Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues, coming to you a pre-recorded. We hope this is the last time we're coming to you not live. We're coming to you from New Stand Studios at Rockefeller Center, our brand new location for the Cooking Issues podcast. Joined as usual with Nastasia De Hammer Lopez.
How are you doing? Good. Yeah? We got uh we got John uh but he's at we're all together, which I really love doing. Got John behind me, how you doing, John?
Doing great. Yeah. And it's so much better doing him. Right? It's a lot better, right?
So much better. And we got Joe Hazen on the engineering booth over here. How are you doing, Joe? Hey, I'm doing great. That's the last little bit of the Rockefeller Center voice.
I'm keeping for you, Nastasi. I know, yeah. You should just always do Joe's name. Do we do it like that? Uh it's a good name, like for that.
It's the right number of syllables. You know what I mean? Like some of the ones that it's not the same announcer anymore, right? But like if there's a lot of syllables or not enough, although some some It's gotta be a one-syllable first name, two syllable last name. Because Michael Che.
Works. I guess. Like it's hard when it's like a lot of like a lot of syllables and they have to carry that level of intensity across Maria Villa Senor! It's like long. You know what I mean?
Yes. That's her name, right? Melissa. Melissa. Sorry, apologize.
Uh anyway, Nastasia loves being here, especially on Tuesday, because she keeps looking out for to see whether they can see some of the people, but they never walk through here, right? No. Right, Joe? No, I never seen. I never seen.
But you don't really care, do you, Joe? I mean, yeah, I would if it was someone that I really enjoyed. Like a musician. Who do you really enjoy? If I saw like Liam Gallagher or something like that, something stupid, that would be like.
And would you would you be psyched to do that? I wouldn't say the scene, or would you punch him? Are you a are you a Gallagher Brothers hater? Or I mean, like you can love their music and hate them. Like, for instance, like Michael Stipe, giant douche.
However, REM, I like the music. Okay, wait, if Michael Stipe wanted to come on the show, because he's a food person, like he likes food, he would say no. You were say no. I wouldn't say no. I would be polite because I'm a huge fan of the work.
You know what I'm saying? Like I'm a fan of the of the man, but he's a well-known douche. You know what I mean? He's definitely a well-known fish. Is he really?
Yeah, huge douche. Why? What does he do? I only met him once and he was a huge douche. What did he say?
In retrospect, he was actually right. Here's the thing is like a lot of times, a lot of times people like are right but in the wrong way. Does that make sense? Yeah. So like I was in college.
Uh this was so like they had already REM, which is a band for all you youngins out there, uh like uh REM had already come out with what I consider to be the core of what made them like a great band. Like they'd already done like, you know, don't go back to Rockville and like all that early stuff that like only Southern people listen to, like you know, the Virginia kids listen to. They'd just broken out and become kind of huge national. This is 1989, or and uh they showed up at the school with KRS One from Boogie Down Productions, and at the time I didn't know much about KRS one, but I had spent a lot of time listening with my you know buddies to REM, and he was like, I'm not here to talk about me, I'm here to talk about KRS one. And I was like, douche.
And then and then I was like, that's the only reason. No, it's his whole attitude, and then we were all like there. It was like, it wasn't like a big thing. It was like, it was like a like a room with like, you know, 15, 20 people in it. We're like walking around and we're supposed to talk to each other.
It was one of these kind of situations, right? And I was like, and you know, we were all playing music at the time as well. And I was like, oh my God, you went from being like this kind of like small college band to going national. You know, what was that? You know, what was that transition like?
What was it like? Because like all of my friends at the time were interested in that same exact problem that they had just gone through. You know what I mean? I wasn't trying to like, you know, get any secrets. I was just curious, kind of what that he's like, it was just like signing a piece of paper, and then he turned away and left.
I was like, douche. I was like, man's a douche. And then like uh, but music, great. In fact, I owe I owe Michael Stipe my marriage because uh I went on this date with this woman. This is literally the day two days before I started going out with Jen, who I'm now married to.
I go out with this uh with this woman on a date, and she was like, Oh, I really like uh I really like REM. I'm like, I also like REM. She's like, I I love Michael Stipe. I was like, Michael Stick Stipes a douche. And he's like, he wouldn't be to me.
I would like him like, this is over, this date's over, goodbye. And I left, and then two days later started going out with Jen, and that's it. Here it is, history. Yeah. So thank you, Michael Stipe.
Yeah. Thank you, Michael Stipe. By the way, for those of you out there, uh, you're never gonna do this. I'm the only idiot that did this. I actually met that person, and I did not know she was a Michael Stipe fan.
And uh I met her drunk at a party, and instead of doing anything, I gave her my number and I said, I'll call you when I'm sober, we'll see whether this is gonna work out. And luckily, it didn't, and that's a good it's hold back, hold back. You don't want to have to deal with the Stipe fan the next day. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying, Stas?
You're like me. It's the same way. You know, I'm like you, and then I'm not like you when you say I'm not like you. Which we're not gonna get into that right now. I don't really understand what you're saying, but okay.
I will I'm gonna eviscerate you after the show, actually. About what? What we're just talking about. But go on, let's do the questions. So what about Michael Stipe?
No. Just do the questions. All right. So listen, before we do the questions, for those of you that don't know, if you're hearing us, I don't know how you're hearing us because we're not coming through live. This is one of the special secret Patreon.
Uh well, it'll be Patreon only, we think for a little while, and then it'll go live as part of the record. We're still negotiating with other people. So if you're hearing us, it means we figured this out, and I'm glad you're listening to us, right? Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Also, uh when Joe, Joe's classic question uh to us when we're here, well, to John, really. He never he doesn't care what Nastasia has. He wants to know what John's had for breakfast. It's become a little bit of a running thing. All two times, yeah.
So I mean, two times, you know, two steps. 100% to run. Yep. Uh, you know, uh as long as as long as you're, you know, you're kind of not like heel toe heel toe, two steps is all you need. Yep.
Uh so what did you have for breakfast last time? Uh Dunkin Donuts, I think, uh blueberry glazed donut and strawberry frosted donut, unfortunately with sprinkles. Wow. Oh, unfortunately with sprinkles. No sprinkles.
You're a no-sprinkles man. Nope. That's I don't know. Yeah, I don't like to touch. I mean, I like sprinkles on other things, just not on my donuts.
You like sprinkles on other things. Okay. Did you know? Are you are you familiar with the crispy Kreme scan that they have? Not scam, but the deal they have going down?
Yeah. Vaccine and goes every day. Isn't the line really long? I don't know. Dax like has like a phone app.
He doesn't go here, he goes downtown somewhere. I don't know. And so like he goes and buys gets crispy creams every day. They gave him a hat the other day. He goes so often, he came home in a crispy cream hat.
That's cool. Yeah, it's pretty great. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, uh also Dax comes to me the other day, and I know I'm going against my relatives and everything.
He goes, Does doughnut have uh a G or an N in it? I'm like, both Dax. It's dough, as in it's made of dough, and it's in the shape of a freaking nut, like you put on a bolt. It's a dough freaking nut, not a do nut. Where the heck would do nut come from?
What would where would D-O-N-U-T come from? Like, where would that word just drop out of the freaking sky? It is made of dough in the shape of a freaking nut. It is a doughnut. Obviously.
But that the thing that Dax did that really ticked me off was was it G or an N. What? On what world is donut spelled with a G without an N? Yeah. Yeah.
