Insurance isn't one size fits all. That's why drivers have enjoyed progressive's name your price tool for years now. With the name your price tool, you tell them what you want to pay, and they'll show you options that fit your budget. So whether you're picking out your first policy or just looking for something that works better for you and your family, they make it easy to see your options. Visit progressive.com.
Find a rate that works for you with the name your price tool. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Hello, hello. This is Brooke DeVard, host of the Naked Beauty Podcast.
I want to talk to you about Lexus. At Lexus, Master Craftsmen called Takumi are involved not just in physical craftsmanship, but in all of those sensory details. These masters evaluate things like how a door closes, the click of a switch, the acoustic feedback of controls. Instead of just instruments, Takumi craftsmen rely on human perception and intuition to create what sounds and feels right. Out of all of the tools that Lexus uses, the most powerful one is understanding what will make us feel something.
Because a car that doesn't make you feel something is a car that stops short of amazing. Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer. Everyone treats summer like it owes you happiness. Long days, pool parties, your best life on a loop. So what does it mean when you feel worse?
The summer blues are real. It's why summer is one of the busiest stretches of the year for people starting therapy. Grow Therapy is here for all the moments when you decide you want more, more support, more clarity, more tools. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. The therapist you want takes your insurance on Grow.
Grow accepts over 125 insurance plans. Sessions average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as zero dollars, depending on their plan. Visit GrowTherapy.com/slash acast today to get started. That's grow therapy.com/slash acast. Grow therapy.com slash acast.
Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you alive from the heart of Manhattan Rockefeller Center, New York City News Stand Studios. No John in the in the house today, but I do have Joe Hazen rocking the panels. What's up?
Hey, hey, welcome to the show. Sorry for the delay. We're all here then. Yeah. Well, it's delayed, but on the other hand, it's also a day early.
So we're 23 hours and however many minutes early. So, you know, there's that. Uh on the upper left, we got Quinn. How you doing? I'm doing all right.
Good, good, good. And then down uh actually, not in Los Angeles, on the road somewhere, I'm not sure where. We have Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How you doing? I'm good.
I have to go. Hmm. What state are you in right now? New York. Oh.
But like not like New York New York. Upstate as they call it, right? Finger Lakes. Finger Lakes. Uh, and uh, how do you like in the Finger Lakes region?
Oh. We don't get to do anything. Did you even drive past the lake? No. No.
Are you familiar with the uh with the anti-Finger Lakes rhyme? And also anti-Cornell rhyme. It goes like this. Way up by Cayuga's waters. That's one of the finger lakes.
Way up by Cayuga's waters. There is an awful smell. Some say it's Cayuga's waters. Some say it's Cornell. You like that?
Anyway, I didn't write that. Uh I had a history professor in high school who used to, and a huge percentage of my high school for some reason. I went to high school just north of the city. Uh went to Cornell. Crazy number.
And uh he just used to say that rhyme constantly, literally like every week, apropos of nothing. We'd be talking about, I don't know, civil war. He's like, you know what? And he would just bust out anti-Cornel rhyme. So weird.
I'm sure I'm sure Mr. Damon is no longer with us. But anyhow. Uh all right. And uh we got uh Jackie Molecules as well back in Los Angeles now.
Everything good? Yes. Yeah, yeah. How's your how's your exclusion diet treating you? Are you excluding joy from your diet?
Have you excluded joy yet? No. That'll make your insides feel so much better if you just exclude all joy from your life. And I'm gonna buy you special glasses that are monochrome. What?
You know, all I said I had a colonoscopy, an endoscopy, casket turns out um stomach ulcers is the first thing. Jeez. But that's real. That's now verified. Yep.
Oh yeah. I've got the pictures. Oh man. Are they on your fridge? No.
No. Uh how do they fix that? Uh well, we're waiting on some other results to make sure it's not a bacterial thing. But um, they got me on some can you get an ulcer from the bacteria? Yeah, apparently.
H. pylori, they call it. Welcome. I have the same thing. Oh my god.
And like right now, or you had it and you got rid of it. I had it, got rid of it. The same thing did endoscopy, colonoscopy, and I want a very intense medication and I eradicated it. We had to check the whole family. Yeah.
