Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Earl, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from News Fan Studios at Rockefeller Center here as usual with Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How you doing, Stas? Good. Good.
Good? Doing well? Yeah? Yeah. Got in the booth.
Joe Hazen. How you doing, Joe? I'm doing great. How are you? Yeah, doing well.
Hey, I hear you do a decent uh me impression. Really? Yeah. I've I I mean I hear that's what I hear. Can you I like that?
I like that. That's like a mix of me and like uh uh like Grover, a cooking monster or something. That's good. Stretching my throat. Appreciate that.
And uh we have uh for the last time in a while, actually, and we'll talk about that later. He's not going anywhere permanently, people. We got uh John here, your your favorite customer service representative. How are you doing, John? Doing great, thanks.
Good to be back in the studio. Yeah, nice, yeah. Back in New York. And for longtime uh listeners of uh cooking issues, we have special guests in the studio today. And they'll come over and wave into the video feed at some point.
Because we right now we're baby steps, right, Stas. Right now we can just have the picture of you and I up, but eventually we'll be able to do this. Anyway, we have Jackie Molecules! How you doing? I'm great.
I showed up late today just to pay you back for all the years of you being late. I know it's rough. I people, people, people. For those of you that are on the Patreon, we appreciate it. If you're listening live, you're on the Patreon.
I was sitting here, Joe, back me up. I was sitting here in my seat, mic pointed at my at my face at at noon on the dock, correct? You were here. I was here. You were here.
Uh was anyone else here? Just me and you. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
How times have changed. Hey, listen, I've always felt whatever. I'm not gonna listen. If you're interested in listening to this uh live, then go and even if not, you need to like join our new RSS feed. Go to uh go to Patreon.com.
I'm I'm told that the kids no longer know what a backslash versus a forward slash is. You just say slash. Slash. There's only one. There's only one slash with the hat and Brett's right.
Guns and roses. Thank you for picking that up. Yeah. Who is by the way? Apparently, Slash is friends with Buckethead.
Huh. No beef there, huh? I don't think there's any Buckethead slash beef now. That's good. For those of you that don't know who Buckethead is, what's wrong with you?
How do you not know who Buckethead is? Good question. Right? I mean, like, how do you how do you for the last like what is it, 20 years now? Walk around with a with a with a KFC bucket on your head and like that, like whatever else he's wearing, and not you know, make an impression, right?
I have to say, I don't really like any of Buckethead's albums, but I appreciate Buckethead. What about you? Who listens to I don't know. I mean, I know of Buckethead. And you know what?
I'll say this. Anytime somebody's played me something from Buckethead, I'm like, you know what? That's pretty good. I mean, but I I don't know who seeks out Buckethead albums. I mean, I I think everyone can agree Buckethead, good musician, great musician.
Sure, but I mean, not the stuff when you're like, oh, I need to get some work done. Let's listen to Buckethead. I mean, name one song. I can't. Exactly.
But but like, Joe, what about you? What uh what what are your feelings? I can't name a song either. No, but what do you mean like do you have the same general feelings we have about the buckethead? I have no interest in Buckethead.
Wow. What about do you but you like fried chicken? Yes, I love fried chicken. All right. Okay, okay.
See, for me, I have different categories of music that I like to listen to. Like, I'm like uh I have the the 3 a.m. I'm about to pass out and I still need to do a lot of welding music. That's like ministry, or sometimes like James Brown. You know what I mean?
I have the I'm driving and I don't want to get into a car accident music. That's like, I don't know, like James Taylor. I don't know. You know what I mean? Like a different different.
Imagine getting into a car accident while listening to James Taylor. Oh my god. Oof. Oh my God. That would be terrible, right?
Really melancholic, yeah. Okay, I'm sure Nastasia thinks about this all the time. Do you think about it? I'm guarantee you think about this, and we've never discussed this. Ready?
Yeah. All right. I have a feeling that you and I are exactly the same like this. Uh every once in a while I'm listening to a song, and I think about what if something horrible happened to me right now and this song would be ruined forever. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. You think about that, right? Yeah. Uh-huh. All right.
By the way, for those of you that are on our Patreon, the call-in number is 917-410-1507. That's 917-410-1507. What do you think? That's a good way to put it. 410 1507?
Not 1507. What kind of idiot says that? 1507. 1507. Sounds like uh like a like your first apartment when you when you you got your first apartment.
Yeah. How do people find roommates, by the way, nowadays? How does that how does that work? I don't know. Like, let's say if my son needed to find a roommate, how's that work?
I don't know. All right. It's gotta be an app for it. Yeah. Oh god.
Yeah. Gotta ask for everything now. Yeah. No God. Uh before we get into it, just so you just so you know, uh, we're recording this on the hundredth uh anniversary of the uh Tulsa massacre, which unbelievably, John, I first learned about.
I don't know how much you knew about it beforehand, but that was my first time too. What's that? It was only three years ago, right? Yeah. It was only three years ago.
Two years ago, maybe two years ago, two or three years ago. Uh, we got a tour uh by uh John Franklin, who's the the grandson of a survivor of the of the of the massacre, and whose father is a famous historian uh at the uh Namac Museum in uh in DC. And I couldn't believe that the my entire life, all of the classes I've ever taken on American history, and there have been plenty, right? Uh I'd never known about it. I'm assuming that kids are taught this now, right?
Hopefully. What about you guys? What about the what about the three of you guys? Have you guys heard about this growing up? Did you no?
Can you believe that? Yeah. I mean, I can believe it, unfortunately. I mean, but can you believe a an entire neighborhood was fire bombed and no Oh, that I can't believe no. No, no record.
Anyway, so uh didn't want to just gloss over that we're recording that today uh uh on that day. Anyways, uh so the other news is uh, like I said, John is not gonna be here for about a month, right, John? Yeah, like three, three and a half weeks. Yeah, so why don't you you want to tell people what you're doing? Yeah, on Monday, I am leaving for Italy.
I'm gonna go to Rome for a couple of days, spend a day or two in Naples, and a day or two in Pompeii, and then two weeks in Sicily. Um so if anybody has food recommendations or drink recommendations or things like that, please send them to me. Wait, wait, wait, wait. But you're staying how long in Pompeii? One or two days.
Isn't that yeah, Pompeii's like a one and done, isn't it? I think so, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of good food around there, but I mean there are a lot of a lot of good places around Pompeii. But I mean, I mean, you could you go see where the people got incinerated and then you know? Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, it's gonna be pretty cool to look at all that, you know, archaeological digs and see what uh what's there. Yeah, Sas, you ever done the Vesuvius? Mm-hmm. What do you think about it? I thought it was fun.
Was Pompeii a one and done? Yeah. Yeah. All right. You know what?
Like, oh, I'm not gonna get into it. Anyway, so for those of you that don't know John personally, here's a good reason to be nice to John and get to know John personally. Ain't nobody research food for trips like John does. When I told John uh, you know, right before the pandemic, I was like, hey John, uh I'm going to uh I'm going to Belgium. Uh you got any good places?
