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 Stance Studios. No John today is still shoveling out from our massive snowstorm up there in uh the great state of Connecticut, but I got Joe Hazen rocking the panels. What's up? Hey, welcome to the show.
Yeah, yeah. Uh over there on the left hand side, let's start at the top. We got Quinn. What's up? Hey, okay.
Good, good, good. And then down in the Los Angeles area, we have Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. What's up? What's doing? Hi.
Hey, hey, by the way, God willing crick don't rise because it might snow again tomorrow morning. I'll be in Los Angeles uh tomorrow. So, you know, check out all of our stuff. What's your ticket? Yeah, I did find my ticket.
You ever buy you ever buy a ticket from one of these like flyby nights? Like my ticket, even though I'm all in the United States, is literally handled by some crazy Australian company that you can't even talk to. And it has a name very similar to JetBlue, like Jet Abroad. And so, like, I'm looking for this crap. I'm like, oh, I don't have a ticket.
You know what I mean? And then if you try to call JetBlue, they're like, that's $50. You want to talk to me? That's $50. You want me to look at your reservation for you?
$50. Anyway, uh, Jackie Molecules, how you doing? Good. Is it worth the discount to go that route instead of just buying with an airline? Yo, I don't know, man.
I don't know. I don't know how anything works anymore. You know what I mean? Oh man, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, isn't it punishment enough to have to live in New York City and travel, much less having to deal with like the Mishigash on either side of it?
Well, I wouldn't know. It's beautiful and sunny right now here. No. Actually, you know what? Listen, crap on you.
New York City's most glorious time is the 35 seconds that the snow is beautiful before it turns all yellow and filthy. You know what I mean? That's true. That's true. I'm sure I missed that.
Yeah, we had a major snow. For those of you that don't know or listen to this at some point in the future, we had a major snowstorm, our second major one of the year, which we haven't had in over a decade. And it was a real wet snow on Sunday night. So, and it was and the city gets really light when it snows because all the lights are still on in the city, but then it reflects off the snow, so you get this weird, like like movie effect. And the snow was so wet, it was sticking to all the trees.
Probably real bad for the trees, but the trees looked like they were made of snow, completely gorgeous, and made it worth living in this hellhole for that one second that I was looking at that. The next day there was tree limbs on on top of cars and awnings falling down and stuff. Yeah, like I said, like I say, becomes a hellscape rather quickly. Uh and we got Jackie Molecules, what's up? Yep.
Yep. And then uh today's special two guests in the studio from uh the new cookbook, the Lion Dance Cafe Cookbook, which you might have supported their Kickstarter, in which case you've already ordered it. But if you're not available at certain booksellers uh near us, for instance, Kitchen Arts and Letters, where if you were a member of the Patreon, you can go and get a discount. We have CY Chia and Shane Stanbridge. How are you doing?
Doing great. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Thank you. Hey, thanks for coming on.
And I have a physical, actual hard copy. I read the PDF version, but now I have a physical hard copy. That's yours. Yeah, nice, awesome. Um, by the way, for those of you that uh uh care about the sandwich, which you should, right?
They have signed copies available at Kitchen Arts and Letters, and I am pretty sure that you can buy the signed copies from them where the way if not, you could just call them. This is what this is what I'm saying. You're dealing with actual human beings when you deal with kitchen arts and letters. So and we're not selling on Amazon. Yeah, you know, well, you know what?
God bless you. God bless you. Uh, but they're but they're like how many did you print? Uh we got 2,000 printed. Yeah.
Um we might do another run. Yeah, dude. Almost all claimed already. Yeah. And that's that's the MOQ.
2000 is the MOQ. Uh that means their minimum order quantity for those of you that don't make things out there. Yeah, it's uh no, we we we got like a thousand. We we had options, but like 2000 was like the better, like the best price for what we expected we'd sell. Right.
Um good sweet spot in that you get a little bit of a break off, but you're not stuck with a billion books. Exactly. And like we're moving to Singapore, so that's uh it would be a bit of a bummer to like have to cart all those books. Which we we carted a bunch of books out here. That sucks.
Uh along with like a bunch of uh frozen Miis uh for our superiority burger pop up last night. Mies not mise en place or me's like noodle? Uh Mies like uh mise en place. Like uh like we had like uh in the book we talk about like a rempah, like the spice paste for the uh for the Luxa, like so it freezes extremely well. Um so we had like blocks of REM paw that we packed in a cooler on dry ice, and like two days after after two days of transit to New York, it was still rock solid nice.
So yeah. It was uh great uh uh traveling on Amtrak. Like we we stopped in Philly first. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You came out here via rail?
From Philly, yeah. Oh, from Philly. Yeah. Yeah. No, that would be Wow.
That would we're not self-punishers like that. That well, not about that. Yeah. Right. I mean, not about that.
We'll get into the we'll get into the recipe. Look, look, for those of you that don't, first of all, you should take a look at the book. You can go in their Kickstarter, you can look at it, see some of what you get. But I have to say it is like consider I can't believe you guys like did this without any sort of uh publisher. The only other person I know who did that who put out well, it's not sure what like the Alinea people did it.
They forced, I think, the entire restaurant to do it though. Oh wow. Right. Or, you know, the old bully, uh like the the what's the Nate Mirvald uh Nathan Miravold people, the modernist cuisine. Oh, right, yeah.
Right. But it helps to be a billionaire. Yeah, which which we are notably not. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Uh, but so anyway, you know, Katie Parla, she did her own most recent book. Uh, but of course, she's also done like a billion books. Right. You know what I mean? So it's like like hardcore to have your first book be self-published.
Right. I guess in that sense, we are self-punishers. That's a huge punishment. Did all the own photography anyway? For those of you that are listening live on the air, you can call in your questions to 917-410-1507.
That's 917-410-1507. But they have to be a member of the Patreon. Quinn, you tell them uh why they might want to do this, uh, become a Patreon member. Uh yeah, they can go to Patreon.com slash cooking issues. They get access to the community uh Discord where there's lots of great uh discussions.
They get codes like uh the codes for Kitchen Arts and Letters for books we have uh related to gifts, and they get uh prioritized questions, uh listening live and listening uh early to the recordings. Nice. All right. So uh this is a portion of the show where we just kind of shoot the breeze for a couple of minutes. We'll try to keep it we got a lot to get to, so we'll try to keep it relatively brief.
