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, New Stand Studios. Joined again with John in the studio. How are you doing? Doing good, thanks.
Yeah, great. Got Joe Hazen rocking the panels. What's up, Joe? Howdy, howdy, howdy. Yeah, it feels actually like kind of summary here in this city.
Yeah. Apologies for the delay, a little technical issues. Oh, technical issues meaning I couldn't find my way to the freaking studio. Also, our codec got all weird, but yeah, we're all good now. Yeah.
I swear to God, we I've been coming here every week for like years at this point, and I could not find my way around Rock City this morning. It's like I'm having some sort of like issue. Yeah. Non-cooking issue. Hey, we got a full we don't have a any guest, but we have a full no tangent Tuesday.
We got uh in the upper left hand, Quinn back from his his bout with antibiotics. How you doing? I'm good. I'm better. Good, good, good, good.
You're sucking up all that excess oxygen healing. I like it. Um in just made it back to Los Angeles. We have Nastasia, the Crypt Keeper Lopez. How you doing?
I'm good, thank you. And uh Jackie Molecules, Jack Insley, also in Los Angeles, I believe. How you doing? I'm good. I'm good.
Yeah. All right. So if you're listening live on uh our Patreon, you might want to call in a question too, especially because it's no tangent. So anything you say is gonna be on topic because there are no topics. Calling your questions to 917-410-1507.
That's 917-410-1507. And uh, John, why don't you tell them why they might want to do such a thing? Uh, if you go to Patreon.com slash cooking issues, you can see the three different levels of membership that we got. Every level comes with different perks, but they all come with access to the Discord discounts from uh people that we work with, like Kitchen Arts and Letters, Grove and Vine Olive Oil, and a bunch of other companies. You get uh information from Dave on the Patreon about whatever interesting projects he's working on, um, sifters and whatnot and things like that.
Yeah. Um so yeah, check it out. Patreon.com slash cooking issues. I built something recently that was a pain in the butt, and it's even too boring for me to explain. Can you believe that?
Like, how boring does it have to be? That's pretty crazy for it to be too boring for me to explain. I think I mentioned it last week. I built a miniature road tap. Now, if you don't know what it is, you don't need to know.
And if you do want to know what it is, then you can uh hit uh Quin Up or uh, you know, whatever, and we'll see. I I can put the plans on the Patreon, but believe me, you do not want to build it is so loud that I don't believe that I in good conscience can run it in my apartment even in the daytime. Like, what's the limit in the daytime of what you can do in your apartment? Depends on what the neighbor's situation is, yeah. Yeah, I mean, uh back in the day when most people worked outside of the house in in New York, and most people had two incomes and everyone was outside, it was just the neighbor's dog you were gonna piss off, right?
But nowadays I feel like the only thing that's worse than a hammer drill. It is sound going literally a hammer. Oh, well, yeah, then no. But the thing about a hammer drill, right, is that it goes in non periodic bursts. True.
So you you you get your concentration on and then you're like, okay, it's it's done. And then you start writing that sentence again. And that's it. But this is more just like a hundred exactly 150 beats a minute, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah like a hundred so like if you so like you know, if you're if you're Jack or John, you could just choose a hundred and fifty beat per minute song, have AI sync it to it, and you wouldn't even know. Wow, for the rest of us.
Yeah. What do you got, Quinn? Terrible. Yeah, terrible. I'm saying, could you could you adjust the rate at which it it taps to make it musical?
And then maybe maybe people wouldn't mind it. I don't actually mind 150. Like, you know, plenty of dance tunes are at 150, but uh, I mean it's fast. Sure, but actually like five variable like five, six tempo. Like it it is super monotonic.
No, there's no like no rest. No, it's just bop, bop, bop, like, like, you know, like uh like you know, that's it. Two four bop bop bop. You know what I mean? Like, yeah.
Uh Quinn, to answer your question, I could make it whatever speed I wanted, however, because I have such technical ability, but uh in order for it to be a standard, it has to be at the standard. So there is a worldwide standard for how fast to tap it and how often to shake it. And the standard was set in like 1917 and has not changed since because it was invented by the WS Tyler Corporation, the rote machine. Yeah, yeah. You do not want one in your house.
Not only that, you do not need one. Do you not only do you not want it, you do not need it. I kind of need one. I kind of need one. Oh no, at least it's not.
You don't use this for sifting. You use this for particle analysis. No, no, no, no. No. My sifter is is quiet.
I you can run my sifter is less less loud than my mill. My actual thing that I cook with is a joy and a pleasure. Everyone should build one. But like the road tap is just for particle analysis. It's got a stack of seven sieves, and the way it works is it literally like like uh uh a mechanical arm grabs the stack sack of stivs and goes, shook it, shook a shuka, shook a shook, shook at 278 shakes per minute.
And then another mechanical arm with a hammer goes bap, bap, bap, bap, bap, bap at 150 beats a minute to the tune of about 85 decibels. And my building's concrete, so it's just any hammer blow just like gets immediately directed everywhere throughout the building. Love it. It's like can't run it in the house. Yeah.
So I hope my bar prep team enjoys hammering. And if they don't, too bad. Hope that check clears, because you're gonna be uh listen to some hammering. All right, what do you guys got? Enough on sifting.
I catered the VIP section at the roots picnic and Philly over there. Don't let me answer you a question. Normally people know this. I hate VIP sections. Yeah.
Because there's a VIP section where the non-VIPs go, and then there's the actual VIP section where the real VIPs go. Which one were you doing? Kind of both because the caterer for the real VIP section, like the real real VIPs, was not good at what they were doing. So we ended up supplementing some of that as well. Nice.
Um, but yeah, was a lot. How was it? Fun, but I mean exhausting. I mean, last week was a huge push. We did this all with a week's notice.
And then coordinate including coordinating the kitchen setup down there and transportation, everything like that. Use the an off-site commissary kitchen where I was most of the week. And yeah, I rented a reefer truck, which I hit a tree branch with. Sweet. Who won now?
Uh the branch. The branch always wins. Yeah. It's that immovable force. Yeah, reefer trucks invented by a uh black inventor.