He sent me a 24 page typed manuscript, city by city, category by category, name of place, links, what to get there and what with a very heavy, very heavy uh what's it called? Um well, no, very heavy uh like uh like layered towards food, but also like you know, John's not opposed to a UNESCO World Heritage Site, right? No, yeah, big fan. Yeah, you know, I set up the the tables, you know, and the leftmost column, it's like the day that I'm there, then the next column, it's like the sites I want to see, and then the next column break it down by all the restaurants that are around that site. So like that if I'm around that site and I get a little hungry, there's a couple places right nearby, and then the column next to that I put what deep there.
Yeah, but it's like it's like snack, snack lunch, snack, snack dinner. Yep. You know what I mean? So he's like, go here. He's like, you need to go.
So it you know, i if you're doing uh Brussels, he's like, you need to go here for the speckaloos and then here for the waffle, and then you need to go here. You're like boop blah blah here for the tiny shrimp. You know about the tiny shrimp, right? Talk about the talk we have we talked about this on here, John? About the about your you you having to rake up the tiny shrimp.
Go give me some tiny shrimp. Yeah, so they're called Covet Gris. Um, and speaking of UNESCO recognized things, fishing for them is a UNESCO like recognized and tangible cultural heritage practice. So in the on the Belgian seaside near Ostande and the Han, um, just you know, right across from the UK, you can see it from from one side to the other. But they take these big, I think they're Clydesdale horses, and they essentially like rake through the shallow waters for these little tiny gray shrimp that are in there.
And so as a kid, when I'd go visit my grandmother, we would do, you know, my brother, sister and I, we would uh go out there with our little nets and kind of go through it by hand and bring them back to our grandmother. She would peel them for what seemed like forever. I mean, these things were tiny, maybe the you know, a little bit longer than a fingernail. Um, so yeah, my grandma was shelling away, and then we'd cook them, toss them in mayo, and then put them uh in a hollowed out tomato essentially. Yeah, the the uh the the problem area there is the tomato, right?
I mean, I had it, shrimp was great, all that tomato was complete garbage. You know what I mean? Because they're putting it into a tomato in like when was I there? February or something like that. And you know, just saying that but it that that's the thing.
Like I I told you guys about Booker, didn't I? Did I tell you guys about Booker and Tomatoes? No. So my son Booker eats so much tuna that he's gonna go full like Jeremy Piven, like, you know, Mercury poisoning. Yeah, for those of you that don't know, Jeremy Piven, who I think is, you know, a good actor, I enjoy him, but like a well known kind of a butthead, right?
And like went total like loon boons on somebody and blamed it on the excessive amount of bluefin tuna sushi that he was eating and that he got mercury poisoning. Now, if there's ever a way to say that you're an a-hole, it's that you eat so much bluefin that you got mercury poison right there. Right there, you're like, hey, uh, well, I mean, I'm saying I'm an a-hole. You know what I mean? Doubling down on it.
Oh, yeah, yeah, triple even. That's like so hardcore, right? So anyway, so like that was the argument. So I get worried because Booker, you know, who's like, he's six foot like two now. He literally weighs a hundred and like twenty-eight pounds.
He's like a stick figure. You know what I'm saying? He's like uh, he's like uh like what that character from Nightmare Before Christmas. He's like a head and like a long body. You know what I mean?
Uh he needs the sewing skills, though. He needs the sewing skills. Doesn't skill and Jack have good. Oh, he hires someone. Oh, that's that's Sally, right?
Sally's got the sewing skills. So what does he do? Sings and dances. I don't know. Oh, that's a good skill.
It is. It's a good skill. Anyway, so he was eating like two, three cans of tuna a day. And I was like, Booker, first of all, you don't have enough body mass to be eating like top chain predator bioaccumulators. And that was all he was eating, was just like mercury on mercury on mercury.
So so much so that I have to buy him. How is he affording all of this? Well, what okay, Nastasia? Let's get your amazing parenting skills on record. So I should starve my child?
No, no, if you're not going to be able to do it. Okay, no, no, what about getting poisoning? I like how is he getting all of this stuff? I don't know if you know this. Tuna fish isn't that expensive.
And we have these things in New York City called supermarkets. So he buys it, okay. Anyways, so it's like he's eating like two, three cans. I find him in the trash because he's terrible at hiding things. So I had to like to try to not have too much poisoning, I had to go get him uh the mercury, like the low mercury tuna, which they test each can of mercury uh for mercury.
But you know how they get low mercury tuna, don't you? No, yeah, they kill young tuna, right? So it's actually like not a good idea. Like the low mercury tuna, it's like I'm kind of damaging the earth to save my son's brain, right? Which I I guess is a win.
I guess. If you have to pick one. So you know separate separate story, separate story. So he basically he he says I'm a grizzly bear and he only eats fish products, right? So uh I was for the book.
I was doing some salmon, I was shooting some salmon for the book, right? And so in the house, I had a piece of salmon that I was cooking, and I had a fully cured side of salmon, right? Fully cured side of salmon, and then another side of salmon I was curing. And when I went away for the weekend, he didn't come with us, gone. Gone, gone.
He ate an entire side of salmon in one day. And that's in addition to the tuna and stuff he said. But how do I get out of that? Oh, so he was buying tuna fish sandwiches from Subway. By the way, and we have discussed this.
Booker knows every menu at every Subway restaurant on Earth. Because what he does, one of his hobbies is he looks on the website and tries to find the most expensive online subway sandwiches he can get anywhere, and also the cheapest. So he found once in some place in Brooklyn some like set of things you could like click that has a uh a glitch whereby the sandwich was free. He once found a glitch where he could buy a Metro North ticket for uh eight thousand dollars. Metro North is our local commuter rail.
The most you can spend is probably 30, 40. He he found an $8,000 glitch. He finds all the glitches, so he'll find the most expensive subway sandwich, which I think was somewhere in Europe. He found an incredibly expensive Subway sandwich, and he'll find the cheapest Sunway sandwiches. He says he might want to work there from his experience working with you, Nastasi.
He wants to go back to the side. I told you what the problem would be. Yeah, yeah, the cleaning. Anyways, so like he he won't put mayonnaise or anything on a sandwich. So this is why sandwiches are terrible for him, because they're they're they're dry.
So he decided he likes tuna fish salad. Won't eat chick, we'll eat chicken, won't eat chicken salad, we'll eat tuna fish salad. Why? Only God knows. But he wouldn't put any vegetables on the tuna fish salad, on sandwiches.
So I finally convinced him. This is where the story was coming from. I finally convinced him to get like lettuce and tomato on the uh on the on the subway sandwich. He was like, oh, it's good actually. It's good.
It adds crunch. And I was like, oh, good, great. So then when he was making sandwiches at home, I bought him decent tomatoes, right? So I slice it and he's like, Dad, these aren't, these tomatoes are not good for sandwiches. They're they're wet.
And I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, I want the Subway style tomatoes. Like they have to be kind of crunchy and dry. They should like a tomato should be dry. Like, why is this one so bright red and wet?
I was like, well, that saves you money. I guess, but I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna buy those styrofoam tomatoes and have them in my house. Stas got money on the mine today. Money on the mine. How so you're affording that tuna fish?
Anyway. By the way, also uh to go back to where this came from, to finish uh John's story about tiny shrimp. John now has the story, the song Tiny Shrimp Superstar going on in my head to the tune of Jesus Christ Superstar. And uh, just gonna leave you there. You can sing it in your own head.
