Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the Heart of Manhattan at Rockefeller Center, New Stance Studios, joined as usual in the studio with Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How are you doing, Stas? I'm good. Yeah?
Yeah. Yeah. We're actually lucky we're we're uh recording a little late today, and it's good because your train was late. Yes, that's true. Yeah, nice.
Uh we also joined uh rocking the panels here. Joe Hazen, how you doing? I'm doing well, man. Great to see you. Um yeah, thanks for being so amenable to the uh the change of times.
Hey man. And the listeners, thank you. Hey man, it used to be we never got started before 12:30 anyway, back at the old place, back at Voldemort's place because I was always late. Right, Stas? Yeah.
Yeah, Joe doesn't Joe doesn't play, doesn't want you to be late, doesn't enjoy it. No, we find you here. Yeah, Joe, Joe is uh Joe is a why don't you show up 15 minutes before the show starts? This way, if you're a little bit late, I can just be a little bit bent at you and not actually decapitate you, the great Game of Thrones style. Anyway.
Uh also got uh we got on the uh California panel, we got uh Jackie Molecules. How you doing? Um good. I feel like oh and Stas has told me this I am the one that enabled the uh 12-ish start of cooking issues. Can we can we talk about this?
Can we talk about this? Like, I'm not saying anything about you, but everyone at that former network that shall not be named. Hi all the time. Say why? Hi all the time.
Oh. Oh, well. I mean, it's like, what's time, man? It was like it was like a renegade network. They're like, what does time mean anyway?
Every other show is pretty much on time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, like, you know, if if if Nastasi and I get a vibe out of a place, like she was on time, but like, if we get a vibe out of a place, we're like, you know what the hell would it? Am I wrong, Stas? I was on time.
I'm not saying I just didn't I just get through saying you were on time. If you're listening on Patreon. I'm saying I don't agree with you because I don't agree with my assessment. I took it seriously. Oh, yeah, you took it seriously.
And I didn't. I didn't put any work in now. Dave, I just loved you, man. I I I was I was too soft. And we loved you too.
We left you back. We loved you right back. Yeah. Uh thanks, man. If you're listening on Patreon, call your questions in too.
917-410-1507. That's 917-410-1507. And uh Quinn, are you there or there in the uh in the uh in the wilds of uh Vancouver Island? Nope. We lost Quinn?
All right. We'll get him back. Uh here he is, here he is. All right, Quinn. Yeah, yeah.
So why don't you tell them how to join the Patreon if they want to be able to call in and get all this other good stuff? Oh well, you go to Patreon.com slash cooking issues uh for the five dollar tier, you get the show recorded a few days early. But if you do the uh $10 and up, you get to listen live, either audio or video. Yeah, uh, but does everyone at every level get the same level of like discounts from Kitchen Arts and Letters and all that stuff? Or no?
I don't know. Uh I believe so. Yeah, it should be. What kind of cool discounts are happening right now, Quinn? Uh, right now we have the uh both the Massa book uh promo code for I believe 20% of I'd have to double check.
Of the book MASA from Kitchener Letters, and then we have a 20% um discount code for Macienda products, excluding wholesale and the Millennium. Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, I mean let me put you this way, Quinn. If you have $1,800 to spend on a grinder, which I hope everyone out there does, right?
I mean, but even with inflation, that's still a lot of money, right? That's not like, you know, we're not totally Weimar yet. Weimar. We're not Weimar yet, so like we're not in like, you know, you need like a wheelbarrow to buy like a pack of gum, but if we get there, buy it right away. You know what I mean?
Like, I really think it's a good good deal for what he's building. Anyway, uh right. And you heard uh also uh chiming in there, John. How you doing? Doing great, thanks.
Uh I enjoyed having your sommelier on last week. Yeah, thanks. He had a good time too. I think we all had a good time. Yeah, we had some good wine.
Uh I already have purchased another bottle of baga because I enjoy I enjoy that, and I I was not familiar with the bug. Oh, awesome. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah.
We'll be happy to hear that. And this time I cooked a big old steak with it. Nice, and I'm sure it was excellent. It was excellent. Uh, and one thing I think uh you've never mentioned, so you know, your restaurant temperance.
What are the what are the uh hours? What day what days are you open? Four to eleven on Tuesday through Thursday, and then four or yeah, then four to one a.m. Friday, one p.m. to one a.m.
Saturdays. I need to get that to roll off the tunnel a little smoother. But today we are joined in the studio by our greasy, greasy friend, Captain Greasy, Nick Coleman, the oleologist, Mr. Olive Oil himself. How are you doing?
I'm doing wonderful. Thanks so much for having me. It's an honor to be here with you, Dave. And you, Nastasia. I love you both very much.
Oh, nice. No love for anyone else. Meh, okay. Um, that's all right. But uh, but uh yeah, backed by popular demand because everyone uh likes the grease as well, it's not grease, it's fresh fruit juice.
Oh, fresh fruit juice. I see. I see. So that's your mistake. Oh I think this is why people like you.
Okay. Uh by the way, next week uh we have coming on, we have uh Sean Brock. He's calling in because he's gonna be, I guess, in Memphis or something like this. So get all of your Sean Brock related uh questions in. Uh is he doing is he talking about anything in particular or just like the you know what it's like to be Sean Brock?
Uh not that I know. I think we just want to uh talk to him, right, Joe. Yeah, I think it'd be super cool to hear about all the mental health work he's doing in the industry right now. Nice. Yeah.
Yeah. There's there's by the way, people. I don't know if you know this. If you if you ever like we're actually not like this, we should be, but like usually when people are guests, it's because they have something to push or hawk, right? You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. Uh hey, Quinn, while we're doing while we're doing this, if you if you can, can you look up uh the uh on the cooking issues blog? Because someone asked about the percentages of lie to you's for uh Nick's Mulli's rye and the times, and I forgot to write it down before I got on uh before I got on the air. Uh uh I can look it up potentially after right now. I am shut down all other internet connections so that the show didn't crash.
There's there's a uh so like there's one pipe from Vancouver Island to the rest of the world, and it's and it's uh a small gnome is sitting there with a uh with a what's that thing? Telegraph. I think it's that that line that's in in jaws. Yeah, yeah. Beep beep beep, beep, beep beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep beep like that.
Yeah. Not that the oh okay. Wait, wait, so in jaw wait, so jaws when he goes and he tries to rake the uh they try to rake the floor and they pull up the electrical line. Oh, that's like that. That's the line and it gets raked up and then your toast.
Yeah, yeah. You get yeah, you're at uh Quinsy three bits per second. Three bits. Uh all right, so uh John, can you look that up for me? Yes.
Sweet. Uh okay. And then uh the week after that, we have Michael Astonis. I you know, it says he's from ICE, because he's run that program, the pastry program, and maybe more at ICE, the uh Institute for Culinary Education, our arch nemesis back when the FCI existed, and then they bought them, which is the ultimate smack in the face. Like when when your enemy, like when you start going down and your enemy literally owns you, they buy you, that's ultimate, right?