Frederick McKinley Jones, 1938. Without it, we would not have the grocery store transportation chain. I mean, someone probably eventually would have invented it, but you know. Yeah, way earlier than I think people expected that stuff to start to kind of technology. Reefer truck is an interesting term because it has nothing to do with marijuana.
It's not at all. It's not that the person driving the truck has to be high in order for it to chill properly. True. It's a weird slang for refrigeration. Yes.
Which doesn't make any sense at all. At all. Interestingly, they originally had their own motors, I think because they were meant to be uh completely, and I think they still do, standalone from your from your actual truck. Because they had to just keep going no matter what. Yeah, we didn't have the truck on at all for two days, and that thing was just going.
Apparently, it can go for like a week, and I don't really quite understand how that works. But yeah, it's great. Same company still makes a lot of them that he founded. Yeah. We weren't in a thermocang one, though.
I think it was carrier or something like that. But yeah, yeah. Weak. Yeah. Hey, for those of anyone listening, when we were doing our exhibition at the Museum of Food and Drink, we tried to get one of the original model uh, you know, reefer units, and the company still has one, did not care, would not let us borrow it.
I think it was not the original, I think it was like a second generation. Still, it was like wouldn't let us borrow it. Yeah. You know what that is? Not cool.
No, weak. Weak as hell. It was weak as hell. Reefer Reefer Madness. Exactly.
Exactly. I'm glad you said it so I didn't have to. You have never seen Reefer Madness. Neither have I. I've neither.
I mean it's public domain. You can go watch it. It's supposedly it's funny as hell if you're high, but I have not seen it. Is that it? Yeah, yeah.
I don't know. I don't know. Uh so that's never a good endorsement, by the way. Really? Like when someone says it's really good if you're high.
That probably means it's not good. Well, hold on, hold on. I I I kind of agree with what you're saying, but let's back that up slightly. Couldn't there be something that is truly great when you are high, not good when you are are are not high, but actually the experience is better than something that is technically better art when you're when you're not high. You see what I'm saying?
There's like like it it's that is that credit to the drug or to the art? I don't know. Both. It's designed for being high. Both.
Right? You know? I always think about the like the stupid like Wizard of Oz dark side like people like, you gotta do it. And you're like, no, that's just not. That's just not good.
I don't know what that is, but the Wizard of Oz is a great movie no matter what you're doing. You sink into the album The Dark Side of the Moon. Why would you do that? Yeah, it's apparently great. Well, why?
Does it something that happened about the flying monkeys? I don't know. Apparently it all sinks up with who had uh who had nightmares about the flying monkeys when they were kids. Me, yeah. Joe's raising his hand.
Flying monkeys were terrifying. Yeah. I used to sleep in the attic of my house, which looked like a haunted attic in uh Englewood, New Jersey in the 70s. And I would go up there alone, just me, the carpenter ants, and like a weird 70s carpet in an attic right after watching uh you know, Wizard of Oz. And I was certain, I was certain that the monkeys were gonna come get me.
Absolutely certain. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Of course, back then we didn't have like horrifying things to watch on the internet, so that was about as horrifying as it got.
You couldn't watch people actually getting butchered on your computer by accident. You know what I mean? Um but then you can just see watch faces of death. Yeah, but you know what? I hear not real.
Yeah, of course. We knew that, but it was still fun to go and see it. It was such a cult following thing. We used to go and see it all the time. Yeah, for those who don't know what we're talking about, Faces of Death was a uh a movie where there were some things like animals, like I think the monkey getting killed were real, and then a bunch of things that were not real, and everyone at school in junior high will go be like, I got a copy of Phases of Death.
Mm-hmm. It's like that's like the ring, it's like the ring VHS. Yeah, yeah. Right. Right.
And and uh for those for those of you that don't remember VHS, it's got about three lines of video. They use there's like the it's like it's like slightly better than an Atari 2600 in terms of resolution, like VHS resolution is horrible. If you think regular 640, 480 TV is bad, VHS is like only two-thirds the res resolution that an actual TV can do, right, Jack? They suck. Yeah, but the audio is great.
Really? Audio is awesome. Yes. Well, got a certain quality to it, yeah. Here's the other thing about VHS for those of you that it's even worse now because the tape degrades much more rapidly than any of us thought it would, and it stretches and degrades.
Vertical helical scan. We have a caller. Oh, caller, you're on the air. Do you have something to say about VHS tapes? Do you wish that you blockbuster video still existed?
I do not wish V uh Blockbuster still existed, but I do uh enjoy VHS tape here and there. I just actually recently found a VTR on the side of the road, brand new in box a couple weeks ago. Brand new in box. That's an interesting find. Did you find a VHS tape and boot it up?
Um I have I still have a collection of VHS tapes uh that I've held on to for the last you know 35 years. So eventually I will. Like the kids are marveled by it. Yeah, yeah. That's like kids are like, I want compact discs, and you're like, why?
That's the dumb that's the dumbest of all the formats. You know what I mean? My daughter, she wants to offer music on CDs. Yeah. Well, and the reason it's dumb, Jack, is because it was only the standard for like the equivalent of a week and a half compared to LPs, right?
And it's and there's no reason to get a C D over other lossless digital technology. So if you're if you're an analog freak, fine. But it's not that a C D is going to be any better than a good quality lossless wave. Because you know what? I've heard uh I've heard arguments, and uh it could be like a placebo thing, but I've heard arguments that the CDs actually do have a bit more fidelity to them.
Joe, I don't know, maybe you know a little bit. How would that even be possible? My CDs from the early 90s, the aluminum is now translucent and they were stored properly, not in those big lodgy cases, and the laser can't read it. Yeah. So the pits and lands are all.
My CDs are stored in a humid software Florida garage, and somehow all these years later still work. Yeah, it's just because they're because they're in Florida, they're ornery. My question always is like, even theoretically, why would a C D be better than any other digital form of as long as the bitrate is identical. Well, like Apple does all this weird like atmos thing to their lossless stuff now. So I don't know.
If you're a purist, I think maybe the original master from the CD might have a different quality to like what what's been re remastered for streaming, you know? I just like as an old man, I find the idea of a CD purist to be the most hilarious thing I've heard, at least in the past hour and a half. You know what I mean? Well, what do you prefer? AIFF files or wave files?
Me? I don't give a rat's ass. I live to I listen to MP3's uh on on crappy headphones. You know what I mean? Okay audio files in the group.
