Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you alive from the Heart of Manhattan Rock of the Center, New York City, New Stand Studios. What's up? Yo. Yo, everything good?
Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah? Alright, cool.
Uh today we got uh as usual, John. How you doing? Doing great, thanks. Everything's good. We got Joe Hazen rocking the panels.
Hey, hey, hey. Uh, how you doing? Uh Anastasia the Hammer Lopez in Los Angeles. Hi. How you doing, Stas?
Oh car. Uh, okay. Give me the sound treatment. Appreciate. Uh, we have no Jackie Molecules today.
He's getting on the airplane, and he's a little afraid of uh our special guest for today. A little afraid. A little afraid. And then uh in the upper left we have uh Quinn. How you doing?
I'm good. Yeah, yeah. And for our special guest today, we have uh give me a little reverb, Joe. Uh sorry. Wait, you got it?
Yeah. Reverb? All right. Peter Kim from Infinite Cable. Oh man, a little bit of a headache now.
Uh, how are you doing? Oh, yeah. Wait, I'm here. I'm sorry, I was on here. That's my that's my new ringtone.
Yeah, yeah. Uh well, is that something like need like the full like announcer? Like, you know what I mean? Yeah, I think actually a delay would have been even better. Delay and reverb?
Yeah, both, yeah. Like like Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, like monster trucks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Table, table, table. Do you have that?
Do you have that, Joe? Um looking for it. Yeah, just tell me when you got it. Uh, you know, the ultimate announcer was John Thunderlungs Lundberg. I think he's still alive.
And he's the person that uh ministry sampled in Jesus Built My Hot Rod. Oh wow. Drag racing, there's no use trying to talk. No human sound can stand up to this. Loud enough to knock you down.
Burnout. It's such a great song. You know what I mean? Like the whole song is amazing. Uh anyway.
Yeah, tell me when you got it. We'll reintroduce uh Peter. So uh what do you guys got for me? This you know, oh by the way, call in your questions to 917 410 1507. That's 917 410 1507.
If you're a Patreon listener, and John, why don't you tell them how to become a Patreon listener? Go to Patreon.com slash cooking issues. Uh you can find different membership levels there. You get uh awesome perks at every membership level, including access to our Discord, whereas one of our listeners reminded me that um that in and of itself is really cool because you get access to people like Kevin Young, um, who is a member and on the Discord and people ask him questions and uh yeah, just a whole bunch of uh other great perks like that. So check it out.
Patreon.com slash cooking issues. Yeah. Uh so what do you guys got? Oh, here we go. Ready?
Peter Kim from Infinite Table. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. That's it. Yeah.
All right. I like it. Someday you gotta do one on a Sunday, and then I can do a Sunday, Sunday, Sunday infinite table for you. There you go. Oh, is there was that all over the country?
Did they have that in the Midwest Sunday, Sunday, Sunday? Was Monster were Monster Truck Rallies also on Sunday where you were from? I don't know if they were on Sundays, but we definitely had monster truck rallies. But you didn't have like the constant thing Sunday, Sunday, Sunday show up at wherever the county fair was and there would be a monster truck rally. I mean, the Sunday, Sunday, Sunday thing does kind of like recall some memories from childhood, so I'm sure it percolated in, but yeah.
I would love to know who the original Sunday, Sunday, Sunday person was. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think it's because I don't know if for people who like me grew up, you know, I think you know, you're also you you grew up, we were the last people that don't know what it's like to be able to turn on any form of uh entertainment at any time. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Sundays sucked, right? Because like in the in the US, like we were still like, you should be going to church. Yeah. Right.
So Sunday morning television was rancid. Yeah. You know, just rancid. There was like we we used to watch that religious claymation thing, Davy and Goliath. I don't know, Davy.
Remember that? No. No, anyway, that maybe that was Justin Isco's thing. But so you needed things to do on Sunday, you know, if you weren't like necessarily like a football head, which was later, you know, anyway, monster. Yeah, but Sunday afternoons for me were awesome.
I don't know about Baye, but we had Samurai Sunday. It started about four o'clock and lasted about four hours. It was like usually four back two or three back to back kung fu films. Really? So for us it was w c I used to wake up really early for some reason, and it was patchwork family and like some other like that thing, Davy and Goliath.
And then later there would be an Abbott and Costello movie on channel 11, and then a monster movie, like some form of you know kaiju movie, and then what they used to call the million dollar movie, which was like some classic thing, which at the time I didn't appreciate. Yeah. What channel, where were you, Joe? Uh it was down in South Florida, channel 39, channel 29. We used to get from West Palm Beach.
It was always Samurai Sunday. That's what we would watch. It was great. Yeah. Then the in dub or uh yeah yeah dub well the Hallmark movies were usually on Sundays too.
Yeah. Yeah. In in uh we always watched those. Yeah. Six o'clock.
Yeah, something like that. But the weird thing is that so like I've seen, you know, when I was a kid in 70s, they even played the horribly racist Abbott and Costello like movies. You know what I mean? And there are a number of horribly racist Abbott Costello movies. Yeah.
But I grew up loving Abbott and Costello, you know? Not for the racism. Well Abbott and Costello are one of these comedy teams that go in and out of favor. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Like uh not just because of racism, but just because like they sucked, they didn't suck, they were derivative, they were derivative, you know what I mean? Anyway, whatever. So yeah, despite the racism, you were a fan. Yeah. I mean, well, uh, you know, look, the more you look back at all the stuff, it's like really hard to like find.
That's true. Yeah, even Seinfeld, you watch that and it's just like, okay. And I never was a Seinfeld person. Yeah. But you know, obviously, everyone around me loves Seinfeld.
Yeah. So I love Seinfeld, but I mean Ping the Chinese delivery guy on that show is just like a horrible stereotype. Yeah. Well, you're a that's why your favorite movie is Sixteen Candles. Pure Fabrication.
Oh, get ready, I have more. Yeah. Uh so yeah. No. Uh what was the other one?
Oh, I just found out something else was uh racist that I didn't know. Did you know? So Endor, the Forest Moon Endor, right, is based on the Redwoods. I think it was shot in in Humboldt, right? And I was just in the Muir Woods, saw Harold McGee, Harold McGee says hello to everyone, by the way.
And so I was in the Mirror Woods. And um, I was like, oh yeah, the you know, the uh the people that were you know from that area displacement, Mi Walks. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and I'm like, oh yeah, exactly. I was like, oh, please, tell me Lucas didn't name the Ewoks as a quote unquote homage to the Mi Walks on like the coastal Mi Walks.