That's capitalism. Oh yeah, true. True story. So anyway, so uh even though he's been the head of ice since forever at this point, I still think about him as the pastry chef at uh at Bernie's Den, you know? Bernie's house, Bernie's den, La Berna Den.
Yeah, because he was a pastry chef there for a long time. Stas, did you go with me at the end, right when he was quitting? Uh I think so. Yeah. Uh anywho.
All right. So uh that's what's coming up. Uh let's get to some. Do you have anything you want to say, Nick, before we get into what's going on? You like what we're gonna taste.
You brought two oil, three oils with you. I brought three oils. I was hoping we'd get to some uh uh questions that people maybe wrote in to try to answer things that people are confused about. Okay, so you what you're gonna want to do is you want to see if any of the oils you brought answer some of the questions that people all right, that's fair. I don't even think the oils I brought will necessarily answer the questions, but I think perhaps I could answer the questions.
Oh, yeah. So that's a good question. We're also gonna play some Bansuri flute as an intermission to chill out for a minute because this show is so high intensity. And then we're also going to talk about the olive wood because we talk about the fruit and the juice a lot, but we don't actually talk about the tree, and the tree can be used for all sorts of incredible things. Isn't this supposed to live for like a thousand years?
They never die due to the polls from the roots. Then why would you have the wood? I'm kidding, I'm messing with you. I know, I know the trunk dies back. I get you, yes.
And a lot of it's in the pruning. You have to prune the olive trees. Uh okay. So Nick has for those of you that aren't on the Patreon can't see. Nick has brought something roughly the size of uh my head, roughly like uh um you know those vanity mirrors that you you that you used to have back in the old days?
Yeah, roughly that size. If you're pruning something that size off of your tree, then uh you're basically just decapitating it. Which you can decapitate trees and they regenerate themselves. Okay, copy kill it unless you fully uproot it and remove it. But if you decapitate it at the base, new roots will form and a new olive tree will grow.
This happened in 1985 in Tuscany when there was this terrible frost, and about 70% of the trees exploded from the inside because the sap froze, and it sounded like shotguns with these trees exploding and it had to decapitate them. That's why if you're in central Italy, you notice the olive trees are much shorter and there'll be like four or five shoots sticking out from the base. Like bushier? Uh no, because it'll still grow up, um, but less like these gargantuan uh trunks. Okay, so question Hey, Stas, right?
Tuskens, right? Che, ma che ma right? They're talking about their trees. It's like, can you imagine being there when everyone's trees are exploding, Sas? Oh my god, yeah.
I mean, I know it's bad. Very depressing, and for them, it's like when that happens, it's considered the most unfortunate um set of circumstances to have to go through because it takes 15 to 30 years for a tree to become full fruit-bearing size. So after it's copist. What's the definition of copist? Quishing, chopping it, and then having shoots grow up.
Or or just planting from uh from a seed or or some small roots. So it's about the same amount of time for the regrowth to bear, even though it's got a full set of roots, it's the same amount of time for it to come to bear again at the same levels. Fruit bearing capacity. And that's why they say you plant the vineyard for the children and the olive growth for the grandchildren, because it takes 30 plus years. All right.
All right. Okay. This is why capitalism, you know, we were talking about capitalism before we came on the air. This is why it's better to just be rich and buy somebody else's good trees. I think in today's world of climate um radical climate adjustments in different parts of the world, owning trees in one part of the world is it tends to be a problem.
In this year, for example, in central Italy, um, it was very hot and there was a drought. And so not only did the drought affect the trees, but then the scorching heat, the moment the olives set on the tree, the heat burned them and they turned black and they fell off. So this year in Tuscany, there's virtually no olives on any trees. So I think Stas, weren't we just talking about things like uh turning black and falling off just like a couple days ago? I don't think so.
Messing with you, messing with you. Uh listen, question. Yes. To what you're saying. What about places who produce?
See, here's the issue. So like places plant cultivars that are good for where they are now, right? Now, if you're buying, let's say you're gonna go do a grove or buy a grove, would you choose maybe a place that has a slightly suboptimal cultivar, but it's gonna become optimal in a couple of years because you're going to get an extra couple two degrees of heat. Or like, is there some wiggle room there to buy? Is there some wiggle room to look at what's going to be the best in a couple of years when we get a couple more degrees of heat on it?
And are people already doing this? It's so radically shifting, it's really hard to predict. What you want is stability. Right. Stable, temperate environments, rocky, loose soils, so the water drains rapidly, good exposure for maximum amount of sun, and wind.
Wind is hugely important to keep the olive groves dry and keep the fruit dry. So there's so many different factors that you want to analyze before planting an olive tree. Because once the tree is planted, you're dealing with that for decades. Right. So you want to don't move with haste when planting olive trees or buying an olive grove.
Right. But I'm saying like it's you're saying also because some places, even though we're overall getting warmer, some places because of the micro weirdness, don't. And so you're it's too difficult to predict, like, oh, I should really be buying, you know, this like groves of this cultivar in this location. Too difficult to predict, you're saying. It's unstable.
And one of the reasons I started my business the way I did of chasing the harvest both hemispheres is to go where the weather is good annually, which changes year by year. Right. So for those of you that don't know, uh Grove and Vine, which is uh which is uh Nick's company, he just flies because I'm assuming that's the fastest way to get there. You're not on a boat. I am not on boats.
Yeah. No, I'll usually fly to another part of the world to tour an olive grove, to tour many olive groves and taste from the master tanks and select exactly what I want so I could get a Bianca Lila oil from Chiaramonte Sicily only from tank eleven. Yeah. So when you're buying from him, it's stuff that he's tasted, and because he I mean, you have relationships, yes. I have relationships with producers all over the world and a large network internationally of people on the ground letting me know what's happening.
Right, but you were telling me a story where someone's like, How about this oil? And you're like, No, man, you know this sucks this year. All the time, most olive oils people bring bring me are not extravagant, despite them thinking it's so or it being labeled so. It's a hugely fraudulent industry. Most of the olive oils in average supermarkets are fraudulently labeled extra virgin when they're actually come from damaged fruit, almost like a corked bottle of wine.
It means the fruit was damaged somewhere in the process. And there's many ways that happens. That could be the olive fly lays its eggs in the olives. It could be you you harvest the olives but let them sit too long before they're pressed. It could be the dirty mill that they're pressed in can leave off aromas.
If you don't filter the oil, the sediment settles at the bottom and there's water in it and it escapes and gives you a defect called muddy sediment. So you actually want filtered oils for having a better shelf life and better taste. Well, this leads us into a question. This leads us into a question for you. And fruit rights.
I know that Dave has talked before about uh how us low quality individuals, and you know, we all are to some extent, right? It's only only the lowest quality individuals that don't realize their flaws, right? We are deeply flawed. Yeah, that's the whole point of being human, right? Yes.
Yeah. Uh and I think love is accepting one's flaws in somebody. Yeah. What about accepting your own flaws? Hugely important for self-awareness.
