpret as noxious, right?
That it is avoided, right? So a you know, a machine can be adapted to do uh nociceptive behavior. Pain is a mental state. And so, like, there's been a lot of research, especially by uh, you know, people who are interested in uh animal rights, animal welfare, on what kind of animals can experience pain versus straight nociception. And some people believe that crabs, so assuming if a small crab can do it, a large crab can do it, hermit crabs were tested, whether hermit crabs can feel uh pain.
So the the point being that uh to the extent though that pain, that there's some sense of sadness or some sense of ennui in a crab, if you were gonna pop open uh uh its house, you know what I mean? It's gonna be sad no matter what. But I'm guessing that my attitude as the popper would be like free ride's over, baby, right? I mean, like it's been living off of this bivalve for how whoever knows how long. Free ride's over.
Anyway. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh if I'm gonna go down, I'm taking you down with me. Yeah.
Uh, in things you're more likely to cook like clams or mussels, the cooked crabs add a nice crunchy bit. I highly recommend saving and trying next time shucking or cooking uh your bivalve mollusk, friends. Uh, nice. All right, that's good advice from uh Spencer Roberts. We appreciate it.
Spencer had a qu an unrelated question because that wasn't a question, Nastasia, so this is not two questions. Sichuan peppercorns will come up a few times on the show, especially about them blowing out your taste buds. I get this effect from Sichuan peppercorns and things uh sometimes from spicy mustard uh and other such things. Is there a way to negate this effect or speed up restoring your taste buds or just do you have to deal with it? Now I was trying to get McGee on for a different question that we have coming on later or maybe you know we'll get uh um a perception scientist on but the interesting thing is uh Sichuan pepper corns like the all of these things are and this goes back to no seception and pain these go back to pain receptors um and like you know heat receptors in some cases for things like capsation um but Sichuan peppercorns so mustard and capsation and things like that tend to hit similar channels in your in your like nerve channels right Sichuan peppercorns there's a um an article called Pungent agents from Sichuan peppers uh excite sensory neurons by inhibiting two poor potassium channels in 2008 which uh seems to indicate that uh the Sichuan peppercorns hit a different target than things like mustard or horseradish or um or capsation or things like this so you probably can't choose one thing that's gonna knock out uh that's gonna knock out the both of them anyway uh but you know next time I have someone who knows this stuff for sure uh I will ask uh also there's a uh New Yorker uh bivalve poem that Spencer gave us too long to read now you got that Nastasia already, right?
Hey, did I answer the question about the about uh John S trying to make uh trying to make uh pear cocktail before? Did I answer that? I don't think so. I don't think so. So Giannis Theodis is trying to make a pear cocktail, doesn't have a centrifuge, and is wondering what you know how to up the pear flavor, right?
And I don't know, I thought I said something about this. Pear flavor is very difficult to work with because pear flavor is very light, right? So like people use overripe pears in distillation and you get a lot of the aroma effects, but especially in kind of cocktails, it can be difficult for something to be like pear, right? So, like, you know, at the bar, well, back when I had a bar, we bought uh like comise pears, which are very aromatic, right? And then we we um clari we waited until they were like just at the peak point of ripeness, but before they started fading.
We clarified them and we just used a bunch of the pear juice, like a bunch, and that's how we were able to get like a really big pear flavor. We chose one of the most high flavored pears you could get, and then we you know used a boatload of it. And you don't have that because A, you can't clarify a bunch of juice because you don't have a centrifuge. Um, but B, you're not adding that much of the pear product to it. So I I would say you're gonna be more likely better bolstering with like heaps of dried pears, but those are gonna give kind of more cooked and dried aromas.
But you got a tough, you got a tough road, uh, a tough road for yourself. Does that make make sense, guys? Yeah. Yes. Bring more plant-based consumers in your doors with easy to use just egg.
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Chef Jose Andres calls Just Egg mind-blowing and bon appetite. Says, it's so good I feel guilty eating it. Put the fastest growing egg brand on your menu. Get a free sample of Just Egg for your restaurant at J U.st slash H R N. Patrick Chocone wrote in, Dear Cooking Issues Gang, I recently acquired a Rotobroil 400, the 1950s countertop rotisserie, long championed by Jeffrey Steingarten.
