Hello and welcome to Cooking Issue. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the Heart of Manhattan, Rockefeller Center, New York City, News Stand Studios, joined as usual with John over here. How are you doing? Doing great, thanks. Yeah?
Yeah, yeah. Living, breathing. Living, yeah, unfortunately. Yeah. Vertical, as my grandpa used to say until he was no longer vertical.
Then he stopped talking. Yeah, well, that tracks up. That makes sense, yeah. Dead. Yeah.
Got Joe Hazen rocking the panels. How you doing? I'm doing well. Good to see you guys. Yeah.
Yeah, good to see you as well. We have Quinn, I'm glad to say. How are you doing, Quinn? Uh living here and breathing. Well, you know, keep keep on keeping on, Quinn.
Uh in the lower left, we have Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How you doing? I'm good, thing. Good, good. And uh unfortunately, we do not have Jackie Molecules today because he's recovering from finally getting the teeth ripped out of his head.
So I'm told not dry socket though. So for those of you that are worried, just plain old fashioned, you know, night post-operative nightmares, not like, you know, dry socket, which is was everyone's worst nightmare when I was growing up. Dry socket. And uh today's special, special guest from Lola's New York City, Suzanne Cups. How you doing?
I'm great. Thanks for having me. So uh before we so normally at the beginning of this program, we just, you know, kind of shoot the breeze on whatever we've cooked over the past uh week or so. What I wasn't here last week, so it's two weeks. I was in Italy.
By the way, if you can ever take a transatlantic flight with a kidney stone, highly recommend. No, it don't recommend it. It's the worst thing ever. You think you're over it, and like midway through the flight, you're like, ah, and by the way, don't ever do that when you are flying. There's a have you heard of Norse Norse Airways?
It's like spirit, but from from and they finally got permission. So like they don't you can't check in online, you don't have seats unless you pay them a lot extra. And I thought I was fine. So I got tucked into the window seat, which I normally like, but on an overnight flight, that means the two people next to me are sleeping. So if I need to get up, no love.
No love. I'm not gonna wake them up just because I'm in intense, excruciating pain. I think if you have a kidney stone, that's a pretty reasonable excuse to wake someone up. It's not their fault. Yes, but okay.
Turns out, it's nothing with anything, but turns out like they were going to Italy for like three weeks. I think they're retired. She was a doctor, I don't know what the hell he did. And they were gonna get an audience with the Pope. And she said, I will pray for you.
I'm like, thank you. All right. I mean, I'm okay now, so maybe it worked. Audience was Wednesday. So we'll see.
There you go. We'll see. Anyway, so this is where we normally uh shoot the breeze. But I would like to congratulate you first because John tells me that just today you are it was New York Times, right? New York Times.
New York Times top 100 restaurants in uh New York. That's great. Yeah, I mean, I woke up to a lot of text messages. That was a good thing. Also, it sounds like you're a smart person, you turn off your text alerts when you're asleep.
So you don't get woken up in the middle of the night. I actually I don't, I actually I don't. I just I sleep through them, but yeah, just in case. Just turn them off. You know, you need you know, you need your sleep, you know what I'm saying?
No, uh everybody I know, no one texts me overnight. Oh, because they know that you don't turn off your your stuff. Stas is like that. Nastasia, right? You keep your text on so that like you know, you can get woken up and they get angry if I text you for something stupid, right?
Yes, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh anyway, so like I haven't looked up the number in almost 20 years, but even back in like the early 2000s, we had like 18,000 restaurants in this city. So top 100. Like even if like me, you want to win awards but don't believe in them in general, it's still like to make it on that list is a huge kind of a thing considering how many restaurants they are.
So I mean, New York has has a restaurant everywhere you turn and something's opening every week. And to be able to stay like in the public eye for people talking about you, it's like really awesome to have a shout out from the New York Times. So yeah, we're jazzed. Yeah. Little gray lady.
Sometimes uh she makes mistakes and sometimes she doesn't. You know what I mean? You never you never know. Yeah, who like do they even who's their critic now? They are looking for someone, so it's Priya and uh Melissa Clark, yeah.
I like I like both of them. They're but why, but they don't want to do it permanently because nobody wants that job at this point. I think they're too known. Oh because no one knew who Pete Wells was? Well, he'd been doing it so long, but I think at least when he started, he was a little more under the radar than what they both are now.
I don't know. I mean he had like 2012. He had a very well-regarded column for food and wine. Does everyone forget that he was like a well-known writer? Whereas now with all the media, you know exactly what everybody looks like.
I mean, I guess, but it's been like 30 years since like, you know, disguises and whatnot, where I mean, like everyone can know who anyone is at any moment. You know what I'm saying? But yeah. I don't know. So that they're waiting to find some brand new person who's never written before.
Are they gonna do like they used to like pull from politics or something? Yeah, right. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.
Think we're gonna go back to having it, you know, be about restaurants and service? I mean, one hopes. I hope so. Well, uh we were nervous last summer because that's Pete came one time, we caught him and then he announced his like leaving the post. And so we thought uh we're gonna get like lost in the shuffle.
Uh but when they announced two of the new interim ones, Priya had already been and Melissa had already been. So are they allowed to do that? Are they allowed to combine their three into three? Because you have to go three times for New York Times. Oh, Melissa, so Pete came once, Priya came once, but Melissa came like three, three times yourself.
So there you go. Yeah. I mean, I never worried about uh Pete because I knew him from before he got the job. Right so I knew he would never ever write about it. You know what I mean?
Whether he liked it or hated it, because then, you know, so someone would say either he likes the guy or he hates the guy, so he wrote, you know. Right anyway. Uh yeah, it's a funny job. I hope it goes back to being something where like someone who's not from New York can look at the reviews and know what this know what it means based on the rating without having to go in depth and be like, oh, wait, this is a white napkin place and this is a food truck. You know what I mean?
It's like it's hard. I mean it's it's hard because it's like some what I love about New York is like there are all types of restaurants. So like I can go into a little divy tiny hole in the wall and have a great meal, and I can go eat somewhere with a tasting menu and also, but the amount of effort that is put in at each restaurant is a little bit different in you know, whether it's front of house, back of house. And so it's it's a challenge to kind of compare all the restaurants with the same amount of stars. Yeah.
But yeah, unless you like, right, especially if you're gonna be all over the map with how you apply them. You know what I mean? And it's like, you know, I don't know what the young people like to do, but I like to know kind of what kind of ambiance I'm getting into before I show up. You know what I mean? Like.
I mean, look, it was one of my favorite restaurants in the city at the time. But Sambar, when it got three, like that was the beginning of I don't understand how these star systems work anymore. It was like a world class two, I think. You know what I mean? And that the food was good enough to be in like a higher star place, but it was, you know, fast and no you know what I'm saying, right?