And I I might actually answer one of the listening questions, uh listeners' questions during this. So uh what do we got for the what do we got from the week in review? Let's start in California. What what is what does Southern California have for the weekend review? Uh Stas took me to this really, really awesome hand roll spot um from the guys that own joint seafood, and they do dry aged fish only.
Um the best hand rolls that I've ever had. Okay. Yeah. I've had people who've given me small pieces of the dry aged fish, but I've never done what I need to do, which is same person, same fish, give me the one dry aged, give me the other one not dry aged, and let me just let me just taste that so I can see w what's actually happening. You know what I mean?
Like uh like I I get that it's very au current. I just haven't done the tasting myself so that I can understand. And plenty of people I know, if John, you know, was here, he would be like, it's delicious, but I get it. But like, you know, back in the day when you know I was at the FCI, if someone says something, I'd be like, We gotta test that. And I mean I'm spending other people's money.
It's very easy to test things when you're spending other people's money. But you said it was very good hand roll. Yeah, very good. I mean, and I also had uh in when I was in Japan last, like one of the omakashas we did was also featured a ton of dry age. I feel like I'm seeing more of it.
And I don't know, for me, I like you said, without A B it's hard to tell, right? But every time to tell it. Yeah, it I don't know if it's placebo or what like yeah. How long dry aged in Japan? I mean, in Japan they've always just had their fish stay for the exact length of time that they wanted to to get the exact result that they did.
I mean, it's nothing new over there unless it's one of the extended dry ages, right? It was extended, yeah. No, it he like it made a point to kind of talk about it that way. But again, it was I I I I don't I don't know the specifics, but um anyway, this guy, yeah, uh Li Wei Liao, I don't know if I'm saying that right. He's the owner of joint seafood.
Um yeah, he's kind of known for it and it's very, very good. Great. Awesome. And uh Stas, you have anything to add to that? Did you also enjoy the hand rolls or you're like not so much?
I took Jack. I've been going there for a while and I'm like I know it's out of the way, but it's really, really, really good. Well, I appreciate this is the rare thing that you actually enjoy. I would take you, but we have no time. Yeah, yeah, we gotta we got a lot of stuff that we do.
We gotta go to Disney World. Apparently we're going to Disneyland, excuse me. Nice in Anaheim. And we are going to taste every cocktail that they serve at Disneyland. Which I don't know how many they are or you know, whether I'm gonna have to have insulin shots afterwards.
Yeah, that that sounds very sweet. It sounds like an instant hangover. Yeah. Although listen, I like I've met some people on their culinary team. I think that they have probably like stuff that's like straight ahead for people who are like sugar booze, sugar boobs.
And then they have probably stuff for people who are like, Give me a drink. You know what I mean? Proper drink. Did you know that Doritos were invented in Disneyland? I did not know that.
That's an odd fact. Is that true, or is that something I wish was true? No, it's uh it's a real, it's a real thing. Yeah. They were uh yeah, just uh the I don't remember the exact story, but uh yeah, it happened.
We looked into it, uh, and it checks out, but I don't remember all the facts. But you can look it up. So the Frito Lake Corporation, which I believe manufactures Doritos, makes some delicious products. By the way, I also noticed you guys are a fan of potato chips on sandwiches, which are of course good. Excellent.
Yeah, and we put Fritos in Chili Crisp. Sounds good. Fritos, I was about to say, Fritos, I think they're the best. I mean, I don't eat them as often as I have Doritos, but I think they're the best. They're weirdly addictive, like just they shouldn't be that good, right?
No, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're so dense, too. Like you see that little you're like, I'm gonna get Fritos. Yeah. And then you grab the bag, and you're like, why is this bag so tiny?
But then you end up being okay. Yeah, for the most part. Yeah, definitely. And like top it with uh anything you want, like just open a small bag and put anything you want in there. And unless they've changed, the Frito people aren't like, you know what?
You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna put the Dorito dust on this. I'm gonna cool ranch this sucker. No, they change the shape if they flavor it. Oh, they flavor them though?
There's a barbecue, like a twisted. Oh, yeah, I've seen those uh little Fritos. I don't know, that's not for me. They're fake. They're not for me.
It's uh it's not a real Frito. It's the one thing I thought I it's the one thing where I thought they were like, you know what? We don't need to go freaking skew taster on this. We came up with this thing, it's the Frito. You do something to me.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you do your Frito Pie. We're done. You know what I mean? What do you do?
Wait, okay, so Disneyland and then cocktails. And then what else are we doing? I don't know. Stas has us doing a million things. We're doing a we're doing a potluck dinner, potluck lunch that is Vincent Price theme.
So Vincent Price was uh, you know, actor, right? Famously the, you know, for younger folks, the voice that laughing at the end of Thriller, because I think people still listen to Thriller, right? And even though that's from the 80s. By the way, that was the first album that I remember. Every living human being had a copy.
Like I had a copy. My parents had a copy, all my friends had a copy. Everyone owned Thriller. Everyone had thriller. You know what I mean?
Right. I mean, people owned albums. Hell of them. Yeah. I had it on vinyl and C D.
And I would record some of it to tape so that you could listen to it on your tape devices. You know what I mean? Yeah. I missed the cassette tape. Not because the sound.
It sounds like crap. But like the kind of DIY-ness of like a mixtape. I don't think that happens anymore. Oh, yeah. Yeah, mixtapes, right?
Yeah. Yeah, you get a little bit of that crappy DJ, like saying something at the beginning and trailing off at the end because you're not fast enough and you're not smart enough to sit there and like try to, you know what I mean? And you're not gonna bounce dub. People are like, oh, I'll just trim off the ends. No, dude.
That's not how it works. That's not how stare the stereo the home stereo does not work like that. Yeah, real nerds would sit right next to the decks, although I did have a twin deck, a dubbing deck, which was choice. Yeah. Choice.
Choice. Anyway, but you sit there and it's like you boo. You always miss the first couple of seconds of the song. You know what I mean? Yeah.
I was fortunate enough to uh only have to do that for a couple years before burning CD is uh uh became a thing. Yeah, you know what? The kids these days, I know some they're nostalgic for CDs now. Like, it's not vinyl people. See, see the hegemony of CDs was like a 12-year period.
Like, who cares? You know what I mean? It's like vinyl was around like first in its acetate form and then in vinyl form for a long time. You know what I mean? Has meaning.
CDs were always a bridge. It's like VHS, and they failed down. Records fail okay, you know, but CDs, man, when a CD fails, your toast is yeah, ridiculous. All right. Quinn, what do you got for us, man?
