Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you alive in Newstand Studio, the Rockefeller Center. Joined as usual with Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How are you doing, Stas? Good.
Yeah? Do everything's good? Things are fantastic. Yeah, we know it's not. I love it.
It's a good lie, though. It's strong. It's a gets a good move. It's very nice. We got uh John here.
How are you doing? Doing great. Yeah, we have Joe Hazen rocking the booth over here. Hey, how are you doing? Yeah, we have our uh we have our man from California in Mexico City again.
We got uh Jackie Molecules. How are you doing, Jack? I'm great. Yeah. And by the way, if you're listening, uh if you're listening live on Patreon, call in your questions to 917-410-1507.
That's 917-410-1507. And if you're not listening live on Patreon, why don't you go to Patreon and figure out how you can rectify that in the future? Uh today's special guest is a very good guet for us, Eric Werheim, whose new book is Foodheim, a Culinary Adventure. How are you doing, Eric? Great.
Yeah. I'm very excited, big fan. Uh huh. Uh, you might uh also know him as part of the uh comedy team of uh Tim and Eric, whose most recent thing, and I hear you're working on a season two, is uh Beef House. Beef House is kind of like it's like beef house.
I'm just gonna say prune shortage. Yeah. It really ties in with the culinary scene on that episode for sure. And health. Yeah, it's uh it's all about health and wellness and hot tubs and and uh I would say, you know, I'm working on a book myself, actually, called The Miracle of Moisture Management.
And I'd say most of that beef house section of uh storyline is about uh fluid management. Would you say? I would absolutely say that's right on the money. Yeah, fluid management problems. So uh, you know, I can't really discuss it on the air, but you should uh you should uh check it out.
Um and uh I first actually became aware of your kind of foodness uh because I didn't realize how real that whole kind of character with you and is uh Aziz Anzari was in master of none, but you know yeah, you know, both of you really do that kind of stuff, right? Yeah, I mean we shot in Italy on season two because we're like pasta freaks and we wanted to be in an amazing environment. And you know, like if you're gonna work, you might as well work in a place where you can get an amazing dinner afterwards. So that's why we did it. Yeah, uh just so you know, she might not say anything about it because she hates being called out on it, even though I'm about to call her out, but Nastasia gets triggered with pasta conversations because she used to own a pasta company with uh Mark Ladner.
Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think so. It was good. Pasta was very good.
It was pasta that they had pre-styles. You want to describe as pasta that you had parcooked? Parcooked and frozen, a secret um process. And then we closed because nobody liked it. Amazing.
It's not because no one liked it. You were in a crap tank location. And no one liked it. What do you mean no one liked it? Everyone liked it.
Well, you were serving Italian style pasta with the little with the little pellet in the middle to American schlubs. Yeah. Is what happened. That's you know, that's kind of what happened. Yeah.
Anyway. Uh I've put a little oh, there's a little Mark Ladner in my book. I saw that. As an homage to my favorite pastas ever. There's not a hundred layers in that lasagna.
It's a lie. You know, I've counted it, right? Uh yeah, I've tried to. Yeah, it's not. But you just you just go with it.
You just go, you just like let him say a hundred. By the way, uh before before we start, so I read uh there, you know, you you have like a little glossary of things in it. And one of the things that, you know, I've been around chefs a long time. You say, Chef's kiss, this book has already penetrated the zeitgeist because I have not heard people say this. I read it in the book.
Today I'm biking over here on NPR, and I hear the the the host talk about a chef's kiss to someone. I was like, what the hell? You've already permeated freaking NPR? What the hell is this? It's just a food heim is just a global sensation in every single word.
Yeah. Chef kiss, dankadin, gorgeousness, all that stuff is is what you're gonna be hearing now. Now, let me ask you a question about a chef's kiss. Is it do you because I could see it one of two ways, and I don't remember whether you describe it in the book. Is it like an American, like like a southern, like an open hand, mwah?
Or is it like you make the kikatso fi hand and say, Although none of you have actually kissed a chef, and I was with one for six years, and I can tell you it tastes like alcohol. Oh zing. Um that was wrong. All right, but which one of those two non-actual kisses was it? Is it?
It's the second one. You take your hand, and you do you don't you don't want to do anything sloppy, you know. Uh um, this is a delicate thing. You could do a chef's kiss to your food, do it too someone else that's doing something great in the kitchen, to it to your family, but doing something right. The fingers are together though.
Fingers are together, yeah. Okay. Absolutely. All right. Uh also, you uh are a winemaker, and I I have a uh question to ask you about it.
So uh he has a bubbly style, so we gotta talk about it because he does it a little bit differently. Uh Las Harris Wines, and here's what it says on your website, and this is what I gotta ask you about. It says it's the first good celebrity wine. And so my question to you is this Do you think that Les Claypool is not a celebrity, or do you hate his wine? I have not tried his wine, but I have tried some others, and I I I in the book there's a little secret area where I list some celebrity wine that I may or may not like.
Well, according to your website, you don't like any of them. Which is weird because your boy from Poison has a wine, but he didn't make it. Yeah. I mean, jump on Jovi's got one, you know, a lot of people have them. New Jersey not known for its wine.
New Jersey not known for its wine. It's just, you know, cut like what you're coming from comedy, coming from beef house, where I do prune shortage jokes. It's a it was a hard transition to making uh natural wine and some fine wines that we're making right now. So it was like just trying to get the word out there that I actually love this stuff. And we we this is uh is very hard to make good wine, and and we tried to get that message across, and I think we did.
Well, I mean it's it's uh really nice on your website because you go into extreme detail on how each uh wine is produced. It's almost like like if you had the grapes, you give the recipe. Like you're straight up, you're like, you know, uh this many NTUs when I when we when we fill, you know, as we filtered it, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. I mean, which is I think is a very strong move because it's kind of like look, this is how it's made, which I think appeals to, you know, uh it appeals to like kind of like the wine nerds, not in the kind of old school, like I have more money than you, wine nerd way, but the people who like to know how things are made, you know. Yeah.
Um, yeah, we just it the whole world of like winemaking, also natural winemaking, it's so dorky. You know, people are like, well, you add too much sulfur, so you're not, you know, labeled this or that. And we're just like, all that. We're gonna literally be the most transparent winemakers out there and and list what we do, and then you can decide whatever you want to call it and what uh, you know, whatever uh classification you want to put in. But you know, Joel, my partner, winemaker, is just he's a scientist, and he's he's he's just doing crazy things in California that no one else is doing to make like the best, you know, I think one of the best natural wines, low intervention wines out there.
So it's I I love that how in depth we do and we we also have like a system of notes, you know. We have we share notes and we have this diary when he's working up there. So I I want to know too. I'm so fascinated by all like the technical stuff of what we're trying with different kind of aging vessels and different kind of fermenters and all that stuff. It's really cool.
So so your sparkling, I'm gonna ask you in particular on this. You call it uh a method untraditionnel. You say you're Frenchly French, John. Say, say say say give it to me in the full French. Give me the full French.
What method method uh non tradition, untraditional. Method non traditionnel. There you go. All right. And it's like so you you do the you do the the full like age in the sucker on the leaves, do the disgorging, but then no dosage.
