Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you alive from the heart of Manhattan and Rockefeller Center. News Dance Studios joined as usual with uh John behind me. How are you doing? Doing great, thanks.
Well, that's not what you told me before the yeah, I mean life has been tiring. Tired. But you know, other than that, things are good. Okay. Yeah.
Okay. Uh somewhere undisclosed in Westchester, the land of my Westchester is uh just north of New York City, for those of you that don't know the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, major metropolitan area. Uh is uh Nastasia Lopez. How you doing, Stas? Good.
How are you? Okay, that sounds very tentative, but I'll take it. I'll take it. Uh and of course, uh rocking the panels. Here we got Joe Hazen.
Hey, how are you? Welcome. Yeah, doing all right. Uh we don't have Jackie Molecules right now. We don't know what's up because we're doing it on a special day.
If you're listening to this later, uh, we're doing it on a special day on uh Monday, because it's the only day we could schedule it. And you know, sometimes, sometimes Mr. Molecules, you know, when the day is different, things happen, you know. But we do have uh our West Coast customer service team, Quinn on the line. How you doing, Quinn?
Hey, I'm doing good. Yeah? Yeah, all right. And and uh in the you know, in fashion that we now do, we will introduce our our guest today. Today we are very pleased to have Abra Barons.
And makes me nervous even saying it because beforehand, uh she said Well, welcome. Welcome. Uh chef and author, of course. Uh is it just come out or is it just about to come out? It's just about to come out.
So when is the fourth? April fourth. Nice. You don't want to come out on April Fool's Day. Right.
Well, we thought about that, but you know, not a Tuesday. Is uh is uh your book pulp, which is the third in in the series. It's so it's a trilogy of books, which starts with amazing title, Ruffage, Ruffage, uh, then goes to Grist, right? Which is a fine title, but it's no Ruffage. Uh and then here we are at Pulp.
Now, Pulp, of course, anytime someone says pulp, I think pulp the band. Do you not think pulp the band? Do you not listen to English kind of music? Uh I don't think of that. We get a lot of pulp fiction.
Like how is it gonna be like super macabre in size? Uh, or is it just gonna be all uh fleshy bits, which I guess is. Right, which is which some of it is. I mean, fruit is disturbing looking sometimes. You know?
Uh so I don't know if you could tell from the titles, but this is a one that's you know built around fruit, grist, built around, although it's stretched, right? Because it's grains and beans and stuff. Yeah. I mean, you know, and then Ruffage up is, you know, Ruffage. But I was thinking on the way over that if Pulp because Pulp's a band, I like pulp.
Joe, you pulp, you like pulp? Yeah, he's giving me the giving me the thumbs up. I don't know. It's Nastasia, you hate that kind of stuff, right? You hate that kind of English rock stuff.
I never hear you listen to it. Do you? I'm not really into them. Yeah, all right. But I think Ruffage should also be an English band.
Like I think Ruffage, like, you know, like like, oh, you listen to like garbage when you were a kid, because I love garbage, the band, right? And then you moved from garbage to roughage and then to pulp. Yeah, it sounds like they'd be from like uh Manchester or something. Something like that. Yeah, yeah.
Some kind of in-betweener thing, you know. Like uh, yeah, yeah. And now I well, so going back to songs, like as soon as the book showed up, and kind of every time I pick it up, I get the common people song going through my head. But then you said when you introduce yourself, you're like, uh Abra, like Abracadabra, right? Because a lot of people mutilate your name.
You have a name that is often mutilated. Uh-huh. And uh, but now I can't get that freaking Steve Miller song out of my head. And then you told me a story that he, you know, when you were because you started your career at Zingerman's, right? Famous or well, early in your career at Zingerman's.
No, that's where it started. I mean, I had worked in restaurants when I was 16, but um that's where I really like took hold. And uh, for those of you who don't know, Zingerman's Deli is in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It's been, it actually opened two days before I was born. Uh, and so it's been around for a while.
And it's in an old building. So when I was prepping in the basement, as any good prep cook does at some point in their career, uh, there were lots of dark corners. And the person, Andrew Wilhelm, who trained me, uh, would hated that song. And so he would just sing it. And the way the sound traveled, it sounded so menacing.
It would like come, I'd be like in a corner prepping something and think nobody else was around, and then all of a sudden I would hear it. So yeah, it's a very traumatic song, actually. Well, I love the idea of someone singing it who hates it. And I have to say that's why everyone hates the song, because it's the worst of the famous Steve Miller songs, like easily. Uh but easily, right?
But then it's also the hook is so damned catchy. You know what I mean? And so it pisses anybody who likes anything, it gets pissed off by it. Gets it coming and going. Yeah, so you have to like, you know, I I always mangle those lyrics too.
Like Abricadabra, I'm gonna reach out and stab you. Like all the like all of the I can't, yeah. It's an intolerable, it's an intolerable song. Yeah. Although Nastasi and I got mad because there's a song that I mean like I think you got mad or maybe you were just humoring me, Nastasia, because we like a song that apparently I didn't know this universally reviled is uh Phil Collins Susudio.
Apparently universally hated I don't I but Nastasi and I have a soft spot for it. Yeah. How do you feel Tom Petty? Oh I I like Tom Petty. Do you know that Nastasi and I also enjoy talking about who who well it's kind of it's not appropriate but like like who is the because they're all dead now right no no Billy Joel's still around.
Yep. Who are the who are the three stars that you always go for I think it was just between Billy Joel and Tom Petty. Yeah you never even like Rick Rick Ocasic wasn't important enough to get into your no into your pantheon it wasn't my thing it was uh an MTV thing. Oh yeah because Nastasia started early at MTV and so like the behind the scenes they're like so and like what was the answer the answer was always Petty's awesome though you gotta look at No it it varied it varied. It was ugly or Tom Petty or that's so rough dude Billy Joel.
That's so rough it's like not right. All right whatever I'll take it I'll take it I like Petty though. No? No Petty I it's like the one it's a one hot take that I feel like I have is I'm just not a Tom Petty person. I like some of the like super early stuff but the when it gets to the point where it's like in the Mindy and the girls on the Mindy and that it's just no but like so we're gonna is like running down the dream and all that like full moon fever stuff.
I you know, I just sort of wrote it off as a whole, so I should probably do some revisiting. What about Tom Petty in Waterworld? The movie, which I've never seen because I'm not gonna watch that. Yeah. Okay, that was gonna be my answer.
So glad you're feeling that for me. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I don't know whatever. Okay.
Uh uh enough of this foolishness. We need to get to the point where we shoot the breeze for a little bit on collectively anything we have done interesting with food recently, like the past week. Anyone got anything? I've put uh filet mérica on the menu, the Belgian steak tartare, which I'm very happy about. Yeah.
