Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the heart of New York City, Manhattan, Rockefeller Center, New York City. I already said that. Newstand Studios, uh joined as usual with uh John. Nah John Nahool, how you doing?
Doing great. Yeah. Yeah? Yeah, yeah. Are you though?
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's the start of the week. It's Monday, you know, my Monday, so.
It's your Monday? I like that. Whenever I'm in a store, I'm like, is today what is what day of the week is your today, right? I'm like, is it your Friday? Yeah.
Yeah. Because really Saturday is the new Saturday's the new Monday. I don't know. Saturday's might. All the days are the same.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All the days are the same. Just the store hours change.
Yeah, exactly. Got Joe Hazen rocking the panels. How you doing? I'm doing well, man. Good to see you.
And yes, I am doing well. Yeah? Good. Really? Nice.
Exactly. That's what I was looking for. Really? Yeah. Yeah.
Alright. Yeah. Alright, I appreciate it. Like anyone in New York City, you're like, are you doing well? And they're like, yeah.
You're like, really? Come on. What? Because in New York, what's the classic answer? What's going on?
How you doing? Busy. Busy. Busy. Busy.
Because if you're not busy, someone's like, What are you lazy? What are you stupid? If you're not busy, if you live in New York and you're not busy, even the idle rich are busy in New York. You know what I'm saying? Man, I would like to be the idle rich.
That would be nice. Yeah, the idle rich is the best kind of rich. Anyway. Joined in the upper, upper left-hand corner, Quinn. How you doing, Quinn?
Busy. You know what I like? I like uh, I like how so people know this, but like she who shall not be named, the computer that runs my phone, right? Can't pronounce anyone's name properly. And I'm the other person who can't pronounce anyone's name properly.
So uh whenever I would call John, I would say, hey, blah, call Gene the howl, because that's the only way she could pronounce it. And the only way that she can pronounce Quinn's name is call Quinn. Get this? Call Quinn Fusile. Fusile.
Yeah. Quinn, say it the proper way because I can't even think it the right way anymore because I only think it the way she thinks it. Fuchile. A fucile. Beautiful.
And uh heading further on down that uh left-hand coast, we got uh Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How you doing? Good. Good. And of course, uh yeah, I I would have remembered he was there because I spoke to him beforehand.
Our good buddy Jackie Molecules. So uh you guys have anything interesting. We didn't really talk, we talked a little bit last week, but uh we didn't talk too much about what we're doing. I have some actual food updates that I forgot to bring up last week. But uh what do you guys what do you guys been doing?
I got some stuff. All right, hook me up. Well, uh this uh Sunday was my dad's birthday, and we ordered what was advertised as a circling pig. Okay. To celebrate.
By the way, I I I think I know where this is going. I'm gonna say it and see whether I was right. They always lie. They always just send you a not very big pig. Go ahead.
No. What? It was not suckling. It was like a teenage pig. That's what I'm saying.
They always send like just not a 200-pound pig. They're like, they're like, here's a medium-sized pig. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
No one ever sends a suckling pig. I've I've had this problem before. Yeah. So we had 53 pounds of pig. 55?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know what the problem? Okay, tell me whether this was the problem with the pig you received.
That age pig is just like humans. Uh that's the wrong age. You know what I mean? It's like it's like uh just like humans? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like little, like it's the awkward stage. It's the junior high of pigs. You know what I mean? Like, if if you were gonna say what's the worst era to, you know, what's the worst, you know, time of human life, you would have to say No, no, yeah. I thought you were talking about like a taste comparison.
This is gonna be a good thing. Maybe also, yeah. I don't know, maybe also. I don't know. I'd have to ask Jack about that.
So I ate to a human restaurant. I didn't know my defense. But I was eating humans, so which one did you like best? Because I would want to know. I would want to know anyway.
Uh so yeah, so was it all of the wrong things? It was uh not as fat as a suckling pig, you know, not as much, you know. Was it how was it? Was it ended up being good or what? I mean, we ended up it was still good, but it was like, okay, is that gonna fit on our gas grill?
So we gotta chop it up anyways. Yeah. I want I'm like okay, I know Dave, your thing is like the cooking whole pig. It doesn't matter how like perfectly it's cooked, it's just an event. But I'm like, we've already got a phone.
Because it can't be done. Because it can't be done. That's why. Yeah. So I'm like, we're already gonna have to break it up.
Let's cut out the loin section, and then we could have a little more control. Yes. But I got overruled. Why? The only worst thing to do than to cook a whole pig is to cook a whole pig in the wrong position.
So that it's like all hunched up so that like nothing is cooked properly. Well, I mean, you know, I love a good grease fire. Yeah. Yeah. I love it.
Nothing better than a good grease fire. The skin was uh was sacrificed to the gods. Well, you know, uh according to what I know about sacrifice, you are supposed to give the best parts to the gods. And then you eat, you know, what's left over. And by the gods, I mean the priest eat that stuff.
So it's like, you know, they put it on the thing, and then basically the priests are eating that. You know what I'm saying? Like it's really like you're paying the priests off with that. I don't know if you know that. Oh, we know the no priests that I'll tell you that much.
Yeah. Yeah. It was still fine. It was good. We made some really nice bosses and some nice flatbreads.
Yeah. You know what? You know what? Next time. Oh, uh, there's a f I know that you're not a uh music person, but there's a famous Louis Primus song called Next Time, There Will Be No Next Time, that where Sam Butera, his uh one of his other horn players, is the guy who actually sings uh uh on that one.
So are you gonna do it next time or there will be no next time? Well, no, I think we're considering next time. Again, years and years ago, for my birthday, we did get a whole goat, and my sister-in-law's father built an iron cross, and we did the uh like L out the door, like fire roast. Oh man, I thought you were going in a whole different direction with the iron cross. I thought this was gonna be some creepy, creepy, creepy thing.
Like some sort of crucified devil goat. Because goats are already the devil. I mean, I like them and their products, but they are they are Satan's animal on Earth for sure. You know what I mean? Like if Satan had to choose one animal, it ain't the snake, it's a goat.
Just look at them. You know what I mean? Look, look at them. Plus they eat anything. I mean, the goats, no.
Creepy. And uh, but I will say this: uh, if you're gonna do this again and it comes and you're not gonna be able to cook it properly on one fire, but you have time, right? You can do just a super long circ on it. So we we used to we used to do that just a very, very, very long circuit. Um physical like circulation problem.
