Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues, coming to you live from the Heart of Manhattan Rocket Fellow Center, New York City News Stand Studio, joined as usual with John. How are you doing? Doing great, thanks. Got Joe Hazen rocking the panels.
What's up? Hey, hey, hey. Shake it, shake it. Doing well. We do not have uh Jackie Molecules, but we do have Nastasia the Hammer Lopez for the beginning part of the show down in Los Angeles.
How you doing? I'm good. Good. And holding down the upper left corner, uh, we have Quinn. What's up?
Hey. Hey. Good. Uh if you have any questions, if you're listening on Patreon, have any questions, call your questions in 2917-410-1507. That's 917-410-1507.
And I'll say a little programming note. I will not be here next week, not because of the holiday, which is actually on the Monday, but because I will be in Cologne talking about Jaegermeister to a bunch of German bartenders. Whoa, that's awesome. You're gonna drink some Kolsch? Uh hell yeah.
I mean, I have to say, like, if you're gonna get shipped to Germany, right? Get shipped to the place where they have the little beer glasses and not like Moss beer. I'm sorry, Germany. That's just gross. How many days are you saying?
You know, Stas. Have you how many how long ago have you met me? One. No, I mean one. Well, here's here's the issue.
Like, there is no direct flight to Cologne, period, from New York. So I have to fly to Frankfurt. So in other words, it's always a plus one day, so I I've already can't do what I normally do and like fly in, touch the ground, do my demo, and get back on an airplane and and uh get back. So I'm actually not coming back until Friday morning. So yeah.
Yeah. But I haven't thought about Jaegermeister since college. What are you gonna be doing? I'm glad you asked that, Johnny. So Nastasia Lopez and I, years ago, back before Jimmy Fallon got his uh like the fancy late night gig and he had the late late night gig, he was allowed to talk about his alcohol likes and dislikes.
And turns out Jimmy Fallon, he likes it the Jaegermeister. Okay. So uh Nastasia and I uh when we were this is the when we got given the rotovap by Bukey back when Bukey USA used to be like European Bukey and give stuff away. Remember that guy? Robert Crady.
Remember him, Stas? Crotchfest. Crot yeah, Crotchfeld, Robert Crotchfeld. That was his name. Robert Crotchfeld.
Anyway. So we made flaming Jaegermeister for Jimmy Fallon, and I have to tell you something. Delicious. Delicious. Let me wrap your see.
I think Jaegermeister gets a particular attitude in the US because it's like, you know, Jaeger bombs, Jaeger bombs. Right. However, it is fundamentally from a flavor standpoint, relatively plug and play swappable with Amaro. Right? It's a Krautcher liqueur or a Krautra, a Kreuter.
I don't know how they pronounce it right, because I haven't taken German in 30 years. But it's relatively swappable back and forth. So I'm gonna do a burnt Jaeger. I'm gonna do a uh a carbonated, like uh a Jaegermeister spritz, which is delicious, by the way, with champagne acid. I'll give you guys specs when I get back.
And then uh maybe shake it with a cream syrup and a little rum. Anything that would work with an Amaro, you can make it work with Jaegermeister, right? But their hero shot. By the way, for those not in the industry, anyone who comes up with a liquor, they're like, what's the hero pour? Because for some reason, cocktails and heroes have to be somehow aligned.
Makes no sense. I'm stupid. But uh the the hero pour is just an ice cold, ice cold shot. That's literally their their hero pour. So it's moved away, even on a corporate level in Europe, from being like like a proper like digestive or you know, anyway, whatever.
Yeah. 56 herbs. So anyway, so that's what uh that's what I'll be doing. Uh what do you guys and last week I was in North Adams, uh, Massachusetts with the family, so I didn't do much cooking. So what do you guys got from a cooking standpoint?
I've been eating really delicious melon. Oh, yeah. What kind? Bonnie melon. Describe now, you know I'm not a melon guy, so you're gonna have to tell me.
It's kind of feels like it tastes between a a honeydew and a cantaloupe. It's got the color and worst of both worlds. It's I think it's delicious. Um yeah, I do hate honeydews. Really?
Yeah. But this one had the texture and color of cantaloupe, but that like sour brightness of honeydew, and it was really great. What does the outside look like? Netted? Is it netted?
Yeah, netted like green and yellow. Yeah, and is it uh like what is it like is it round or is it uh football shaped? Round, pretty small, too. Small, okay. So like, uh I don't know what size it is.
It's not uh there's no there's no sports. It's like the size of the Mexican ball game from like, you know, Aztec Maya times. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
All right. Yeah. But different than a musk melon? I've not had a musk melon. It's a great word.
Well, well, weren't we talking about that the cantaloupes were we haven't actually had a cantaloupe, a true cantaloupe since the 70s because it's been overtaken by the musk melon from the uh somewhere uh in i in Asia, they've crossed the um the the the fruit and the cantaloupe is on it's hard to find now, a true cantaloupe. I vaguely remember this conversation, but because I care so little about melons of any type, it just one of those things that like people, uh it just went out of my head. You know what I mean? No tangent Tuesdays on cooking issues. I believe you.
Yeah, it looks like it. So is it Bonnie like Bonnie Prince Charlie with a Y or like I with the Y. Yeah. Yeah. Nice.
Uh sweet. Are they are they super expensive? No, they're like four dollars a pound. I mean, I guess that's no, that's good. There's another one that's going around right now, the Zer Zerbani melon coming from Italy, and that one's really good, but that's like $17 a pound.
Come on. Swear. What does it do for a living? Don't know. It's outrageous.
Like, you know, your Bonnie melons here say, oh, I'm for a pound. I'm already expensive for a melon compared to watermelon. Hey yo, I'm 17. Well, what do you what do I get for the extra It's like a really good cantaloupe? And that's from Italy.
Is it $15 more a pound? Or to put it in other terms, like how like what is that, four almost five times more money? Yeah, I don't know. I got it as a sample once and it was delicious, but I would never buy it. It's crazy.
Rich man's melon. Yeah. Yeah. Especially because these each melon I think is at least like two, two and a half pounds. So it's yeah, wild.