So, okay, so John. Yep. Aside from the tiny shrimp, what have you racked up so far? I know you haven't fully finished your research yet, but you said you've done some of the stuff for uh some of the places you're going, so why don't you hook us up? Yeah, so in Rome is where I've done most of my research so far, because that's where I'm gonna leave on Monday night and then get there uh Tuesday morning and don't want to miss a second of everything I can eat.
So the one thing that I'm really looking forward to eating is the fried artichokes. How do you say it, Dave? Uh uh Cartofi ala juda. Uh Judah, that's right. Yeah.
Yeah. It's it's the season, right? So you're hitting it right at the right time. Yep. You ever had that in season sauce?
Yeah, I thought it was late April, though. Doesn't it extend? It's like it's like uh it's like weeks. No. I'll probably still have fit to it.
Did you like it? Yeah. Crunchy and smash? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Really good. Yeah. Uh they have a bunch of different car trophy things, so that's just the famous one that's over here, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Anyway. Okay. Uh, what else you got? What else are you gonna eat over there?
You are you gonna do the coffee stuff? You're gonna do all the famous Roman coffee stuff. I wasn't planning it. I was gonna try and do a bunch of gelato though, because I feel like that will also be the season. Yeah, you know the secret of uh Italian gelato, right?
No. Stabilizer. Whatever. It tastes good. I'm for it.
Yeah. I'm not against it. Yeah. I like some dense, stabilized stuff. That's my whole life is dense and stabilized.
Well, kind of stabilized, kind of not. Um, what else? You're not gonna do any of the, you're not gonna go see the famous, like uh, what's the famous one again, Stas? Cafe San Stacchio. Oh, I don't know.
There's a famous, I think it's Cafe San Stacchio, where they do some little, they do some little like weird secret McGillakudi in the in on the thing. So when you go to order it, they have like a blind, you can't see the actual barista. And it's it's there's two famous ones. I forget which is the one that does this. And they they do something funky with the milk or something like this, and and you don't get like a straight, even they're straight, like espresso, they do a little something, something to it.
And I was like, Can't you just give me a normal espresso and let me watch you make it? They're like, no. I'm like, okay, whatever. Uh, when you're here. And there, I think that's also the place.
I could be wrong because I haven't researched it in advance today. Like I should have. They're the ones that uh wood fire their roasters, and they have that weird, like yellow container. Anyway, so you should check that stuff out. What else are you gonna eat?
Uh wanna go check out the markets, the mercatoon fale, hopefully I'm pronouncing that properly, and the nuevo mercato testacio. Uh they both sound like really cool kind of open air markets and see what all kind of produce and meats and fish are being sold, and then obviously as much pasta as my body can handle. Oh, yeah. How much how much pasta can your body handle? Pretty solid amount.
So I'm gonna um, you know, I'll let you know when I come back how much uh what the what the limit is, yeah, how many plates a day. All right. Okay. Uh wait, but you're not going north all. You're going from Rome and going south, right?
Yep. Yep, exactly. Huh. If I if I was going right now, I would before most of the tourists, because I think like like they're open for business, but I think like they haven't, it's not fully full yet, right? They just opened like two weeks ago, even.
Yeah. Oh my god. If I could go there right now, I would immediately go to uh the gardens. I would check out the uh Villa d'Este and the Villa Lante and Bo Marzo, which is like crazy in the forest, like messed up sculptures out of rocks of like soldiers getting crushed by freaking elephants and giant mouths ready to eat you. It's a crazy place.
Yeah, it's crazy. And ain't nobody going to Bo Marzo. A lot of people go to Tivoli to see the the Villa Desta, because it's amazing. Uh, and a lot of people go to Banya to see the the Villa Lante. Uh I like gardens.
Anyway, so like, but Bo Marzo, which is a cemented garden in the in the forest, nobody goes to it. And it's watched over. So this crazy violent, like not really, well, in 95, which is the last time I was there, it wasn't really well maintained. Like a lot was cracked open, it was kind of like really rustic. It hadn't been like fully touristified yet.
Was it when you visited, was it fully touristified, or was it still rustic? It's still kind of, yeah, it was rustic. But the town where it is, Bomarzo, is like built on like this like piece of rock coming out of the ground. It's like and then and then on the on the top of it is this like kind of village made of rock where the Orsini, which were the kind of enforcers, you know what I mean? Like the Cardinals Enforcer family, was like living on the top of this rock.
So it's just like one big you know what I mean? It's good. It's super cool. Yeah, yeah. And then he's going down to uh wait, Joe.
Aren't you uh aren't you part Sicilian? Yes, Sicilian. He's uh he's ending his trip in Sicily, but he hasn't done the research yet. Do you have anything for him down there? I was over in the Aetna area.
Never been to Palermo. I was in the southeast corner. I went to go see my my mother's home in Pozzalo. And um I loved Sierracuse. Phenomenal.
Oh, yeah? Yes. Oh, never, I mean, I've never been. It's an underground spring fed city, and uh you can go out to the spring that's in the ocean. It's that sounds sick.
Yeah, I want that. It's beautiful. I want that. I've never been south of Rome. And the blood oranges are phenomenal.
Yeah. I've never visited uh my stepfather's uh ancestral uh area, which is kind of a pathetic. I wanted to go back with him. He's never he's never he's my again. My stepfather loves COVID.
This is like he there's nothing he enjoys more than not having to see anybody ever. It's just unfortunate for my mom. So like he's holed up right now on Cape Cod. All he's doing, drinking wine and fishing for stripers. You got two modes.
Well, three things. He sleeps, fishes for stripers, drinks wine. Those are the three things. Sounds great. Yeah.
Yeah. He gave he gave up cigars for the COVID because of all the potential lung problems people are having with it. So that was the that was he used to have four things. Now he has three things. When you say stripers, it's like white bass, right?
The stripe bass, yeah, yeah. Big ones. So like he's uh he's a surf caster. He doesn't like uh he doesn't like going on boats. So I wanted to shoot one for the book, so now he's like uh he's he's gonna get me some.
We'll do some full, we'll do some full stripers. Um I forget, I don't know what the limit is this year. It changes year to year what the length of striper you need for the surf casting to keep them. Uh he hasn't gotten that many blues. It used to be that like he prefers like stripers, I think, just because when you fish for bluefish, like they bite through the leader so much that you have to run steel leaders on them.
And I just don't think he likes having that kind of kid around. And he focuses mainly on, he focuses mainly on stripers. So like his main enemies on earth are besides other people, right? Seals. Seals.
He freaking hates seals because this you're it used to be, I'm not advocating shooting seals, but it used to be that you would get a on the Cape, you would Cape Cod, that is, you would get a bounty for every seal that you kill, right? You'd wow. Yeah, you get a bounty for it. Because the fishermen are like, no, we don't want these seals. Now, because obviously you're not allowed to kill the seals anymore, a seal will go up, take a fish off your line and laugh in your face.
And you're not allowed to like, you didn't do anything. You're just there dealing with it. But you know who is allowed to kill seals? Sharks. Great white sharks.
You are correct, Nastasia. Ding for the lady who lives on the water. And it's like, so the great white shark attacks in the Outer Cape have gone like, I mean, going through the roof means like, you know, two a year as opposed to none. But it's like everyone's worried about the great white sharks now because of the uh because there's so many friggin' seals. Someone had to pick up the slack.
