Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from Rockefeller Center in the heart of Manhattan and New Stand Studios. Joined as usual with Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How are you doing, Stas? You're taking over the taking over the John seat.
You're sitting right across from me there. Yeah. By the way, you know, people are watching you right now. I know. Yeah, okay.
Yeah. You can see how the Nastasia rolls on the show with the Zappos. Remember when I used to accuse you of the. No, I'm on uh what's it called? I don't know.
Discord. Really? Yeah. Nice. So uh so with it.
Uh uh rocking the panels, we got Joe Hazen. How you doing? How are you doing? I'm all right. How are you?
Nice. Ooh, nice. Peppy today. I like that. It's pep very a very peppy Joe on a hot, hot day.
And uh we got uh John has decided to escape the heat of uh New York City and is in uh San Francisco, the coldest place uh in the uh his area of uh California. How you doing? He's gone. Great, but it's actually supposed to get to up to 90 today. Oh, you ruined San Francisco for them by going out there, huh?
Actually, I guess they probably like it. Yep, exactly. They probably like it hot. You doing anything fun or nothing fun? I have done some fun things who thing to go to uh lazy bear tomorrow night.
What's a what's a lazy bear? Yeah. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. Uh I'm just messing with you.
Uh Patreon members, call your questions in to uh 917-410-1507. That's 917-410-1507. And uh, John, if they're not a Patreon member, why don't you tell them how to become one? Should go to Patreon.com/slash cooking issues. And the newest and coolest thing about the Patreon uh perk for you know for people is we have started a Google Maps, a listener-compiled Google Maps where I'm also adding to it.
Um everyone's adding to it and just adding uh restaurants, bars, interesting food places, butcher shops, all that kind of stuff. And so the Google map is populated with um like 400 places already or in countries all around the world, so it's really cool to see how it's coming together. So if you want access to this, join our Patreon. Hey, uh John, would you be willing? I've also put in all my hot dog recommendations in Connecticut.
Nice. Would you be willing, John, to share your Belgium document with the Patreon people? Yeah, why not? I can do that. So those of you that don't know, John has the most in-depth food tour-related Belgium document ever compiled by a living human being, as far as I know.
As far as I know. Which I will say is not very far. As far as I know, it turns out it's not very far. But, you know, there you have it. Right?
Anyway. Uh and Jackie Molecules, we got you. Your mic was muted a little bit before you all right. Oh, I'm here. Can you hear me?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where uh where where are you now? What uh what what city, what state, where are you? Oh, just LA. Yeah.
I had a dream about regular regular LA. I've been dreaming about LA left and right. I don't know. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is.
Maybe you gotta get out here. Maybe. I don't know. Uh all right. And uh before I leave it, uh John, who we got coming up and upcoming shows that people should look out for.
We have got um Majority Cooking folks coming on in two weeks. Uh today we have a quick appearance from uh Garrett Richard. We have Bob Florence with More Me Show You coming in, and then the co-founders of Maiden Cook, right? It's gonna be a double banger of a week. So on Tuesday we'll have Bob, and then on Wednesday, we will have uh Jake and Chip from Maiden.
It'll be a double episode week. Cool, and they're coming in live, yeah. That's why we're having them on the off day because they're coming in live. All right. Now, uh just so you know, a lot of people have been asking, right, about uh the new ANOVA vacuum sealer, and I say what I always say, I haven't used it, so I have no idea.
Now, one did I I they they they sent us one to look at and I've started looking at it. I haven't finished my um, I haven't finished my assessment. But I figure, John, better than like spending like 10 minutes or 12 minutes in one episode talking about it, maybe better just to like mention snippets as I get them. What do you think? Yeah, why not?
All right. So the first thing is this. Yeah. Uh it is small, right? So it's small, it's easy to carry around.
Like if you've ever, if any of you have ever picked up a commercial vacuum machine because it's got the oil-based pump in it, it those are super heavy. Nastasia's favorite thing used to be when I used to get angry. Remember this, Duss? And I'd be like, Can someone help? Can someone help?
Can someone help? And did anyone ever help Stas? No, no. So I'm like, and I would just lift it. And I'm not a strong guy, but I have anger strength, right?
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Super anger strength, right? So like I I would lift these heavy vacuum machines around. Uh, you know, so I'm used to it.
I know how much they weigh. Oh my God, Stas. You remember Del Posto? Yes. Yes.
Yes. So Mark Ladner, this is before you were going out with Mark, right? Yeah. So Mark Ladner at Del Posto used to have one of these floor standing vacuum machines, right? So vacuum machines that most of us use in the restaurants, they come in, you know, three basic sizes.
The floor standing ones, which you hardly ever see anymore, right? So that's because they're just so damn big. But the oh my God, are they monsters? The vacuum pumps in those things will like, you know, he they rip. Anyway, uh, and then the the kind of big tabletop one, which is kind of what most people have.
Uh, and then the smaller one, which is the one that I like, the little uh the MVS, I think 45, the small one, easy one to carry. There, those are all commercial machines with with uh oil-based vacuum pumps. And they're all heavy as lead and pretty big. So the ANOVA does not have an oil-based vacuum pump in it. Of course, it doesn't cost $1,500 either.
It costs, I think, like $400, right? So you can't assess it with the same kind of eyes that you would assess, you know, a $1,500 unit. It's very lightweight, easy to move around. It's small and looks pretty. It's well designed, but it the chamber, you have to understand that it is uh small, right?
On the chamber. So for instance, um, it has a uh a function, which I'll talk about in a second for cooling uh cooling things like bread. So I use my chamber vacuum machine for cooling bread, my big one, right? Um this unit is too small to hold like uh a loaf that's made with like five, five hundred and fifty, six hundred grams of flour, like that size loaf, is too big to fit into the chamber without smashing it, and so you can't cool it with that, right? So it's you just have to really keep in mind, like it's more of like a one stake kind of a situation, right?
Uh the other thing is is that uh, and this is something that I'm a little disappointed in, it doesn't have uh a firmware update, it's not an updatable firmware. And why is that important, you might ask? Why would I need to update the firmware? Well, they've made a couple of choices that I don't enjoy. So uh one of the choices I've made, they've made that I really, really don't enjoy.