I mean, that's nothing compared to like Japanese or high end Japanese or high end like Taiwanese or Korean fruit. Which, you know, a melon for under $200. What are you? What do you pour? You know what I mean?
It's like crazy, but like uh yeah. All right. Um I wish I liked melons because I understand that people love them. Yeah. Just not everyone has their thing.
Yeah. That they don't like. Exactly. We said we were gonna start asking chefs when they come on what they hate, and then we we s we didn't do it ever. No.
We have to get back on it. You think it's mean to do that? No. We got time to build up to it because we don't have a guest until end of September, I think, with Jeremy Fox. So or mid-September, but yeah.
Yeah, mid-September's like next week. Two weeks. All right. Um about you, Stas, what do you got? I haven't really gone out to eat in a while.
Um I'm having another big party on Monday with the with Noah Gallatin and Ari Collander from Found Oyster and the bartender from Donna's, which means nothing to you guys because you don't live here. Um I'm excited about Spinal Tap. Somebody probably lives in LA who's listening to you. You excited about what? The new Spinal Tap movie.
Wait, what? There's a new Spinal Tap movie. Yeah. Is anybody dead from the original? I don't think so.
Oh my god. That's so good. Uh you know what? Nigel, what was his last name? Tufnell?
Is that his last name? Oh my god. What a great are they gonna like reissue like is it smell the glove? It's been so long since I've seen, or is it sniff the glove? I can never remember.
I'm gonna have to rewatch Spinal Tap. What a great movie. Remember when he here's what I don't understand. So he shoves a cucumber in his pants to make it look like his package is large. Yes.
And he walks through an airport, but he has it wrapped in aluminum foil, so it sets off the metal detector. But what's the point of wrapping the cucumber in aluminum foil before you put it in your pants? Is it so that you can eat the cucumber without washing it? But you're either gonna wash or peel the cucumber anyway. What's the aluminum foil for?
I haven't given it much thought. Maybe so that it doesn't if it breaks or whatever, it's with it contained, you know? I mean, what if someone punches him in the in the cucumber and it like he doesn't want to get cucumber seeds all over his maybe? I don't know. But uh, oh my god, that's such a good movie.
I didn't even know they were coming out. That's how much of a uh hole my head is in. But uh oh, the mini Stonehenge, remember the mini Stonehenge? Classic. That's our life.
Yeah, yeah. That's our life. Our life is mini Stonehenge. You know what I mean? Uh yeah.
And the other one was uh, I mean, like, everyone knows they turn it up to 11. I literally used to make equipment and people would make me renumber the dials from like from one to eleven. Ridiculous. Great. Well, I'm excited.
Is that coming out anytime soon? I think it's the ninth. Hmm. All right. Well, I love it.
Now I'll go well, you know what? Thanks for uh thanks for good thoughts. But no food, no food-related stuff, huh? The closest I could get with spinal tap was cucumbers. I can't remember any other food-related things from it.
Here's a random food thing about about traveling and like so. My brother-in-law, Travis, who's the photographer on liquid intelligence, number of other things. With the exception of possibly two states, he's had a grilled cheese sandwich in every state in the union. Every single state. He can't remember whether he has a South Dakota sandwich.
I think I think it's I think it's North Dakota and South Dakota, or maybe the two that he doesn't have. I'm not sure. But he needs to go get those sandwiches. And he's like, it doesn't count if someone mails him a sandwich. I was like, can I just I know someone there?
I can get them to mail you a sandwich. He's like, that does not count. You know what I mean? Every single state. And but not like fancy.
So Stas, you would actually like it. He doesn't care what they tasted like at all. You know what I mean? I'm like, which one's best? He's like, I don't I don't care.
Doesn't matter. He's like, I just want to have a grilled cheese sandwich in every every state. Maybe it's Hawaii's missing. Maybe it's Hawaiian North Dakota. I don't think he's been to Hawaii.
I've also never been to Hawaii someday. Unless I die. Uh what about you, Quinn? I know you got some stuff usually. Uh yeah, we did a not as much last few weeks.
I did make my the uh fresh herb gelato from my book, but I did take advantage of the actual um ninja machine blades to sort of streamline the process. So usually I blanch and puree whatever herb is in the recipe and then blend it right into the into the dairy base. But I did experiment with just shoving like very large pieces of herbs right into the container. And it does work if you process it once and then fully freeze it again, and then only serve it the second time. Right, because otherwise it'll oxidize like a mother.
Well, like I also just I did taste it after the first process, and uh the ninja machine, you know, power doesn't quite totally pulverize uh the herbs. Right, but I'm more I'm more interested in the little bit. I mean, I'm more interested in the oxidation factor, right? Because the reason you blanch it normally is because it oxidizes. Well, what first of all, what herb are you talking about?
Because it doesn't matter with parsley, just throw it in the blender. Like what like this time this time with basil. Yeah, so basil makes a difference, right? So basil makes a difference, obviously. Mint is the hardest.
Uh and par parsley is the easiest. Mint right now. Yeah. But it's still uh mint a nightmare. It's still doing the first freeze.
It's a complete nightmare in terms of oxidation. You know what I mean? Nightmare. Um so far, the basil is it's definitely less bright than like when I did it for the book with the full blanching. When you say when you say bright, yeah, wait, hold on a sec.
Before you before you go further, do you mean bright visually or bright flavor-wise? Visually. Yeah. I mean, the problem with the problem with blanching. Very good.
Problem with blanching is as as Harold McGee points out in The Curious Cook, which is out of print, sadly, but available at a reasonable price on uh you know any of your used book sites, you can stop pesto from turning, right? First of all, use the correct nut, right? So if you use a walnut, as delicious as I think walnuts are, they will cause your basil to oxidize at like you know, four times the rate as a pignoli will. Okay. So it's like the nut makes a difference that you use, but you can also blanch it as a way to, and also obviously when you're folding the pesto into the pasta and heating it with the hot pasta, you you're assuming that's what you're doing, and not one of these kind of pesto abominations that people make nowadays.
But the uh when you do that, like that also will do. However, he notes in his tasting that when you blanch the herb, and everyone knows this, you lose some of the high notes, right? Now maybe those high notes are tamped down by the freezing anyway, right? So my curiosity is that I imagine the color's gonna be a color difference in brightness for two reasons. One, you're not gonna leach the colors in because it's blending when it's frozen and not when it's wet, so there's gonna be less color leaching.