Someone goes to Target, buys a tub, and you stick the circulators in it and you circuit. I mean, uh like that would be circulator power. Uh as I have mentioned, this is something I have tested for you. You're keeping a a not a very high temperature, so you can't do like you you can you can only do low temperatures, like so a full-size Lexan, which you could fit this into, you can do it with one circulator as long as it's not metal. If it's plastic and you cover it and you let it come up to temperature and you overshoot the temperature by like 20, 30 degrees, and then drop it in, it'll settle out at about the right temperature.
So you have to do a similar calculation to what you would do, or you could do it in igloo, right? You have to do it at a similar uh the similar way to that you would calculate uh brew temperatures for like if you look up mash temperatures for for brewing. Yeah, for straight strike temperatures. Yeah. So you calculate that strike temperature to be just above what you want the cooking temperature of the thing to be.
Then you drop it, do it in the igloo, right? For a long, long time, like so much longer than you think, right? And then uh let it cool down, pull it, and then you can you can uh crisp it off. But you know, the the recommendations for uh circulator size are based on um you know their ability to comfortably do something and regulate within a tenth of a degree. If you don't care about tenth of a degree, if like one or two degrees is fine, and you can insulate it and go for a long time, you can do twice or three times as much liquid as they say you uh as they say you can.
So that's just an FYI. Done it many times, done it many, many times. Uh so like you know, like when I show up at my mom's house and she's like, you gotta cook this whole freaking prime rib, like a whole one. And I'm like, Ma, you don't have anything, you have nothing. So, like, you know, we're like, I was like, what where do you store your shoes in the attic?
And so, like, you know, you just go get whatever she's storing her shoes in in the attic and you cook it in that. You just make it work. You know what I mean? If you have time, if you have time, because while the gods may enjoy the skin, you would have enjoyed it more. Oh my god.
That talked to you about the delicious when I was in Germany, the delicious shinken hocks that I had. No. Oh my god. So I went to, I forget the name of the place, but uh we went to um, I was in Berlin, and most of the nights, you know, I was eating with uh the Kampari crew, but uh you went out with the owner of uh Mr. Susan there and Don Lee, and I forgot I forgot the name of the place, but it's like you know it was known for their for their their Schinkenhocks or you know, their Schweinhawks, whatever you want to call it.
And it's just this like pork shank, and they just they they they slow cook the hell out of it. Some people braise it, some people slow cook the hell of it, and then you either like roast the hell out of it or or deep fry it. I think it's almost deep fried. It was like, and they're like, I'm gonna so it's a kilo of like pork shank knuckle that comes out and it's just all the crispy skin and some and some cooked, you know, sauerkraut with it. I was just like, oh my god, oh my god, so good.
Yeah, it sounds delicious. That skin was so good. And they had run out when I showed up. They had run out and they were like, uh, they were like, Yeah, we're out. I'm like, what are you talking about?
They're like, Yeah, it's our most popular thing. I'm like, then why are you still open? You should be like Franklin Barbecue, and when you're done with it, you close the store. And I he I was like, where else can I get it? I was like, I came, I walked an hour and a half to get here, and this is all I want.
You know what I mean? So like uh they tried to send me to a different place, and he's like, Yeah, but it's not very good there. He's like, he's like, I didn't tell the other people, but if you come back in 45 minutes, we'll have more. And so we did. You know what I mean?
Nice, yeah. And it was so good. So good. Uh well, speaking of barbecue, how's your barbecue down in Texas? Good.
Yeah, I was just in Austin, and you know, I didn't go to Franklin, obviously, because I am standing no line. And we're with a group, you know how like when you're with a group and like two of the people in the group are like are willing to be ridiculous for food? Yeah, and two aren't. It's better to not force those people to go in. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Yeah. But I mean, the place you went to was still. Oh, delicious. Yeah.
Delicious. In fact, I so I I take it as an opportunity to not go to the one that everyone's standing in in line for, right? Yeah, and what's the name of the place that came before you? Oh, so I went to uh KG Barbecue, which is still a uh it's I guess still considered a truck because it's outside of like a brew house. But the the chef is his name is uh I didn't meet him, is uh Karim Al Gayesh.
And so it's he wanted to start a he's from Cairo. Yep. And he took a trip like uh, you know, a long time ago to to the United States and was like, oh, I love this Texas barbecue. I love this. Goes back to Cairo and is like, there is nothing.
There's nothing. So he keeps on trying to like, you know, figure out a way to do it in Cairo, then takes a trip back to Austin to like learn more like you know, from people there, and eventually just opens up a food truck in Austin, uh serving, and it's like uh it's definitely Texas barbecue, you know, brisket, like the sausages, all that stuff. Uh, but like with a little like Egyptian twist, like some some some sitar on it, like his potato salad has beets in it. So a lot of people asked what was up. They thought that they hit the potato salad because I posted on the Instagram.
They thought the potato salad was something else. So I don't know how many people when I told them there was beets in the potato salad, we're like, I don't know. Because I'm also that way. You know Nastasi and I. Did I tell you what?
Hey Stas, you want to be you want to be grossed out? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for all everybody knows that the everybody, it is known that the smell that Nastasi and I are repulsed by in beets is uh Jasmin, which is the chemical that gives it that dirt smell. It's also the the chemical in dirt catfish and dirty tasting tilapia.
Although tilapia is pretty much clean now. It's pretty neutral these days. You know what I mean? Uh right. It's also the smell of like fresh earth.
And so the the Roca brothers, right? You know, the early, early on, like 2004 or whatever, one of their famous dishes when they first got a rotary evaporator was they would go scoop up dirt from outside the restaurant, not in the parking lot, and they would throw it into their rotary evaporator and they would get that Jasmine smell, which is caused by a bacteria in the earth. They make it when it's wet, right? Which is why that's what that smells like. And then they would put that dirt on oysters, and that was their surfing turf.
Do you get it? Do you get it? Anyway, you get the joke? Anyway, but it was a super famous dish. It was a super, super famous dish.
And when I saw them do that at Madrid Fusion and 04 or 05, whatever it was, I was like, oh man, these guys, they're the they're the best. They're the best. That's also when they pulled out the smoking gun for the first time. Although I hear they nicked that idea from someone maybe in Belgium or Netherlands or something like that. So they repurposed a pothead.