Yeah. Well, you have to first, you have to you have to see them as flaws and then learn to accept what you can't change about it. You have to be very open to self-critical analyzing. Oh my god. Okay.
Uh low-quality individuals' taste for fusty oil, and I know this from throwing uh olives into a spinzole. Uh, but what are your thoughts? First of all, you want to talk about fusty and like uh you know, semi-cured olives and the taste yeah, talk about that first, and then we'll go through the question. That's a great point. So is she I think the question is like, what about people who actually like these fusty oils?
Well, why don't tell them what fusty is first in case So fusty oils are when olives sit in piles and they undergo anaerobic fermentation, and that happens before they're pressed. So if you stick your hand in a pile of olives that's been sitting there for a couple days, it's actually hot inside. There's no oxygen, and the oils degrade and undergo anaerobic fermentation and give an aroma and taste of fusty, which is like olive toponade or cured olives, which you don't want your olive oil to be. Right. But like we can s we, the low-quality masses, consider the taste of cured olives to be delicious.
That it should remind you of eating olives. Which is not accurate. Right, right, okay that's it. There's uh a bunch of pioneers in the south of France. Well, here, let me read the question.
Let me read the question. What are your thoughts, Nick, about the olive oils coming out of Provence made from fermented ripe olives? I served one in a blind tasting next to many high quality in-season oils, and it was the standout favorite. So check this out. First of all, excellent point.
A. B, they're not made from ripe olives. They're really good fusty that are s they self-induce the defect of fusty by taking very young, healthy green olives and putting them in baskets in a temperature-controlled uh like shed, and they let that sit there for about three days and then pull it out and then press the olives. So they're controlling the defect. They're doing it with very young, healthy green olives, and you can get a really clean proven sol taste that has that fusty characteristic, but it's not greasy, and it's correctly labeled virgin olive oil, not extra virgin olive oil.
And what's interesting about those is it gives you the olive toppenad flavor without any of the texture or the dark olive color. So you can use it in potatoes or fish and add that element, that smooth element. And what's interesting about the the um fruita noir, which is what it's called, even though it's made with green olives, is that it has its own individual characteristic and identity within the olive oil world. And in that sense, I think it has merit and value, so long as it's labeled virgin, not extra virgin. All right, so do you carry any of that?
We don't sell that. Um, what's the producer people can look out for that you think does a good job? The best Fruit Noir oil I've ever had is a producer named Castellinus in Valet de Beau in Provence. And they're it's like the cleanest, most perfect, fusty possible. I give it again in case people don't want to have to re-listen.
Castellines, and it's in Valet de Beau in Provence. I've got to be a little bit more than that. What's a bottle gonna cost of that stuff? $38. Oh, so it's expensive but not absurd.
And that's because it's made with this young fruit, and when you harvest the olives when they're green and there's less oil in it, the price will go up because the yield is so much lower. Now, is it been your experience that that stuff is even more perishable because it's already got a little fust on, or does it have the same shelf life, which I know that we're gonna get into this, but about uh as olive oils in general? Because that producer does it with green fruit, it has a long shelf life. However, if they were to do it with black ripe fruit, it would have a much shorter shelf life because you're getting the oil at a later stage of its life out of the olive. Right.
Now, so we're going back to the question. So since clearly somebody can make something with this like cured olive taste or self-induced defect. Self-induced defect, right? Uh as opposed to so you're you're not not like a natty wine situation where it's like, I we don't know what's going on, because you're all about the control here, right? So we're not at the point yet where you're like, it's fine if there's no control, right?
You want it this to be controlled. It'll it'll be cleaner if it's control. But now that it can be seen as a positive thing if it's controlled, does that change your mind at all about in other words? When you detect it in another bottle, it's not possible that it could have no other flaws in a bottle that where it wasn't intentionally done. Typically, there's not just one defect, there's two or three defects going on.
So you'll have a fusty oil, but it'll also be greasy and have this waxy almost like crispy. What does greasy mean in a uh in an olive? What's going on? Like what's greasy mean? Um, it usually comes from rancidity over time or getting the fruit getting the oil out of the fruit too late in the harvest.
So it's actually polymerized a little bit and become not it loses its structure, it has a shorter shelf life, and it leaves this unpleasant tactile sensation in your mouth after you swallow. Have you looked at the I'm curious. Have you looked at the chemistry of what's going on there? No. Because I saw a bottle of a you know, brand that we won't, you know, whatever.
Garbage. But it was uh ref, and I I literally mean in this case, like like not, I don't even know if it's edible because uh it was uh refined, right? It was meant for no taste. It was meant for people who want to use olive oil without flavor, right? Uh so it's refined, extra light, I think they call it, right?
And I believe extra light is mainly like vegetable oil with just a little bit of olive. Oh, really? Because it was solid. Yeah, extra light is there's literally less olive oil in that product. Oh, because it was solid.
Olive oil doesn't do that in a supermarket shelf. I sent you a picture of it. Yeah, but this was regular supermarket. And what's crazy is the bottle next to it was liquid. And that bottle was a white gelatinous mass.
If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, Dave, we live in a sick culture. Yeah, well, that's exact that's what you tweeted back to me. But I actually need some refined deodorized olive oil for something where I literally need the fatty acid components from olive oil, but do not want the taste. So what do I do? You are in a quagmire, my friend.
That is not an easy uh slot to fill. Yeah, I mean, I I maybe later after I'm done with my experiments, I can build it back with one that has flavor, but I need to test it without flavor. Can you explain the scenario with which you would need a monounsaturated fat with zero perlink percent cholesterol with zero flavor that's been like it just seems like I can't talk about it at this time, so says Nastasia Lopez. I cannot talk about it at this time. But I mean, olive oil has a very uh it's got an you know, if you look at the triglycerol makeup of olive oil, it's pretty interesting.
You know what I mean? Um so like um the thing that I hate most about soy oil or canola oil, uh, other than that I don't like them, is that uh that's why I even prefer uh corn for frying a lot of stuff, uh, even though it's not the best, it's cheap. Uh but uh, you know, not linoleic, which I have no problem with, but linolinic, uh, when acid when it gets um heated smells fishy. And so, like like a a lower quality soy with a lot of uh you know, linolitic in it that's already started to go off, when you fry with it, it it's garbage. Whereas like olive oil, if it's been refined, I know you probably hate that, is a fantastic fry oil.
Well, I think I think everything has an application. Everything has a purpose. Right, but it's a fantastic fry oil. Once once it gets up to uh, you know, once you flash off the volatiles and whatnot and olive oil's wonderful to fry in um deep fry, I mean, deep fry. You can you can deep fry and even extra virgin olive oil.
Okay. Do you like an eggplant parm fry that in extra virgin olive oil? It is outstanding. People get bent all out of proportion, uh, about um the smoke point, which is not what you actually care about in in an oil typically. Some of the some of the stuff that you have though is gonna smoke real low because it's got stuff in it still, like good stuff, stuff that you want.
