Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan Rockefeller Center, New York City News Dance Studios on a Monday, unusually joined uh with uh John as usual, though. How are you doing? Doing yeah, fun, fun. Loving it?
Yeah, loving the weather, but yeah. It's cold and rainy New York Monday. Yeah, it's so windy, dude. Yeah. Bike was getting blown across.
It was like a like a like a dance party, if but not fun at all. Uh got Joe Hazen rocking the panels. What's up? Hey, welcome to the studio. Yeah, yeah, dad doing well.
So, like, you know, wet but not oily. So that's a I'll take that as a win. I'll take that as a oily. New rules. New rules, no oil.
Anyway, uh, well, Captain Oily can come on. Yes. Nick Coleman can show up. He's the only person allowed in the studio with oil. Yes.
Um, and we got in the upper oil, yeah. In the upper left hand quadrant, we got Quinn, how you doing? Hey, I'm good. Yeah. Traveling on down the coast.
We got Nastasia the Hammer Lopez in Los Angeles. How you doing? Good. Yeah, and then uh just in the beginning of the show, only we only have him at the beginning, Jackie Molecules, but from the great, the great state, best state, small state, Connecticut. How you doing?
I'm good. You know, for sure. Loving this East Coast weather, man. Listen, just makes you glad to get back to that uh soulless hellscape where you live. Every day is the same.
Listen, it just goes to show like uh there's nothing good like good. Where's the good? Where's the good like if you if you guys could live anywhere, where would it be? Like just not the people, not your jobs. Where would you live?
Yeah, Tok Tokyo, Tokyo, really? Huh. Yeah. Maybe I'd live in like the Scottish Highlands of the West Coast of Ireland, like someplace. Just sheep.
Sheep or giant cattle. You know what I mean? Just she like the West Coast of Ireland, like when I last time I was there, I was like, oh man, there's no people, just sheep. I could do this. You know what I mean?
Like I I get that. Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Stas? If they were everything else aside, where would you go?
Um, I don't know. Maybe somewhere in Italy or I like the mid-California too, like the farmland and the ocean here, like Carmel. Oh, oh, mid-California. I thought you meant like Stockton. Yeah.
And the valley. I'm like, nah. Yeah. No, I like that stuff too. But like, so I guess uh we're adding to it that you have infinite money.
Yeah. Yeah. Has to be infinite money then. Yeah. Uh all right.
So what are you guys uh oh by the way? It's a no tangent Monday, so therefore only tangent. We got a lot of questions to get to, but let's talk about uh the week in review. What do we got? Uh real quick, this is not food related, but it was at the way um so I'm on the East Coast both to see my family, who I never get to see my nieces and nephews, but I was here for Joe Galaraga's wedding.
Remember Joe? Oh yeah. Yeah, what's he up to? Yeah. He's freshly married.
Nice. Living in Baltimore. Who's who who's he working with now? Um I don't I don't he's not doing music anymore. Um but yeah, he's uh he's doing well.
And then I saw Carl Carlos was there too, another old engineer friend of the show. It was it was a nice you know, it was like a big ups reunion. Nice, nice. A uh yeah, big b big upslash cooking issues engineering reunion. Uh nice.
Nice awesome. Exactly. All right, well uh Yeah, my stomach's still recovering from all the uh hot pot and chong ching noodles I had for three weeks straight. Yeah by the way uh a friend of mine just went to some fancy hot pot restaurant here and was like it was great but the wait was like two hours what takes two hours for a hot pot don't you have it boiling already what is it the Chicago deep dish of freaking things it's like I've said this many times before but when you go to one of the official Chicago they're like pizza takes like 45 minutes. Why?
This is what you make why you know what I mean? Did you did you not expect to sell pizza tonight? I don't know if people are gonna come in tonight. Didn't you throw away the dough you know what I mean? Like what the hell is it?
Anyway uh so you you got more uh you got more uh china to share with us like I know because now you have the time to spread out and give us your give us your impressions because we don't have to do it. Well I'm curious I'm curious what you what your take on hot pot is um I I enjoyed it sort of as an experience but it sort of felt like a bludgeoning of chili and it's like you know there's not I don't know it was fine. It's a big deal there, especially like Chongqing you know hot pot everywhere. But I don't know what what do you think of hot pot? Uh oh so this is like uh just like a uh is this a question about like that in particular or just very spicy thin liquids in large quantities no that in particular that format yeah uh you know I don't I don't have enough experience I don't like cooking my own food uh you know really no not really I'd rather I'd rather put it in the hands of someone that I trust I'm like especially when you're in a place like Chung Ching where I don't know exactly everything I'm getting I'm trying my best to translate it.
You know, I'm like, I don't know. How long it should just be in there. Who knows? Well, did you get a did you get some some s side eye from the servers who came in and did it for you to show you how to do it properly. I always appreciate that when I go to a place and they don't trust me to do it.
I'm like, all right, fair. You know what I mean? I wait. I wish that happened. No, I was left on an island and just, you know, shooting blind.
Um that's a good question. Although you're reminding me. So, Nastasia, we've had this conversation many times, because Nastasia, of course, fan of Fondue, which is the originally, not the cheese one necessarily, but the oil based one is like a really good old school do it yourself, also kill your whole family situation. And uh, what do you think about the do it yourself, does uh I I like do it yourself. Yeah.
I like some of it, but I'm with Jack in one sense. I I don't want to have to necessarily make choices. I feel like that's what I'm paying someone else for. You know what I mean? You hate me.
Correct. Well, okay. I'm sorry that you were bothered, but I don't want to make choices. Like, I make choices all the time. When I go to a restaurant, I want to be low-key.
That's like the whole craft thing where I I get to choose what the sauce is. Don't you know what's gonna go? Don't you know? And then if I don't like it, I just won't order it. I'll order something else.
You know what I mean? Nastasia, I think doesn't I think what she hates in particular is that even amongst a small group of choices, I have to be the last person to order. Yes. Yeah. Also, you can't send it back because you cooked it.
That's true. It's your fault. Although it's really on them for making you cook. They hired someone who was unqualified. Basically, if they're making you make a choice on how to cook the food, they're basically hiring an unqualified person.
You know what I mean? So it's like underage. Yeah, yeah. It's not right. Right?
They should get sued. Um, so it but here's the other thing that it pisses Nastasia off even more. It's not like I'm waiting to see what everyone else's orders because I refuse to order anything anyone else has. I might order the same thing that the person right next to me ordered. I just, you know, I just can't make up my mind, and I don't I you know, I can't tolerate it.