So describe how this is different from other people's uh steak tartar. So it's mayo based. You add extra egg yolk, you add some chopped piccolilly, capers, shallots, parsley, and the meat is ground, not diced or cubed up. So and then you just put that on some bread and it's absolutely delicious. So how much more do you worry about a tartare when it has to go through a grinder as opposed to when you're like hand slicing it?
Just I know that you ultimately you have control, but it feels like you have so much more control when you're like, I'm gonna scrub the hell out of my station. I got my knife, I got my gloves, and I'm gonna shm sh like how do you how do you metal, you know, grinder that we keep in the freezer right up until use it so everything stays cold. I mean, I'm only grinding like two a pound of steak and trying to do it every day. So you're doing like a pork girt style. Do you have the stainless one?
Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. I'd say like I have to say, like keep everything on ice. The expense, yeah.
The expensive ones of those are nice, but like all the castings have all these weird little like unless you have a lot of money, the castings on meat grinders are like real, like little little pockets of like like filth-holding pock. And they make me nervous. I'm sure yours is perfect, John, because you are a scrupulous individual. You know? I mean, yeah, try and keep everything as well.
I have to say, uh, I mean, it is unpleasant when you have a sliced, like a hand chopped tart and someone leaves a little bit of like garbage in it. Yeah. You know? Get stuck in your teeth and yeah, unpleasant. Yeah.
I like uh I always shy away a little bit from the tartare because like I love it when it's good, but if it's not gonna be good, oh yeah, that's really sad and disappointing. Yeah. Aubrey, what do you think? You a tartar person? Do you eat that?
You eat that kind of problem? I do. It's actually funny. Um I grew up in a small town in Michigan, but my parents, big food people, and my mom was an incredible cook. And uh after working in food, I went back to my dad and I said, Am I remembering correctly that we used to eat as kids like raw hamburger and raw egg on toast?
And he was like, Yeah, you idiot. It's tartare. And if it wasn't hamburger, your mom like went to the you know, butcher and had filet ground, so she also was a ground tartar person. But in my like eight-year-old brain, it was just uh a raw hamburger. Mom, how come you didn't cook the hamburger, mom?
So good. All right, all right. Uh and you know, plus you have a nice uh ceiling lake that's enjoyable. Oh yeah, that was super super fun. Love shutting down service on a Saturday night.
It was great. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I was joking that you were trying to, you know, live the live the bear, right? Yeah, yes, exactly.
My role model. Although, like, I don't know, you don't strike me as uh angering your way through a service in the same kind of thing. No, not really. Yeah. I get angry inside, but it doesn't radiate out.
More menu, less bare. Yes. Hey, what do you Albert? What do you think? Do you think that that culture is dying, hopefully, the the ex the extreme anger stuff?
I I mean, yeah, let's hope so. Uh I've I made a pretty hard rule when I started in kitchens that I would never work anywhere, that uh that was the culture. And so I've been really fortunate that I've never come up against that. I worked, um, I'll actually tell you my one of my most inspiring kitchen stories. I worked for Paul Verant in Chicago for a long time.
And uh there was a Valentine's Day service, you know, which is notoriously god-awful, and it was like an extra hard one. Uh and so something had happened and he threw something across the kitchen. And I had only worked there for a couple of months. And so I was like, well, that's great. I quit at the end of the day.
And um, he hauled all of us out into the alley afterwards and was like, I want to apologize. That is not who I want to be. I take responsibility for my actions. That said, uh, it didn't happen then. It started at 8 a.m.
when I came in and this was done wrong, and then it was at 9 30 when this was wrong, and then this was wrong, and then this was wrong. And so you all also have some responsibility for getting me to that point, but it is ultimately my responsibility to not tip that scale. And I was like, I'll work for you for the rest of my life. Wow, but so I don't know. I mean, I think it's it's all part and parcel.
I mean, I think it depends on if the kitchen culture is bullying in order to secure control and authority, that's one thing. If it's because people are overworked and strapped in a super thin margin, there's lots of different reasons, and I think we have to address them all, probably. Yeah. Well, you say at some point, well, we're we're still shooting the breeze, but I'm gonna say at some point in the book, you're like, I'm glad I don't do that kind of work anymore. Yeah, you know what I mean?
But you're like, I you're like sometimes I miss it, but nah. Yeah, it's I don't know if it's uh just maybe everybody feels this way as you age out of stuff. You know, it was so fun. I loved being a line cook. Absolutely loved it.
Uh and I don't want to do it anymore. Uh but at Grainer Farm where I work now, um we have sort of taken the best parts of the restaurant world through experiential dining. And so we get to kind of issue some of the the harder parts which is great. It's a it's a perfect balance for us. Anyway.
So uh did you I mean you've been busy because you're like not even at home you're like on a trip and you're pushing a book that's about to come out but had did you have do you have any interesting food experiences over the past week? Yeah you know what I made the other day uh a play on shrimp toast with whitefish so it was basically a mousseline um and then seared it on some just some toast that I had and uh also a mayo kind of topper like a remulage um a little bit spicy lemon and garlic and I it was just so good. I like forgot and musoline's always kind of gross me out you know really uh why what about it just like you know egg white and fish and you grind it up and it just seems like this is never gonna be good. It's like a filter fish you know you cream bind it too I only do egg white yeah um and it just s sears nicely it's great. I grew up loving shrimp toast like love like I I don't I never see it anymore but like the the takeouts in like New Jersey in the 70s and 80s like shrimp toast was like it was right there right with this barriers was the shrimp toast and I can still see those tiny like like the triangles, like the the little crustless bread with the thing and then cut into triangles and then the whole sucker fried and like brown with the grease and the shrimp.
Love shrimp toast. Yeah. I love it. So and the whitefish was a positive? It was.
I mean, yeah, we don't have uh I didn't have any shrimp. Uh and so it was like, well, we've got this, and it works great. But it was like fresh white fish. Wait, I don't it's lake fish from Lake Michigan. All right.
I wonder if you wonder if you did that. So uh if you've been over to uh um Russ and Daughters over here, the R our appetizing store, you know, Fish Capital of New York City, fit cured fish capital of New York City. They have something that I really enjoy called uh hot and cold smoked salmon salad. Have you had this? No, I haven't.
Yeah, so it's like they take uh the scraps when scraps, whatever, but you know, when they're done, yeah, yeah. Uh from the probably from the Nova and you know the guy gas bay, that kind of stuff. They probably don't do with the belly, right? And so they they chop that up fine. And then they take hot smoked salmon and also chop that fine, and then they mix it into this, and I think it is delicious.