You want to talk about that? Yeah, it's just you know, we originally came out of the gates calling it a pet mat, and we got you know, a little backlash from some people saying it's actually not a pet mat. It's more of a champagne style, you know, a method and sestral, but it's actually a slightly different that, you know, we don't put add sugar to it. We just do it our way of making kind of a almost pet mat, but you know, very low uh RS. So it's just it tastes like a super dry champagne.
That's kind of and we're just like owning that because we love it. We don't really care about the classification of pet nut or not. We just want to make an insane sparking wine. If you try it, you'll be like, oh yeah, this doesn't taste like any of the flabby pet gnats that are out there. It's like it's super high acid and elegant.
I like you had to change the name because people were like it's actually not pet mats. Yeah, I know. It was yeah, it's it was interesting going into the natural wine world, like, oh my god, this is a real crazy nerdy scene, but also has so much soul, and I that's what I was I was very into the natty world at first because the passion of people making these things, especially in Europe, it was so cool. But then you realize you find you gotta find your own lane. And Joel, my my partner kind of has been teaching me that throughout the whole process.
It's really cool. Yeah. So uh as a guy who kind of grew up drinking you know traditional wine, wine, you know, wines. Like it now, when I go to a place that's known for its natural wines. Who didn't we have a whole natural wine thing with Fabulous and Jeremiah once a couple years ago?
That's before my time. Anyways, uh I was like, you know, my standard thing now when I go out is like, give me something that's funky, but not like too overtly flawed. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's that's a great it's the the idea of the the these natural wine bars are everywhere.
I'm in New York, it's insane. I was just there for a couple weeks. I couldn't believe it. There's more natural wine bars than cocktail bars nowadays. And that's a I think it's a huge problem that th they're celebrating a lot of these wines that are I call them funk a dunks.
But just like, you know, they're not just funky, but they're f up and flawed. And a lot of people have you know, a lot of people have the reason they mess up. It's too gay or too much bread or whatever. They'll just go with it because or s or smoke tink, which is a huge problem in California, they'll have to release it just so they can pay their mortgage. You know, I I get it.
I get it. But I'm with you. I've I've I just try to lean into wines that are made a little bit more in the clean style, and you can have kind of that amazing natural expression without that funk a dunk that makes you want to bomb. You uh you uh had me a taint. Yeah.
Um All right. So Lynn, let's talk about the book a little bit. Uh first of all, uh I read and I'm only asking you this because I want my son to get a job there because he's memorized everything there is to know about the subway sandwich uh uh you know, the the entire France you worked at a subway. Yes. I worked at a subway in high school only because there was this goth girl in high school that I was in love with named Raven and I was and I just was very into like skinny puppy, Susanna Banshees.
Oh skinny puppy. I got a job there. Yeah, I was like ver my first show was skinny puppy at the Trocadero. That's crazy. That's not normal.
It's not. I was like on the Vivisector? That was when I was transitioning to punk probably the big skinny puppy, like a big, very serious industrial moment. So I had like really dorky, like a ski jacket, but then I had combat boots. So I was like trying to make that awkward high school transition.
But um I don't know. Oh, anyways, yeah. So Raven worked there. I got a job there, and I was like, I would do anything just to make her happy. I would mop the floors, you know, really, really make my subway sandwiches the best they could be.
And then when Raven would compliment me, it was like, you know, you it was like the highest high a 16-year-old could have at that moment. And uh with Skinny Puppy mixed in, is Skinny Puppy the reason you became a vegetarian? They're all vegetarians. You were vegetarian for a couple of years. Are they?
Yeah, well, that whole album is is is anti-vivisection. That whole section of stuff that Ogil V was doing was all anti-vivisection stuff, right? V V I V I sect was anti-vivisection. Oh, that's cr uh yeah, I totally forgot about that part of it. I think it was more just him using decapitated heads on a tree.
I love it. You know, you know who didn't like skinny puppy? Everyone else in my college dorm. No one, no one appreciated it. No one appreciated the loud skinny puppy in the college dorm.
People don't like it. Oh, people like it, obviously. We liked it, you know, and whatever. Yeah. Uh so another thing, uh, I want to just have this out now.
You say that you went to uh sushi Sawada in Tokyo. Now Nastasia Lopez and I, we got to go to Jiro, and the man puts wh so much vinegar in in his rice, and Nastasia is still to this day angry at me because I ate my pea so quickly that we were out in under 20 minutes, right, Stas? We're out in under 20 minutes. And the next day, her boyfriend at the time, Mark Ladner, goes to Sawada and says it's the best sushi ever had in his life, and then says for the dessert, they gave him a freaking eggplant as a freaking dessert on its own, eggplant, and then won't tell us any more information about it. Didn't bother asking what kind of eggplant did we just walked out and just dropped that bomb on us while Nastasi and I were slaving away on the inside of like a hotel, like in the bowels of a hotel.
So did you did you have the eggplant for the dessert or what? What happened? No, he he gave us one of those Japanese gooseberries, like with the beautiful like leaves. Maybe it's not a gooseberry, but it's a um it had like the leaves on it, you kind of peeled back, and you had this just like burst of like citrus. It was amazing.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No one's ever gonna pay for us to go back to uh Japan, Nastasia, so we'll probably I don't think I can ever go back to Sawada because I had a scrapers, I had a I had a scrapers incident.
If you'd like to hear about it, it's pretty amazing. What's that? What's this what's a scrapers incident? We call it a scraper. It was very it's very traumatizing to talk.
It's um, you know, it's very hard to get a reservation there. We did. I brought a friend that was not an sushi expert, and I tried to explain many times this is like a temple. Like you just don't talk, don't even look at anyone, you know, that that kind of thing. You're gonna eat a lot of stuff.
Are you okay with all these things? Uni and like uh red clam, like the textural things. And she was like, Yeah, and we get there, and and for that day we had four courses of uni, you know, which is a lot for even an Uni lover from all over Hokkaido and everywhere. And she just couldn't do it. And eventually she started scraping the uni behind my water glass.
And I was like, What are you doing? Do not scrape your uni. First of all, don't scrape your uni and don't put it next to me. Now I have to eat it. And he's Sawada times just watching me being like, You will never return.
You will never be welcome back here. And I was like, So who knows if I could ever go by it? I mean, that's the issue where uh you go to a place, it's all uh they all hyperlocalize when we went everything was freaking uh that uh pike that you know that long that long fish with with all the bones what do they call that you know I mean because it was springtime and I was like I get it it's in season now okay you know what I mean like I don't need to have everything be that you know what I mean yeah yeah I I I agree I don't like it when it's over over the top of one kind of thing but still the experience I didn't get to go to Jiro I wish I I went to his son spot which was beautiful but I never got to go to the um the the dad's place. Does his son also love to have a highly vinegared rice you know I didn't I didn't feel like it was too out of whack. I felt like it was pretty it was pretty good.