But that's good news though, right? That's really good news. My butt my gut health changed for sure. For better. Way better.
Yeah. So not to get too into the weeds on it. By the way, I'm just gonna introduce now. Dustin Everett's here, uh Chef, fish cheeks, you know. Uh we worked together a long time ago.
Uh anyway, uh well, so you're welcome. You can shine it at any time, thank you. But I'm gonna glad to be here. I actually had an ulcer as well. Oh really?
I've had a I had a couple of them. Oh, nice. Yeah, so I I know what you're going through. It's the uh it's the ulcer family elements in here. Yeah, yeah.
So uh a couple more questions, and I know Anastasia wants me to ask this. So when they're doing the colonoscopy endoscopy, do they do that at the same time and meet in the middle? Because that would be sick. Uh I wouldn't know. I was out cold.
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Anytime someone does something horrible to me, I don't have the money to be put out. Actually, that's not you. Colonoscopy, they put you out cold.
Yeah. You know, but like uh I just had my first, so yes, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just hit that age where it's like, okay, now I gotta do it. By the way, for any of you who can hear me who are not yet of that age, remember eventually either you're gonna go first or you're gonna get to that age.
Those are the two choices. So assuming you make it to that age, pay the extra money for the uh less volume prep. Oh yeah. Yeah. So basically, they they tell you that it's it's for you.
Right? It's for it's for them. So they don't have to look through a bunch of stuff when they're going through you. So when you get a colonoscopy, which is the one where they go in from you from the backside, you they have they you have to get cleaned out. Like cleaned out.
Like you're like you're like a swimming pool on the inside. You're totally clear. And uh so you have to take what amounts to like imagine if you uh put like five gallons of pediolite on a f on a uh stove and reduced it like down to like a tiny cup, right? But but the old school you'd have to drink like a gallon of that. Oh yeah.
And then you you know you you basically take a book into the bathroom and you sit there and wrong and you take take care of everything, right? But now yeah, but now they make a two cup solution. It's a boom. You know what I mean? Yep.
Well get things comes right out real quick. I had pills. You you had pills? I had pills. This is this is an LA thing.
We don't have that. Yeah, I don't have that. Yeah. The cup. Yeah.
Wait, wait. So you just swallow a super salty pill. No, it's it was like I think it's like twenty pills within 40 minutes or something. Take a pill every five. I forget what it was.
It's like an extreme um concentrated dose of many pills. Um uh, you know, that that previous day and then the morning of so it's brutal, believe me. Yeah, sweet. So much fun. You know, you guys like you guys haven't had it yet.
You don't know what you're missing. Yeah. You know what I mean? Oh yeah. And then uh how hangry surly did you get during the fasting period?
Because that's my other my part of my favorite. Oh, miserable man. No, yeah, that's yeah. Brutal. Yellow and jelly and broth.
That's about it. Jelly, and and they they not only that, not only that. They're like no red jellow. Oh, yeah. You're like, what?
Mm-hmm. What? Yeah. You can only choose colors that are the same colors they use to mimic urine in diaper commercials. Like that's it.
Very good way to put it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, if it's if it's a good stand in for healthy pee, you're it's good. You know what I mean? Otherwise, you know, yeah, it's a nightmare.
Hey, you know, I don't think there's anything you can do to make your actual urine blue. Poop green I can do. Yeah. I've had some colors, but no blue. Yeah, no blue.
Nastasia and I were planning on, and we decided it was unethical to surreptitiously make a bunch of our friends poop green with F and D C blue dye. Okay. But we decided against it. Yeah. Right, S.
She's still there? She already hung up. All right. That was it. Five minutes in and out.
All right. Well, she's on the move. Um. So when are they gonna figure out whether it's bacterial? How long?
How long until you have to figure out what your course of action is? Hopefully not long. I love it when they tell you what's kind of wrong, but then they're like, we'll figure it out someday. Yeah, Wednesday is my big day, but um my big day. You know, it's it is what it is.
I'm happy to get clarity. I'm eating again. It's it's fine. So, like what does that mean though? Like no acid, no blah blah blah.