What do you put it on? Anything, just a fork. Well, yeah, because uh in reality, like when I eat a bagel, I'm always I want a bagel cut in half with plain cream cheese, the Rust and Dollars cream cheese, which is in my opinion, God's cream cheese. And then uh I want uh you know, smoked fish of my choice and uh raw, raw onion and tomato, and that's it. I don't want any other nothing.
Then after I have my bagel, maybe I'll rip off a piece of a bagel and I'll dip or whatever. I'll just eat this stuff on a fork. But uh I'm um I don't know, I got a mental thing. I like certain things to stay constant in my life. Okay, you know?
Anyway, uh yeah, so that's good. Now you got me thinking about what if you did like a 50 50. That's what made me think about the salad. If you did a 50 50, either 50 50 fresh and cured on the whitefish or shrimp and whitefish. What would be better?
What would ta what would be a better idea? What would taste better? Or would they both be good? Or neither good. Uh I like the idea of doing a hot and a cold side by side.
Uh, you know, that play with that temperature a little bit more. But between the white fish and the shrimp, I mean the the texture of the white fish is definitely softer, you know. So I think you're getting to textural differences. I don't know, I'm not gonna call them in there. Yeah.
Get this. What about this? I just had another idea. So John behind me here is uh, you know, Mr. Belgique, and uh grew up like uh harvesting these tiny freaking shrimp.
Okay. So you like what are they called? Like uh crevis grease grease. Crevet grease. Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, shrimp. Yeah. And uh tiny. You love them though, right? They're tasty shrimp because they're they're salt water, they're not like raised in in concrete pools.
You know what I mean? And uh what w what about a shrimp toast made with those suckers? Probably be delicious. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, that's not a bit of a taste better than those. Put them on a substandard tomato. You put them on a substandard tomato, didn't you? Exactly. Exactly.
But do you stuffed in the tomato? But do you want the substandard tomato? That's what I I've never had in a good tomato, you know. It's just always served in a substandard tomato to be interesting to taste in a really good tomato. There are applications, I have to say, where the good tomato is not what you want.
Right. In the same way, then we'll talk about pears where well, you know, we'll get into pears being the argument that you you know you've had with pears, which I don't know. I don't know. We'll s we'll get into it in a minute. I had uh some interesting things, so uh yeah, I family dinner.
I cook family dinner most Sundays. I have for the past, I don't know, 30 years or something like this, right? Twenty twenty five, 25, 30 years. And um it's fun because, you know, it's an opportunity, especially now that pretty soon I'm gonna be down to just cooking for two people again, which is kind of weird. Um it's you know, fun.
It's fun. Anyway, so I got a uh a request to do uh tortes, you know, the Mexican tortes, which for some reason I've never done before. And so I was like, fine. So I made the Tolera rolls, which are not they're not complicated, they're easy. They're just like a marginally enriched, you know, marginally, not like, you know, not even as enriched as I do, like hamburger buns, like marginally enriched.
And you push the, you push uh two lines into them so that they get those two lines. Um, you know, I did carnitas and you know, it's good. Uh you know, nothing really to report there. Everyone knows how to make carnitas, but the one thing, you know what's one thing I've never done, I'm super embarrassed about. I have never made re-fried beans on purpose from scratch.
Never done it. I've all I've made I've I've had beans that I've made, I'm like, I'm gonna mash these beans. You know what I mean? But I've never made refried beans from scratch, and I have to say, they actually are much better. I was in I'm embarrassed for all of the times that I have not done it.
Well, I have I have uh a good chunk of people come with vegetarians. Oh, gotcha. So um what I did was uh I also like, you know, for the past year I've been working on Duting beans. You know what I mean? Like uh so my current one, I detuted these and I didn't have any bad reaction to them.
You know what I mean? So it's it's good. And I'm relatively sensitive to these to to FOD maps, as they say. Uh and I also didn't make them with a standard bean because I I have almost exclusively in my house all of these beans from Maine, like Jacob's cattle bean and and yellow eyes and uh, you know, soldier beans. I could I like Maine bean, whatever.
Every you can like whatever bean you like. I I like to buy beans from Maine and Vermont and you know, I'm anyway. Uh so I made them with Jacob's cow beans, but whatever. Uh, but you know, you I cooked them with uh I cooked them in excess water for a long time. I added some um what did I use?
Did I use uh I used I think pasilla or guajio, just a couple in there and some you know, onion and a crap ton of garlic. It just cooked it till it's done with salt and wine too spicy, and then drained them. They actually they've been stored a little too hot in my kitchen. You know how if you store beans, well, I'm sure he wrote a book on it. So like if you store beans too hot, then they it takes forever to freaking cook them.
Yeah. So like midway through the cook, I had to put a little bit of baking soda in. And then you ever done that? Put baking soda in the middle of the cook instead of at the beginning? No, I've only ever done it at the beginning.
Okay. I thought I had destroyed everything. It's because I also I always uh to use your terminology, glug some oil into the beans when I'm gonna cook them. This is the technical term, people from uh the book pulp is glug. In fact, it's literally in the glossary at the beginning is glug.
Anyway, uh well, I think it was a little more than a glow. But anyway, uh anyway, so they're they're they're cooking and I'm like, oh my God, it's been I didn't pre-soak them because who cares? I'm gonna smash them, right? But uh, they'd already been cooking for like an hour and a half, and they were still super like, you know, like yeah. I was like, so I like took some some soda, it's like a half teaspoon or something into a pound or beans, boom, and instantly it smelled like soap.
And I was like, like that weird detergent soap smell, and I was like, I ruined all of these things, and then it went away. Huh. Interesting. Went away. So after it was fully cooked, then I drained the beans and I let them uh I let the beans dry out hot so that the skins would split and they would get real dry, and I saved the liquid.
Then I fried those in batches on a hot skillet and then added them back to the thing, mash them, added, and then as soon as the temperature went below about, you know, a hundred and ten Fahrenheit, I've done I put a bunch of bean o into it, folded it together, then like let it cool, it chilled it down and reheated it the next day in a steam oven. And that was a maybe a little bit of a pain in the butt. But it's not that hard. That's the thing. Like recipes that seem complicated, and maybe you'll maybe, you know, people will back me up here.
I don't know. But recipes that seem complicated, once they're part of just like the way you think, they're not complicated anymore. Yeah. And it's hard to get people to understand it's something that sounds like it's got a lot of steps. It's like, well, this is, you know, you don't, you're not like, oh my God, it's so complicated.
I gotta, I gotta brush my teeth and then comb my hair. And it's like it's just you know, stuff that you do. You know what I mean? Right. I don't know.