It was more casual but you know that was um I remember it being beautiful. I mean how the heck much less casual more casual you know then 20 minutes in and out 300 a pop can you get then giro I mean like I know I mean there's a vinegar if you guys come to LA you have to try have you heard of uh Morihiru Jeff Mori's new place he has a place it's like on the east it's it's on the east side in Atwater which is crazy to have a 400 like omakate on the east side of LA but he's a vinegar freak and it's really interesting it's very polarizing. People love it people don't like it. Uh I'm still in the I I got a takeout for the pandemic so I I can't judge it yet I have to be there of course can't judge on a takeout I appreciate that you can't judge on a takeout we got a caller for you caller on the air what's up you're on the air yeah, this I uh know that Booker and Dex has these great products and so does Cinco Corporation. Like the uh the urinal shower and the in the pasta bear.
I'm just thinking that there's an opportunity for for it for for Dave to do a commercial for the Cinco Corporation or vice versa. This seems like the the ultimate possible collaboration in the universe, I think. If if I had to pick one collaboration, it would actually not be one of the things that I've worked on. It would be one of the things Nastasia has worked on, the wine Santa, I think you fing hate. Uh yes, but uh I still think that there's something there.
Like for a comedy potential, for an actual item, I think it's a rancid idea. But for like a comedy potential, or like, you know, for a one-off at a party, I mean I think it's fundamentally so Eric, just so you don't call her if you in case you know. So the idea is is that you get a uh like a like a a supermarket Santa animatronic figure complete with polyester white beard. You with me? Yeah.
Yeah. Preferably one that dances. You still with me. It's got like little wired legs and it dances like a hula style dance. Except it's Santa size.
Full size. Come on, please. And then you you put a punch bowl in its arms and then it vomits wine out of its mouth into It's like a fountain. It's like a wine fountain, but it's Santa. She's also done wine zombie.
Actually, wine zombie was first before Santa, right? Wasn't wine zombie the first? Wine zombie was first for high. You had a wine rabbi? No, but somebody requested that.
Oh, and you said no? You said you wouldn't build it. I didn't say I wouldn't build it. John, do you imagine? I don't know if that's true.
Eric, here's how this works. She loves this thing, and then she makes me build it. And then I said to her, I was like, listen, I was like, listen, we work it with people in Shenzhen, which is where they make all those animatronic figures anyway. I was like, get in touch with someone. I did, and you said, Why are you bothering about it?
I did not know no. You asked our agent who hasn't even successfully built the freaking products for us yet. You asked her to, I was like, you find the pl whatever. Do some costing. Eric, how much would you pay for some?
Here's the other thing, right? Let's say you have this wine Santa. Someone overserves themselves, like, you know, walks out in front of a truck and gets pancaked. You know? Get overserved at any bar.
And it would have to, what are you gonna fill it with? Chocolate, so it's constantly aerated. Some sort of it only serves chocolate. Anyway. I'm very into that product idea.
Even in my book, I I talk about making ice luges for parties, which I've done in honor of many, many ice loges. Sometimes it was body parts. Sometimes it's offensive, but also um exciting. So I'm I'm very into this idea. Great, Eric.
Let's do it together. You guys, you guys, you guys do it. And like, you know, I'll help. I'll help. No, no.
I'll help. Listen. No, thank you. By the way, I mean no thank you. You've never been able to build one.
You always ask me to do it. I always do it. Wine Grammy. Remember Wine Grammy? Anyway, uh it's the Victoria, it's the it's the dog with the listening to its uh it's the Grammy where the it I forget.
Does the dog spit into the phonograph? Or does the phonograph spit into the dog? Dog's you just said dog. The dog spits. Yes.
Uh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um the problem with luge is listen, people, let me tell you, if any of you I I the worst I've ever been overserved was on a luge in uh in Sweden at an ice hotel. Isn't that your problem though?
Like, shouldn't you? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, I'm about to say, of course it's your problem. I'm about to tell people the answer. I wasn't the one who caused us to have a $30,000 bill because I peed on an irreplaceable ice block that had to be chainsawed out of the ice hotel and replaced.
That was not me. But I did get viciously overserved. Do not, if someone's pouring an ice luge for you, do not feel obligated to take the whole pour. Whenever you're done, just close your mouth. Just close your mouth.
Like, like at this point in my life, I'm old enough. Like, look, I had enough to drink in my life. I'm fine. If I want to close my mouth and have the rest hit my face, that's exactly what I'm gonna do. And I recommend that to other people as well.
I'm just gonna say that. You know? Yeah, I agree. I agree with that. Because it because it you always get someone who has uh what's it called?
Uh you have someone who who, you know, with uh bad intentions at the top of the luge. You know what I mean? They're not metering in with the luge. They get the speed pour, they pick some sort of filth at some sort of like blue-colored filth, and then they just like dump it down that luge. That's a mistake.
You know? You can have a little bit of it, anyways. Uh all right. Also, uh growing up, spent some time in Baltimore, talk to me about Old Bay. I mean, old Bay is an essential nostalgic spice, you know, doing the blue crab boils or steaming them, actually, you know, paper towel.
It's like something about the uh newspaper and the old spice, you know, licking it off your fingers. It's just it's it's perfect. Yeah, my dad's family's from around there. I appreciated that in your crab cake uh recipe, you just said lump crab and didn't call out like in your next crab recipe where you said preferably dungness because you knew you would get smacked around by your Baltimore friends if you specify you would just get totally punched in the face by them if you did that. So yeah.
Why old what the Bay, by the way, people, is Chesapeake Bay, not bay leaf. Chesapeake Bay season. Old Chesapeake Bay. Anyway, go ahead. Sorry.
Yeah, I mean, I put like capers in that recipe, and uh, but then I put uh my one of my best friends from Baltimore who does who will who wants to fight over that, you know, the idea of like owning that. Even my grandmom would turn over in her grave if she knew that I put capers in there. But you gotta take a little liberty. Yeah, but you have we have a picture of your buddy pushing it away in the in the book. Yeah.
Just to show like, you know, I mean it's not everyone knows what it is to be like from Baltimore or Philly, and that's that is that attitude of like you love what you grew up with and you will die with that. And I just love that that energy is amazing. Speaking of pushing away, you called out as one of your favorite ingredients, and I was almost like, oh my god. But then I looked at the recipe where you used it. Caper berries, and I was like, holy crap.
He's gonna put like some giant freaking caper berries on it, but you slice them very thin, in which case I was like, fine. Yeah. Fine. Yeah. It's more of a a visual, you know, it's a visual thing.
It looks like little mini pepperoni. Yeah. So it's it's if I never have someone expect me to eat a whole salt balm caper berry again in my life too soon. If if no one ever hands me a full Seshuan button in my cocktail and thinks it's going to be a pleasant experience for me, also too soon. You know what I'm saying?
It's like a whole Sesuan button's just not pleasant. I like Sichuan peppercorn. I know you have uh I forget which one of your recipes you do the uh the m the the mala ribs. Yeah, yeah. Oh hey, the ribs, by the way.
So in your ribs, this is it. I like I like that you have a lot, you you have not do not have a fear in the book of putting recipes out where people will fight you for it, right? So in your ribs you're you're a foil the whole way kind of a fella, right? So it's like it's like uh crutch and flash, you know, I if you were you're gonna use Texas parlance. So you do the whole freaking thing in the foil, then undo baste and flash to to dry them off on the outside.