So it used to be that people, I don't know if you know this, but people used to smoke marijuana cigarettes and they would smoke marijuana in little pipes. They didn't have like these vape things. People actually used to have to pull out a lighter and light the marijuana on fire to consume it. You know what I mean? Back in the day.
And so, but you know, when I was a kid, like potheads were known for being lazy, right? Not lazy, but like they, you know, they're a high. They were super high, right? So someone had taken these uh, so they they used to sell these little vacuum cleaners for keyboards. Because I don't know if you know this, but like people who work on computers all day, we're you know, some finicky weirdos, and so they're like, and I want to use a regular vacuum cleaner.
So they would make these little miniature battery powered vacuum cleaners to clean out your keyboards, right? And so some like super smart like high out of their mind, like pothead was like, What if I put the battery in upside down? This thing becomes a power pipe. And so that's what they did, right? They screwed a bowl into the top of the into the you know, vent and they turned the vacuum backwards and it was a power pipe for them to smoke, and then chefs took it, and that's where the smoking gun comes from.
Brilliant potheads. Also the the volcano vaporizer, which Grand Aikett's made famous in food at Alinea Pothead. Uh any hoolie who. So I was like, I was like, oh, I don't really like dirty martinis. I'm just gonna put that out there, right?
I think it's fine if you like them. If do you like them? Are you I do, yes. Yeah, yeah. Joe, dirty martini?
Yes, yeah, yeah, Jack. No from me. No, and I know no from Stash. She's not a martini head, right? Yeah.
Yeah, I'm not either. I mean, I I'll I'll consume them, but what about Quick Queen? What about you? Martini person? Um, not a dirty martini, but like a regular martini, sure.
Yeah. So out of disrespect for the dirty martini, I want to just make the dirt martini. So I was like, I could just I could I could like scrape my rotary evaporator out of uh out of storage and get everyone in my family super mad at me for taking up my entire house with it, or I could just buy Jasmine. So I just have Jasmine sitting at the house, and I just need some time so I can make my dirt martini. I'm just gonna put a couple of drops of dirt stink into the martini and make my dirt martini.
And I still am wondering, what do you guys think? Olive in the dirt martini or or lemon twist in the dirt martini? No, a rock. Yeah, yeah, yeah. An actual rock.
All right. All right. But I need, but I need some sort of other flavor compound in it. No, just dirt. They just dirt.
My other flavor is martini. Yeah, I guess. Well, it's a moss or a lichen. Oh, huh. I wish I had stolen some epiphytes when I was in Austin, but uh, you know, complete with like all forms of little like biting mites.
Uh but triggers? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh I don't know. So no one, no one thinks a lemon or an island, everyone thinks it should be some alternative. I mean, the rocks where I live are filthy.
Every by the way, if you Well, you're wash them. Okay. If you come to our fine city and you sit on the sidewalk, be aware that the sidewalk is 25% dog pee, 25% rat pee, like bird poop and vomit. Like that's what our sidewalks are. So don't sit on them.
Like, don't sit on our sidewalks and go. Yeah, yeah. Like, just don't sit on our sidewalks. If you come into our subway system, do not sit on our sidewalks or stairwells unless you consider your whole body disposable. Like, it's just not, you know what I'm saying?
When you see that? So gross. Okay. So gross. I regularly take, so if you're a dog person, like in in our buildings, in like down where I live in the lower east side, there's like uh fences, and I see like runners stretching against the fence.
I'm like, that is a urinal. You are stretching in a urinal. You might as well go into a public restroom and just start stretching against the urinal. You know what I mean? Anyway, uh it's gross.
It's just gross. Uh all right. Um, yes, so that barbecue is. I also went to the Austin Farmers Market, which was fun. I had barbecue there as well.
Uh that was uh Mum Foods. And Mum Foods, they I think they're about to get a brick and mortar. They just got a brick and mortar. They've just been doing uh like Texas style uh barbecue at the farmer's market, which is in the Mueller neighborhood, rather new neighborhoods where the airport used to be. And that was also delicious.
And the chef there, or the owner, uh spent a bunch of time in Queens. So they also do pastrami. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, so it's like you know, it's like all the briskets. So it's like pastrami and uh and and brisket, and their sausage is made from brisket trimmings, and their sausage is sick.
So if you go to there, if you if you go stop by their farmer's market there on uh on a, I think it was a Sunday, yeah. That the sausage is the answer. But the guy next to me, he's ordering pastrami, right? And he asked for the lean. And but so my friend Jorin, like and I were going, we were the two people who were food, you know, people were good.
So we're going there, and we we both look over at the guy. We're like, what? You know what I mean? Like, what? Yeah, that doesn't make sense.
Why would you do that? Why would you do that to yourself? That's what you accept, because you in order to get to the fat you need like the the animal has someone, so in order to be sustainable, you're like, fine, I'll take some of the lean. But it turns out there's people who want the lean. Who are these people?
Oh, I'll give you another one. So, like, you know, obviously we can't check baggages with liquids. I mean, we can check baggages with liquids, but you know, whatever. We don't live there, we don't have a kitchen, we're at a wedding, we're headed out. So there's a huge long line out out the farmers, out of the indoor section of the farmer's market.
And we were like, is this line to get in? And a guy in the line's like, no, this line is for eggs. And so I go, Oh, we don't need eggs. And the because it's like the super fancy like farmers' eggs down there. And some lady line goes, you most certainly do.
I was like, uh, I was like, all right, lady. Alright, lady. I got you. Uh so the other thing uh I saw there in because this we didn't go get in our farmer's market. Oh, fresh pecans, locally grown pecans.
So I brought some of the roasted, semi-salted ones for you to try. So I asked the the gentleman who sold them to me. I was like, uh, what uh variety are these? And I got some variety FOMO. Those he the ones he got me were called desirable.
And I said, Are they desirable? He's like, Yes, they are very good. Some people do not think they are the best. They're not grown as much. They used to be one of the most common varieties, they're not as grown anymore because they're susceptible to certain forms of scab and the nut quality deteriorates if they have scab.
But now I want to try the Elliott variety. So if anyone knows of the Elliott, because get this, the Elliott variety of pecan has a hickory nut flavor. So I would love it. But that's a delicious pecan, am I right? Fresh, delicious pecan.