Well, I mean, for all I know, seals are the tastiest damn thing. I don't oh, actually, that's not true. I do have seal recipes. You should get to some questions from our Patreon people. Uh, all right.
All right. So we have anything else, uh, John on the trip. Before we go, we got to talk about the Connecticut product that you brought that we're all gonna taste. Oh, yeah, I brought the Connecticut style hot dog relish. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, we'll we'll we'll we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. Uh all right. Okay, so we're we're to encourage people to join our Patreon. Well, it's it is what it what they get.
Well, they get to listen live, but we're gonna make it their question first. Questions first, yeah. Is that what we say? It's like sky priority. Oh, you know?
Is that deltas? Yeah. Yeah. What do you get now? You can't even Nastas and I were saying, one person gets their teeth knocked out.
Now none of us can drink on a plane anymore. You know what I'm saying? When I was a kid, I wrote a song about this. Uh, there was a guy, I forget his name. He is, of course, he was a finance guy.
No offense, finance people. And he got liquored up to get on the airplane, got on the airplane. This is like, you know, decades ago. Got on the airplane, requested more liquor. Flight attendant was like, No, you've had enough.
Why don't you just go to your seat? First class, obviously, finance guy. Jumps up on the drink cart, drops trowel, and poops. Oof. And so we wrote a song about him called Drink Cart Crapper, which I have a recording of somewhere.
And the choruses seemed like a good idea at the time. Seemed like a good idea at the time. And then what was he thinking? He had been drinking. Yeah, drink our crapper.
Yeah, drink our crapper. Wow. Yeah. So anyway, so back then they weren't like, oh, one guy takes a crap on a drink cart. Uh, you know, so now no one can drink on a plane anymore.
They said, oh, guy takes a uh crap on a drink cart, guy's not allowed to fly anymore. Which seems to me to be a more reasonable response. Yeah. Because some of us, I don't know if you know this, some of us get afraid on airplanes, and we don't necessarily want to take like hardcore, like, like, like, uh, like mind-altering stuff. We just want to take the edge off of the fact of it's either that or rip the seats apart with our with our with our fingernails, right, Stas?
You and I are bad for the city. Oh my god. Really both of you, huh? Don't ever fly next to Nastasia because I used to take um benzodiazepines to fly. And I did it until when my when my wife was pregnant, I once took, I think I told this on air, I took two flights in one day.
And I took it on the way there, and I took it on the way back because I didn't understand like the biological half-life of these things. So I showed up at the Lamas class completely drugged out, to the extent that like the teacher was asking my, you know, my wife, hey, are you okay? Do I need to call somebody? Blah, blah, blah. I was watching the the video of the of the birth.
I'm like, this is boring. Uh like I'm I'm tired. You know what I mean? I was it was a nightmare. So anyway, so I tried to, I we I was able to successfully wean myself off so I can fly without doing anything now, right?
However, it's nice to have a little something to take that edge off, right, Stas? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Okay, questions. We have 30 minutes.
All right. One more thing. One more thing. Do you know the story about the picture of my wife? Probably.
So for the for the people that have for the people that have video. So when I first went to visit my uh in-laws family in uh we weren't married yet in Arizona, they uh I was 23 or 22. They had the pictures of the, you know, the kids. My wife is one of three sisters out there. And I took a picture of my wife from junior high, and I kept it in my wallet for years.
And when anyone asked to see a picture of my wife, I would be like, here's my wife. And I would show the picture from junior high. And Jen got so mad at me that she took it and threw it away. And then she came across the same photo in at her parents' house. And now that you know, we're 50, she's like, you can show people the junior high photo.
So there it is. My wife. Yeah, yeah. But that's only for those of you that are paying for the video fee. All right.
Wow. That's it. Strong, right? Look at that. That's some serious perm on that, right?
She's got that whole, like, you know, this is back when we were all listening to Eddie Van Halen. Valerie Bertinelli was like the top of the top. You know what I mean? So yeah, yeah. Oh my god.
How's that for Patreon access? Yeah, if you don't become a member now, I don't know what'll do it. You're never gonna get to see Jen's awesome like pink and blue dunkie blouse. What is that? Blouse.
Blouse. You you guys don't know about the dunkie sandwich? That's when someone that wears the double denim double double denim? Dungy sandwich. Yeah.
My laugh. Anyway, so like uh yeah, little little bonus for the people. Uh Nicholas Scuvis wrote in, hey folks, glad you're doing the Patreon thing. Uh it's a great idea. Now, we answered some of his questions last week, right?
Because the questions were about flour and but specifically, John thinks I did not answer, well, he thinks I didn't answer the sourcing. So so Nicholas wanted to know about sourcing. How do you source? And I have to say, if you wanna source products, right, uh you have to get really crazy about it. You have to get really jazzed about it.
You know what I mean? It's like, I remember when I was a kid, I really wanted a sword. And when I was a kid, all you had was the yellow pages, right? With there was no internet, there was no nothing. There was the yellow pages, and there was like walking around New York City.
So you just had to sit there and think about different categories of people that might sell swords. And just keep calling everyone in the phone book that was in that category and then asking them whether they knew someone that sold some. I was like, you don't sell swords. Do you know who does sell swords? Wow, yeah.
You know what I mean? And that's how you would like, and you you would eventually find it. Yeah. But the same thing holds true a little bit for the internet, right? So, like, and it's all about who you get on the phone.
You can't be afraid to pick up the phone and call somebody. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, here, I know you're in Australia. Uh, don't get nostalgia started. But like who are you?
Hey, but like uh, so like the I don't know how it works there, but here we're very fortunate that there are a bunch of companies that cater to people at home who wanna do stuff that's normally big player stuff. So like they'll they'll buy 50-pound sacks of wheat, take them down to like a couple of pounds to let you try, or they'll buy like a whole lot of uh green coffee, or they'll buy a whole lot of cacao nibs and then bundle them down for you to. So I'm sure there's somebody in Australia who's doing the same thing. Uh it's just a question of like just literally it's like keep noodling around until you find it and like, yeah, it's had to run down a bunch of rabbit holes. And for me, actually, actually, remember what I always say?
It's not a rabbit hole, it's a rat's nest. Gross. Uh, but like uh the point is is that for me, half the fun is kind of burrowing down. Like, so for Nastasia, right? What I like, what what I like to give her that I think gives her joy is trying to get a hold of some random person.
Like that's what she's good at, right? Or that because you enjoy it. Right? For me, like finding some random product, Nastasia doesn't care so much about that. So she leaves that to me.
Like the time that we had to go find uh uh Sturgeon spinal cord. Yeah. And we're like, where are you gonna find Sturgeon's? Like, where do we got a lot of Russians? You know what I mean?
And so we would like, we literally like went to a neighborhood where there were a lot of Russians, and we would go into all the stores and be like, spinal cord. Spinal cord. You know what I mean? Yeah, that was one of our first things. Yeah, true.
We eventually got some. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because eventually someone's like, eh, sure, fine, spinal cord. You know what I mean?