And I have to say, yeah, I kind of agree with you. Like, what's the point of letting them dry out? It's not sexy. I've tried these in everything in smokers, I've tried boiling them. I've you know, I like every recipe in this book, I really test it.
But to me, I want uh I and I also watch so many like Texas championship barbecue videos. I got a sex with it. These like big boys that you know they like it, they like it a little more firm down there, but it it you know, this is just how I do it. I I take them a little farther, almost falling off the bone. You can still kind of hold them up.
But I don't know, I think they're just the juiciest that way. It's like you know, and making the sauce with some of the the fat that drips off. I'm just like, okay, this is how I do it. You know, I I also think because I started in comedy, I have a little bit of freedom here. No one's gonna come after me and be like, how dare you?
Well, I mean, I am. No, I'm kidding. Uh but the the thing about it is I think that you know, if you're serving a blank rib, everyone gets obsessed with the smoke ring, which needs to be done dry and you know. Who cares? I don't care.
You know what I mean? Like, I mean, i if you're do if you're doing a blank rib, if you're doing a blank rib, I get it. You know what I mean? But like like you know, like why would I want to sit around all day trying to figure out exactly how to tweak my my uh you know, my cooker to get exactly this thing when I could just wrap this up. Yeah, you know?
I it I so agree. It's I also feel it's like there's certain places in the world that are so special, like Japan, like Texas, like Franklin's and Austin, where you're like, you know, when I when I'm there, I will taste that smoke that has been going all night with that special kind of oak, you know, all that stuff. I it makes it more special, but that that's where it happens, and when I'm at home, I'm actually doing it how I want it, you know. And it's it's a lot easier too. That's a big part of it.
Well, so you but okay. So some of the recipes that you do, you bend some of the recipes you do it the way you like it, and some you bend a little bit to traditional. I'll give you an example. So you you you did you did your your Florida style fried fish uh sandwich, right with panko, right? So it's it's panko coat.
Yeah. Right. And I was like, Yeah. Florida panko? Oh, okay.
And then I was like, oh my god, he's gonna I was like, he's gonna do a crab cake recipe, he's gonna put panko on it. And and you did cracker meal. I was like, fine, fine. You know what I mean? And then, you know, when you did your grandma schnitzel, you did breadcrumbs.
But then for your for the parm, you went back to panko. It's like what the heck? I was like, I couldn't figure out crazy. I couldn't figure out. I couldn't figure it out like when it was okay to be when you were like, you know what?
I want that crunch. I need that panko, versus like you're like, I can't do that because my buddy in the car will actually punch me in the face instead of just Yeah, well, I mean, to me, I'm more afraid of people from Baltimore than I am afraid of people from um uh Sascarilla, Florida. You know, um, you know, I think, you know, it's yeah, with the fish free, yeah. First of all, I just love crisp. I like the whole book is like an honor to crispy thing.
So when we do parm, I just love it with you know, I just I douse it with sauce, so I feel like just the extra level of Christmas will let it last even hours, even to the night when you're doing round two of chicken parm, that panko will hold up. So yeah, I do respect tradition, but I also it's it's just what I do at home. I've tested it with every I test it with corn flakes, that's pretty fun too, but um you know, all that kind of stuff. You ever you ever go to uh a lot of the time. You ever go down a panko hole and research how they make panko?
It's a good hole. No, I I haven't. It's a good hole. It's like they're baked, they're baked between these elect i it it basically they make like a almost like a capacitor, and then they shove the bread dough in and they bake it electrically so there's no crust and it just like shoots up and makes those long lines because they bake it between these two metal plates that's crustless, and then they they dry it to a very specific level and they shred it in a very specific way and grade it depending on it's uh it's a whole thing. You wouldn't I I think you would enjoy the panko hole.
Yeah, I'll look that up. I need to get a I love getting those holes. Yeah. Speaking of holes two videos. Uh circles.
So uh have you ever met uh there's a whole ch the first chapter of your book, really the first two chapters, right? If you count pizza as a separate chapter, right? No circles. But yeah, pizza's a circle food, yeah. Yeah.
So but it's not its own chapter, because it's a whole section on it. I don't know how you've considered. I yeah. Anyway, so talk to me about circles. Have you ever met Nils Norin?
No, I haven't. Nils Norrin, you need to meet him. He uh he was the guy uh who, you know, was working with Marcus and did the menu at Akkavit back when they got their their three star, and then he came to run the French culinary, which was where I met him. The man can turn any food and taught me how to turn any food into a circle. The man used more meat glue than any anybody else on earth, and he would convert everything into circles.
You name it, he would make it into a circle. First a tube, and then he would slice the tube into perfect circles. Like constantly. I spent years just making tubes and circles. But what is he what is your love of the circle?
I mean, I I got into a moment of just like when I when I got into ring molds and cooking eggs in a ring mold to get that perfect or kind of like McDonald's circle. You know, it all goes back to this like fast food visual thing from my childhood that I love. I'm also like somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to things. So like when I'm eating ceviche, like piling it up in this nice presentation versus it just being like sloppy out there. It's just it's a presentational thing that I love.
It's also just ridiculous to have a whole chapter on circle foods, and that's why I do it as well. You gotta get with Nils, man. Nils Nils used to Nils Nils' thing was is that if you turn everything into a perfect tube, it will cook perfectly evenly, right? And every portion will be exactly the same. So uh he'll he would take a salmon, a side of salmon, and he would, you know, skin it, take off the the bloodline in the middle, then he would cut it all the way down, and then flip so two very thin triangles, right?
And then he would flip them end for end, meat glue them together, roll them into a tube, and he's like, Look, now every piece of salmon is perfect. I was like, all right, Nils. All right, you have me sold. So we chicken tubes, salmon tubes, fish tubes, uh mean uh sorry, shrimp tubes. He would take shrimp, the big ones, and he would like end for endometrium, so it had two tails and turn the shrimps into tubes.
Lamb tubes, any kind of food, tubes. We would do uh we would do turduccin tubes, we would do all kinds of tubes. Doz remember the tubes? I love it. Yeah.
So uh I was well you you gotta meet. You gotta meet. Tell you. Yeah, I we've got to set it up. Also, in your uh list of equipment, you say people should own a rice cooker, and I agree.
Do you have a recommendation where I use Zojirushi man? What are you? Yeah, I just use the standard one that I've I have for many, many years. It's still crushing it, and it's you know, I use it every other day. I'm really into like doing a lot of stir, I'm like stir-fry freak right now.
Um, so the rice is always going. It's so it's such it takes so much of the headache and the uh the time away from getting good rice. My Zoji Rushi is 18 or 19 years old now, 18 years old, and it once died, and then I unplugged it for a week and plugged it back in, it came back to life. I don't know what the hell happened to it. Uh but I committed a crime against it a couple of days ago.
People, I want to see this is this is the PSA for the for the episode. If you're going to do grits in your rice cooker, that's fine. Remember, if you put milk in your grits, because you're gonna do like a shrimp and grits kind of a situation, it's gonna boil over like a mother. You cannot put you cannot put large quantities of milk into your rice cooker and think that it won't extrude grits all up through that thing. I thought I'd lost it.