I mean, that's the whole point of these books, not to jump straight into it, but uh, is to give flexibility so that it's not like go to the store and buy a pear that is exactly this weight to be able to do it. It's like you're trying to teach people how to cook, but in a way that is a little supported if they don't inherently know how to cook or don't feel confident after years of being told that they're not good enough at it, you know. Yeah. Well, right. So in the intro, you you you know, your hope is to get people more comfortable to want to enjoy cooking.
Presumably, people who buy the book, or maybe people are given the book, in which case, hmm, that's interesting. Uh, you're right. So they they're interested in in cooking somewhat, but there are a lot of people who also don't want to cook, and I feel like they're made to feel guilty. Yeah, which is stupid, right? Right.
But what do you have to say to those people? Because they do feel guilty. Uh, they should get takeout. Yeah. If they I mean, or find the things that like you can do with uh the most moderate amount of effort, you know, things that they're gonna be able to work in, you know.
So is that making a frittato one day a week and then eating it, you know, that's great. Uh and that's the thing. I just feel like there's all of these presumptions, and especially around food stuff, it's so tricky. Uh, because you don't know where people are coming from. It's they're like always very weighty issues that come up for people with food.
So just whatever makes you feel good. Uh and it the thing that always gets me as a as a cookbook writer is uh, you know, I often write these recipes in the drafting stage, like from my couch. And then I'm like, yeah, that should work, and then I'll test it, whatever. And with this book in particular, I sent it around to testers um before I had done those steps because of the timeline of the production calendar. Um, and so many people got back and they were like, yeah, I don't know, it didn't work.
I must have done something wrong. And I was like, no, it's probably me. Uh yeah, it probably should have worked, it wasn't quite good enough. Um, but it seemed really interesting to me that that was most people's default. And so I feel like people think that it's supposed to be this picture, uh, like supposed to end up like that, you know, and it doesn't always.
Um, so yeah, it's a bummer. Yeah, although speaking of your process, you uh well, so to go to the the book a little bit, like this book is built around fruit, right? So you start with uh an introduction into like a bunch of techniques that you're just gonna use throughout the book. You know, this is a pie, this is a blob, you know, whatever. And then like alphabetically by fruit or fruit type, you go through it, and then within that, it's like cooking technique and then savory and sweet.
So it's like it's it's like regimented in that way, so you can find an app an application that you like within that. But then with like in one of them, yeah, it was the chicken over cornbread recipe. You talk and you mentioned because the interesting thing is is that even though it is very in that way regimented, you know what you're gonna get. Like I'm coming alphabetically, I'm going by technique, I'm gonna go savory, I'm gonna go sweet, right? But even within that though, you do your introductions into recipes and your introductions into sections all have a different kind of hook that you're hanging them on, in the sense of like, okay, in this recipe about chicken, I'm gonna talk a little bit about how I do recipe development.
And, you know, in the section on melons, I'm gonna talk about so sometimes it's like recipe specific, it's another section specific and melons, you know, you tell the story about working in uh a kitchen that's primarily women, and how you could like joke about melons and how that felt really good and and talking a lot about deep, you know, kind of deep heavy stuff in that in that section. So is that like how did you come to that kind of structure? Because it's kind of uh I like it, it's good. Thanks. Uh yeah, it's always fascinating to me to hear how it resonates with other people because this is what occurs to me to do.
Um, and so the way that I got to this style is that I started food writing um a food column up for when I was living in Traverse City area for the local paper up there. And so that was the format. It was, you know, uh a column and then recipes. And for that column, I was taking something, I was a vegetable farmer at the time, and so I was taking a vegetable that we were growing and trying to show people you can either play with the technique. So, how is poached asparagus different than roasted asparagus?
So keep the flavor combination similar and the tech the technique different, or keep the technique the same and then change the flavor combinations to try to get people, you know. I I was really inspired by the flavor Bible and uh mind of a chef or think like a chef, I can't remember what Clequio's book was. Um, and I found that when I I really loved and engaged with those books a lot. And uh when I would give them to people who did not spend their waking hours thinking and talking about food, uh, they would either get really frustrated if they weren't confident cooks, or they would like instantly understand them. And so I was trying to create kind of a middle ground between sort of the more um esoteric, but kind of I guess kind of esoteric books, and then like a straight-ahead recipe cookbook.
Um, and so trying to give people a little bit of that, like you said, you know, I have to get up, I have to brush my hair, I don't have to brush my teeth. I think it's the same thing. It's like if you have an intuitive sense of what it means to cook something or where you want to get and the tools in your toolbox to do that, it you do it intuitively without having to memorize the steps. Um, and I don't think a lot of people have that. And then, as far as the sort of weightier things with it, um, I think that one of the issues in our food world is that food consumption is often very divorced from food system issues.
And so sort of my way to say this is what I think people should be thinking about while they're doing this. You know, so the melon chapter in specific. Um, I wrote it at a time, it was December of um, let's see, must have been 20 2020. Um, somewhere in there. And there was a statistic that came out that of the job losses, they were 100% female jobs.
Uh, and I was like, that can't possibly be right, like a hundred percent. Uh, and then I like did the reading on it, and yeah, and it was all, you know, just like what does it mean? It's really hard to have a career in in food or in agriculture and hospitality, and especially if, you know, for for that one, it's like I have a job description when I post for a job, and you know, some of the requirements are stand for minimum of eight hours, be able to move up to 50 pounds. Well, as soon as a woman gets pregnant, she's not supposed to do those things. And it's not through any fault of her own.
And so, how do we create a system that keeps women in the workforce? Um, I don't have the answers, but I think it's worth people recognizing that that's a hurdle. Do you think you tie that with a joke about melons? Yeah, I mean, like for uh, you know, I honestly don't even know. I mean, I I hope things are changing more radically as a more quickly as a result of all the things that have been happening, both bad and good.
But I mean, it's not even just the actual limitations, but like uh I know for a fact that you know, a lot of um business owners are just rancid, rancid people when it comes to um pregnancy, just real buttheads, real, just terrible people. You know what I mean? Even people that would surprise you. People you think wouldn't be. You know what I mean?
Yeah, which is weird because they were all born in utero at some point. Yeah. I mean, we all got born, you know. Excuse me. Um, I don't know.
Um, but it's hard too. I mean, it's hard when you say like paid parental leave. Uh you're in a super tight margin industry. How do you justify, you know, paying someone for eight weeks, you know, six weeks. Uh, I think you have to believe that it's it's in it's necessary or it's of interest, you know, or that it's gonna keep talent in in the space, which I think is actually where it'll change, you know.