But uh anyway, all right. So sorry, what's your question? Um, so you uh went on uh you have mentioned in the past that uh your wife does not like raw onion in the house, so you've resorted to things like radishes, which I've picked that that up because that is a uh a great suggestion. So basically my question is my partner uh cannot have onions. Um it basically causes her to spend the entire evening and next day in the bathroom.
It's very unfortunate because onions are in everything. Um so we do a lot of cooking at home. My question is I've I've been struggling to find substitutes for uh a lot of times I feel like I can just leave the onion out if it's you know just the base of of uh of a soup or something, it's pretty unnoticeable. But dishes like you know, chili that we love and things like that, you know, uh some of these braised meats. I've tried things like fennel, you know, up in the garlic, but so they can do garlic.
They can do garlic. Thank God at first, yes. At first we had to keep garlic out, but we slowly introduced it back, it's totally fine, but shallots, um, you know, onion leak. What about leaking like that is is scallium? Uh they can have just the green part of leek.
Huh. Yeah, there's something and same thing with green onion. Huh. Have you have you tried a um just extracting into the oil and then using the oil? Like does the oil also bother them?
No, they can have the oil. I guess what's in the onion is it's water soluble um so we you know it can't be in stocks and stuff. But if we were to make a shallow oil, um that has been helpful in things like stir fries and stuff like that. But just like dishes where the onion is is kind of what like I feel like the one thing that I'm really struggling with is like we we just want like a good chili. Like who doesn't?
You know, you can't Right. And who we can't make a pot of chili unless a couple onions in it. So I I was just gonna be able to do that. I'm gonna ask I'm gonna ask a couple more questions. I'm asking a couple more questions, and then uh I have a only one suggestion.
Uh depend I mean, depending. Uh have you tried pressure cooking? I know that it kills the flavor, but I'm curious whether the principle that is causing the problem is destroyed by pressure cooking. I have not. Um I know you're an advocate for that for onions in a pressure cooker.
I have not gone down that route. I don't know if I can convince her uh because she spent about a year in misery until we figured out what was causing it. I maybe I'll sneak it out. I don't know, I'll do that. But it it totally knocks the flavor down.
I'm just curious whether it uh also knocks down whatever the principle is that's causing the problem. The other one, what about things that are uh deep fried until all the water is gone? Does that change them enough or does it still cause problems like crispy, crispy shallots on things like pizza or on uh you know stir fries, things like that? I'll be honest, we haven't we have we haven't tried. So so you think that there might be a possibility that uh it could be leached out through pressure cooking or oil?
I don't know. Well, oil won't be fashionable, it out. It's just a question of whether the high temperature is going to like destroy or alter whatever it is that's causing the problem enough for it to not be a problem anymore. But neither of these are my suggestion. My suggestion is to use asfetata.
Now, as fetata aka hing smells real funky when it's not been cooked. But once it c it's cooked, this is what the Jane so Janes can't use onions, right? Because they inflame the passions and you know cause you to, you know, become a uh a a passionate person. So according to the Jains, not according to me. So uh, you know, as a substitute for uh onions in you know Jane cooking, you'll you'll use uh acetata aka hang.
And uh you uh I think that you can buy the powder because that's the easiest thing to use. I think the highest quality one are the resin blocks, and then you microplane the resin blocks fresh. Uh yeah, fresh, pfft fresh, my butt. They're dry as hell, but they maintain their aroma, I think, better when they're in the resin blocks, but they're much harder to find that way. And you microplane them in.
Yeah, yeah, that's good. Okay. I was saying I found I I've I've I've messed with the powder in the past um with some Indian dishes and stuff like that. And I know that it it made my spice cabinet um stink to all hell until I got rid of it. Um Mason jars.
But yeah, I guess that's Yeah, I know. I try just keeping it like in the plastic bottle it came in and put it in like a ziploc bag. No, uh it did not work. No, because whatever the is the you know, the sulfur-based compound, which is what's mimicking the onion, right? It's sulfur-based stuff.
Whatever it is, is like plastic is no match for it. You need full glass containment. You know what I'm saying? And yeah. Right.
And and it smells real funky when it's raw. And then when you cook it, it mellows, it mellows out. Um what else? I would try other sulfur heavy fermented things. Right.
So luckily you can do garlic. I wonder where they're netted to aka Dawadawa would be. I haven't thought of that in a minute, yeah. A good I mean it's also really funky, but it might bring some of those to it. You know what I mean?
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like that's what's that's what's what seems to be missing a lot. Yeah. So willing to try willing to try that stuff and get the hang back out. Get a spend a couple of years off to get another bottle and and shoot you know just bloom that with the spices and stuff and doing like maybe a chili and see if that kind of you know scratches that itch.
Yeah and you know it that that stuff like again like remember it's all sulfur but it's not as like hardcore sulfur as like black salt which is a very acquired I think taste and except for the Panapuri. But yeah let us know what happens. Let's know how it works because everyone should have good chili. I know it's I I'm I'm missing it man. Alright well I I appreciate the help especially uh today and over the last God knows how many years.
So I appreciate everything. Thanks. Alright thanks good luck. Alright so uh what is it what does uh what does the California crew have in the in the week's uh in the week's food news man that might kind of dovetails into my thing which is again another nagging health thing so um trying to like nail down exactly what my GERD slash I guess LPR they call it whatever that situation is so I'm doing like a sort of the bland diet to see what the triggers are, which is just not fun. I'm trying to make it more fun, you know.
Yeah, sounds real fun. What's uh I mean what's the LP? What's LPR I mean this is so crazy. What's LPR? Um it's like uh same sort of thing.
You produce mucus in the throat um for trigger food. Um I don't know, like when's the last time you've read through the list of like what you're supposed to avoid from GERD? It's literally like freaking everything that I like, you know, it's like any spiked spice, you know. Um most of these things I think are written by people that don't like food very much. I don't know.
Like uh well, I would be interested to know, I would be interested to see a cross-cultural list, right? A list compiled by groups of people in vastly different food cultures. Right? I haven't researched it in this, but I know it's true, for instance, like what's safe during pregnancy, or uh in the end, a lot of it isn't necessarily science-based, cultural determined. Um, but I don't know.