I thought I had lost it. I thought I had lost a cooker, but uh it came back. So I was glad you gotta go induction, I think, on the on the Zoji Rushi rice cooker. The induction is like a game change because then the pan is induction friendly, so you can use the pan on your induction, and it's just so freaking even. It's just so even.
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's beautiful. Even down to just the the um the tones that you hear, the Japanese cones that you started it, and when your rice is finished, it just fills your whole house with this magical melody. I had to uh my my son uh is uh uh has autism, so he hated it. So I had to, and he would never let me cook rice.
Yeah. So I had to take it apart the very first week I I or you know I had to take it apart and snip the snip the wires to the speaker. So I have a I have a deathly silent Zoji Rushi. Yeah. Yeah, so it's like that's amazing.
Yeah, he wouldn't uh yeah, you never know. Uh so listen, we have a question in on uh from uh uh what's with the Patreon that I thought might be uh good because you have a whole pizza section. And so we'll have your answer and my answer. We'll talk about it. Uh by the way, your pizza section, what's in uh interesting about it is you you write it from perspective of you're gonna use a home oven, right?
So that's like you're gonna use a home oven. And just before I get to to uh Frank's question here, I will say for the record, uh first of all, you put brown sugar in your standard pizza dough. What's up with that? I mean, it's just the way that I t I was taught, and I just love the flavor. Um, and it just works.
It's just I think it adds a little bit to the coloring also uh for ovens that are don't get hotter than 450 degrees. You know, we've tested it without and it's not as like caramel-y. Um, so it's it just works. I forgot are you I forget. Are you a light brown or a dark brown?
In terms of like the blistering? No, the sugar. I don't remember which one you use, whether you use light brown sugar or dark sugar. Um I use light brown sugar. I don't know what's in this.
Um, let me look at the red packed brown sugar. Yeah, I do light brown. Yeah. So uh so for the record, uh go buy the book, but for the record it's two percent your standard recipe is two percent salt, five percent of this baker's percentage, obviously, people. Come on, get with it.
Three percent brown sugar, although Wiley hates baker's percentage, and uh 65% hydration uh with AP. And uh you do uh uh do people pronounce it? Because I don't I don't really talk to bread people. Oh, is it auto-lease or auto lice? I would say lice, auto lights.
So you do an auto lice, right? Then you knead it, then you rest, you do a 2X stretch and fold on it, and then you retard it in the fridge before cooking it, right? That's your standard dough. Yeah. All right.
I think it's a good thing. Yeah, we do yeah, we added a couple extra like kind of bread making steps in there that I thought were really fun, but also like I don't know, it just makes the dough really beautiful versus a lot of the traditional recipes. And your need is for four minutes, I think. Remember, you're it's not just a straight four minute need because you you do the the two stretching folds. I'm just giving a shorthand to people because a lot of our listeners, you know, they can understand the shorthand.
Now, from Frank Mosca, Frank Mosca writes in, hey, my dough is he'd so he goes Caputo, right? He's going uh Italian on here. Hundred uh he does the double zero uh hundred percent caputo. He's at seventy five percent. He's going for Neapolitan.
He's going for Neapolitan. I forgot to mention this. All right. 75% water, he's a two percent salt, uh, a quarter percent yeast, so he's doing an overnight, a quarter of one percent. So he's go going overnight on it, right?
And he does uh in an outdoor oven, it's seven hundred uh Fahrenheit. So it's like kind of an in betweener. It's not like fully, you know, maples hot, but it's eh hot. You know what I mean? He says, I generally like the results, except for the texture of the crust.
Not long after I remove the baked pizza, the crust goes spongy, especially the bottom. How can I get my crust to stay crisper for longer? Is this a matter of manipulating the ingredients? Dot dot dot handling of dough before baking dot dot dot or moisture management after the bake. Thanks.
I mean, I'm gonna get your take on it. My take is that Neapolitan pizza just does that. Don't you if you want it crispy, don't eat Neapolitan pizza. What's your take on it? Yeah.
I mean, I I recently, it's so funny I wrote this book, and then all I make now is Neapolitan dough because I got one of those uh big propane ovens outside, and it's just like so fun to use. But I still I I still take it a little, I I take the pizza cook a little further, and then I'm a big fan of you know those w uh wire racks on, you know, and just kind of keeping the pizza elevated to stay crispy instead of you know making contact with the pizza that the your plate or whatever. And I it's uh my pizza stays firm all night, you know. I just I just but I I I make sure the your you gotta make sure your pizza stone is is really hot to to get that effect. And a lot of Neapolitan people just don't want to that sounded real dirty, Eric.
My pizza stays firm all night. Yeah, it's firm. It's very firm. I'm not against re-crisping either. Are you against re crisping?
No, I mean that whole cast iron thing is is awesome. Um you mean like recrisping in the same night? Yeah. So like in other words, like tossing it back in. Yeah, like so like you know, you you put it in for however long, so it's 700.
It he's he's gotta be doing like three minutes, right? Something like that, somewhere in that range. So, like, because he's not doing a 90-second pie at 700, right? So like he's doing something like three minutes. Uh pull it out, you know, let it let it sit for for a little while.
It'll sog up. Maybe if you if you need to, you can illuminum foil the top. If the top's real brown at that point, throw it back in for a couple of seconds and blast the water out of the bottom, no? Yeah, I I think that would be an easy fix. Yeah.
Now uh yeah, I don't have you read the modernist pizza. The new one. Have you read the new modernist pizza? Uh no, I didn't. I haven't read it.
Yeah. So they crap on uh on the New Haven style pizza in it quite quite heavily. Quite a big crap they take on the on the New Haven style pizza. You call out the Peppies and the clam pie, which by the way, it's a good pie. I I I think that the issue is is it's not you know, if you've had all of like the modern, like amazing, you know, pies and you know, they they also travel the world eating pizza, you know, because they got like nothing but money.
And uh, you know, they they're crapping on it, I think, because I think they were expecting it to change their life in a way. I think it's just it is what it is. Why should it be something else? Yeah. I don't yeah, I totally agree.
I I mean I had a pretty revolutionary moment when I first had it, but I've been so many times now. And like it's just a particular style, and I I think it's like very different than anything else. It's really, really an interesting experience. And it's in that I don't know. I love everything about the the vibe and the way the pizza tastes.
So I'm like a big fan. But I also like I also like I said before, I don't really do favorites. I just love that style. I love Chicago Deep Dish. I love pizza in Naples.
Like I you know, I love pizza in Japan. It's they're all fucking great. I've had some I've had some that I've had some nasty pizza in Shenzhen. Uh like this durian pizza. I was like, I was so psyched to have durian pizza.
Oh no. I was so psyched. I was like, oh yeah. 'Cause I I'm not that guy that h and you don't hate sweet pizza because you got a honey on yeah, one of your pizzas has honey on it. Yeah.
And uh and I was like, you know, a lot of people like John, you hate a sweet pizza, right? You hate it, you hate a a Hawaiian pizza. Weren't you one of the or is it Nastasia? Nastasia hates it. You both like it?