But I I also wonder if there is more. That's what I would guess. However, if the flavor transfer and color transfer is not as high because it's not as pulverized in as it would be if you blended it, blanched it and blend it, that might be overridden. The fact that a lot of the flavor is still locked up inside of the leaf particles. Does that make sense?
So regarding what I've just asked you, what do you what do you think? Okay, I think I think the ninja is a little bit of flavor. Again, if you do a full process, fully refreeze, and then process a second time to serve the particles of the herbs seem completely, you know, homogenized into the into the substance. Um the flavor seems really good to me. Like I didn't make another standard recipe to directly compare because I just, you know, we had a bunch of basil, so I made some basil gelato.
The color is gotta do that side by side claim. Gotta do that side by side. I do have photos of the original. Doesn't count. Obviously.
Doesn't count. Um visually the ninja technique gets a little dimmer darker, but it's still a very pleasant color. And honestly, it looks like a really good pistachio. Well, aside from our uh not your, but our uh Department of Health now, you know a good way to get color into that sucker is drop a couple drops of food coloring and bam, it gets bright and green. You know what I'm saying?
Yep. Yeah, I have a question. I have really good questions. All right. Not related to gelato.
Is this real question? Or or a makeup question. No, it's real. Okay, okay. No, it's real.
It's real from me. So because we've all opened places and we've all closed places. So what if you had closed more than you'd opened? That would be amazing. Well, yeah, anyway, okay.
Are there telltale signs in the first month, you think? When you open a place that this place is probably gonna close. Sure. Is there a guy named Dave Arnold involved? I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding. I'm curious. I'm serious. Uh you know, but the here here's why there are plenty of places that should close that don't. So it's hard to say, right?
So like I there's plenty of places that are quote unquote mon they're monetarily successful, and from the outside they're successful, and you know on the inside that they're just being held together by like the gravity of hatred. You know what I mean? And so um and they don't necessarily close. Uh you know, and maybe they get better over time. Although, like once once an entity is operational, it is very hard to change its culture because there's just no time and there's no will to do so typically.
So what do you what I mean, like, hmm? What do you think? Someone is saying in the Discord first month menu overhaul for sure. Josh Seaberg. Well, I'll give you the I'll I'll give you the the flip to that.
Sambar. Dave Chang opens Sambar, thinks he's gonna be selling fast food versions of like Korean burritos with shredded, you know, pork pork butt. And because you know, at that time everyone was cashing in on trying to cash in on something like that. He had had huge success with noodle bar, you know, kind of like uh, you know, doing doing that, and nobody bought it. And so he completely revamped the menu, did a late night menu, opened it up, changed the concept, and blam o you know what I mean?
Like he became hugely successful uh off basis of I think some and noodle, right? Um everything else kind of came after the book, all that, etc. That's also the exception to the rule, I think. Like that's I think that's rarer. Well, a f a first month menu overhaul means you did something wrong.
Yeah, right. But it doesn't mean that you can't fix it, right? Also depends on why you overhauled it, right? I mean, I think when you like another bad sign is when you here's something that I think is disastrous. When you spend so much money on pre-opening, and and the money partners want their ROI fast, and so like nothing gets funded as it's operating.
And so you get into this thing where you've spent all this money, but it's still not quite right, and then the taps close off, and then all of the people who need to make money that aren't the money people don't get paid, and then everybody wants to hightail it out. That you know what that's a recipe for? That's a recipe for the money partner shutting it down, dumping all of the losses into the old uh uh entity and then reopening a new restaurant that makes money that doesn't have any of the debt and writing it all off on their taxes. That's what that's a recipe for. Not saying that from experience, maybe.
The other thing is what's what's easier to fix? A bad back of house or a bad front of house? Oh wow, that's a great question. I think it depends on how complicated your menu is, right? And like how much how much is the bat how much is the is is that is your your head chef a name, right?
Like, in other words, are they are they do they have a say? Do they have an ownership stake? If if they have an ownership stake, if it's a chef-driven restaurant, then you're pretty hosed, right? Unless they're running, unless they're trying to get they're doing the push to change the back of house, but like what a nightmare, right? No one's willing to shut down for two weeks, figure out what the hell's going on.
You know what I mean? Front of house is front of house is also equally, I don't know. What do you think, Stas? You've done this a bunch of times. I think I I they're equally hard.
Um, but yeah, you're right. I think the biggest thing is no one's willing to close, figure it out, and then reopen because of optics and money, right? So yeah. Do you know I don't know. So you know how I'm terrible in meetings, Nastasia, like just the worst.
Yeah. Yeah. But one of the things that I'm the worst at, and I think it's getting back to your question, is everyone's like, why is why is he so hung up on this like stupid point that seems like minutiae when we're all just doing big picture talks? And I'm like, well, because I know for a fact that if we don't see eye to eye on some of this little stuff right now, everything will be a nightmare later. Like everything will be a nightmare later.
You know what I mean? And it's always like, oh, we'll figure that. It's like it's it's like it's like, you know, when it's nowadays you actually can fix it all in post. I take it back. Nowadays you can just make a crappy video and fix it in post because AI will do it for you.
But until such time as AI can fix your back of house in front of house for you, if if the money partner or like you e when you walk in and they're like, oh, it it'll be fine. You know, you're the chef. It's gonna be great. You're gonna enjoy it, we're gonna we're gonna treat you well, blah, blah, blah. We're not gonna ride over you, we're not gonna bla blah unless everything's like set up, and that's why you need to get into the minutiae, there's always gonna be a disconnect between the people doing the work and the people supplying the money.
And if there it when there is that disconnect, I mean, isn't that a recipe for disaster? Don't you always see that stuff? The people who have the money end up in the real world having the power. No matter what the contract says, the people who have the money and can keep the taps flowing until the sucker is self-sufficient, and the ones who have the lawyers and who did the l lawyering and got everything set up, they in the end have the power. And so any understanding you have with them is worthless unless you're willing to enforce it.
And when does that ever happen, Stas? You know what I'm saying? So I think getting I think the only time that's ever happened is with 11 Madison Park, right? Because the money people were like, all right, fine, we trust you too. That was the only time.