And so she so she hates that. So then she tries to weasel it so that she's the last person to order, even though she doesn't care. Just because it bothers her so much that I'm the last person to order. I would have I would have everyone whisper in their ear to the waiter so you can't hear what they order. That would be my dream.
But that wouldn't bother me. I don't care. You want to know what everybody. Yeah, I mean, I don't I hate choice. If the my ideal would be if the waiter came up to me and said, You you're gonna have this.
I'd be like, okay. You know what I mean? And they'd be like, if the waiter came up to me and they're like, is there anything on this menu that it looks like you would hate? I'll be like, Yeah, don't give me that. Don't give me the zucchini.
And they'd be like, fine. And then and then if that was the only choice I had to make, don't give me the zucchini, I'll be like, fine, great. You know what I mean? That's why, you know, even though they're usually expensive, like a pre-fee is like, you know what I mean? Show up.
It's like this stuff comes up. Yeah. Have you been to Rayos before? No, because uh I don't know anyone, and like, what am I gonna wait? Eight years to go to a restaurant.
I might be dead. And any given eight year period, I might be dead. Well, I I I I had the luxury of going one time. One time. So the guy is like, there's no menu, just like, uh, just tell me what you're allergic to.
We won't serve that to you. We're gonna cook you dinner. There you go. And it was great. It was the best.
I was like, whoa, awesome. Someone else's house, so much as kitchen. All right, it's cool. Yeah. How was the food though?
Yeah, I mean, it was it was delicious. I mean, I was like, yeah, it's a big up to do, whatever. You know what? Who I sat across from? The guy, the the the detective who busted the heroin dealer from the French Connection.
The real one, not Gene Hugh. The real one. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't. So this was a long time ago.
That guy's gotta be way dead. Uh no, he uh that was probably what, twelve years ago? Yeah, I'm sure that guy is spending most of his time not being alive anymore. Yeah, someone called a hit. What a dream though.
No decision making. That's yeah ideal. Yeah, you know, it's like I mean, my move in China was like if I didn't really know what was going on, I would just and they had, you know, a picture menu. I just point to the first four things. Usually like first thing on a menu is what they're known for, it seemed, you know.
Yeah. It's like a noodle place, A1, you know, first block. So I just point to the first four. I'm like, this this hopefully this works. That's a great idea.
And you can do like a scratch and sniff. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah. You know, like uh sometimes you go to menu and it's a scratch and sniff anyway, but not not in a good way. You know what I mean?
Like for me, it's like uh you know like what I really want to know is is assume I will never come to this place again. What is it that you guys do that I need to have so I can say I've been to this restaurant? You know what I mean? Like you know, you don't want to like uh Which in Japan you just say uh Ososume, that's the word. You just say that, which kind of means like I'd know what whatever you would have.
Or what you know, yeah. Say that word and and they'll be like, oh, okay, done. And then they just start bringing you stuff at different guys. Nice. Yeah, you don't want to be that you don't want to be that person be like, you know what?
I didn't like Lugers. The fish was not good. You know what I mean? Because you ordered the fish moron. You know what I mean?
Like the idiot. Uh yeah, but if you're trusting someone to do that, like you what like what Jack is saying, I mean, that's kind of goes into your like the guy who's gonna shake at the shuffle the truffle shaved, and you know, it's like, no, no, no. It's too much too much. That's it. That well, that's the issue, also is like you get servers and you get disreputable people who they just push whatever they're either the gun're gonna spoil or whatever, and so like there's a lot of distrust of restaurants and servers.
So you have it's i it's a trust game back and forth that the the people are going to actually give you what they would have and not what they really need to push tonight. You know what I mean? That's very funny. What about the fish and lugers? Yeah, that's good.
Well, so that takes me back there. So Miley Carpenter, who's been on the show and is my sister-in-law, uh she used to run uh timeouts food section back, you know, when time out was like really going great guns. And uh she did a she did a thing once where she went out with sent a group of people out, she did this one personally, to order the wrong thing at every restaurant. So she walked in as a two-top to Luger's and both of them ordered the fish, and the waiter nearly punched her. You know what I mean?
She's like, he's like, table of sticks comes in. Maybe one of them gets fish. Both people come in and get fish? Never, never happened. It's never happened.
Uh yeah, well, that's true though. Like, you know, a lot, you you you have things on the menu some look, a a good place. Luger's is not trying to be good for everybody, right? But like a more modern style of restaurant tries to have something that actually makes everyone legitimately happy. So they're not gonna like, you know, have like a bunch of steak and then one fish that they hammer into oblivion.
You know what I mean? I go there for the service, the personality of the servers. Oh, for the personality, yeah. Although I remember once uh I went and uh we were it was lunch, and so we're ordering the wine. I was like, oh it this is where they were actually like nice to me, right?
Like I was like, how's the Peter Lug Luger wine? He's like, Peter Luger's is very famous for its steak. I was like, hmm, noted. You did not directly insult the product, but have told me that it's bad. Yeah.
And I appreciate this. You know? That's something I appreciate. Yeah, absolutely. Plus he knew that he'd make more money off of a different bottle of wine anyway.
Yeah. All right. Uh well, but okay, so so uh aside from your so for you, hot pot is the is like the equivalent of me with uh tempura, where I'm like, it's fine, but it's actually not the it's not the best way to do that. Yeah, that's kind of how I felt. It's like get a bunch of friends together, drink beers, go do the hot pot.
But culinarily, I was like, this is kind of a one-note thing. How was the warm beer with the hot pot? You know, I I finally at some point figured out that I had to ask for it. Um, like in Chinese, they say I like frozen is what they call it. I didn't really understand I didn't understand what that meant on a menu until I had the warm beer, and I was like, Oh, I guess I want frozen beer, and that was just a regular cold beer.
Okay. Unhealthy Westerner style. Yeah. Cold. Yeah, all right.
Right, right. It's bad for your chi and your body balance, you know. Yeah, well, you know, so so be it. So be it. They don't they don't do cold liquids, really.
It's like everything is tea, they only have water. Yeah. So uh that was a weird thing about Taiwan. I don't think I ever saw someone drinking water at a meal in Taiwan ever. The whole time I was there.
I was like, what's going on? You know what I mean? Like, do they hydrate in secret in Taiwan? Like, I don't know. It's weird.
Uh anyway. I don't know either. Uh so uh given that it's you, I wouldn't ask anyone else. How many endangered species did you eat while you were over there? I I don't think any, not knowingly.
I don't think any. Yeah. Although the eel is uh isn't eel population kind of isn't that getting endangered. No, like no panda? Like you know.