That's so hardcore. Yeah, yeah. Yet another thing in Star Wars. Don't get me sorry about Ewoks. They're the worst.
They're worst. And I mean, I'm sure you've seen this whole theory about like, you know what they were going to do with like uh Han Sol and all of them when they caught captured them. They were gonna eat them, right? Well, I mean, they look delicious. Yeah.
And so then, like, what did they do with all the stormtroopers? They ate them? I mean, it kind of follows. That's like opening a dungeoness crab or something. You said break open the stormtrooper along the joints.
They have the little like uh crab like cracking things. Stormtrooper forks out of their office. Yeah, oh yeah, definitely. So Lucas waited until his later movies for them to eat little creatures. Isn't that one little creature in um uh where Chewbacca eats them and his friends get like looks like a little penguin?
Oh, possibly. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those little things. But remember, like um bad guys used to do it all the time. Jabba in so I think we can all agree that like he started going off the rails with Return of the Jedi.
You know what I mean? And so, like, I mean, hopefully we can all agree on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. First of all, none of you who are uh, you know, younger, no none of you who weren't alive in the 80s, around when that movie came out, know the horror that having to listen to the Ewok celebration song on the radio is on the radio. Yeah, you know, and remember, we didn't have the internet, like the radio was what we had to listen to.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, pure torture. Torture. Torture. Worst.
The only tiny creature in the in the well, so so Java used to eat little things, but you were horrified as a kid, right? He had uh, what's her name? Princess Leia, Leo, like uh leashed, and then he would eat those little creatures. A the best tiny creature, and the only thing I liked about the first three movies when they came out was uh Jawaz. Uh Tini!
I love it. I love that. Wait, is that the blue one with like the two like the like they're the ones in monks' outfits who steal droids? Oh right, yes, yes, yes, yeah, yeah. Little red eyes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then here's hilarious. Like later on, you know, f yeah. So he spends a career making racist movies. Right.
This is subtly, I mean sometimes subtly racist, right? And then when they come out, when Disney buys them and they come out, they're like, oh no, don't call 'em sand people. That's racist. Like, what's the bad part. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. I think we basically apply like a sliding scale of judgment as you go further back in history, right?
With with like pop culture stuff. Yeah, I guess. Although Star Wars people are s you're supposed to like have it all in your head gelling into one actual thing, they just think. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
I don't know. Yeah. Anyway, why are we talking about Star Wars? I don't know. I don't got going this week in the way of cooking or issues.
Issues I got a plenty. How much time you got? I mean, about uh 49 minutes. Well, let's talk about my relationship with my dad. Oh wow.
No, um yeah, I mean By the way, I like it in your book that you do call out the Hallmark store. Yes, of course. And precious moments. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's a big part of it, and I think like for me, like I grew up on convenience food, and that's just kind of a consequence of having like parents who are business owners, you know. Yeah.
Latchkey kid. Familiar. Familiar. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Uh so what do you do this week? And then we'll get into what you've done before. Oh, okay. Well, I mean, right now I'm basically I'm I'm pushing forward with this uh company I'm starting called the Infinite Table, Table, Table Table. Yeah, yeah.
And feeling really excited about it, honestly. Uh we I just um opened a prototype a few weeks ago and it went exceedingly well. Um, and to me, like, and I'll tell you about it in a second, but yeah, it's like a culmination of pretty much like all of this stuff I've done in foods, you know, including MoFad. And uh it feels really good. Yeah.
So now it's a fully operational battle station. Uh not quite. I want it to be a fully operational battle station, but I would say we're still uh yeah, still still in progress. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Um hopefully that's the last Star Wars reference we have. I doubt it. Um but yeah, no, I mean it just basically the concept is bringing together 360 degree video around you and then eventually above and below you, uh, with immersive storytelling and uh food to transport you somewhere in the world. And so you'll be transported to say Oaxaca, and then you'll see a woman talking about her Zapotec origins and this mole negro recipe that's gone through her family and this then witness her pro whole process of making the mole, 28 ingredients, each one like hand toasted on a Kamal and then ground on a matate, and just get like immersed in that, and then she presents a bowl of steaming mole to you on the camera, and at that same moment, the same clay bowl appears in front of you with actually her mole. I brought the mole back from Oaxaca, and then we actually served her this uh her name's Karina Santiago, and we gave people the mole, and then my whole thesis, and I didn't really know until I did the prototype, was that this would fuse together into some kind of like magical experience for guests that you could like see the history and story and the person and be in the environment and then have them present it, and then it actually appears in front of you.
And man, like it worked. Like people were crying, like it people were literally like laughing and crying. And that's not because you spiked it with psilocybin? Yeah, no, they were they were crying out of embarrassment for me because they saw me crying, they saw me crying and wetting myself in the corner of the room, and they were like, Oh god, poor soul. But my own like myopic brain is saying, like, oh no, it's because of this amazing experience I've had.
Um, but actually worked incredibly well. Why is Peter's chair in a uh in a kiddie pool? Yeah, exactly. Oh, because you know, he didn't want you to know he was wedding himself. Exactly, exactly.
Good to have you on. Good to have you on. There you go. So uh how first of all, how big's her matate? Uh well, she has a ton of matates.
So the thing that's amazing about Karina in particular is she has this kitchen, outdoor kitchen called uh she calls it the Cocina de Umo, which means a smoke kitchen. There's narry an electrical outlet there, and it's just like this she's built it in the traditional style of a Zapotec kitchen, and she has like a ton of matates and everything you could possibly imagine. Um she has two camals and um and uh just an incredible clay, clay, definitely. And um, and yeah, I mean uh and then the one she was using to make this mole is I mean, I don't know, like I can't I I don't know how to like describe the size, but yeah, it's like three by three, yeah, something like that. Slanted up.
Uh it was curved and slant. Well, which way's up for you? Well, it was like the upside was toward her, I think. Yeah. Down close.
Yeah, working down, exactly. So did she give you like so the mono, the hand the the pestle equivalent, right? Tapered or pretty straight across? I think it was tapered. Did she give you any indication of how long when you get a new one, it takes before they're worth spit?
No, I didn't get into that with her. No. No, no. Yeah. That's why no one wants me to talk to these people.
Because I'm like, sell the equipment you can. Also, I don't think she's bought a matate in like a long time. Well, that's the thing, like some piece of like, so like, you know, I've only bought, you know, tourist matates and they suck because you don't have enough room. Yeah, yeah. And then the monos aren't really mated to them.
Yeah. So, you know, I've never had a real, like honest to goodness, like one that you would put on the ground and get on your knees and go. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? But I wonder there's gotta be some, there's gotta be well, first of all, like you say, there's different uses, right?