I actually got something that ties right into a uh question for our guests. Okay. So uh I've been making some facach style bread uh two weeks ago, turned out really good. I've been experimenting with alternate uh oils in the dough and on the dough. So I made like uh flavored massala oil uh two weeks ago.
And this week was a bit of a bust. The dough turned out well, but I flavored the oil with this obscure essential oil I had. So I just didn't know. Yo, dude. Essential oils in your regular cooking oil?
What was the essential oil? What was it? Uh have you heard of divan? Lavender. Oh, really?
Lavender. Oh my god. No, divanna. Divanna. That's not familiar.
Lavender. Nastasi's making a joke of my I've my son Dax broke a lavender oil vial at a target once. And to this day, he can't stand any lavender. Like you get lavender near him, and he's like, uh, and it's not because his grandma uses it in in the bathroom, because she does not. That's my mom.
I know she doesn't. You know what I mean? But it's like, we're not a smell soap house. We didn't grow up with smelly soaps. Did you guys grow up with smelly soaps?
No, it was like hyperaller genic stuff. Like Dr. Whatever cheapest soap was for me. Yeah. You know, here's it.
For the ki k kitchen folks, right? When people have overly perfumed soap on them and they're getting next to you when you're cooking, you're like, God, get away. It messes with you, yeah. Right? Especially yeah, front of house people that uh really lay it on.
You're like, I can't concentrate on what I'm tasting. You know what I mean? No, it totally changes how your mouth tastes. Yeah, yeah. We definitely had to tell a couple of our servers, like, you gotta ease up.
Yeah, you just can't smell like that. Yeah, but then you also it's hard to tell people that. You're not saying that they smell bad. You're like, you just can't be you so like it's a fine line. Yeah, Nastasi and I used to occasionally Mandy Aftel, the perfumer Bay Area, uh, yeah, she was like, hey, what about the I was like, I don't ever put on purpose.
If I smell it's bad. Right. Something bad has happened. You know what I mean? Yes.
Yeah. Anyway. Uh how do we get on that? Oh, essential oil. Essential oil.
So what is divana smell like? What is divana? Uh it's it's a it's like a shrub from India. Okay. So here's what happened.
Okay. Darcy L'O'Neal, like two years ago, you know, started releasing videos about his soda syrups, and one of the procedures is yeah, you take like a citrus oil and you suspend it in ethanol, and then you use that essence to flavor syrup. But when I went to go buy essential oils, I'm like, if I can get regular spices or herbs or citrus, I'm just gonna use those ingredients. Although that's a mistake right there, because the oils don't taste like the actual ingredients. Essential oils don't taste like the ingredients because they're one component of it.
So just putting that out there. Okay, so you're just you're well, they're a handful. Well, it depends. Anyway, go ahead. So, you know, what I was more interested in, if I was gonna buy essential oils, I might as well get, you know, you know, sources that you literally don't see as their like primary ingredient out in the world normally.
So I got a bunch of weird ones. But then why would you dump it into bread without knowing what it tastes like? Like in other words, like why wouldn't you take your essence oil, like like put it in a little bit of liquid and be like, oh, guess what? I hate this. Right.
But it it smelled really good. Okay is the problem. Yeah, does something smell good or taste real bad? It smelled really good. Yeah.
All right. Was it poisonously bitter? Was that what happened? But it was just like had this weird floral aftertaste that I didn't smell when I was smelling it, working with it. No, taste it.
Taste it before you dump it into your focaccia. I'm gonna say this too, and this is an incredibly unpopular opinion with everyone in the world. Focaccia is fine. It's fine. It's good.
It's not a bad product. It takes skill. I don't care about it. You know what I mean? Like there's uh such a world of facaccia now though.
Uh yeah. Yeah. Um so what was uh with the bread with your focaccia? It was uh the flavor that you didn't like. Okay.
Uh oh the well, it's we're just like floral and weird. Yeah, so I had a question just related. Maybe think about your uh Xiaobing recipe. Uh-huh. In that recipe, you very specifically call for a solid fat for lining the trees.
Why is that? Oh, uh it's just it I know you guys are fans of Crisco on the show. Crisco. But it just changes the it just it it acts like uh almost like a like a glue to the pan while it's solid. And so, you know, we are just fussing around with like trying to get the the dough to the corners and it slides back.
Have you tried it with Detroit Pizza? Uh no. I have not uh actually a regular bought me Detroit pizza pans, and I just have not. Because one of the big pains in the butt with the Detroit pizza is they're like it's gonna snap back, you gotta come right a bunch of times. Yeah.
But no, it's uh it it it's uh it was a revelation. I don't I think I saw it on like uh a YouTube video of like someone's Nona like uh rubbing a pan with Crisco and it was like okay. It's worth a shot. Pasta grannies or something. Yeah.
Something like that. I know you do a cold you do a cold fur ferment, but are you are you forming it cold? I don't remember. Um in the book, I believe uh y it's like there's this like there's a series of folds like before it goes into the into the into refrigeration and then uh one more, one or two more uh after in refrigeration and then you just dump it out onto the pan. All right, but it's still it's still not it's not so warm that you're melting out your salad fat.
No, you're not. Yeah, definitely not. So it's still performing its glue like function. Yes. Yeah.
Um it it was yeah, it was uh really uh it changed. It was like it w changed uh my mood a lot. Like uh around making the bread. That's oh this is easy. This is great.
We can that's the most someone can say. I think we have a caller. Caller, you're on the air. Hi. Uh my name is Thomas, first time l or long time listener, first time caller.
Nice. I think I'm the the the middle of the Venn diagram between line dance and cooking issues. Nice. So um super excited for this. Um but I had a question uh on the topic of other baked goods.
But uh when uh I remember going to Eli's with the line dance uh or at the time that's them vegan banana cake, um, which was always blew me away, particularly because it's vegan. Um I was wondering if uh the y'all could talk on kind of the inspiration on that and how do you get um with a vegan baked good like that, how do you get it so rich and moist and soft? And before you answer, I'll say for those who haven't purchased a book yet, recipe for banana cake in the book. If I don't know if it's exactly the same. I know you rechange a lot of stuff from home, but go ahead.
Um yeah, hey Thomas. Thanks for calling. Um yeah, so the recipe is in the book, and um so in uh Singapore and generally in um Southeast Asia, you have uh banana cake that is really treated like a cake, unlike banana bread here, which is also like not a bread, but um there's just like something that is more of it's more like meant to be fluffy, and um you get that like sweet banana aroma in there. It's just really moist and beautiful and um usually it does use eggs. Um but thankfully uh bananas do a great job at binding on their own.