You know what I mean? Why would it smoke real low? Why would a high quality, fresh filtered extra virgin olive oil smoke below 400 degrees Fahrenheit? Well, because there's things in it that aren't just the triglycerides, right? There's the polyphenols, there's all these other things, and I think that's what's smoking.
So when you once that stuff smokes off, then you're fine. But it's like people see smoke coming off off the oil, but that smoke isn't about oil degradation. That's smoke means your food is cooking. Well, that's that's that's condensing water from the steam. But my point is is that like is that there's stuff that there's stuff that causes extra virgin oil to smoke, quote unquote, at a low temperature, but the smoke that's bad is degrading oil smoke that comes right before a fire.
The olive oil is not gonna catch on fire as a result of that. It's not like a it's not like that blue oil smoke from oil breaking down and about to freaking ignite. That's the thing. I think if if you're cooking in olive oil and the smoke that's coming up is black, you have a problem. Yeah.
Yeah, I wouldn't agree with that. Uh okay. So uh through it, I feel has brought up something that I'm glad we talked about that you are okay with a defect as long as it's purposeful. How long do we get long wine lands? And as long as it's correctly labeled, I I don't like when things are fraudulently labeled, and I think transparency in food is something that we all benefit from.
All right, but how about this? Here are these folks, I'm sure they have no problem selling their oil, whatever they're called, Castellano, whatever their name is Castellines. Castellinas. Okay. I'm sure that these folks have no problem selling their oil, right?
But on the other hand, right, you got all these people, like I'm one of these people. Let's pretend like, you know, like that, you know, that I never moved from where, you know, and I'm like, it doesn't say extra virgin. What the hell? I don't want it, right? So there needs to be some sort of other freaking thing to say about it other than that it's just virgin, because some people who there's not enough time in the world for people to educate themselves.
But it says on the bottle fruit et noir, which is the style. Okay, so I'm supposed to sit there and be like beep, beep, beep, boop, boop, beep, beep, and like I mean, like there's like you're forcing them to put what's considered a lower quality designation on the label, and I get why. I get why. However, you're not dealing, as you said here, with a lower quality product. These issues are bigger than what I can solve.
This is uh this is a this would be an issue to be taken up with the International Olive Council in located in Madrid, Spain, of why is something that's made with young green fruit that is clean tasting, not allowed to be extra virgin. And it's because there is a sensory component that falls out of line of what an extravagant olive oil is supposed to have. Right. Yeah. These guys are getting hosed.
But again, they're having no problem selling that. They also they also make incredible extravagant olive oil and have a whole line of monocultivar oils. And then this is like a very niche product that is uh typical of of Provenceal. And this comes from the fact that, you know, 100, 200 years ago, people were harvesting the olives a lot later because they want a more quantity. So they grew up kind of eating these naturally fusty oils, and this is a way to do that in like a more scientific controlled approach.
Well, I understand. So they were harvesting the oh oh oh they were harvesting a later. Okay, okay, okay. I understand. You know?
Okay. It's cool though. It's it's a nice flavor profile. And if you want something that tastes like olive toponade in liquid form, I love that. That's why we used to blend freaking olives and then take the oil out of them.
And they were delicious. There's a whole world of flavor out there. Sashi used to like that crap too, right? Yeah. It was really good.
Remember when McGee like, oh my God, the face. You've never seen McGee make such like a sour puss face as when we told him we were doing that. You remember that? Oh my god. He hated that idea.
I like those oils because they have personality. I'm sure he would like this. And I he's just like he went through the same, like he's a license, I don't know, what he was a certified olive oil judge. Harold and I sat as judges in the Los Angeles International Olive Oil Crown. Right.
So anyone that's gone through that training, you just tell them that you like something that's fusty, and you're it's like programmed in that you have to be like, eh. Right? But then I I talked to this incredible uh Tuscan oil producer named Giorgio Franci, and we talked about the Fruit Noir, and I was like, What do you think of it? And he's like, I like that it has personality. And and I think my mentor taught me something a long time ago, my mentor Nadia Gasparini Rossi in the town of Arezzo.
She told me, Nick, um, it is important that you remain open to the world of olive oil. And I think that's where it gets interesting as a global food and a regional food and how it varies tremendously, and the beauty is in the regional diversity. Huh. And these are Italians telling you this. My mentor is a special woman.
Yeah, because like normally the Italians are like, well, there's Italian olive oil and then there's other garbage. It's not even Italian. It's like we have Tuscan oil, and if you have Umbrian oil, it will kill you. I've heard that before. Uh but it's important to be open to the world of olive oil.
Yeah, yeah. Uh, especially if you sell olive oil for a living. Yes. Yeah. Uh Dave Kleiman writes in, what is the best way?
Okay, listen, I'm gonna answer this first, all right? And then I'm gonna let just let you go. Sure. Okay. What is the best way to only remove bitter taste components from olive oil and maintain all the rest of the flavor complexity?
Uh I've heard good things about uh boiling in water. Uh, but is there a more accurate method to improve on that technique? So I think it's Nick Sharma wrote about uh not boiling the boiling it, but stirring in, whisking in boiling water, but not actively boiling it, but whisking in the boiling water, the theory being that um water, uh, you know, that the the polyphenols that cause uh bitterness uh will be extracted, or the whatever it is that causes business bitterness will be extracted into the hot water. The hotter the water, the better the extraction. Uh, you then let it settle out and you decant the oil off of the top, uh, and you, you know, and you know you taste the water, and the water tastes like garbage or bitter because you know, you don't really want water to taste like that, and then uh and then you're good to go.
Is there a better way to do it? Well, water is actually ideal because if you were to use uh if you were to use uh alcohol, let's say, uh, it would um it would strip a lot of the other flavors out because that's how we make fat washed alcohols, you know what I mean? And and it strips a lot. I've made fat washed uh uh olive oil washed uh liquor and it's delicious. Uh so I wouldn't use anything other than water.
I'm sure industrially they would flash steam through it, but that would also rip out all the volatiles, which you're not looking to do, and it would deodorize it. So I'm gonna say, if you wanted to do this, that that is probably a good way to do it. And now I'm guessing, right? I know that Nick does not like people to put well, doesn't like maybe other people, but doesn't like me to put words in his mouth. So I'm gonna guess that you hate this idea, and then what do you think?
I would purchase late harvest Ligurian monocultivar Tajaska olive oil. It is sweet, mellow with undertones of almond, virtually no bitterness at all, and is the like the lightest, most ethereal of all the oils. And that would get you right there to buy a great olive oil that has virtually no bitterness at all. Now I read on the internet that uh this person, she had purchased this olive oil on somebody's recommendation, and it was like one of them hyper like high polyphenol oils. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And she was like, I can't use it. Yeah, it's almost like medicinal in its uh sensory profile. Yeah, yeah. So uh so, but then in that case, when you have this stuff and you don't have friends to give it to, right? What do you think about this technique?
The high polyphenol oils. No, yeah. What do you well? First, what do you think about those? But what do you think about using the water on those things?