So the Roto Broil 400 is, it looks like like a 50s, like an airstream trailer, or like you know, like a 50s toaster, like a lot of chrome, and then straight out of the side of it, you shove a stick that the or you know it goes in and out, a stick that the rotisserie is on, and you open the front just like a toaster oven. You put the stick in, you close the door, and it rotates the stick and acts like a little uh rotisserie for things like chicken. And uh Jeffrey Steingarden in the 90s, I guess, um, you know, decided that he loved the roto broil and like 90s or early 2000s, and just got like whole bunches of roto broils uh in you know in his uh in his inventory and went through them. And I think he wrote wrote a lot about them. They're kind of cool little pieces of equipment made by I believe by Ron Popeel, who uh you guys are familiar with Ron Popeel, right?
Yes. Matt? No. No. You don't know Ron Popeel, like like uh Ron Popeel is like the inventor, a lot of them kitchen gadgets that like all people who make crazy kitchen gadgets probably like aspire to.
Like he was the he's like uh like a mixture of like Edison and P.T. Barnum, who went on TV and sold like a whole bunch of like crazy Ronco brand uh, you know, kitchen gadgets that are of questionable utility or need. So, you know, just like Nastasi and I. Basically, like we are we are the we are busted Popeels, right? We're we're like we are like worthless Popeils.
Is that true, Nastasia? Would you say that? Yes. Yeah. All right.
So uh can we is is someone chefing behind you? Uh hold on. I mean, it is very, it's like very on theme. Yeah. To have actual cooking.
What I have two kids in this house and two dogs, and I can't get them for one hour a week. When do your kids just become adults? How old do they have to be? They're always your kids, Nastasi. I don't know if you know this.
Oh, you can't just abandon them at some point? Good Lord. If I live to be a billion and they are a billion minus 30, then they are still my kids. Okay. And I still have that 30 years on them.
Yeah. 33 or whatever it is. Yeah. I think she was maybe going after something slightly different than the technical definition of kill children. But what was she going after then?
First of all, like my you know, my kids are like my kids are still in high school, so they're still living here. And and nowadays, it's not like when I was a kid. Like, people live with their parents now until they're like 90. You know what I mean? So like I don't even know what the world's gonna be like.
I have no idea. You know what I mean? When I was your boy, you you went to school, you got out of the house. You were you were done. You were off the teeth.
You know what I mean? Uh-huh. But that's just not the way it works for anyone anymore, I don't think. Uh, I don't know. Was that was that what you were in what were you implying, Nastasia?
What rude thing were you implying? Just let me know what rude thing you're implying, so I know what I'm dealing with. So when you, you know, I just imagine that if I had the same thing going on here, I would never hear the end of it. Well, well, you don't say like you can hear me saying negative things to them in the real life to try to ameliorate it. Yes.
I I'm I don't think it's acceptable. Yeah. Right? I only get angry at people that I'm working with when they somehow when things that are unacceptable are happening and they somehow deem them acceptable. That's the problem.
Like, if you had someone like doing a spinning plate routine in the background, and the plates were constantly falling on the ground. That was their job. And we had a little salaried by Booker and Dax to do the spinning plate thing. Not during but I would never have someone salary to do this job during the show unless it was part of the show. And we have the one hour a week when we're supposed to be focusing on this.
And there is how m wait, what is seven times twenty-four? There's seven times tw there's six times twenty-four other hours. No, sorry. Six times twenty-four plus twenty-three other hours in the week that they can spin plates and break them. So it's like what if I were doing this from prison and my cellmate had to like.
We do expect that when when you're eventually No no no, no. When you go to prison for whatever may happen, you do need to keep doing the show. And that phone call is going to be expensive by the way. Do you not do you know how much they charge for those calls? By the way.
Yeah, they're very expensive. Nastasia, you you get a prison pass. Whatever's happening in the background, like that giant hulking person being like, enough on the phone. That person, it's fine. It's all good.
Okay. When you guys hire the spinning plate person, you should set it up like anti-piece work. Like they should get deductions in pay based on how many plates they break. Yeah. Well, I don't know.
Isn't the only salary plate? Isn't the most important thing to do? Salary is not a good uh schema here. No? What oh since when are you since when are you dance monkey dance on people?