It's not backs to your chairs and I'm not insulting the place. I'm saying like not everything, you know, like it used to mean something. Back in your day, it used to mean something. No, but you know, whatever. It doesn't matter.
There's because also there are plenty of venues for reviews that aren't the New York Times. I don't need the New York Times to like review everything on Earth. You know what I mean? Whatever. Whatever.
Anyway, I like both of those people who are doing the interim stuff. So me too. It's kind of like artificial intelligence, though. You would never, if you're in your right mind, saying anything negative about them because when they take over, if you said anything negative, you're host. This is why artificial intelligence is the best.
And when it takes over, I you know, just get me a nice pillow, I'll lay down, I'll be your lap human. You know what I mean? Yeah. Did you guys read that New York Times article yesterday? By Pete Walls, actually.
Yeah, it's interesting. Using AI to start drawing more inspiration for food and things like that. Is this a Grand Aikas article? Yeah. Yeah.
Pete wrote that? No, I didn't read it. I had portions of it read to me. Yeah. And like this checks out.
By AI? No, no. I'm again too old. I need to get into it. You know what I mean?
Like I need to get into it. But I mean, me, frankly, like, I think what what he's using it for, he's just keep on keeps on asking it questions until he gets the answer he wants. So fine. You know what I mean? He's like, no, not not rhubarb.
You know, yeah, we'll talk rhubarb later. Like, not rhubarb. So it'll put something else in, right? So like any as a throw an idea against the wall and see whether it sticks thing, it's fine. I mean, he's not doing it uncurated.
Right. Right. He's not just saying, you know what? You choose, and I'll tell you what, do the hiring. And then you know, we'll see, we'll see.
You do the hiring AI, which I guess people do now. Yeah. Imagine hiring your kitchen team by AI. I would never. Yeah.
How I mean, it's just I mean, like house staff that way. It's gonna happen. I know. It's gonna happen. Hopefully, not in my lifetime.
It's gonna happen in like two years. Like, the one thing I'll say for sure. Anyone who has naysayed what's gonna happen with artificial intelligence, they're the only ones I can say for sure are wrong. Anyone who says like what is gonna happen, like could or could not be wrong. But anyone who says it's a nothing burger, yeah.
No. Yeah. No. No. Uh all right.
So now, what do we have in the last week or two weeks, as the case may be? I'll start. Something that everyone in the industry can rule or sympathize with. My walk in broke done last week. Oh, it not working.
The condenser. Oh. It's outside and it's too hot down in the basement. So it doesn't get moved around. And it was just such a vacuum down.
No, it's downstairs in the basement next to the ice machine. Oh. Next to the condenser for the walking. Yeah, of course. You could do like, you know, Moronville and install an air conditioner then to Yeah, well, yeah, I know.
And then heat the outside. So what are you gonna do? Do you have can you locate it outside behind? The company says it's probably gonna be too expensive, so we're gonna have to put on a water cooling system. Jack up our water bill.
It's gonna be great. It is, and you know what happens when the water supply gets clogged or something happens. Yeah, it's not gonna work. But they are much more efficient. Yes, I've heard that.
So I don't know what wins or loses water because I've never, you know, the only thing that most I think normal folk in New York have that's water cooled is their ice cream machines, right? Yeah. Um just because they're so compact and have such cooling capacities. I had a water cooled ice machine. That thing was sick.
I bet. That thing was awesome. Water cooled ice ice cream machine, dude. I used to have a what was it? It was an old tailor that I rolled off the street.
I found it, weighed like 1200 pounds. Only had three wheels. One of the wheels had fallen off. So yeah, yeah, you ever wheel something with three wheels down the street? It's like it's like every couple of seconds it goes on the other thing, and you're like, I'm glad it was I was a lot younger.
I was in my 20s when I did that. So yeah. And one of the cylinders, no, yeah, one of the cylinders was broken. I was able to fix one of the cylinders. It was when you could just still buy refrigeration stuff without being a refrigeration tech.
You know what I mean? And but the bottom case was also broken. So I just chilled that with like block ice. Yeah. But that thing was sick.
I've decided this is my first restaurant, Lola's, so I've decided that the the best use of my money is to go to plumbing school. Yeah. Like every week. Something, something stops working, something breaks, and the that would be the best use of my dollars. Well, let me ask you this.
How what was the state of the place? Was it restaurant already when you got there? Restaurant, yeah. Okay. But it had been about a year and a half that it was empty before we we like really moved in.
How much of their crap did you keep? Uh we we got rid of most of the junk. However, like all the equipment, all the chairs, all the decor, the walls. We ripped down the floors. It was like all fake wood and weird like panels on the wood on on the walls.
Uh the equipment was just pretty gross. But we kept the walk-in, so that was huge. We were able to use the HVAC really big. And I I was able to keep like some of the like uh like nine pans and you know, so some of that stuff, but and some metro shells. That was like kind of the big thing.
But most everything else was. Yeah, it was a lot of scrubbing. So but but you kept uh the main copper for the plumbing or no? Did you put in new stubs and stuff? Yeah.
So I mean, like, man, I've never seen someone's plumbing job that was worth spit because then the contractors do it. By the time they do the plumbing, you've already yelled at them so much that you've gone over that. Then they cut all of the corners right when they're doing the stuff that's most important, the plumbing and the electrical, right? You know, they waste all their time on the framing and stuff like that, bleed you dry of your money, and then now you have nothing left, and then the systems systems that you're gonna use every day get freaking hosed. It's a nightmare.
Yeah. So I mean, I know it's not legal, I guess, to do your own plumbing, but okay, listen. It's not really hard. Little tweak here and there, you know. You know what I mean?
It's like there are things you need to know, and if you do it wrong, you're like leaving yourself open, but like, you know, you could do plumbing. Well, like the sprayer on the dish station goes down. The there's a leaky sink. It's just every week something else. So, you know, those little minor things.
Do you know what? Like, again, sorry, environment, but like I can't wrap my head around the water saving sprayers. That like weak, weak spray you get out of those letters, it's like, yeah. It's my God. Yeah, we had another one that I replaced recently, but my dishwasher was using a fish spat to scrape everything off.
Oh geez. Gosh. It's like it's like whenever I whenever I install like a residential shower, which comes up more than you would think. Uh, that's the first thing I do is they they know that you hate it, which is why they install the restrictors as a separate item that you can just jam a screwdriver in and yank the restrictor straight out of it so that you can have a decent shower. Without a decent shower, I am not a person.
Agreed. You know what I mean? It's like uh my co-op, the one thing you got like my co-op is like super like you know, inexpensive. Like it's like the least expensive place in the lower east side, one of the least expensive places in Manhattan. We have great water pressure though.
Great, great. How's the walk? You're from uh South Carolina originally, right? Yeah. How's the water pressure down there?
Uh I mean, I think it's house by house. My parents like to save on the utilities. And so ours was not great. It would be like 10 minutes to the dot ice cold water. Wow.