Yeah. Um on the less heavy side on the recipe recipe development side, now I don't I don't remember whether you actually mentioned the couch in the book or whether it's just you just said it to me uh on the couch. So in the chicken recipe, uh, and this is you know I I work, I think everyone kind of works the same way, but no one really wants to talk about how things happen. You're like, I'm like, I like chicken roasted over bread, which is by the way, something I you know talk like this, but you know what I mean. But that's that's uh that's something I've never done roasting a chicken over bread.
Oh, really? It's no really yeah. Is that like a thing? I don't even know that was a thing. Uh I guess I mean maybe I took it.
I mean, the Zuni chicken recipe has is like the with the bread salad. So it's it's probably just an extrapolation from that that it makes sense to me. But yeah, I often do it, you know how you like roasted chicken uh over vegetables or something like that. That's my standard, yeah. Yeah, throw in some cubes of old bread and then a little bit of stock and white wine or cherry tomatoes or things like that, something to give a little bit of acidity.
Oh yeah, it's so good. Yeah, so you're like, okay, so I love chicken roasted or bread, and then you're like, hmm, cornbread. Cornbread dries out. I need to add some liquid. Okay, I'm gonna add these blueberries.
Uh blueberries don't have enough acid. I'm gonna add lemon. And then you're like, okay, recipe's done in my head. Right. And so like, and you're like, oh, okay, yeah, that's the way actually things work.
You know what I mean? Um, I don't know, it's fun. It's uh like a fun thing to tell people how things work, especially now, because everyone gets so freaking bent about like too much explanation in a recipe book, not in a book. In a book, they're paying for for explanation before a recipe. But online with the giant recipe.
Oh my god. Every like three weeks we have that. That's stupid, stupid. Yeah. I don't know who starts it.
Who's the like, you know, salt in the cloud on that story? Like so many trolls, just so many trolls. Uh someone's giving you a recipe, just like if you don't want to read what they have to say, sift through until you start seeing numbers, and then you can deal with it and just be quiet about it. No. I mean that scrolling fatigue is really our biggest problem in the world, is I think speaking to some of our the things that we have succeeded on.
Uh scrolling. Um, another thing that I think uh we agree on, but the rest of the world maybe doesn't is you you have a story where you're talking about uh uh ground cherries like you know, Uchuva hus cherries, right? Which I like, although I have to say, well, before we even talk about that, remind me to talk about that again. All right, Michigan, I've only ever been to Detroit. Nastasi and I went to Detroit.
I had a good time. We went to, you know, see uh Hittsville, USA, the whole nine. I I had a good time. You had a good time, right, Stas? Except for like me almost dying.
That was the best part for you, right? Yeah. Me almost dying was your favorite part though, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No dang.
Okay. Anyways, so uh I really liked it. I would like to go back some time, but I have known for a long time that there's this mystical fruit belt in Michigan, and I've never been to it. And like when someone explained it to me the first time, I was like, what? Like, what?
So why don't you explain for the people that don't have never heard of it? I mean, I've never been to it, but at least I've heard of it. This, what a fruit belt is, how it works, why you have this like weird, unique climate there. Yeah. So Michigan is the second most agriculturally diverse state in the nation, second to California.
And it's primarily because of the fruit that we can grow. And so Michigan, you know, we're a mitten, uh, and we've got lakes on all sides, and specifically Lake Michigan on the western side of the state, you know, as the uh weather fronts come across from the west, they the cold fronts will pick up a bunch of moisture as soon as it hits the lake. And then that air, you know, it it picks up all of that moisture, it hits the land mass and then drops it. That's why we get lake effect snow, which I don't know if people are familiar with, but it's that it's it's generally a bit warmer in on the west side of the state because of that moderated temperature, but we get a lot more precipitation. Um, and that both keeps the fruit trees and vines and things like that from getting too cold in the winter, whereas, like, you know, Detroit uh will get easily get down into the single digits regularly because it doesn't have that same moderating effect um that far east.
Uh but on the west side, it's a little bit warmer, generally, more rain. And then we also, because of our glacial the curvature uh after the glacial recession, we have all of these hills and valleys. And so the airflow is great, and that is really prone for fruit production because the the breeze coming off the lake combined with the different elevations prevents a lot of things like mold growth or you know, things like brown rot, stuff like that, that makes it really hard to grow fruit in most places. It's similar. This is why Washington State also grows a ton of fruit, because they're getting the same thing, but off the ocean mostly.
Right. But you know, I guess like mentally, most people, even if they don't travel around in the States, like they kind of know that that whole coast over there somehow grows stuff. And then you wouldn't just looking at a map, guess this place that's that far north would have all of this like kind of cool stuff, and all the monitor's furniture too. Right? All the monitor furniture is made there.
The fact that the uh yeah, Herman Miller is from uh outside of it's actually in Zealand, Michigan, where my mom was a uh anesthesiologist at Zealand Hospital, and we would like regularly like go and get bonkets. It's a very Dutch area. So we would get bonket and then go to Herman Miller, and it was just like that was normal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so the whole area, even though I've never been, it has kind of a mat, like has this kind of magic vibe to me.
But like, you know, whatever. I never been, so who knows? I mean, you do. Um so, and also like something that maybe I'm wrong, but uh my impression is is that the lake effects snow that you get, the large amount of snow is actually like super beneficial because it actually moderates what's happening to the plants in the ground. Yeah, it insulates it.
Right. So, and so you know, and you've worked as a farmer. So, like one of the cool things is that you're not only not only a chef, but also you've worked as a farmer, you've done all these things. So you have kind of a much kind of a richer tie to how things are made all up the chain. And you know, you're a consumer as well, you eat things.
Uh so um how worried are you? You mentioned it in the book, but how worried are you about something that is so kind of weird and kind of unique based on like this set of very kind of tweaked out circumstances, right? Getting hosed with the climate change that's happening. And are you already seeing it over there? Yeah, we're already seeing it.
Um, and in the book, in addition to the recipes and the the essays, there are several interviews with different people who work along the food system. And one of them is Dr. Nikki Rothwell, who's the you know, foremost tree expert in the state of Michigan. Um, and we were talking a bit about it, and also with Mike and Pete Lang, who manage um Mobby Vineyard up in Sutton's Bay, and they're a 50-year-old winery in Michigan. Um, and both of them are saying, yeah, this is happening right now, and and this is how we need to plan for it and change for it.
Um, but nobody really knows. So I think on one hand, how worried am I? I it it will be a problem. Uh so in that sense, I'm very worried about it. I'm also incredibly uh confident that the farming community will puzzle it out.