He's like only only red ones. Only red ones. Only the red ones, yes. Raw. We did see many pandas.
We went to the panda breeding center. It was it was very cute and good. I'm assuming you knew this, but like all giant pandas all over the world are properties of China. Like any panda in a zoo, any panda in a zoo in the United States, gre you know, giant panda, black and white ones, any of them is actually like just visiting from China and it's like on loan. They don't they don't all fingerprinted.
So yeah, at any minute well, any minute China could be like, nope. And I think they have a special deal where also the babies are theirs. Like in other words, there is no such thing as a giant panda that isn't like a permanent citizen of uh China. So I've been told. I don't know.
I mean, like they're big, you know, they're big whoop de crap because they bring a lot of money. Well, whatever. They are what they are, but they bring a lot of money to zoos. Because everyone likes those fluffy baby killing weirdos. They're mean, weird, like crazy dumb creatures.
You know what I mean? But uh, whatever, people love 'em. You know what I mean? I'm sure the message is a little bit more. Well, the weird thing is in the in the Chengdu, like in the breeding that the they call it the panda research center.
There are like two celebrity pandas, I guess, in China. You know, like TikTok celebrities. I don't even really know what that means. But the lines to see those were like huge. And I was confused.
And then you look around and there's all these other pandas everywhere else, and I'm like, does no one care about these? They're just in line for the celebrity pandas? Are they better dancers? Like what is it about the celebrity pandas that make sense? I don't know.
I don't know. It's a great. I'll I'll never know. Yeah. Because I didn't wait in the line.
Yeah, because why would you? I mean, like, uh I'm sorry. Like they're all they're giant pandas, right? I mean it's like I mean, the similar coloration, right? I mean, like, you know.
Anyway. Uh that's whatever. Whatever. Who knows? Who knows why certain pandas become TikTok stars?
It's just vagaries of vagaries of life. Anyway. Uh so no other no other food stuff before you go in hightail about your business in in Norwalk. I can't believe so. Before we get on the show, Jack's like, I'm in Connecticut.
For those for those of you that don't know Connecticut, doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. But Connecticut is a small state, but it's actually quite diverse. And uh for a state of its size. And uh you know, geologically people-wise. Anyway, uh so he's like, I'm in Stanford.
I was like, oh, Stanford. And I start insulting Stanford, as I normally do. And then he's like, actually, I'm in Norwalk. I'm like, why the hell would you say you're different place? Norwalk's got an aquarium.
I've heard their aquarium's nice and never been. How's their aquarium, Jack? I haven't been either. What that's wrong with you? Clearly, I don't I don't know where I am in Connecticut, obviously.
I'm a mi I'm a mystic aquarium guy, partially designed by Caesar Pelley. Like, because you know, my family's up there, but whatever. All right, enough Connecticut fluffery. What do you got, Stas? What's the what's the week in Nastasia like?
Um, nothing big. I went to Major domo last night, which is still good. Yeah. Um What do you have? Yeah.
I had uh they have crude, like um types of crude, which is really, really, really good. And um and then that crispy rice and cauliflower. It was good. It was really freaking good. How was the cauliflower?
Um what style? Like a little burned on the outside in a good way, I mean, like charred? Fried, fried, fried, fried. Like fried crispy or fried without a battery? Uh light batter.
I like cauliflower a lot. Yeah. I remember once I made it for the family, and they cried, cried, cried. My two kids cried, cried, cried. I made it, I had this the cheese sauce all over it.
I brought it out, cried. Wouldn't taste it. Didn't taste it. Cried. I love that stuff.
Anyway. Sorry, go ahead, Sas. Uh and then I visited Han at her new place, Mora Hero, which was really super good sushi. The chef gets imports his own rice on his land from Japan. Very good.
Okay, so he bought a plot, he bought a plot of land in Japan, grows rice in it, and ships it back? Yeah. And was it noticeably different or just did a good job with the rice? Uh just did a good job. Um how were her beverages?
Very, very good. Very good. Yeah. Was it was it? She's a classical flute composer, right?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Classical flute composer. And we're gonna have her versus uh Captain Oily on Bansouri. You know what I mean?
Or maybe have her how about this? What if she writes a Bansouri piece, which is similar instrument, right, for Nick to play on the show? And then we'll have it like that. We'll like weave it all together. What about like dueling band series?
But I have a question. Dueling band series. Is that Nick or somebody else? Somebody else. Somebody else.
Anyway. All right. Hey, Sas, before you go on, do you remember the last time we were at Major Domo? Nick and play with this at the same time. When I was sitting next to your friend Pat, and Pat kept on getting full pours of wine, and they kept out like baby pores.
I was like, Well, what what am I? A 10 year old in an Italian restaurant? What the hell is this? You know what I mean? Like with a micro pour.
Remember this? And every time you would just look over my glasses, start laughing. Remember that? Yeah. Okay.
Wait, what are you cut out for a sec? What? Can I ask my question? Yeah, I didn't know you had one, sure. Yeah.
So I have this hummingbird that visits me every morning and like sits there and looks in and like every morning. And I have a hummingbird feeder, and it gets through the whole feeder in one week. Like, love loves it. But he's like is obsessed with me. What special thing can I feed it?
I mean as a treat. I I mean, like, you know, what's more treat than what it needs, which is just intense amounts of sugar. You know what I mean? Like those things are like, you know, wired to go. There's nothing more though.
There's nothing more that I can like pump into that to be like, here you go. I see you. I see you. Well, like uh, well, what do you do? Just sugar water?
I go, I do simple syrup, basically. Yeah. Yeah. How about it? You ready?
You ready? You ready for it? How about honey? Yeah. Rose.
Oh. Well, what flowers do they like in the real life? Like, it's coming, you're basically I know they're like trumpet vines because I we have hummingbirds in our backyard. Oh, yeah. I mean, Nastasia is basically uh she's providing like monster energy drink for this thing because it needs like massive amounts of energy to keep its like little weird wings flying.
By the way, you ever seen one of those um I forget what they're called, but there's these moths that fly at night, unlike hummingbirds, and the but they can hover like a hummingbird at a flower. They have them in Connecticut, but they're these weird, because I remember once at night I saw one at a flower. I'm like, what the heck? Wait, a hairier jet? It's the weirdest thing.
It's like a humming, and it's like the size of a hummingbird. It's a big moth that can hover and sit there at a flower and be like at night. I don't know what the hell they're called. No, no, no. No, no.
They have those uh a lot of those too. But like I saw that and I was like, oh man, you know what? It's nice that like you can get to be 50 something and like just look over your shoulder and be like, even in Connecticut and be like, what the hell is that? And see something you've never seen before. Yeah.