You know, so and I'm undersized heater, huh? Yeah, undersized. I knew it, and yet every single day I would end up with the cold water at the end every time. That's why. That's why you have to do your actual cleaning business first, and then the drench out under the water.
You know what I mean? I'm opposite. I'll stand there for five minutes before I realize I'm in the shower. Oh gonna start. I love it.
I love it. Yeah, but like that's the to me, like that's it, that's the thing. I mean, I uh have a problem with that from an early age because my grandpa was not, I don't remember what the size of the water heater is because he would literally come into the shower and turn off the water if he thought my shower was too long. Yeah. That's awesome.
Hard well, out of the time. But yeah, hardcore, hardcore dude. Uh I don't know how the hell we got on that. All right, wait, so your walk in broke down, but you don't know how you're gonna fix it. So what do you hell you Well, it's my entire all my low boys are a mess.
It's really it's it's as horrible as well. It's not even hot yet. Yeah yeah, I know. I know. And the worst thing about this is we knew about this was a problem like eight months ago.
And the understanding of the case. No one wants to spend money. Yep. You just hope that it's gonna last longer than what you think. Yep.
And then it doesn't. I had a plumbing nightmare, actually. But one of the only pieces of professional refrigeration I have in my house broke because professional refrigeration is the worst refrigerator. Yeah, it is. Home refrigeration, you know what?
Well, who here has had their home fridge die on them? Oh Joe. Joe, you did? How old was it? Um 25 years old.
Okay. Okay, that's definitely expected. Yeah, if you if you can get 25 months out of commercial refrigeration without having to call in day and night or whichever like you know, rancid sit system you know you use to do it, you know what I mean? You're lucky. It's a nice fridge.
Yeah, but you don't really have at home, you don't have like 19-year-old, 20-year-olds like slamming the doors and leaving them open and you know, tugging on the gaskets and I I have had, but not like at the same level. But you know, I think that's just uh I think that's just one of those things that people say. I think okay, listen to this also. Why is it that home refrigerators are silent? True.
And commercial refrigerators are loud as a day is long, like they they're not made to the same high quality. They don't isolate the compressors as much, they don't dampen everything, and that rattling can't be good for the for the system in general, right? They're all installed in place and then sweated, you know, sweated together by somebody who does evacuation. Like they're not like commercial, you know, home refrigeration is made on giant factory lines that are 100% clean. The stuff is designed to like be bulletproof.
I bet you anything they could make a commercial fridge that is as good as a home fridge in terms of its longevity, right? I mean, a lot of commercial stuff doesn't break. Your oven doesn't break, does it? Yeah, yeah, it's true. When was the last time you had a non-rationale break?
Yeah. Whereas when was the last time you had a rationale that worked? You know what I mean? Like that's the. It's the most expensive thing I bought.
Yeah. Get this. If you need parts, I'll hook you up. Jeremiah and Fabian bought or got somehow used a rationale that was broken and we thought we could fix it. It takes up half the kitchen and has never been hooked up for the entire year that Contra has been running.
We have this freaking rationale in it that is literally the world's least efficient speed rack. It is the it is we use it to store because it doesn't even store full sheets. You know what I mean? It's like it's the worst. And every time I look in there, every once in a while, I'll just I'll I'll go in there, I'll just break them off on them, be like, hey, we're gonna have rationale.
How's it working? You know what I mean? I'll just like mess with them because it's just such a huge waste of space in our that tiny kitchen that they have. We we had one in Untitled, and since it was such an open kitchen, you couldn't really like roast anything really hard because it would just smell in the dining room. And the way they attached the door was backwards, and we never really got it fixed.
So it opened to Garmanget and it blocked the whole line so you couldn't walk through. So literally we used to be. That was the only thing we used it for like most of my career there. So is that untitled? That's the one was at the Whitney.
The Whitney, yeah. So yeah, you can't have smoke in that dining room. No, I can't be smoke. Like, how often do the art weasels come in and get hinky? Let's not talk about that.
Yeah. Because I remember like I I uh I've also like talked to people who worked at um a cafe two, which is like, and like there's all these like breaks in between in between where the art is and where the cooking can happen, because they're like, they're not playing. And I'll say this Museum of Food and Drink, which you know, John used to work at, you know, I you know, I'm with them. Like, we can't borrow items from people. It's a huge problem.
Food and art, man. Yeah. You think they go together. Only at Illis, where they have millions of dollars paintings on the wall and an open kitchen, which I don't know who I don't know who insures their art. Yeah.
You know what I mean? But it's like museums don't play, huh? No. You want to keep that stuff forever. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, so which way which one is untitled? Is that the one that's got its own entrance in off the stairwell? So it's not no existing, not existing anymore, but it was um it did have a separate entrance uh right when you walk up to the museum. Oh, it's the ground floor one floor.
Yeah. Right. Cause they have a ground floor or did I haven't been to Whitney a while. Ground floor restaurant, but they also had one in the middle of the building. Well, that we had on the sixth floor.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Studio cafe. Yeah. So I ran both. Yeah.
And that one That was challenging. Is that also like kind of walled off from the art in a way that makes it easy? It's around like the corner, but it was still open, but the kitchen itself was was not an open kitchen. It was there was like an open bar area. So that was a little bit easier to close the door when needed.
But we had to the only way to get up there was through the guest elevators. So, you know, deep 600 pans of chicken and whatever on the elevator, and the the guests are smushed in there and looking, you know, it's it's it was a little challenging. That's the one with uh the weird melty face glass sculptures on the wall. What's the what's on the wall in that in that uh I don't know anyway they they would change it, so I'm not sure. Only went once or twice.
Yeah. And it's so crazy. So crazy. And like uh your fire suppression must have been all like crazy. Every like every other day during service, the alarms would go off.
Like every other day. It would just be pretty pretty tough. Yeah, on the other hand, must be nice to be around the art when you need a need to get your head straight. I guess uh we I didn't really have much time to walk around. Yeah.
Put it that way. Yeah, you wouldn't like be like, I'm out and then to walk, go see some art and be like, okay. 100% no. No. Did you get huge pops for things like the biennial or no?
Yeah. Oh, biennial was crazy. Yeah. Uh yeah. The opening was insane.
I've never, you know, New York has lines everywhere, but I've never seen lines like when the Whitney opened. I mean, thousands of people outside, no idea where they were, you know, just standing in line. And then the biennial was really big. Um, for sure. Yeah.
I mean, like a little too crazy for us. I've never okay, John, also art history guy. You ever been to a biennial where you like the work? Not usually. It's well known for that though.
Yeah. It's like the tavern on the green of art. Yeah. You go, you know what I mean? It's a thing.
I haven't been to Tavern on the Green since they reopened. I'm not insulting them in any way, shape, or form. But well known for decades as having the worst food in the nicest venue. Yeah. Right?