Very good. That's a very good pecan. Comes by its name desirable honestly. And this was from the Yegwa Creek Farms pecan orchard in Elgin, Texas. Yeah, that's really delicious.
That's a good pecan. Yeah. Great texture. Yeah, really good. Well, it's because they're they're big jumbo mothers, and they're like, you know, freshly shucked and roasted.
He roasts when when he roasts them, he roasts them and then tosses them, and this is what he says is a secret, and he sells this stuff. He tosses them in a little bit of pecan oil as they're roasting so that then the salt sticks to the pecan oil. So it's all pecan. There's no sort of like like BS oil he's adding to the situation. And then he had a bunch of flavored pecans.
I didn't care though. I mean, I care. Like if I if I lived there, I would eventually try to see whether his flavored pecans were any good. But I was like, give me the pecanias pecan. Yeah.
And this was the answer. Yeah. Yeah. I love the pecan. Yeah.
Very good. I know most of the people in my family are not pecan people. And it's kind of disappointing. It really is sad. Yeah.
It's a delicious nut. Yeah. Anyway. It is, yeah. A lot of food tragedies in your house.
I know. Yeah. I know. Uh, anyway. Uh all right.
And the week before that, I went to uh Miami. I didn't get to talk about the food in Miami. But before I do that, what about you, uh, Stas and Jack? You guys got any uh food uh food McGillas? For any LA listeners, it was very, very good.
They have a really big sake list. Um it kind of felt like being in Tokyo. So that's my restaurant wreck for the week. Have you have you become like you're like you have only like Tokyo feelings now? And so you're like, no, no, no, I'm gonna go get okay.
Is that you now? Yeah, no, no, no, no. It's just the first time since coming home. I mean, as soon as I came home, it was like Italian food and wine all week, you know. Um somebody shipped this guy a bottle of barefoot molow.
Someone needs to ship you some barefoot merlot. Get you back on America, baby. Ugh, the most American. Um well, this restaurant had Japanese lakas with none other than dry aged Orican salmon on them. And uh it was damn good.
Alright. Alright. I again uh that's the one uh FOMO that I have is that I couldn't go to the Oricang salmon event and try what's the name of their giant their giant, giant um Taihee salmon. Yeah. Uh all right.
Um, okay. So uh oh, back to Cuba. What about you, Stas? Nothing? You're hiding there.
No. Um, no, I take people out to the most generic uh old school LA places with shitty with crabby burgers. No, come on. You know what? You're you're so full of garb you're so full of garbage.
You're so full of garbage. Give me talk about the pepper steak. Talk about the pepper steak. You you have all of these things that you love and you won't talk about them ever. You're so stingy.
You're so stingy. Talk about the pepper steak. Yeah, talk about the freaking pepper steak. We're gonna go back to Flappers on Sunday and we're gonna go to the pepper steak place. So what is the name of the Freegan Pepper?
What is it? I I really don't I don't know. I don't know. I don't it's like a hole in the wall. I I I don't know if it has a name.
Pepper steak place. Oh jeez. But we'll report back on Tuesday. So is I say she won't say this, but like apparently her parents, right, go to places for decades and don't know the name of the place. Right.
So like Nastasia took us to like her favorite. Uh did we talk about this already? Or she takes uh Jack and I to her favorite, or was it Dak? Did you go with me? Or did or did Harold go with us?
Or did all four of us go? Which one? To the seafood place. Oh, oh yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All four of us went, right? Yeah. So uh so she takes us to this place that she's been going. What's the name of the place? No idea.
She won't know. That's so funny. I thought she knew though. It's some it's some fish place on PCA. Well that that narrows it down because there's only one fish restaurant on the entire Pacific Coast Island.
Do you remember Jack? No, I don't I don't remember. It's like you know where to pull off, you know. So you pull off uh right after the gas station before Malibu. How about that?
Jesus. Okay. That's pretty specific. Okay, okay. Um just let me know when you want me to hang up.
Yeah. So anywho. So like she's literally been going to this place since she was a kid. Since she was a kid. Little girl, right?
And so then her parents come to the to uh Thunderbolt LA when we're doing our event, and she remembers the name for the 20 minutes between when we go there and when we're at Thunderbolt LA, and says to her dad, we went to blah, you know that place we always used to go? Dad, blank look on his face. I'd never heard of that place in my life. Never heard, never heard. And f and so like I'm like, you know what?
Nastasi is freaking liar. Because I'm assuming her dad would know. And she's like, no, my whole family, like it's like, you know how Nastas is like, you know how you're face blind and people blind? Like I like my whole family is place blind. We don't care.
We don't know. But somehow they find their way back to it. So can you at least describe this pep what is a pepper steak sandwich? Um I think it's like beef that's um sautade and pepper, and it's in a sandwich with uh peppers, like a like bell peppers. Okay, but and it's so freaking good.
Is it pressed? No, no, no, no. Like a sub like a sub sandwich uh thing, like you know, but like with like this long sauteed beef and peppers and pepper. Okay. I'd love to be a fly on the wall while going to the restaurant trying to remember the directions.
It's over here, it's over here. No, it's in this strip mall. No, no, no. We we are like, we get like I could get there right now without the internal compass or like the pepper stick. Yeah.
We only go, my family only goes to the same like nine places in LA for years. And we don't know the names of most of them. Because they're not like they're like, you know, literal holes in walls. No, I mean, no, no, no. No, no.
I went to it. This was a freestanding building. Okay, then what was the name, Dave? I don't know because like this is but like I have I went there once. You've been going since you were like a little girl, and it's not a literal hole in the wall, it's a building on the beach.
Although that would be amazing. If you just had a wall on the beach with like a freaking hole in it, you're like, here's the restaurant. Here it is. Enjoy. It's like fish shop.
And two people and freaking Harold McGee and I believe Jack got the swordfish. And I was like, okay. You didn't? He got the swordfish at least. And I was like, I can't I don't order swordfish because I know it's gonna be dry uh uh uh uh I as a bone, you know what I mean?
And but it wasn't apparently, it was good, apparently. I don't know. It's also unsustainable. Why? Oh, Mr.
Whale eater telling me not unsustainable, unsustainable foods. Yeah, you're never gonna let that one down, my friend. But I didn't know, but I didn't know. I'm happy to own that. All right, all right.