You're not supposed to like create perverse incentives where like you're supposed to pay someone a living wage and let them just do their job, not be like, you're not you you've broken three plates, no money for you. I mean, that's ridiculous. What is this? Oh wow. I didn't realize you guys were so terrible.
Then you have to keep buying them plate. I don't know. I don't know. Look, they either need to get better within a certain amount of time, or you fire them, but you don't keep them working as a plate spinner and then just not paying them because they're breaking your plates. That is immoral.
Put your resumes in the chat, listeners, for uh plates the plate spinning position. Be like and you'll live with me. So be like Jenny, Jenny, you you broke you broke too many plates. If you if you break this many plates next week, I have to say we're gonna have to let you go. That's fair.
That's fair. You've had a bad couple of weeks, you're not up to your game anymore. I think you've lost the knack, Jenny. You know what I mean? That's fair.
That's fair, you know? Uh all right. Back to the roto broil, which we haven't even read the question yet. Uh okay. On a test spit on a test spit roast run, what do you think about the word spit roast, Nastasia?
Uh, I think it's fine, because whatever. It's got a lot of right, spit roasting. Yeah. Also, I want to try out there's this, there's this um radio host in LA on a public radio thing, and she always sounds incredibly happy. Like everything she says is just incredibly happy and smiling and laughing.
Like, even when she says, like, it's Black History Month. Like, I want to try that out. But she does it in the real life. She's not kidding. She's not kidding.
So, what do you think's actually going on in her head? I think she's just like that. Do you think she's the doctor from The Simpsons? No, I think she's just I think she's just happy. I think she's just happy.
You think she's legitimately happy about like wildfires or whatever she's discussing? Everything. So you want to have her on the show? No, without warning us, you should adopt that demeanor for one full episode of cooking it. Yeah.
I don't know. I would be frightened I would send an ambulance to her house. I think it makes some people happy. Mm-hmm. What?
I think it would make some some of our listeners happy. If what? I sent an ambulance to your house. No, if I if I adopted that personality. She's like a very bubbly female.
I would I would like to. I mean, d is it isn't she isn't she in female kind of redundant? Well, like she's she's very much in her female element, you know. Like she's so what I'm I'm trying to get what you're implying. I'm trying to get what you're implying.
What you're saying, feminine energy is high. Like there's no. The implication I'm getting, which I guess I'm wrong, yeah, is that you're saying that she is playing a particular stereotype up that you think certain men who listen to our show would enjoy from you. In other words, there's a barb here. There's an attack.
There's no barb. That it I mean to me, I take that as an attack on that I mean, that's how I read it. Oh no. I just no. You're saying that like a bunch of men listening to our show want you to be fake and therefore would want you to adopt what you perceive as a fake hyperfeminine personality.
That is what I get you saying. That is the implication. Yeah, but I think that's a terri yeah, I like I I think it's like a horrible. That's a horrible thing to say. No, but that's a horrible thing to say about our listeners anyway.
Oh, I'm sorry. No, you're not. I'm gonna try it. Why? Because I want to.
What is it you said about Maria? Uh you just want to be mean. No, I don't. She was authentically herself, and I'm being authentically myself by wanting to buy something different. Yeah, no.
By being by you it's has something to do with sticking it to these people somehow in a way that cuts off my nose despite your face. Nastasi is a genius. Let's get her on the show and talk to her about it. Why not? Why not?
No. Because she has her own program and she's So what? No. No. Why not?
Nope, nope, nope, nope. She's like very good. Also, you can find like what if she's she could be miserable. You're gonna find out, you know, you don't wanna like it. Yeah, well, I don't want to don't meet your idols.
Yeah, yeah. Well, we don't get to meet her. She's gonna call into a zoom thing. Whatever. Whatever.
Clayton has popped into the chat again to defend Nastasia's right to say whatever she wants about the listeners. They're on team Nastasia. I think there's a free there's like a free Nastasium. Yeah, there's a movie will be coming out. Well, let me ask you a question.
Free free Nastasia from what? I don't know. We gotta ask the listeners. Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna find out.
We're gonna get to the bottom of this. Oh, because one thing I know for sure is Nastasia never speaks her mind. I mean, she doesn't on the show. It's true. I speak about 30% of my mind.
Yeah. Wow. Uh I mean, when we're just talking, though. No, I think in life. Like how much how much how often do you guys tell the truth?