Yeah. Bien is kind of the same, right? Yeah, I think so. But yeah, I wonder if that's more just because like it's continuously continually blah, continuously pushing like the ultra new contemporary stuff, which like no one really has that aesthetic taste for. I mean, I've been around.
One or two of them I thought were really good, but in general, it's where you go to be like, oh my God. Yeah. Is this art? I could do that. Oh my gosh.
People still say that? Yes. Oh, geez, Louise. Is it true that the Whitney they had the one biennial uh feast where they walked the animal that they were that they were gonna butcher around the museum? Oh, that was not when I was there.
Okay. Who who uh who was that? That's something that's something that would have happened. It must have been like early 2000s. I remember there was a Whitney biennial and Jason.
Before they moved. Jason Rhodes had a big room in the biennial, and he did a sculpture. It was like all this like found stuff, and one of them was a donut machine, and he had allowed it to make like thousands of donuts, and there was a pile of donuts on the floor. And I was in, I was like, I was like, if these donuts are on the floor, I'm gonna eat them. You know, like those uh Felix, what's his name candies that you could pick up, pick up and eat.
You know what I mean? I was like, and I ate one. Man, it was the stalist donut. I don't think you were supposed to eat it. I think he might have lacquered them.
Like it was the worst donut, which is saying a lot. I've had bad donuts. There was one exhibit that they wanted us to collaborate on because we didn't really do much collaboration. We did the biennial something at in Untitled, which was kind of crazy. But the there was one in Studio Cafe up on the eighth floor that they wanted our help with.
And basically they put like these, I don't know, four-inch pedestals all around the space, and they wanted to put like fruit and vegetables on them, and they would just sit there. So they would like kind of decay over the time, and then at night we would put them away, but then they would put them back, and it it was just the you know in the restaurant? In the in the in the museum space on the sixth same floor as Studio Cafe on the sixth floor. You get fruit flies? I mean, it was just weird.
And and but they're the crossover is weird, so they didn't want us to like touch it, but we had they'd use our walk-ins. It was just a it was a I was like, who's looking at this? Like these dead vegetables. I don't I don't really understand the art there, but hey, I don't know. Me different you're like happy to help.
Happy to help. Um, all right. Oh, by the way, uh, if you're listening live on Patreon, call in your questions to 917 410 1507. That's 917 410 1507. And John, why don't you tell them how they can become a Patreon member and why they might wish to do that?
Go to patreon.com slash cooking issues. Um, there are a couple different membership levels. At each membership level, you get uh different perks. You all get access to our Discord channel with all the other listeners. Um good community of like-minded people who are questioning food and things like that.
Uh, you get discounts with people that we work with, like Matt at Kitchen Arts and Letters, and just so many other great things. So check it out. Patreon.com slash cooking issues. And uh Stas, what do you what do you got in the past uh couple of weeks? Anything good that you're allowed to talk about?
I know you have your secret sauces. Um I threw my monthly dinner party with uh Jeff Gordonera last Wednesday at a special house in the Hollywood Hills, and we had Zach Palacio and his wife Jory um preview their new menu at Leo's in Santa Fe. So it was super fun. Yeah. How how the how'd the food come out?
Were they able to cook properly at the house or was it a Cordelieu? No, they they had they brought a lot of stuff that they uh prepackaged and flew with, and then there's a bunch of Thai restaurants and um Asian restaurants. I mean not grocery stores where they got all the rest of their ingredients here. I've never been to Santa Fe. Nope.
You wait, you haven't either? No. Yeah, I'd like to go. I was almost supposed to go. Whatever.
Yeah. Uh-huh. Awesome. So I'm glad I'm glad it was a s a success. Any anyone get don't know names, but did anyone get just like off the wall plastered and like kind of like either fall asleep and or freeze in their chair or just kind of like fall backwards gently?
No, it's 23 weirdos and musicians and writers and stuff that come to this thing, and then someone performs at the end, uh, or anyone can perform at the end, which people did. And um, yeah, I'm asking you to do one, but you can't be here because you're going to some wedding. Okay, first of all, family show. Second of all, that's the only one you do them all the time. You picked the one day when you looked at my calendar and were like, oh, Dave is going to be, you know, somewhere else.
I said while you're in California swing by. And also, you know what I mean? Like, whatever, like, you know, whatever. We could just talk talk about off. I'm happy to come do one, Stas.
Happy. More than happy. Please is punch. We should do some stuff uh out in LA, you know, at some point, some point anyway, soon. Anyway.
Uh all right, uh Quinn, what do you got for me? Do you ever measure that? I know that you've been sick, but uh did you measured the butter and we never got the number before the show was over that time. Did you measure the the anti-butter or whatever you're gonna call it? Uh well, yeah, I know I I never had the the solid numbers for the water content.
Um interestingly, the the last test that I did, it was a higher fat cream. I did find a 36 uh percent. But it actually for the same time, it did separate less. Which I guess makes sense because it's higher viscosity. Um was the texture of the resultant pace the same or no?
Yeah, like it's still became you know clay like. Yeah. But uh nothing's nothing sells a spread like clay-like. Hey, how would you like bread with some clay-like cream? Doesn't sound appetizing, right?
Clay-like. Regardless of what those Spanish do with their kale and coated potatoes. Like clay-like is not like, you know. No, true. It's not a description that's.
Yeah. Doesn't wet my appetite. No, no. Clay like. Well, but I never, by the way, we've had a discussion on the air before I apologize.
I never had those clay, those kale encoded potatoes. But like just the idea that you have, you know, toothpasty clay grit in your between your teeth as you're chomping, doesn't sound like it's what I want to have happen. Did you ever have that? No. You're familiar, you know the dish I'm talking about?
No, I don't. That was uh moogeres. Moogarites, yeah. Clay potatoes that look like rocks. But I didn't have that.
How was the how was the rest of your meal? I thought it was fun. It was very uh it was polarizing. Some things like people hated and some people loved, but it was like fun. And it it it caused it like brought brought along a lot of discussion, and I thought that's that was like the fun part of it.
It was very engaging. So you want this a meal that you would like to have every once in a while. Yeah. Because it's fun. But if it was every night, you're like, uh, I'm I wasn't going there.
I I wasn't going there to like satisfy my cravings of food. Right. Uh but I was actually with a big group. We went for a cider uh cider trip uh in Spain uh years ago. Is that your favorite style of cider?
I do, like um it's not my style cider. Go ahead. We'll talk about it later. Yeah. Uh but uh yeah, so it was like a big group of people that like we'd gotten to know each other over ten days or something.
And so it was it was just like enjoyable to like kind of go back and forth on on what we were eating and and the whole experience of it. So I I liked it, but again, I wasn't paying for it. Oh, that's the best way. That's the best way. So yeah.
But it's cool. Yeah, awesome. All right. Uh sorry, Quinn. I s I didn't let you actually say anything that you had cooked.