That's pretty special. Yeah, right? Yeah. I think so. Um so how about honey, Stasi?
Is that a good idea? But what if it hates the honey? I guess you'll find out. There's uh there's a purple flower that we have in front of her house where hummingbirds also come to, but also the it's called a butterfly bush. I don't recall the name of the product.
That bush will bring your hummingbirds. Huh. Well, because it must have like serious nectaries. It smells beautiful too. I get waffed, and I'm like, what is that?
Smell. Do you guys all grow up with honeysuckle? Eating honeysuckle? Of course. Yeah.
Point the centers. Oh, I love that. I love it. You know what I mean? Like, I remember any time, like my kids were never interested in that stuff, but any time a little kid, I'm like, uh two things I like to teach kids with flowers.
One, honeysuckle. And two, you pick up the dandelion. You know this trick, right? You pick up the dandelion, you put your thumb right underneath it, and you go, Mama had a baby and its head popped off. Boop.
And then you flick your thumb and you flick the head of the dandelion as far as you can, and I'm pretty good. So I can do like, you know, 15 feet probably off a dandelion head. And then you have these kids running around getting dandelions. Go, Mama had a baby and its head popped off. Boop.
No? You guys didn't do that. Didn't grow up with that? No. Popping babies' heads off?
No. Nope. Huh. No. Maybe it's just my family.
Could be one of those things that's just me. Yeah. Maybe. What's like that Ween song? Was that pushing up uh was the pushing up pushing up daisies?
Oh, I don't know. Oh gosh. I know some of Ween's I know some of Ween's UV or however you pronounce it. Give me the full French. Oeuvre.
I know some of Ween's uh output, but not all. Yeah. Uh Ween. He makes a mean tomato sauce. If we go to Dean Wien's website, his recipe for his family ragu is awesome.
For real. For real. All right. Do you know what I regret never having the I forget his name, but the corrupt former mayor who's now dead of uh Providence, Rhode Island, had a uh pasta sauce that he put out. And it was like had his face on it and everything.
And I never tried it. I feel bad. Anyway, uh, Quinn, what about you? I know you always got stuff. Well yeah, well, actually, today is uh Canadian Thanksgiving, but we did our dinner early on Saturday, and we did uh turkey mouli.
Okay. Today is Canadian Thanksgiving. Yeah. Well, happy Canadian Thanksgiving. So like what what is the classic Canadian Thanksgiving?
I mean, it's pretty similar. Turkey or ham. Like the food food scene is pretty similar. Yeah. But we always try and do something uh a little different usually.
So we made a mole with like thirty ingredients, neither grilled or toasted, ground it down, cooked it down into a paste, and then we braised the dark meat and stock and some mole. You know, I've only made mole a couple of times and not in the traditional way. You know what I mean? And then I remember visiting at uh if if uh Jack's still here, the Merced and seeing the like the mole, like the mole, like the people who sell the mole pastes and you get to choose all the pastes and they're like mounded up in these big buckets and they're glistening because they they grind 'em, you know what I mean? Like now they probably but like old school people who grind them like on um matates, like, oh sick.
Did you have chocolate? Obviously you had chocolate in it, right? Was it chocolate based one or not a chocolate based one? Oh yeah, we we we sort of seasoned it at the end of making the paste with a little bit of dark chocolate. We had some like classic like a Mexican drinking chocolate and a little bit of luckily produced uh dark chocolate.
Was it a wild turkey? 'Cause that would be traditional Huajalote. Uh I mean it was like uh a smaller heritage turkey from one of our farmer friends. I mean, turkeys are Mexican. And fresh flour tortillas that turned out great.
Uh okay, listen, don't get me started. So Quinn texts me over the weekend and I can't co-sign what you're doing. I think it's a terrible idea. He's like, I have some local soft wheat, I want to make tortillas. I'm like, why?
Why? So they like you had so do you did you have to pre-cook some of the starch? Well, yeah, I scalded half of the flour. Yeah. It worked great.
No, it it how do you know? Did you do it side by side with the correct flour? The issue with soft wheat, the issue with soft wheat, it puffed. He sent me a picture, it puffed. The issue with soft wheat is it doesn't have the correct chew.
You need there's not enough protein in it to get the correct chew. There's two issues. It's not just that you need a high hydration dough. It's that you need high hydration dough, high protein, low gluten, right? That's what Sonoran white can do for you.
That's why it was invented there. You know what I mean? But whatever. If you enjoyed it, I'm glad you enjoyed it. But my point is if I was gonna use a Canadian wheat for tortillas, the second best wheat would like in terms of those properties, Durham.
You can do a whole wheat durum, fine flour, and make not as good as Sonora and white, but a decent tortilla. Surprisingly, you wouldn't expect Durham to make a good anything other than what it's good at, right? Like weird breads from Italy, really weird breads. Like I'm not a huge fan of those weird semolina breads. Yeah.
And Durham semolina breads and uh and pasta, right? Also, surprisingly, you can make a tortilla with it. I'm not saying it's the best tortilla. Maybe it's a little too high in protein, a little too much chew. You know what I mean?
But it's flinty as hell. If you take a uh like a grain of wheat, I say this a million times, put it in your mouth, chew on it, you get an instant sense, not of the protein, but hard versus soft, right? And you want this the softer a grain is, the harder it is to mill fine because it glazes your stones over, right? It's not true in a in a roller mill because it doesn't matter. But if you're doing stone grinding, especially stone grinding at home with a small wheel, as soon as you get a soft wheat, you instantly have to back off on your stones or it it glazes over.
And I'm not talking like after like pounds. I'm talking like like three, four hundred grams in, you could glaze your stones if you go too hard on uh on a soft, on a very soft wheat. Like I'm talking like US South soft, which are they're delicious, by the way. You you had uh soft white, or you had soft white. Do they tell you the variety?
Yeah. No, that I I have to reach out to my like contact. Yeah. The only soft white I ever had was one called Frederick. Delicious.
But I also like soft red, but soft reds are never sold by variety, almost never sold by variety, strangely. You know what I mean? But so how much of the how what was your total final hydration, including the cooked stuff? About 64. Yeah.
That's low for it. That's low for uh for it for that, but but if it puffed, I saw the picture, it puffed. I also made them yesterday with snoring white. Everything puffed like a maniac. And it could chew.
Why don't you why'd you get the real wheat? Why do you want to do it with soft wheat? Or is it just I need to do something? I need to make the tortillas today, and this is the wheat I have. Was that was what it was?