Dough. Dough Hut. Ooh. You want to start that business? What do we sell at the Dough Hut?
No. I don't want to start another business. Well, you had a dough hut. Yeah. Pasta Flyer was a dough hut.
Hey, do you see this new thing? Someone wrote a paper on you're gonna hate this so much. You ready to hate something? So they made this new pasta. They engineered a pasta, and the pasta is flat.
And they engineered little ribs into the pasta so that when you cook it, it goes from flat to a curled shape. Okay. So like, I don't know why you need this, but it makes like little boxes or it makes like little half tubes out of flat sheets. Huh. But I mean, I don't really understand.
I don't know whether it tastes good. That's not important. But here's what's funny about it to me. In the paper, in the scientific paper, they're like, as sustainability becomes more important, things need to pack into finer, you know, smaller and smaller places. So it's like this fake argument about trying to be more sustainable by having the pasta curl as you cook it instead of God knows how much energy, time, and thought they've put into making a pasta that goes from one shape to another.
Why don't you just say, we're interested in making something that's fun that curls up when you cook it? Wouldn't that be more? Yeah. Wouldn't that be more? Also, separate question.
Sorry, this is ticking me off. John, when you buy skate, right? Have you ever bought skate where they rip the skin off but they leave the cartilage wing in? No. Yeah, me neither.
Yeah. I went to the fish store for Mother's Day. Jen was like, I want skate. I'm like, okay, I haven't made skate in a long time. I'll go to get skate.
So I go to get skate, and I hate shopping for fish during the pandemic because it's that awkward moment where I'm gonna pull my mask down and smell the freaking fish. You know what I'm talking about, guys? It's like you need to smell, especially something like a skate, which can go that like iodine ammonia, like that ammonia smell. So I'm like, I'm gonna do it, but I feel a little bad. Do you feel a little bad doing that, John?
I mean, I've I've never done that at a fish store. Really? Really? You just take their word for it that it's good? Well, I try to go to only fish stores where I trust what they have.
I mean, yeah, I don't know. Like, what if you like so what happens then if you find it smells off? Like they put it back in the case or do they throw it out? I don't care what they do with it, as long as it doesn't come home with me. Uh Joe, speaking of this, uh, since John only goes to uh very uh nice fish stores and Nastasia only gets uh things like mustard when she uh flies in her private jet to places like Belgium.
Can we get newsstand studio monocles? Is it possible to get like monocles for these guys? Because uh, you know, and like maybe Mr. Peanut top hats for them because of the very fancy pinky out life that they like to live. Yeah, the monocle idea.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're gonna get some monocles up there. The red tint. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rooking through the world through rose-tinted monocles.
I like it. Uh, anyways. We were on John's breakfast. Hold on, we're not there. We're good, we're gonna make it back.
Remember, that's how this works. How many years? So they serve me. I I was like, I look at the skate, I'm like, can you fillet it for me? Because I don't want to bother doing this.
And he's like, it is filleted. And I just looked at him. There's a giant bone running through it. I'm like, and I was like, you know what? Forget it.
And then I had to go. I haven't had to take skate wings off the bone in a long time. It's not hard, but I don't really like doing it. Do you like doing it, John? No, it's not.
I don't, it's not fun. I don't remember doing it, yeah. And like I was looking at all of the the skate wings because there's uh the way it works, people skate's a cartilaginous, flat, kind of like a disc-shaped fish, and they cut the two kind of wings off, and if they leave that, you can see a little bit of where the body was in the middle. And you put your knife, you cut along, and you cut then along the wing and you lift it. So there's four sides to it that you take off, two big ones and two little ones.
Anyways, uh so I was like looking at the cartilage thing, and I don't think there's anything you can do with that, is there, John? I mean, skate doesn't make great stock. You could make a stock, but it doesn't make great stock, it's not like a snapper or something like this. And uh, I don't think you could crisp it up Japanese style and chew on it, can you? I have no idea.
I haven't tried deep frying them. I don't necessarily I think that might work. I don't know. I pitched it, which is probably done, but I had so much else to work on that day that I didn't want to do it. Okay, back to your breakfast.
So donuts spelled with uh Duncan style. Yep. And then what do you have today? Uh Captain Crunch Crunch Berries. Oh, before the show, you couldn't remember the name of Crunch Berries.
You were like with the little like colored balls in it. Well, I I looked it up before this to try and sound smart, but I guess you just are you familiar? My uh my family were very familiar with uh all of the different Captain Crunch. Are you familiar with oops, all berries? Yeah.
No. Yeah. It's just a box of crunch berries. And and they try to pretend like they did it by mistake, and so that you're getting some sort of limited edition. Uh so they're like, oops, all berries.
Uh we I know we've had this discussion before. I don't know whether it was at newsstand or you know, elsewhere, but uh I find that Captain Crunch excoriates the top of my mouth in a vicious way. Just shreds the top of my mouth. Yeah, it's like it's like having toast. Yeah, yeah.
Like a dent from the from Denny's. Yeah. Oh, Denny. Did I ever tell you my Denny story, Nastasia? Probably.
Denny's used to doing all you could eat. And I showed up and I just kept on eating. And the and the server, she was like, I'm pregnant and you're making me physically ill. How much food you're eating? I was like, listen, I I mean, get a different job and bring me more pancakes.
You know what I mean? It's like, you know, it whatever. Anyways, uh, okay, so I'm assuming that the crunch berries were ripping the top of your mouth apart, so you had to wash it down with what? Uh well, milk, but then also half a chocolate covered entemans donuts. All right, now, now, first of all, entomins in my family.
I tried to enter, there was an entemans contest. Did we talk about this? There was an entemans contest to tell your entoman story, and I can't believe I didn't win. You were gonna win a year's supply of entomens, which in my house is an infinite entomens. I like the entomens with the little balls on top.
We call them rabbit turds because they look kind of like rabbit turds. With a brush with the sugar, the breath white sugar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And those little turd things on top. Love them.
Love them. And my family now we buy the chocolate uh sampler, which is chocolate covered chocolate, rabbit turds, chocolate glaze. That's like the those are the money. That's the money. Isn't one of those the devil's food cake?
The devil's food cake is the one that has the rabbit turds on it. Okay, yeah, that one's intense. Yeah. It's very good. Yeah.
So, anyways, uh, so I've told the story before, I won't go too deep into it. But uh again, with going out with my wife, our very first date uh was on Valentine's Day. It was snowing. I went to a store 24, which is like a Wawa's ripoff, and I bought a the variety pack, the Entamans donut variety pack. And at 3 a.m., uh Jen and I on our first date hung out in the snow and ate the entire freaking variety pack.
And she ate her full four, and I ate my full four full four. So without Entemens and without Michael Stipe, no family. So it's like it's like a four different family. I I guess I would have it. I guess I could have a different family.
I'm assuming I would not have a family at all, and that I'd be wandering the uh wandering the leather man loop in my in my son to get away. I don't think so. I don't know. You didn't know me back then. That that you could have found somebody later in life.
I would not have. Okay. Yeah. Okay. It was then or never.
That was all there was. All right. So uh by the way, Nastasia likes chocolate flavored cereals. I don't like chocolate flavored cereals. John, you were trying to make a chocolate flavored cereal by mashing an entemin's donut into your crunch berries or what?
What? No. No, into his mouth. Yeah. The crunch berries were like the appetizer than the the donut.