Have you had the opportunity to cook anything over the past week or so? Yeah, actually we did. I made my uh magic uh mystery wheat into bread. I talked to you about that off air. It's pretty interesting.
So what's magic about it since uh since none of the people who you talk to you off air know what you're talking about? Yeah, it's a heritage Alberta wheat, just called Park. It was a real pain to source. Uh developed about eighty years ago. It's got this well, I have a single obscure blog post about its like supposed lineage.
Um it's got like interesting uh hard red wheats, sort of uh parentage, lineage. At some point it was also hybridized with Durham, supposedly. Hmm. Is it is it bad for bread in the way that Dorum is bad for bread? Well, okay, no offense to the people who love Durham breads, but you know, Durham's a pain in the butt.
Dorum makes very good passable, not as good as uh Sonora White, but passable tortillas. Because it's not the last thing. Pretty similar to a lot of the other you know, whole grains. It mills actually really nice. It what?
Like it goes real fine, real easy. Oh, yeah. Well, the harder something is, the finer you can mill it without without glazing your stones out. You know what I mean? So I think this might be the hardest wheat I've worked with.
Yeah. Well, have you worked with straight Durham? Uh-huh. Maybe. I must have done it.
Durham again, folks. If you're grinding wheat, just chew on some, get an idea for the different uh get it get an idea for the wheat just by chewing on it because most people aren't gonna give you numbers and they can change from year to year. Like the I mentioned this on air, but like I gotta I bought 40 pounds of uh Rouge de Bordeaux because it was such a fantastic bread wheat, and this year's crop is like soft as anything, fundamentally useless to me for bread. Great pancakes, but I can't mill it that fine because it it glazes my stones like this, you know what I mean? And so, you know, whatever.
Whatever. Uh wheat, why you I uh all before the air, Suzanne, we were saying that uh you have a cornbread thing, you're buying the Anson Mills, huh? Yeah, I really like Anson Mills. So much money. It's so much money.
But I'm from South Carolina, so there's a little tie-in there. I'm doing like some southern touches on the menu, and I just love their product. Uh it's it's so good. And for me, I can put it in small places on our menu. We're not making like breads with it.
Uh, so we're not going through a ton, but we use it in our like uh we're making like a slightly Asian inspired dumpling, but making it with an Italian dough. So we're using Eincorn um along with double zero in that. Uh we've got this really amazing. I I think it's the best cornmeal I've ever I've ever worked with, which is their like blue, uh, I think it's called blue native blue grist cornmeal. Uh it's the color is fantastic, but the flavor is is just even better.
So we do a uh we're doing it like a sweet cornbread for dessert uh with the roasted strawberry rhubarb. Uh we've got we we use their buckwheat, um their uh red fife flour. And again, like I can use it in small amounts and it makes really an impact, I think, in the taste of of what we're doing. But I I love them. What uh it's been a while since I've had one of their cornmeals.
I've had their blue, what was it called? Like I've had one of their blues. I mean, I'm sure they've had different um different types over the years. But can you like how custom can you go with them? Yeah, you can get coarse or you can we do a fine, fine grind.
Yeah, I really like corn flour. Like everyone's like, ooh, cornmeal, corn cornmeal's great. You know what I mean? Like I love cornmeal, but like especially when you're grinding your own and you can choose the exact kind of uh this one's really fluffy. It's it's nice.
So when I when I make the cornbread, it it doesn't have the same grit that some does. Yeah. And I prefer it a little smoother, but it's like the flavor's fantastic. Yeah, for those seriously, for those who have only ever used like American style corn meal for cornbread, it is entirely different animal if you're using something that's closer to corn flour. Not cornstarch.
Don't don't get flour, like milled corn, but just not coarse, right? Don't you agree? Or no? I think so. Uh, but man, they know how to charge Sonicon.
Well, so they mill it to order too. So it's just so fresh. So we keep it in the freezer or in the fridge. And I do an order from them once every three or four weeks. Um, so it's not, you know, breaking the bank, but I think it's I think in our on our menu in particular, it's like you can taste it.
Yeah, nice. If I were doing breads and you know, going through a camberro of of flour every week, I think that'd be a little different. But it's not that I don't think it's worth it. It's just the question is then you have to pass the cost on in a way that the people who are buying it understand why. Most of our most of our products made with it are mixed.
So, you know, we buy um a King Arthur double zero and then we use the ironcorn for flavor and texture and everything. Um again, I I couldn't afford to do all of the pasta dough with it, but uh it it just makes such a difference. Yeah. Um questions. I have a question from a listener, so I should probably do that first.
Yeah, right. All right. Uh Bruce J writes in uh how do you make bitter melon taste good? I have tried several times soaking various amounts with no success. I've heard of milder varieties, but never been able to find it in person.
Uh I understand that at some level is a matter of personal taste, but I haven't been able to prepare it in a way that would allow me to wrap my mind around why someone else would like it. All I get is bitterness. Uh, what are millions of Southeast Asian folks getting that I am missing? I mean, I I always stuff it with pork, and that takes care of everything. But what what's your uh what's your uh You know I ha in all of my restaurants, I've never actually worked with as a cook or anything with bitter melon.
I mean, I've I've tasted it before. Um my thing with anything that's like overly bitter is what's what it's with. Like it's that pairing. So pork, pork is a good way. Anything that has like a little balance of sweetness, uh that that's the way I go about anything that's like overly bitter.
Yeah, I mean, the only way I've ever cooked it real like, well, I made a drink out of it once. Like, you know, we clarified it and it was bitter. And then that's one of the ones that we used. Like uh, we used, I forget whether we used MSG or whether we used fish sauce. But we got I think we used MSG.
We took a new mommy pop on it and did like a, you know, uh what's that drink that the glass is named after? Martini variant with uh with bitter melon. You know what I mean? Yeah. But um, but when I've cooked it to eat it, I've only ever lopped off the ends, put it into pieces, maybe like four or six inches long, cored out the middle of it, stuffed it with pork, and then you know, cooked it off.
And then when you disc it, I mean, I guess you could blanch it first, but I don't think I ever, I don't, well, I didn't water blanch it. But when you disc it and you have the pork and then whatever else sauces you have on it, you know, you don't mind the bitterness anymore. I have to say though, uh, Bruce, that um we as a humanity are all very different in our ways that we taste bitter from person to person. And so you might be extraordinarily sensitive to whatever the bitter is in bitter melon, in which case, you know, you SOL. You know what I mean?
Like, like my wife, like she can tolerate, thankfully, for my family, she can tolerate escarole, but you know, she's not a huge fan of broccoli rob, right? Whereas I can pound an infinite quantity of both of them. So for me, it's interesting. Uh 10, 15 years ago, I couldn't eat anything but like ridiculous, any of those were just way beyond what I wanted to eat. And over the years, I don't know if I've just trained and introduced it to my palate more.