I think. Yeah. Well, I get and well, I mean the new money people, the people who bought it from Danny Meyer or the original. Yeah. Yeah.
No. Yeah. Back on meat, by the way. Levis and meaty meat park. Yeah.
Back on the meat. Yeah. Um I think also if the owners aren't w willing to like think of any change at this point and want to just keep like forging ahead, hoping and thinking it's gonna work. I think that's also a red flag. Just kind of like cutting off the taps and not willing to change and just really hoping that the concept works out.
I worked at a place that did that, and it was just so stupid they weren't willing to like reinvest into like the small changes and little things like that, and we're just so stubborn about it, and it was exactly what everyone predicted. Yeah. Or like, or like the other one is like people, I see this constantly, like back at the culinary school too, Stas, right? Not just restaurants, but people hiring folks and then not expect not respecting their expertise. Like, you know, you hire someone, you don't respect their expertise.
Why did you hire me? You're just burning a money hole because I'm not happy with what you're doing now, and you're not happy with what I'm doing. This is a waste. You know what I mean? So, you know, chef shouldn't think that they know everything about every aspect of of you know a larger operation.
Money person shouldn't expect that they know everything about what the chef does or what, you know, vice versa. You know, no respect for each other's skills, you know. Anyway, anyway. I don't know. That's also a recipe.
But what about like what are some telltales if you when you walk in? So like menu changes external, right? I have I have mine. I think it's uh when you see like different specials running like constantly after they've opened, like different, like look at this, you know, new weird thing, like that is uh I remember doing that with my restaurant. Right.
But what if what if it's an old school Italian family place where it's all about having specials every day though? So you're not saying not that, not those. Like gimmicky, weird, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
But so not, but like some places, right? That's a sign of success, like the McRib. But you're saying like when you're using the special to try something out because what you currently have just ain't doing it for you. You mean that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. What about what about like uh when the money partner is like, why don't you just make a burger? And they won't make the burger and then they finally make the burger. I mean, John, you're giving me the you're giving me the not.
Oh, geez, man. You know what? It's like what's hilarious is is that I feel almost like uh sometimes like an actor in a play. Don't you feel this way, Stas? Like when you're about to have a conversation that you know has been had by by a million people before you about exactly this in a restaurant, you know what I mean?
When when you're like, oh no, he's gonna come in and ask me to make a burger. And like he comes in and you're like, uh and then like you know why you can't ask X, Y, or you know what the story is, right? But you can't somehow get out of it. And so now you have to play the part of the human that has to argue against this thing that you don't care about at all. You know what I mean?
Oh my God, I hate it so much. It's like you know what I mean? Oh man. God's been getting so much press in the New York Times and other things lately, like the Chef Burger just stopped reading publications. God.
Oh man. Um what's not a sign that you're gonna fail is if if you're just like uh an Instagram hound and all of your stuff, that's a sign that you're gonna make money. You know what I mean? Like, I wish I was better at that crap. In terms of I wish I by better at it, I mean I wish I cared about it.
I should care about it because it makes money. It's so stupid to not care about things or to poo-poo things that make money. It's just I can't. And Stasi, you're like this too. You can't be bothered.
We need to hire people that are good at that, but we never have enough money to go and long term hire people who are good at it. You know what I'm saying? But it really does make a difference. Yeah, but I also think there's like a lot of really cool famous people who don't have who have zero social media, right? Yeah, but they're famous.
Who became famous in the last five years that has zero socials. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like it's like, you know, if you got it, you know, do what you want.
You know what I mean? Whatever. But I'm saying, like, I just wish that I wish that I had been given the social gene to be want to put, you know, put stuff out there. Cause I think it does make I think it does make a big difference. There's a place that opened nearby temperance, salt tanks.
I don't know if anyone's heard of it, but the salt salt tanks. Hank or tank? Hank H. It's a fella named Hank, and he's a salty dude. Uh I guess so.
Okay. But apparently he has a big TikTok presence. I have no idea who he is. But he opened up this uh French dip place uh on Bleecker Street. Unreal lines, like absolutely crazy.
All he serves is French dip sandwiches, drinks, and potato sticks. That's it. Potato sticks. The tiny things? Yeah, like the little matchstick things.
Oh Jesus. Yeah. So I'm gonna ask you this. Are you supposed to put them on the sandwich? He serves them on the side.
Uh-huh. I don't know. Stas, who's got the famous French dip in it. That's an LA thing anyway. So who's the what's the good one?
Felipe. Yeah. And it's and you like it, it's good. I think they're closing. Yeah.
I mean, I think it's good. Are they? Someone's closing. Oh, yes, the other one. Yeah.
But so this guy's opening like an LA style. I mean, a French dip is an LA thing, I'm pretty sure. It's on baguette with caramelized red onions, like a and horseradish mayo. Like it's it's pretty standard. Um, but the lines are absolutely ridiculous.
He sells out every single day. Um, line wraps around the block. I mean, it is yeah, it's just something else, but it's all I think it's all because he had the social media influence to to back it up. I don't think anyone God bless him. Yeah, no, but yeah, it's uh yeah, it's crazy.
Yeah. It's only open like Thursday through Saturday or something like that, too, now and it's just okay. Here's an old time is it good? Do you like it? No negatives, yeah.
I was listening it was good. I was hoping for better given like the blow-up around it. All right, here's this it wasn't dry, it was well put together. Because Hillstones makes a really good friend tip. Yeah?
Yeah. Very good. Hey, here's this. Must be nice. Remember that?
That's what every chef used to say all the time. Must be nice. Oh, not getting into work until 9 a.m. must be nice. Halfway.
Leaving before midnight must be nice. Half day. That's what everyone used to say back then. Oh my god, what a toxic toxic. Oh, so bad.
Yeah. But no, I mean it's just that just goes to show like how well that concept is working that it can bankroll whatever he's doing for so few days a week on Bleecker Street. Yeah, nice. Yeah, no, like good for him. Yeah.
Yeah. It's uh crazy. Social media wild things. Must be nice. Aye.