And specifically, I believe Dave was asking because and so for things like mayonnaise, you're saying you can use this Ligurian olive oil for mayonnaise and things. And then they also presumably you're saying that if you're making because you know how when you make mayonnaise with uh high polyphenol oils, they go intensely bitter sometimes when you're blending. It's very like vegetable mayo. It's a very vegetable mayo. There's some sort of I don't even know what it what it caused.
I used to know I should have looked it up before the show, but there's a a known reaction with um making emulsions with uh extraversion olive oil in blenders where a combination of the like the size and the and the air getting whipped into it and the ox so the oxidation and the size of it causes some sort of like real bitter off note, such that even if you like the oil to start with, you'll hate the um result end result management. Yeah, very interesting. Uh olive oil is mysterious, right? But do you think that there's less of a chance for that to happen in a Ligurian late harvest tadyaska? Absolutely.
Because the bitterness is virtually not there. It tastes like sweet almonds. Oh, all right. Incredible. But so but if someone has an oil that is too bitter to use, are you okay with this or not?
Okay. I would if you have an oil, if you have one bottle of oil that's too okay to use, I would save it, and then later in the year when oils start to get a little flatter, just add small percentages of it into other oils to give it life and structure. All right. That's what producers will do. They'll harvest really, really early and then throughout the season until late, and then as the year goes on, when they want to give legs to oils that are kind of dying and getting, you know, a little flabby, they'll add like 10% of that super early harvest stuff and it gives it vibrancy and makes it dynamic.
Did you say what you thought already about super high polyphenol oils in general? Like is it like the uh is it like the California cabernet of the olive oil world? Like it's just get too big or what? I think the race for polyphenols is kind of a dumb race to be had. And I think people are doing it because they say it's healthier for you.
But I believe the real benefits of olive oil is consuming it in place of butter, seed oils, or animal fat as your primary source of fat because it's a monounsaturated fat with 0% cholesterol that's high in antioxidants and polyphenols and as a raw fruit juice. And using it with other whole foods that allows you to slow down your digestion and allows the gut to absorb the fat-soluble nutrients of the other food it's with. So it's actually in combination with food, is where I think your body really gets the benefits of the olive oil, not as an independent high polyphenol medicinal shot. Yeah, I don't know anything about health. But uh it's also uh it's low in polyunsaturates, right?
It's poofa low, right? Yes. It's mainly a monounsaturated fat. Poofa. So poo poly un polyunsaturated fatty acids is a growth, like that poof is gross.
That whole concept, the whole word poofah, you know what I mean? It's not even in my radar. Polyunsaturated fatty acids. Yeah. You want the monounsaturated fat.
Mono. Uh mainly because um the more polyunsaturated fas fatty acids you have, um, the quicker things go rancid on you. But the the the real thing that you gotta think about with with polyunsaturates is uh linol linoleic is polyunsaturated, but it's it's better, I think it is, but it's better than linolenic. Linolinic is really trash. It's a trash can fatty acid.
But it I think it's one of those, it's one of those omega blah blahs. So, but again, health, don't care. Uh all right. Oh, and this is these are great questions. This is a good uh, this is a good uh, first of all, it's from someone whose name is Daddy Yankee Cannon.
And and how can you be a father to the Yankee Candle Corporation when you can't even stand to be in the room with your children? Because a Yankee candle, do they still exist Yankee candle? They must. When I used to walk by a Yankee candle or wicks and sticks, anyone used to go to a mall. I have a deep aversion to New Jersey suburban malls growing up as a child and my mom pulling me there when I was a kid, you know, or and spending hours as a kid in the women's sections of malls.
I I just I hate them so much. Because I could have gone either way. I go into a mall and the smell of the mall uh frustrates me. The amount of consumerism frustrates me. I I just hate them.
So when I was a kid, I remember, I remember very distinctly. I used to love going to the mall. What about you guys? Joe, John, I enjoyed it. Oh, you ate them all too?
Yeah, being in the women's section with my mom, just trying on bras. Like, come on. I mean, it looks but like what about like what about going to Spencer's and trying to look at the naughty stuff in the back? Or like what about like going to like I see these, man. Yeah, dude.
I go to like the wall that that yeah, or yeah, exactly. Yeah, I had a Tower Records on Route 17 in New Jersey. So Tower Records was a joy to go to. Barnes and Noble was a joy to go to. But that was but at the Garden State Plaza, I mean, give me a break.
Yeah, but Spencer's had the whippets. Yeah. Spencer's had it had they had its charms. It's strobe lights and like weird like pornographic mugs. It's uh you know what I mean?
It's like it was a weird place. But my point is is that I used to love going to the mall because I'm a hyper consumer, but I would go they used to have a tool store in the mall. I forget the name of it, but like they they you know, sell like kind of kind of second rate tools, but they had like a Sears, they had like, you know, they had all these things, and I would like to go looking around. I didn't like going to the women's section either. Or men's section.
I don't I didn't care about clothes shopping, but then I remember when all of a sudden There's something about browsing when you go to a mall, you don't even want anything, and you go to just kind of browse to try to hold it. It's such an insane. I always wanted something. Anyway, I remember very distinctly when I it was like I think around my 17th birthday or something when I went to the mall, and all of a sudden I loved going. All of a sudden I'm like, this sucks.
It was like that. That's what I'm saying, man. You learned that it sucked. Anyway. So Yankee Candle, whenever you walk past the Yankee Candle, you're like, oh the smell of all the scented candles.
I it doesn't smell healthy. I mean, I enjoy I enjoy incense. What's your thoughts on potpourri? Hilarious word. Yeah, right.
Yeah. Is it sound more hilarious with a real French accent, John, or no? Ah, yeah, dude. You know, that whole like Yankee candle and potpourri is like one and the same. You go into a suburban bathroom in the 90s, and you got your Yankee candle, you got your potpourri.
So in the 70s, get this, get this. In the 70s, we would literally save like garbage pine cones, and then you dry out the roses upside down in in the bath, you know, and then you crumple that, get the petals, you crumple that in with the pine craps, and then you throw some in there. Yeah, and then to the fruit cake, it was great. Yeah, and then when it lost its aroma, your mom would go chink chink chunk and spray some sort of perfume on the potpourri to keep it going. You know what I mean?
I remember that. The glue gun was out, the bedazzler. It was yeah, it was like a real scene. That's money. That's money.
That's childhood right there. I'm for it. Yes, sir. That glass dish. It's got that glass dish that it's in.
You know what I mean? I like that. Oh, bring it back. Listen, if I was infinitely, if I if I had infinite money though, because like uh my family was not an incense family, right? Um Mandy Aftel from Aftelier gave me some very high grade hoodry frankincense and an incense thing.
And I like frankincense, but Jen, you know, was like church smell, whatever. Like, so like, but Dax got into incense, and so they've been burning it, but like I have this itch to smell once. I'll pay for it. We should all chip in and get real ood, like wood, real agar wood, real. They're good.
I I I I have some, I just have real ood at the house right now. Really? Like the high high side. I brought it. I brought it back from Morocco.