So probably different courses depending on am I doing chocolate, am I doing you know, masa. But uh I wonder how long it takes. There's there's gotta be a break in period, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's gotta be.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, and I think it probably just continues to evolve, right? Um, but um, but yeah, I'll send you the video. You can check out all her equipment and everything.
It's like pretty phenomenal. It's like so that like uh without the you can do a non food version so that like people with like an Apple vision can like check it out or whatever? So interestingly, we filmed everything um using uh stereoscopic uh video so that if you put on like a Vision Pro, it's mind-blowing. You're like you're it's like you're there in the kitchen, right? Because you have the depth perception.
Um for now, like the core experience for the infinite table is like a non-headset one where you're in a room with a c at a communal table with other guests, and you're the the video is coming because it's projected around you. And I don't know, for me, headsets are super isolating, but we did record it that way. So if I can find a good use case for it, then it's gonna be great for a headset too. Nothing else I like better than isolating. Yes, that's right.
For the misanthropes among us, Dave, uh, then yeah, I think that might be a nice uh yeah. Um, but also like eating with a headset. I mean, for me, like part of the the magic is the food. And I think part of like also my thesis is that like people who would never watch a documentary about mole are like super engaged in this because the thing that happens is you see it on, you know, projected around you, and you're like, I'm going to eat that in like six minutes. And suddenly it's almost like a self-interested thing.
You're very invested in learning the story because it actually contributes to your enjoyment of what you're about to eat. It makes it taste better. And so uh people like so you're saying you could actually just serve them trash because you can make it taste good in the video? No, actually, it's quite the opposite. It like sets the expectations so high because people are like so built up on it.
And I mean, in the case of the mole, it was easy to deliver because I actually brought her mole paste back. Right. And it it was all we had to do is hydrate it with chicken stock and then add some like braised chicken to it. Um, and it was her mole, and it is a single best, like to me, mole I've ever eaten in my life. Really?
So so good. Um, I still have some. Um where where on the color of dark red to brown is it? Very dark, very, very dark. Yeah.
And like, man, like watching the process of her making that was, and this is gonna sound a little like woo, but I will, and I'm not the kind of person to usually say this kind of thing, but it was a spiritual experience. I mean, I was in there for hours watching her just like wield smoke and fire and stone, and so like cool and calm. Where I think like anybody who's not experienced with a kitchen like that would be like tearing their hair out because like there's just flames leaping everywhere, and like everything's so live, and she just was like methodically moving through. I mean, she's done it over her lifetime, and then her her mom did it, her mom's mom, her mom's mom's mom, and so like it's you see that coming through in her hands and her movements, and so what are her base ingredients? Well, there's 28 of the ones I can remember.
There was um only actually a relatively small amount of cacao, um, tomatoes, and then tomatillos, although their tomatillos are different, they're like smaller and a little less tart. Um less tart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. More like more like uh more like a gooseberry, but green and not sweet at all. Yeah, they're they're like they're they're small.
You can actually get them here. All those things are just related, right? Tomatillas, gooseberries, uchilla, they're all the same. Yeah, rusty, yeah, yeah. Item yeah, yeah.
You know what? Don't you hate picking those things up? Why? Like the little stickiness? I hate it.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like when I have to rip the skins off the tomatillas, I hate it. I can't wait till I can get them in a big bowl of water and switch it around and get that stickiness off. Doesn't bother me so much.
Roast them first. Oh, yeah, everything. And those actually go under the camal, so they go directly on the coals. Um, and then um, or not coal, I mean it's it's wood she's burning. Um she leaves the skins on, skins on, yeah.
And they come out all blistered. And then um she had like burnt well, I don't even have to say burnt, because everything goes through some level of toasting or burning. Um, pineapple, ripe plantains, uh tortilla. The tortilla just straight up gets lit up in flames and turns into dust. Um tortilla dust.
Yeah, yeah. Um so it's more an offering. Well, no, it goes in, it goes in, but it's like, yeah, it's like it becomes like ash basically. Uh and then four different kinds of chiles. Chiluacle was the big one.
Um and that one is real hard to find here. Um and uh that's her favorite one. What's it is it's similar to one we would have, like uh I I'm I'm not uh like I don't connoisseur enough of a chile to say I I can say like I've had it separately and I I like it, but I don't know. Good. Um tastes good.
Yeah, exactly basically. That's like when people ask me to describe like an Amari pfft, herbal bitter. Yeah, exactly. Wait, how do you describe that? If you don't have the flavor in your head, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Um and then I mean, yeah, like array of spices, uh, of course. Um how does the wet to dry and then the combination of wet and dry go? Well, so that's one thing she told me. I was like, 'cause we talked about the fact that uh using a matate in mono creates a different flavor profile from like using like a food processor.
And one of the things she talked about was that with a matate, you never have to add water. Um whereas with like a food processor you would have to, and so you end up with like a something that's more watered down. Then she talks, of course, about the interaction with the the stone and the flavor that comes from that. And then there's the kind of, you know, less like scientific, but I think something we can kinda like resonate with, which is like this the fact that everything is so live and like it's with her hands that she's basically it's like monitoring everything in real time. And so like there's n it with like a you know, with a food processor, everything just gets blitzed together, but like for her, she's like able to really see with every stroke like whether it's getting to the place where she wants.
And tr also with like the burning and toasting, it's like all I mean, she's literally like touching it constantly to like move it around. And so everything's like hyper calibrated. And the thing that's incredible is that the end result is just mind-blowingly delicious. So it's like yeah, the pretty match. What I'm curious is, is it's very hard to, when you're doing things by hand without power, to get things that aren't the same into all uniformly fine particles?
So is it like the drier stuff grinds first and then grinds wet into it? I can't remember how she did the order, but yeah, I mean she did get everything into a very fine pasties and that Matata. How much actual grinding time you think? First of all, what size batch is she making it, roughly? Like show me with your hands the size like ball she ends up with.
Well, she when when we were filming, she ended up making a ball like this big. It's like large, large like a small pomelo. Yeah. That's a large pomolo. That depends on the kind of pummel.
It's uh it's you're you have a couple of you have a cantaloupe size. You have a cantaloupe size. You have a cantaloupe size. I know cantaloupe shade because I'm like, oh no, I have to eat that because I hate cantaloupe. It's the one thing I hate.
There are good cantaloupe out there. I would say 90% of caliper trash, but like yeah. My thing is that the worse the cantaloupe is for someone who likes cantaloupe, yeah, then the more okay I am with it. The more it tastes good to people who like cantaloupes, yeah, the less I like it. Right, right, gotcha.