Okay. So I think uh people who listen on the Patreon, why don't you send what you think or in the Discord and we can talk about this again? Because uh, Stas, I think this is a multi, this game multi-week conversation, like cooking issues, like red flag alerts for uh remember who used to do that? Which website? It was always so mean, but they would have like a death watch on restaurants.
It was so mean. People have put like energy and thought into whatever they're doing. One of the websites used to have a death watch. Oh my god, so terrible, so awful. So we're not gonna do that, but we can talk about things to avoid that we have done.
Uh anyway, it almost always starts with the partners. The partners, there's always some poison pill amongst the partners in the open opening staff, and also, and and you know that what about this one, Stas? Not about things opening. Like, but what about the fact that whenever you open a place, your opening sta oh she's she had to leave? No.
All right. Well, when she gets back, when you open a place, John, you'll know this. The you opening staff, you burn them out. No matter what, you you burn them out because they're they're always coming on before you open. And so especially the front of house isn't making as much money.
You're begrudging them the money that you're already paying them. You have to get the thing going. The systems are never in place when you open. It's never smooth. And so consequently, they help build the culture of the restaurant in both front and back of house.
So the opening staff does. And therefore, they feel some sense of ownership over the program, which by the way, and owners will get mad at me, they should, right? Because in fact they did help. But the problem there is is that once they feel that sense of ownership, then once the restaurant is like six months, eight months, one year in, typically they maintain that sense of ownership, and that's when owners want to claw that thing back. That's when owners want that opening staff to act like Johnny come lately staff.
And so I think there's a lot of times problems there. What do you think, John? Yeah, no, I agree with that. Um that opening staff is willing to just put up they I mean they were willing to put up with so much more during the opening, but you know, I think that's why I agree with you that you know they get some kind of ownership and say and stuff, you know, in how think how operations should get done. Right.
But there's always a point at which the actual owners claw back any sense of any sense of, and I don't mean ownership in a monetary sense, but just ownership over the way things work from the opening staff. Yeah. And it's always kind of sad to me. It is. I mean, I understand it all.
I'm not saying that there's I'm not saying that, you know, one of them is evil or one of them is presumptuous or any anything. I'm just saying it's always kind of sad because I don't really see a way around it. No, there is no ownership structure where the owners can do all of the work and fully form a program without input from people who are on staff. And you wouldn't want to hire anyone that didn't treat the place as though they were personally invested in it. Right.
So then you then that the fact that later on they somehow get penalized for having taken a personal investment in it is to me sad. I don't know a way around it. But you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, no, there's there isn't a way around it.
Unfortunately, it's just uh another part of working in this industry. Yeah. I don't know. Another terrible part. Let's like like my other favorite is I still don't understand how all the people in this industry who are front of house can deal with not knowing how much money they're gonna make.
You know what I mean? Like it's like it's such a weird system that people live so inconsistently. You know, it's not like the landlord's like, oh, people didn't come to the restaurant this week, so I won't charge you rent. You know what I mean? It's like it doesn't work that way.
Yeah. But I don't see any alternative. I don't I don't know what the alternative would be. It's just not I mean, our industry, there's I love the people. I love food.
Yeah. But the actual mechanics of our industry, I don't like. Yeah. I mean, the summer I feel like has made it really apparent to I don't know how you guys have been, but we've been slow. I mean, everyone in our neighborhood's been slow.
Yeah. Um except salty. Yeah, except salt tanks. Um yeah, but yeah, no, a bunch of people in the neighborhood have cut the dropped their lunch service for now at least. Um place closed down.
Yeah, it's just uh profit margins are types. I don't know. I don't know. Sorry. Sorry to get sorry to get such a such a be such a bilmer.
Here's a question that was answered though. Dr. Smokehouse wrote in Enjoy the discussion with Edwards Meats. You alluded to improvements with aging pork, but I do not believe you gave definitive opinions on how beneficial it actually is. Personally, I've not found it to make that much of a difference in fresh preparations, but I've only taken it out of for two weeks of aging.
I will be processing a 500-pound 18-month-old pig next month, primarily for charcuterie. And so I was wondering uh if I should try some dry aging. Well, if you're doing charcuterie, you're gonna be aging it on salt. So I don't know how much of a difference it would make to age it before you make charcuterie out of it, right? Well, I think you meant like takes some pieces and not make charcuterie.
Like if he's breaking down a whole pig, he may not be curing the like the loin or the chug. Cured loin is delicious. Yeah, baby. Yeah. Um response from Edward.
Uh so uh we, you know, Quinn asked him, send him the question. Here's what he said dry aging pork. Um, this is not how he sounds. Dry aging pork, when done in proper conditions and for long enough time, changes the texture profile and the flavor profile. Textually, the meat becomes more tender and refined, almost smoother and less grainy and fibrous.
The flavor is very profound. It won't have the earthy dry age fun funk akin to beef. It will have a more robust pork flavor. Think across between charcuterie, so cured, and bacon without the smoke. The meat will also have an almost sweet flavor, and the fat will become very tender as if the fat has been cooked low and slow and will have a slight nutty aroma and flavor profile as well.
Dry aging pork really needs to be passed 30 days, so at least twice as long uh as you have tried Dr. Smokehouse. So dry aging pork really needs to be passed 30 days with the right environment to have a meaningful full change. We have found 45 days to be optimal in our environment. Typically, anything past 14 days can become harder to control in the presence of spoilage occurring.
So if you can't if you can't really tweak down your environment to prevent any chance of spoilage, he's saying that's when that's when the S hits the F, as they say. So that's what uh that's what Everett says in response. Done, right? Good. Answered.
All right. Covered and smothered. I I guess I I concur, because we overcooked the hell out of some uh I think eight weeks aged one, and it kind of didn't matter. Well, what is it? Well, why would you overcook anything ever?
Well, it was not on purpose. Oh, I see. We we did some of the chops in the pizza. Hmm. I mean, that's a good way to finish them if you've already low temped them.
I know, but they were so thin, I worried about doing a a two stage. Why? Why would it be thinness isn't ever going to affect your two stage? You gotta do it complete for insurance. Just take it all the way down.
Like do your do your low temp, pull it, let it sit on the counter for an hour. Yeah, yeah. Let it come completely to room temperature. And then, you know, hello? How many years?