Any commercial vacuum machine that I've ever used in my life, uh you close it, the program starts, and then uh you wait. When the liquids and stuff start boiling over, you hit stop. And when you hit stop, it instantly seals the bag. So stopping the cycle in a commercial vacuum machine seals the bag. If you don't want the bag to seal, you don't hit stop, you actually turn the power off.
That's how you run a commercial vacuum machine. Every single one I've ever used. I'm talking, I've used you know, uh multivax, mini packs, uh, I've used whatever that German one that starts with an H is. I've used I've used zillions of different ones, and they all work this way. Burkles.
Um in this one, when you hit stop, it stops and then doesn't seal the bag. And what that means is is that like, for instance, if something's really light, the bag can get ejected around without getting sealed, stuff can spill, and it just you can't let's say you're bagging creme en glaze. Cremon glaze is gonna boil no matter what. You can't help it, crema glaze is gonna boil uh because of the air bubbles, it's gonna foam over. So, how are you gonna bag creme en glaze?
Because you can only set two modes of vacuum, long or short. So you can't just sit there. Well, it'd be better if they let you just suck a vacuum for up to 60 seconds instead of 40, which is the long for them, then hit stop and has seal the bag. So if you could update the firmware on it, that's something that's easily fixable by them down the line. But like that, that's a uh another issue.
So then they rate the um they rate the vacuum pump in in some unit that I don't understand, like uh like cubic meters per hour or something like that. It ends up being about two point uh something five, two point three uh CFM, which is how most Americans rate pumps in CFM. You have to take CFM with a huge grain of salt. Why? Because CFM is CFM in a certain condition.
What really matters to you in vacuum land isn't how many cubic feet of air the pump can pump when it's pumping at atmospheric pressure. What you care about is how fast it can suck a vacuum. And it does a decent job of sucking a vacuum on a thing like a steak, but my standard test is to put uh cold tap water in and see if you can boil it. And it will not boil cold tap water within 40 seconds. Warm tap water, not hot, warm tap water, it will just come to a boil right before it it shuts off.
So uh it's got a lot of cool features like infusion features and cooling features, uh, but I I haven't really used them yet. More on that later. Is this an okay first run on a on a thing, John? Am I right? Doesn't care.
Yep, sounds good so far. Doesn't care. Doesn't care. All right. Uh all right.
All right. Can you hear me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, all right. Okay.
So Mark Mandal wrote in for uh the beans episode and was talking about his uh rock beans, rock beans, and we got a response, which of course I should have thought of too. He said, Search for the word rock bean in Portuguese. If you search for the re words rock bean in Portuguese, which I will now, uh, this is it from Rob L uh uh sending in, uh said, miss the live show and just listening now. The person curious about rock beans and recipes for them, we'll find them by searching. I don't I can't pronounce Portuguese.
Can any of you guys pronounce Portuguese? Anyone? John, anyone? Molecules? No.
Uh all right, so I I apologize in advance. Uh Fayhao, I don't know, beans of di Pedra, rock, uh, reciita, you know, recipes. I I can't pronounce Portuguese. Sorry. Uh these exist in some places in Brazil where the bean varieties are ultra-regional, but this is really the national bean of Cabo Verde, and there are a lot of Cape Verdeans in Massachusetts.
I found a recipe for them uh even before I read this because I I searched uh I wrote rock bean and translated it and looked for it. Uh crumb snatched, it's kind of a like a crazy name for your your website, right? Crumb snatched? Crumb snatched.com. Sounds kind of dirty, right?
Crumb snatched. I don't understand. Anyway. Because it has the word snatch in there. Oh.
That's probably what you're thinking of. Oh. Yeah. Thank you for clarifying that. I wasn't sure if he I don't know.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, because then it's like it's oh, you know what it is? It's like a mixture of crumb bum and snatch, which is super gross. Does anyone call anyone crumb bums anymore?
No. No? Crumbum. I've never heard that. Crumbum?
That's a good old school insult. I mean, it's no dirt bag, but uh, so then I also looked up pictures of these beans and they're kind of funny. They got like a little line down them. They almost look like like they've started to sprout a little bit in the picture because they got a little line down them. And they remind me of the fact that some people with barley miso, do you guys remember this?
They call them loincloth because a little bit of that line from the barley is left over. And I always thought it was like super gross to think of all of these dudes' loincloths hanging out in my miso miso. No? Anyone? No?
All right. All right. Should I should I give a bean recipe? I I came up with a vegetarian bean recipe. Should I give it or later?
Later? Sure. I'll give it. Okay. So for those of you I I I gave pretty much my regular baked bean recipe, but I had to work on a vegetarian baked bean because I thought that uh, you know, I thought a vegetarian was coming over to my house last night, but they didn't.
But it's fine. Because the recipe actually, I have to say, this recipe tastes to me as good as the one with pork in it. So the secret that it's no secret, everybody knows this. The way you make vegetarian baked beans is by adding some sort of tomato product and then some other sort of umami product, for instance, uh uh nutritional yeast, and then some form of smoky thing. I added a combination of both hickory smoke powder and uh smoked sweet paprika.
So here's how you do it. And here's also how I'm doing these recipes. I need some feedback from you uh folks out there on whether or not this is a reasonable way to write a recipe, because I really do do this by weight. Anyone with a five kilo scale can you think the average person has a five kilo scale who has a scale? Those who have a scale, do you think five kilos is the number they have?
No one? Anyone? Yeah, I think so. Five? Yeah.
I think so. Like they don't have a 10. Yeah. But five. I mean, if if you're if you're if your scale can't do five kilos, then you're really limiting yourself.
You know what I mean? I think five kilos is a good number. All right. So you take a pound of dry beans for uh metric folks, that's uh 463. It's not actually, but the average pound of dried beans isn't actually a pound.
I've averaged about I've averaged uh a bunch of packages, and they most of them come in around 463. I don't really know why. Uh okay, so here's what you do now. Ready? Put those into your pot, uh weigh them, right?
Right, and now tear it out when it's dry. Tear it out before you wash, and I'll tell you why. Then wash your beans and then put the pot back on the scale, because now you've already measured the extra water that you have attached to the beans. You with me here, guys? You with me, John?