Yeah, yeah. Because I dislike the flavor of cantaloupe that other people like. Right, right. Yeah. So maybe I'll start with you because I've known you a long time.
What are things that you hate that don't make sense to people? Raw walnuts. Really? Yeah. Toasted walnuts.
Were you with us? Were you with us when we had McGee's walnuts? Say it thing. McGee's nuts. Was he with us with that?
I don't think so. Yeah. Those are good walnuts. Why, the tannins? I don't know what it is.
It's just there's something about raw walnuts. It just like doesn't, yeah. So, but what about when what what about when they're cooked? Once they're cooked, they're fine for me. Yeah.
What about like in a baked good? In a baked good, fine. But really. If they're raw and in large chunks, it's like a little off putting for me. But of course, like anything you don't like, if it's in the context of other stuff, it's gonna be more palatable.
Yeah, sure. Yeah, but if you hand me like just a raw walnut, I would have a hard time eating that. Wow. I'm being excited about it. I will eat it.
It's not like it's something absolutely disgusting for me. I'm not I don't have m have many food versions. Just because it's a brain shape? Something like that, yeah. You're like brains, fine.
Walnuts, no. Makes me think about ewoks. There we are. There we go. Back back to it.
Did it again? That's it though, walnuts? I mean, I have aversions that are I don't think people would find weird, but like, yeah, like certain offcuts I have a hard time eating, but I would I would eat. But like tripe. All the tripes?
Yeah, generally speaking, I have a hard time with tripe. Even when it's in tomato sauce? It just the concept of a tri of tripe in general. Oh, conceptually. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It does have one time, I think I said this on air, one time my my stepfather, my his father was a butcher. And his father's father and father's father before that, all the way back. So once after he'd retired, we're like, let's go for a family outing to a slaughterhouse. Yeah. So we went to a family out uh outing to a slaughterhouse, and the kill floor had a very specific smell to it.
Yeah. And then they bought tripe and took it home, and I could smell the kill floor that like because you know how they have to clean tripe. So the c the c the cleaning process that they tripe it went through when the tripe was there before it was sauced or anything like that, reminded me of the kill room floor, and I was like, nah, I can't. Yeah, yeah. It's then it took me a while to get back on the tribe train.
Yeah, I know. I'm I'm pretty off the tri tribe train. I mean, I'll eat it. If somebody makes it for me and they've made it themselves and gives it to me off, I'll eat it, you know. But like, yeah, it's not something I'd be excited about.
No. Yeah, yeah. And so yeah, there's various organs I'd have a that are like challenging for me. What's your least favorite organ? Uh I don't know if I have a single least favorite organ.
Give me your top three least favorite organs. I would say uh any of the nether regions, uh nuts. Nuts. So you don't like walnuts, penis, nuts, vagina, age. Wow, you're gonna be able to do it.
There we go. Let's do it. Yeah. Hey, Nastasia, I don't know if you remember this, but Peter Kim, habitual line crosser. You just asked what are those not organs?
They're organs. I said nether regions to try to do it in a way. Straight up to the line, and then Peter's right over the line. Well, I s my the line was nether regions, and then you asked me to specify. So, what's the next level of specification from nether region?
Tell me one level beyond that that's not actually saying the organs. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Do any of you remember the time that Nastasia and Anastasia took some some uh pork junk, pork pork nethers to a party, and then no one would cook it.
It was a room full of chefs and no one would cook it. Remember that, Staz. Not really. Also, why can't we say those words like on the show? They're not first word.
All right. Children is that the first one. Nastasi was going to a party on Long Island that was a barbecue, and you were supposed to bring your own meat. And so Nastasia went to the store near the French Culinary Institute where we were working at the time. Yeah.
And bought a styro, first of all, all well-known chef buy a styro pack of hacked up, I believe it was I can't remember. I think it was cow penis. And brought it for them to cook, and they were like, we don't know what to do with this. Wow. And then it just rotted.
Wow. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And not in a good way.
I mean, look, if you'd handed that to me, that would have been the outcome for sure. Um you would have just thrown it on the grill, throw it in some marinade, throw it on the grill. I see what happened. I wouldn't want to cook it. I don't, I wouldn't, it I would not that would not be appealing to me.
It was hacked up into smaller pieces. But if it's like if you have a room full of stuff where people are like pride themselves on using all parts of the animal and everything, then I would say yeah, that would be yeah. Um but no, for me, like I just will freely admit that's just a piece that I will let go to waste. What about let it waste? What about what let it waste?
What about what about ears? Ears are fine. What well how do you like your ear? Crunchier soft crisp. Okay.
Really? Yeah, yeah. Uh you know what? Sometimes I think people take the crispy too far on the ear. I don't want to taste raw.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had some Ore Hot Tacos recently, and the cartilage inside was like I guess I'll say al dente. It's a lot.
I just couldn't. It's a lot. I wanna was expecting just a lot softer. I love that, but yeah, that crunch inside was not what I was looking for. Crunch inside.
Yeah. All right. So Stas, you haven't given me uh anything on this weekend this week. What do you got for me so far? Yeah, I hosted my uh monthly party on Friday that I do with Jeff Gordonaire from Esquire, and we had uh the team from Tamale's Elena um cook it.
They're like a twenty-year-old family from watch that cooks amazing, amazing Mexican food. Wait, wait, wait. They're in their twenties or they've been doing this for twenty years. Twenty years they're family. Okay.
Yeah. I mean uh they've been cooking as a family for twenty years. All right, right, yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay, okay.
Yeah. And and they are nostalgia approved like masa to filling ratios. Yeah. Yeah. They made a lot of amazing tamales and Fazole.
I'm not gonna pronounce it the way Peter does because you know, that's his heritage, not mine. I won't say today. Wow. Um guys were laughing in unison at the same like rhythm. Are you like pheromoning each other?
Yeah, but Peter Kim is the Alex Trebeka the food world with the pronunciation for sure. Oh come on. I speak Spanish. Doesn't matter. Yeah, I know, Peter.
But Peter, Peter came to my parents' house and they had made tamales, and we live on off a street called Badillo, and like, you know, he's talking to my dad, and he's like, the tortilla in badillo. My dad's like a big thing. Oh yeah, because suddenly I'm Italian. I'm Italian. Yeah, Stas.
Do it Do it with the do it with the Spanish lisp. The tortilla with the batillo, hey. Tortilla, tortilla. Oh god. That's Peter Kim for you, man.