Someone else, someone else that I know then. Joe, are you the hater of the Hawaiian pizza? One of you hates it. Anyway. I you know I don't know so much.
Yeah. Joe, Joe, Joe will fess up to hating it. My point is I was like, the durian pizza, I wasn't expecting it to be that sweet and for the crust to be that bad. If you're gonna do durian pizza, I think you have to get good at pizza first and then tackle the durian pizza. You know what I mean?
You have to have some certain baseline above like what every American school kid grows up with in the cafeteria at school. Once you make your crust past cafeteria crust, then you can put the durian on it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.
It's uh I totally agree. You gotta have that base foundation. Eric, let me ask you. Yeah. Let me ask you a question.
There is a place in Yukon. I don't think I've talked about this on air yet. The place is called Pizza Mike's Pizzeria. I've never been, okay? Pizza m you with me?
Pizza Mike's Pizzeria. Now, my feeling is is that if your title is pizza, right? You you are pizza Mike. Right. So it's not like you can't cause your pizza mic.
Can there be anyone else with that title? Can you be like could you be like cause Dax was like, now I kinda wanna become pizza dax, but I don't think you can have both a pizza mic and a pizza dax. I think it's like like Highlander. I think there can only be one. What do you think?
I mean, I don't know. I think you I think it's open season for anybody. The more pizza, the better, in my in my opinion. I would go for it. Dax is going to take pizza mic down.
Dax needs to be a reviewer. Dax, we were so we were sent a book the other day, and it was a certain kind of thing, right? He's one of those books where it's like blah, blah, blah, A to Z recipes. Huge book. He picks it a thousand recipes.
He picks it up, he goes, not in alphabetical order, throws it down. He goes, That's not right. Walks away. I was like, hey, you should be, you should be a critic. Um all right, back to your pizza.
Pizza Hut, you call out Pizza Hut as being the first pizza that you liked. I, of course, grew up, and you make a personal pan pizza in it. Uh, you know, my my high school band wrote a song about personal pan pizzas from Pizza Hut. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
It was a it it's a good thing, Pizza Hut. Back then. It's great. I mean, it yeah. I don't know if it was just I was uh a young tot and I just loved anything pizza, but I do feel that you know, that 30 years ago, if it was it was coming out a little bit better than they're doing it now, using a little bit more real stuff in there.
And uh I just I mean it was I still can remember it, and I just workshopped my personal pan to kind of have that that feeling. And it's it's pretty good. It's not that hard either. Well, I think, you know, in life you have to ask yourself, did I change or did it change? I think in this case, maybe you changed.
I don't know that Pizza Hut's changed that much. I think maybe you changed a little bit. I mean, but okay. Your pizza your personal pan pizza is like, because I was kind of surprised you didn't do it, Detroit. I gotta be honest, I was kind of surprised you didn't do it Detroit.
But on your on your and you don't, you you use the normal order on your on your Pizza Hut one, and you do the par bake. So like all standard Pizza Hut kind of tricks, like the oiling, the dimpling, the par bake, the sauce, the cheese. But you do freak out the edge. Is that a tip of the hat to Detroit? Because that is not a Pizza Hut situation.
That is not a that is not pizza. That's kind of just visual and except there's a place called Apollonia's in LA that does it really well. It's like it's that's a Detroit kind of square pie, which I make all the time. Like I I love it. But there's something about the circleness of the pan pizza that I wanted to like present in this book.
And also like that lace is just like that's just amazing to look at. I can't remember. Do you use a black pan for that? Do you use like uh because I think Pizza Hut uses black pans, don't they? I think I used to use like a um like a non stick cake pan that I I found.
Um I'm sure you know the company, I can't remember them now. It's a Detroit thing. It's the same kind of pants I use for Detroit pizza, too. Yeah, yeah. It's not like cast it's not like cast iron or anything like that.
No, it's that stamp steel stuff, right? That thin, the thin stuff that's got that glossy. That's just great. I think the classic mistake people make is you try to do a pizza like that in a regular, like shiny aluminum s a sheet pan, and the uh the emissivity of the aluminum is uh too low, and so your crust never browns up uh properly like it would if i in a dark metal uh pan. I think it's a classic mistake people make.
Yeah. You know? Yeah, I I d I I agree. I was making it. I was buying the unseasoned pans and I was seasoning it myself, taking like a whole day to season these pans and it it never came out properly.
It would stick or just not cook properly. So I I switched to their pre-seasoned ones and I'm like, oh, this is a game changer. You gotta get that gotta get that emissivity up to catch that radiation from your oven, my man. Yeah. I know.
Back on pizza. One last question. Lemon anchovy. Now, this is kind of a strange pizza because you put thinly sliced like uh raw lemons on the on the pizza along with the anchovies. Talk about it.
So I mean, first you gotta find those the sweetest, you know, youngest lemons you can. You can't put those big, gnarly, thick skinned guys on there and really get it super thin and then it's amazing. It becomes kind of like the sweet and sour thing that I've had many times in Italy, specifically like Campagna. So I try to replicate that for the and also get get some good anchovies and just it's always like that's the the winner. When I I do pizza nights like every week, that's always the one people are like, holy never had that.
That's insane. I love it. So it's um it's good. And you tell people to buy good anchovies, but you don't make them get the salts. I like oil pack.
I like oil pack and I like regular and I like Boca Ronis. I like them all like, you know, I like them all. Yeah. It's a yeah, the the the the you know, to the the salt ones are beautiful, but it takes that extra step. And I I try to make this book accessible.
There's some complicated things, but that was one thing that those oil packed ones are so amazing nowadays. If you find the right ones, it's crazy. All right, so let's move to the grandma section. Now the the the hard thing about this book is that you know, to t to interview someone about is that it's like the theme is just like kind of like all the stuff that you like and you like a lot of stuff. So it's like, you know you know, the through line is what you like, right?
So then but in the grandma section, I want to call out the uh the the roulade, the uh I forget the title you had for it. Ruladen. Yeah, with the with the egg in the middle. What's g talk t tell people about this? Vem a roll.
Yeah. Yeah, there's I mean, I made it it's so good. It's it's it's uh called Roladen, you know, it's a German recipe from my mom's my family's like village outside of Munich. I made a video online if anyone wants to watch it, like it's called Heime's House, and I cook it because it's it's kind of a somewhat complicated thing. You gotta pound out your meat really thin, you make a roll with with eggs and relish and bacon, and then you make this beautiful brown sauce.
It's like to me, uh even when I go home to my parents now, I asked for this dish. It just reminds me of growing up and being with my family in Germany. So, like grandma foods is all about that. Like going to gr grandma's house on Sundays, her house smells like brisket. You you pound some of those chalky mints while you're waiting because you're so hungry because you smell that you know r red cabbage going.
So yeah, you like red. You're you're you're uh you uh you on your kraut you call out red, you're a red man. Yeah, I love that rote kraut. I mean, I love the just the jar stuff from the Germany, it's really still holds up. It's great.
I mean, I try Yeah. But I I know I know many people are red crowd people. I know many people are a red crowd people. I don't know. Yeah, I think it's it as with this dish, I think it works also visually, you know, with the if you have Schwetzla and green cabbage, it's kind of like just it looks like a mushy thing, but having a little pop of red, I think is is nice.