I haven't I haven't researched it because anytime someone says Gerd, I think of the Parkson Rec character, gird you know, purred your herd, because that's all I have is GERD and purred. But um, yeah, that sounds like terrible. I've never known anyone who's resolved their problems doing this, though. I know many people who have tried this thing that you're doing. I don't know anyone who was like, you know what?
I found out what it was and it changed my life. But I might just be asking the wrong person. I'm asking haters probably. Tell me about it. No, I kind of that that's what I suspect too.
My doctors just like every time I go, they're like, Well, have you tried to not eat you know tomatoes and any kind of oil? It's like what are they, Tom Brady? Is your doctor Tom Brady? Listen. Here's another thing.
Doctors don't have to follow their own advice. They can go home, drink a scotch, smoke a cigarette, and eat like an entire bowl of tomato-based pasta and tell you not to, because it's no skin off their nose. You know what I'm saying? It's very easy to tell you to like do this diet. Anyway, whatever.
What is it? How many weeks long is this monstrosity? Ah, as long as I can last, I guess. I don't know. It's it's I I'm I I failed.
Like already. I failed. I had a few cocktails last night. I'm like, well, that's a good one. Well, did it cause a problem?
Yeah, sure. I got some heartburn. That'll happen. But you know what? You could just take the Larry the cable guy juice, the the prelise, and then you're good.
What's that? It's the one of the most prescribed things in the world for heartburn. It's the stuff that Larry the like, you know, tomato from Cars, Larry the Cable Guy, he was their rep for Yeah. Just fix that crap, man. Medicate your way out of it.
Have yourself a cocktail. You know what I mean? Uh human beings aren't built to last. I don't know if you know this. You know what I mean?
So if they can fix a problem and like, you know, keep you sane. I'm just amazed you called the guy who does the voice mater in cars. Yeah? Why? No, I don't know.
You know what I mean? I love that guy's voice. Yeah. Do you remember you remember Vern? Yeah.
Vern, you mean the guy who died? Vern? Is that Vern, the guy with the the Vern scare stupid the guy? Ernest. Yeah.
Vern. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean, Vern? Suspenders?
No, I mean Vern? He died young. Lung cancer. Yeah. Yeah.
So you shouldn't smoke. I'm not saying you should go home and smoke. P.S. Weird dude. I mean, I didn't meet the in real life, weird dude.
Yeah. All right. I'll take I'll take your take your word for it. Uh what about what about you, Nastasi? You got anything?
Um, I had a really good meal in Washington state. Yeah. And it was at a a little bar. Yeah. Like what made it good?
The people or the f actual food? Or both? The actual food is really freaking good. Um Tachi, Washington, which is in the middle of nowhere. Hmm.
It's like middle of nowhere, like in forest, Washington, or like weird, like west, like eastern desert, weird like Washington. Forest. Um, yeah. Beautiful. It's called Nick Lynn's Public House.
Everyone should go there. All right. And like uh like what kind of what kind of f food was it? Was it just like like re like bar food done really well? Yeah.
Yeah. It was so delicious. I like it. I enjoy bar food. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Like like straight up American traditional bar food. What's your favorite when you are at a bar and you see food, what's your favorite thing to see? Potato skins.
Really? Yeah. Love some good skins. Yeah. Really?
How crunchy do they have to be? That's I still like a nice pillowy inside, so not like super hard fried. Right. Because it has to have a crunch on the outside, but it can't be hard like a piece of leather. Yeah.
It needs to be scooped out just the right amount too. Cheese sour cream, bacon and chies? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Anything else? Chili? I mean, if you want to get crazy. But yeah. I don't know.
Like the simple potato skins. I love it. Grated cheese, cheese sauce. Grated cheese. Always.
Yeah. All right. Yeah. They're good. What uh you know what?
Uh uh, I only had like I swear to god, like three years ago for the first time was the um TGIF. Or were they? Uh fine. They were an airport. Yeah, yeah, okay.
Now what are you gonna do? Yeah, I mean went to Applebee's the other night had delicious boneless wings. For real. Really, really good, yeah. Huh.
Like just regular standard Buffalo wings, but they weren't delicious. For real. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
I mean, the the best boneless wing situation that I can remember ever having were what they call pork wings in Milwaukee with Nastasia. Remember that place, Doz? No. Oh, the where they tried to kill you? No, no, no.
Where we walked in and we liked the lady so much on the way back, we stopped again at the bar and gave her the fireworks for her kids. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And we're like, you know, we were in German town there, so we had a beer, and then we're like boneless pork wings. We're like, pigs don't have wings, we'll take five orders.
And we had that, and then we played, that's where we played stump for the first time. Where you knocked the nail into the stump. Fantastic bar. I don't remember the name of it. It was right across the street from the famous sausage factory.
Great place. Great place. I hope that kid enjoyed the fireworks. Um what do you like to see at a bar? What's so what's since this was great bar food, like what's a what's something that makes you happy at it when you see it at a bar, Stas?
I had the flat iron steak, which was it was so it had broccoli mashed potatoes and like kale and then beer bread. It was so freaking good. To me, it's bordering on bistro now, but uh it sounds delicious. Now, the the broccoli broccoli mashed potatoes, were they with it was it like like you could still see chunks of broccoli in the mashed potatoes, or was it like green? It was broccoli on the side, uh like but cooked in the way that you like when you were a kid.
It was just so good. Everything was so freaking good. This is a place that had the pizza with the blueberries or the pizza with the apples or whatever. How was that? I did not eat that.
So listen, do you remember a like, you know, whatever, 15 years ago or whatever, when Jeffrey Steingarden used to call us every week and would and say, What do you think about overcooked broccoli? I like it. Remember this? Like we would be trying to work in our trash room, and like students were coming in, like burning all of our food, and we were getting yelled at by uh Guido, who used to be Seinfeld's personal chef, but really hated the hell out of us because of how much of a mess we were making in the Italian kitchen next door. And uh Yeah, and so like like every day for like a week and a half, Steingarden would call us and like spend like an hour on the phone.