But the secret is to um let them get so ripe, just so ripe that they almost taste like they're turning alcoholic. Um and that's really how we get that like extra um sort of um over-the-top like heady note in there. Um and we also use um some coconut in there, which helps round out the flavor and yeah, um, it's just a really yeah, it's one of my favorite things. And uh I'm not a sweets person, but this one is just like something that uh I've really been uh working on for a while. Uh I hope you have fun making it.
Yeah, I'm uh I'm excited to uh have it with uh some but banana just no for my spin doll as well. That'll be a good guy. Bananas on bananas. So by the way, the current banana Houstino, we we we used to cheat, we used to use a rum that added sugar, even though they said they didn't. And then we cheated by adding a little bit of uh either brown sugar or maple syrup.
And now what we do is we we clarify extra, we clarify banana, just banana, along with so we make a standard banana stino, then we clarify banana and then boil that down to reduce it to make like uh what we call banana zhuzh, and it also gives a little bit of that cooked brown flavor to it. So that's what we do now. Nice FYI. Uh yeah, we stopped in the bar a couple times. Oh, nice in the last week.
I hope you had a good time. Excellent. I was not there, so I hope you had a good time. It was you probably better time than if I had been there. I you know what?
I'm I'm hardly uh I'm hardly ever there. Actually, I'm not supposed to be there. Anyway, that that's that's from beyond. Um thanks for calling in. Do you get your uh you get your covered smothered?
Love it. Uh I have uh oh, the one thing the one thing I'll do from this this week, uh just because it also answers a question. Nibble wanted to know the make and model of my new hood. I got a new hood. I got rid of my commercial oven at home because you know, my wife's like, I'm an architect.
You can't have this illegal oven here. It's bad for my business. You know what I mean? And so I got a regular thing. And then my old hood wasn't real hood.
By the way, nothing's a hood in terms it's a residential hood, which it doesn't have the same thing. We don't need ancients. It's a residential hood, it's not a real hood. We're not putting black pipe up to the freaking roof, all right? All right.
But I got this crazy hood and I didn't know whether I was gonna like it or not. The company is a little bit of a pain in the butt to deal with. They're out of Washington. Oh. It's a ridiculous hood.
It is a ridiculous spend. I love it. Nice. I got an 1800 CFM, 1800, which is a lot for a home. 60, 60-inch hood, right?
So it's uh like it's over my I have a small range now, it's only 30 inches wide, right? It's like a home range. Yeah, but then I got all the rest of my hot side next to it. So I got my induction, I got my undercounter oven, I got my crepe maker, all my hot side over there, right? So it's 60 inches, it's meant for people who grill and it's kind of indoor-outdoor.
Okay. But here's why you wanted, first of all, it's two eight-inch ducts, which is a pain. I had to like custom build, I had to become a tin knocker and like custom build my own duckwork because who has the money to hire someone to come build custom ductwork to make it like fit into the top four inches of your kitchen window, which is what I had to do. Right. Anyways, the reason to go big, you need some makeup air, right?
So we're gonna need to open windows, but even in the lowest mode, it's got a nice light in it too, which I appreciate. Decent color temperature, nice. Excellent. You know, you know what? People, you can need a nice light when you're why not have nice light when you're cooking.
You know, it it's important. It's always important to have a nice light. Yeah, yeah. The appropriate light. This sucker, first of all, the two sides of it are independent, so I can turn on one side or the other.
I don't have to have the whole hood going all the time. But even in the lowest mode, it extracts more than any other home range uh hood ever. And quiet. What? Quiet.
Because it's meant to extract 1800 CFM. So if you turn it down to like 400, it's like, am I even on? You know what I mean? Is this even working? And he and for a home, it still has the grease things in it.
Right. So you can pull those out and throw them in the in the dishwasher. The one that I had, because Nibble wanted to know the exact brand, is the 60-inch 1800 CFM under cabinet rangehood by Victory in their Verona line. It is ridiculously expensive. It took me a long time to install too, because I couldn't afford to have someone.
Get it installed. Yeah. You know how it is. Yeah. Yeah, you have to do things yourself.
Some like most of the time. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. By the way, if you're gonna work with ducks, wear gloves.
Okay. Wear gloves. You're gonna get cut. You're gonna get cut real bad. It's not like raw edge, like sheet metal.
You're gonna cut yourself real bad. That's 90% of the time that I cut myself. It's like I don't cut myself with knives. Yeah. It's just raw edges on like convection ovens or something.
Yeah, because you understand how a knife works. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like it's like these things that you don't do, like you're like, I'm just gonna pick up this piece of sheet metal and move it from here to there. It's not gonna be a problem.
You're like, ah Yeah. Now we need stitches. Yeah. Yeah. So like wear gloves and uh the other thing is seal every seam.
So if you buy those little 90 degree elbows that you can twist around, you have to tape seal every single seam. It's kind of like, you know how when you were a kid, I don't know about you guys, but when I was a kid, 90% of the heat leaves through your head. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You gotta wear a hat, you know?
It's like that with duckwood. They're like, they're like 200% of the air that you push is lost through the seams. You know what I mean? Like to make the stuff up so they put the fear of God into you that you have to seal every seam. Okay.
Anyway, so that's all I got for the week. I don't have time to do any, do anything else. Let's talk about let's talk about the book. Okay. So uh uh short history, see if I get get this right.
You started, well, one won't go all the way back because we don't have time, we only have half hour, but. But in when you moved to the Bay Area, right? Yeah, you uh first did uh a pop-up called SM Vegan. Yes. And you claim that you did not realize that this was SM when you started.
This is clearly a lot. No, it's yeah, it's uh rage bait. I mean it's like it uh because people would come up to us and be like, you know what that means, right? No. Can you tell us?
Exactly. Yeah. Um no, that was really funny. We um really suck at coming up with names. So those were just our initials.
Yeah, like uh CY's middle name, um, my first name, uh, and then vegan is like, yes, it's it's a very descriptive. It's not uh but yeah, we started doing that um while working at our our kitchen jobs. Um and uh yeah, the first pop-up was uh a cooler, a four-foot folding plastic table and uh toaster oven. And uh we sold like four sandwiches at a bar. And uh then we just kind of kept doing it because like we've we were uh we made we sold four sandwiches, but that was like wow, we made money from food that we made.