I mean, they tell you no, look, I asked, I said, will anything I eat or drink make my condition worse? They're like, no, you're just you'll feel bad. And I was like, all right, fine, then I'll eat whatever I want. I'll suffer. Yeah.
As long as it's not making you all crispy. Been suffering for 20 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, yeah. Suffering's life.
Uh sure is. Yeah. Uh sweet. Yeah. Without suffering.
How would you know you're here? Uh all right. So uh there's uh four of us left. So what's uh what are we a five? Joe?
Joe doesn't usually chime in on what he's done during the past week. Sometimes sometimes he likes to keep his his cooking to himself most of the time. Okay. Yeah. I did a lot of eating.
Yeah. I was in Portugal. Oh, yeah, last week. Yeah, last week. I was in Portugal for four days with the family.
Was in London seeing mom and dad. That was okay. Um, mother, my mother-in-law fell and broke her hip. It was really tough. We were supposed to go have dinner or lunch at the River Cafe.
We were invited by Ruthie Rogers. Um, unfortunately, we got the reservation, and then she fell and broke her hip, and then we decided not to go without her. Uh yeah. Well, um, I had a question, but here's my question about London, because I haven't been to London with kids in years because my kids are they they grown now. Uh it used to be that, like as opposed to Paris, where you can take your kids anywhere, right?
In London, they didn't love for you to have your kid with you at the restaurants, you know what I mean, or at the at the pubs. And here I think it's 50-50. I think it depends on the restaurant. Yeah. Yeah.
How how'd it feel going with kids now? Oh no, and there's no problem at all. They were, I mean, well, if one, the kids were very well behaved. I have a three-month-old, so she just was kind of either sleeping or feeding from a bottle. The four-year-old, he's entertaining himself.
He's all over the shop. So he's running, he thinks he's a bartender. He's one going behind the bar, but no one really minds. No one really no one said anything. The English are just too polite.
Yeah. You know, so that's their fault. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. So we're just I 100% would have said something you're behind my bar.
Yeah, yeah. Dude, you know, kids, adults, this is a sacred space. You don't get behind the bar. That's the one thing, you know, anyone it for those of you that don't know. Any anytime, do never reach a there's a magic line.
Even if it's not drawn, sometimes it's literally you can see it. It's where the drain rail is. But like there's a magic line on the bar. Once the bartender pushes your drink over that line, that is yours. And the bartender is allowed to reach over that line.
You do not cross that line. Do not the crazy thing is like uh you know one or two drinks, and then people just reach across the rail into your like your garnish, but whoa. Oh. It's wild. You know what I mean?
Oh, the olives. The olives are always the big one. I always get the people like they'll grab a pick and then hit the olives, you're like, hey. Or what if they used a pick they already had freaking? What are you, what are you?
You know what I mean? What are you? Yeah, come on. Uh I'm sure you got that back at back at Black Christmas. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Definitely got that back at Black Christmas. That's where that's the PTSD of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Cause uh because people used to get pretty turnt there. Yep, yep. I mean, probably, you know, probably still. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, all right.
Uh okay. So Wednesday you figure out what's going on. All right. Uh and oh, uh, we're back. I skipped over lunch.
So what do you have in Portugal that was good to eat? Uh we had delicious ste- well, we had the traditional rice and fish um stew. I can't remember the name of it. It's absolutely phenomenal. Um, every living creature in the from the sea in this like low slow cooked rice.
It starts with a pea. I can't remember exactly. Yeah. Were you in Lisbon? Were you south?
No, we were south in Faro. Oh, wow. Even farther Saluca. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was a beautiful town.
Old school, I mean, sardine sandwiches were off the we had that's basically what we ate a lot in the daytime. And how do they do a sardine sandwich? I've never been to Portugal, by the way. Um, you gotta go. Sardine, it's on the well, you know, I thought I was gonna find that those, you know, those delicious Portuguese buns and couldn't find any of them.
Um they had their own homemade rustic bread. Uh it's just olive oil, salt, excuse me, no salt. Um, usually some type of uh green, either like um they really do like coriander a lot. I was very surprised. Um then they basically just put the s the the the sardine in between and they kind of use a knife to split it and kind of smear it.