We would like, we we would look at the phone and look at each other and see who's gonna pick it up because we knew it was gonna be Steingarden, and he was gonna talk to us about Lydia Bastianich and cooking broccoli so long that it takes on those sulfurous notes, like taking broccoli till it's done and then walking away from it for like 35, 40 minutes and then coming back so that it was like fully hard cooked broccoli. Do you remember do you have any recollection of this, thoughts? It's like burning in my memory. I remember when he used to call us I don't remember the broccoli thing. Yeah.
I kind of miss those crazy calls. I mean, they were nuts. They were straight nuts. Um, do you remember the crazy guy who used to come talk to us about onions constantly and we would run whenever we saw him, he would like talk to us about onions and we would run away from them, and then we would sick them on nils occasionally and run away laughing. Do you remember that guy?
Yes. He would I don't know how anyone could talk about sliced vinegared onions for hours. Hours. He would walk up and he would ask you, and he would literally every conversation would start like this. I'm working on the onions.
And then that was it, hours. Still remember to this day. They put like almost sound like Christopher Walken. He was he was a weird, weird dude. And he he he so the FCI, any student could come into a demo.
If you took the the the full course, you were allowed to come in at any point in your life and go to a demo. It's like lifetime. He took like a one-day course on like how to juggle at the school, and then started coming to all the demos and stuff. So when they found out that he wasn't a real student, they like they put people on the door being like, no onions, no onions. Because Mills was getting bent about the guy, anywho.
Uh yeah. Trying to think of what I like. You know what I like, but we don't they don't make them on the East Coast? I like a cheese curd. Yeah.
I like a fried cheese curd. Oh, yeah. But they don't really make them over here. You know what I mean? Well, I was gonna say mozzarella sticks when they're done right.
So what's done, what's done right? Do you like the mozzarella bricks or the sticks? I don't mind either, to be honest. I kind of like the bricks. I kind of like the brick.
Here's why. That's like but that's like closer to cheese curd territory. Yeah, they also stay better longer because they have a bigger thermal mass and you can like kind of pick them up. You know what I mean? They're like the size of like the when I say a brick, I'm talking about the ones that are like the size of a fish filet, kind of like sh fish fillet but shorter.
You know what I mean? Cash brown. Ding ding. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course, marinara sauce.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Marinara sauce, dude.
Yeah. And once you have marinara sauce in the house, you also got to have calmari. You know what I mean? If you made the mozzarella steaks, yeah. And then you have the marinara sauce, and you don't have calmari, you're leaving money on the table.
You know what I mean? True. Yeah. I went to uh speaking of that, I went to Captain Scott's, which is a well-known lobster roll place in Connecticut in New London. And uh, you know, waited in a long freaking line for the lobster roll.
And when you get up to the front, they're like, uh, you can get our lobster roll 30 bucks, hot or cold. And Dax is like, which should I get? I was like, what? I was like, Dax. Because he goes to school literally less than a mile from this place.
I was like, Dax, what's datas this? He's like, Connecticut. Okay. And then he's like, which one should I get? I'm like, hot, hot, gotta get hot, hot, hot.
Top split, hot, very good. Yeah. They had clam fritters, okay. Very bready. But here's where I realized what a bad father I was.
Again, I go to Dax, I say, Hey Dax, do you like uh belly clams fried and or just strips? And he's like, I don't know. And I was like, oh my god, dude. I was like, I was like, oh my god, what have I done? Yeah, that's bad.
You grow up in coastal. Yeah, and he doesn't know. Yeah. It's crazy. And he doesn't know belly clams.
Yeah. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, clam strips are delicious. No one's no one's saying bad things about clam strips, right? Theoretically, maybe invented by your boy Jackie Peeps, Jacques Papin, the Peep Show. Uh when he worked for Logot.
You know, that's Howard Johnson's for those of you that don't speak French. And uh, right after he left being like Charles de Gaulle, Chucky D's personal chef, he went over and started working for Hojo and came up with the clam strip. But uh they're delicious. But for those of you that uh want that like real New England coastal bull crap, you gotta get the belly on clams. But people who didn't grow up with belly clams, they don't like it.
They don't like it because it's squidgy. The belly is squidgy. So good. Yeah, it's good, right? Love it, yeah.
But an order a side order belly clams was 30 bucks. So I wasn't gonna be like, because I was on I I was gonna be full out. Uh I wasn't gonna sit there and eat an entire order of belly clams myself. You know what I mean? Anyway, so we didn't get it, so I'm still a bad father.
As long as you're self-aware, you know, it's what counts. Is it though? I don't know. You still have time to fix it. Do I?
Um it doesn't count. Uh Quinn, what do you got for us? Uh, not too too much. Uh speaking of sort of dietary restrictions, uh, I did make a successful sort of lower sodium cure for some grilled chicken. Uh I got to play around with uh an ingredient that I bought a while ago.
It's interesting. Did you know you can get glutamic acid as a powder, not MSG? Yep. Yeah. So I did 0.8% uh salt, uh, 0.5% dextrose, and then 0.2% glutamic acid powder, and it turned out really good.
And then you have plenty of uh pepper on the outside of the grilled uh grilled chicken. Everyone really loved it. Now, why did you wish to do a lower salt version? Hopefully, you are not developing some sort of salt issues. No, my dad is supposed to be avoiding salt.
My mom bugs all of us to consume less salt. And also, I was interested in making a very delicious low sodium sort of base cure, because then if you want you know a particularly salty, you know, glaze or salt or accoutrement, I like being able to balance that. So it was sort of a test counterpoint of that. Because it sounds like you're shading into the Tuscan argument. Just salt everything the right amount.
Well, I mean, uh, I would argue that again, everyone really loved the chicken. Oh no, no, I'm not sure. I'm for it. I'm for it. I'm not against it.
I'm just saying the argument that I'm gonna eat a bunch of salty stuff, so I'm gonna under salt something else. I'm not saying you're under salting it, Clint. I'm just saying in general, when things start shading into that, this is why the Tuscans don't have salt in their bread argument, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up a little bit. You know what I mean? Like, so I just gotta like call it out when I when I hear it.
The the the Tuscan bread whistle that that's constantly going in the back of my in the back of my mind. Now, uh here's another thing. Uh for those of us that are blessed to not have high blood pressure. I do not know that anyone has shown any benefit to reducing salt. Right?