Me? Yeah. Are you like it's too difficult to lie? I would just rather say nothing. So if I don't want to say anything and someone says, I'm like, mmm.
That must be very effective. I don't I'm not gonna answer this question because I'm alright. You made me look bad with the I would steal drugs from my friends thing last week. I'm not doing this again. Rightly so.
But look, Matt, I I knew that answer, and I don't fault you for it because I know that that is what people like it's it's a hundred percent what someone no one I know would say I wouldn't do that. I've never lied. Oh, come on, please. Please. That's the yeah.
Anyway, point being whatever. All right, back to the can we get back to the we're back on the roto broil now, people? Yep. Alright. Yeah.
On a test spit roast run, it performed really well, but after an hour on high, the plug became extremely hot and started melting the plastic on the electric receptacle. And on high is what you'll get if you try to send a f uh a friend drugs through Matthew because he'll be taking all of your drugs and getting high on. That's exactly what he said. I wasn't gonna take it there, remember? Matt, you did not say that.
I didn't say exactly that. Okay. He's gonna take the drugs and then put them on the counter to use them as like a prop. Yeah. I'm shooting a short film.
Yeah. On drugs. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Uh the plug has become extremely hot and started melting the plastic on the electric receptacle. Now, here's my question, Patrick. But I the answer is gonna be the same regardless. Uh, but uh the question is, is are you talking about it's getting hot at the wall or getting hot at where it's going into the into the roto broil? I'm gonna guess, based on what you're saying, um, that the it's getting hot at the wall, but it doesn't matter.
The answer's gonna be the same anyway. Would upgrading to a modern grounded cable help, or is the issue it's not the grounding that's the issue. Uh, or is the issue just it's overloading the circuit? It was running on a 20-amp uh GFCI, which is what the wiring is for in all my kitchen outlets. I would like to use this thing, but don't want to burn the house down.
Burning down the house? You like that? You like them, Stas or no? No, not really. Why you don't like talking heads?
Really? Okay. Did you not ever whatever? Too much, too much to get into. Uh also, when are you going to have Steingarden back on the show?
Best Patrick uh Chicone. I don't, you know what? I haven't spoken to Steingarden in years. You, Stas? No, Dave.
No. Again, you talk to plenty of people that uh I talked to without uh just talking to me, so I don't know. Uh I never know. Nastasi's like, you don't talk to anyone. I talk to everyone.
So why was that an unreasonable thing for me to ask? I haven't talked about them a lot, but whatever. Anyway. Um, here's what's happening. Uh, first of all, be careful with older cords and plugs.
Older fabric cords are an old wiring. Uh the installation on old wiring, because of its heat resistance, are full of asbestos. So don't cut through them and like, you know, sit there and snap them and inhale them and do all that stuff. Just take the machinery apart, unscrew the terminals and remove them and then dispose of them because they do contain asbestos. Any fabric cord uh or any uh like woven-looking insulation made prior to about 1972?
Uh 70, 72, 73, anything in that era, asbestos, that's just a hundred percent. Also, don't file or sand the standoffs inside of uh things like toasters, hairdryers, any sort of heat equipment, anything that looks relatively ceramic-y or fabric-y, if it's made before 1970, I'd be safe, let's say 74. Anything made before that and after 1910 is made with asbestos. So just don't turn it into dust, right? Okay.
Secondly, what happens over time with electrical connections is that you get a little bit of corrosion. And uh like like a patina, let's say, like like the Statue of Liberty style patina. Uh and a lot of this stuff is copper, and a lot of especially the older stuff wasn't uh tinned over with things that are uh resistant to um uh patina and buildup, right? So modern things they're they're tinned with uh things that don't corrode, uh and then the bulk of your uh connector will still be copper, so you get the great, you know, you get the great uh low resistance of copper and the corrosion resistance on on the things like your plugs. That's why your plugs now are all silvery.
Old ones aren't, they're just copper. And when they corrode, they become resistors. When they become resistors, they not only suck power, so your your unit's not gonna get as hot as it used to be, but they themselves get incredibly hot. So um the old circulators, the old immersion circulators used to have removable what's called like uh equipment plugs, like ones for computers in the back. And those connectors, uh a lot of them aren't tinned on the inside.