Oh, nice. Because like this, the super high grade stuff is like $150 for a tiny chip. And then we just all chip in money and we we just do it and we like get what it's like, and then we can buy the low grade. Because why not? You know what I mean?
Once you've had the one thing. Dave, remember when Mandy Aftel wanted to make your the smell of your musk? That's not what happens. She wanted to make a perfume for me. She said of your musk.
I I cannot get it. I don't know, whatever, man. But I I hate the sidetracked real quick. We were talking about potpourri. Do you remember that?
Isn't the whole thing sidetracked? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, don't you remember that? Do you remember the lamp when you used to go for furniture shopping with your parents, and there was that lamp that like exuded oil down like a strain? I bought one for Jen.
I love that. Yeah, I have it. I don't have room for it in New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You buy them, you buy them.
It's mineral oil you put into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's like there's monofilament strings coming down. Like some are straight, some are at an angle. There's fake plants in it, and there's like a sculpture of a lady, like yeah, it's a real moment.
Yeah, yeah, doing this, and the light on the thing, and then the beads of oil. Each bead would come down slowly on a string. It was almost timed in a way. It was kind of amazing. I love it.
So we had one when I had a place in Connecticut. I had it up. I had it running. I had the lampshade. And we the oil would always be running.
If you buy one, go on the eBay, buy them. Uh, I forget the name of them because I but I bought one. They're easy to refurbish. You might need to refurbish the pump or fix it, but everything inside of one's fixable. You probably use olive oil.
I don't know. That was a kind of a segue back to the show. But you gotta use the mineral oil, but they and you know, buy them and fix them. They are awesome. There's something just so awesome about them.
I love those damn things. The 70s had their 70s had their stuff, you know what I mean? Anyway, the father of all Yankee candles would like to know, and this is a good segue for your other stuff. Are your oils approved? Which I don't even know what this means for non-food uses.
We are in the process of developing a hyper minimal ingredient, extra virgin olive oil soap out of the same oils that we use for food consumption. High quality olive oil, because if you're doing a hyperminimal ingredient soap, the quality of the oil is of extreme importance. But like if I'm just scrubbing myself with it, I mean sell me on the sell me on why I need that. Sold you, maybe. The skin is the largest organ in the body, and it deserves the healthful benefits of extra virgin olive oil.
I can see your epidermis. So, when is this soap coming online? Uh 2023. All right. Okay.
It's only three ingredients, and it's 66% extra virgin olive oil. Okay. But stuff that you actually like the flavor of. It's the same oil we sell to about 40 critically acclaimed restaurants in New York City. Okay.
Uh all right. So that answer the question? Well, I mean, uh, because what does it mean to do that? The answer is yes. All right.
So, like before we get into some non uh non non-oil questions, unless uh Quinn, do we have any or you turned off your uh your other internet stuff? Do we have any other Discord stuff on that? All the olive oil questions? We have three. I don't know.
It's like what I'm seeing, but that I don't know, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, just three uh as of midnight last night. Okay. Uh Jack, any anything in the in the Discord?
Anyway, but uh let's let's talk about your uh love of olive oil, of olive wood. Oh, sure. So I brought this really nice piece of olive wood because what I do is I scour the stacks for the best olive wood. So I'll find a place that has like a lot of these stores that have olive oil, they'll maybe have like 70 different things, and I'll I'll see it and I'll go through it, and out of like 70 different ones, I'll buy like two. And I'll buy the two nicest ones.
So, what are the properties that you like? Highly recommend anyone out there who who is into this stuff. Um look at the stacks because olive wood varies tremendously based on where it's from, based on how old the trees are, and some of the wood is some of the most like gnarled galactic wood out there. It's very highly prized, it's a hard wood. I have a guitar made out of it.
I have a come on. I have a guitar. Is it is it got good for sound? I was gonna say it's kind of well, the sound of an electric guitar is based on the mathematics of the bridge to nut ratio because that mathematics needs to give you the overtone series that you want. So I think the tone woods of electric instruments are not as important as the tone woods of acoustic instruments.
A. What about the neck though? We all pay extra for like burly. It's not a hundred percent made out of olive wood. Um I used to pay a lot of extra money for having a good neck.
Yeah. Yeah, good rosewood. I should have brought it. It's a Carl Thompson bass. I don't know if you know Primus and Les Claypool, but he built all the guitars for the biggest.
Do I know freaking Les Claypool? Do you play a six string or you want to put it in the first one? No, I no, I play a four-string. Okay, thank God. I'm having enough trouble with four strings.
I don't need five or six strings. Listen, it went crazy, right? Like everyone played like the some of the best music ever made only required four strings on the bass, right? Yes. Sometimes one.
Yes. Sometimes all you really need is one string if you really know what you're doing. Okay, Emma Otters Jug Bang Christmas Wash Tub Bass. So anyway, but anyway, it's a Carl Thompson Olive Wood bass. He made me, he made it for me.
Okay. And it was the first Olivewood bass he ever made. He didn't think it was possible because he couldn't find pieces big enough for the body. And then he Oh, so it's like strip lambd of uh out of uh out of so you can see the stripes of the where it's laminated together? Yeah, like the core is mahogany.
Uh-huh. And then there's olive wood, and then there's curly maple, and then there's snake wood. The pit guard has snake wood on it, which is the one of only two woods that are denser than water and sinks. Nice. And there's Pow Farrow.
How poisonous is that to cut? All those weird woods are like poisonous to cut. Like you inhale the dust and you die when you're 20. Yeah. I don't know enough about that to comment.
Uh, I mean, I don't know about that particular one. So, uh, how does it how does the bass sound? And then natural, it's covered in all kinds of plastic lacquer. No, it's all wood. Um wait, it's like, well, what's the finish though?
W wood. What do you mean? And then the finish, they do uh linseed oil. Really? Yeah.
Okay. Um sounds good? It's a Carl Tom's enough said. Uh Les Claypool is the I okay. Primus.
Why are we adding on this? Do we really need to talk about Tim Alexander and Les Claypool of Primus? I don't know. Primus, I mean, they they came out with one of the best albums ever, and then I just don't know what happened. Which one?
Frizzle fry? The best album, one of the best albums for the fruit. Yeah, yeah. And then he's like Pork Soda's good too. Come on.
Oh, come on. I don't know. Fork soda is good. It has DMV on it. Yeah.
But then you know, after sailing the seas of cheese, they were like, what if we make stuff nobody wants to listen to? Beating jung ding. Like you know what I mean? I'm like I think it's really hard to stay relevant as a musician. I don't know.
Uh he's still a fantastic player. We have a live question that just came in from uh Patreon in Florida. Yeah, what do you got? What do you got? Uh from etc.
Warrior, uh I can't read that name. Uh question. I've seen E V O O Best Before Dates, two years after harvest. How fast has the flavor change and did two years make sense? I think two years is a abnormally long amount of time to have on an olive oil.
Will it hurt you? No. Will the flavor and structure be degraded from its inception? Absolutely. It also depends on cultivar.