Oh no. Yeah. All right. Donut was dessert. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Uh do you know? So, so I'm gonna ask Joe because I've done this before.
Joe, are you you're you like cereal, right? Because you're a person? I like cereal. All right. Are you more of a fruity pebbles or more of a cocoa pebbles?
If you have if those are the only two options. I don't really like either. They're too sandy. Fruity pebbles or cocoa pebbles. I don't know if I've ever had either of those.
What? Yeah, I know. We grew up in a uh non-sugared cereal house. Oh man, sorry. It's just yeah, we never also no TV.
Uh I was like, yeah, we had rabbit ears back then, so it was mostly like Doctor Who and you know what's unpleasant about Fruity Pebbles, besides the poisonous uh kind of like fake fruit flavor, which I enjoy, is the color of the milk with the fruity pebbles is just uh horror show. Yeah, it's a horror show. It's like it's like an aquarium you haven't cleaned. I did like uh uh uh what's the uh with the two can the um fruity pull. I saw some sick toucans at the zoo over the weekend.
Toucans are cool, man. Do you know that they use their beaks as uh thermal regulators? They're huge and very lightweight, and they're full of blood vessels, and so they can regulate their body temperature by pushing more or less blood out in their in their nose, which always knows. Uh Jay Carter, 1974, wrote in via email, hey Dave, uh what's the best vermouth for a Manhattan? Uh uh probably the one you'll like.
Right? I mean, right? The best vermouth is the is a fresh vermouth and one that you enjoy. Uh I've tried uh oh my gosh, you're gonna uh uh wait, CI is is CI is is is chi, right? Yeah.
Uh Manchinio and Del Pref and Del Professore, uh and local bitters and Luxardo cherries. I like using rye whiskey. I've had some good ones, but I'm in search of the ultimate Manhattan. Figured I'd run it by you. And your feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance. All right. Jay Carter, listen. Uh first of all, like different vermouths are rat rat radically different, right? I would stick with there, so that I don't really think there is such a thing as an ultimate.
And also the amount of vermouth is gonna that you add to a Manhattan is gonna depend on which vermouth and which rye. So if you use like a really uh really like rye-y, kind of rough, like uh, you know, 50% rye like Rittenhouse, which is what I like to use, right? And you also want to use a really kind of like full big kind of like, you know, bomb of a vermouth like Carpano, which I still love, even though there was a kind of an anti-carpano backlash because all of us bartender people like loved it so much for so long, then you would shade back a little bit. You wouldn't do a full two-one. You would pull back a little bit on the on the vermouth.
Whereas, you know, if you were using like you could make an excellent Manhattan with some of the like kind of like lighter, fruitier vermouths like martinelli or one of these things, but you could you those you can do it a full day. So it's really what you like. And I think half of the fun of doing it is like just testing a bunch of different vermouths. They're not that expensive. And even if you don't like it in Manhattan, there's plenty of uses for vermouths other than that.
Like, for instance, like before dinner, why not just have like a little glass of vermouth? I like having a little glass of vermouth. John, do you like having a little glass of vermouth? I do, yeah. Yeah.
Nastasia, do you like a pre-dinner like uh no? Jess, just Rose. Uh no, I had a I had a cocktail last week. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying like when you're in Italy, let's say you're in Italy in the North Vale, you'll have a little glass of something beforehand, right?
Yes, yes. Joe, what about you? You're you a dr well, what are you with drinks? We haven't we never talked about this. Love Manhattan's.
Love Manhattan's? Love Manhattan. Yeah, like very simple old style drinks. Yeah, yeah. Would have hated our bar.
You know what I made on Saturday night? I don't. Why don't you tell me? Uh Bacardi passion fruit with passion fruit puree. Wait, what is a party passion fruit?
What it sounds like. I mean, it's a rum with fake passion fruit in it. But then you added passion fruit puree. You found a passion fruit puree that you enjoy quite a lot. Yeah, you're right.
Um, I don't know, some Spanish brand. But like you get it at a store. Yeah. When you say Spanish, do you mean actually Spanish or do you mean like it's in Spanish? Like, no, I think it's actually Spanish.
Okay. So like from Europe. Mm-hmm. Huh. Interesting.
All right. Uh and it's the yellow one or the or the it's like yellow? Yellow. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
And somehow the real passion fruit rides up over top of the poisonous passion fruit paper. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Yeah.
And they like a synergistic kind of a cinch. Yeah. Real good. And you make it like uh you make it. You pour it over a rock.
Oh my god, Jesus. Well, I mean, then you get like the crunchy passion fruit. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Joe, uh, I have a uh problem with gloopy drinks. I hate. And she knows this. She's just trying. She's not.
I love that you love it. I love that you love it. I like what I like. All right. Uh Nick, did I answer that Manhattan question sufficiently, John?
Is it gonna come off the docket? Deleting right now. All right. I'm trying to before when you would push the button real hard and we all knew the question you had to do. Yeah, I don't like hearing it.
Well, Nastasia hates hearing people type. If you ever have a phone meeting with Nastasia, and God help you if you do, uh I'll ask why who's tap dancing in the Vec. Yeah, of course, Nastasia's the queen of like leaving the radio on in the back, having friends playing violin in the back, all sorts of crazy stuff in the back and stasia's call. But God help you need to wash your hands or type something, then you're the bad person. Yeah.
We we give each other hell on the phone, though. I yell at you about that. You yell at me like, why can't you clean later? Yes, yes. Although I can you hear me when I'm going to the bathroom on the phone?
Oh God. Look. Can you though? God invented the mute button for a reason. So you mute me.
What? Oh. No, that's not the way mute works. That's called hanging up. You're a whatever.
All right. Uh Nick Robertson wrote in via email. Hey, I have a curious question. The bar I work for uses Argonne to help preserve wine bottles for our glass pour menu. Remember when we did that first test at Del Posto years ago with that Argon system with the fancy wines when Jeff Jeff came in and it at the post that we were all seated around and he was pouring single bottles in.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of fun. Yeah. Yeah. Uh the bar I work for uses Argon to help preserve wine bottles for our glass pour menu.
Now this bar is closing to relocate. And would Argon be useful at all to help preserve the integrity of hard alcohol/slash liqueurs. Uh would it do more harm than good? It's not gonna do more harm than good, but it's gonna do a whole lot of nothing, right? On any hard liquor, I wouldn't worry about it.
The one exception would be uh things that are like below about 20%. So like your vermouths. Um most of your Amaros and stuff are gonna be fine as is. I would mainly worry about like your vermouths, and yeah, sure, hit them, cork them and hit them with the thing, and they'll be a little better when you move them over, and it'll it'll uh it'll mean that you won't have to refrigerate them as much. Like, oh, back to the thing on the vermouth question for a minute.
I know it's been deleted already and it's over. However, uh, do refrigerate your vermouth and do um and do, you know, use it fresh. So, like if you're not going to use a lot of vermouth, get the smaller bottles because you just need to use it fast. That's the main problem. Uh when I was a kid and no one used vermouth, I thought vermouth tasted like peanuts, but it was just like oxidized, crappy vermouth that had been sitting around.
So most vermouth is decent if it's fresh. You know, it's they're different. Some are better, some are worse, but you know, freshness is is the key thing there. You know what I do at home nostasia? No.