Yeah, we're we're making turkey moolets. I have all the smoking wheat. Uh-huh. So we're making tortillas. Okay.
I'll tell you what, you know what soft wheat's delicious in? Pancakes. Biscuits. Pancakes and biscuits. Delicious.
Um the other good news for people who are interested in in uh soft wheat is that when you grind it yourself, because the brand is still there, it does absorb more water than um than it would normally as a soft wheat. Anyway, whatever. Enough of that. Uh all right, what else you got? Oh, we have a caller?
Wow. All right. On a Monday, caller, you're on the air. Hey. Hey guys, this is Patrick calling from Brooklyn.
First, uh greater Utica uh Chamber of Commerce and its affiliates would would uh like to congrat again. Thank you for your uh uh love of the Utica grind. Well uh it's it's rightfully deserved to happen. It's rightfully deserved. This is the greatest greatest thing to happen to the Utica Metro and in in a century.
So, you know, I think I I think I think you're uh calling it God pepper flake needs to be on the on the container of this. I'm happy for that. I'm happy for them to do it. I'm trying to convince Wiley, I tried to convince, even though Wiley, my brother-in-law, stretch pizza, Wiley Dufrain, he doesn't personally like chili flakes and doesn't put them on his restaurant. But I'm like, you gotta get if you're gonna have any chili flake in the house, you need Utica grind.
Double ground. Come on. You know what I mean? Why doesn't everybody do this? Yeah.
So my question is completely unrelated to the chili flake, but there's there's much amusement in my family, which has various connections about this, about your love of this. So I had I'd I'd tell you this is a home home martini question. Okay. Not not complicated. It's basically what the only thing I make at home, um, cocktail wise, is in general martinis.
I keep gin in the freezer, right? Not mixed as a martini and vermouth in the refrigerator because I use the vermouth for other stuff in cooking and I like different ratios. So Michael Rolman has a thing of basically just mixing, just mixing in the glass of I think his ratio is something like 3.5 ounces of I forget which gin with the vermouth in some cold water and mixing in the glass with bitters. Is there any function do you think without you know actually putting a thermometer on it, there's really any functional temperature difference between diluting that way on the fly, diluting over ice and having loss? Are you really getting chilling there at all?
And I think the second part of that question is when the bulk of it is in the freezer in a home setting, does chilling the glass even do that much? Because I find that in a a regular um martini glass or you know, Nick and Nora, I really don't like the condensation that you get with chilling the glass in the freezer. Sounds like you need liquid nitrogen. Sounds like what you need is not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen in my apartment.
So okay, a lot a lot going on there. So the one thing that I haven't tested in there that you didn't specifically bring up, but uh and there's the also the movement of most most all of my chilling tests are with uh are with room temperature booze. Okay. I did when I was writing the the original edition of the book a million years ago, also test the finished temperature of taking gin directly out of the fr uh freezer and or actually Manhattan mix, not I didn't do a martini, Manhattan mix, so the vermouth and the and the spirit together out of the freezer and then adding uh cold water to it and seeing where the temperature evened out. Strangely, uh as uh as liquor dilutes, it heats up by like several degrees.
So you you end up getting uh even if you go directly from the freezer and use cold but not ice water, you end up with a drink that is about the temperature you would get. I had to go look it up because I didn't know I was gonna have these to know these numbers off the top of my head, right? But you get a drink that is cold enough, but not necessarily as cold as you might think. You know what I'm saying? Um the one test I haven't done that, you know, I pr I don't know if I'm gonna get a chance to do before I hand it in, but I should do is the technique of stirring with cold liquids, right?
Because well, this is this is this is is the it is interesting too, because the corollary here is that with Simonson's martini book. Again, like I'm not I'm basically a martini drinker, you know, especially at home is that I kind of got in during the summer into his advocacy or you know, not even advocacy, but he mentions martini on the rocks as you know its own genre of the drink. But that with pre pre-freezer gin is also kind of interesting because it's to me it's unclear what's both happening from dilution standpoint and just like you know what happens to the drink over time too as the ice more you know, it doesn't even necessarily I mean it's melting, but much slower. So there's something else going on there, which is satisfying in its own way is an appreciation of both you know chilling and dilution over time. Yeah, well, as with Quinn's soft wheat tortillas, I'm can't co-sign putting ice into a martini for any reason uh after it's been served.
But um, you know, uh remember that unless a product is frozen, and in order there are ice crystals in it, it is not at its freezing temperature yet, right? So if you put ice in, you will get further dilution. Now I'm gonna say that like if you're just taking straight booze with no dilution and drinking it, it better be at freezer temperature, and you're gonna get liquored up mighty quick because remember, Roman's a tall guy. That's that's the duke, that's the duped martini. Yeah, but all of those ones, if you actually look at them, they add water to them and dilute them somewhat.
Rolman, very tall guy, so maybe he can handle martini after martini with three ounces of uh of gin in them. But uh that's a lot. You know what I mean? That's a lot. Um, you know, I'm uh old Fogy myself, so I like a wetter martini than I would make for like what's your what's your ratio?
I I end up liking like 2.5 to 1. All right. Sorry, not three, sorry, not 2.5, two and a half ounces to a half uh half ounce vermuting. Oh, five to one. Five to one, sorry, yeah, yeah.
I'm thinking of the ounces. Five five to one, just depends on the gin. So that's standard. That's standard, yeah. So I like I like a more vermouth y lighter one, but um yeah.
I'm not sure if I'm answering your question. So give me No, that's like I I didn't know if there was it was an answer. It was just sort of like, but I think you're getting there, is that the it's not quite as cold as I would think it should be, based on just the gin being in the freezer. So but you seem to we seem to be getting somewhere at least with that. Yeah, so like if you're not it's not that cold.
If you have uh I I don't remember whether I wrote I don't remember whether I wrote the exact answer down, but I measured it. So it if you I don't again, I don't have my old book, but if you look at the Manhattan section, it's a very similar problem. Uh and you can look at the um I think I measured the final temperature of the drink by taking just batch out and then dumping it in with uh water. I think I measured that final temperature. But the last vanguard is to figure out how much dilution you get if you stir a legit stir with um with ice.
And it will get marginally colder. It won't get colder than freezer temperature because that's not gonna happen. You know, that's that the funny thing is that that's still the most satisfying one, even that there's a little more loss. Like something about and I was like, is it psychological that I'm just doing the mixing? And it's it uh but it sounds like it might actually be slightly colder as well, just in in in in in you know, some some level of of science without measuring it.