Uh and it's not like you know, if we're gonna get underpaid, we may as well underpay ourselves instead of um instead of getting underpaid by a chef, like a a restaurant or something. Now, sandwiches, if there's a sandwich chapter in the book, uh, sandwiches have numbers. Did you start the numbering there or did you restart the numbering at Lion's Dance Cafe? We so those are just uh uh numbers of shopping sandwiches specifically. Yeah.
So and we started just because we were yeah, doing a pop-up, we were always just like changing the the fillings, and then when we specifically landed on making that bread, it's because I I like busted my hand. We were gonna make we used to make like buns for all of our sandwiches. Um I busted my hand and I was like, I well, I can't shape bread right now, so I'm gonna just a slab of dough and then cut it. Uh so we started with that. My nickname in high school.
Slab of hell, yeah. Uh and then uh and then yeah, just like people really liked it. Uh they started off as like a quarter of a of a half sheet tray. They were like enormous needlessly enormous. Yeah.
Um, but yeah, it was uh yeah, people loved it. So we could just kind of kept rolling with it. That was like 2018 or 2019 or something, and then from there we just kind of started doing uh more regular pop-ups, like kind of a a Tuesday uh residency kind of thing at uh at a dive bar in uh in Oakland called Eel Eel Eli is Mile High Club. Um that was life-changing because it was our first time really popping up somewhere that had a proper kitchen. Yeah, the kitchen kitchens are nice to cook out of, not like a tent with like butane burners and stuff.
Although, like, what's the difference between doing a long-term pop-up where you can kind of feel at home? Whereas I always hate like walking to someone's kids and go, can I use this? Can I use this? Oh yeah. Well, it's just a bunch of like um what's it uh family friendly friendly word?
Uh I don't know, like a bunch of scumbags. They'll they'll they'll own that moniker for sure. Uh it's uh Eli's is uh their slogan is a a garbage place for losers. Um and uh so they just and we knew the crew there, we knew the owners and everything. They're they're just like really welcoming, very nice.
Uh and they're just like, yeah, just use whatever, I don't care. You ever go to Rochester? No. No. If you go to Rochester, well, that's no point because I've never seen a vegan garbage plate.
But if you're dealing with the people who are garbage people, right? Make a garbage plate, a vegan garbage plate could be interesting, I think. I think so. I mean, there's enough vegan garbage that you could put it on a plate. Well, but you know, you know, the garbage plate is like all it's basically all of the stuff like mac salad, like all and then like cut up either hamburgers or hot dogs and like you know, chili and all this stuff.
It's good though. It feels yeah, I think it's like it's like the Long Island iced tea of drunk food of foods. Yeah, yeah. Nice. I could see, especially like, you know, but go back to the book for one second, but we'll get back to it.
Um like a garbage plate, although usually viciously underseasoned. Don't tell Rochester, viciously underseasoned. Do they have salt on the table though? I mean, maybe. I don't remember.
All I know is it's like if you're gonna make a chili kind of meat sauce, really. You gotta flavor that thing. You know what I mean? Yeah. Anyway, uh lot of flavor.
Like reading these recipes, even though like this is not the way that I usually cook. Super layered flavors makes you want to eat these things, and then you're like, oh, maybe I want to actually cook these things. Like some of the some of the stuff's easy, not difficult, but some of the stuff you're like, listen, this is the way it does. It takes this many steps, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean?
But yeah, very it really is an enticing, um, enticing book. Makes you want to eat the food real bad. Nice. You know what I mean? Thank you.
Um talking about garbage plate vegan SN. Oh, yeah. By the way, in case you guys don't believe me when I say that they clearly called it S and M vegan purpose. There is a recipe in this book called, and I'm this is an acronym, so I can say it on the Family Friendly show, ass cookies. So I mean, maybe it's ASS, but it's ass.
It's yeah, it's almond sesame shallot. Yes. Um, and um we actually um put that up on Instagram, like sh what should we call it? And people voted. Democracy at work.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So clearly it's not like a one-off. Like the the the double the double. I mean, we are, you know, Bay Area, you kind of have to have like a sense of humor about about that stuff, about everything. So talk to me about those cookies for one second, because uh, you know, you're right, in uh Singapore it's often it's it's it's not unusual.
Now I have that song going through my head. Uh it's not unusual to have uh like uh that shallot flavor in a dessert and it's a lightly sweet anyway. So it's like almonds, shallots, and sesame in in a dessert thing. So what is that what is that what does that do to it? What does the shallotness bring to it?
It's just in the oil, it's not shallots, it's shallot oil, right? Yeah. So what does that bring to it? Right. So um that rings a really nice like caramel-y flavor because it's the oil from frying shallots that we use as just like a crispy addition to everything.
Um so you get this um caramelized sweetness in it that most people can't quite pinpoint what it is until you tell them. And yeah, in uh in Diocheo cooking, um you have desserts like uh or um or ni, which is uh a sweet taro paste that initially used lard, and um over time and with like health concerns, um the trend moved to uh using shallot oil instead, and that's kind of where the idea came from, and that makes for a really uh short cookie, too. It's like there's like no uh moisture, like there's no uh water in the cookie, which is so it's like it's kind of the I've thought about like how does it firm up? Is it just the residue like moisture in the in the flour? Uh because like flour is like what 14% water still, something like that?
It depends on where you live, yeah. About, yeah. So is the as you bake it, does it kind of like steam itself and so all you and then it like adheres the like the the granules are like yeah, the I think there's some steaming going on because when they come out of the oven, they're like sort of cracked on top of it. Right. They do expand.
Yeah. All right. So uh by the way, I will say this also. So then uh because I have so many questions gonna run out of time. Um you do SM Vegan, then you open a brick and mortar lion dance cafe, which you then interestingly closed just because you you're like, we say the impression I get, you tell me, is you're like, we said what we needed to say, we have other things we need to do.
I mean, basically, yeah. That's a pretty a good way to put it. Yeah, we're we're moving, yeah. Like we we kind of need to make moves uh right now. And uh it takes a long time to close a restaurant and uh and write a cookbook.
So we're uh like yeah, you know, still paying taxes on stuff that we did in like 2024 nightmare for some reason. No, it's nightmare. Um, and then you make this book, which is uh, you know, doing it by yourself, Herculean effort doing all the shooting and whatnot. And you say in the book that this is your party gift to the Bay Area, and you're like, I'm out. Yeah.
Because you guys are moving to Singapore. Yes. Which is a place I've never been. Oh, you gotta go. Yeah.