So if you use those, the moisture would corrode them over time, and as they get corroded, they become resistors, and when you have all of that current passing through the resistor, it heats up by quite a lot. And so I would have the entire back side of the circulator melt. You replace the cord and you know, rewire the part of the plastic housing that's melt melted, and it works fine again. And I'm gonna say the same thing is gonna be true of your roto broil. You just put a new cord on that thing and you're good to go.
You can measure the resistance just to make sure it's not pulling more than it's 20, but it's not it, it's clearly not, otherwise it would have popped your G uh your GFI. Uh so I think you're good. Just replace it and beware of the asbestos. Good answer or not good answer. Good answer.
Mm-hmm. Nick Root wrote in. Uh long time listener. Uh I'm a neuroscientist. Uh Nastasi, this person's defending you.
You ready for it? You're ready. I can't wait. See whether you agree with this defense. What is it?
I don't understand where the snark is coming from. I really don't. I really don't get it. She's in, she's in a I think Nastasi's in a good mood today. Yeah.
I just think she's already doing the thing where she's um being like more jovial. Yeah. Lady. Say it, Dave. Lady!
Um, but the um yeah, so the uh in a pre in a previous life, I was like some sort of like goofball like vaudeville singing dance man. You know what I mean? Well, yeah, or like the guy who gets you the cracker jacks at the ball field. Like you you would have been really good at that. I thought you were doing Jerry Lee Lee.
Peanuts. Yeah, yeah. But that's what that's where he comes from. Peanuts, peanuts, yeah, hot nuts, hot nuts. Get your hot nuts right here, hot nuts.
Like that? Yeah, like that. Yeah. Uh if you're looking for another gig, you know. I mean, Anastasia and I might be looking for another gig very soon.
You know, considering that we're selling nothing on Amazon. Your book isn't selling anywhere. Yeah. My for like my publisher was like, yeah, people would buy the book, but let's not print it. They did print it.
It's just, you know, book on the water. It's taking forever for that book to get over here and get into this stuff. So Liquid Intelligence is out of stock. The Sears All is in stock, but Amazon has decided that unless it's certified astronaut proof. Because what they're asking for, they're asking us literally, Nastasia, they're asking, and they send Nastasia all these emails.
You must certify that it passes the UL certification for a torch. And we say to them, Nastasia, what do we say to them? It's not a torch. It's not a torch. And they're like, yeah, but it still has to pass the torch certification.
So we're like, okay. So we go to a testing lab and we're like, hey, will you test this thing as though it was a torch? And what does the lab say, Nastasia? Hell no. It's not a torch.
Hell no, that's not a torch. I'm like, well, how about my car keys? Will you will you test my car keys as a torch? And they're like, no, those are car keys, not a torch. And then Amazon's like, yeah, but you can't sell your car keys unless they're certified as a safe torch.
And then they called it a menstrual cup again, and we were like, uh Have we discussed this on air yet? What? That one, that part's new. That part is new. Okay, okay, okay.
Do you want to do this, Nastasia? Oh, me? Alright. So they send Nastasia. First of all, it's it's it's it's kind of hilarious because Nastasia, Nastasia gets directly.
So Nastasia will send all these WTF emails to like the the the Bezos crowd, and and every once in a while, uh someone in his orbit or him sees one of these emails and then directs someone else to solve quote unquote solve the problem. And nine, well, three times out of four in our Amazon lives, this has solved the problem, right? They get the Jeff B. Bizos question mark uh one. This is the only time that that we have not that it has gone to that level and not been solved.
So what happens is is that my mental picture of Amazon is that you think of it as like a computer online thing, but really it's just a pachinko machine of idiots, okay? And like Jeff Bezos is smart in his crew, right? They launch the ball, right? And then it goes up and then ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. And so you get all these different responses, but it always ends up in the same cup, right?
And so Nastasia will go through like a a 20 email chain, and it always ends with this. We have come to the conclusion that it needs to be certified by a UL lab to or uh, you know, the UL certified lab to uh UL safety standard. They always do the 147, which is the torch, and then after that, they append this paragraph. If it is a toothbrush, it needs to be certified to blah blah blah. And if it is a menstrual cup, it needs to contain EPA, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And we're like, menstrual cup? Are they listening to anything? And then Nastasia and I were like, can we get it certified as a menstrual cup? I mean, it's it's vaguely cup-shaped. Can we get it certified as a chastity belt?