Sous-vie for insurance. You do the inside perfect, and then all you gotta do is get the outside, make sure it's warm enough, have someone with a cake tester, you know, put it against their uh freaking uh lip. I'm a big believer in the cake tester, by the way. Me too. Yeah, cake testers.
It's great. Never use it on a cake. Ain't never used it on a cake. You know what I mean? Like, I'll shove that cake tester into anything, and very little on your body.
My nothing on my body is physically sensitive except for like right there on my lip, so I can bah shove it all the way in. You can test it along different areas of the cake tester, leave it in there for a couple seconds, cake tester. They're magnetic. You can stick a magnet on your oven and then put and and put the cake tester. I have them magnetized all stuck all over my range.
Cake test. I'll tell you this. When you're reheating a frozen pancake, let's say, right? And you have it in your A Nova steam oven at 300 degrees uh with 50 Fahrenheit with 50% steam, right? How are you gonna know if the inside of that pancake is still cold, especially where the blueberries were?
I'll tell you how. Cake tester. Cake tester on cake. It's not cake, it's a pancake. Pancake, not cake.
Pancake. Not cake. Why why have you never used it on a cake? Yeah, you just know. First of all, I don't trust a cake tester on cake.
I trust a toothpick on cake. I don't think a cake tester actually has the grip to accurately test a cake. Fair. Toothpick, yes. Got it.
You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know. Also, I say, you know, whatever. Yeah, no, whatever.
Yeah, it's fine. Uh the cakes. Like, like are do you when you guys cook cakes, to the extent that any of you cook cakes? Are you cooking cakes that are typically dry like cooked all the way through dry or the ones where you have to pull them a little rumbly? I do mainly d dry cooked cakes.
Like they're not, there's no shake or lake to them at all. They're like cake, old style cakes. Yeah. Or like angel food cakes. I love an angel food cake.
When you pull it just after it, just after it's totally set. So it's not like it's not under at all, because then it can get kind of wet, but it's still like moist. It hasn't become like a dry sponge yet. When you pull out that angel food cake at that perfect time. Did I ever say on air, I well, like uh when I started recently when I whip the egg whites, instead of adding sugar, I add jelly.
Yeah, you did say that. Oh, it's so good. Yeah. Oh my god, so good. Like just like beat the jelly in instead of so typically when I don't know if forever hasn't made an angel food cake here before, typically you're taking uh flour and uh like cake flour and uh powdered sugar, typically, because you want this to be extremely fine.
Uh and then I put my salt into my egg whites. I don't really bother with cream of tartar, but you can. And when you whip it, then you usually add, you know, to 10 egg whites, about a cup of gr which is about 200, I think, grams of granulated sugar. And it whips in and that provides the dense structure of the egg whites as opposed to just whipping them plain. But you can just use jelly.
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh angel cake. Uh either like melt the jelly and stream it in, or just throw it in. Yeah.
Throw it in. Boom. Don't life doesn't need to be hard all the time. You know, you know what I mean? Like uh age food cake, I love it.
I used to make it. Do you think melted hot jelly would work well for like an alternate Italian meringue? Uh well, pectin isn't right super thermo-reversible, so I don't know how liquid it's gonna. I mean, it is, but it is, but I don't know how liquid it'll get. So I don't know.
I ain't never done it. I ain't never done it. I have used very I've used like um like really uh high solids strawberry juice cordial to do it. You know what it was? Good.
Real good. Delicious. Like, yeah, low, low temp, low temp vac down, so it didn't taste that cooked. Good. Good.
Um delicious. I bet you I bet you you could do it with unsweetened cranberry juice. So like my cranberry cordial, I boil down the cranberry juice until it is um, I boil it down until it is 6% acidity and 50 breaks once you add the sugar to it. I don't have the math on top of my head, but imagine if you added even more sugar to it so that but it's still you did a lot of boiling, so there was a lot of cranberry in a very small amount of liquid. I bet you could do that.
Meringue it up. Bet you'd be good and easy without having to buy a centrifuge. Although you should go buy a centrifuge for sure. For sure. Obviously.
Um uh Rob has hobbies, wants to know Yuzu juice without access to fresh yuzu. Is there any combination of other juices and or acids that can get you close? Is the room temp bottle stuff a worthy substitute, or is there something better? I mean, having only several times in my life had access to like a whole boat ton of fresh Yuzu. No.
Like I've never had anything that's kind of close to it. Like the best one that we used to do that we used to get, remember this, John. I don't know if you ever sourced it. It came in a like uh like a very like a mix between khaki and green colored tall milk carton, and it came frozen. And it wasn't pasteurized, it wasn't bottled, it was ink cartonized and frozen.
And that was the best of the ones that we used to use. But you know, fresh yuzu is like so hard. I would say if you buy not the crappy one, but try to get that frozen one and make a cordial out of it. And then that cordial isn't gonna taste like fresh yuzu, but it's gonna taste like Yuzu Cordial and be pretty good. But man, fresh juzu.
I wonder if there'd be a benefit. I mean, Dercy O'Neal has done a lot of videos about uh microemulsions recently. I wonder if there'd be any benefit from some combination of fresh citrus juice, like a lemon lime combination, and then like a little bit of a like a yuzu essential oil um essence or emulsion, like just a little bit. I mean, maybe. I don't know, but like most of those things to me tastes not.
I mean, I've never I've never actually tried to purchase like Yuzu oil, uh but I, you know, like a lot of those things don't taste identical to me to the actual fresh thing. But you know, if they made an oil, yeah, I mean, you could just use uh Arabic and Xantha. I mean, if you have a rotor stator homogenizer or an ultrasonic homogenizer, which I used to have until the rats ate it, uh field mice, field mice. Um, you know, that's kind of one of the very few good things that they do, but I don't really actually to be honest with these uh ultrasounds and the rotor staters because I've used them and I was able to make stable emulsions because you can get the particle size and theoretically, theoretically, I say the flavor is going to be different because the emulsion size is different, right? In reality, I didn't really notice it to be the case, and that's why I stopped using them like 20 years ago.