You with me? Stas, you got me? All right. So then add to that 1,458 milliliters of water. Uh and you honestly, that number doesn't matter much at all.
But you have to know what you've added. Then uh I add 2.6 to 2.7% salt on on bean weight basis, which is 12.2 grams of salt per pound. And I do that because I know exactly how much water the beans roughly are gonna absorb. Now my cook to dry ratio that I've measured many times with several beans is 2.3 to 1. So I'm looking for the cooked beans to weigh 1,065 grams.
Which means, folks, if you do the math, I have 857 grams of extra quote unquote water. Then I add onions. I added one medium large, 177 grams, four cloves of garlic, 23 grams, three medium carrots, dice real small, because I'm I'm basically making the veg stock as as it cooks. Actually, I'm lying. First, I did the water and salt and I let it soak for four hours at 104 degrees Fahrenheit on my induction burner with uh two bean o caps in it to to kind of wipe out the fartiness of it, as we discussed last week.
So then after the soaking for a couple of hours at 104 to try to wipe out the the farts, 177 onion, uh 23 garlic, three medium carrots, 208, peeled and finely diced, three medium things of celery, uh finely diced, 125 grams of Crosby's molasses. You can use steens or maybe maple syrup instead, but probably not as much. Uh 75 of olive oil, 4.5 uh grams of dried mustard. If you don't have dried mustard, you can add prepared mustard, but add it after the first cook step. Uh 11 grams of nutritional yeast, which is two tablespoons, 5.5 grams of sweet smoked paprika, 2.5 tablespoons, uh a little bit of hickory smoked powder, I add about a gram and a half, uh, 1.5 grams of bay leaf and 5 grams of rosemary uh thyme rather uh tied uh with string.
And uh then I after the soaking I simmered that for 40 minutes. Now here's what you do before you simmer it, put your pot on your scale, right? Don't use a giant pot because it'll weigh too much. Put your pot on your scale and weigh it, okay? Then after you cook it for about 40 minutes, the bean should be about three quarters of the way done.
Weigh it again. Now you know how much water you've lost. So yesterday when I cooked it, I lost 626 grams of water, which means I have 231 grams of extra water left. Do you get how I'm doing this now? Then I added the 75 grams of tomato paste, right?
And then I put it in my bean pot. You don't have to have a bean pot. You could put it in anything in an oven, right? But weigh it before you put it in, because you know that you're playing with 231 grams of water. So I put it in the oven at 250, and then after two hours, I measured, I weighed it again, and I had lost 73 grams of water.
That means I had 158 grams. I put it back in the oven. After four hours, I uh I lost another 102 grams, which means I had 56 remaining. Now that's a little low, right? You want to have uh about a hundred, 110 left or something like that.
So I added another 50 more water, and to be honest, I could have eaten it just then. Right. I also, that's when I tasted it for salt, after the four-hour mark, because then I'm pretty much where I'm gonna be. I added another two grams of salt there. Then after another two more hours at six hours uh uh after I'd added 50 more water, I had I had lost 77 more.
I only had 29 remaining. Now I made a mistake there. I shouldn't have added 50 more water, I probably should have added like a hundred, hundred and twenty-five. It was a little dry, but they're delicious. And that's how I do this recipe by just weighing in between so I know exactly how much water is left.
Does that make sense? Would anyone it's not that hard once you get used to it, but what do you what what do you what do you think? Is this a reasonable way to do something or no? No, no. Yeah, I think so.
No, no, no one gives crazy. I think there's a delay with the phone. And I thought it was just when I was in Egypt, but apparently it's there's a little bit of a delay. Yeah. So it's so this is like when uh when like you're calling into CNN or whatever, and like then the person's like waiting.
Yeah, and they're talking about something horrible, so you want the response right away, and then they're waiting. Yeah, I hate that. Don't you hate that? Oh my god, I hate that. Um speaking of horrible, uh uh, I was at uh my re the like uh my wife's reunion at Yale this weekend, and they have a uh restaurant there called Louie's Lunch, which is famous for its uh hamburgers.
It's the one where like they throw you out if you have ask for ketchup. Yeah, it's good. Uh and they're the when I was there, they were op only open for lunch, right? That's why it's called Louie's Lunch, right? But now it's open until like 1 a.m.
But so many weasels were there for the reunions, right, that they ran out of hamburger meat. How the hell do you run out of hamburger meat? Yeah. I mean, it's not like it's not like one of these Texas barbecue joints. It's hamburger meat.
I guess it's because they're closed on the Sunday and the Monday, so like I guess on a Saturday, like they can run low, but I was like, oh my goodness. I was very upset. But I want, for those of you that have never been, here's what's cool about it. First of all, everything's served on toasted white bread. Everything.
The hamburgers are served on toasted white bread. And they have one of those vertical toasters, you know, that like that like lifts it up. You know what I'm talking about, Styles? The toaster comes up in the air and goes around. And then all of the hamburgers are cooked in these like mini crematoriums.
Am I describing this right, John? You know what I'm saying? It's like, it's like, it's like you looks like they're in the Munsters and there's like a chimney coming out of the top, and it's all gas and fire in, and they've got these two tall, skinny doors that you open up, and then they put the burgers into these weird little slots in these crematorium things, which is where they cook them. And then it's onion and cheese whiz. And then and that's it.
There are no toppings. If you ask for toppings, you are summarily ejected. But they're good, I think. I think they're a good burger. Anyway.
Louis lunch. Potato salad? I've never had potato salad there. I would just have another burger. What kind of potato?
What kind of potato salad? American or German? Uh German style German. Do you prefer a German style to an American style? No.
I just prefer whichever one tastes better when I'm eating it. So you're an equal opportunity potato saladist. You're not a purist on your potato salad? Yep. Correct.
Okay. Okay. Well, what about you, Styles? What's your potato salad, the go-to potato salad? Um with mayonnaise and mustard and yeah.
It's like classic American picnic style. Mm-hmm. Potato salad. What about you, Joe? You are you a potato salad man?
I like to know who I'm talking to. Yeah, I'm a potato salad guy. Um I don't know. I like the way there's vinegar. You like vinegar?
You like a German style? Yeah. Yeah. So, and uh Jack, you haven't weighed in your nerve. Don't tell me you don't like potato salad, Jack.