I mean, I think they're all based on people who like the the population wide benefits of salt reduction are, I believe, entirely predicated on the people who have hypertension that's responsive to sodium intake. Uh now, there could be more research since the last time I looked at it, but if your blood pressure is good, have salt and be merry. You know what I mean? When you say Tuscan Yeah, I'm thinking when you say Tuscan, you just mean Italian, like when you're like when you read a recipe, I've totally forgot about this, and I just looked it up just quickly. Uh quanta basta, QB.
When you look at an Italian recipe and you see QB abbreviation or the initials down below in the recipe, that's just not a it actually means like use an ingredient as much as you need. Yeah, which is the correct amount. Exactly. Yeah. It's perfect.
Not just Tuscan, but Italian. No, but the Tuskens literally don't put salt in their bread at all. So they they left off the QB and just didn't even put salt in, which is why their bread is which is why I'm basta with their bread. You know what I mean? I'm like, uh someone's like, I made I made bread.
Oh great. I'm Tuscan. No thanks. I'm gluten intolerant. You know what I mean?
It's like it's like I don't I don't need it. Uh here's the thing, people it's not just salt. It in other words, much like sugar, much like alcohol, salt's not a one-trick pony. It doesn't just make something taste salty, right? It affects the structure of the dough.
When you look at a Tuscan loaf, you ever ask yourself why does this Tuscan loaf look so terrible? It's because they don't put salt in. It's not because their oven isn't good. Sure, their oven's fine. I have a picture that I like to look at every now and again uh from the 70s in the Time Life series of someone cooking a loaf of Tuscan bread and he's cooking the loaf of bread in a professional bakery without a shirt on, and I'm just thinking about his sweat going into the loaves.
And I was like, maybe that's how they got the salt back in the day. You just sweat onto all the loaves. But well, maybe it's a little bit like your sourdough uh uh comment a long while ago about you know how it picks sourdough picks up all the um the tar, you know, of where it's being cooked. Yeah, of the of the human that's making it. Yeah.
Gross but true. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Here's another what you eat.
Here's another thing. Uh if you it's very difficult to look up historical salt consumption. I've I've tried in the past, right? Um, and people do all sorts of things to try to figure out how much salt people ate back in the day, and it's not accurate because for instance, uh I've had people say, well, if you look at the salt ration for a soldier in the Civil War, it's very high. I'm like, well, of course it is, because soldiers are marching and sweating, marching and sweating, marching and sweating.
And the more you sweat, the more salt you need because you're leaching out electrolytes as you're sweating. And so someone who exerts themselves needs far more salt than someone who sits behind a computer all day in an air-conditioned room, right? So I think it's very hard to and and salt consumption, as far as I can tell, doesn't leave uh like a record in your bones or in your soft tissue that you can go and just like dig up some some dead folk and be like, hey, you know, how much salt did they consume? I don't think there's anything like that. Uh, versus like, you know, there are certain markers for trying to figure out what kind of protein source they ate.
And so I think it's like actually disentangling what historical salt consumption was is quite difficult. Uh anyway, so I'm glad the chicken was delicious. What was the other thing you said you made? Uh I didn't say, but I did make another gelato, and I got to play around with a uh vanilla oleo resin for the first time. I thought it was pretty good.
Yeah. Which vanilla were they ole resining? Uh I'd have to go back and look and forget the source. I've been playing around with a few essential oils, and in on the essential oil website, they had the oleoresin for vanilla. Mm-hmm.
In the year 1992 of the common era, I learned what an oleo resin was, and I sourced back when it was impossible to source uh capsacian oleo resin uh to see how hot it actually was. And uh uh the answer is hot. The answer is you can't use that stuff hardcore. Uh so like what is the usage rate of the vanilla product? Uh I diluted it 10% into some alcohol.
Uh but the for the actual oleoresin, it would have been about uh two uh say 0.28 grams per week per kilogram. And any reason to use it as opposed to extract from a flavor perspective? Uh I I found it's actually a little less sharp. And I feel like it has like a longer tail. I think I would prefer it when vanilla is a complimentary flavor.
You know what I mean? Are you familiar with the product vanilla zucker, the German product made by Odeker Corporation? Or however you pronounce it? Is that just vanilla with sugar? It's sure.
It's like a sugar where the vanilla flavor, I'm presumably using a technology similar to what you're doing, right? Is actually in the in the granulated sugar itself. And it is what you need to make the legit German Apfelkuchen, where you make like a pastry dough, then you toss apples with vanilla zucca, and then you layer it up in a spring form and you bake that sucker. So it's just like it's not like an American apple pie because it's dry and layered, is real good with a little bit of schlag. You know, schlagzana on that little whipped cream on that thing.
Come on, man. Come on. You know? Yeah. Someday I'll go back.
You know, Miley, my sister-in-law Miley, who's been on the show, because she lived in Germany for high school and then lived there again afterwards to work in Berlin, makes a mean offla kuchin. So if you ever go into Miley's house, you'd be like, I hear you make a mean offal kuchin. How about it? She has vanilla succer in her house at all times. So schlag is the with the whipped cream?
Yeah. Oh. Short for schlagzana. Oh. It's like that great, the great scenes in Inglorious Bastards with the schlag being thrown on top of the apple tart.
Oh. I don't remember that. You don't remember that scene? No, but I love the movie. I overemphasize the the slap of the schlock on the apple.
Yeah, right there. It's like the camera just goes straight to it and it stays on it. You're like, oh, that's weird. That's good. Yeah.
Yeah. The guy who plays the Nazi in that movie is crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Uh well, you know, everybody, regardless of whether they're evil people or not, most of us like whipped cream.
Yes. You know? You know why? It's a good product. Now, in my family, people think I'm wrong because I think whipped cream lightens everything.
So even though they're like, but you're adding sugar and fat. I'm like, no, I'm actually lightening it, right? I'm making the overall density of this dessert lower. Even though I'm adding to the actual total calories, everything that I'm consuming is lighter. And they're like, you're dumb.
And I'm like, okay. Give me the whipped cream. Yeah, exactly. I add an unconscionable amount of whipped cream. I love it.
I love all forms of whipped cream. I even like cool whip. Frozen cool whip, man. I need to go back. What about custard?