Uh okay, so back to uh Miami. So uh I tried to find like the best Cuban sandwich there, but in fact, it turns out that what people said was the best Cuban sandwich, I didn't think was any better than the ones that are made in uh, you know, up in uh Morningside Heights uh and north. Well, I guess they're not Morning Side Heights anymore, that neighborhood is so different, but like, you know, above that uh in Washington Heights. The best Cubans I've had in my in my life are from up there. Still, I need to go to Tampa.
I need to go to Tampa. But I first I finally had the uh the Cuban fritas, their their burger. And I have to say, I went to, we went to several uh Jack Shram and I, we were there doing a gig and um and we went to several places, and El Mago de las Fritas was which I guess translates loosely to the wizard of the fritas, was so on point. So on point. The 80-something, even though I think his daughter runs it now, the 80-something year old original wizard was sitting like you know, with his with his whites on, like like hunched over, like at the counter.
And I think he might have actually made our fritus because I did see him get up when our order was made and like like kind of hobble over to where the flat top was. And man, it's good. So uh what they the way that they this so you look it up on the internet, and a lot of people say that people put a mixture of pork and beef, like a chorizo into the into the patty. But I've watched them make it on YouTube a bunch of times, and I looked at a bunch of people who do the recipes, and apparently, while some people may do that, that's not the way the wizard does it. The wizard puts chorizo like spices into the meat, but no salt, right?
So it's not getting bound up and destroyed. So it's salt in a spice mix that ruins the texture, interior texture of of a burger meat because it it causes it to become like a sausage, which is not a burger anymore. It's a sausage patty, right? So there's no salt in there. So that what they did was they they put the chorizo like spices into it, and then they put it on a flat top with onions, they smash it down, then I think they might salt it too at that point.
Then they spray a sauce over the top of it onto the flat top. So this bubbling and stuff like that. Then they flip it, right? And it's still got all the sauce and stuff like that. Then they toast the bun, the Cuban roll bun on the flat top, and then wipe up the extra sauce from the flat top onto the bun.
And then the real service genius is they take their crispy fried potatoes are not matchstick fries. This is a lie. They are basically hash brown pieces or like latka pieces that are fried hard, right? So that they're crispy, right? So it's like, it's like they're very tiny.
You know what I mean? Like for any of you who've had like Al Cap, like those like Al Cap, like weird little potato sticks, they're thinner than that, right? They're very thin, like hash brown things. And those are mounded up on it. And then if you want the super money, the super money business, egg on top, caballo style, like super super money.
And then they serve it with a with the two sauces. One's an incredibly hot sauce that is some form of scotch bonnet habanero like that variety of pepper sauce, and what they call, I swear to God, bougie sauce. Bougie sauce, which is some lightly pink, lightly mayonnaise, lightly ranchy, but delicious kind of thing. And so the combo of those two things on the fritas, and the ones at El Mago were incredibly juicy and delicious, and unfortunately, those are the ones I had first. So it's always bad when the best one you have is the first one.
You know what I mean? And then the rest were good, but not El Mago de las Fritas. Like, you know, I've had I've had other, you know, very good honorific people, you know, honorific titles attached to people's fritas, but the the wizard. Long live the wizard. Um, the other thing we did, old school Miami is uh Joe Stone Crab.
And would love to try that. Oh my God. You know what you need to do? You need to try it with somebody else's money. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's what I did. I tried it with somebody else's money. So I had their key lime pie, which is apparently in Miami. I know it's not the keys, but in Miami, it's the key lime pie of note.
It was very good. You're gonna say, you're gonna you're gonna give me a little face, ready? The graham cracker crust was double thick. Huh? Right.
But not hard. Not hard. So you know how a graham cracker crust, especially on a chilled pie, can get very hard. Their graham cracker crust, I don't know what they do, but even though it was double thick, when I saw it, I was like, oh man, uh the pie itself is thicker than you would make it. So it's everything's like double.
So it's like you've shrunk to a small boy again. And then like, you know, right. But when you put your fork through it, it cuts and and breaks apart nicely in the mouth. It's not like eating like, you know, slate slabs of of graham cracker crust. Yeah.
I don't go a little more acidic, but it was good. But here's something weird. Stone crab season had just opened up again. So they had like all they didn't have the collarsal size, but they had up to jumbo. So we got, I think we got large.
Because I asked him, I was like, is the flavor any different? He's like, no, the flavor's not different. So I was like, fine. But he says the flavor does change with water temperature, or the the crab does change with water temperature, and it was the opposite of what I thought. They prefer their crabs from warmer uh when the water's a little bit warmer.
He says they get better yield out of them and they're easier to shuck. And I have no idea whether that's true or false, but it goes exactly the opposite of everything I know about lobsters, let's say. I don't know a lot about crab flavor and where it comes from, but like it was exactly the opposite of what I would have uh assumed. Anyway, uh Joe Stone crab, delicious. And they they break it so it's super easy, and just the the claw.
Do you know how they harvest those things to stone crabs? It's actually sustainable. You know about this? Yeah. Well, it's one claw per back.
They throw it back in. Imagine. And and like, I wonder how many crabs they're like, oh, again. You know what I mean? Because he says it take I forget he told me how many years it takes for the claw to grow back, but it's not like fast.
So there's all these crabs in Florida who are like, you know, running around with the one claw, you know what I mean? Yeah. And then like uh, you know, he's like, finally, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack. Whoop, boop, oh you know what I mean? But I think it's kind of cool.
Yeah. No, it is. I wonder if there's anyone who's not willing to consume animal products because animals get uh killed who will eat stone crab. I wonder if there's anyone on earth like that because it's not killed. Wait, say that again.
I said, I wonder if there's anyone who doesn't consume meat because the animals are killed, but we'll consume in other words, most people are anti-exploitation in general. So once they go like uh to that level, it's like no honey, no nothing. You know what I mean? So it's like, I wonder if there's anyone where stone crab is on the okay side of their line, but for instance, like blue crab isn't because you or like soft shell crabs, which I didn't have this year. Oh my god, I love social crabs.