Yeah, yeah, of course. I was about to say something nice about Nastasia, but I'm gonna take it back. Oh yeah, that wouldn't be the first time. Wait. Wait.
The party was really good. And we what then as opposed to Peter's parties, we don't eat very much. We just let people eat. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. All right. Nice. So wait, so uh, do you guys do desserts? What was your dessert game here?
What are you talking to? You. At the party. Do you do a dessert game? Yeah, yeah.
What what was it dessert? Yeah. The chef is supposed to do it there, and they did a uh they did a a tamale, uh, corn tamale with uh uh whipped cream. It was really good, and then we had ice cream. So filled or unfilled the uh the dessert tamale?
Filled with corn. Sugar in the masa dough or not in the masa dough? In the masa dough. Nice. Nice.
Sounds like a very good tamale. Hey, somebody touch a my tomality. Okay. I like how Nastasia fell asleep for a second there when right when you asked the dessert question. Yeah.
She was like, I'm gonna tell them about the party and then just shut off. What? Still talking about the party? What? Oh yeah.
Uh so hold up. And uh what what beverages uh now do you do like wine or are you like uh a beer throughout for or uh cocktails? We have it all. So we had um Mexican sparkling wine. Well, we had all wines from Mexico, and then we had a mezcal, a Maris Mezcal, uh brought their stuff and made like four cocktails with it.
So yeah, it's a full-on, the full-on meal. Full on. That's like uh what was that song that Steingarden uh not Steingarden, Soundgarden used to play full on Kevin's mom? Steingarden and you imagine Jeffrey Steingarden playing in Soundgarden I'm trying to imagine him saying that. Dave, I think you can do it.
I'm not gonna do it on air. Do Black Hold Sun. I will do it for you guys in private off air. I will do Steingarden as Chris Cornell singing. Which one do you want?
Black Hole Sun? Yeah. Yeah. Oh my god. Jeez, Louise.
So uh how are the Mexican wines? Uh good. I only have the sparkling. I'll drain these things I like work the whole time, you know, and I actually didn't eat much or drink much. So I heard everything was really good though.
That's good. I was at a um, I was at a uh a restaurant with uh McGee in the Presidio and uh man the name just went out of my head. Dalida. Dalita? Dalida.
Anyway. Uh uh. And um they have uh like a lot of Palestinian, Armenian, Georgian, and they have one, I think one Iranian wine on. And McGee was like, hey, they have an Iranian wine here. It's illegal to make wine in Iran, so usually they ship the grapes across the board.
And so we ask them, and they're like, yeah, they're like wild grapes because they're not like culturing them, and they go across the border in bulletproof vests, get the grapes, come back and make the wine, and we're like, is it any good? They're like, no. But it's really expensive. Yeah. Yeah.
We didn't have that. Yeah. We had a, I think we had an Armenian wine. It was good. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. But like it's so funny. It's like the like everyone in the restaurant knew the story about the bulletproof vest. How's it taste?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, bad. You know. Turns out that if you care for the grapes, you make a better wine. Yeah.
Or, you know, as uh Peter would say it in Spanish, you make a better wine. Uh geez, Louise. Okay. Uh and what about you, Quinn? I know you've been, I know you've got some stuff.
You you know, Quinn recently uh purchased a uh control freak with his own cash. So are you now loving life having the control freak around the house, Quinn? Yeah, yeah. We we've uh I don't know if we've unlocked the full potential, but uh video game? What do you mean?
Very fun to work with. What do you mean unlocked? Do you have to put the special button I need to know about? Yeah, but I mean like we haven't like used a ton of recipes that like call for the exact precision, like your camera's onions. But yeah, we've been really liking it.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's good for crap like that. I use it all the time. I never used a probe because I don't care.
I never use like I don't use I don't use it. I don't use it for frying. Yeah. You know, there used to be a uh a car called the Ford Probe. And the advertisement for the Ford Pro Ford probe was nothing's hotter than a hot new probe.
I was like, what? Yeah. What? Yeah, anyway. And then I saw a Ford probe on the street the other day, and it was like an old probe, and I was like, mmm, probe don't age well.
You know what I mean? You don't wanna you don't want to get any part of that old probe. Anyway, uh so uh what have you been cooking then if if you haven't been putting the control freak through its paces? By the way, they gave us no money. I actually did some Yeah.
We actually did some live fire cooking. We did uh some lamb chops over charcoal, and then we brushed them with well, we had two sort of options in my brother found a packet of I think Cantonese 13th spice that we like made a little mixture with that and brushed it on at the end and then we also is it like is it like Ross Alhano where they just scrape some beetle eggs off the roof of their like shop and like put it in so it could be a hundred like we only have a hundred spices get some beetle eggs do you think the beetle eggs add any flavor to those Ross Ross Alnut mixtures? I have no idea. I'm not familiar. I've been if it's in it, I traditionally I just generally my default assumption is it's there for a reason.
Well but like people get into these one upsman ship things where they're just like we only have 13 spices. I have 35. You know what I mean? And after a while, you can add stuff that just has no flavor and it's just there. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Or like when you mix like, you know, like a shotgun mixology where you just mix all of your ingredients into one and it tastes like cocktail. Yeah. Well no matter what you mix, you can only reach 100%, right? So like yeah like more spices means less of other kinds of spice.
Yeah yeah. Anyway, so uh is 13 spice taste roughly like five with some extra stuff added uh yeah but I don't have a familiarity with five spice either to make a direct comparison but it worked well with the lamb and then a separate batch we brushed on with the the homemade uh KFC blend which worked actually really well with the lamb we've had this discussion about KFC blend. So I will not go into it again. I will not go in a KFC rant again. You cannot make me uh although, do you remember, Peter, that we found that old book at all that had an interview with Colonel Sanders that was also horribly racist to bring back this whole full circle?
Do you remember that? I don't remember. Nastasi and I had it Xeroxed and taped up on the wall at uh at the Eldritch Street, Booker and Dax. Ooh, Eldridge Street. Was that real, Dave?
That was real. That was a real that was a real interview with Harlan Sanders. I forget exactly what he said that was like, you know, but he was sitting there, not yet dead. Yeah. You know, he interesting character.
I mean, uh, aside from again, despite the racism. I he I don't know how bad of a racist he was. It just the interview was kind of weird, right? But you know, he was until relatively late in his life, not doing well, and then started uh started the whole that whole thing later, late in life. So, you know, career changes.
I hope for all of us. Yeah, all you need to do is have that weird white outfit. There you go. Get made a Kentucky Colonel. You know what I mean?
Drink a lot of bourbon, and you're good. Yeah. You know what I mean? As it happens. Yeah.