If you stir them or make whatever one you like, they get because the other thing is remember, stirring like you want more dil, but you want more dilution than I think people think. You know what I mean? Especially like if it if it's colder, I would stir it. Put it, try this. Stir a normal martini, like a normal person martini, then put it into a 20-ounce soda bottle.
A couple of them, a couple of martinis. Put them in a 20-ounce soda bottle, squeeze all the air out, throw the cap in, then throw it in the f freezer for like 35 minutes. Wait for it, you know, don't let it freeze. But if it gets a little syrupy, that's fine. Then pull it out.
It won't have oxidized because you've excluded the air. Pour that into your glass and see what you think. Let me know. All right. Some experiments are about to be run.
Exactly. Great. Awesome. Well, keep enjoying the pepper flake. I will.
Thanks. Although I you know what? I need to get the original one is still not bad. It wasn't back in stock the last time I checked. So I'm getting the one from a spice company that's like, you know, like 15 minutes outside of Utica.
So I hope it's the Metro, but the real brand is the A Vico A B. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I C L. But it's hard to get down here right now. Yeah.
It's not on the evil. I may I maybe I will I will be up in Utica over at least in Christmas time, which is the traditional stocking stuff for where I go to Christmas. If I don't if you don't obtain any by then, there might be some coming uh cooking issues way. That sounds good. Appreciate it.
Awesome. Thank you. Thanks. Well, thanks for the calling. And John, why don't you explain how people can call and be Patreon members?
Yeah, go to Patreon.com slash cooking issues. There you will find everything that you want, including uh call numbers, links to listen list or feeds or links to the live feeds, um, different membership levels. Um, at all the different membership levels, you get access to our Discord with a community of like-minded people. Uh, you get discounts of kitchen arts and letters and really just a whole bunch of great things. So check it out at patreon.com/slash cooking issues.
And speaking of Patreon guests, Kirk g uh questions. Kirk Gibson says, I have a few rotovap experiments have been unsuccessful because rotary evaporator is uh is a vacuum still that you have to suck a vacuum on, right? Uh because they foam up too much when dropping the uh the pressure and they risk boiling over into the condensing flask, which sucks, by the way. It's had happened many times. I've had this issue with mozzarella vodka, feta vodka, and now Reese's peanut butter cup vodka.
I expect that the protein structure and/or emulsifiers is doing it. Does anyone have any recommendations? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Well, uh, this, like many problems, can be solved with money. So uh you they make these uh uh boil over sensors that go in through the through the uh the the rotary sleeve thing into the flask, and then as soon as they sense that liquid or anything is hitting them, they open the vacuum and let it die back down.
The truth of the matter is with most of these things, now I don't know with milk, milk is a nightmare. With most of these things, eventually they'll settle down, right? So if you're distilling, right, once you get through the initial boil. So we used to only fill our flasks like a quarter of the way up or you know, or less when something was going to be really foamy. And then usually after the first three or four foam ups, right, it'll go into a rolling situation where you can get it to go without foaming into your flask.
Now, every once in a while it would just go crazy. And you can't do Nastasia's magic trick of adding pectanex, which is what we would do to fruits. We would add pectanex to the mix so that it would knock out the the pectin, so it would stop the boil over. That's how nastasias saved us with uh hot pepper uh product. Remember that, Stas?
Yeah, man. Those are the days that we're gonna be able to do that. Those were the days. Yeah. I'm not gonna get into whether you should be licking a rotary evaporator to test whether it's spicy because it's just too contentious.
But yeah, that was Nastasia's uh, you know, Nastasia's like genius stroke with the rotary evaporator. But with this, uh there's that. There's also it really depends on your vacuum controller. We used to have uh I had a foot pedal that I had installed into mine that had a solenoid attached to it that would just immediately open the vacuum, uh, you know, open up the system to drop to kill foam, like a foam kill switch. And you would just wait for the thing to go down, and then if it was about to boil over, because it goes, it's really weird in Stasi back me up on this.
It goes from like fine, fine, fine, fine toast. It just like boom, it just like shoots. It makes a we used to call it like run for the border, like taco belt with like boom, it would just shoot through the thing and then everything's ruined. So like you have to be real quick. You have to have a very fast way to uh to you know, um kill the vacuum if it's gonna boil over.
They also make these discs uh and these condenser uh attachments that go in that are uh boiler killers that are like uh frit. You can use stainless steel frit. We used to shove Scotchbrite pads in to the uh condenser coil because then what happens is is that as it tries to rock it through, unless it's gonna rock it through a lot, if it's just a little bit that's gonna spit through, it's not gonna make it through the uh it's not gonna make it through the um, what's it called? The scotch bright. The other, the other one you can do is they make something called a bump flask, and a bump flask is another kind of get out of jail free thing.
It's a little mini ball that um stops the the boil over before it makes it through into your condenser, right? So those are the three things. But you know, milk's a real pain in the real pain in the behind. I don't know of any chemical that will uh that will stop milk, and I still have I'm still triggered by milk exploding uh when I was trying to carbonate it. I think there's a question on that later.
Anyway, Rock Baker says, My Apple Lady says the heirlooms are displaying a good amount of watercore this season. What's the deal with watercore? FYI uh cox orange pips available this weekend and ash meats kernel next. I'm so excited, so am I. And I I have a project I want to do.
I don't know if I'm gonna get to do it. So watercore, for those of you that have never had a watercore apple, in some places it's prized, right? So like, you know, uh Japanese, in fact, there was an article, I don't know, like 12 years ago on uh a 40-year study of Japanese apples, Fuji's and a couple of other ones, saying that climate change is making apples taste different, so that apples now taste different than they did 40 years ago based on where they're grown, right? So like I'm sure the same taste got shifted up a couple of uh, you know, a hundred miles or whatever. But it's interesting, interesting.
So, but also water core has gone down. So in general, water core happens in cooler uh environments. When you cut into an apple that has water core, it can travel anywhere from actually where the core is all the way out. It looks kind of translucent, like it's been like it's been vacuum-infused or candied. And some people love watercore because uh it's got sorbit it's got extra sorbitol in it, so it's sweeter.
In fact, that's what causes it. There's a buildup of sorbitol in the apple, and um like water rushes into that area because of the excess sorbitol, and so you get this kind of water core thing. And it doesn't hurt the apple, and some people love water core apples even more, but it's often it's often uh, and I don't think anyone knows exactly why you might get it one time and then not another, right? They can't produce it if they want and then not if they don't. I think it's like a catch-is catch can kind of a situation.