Mm-hmm. Anyway. I'll also chime in. I think, you know, if you're Nicholas, if there's a good restaurant that you like that makes the good pasta or something like that, just call them up and ask to speak to the kitchen. You know, like a lot of chefs' cooks don't mind sharing information.
That's not proprietary. They want people to cook good food, so no harm in asking. And also, this is a great point, John. This is an excellent point. You have given a good service, and I don't have to say, this is the same kind of service he gives as a customer service representative, by the way.
Thank you. Yeah. But don't expect fast answering for the next month because he's going to be in Italy getting stories to tell you. They don't care. What do you mean they don't care?
They care if the healer responsible on customer service. But I'm the yeah, I'm gonna field, I'm gonna field the customer service questions. Oh, geez. Listen, you better pray you don't have a problem with your booker and tax problem probably for the next month. You better pray.
Uh unless you're a Patreon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Even so, even so. Come on. Uh so uh the other thing you can do at a lot of places, uh like small bakeries and whatnot, they realize that you're not gonna take their business away, that you just wanna try it once or twice.
They might even sell you some. You know what I mean? Like, you know, take a pound of this, who cares? You know what I mean? They'll they'll they'll sell it to you.
I mean, don't abuse that though. Like, so like if you go to someone and someone's nice to you, don't abuse it. Like I used to with the the scrap yard that I used to go to in New Haven, where I would get all my stuff for sculptures, and eventually the guy's like, kid, I shouldn't even let you on the yard. What are you doing? Why are you talking to me?
Just buy this stuff and get out. I was like, okay, okay, okay. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Yeah, just because you can get the Durham from them doesn't mean you can ask them to start ordering you like dried steaks and all that other kind of stuff.
Yeah, and it doesn't mean that you can get dorm every day. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway.
So back to the important qualities to look for when evaluating a wheat. Uh I think I said a little bit about this before, but it was at the very end. So I'm gonna get a little bit more uh into depth, or as Nastasia says, a little bit more into Snoozville. A lot of the problems with specifications on flour. And if you read Adam Leonte's book, which you said you did, there's a lot of really confusing specifications for for flour.
And there's also uh a huge difference between whole wheat flour, fresh whole wheat flour, and and white flour. Uh and so the things you have to worry about are this. One, uh, the harder the wheat, regardless of its gluten content, regardless of the ability of the proteins in it to form a good gluten network, the harder the wheat when you mill it, the more damaged starch you will have in it, and therefore the more uh the stiffer a dough will be at a certain water content, right? Now that is super important. And in fact, like that's the damaged starch, right, is the overlooked thing that most people uh aren't thinking about in their flowers, right?
So a soft wheat has very little damaged starch. So if you're milling a soft wheat and you're gonna try to use it in a recipe, it you either have to add a lot less liquid or you have to hit it with a little xanthan to absorb up uh the extra water. And the reason is is that broken starch absorbs 10 times more water than uh unbroken starch does. And if you need to see uh this in action, just take wheat starch, which is wet milled and unbroken, and add the same amount of water to that as you do to a flour, where a portion, so in a hard flour, maybe it's like 18, 19% of the starch is damaged starch broken, and just see the difference in how much water it absorbs. So there's just a different level of moisture holding between damaged starch.
So that's hugely important. And the other thing with freshly milled wheat is the enzymes are so much more active. So all of these people who are doing these like dough with their AP flowers and with their bread flours, where they're letting it sit for like two and three days, like the enzymes in whole wheat are so active, which is what the falling number was that Adam Leonte talks about in his book. They're so active that the dough goes slack because the enzymes will just eat all the broken starch and like make the dough slack. So those are the two things to look for.
All right. So whether you have a specific protein content, get a high protein content if you want to do bread. Uh do yourself a huge favor if you're milling your own wheat and get you some soft wheat, because that's the kind of stuff that is really a game changer. Get the soft wheat, get a little xanthan for when you if you're doing like cakes with soft wheat, because you're not gonna have the water holding capacity of a bleached uh cake flour. All right.
So I would get some soft, get some hard, then get some like specialty wheats that are good for specific tasks, like get some Sonora White if you can get the US stuff to learn why the flour tortilla was developed, because the flour tortilla was developed around a specific um product that specific product because it has a high protein content, so it's got good bite, but low uh elasticity, the same way dorum does, so it doesn't snap back when you're making tortillas. Anyway, so is that sufficiently answered, John? Yep. Covered, smothered? Covered, smothered, good.
All right. Ooh. From David Steinberg, hey gang, I made uh pasta a la herbe from a bugiali on pasta. Uh I don't own this book, uh, David, so but I was able to find uh the recipe and and look at it. So who we're talking about is uh Giuliano Buggiali.
We've done him on Classics in the Field in the past. Of course, that's an old RSS feed so gay, you know. Oh, tap by the archives. For those for those of you that don't know, before I finish this question, I think I can say, Jack said, so Jackie Molecules is gonna take an ongoing role going forward in cooking issues. I'm back.
Jack is back. Yes, the molecules is back in. Well, he's not literally back in town. He's back in town today, but he's gonna be living in LA. But I do live in LA, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, he's gonna continue to live in LA. Maybe. Maybe, you know, see how long it lasts. But I'm here.
Yeah? Yeah, I'm here, back in the squad. What's your favorite ex-New Yorker LA song? Is it more Randy Newman, more Neil Diamond? My favorite ex-New Yorker LA song.
That is what? Um, it's got to either be the Neil Diamond song. So LA's fine. Sunshines most of the time, the feeling is laid back. Oh, okay.
I see what you're doing here. Right. Yeah. Palm trees grow, rents are low. But sometimes you keep thinking about finding your way back.
That's pretty perfect. Yeah. That's Neil. Right? Whereas Randy Newman is just like, I love LA.
Right. I love it. You know what I mean? So which are you? I'm somewhere in the middle of those two.
Yeah? I think I'm more towards Neil. More more Neil? Yeah. Yeah.
So anyway, uh, yeah, I'm I'm I'm I'm here helping out. Um, you know, overseeing some of the Patreon stuff. Nice. And you're uh you're handling the chat room and Nastasi's handing the today non-existing calls. That's right.
Nice. They got scared off by her last time. Oh man, she's brutal. I love it. Yeah.
It's kind of good though. It's like people can kind of sense what it's really like. Like it's like Nastasia is not like this is not a role, Nastasia. This is just what's her. Just her.
Just her. Well, I mean, I want the radio show to move along. It's not a personal phone call with you. You know. You gotta pay a lot for that.
I was very forgiving back in the old days. Yeah, you do not want a personal phone call with me, by the way. Yeah, they do. No. Anyway.
Hey gang, I made pasta a la herbe from a bujali on pasta. Uh, and Bujali said to shell a pound of pea. So, first of all, uh, and soak in cold water with a teaspoon of flour, then drain and cook the peas with other vegetables in a little stock. Like a chicken stock or something. Uh, basically making a uh pasta primavera.
Any idea what's going on with this teaspoon of flour? Best and keep up the excellent work, David. So, David, uh first of all, you should know Bujali was all about reading old recipes and then not changing them at all. And then having a big smile on his face while he called you Satan for messing with recipes. At the end of this recipe is classic Bujali.
So Bujali is Bujali is um uh oh my god, his name just went out of my head. Primo and second uh from uh big night. Oh, I don't know. Shalub, Tony Shalou. He is Tony Shalou from uh Big Night, right?