Well, here's the thing about the spetzel. I was like, I was like, oh, he's gonna give a I was like he's gonna give a recipe, and then you're like, you know what? No. And you're like, no, you have to get my mom's, you literally, I believe, say you have to get my mom's phone number to get this recipe. Here's the thing.
Here's I I was trying to think, and you put the you put the picture in, they're there. You know what I mean? You tell people they could buy it in the supermarket, which of course they should not, right? Uh but then I was like, I was uh on my bike ride over here. I was thinking about it.
I was like, why, why? Why didn't he give the recipe? And he here's what I think. Tell me if I'm right. Because you didn't want to be that guy and lie and say that you could do it with a colander because you can't.
You freaking can't. Is that why? I mean, that is absolutely true because you need one of those special, like you just need a special tool to do it that we have, but it's uh it's also kind of difficult. It's also, you know, making a cookbook is there are certain prep parameters. I didn't want another page of you know uh recipes without photos, all that kind of stuff.
I thought if you could just get this, and even in my um in the sh uh uh in the video that I make it, I do like uh Papa Jelly, and that like that really works as well. So I think let's take it in steps here. Maybe the next book will do that. Yeah, you should special recipe. Because people, the Spenzels only, the special machine's only like 10 bucks.
It's like 10 or 12 dollars. You know what I mean? It's not even a lot of money for a normal size one. When the French culinary went out of business, John and uh John and I went and got like the full size one, the one that you can put over the giant stock pots that sit on the candy stoves, the one where you could like spazalize a cow-sized chunk of uh batter. And I was like, but I haven't had a reason to use it yet, but I'm super jacked for someday being able to use the giant, giant thing.
Yeah, and I've never tried to do board cut because a lot of the like old old school German style folks, they do this kind of board cut spetzel, which I don't really know how to make. It's a it's a stiffer dough, and they're like cutting it into the and it's on a floured board. I've never done it that way. I've never seen it that I've always I've never seen that either. Yeah, and you know what?
Crap crap on it. I I you get the machine, it's cheap, whatever. It's it's actually fairly forgiving. Uh I'm I'm very, very, very pro. Uh now, uh, another one of your uh things, you have like a beef bourguignon recipe in there, and I just wanted to get you into you.
So John, he is a Francophile, right? And a francophone. Yeah. But he's actually more of a of a Belgian, right? What?
I am Belgian. Yeah, but you you're I lived in France, yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. You lived in France, but you're you're Belgian, right? But you're connected to the French people.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right? Yep.
Okay. Now, you bring out the uh beef bourguignon recipe. And so, you know, for those of you, you know, everyone knows what beef bourguignol, the carbonade is the Belgian beer-based stew with the fancy mustard and and the bread that's baked in. Now, I'm gonna say that when beef bourguignon grows up, it becomes carbonade. You two fight.
Yeah, I don't know, Eric. Have you ever had beef carbonade? It's delicious. I haven't. I it sounds amazing.
Cooked in a really nice heavy Belgian beer with some really good mustard. It hits hits all the spots. Served over French fries. I mean, what other what better way to get up all that gravy? It's delicious.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds good. No, yeah, I've got no pesky vegetables.
Yeah. True. Yeah. Yeah. I we did we I like my friends and I started doing beef bourguignon is all based on the like Julia Child's recipe.
And then we kind of tweaked it to to make it even I think better in some ways. But it was all about like drinking French wine. I think it was like we're very into like doing a night, like we're doing German stuff and we'll drink reason or you know, so beef bourguignon was very particular to my my thinking at this time, which is fun to like put the same wine that you're putting in the in the stew. And you drink it later and you drink it together and you talk about it. But I'm definitely into the the French fries scene.
Yeah, yeah. I don't want to get into the the Korean stews are like really exciting me right now. I I haven't done one yet, like a kimchi pork shoulder situation. I'm super stoked to try. Speaking of pork, I was looking for it, didn't see it.
I don't know if I missed it. Did your grandma make the Schweinhoxen? No, I don't know that one. That's the where you take the the pork shank and you just cook it forever and then you like either fry it or oven roast it, it gets real crispy. Maybe that's more noisy.
Oh wow. Anyway. I gotta try that. Yeah, yeah. Oh my god, it's like it's it's also a great name.
Schweinhaxen. Yeah, it is a good it is a good name. It really is. I first had it when I was in uh Berlin. A friend of mine took me to this place and he's like, You gotta get this is the only thing to get.
I'm like, okay. And I was like, yes. Uh all right. One more thing. I'm gonna I'm gonna agree with you on this one.
So I feel like I've been like, you know, like you finally gonna agree with you. The best I mean, grilled. First of all, first of all, uh, I like your call out to 1990s restaurants strong, not like by name, but just like as the 1990s. And the best, the best use for the filet mignon, because everyone's like, there is no use for it. Steak a poiv, good use.
Yes, absolutely. Yes. Good use. In fact, I have to shoot a video with that. I'm gonna do that.
Maybe I'll make your recipe, Eric. What do you think about that? Oh my god. I would be honored, honored if you did. I mean, it's to me, it's like I I didn't even know that this the the this quality of um fillets were out there, you know.
And then then once you start really like looking into it, you can get this beautiful piece of meat that's it works. It's not flavorless, it has tons of flavor, it's amazing. Especially with an appoiv sauce. Yeah, I mean, yeah, jack it up with that, of course. But it's also that's how you cook it, you know.
You know, I think I think my recipe kind of nails it, and it's not all steamy and gross, like a lot of restaurants do. But yeah, I mean, 90s stuff. We would have succession nights with on when the first season aired, and we would just like get down and make shrimp cocktail and use a lot of ring molds, martinis, that kind of thing. But wedge salads. Now you have a green smoothie recipe.
I've never actually had one in my life. I refuse to. Do you actually like the no, no, no. Do you like the flavor of it? Here's why I like the recipe.
You call for a knob of ginger. And anything that calls for a knob, I'm okay. I'm okay. I was like, oh hey, he's he used the word knob in a recipe. It's okay.
You know what I mean? But like spinach and kale blended up with berries, no. Nah. But everyone loves it. I'm the guy.
This is me. This is my problem, not your problem. Yeah, I think the secret is is good coconut water, to be honest. You know, a lot of people do it with without the sugar. They don't want it sugary.
But to me, it's like let's make it as as yummy as possible because you need these nutrients after you do what we do if we travel and and go crazy. I feel like it's um it's like a meal replacement. I just wanted to put it in there because it's my homage to um California in a way. But you can make it good. It's yummy.
Speaking of uh homage, the homage you have to your grandpa is this salad that you said was famous. You called it on the introduction. I looked at it and the recipes. Yeah. And it's interesting about it, very high.
It's like an inverted vinegar ratio off of like a normal vinaigrette. It's two vinegars to one oil. Yeah. Talk you want to talk about that? Super, I mean, yeah, I mean, I also call out that I'm like this I'm an acid freak lately.