Uh all right. Let me oh well, one more thing. Okay. I did also make a raspberry survey. So once I do one more chance, I should have a calculator up for the page right now.
Oh my god, now you have Raspberry Beret in my head. I can't get that song out of my head. That song's never gonna leave my head. How about this one? Jub jub, but thanks, Peter.
It's once Prince O gets in your head, it's hard to get it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Oh, one more thing.
Uh that uh so for the people who've been listening to the recent shows, ever since Matt Sartwell was on talking about A. B. Marshall's book on ice creams. I've I have a standing eBay search for antique ice cream makers, hoping that I will find uh a Marshall Patton freezer at some point because it's wider, it's wider than it's like the chode of ice cream freezers. It's wider than it is tall and it freezes from the bottom, chode style.
And um the and but in my searches, it turns out that for kids, Betty Crocker and somebody else, I forget, used to make a kid's ice cream maker, where it's a reverse ice cream maker. Have you guys ever seen this? So it's an aluminum drum that you put salt and ice into you pour the mix into the bucket that the drum sits in and you rotate the ice mixture instead of the stuff. I don't know how the scraping works, but it says that it has a three-minute batch time, which means if the scraper is good, it makes better ice cream than 99% of all the ice cream makers, or theoretically makes better ice cream than 99% of all the ice cream makers out there. Three minute batch time is ridiculous.
Are you sure it's not a snippy snow cone? It is not. I used to own one of those. They never worked like I wanted them to. I never maybe I just suck.
You know what I mean? Anyway, I've never had much lu luck with hand grated ice. Machine graded ice, yes. The Japanese ice shaver that Nastasia and I bought and I threw on my back and we took home, and that Mark Ladner said that Nastasi and I like carrying heavy things far distances, which is Stas. Is that correct or incorrect?
Yeah. Wait, but you had a whole thing. Yeah, horrible thing. It's a horrible thing. Yeah, yeah.
I saw you know, and I had it in my in my house for you know, many years. It's now in Stourage, as they say. Yeah. Um Museum of Dave. Yeah.
Do you know what the Stassi and I, the last thing that we did together was throw away our company history into a trash container. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Strangely sad and liberating at the same time.
You know? We're like, oh, there's uh 15 years of my life. Let's just throw it into a giant bin. You know what I mean, Stas? Good times.
Is that when you deleted the website? Or your email? Uh my email still exists. Yeah, no, but you guys had an issue. No, no.
Dave, remember when I accidentally deleted all of Dropbox and you went around playing all the wires in your hands. Yeah, Nastasia's like, Nastasia's like, I can't I can't afford another terabyte of storage. Let's erase Booker and DAX. Yeah. Well, you now you know where it sits in her priorities.
Well, I've always known that. Yeah, yeah, there you go. 999 or 15 years of my life. Spending 999. Spending 999.
Uh all right. So uh let's get let's get on. So we've talked a little bit about Infinite Table. In September, which is not that far away. Yeah.
Not that far away. Uh you have a book coming out. Now give me the title of the book. Instant ramen kitchen. Kitchen.
Kitchen. Instant ramen kitchen. Yeah, yeah. Um, so uh in I have the galley of the book. It's a n uh it's a very very nice book.
Yeah, thank you. Uh let me uh read a quote from it. Uh Ramen has instant ramen, sorry, excuse me. Instant ramen has always been cheap junk food for college students and stoners. And I quote, Peter Kim says Yes, nice.
Yeah, it's kind of the opposite. Yeah, exactly. Opposite opposite. Yeah, it's amazing whenever you see it, people talk about instant ramen in a news article. It's like I just hold my breath and wait for them to say it.
There's gonna be some reference to dorm food, stoner food, or one of those two, like starving college kid. And it's like, okay, first of all, it's just like a tired cliche, like just be more creative. Yeah, give me a new cliche. Give me a new cliche, yeah. But also it's like it totally does not recognize the fact that for a lot of people, it's not some kind of like stoner or dorm food.
It's just part of like what you eat, you know. And I think that just like reflects a certain perspective that for people who didn't grow up eating it like I did, and for like many people around the world who grow up eating it, they just don't understand that it's actually just like a staple food for a lot of people. Yeah. Now uh if you were gonna come up with a new cliche, like who would you smear with it? Wow.
This is like this is the big like trap here. Yeah. Peter, Peter, yeah. Peter. So airlines have finally gotten like smart that they should serve ramen because they have hot water on planes.
You should do some kind of collaboration with like uh spirit or frontier or something. Yes. I mean, the problem is is that they have to do it in a very tall format because nothing says F my lap like ramen in a bowl. Yeah, turbulence. Yeah, but it's a cup ramen.
Like I've never been served soup. Right. I've never been served bowl soup. No. But you know, if you've ever flown on like Korean air, you would know like the thing that many people don't know, but you can do on Korean air is you can always order a cup ramen and they'll bring it to you with the hot water.
And it's often way more delicious than anything you get on another airline. Now, actually, Korean food does lend itself well to airline food. I mean, I have a whole thing about airline food that we've probably already talked about, but like yeah. Go ahead. You have sixteen minutes and six seconds.
Well, I just think like first of all, like I I I feel like there's a few categories of foods that airlines should serve. Like one is anything that was like developed to actually hold well on its own, like a tamale. Right. Not a western omelet. Tamale.
Not a western omelet. Terrible. Yeah, no. Why? That has to be done a la minute, you know?
But like so and then hot hot chicken breast. No, why? And then like, then any stew works great. That's why like Indian food is wonderful on an airplane. Of course, I recognize not everybody wants to eat that all the time.
I mean, there is an issue. I mean, it works well with that too, but there's an issue with like with your salt perception because of the dryness and all that stuff. But anything braised or stewy is gonna work great. Also, anything that's like meza-like, right? Anything that's gonna works well cold.
So that's why Turkish food's great on an airline, or like Korean food. It's like all these like cold salads. And then the one thing that's warm is the bowl of rice, which is super easy to deliver hot and perfect. Because it wants to stay that way. Exactly.
And so then like I'm like, why not why don't airlines focus on these foods that are like, yeah, mezza, uh braised thing, stews, or like street foods basically that are meant to be held that way. And also, well, I don't really I've never really researched the I mean Nastasia knows more about the galley on a plane than any of us because she's gone through the training, but I've never researched like how that stuff works. But holding rice is a lot less energy intensive than holding some of the other foods that they have, you know, because it can be held in bulk. Yeah, exactly. And and with a tamal, literally what you need is a cooler.