Is there some sort of thing we can get it certified as? The menstrual cup email has come through three, three or four times now. Yeah, but Nastasia's launched that pachinko ball like three times in different places. And it always falls back into the cup. Yeah.
And every time we get the menstrual cup thing, we're just like, first of all, like not to be someone who knows nothing, but what it what exactly is it is a menstrual cup actually a thing? Yeah. Yes, yes, it is a thing. A cup, but it's it is is a similar use to like pads. You put it inside of your vaginal cavity and it collects the blood, and then you take it out and you wash out the blood.
And it's it's considered what, more eco-friendly than tampons or pads, or like what's the advantage? Oh, it's more it's an eco-friendly situation. Alright. Okay. So it's a lot like the Sears All, really.
Yeah. I mean, I now feel now that I know, I thought it was an externally applied cup. Nope. Now I feel bad even suggesting having it be a menstrual cup. You know, you've made me feel bad about even suggesting that it's a menstrual cup.
But all right. Back to uh how the hell did we get on this? I don't know. I'm not clear. I mean, usually I usually I can look back the tunnel of where we've been to see where this has come from and somehow bring it back to where we needed to go.
But I have to admit, the menstrual cup has thrown me off my game. Oh, I have no idea. When I edit the episode, I'll find out and be amazed, I'm sure. Yeah. Alright.
So, where we were, I don't know how we got to where we ended, but where we were, we were talking about Nick Root, who uh oh, oh yes, I I remember now. Was uh defending Nastasia's idea of sunlight, and Nastasia decided to be snarky about it. That's what happened. Yeah. Longtime cooking issues listener.
I'm a neuroscientist studying multi-sensory processing, how different senses interact when we perceive the world. And I thought I'd offer an alternative hypothesis about the sunlight in New York debacle. Not debate, debacle. What what? Wait, did you go, huh?
Yeah, I don't understand. Like that proof? So like that. You're like, got him. Got him now.
It's a debacle. Yeah. It is a debacle. Um, hey, have you got I forget the name, someone remember it. There's an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie where it's the worst Arnold Schwarzenegger movie ever.
Well, no, that's not true. Not even close. But it is, it was after Terminator, but before he got really good at like commando and stuff like this. And he is a uh he's a cop who has to go into witness protection, and his wife is there, and she's all 80s out, and it's like terrible stereotypical, like, you know, wife roll, Arnold Schwarzenegger role thing. And she is day drinking hard, like hard day drinking.
And she's pissed if she has to live in this hellhole town because she's from New York. Anyway, and so she throws, she bakes in it a cake for him, a big old cake, and then throws the entire cake. He does like the Mike Tyson like head bob where he head bobs his thing and the cake smashes against the the rear, like the cabinetry, and he goes, You should not drink and bake. And so now, like whenever I'm baking and I have a glass of wine, I'm like, you should not drink and bake. Anyway.
Uh, all right. Our brains, this is from Nick again. Our brains often combine sensory informations in ways you might not expect. So this is a mental integration argument. For example, by altering the frequencies uh slash amplitudes of sounds that you hear, we can make you think a stale potato chip is crispy and vice versa.
Yes, I've read these studies. Perhaps in the same way, your brain, i.e. Nastasia's brain, is incorporating temperature into its estimate of sunlight. This has been shown in laboratory conditions. Subjects judge warmer rooms to be more brightly lit, even if they have the same lighting.
If the west side of Manhattan is slightly warmer than the east side at sunset, and I can imagine several reasons why this might be true, then maybe you perceive it as being brighter for longer, even though the physical light is the same. Best Nick. What are your thoughts? Yeah. You agree?
Yeah. Maybe. I mean, maybe, maybe, maybe that's true. Okay. Laughing Cow wrote in via Instagram Hey, uh, any resources you can point me to for cookware recommendations for starters.
Hmm. So, like, usually cookware recommendations, uh, I mean, like, I this is a very wide question. I feel like we could, I feel like we could get, maybe we should. I mean, John's not here, so he's no one's taking notes, and no one's gonna tell me to work on this later. But John's listening from jury duty.