20? Nah, 50 16 years ago, right? So like I got them, I was able to do a bunch of stuff. At that time, most of those homogenizers were many thousands of dollars. So my choice was do I tell chefs that what they should do is save up their hard-earned cash and put 2,000 bucks or whatever it was at the time into an ultrasonic homogenizer or a decent rotor stator homogenizer.
I was like, is that what you should do? Or should you invest five dollars and a little bit of time into the knowledge of emulsification agents and stabilizing agents so that you didn't need to get the particle size of the oil, the you know, the the oil uh droplets so small that they formed a stable emulsion as though you were making a milk out of it. And my decision was clearly the latter. That like I didn't see anything so important about the size of the emulsion size for 99% of the culinary work that meant that I would rather invest my money there than in a decent knowledge of hydrocolloids and emulsifiers. But whatever.
Now, like times have changed and people have probably done a lot of work on it, you know. So who knows? Who knows? Um, but yeah, you could try that. You can emulsify some oil in.
Uh, but you know, I don't remember. I've never looked at it because I've never tested it. I'll I'll try to look up uh what the acid base of Yuzu is. I'm gonna guess it's pretty close to pretty close to lime. I'll look it up.
They're delicious. So it's fresh sudach. Delicious. Um, and if you have access to fresh peel, then you have access to fresh yuzu. So that's not a way to help you out.
Although you could, let's say you could buy a couple of fresh Yuzu, right? Then you could ju, there's not much juice in a Yuzu anyway, period, right? So if you juice the Yuzu, but you do the peel first, you could probably augment a different citrus juice with an oleo of the peel, right? Yep. Yeah, and then uh have a little sugar in it, but there you go.
Uh Michelle from Nashville says, what's the wisdom on how long your water line can run in a carbonation system? I know it should be as short as possible from the cold plate to the tap. Yeah, it should. But how about from the carbonator to the cold plate? It can be long.
In fact, uh, first of all, remember you should run through two things of your cold plate, but a longer line in general means that you have a more gradual pressure drop as it goes from the high pressure, which is the the carbonator, which is gonna be running, I hope, at about 110 PSI, and the world, which runs at 15 psi, well, not even because it's 110 PSI gauge. So at zero Psi gauge when it comes out, right? So a a short line is going to cause a lot more foaming. So in general, there's no, there's not a I mean, like I I wouldn't run it down the block, you know what I mean? But I I would say that um you're gonna be able to get uh you're not gonna restrict your flow too much when you're pushing at a hundred and something Psi out of a carbonator.
So longer lines to me are usually in fact advantageous and not a disadvantage. But you know, don't run it infinity, you know what I mean? And keep those lines from your tap to your cold plate as short as possible. I mean the best way is a chilled line from the from the cold plate to to the tap and a chilled tap, but you know, fancy. You know what I mean?
Uh okay, from Kev. Uh is this Kev, is this Kev from Noma? I don't know. Oh, hey. Uh calcium is used in many pickles to form the texture of the pickles so that it stays crisp even after pasturation.
Mugaritz used calcium hydroxide to set the vegetables before cooking them in the oven so that the inside is a texture of a puree while the outside retains the shape. Yeah, we used to do that. We used to do that all the time. That was a thing, you know, that was we do it with carrots, do it with uh we used to do it with bananas. We used to do a banana.
We used to soak the outside of bananas. Like we would put bananas in a calcium uh hydroxide uh, you know, cowl, right? We put put in a bag. We would use the red, the red pickling lime from Thailand, and then uh put it in the bag, and we we hit it. We sometimes we do it without the vacuum, but light vacuum firm up the outside.
And then you could take them in a pan and even ripe bananas, you could saute the crap out of them. Just like bah bah bah. Like imagine like, you know how like when you're when you're cooking like a banana and you've like cut the banana and you're trying to be real careful not to shatter the banana as you cut it, because even just cutting the banana is gonna break the ends off, right? And then you're like, eh, eh, and you put the you put the sugar and the and the butter in the pan and you lay the bananas down really gently when the butter melts, and then you sit there and you pray that like you get a nice crisp coating on the bottom of that banana, and that you gently turn them out onto the plate so that you have a really nice looking like banana with that cook crispy face on it. And you know, and you always start with underripe bananas so you don't have to deal with it.
So that's why you have to jack it with sugar because it's not freaking sweet enough, and you have to put cinnamon on all those other things. Because, well, when we did it with the calcium, we would like put them in the pan, we're like boom, like sitting there like shimmying the pan around, and they wouldn't do anything. And it was amazing. I loved it. Amazing.
Uh I digress. Uh, my standing knowledge is that the calcium and calcium hydroxide slash calcium chloride says calcium lactate gluconate, which is what I primarily use, reacts with the pectin and the vegetable fruit, firming up the texture. That is correct. My question is whether there exists you can also use an enzyme that in presence of calcium called pectin methylesterase. Uh novo shape was what it used to be called.
I don't know what they call it now, because they've changed all the name of it, and that confirm the hell that if you inject that in, that gives you that like maris maraschino cherry, that like fake cocktail cherry, like chewy all the way through. And by the way, if you leave it too long in a calcium solution, it can be off-putting. So we I used to, I did a test with because I used to worry about cucumber. So I used to do this thing where I would inject gin and vermouth into cucumbers and then put like salt and like some herbs on the outside, making like a little solid gin cucumber thing, right? Because for those of you that don't know, early on when people started playing with vacuum machines in like the early 2000s, like as soon as we discovered that when you try to vacuum down vegetables, they get they look like pieces of jewelry because all of the air pores are either compressed in compression or injected with fluid if you do it in liquid, like everyone's like, oh my God, this looks amazing.
I love this. And so, like, we were doing it. And so, like, I was like, well, I can inject alcohol into this, and then it's like a little solid cocktail. So that was like one of my early shticks was injecting cucumbers with gin and vermouth and sugar. Uh so the problem with it though is is that uh the the liquid that you're injecting into the cucumber is not isotonic with the cucumber.
And so what happens is over time, the cucumber becomes floppy because the water is leached out of the cucumber cells themselves into the liquor that's in the pores and makes them floppy, the same way as if you were putting them into salt water and they would get floppy, right? So to try to counteract that, I jacked them with calcium. But the problem is that if you store them too long cucumbers in the calcium, it's getting weird. It does get weird. Anyway, back to the question.