Now I love it. And I and I can't get enough of like chicories and other kind of bitter, uh bitter ingredients. But it was a little bit of like introducing it more and more, I think, to to my taste buds. Yeah, I mean it's I don't really understand it. I had a conversation with somebody once.
Maybe I'll call her again and figure out what's going on. She moved up to McGill. Anyway, there's like researchers who are working on why things that are avert aversive, like why they become things that you crave later. It's kind of a weird phenomenon, right? It's like things that like literally taste poisonous, right?
Then you end up craving them. It's odd. But I mean, I also think with something bitter, it like sometimes like starchiness. Like if I'm if I have like a really bitter radico, you know, pairing it with something like squash that has like that little bit of sweetness, but that starchiness sometimes like uh will not make it palatable, but like actually create like a really nice combination. Uh so it might be just whatever you're you know, eating the bitter melon by itself is probably never gonna do it for you.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, yeah. Who eats it by itself? Does anyone eat it by itself? Anyone just hack up bitter melon and like make a make a rat tattoo-esque thing with bitter melon.
I don't I've never seen that. I'm sure somebody does it, because it exists. You know what I mean? Yeah. Someone has tried it.
Someone who can't taste the bitterness at all has ratatouille fair. I don't make ratatouille at all. It's not my thing, not my movie. Nine, it's fine. Are you a ratatouille fan?
No. Yeah, I'm yeah. Either way. Yeah, right. If someone serves it to you, you're not gonna spit at them and throw the plate on the ground.
But you're not like, oh yeah. Right? It it it wouldn't be in the top, you know, 100 dishes for sure. No, no. Wouldn't make it on the list with your restaurant as the top 100 things.
I mean, I guess it's a good name for a rat in a movie. It's great. It's a great name for the movie. Yeah. I prefer the movie to the r the ri is named Remy.
No, it's so stupid. Why not name the anyway? Like the the thing that in my family people watch, they we've never no one's ever watched all the way through. Is there's a Brazilian animation company that does knockoffs called uh mockbusters, right? Like blockbusters, but mockbusters, where they just rip off ideas.
And the one for rat tattoo is called Rataton. Ratatong. And it's Chef Marcel Toying, who's a rat. And it's the worst animation. It's just the worst.
It's like just watch like five seconds of it to see how bad an animated movie can be. So anytime like someone says rat tattoo the dish in my head, all I can think of is Chef Marcel Toying. Chef Marcel Toy. World's greatest chef. World's greatest rat chef anyway.
Uh all right. So before we get into what you are doing now, uh, you came up with some fantastic people that that we know. You've cooked it like some of the like with some Anita Lowe. For how long were you at Anissa? Uh my first restaurant, six years.
Great place. Who who's a line cook for six years? No, so you say you must have liked it, right? Or yeah, or you can't. She taught me everything.
I mean, she I didn't know how to cook, really. I mean, I went I went to culinary school for a minute, but she taught me how to cook everything. Well, I read somewhere on one of your profile thing of Majigs that you you are not one of those people who are like, yeah, I've been cooking forever. Like No, I mean, now it's been 20 years, but that's just because I've been in in the business for that long. But I grew up not interested in being in the kitchen, helping the kitchen, not interested in food at all.
Huh. Really not until a little bit into college, but really uh when I moved to New York and I mean, honestly, when I went to culinary school is when I kind of got interested. So was it when was it because you moved to New York and it was like so the food was so different from South Carolina that you missed stuff and had to cook stuff? Or like what happened? Uh there was a lot of steps that that kind of contributed to this going in this direction.
But um mostly, yes, I I like wouldn't eat fish. I was very, you know, boring in my kind of what I had for dinner. And when I came to New York, you know, my friend said, let's go to X restaurant, or let's get sushi, or you know, and so I started being introduced to things that sushi in South Carolina, at least where I'm from, is not like it's not like the quality of the fish that I'm looking for. Where are you from? Are you coastal or what?
No, I'm on I'm on the Georgia border, Aiken. Yeah. So uh right by the masters, if anybody's a golf fan, a lot of golf. Is that the green jacket one? Yeah.
All right. It is. I only know it from that uh Adam Sandler movie. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, but you know, the quality of the the sushi and Aiken is not. Doesn't sound like that's what they're doing. How about the quality of the boiled peanuts? Great, wonderful. Um that's because people up here can't wrap their head around boiled peanuts.
Yeah. I think they're great. I I like them now. I didn't like him as a kid either. Really?
But no. I didn't like any, I didn't like much of anything. Uh but I'm yeah, I moved here, so I started being introduced to different types of foods. There was that. And then I started working in hospitality.
I didn't know what I wanted to do after college. So I ended up through a temp agency being placed at the Walder Festoria and and human resource. You're a math major, right? So how do you end up in a temping out for what kind of math were you were you? Well, I was thinking about being a math teacher, but I knew I didn't want to do that.
And I felt like you don't want a teacher that doesn't really want to be there, uh, especially with math. So no, you do not. Yeah. And so I was never adventurous, never really thought about moving to New York. And just my brother was in Philly, and we came here for a day.
I had like an acquaintance from college who was moving up to Columbia, and just got it in my head, like, oh, let me try something new. Uh, which again was not adventurous. My parents were like, what are you talking about? Um, and so and I and it was the year after 9-11. So everybody was kind of on edge for sure.
Yeah, we were still, it took us a while to get back firing on all cylinders after that. So yeah, I moved up here, no job, no money, all the things. And uh ended up at the Waldorf and NHR, and my boss was just like awesome, like this really kind of feisty, strong, great leader from Boston. And I never even thought of like hospitality as a career. You know, in the South, everybody's nice.
Like you go to their house, they're feeding you, they're like giving you everything, and it was just like that was the way of life. I never really thought about it as a career. Um, and I know hospitality is more than that, but it was just something that I I didn't know existed. So immediately I liked that idea of hospitality. Uh, but man, I hated the paperwork as a child.
It was like 1600 employees. Yeah. So I was just like pushing paperwork. Is that is that a union house or no? It is, yeah.
So we we weren't union and the back offices, but yeah, the um all the the cooks and the the housekeepers. And I really had no uh, you know, I wasn't in the kitchens or anything like that. But after about a year, they needed help in the steakhouse, the old bull and bear steakhouse. And so because I wasn't union, I couldn't like be a line level, but I was like an assistant manager. So I would go down there a couple nights a week after my shift in HR, and I would just like help manage.
I I don't even really know what I did, but I loved it. And I was like, oh, maybe I'll be a restaurant manager. And so that kind of was like the seed was was formed there. Uh but then one of my co-workers, she went to ICE, the Institute of Culinary Education for these recreational baking classes. And she just started bringing in like cakes and cookies every day.