I know. I know. I was supposed to go. One of my uh one of my you know favorite uh interns had a a restaurant over there, and I always thought I'd go visit him. He died.
Oh no. Yeah. Eng Su Lee, he was a Cantonese speaking uh uh Singapore guy. And he had a a restaurant, a Nasi Lamak restaurant. He bought his own coconut like like farm so that he control the coconuts.
You know what I mean? Like he was a hardcore, yeah, he's a hardcore dude. Uh, but I'll never get to taste. He never made it for me when he was here. Well, of course he couldn't get the coconuts he wanted anyway.
Like, why would he make it here? He's like, This is trash can. You're a trash can, this is trash can. You know what I mean? He did show me how to cook uh shrimp without them curling, though.
Probably some secret secret tricks. You know what I mean? But uh he was an interesting, interesting cat. But I never made it, I always thought I would go visit him there, but I never I never went. But still, you know, everyone says, Yeah, you have to go visit Singapore.
You're a moron. That's what they say to me, especially because as a like a person who deals with liquor, like back in the day, like uh so many Americans were going to Singapore to do like uh liquor consults. There was a lot of money, money in it in like the big hotel chains and whatnot. You know what I mean? So you could make a decent amount of cash going over there and just being like American cocktails.
Right. You know what I mean? And then coming back. But I feel like I don't know if that is the case anymore because you know, I although I've never been to Singapore, you know, been, you know, China, Hong Kong, you know, so much homegrown like creativity there. I don't think they need to bring Americans anymore for cocktails.
You know what I mean? They want, I mean, there's just so many, there's yeah, so many cocktail bars in Singapore, but there's still like uh, I feel like widely influenced by what's going on in New York and London and uh lesser extent, probably San Francisco. I feel like San Francisco hasn't been doing as much as they used to these days. Really? I haven't been back in a while.
I mean, you know, I haven't been to Oakland in many years. Oakland's is uh Oakland's doing uh even less, except for uh no, uh actually a couple really uh amazing spots. Uh we're a little biased, but Tallboy, uh really great cocktail bar, high volume. Uh, we actually consulted on their menu uh for uh hot dogs, uh vegan hot dogs. Uh the impossible hot dogs are weirdly spot on.
Yeah? Yeah. I haven't had their hot dogs. Their breakfast sausage in a tube is good. Nice.
Like uh that's what I use when I'm doing my mom stuffing, but I need to make it uh vegetarian. Uh-huh. I still use butter. By the way, in the book, you're like, we're not gonna talk about the just buy the vegan, but we're not gonna talk about it. We have it, we do it, but next book.
It's too much. It's like well, how do you even make vegan butter? What is that? So the process was uh kind of stupid. I mean, it was like you make a cream uh with like a blend of like uh refined coconut oil and um and canola oil or whatever neutral uh cooking oil.
Uh I would make like a the vegan yogurt uh and then like blend it with soy milk and uh just basically emulsify the fats together with the the soy milk, the fermented soy milk, uh good amount of salt, and then um and then blend it with an immersion blender until the fat globules like uh actually like stick together. So you get like a you get a fat or a water in fat sort of clumping together, and then you uh it it gives you like buttermilk, which is like really I don't know. It was it was fun to make like uh pickles, I would put it in breads and stuff like um but not c it is culture, but it's not a big thing. It's culture, it's culture, yeah. So it's tart, so you can uh yeah.
So and then with enough salt, it starts to you it kind of masks the the beanie flavor, but also we kind of like yeah, we kind of like the flavor flavor of of soybeans. I mean I do too. That's why I like do you like I well you're using uh you're using a direct set like the the tofu recipe you gave here is direct direct set. So but like also like when I m make black tofu, I don't rinse it or so okay. I want it to stay as beanie as possible.
Exactly. You know what I mean? Otherwise, why? I could buy it, I could buy one that's been soaked. Yes, exactly.
You know what I mean? It should taste like what it's made of. I mean, when you you know get cow's milk, it tastes like cow's milk. Like it's not um like similarly, um coconut ice cream is gonna taste like coconut. You just yeah, yeah.
Yeah. You're using these ingredients for a reason. Yes. Uh speaking of uh the soy milk, in your mayonnaise recipes, a lot of acid, high acid on the mayonnaise. You use more vinegar than you would use in like a standard like oil and egg mayonnaise.
Is the vinegar necessary for the it to work or just for taste? It's uh uh actually the more more vinegar uh makes it more difficult to process. Uh I it's just what we like. It's just like we know what's tangy miracle whip is more tangy than regular mayonnaise. My dad was a miracle whip guy.
Yeah, yeah. I don't hate I don't hate miracle whip. Yeah, you know what I mean? Um but yeah, uh like yeah, it's a to taste thing. Like uh I like I like kind of uh we we like high acid and uh a ton of herbs, like just so many herbs, like herbs as lettuce kind of and the soy milk is the functional emulsifier, yeah.
Yeah, it does uh an amazing job, especially if you can get like a fresh um thick soy milk. Well, it will the recipes work with the stuff you buy like it. Yeah, like uh Pacific. As long as it's just as long as there's no stabilizers, because you really want the like there there's something about the curdling process of it where it's like I think it's is it like denaturing the proteins or something, maybe like by adding acid, but if there's stabilizers, it's less likely to have. And plus when there's stabilizers, there's usually less like dissolved solids or whatever.
Right. You want high solids, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so like uh different soy milks like Kikoman, there's has one, um, West Soy has one, I think Pacific brand or whatever. As long as it's in the you know, protein, like nine grams of protein per cup is is good. Hodo, which is what we use at the restaurant, is like 11 grams of protein per cup.
Um you can make your own. Yeah, or make your own. Although I hate making it, I do. Although I have I I have the Coovings juice juicer now, and like they keep saying that there that you can make like that it's easy to make a good, like thick soy milk with it, but I just haven't done it yet. You know what I mean?
Yeah. Yeah, I I made it a couple of times, but I was like, why am I why do this when I could just buy it from a very good purveyor of of uh small soy milk? That's the nostalgia of the hammer lopez thing. If someone else is better at it than you are, then why don't you just pay them to do it? You know what I mean?
Especially if it's a pain to do this. It's not like, yeah, someone else is better in a stall in my hood, but I also don't have the money. Yeah, but you could buy the soy milk. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Anyway. Uh all right. Oh, one more question. Uh the random one, because uh well, we we got a question. All right, what we got a question from uh the the audience submitted by text.