Or was he dead now. But like he was that guy. So like at the end of the recipe, it says, please add no cheese. You know what I mean? Add no cheese to this recipe.
Anyway, so that's very like bujali of him. But he got this recipe from a like Renaissance Florentine recipe. And if you know anything about like that area and and the food, like peas, like fresh peas are a big deal, right? Which goes to show that he's not like buy peas, he's like get fresh peas and shell them, right? Now I wasn't, I don't speak Italian, so I couldn't look it up.
Uh I couldn't find any information, uh any modern information on um soaking a fresh. Some people have so some peas are are taken, um they're dried a little bit, or they're allowed to, I would say mature in the pod, right? And so they're a little dry, and even after you shell them out of the pod, they need to be soaked a little bit to pick up on the stuff, or they're semi-dried, like uh, but but I'm pretty sure that Bujali is talking about fresh, like young peas, like the ones that you make the rice and peas with. You like that stuff, Sus? Yeah.
With the ham and the Yeah, it's good, right? Anyway. Uh so I'm pretty sure with the stock and the ham. I'm pretty sure that's what he's talking about here. Uh so I couldn't think of any reason to soak them because they don't need any extra moisture.
Here's the one thing I was thinking of. See what you got what you guys think. Okay. Maybe, because it's an old, old recipe, they're worried about uh bugs. So like you uh this is just a speculation.
There used to be, you know, you would get things and there'd be all kinds of weevils and bugs in them. And I know that um peas, especially when you're planting seeds, they would try to figure out ways to make sure that you weren't getting one with so maybe it's like some like old tale, like the way that you remember how when you were a kid when you got clams, you put the cornmeal in the water to get rid of the sand, even though it doesn't work. Am I the only one that was taught this? I was not taught that. I wasn't taught that I thought.
Anyway, so like maybe it's I don't know, some weird, like it's not just my family, but it used to be told that you get the clams, you put them in the in the in the water with cornmeal, and they would spit up the sand. It's a lie. It doesn't work. It's a lie, it doesn't work. I'm just saying, but that's what we were taught.
But that was the reason. So what I'm guessing here is maybe the flour is there because it's rinsed off, right? So it's and nothing is there's no there's no thing in the flower that could talk to the pea. So what what uh you know uh in the absence of information, what I am getting is that some Renaissance Florentine person was like, I'm gonna coax at the bug out of the pea with the flour. You know what I mean?
That's what I'm getting. That's my mind. I like that. Hidden context of all these old recipes, right? There's there's always something.
Always something, yeah. No one ever doesn't look stuff wasn't free. So no one ever did anything for no reason. There was a reason. We just don't know what it is.
Maybe misguided, maybe completely unnecessary, but right could could be mean m most things totally wrong, right? But there was a reason. Well, it's funny you say that about the bugs because that's not the only incident instance where I've heard about bugs and Italian food. They say that also with Sambuca, when you're pouring out the drink, you're supposed to put the three espresso beans in, which is very Italian to save for the Trinity, but not the locals. The locals believe that the coffee beans are there to distract the bugs from getting into your drink because the bugs notice there's already three other bugs inside, they don't want to go in.
So awesome. I don't know if I believe it, but it's a good story. I love that gel. I like that a lot. That is good information.
My uh have you have you guys the maggot cheese is up north, right? Have you guys ever tried that? No, I thought it was in uh Sardinia. Sardinia. Maybe a couple people do the maggot cheese.
My my uh my stepfather's father, the butcher, he had the maggot cheese, or he didn't have it. He was there and saw the people soaking up the maggots with the bread and eating it. I don't know. I mean, like, I want to say I would do it, but I don't know. What about you guys?
I don't know. No, no, no. No maggots for me. No maggots? I do for me.
You do it? Yeah, why not? Would you enjoy it? Or would it be the kind of thing where you're like into your mouth? I mean, I also ate the fermented shark in Iceland, so I'm that wasn't so bad though.
Oh, come on. Yes, it was. Oh, that was nothing compared to the surstroming, dude. That the surströming, the Swedish surströming. I put that into my mouth and I was actively pushing my entire gut back into my body.
I was like, getting it down. And I might have the same mental problem. It's like, it's like, uh, you know, I'm sure it's delicious. I don't want to eat dog. I would have a tough time eating dogs.
Right, right. You know what I mean? Right, right. And yes, it's hypocritical because I eat animals that are as smart and friendly as dog uh as dogs, but what can I say? Uh I'm not saying that I'm logically consistent all the time.
At least I hope I know when I'm not. Let's get to some more questions. Yeah. Uh all right. There's another bug thing though.
There's another bug thing. So you had the three bugs. Oh, my favorite bar, uh, the Holland Bar, I'm sure it's different now, but when I used to go like 20 years ago, every drink was garnished with fruit flies. Yeah. Did it say it on the menu?
It didn't. It was a no-charge situation. And I told you guys, like literally when I when I went there, my favorite taqueria in the in the 30s, uh, you know, on 9th Avenue over there at the time, because it was all it was all sweatshops. And so there was some decent, you know, for New York, decent like taqueras. We like from the other everyone was from Puebla, all the people who ran it from Puebla.
And a friend of mine came in from LA, or from uh he's in Oakland now. Anyway, so like he came in and he was like, and he got the postole, and it was full of bugs, going back to bugs, full of bugs. Uh, you know, the dry, dry goods are stored and bugs get into them, you know. And he goes, uh to the guy, he goes, Hey, this is full of weevils. And the guy's like, literally, it's so strong.
No judge. And that was it. Of course, it wasn't with that accent because they were both speaking to each other in Spanish. But you know what I mean? It's like, anyway, I mean, how strong is that?
That's awesome. No charge. Not no charge for the food, no extra. Like, right, right. He didn't take back the money that my buddy had already paid.
Yeah. That place, you ever um you ever do the the telecoyos, like the really big kind of triangular fried masa stuff with the stuff on top? They're good. But they would make them, and with that place was always hit or miss because they wouldn't, they would nuke reheat their stuff. And if you ever nuke reheat starch and you get the edges wrong and it dries out and you have that like hyper chew.
You ever done that? No. You ever none of you have ever nuked bread and had the one section turned into like a rubber ball? Yep, yep, yep. Weird, right?
Gross. Super weird. I hate that so much. Uh Devin Patel wrote in. Hey, I want to ask about peeling citrus.
My peeler usually grabs a lot of pith, which uh, you know, the technical word for the pith is the albedo. Oh the albedo. And the uh colored part is called the a flavito, flavido. Wow. Yeah.
Which you obviously, if you could choose one, you want the flavido and not the albedo, right? Totally. But whenever I hear the word albedo, I think Lyle Alzedo. Okay. Who for those of you, you know, who are young, Lyle Alzedo was like a football player, like well-known kind of like also like actor, like, you know, big rough and tumble guy, and one of the first people to he died really early from cancer, and he blamed the steroids before he died.
Oh, really? Yeah, Lyle Alzado. Old school. Uh, I wanted to ask about peeling citrus. My peeler usually grabs a lot of pith.
Is there a peeler that cuts closer than others? Uh now I have that song, fudge. Closer to the bone, sweeter is the meat. Last slice of Virginia ham. It's the best that you can eat, Sas.