I would guess if you are okay eating eggs, there's a similar argument to be made that the one claw is like an egg, and that you're still taking something from an animal. Well that they can survive. I would say there's a better argument for the stone crab than for an egg, because you know, like look, if you're a vegetarian but you eat eggs and milk, I shouldn't even say this. I've kind of vowed I would never say this, right? Like the the hens aren't making it out of that alive.
Like as soon as they start, as soon as they stop laying, they're chummed up. You know what I mean? Like, so it's not like it's not like you get to get out of chicken murder by by just eating the eggs, right? You they're not murdered or like the baby cows. Or like wool.
If you uh yeah, milk baby cows. And plus, as soon as they stop giving milk, they get chummed up. You know what I mean? Or like uh even, you know, wool. I you know, it's not like it's not like they, you know, they get to live out their days.
You know what I mean? Anyway, it's uh there's uh although I guess I don't know how long wool sheep are I don't know what causes a wool sheep to get cold. I don't know how old they are, whether they're allowed to I don't know whether your wool stays the same quality. I know my wool's not staying the same quality my whole life, so I don't know. I'm sure it's the same with a sheep.
So I don't know. But you know, that's the that's the see. You you don't get or you don't get around the animal slaughter just by not eating the dead body. You know, I guess it is like attenuated slightly. Yes, that is true.
Um all right. Um so I guess that's all the all the things I need to get through on uh on what I've eaten in the past couple of weeks. Let's get oh by the way, upcoming the studio uh November 14th, we have Robert Simonson about his new cocktail, how is it cocktail encyclopedia? Yeah. Yeah, cocktail encyclopedia.
Uh and uh we're gonna restart. Have we already started the Edwards Age Meat uh like uh cooking issues uh code again for the Patreon folks? I posted that a little while ago. I'll see if it's still valid. Yeah.
Um people should join Patreon.com slash cooking issues, because very soon we should have a promo code for Robert Simonson's book. Yeah. And uh, you know, we occasionally do live streams and other stuff. And if you're on the Patreon and you want us to do something, uh just ask, and we will try to uh accommodate accommodate you. You'd also be able to call in live questions at 917-410-1507.
That's 917-410-1507. Uh all right. Oh yeah. Wow. Because I remember to do the finally remembered.
Let me let me modify what Quinn just said. If you like the show, consider giving this a review of five stars. They're 40 minutes into this. No, bitterly. No, no, no.
That's the thing. They're gonna be like, no, well, yeah, I wasn't gonna review it. I wasn't gonna give it its two star review, but now that they asked, spike spite, uh, yeah, it's actually it's actually helpful for us. So, you know, and costs you nothing except your time, which is of course valuable. We appreciate your time, people.
Uh all right. Uh Simon says, when you're making oh my God, I just said Simon says. Simon wrote in, how about that? Uh a while ago. Uh, when you're making your own flour for bread, what's the best way to navigate the different ways of classifying flours used in different countries?
For example, how would you go about making a high protein Italian-style double zero flour for use in making Italian breads or pizza? All right. Um, all right, Simon, I'm not gonna give you the answer you want here. What I'm gonna say is that I don't think you're gonna be able to make a classic double zero flour at home with a home mill, right? I think the better way to think about it is think about what your mill can make and then make breads that your mill is good at making, right?
So every country has different ways of rating their flowers, and they're all focusing on different things. So like French and German flowers, they talk about ash, right? So the those specifications are ash. So like German flour is milligrams of ash per 100 grams, uh like subtracting out the all of the the water, right? So you can't look at a you can't look at an American at the ash rating of an American flour and uh like a German or a French one and uh like directly correlate between them, right?
And the reason why ash is important is the higher the ash number, the closer it is to, you know, two, right? Anything over like 1.5, 1.6 uh grams per per 100 grams means that it's fundamentally whole wheat because all of the ash, most of the ash is in the outside of the uh of the wheat, right? So the lower the ash number, the closer you are to just having the central end endosperm of the of the wheat. Double zero, on the other hand, uh, is more, I think, a uh grading of um they they you can correlate to how much what the extraction is, right? So the extraction is how much of the endos how much of the outside and the outside part of the endosperm, which is different from the inside is there.
But then it's also a grind level like how finely it's ground. And there's only so fine you can grind it on a on a home grinder, right? Um so I mean you could I'm sure there's ways around it if you were a zillionaire you could just buy a test mill like uh Bukey I think and a couple other people make uh test it's not bukey maybe it's probably I forget someone makes a test flour mill which is really good so if you have like 50 60 grand lying around you could buy a roller mill and then you can make all of the actual flour grains but I think it's very difficult to do at home. So I would buy the flour with the correct buy the wheat with the correct percentage I would look at it um you can try to do multiple grind systems to try to just get the outside and sift it but it's gonna be very difficult unless you're willing to do midling separation and a lot of sifting to get the flour to mimic uh that particular flour is that an okay okay answer all right I mean I I would also say in my experience with like pizza in particular obviously the more you refine the flour the less distinct it's gonna be right so I always find it more interesting to like have a base of a store bought flour like that you need certain properties for and then just like augment with a flavorful flour that is more moderately sifted or refined. I don't know.
That's what everyone does. I don't I don't know. I I I can't get behind that, Quinn. Like I like why not? Because it's I think it's BS.
You know what I mean? It's like it's like you make a flower, then I like making something out of that flower. Like create a flower, know its properties, right? So like I don't like a compromise. I'm like, well, it's a compromise between this flower and this other thing.
Because there's many applications where whether you're making everything or buying everything, you want to combine flowers to achieve a certain property. Right, but you're but in other words, like I you're not getting the you're not really getting the flavor of a flower by adding like 10, 20% of it, right? But you are well, it depends on the flower, I guess, but then it and and what you're doing with it, but you're not really getting the flavor of that flower. You can maybe change something a a little bit. And if and if what you're saying is all of the properties except for like some sort of flavor of wheat of that flower are garbage, and what you really want are all because what I'm hearing from you really is that I really want like the technical properties of this one flower and the flavor properties of this other flower.
So you're diluting the technical properties of one and diluting the flavor properties of the other. So to me, that's not really a compromise that I enjoy. I would prefer a compromise where where you're like, this has this technical property and this other one has a different technical property. So you're adding two things for technical properties, or you're taking two things with good flavor and you're adding them together to get a combined flavor that you like. But if you're like flavor of this garbage, but technical properties good, and technical properties of this garbage, the flavor good.