If you take a Pouliese Coratina oil that is harvested early in the season, 18 months, 20 months out, it can still be grassy, vibrant, peppery, and clean. If you take a late harvest Arbequina oil, one year out it's turning flabby and losing its legs. So it depends on the cultivar and the moment it was harvested. In general, I think two years is too long. On our bottles, we actually put 18 months because we think it should be consumed in 18 months.
Because remember, 12 months after whatever bottle you have, you have a new harvest. So you want to seek that out. The idea of going two years with an oil just makes no sense because as you're in that second year, there's a fresher oil available. Yeah. You said abnormal, therefore I can ask you this.
Do you like young Frankenstein, the movie? I've never seen it. Oh my god. I know I don't want I think a lot of this. I don't have a television, and I think a lot of these shows and movies are like huge time eaters.
I agree. You love young Frankenstein. Yeah, yeah. But this is what you sound like. But he's saying he doesn't watch young Frankenstein because it's a waste of time.
I mean I'm saying I don't watch a lot of uh anyway, Marty Feldman. I like doing stuff. I like like painting and skateboarding and playing music and doing more like activities. He's like, I read the original Mary Shelley Frankenstein in its entirety, and so I did not need to watch young Frankenstein. So Marty Feldman plays Igor, but it's pronounced Igor in the movie because uh Gene Wilder doesn't recall Frankenstein, so he's called Frankenstein.
And he goes, What brain did you get? He goes, Abby, someone. Abby normal. And that's the brain that he puts into Frankenstein's head. And so anytime anyone says abnormal, I see Marty Feldman in my head saying Abby Normal.
The brain is so interesting how it triggers things. Not mine, it's just a waste. Okay. Are you gonna play your music? Well, yeah, I was just gonna say, we should maybe.
Do you want to take a little uh a quick little What do you want listeners to do while they Yeah. All right? So I figure, you know, Dave is such a high maniacal man that I feel like we should just chill out for a second and take an intermission and then get right back into it. All right, and we'll get back to the tastings and while you're pouring the tastings after the uh after this interlude where apparently I'm supposed to feel okay about myself or something. I'll answer some of these other questions while I'm I guess feeling better about my life.
I don't know. We'll see. Um so this is a moment where I like to just breathe. I feel like in today's world, people are forgetting to breathe. Ooh, nice reverb.
And it's important to just close your eyes and focus on your breathing to send to yourself and clear out your brain so it can then take it as space to take in what Dave is about to be delivering to you in the next 30 minutes. So everyone just chill out and breathe, and we'll just uh 10 more minutes. Oh, here it says cooking issues 40 minutes. That was the Nick Coleman fight song. Yeah.
Yeah. So I Nick walks around. Nick walks around with a box that makes drone noises. Yeah, it's the Sangat Digital. It's an Indian drone box that does the um.
Is it for Tabla players? It does the tampura sound as well as the tabla, and it's it's actually for Bansuri players, so you get the drone with the tabla, so you can rip some Bansuri. Which is Indian classical music. Tell us who you're named after. I found out this past weekend.
Oh, yeah, it's so stupid. My name. It's not Ornette Coleman. I wish. The shape of jazz to come as a great album.
No, I was named. So my birthday's December twentieth. Um, I was born on the cusp, and my parents, for whatever reason, figured that since I was born five days before Christmas, they should name me after old Saint Nick. So they name me Nicholas, which is so silly because we're not religious and I don't really celebrate Christmas. So it's kind of ironic.
You got the name. You celebrate give you a theory on naming children. I think it's really important. Whatever you name your child, it should work regardless of career path they choose. So a name I love for a daughter, if should I my wife and I ever have a daughter is the name Vera, which means truth.
But Vera is such a cool name because I feel like if my daughter ended up a punk rock heroin addict, Vera is a fucking cool name. And if my daughter ends up a successful corporate lawyer, Vera is a cool name. And I think a name that hits all gamut allows someone to be whoever they want to be and have a name that fits. I knew a chef named Candy who was like very much not Candy, like not like you know what you would picture Candy. Not the best.
She was very like, you know, in charge and you know. I don't know. I think it was a good name. My name was Candace, I think. Do people change their names often anymore?
I feel like people should be free to change their names more. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, uh, why don't you get your tastings ready so we don't run out of time, and I will take a question, a non oil question, and through it again.
Get your tastings ready. Oh, I like how we're drinking out of like plastic and you gotta leave your little blue, like cobalt glass. Uh first of all, it's not plastic. They are made from plants. Okay, it's a polymer, baby.
Uh you know, you're right. People don't change their names anymore. Like, what did I just thought just thought about there for a second? Because didn't someone change your name to Trout Fishing in America? That's a band.
But it was also the son of Kodak. Black? Not Kodak. No, the Kodak, the like the film company. Oh, yeah.
Eastman Kodak's kid? Yes. Oh, all right. Uh I'm trying to riff on cuckoo. This is N through it again.
Cuckoo Sabzi, a Persian herb frittata with lots of herbs. Think about like a cup per egg. That's a lot. I looked it up. Uh, I want to make a delicate slash smooth steam version, sort of like shaman mushy.
You guys like chamamushi? I don't know what that is. You know what's that steamed egg custard Japanese thing in a cup in the teacup and I love that. What a wonderful palate cleanser. All right.
Uh and but blending the herbs makes the mint go swampy. Any way to get the fresh herb taste to come through more. Sadly, I don't have access to LN. Uh all right, listen. And through it.
All the recipes I had were mainly uh parsley, cilantro, dill, and chive, not a lot of mint. And all of those could kind of hack what you're doing. But if you must include mint, just extract the mint. I don't know how much alcohol you can add and still have it work because it's gonna mess with it, but buy Everclear, like, you know, like a hundred and like ninety proof, like 95%. And that stuff extracts the mint very cleanly, right?
It's very high proof, but it extracts it very cleanly, just like an hour, like soak the mint, like a lot of mint, like put it in a Ziploc bag, get all the air out, and you'll get a hyper hyper green, hyper pure mint. But you just have to see how much alcohol your uh your chamwan mushi alike can take before it won't set properly. But that's the only way I can uh think to do it. Unless John, you have any other ideas. Nope, I do not have any other ideas.
All right, so uh, and then you want to get one more real quick. Van Drew writes in. I recall Dave mentioned he has switched. You might like this stuff, Nick. Uh uh recall Dave mentioned he has switched many tools to hand powered options.
Any recommendations on food processors and meat grinders that don't require plugs? Well, I don't have a food processor that I like that's hand cranked. I mean, other than I guess, I mean the the uh the salad master is a food processor, but it doesn't have a rotating blade. It's for chopping and it's it's for like making coleslaw and discs and grating cheese. Would a pestlin mortar be deemed in the food processing realm?
Well, that's my favorite. That's an interesting question. But the the problem with the mortar and pestle is I feel like you need to have like four of them to get all of the eventualities. Not just one large marble Ligurian one. I said, Oh, you use Liguria.