Uh I put the I pre-mix the vermouth and the and the whiskey, the rye in uh 20-ounce soda bottles, and then I squeeze out all of the air, cap it, throw it in the freezer, and then just mix it with ice water real quick uh at home that you can have instant, no stirring, no nothing. It's good. What kind of cocktail is that? Manhattan. Oh.
I put the bitters in too. But like the the key thing is that in a 20-ounce soda bottle, you can squeeze out all the air so it never oxidizes. And then if you don't water it beforehand, it won't freeze in the freezer either. So you can just you can just you know shake it a little bit because the vermouth will settle over time uh once it's with the liquor, and then you can just pour it into a glass. And I think it's two to one of that booze mix to water.
I think it's two to one. So like two ounces of that booze mix, ounce of water, uh, you know, give it a quick uh stir and should be already at the right temperature, ready to rock and roll. What I'm supposed to have a barbecue on Saturday. What should I make? Uh, what kind of people are they?
Are they more passion fruit uh Bicardi people or are they more Manhattan people? Uh mix. I think look, at a barbecue. It says it's that's a lot of work to do. At a barbecue, honestly, I would get like a bunch of like light, fun looking bottled beers.
And no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not talking about cocktails. I'm talking about grilling. Uh how big's your grill again? We went through this last week.
It's like trough. Three by one. Uh hummel Hummel hot dogs. What's a Hummel hot dog? They're uh Connecticut made hot dogs that I think are the best.
Really? Yeah. Uh best what? Best Connecticut made hot dog? Boom!
Connecticut. Better than Sabret, better than Hebrew National. Better than Sabret is like saying nothing. Okay. So what's what's your favorite hot dog brand?
That's like commercially out there. Uh I forget then I forget the name of it, but that one that we had, I looked it up and I can buy it. The one that we had in Detroit was uh great. It was great. Uh I had one, I bought some from Katz's the other day, and I thought the skin was a little tough when I cooked it, but the one if you have it at Katz's, it's really good.
I mean, Sabret is caseless, right? So brett's not even it's caseless. Is the is the Hummel with a case or no? Yes. All right, so that's half the way to great.
You know what I mean? Like like uh all the good Connecticut hot dog places all serve Hummel. Connecticut has great hot dogs. I I know you said this. Someday we'll do the the Connecticut tour of hot dogs.
I have never had a Connecticut hot dog other than like at the Yankee Doodle, which was like a little lunch place at uh in uh New Haven. But I've never done the Connecticut hot dog. Why don't you describe to us all what the Connecticut hot dog is as opposed to other people's hot dogs? I think for the most part it's pretty much the same. I don't know.
The Hummel has a really good snap. It fries really well, it grills really well and done on the griddle really well. I don't know. That's just like the three hot dog places. I like how they do it differently.
Um but what I think like the one unique Connecticut hot dog topping is this kind of like pepper relish. That was popularized at this place called Blackies and Shesher. Um and yeah, it's just a bunch of peppers that are ground down and then cooked down really hard, and apple cider vinegar and then some other spices in it. But yeah, I don't know. And they're what, they're banana peppers?
No, I think bell peppers. Green b green bell pepper? It looks like confetti. I think it's all of the colors. Huh.
And can you buy this pepper relish? And is it from blackies? You can, yes. Does it honestly taste different from your standard sweet relish? Yes.
Yes. And different from like a pen Dutch Chow Chow. Yes. Bring it, bring it if you're coming. Yeah, I'll try.
Yeah, I'll try and get some. Stas is like put up or shut up. Get some of that. Are you a relish fan, Stas? A little bit.
A little bit on it, yeah. A little bit. A little bit. You know what I like? I like relish, but I really, really, really, really, really just like a boat ton of co of uh of um sauerkraut and a lot of mustard.
Yeah, a lot of mustard. I love has anyone figured out the problem of the bun getting soggy when you put in much much sauerkraut? Do you because you know what's not polite is to put your hands into the sauerkraut at the table and squeeze out the extra juice and then put dry sauerkraut on top of it? He uses a slotted spoon, right? It's still too wet.
I try and squeeze it with the tongs when I grab it with the tongs. For the amount of sauerkraut that I like to put on a hot dog, like I've never had it not soup out. Like when I do it by myself at home, I put it in a towel and I go sh brought in and I squeeze the extra juice out and then I put it on the on the bun. But I don't like when the bun gets pasty. Do you does anyone like when the bun gets pasty?
No. No. What are your guys' feelings on the top split bun versus the side split bun? Doesn't matter. What?
Top split. You like a top split? Is that a Connecticut thing? I don't know. Yeah, like top split.
Joe, side split, top split. I honestly don't know the difference. Um I'm assuming it's something that maybe which is the split you would usually get in a lobster roll. Ah, that's a great question. Yeah.
That's a fantastic question. So if they're buying, like standard Martin's is a side split like a standard American hot dog, but a lot of really good lobster places will use the top split because they don't break open. I like the top split then. Yeah. The good thing about a top split is the way they're cut, they don't hold as much unless you like push it open and push it down.
But when you're lumping crap on top of it, it's got that like shelf above the dog or the meat where you can put stuff, and they don't they don't ever break in half the way a side split does, right, John? Yep. Is that is that why you like it? Yeah, yeah. They're harder to toast if you're uh if you're a diner operator, the old way to do the the side splits is to fully open the side split and put it on the griddle.
And uh you can't really do that with a top split, but oh my god. They're the best lobster place, believe it or not, the best lobster roll I've had in the past eight years is not at the beach, it's at a lake called um Cedar Lake in Chester, Connecticut. I don't know where this guy, he's a teacher during the year, and in the summers, all he does is make lobster rolls at this shack, and it's just like a bunch of lobster with lobster butter that he makes from this stuff, and he just sits there, paints the butter on the top splits, and then tosses like the the, you know, he has the the claw meat separate from the tail meat. He takes the two pieces, tosses them in the lobster butter, puts them on the roll, done. So good.
Cedar Lake Snackshack? Yeah. Very nice, okay. Uh yeah. I mean, I don't know whether it's as good as it was.
I haven't been there in a year and a half, but uh man, we used to just go there all the time. It's not even that expensive. And he would just like load the, load the lobster on the thing. Because for me, I'm I'm all about just lobster and butter on my on my uh on my lobster roll. You guys?
Yes. Agreed, yeah. Yeah. I don't need gussying. You don't need to gussy that thing.
You know? Anytime you gussie, it means you're ripping me off. It means you're not giving me lobster. You could have given me lobster instead of gussying it. Yeah.
Some things just don't need to be messed with. Uh all right. Okay, interesting one in. Uh, I think. I don't know.
Uh David S. Rosenfield wrote in, who uh used to uh work at Blanca back in the day. Remember when Blanca. Did I ever eat there? I went for friends and family.
And then it was impossible to do that. Well, I wasn't invited, right? And then it was impossible. That was back when like I went out. Women and uh like it was like, oh, Dave does a radio show.
And then now, like everyone will have to be like, oh, but we have to invite Nastasia because female power and Hispanic power and all that stuff. What? Really? Yes, yeah. Well, yeah.
Uh good. Uh so anyway, so the uh then that was named after his mom. Remember, so like that was Carlos's mom was Blanca. Yeah. Uh from Panama.
Um, and then Roberta's who's whose mom was Roberta's. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, uh, all right. So I'm reaching out because I recently came across a very bottle, uh very old bottle of back to Nastasia's favorite, Bacardi.