I don't know that we can puzzle it out at the speed at which we need to, because you know, like Mike and Pete say in the book, if they're planting something, they're thinking about 30 years down the road. Uh if no one is planting, it takes seven years for a cherry tree to come to maturity. No one is planting thinking like that seven years ahead. They're thinking, you know, again, that amount of time. But if they can't, if it if the speed of climate change outpaces the ability to grow that root stock, I don't I don't see the answer, but I don'm not working that industry either.
Right. Especially though, like, you know, uh it's not a depressing book. I'm not saying it's a depressing book. I know. But macabre and like depressing this is a real self.
Right, right, right. No, but I mean, but uh on the other hand, like uh you have some hard numbers in there that are depressing. So like it sounds like on average, no matter what you're gonna plant, it's a for trees. It's like 20 grand an acre, right? And then X number of years before they start, you know, yielding.
And then, you know, you know, you mentioned cherries, you guys are like, you know, cherry universe, right? And uh they're saying they're getting like the on the commodity. Please talk about the three different uh fruit fruit things, but can like 25 cents a pound for sa for tart cherries on the commodity market? That's bananas. I mean, like obviously we pay a lot more when we're getting tart cherries because we're getting them from a farmer.
Right. So that that's a really key point in the book, and I think is speaks to this idea of understanding some of the larger systemic issues. So uh it was put very precisely to me by Abby Schilling, who is a is a fruit grower, and she said there's basically three markets uh that a fruit grower can feed into uh fresh fruit direct to consumer. So that's I grow this fruit, I bring it to a farmer's market, and I sell it directly to you. That is the lowest volume of fruit that you can move, uh, but at the highest price point.
And so then the middle ground is fresh fruit to effectively a broker. So it's going into grocery stores or you know, someone is dealing that out. And then there's the commodity fruit, which is none of that is fresh. That's all going into, you know, for cherries, Gene Garthy, who's another interviewee, um, is talking about cherry pie filling, cherry, tart cherry concentrate, um, dried cherries, like, you know, name your name your cherry. That's not the same one who has the one tenth of an acre of quince, is it?
Yes, it is. And so that's a pretty good example of it. That so he is a legacy fruit grower up in Northport, Michigan. He's been doing it his whole life. His, you know, grandfather immigrated and or great grandfather immigrated and and started it.
And um uh Jason or uh Justin Rashid from American Spoon had said, you know, we can't find quince anywhere. Will you grow them for us? And so Jean was like, yeah, sure. Uh so he's got you know a little spot on his farm that he can put some trees. So uh American Spoon buys the trees, plants them, Gene tends them, sells all the quints to American Spoon.
That quince is not any part of Gene's like financial stability because it's such a tiny amount, but it's a good relationship, things like that. And if he can sell the rest of his stuff to American Spoon, that's a better price point than going to, you know, the processing facility for it. Um, so I think those are the decisions that people are making, and when they're making it with such high overhead and such long-term decisions, Gene, I found fascinating. He was my neighbor when I was farming up in Northport, and he was uh growing cherries organically at the time. And so I finally asked him when we were doing this interview, you know, what is it about organic?
And he was like, Oh, the the price was there. You know, so it's not for some organic growers, it's dogmatic. It's you know, and I think all farmers um I think there's this idea that conventional farmers are just like, you know, dumping buckets of fertilizer into the waterways just for funsies. I've never met a farmer that feels that way. That stuff's expensive.
They care about their waterways too. Um, it's just how they're trying to make a living. And uh, and so Jean was saying, you know, the price point was there. I could make the transition pretty easily. We could do it.
And so that's what they did. But they he would pull out of it at any point. Right. Well, the year you talk to him, right? Or maybe it was someone else, like they got a pre-buy on a non-organic at a good price.
And so he's like, to hell with it. And that year he didn't do it, even though he's like, I actually think the ones that we grow organically taste better. Totally. But a lot a lot of worms. He said he had worm problems.
Yep. And and that's why there's these really strict rules about you know, fruit fly fruit fly larvae, uh, that you can't be you basically can't have any, which if anybody grew up in a fruit-growing region, it's very difficult to control. And so, yeah, it's a it's a hard road to ho. Yeah. Hey, uh, question on cherries.
Um, I know you like them, but they're not your favorite. We'll get into that. I was gonna troll you and ask you what your favorite fruit is, because there's a section in your book where you're like, this is a section wherein I tell you what my favorite fruit is. So if you ask me my favorite fruit, you clearly have not read the book. I appreciate that you read it.
Yeah, but uh, which is weird. I think this might be one Nastasia. You like this fruit, uh, apricots. You're an apricot fan. But I'm not talking about it yet.
Just us, isn't that one of your faves? Apricots. No, it's not no. I thought you like I don't know. You like dried apricots.
I like dried apricots. Yeah. I are apricots in machine really good. It depends on the year. Uh, you know, I would say the one they can be great, you know, they can be that super like rich honey flavor.
They're always have that sort of uh slightly drier texture than a peach or a nectarine. Um we don't get them that often because they always flower earlier, and then we inevitably get a late frost, it nips the buds, and then there's no crop. But when you have them, they're good? Yeah, generally. Yeah.
I uh I'm always disappointed. Like when I was three, we moved out of California, and I still have like some like you know how those fake memories that you have? Yeah, I have fake memories. So we had an apricot uh tree in um in um Palo Alto, and like I would just eat them constantly, you know what I mean? And then I've always loved them dry because they're intense.
I love Blenheim's, which is you know, the California high acid variety, because I'm a high acid fruit fellow. And uh I'm just whenever I get them fresh, I'm always like, that doesn't taste the way I want it. And I know how I want it to taste, and that flavor is great. I don't know. I mean, isn't that the like whole thing with fruit?
And this was the funny thing. So when we were, you know, when I was pitching this book, so many publishers were like, fruit books don't sell. I was like, how could fruit books not sell? You know, what's the deal with it? And they were like, well, people don't they don't cook with it, you know.
It's like you just eat it. And so I started asking people, like, oh, I'm I'm working on this fruit book, what would you want out of it? And it was literally 50-50. People were like, Oh, why would I need a cookbook? I just eat it.
And then the other ones were like, I don't ever buy fruit because sometimes it tastes bad and I don't know what to do with it. Maybe if I had a cookbook, I was like, oh my gosh. Well, you can always, I mean, then you go through this, you're like, if it's not good, why don't you do one of these recipes where you like cook a little bit or add a little back to cherries? I know I was gonna ask you. So on tart cherries, a couple of things on tart cherries.
One, when you pit a tart cherry, they discolor in a very unpleasant way pretty quickly. Why? And can you do something about that? Uh it's the it's, I mean, it's oxidization, um, which is ironic that the tart cherries would oxidize. I would guess, I would venture to guess, that the dark sweets uh probably go through a similar browning, but because the color is darker of the flesh, you notice it less.