Yeah, right. Yeah, sure. He's watching somebody get horribly like beaten to death right now. I'm sure he's doing some terrible work. Anyway, um, we should just have, I think it would be an interesting episode if we just will get like two or three, you know, different style of people on, and we'll all discuss what makes a good starting uh battery kitchen battery, battery de cuisine, uh, in in your house, because I'm sure we all have different takes.
And usually, like some old school like soup to nuts cookbooks will start with this, right? So you can look at those kind of series. But I think it'd be an interesting, uh, you think it'd be an interesting episode, Nastasia, or no? Yeah, I guess so. I don't know.
It depends on like it's all about money, isn't it? No, because no matter what, you need to start, right? So it's like, what do you start with if you have a lot of money? What do you so like at the beginning of Liquid Intelligence? I have like the you know, three levels of bar kit.
And a lot of bar people do this because they know that you're have to buy a bunch of stuff that you don't necessarily already have. So I feel in bar books there's a lot more of this kind of like buy these things first, then these, then these. And a lot of cookbooks are like start with this knife and this pan and then work your way up, but like, you know, like the kind of like the the list of what you would buy in what order depending on how much money you have. I think it's always an interesting question. You know what I mean?
And I think people have different a attitudes on it. Um, I don't know, I think it'll be fun. We just have to get the uh we have to get a group of people that have different enough opinions that it's that it's fun. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Yeah. Okay, KK Husky wrote in, hey, I have a question about carbonation, which I could not find in your book, Earmus, Stas. Uh, I cannot get the same level of carbonation from an EC soda bottle, the the one with the wire mesh on the outside, uh, as simple uh as as you can in a simply in a used sprite bottle. Is there a trick to it? Uh yeah, they just those things just don't work right.
I mean, I'm sorry, they don't work right. But here's the trick. The problem is is that those old school seltzer bottles have uh like a dipstick that goes down to the bottom. So they're actually taking seltzer from the bottom, and the reason they're doing that is because you're not supposed to open it. You're supposed to take it three stooges style and spray someone with the with the with the sprayer, or like you know, like Bugs Bunny used to do.
So, like that's why that thing is there. But the that problem is is it means you can't vent them properly. So if you really want good seltzer out of one of those things, and you must have the nyak nyuck nyuc nuc, right? Put a charger into it, do the charger, shake it, turn it, make sure it's cold as ugh, cold, cold. Then turn it upside down.
You hearing me? Upside down. Not right side up, upside down. Vent it, vent the gas out. You're now getting rid of all the oxygen and the air and all that nastiness.
You don't need to vent 100%, but vent it until it's bubbling on the inside. Turn it right side up, make sure it's cold, hit it with another charger, and that's the best you can do with that system. All right. Was that fast enough, Stas, or no? Yeah.
It was good. All right. Uh also we gotta go pretty soon. Uh okay. CN Linden wrote in via Instagram.
Uh Dave uh and Nastasia and Matt, have you addressed on cooking issues the dragon's breath fad of eating cereal super cooled? I don't do cereal, I do like marshmallows, with liquid nitrogen that they sell in the mall. Oh, yeah, they used to sell it in the mall. I I gave a whole talk in Harvard on this. I know you've given so many warnings on your show about the dangers of liquid nitrogen.
How can this be safe? Thanks, Chad Linden from Georgetown, Kentucky. Uh by the way, most podcasts I can listen in uh at 1.2x or 1.4x speed, but you already talk so fast it's impossible. Oh yeah, I win. Uh Stas, have we talked about the accident on the show?
Which one? Uh yeah, we have it a long time ago. No, the the recent one, the long the liquid nitrogen accident down south. Oh no. Did you?
Well, there's at a poultry plant, a lick a liquid nitrogen line ruptured. There wasn't apparently, I haven't read the after all the after action reports. I don't think they exist yet, but uh a bunch of people, like six people died from asphyxiation, and uh I sounds like they didn't have adequate training or adequate alarm warnings, but um that look, that that's not a danger that's gonna happen in in this case. The danger that we're talking about here is cold burns. And the reason that you can eat a marshmallow that's been chilled with liquid nitrogen uh or anything that has a low um basically what you need is it needs to be very lightweight, needs to uh not have any water in it.