Don't don't get me. Don't get me started. I don't, I'm not a potato salad guy. Jesus, Jesus. You know what sucks?
You know what sucks, folks? Other than Jack not liking potato salad? Another thing that sucks is when you have an American style. This is why, like, when you have an American style, okay, okay. So on coleslaw, I'll do a mayonnaise style with vinegar in it, right?
Like sort of like a little bit of tart. But what I don't like is sometimes an American style potato salad when it's been kept in the deli too long, starts fermenting and it starts tasting carbonated and sour. I hate that so much. I feel like I'm being poisoned. How many times has that happened to you, Stys?
Uh not a lot. Not a lot. That happened to me all the time. I hate that. You know how I bet you've eaten a lot of uh poisonous potato salad is uh our friend uh Peter Kim.
Yeah. Yeah, man who loves a moldy egg salad sandwich from a gas station has to have eaten a lot of fermented potato salad in his life. Oh yeah. What about celeries in your potato salad? Stash you like celery?
Yeah. Yeah, me too. Like, like, do you like well, aside from gas station, do you like egg salad? You know why? It's good.
Tastes good. Like everyone likes deviled eggs. Why wouldn't you want the basic thing hacked up on a sandwich? That tastes good, right? Yeah.
It's a good product. What about that, Jack? Do you like uh freaking egg salad? Oh god. Yeah.
You don't like egg salad? Do you know what I'm very few things I'm not that into? Oh, I just happened to pick two of them. Okay. Uh all right.
Well, how about it? I would say they're baited. Uh do you not like mayonnaise? Yeah, that's kind of that's that's sort of the thing here. Whoa.
Yeah, that's problematic. Yeah. No. No, you know. To each their own, I guess.
Uh I had another I had another one in this, in this, in this vein in this genre. You know what I like that nobody likes? Tuna mac. I like tuna mac. I like both hot and cold tuna macaroni salad.
Anyway. And everybody hates it. I don't know why. Here's another thing. Did any of you guys grow up eating cream chip beef on toast?
No. None of you? None of you have ever had cream chip beef on toast. Do you know what chipped beef is? I know you've talked about it before.
I have? Yeah. Chip beef is like super thin dried beef that comes in like a plastic package. It's already been like hacked into tiny pieces and it's dry and salty. And then you make it into a cream sauce and you put it on toast.
And it was a real like, it was a real kind of like, this is the only beef we can kind of get kind of a food. So it was uh reviled by a lot of people, but I grew up eating it. Like my grandparents would make it a lot. So I used to have it a lot. Uh it's dissimilar because it doesn't have like the acid of like a Welsh rare bit.
You guys ever do the rare bit growing up? No. Joe, you did the rare bit? A little bit, yeah. Yeah, John did the ribbon.
Yeah, rare bit's. No, I didn't do the rare bit. I only got introduced to the rare bit when my wife came to the States. Oh, yeah? She enjoys it.
So do you does she make it? No, she doesn't make it. No, but you know, we'll we'll we'll have it out. Yeah, I like what forever. All right.
All right. Enough enough of enough of what the 70s used to taste like. Uh all right. So yeah, by the way, we have Garrett calling in in any any minute, I think, to uh answer your question about how best to use your uh milk your milkshake making machine. Uh let's see what else we got here.
Um so Dollar wrote in and hot holding shrimp. Yeah. Right. Hot holding shrimp, what I can find is 120 degrees Fahrenheit. What is that in Celsius land for 50 temperature 49?
49. All right. So FYI, 49 degrees Celsius. You're you're slipping into the danger zone there, right? Um and John was saying, so Dollar had a question of how to hold his shrimp, and then he said he uses a reverse sear method.
And I mentioned that I can never remember which is reversed because you can sear something before and after, and I don't know which one would be reversed. Which one's reversed, John? Well, I think it's that you're reversing by putting it in the oven first and then searing it. Why is that reverse? Yeah, but like I always sear at the end.
I I don't know. And any classic recipe for, you know, it can go either way. It's just a question of when you do it or both. We need to like people need to stop. People need to stop.
It's not a good term. Anyway, um, so on this, you said they at the restaurant used to hold them in a burblanc, right? Yeah, that's right. Uh hold it in a burblanc on that shelf above the range. Um, and we'd keep them in there for like an hour and a half, two hours tops.
We'd usually solve them by that, but if they were over two hours, then we'd, you know, eat them or toss them. Right, because you're basically realize that you're keeping them in the danger zone. Nastasia's a great thermometer idea. Right, Sas. I don't want to tell anybody again.
What? Because it's a viable product. I mean, I guess it's like wine santa, which it'll never be. Well, it's not only that not only that, we've already said it, so you can't. Yeah, I don't I don't want to still want to talk about it.
Okay. All right. It's too good an idea. Speaking of too good. It's just too good people.
Uh well, that's like the idea. I want someone else to become a millionaire on labs and labs. Remember that idea? It's all Labrador Retrievers in laboratories. That's easy to do.
With coats on. Think of how many calendars you'd sell. So many calendars. Um speaking of ideas that we've said before, like someone out there in, you know, who can hear our voices needs to figure out a way. People still, when you search for cooking issues on the internet, you get the old HRN feed.
So like every week I get a uh a tweet from someone saying, You haven't done a show since 2021. And I'm like, we have. Every week. Like someone out there has to be some sort of like search engine monster, or someone can tell us how we can get the real show to show up first, right, Sas? What's the trick, John?
Doesn't Jack know? Jack knows, John knows. Someone what what's the dealy? What what what do they have to search for? I mean what's the point?
On Google or in the podcast. Well, here's the thing. Anyone that can hear me already knows how to get me to find. But anyone that can hear this already knows how to find it because they're hearing it. It's one of those things.
It's crazy. Or your Instagram or anything. Crazy. Maddening. It's maddening.
Oh, so back on uh on dollar's problem. So uh the the Bur Blanc is interesting because when um when uh what's his name? Thomas Keller and Ruhlman came out with their book Under Pressure, like uh they did their lobster, they cooked their lobster in in uh in a Bur Blanc. And there's two reasons to do that. One, because uh when you add water-based product to uh butter, you can't add flavor to it.