And I know that because that's what you see everywhere. Bring a cooler on the airplane and then just they're will be warm and perfect, you know. Anyway, so yeah. At some point, some airline's gonna hire me to do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But speaking of coolers, Nastasia, for your dinner parties, can you order a bunch of my books to use as separators for the food? It will help me out. That's how she uses my stuff like that. Yeah. Um, yeti's giving us a bunch of coolers.
Ironic, right? Why is that ironic? Oh. I like that. I like Yeti.
Uh I was supposed to work with them, but somebody who shall remain nameless, but their name is Quinn. Yeah, yeah. Hasn't gotten back in touch with them yet. Yeah, yeah. To get us a stuff.
I'm not gonna say who they are. I'm not gonna say who it is, but it's Quinn. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Uh so um wait. So back to the book for a second. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So one of the things, so if you want to get this book, here's some here's some things to look for. One, you have a strange Venn diagram of nationalities and spices that is correct, but it only allows any nation to have two spices.
Except someone gets three. I forget who it is. One or two people get three. I forget who they are. Yeah, I mean, that's just meant to basically like uh one of the larger themes of the book is to encourage people to just uh be more playful and open minded about just flavors they put into the instant ramen.
And I just I think my main goal with that was just to give people a sense that you can evoke a very wide range of flavor profiles with just a handful of flavors. Yeah. And then you also have a a salt, like a salt tree saltry, a salt diagram where you're like, first of all, is a one slice of American cheese really that salty? Like that's like the Uber salt that you have on it. You're like, uh you know, it however much uh miso and then like a slice of American cheese is way out on the edge of the salt wrap.
But then if you look in Peter Kim's diagram, you'll see how much broccoli you need to add to mellow out how much cheese. Yeah. So you want to talk about like Well, yeah. I mean, like, I think so an interesting thing I was trying to thread with this book is to make it super approachable for somebody who just never cooks, you know, and then also give it enough uh depth for people who do cook to inspire some new ideas with instant ramen. And I do think that one of the most basic things about home cooking that sometimes home cooks have struggle with is salinity, right?
And uh seasoning. And uh and a reason why instant ramen is such a powerful tool for home cooking is because it mostly checks the box of making sure your food is seasoned. And there you've already you've already got that, plus the umami, of course. And then the only thing, the only variable is really like how much stuff you put in. And I've just I know, I mean, just from my own anecdotal experience, I've seen people who just put way too much stuff into their instant ramen and then you've negated the value of like that seasoning sachet, because now you need to add seasoning to balance out the fact you've added all this non-salty stuff.
So you think it's like Pete said too much is too much? Yeah, I mean, it's just basically introducing the principle of balancing non-salty and salty ingredients, or just making sure you add salt to appropriately season uh anything added in. And then if you do add a lot of salty things, then just you have to be careful. Like you might need to dilute it or put something that's less salty in. Hey, Nastasi, do you remember when we were out to dinner with Peter Kim and Williams?
Oh God, no, no. Oh, yeah. And this kid, this kid look this kid looks at Peter with these big eyes, these big, like, you know, you know, eyes of uh admiration. What do you think of the food in our restaurant? Overcooked and under seasoned.
Because I became the emperor in that moment. The emperor decides to go here. No, he would be more like overcooked and under seasoned. That's actually really good. That's really good.
Yeah. Anyways. It was. I know, but they didn't need to know that. I still want to make a t-shirt that says overcooked and underseasoned.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what's better? What's worse? Overcooked and overseasoned or undercooked and overseasoned. Oh.
Yeah. Well, what what what what okay? That's a good question. What's the item? You're right.
I guess it depends on like whether it'll kill you to be undercooked, right? Or I you know what the things I'm never worried about dying. I'm more worried that I just like I can't choke through it. Like some things when they're under, I'm like, Yeah. All right, let's talk about let's just take steak.
Oh. Under uh under undercooked overseasoned. Yeah, yeah. Any day. Yeah.
Because the more you the more you undercook it, the more I just want like salt and pepper. Then it's not undercooked though. It has to be undercooked for what you like it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, a lot of people like what I consider to be an undercooked steak. Like I'm not a black and blue guy. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah. But it has to be undercooked relative to your ideal, like your preferred duck. So I like it just past squashy. I don't really want squashy. There you go.
So let's imagine it's squashy. Yeah. And then like heavily seasoned, like over seasoned, yeah. Or it's like a puck. Oh, but you know when that's terrible?
When it gets cold. Yeah. Cook cooked, undercooked steak, cold, so it's both squashy and has congealed beef fat on the outside of it. And that and the slices are sticking together. Yeah, yeah.
No. Yeah, yeah. No, thank you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I think both ends are pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah. But I think well, this was overcooked and under that's pretty rough.
Yeah. Because then you're just like your mouth isn't even making enough saliva to get it down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
They were super proud of that restaurant, man. Yeah. You crushed that kid's chance. Yeah. Yeah.
The g and then then Kid was like, how do you get how do you get into the food industry? Peter's like, don't. It's not exactly what I said. The person in question wanted was like, I want to stash at Noma. And I was like, that's great.
Like, maybe you should think about something else. And like, not that anything against NOMA, but it's like, you know, let's be realistic here. And like what I told him was the best thing you could do is like specialize in something that other people don't have a specialty in and become the person who's for that. So if that that could be Koji, like in the case of our friend Rich, or it could be mushrooms or something, just go and like do a deep dive into that and then make yourself immensely useful to the food world. And then maybe because you're the go-to because you're the go-to person for that.
Yeah. And by the way, you can get out of what you were the go-to person. So like for years, because I did the ham thing, I was the ham guy. Yeah. Everyone was like, oh, you're the ham guy.
Yeah. You know what I mean? And then whenever anyone opened a restaurant and they wanted to do ham, they would call me. You know what I mean? Uh and then, you know, I'm a cocktail guy.
You know, like, no, I'm just a guy. You know what I mean? But like uh, you know how people are. I think that's just a much more interesting way to try to work your way into the food world than like just going straight down the middle and be like, I'm gonna grind it out and starge my way up to Noma, you know? Yeah.
Well everybody else is trying to do that. That's why uh, you know, people like find a niche that you find interesting that isn't incredibly overpopulated. Exactly. Find the negative space in general. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, now another interesting part of this book that I go. No, is I'm serious. It's like tasting notes on all the different ramens, yeah, like the brands and like the the tasting notes. I can't struggling to remember specific tasting notes, but like it's very sommelier style tasting notes. But like not can not pretentious, but like you know, this one is like so so you want to run down like your your basics.