Made uh, so for those of you that aren't aren't familiar, like the Bacardi that we know isn't the original Bacardi. Bacardi is from Cuba. When Castro took over Cuba, uh, he nationalized the Bacardi distilleries. And so then Bacardi, the product, the family, uh, you know, they weren't part of that. They moved uh elsewhere, and so the Bacardi is no longer the Cuban Bacardi.
Okay. I recently ran across a very old bottle of Bacardi made in Cuba that was buried, I mean, like probably not literally buried, right? Probably not literally buried, buried in my late grandfather's wine cellar. It was either underfilled or lost a lot to evaporation. Weirdly, weirdly, the juice is a pinkish red color.
Any ideas what may have caused this? All right, so and then uh, you know, they sent me a picture of that also next to a picture of very old uh bowls, um, bowls Geneva. Uh so anyway, I don't know a lot about this, but my old partner at um existing conditions, Greg Boehm from Cocktail Kingdom, is a collector of uh collector and drinker of vintage spirits and vintage cocktail books. So I sent him the picture, uh, and he says to me, uh, hi, that that amount of uh angel share loss in the bottle is about the most I would tolerate before I would consider it not potable. The color is a bit of a problem.
It is probably oro, uh with you know, that style of uh of um rum, which should be slightly darker, but might have uh that but that color might have come from also partially from cork contamination. That bottle appears to be from about 1938, but I would need a clearer photo to be sure. Then I said to him, I said, Well, Greg, thanks. Uh what would happen if it had lost more? Uh was it just not enough alcohol to hold the flavor anymore?
And he goes, good question. And this is, he didn't elaborate further. He goes, good question. Vintage spirits drinkers consider uh that a bot that a bottle that has lost more than 10% of its volume to be dangerous to drink. Why dangerous?
I don't know. Maybe it's because it means that if it loses more than that, it could be contaminated the other way. I don't know. Does that make sense to you, Sas? Not really.
John, does it make any sense to you? Joe, anything? Any thoughts? Anyway, that's what he says, and he drinks a lot of it. He goes.
Also, during the war, World War II, I guess, or maybe the I guess. I think they mean when anyone says the war, it's World War II. Really? Mm-hmm. Okay.
Even nowadays? Yeah, I think so. Even though we've been in a war for the past 20 years. Yeah. Like, all right.
Also, during the war, there was a cork shortage and metal closures were used. In that case, the color could come from a little bit of rust. All right. So that's the interest that's the I thought that was interesting, John. Yeah, definitely.
Is that answered? Covered and smothered for you, John? Yep. Hit the All right. Uh from Bricks Percentage via Instagram.
Uh, do you have a recommended source for glycerin for use in drinks? Uh, do you have any podcast videos or any published info on your use of it? I don't know about publish. I mean, I talk about it a lot. Use vegetable glycerin, and it's a little bit unfortunate because uh some people, when they say glycerin, they mean mono and diglycerides.
So just a very quick version. So Nastasia, like Nastasia's playing a game that requires her to match numbers rather than listen to the radio show that she's thinking. Yes, I am. For those of you that like are my age out there, I encourage you to use the term zero tasking. Everyone says that they multitask, really they zero task.
Everyone does many things. Everything behind everything done. John, why are you making faces? Dave, you're like one of the kings of multitasking. I don't multi-zero task.
If I um I either do one thing well or many things poorly. Got it. So then you're doing many things poorly. Uh or not, or not at all. Yep, true.
Not at all. Uh oh no, what do you mean? Like I have a bunch of things I need to do, but really I only do one thing. This is why, like when people come to me and they're like, When you like, why haven't you worked on my problems? Like, when I work on your problem, I will work on your problem 100%.
But I'm not going to work on it even 0%. You're going to lose the game. Just stop playing. It's just spelling. It's literally just spelling.
Then you're going to you're going to lose it. You could spell it. How do you spell celibate? See, I told you you would lose. I don't know.
I starts like celery. Celibit. L E B A T. C E L E I. Oh, I, okay, then I can't.
It's really it's good, Sus. It's good. Impressive start to the new studio. Giving it the new go, trying to be more engaged in the radio program. I'm feeling it.
How do you spell celibate? I heard they got a new computer program. I heard there's a new computer program that can be crosswords. I can do the computer. N-A-S-C.
All right. So uh vegetable glycerin. So glycerin, aka glycerol, is the backbone of a triglyceride. So mono and diglyceride. So there's a fatty acid, three fatty acids on a glycerol molecule.
That's a that's a fat molecule, right? So uh if you take one of those off and it's no longer a triglyceride, it's a diglyceride, you take two of those off, and those it's a monoglyceride. Those things are emulsifiers. Glycerol or glycerin, as we call it by itself, is just uh you can you it it's like slightly sweet, kind of adds body and mouthfeel and thickness, and you can add it, don't add too too much, and just get it, it's vet get vegetable glycerin, right? That's what you get.
There are various differences among the ones. We once did a side-by-side tasting of the ones that you could get by the gallon on Amazon, but just get one of those ones by the gallon. You're gonna use it in such small percentages that the very minor taste difference you have between them shouldn't make that much of a difference. And you're using like literally like a couple of grams per per liter. Anytime your sugar drops below about eight percent, or in a soda, anytime your sugar drops below 10%, uh anytime your alcohol level drops below uh drops below about 11% in a carbonated drink or even a non-carbonated drink, consider adding a little bit of glycerin and it'll body it up.
So it's really good for low uh alcohol drinks and um for uh low sugar sodas. Was that was that a good enough answer, John? Oh delete, delete. All right. Uh from misplaced enthusiasm via Instagram.
I recently made the David Kinch pastrami. I haven't seen David Kinch in a long time. I'm just trying to imagine some. What was your your famous David Kinch phrase? Can't remember.
I can't, we can't like we can't remember. Uh so like David Kinch, he has three Michelin stars, right? So he finally got three stars. I don't know whether he still has, but he had three Michelin stars. But the the hilarious thing about Kinch is is that he always looks kind of sad, right?
Like you're like, hey, they just gave you three Michelin stars. Okay. You know what I mean? Like he just looks, he looks like he just, it looks like that wave just hit him real hard, like broke his board in half, and he hit the ground. He came up and he's fine.
He's fine, but it's like, you know, anyway. So that was in the phrase. I I didn't know, uh I don't know whether it was about kinch, but we were talking about people chasing stars. He got his three stars. And the phrase was wake up and smell the red Zeppy.
And it has no meaning. Has no meaning. John, does that have any meaning? No, not that. No, no.
But like it was like it was will you ever tell that story of when what happened in the meeting with our old investor? No. Really? No. No, I won't.
No, I won't tell that story. But there was a lot of yelling. All right, listen, Pete. I won't tell the story, but I will say this. Like, um, when you are uh dealing with someone who is partially reasonable, right?
Then you should not put them into the part of them that is unreasonable, right? So we were in a negotiation, and I thought I was being reasonable, and then someone accused us of not uh taking care of someone who was VIP, basically doing bad customer service, and then c started calling us that we weren't paying attention to what we were doing. And Nastasi and I had literally spent every waking moment trying to make sure that everyone had gotten their fulfillments on the Sears alls and had personally mailed the one that we were being accused of not mailing. Personally, I lost it. Is that not what you're talking about?
No, I'm talking about uh Oh, uh then I'll leave. That one. Yeah. Uh can't talk about that. It's so good.