The refined flowers are pr generally pretty neutral. And I would say my experimentation with some bread and some people, some pizza, I like the flavor better at a like a midpoint. Like sometimes I do 20% fresh flour, 30%, 40%, and I actually prefer the 30% over the 40%. See, what I prefer is to tweak the flour that I'm making to be exactly what I want it to be from both a flavor and a technical standpoint. But the way that I'm doing that is not by trying to mimic a flour that I can't produce.
To me, the goal is what can I make that has the has the end result properties in the in the bread or the pizza or whatever. What can I make that has those properties, right? But is itself and not like something else, you know, entirely. So and so mainly it's by adjusting the wheats that you use, right? So you choose a wheat that has the properties that you like and the flavors that you like, and then how much you like how finely you grind it, although it's very hard to do at home, and then how you sift it, how much you sift it, how aggressively you sift it, how much of the whether you regrind the brand and how how you put it back in.
Like those are the variables that I like to mess with, or the mixtures of different wheats that you use. Um if you're already mixing wheat, why not mix some wheat you have milled with wheat other people have milled? Well, I just don't I just don't find it interesting. It's like, it's like, I'm just not interested in it. Like, it's like, you know, it's not it's it's not interesting to me.
And like it's also like uh I don't pine for, I am not like, I don't wake up in the morning and be like, I wish I could mill King Arthur's all-purpose flour, because I I think it's a good flower. No, I'm not sure. And when I'm using it, I agree, I like it, right? But I don't care. Uh like I have like 15 wheat varieties in my house, and I'm like, I wonder what's gonna happen if I put this wheat variety and this wheat variety together.
What's the result gonna taste like? You know, what's the mixture? Like to me, that's just so much more interesting. You know what I mean? Like I agree.
I'm just speaking to like a mid-level crazy person, like me. I don't think it's any, like the thing is, I just in other words, like I just think it's a cop out. Like, look, it if if it makes you happy, do it. If it makes it happy, do it. It's just like I don't like uh it you know, it's like it's like if you were like going back to brewing again.
It's like, you know, I'm not saying everyone has to be all grain if they're doing brewing. You know what I mean? It's just like that's what I'm interested in. Okay, but yeah, but Dave, here's my here's my context. To me, this is like a cocktail where one component is well made and the rest are bugged.
Yeah, but I would never do that. Yeah, but I would you would no, of course not. Like either I either either I buy either I buy spirits, either I buy spirits, right, or I modify spirits. But what you're doing is using Rose's grenadine. That's what that's so like No, it's because you're telling me y you've never made a cocktail, or you've not well again, you buy the spirits and then you would make a syrup.
Yeah, but I can't make in other words like uh like, because I can't make those spirits. Like I can't make a gin. I can't make a gin. Yes, but they can because they're milling. Right.
You know what I'm saying? So it's like it's like either do it or don't do it. You know what I mean? It's like, do it or don't do it. That's what I'm saying.
It's like uh, you know, I'm not I can't make a better gin than my favorite gin. If I could, I would do it. I cannot. I cannot make a better whiskey. Now, if I started making whiskeys, then I would focus on that, but I wouldn't blend my whiskey with somebody else's whiskey, right?
Or if I was making my own gin, I wouldn't blend that gin with tank array. You know what I'm saying? Anyway. All right. All right.
But listen, everyone needs to do what makes them happy. So if it makes you happy, I'm happy that it makes you happy. It's just not the way that I work. That's all. Anyway.
Um Justin writes in, I remember Dave was working on a home four-size ton uh four-ton uh press, home size four-ton press uh for juice extraction, but I'd be interested in using it uh for something like a cocoa press. I've not found a source for smaller scale press that would work. So for a cocoa, so the issue with uh, yes, so like I was working on it, the plans. I think I put those on the Patreon, right? All the plans for that thing.
I didn't I never put the images of it up. I'll I'll double check later. Yeah, I can put the images of it up. Yeah, so like, you know, mine was way overbuilt. There's a lot of people online.
Uh just you know, go to go on the evil Amazon or Harbor Freight or whatever and buy a four-ton or more hydraulic jack, and then just make sure that you want to get one with a double RAM. So, like uh, so the RAM is the part of the jack that goes up and down, and a single RAM usually has a very short stroke, and you're gonna want a longer stroke so that you can uh so you have a little more like movement, right? If you have a lot of money, you can get one that is uh powered, and then you don't have to sit there like an idiot and go, I you know, didn't have money, so I wouldn't let you pump, right? The other trick I learned from somebody else who's uh an old uh hand at making uh these things is that my original one for the bar, which was a 20-ton press, uh was a shop press, and shop presses that the the actual jack is above what would be your food because that's more convenient to build. But uh someone was like, Have you ever met a hydraulic system that doesn't eventually leak?
And I was like, correct. So like you want to put the the press underneath uh whatever the food is because in case well, or you could just you know it's the equivalent of going commando. You know what I mean? It's like eventually it might leak and your stuff's ruined, but the one that I built, I put it underneath, even though it is much technically easier to go from the top down. The other thing you need to worry about when you're doing the press is um if the press is not uh if i if the if the thing that you're moving that's attached to the ram isn't firmly attached to it, uh it's gonna start tilting.
So as soon as like if if the stuff's not loaded straight, right? It's gonna tilt on an angle, and then that kind of ends up getting more severe over time. So you want to have it so that it really wants to stay concentric with the RAM as it goes down. That makes sense. So aluminum is good enough.
Uh in fact, like stacks of plywood and half-inch eye bolts are an uh uh are an are half inch uh rather um you know threaded studs are good enough for for this level uh of work but you just need to make sure everything stays concentric and stays uh centered and you know you can just look up the PSI ratings that things can tolerate and then you can figure out how much force you're actually putting on it by doing the calculations of how big your presser foot are and stuff like that. That's what I did. And if it breaks, just you know, it's not a big deal. Uh Agos. Uh anybody knows, uh anybody who knows this, I was transporting some jars of brine capers.
I had a lid failure and some of the liquid spilled. I'm sorry for whatever that stuff spilled on because it's runt. You know what I mean? I guess it's not oily, it'll eventually come out, right? Stinky caper Brian.