Secondly, it's gonna increase the heat capacity, although I think that's actually a negative. I'll tell you why. If you increase the heat capacity of the uh fluid that you use to hold it, right, then you're increasing the chances that you can overcook, right? You with me there, John? By increasing the heat capacity by adding water, right?
Because remember, oil has about half the heat capacity of water. So it doesn't heat things nearly as quickly. It also doesn't move as quickly, so it doesn't convect as much. And so it's a lot more gentle of a heating uh method than water. Now, Bur Blanc is thicker than either oil or water.
So the lack of convection maybe makes up for it. I don't know. I'd have to do some measurements, right? Uh, but it's an interesting idea. But it's also a uh a boat ton cheaper because water turns out is a lot cheaper than butter.
You know what I'm saying? A lot cheaper than butter. Um anyway, uh so yeah, you can oil hold, you can butter hold, uh, and it will overcook it less quickly. And John was rocking them around 49. And remember, the problem with mushiness in shrimp is that if you cook it at a low temperature, they turn mushy, especially if you cook it for a long time.
It's not a hot it doesn't happen 100% of the time, but if you've ever had a pasty shrimp in your mouth that was cooked this way, like you can't even swallow it. You have to spit it out. It's so gross. And so gross. But if you high hook high heat cook your shrimp, which I think you should, right?
That inactivates the enzyme, and then a low hold isn't gonna cause it to go mushy as long as that enzyme is deactivated. Does that make sense to everyone? Yeah. Yes. Crumb snatched.
Uh Ian wrote in. Uh, did you get this answer for Ian yet, John? Did you look at my uh at my uh the Ian wants to know what our nut nut milk technique is. You didn't post a recipe or a video. No, on all of my videos, on all of my posted a picture of it.
No, but on all the videos, I wrote down, I remember I made the titles for them. I wrote down what I was doing when I did it. I was like, here's 400 grams of this, here's 400 grams of whatever, bop up, and I wrote down all of the numbers. In the videos. I have looked through both all of your Instagram and Booker Index's Instagram, and I see nothing.
I didn't see anything in the dropbox either, but you didn't see me making I never made a nut milk in our Instagram in the 12 days of spinzole. I made freaking You posted about you you made four pints of nut milk, three something other than two something else's, but you didn't post the recipes, and you only posted a picture of that one. Every other one. But those were all videos. Those were all videos, right?
So nut milk wasn't a video? Nope. No, son of a God. And there's no nut. On the fourth day of Christmas, my spin's all made for me, four pints of nut milk, three French hen smulches, schmaltzes, two sticks of butter, and a quick batch of cold good coffee.
And you posted no recipe. That sounds right. Listen to you. Thanks for all the help with those, Stas. Thanks for all the help with those videos.
Uh so like the uh John, let's talk about making videos. Yeah. Oh yeah. Stasen's like you need to post another video, Dave. Did you make it yet?
Did you develop the recipe and do the video yet? Uh all right. So Ian, I thought it was out there, and there's nothing in the in the manual on nut milk. No. Triple check.
All right, Biff Dit wrote in and wants to know, uh, considering what jokers we are, how we can possibly make money. I don't think I could talk about that on air, right, Stas? Literally, Biff Dit wants to know like how the hell we're able to live in New York considering that our restaurants have closed. Well, you you have your wife is helps with that. I mean, and my wife's not my wife's an architect.
And I don't think she's out printing money. Yeah, no, I know. And I don't live in the city. My wife's an architect, I got two kids and two dogs. Right.
Biff, it's not easy, man. And I don't live here, and John is barely making it. Yeah. We're okay. We're we're as okay as we can be until we're back on top again.
We'll be back on top again. Hey, speaking of uh Booker and Dax closing, anyone out there wants to open a booker in Dax, well, you come talk to me. Uh Alexander wrote in, hey, uh got a question for no tangent Tuesday. Is there any way to safely inspuce a s uh uh spirit with cigars? Uh when I search for it, all I find is techniques for the opposite, where they put a shot of rum in closed container with their cigars.
I assume this will not affect. Do you remember that cigar party? Oh my god, yeah. Was there anything worse? Now listen.
I think that may have been no, no, that wasn't the worst event. You know what the worst event was. What? Which one? Uh or I couldn't go behind the bar.
Okay. So let's go. Can we tell a little bit? No. A little bit?
Okay. You can do the cigar. I need you guys to imagine there's a situation where for some reason Nastasi is not allowed to go behind the bar and does so anyway. First of all, let me say, I won't say anything specific about anything, but I will say that it is unreasonable to ask two people to come and make drinks at a place and not give them a place to do so. Like literally, we were trying to make uh uh pecan bourbon old fashions in a Lexan with uh with the hand blender plugged into a wall in the hallway.
Or not even a hallway, next to a trash can at uh at a fire exit in floor in a venue. Yeah, yeah. And I have never been I I mean, like, I'm used to being Nastasi and I are used to being disrespected, right? We're used to being literally treated as garbage. At the French Culinary Institute, our office was in fact a garbage room, right?
Literally a garbage room. But that was the first time in a long time I actually got bent after a while. Like the the remember that one time the person came in and said that we had to move again? Yeah. And I just I gave that weird.
I gave that weird high-pitched laugh. Yeah, yeah. That was. Anyway, the cigars. So the cigars was most physically punishing event we've ever done because we were invited to do a rum event.
I think we did Banana Houstino, right? And maybe one other drink. Yeah. Right? Because it was four ronza kappa.
Uh back when they could still say 23 Solera on their label, right? Yeah. And uh, oh, speaking of which, uh, afterwards, remind me wine. You're gonna like this idea, all right? All right.
Uh so we're like, yeah, we'll do it. They're like, oh, it's a it's a somebody dialing. Someone's got an old school dialing. We were doing a rum and cigar party. And I think Nastasia and I didn't know, I don't know whether we thought it was gonna be outdoors or what.
We were in a basement doing rum and cigar party where they were encouraged to smoke their cigars while we were making the rum. And it was it was the two of us and then like a bunch of six foot two model type people. Yeah. And I never speak to model type people, right, Stas? Yeah.
And I was like, yo, how are you guys okay with this? And they were like, no. It was the it was the worst event. I mean we smelled so bad. Uh uh, yeah, I think we just burned our clothes.