The older I get, the more even with wines, I'm drinking crazy things that are like just like feel very intense to me. But he that it was blown mind blowing when you when you eat like a braised, like when you're eating that Rolade with that braised meat, you really need something high acid. I think the salad is just such a perfect partner for it. And just the memories of him going out in his garden, like they had a very tiny little apartment and they had this beautiful garden with like buttered lettuces, and he picked the herbs. And when I was a kid, I was like, uh, this is boring.
And then as an older person going out to restaurants, you remember those little moments and how powerful that was and how much better it tasted than what used sometimes in the restaurant. So that's that's why I kind of put it put it in there. Nice. We have a question in f uh from the Patreon for you specifically from Miss Place Enthusiasm, who asks you a question and then calls himself out for being a hack. Let's do it.
Uh, who's the best cook of the comedians or actors that you know? And this is kind of a terrible question because it seems like something a hack interviewer would ask, but I'm still interested in your opinion. Can great food uh be funny, or is uh humor too conscious and emotion for the feelings we get when eating something spectacular? So I guess two questions the comedians, actors, and yeah, two part or I'll take the first one. I would say in Aziz and Sari is the the number one comedian cook that I know, and a lot of this book is inspired by us working in Italy and learning tortellini from Nona's and all that kind of stuff.
Like he's he's always like a year ahead of me in his cooking, and I like it's amazing. And in terms of comedy, you know, I think I've done I've done it. I've I've I uh this book is proof. There's a there's a sandwich called a pork dork sando in here. Um I think that's pretty funny.
And it's also very del very delicious. So, you know, and round, very round can be done. Very circular. I think there's, you know, there's there's a a point, a level to it where it needs to be delicious and needs to be functional. But yeah, I'm all about circle foods and having fun.
We have uh we have two more questions that John's gonna read because I don't have them. So we got one from yes, Cesra. My question for Eric Where's my chippy? But seriously, I'd love to know Eric's thoughts about chips potato, tortilla, naked sauce. Does he make chips?
Does he eat chips? What are the best chips? American American chips, not fries, because there is a fry recipe in there. So chips. All right.
And he and he has a tortilla recipe. He has a tortilla recipe in there. He says to fry the tortillas in between making okay, but go sorry, go ahead. Yeah. They've already answered.
Um yeah, making tortilla chips was like a revolution when you first try that. I mean, it took me a while. Even in living in LA, I just didn't do it myself. And once you do it, you're like, holy sh moly. You know, it's amazing.
And not difficult. I'm a chip person. I do no. I've done some, you know, some potato chips, really thin sliced, different kinds of potatoes to try it out. It's really fun as well.
But um it's not it's not in my normal rotation. Homemade French fries, definitely. But um and tortilla chips, definitely. Yeah, commercial potato chips are really good. I've done a lot of work for the book on on potato chips, and I've achieved as good as the chips you can buy.
You know what I mean? Which is like okay. What's it what's the next question, John? All right. Next question is from Quinn.
Are there any cookbooks that particularly inspired Eric? Does he prefer things more technical or based on storytelling? Bigger books that cover a lot of different topics or ones that are more specific. Um I mean, visually, some of the Salvador Dolly books were like a huge inspiration, especially in someone like the the crazy things. Like I have some party sections where I do like the shrimp towers, like very insane French things that I I love just to look at.
But it's also it's yeah, I'm I I would say I'm it's um very inspired by a lot of visual cookbooks that I wanted every almost every dish to be photographed and powerful. So you're like, holy moly I gotta make that and then but the story part is really interesting. So this is the first time in my in my career I've kind of told my story about my family and what inspired me. So I look at this book as like it's a little bit more than just a cookbook. It's like somewhat biographical because most of I've never done any real interviews up to this point.
Anytime I've done late night shows it's been a crazy bit. 'Cause it's the mystery was was the best to me for me. But now that uh I mean this this a food and wine world it's I think it's important to kind of tell your story and also to kind of be like I'm not just an actor. You know, I think that's my main thing. It's like the integrity of this book is important.
So I go into like detail of where every recipe is inspired from and how my family works into it, all that stuff. Do you like do you like doing these I mean not this particular one. Not not us, but I mean like in general do you like the the food style interviews? Are you enjoying it or no? I'm loving it.
Yeah. It's it's awesome. It's it's be it's just because it's uh it's something I would literally talk about all night, you know, anyways with my wife and I are food freed and all of my friends are food and wine people. So it's really interesting to bring it into kind of a more formal thing where I'm just like this is actually really fun. Comedy talking about comedy is really hard.
It's a different kind of thing. Um but food is just there's so much more like love and passion and in a more positive sometimes positive, sometimes negative. But um more it's way for me it's way more soulful and positive. I love it. Well we uh w I'm being told that we're we've zoomed through our hour.
I didn't get a chance to fight with you over whether or not you should put leavening in your uh flour with the fried chicken. There's uh I was gonna I could I we could have done a half an hour just on fried chicken because you have like a bunch of different fried chicken recipes, so you know, maybe someday uh, you know also there's a small horse chapter. It is a small chapter on small horses, but you need to have the small horse chapter. Uh and if you like pictures of very tall and very small people, you're gonna love the book. I'm just saying.
And there's also a very long section on Sabrage, which I appreciate. And yeah and oh most of the recipes where where it makes sense come with recommendations of what you might want to drink with it and you don't push like only like yourself and your friends. You uh tell people a good range of stuff, which I thought was uh I thought was very nice. And last thing I wish I had talked about 'cause Nastasia would have loved this. If you like the idea of a roclet party, you should get the book.
If you don't know what a rollet party is, you should get the book and find out. You used in your photos the same set I bought my mom for Christmas a couple of years ago. Oh amazing. Yeah. Yeah.
That that's one of the funnest ways to e I love it. Yeah, roclette good. Cheese good. Wine, good. Was that also an excuse just to just a to choose the drinks?
I mean I don't know. I know I I mean raclette is just I really do it all the time. It's a so fun for the whole for your whole friend group. So I had to include it. Yeah.
Fig leaf fish also. You gotta l you gotta check out that fig leaf fish. How's that really taste? Yeah. How's that figly fish taste?
It's amazing. Yeah. I mean, it's it's awesome. Like it depends on the figs you get, but we get 'em just like our neighbor's house. You know, you just kinda sneak in, grab 'em and if they're super nice.
Um also, you know, a good steamed fish is something good steamed with some embers, some of the smokiness. It's I I was like blown. That's why I put it in there. Of how much flavor you get out of it versus just kind of um barbecuing it. Looks real good too.
Uh if you know what? We had this conversation last week. Was it last week, Stas, where we're like, if something like something that looks like that much fun at a large gathering is kinda w it's kind of like already it's been worth it, no? Yeah. Yeah.
All right. Well, uh, I'm gonna have uh Nastasi and you are gonna get rich off of wine Santa and I'm just gonna, you know, uh continue living in this uh in this uh flaming sack of uh poop on the porch that New York City is. I love it though, it's my flaming sack of poop on the porch. Uh anyway, thanks so much for uh coming on. I hope you I hope this was okay for you.
Yeah. Yeah. This is awesome. It was so good to talk to everybody. Yeah, well thanks for having it.
And uh yeah, please, any time. This has been cooking issues.
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