Uh user T D V asked, uh both Dave and LDC crew are very particular about the music played in your spaces. Could you all talk about the how music plays a role for both the kitchen and the dining room? What should we be playing while cooking and eating for the full LDC experience? Oh. LDC stands for Lion Dance Cafe.
Yes, that's right. Uh that's a great question. Yeah. Actually, um we don't really like listening to music when we're cooking. Um feels like um kind of being able to to hear um the cooking is like a part of uh what you want to be paying attention to.
But then um yeah, in the dining room, we had a pretty uh specific playlist with um really uh high percussion uh lion dance music. Um and also a lot of um a lot of just like punk and hardcore because that's what we like and um a lot of um like it aloudisco old um east and southeast Asian pop. Yeah, just kind of like really a mix of um things that sort of reflect our backgrounds, I think. It was very unfocused. It was very all over the place.
I don't really know how it felt for people to be in that environment actually. Um and then you have hardcore come on in the middle of while they're eating, it's like all of a sudden like well it's minor threat, or like well, like what are we? Yeah, like or yeah, minor threat. Uh to keep it like uh sort of not like not like fast core or like uh or thrash or anything, but like you know, early hardcore, like um yeah, like uh uh seven seconds or um gorilla biscuits or uh yeah, bad brains, like where it still feels like uh more attached, more more of uh a descendant of like rock and roll r rather than like violence. Yeah, we uh we would also let the crew kind of um listen to what they wanted.
We just had um a growing no playlist, like no Morrissey. Uh-huh. No Morrissey. Oh no. Yeah.
That's funny. Uh like who else is on the no playlist? Oh, Kanye made it. Oh, just because of what a dirt baggy is? Yeah.
Yeah. Don't need that. You know, like the th the thing is like what about just letting him play it but then just mercilessly like clowning them? Or is that not cool? That's probably less cool than just telling them they can't play it.
Yeah we had a Yeah. Uh some sensitive uh demeanors. Yeah. I know people do get sensitive about their music. It's true.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean look I've been there when I was you know when I was a kid I was nice about me. All right.
Uh did we answer the question, Quinn. I believe so. Covered and smothered. Nice. So uh before I go on, uh vegan fish sauce, is this brand that you is it good?
Twenty what was it called? It's 24 vegan. It's the only one that matters on can I buy it at a regular market here? I haven't had a chance to go shopping since it's depends on how good the I mean they're not very good at outreach, I'll say um but I think you can buy it online. Uh I I know I've seen it online.
Um but um it I can't remember what it what it is it's like uh disodium iocyanate and another one. I'm uh D quantylate I think. No, that's the just the flavor and DL alanine or something, when I guess used in conjunction with like MSG, they and other things, like they taste like shrimp, like shrimp shells. Like uh, so it's like very umami. It does have like a slight aroma of of like fermented fish.
Uh and it blooms when you heat it like regular fish sauce. Yeah, it really, like you really smell it. Like when you put it into a soup, it's like it carries uh it the flavor really carries like. Yeah, it's really uh really funky, really strong. Uh it's not like guitar pineapple base fish sauces that okay.
This tastes like pineapple. Yeah. Or like also like a lot, a lot of the amount a lot of the like umami stuff, I think they taste good, but they are not a substitute for the other things that they're supposed to. Like coconut aminos are good, but they're sweet and like they're not like what I they're not they're they're never what I reach for. You know what I mean?
I like them. Yes. But you know, you know what I mean? Like, you know, for sure. And a lot of a lot of the cooking that we do is like kind of realizing that it's like there's valid, there are valid uh replacements for things that just accept that it's not gonna taste like the thing.
You're just creating a new, like a new version, a new uh a new dish. Like, I mean, it's just I don't know. If it's good, it's good. Okay, we're gonna have to go fast because we're running out of time. But uh, I'll have to say I really love like the call out on the on the brands that made me feel like like super at home.
You're like red bag talking about rice flour, red bag, green bag. And then on Agar, get the telephone, like red bag, green bag. It's like someone's like, I'm going to the market, what I'm doing. Red bag, red bag, red bag. You know what I mean?
Like you don't even bother telling them like whether it's glutinous or not because you don't want them to get confused. Yes. We're talking about different there's two different rice flours by the same company, and they have a red bag and they have a green bag. And anyone that's ever sent someone to a market knows you just tell them the color, right? Or no?
Exactly. 100%. Totally. Yeah. Love it.
I love that whole feeling. It made me feel like, you know, like back when I used to have to do that. You know what I mean? Yeah. We're we're communicators as as chefs.
We have to be communicating. A lot of these ingredients are uh new for some people. So we wanted to keep it as easy as possible. Yeah. Yeah.
Uh well, and so like one of the things I really enjoyed about reading the book is it clearly like, you know, you guys have uh like a repertoire and a like a all the flavors are built. So you start with like kind of the building blocks. You're like, we build all of our flavors on but a lot of the flavors on these oils. So here's how you make these oils. And then you're like, okay, we came up with this technique for dredging for our flies fried stuff.
So here's how like the dusting works, here's how the dredges work. So like a lot of the recipes, they build on other recipes in the book. Uh, and it really what I like about it is it shows a mental way of approaching how to uh set up a way of cooking, like a way of life to cook, you know what I mean? Yeah, which is I think uh not I mean, people do do it, but um, especially when people are writing a book about like a subject, as opposed to like this is kind of how we approach it. Like it's rare, it's not I don't get that impression when I'm reading as often as I would like.
Yeah. I mean that and that's how we kind of ran the restaurant. It's like, okay, we have this kind of like we have this dish that fills this slot using these ingredients. How do we like make these things taste totally different? Like when we change the menu, like and introduce different produce or something.
It was also like an effort to make it easy on our cooks to like think about food in a way, think about cooking dishes that we're coming up with because they know the format. They know like they're familiar with like the base recipes, like we're putting a new dish on the menu, but it's using mala oil, like so you know that. And so like we're just gonna add some things to the mala oil or adjust things here and there, but it's like just going into any new recipe thinking like uh I'm I'm already familiar with this. Yeah, it makes it more intuitive. There's like a whole a whole like pantry uh of staples, basically.
And uh, and it's funny because uh customers also tell us this tastes like LDC. Right. Yeah. Well, you say at the beginning, you start with the this the um the fried shallot oil, or if you don't start with it, it's very close to the beginning, and you're like, uh you could use other oil, but it won't taste like what we make. Yeah, you know what I mean?