Because I notice it on the yellow cherries, uh, like Queen Anne's and um things like that, uh, which don't have the flavor because they are just sweet. So you think tossing them in ascorbic acid might help? I've never tried. Yeah, I think anything like that to which, yeah, same as like, or even just lemon water. They get that brown.
Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. And they sort of, I thought you were gonna say they just like deflate. Yeah, but they don't.
I can deal with that. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you know, there's this, by the way, uh, moisture mitigation is uh, so I'm moisture management is what I talk about in your moisture mitigation. I like that we have different terminology, similar, uh similar issues.
Um also on um on cherries, you if tart cherries are so cheap on a commodity market that and it's becoming problematic. Like uh the person you were saying, his shaker is like, what a quarter million dollars? Why is a shaker cost a quarter million dollars? And would it kill a person to jokingly put a shaker around them and go? But for those of you who haven't seen, like, you know, like it looks almost like uh like a Jurassic Park like like that dinosaur with the frill goes around, surrounds the tree, grabs it and so there's two parts of it.
There's the there's the tarp that kind of scoots around and yeah, catches all of the cherries. If anybody hasn't seen a cherry tree be shaken, it is amazing because you don't realize how much how heavy those branches are uh at least I didn't when I saw it the first time and then the thing that attaches to the chunk it looks like one of those 1950s exercise belts where the person's like drinking martini and smoking a cigar and it's just getting shaken um but then what happens is that the branches like are are way down here and then it shakes and it's just like you know and it's like that Skittles commercial about with cherries. So what would happen if they did it to me as a joke. I I think it would be terrible I think you might die. Oh but it's kind of like you're like I want to get shaken by I know it looks so funny.
It does but so you're thinking it seems like it's tickling the tree yeah you think it's a definite oh but it's also interesting is uh apparently he was saying the old shakers you know uh definitely cut short the life of the tree but the new shakers are more so maybe if you get a new shaker I'll survive. It's true. Yeah. You know a little bit a little bit less. I actually recently went down I go down rabbit holes occasionally I don't know if you can tell.
Yeah. And I started reading patents for fruit shakers and when I was trying to figure out whether it would kill me to be shaking with one and uh interesting stuff. A lot of research and fruit shakers you know that's the thing I mean why does it cost quarter million dollars because they're really specific really researched machines that everybody needs at exactly the same time. So it costs a lot of money if you need to get into the business. So not a lot of people are getting into the business of needing to have a quarter million dollar tree shaker.
Commodity market is going through the floor on how much they're getting return. The land, another thing you bring up multiple times in here, people want to live on this land because it's pretty. And so it's becoming expensive. It's not cheap land, right? So all of these factors make it seem like tart cherries are gonna go the way of the dodo.
Yeah, I mean, I think I think that would be the plausible idea. I think the question is, is there something that's gonna replace it that people are assured that they can can do? Because if you look at grapes, I mean grapes are the thing that everybody is like, oh, well, you'll just take the cherries out and put grapes in. Um, but there's even less of a market for grapes except for wine. Value added, yeah.
This country was founded by Puritans, so the wine industry is not super easy to like immediately get into. I was like, I remember you were talking to uh, I forget her name, uh, agricultural scientist specialist. Nikki Rothwell. Yeah. And she I think it was her, said, Well, there's a limited growth in the alcoholic business.
I'm like, that has not been my experience. You know what I mean? Like people drink uh wine. It turns out. It's true, although the isn't the NA market like the largest growing part of the craft beverage world.
It's like rocketing. It's crazy. Yeah. It's true, the growth. And you know, it's it's a weird time.
It's a weird time. And it's funny too, because um Mike and Pete, I don't remember if it was if it actually got printed or if it was part of the editing of the interview, but Mike, who manages Mobby Vineyards, says the most expensive part for him is marketing the wine, that it's like a totally different price structure. But they have an interesting winery because they are growing some of their own grapes, but they're also relying on bulk wine from the West Coast. And so I think for getting back to the scale stuff, it's just all about that product mix, um, which you know, all of these are really big, risky decisions to make. All right.
Now, before we run out of time, let's do uh first of all, what do you I I know that most people are gonna hear this when it's too late, but what what uh what are you doing here in the in the city this week? Where are you where you going? Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. I'm gonna be at Art Stratus uh book store in Green Point, Brooklyn tomorrow with um uh Bettina as a food journalist from Bonapet and Eater. She's gonna be interviewing me there.
And then I'll be at Union Square Market on Wednesday. And then Grahamcy Tavern is having me. And it's like, I mean, kid, it's such a dream. So yeah. Should be should be good.
Should be excited. And you're also going to the strand you said. Yes. And you're also going to Kitchen Arts and Letters. Yes, I'm gonna do a book signing um for both those places.
So if you're looking for signed copies, any of those three bookstores will have them. And I think Books Art Magic will as well. And Kitchen Arts and Letters, I think we Quinn, did we get uh did we get them to put uh for the Patreon folks on the uh the discount on Pulp? Yep, it's already all right. So, you know, if if uh Patreon members get uh the book there, they can get uh whatever our discount is, which I don't even really know.
And also Kitchen Arts and Letters, by the way. Uh there when is that? When is that they're doing that? On April 22nd, so there's some time and April 23rd on the 22nd and 23rd. If you go uh live, they're gonna sell a whole bunch of their used, out of date and slightly damaged books at like rock bottom prices.
But do not call them and ask them to hold something for you. Don't do it. Don't do it. Go and buy it. I believe they are also having a 20.
I don't might have sold out by now, but they were selling like 20 tickets or so for early admission with all proceeds going to a city Harvest. Uh well, maybe they'll maybe they'll put more up, but it's a good idea. What was the what was the uh what's it called? What was the charity they were giving to? City Harvest, I think.
Oh, nice. Yeah. So, you know, you know, P you pay and they're not taking the money. They give it to Yeah. Yeah.
Nice. Um good folks over there. Yeah. Very good. And uh so if you want uh, you know, hopefully you are on the Patreon listening to it live or before Friday and you can go see over at one of these uh a fine events.
Uh but if they're not, how how can they join, John? Patreon.com slash cooking issues. Uh we got a bunch of different membership levels, a bunch of awesome perks, including, you know, getting discounts at Kitchen Arts and Letters, uh prioritize questions being asked. And we will eventually answer the non-book related questions, people. We're gonna have to do a no tangent because we have a lot of guests coming up.
We're gonna have to do like a no tangent off day at some point. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um what else? Did I miss anything?