Yeah. I think we just burned our clothes. I mean, I think the people had fun who who can tolerate that, but like, man, if that's what it was like to be a robber baron in the uh 1800s, no thanks. You know what I mean? Not worth it.
You know? So was that uh was that Bibity Boobity Bobity? Was that Garrett? Calling in, Joe, we got Garrett on the line. Garrett, Richard, how you doing?
You there? Busy. We lost him. I don't, I don't think he's there yet. No, I heard beepity bobbity boop.
I thought we had him. All right. So I'll answer this question on cigars. So what a lot of people used to do is they would light the cigar and they would put the smoke under a cloch, right? Or they would leave a burning cigar, and some people would even like uh like you could pump air through a cigar and like burn it and under a cloche, and then that will definitely infuse uh that flavor into it, but that's burning, right?
So if what you want is tobacco and not burnt tobacco, you could infuse it. Todd Thrasher uh used to do a tobacco, I think, bourbon, I can't remember, back in the like uh early mid 2000s when he was uh working in DC, I think with um uh oh my god, uh what's his name? Famous man, famous man, uh Spanish guy, famous. Uh World Central. Yeah, Jose Andres' uh bar.
Yeah, uh in DC. I've always shied away because I think it's probably poisonous. You know what I mean? Let me put you this way. Have you ever tried chewing tobacco and accidentally swallowed the juice?
Do you know what happens? You blow chunks everywhere. My friend Charlie Cargill, when I was in high school, I was in his room, and he's like, here, try this. And he gave me the chewing tobacco. And I had never done it before.
I put it in my mouth, and like all of a sudden, I felt like my head was in a vice because I also don't smoke, right? So, like my head was like, I was like, ah, you know that feeling? And then he was like, What he's like, where have you been spitting? Oh, geez. And I said, What do you mean what do you mean?
Oh no. Yeah yeah and so I just been swallowing all of that chaw juice and then like literally right after I said that I was like blah like all over his room all over his backpack all over his books all over his giant Grateful Dead bootleg collection because like you know all the deadheads back then we had like you know 50 60 Grateful Dead tapes uh yeah and then you know what I never tried it again I never and and even to this day like like at a wedding like I'll take a couple puffs on a cigar and like that nicotine hits my head and I don't like it. I think it's just because of that one like super aversion therapy thing. You know what I mean? Yeah.
So to answer your question I don't know Alexander I don't know what a safe level is just remember you know don't sip the juice you know what has a really good smell to it everyone likes I think the smell of not necessarily when it's burning but even when it's burning a little bit pipe tobacco why because they add smell to it they add they add like fun stuff to it don't you like the smell of pipe tobacco smells good like fruits uh yeah uh all right Joe Waterhouse uh I've been thinking about tap cocktails for a while now and wondered if you could uh ask me if this is smart or stupid I've attached a keg to a cement oh we did the cement mixer didn't we didn't we do the cement mixer question we did the cement mix oh we did yes yes sorry it's difficult super old the other thing is this you can shake uh a five-gallon corny keg if it's only got a couple of gallons into it it. It just hurts your chest and makes you feel really stupid. You know what I mean? But you can do it. Nastasia has watched me do it and laughed at me heartily.
Yes. Yeah. You know why? Because it's funny. That's why.
I was in the elevator, going back to Deviled Eggs a little bit. I was in the elevator. I don't know why. Person says to me, I've been making a lot of deviled eggs recently. Oh, I know why.
Because I had like three dozen eggs in my bag. Because I cook a lot of eggs. And he's like, I've been making a lot of Delled eggs recently. I was like, because they're delicious, right? And he goes, Yeah.
And that was it. Kind of a not a normal elevator conversation, though, right? Yeah. Uh any other of these questions here, John, that I should know we've already answered. Uh Nicholas writes in, uh, would you recommend any?
I don't think so, yeah. All right. Would you recommend any resources or books on how to get the most out of your roto vap? Didn't we answer this? There is no good information about rotovaps.
There is no good information about rotovaps. The reason there is no good information about roto vaps is why would someone write a book on it? Rotovaps are listen, in order for someone to write a book, there has to be a market for the book. Someone has to put like, you know, a bunch of time into writing it, shooting it, editing it, and then a publisher has to come out with it, right? This is why, and it's just there's just not that many of them.
And even like a lot of people who use them don't use them necessarily to their best effect. So that's why I think there's a dearth of information on rotary evaporators out there. But the the thing is is that you really need to find someone who runs one and and train live. It's not the kind of thing I think you could do from a book. We could someday, you know, once I get mine hooked up again, we could do a YouTube thing on it, right?
Right, John? Something like that. It's beyond it's beyond TikTok. It's more of like a half hour hour thing. But a book, I just don't think that's gonna happen.
Um did we I think we partially answered this, but we can go more into it. Uh Nastasio, hopefully we'll remember. Uh from Jay. Why does meat? I I think we did this.
Why does meat go dry? So what happens, people by the way, is is that at the end of everything are questions that John thinks I haven't answered yet. Right? Uh and so what that usually means is. Yeah, I wonder if I was not here on this day when he interviewed.
Well, what what it usually means is he doesn't think I've answered them well enough. That's usually what it means. Um that's true. See if you can get Garrett to come. I don't want to miss him because I told uh told him I'd answer that.
Uh told Ilya I would answer it. Uh why does meat go dry mealy if you uh souvied for too long, even at low temperature? For larger cuts, I noticed it continues even at lower temps, uh cooking at lower temps than desired, uh, i.e. dropping down to uh what's 125 Fahrenheit in Celsius? 125 Fahrenheit is 51.6.
Right. So uh Jay has noticed that it gets uh dry mealy even when cooking at 51 uh for beef steaks. Is there a way to prevent this while still breaking down collagen? And if not, does it suggest that some steaks are too thick for sous vide? All right, Jay.
Um you have talked about one of the things I do, which is I take it to the temperature I want and then drop it down, right? Which is what I do uh to usually about 52 is where I drop it because that's like the lowest where I feel comfortable to let it ride for infinity, right? And then I can break down, break down the collagen. But some cuts of meat that don't have enough connective tissue, you just can't cook for a long time. Like filet, right?