We're it's so good. It's just there's no way. Like if we if the people would have to pay like a hundred dollars a month on Patreon to hear this story. It's too good. Yeah, we're gonna do like we're gonna do like the Patreon thing where you guys, like those of you that sign up.
Hey, by the way, this is a good idea. It's a good idea. I stand by it, as they say, and I think you should leave. Here's what we're gonna do, people. Like, we're gonna announce, and if you're hearing this, you already know about it, probably.
We're gonna announce uh a Patreon thing where you're gonna pay us a certain amount of money per month. We're gonna give you like the call in number here. You're gonna have an extension that allows you to call in during the show for the Patreon users. Also, you'll get the show live and early, and then we're gonna post a show for people who, you know, because you know, we're we're not about trying to withhold forever, right? We're gonna post on Friday, I think, right, S.
Yeah. Yeah. So, like, if you want to between Tuesday and Friday, and you want to call in and get special bonuses, you'll pay the $5 a month or whatever it is. But here's what since you're hearing this, why don't you guys tell us what you want out of a Patreon, and then we can add those things. Like a jump rope.
Nobody wants a jump rope. Everybody hates jumping rope. I don't know. Okay. What's worse?
Running or jumping rope? Uh, jumping rope. Yeah? Yeah. Joe, what do you hate more?
Running or jumping rope? Jumping rope. Yeah, John? Yep, jumping rope. That's that.
Yeah. Yeah. And there's nothing else you can use a jump rope for. I mean, what are you gonna use? As a garot?
What are you gonna use it for? Put up your teepee? What the hell are you gonna use it for? I oh, I made a fire in my teepee and it works well. Good.
Yeah. Got rid of the nest? Yes. Got rid of the nest. There was a gooseness.
Nastasia loves the geese until it decides to uh use her teepee as a windbreak. And did Dax get the birds out of his bonsai? Oh, so did I talk about that on air? I don't think I'm not. Okay, yeah.
So a pigeon, I live in New York, pigeon, dove, flies into Dax's bonsai container outside, which is like I built I built out of metal a bonsai holder to hold it outside so it could overwinter outside. Literally, all the outdoor space that I have access to in my life is about six inches by six inches, like a little piece of aluminum that I've illegally screwed to the outside of our window. Pathetic. Bird comes in, sits on his tree, plops an egg right next to his bonsai, and then Dax is like, yo. And then the bird flies away.
Jeez. Right? And then leaves the egg there. And I'm like, well, now you're its mom. Now you're its mom.
And so like I bring like an oven in, I'm like, here, you set this on proof. We can incubate this freaking egg, you know. And Jen's like, no, the bird might come back. I'm like, bird's not going to come back. So like apparently it takes a couple days sometimes.
Bird comes back, looks at the egg, goes, nah, and takes off again. So there's still this egg here. I think it's probably dead by now. We could have incubated that, and Dax could have been the Dax. I mean, I think it's it's way late because I, you know, this is a time of year when if you look at the ground a lot, you see dead pigeons, babies.
Yeah. In your neighborhood, yeah. Yeah. So I've been seeing the, you know, the babies that fell out of the nest, or the, you know, the ones just like, I can fly. No, you can't.
No, you can't. Uh so anyway, so yeah, we almost had a baby, baby bird, and Dax could have uh baby birded that thing. Imagine. Actually, baby birding a baby bird. You at one point we did an event in at a person's townhouse, and they wanted you to make like classic cocktails in addition to three specialty cocktails.
Remember that that we brought? And we didn't have the tools or the uh product to do that. Sounds right. But they were paying us a lot of money. There are they had paid, they never pay us a lot of money.
They weren't paying portion of the origin item or something. Right, right, yeah, yeah. Somebody else got paid. And you had said if Jesus Christ came down and wanted you to baby bird feed him. Right?
Is that the phrase? That sounds like something I would say. You wouldn't do it. I would I said I wouldn't do it anymore. Yeah.
Uh you know, I'm not gonna argue about that because that is totally something that I could say. I would probably say it like uh slightly more animated. Angry and slightly more curse words. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh anyway. That was when what's her name was famously baby birding her her kid uh on on the social media. Ooh. Some actress was was like like well known grossly babybirding her her kid. I don't know.
Yeah. Anyway. For those of you that don't know, baby birding is you chew the food for your kid and spit it into their mouth. It's dag nasty. It's gross.
Um back to misplace enthusiasm. I recently made the David Kinch pastrami. So I'm trying to imagine David Kinch with that, like he's like, I found this pastrami in the ocean. It's like coming out. You know what I mean?
Yeah. That David Kinch look. Yeah. His food's very good, by the way. Manresa uh is very good.
And they did something here in New York, didn't they, John? Didn't they do the Chef's Club? Well, not Chefs Club, Intersect by Lexus or whatever. Yeah, yeah. What does that even mean?
Intersect by Lexus. Well, sponsored by Lexus. What does that mean? Intersect what? Who cares?
Don't give them free advertising. Go on. You know who liked Lexus? It is uh Biggie Smalls. Uh I recently made uh the pastrami once with short rib and once with with uh brisket.
Well, look, you can make up a stromaloid. You can make up a stromaloid with short rib, right, John? But you can't make up pastrami with short rib because that's not what pastrami is made out of. Am I wrong about this? You can make something that tastes like a pastrami, but it's not really pastrami unless it's the unless it's the brisket.
No? I don't know. I never thought about that. Is pastrami the end product or is that the process? I mean, I think it's the product.
It's like it's like it's like when someone says I'm making pastrami locks, what they mean is they're putting a lot of pepper on the outside of the locks, uh uh on the outside of the fish. No one's saying, here's your pastrami. You're like, no, you're not. You're having me friggin' salmon, right? I would say like pastrami short ribs.
I wouldn't say pastrami. Yeah, okay, that's fair. I'm pretty sure Nastasi doesn't care. What do you think, Joe? I don't care for pastrami, honestly.
Really? Yeah. Corn beef? Uh I eat corn beef, yes. Tongue sandwich.
Oof. I haven't had the right way of uh preparation, I guess, because I don't like it. A little too chewy for me. Liverwurst. No innards.
Uh I love liverwurst. Oh god, I love liverwurst. I'm surprised you don't like liverwurst, does. Yeah. It seems like something you would like.
My mom ate a lot of it from a can. So maybe it's you know what's gross from a can? Vienna sausage. I love it. It's like they're real pasty.
It's like, how do they get that meat that pasty? What do they do? All right, back to kinch. Uh and I need to cook the okay. Next time I I think I need to cook the brisket longer because it wasn't quite as tender as I wanted.
You know who says tender nicely? Is uh Jacques Papin. Thunder, thunder. Uh it wasn't quite as as tender as I wanted. Anyway, I was wondering if you had any recommendations on other things to cure with prague powder number one, aka instacure number one, aka a mixture of salt, pink food coloring, and sodium nitrite.
Not nitrate. The nitrate one is the long-acting one that you should really only use on hams. The nitrite, the answer is you could use it on a lot of stuff. You should try um if you're gonna do traditional smoking, cold smoking on something like a salmon, you should use that instead of regular salt. Uh if you uh use it to make uh make some cured uh do some salumi.
You know, make you make you some uh do you do you hate it when people pronounce it super sad stuzz? No, I don't care. Why don't you say it the way that like is some fancy way you say it? No, I don't know. Salt is that like uh if you like do something like that, or um even just like a quick cure on uh on pork.