And if you have those two things, it's like mainly air uh and or mainly uh mainly air and no water, uh there's just not enough energy present, you know, not enough uh thermal mass present to give you a cold burn, and that's why they work. So if you were to take something that had water in it and put it in liquid nitrogen, and you would ruin your tongue, like you would do damage like for a long time. Uh, and that's why it, you know, you really just need to be careful of what you're what you're doing. I did a whole talk at Harvard about the there in Florida where they had these stores in the mall years ago, uh, there was a whole bunch of uh people who uh wrote a bunch of very wrong things about safety, and it got picked up by news reports and then picked up by um pseudoscience weasels saying that it was real, and I traced the entire history of that. So if you look on my uh the Harvard lectures that I've done with Harold McGee at the beginning, they're all online, I believe, the public lectures.
One of them is devoted entirely to the specific problem of people not understanding um dragon's breath uh in malls. All right. Uh did you, Nastasia, did you on this week's on this week's uh newsletter, did you put Devin Patel's uh uh bartender Posta Troll poem in or no? That was in last uh no, it's supposed to well, did you do your newsletter part already? I mean, I talked to you about it.
You didn't seem whether you like whether you liked my ideas or not you didn't tell me wait are you writing it or am I writing it for you? I can write it I can write it you can say whether you like the idea or not all right oh also Claire Claire wants to come on the show at some point and talk about intermittent fasting Claire can come on whenever she wants as long as she knows that I'm probably gonna be like yeah no I don't think she knows that yeah but you said that not that I'm one of the only people that has that reaction to her yeah your son loves her I'm not saying I don't like her I'm not an anti-Claire I have this thing where like there are certain people that like I like I react to them differently from other people you know what I mean and I don't really understand I don't really understand why anyway uh so listen uh Jill Kabika wrote in and we in not only do we not have time I don't have the knowledge but there's a lot of um and this this is another thing maybe we can do this for next week's show if we can get it together but especially because of COVID there are a lot of people dealing with anosmia where they can't smell anymore and Jen had a version of that for a while and my wife which sucks but there's also parosmia where it's like your your sense of smell is off or it's altering your sense of smell almost like when you know a lot of people when they're pregnant like they get aversions to certain smells and um so maybe we should get some people on because it's like you know very topical and you don't hear a lot of people talking about the mechanism of it or kind of how to get around it or how to deal with it. So maybe we should put that together. You think that'd be do you think that would be fun? Sure.
By the way when when we read her question, uh Nastasia, when we get, I would like to get Mc McGee on because he suffered anosmia due to a virus years ago and beat it. And maybe like some sort of like uh neurosensory person like uh from uh Yale or maybe Bob Data from Harvard, um maybe Ariel on the chemistry, you know what I mean? Like uh get like a like a like a panel like that together and do a cooking issue on aroma in general, but like perosmia and anosmia in particular. Anyway, uh Jill is 30 females single and a home cook that has almost no gadgets but enjoys uh food science and restaurant industry sh uh shop talk. She's a former server.
Uh also uh Shai Noi wrote in and about sweet potatoes. Okay, so I want everyone to think about this. Uh I want everyone to think about this because I don't know this effect. I want someone to write in if they also have noticed this effect. I'm gonna try to find some information.
So, Matt, I'm not taking extra time because I know I don't have time to answer it and because I also don't have the answer. Quick question. Why do baked sweet potatoes, i.e., yams for Americans, lose uh ipoimo batata, that's what we're talking about. Lose much of their sweetness once chilled. Even an hour or two at room temperature seems to reduce their sweetness level considerably, and it isn't fully restored even if reheated.
For reference and to encourage their consumption, my method is to place them whole and unpeeled into a cold oven, set at 285 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 to 60 minutes, then 440 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour at least, thanks. So the low temperature, I guess, is to sweeten it up enzymatically and the high temperature is to roast it. So look, before I hear all the chimes, yes, I'm aware, and Shine is uh is, I'm sure, aware, that your perception of sweetness goes down as things get colder. And I don't think that's what they're talking about here because they said even when it's reheated, they notice an effect where it's lost its sweetness. So anyone who's noticed this effect and or wants to talk about it, please chime in and we'll try to get to the bottom of it for next time, Shy.
Anything else, Doz? Are we good? I think that's it. All right, we missed a couple of questions. We'll get them next time on Cooking Issues.
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