Yeah, I mean, so part of like I wanted to implicitly make clear, like this is like a food product like any other, and indeed, like there is a difference between um top ramen and maruchan and saparo ichiban, and they're not totally interchangeable. And so yeah, I did a lot of tasting of like the broths, and I'd like to taste it one day, taste the next day, taste the next thing. And then noodles. And the noodles too. So on the broths, like I'd say like generally speaking, um sapro ichiban has a much more multifaceted flavor profile, and they put a lot more like peppery flavors in.
Um and then maruchan, interestingly, I realized actually has a lot of like celery seed notes in their in their um powders. Um and then in terms of the noodles, um, and this actually makes sense based on the ingredients. They have uh I think it's tapioca starch they add in or something, but it just gives it more of like a two. Um and then to accentuate any konsui notes? Yeah, I'm not sure.
Um, and then uh they all have consui in them. But that's interesting because they have consue, but at the same time they've been fried to make them extremely porous. So that's like one thing makes them hydrate and like soften very quickly, but the other obviously there's like whoops. Are they percause I haven't tasted one like on its own in a long time? Are they perceptibly alkaline?
Because you know, like like a lot of like the the ramen shops here, like the new wave ramen shops are like highly alkaline. Like I don't remember them being highly alkaline. No, no, you don't get a like a heavy like pretzelly flavor on any of them. Um but yeah, there are there definitely are like mineral salts in the in the noodles and the same ones that it would be in consue. Um and then yeah, like top ramen and maruton have very similar tasting noodles, but I detected just like a slight nuttiness to the maraton noodles that the top ramen ones didn't have.
Think it's just a fry difference? I have no idea. Yeah, I don't know. It's hard to say because like basically I'm going off of my like my senses, and then the ingredients are all mashed together, so then you don't even necessarily know what's going to which, right? Um, and so it's not broken out.
Um but yeah, no, there's definitely like interesting differences uh between the different different brands. And like your your cooking chart. So a lot of it is like, you know, what size thing to put in at what point to keep the prep time as low as is practicable. Yeah. Yeah.
Um Yeah, then that's because like so one thing that's like a pep pee for me is seeing anybody doing uh up level your instant ramen or elevate your instant ramen or ramen made Michelin star style, instant ramen, you know. And then they present a recipe that takes 45 minutes and like three pots and like your Vitamix to make instant ramen. And I'm like, have you totally lost the whole point of instant ramen? Stick your wagyu steaks into the Vitamix. Like just cook with just cook then, you know what I mean?
The whole point of instant ramen is that's a shortcut, right? And so I put these hard constraints on my recipe development that were like everything has to be maximum 20 minutes from when you walk in the kitchen, maximum 10 ingredients, only one pot. You allow some pre prep on stuff, like chasu, like you're like Is that your thing by the way? The chasu bacon thing? That's mine, yeah.
So you know, Peter takes like bacon, wraps them up into pinwheels, and then cooks and braises them and then slices the pinwheels into well, you can describe it better than I can. It's your recipe. It's pretty accurate though. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
And it turns out great. Um, the bacon like fuses together and it has like a chasu look to it from like the pinwheel thing, and then why don't you put that crap into your carbonara? Is because you can't stand having bacon in a carbonara. You'd rather have no meat at all in your carbonara than add bacon. It's carbonara-ish.
So the point of that one is that it that is the fastest recipe. It's like you just what John's gonna do at his restaurant now. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, exactly. So you want to describe this?
You want to describe the uh the Society when you talk about anything being Italian. Italian, um, you gotta give me a Spanish accent. There you go. Um there's always uh a lot of haters about like authenticity and whatnot. So yeah, I definitely call it Carbonara-ish because it is it very loosely resembles carbonara.
But um, but yeah, basically what happens is you have your bowl, and in the bowl the eating bowl. Your eating bowl, you put half of your seasoning sachet, you drop a slice of American cheese. Do you have a preferred brand? Kraft. Okay.
Craft. Okay. Yeah. Um, and then um, and then after that, you just you cook your noodles and you drop in an egg. Sorry, no, you don't drop in the egg with the noodles, but you you cook the noodles and then pull the noodles out when they're done, drop it into the bowl with the seasoning sachet and the American cheese and an egg, whip it all together, and then the little piece de resistance is putting the dried veggie bits on top as like as a textural contrast.
The whole thing, the whole mess takes about four minutes. If I if I have some of your chassou bacon lying around, can I put that on? You could put it on, yeah. But that one is really, really like a speed recipe, so that's why I didn't have it like render out the fat and like cook the bacon. Two more minutes, two more times.
Yeah, there we go. All right. Uh and then uh so th that's basically an elaboration on your mac and cheese, but that one you use evaporated milk. So how how does that one turn out? Compare it to craft.
I think it's more delicious, far more delicious. Well, can I just say this? I don't really like craft macaroni check. No, it's not good. Is there any way to fix craft macaroni and cheese so it's not so thin?
Just add less milk? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. But then you the cheese sauce just adheres to the noodles, and you don't actually end up with like this creamy sauce around it.
It's one of the more disappointing things that everyone else seems to like. I know. John's agreeing with over here, right? Oh no, I'm disagreeing. Do you love it?
Yeah, I mean, I don't love it, but I have some in my cupboard at home. Yeah. And you make it? Yeah. Do you short do you short the milk?
A little bit, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's a good idea. Obviously, I'm like jazzing it up a little bit, but yeah.
What, Quinn? You gotta get the extra creamy variety of craft. Uh like Volveita. You know, just you'll buy two packs, throw away one of the noodles, and like, you know, add enough product to it. But I like this evaporated milk idea.
Like, you know, I'm gonna so you another thing Peter does is uh he breaks up to form a quote unquote couscous and he makes like a uh how do you pronounce the the fidd fidway how do you how do you pronounce that? Fidewa. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he makes those, but uh the one that I thought was super uh fun idea that I because I've never had noodles in a conceptual is the noodle shaksuka, the ramen shaksuka. Good.
It turns out great. And Quinn would appreciate it because the eggs are cooked in it. He he says that what I do is not real because I coach my eggs and then put them in at the table so everyone can have exactly as much egg as they want. And Quinn's like, not chucksuka. Yeah, yeah.
I'm like, all right, Quinn man, you do you, I'll do me. There you go. You know what I mean? Yeah. All right.
So we in the 13 seconds left. What do we want to say about infinite table? Oh, by the way, if you want to find it on the internet, it's www.the number eight table.com. Because you know what? You can't type an infinity symbol.
You can't type an infinity symbol. Thanks, Peter. Thank you, Dave. All right. Cooking issues.
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