Uh great upcoming guests who do we have coming up. Mark Forgione, uh hopefully Matt from Kitchen Arts and Letters coming out at some point soon. Uh yeah, just a whole slew of great and awesome people. So sign up. Yeah.
Uh all right. So I have a question for you. Uh you are the chef at Grainer Farm, have been since 2017. Yes, sir. Uh, and so what does that entail?
So Granor Farm has like a CSA and also I mean, so what just give like a quick what's the deal with Grainar Farm? Grainar Farm is uh wonderful place. We are started as a vegetable farm. So vegetable CSA. We also were founded to do kids like youth programming.
Um so every summer we do five weeks of uh farm camp with ages five to ten and then vegetable farm, and this is again scale. So we do vegetables really intensively, and then the grain program, which is you know, all cereal greens and heirloom beans and heirloom corns at a much larger scale, all funnels into our on farm farm store. And then I joined in 2017 to create a meal program. Uh so what we do are what we call experiential dinners. People buy a ticket in advance, they show up, they get uh, you know, little conversation and a walk through the fields and they see what we're doing and where, and then we go into this beautiful glass greenhouse that is a true Dutch kit greenhouse uh with the dining room in the center, and we do roughly seven courses.
Um and they're so it's a tasting menu. People don't know what they're gonna have before they arrive. We on our dairy restrictions, but it's all a surprise because what we do is we take the harvest list, uh what we're getting from our farming neighbors, and then also our preserves list and write the menu for each event. So it's bespoke for that. Um, and yeah, it's just a really fun way to eat.
It's a great way to cook. Uh, we get to, you know, really provide a setting for new cooks that are coming up to be able to, you know, learn new things each time. So it it's really nice to see cooks that are not just trying to prep out their station, but really want to learn, and then they spend, you know, ideally at least a day or so on the farm as well. Because I know my food just changed so much when I started farming. Um, and so trying to kind of systemize that.
And so wait, so how many like so on one of these dinners, like how many covers they are it's just one service, one seating. Uh we had can see roughly 4048 in the main dining room, and then we have a PDR for 14. So if you have like a specialty event, because otherwise we keep the group size to six or fewer. So it's four kind of communal tables. And then, like, how big of a crew do you have working on that on the thing?
We have there are three of us in the kitchen, soon to be four, um, or you know, one person's part-time, and then there's like three front of house. So it's a really small team. Right, but it sounds fun. It's really fun. Yeah, and the meals are fun too, and it's nice.
You know, the most amazing thing happens. People come and they're I'm still amazed people come when they don't know what's gonna be on the menu, but that's I'm glad that they do. And then they have their phones out, usually taking photos of the building, first couple of courses, but then inevitably the phones just go away and they all are just there. And it's like it's this thing that can it never repeats. And so it's really just in that moment, and it's really fun.
And like curious reading the the book, it seems that like most of the uh big city draw is west from Chicago and not east from the eastern side of the state. Is that true, or just seen that way when I was reading it? Historically, I think that's true, although it's changing. So the lot especially the last few weeks, uh, we've had a much bigger draw from Metro Detroit, and then also like Grand Rapids Holland area down. Yeah, cool.
Uh oh, back on cherries for a sec, sorry. Yeah. Uh brining the cherries. Oh my gosh, I was hoping you would ask about that. So it's like not a boat ton of salt, but is it enough to have them start like because you wait, John, get this.
It's like I'm gonna I'm gonna forget, but it's like not a ton of salt in water, and then just you can leave them out for like an unconscionably long amount of time. Is it because also you're getting your fruit faster? Can I do it with my garbage commodity cherries that I get? How much salt? I don't remember the exact ratio, uh, but it's not that much.
I think it's like a couple cups of cherries, maybe a teaspoon of salt. I mean, it's I think it was based off the two percent ratio that I always use for a kraut and things like that. That's where I started, and then uh just felt my way around through it. So, what happens to them? They become like it's it's sort of like um the difference between fresh lemon and preserved lemon, although not as intense as that.
Uh, but it has this like you know, briny kind of olivey flavor to it that I just have two more minutes. And she and she serves them with uh mixed with uh Castle Vitranos and uh Marcona almonds and lupini beans. Yeah. So it's like cherries and salty snacks. And um, it came from there was a dish that a chef that I worked for for a while put on.
It was like duck and cherry, and I tasted it, and I was like, I think this needs olive. And he was like, You're insane. That's a terrible combination. And it's never left, and olives and cherries like really match in my mind. Yeah, you gotta try it before you say it's terrible, you know what I mean?
Uh speaking of which, uh, one of your uh early mentors whose name just went out of my head, you had an argument over best fruit, and he was a pear guy. And here's what I'm gonna say. I think you're he saved a pear until it was like exactly what he wanted, and you're still like, nah. Well, I mean, it was so delicious, but it was like a you know, um, epic trying to get this pear to that case. I think pears are the biggest heartache fruit.
I know they're so heartbreaking. And pears and apricots together, it's like heartbreak coaching. Yeah, because uh there isn't I mean, pears aren't meant to be eaten off a tree. You have to do something afterwards with them. They're only good for the tiniest window.
Yeah, but they're ethereal when they are. I guess. Yeah, yeah. But I'm a peach girl, I'm I'm an easy, I'm a crowd pleaser. I know.
I'm a I'm a new I'm a nectarine guy. I know that you're whatever. You don't like them as much. You say you didn't say that. You implied it.
You implied it based on saying it's just one gene that's different and they don't have as rich flavor. It was an implication. Maybe it's Michigan. You know, nectaries always have that like whiter flesh. So to me, that just tastes sweeter and not the like you know richness.
But again, everybody has their that's why food's so great. Alright, Joe's gonna cut me off soon. I have one more question. Uh the wheat that you grow on the farm is a soft, is a soft, uh red. Is it soft red winter or soft red spring?
Both. How's a soft red spring? I've never used soft red spring. Uh I I'll send you some. I mean, it's great.
I we use it mostly for pasta. Um, things like that. I know there's a whole fresh pasta thing on the show, but uh yeah, I but you can do the winter because you have the snow. So you're not gonna get blasted like they would in the Dakotas or something like that. So anyway, uh it's been a pleasure having you on, uh, Abra.
Come back anytime. Uh are you gonna do a fourth or is three is a magic number? I uh I don't know. Yeah, three. It's uh everything's better and not numbers.
It's just like plating, so it has to be three or five, and I don't know if I'm up. Five is a lot of things. What are you gonna do what are you gonna fill up a whole bookshelf? Fine. Anyway, it's a beautiful book.
Take a look at it, uh, buy it, uh, and like I say, come back anytime. Thank you. Thanks for having me and thanks for the time. I appreciate it. Cooking issues.
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