Here's something that people don't think about. If you if you're gonna do like rip shin or pork chops, you can pre-cut your pork chops into kind of like uh serving sizes, then salt it with prags from both sides, and it'll cure through from both sides a lot faster than if you're trying to do like an actual like German-style ription where you're trying to cure all the way through the meat. So, like anything like that where you want that cured color, but just be aware that if anything that it touches is going to look cured. And so you ha it ha you can't be halfway, because if it's halfway, then people are like, this one's not cooking, it's rad. And then and then you get into into into problems.
But there's a lot of fun uses for it. Uh, just don't uh use it as regular table salt. Um that would be a bad idea. John, you got any good uh instacure uh not off the top of my head, but there's a Facebook group I'm a part of called the salt cured pig, which every post has to have a recipe, so I'd go poking around there and then uh like that's the rule? Yeah.
If they don't if you don't do that, they take the post down. Um even if you're responding, if you're like, I disagree, please. Oh no, if you're I mean, if you're responding in the comments, that's fine. But if you're posting a picture of your product, you have to include the recipe and process and all that stuff. Okay.
Um and then also the Michael Roman Brian Pulson book has a lot of charcuterie recipes. I mean, of you know, both instacured number one and two. Um Yeah. Really, there's not a lot of use for two unless you're gonna do the hams. Hey, you know what's a delicious product going back to salmon in my head?
When was the last time you guys were at Rust and Daughters? Summer. Summer? Yeah. They make a product called hot and cold salmon salad.
Have you guys had this? No. It's so it's like, you know the kipper, the hot smoke kipper? It's like that hacked up. And then also some of like the uh like Nova hacked up and like mixed up, I think bound maybe with a little bit of mayonnaise.
That's uh maybe not, even though maybe just bound by itself. That stuff's real good. Real good. The hot and cut the hot and cold smoked. Next time you guys go to Rust and Daughters, and if you've never been, smack yourself and then go.
Uh get the hot and cold. The hot and cold is the money. All right. Uh did I answer the uh the kinch problem? Yes.
Yep. I didn't hear the keystroke, John. There you go. Uh Peter Flanagan wrote in via email. Hey, TP crew, TP issues.
We're the teepee issues crew now. Yeah. No more issues. Nastasia had her friend murder the goose. No, he moved the nest.
Okay. Moved, moved. One person's aggressive move is another person's. Very gentle. Uh-huh.
Very gentle. How would you know? You didn't even want to look. I watched. I watched.
From how far away? Six feet. Oh. So you could get within six feet of the nest? Were the geese there complaining at the thing?
And did they give you this to hiss? No, they just watched. Just watched. Yeah. Huh.
I hate geese. Uh really enjoyed the cooking basics rundown with uh with your with your boy, John. Uh in in that vein, and considering the small spaces many of you have inhabited, do you have any suggestions for pot slash pan racks? I know this has been broached in episode 315. God, 315.
Man. Man. Man, oh man. Uh per the transcripts. But well, Dave's disdain for the all-clad uh rack offering is clear.
The path to DIY and Nirvana is shrouded with word salad mystery. If you could revisit this topic within the current two-minute threshold, it would be much appreciated. Thanks, Peter. For a small space, oven. You're God damn.
You know, you really just gone. It's not at all. If you store your pots in your oven, why don't you just store your head in your oven? What? It's like if you don't have any space, then don't have an oven.
Throw it away. Like it's no, because then when you got to use the stuff, you take it out. Well, that's what happens, Dave. That is what happens. But that they're asking, I think, for a good solution.
And like that is not it. Like it look what I always do is I go, there's a whole bunch of what's called um display stores that sell things for store displays, and they sell chrome pipes in them. And the the you can just you can also do it with just with like black pipe from the home depot, but it's just a little bit dirtier. And you get S hooks from also from the Home Depot. They're just like chain S hooks.
And you put them, like slide them over the chrome pipe. You have to go get some of the chrome pipe, bring a piece of it with you to Home Depot if you want to go really cheap DIY, because some of them fit, some of them don't, some of them have to be bent a little bit. And these display places make flanges and they make little um like elbows. And you just m make a rack and you you bolt it into your ceiling and your wall, and then you hang all of your stuff above your oven. Above your oven.
Same. Are you standing under your freaking oven, Stas? There's no, you're not. You're not. Your oven is here.
Your pans are above your thing. There's no I have done with the same problem. There's cabinets. If you have cabinets above your oven. Then you need to take those cats.
Anyone that has cabinet above their oven, why don't you just burn the house down? Why don't you burn the house down now? Oh no, a cabinets above ovens, unless you have no range, is the dumbest thing I've heard of in a long time. Oh well, even with the range is stupid. Mine the door, the door to my cabinet warped, I had to take it down, so now I just have this open cabinet.
Cabinet doesn't belong above an oven. Cabinet doesn't belong above an oven, no matter how big or small your kitchen is, cabinet doesn't above uh belong above an oven. What belongs above an oven is the ceiling or a hood. Right? For safety reasons.
And then what are you storing in a cabinet that's right above your freaking range? That's the only place for cabinets. Yeah, money bags. You guys are jokers. You guys are serious jokers.
Like all right, hang it above like what do you have? Uh like No, I I I do hate it, but it is it is the only place I can do it. It's unfortunately where like all my basic pantry items are. Like I have my salt yep, I have my salts, my oils, my vinegars, like and first of all, if there is a cabinet above your range, it's six inches deep. Because it extends all the way over your oven.
No, but it goes out. Like two thirds of the way. Yeah. Yeah. You went like this.
That's eight inches, what you just did. It's like this. It's definitely no, it's like this. Because I have foil, I have all the things. And it's where the um panel with the so when you boil pasta, yeah, you're boiling it directly into your plastic wrap.
Yes, yeah. Uh this is this is filthy and garbage. I I remember you were trying to get me to eat something and I wasn't eating it. I didn't look over there. I was busy trying to get my computer work the time that we did the thing.
So I have not I have not cooked there. But uh assuming that you have space above your oven, that's where you put it. The only problem with having it above your oven is uh you need to have it in a place that isn't where you stand because it will hit your head otherwise, right? So what I did when I lived in Columbia housing, which is smaller than any of the housing that any that I've ever seen you live in, Nastasia, so don't give me money bags. What I did there was I built a an 18-inch by 18-inch uh uh countertop because uh we had no countertop at all, and I put it like into like the walking area because I'd rather not walk and I needed that.
And then I hung the pots directly above that 18 by 18 inch thing. I created my own counter because I don't want to live like a jerk, even when I don't have any money and I'm living in graduate school housing and can't like you know do anything because I'm renting. So there are solutions for people who can't. I've I I've I tried, like I've tried to do your solution, and there's no good place in that place for it, really. But you also don't want to mess with the place.
I do, I do totally mess with it. But I tried your solution, and I there was how could you have tried it? Bada bar and with the S hooks, and I was like, there is no Well, if you have a cabinet there, you can't do it. No, but I try to put it like in a place where I thought nobody would walk, and people like Yeah, you can't it has to be above a work surface so that your head, so you're never trying to walk under it. You can't have pot hanging.
Here's another reason, people why you can't do it that way. Because if it's if it's in a place that you're walking in, that means it has to clear your head, but now you have to reach up and get it. Like the height of the pots has to be such that any person like who's going to use them can easily reach up and get them. So clearly they need to hang low enough for you to be able to grab them. Right?