So all of the um anything that doesn't have enough structure to taste good uh when it's long cooked, you should just avoid doing that way. Like I just don't think there's a good way to cook uh tenderloin for a long time. They're just not. Uh whereas like a rib steak, I don't perceive it as going dry mealy even when it's cooked for hours, right? If you cook it at 54 or 5 or 55 Celsius for uh hours, then you know it'll actually get kind of harder, right?
Uh and then it can have some of that dry chewy. But if you if you take it 55, 545 for 45 minutes, an hour just to get the inside up and then drop it down to 52. In my taste, it doesn't go dry mealy even for many hours afterwards, right? Uh strip steak, you know, I think it's a little more texturally difficult than uh rib, but uh kind of the same. And things that have higher amounts of connective tissue, the texture is overwhelmingly created by the connective tissue and not by the actual muscle fibers themselves, in as long as you don't overcook them, okay.
But cuts of meat like uh tenderloin, yeah, like the the texture of that meat is entirely based on the muscle fibers, and there is not a way to cook that thing that I have ever found to cook it longer than about 45 minutes or an hour and not have it end up being uh you know, as you say, mealy, dry, gross. Um, so I don't know. That answer that question, John, to your satisfaction that time. That was a great answer. Okay.
Great answer. All right. B plus. Um I asked uh I already answered uh the one about pressure cooking. Uh uh I already answered the pressure cooking Nixon.
Yeah, yeah. Uh and we also answered Henry, like I think these are old questions because we talked with uh we talked about tomato paste in a tube with uh because we know that that Jackie Molecules likes his tomato paste in a tube, right? So the question that was asked back in the day, I did do some more research though, since the last time we talked about it. Okay. And it turns out that in Europe, I think there are different levels of tomato paste concentration, right?
Whereas I think in the United States, there's really kind of only one. Like all the tomato paste is roughly the same. And I had written down uh, you know, whenever the last time I looked about this, what the actual solids level was in tomato paste, but in the US, they're pretty much, I think, all the same. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Interesting. Yeah. Um, and I think that's all the questions. So we're waiting for Garrett to come in, so now I could talk about someone that I'd like to, because yeah, he has 13 minutes to call in. You got you did you send him a text there, uh, John?
I did, yeah. Okay. So I know this is a super old story, but he just got released from prison like last year and then deported to uh Indonesia. But uh there's a guy, Rudy, and his last name starts with a K, but I didn't write it down, so I don't remember what it is. So Rudy was in the early 2000s a super famous wine forger, right?
So what he used to do is he would buy a bunch of wines at auction and go, he would spend like $500,000 a year in wine, so that everyone's like, oh, this guy spends a lot of money in wine, right? This guy knows his stuff. So he would get invited to all the fancy wine parties and he got to know all like the mega rich wine weasels out there, right? And then when he got to know all the mega rich wine weasels, all of a sudden he started saying, Oh, I have these other super fancy wines, and he would auction off these super fancy wines, and he sold millions of dollars worth of hyper fancy wines at auctions. And so this was his scam, right?
Because they were all forgeries. They were all fake. Uh and he got caught because he invented some wines that never existed. Like one of the one of the, you know, owners of the vineyard was like, that vineyard didn't exist back then. Or like he sold like, you know, six bottles of I forget what it was, like 45 Petrus, and like there was only like 600 bottles ever made.
And so like he sold more bottles than anyone had seen like in anyone's lifetime, so it's like not possible. So and like, you know, occasionally the label would mess up. Now, here's the thing. They say when they caught this dude, right? They say that they broke into his California apartment, and in there they found a bunch of empty wine bottles, right?
Because one of one of the tricks, and they interviewed some people from UC Davis about how he did this. So one of the tricks was he would buy like kind of a crappy old vintage from a famous thing. So he'd buy like a Romanet Conte, you know, super famous uh burgundy, but he wouldn't buy the best year, right? He would open that sucker and he would put a little bit of fresh wine into it so that he can market it as the super expensive one, right? Because then it turns out, because here's the thing.
You know what you didn't get caught on? Guess what he didn't get caught on, Stas? I don't label? I don't know. No, he did not get caught on the fact that the wine didn't taste accurate.
Are you seeing where I'm going with this? Like, and so all of the stories are written by journalists who, you know, a lot of them basically are like, ha ha, super rich wine people get the wool pulled over their eyes because it turns out that this crappy wine, this guy was making, and I'm hearing the exact opposite. What I'm hearing is that this guy has the secret to making things taste like bottles of wine that cost thousands of dollars. Give me those secrets. So, like one of the secrets, right, is to take a $400 bottle of wine that's old and like a uh, you know, a newer bottle of wine that's like a hundred dollars, and then bop, bop, bop, like dose a little bit in, and now all of a sudden you have, you know, bottles that are worth thousands of dollars as long as you forge the labels for them.
I'm not as interested in that technique. Why? Because I'm not about to spend $400 of uh of my money to make a fake thousand dollar wine, right? That just that doesn't, that's not a good bargain for me. But it is interesting from a technological standpoint, right?
Uh, that you could, you know, synthesize the freshness of this super fancy wine. You know what? Even Robert Parker apparently gave one of his fake wines a hundred points, right? So the guy knows how to make a decent fake wine. But he also had formulas for taking wines and making them taste like they had like the right flavor and age on them.
I want those formulas. He got deported to Indonesia. Do you think we could get him on the show and talk about the formulas? Wouldn't that be amazing if he gave us the like the formula for like all of these super fancy wines? There's gotta be one where he takes like a less expensive bottle of wine and knows how to jazz it up, right?
Wouldn't you wouldn't that be an interesting thing, Saz? That would be interesting, yeah. It would be cool. Yeah. I mean, how could the how the whole Netflix documentary about his stuff that's called sour grapes?
Yeah, but do they tell you how to do it? I want a how-to. This is like when the DEA, when the DEA and Rudy Giuliani got together after 9-11 and did a a drug museum in Times Square, that this really happened, people. That drug museum basically taught me how to convert opium poppies into raw. Like they they showed me the the knives, they showed you how to score the opium poppy, how to let it drip down, like how to boil it.