But um if you um the longer you leave them on the tree, so like older apples, uh in other words, uh for a season, older apples are more likely to get water core as they sit. So it's often for a particular variety, it the later you harvest it, the more it's more likely to have watercore. So it's also associated with a lot of things that late, you know, harvesting too late can do. So more floral, lower in acid, uh, higher in sugar, uh, all these other things. Yep.
Other problem with watercore is that they're not good for storage, right? So uh modern storage techniques like don't play well with water cored apples. And so i long story short, if you like water cored apples, go for it. And as long as you're not gonna try to keep them. Yeah.
Are they good for making apple heads? Apple headed dolls, boots with the fur. Yeah, of course. Why not? Yeah, sure.
No, water water core. Yeah, why wouldn't they? I mean, they would I think they dry out. In fact, they might be more preserved. You know what I mean?
Plus you're gonna soak them out. I mean, every apple is good for apple head doll. In other words, like every I mean, I would do it with an apple that I wouldn't eat, you know what I mean? Like a delicious. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Like I think every red delicious, especially the modern red delicious. I said this, the original Stark Brothers delicious, which actually had chutes of green going through it. It wasn't the apple that we had now. The apple we have now is like a sport of a you know, they're all genetic clones, right?
You guys know that, right? But uh like apples have what's called sports. So a particular branch might have it slightly different, like a mutation that makes it slightly different. And so the current red quote unquote delicious is like a sport of a sport of the original Stark uh brothers nursery. The original Red Delicious is fine.
It's a fine dessert apple, uh, i.e. not high in acid. Uh, but the current ones, I think their only good use is uh apple head dolls, and add to the fact that they're already shaped like Frankenstein's head, and that's a it's like a double win. Every, like every school kid when they're handed a red delicious apple should be like, now give me a knife because I need to make an apple head doll. Stas, am I right about this?
Yes. I actually had a tasting of apples from I'm not gonna say where which farm, but they only grew here in California, Red Delicious, Granny Smith, uh, what's another generic one? I can't remember. And we tasted them, and I was with people who don't know anything about anything food related, and they were like, My God, these are so wow. They were they were terrible.
And I said, These are terrible. And I don't everyone thought I was being mean, but like no one knows where I come from. So whatever, you know. Well, so okay, so this dovetails with an idea that I had back when I was in the art world, right? And you could do you could do this, because I got like so sick of like the openings and all this, right?
So, but you could do the same thing with with food where everyone's going in and there's because there's this collective desire for everything to be good all the time, right? You know what I mean? Because like you spent time and energy and money, and so you want it to be good. This is the problem also when you're making your own stuff. The longer time you spend working on a recipe or an idea, the more apt you are to think it's good even when it's not good.
Or like when you learned it, you know, anytime you learn something new and you put a lot of investment in it, you you you you hope so much that it's good that you convince yourself that it is. Or when you go to those crappy interactive shows and you spend like a hundred dollars a piece for your whole family of four to go, and you're like, it was good, right? I I didn't just throw away four hundred dollars, right? So same thing. Yeah, same thing, exactly.
Like you, as soon as you go to the apple orchard, the apple says it's better. Right, right. So Stas should start in in LA. What? Yeah, so I've been going to a lot of art shows, openings and stuff, and it's what you're talking about.
And I've been working on this art project that I'm going to do and submit, and it's so effed. And the more I talk about it with art world people, they're like, Yeah, oh my god, yeah. But it's just an experiment, and it's so effed up. Well, and I'll tell you what I was gonna do back in the day. This was the 90s, back when I was still like trying to be a showing artist, right?
And I would never do this because I don't really have the stones, and I don't like being mean to people, but you just walk into any show, preferably a good show, and be like, this show sucks, and then walk out. Like with like a group of people walk in and then just do that. But you could do that to like like food things too. You know what I mean? Just be, and then you're like well known for it, and then people would hope you're gonna come, like regardless of whether it's good or bad.
They're like, Oh my god, is nostasi gonna this food sucks. Just show up and then walk out. You know what I mean? You could be the person known for doing that. You know what I'm saying?
I don't I don't like it. I want to I want to do this experiment where I do something. Yeah, all right. All right. Um, good luck.
Let me know. Um that reminds me of the guy who who rolls up as a carpet and hangs out at nightclubs and bars and hopes that people step on him. Really? Yeah. Strong.
He was here in the studio one time. Weird dude. Do people step on him? Yeah, they step on him all and he really enjoys it. He rolls up in a carpet, he plants himself at the bar.
People like trip over him, he gets kicked, and people put their legs on him, and it's kind of a joke. He kind of is. It's weird. Very weird. Do you remember the Jeffersons, the show?
Of course. They're the condos right here. Really? Deluxe apartment in the sky? Really?
Oh my God. Anyway, so it was uh uh who is the guy that liked to get walked on in that show? Is that the neighbor? Anyway. Yeah, yeah.
Anyway. Um there was another question in here. Oh, I've been preserving our bounty of uh stuff, peppers, uh, with a lot of lactofermented uh stuff. What's the go-to way to prevent separation in these concoctions? Well, good news, the answer to that is easy.
Xanthan gum. Uh, I would use 2.5 grams per kilo of sauce, uh, whisk it in. And the good news is is that while Xanthan is degraded over time by many bacteria, uh, it is not degraded by acid, and it is not degraded by lacto uh you know LAB, lac lactic acid uh bacteria uh strains typically. So it is pretty stable in hot sauces, and I've had hot sauces. Uh the longest I've kept one of my own is a year, right?
But like a year with uh Xanthan, and it's fine, and I would use about a quarter of a percent, right? It's not gonna get snotty at that point. So that was an easy one. Hopefully that's solved. Tony Tony Tony writes in.
Um this is more uh uh peppers. I was blessed uh with my biggest crop ever of organic Scotch bonnet peppers. I think I got 25. You know what's weird? Peppers, they take a lot of space because they need so much sun, right?
So like you think you're gonna you plant these pepper plants, you think you're gonna get a lot. At least I've never gotten a lot. I'm sure in California you can get a crap ton of peppers, right, Stas? Yeah. Yeah.
Do you like growing peppers? Do you grow those? I always grow. We all grow them, but what do you use them for? You know?
I don't know. I mean, I just went through 15 pounds or so of my standard uh I wait for the red jalapenos to come in and then like I process them and then I eat them all year. So I just bought like 15 pounds and might buy another 15 pounds. Anyway. Uh this weekend uh to run a marathon and would like to take some Scotch Bonnet peppers home and make hot sauce with them.