It's like cooking school. That like there's such a thing, you know, no idea. Um, and at that point I was like experimenting at home. And I'm I'm talking like this quick, like George Foreman girl. Like that's how I learned that's how I learned to cook, especially in college.
Rest in peace, George Foreman. Yeah. And just I just ended up on a whim, like going to to ICE to check out the school, and I was so impressed. I had never seen a professional kitchen. And just those like little things kept popping in my head.
And uh after two years at the Waldorf, I I went to culinary school. At ICE or ICE. Yeah, no, what what era was that? What years were that? Uh I went in 2005.
Yeah, so that's right. That's right when I was at FCI. So you were my bitter enemy. Yeah. Or bitter, bitter, bitter enemy.
I just didn't know because I didn't know. We didn't know each other, but well, but I didn't know anything about I didn't know anything about cooking. I didn't know I didn't know who Daniel Balud was. I didn't know I didn't know anything. You know, because I was new.
You guys had really yeah, you guys had a lot of good teachers there. It's a great, it's a good place. It's just like wasn't allowed. Like when I left the FCI, when Nastasi and I left the FCI, they're like, you go work. I I kept on a deal with them that I would still like, you know, consult with them.
And they were like, you can work anywhere but ice. And I was like, all right, all right, Dorothy. You know what I mean? But uh remember that, Stas. Yep.
Yeah. Anyway, now ICE won. They survived. We did not. They bought our name and then they dunked on us.
Did you hear about that? No. They threw a uh whatever his name, Smiley or whatever, through a party and uh like an SCI, like a celebrate the SCI party, invited back the living deans at the time. One of one of them has passed since then. Uh Andre Soltner.
Yeah. And um, yeah, basically they basically just dunked on us to be like, you're no longer here, we are. Ah, boom. Well, it wasn't ostensibly what it was about, but we were all like, hmm. And they upgraded to such a beautiful like but my the where I went was not quite as nice.
Oh, you were on the interview. I was on 23rd. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I never visited, I literally, that's not true. I went to uh an event there once when um what's her name, the famous author, uh Karen Hess, right?
Uh Taste of America, is that her? Yeah. She I I saw her talk there once, but then yeah, I was never allowed to go there. So I never I never went there. I've been to the new one a bunch because now they have a bunch of our old teachers who are there, like Jurgen's there, Ervade, Mali Vere's there, a lot of good people there.
Anyway, uh okay, okay. Uh so then first thing after that is Anissa. Yeah, I mean, I literally didn't I didn't know where to go, and one of the girls in my class was like, Oh, Anisa is hiring. Okay, I'm gonna go. So I went, I didn't know who Anita was.
Uh went for a trail. She liked me, she hired me on the spot. She says that she's never hired anybody else on the spot. I don't know. She's she's think she's think she's blowing sunshine.
I don't know, but uh maybe at that time. I mean, she's not one to blow like for those who don't know her, she's not the kind of person who would sit there and blow sunshine in your rear if she didn't mean it. Yeah, no, she was she was grammy. She taught me everything. And in the the craziest thing was like, I didn't go there because she was a female chef.
I had no idea that it was uncommon. I just literally went because she was the only restaurant that I knew that was hiring, and it was the only trail I went on, and she hired me on the spot and and I worked, yeah, six years for her. Um but but it was a great restaurant. It it was perfect for me, having no experience, no understanding of the industry. It was a small environment where you know I felt like I was it wasn't like babied by any means.
It was, it was hard. It was it was hard work. Um, but it you know, it was contained, which which I think was a good first restaurant for me. Right. And then uh and then you went to like to two kind of hospitality monsters, right?
We worked with Michael Anthony and then Danny Meyer. Well, I went to Graham C for with both of them. And actually I had done my externship before Anissa at Gramercy when Tom Calicchio was still there. Johnny Schaefer was the chef, and I was just in the basement, like peeling mushrooms, you know, cleaning doing cabbage, that kind of thing. And you know, I did my three months in the basement and I shook the chef's hand and I said, Thank you.
I didn't even know to ask for a job. Um, so I went back to Gramercy after being at Anissa for so long. Um, and Mike was there at that point. And uh I thought, you know, I'll cook for another year, um, and then I'll do whatever. Cause I wasn't on the path of I want to be a sous chef, I want to be a chef.
Never was on that path. I just really loved the the task of cooking. I liked the the the activity in the kitchen, like the com the competition. Uh you know, work went by so fast, and yeah, it was stressful, but it was like you had to be set by five, and then that was it. It wasn't like you carried the work to the next day so much.
Um, and when when I went to Graham Mercy, then I got really got hooked. Yeah. So Mike Anthony, everyone, for those of you that don't know in New York, uh, he's like he is the Tom Hanks of chefs in New York, in that, like, you know, he's a handsome dude and everybody loves this guy, nicest guy. So in secret, does he kick puppies? Tell me, does he?
I I signed a contract with He has to kick puppies. Same with Tom Hanks. He's just uh, you know, he's like always been an even kill guy, and he um is passionate. This is how I learned how to talk about food. Like Anita taught me how to cook and taught me like a lot of the passion behind cooking, and Mike just like won me over with his like stories of food and his reasons for doing things.
And not that Anita didn't have those, but like I just heard Mike over and over talk about the importance of things like local vegetables and sourcing and um how you treat certain things, and like that's really really what got me and like what connected the next part, which was like the the ingredients, the creativity, all that kind of came for me at Gramercy. Yeah. And so now we'll skip over the pandemic situation. Uh but now you have your own place finally, Lola's, and you're within spinning, well, you're within basically 10, 10 minutes of the of uh of the market, the green market, right? Uh right, because you're on 20th, 28th, so yeah, 11, 12 minutes.
I mean, we take four times a week, we take a cart down there, two, two on Fridays, load it up and walk it back to the restaurants. That's pretty ideal. So, what are your favorites there? The the farmers or the uh I've got you don't want to no, no, no. I I love we buy from a lot of folks at the market, but Camposso, who's in Pennsylvania, Norwich, uh we we buy a lot from like Willow Wisp from Lonnie's um I mean there there's there's many more for sure uh but we definitely we definitely have ones that we you know have we're we're loyal to but we just have really good relationships with the farmers and um they care about what they're growing they grow delicious vegetables and um it's really what gets me excited about um you know changing menu and and highlighting what they're doing yeah what's looking good this year uh okay this I mean right now is just like crazy crazy good so strawberries just came out sugar snap peas tell you what though got ruined from strawberries Nastasia had us go to freaking Harry's berry fill in the height of strawberry season now I'm like tri star yeah but like what are you gonna pay $19 for I saw $19 for court last week no no no it's it's live in LA is the answer.