Exactly. And and by the way, I'm one of those lazy weasels. I buy fried shallots like an idiot, even though I know they're not as good and slightly rancid, but you know what I mean? But maybe I won't going forward, you know. The oil is just so uh like when you just saute, like when you cook fresh shallots in shallot oil, you're it's like it's a totally different experience, too.
You're like really doubling down on the on the shallot experience on any aromatics or whatever. So not just I mean, you're still gonna have to buy the book, but I was saying, like, so the in the recipe for this, uh you put it in, you put it in the oil cold, right? You bring it up until it starts boiling, then you drop it down and you take it until it's just about to brown. But here's the question I have: why then do you turn the heat up again? Uh it's okay, so you want to get the uh it it it will eventually it'll it'll just kind of sog out if it's if it's not expelling if it's not actively like expelling and violently expelling moisture.
So you need it to when you pull the shallots, you need it to be at like a terminal amount of like of uh expression of moisture, I guess. Huh. Uh so if you just let it ride, it gets brown without getting crunchy in the yeah, it just kind of sog out. All right. Yeah.
Then there's kind of there's not very many ways to come back from that without without burning them. Yeah. Right. Yeah, like it won't even save them to throw them in a dehydrator for a million years. No, because it's like just it's like kind of candy.
I I think it's a temperature thing too. Like they they will burn uh because like the sugars, you're crisping the sugars, really, I think. Like it turns into a a shallot candy, basically. Now you're making me want to feel like I had to do this. Also, you guys are lovers, and we'll taste it uh, you know, right at the end, but uh of the Spanish peanut.
Now I've spoken against the Spanish peanut because to me, like a Virginia peanut is God's peanut. But the Spanish peanut does have the advantage of small. So maybe you like it smaller. We're about to taste it in a minute. We're gonna taste the Spanish peanut.
Yes. But I'd so like you you give a recipe for frying the peanuts, and then you do uh soy or mung after that. You soak those with flavor. Have you ever soaked the peanuts with flavor before you fry them? And does it not because you don't do it in the book?
Yeah, it does. It's just that they're we were going through so many peanuts uh at a at a point that like we just uh the soaking and the storing uh of of like so yeah, of soaking peanuts uh was uh it was cumbersome. So yeah, we were going through like 110 pounds of peanuts a week. That's something that's pain. Yeah.
Okay, wait. So okay. So uh back on, by the way, uh way of thinking, just like the you again early in the book you show this because you do your first uh sambal thing, really a cup of sambal a day, huh? Oh yeah, yeah. Easily.
Uh is the Fresno chili three ways. And it's basically do the recipe now, do this to get the second kind, now do this to the get the third kind. So it just shows the the kind of uh building. I also appreciate that you guys like red jalapenos. You're like, why do they not get any love?
Red jalapenos are so delicious. Yeah. And uh I know that you're Fresno Dow because you're California, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh. You know what I mean? But red jalapeno is so delicious.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Anyway. All right. Let's talk we're gonna run out of we're gonna run out of time.
Okay. Uh let's talk about nuggets. Pain in the butt. So you do this thing where you you freeze and then thaw the tofu, which is gonna make it very porous so that it absorbs flavors. You then dump a boy the boiling mixture of flavor over it, right?
Then you uh you let it sit for a while, then you uh do your wet and dry dredge like like a chicken dredge, and then you freeze it again. Now that second freeze, does it affect the texture or that's just so you can fry it for longer? Uh it affects the temperature or the texture, but also uh it heats the the moisture inside of the nugget to the point but not to the point where it's boiling. So it keeps the uh it keeps the crust uh intact without it like kind of gushing out all of its liquid uh due to boiling or whatever. You say this is a pain in the ass and it reads like a pain in the butt to make uh have you ever tried a flash freezer so you could freeze them very quickly and then and then bulk them?
Like if someone handed you an earinox, could you then just like crank these suckers out more? Yes, for sure. Yeah. It would take it from like a long process to pretty short, pretty short process. You can industrialize this process, it sounds like on a conveyor freezer.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And on your uh on your thing with the nuggets, uh in your dredge, you do a wet and a dry. And here's the question I always ask people. First of all, I notice your dry is gluten-free.
Is that just to make it more inclusive, or is that you actually think it's better gluten-free? Crispier. Okay. Yeah. Second, do you do you add your seasoning to the wet or to the dry?
You add your seasoning to the dry. And here's why I don't do that, because I throw away so much dry. That's true. Yeah. So, like, but do you think it's better to put it in the dry, you get a better result putting it in the dry than putting it in the wet?
Uh, I like the the toasting flavor that happens like what like to the spices like on the exterior, but to be fair, I have not tried it in the wet. That was also um like kind of a prep thing so that we could always have just a lot of dry mix on hand. Yeah. All right. Uh damn it.
Okay. Hey, real quick, we on Thursday, Dave, on Thursday, we have a live podcast at night on Earth. Tickets are still available. 3:30 to 6 p.m. Night on Earth in Los Angeles with Ariel Johnson, Harold McGee, Kevin Johnson, NOMA, and of course you.
All right. Boz and I will be there. We're recording a QA for the attendees. So make sure to get that this Thursday. All right.
So they have brought some of their Cadillac of peanuts to taste. We're not gonna have time to taste it on air. They're lime leaf peanuts that's in the book. I'll tell you next week how they taste. And I'm gonna have them taste the uh the toasted pumpkin seed oil that was uh sent to me.
I didn't get to talk about the carrot cake, which is not anything that an American who eats carrot cake would uh would think about, but it looks like an amazing recipe. I really want to try it. And on the way out, brining corn for the elotes, do you brine corn typically or just when you're gonna grill it? And what does it do other than just increase the moisture level? Does it make the corn taste different?
You brine it for a long time in salt. Yeah. Uh so yeah, uh it it uh salt water gets into the corn uh below the the husk. When you grill it, then the it steams uh the the kernels uh rather than just like uh kind of charring the outside. It also slows down the charring, uh so like you can really get it fully cooked in the husk.
Uh grilling the corn in the husk also makes it extremely easy to shuck. Nice. Yeah. All right, CY Chia and Shane Stanbridge with the Lion Dance Cafe Cookbook by the Kitchen Arts and Letters or at fine non-Amazon bookstores near you. Uh thanks so much.
Good luck on your upcoming move to Singapore. I wish I had made it out to Oakland while you guys are there. Anyway, I appreciate you guys coming on. Cushing issues.
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