Unfortunately, I'll see her on Saturday and she won't be getting back to Green Point until Tuesday. She won't have access to a fridge for most of the time. And since I've never made uh hot sauce, and since usually I use the peppers right out of the garden, I'm wondering if someone with more experience with fresh hot peppers and hot sauce could recommend how I should package them for her. She's asked for 18. Will they be okay wrapped in a paper towel and put in one of those eco-produce bags and stuff in your luggage?
Yeah. Here's the good news. Peppers are not like tomatoes. They are not ripened by ethylene. So you can put them as long as they're not gonna rot, as long as they're dry, right?
They're not gonna rot. And they don't need to be at fridge temperatures the entire time. It's gonna be totally fine going, you know, as long as it doesn't freeze and we get freeze damage, it's gonna be totally fine uh being wherever. That your main goal thing is you don't want them to mold and you don't want them to like, you know, get wet, wet and soupy, but they're not gonna get senescent like uh like a tomato or banana wood because ethylene gas does not ripen peppers. So in terms of ethylene, they're non climacteric fruit.
Interestingly, they do ripen with time. So if you want them to ripen more, you can put them in the windowsill because they respond to light. So if you put light onto a pepper, it's not dead yet, it will still respire and ripen, but not because of ethylene. So I think you're gonna be fine. Did I answer that one?
Well, you think? All right. Uh Wilku, I made about two liters, that's a lot, of walnut butter, where I've roasted the walnut skin on and added it to a wet grinder. The flavor post grind is it's insanely astringent. Yeah, because you left the skins on.
Uh I've added some sugar to try to take the edge off, and that helped a bit. I think it's currently plenty sweet, and I don't want to keep adding sugar. The flavor is great at the start, but when the oil dissolve away in your tongue, the astringency rears its ugly head, I'm pretty surprised that the walnut butter is so astringent. I've done the same with hazelnuts and pecans with very good success. Is there anything I can do to selectively hide or remove astringency, or do I save uh save it, slash change it into something else, or am I hooped in and need to start again with skinned walnuts?
Well, yeah, I don't know of anything other than maybe using it in milk preps. Like if you if you add a lot of casein or uh, you know, I don't think adding direct casein to it will help, but like if it's used in a milk-based product, the milk might cut some of the astringency from the skins. But you you need to take the skins off those walnuts next time. I don't know of it. This is why a lot of people don't like walnuts.
You know what I mean? But this is why m everyone needs to get, and Stas knows where I'm going with this, some of McGee's fancy nuts. If you can get a hold of McGee's fancy walnuts, those things have almost no astringency at all. But I do not know of a way to selectively remove the taste of astringency in your mouth other than mixing it in with a protein like casein that will bind with the uh with like those astringent tannin nodes in the skin. Anyone else got ideas for that?
If you're gonna combine it with milk. Yeah, that'll probably help. Like any milk based crap will probably help. But you know, in terms of like wanting to spread it on toast, I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. Uh Phil Stan writes in, hey, not cooking, but cooking it, Jason. I bought my first rice cooker a couple of weeks ago. Well, congratulations, Phil Stan. Uh, and have recently discovered weevils in my kitchen.
No congratulations. Congratulations removed. Uh I had to look them up since I've never seen them before. I'm wondering what's a good way to keep them away. I'm looking at buying some grain containers uh with a compartment for putting in bug repellents, but it doesn't seem to be any reviews about them being effective.
Yeah, I wouldn't, I don't know. I've never used that. Here's the thing. And rice is often like where you're gonna get a lot of weevils uh in rice because they're stored in big bags in stores a lot, and the bags aren't necessarily a hundred percent impervious. Weevils can chew through small bags, and once one bag just takes a couple of eggs in it in your toast.
So here's what I would do. I had it happen to a sack of flour the other day that wasn't, it was the only thing I had in my kitchen that wasn't sealed. I put everything into sealed jars, right? Sealed, right? So you can um and then once they're in a sealed jar, even if you get a problem with one, it's not gonna transfer to all of your other stuff.
I mean, I have so many pounds of grain in my tiny apartment kitchen that if I lost it all, it would be a huge nightmare. And it's happened in in the past. So getting rid of oxygen is one of the answers. So you can put uh if if you're gonna store a lot of stuff down, sealing it will save whatever you have done. Freezing it will save uh freezing will kill anything, but it's it's a lot for someone like me to freeze everything to kill all the weevil things.
So I would store everything in just airtight. You can use oxygen reducers so you can get the oxygen reducers and throw them in, and that will kill everything as long as you don't uh open them again. But just sealing everything. I I don't know about a bug, I wouldn't put a bug repellent in any food thing that uh I I use. I would just use removal of oxygen, which is what I do.
WizMerd says, uh, this is a question uh for the Discord, but also the pod crew. I was enchanted by the idea behind Dock and Dish on last week's episode. Does anyone know of anything like that on the West Coast? I do not, but maybe someone who's a West Coast person can write in and let us know. Uh Wenrick says, I have some peak season strawberries that a friend freeze dried for me.
I would like to make some ice cream with them, but resources out there are limited. Stella Parks has a no-churn freeze-dry blueberry ice cream that doesn't look great. Is there any paper suggest uh and there is a paper that suggests that 3% by uh base weight of crushed strawberries might work? But does anyone have experience? I've not used freeze-dried in ice cream.
Uh, have you, Quinn? Uh I haven't yet. Yeah. I mean, you should be able to calculate like how much sugar it's bringing, roughly. Well, he said it doesn't look good.
I don't know whether you say it doesn't taste good or it doesn't look good. If it doesn't look good, mmm, food coloring. Uh well, we'll think about that. We'll get back to you. From Davis, I want to hear your perspective on cocktail and beer pairings for a prefi menu.
Oh man, we're gonna spend more time. I have I need more than 30 seconds on that. Uh so we'll get back to that. Sasha says I found a bottle of Jaegermeister on my pantry. Dave mentioned that one of the pre-Berlin episodes that he would share his spritz spec.
Here it is. 60 mils Jaegermeister, 7.5 mils of glass it, which I've given the recipe out. I think it's on the Patreon thing. Uh 7.5 uh mils of lemon cordial acid adjusted up to uh lemon acidity, uh 22.5 uh mils, that's three quarters of an ounce of polydextrose 5050 uh syrup, which is not sweet, and 97.5 of water. Remember, I have to add the sugar because uh or the cordial because Jaegermeister is relatively not sweet.
Uh all right, Ray. I'm gonna get to your question hopefully next week about carbonated uh like milk products. It's a pain. We'll talk about it, and I have a couple other questions. We'll try to get to it along with our chef of the week next week.
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