Um, my question is whether there exists information on how you can how often you can reuse the same calcium lactate gluconate bath or setting pectin. If I soak, let's say, one kilogram of pumpkin chunks in five liters of 1% uh solution for 15 minutes, can I put another one kilogram into the same bath for the same amount of time and expect the same result? Is there a diminishing effectiveness of that solution? You know, that's a good question. First of all, remember calcium lactate gluconate is a relatively heavy molecule for the amount of calcium it has, right?
And it's also relatively it's its main benefit is it doesn't taste nasty the way calcium uh chloride does, right? I don't know. I don't think that you're actually taking that much calcium out of it. But I also don't know, I don't know of an easy way to test the residual calcium. See, the nice thing about calcium uh hydroxide, cal, or Thai pickling lime, either the white or the red one, is that calcium hydroxide is so insoluble in water that uh you just add infinite excess of calcium to it.
And then when you add your stuff, as it gets depleted, it will just resusc, it'll just re-add more calcium, right? So it's basically always that saturation. So you can use those baths like again and again and again and again and again. So if you can deal with, or if you don't mind the taste of calcium hydroxide, it's automatically gonna be perfect. Now, I don't know what the saturation of calcium lactate gluconate is, but would it taste bad if you did a shorter soak in a much higher strength solution?
And that way, if you just kept it saturated, well, then you're good. Just keep adding stuff to it and it's never gonna go bad. But I don't know if this answers your question. But that's what we used to do. Right?
All right. Uh do you think there would be any like density or conductivity that you could like easily measure for calcium lactate glucane solution? I don't know because I don't know what it's being replaced with. It's not uptaking the lactate part, right? So I don't uh, you know, I wouldn't know.
I mean, look, if this is what I did for a living and I had the right equipment, probably I just I just don't know. Yeah. Uh Dave Kleiman says we're moving from Thailand to Markham, which we think is Ontario. And I want to possibly take my successful charcuterie uh slash salami hobby into a wholesale business there. Anecdotally, all the people I've had who taste my wares say that there's currently uh nothing that is as good as the one I make, although 50 to 75 people isn't really scientific.
I'd like to take some classes on food safety and get certified and licensed. There's a school around here that has a culinary program, but I don't know if they're teaching real culinary arts or how to assemble highly processed foods. Well, there's get a little edge to your voice there, Dave. Uh maybe there are better online resources. How do you recommend I get the education I need to do it right?
If you're gonna start a business, I would go to one of the professional short courses on charcuterie in the United States, but relatively northern, so not that far away. Iowa has or used to have the short course of note on meat processing. And so what that does, aside from anything else, is it is it lets you know what you need. And it's I think it's like four or five days or something like that. It lets you it assumes that you already know how to cut up and salt meat and and like, but it tells you how to make recipes in large batches, how to deal with uh with uh certifications and how to set up an act, how an actual processing plant is set up.
So it's not meant to teach you the ABCs of what's going on, it's meant to teach you, take you from like hobby to business. So I would look at something like that. Uh and if you're gonna do it for business, it's worth going and investing the week or so, whatever. Um look into HAC-up plans too, obviously. Yeah, I'm sure that that's part of it.
Mathman, I'll wait to I'll wait till we have a full house. Mathman wants to uh keep uh their family fed while they have uh a one-year-old and they need some ideas for quick things. Well we'll wait till we have a full house back and do that and we have more time. Bruce J says I managed to find a used anchor sum, which is the mixer that I use, Swedish, uh at a great price. It was given to me by a lady one pine one and a half years ago.
She already has one. I'm reasonably certain um that it's been treated well. It has an ice cream attachment, so I made ice cream. Also, I love the arson, but I've never used the ice cream attachment. After hand cleaning, I left the bowl upside down on the drain rack, and when I came back, there was a little bit of blue ice uh leaking from the seam, you know, the uh the gel.
Should I just super glue the seams or should I be cracking it open to put more ice pack filling in? Since this was used, I obviously don't have a warranty. Thanks for all your help. Here's what I'm gonna say. I don't know how that thing is put together or sealed, but I'm very leery of trying to seal anything like that with an external application.
It might have a ring on the inside, like a like a like an O-ring that's it can be fixed if it can be unscrewed normally. But here's what I'm gonna am gonna say. And carcerum is a great company. If you reach out to them, even if you don't have it and be like, it like even if you didn't buy it directly from them, and you're like, I have this ice cream attachment, it's leaking. What can I do?
I bet you they will hook you up. You know what I mean? Like maybe I don't know if they'll give it to you for free, but I'll bet you they're not gonna leave you hanging because that it's a really really good company. Um Ed Elliott from Berkeley had good success with their flour milling. I'm glad.
Uh Thomas H wants to know: is there a way to thicken oil, specifically flavored oils, without making them opaque? Clarity is ideal, and I would like to thicken them to make it easier for plating, even for hot plating. You know what, Thomas? I'll look into it again. I've never had a lot of success.
I use mono and diglycerides, which were opaque once they've gelled, obviously, because all gelled fat is opaque. But um they were clear when they were when they were, but you know, I never liked it because I was having to add like 10%. But I'll look, I'm sure there's newer things. You know anything, John, about thickening oils? No.
I'll add I'll ask uh Chris next time with the modernist uh pantry people. Uh and Lionel Hutz, sorry, one more Lionel Huts. Uh you were making uh New York style pizza and you were getting a burn ring around the bottom. I wasn't able to get the picture for some reason it didn't go through. But here's what I think is happening.
Uh as you throw the thing into your pizza oven, you're getting steam on the bottom of your of your pizza and it's lift and going back to pancakes. This happens on pancakes also. When you flip a pancake, right, it's already somewhat set. So what happens is is you get a moisture bubble, like a vapor bubble that's pushing the middle of your thing up. So what I would do when you shove the thing in is either before you do it, stipple the top so that you can get a vent from the center of your pizza up through, or after you throw it in, when it starts to hump up, throw a long offset underneath it, boop, lift it up, boom, the center will fall.
Once it falls back down, it probably will not make another air bubble. But either dock it before it goes in so that steam can come up a little bit, or do the lift and plop. And that's what I would say. And this has been cooking issues.
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