They they they told you how to do money laundering. Now a lot of it's changed in the era of crypto, but back in the day. Go back to that guy who was like, how do you live in New York in the 40s? Yeah, yeah. I wish.
I wish. I wish. I wish I wish. So my point is like this drug museum. Now, you need it like they showed you a whole meth lab with all of the equipment, right?
But they didn't give you all the instructions for meth, but pretty much heroin, they gave you everything you need to know. And coke and crack. So like you went into this place knowing almost nothing, right? And all I left being like, I could do this. Like if I hadn't already had a job at that point, like I would have been like, this is what I should do.
You know, thank you, drug enforcement agency for, and it was very little of like it was very little of the like just say no from the 80s, and very much like, this is exactly how you do this awful thing, right? So it was crazy. I have the program somewhere, you know, because I used to I used to get programs for whatever I have it somewhere. Because people don't believe me when I tell them how crazy this exhibit was. I mean, it was and imagine having in Times Square.
Times Square, back in like the late 90s, early 2000s, there was only three kinds of people. There were about four. There were tourists, drug dealers, undercover cops posing as drug dealers, and prostitutes. And that was it. That was where I lived.
You know what I mean? Like that was the whole ball of wax. And so, you know, it was very, you know, it was very good for the neighborhood, I guess, right? It was like, you know, it's teaching you about your own neighborhood where I lived, you know. But uh, so what I want is that for this wine thing.
Because I think that our listeners wouldn't would enjoy, even if they can't afford to do it. Like the guy from UC Davis, I forget his name, he Ariel would be good on this one too, because she's uh she knows all the wine chemistry. Uh, but he intimated that that certain old wines, he gave me some of the hints, canned asparagus, like a little bit of canned asparagus, he said, is a note that some of these old wines have, right? Oh, also I learned something else uh while I was researching this, trying to find because I because I'm like, I'm like, I type the guy's name on like pop up formulas, and you can't get anything. And then they show you like a picture of what you think is gonna be his formulas, like on the thing, but it's not, it's just a like a list of wines.
So anyone who's a legal scholar out there, I'm sure that these formulas were the papers that were found in his uh And there's no patents that you didn't search his patents. Well, he didn't know he didn't publish it because he's like a forger. You know what I mean? But I guarantee you that in discovery for his trial, these formulas were entered into evidence. Somebody who's like a legal mind can probably get images of these formulas because I want them.
I want to know what they are. And then maybe we can get them on the on the on the show. And then you know maybe we can test some of this stuff. But um, do you remember back in the day uh that uh it used to be people would say that if you had a corked wine, remember back when wines had corks? Yeah.
Uh yeah. Uh they used to say that if you had a corked wine that you could crumple up plastic wrap and put it in and that would absorb the cork taint, right? Uh well, uh that was true because the original saran wrap was a different chemical compound. It wasn't polyethylene, it was P V D D or I forget what it was. Poly something something.
And uh so the new the the new saran wrap doesn't work anymore and there is no there is no uncork or there is no uncork tainter that I think is commonly available anymore. There's a business idea for somebody, right? Make something out of that old plastic with a boat ton of surface area and like like sell scunchies made out of it that people can toss into their glass of wine to like to take out the taint. You know what I mean? Yeah.
And take out the taint. There's a lot of things that don't uh work like that anymore. That's like uh Harold McGee also with saran wrap. So polyethylene is great in that it doesn't have a lot of nasty chemicals that leach into your uh foods and it it it basically is very, very taste neutral, which is great as opposed to PVC plastic wrap, which does uh can put a lot of nasty flavors into things, especially fat heavy foods like uh cheese. Problem with uh uh polyethylene is it's fairly gas permeable, especially it's fairly oxygen permeable.
This is why most uh vacuum bags for cooking and for freezing are multi-layer with polyethylene on the outsides touching the food, and then nylon. Nylon's not so good because it can absorb water, right? But it's it's gas impermeable, so it's a multi-layer uh bag. So McGee did a bunch of studies on uh how to keep the your half of the avocado. Remember those stars?
When you did how to keep your half of the avocado green and testing a bunch of different stuff. And saran wrap used to be the answer, but the new saran wrap is polyethylene, and so new saran wrap, and by new I mean like 10, 12 years old. Yeah, uh, it no longer there is no commercially available plastic wrap that will keep your avocado uh nice and green. Put some lime juice on it. Also, if a little bit of your avocado gets a little bit brown, is it the end of the world?
No. It's not the end of the world. It's not the end of the world. All right. So it doesn't look like we're gonna get Garrett on the line for you, Ilya.
I apologize. We we really thought we were gonna get him on to talk about how to use your fancy uh what's the word? Hamilton Beach uh blender, but Kesarasara. Um I don't know, Matt, uh for the first time ever, I'm out of questions. What should we talk about?
I have two minutes, I have two minutes and 27 seconds left, Joe, and I've literally run out of questions and I hadn't prepared any. Oh, I'll give you one. So I was at the uh at the reunion, like I told you, I was at my wife's reunion, right? And uh there when you're when you go to a college reunion, they have professors give talks, right? That you go to and you can pretend like you're a student student again.
You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so this professor's name is uh what's his name? Jason Stanley, right? And he's a philosopher professor, and he hates it's so funny.
His brother's an economist, but he hates economists, right? And his dad was a sociologist and hated philosophers, so it must have made for great Thanksgiving table uh talk back in the day. So he's a philosopher who specializes in propaganda and uh free speech, and his basically his shtick is that he thinks that inherent in them in a democracy is this contradiction between you need free speech, but on the other hand, tyrants can use free speech to uh F with democracy. That's his whole shtick shtick right there. Uh and he's funny guy.
So anyway, so he's going through his talk, and he says the word panopoly. And I'm like, Panopoly? Because in my head, I've always heard panoply. Panoply is what I've always heard. And I don't ever speak it out loud because it doesn't sound good, right?
But when he said panopoly, I'm like, Panopoly? I'm gonna use this word all the time. Like, what do you got? I got uh how how much? Panopoly!
I got it like a lot. I was like, oh my god. Like, I that was worth the entire reunion right there, just like taking a word that was not fun to say at all. Like a good looking word, right? But completely not fun to say, and turning it into a word that I want to say all the time.
Panopoly, cooking issues.
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