Don't talk about my baby. She's slender, but she's sweet. You know the song? No, but you should answer questions. Uh, or is some bitterness from the pith a good thing in a drink?
This may look like two questions, but it's not. He's afraid of you stuff. I know, yes. The answer is this. Uh, some people that you can get peelers that have different bites, right?
In general, like uh, you know, I use the coon Recon wise, and there are peelers with a lower bite, but the problem is really that that's a good number. Like there are, I have a peeler that's way more, has way more of a bite, and I wouldn't want to do that. Um, but you can't have a like a one size fits all peeler because also all the citrus are different. So, like if you're peeling a lot of citrus, you'll notice that some citrus has a softer uh rind on it, and it can get pulped if the if the bite's not big enough on the on the peeler. But here's the other thing is that uh some people will peel the citrus, right, then flip it and take a knife and take the albedo, the Lyle albedo off of the back of the peel, so that you have just a like a waffer thin, uh just you know, colored peel.
And I do that sometimes when I'm candying. But in a drink, and here's the secret, Devin. Here's what here's what you know, maybe no one's telling you is if you don't have that pith that white to back up the Flavito, when you squeeze it, there's not enough bending force to get the oil to come out properly. So if you want to get a good oil expression on your twist, you need to have a decent pith backbone so that it goes hubouj when you when you for those of you that are looking at the video, huh boosh, and like the the uh the the mist of oil is coming out of it. And if you don't get that mist, there's no point in putting the twist on.
It really, yeah. I mean, if you could listen real close, if you were up to the book. I've mic'd it up, but that's that's accurate. Just like that. From Tent, uh question regarding shelf stability of fat wash spirits.
Planning to make the Benton's bourbon for home use. So this is uh, you know, uh, I don't know all the people who worked on it, but like Don Lee, I think John Deragon worked on it. And the the way the Bentons, so Alan Benton uh from Tennessee makes uh Tennessee, yeah, makes uh he makes ham, makes country ham uh makes the smokiest bacon I've ever tasted in my life so it's like it's smoky so smoky that you're like if you're eating it just as a bacon you're like that's a lot of smoke you know what I mean but like if you're cooking with it then money right so it's like it's a lot of people's favorite like bacon high-end restaurant cook it's not cheap it's not like you're like you know it's not like you're putting it into your into your sauces by the way Stas what are you thought what are your thoughts on using uh American bacon and pasta sauces yeah you already because it tastes good even though it's not right it tastes good right I'm glad I'm glad to hear you say that yeah me too uh anywho so uh what would happen is is that at Sambar uh back in the day they would were ripping through uh Benton's bacon tearing through it and they would save the fat as they do and so PDT where Don and John were they would take the fat and they would fat wash uh bourbon with the Benton's bacon fat because it's so smoky. So you get a lot of flavor transfer. And I guess what the reason I'm bringing this section up is please don't try to use a fat that doesn't have good flavor a lot of flavor because then what's the point, right?
That's why the Bentons is that's why it's Bentons and not some other bacon. Another little tidbit is that if you have overcooked your bacon and it's like I I'm pretty sure when they were doing the the the they were cutting it like kind of big almost lardone and rendering it and so the fat was still high quality. If you're doing slices in a pan at high heat and you've broken the fat down and it smells and tastes nasty, guess what your liquor's gonna taste? Nasty. Nasty.
Nasty. So if if it's gone rancid, if there's been a lot of oxygen touching it, it's going to go rancid. That's gonna be your problem. Now, to your specific question. I'm planning to make it.
Some sources say it can be kept indefinitely. These sources are correct. Uh I mean, there might be some oxidative changes over time, but uh others say only a few days in the fridge due to botulism risk. What has been your experience? I do not see how on God's green earth you're gonna get a botulism risk by taking something that's at least 40 proof, adding it to an anhydrous, which is uh it's this is not hydra, the bad, the bad people.
What who what what what universe has hydra the bad people in? I don't know. Is that Marvel or DC? I can't remember. Anyway, anhydrous means no water, right?
So you're using a rendered fat with no water, right? And then you're adding uh 40, at least 40 proof liquor to it, and then you're removing the fat. So there ain't no way that botulism is gonna grow. Your main problem is again, uh oxidative rancidity, which ain't gonna kill you, but it's gonna make it taste bad, right? So, and also you're removing the fat.
So, where are you gonna get botulism from? Where are you gonna get botulism from, Sus? Out of nowhere. Out of nowhere? I mean, I said nowhere.
Oh, nowhere. I like it out of nowhere. I like that. Wouldn't it be amazing if like if they jumped out of the bottom, botulism? Surprise.
Surprise! Botulism. Marvel, by the way, Captain America. Oh, Cat's in America. I haven't watched the new stuff now that they killed them off or whatever.
I don't know. I don't know anything about it. Same. Yeah. Uh all right.
So now, now we're answering the questions that are not how much time do we have left? We have right there. What? So that's exact exactly the amount of time I have remaining? Do you remember in uh Wizard of Oz when the Wicked Witch of the West, who by all accounts was a really nice lady.
Yeah. Yeah, all accounts, really nice lady. Uh, she ended up doing the uh Maxwell House commercials as well in the 70s. So it's the same person, Wicked Witch of the West, Maxwell House commercial. So uh anytime someone like points to a timer that goes down, I in my head, what I see is the Wicked Witch of the West turning that hourglass over and saying, that's how much longer you have to be alive.
And it isn't long, Terry. It isn't long. And then she leaves. Do you ever have that in your head? That's how you feel right now, huh?
Well, I just that's that's what goes in my head. Yeah. It isn't long, it isn't long, and then she leaves. Because, you know, if you can you picture this? She tries to get the slippers and she can't, right?
And then when she gets it, and then she's like, when she's there with the hourglass, she's like, this has to be done delicately. Remember? And then she yeah, she's great, but what's the scariest thing in the Wizard of Oz, Nastasia? Monkeys. Those freaking monkeys.
Those freaking monkeys. And where I used to sleep when I was a kid when I was watching that, I uh my room was in the attic, and we would also get those freaking paper wasps. And so, like, and it was around the yeah, I would get the paper wasps and the monkeys. They're not the same time of year because because uh what's it called? Wizard of Oz was a Thanksgiving thing back before we had VCRs and all this.
Yeah, Wizard of Oz was Thanksgiving and paper wasp was more of a summer thing. But that window was a year-round source of terror for me because it was either a paper wasp was gonna come out of that sucker, you know what I'm saying? Or or it was gonna be one of those freaking flying monkeys, you know? Yes. That was the scariest part.
In retrospect, don't put your only child in the attic by themselves as their room because especially if you have a carpenter ant problem. That's the other thing. It's like the ground wasn't safe because there was a carpenter ant problem. The window definitely wasn't safe. You know what I mean?
Mm-hmm. And then with, you know, throw the monkeys into the mix. It's all over. It's all over. Uh yeah.
All right. Patrick McKay wrote in. Hey, uh, now this is not that it's not a question about carbonation. Okay. You alright?
Looking at it. Are you triggered? It was a leak, yeah. You're okay with the term leak? No, it's fine, but fine, just to get through it.