You know, because the Brits love a custard. Like a frozen custard? No, no, no, no. It's like that. It's like a uh a very thick, milky, almost like condensed milk cream.
Oh, the hyper heavy cream. Yeah. My mother-in-law adds, it's always out. And it's always like everyone's like, why do you and she's like pours it on when comes out? Hey man.
Listen, people you gotta give the Brits what the Brits do. You know what I mean? Their Sunday roasts. The black pudding. Yeah.
Uh your wife uh her love of marmeat. Although I have to say, I remember I'm a vegemite guy. I eat more vegemite than any non-Australian, you know. Guaranteed. Um let's answer some questions.
Uh Rob writes in, I'm looking for a good recipe for hey, here Quinn. I'm listening for looking for a good recipe for dairy-free coconut ice cream uh made in the Paco Jet or perhaps the creamy. Uh as I do not have an ice cream machine, always uh seem to get problems with the texture. Anybody have uh an advice. Yeah, I always use I used to always use coconut milk as the base of sorbet's, but never as like pseudo ice cream.
So what do you got? I've got some thoughts. I'm sure you do. Well, first I would I would uh I would I would uh push back on the claim that you don't have an ice cream machine. You don't have an ice cream.
All right, let's get let's get to this. Let's get to the well. Uh I mean they are fundamentally different technologies. You agree on that. Yes, but I would say I I refer to them as blade-driven ice cream machines.
All right. Any suggestions on recipe. Again, referencing uh one of mine. Yeah, they didn't specify what texture issue they're having, whether it's uh you know, I'm gonna assume it's not creamy enough. I'm gonna assume it's not creamy enough, and perhaps it's like grainy.
Let's just say that that's the problem. Yeah, so to make sure the fat is emulsified, uh something like my recipe for a brown butter gelato, or you know, you're emulsifying a lot of extra fat into a mostly water based. Uh I use up to five grams of lecten per kilogram. Um 1.5 larcus being gum, up to two grams, gum per kilogram. Um if it's if it's actually icy, you might want to blend in either something neutral like polydextrose or multixtrin, or maybe even like unsweetened coconut like flakes, or like just straight solids content.
I mean, they make they make they they make powdered coconut, they make powdered coconut, but uh because the flakes are gonna make it grainy. Here's some more here's some more things because it because again, as Quinn pointed out, we don't know exactly what your problems are, but I will say this. Ask any food technologist, and they will tell you that coconut is problematic because coconut fat gets incredibly hard compared to other fats at freezer temperature. So it's classically a problem, right? Which is why Coco Lopez, which is used in frozen drinks, is intensely stabilized.
Intensely stabilized. So I don't know if Coco Lopez can enhance the stability of other coconut products that are added to it, the way that let's say Velvita can be used as like a melting seed because it's so it's got so many melting salts in it that like velvita can quesopy like three times its weight in regular cheese, right? You can just a little bit of El Vida will take you there. You know what I'm saying? Uh if you don't want to go get your citrates and all your other melting sauce.
Now, I don't know, because I haven't run the tests on whether or not Coco Lopez will do the same thing, but if you start with somebody else's highly researched, highly tweaked out, because it theirs is a mixture of LBG, like Xanthan, guar, I believe one of the polysorbates, I'm not sure which, this is all off the top of my head. This is just memory, right? Uh and maybe one other stabilizer. And so there's there's a lot going on in that little can with a parrot on it. You know what I mean?
Um so it's very sweet. I once looked, I once calculated how much sugar is in it, but maybe building it, seeing whether or not not permanently, but seeing whether or not just trying to build it around Coco Lopez once to see whether or not that is doing what you want, right? Then uh, you know, give it a shot. And then you know it's a stabilization issue. Well what I have one more reference point.
I do have a pina palata, gelata, which is coconut milk and a little bit of pineapple and rum, and that stabilizer system is uh 2.5 grams, Xanthem gum, uh two point, sorry, 2.0 less than a 1.5 locust bean gum. I would also say that if they're using full fat coconut milk as like their entire liquid base, they may want to dilute it a little bit. At least the one brand I used was like 18% fat. So if that's like 80% of your mix, your overall fat content might be a little too high. Uh for those who are in LA for the LA crowd, do you think that the people who are featured in the Pina Colada song should break up.
Yes. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. They should.
Like, you know, oh, everyone's like, oh, they found each other. They were right next to each other. No, you were both trying to cheat on each other. Call it a day. So you had, so you have the same likes.
Not enough. If you're sitting in bed next to each other, writing wanted ads to cheat on each other, call it a day. Stas and I go. They didn't have computer back then. So I don't know how they didn't see each other like writing them next to each other, you know.
Yeah. Well, remember like when you were taking a test and you didn't want the person next to you to look, you would like put your arm over your over your answers and like scribble with a pen. You know what I mean? Maybe that's what they were doing. I don't know.
Uh-huh. Yeah. But Jack, you I you're you're silent here. You must disagree with us. He just doesn't like pina coladas or rain.
That's why. He he's like, I can't even, I can't even like, I can't even think about it. I can't even like, it just doesn't talk to me, right? You have no uh reference point with that song. I also I like pina coladas.
I actually don't mind being caught in the rain. I don't love it. I'm neutral. Somebody disconnected, I'm not sure who it is. Could have been probably the wacky Jacques.
I did hello you like I did like you call him Jackie Peeps. Jackie, that's funny. Well, that's what we used to call him. Oh, that's what back when we actually worked with him. I I'm pretty sure you said it before and it went over my head, but now, yeah, that's good.
Now you can think of it as the is the p is the peep show. Um Andrew C writes in, hey Dave, I'm really behind listening to the show, but I just started listening to uh Melons and Spinal Tap, August 26, 2025. Remember, I have no idea. I don't think any of us remember anything we said. As soon as we walk out of this door, it's erased.
Yep. Yeah. Uh from our heads. Uh episode. And you mentioned how stupid it is not to promote yourself on Instagram and that uh I am bad at it.
Uh I don't think you started then, but it's obvious you have very much kicked up recently. Can you talk about what brought that about? I'm uh assuming the new book, uh, but was it a push from a publicist? Uh be interesting to hear more. Um, by the way, I do enjoy the content, even though I hate the word content you're putting out, hope to see more Epicurious videos from you as well.