Yeah. Yeah. So it has to hang low over a work surface. It can't be in the middle of your space. It doesn't work.
The problem with hanging it over your uh oven, to be honest, is that uh when grease goes up, it gets on the outside of the pots. That's the main problem. So it is better if you have it over like uh a work surface, like over a cutting board area. But I uh I don't have the space for it, stuff. So I have to hang it over my oven.
In my old place, I hung it above my sink, which was amazing. Because then they just drip onto your sink. Yeah and my stove was uh in the other place. That was the best. That was amazing.
But you know, you can't we can't all can't. If you have a styling thing once, I don't think I'll ever have a kitchen as good as my last apartment's kitchen again. Unless I unless unless our next product does really well and we make some serious Munaki. Or if anyone wants to buy the Sears all. Oh, yeah, by the way, we're on Shopify, people.
You can buy it on Shopify. No, you can go to SearsL.com and buy it, which is Oh yeah. So you don't know that you're buying it from Shopify, but that's what you're doing. Uh all right. So is that properly answered there?
Yep, satisfied. All right, by the way, for those of you that expected, since this is May 11th, to A be hearing this live and B to have Pierre Chom on this show. Uh, since we're still negotiating how this thing's gonna come out live and how the RSS is gonna work, we've pushed Pierre off to uh he the next time he can do it is in July, but we we wanted to give him like the fully operational battle station kind of a situation, right? Right, guys? Yep.
So he's coming on then. So part of this question from uh Isabella De Giulio is for Pierre, if I'm gonna save that. Uh she's asking about uh netatou, which is I he just sent me some in the mail. Well, we won't talk about it. Although, how do you like this word, ready?
Parquia big loboso. You like that? That's good, right? I wonder whether this parquia has big lobes. It's a leg, it's a leg a legume tree.
Anyway, we'll deal with it later. Um have I made savory cornbread? Yeah. What do you mean savory? You mean with zero sugar?
You mean southern style? What are we talking about here? What do you guys think this means, savory cornbread? Maybe zero sugar, yeah. Zero sugar?
Yeah. Uh made savory cornbread. Is there a trick to maybe subbing for no dairy? I saw Superiority Burger has soy milk and white wine vinegar in their coin cornbread. Uh have you read his cornbread recipe?
No. You're not much of a cornbread person, right? No. Uh I have seen some with egg and some savory and some sweet variations. I can eat minimal uh dairy, but lots of butter will cause trouble.
Uh you don't really need dairy in cornbread, to be honest. Uh the it's there, it's softening it a little bit, but like old school cornbread, the the really the structure in cornbread is coming from the eggs. So if you're not gonna use eggs, then you have to add some structure. But uh and the the reason the vinegar is there is I I'm assuming they're mimicking buttermilk, and so you need some acidity. Uh, but you could probably use coconut milk, you could probably use soy milk, you could probably use use anything.
It's probably good if it has a little bit of fat because that's gonna add some tenderizing to it. I'm assuming you're not using skin milk if you're using it. And um, you know, it's not like the buttermilk that we use has a lot of emulsifiers. It's really just a pH unit. So you should be, you should be fine.
Um and then the second more complicated question is in terms of ramen, I have been reading on how to make a good ramen. I've been reading in how to make good ramen that it comes down to mainly the fat you use to appreciate the noodle more. So like, John, I'm sure, I'm sure Nastasia, you don't care that much about ramen, right? No. Joe?
Not a really you you weren't part of the ramen revolution? No. You weren't going tonkatsu all down the block. I know John is a ramen. I know John likes the ramen fest.
Are you a tonkatsu ramen guy? You like an emulsified tonkatsu ramen rub? Do you like the little chunks of fat in it? No, not particularly. So you don't like it when they hack up little chunks of fat, but you do like an emulsified.
Yeah. So basically the the like I I think what you're getting at here is that uh is that in these kinds of like traditional tonkatsu broths, they're, and there's plenty of not just Japanese, there's Chinese broths that are like this. They're boiled for a long time, and the boiling emulsifies the fat in. So it's the exact kind of opposite of a traditional uh stock. And your question here is how do you do that uh vegetarian or or fish or or you know, and it's I don't think it's gonna be that hard.
I think what you're gonna want is there's no gel. The problem with those is they have a lot of gelatin. And it you're gonna have to mimic the mouthfeel of gelatin. So you can emulsify fat into it quite easily using ticloid, uh, which is a mixture of gum arabic and xanthan. Uh and if you're gonna do it on your own, like I wouldn't use uh, I wouldn't use uh too much Xanthan because the Xanthan's gonna make it kind of goopy.
But the gum Arabic isn't really gonna thicken it, but it's gonna add more body and mouth feel. So like a like a little bit of ticoloid plus extra gum arabic is gonna up the, it's gonna allow it to emulsify to emulsify the fat in. And it's also going to um, it's also going to uh add some viscosity and mouthfeel. Just don't add too much. I wouldn't add a thickener like guar because that's just gonna make it thick and it's more about uh uncuous mouthfeel and less about thickness.
Now, if you want to add those little fat particles and you want to do that from a vegetarian standpoint, uh I would take a look at a recipe I did for what's called um pican yokan, uh which is uh was an agar set uh pecan butter and oil, but instead I would modify it, I would use gel an because uh low acyl gel an because it doesn't melt. Uh and then you can it you can emulsify uh into into liquid of your choice, veg broth. You can emulsify in fat with again with a ticoloid powder, add uh gel and gum, boil it, set it in thin sheets, chop that gel an into little chunks, and it'll be fat chunks that you can throw into your soup and mimic those fat pieces. Last but not least, I'm assuming you know how to make the broth taste good. I mean, the answer is always gonna be some form of umami.
I was sent a vegetarian umami machine uh a while ago. Do you remember guys who sent that to me, John? Do you remember who sent that? Oh. Oh, oh, oh, let me.
But it's it's called yondu, uh vegetable umami, and I have to say it's good. I have to say it's pretty good. I like it. It is, yes. I do enjoy it.
Yeah. I have one quick follow-up to that. So Peter Kim once told me that he once made a ramen broth by, I think it was pressure cooking, an entire chicken until it was like completely falling apart and then just blending that entire thing, like bones, everything right into the water, you know, slash stock that was made. Is that something that would be good? Not like necessarily for this, but I mean, I think it depends on on what you do.
I mean, I think to me, like uh like there's a certain amount of boiling that I'm happy with, and then I don't like I like emulsified stocks. I don't like uh like calcium in my stocks. Okay. And I also uh uh I don't I actually I like stocks that are like fairly reduced, but I don't like like oil slicks that's set into gelatin on my lips. You know what I mean?
Yeah, I I like I find that you can go too far with those like hyper uncuous stocks. Um I don't know. Now listen, uh Alexander um Alexander uh Tailgart wrote in and they have a question that is for the 17th of May celebration. So maybe we'll just answer that one separately since we don't know if we're gonna be that's next week. So it's gonna be over by then.
So we'll try to get uh his answered in a different way. And uh this is our second episode at Rockefeller Center. Uh newsstand studios at uh Rockefeller Center. I guess I don't know what we're gonna say in the future, but follow at at Rockefeller Center on Instagram at Rock Center NYC on Twitter, follow us uh at Cooking Issues and what else? That's it.
That's it. See you next time. Cooking issues.
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