It's hard to carry around. Well, the ease of carrying around is not the question. I gotta clean out, I'm gonna clean pesto out of it. You just clean it out. Please.
Anyway, I don't know. Yes, that's a valid point you're making, Nick. But that Pesla mortar is a great one. But uh I like hand-cranked uh meat grinders if you're making only small amounts because they're easier to clean and easier to store. Uh and they do, I think, a better job of the uh than the kitchen aid attachments.
Um the famous one is porkart. Uh uh meat grinders come in sizes. For a house, I would a small house, I would get a number 10 size. Uh I have the LEM uh number 10, but uh look around because the quality even on the LEMs varies because they've moved the factory from place to place, but the advantage of them is they're made out of stainless, which is nice for me because I can dishwash it. You can't dishwash uh the pork carrot because it's galvanized uh cast iron, so I wouldn't dishwash it.
The problem with the LEM, and I still haven't figured it out yet, is the clamp is the worst. So if you have very thick boards that you need to clamp to, the clamp won't quite get over it. So I'm still working on uh on that uh van troupe. Now, what are we tasting? So we got two minutes left, right?
I don't know. Okay, we're gonna taste an oil and then one thing I want to mention is we uh if it's cool if I mention it, um, we have a pro a cooking issues promo code on Grovenbine.com. And if you go to Grovernmind.com, you can order any of the Grovenbine olive oils, and just at checkout, use promo code and get 10% off. I like that. What we're tasting here is the newest release on our website.
It's from South Africa. It's made entirely with Coratina olives and the FS17 olive, which is a clone of the Fentoyo olive, but it's slightly dwarfable. Now, when you taste, Dave, you want to put it in the palm of your hand and couple with the other hand and swirl the oil. The bottom palm warms the oil while the top palm traps the aromas. The first thing you want to do when you taste an oil is taste it independent of food to get the true aroma and flavor profile, because that will trigger ideas is what you might like to pair it with.
Stas, when was the last time someone talked about us and wanting to trap the aromas? Mandy aft. Now, first we're just gonna smell the oil. All right. Any fusty?
I I'm gonna let John and Stas talk about this. No fusty, clean, grassy, herbaceous hints of freshly ripped leaves. Very nice. Freshly ripped leaves. I like that.
You have you have good words. I've been doing this a long time. Yeah. And then when you taste it, you want to do a method called stripagio where you create a repetitive spray effect like this, and then after you do that a few times, you stop and swallow. And I stop.
Swallow. Grassy, vibrant, peppery, and dynamic with a long delayed elongated peppery finish. And what causes that peppery finish is oleocanthol, which is a natural antioxidant found in the olive. Do it one more time because I want to imitate the exact noises. This is the Nick Coleman bird call.
Are you guys ready? This is some clean oil. Dude, you guys are gonna owe me for new pop filters. You're a pro, Dave. As I always knew you were.
So here's a question. When I don't taste this way, when I'm just like spoon tasting at home, right? I often find that my second taste that, like, even on like on like a like a peppery oil, I won't get it on the first spoonful, but the second spoonful tastes different from the first. Is it because I'm not doing all of this McGillicuddy stuff? It can be cumulative.
And as you go, like if you do it again, it could be even more peppery because there's still the lingering from the first one. Now you have the cranberries in my head. I think you mentioned that the last show. Anytime someone says linger, I know, I don't change. Um, that's a beautiful thing.
Actually, though, I get why you have to do all that, but I actually enjoy tasting it just like a normal person. Is that bad? You are a normal person, Dave. But I mean, like, not with the I enjoy the tasting it. From what it smells like back here from the spray, what smelled like sawgrass.
What do you guys think of this oil? Smelling very grassy. You want to taste it real quick? I haven't tasted it all of them. You guys aren't tasting it?
Um anyway, it's it's uh you want to taste olive oil, just like you want to taste a piece of cheese on its own to see what you might want to use it with. Pass one back to the next one. You want to sip some wine. Since stuff had them on your taste. The idea of trying olive oil in a dish of food and thinking you're getting it, it's like the idea of trying a glass a glass of wine, but it's in with pasta and you're you've cooked with it.
Meaning you dump the wine into the pasta. Yeah, and then be like, ooh, this wine is good. You want to taste the wine independent, and that's gonna let you know what's really going on. And then dump it in your pasta. It's important, never dump the wine in the pasta in that capacity, but it's really important to taste things on their own because there's so many nuances in salts and chocolates and olive oils and honeys, and to not try it on its own, you're robbing yourself of I think some of the experience that you can have with these products.
All right, well, you're pouring this next one. We get your last one poured. Should we taste the good one or bad one? Both. I don't care.
Do it fast. We got two minutes. As soon as that comes on, we got two minutes. But Josh S. writes something that I'm sure John has something to say.
I want to acquire the taste for mustard. I can deal with mustard seed as a component of Indian food, but processed mustard turns me off. How should I best get into this condiment, John? Same thing like what I'm trying to do with olives. I don't like olives, but just keep hitting them and eventually I hope to like them.
Yeah, I would start with hot dogs. Oh, yeah. You got one for John? Here hot dogs are delicious with mustard. Uh also, like if you don't like mustard, I don't know what kind of mustard you don't like.
Maybe you should start with the sweeter mustards. Uh or you know what? Uh here. Start with Italian mustard. Get a good mustarda, right?
Which is like uh compo, like almost like a chutney with mustard in it, and then have it with some of my man Nick's uh olives. What are we olive oil? What are we uh what do we uh you guys should have a mostarda expert on this show, first of all. That would be incredible. And you crema um so this is an Italian oil from the region of Tucha in central Italy.
It's made with Frantoyo and lecino olives. And uh this one is harvested in October of 2021. So this is almost one year old. I shouldn't have inhaled that one quite so much. They talk about one cough, two cough, and three cough oils in terms of intensity.
Well that's that's intense. Don't inhale that sucker. And while you're getting your while you're getting your uh on, uh Wizmert says they save vermouth lasts about two weeks in the fridge after opening. Can you extend the shelf late by excluding the air? I uh by pouring into a smaller bottle with a little bit of headspace or transferring it to a kind of bladder or uh to squeeze out the air, or somehow adding N2O to push out the air.
Yes, you can do that. Uh the easiest way if you're gonna put it in the fridge, it's ugly as hell, is to put it into a uh soda bottle and squeeze out all of the uh air and cabot. And then are we tasting one last terrible thing? One last one. We're tasting a bad oil and the color has no bearing on the quality, but it's a bad supermarket oil.
Oh yeah. That's filth. Is this the is this the filth for uh for uh John? That's filth. I don't want to we shouldn't mention brands.
And uh Chevron, uh uh Chevron Hubbard. I have not tried to use Mountain Dew as a mixture, but uh I want anyone who's listening to this who hears it to tell me their best Mountain Dew recipes for mixed drinks, and we'll talk about 'em next time with Michael uh no with Sean Brock. Uh maybe not. Michael Esconos comes back. Cooking issues, and we're gonna be able to do it.
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