Oh my god, I was at this wedding uh in Austin and and and uh so the the bride put one of those little you know those tinsel wigs, those disco tinsel wigs. Yeah, put one on me, pink. Uh you know what? Uh here's a piece of information for you. Uh those colors leak.
So like and here's another piece of information, and Stasi knows this. She's seen it firsthand. I sweat like I sweat unbelievable amount. I look like I've been in a rainstorm. I sweat through suits.
I sweat completely through my suits. Yeah. Stas, correct? You're not saying why. You're not saying why.
Oh, why? Because you dance like all night long. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Once like once the flip the switch is flip, stas, it's over, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.
It's fun. Yeah. It's just like once it's once it's going, like it takes a while to get me going. It's like I'm one of those old uh like 1910s cars with a crank that you have to like crank it to get it going 'cause I don't have like an electric starter. But like uh yeah, once going, once going, keep going.
You know what I mean? People are like, you need to go get a drink of water. I'm like, no. Anyway, uh, so yeah, the the the color leaked out of this tinsel wig and completely ruined both me, I was stained the next day, and my other thing about those tinsel wigs. They're unsafe.
Because when you inhale, I sucked a tinsel piece off the wig into my nose into my throat. I coughed the tinsel back up. Hardcore. Hardcore. Um Sid Barrett did back when Pink Floyd.
What he would have those pink wigs on? He did the uh the Mandrax um Mandrax tranquilizer, and he put they they crushed it up and put it in their hair gel, and they all lost their minds on stage. That's pretty hardcore. That's pretty real. Yeah.
Hey, you know, people go in New York City now and go to clinics and that you're allowed to get injected with ketamine in clinics now. Yeah. Uh what for? Uh apparently it it's kind of an amazing drug for um uh drug resistant depression, actually, like long-term drug resistant depression. But um, yeah, I just was like, wow, I didn't even know that was a thing.
You can go get injected with ketamine in New York City, but it's in fancy neighborhoods, so it's probably people also with cash. You know what I mean? Anyway, uh back to Augustus issue. Um, I was transporting some uh jars of Brian Capers, had a lid failure, and some of the liquid spilled. Is it still safe as it is, or should I top it up with Brian?
And if so, what percentage of salt should I aim for? It's fine. They're salted through. You might get some crystallization on them as they dry out. Like for a so for a quality standpoint, maybe you could top it up, but I would just eat the capers that are on top.
You know? Right? No. Yeah. Yeah.
Also, August, you should be dry. You should be buying the salt pack capers and then and then desalinating them yourself. I've never done that though. I mean, I have done it, but I've never become a regular. I don't have a pantry full of salt pack capers, and then you know, I do all this stuff to get them back.
Do you what about any of you guys salt pack caper people? No. I mean, I've done it, but not constantly, right? For years I was salt pack anchovy man, though. Had the big can of salt pack anchovies because they are better.
I love oil pack anchovies, but I loved salt pack anchovies. You know what I mean? Yeah. Probably good to make with butter, huh? What salt pack anchovy?
Mm-hmm. Yeah, salt pack anchor butter. I love that. Oh my god, it is so good. Uh all right.
Hey, I'm a question. So when you guys use the oil pack anchovies, you use the oil. I use the oil. Yeah. I mean, I just don't when I'm uh like so like anytime I'm doing like a dressing and like I'm putting the anchovies in, I'll like make like a big bag, I'll just throw the whole can in with the oil and use the oil.
Yeah. Yeah. Right? Same. Yeah, yeah.
Hey, speaking of uh using things, restaurants, whatnot, how's the Belgian menu going? It's going. Been doing some recipe testing, which has been going well. The cheese croquettes came out well. Uh, gonna try and work on some better ballin' this week.
And yeah, I'm excited. It's gonna be fun. We can talk about it more next week. We only got two minutes left to get to questions. Steven Stanton, Dave mentioned in passing a syrup you used to make using ginger galangal and turmeric.
Did he just juice a three and bring it to 50 bricks? Or was this a boiled in water situation? It was a boiled and it was a slice super thin boiled in water situation. But that's not the way I would do it now. Right?
I could do it differently now. Although I don't lastly, would uh the Garrett Richard slash Darcy O'Neill slash Dave Arnold Ginger Houstino technique be effective for usino using this trio, love these flavors and love to make some cool beverages and incorporate them. I could see both wet uh pathways as something special. All right, here's the uh issue. Um I need to do more work, but in other words, you could do it for sure.
Um it does it have to be non-alcoholic because really the product is better when it's made with alcohol. I haven't done all three together, but I am uh happy to do it. You no longer really need to do the mag carb. It makes it much more difficult. I have new ways to do the ginger coming out.
The real trick to ginger is adding a little acid before you add the um pectanex, and that will cause it to drop out, and you can get about 90% yield just by letting it sit and racking. Although I shouldn't say that because I'm here to sell centrifugies. Mark and Long Island said I found some unopened ingredients from Monitors Pantry and Will Powder in the back of my pantry. The best uh best buy date is 2016 and a few 2019. Even though they are expired, can I still safely use any of them?
Yes. Uh 100%. The only things that are gonna have problems with are things like uh soy lessethane. If the if things were open, so they can clump up and sometimes the measurements they pull in water, but other than that, 90% of those ingredients are gonna be good until we die. Uh Wizmer, what's the best way to uh dry an herb and maintain its aroma?
I've got a decent dehydrator. Seems like high temperatures might flash off too many volatiles. You know what, Wizmard? I don't know. I want cooking issues people to tell me what their best way to dehydrate herbs is, because I am not an expert in that.
Balloon Knot says, would flour stored in the freezer used cold make a stiffer pasta dough, then the same flour brought to room temperature in an airtight container. Hydration technique being the same, stiffer when mixing in a stand mixer. I've never heard of this. Have you? Storing it in a freezer in an airtight bag.
If anyone has heard of this as a thing, please let me know on Twitter at at cooking Issues because I want to hear more about this. I don't know the phenomenon balloon knot, but I'm curious what it is because never dismiss something that somebody has observed until you figure out what's going on. Rob Pasco says a while ago, Dave mentioned a book of recipe for making muffins. I haven't been able to find the reference again. What was the resource and do we have any tip for making muffins?
Yes. Go look at the 1993 uh issues of the original Cooks Illustrated. There's a how to make muffins recipe in that, and it is spot on. Cooking issues.
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