I set up a CO2 rig to carbonate cocktails based on the instructions and liquid intelligence. Everything has worked really well and quietly for a few months up until recently. Now, every time I pressurize uh a bottle, uh, the tapright regulator makes a loud honking squealing sound for about a second that is loud enough to wake up my partner in the other room. Have tried and made sure all the connections are tight and there doesn't seem to be any leaks. Looked around online and can't find anything on how to fix this.
Any advice? Uh also love the classes on Gush. I'm looking forward to the rest of them. Well, thanks. Uh for those of you that go on uh my Instagram and you can see the classes on Gush, et cetera, et cetera, where you can get more of this if you actually want it.
And we we should do classes and fun stuff. We should do some fun stuff on Patreon for our Patreon people. Yeah. Yeah. Uh again, if you want stuff on the Patreon, let us know.
Let us know. We're here for you. Anyway, so um I'm trying to figure out. So you say for what it what what do you say, about a second? So a lot of times what will happen is you'll you'll you'll turn it on.
There's a there's a primary that's at like 800 PSI, and then they're pressurizing the diaphragm and the safeties. So a lot of times it'll go, like that. And that's okay, right? But you don't want to because if it if like all the stuff is taking too long to seat, you might eventually get a leak. So that the there are kind of two places you can leak.
The safety can leak in the back. I've had that happen to me, but then you would have a whistling sound, right? All the time, right? You can hear it leaking. Uh the other problem is sometimes the diaphragm, the diaphragm can go bad in several ways.
Like sometimes you can get some leaks, usually out of the front, sometimes out of the front where the the knob is. Uh, but also it can leak in a way that it can leak in a rather frightening way where the pressure just keeps building up. So like the pressure will like will go and just spike itself. And that's frightening. Um, but the good news is is all this stuff can be uh rebuilt.
So you can go on uh the on the web and look up the tap right regulator and you can see the um the parts. You can buy a diaphragm rebuild uh and see if if that's the problem. But in general, like if you uh the longer the line you have, that line has to come up to pressure, right? So it what's happening is is that you're putting um 800 psi into the primary, and then it has to pressurize the secondary side of it all to the pressure you've chosen, and that the flow rate is generally pretty low. So it's gonna take the amount of time you're gonna that it takes to fully pressurize the the other side of your system, you're gonna hear that noise.
So is that good enough? Yes, and we should what? No, well, one one one won't, because I got my two LA people, ready? All right, John Robert Chandler wrote in. Hey, uh, any Los Angeles recommendations.
I've never been to the West Coast and don't know anybody out there. Any spots to hit? Thanks in advance. All right, all right, uh West Coast people. Go.
No, I don't have anything. What? What the hell? I don't know. What food food recommendations?
What neighborhood? LA is so sprawled out. It's kind of hard to say. Um I like the Thai food in LA. Um, Jitlada's cool and love to eat Thai and night market, of course.
We've done events at night market. Yeah, they're great people. Good wine over there. Gras makes a good pizza. It's called gra.
Uh-huh. Like bra, like gra. G-R-A. Um. You had their pizza stuff?
No. No? No. What do you have when you're on lockdown? Kencho.
You got food. No, I cooked mostly. Ken Show is uh is a good little isakaya spot up in the hills. Ken show. Like Kencho.
Yeah. What about before the lockdown? We like Trios Donuts. Yeah, trios donuts. If you go to Trios Donuts, get the machete donut, right?
Uh juice uh we go. Uh what's your favorite treehood note? Mostly cooked. What's your favorite treehood? You should go to, I don't know.
I had the vegan one. Uh why? I don't know. I was hungover and really angry. Um for the party?
Yeah. Uh we go to the farmer's market and cook. That's kind of what I do too. So that's a recommendation. Go to the Santa Monica freak and farmers market.
That's a good idea. That is a good idea. So you've just given advice that is like super helpful. If you're not, if you've never been to the West Coast before, and you live here on the East Coast, and you're like, my farmer's market, blah blah blah, then go to the Santa Monica farmers market. What days is it?
I think Wednesday and Saturday. I believe that's both the good days. They're both good days, right? There's no, yeah. It's like if you come to New York, everybody knows the Saturday market's good.
The Saturday market's the best. The Monday, Monday, and Wednesday, Friday, okay, Saturday, the best one, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then you can contact me uh at Jack Insley.
I'll have better ideas when I have time to think. Uh Jack. Yeah. That's all the time. Hold on, hold up.
Before we go, uh you don't ever listen to interviews that Nastasi and I have done about this radio program, right? No. Okay. Good. You don't.
Because we've completely reintegrated. We may or may not have mentioned that you guys. It was we said it was we. It was we. You brought it up.
We may or may not have mentioned that you guys didn't want to do the jello wrestling in the kitty pool of Merlot. Why do we have to say this on air? You're just saying, I'm saying it got worse, Jack. Oh God. I was kidding around.
If this is a way to drive up Patreon subscribers, then keep the bit going. But otherwise. I just want you to know. It could be right here. Like we I mean, it could not be, but how do you know, Jack?
Really? I mean, Joe has some sway, dude. Okay. I mean Jesus. The music in this whole structure.
This whole McGillo. Yeah. And I'm looking, I'm staring across the way at some fabulously. What if it was just like I'm staring at a wine shop? I'm literally people right now.
If you ever come fishbowl us here at Rock Center, right? Uh fish bowling means looking at us while we're talking and not saying anything and like making us nervous, which is like what people used to like to do at Robertus. They just look at us like we are fish in a tank, which I guess we are. I'm looking at, what is that? That's uh that's a how much is that?
That's a $2,000, a $2,000 double magnum or something, but I can't read what it is. I'll I'll wrestle in a pool of that. Really? If you if you if you get the good stuff. Oh.
The good stuff kids go for it. But you're you would be fine wrestling in it and like drinking or like chomping on. Of course I don't want to do any of this. Come on. I think.
All right. Well. All right, Josh, I'll get to your KitchenAid stuff uh next week. And traveling boy, I'll get to your uh your thermal mix questions next week. Uh and uh Jackie Molecules.
You're gonna be back in uh California next week. I'll be back next week, but I'll be popping in here every now and then. All right. So but he's he's running the chat room. So if you guys are on the Patreon and running the chat room, you're talking to the original, the real, the Jackie Molecules, right?
And we got Joe here. We got we're like, like, look, we're giving you so much. Two talented engineers. We got Nastasia hanging up on people if they call. Like, what is not to want to listen to live people?
And you know what? Let's do this. This should be something we do. Sorry, but really quick. Everybody that's subscribed today should get a nice little shout out, right?
So we got Jeff, we got Brandon Byrd. We got Ooh, Brandon Bird, Tad, and we got Jacob Pope. These are the new Patreon subscribers today. So thanks to them, we should we should be shouting out more of these subscribers. Oh, yeah, we used to do that back in the day.
Yeah. When people like donated to Heritage and whatnot, we would shout. Yeah, we're gonna do it again. Shout out to you guys. Shout out to you guys.
We appreciate it. We appreciate your support. Don't forget to tell us what you want. And as always, uh, this episode will go free on Friday because we're not about holding back on information. We just also don't want to starve.
Am I right? Yeah. All right. Cooking issues. Apple back.
Apple battery.
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