Okay like and then you ride stars they're still like $20 for us though. Really? It's crazy. Yeah but you but you for $20 for you and all the fancy ones are right there and you can pick your pint yeah no no I went to the market last week and from like three different vendors I bought strawberries cut them in half and they're not white on they are red on the inside. Listen I'm not that's a good strawberry tri stars not even just try stars there's other all right listen yes in the power ranking like yes all of the local ones here are above Driscoll no argument but I mean in terms of like God's strawberry.
Yeah. They're good. They're good. They're good. I mean, like we get really good uh concords later.
Like when it's cold weather. Great concords. Yeah, obviously tomatoes. I've talked about it. I mean, I'm into like right now is like my like the start of my favorite season.
Like we just got the cone CaraFlex cabbage, which is mine favorite. Oh, yeah, talking about that. I've never worked with that. Oh, it's it's amazing. It's it's beyond any other cabbage.
And I like cabbage, but it's uh yeah, it's cone shaped. Um the head is just perfect where the the leaves have enough texture, it's like thick enough um to cook to like do whatever you want. Braise, steam, roast. Um, but it's not too tight of a head. So there's room between the leaves.
So when you cook it, it just uh like it cooks evenly. It's it's it's delicious. My my favorite is I like will cut it, steam it, just par steam it, and then cool it down and then we'll char it. So chart on a grill, chard on a plancha, chard in uh in pizza oven. How big are they?
Um yeah, like eight inches. And there is it'd they get bigger, it depends on the is their taste closer to like like a regular like a European or closer to a Napa? Like where are they tasting? Uh like in order to like I think of like the Napa not Napa. It's not papery like that.
And and the flavor is just the sweetness of some of the it's really sweet. Oh yeah, so it's like Europe plus plus. Yeah. It it is the best cabbage. Have you fermented them?
Are they good fermented? Uh I don't ferment them because they're like it's like yeah, too expensive, and they're just so great on their own. Like I like to highlight them in a wedge so you can kind of see the it's not even about the shape, it's uh just about like the texture of the leaves is so good that for me that would be kind of a waste. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
I'm just curious because uh I did a side by side of Napa versus regular like green head European cabbage, which I don't know the variety in because I'm a dunce. Uh and uh I was shocked how different they tasted. Not when no s just salt, you know what I mean? Like how different the cabbages were. I'm curious of what if it is extra sweet, what the because I think the main difference aside from the texture, the papery texture between the Napas and the European, I think European's higher in sugar.
I'm sure this is a little bit on that end. Um but they are they are fantastic. Like definitely. How much they cost? A lot.
I mean, not for cabbage. They in other words, they cost a lot for cabbage, but not in the overall thing. No, it's so cabbage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're not, they're not charging.
Uh I mean, we buy wholesale generally, so it's a little hard to tell. All right. Five dollars a pound, somewhere in there. Uh, okay. So let's talk about some stuff.
Pimento cheese. Yeah. So tell pe for those who don't have never been like, you know, whatever, to the south, your first of all, your pimento cheese, not traditional. Well, talk about your pimento cheese versus traditional. Okay, mine's better.
Okay, okay. But it's like ricotta-based, not right. So generally in the south, uh, and I grew up in the south, but not really southern. My dad's Filipino, my mom's from central Pennsylvania. Uh, we didn't have any family down there.
Yeah. We didn't have any family down there. So now they're still there, you know, however many years later, four, you know, 30 something years later. So they're more southern than I ever was. But pimento cheese is usually usually like mayo based, cream cheese based, or maybe both.
And I love mayo and I love cream cheese, but like the the the last thing I want to eat at the beginning of my meal is like a big bowl of mayonnaise to like start it off. I mean, where does that like too? I like it throughout the meal, like dipping aioli here, you know. But uh what I was thinking about, and I don't even know where this came from, but uh one one night, this is when I was back at Entitled, I was making a pimento cheese, and I said, like, let me try to use ricotta. So I whipped ricotta.
And then I made the made the pimento, like the cheddar cheese and stuff after that. But you don't use regular pimento style peppers like from preparation. No, I use paquillo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I used big.
And then I I'll use like uh like local peppers and then like an ahi dulce or like a a really good dried pepper in there. Um and we use Jasper Hell cheese, which is also good. Fancy, fancy, very nice. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I definitely want to try that out.
Now just talk chicken. We still have a couple minutes left. Talk chicken. Tell me your fried chicken. Uh it's marinated kind of like Filipino Filipino inspired.
So it's like adobo. It's got uh a gluten-free soy sauce, garlic, bay leaf, uh black pepper corn, so marinated overnight, chicken, uh, sorry, chicken thighs with the skin on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So cut into strips, which is the best. And then very, very light battery corn starch, rice flour.
Okay. And uh so it eats in between like uh like Japanese Korean like a single fry or a double? Double. Double fry. Yeah, but very thin, very thin.
Coat in between fries or coat once, fried twice. Coat once, fried twice. And then you serve it with the with the vinegar shaker. We do it, we do a f uh fermented fresno hot honey. So local honey, fermented fresno's very simple, like literally three, four ingredients in that.
And then uh we do this coconut vinegar, which is like a Filipino inspired. Uh we we uh like kind of steep some ahi dulce, dried peppers and garlic and and black pepper in it. It's it's great. It'll probably be on the menu forever. Yeah, well, uh well, I've looked on the internet apparently.
Yeah, people aren't gonna let you get rid of it. It's kind of a pain in the butt, right? When you can't get rid of it, it. It's not my it's not my thing, but people love it, so I'm I'm excited to serve it. Also, I saw you do you do like your naan in like a in like a wood fired oven in a flat situation.
Not wood, but we've we'd have a pizza oven. Right. It looks like one of those. It's a masonry oven. Yeah, it's a masonry.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you have New York City pain in the butt. But like, do you think that like what's it like cooking? I've only ever cooked naan in like a tandoor. Is it very similar when it's on a flat surface?
Yeah, it's pretty similar, right? I mean it looks the same. It bubbles up the same. Yeah, it bubbles up. You just gotta get that temperature right.
And um, yeah, we make it every day. I was making it this morning before I came. Right, just not burning your hand off as uh it's easy. It's the ovens, yeah. All right, what else?
What else do you want to h highlight? What else you wanna highlight? I mean on the way out of here. We we've just got a rotating menu. So it's like delicious, familiar things, but the flavors come from both uh Asia and from the South, so it's not fully traditional.
Um but I want it to be things that people walk in and say, like, I kind of know what this is, but oh wow, this is a little different version than than I've seen before. Yeah, what do you add to your buttermilk to whip it for your uh sweet blue cornbread situation? Uh no, it's the oh uh heavy cream. Oh, so it's like heavy cream with a little tap and with a little buttermilk. Yeah, have butter milk at the end.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's nice and tangy. Well, anyway, I can't wait to go Lola's NYC on 28th Street off of Fifth Avenue. Fi between Fifth and Broadway. Fifth and Broadway.
Suzanne Cups, thank you so much for coming on. Come on anytime, cooking issues. Thank you.
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