Okay, Epicurious Video, the toaster video. I did not even know. I did not even know that that had been released. I'm sure they emailed me. I'm gonna try to follow up to see whether they want to do more because it was a lot of work, but I did enjoy using all of those toasters.
I haven't even watched it yet, so I don't know whether it's any good. Um the other stuff, Nastasi and I uh hired someone for Booker and Dax, but they're shifting over into just kind of doing the the cooking issues content named uh Zach. And um, you know, I think you uh you gotta realize when you don't have the skill, and someone else does. So like, you know, uh much like I get Jen, my wife Jen, to read uh my work before I send it because she does not care about what I do for a living. So she's a good reader.
Zach, uh I don't think cares very much about kind of what I do either, but he knows like how to edit videos. So I shoot it, he edits it, and it goes up. And it's uh it's working so far. We'll see if we can continue to afford to do it. But I mean, I think it's a worthwhile thing to do from a current business perspective, and it would make sense.
Uh we'll talk to my publisher about it because maybe they should kick in some some cash later. Yeah, I mean, you have to be active on social media these days. It's just a thing. And just with it, and you know, I say this all the time. It's like, you know, you you need to do it, but it's a it's a it's like um, you know how back in the day, before social media, everyone was like, you're such a good cook, you should have a restaurant.
And you're like, no. You know what I mean? Like, because you need to be a good cook and be able to run a restaurant, right? Yeah. Or, you know, like there's different skills, like and being able to run a kitchen is a different skill from necessarily just being the best cook.
Often the person who's running the kitchen isn't the best cook in in the kitchen. Um, and they're running a great kitchen, right? And I think you know, social media is just another skill you need to have now on top of whatever skill you needed before. You know what I mean? And so um it's you know, fortunate for people that have it or unfortunate for people that that don't.
So, like respect other people's skill and get them to do it for you, right? Yeah, you know? Anyway, I don't think you know how like uh this is why I don't think people who hate cooking should feel bad that they don't want to cook for their family. If you hate cooking, why should you cook for your family? You know what I mean?
Like, wouldn't you be better served spending your time doing something for you and your family that you are good at and that you do enjoy, and then paying someone else if you have the money, paying someone else who is good at it and enjoys doing it to do it for you. I mean, like no one's like no one feels guilty because they don't do their own dry cleaning. No one feels guilty. Well, some people do, but you should not feel guilty that someone else fixes your car. You know what I mean?
Anyway, I don't love my kids because I didn't fix their car with my own two hands. No one says that. Yeah. You know what I mean? Anyway, ranting.
Um Balloon Knot writes in, uh, I would like to know which technique to minimize the syneresis. So sineresis, technical term for uh whoeping for liquid leak leaking out of a gel, synoresis, good word. Uh I would like to know uh which technique to minerize uh minimize synoresis in egg dishes with a high liquid to egg ratio has the least impact on flavors. I'm gonna unpack that because you're not being very specific, balloon knot. I'm gonna assume you mean high water custards, right?
Is that what we're talking about? Like high liquid custards? We agree on that what that means? I would assume like uh like a like a chivon mushy type. Yeah.
Yeah. Mushy. Anyway, the dish will be served hot and be made a la minute, consume within 10 minutes of making it. The goal is fully cooked but slightly wobbly texture. So uh depending on exactly what you're doing, right?
You could add stabilizers, but they will have an impact on flavor. And typically the impact on flavor is directly proportional to the quantity required to stabilize, which is why flour impacts more than pure starch, because you have things in flour that aren't actually helping, right? Proteins and whatnot. Um so if you're gonna do a starch, I would use a low use starch uh and one that's gonna functionalize relatively quickly. The other thing is like uh it could be a cooking issue.
Like I don't know how you're cooking it, like whether you're using like uh whether you have like access to a combi oven or like an APO, because you know, uh if you use a combi to set a custard, you can be very precise with your uh temperatures, right? So synoresis can happen either if you don't cook it enough and it starts to break, or if you cook it too much and the protein gel gels up too much and it starts leaking out. But so if you come with some more uh and I'll ask Fabulous uh when I get you know into the bar next, I'll ask him whether he has any good stabilization for that. But any of you guys have any good uh just like No. I I I had a thought.
The concern is they want to use a high ratio of liquid and it's flavorful. They supplement the liquid egg with a little additional egg white or whole egg powder so that they have all the flavor of the liquid they want, but a little more like netting powder. Well, I think they want it to be very, very, very loose, just not weep. We'll think more about it. Uh B Murd 162.
Uh my question is uh how much would cooking the water out of uh butter uh for a croissant affect the outcome and how I want to make a really savory croissant. My thought was to take the butter and then infuse it with garlic and herbs over low heat, pull out the garlic and herbs and whip it back together. But I know European butter has higher the basically the question is kind of get rid of the water. I would say you can get rid of the water, but you can't get rid of the fat the butter solids. That will destroy your your flavor.
Um if you look at actual um plastic shortenings made for this, they don't necessarily include water in them. There's plenty of water in the dough. You don't actually need water in the butter to make the flaky things in the laminated dough. And as a proof of that, if you have a lot of money, you can go buy block uh extra concentrated butter from Corman that's 99.9% butter fat, but it has all of the solids in it, the milk solids, so it's milk solids and butter fat that's uh made in blocks and sheets, and they tell you that your croissants will be delicious. Um Chevron wants to know the spec for the Razumatazarac, which was a drink we had at Booker and Dax.
I'll give it to you. It is uh a quarter ounce of Demerara. They use two to one Demerara syrup, uh, two ounces of uh, I think it was Sazerac Rye, it says Razzi Rye here, three dashes of Peyshoot's bitters, or you can just use Robotussin if you don't have uh Peyshoot's bitters. Two dashes of Angostura, uh Absence rinse, build all the ingredients in a tin stir to cold and uh properly diluted, which means don't fully stir it because you don't want to fully uh disturb, pour it into a chilled small rocks glass. Uh lemon twist, discard the lemon twist when you are done.
And Z Banks wants to know what's God's mojito. I'll have to talk to you about it uh later, but it involves infusing your mint into super high proof rum so that you can get a mint infusion without it turning into swamp water and of course force carbonating it. Next time on cooking issues.
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