So it's but it's it's a f it's a fresh panned sardine or it's fresh panned dried. It's usually a dry like dried so a dried sardine. A dried sardine that's very still very uh wet. So not dried, like you can buy canned Italian salted sardines, not those. Not those.
All right, but not fully fresh, like semi. But not fully fresh. Semi-sec. Right. Okay.
Yeah. They're panned or they're not panned. Panned. And they're boned or they're not boned. Boned.
Oh wow. Oh no, no, I'm sorry, not boned. Oh, okay. Yeah, I was taking a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. No, no, it's not boned. I always forget when someone says boned, it's like the bones are out. That's a good point. I never thought about that.
You should say deboned, I guess before. That's what I would think. But you know, the parnens on I guess bone less is bone less. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Bone less. Bone less. Skinless bone. Bone less chicken. Bone less.
And you're like, I thought that just meant fewer. There are fewer. I left some in. Well, you you you cover yourself, right? You get there's a gray area.
If there's one bone, hey, it's still bone less. Yeah, exactly. Although I had someone in, I forget who it was, chef, and maybe a writer. I think it was a chef. And uh I was like, you know, there they said, I thought it was interesting that like if you're going to leave all the bones in, fine.
But if you're gonna say it's boneless, if you miss even one, I hate you. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yep. They couldn't tolerate it.
You know who's like that? My wife. I make one mistake with the car that okay. I've said I think I said something here. But you know, when you're boning out uh chicken thighs, yeah, and there's always as you bone it, if you're knife boning it, there's that little piece of cartilage that stays on the one side.
And then usually you can either knife it out or you can take shears, pop up. But it if I miss one of those, my wife's like, you suck. Yeah. I deal with it a lot because a lot of our stuff is de boned, right? Like I my bronzino is boneless, head to tail.
And like, dude, if one person gets one little pin bone that I missed out of I saw 120 to 160 of these a day. One. And then it's the first thing on a review. It's like, there was a bone in it. I'm like, my gosh, come on.
Yeah, I mean, uh, yeah, come on, look. You're gonna make a mistake with these things. You can't always feel them, people. What am I gonna count every what am I gonna I know exact? I don't know exactly how many pin bones there are.
I should maybe. Yeah, I don't exactly I don't know the anatomy of every fish and every pin bone. I don't know, so you know you you you run your finger over it, you don't feel it. You you look twice, you know what I mean? Like I mean, half of it might have broken off in the tweezers, right?
You got half of it, but there's something underneath. Yeah, and you know what? Uh you're not gonna choke on that bone. Yeah, you're not gonna chuck in that bone. You're not.
That's the thing about fish bones, especially a chicken bone, whatever, but like people assume you're trying to murder them. Yeah, 100%. And it's just like so I I don't understand. Cause like it, you know, in Thailand, everything's bone in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that you, I mean, you're sucking on the bones. I mean, that it adds flavor. I mean, bones are flavored too. Like, I'd love to cook with bones. I love to cook with shells as well, like shrimp shells.
Because that that's flavor. Like, I eat shell-on shrimp. Yeah, but I leave the shell on when I eat it. That's what, yeah, that's what I'm saying. I leave, I eat the shell.
Yeah, yeah. And people think it's like I just had to change a dish recently because of that. Like, it's one of my better dishes, but people they didn't want to peel the shrimp. But I was like, well, you're not supposed to peel the shrimp. Like they're they're wok fried.
Like, eat it. It's crunchy. It's textured. If it's good, I usually leave on the plate like the eyes and the antenna with a little beak and the little end of the tail. Exactly.
You know, and we're like, suck the head and then eat the shell. Yeah. Yeah. Uh well, here's the thing. It's like my family likes boneless items.
Um also like bones get in the way of speed. Maybe Americans just don't like to bother. Yeah. And some of it is not wanting to deal with the bones or like grab bones or pick bones up. But because we're we're we're not a hand-eating cult.
For strangely, even though we have pizza, we have bagels, we have hot dogs, we have hands. A lot of our iconic foods actually are eaten with our hands. When we're eating food food, yeah, not you know, what am I talking about? When we're eating food that's on a plate, you know, we don't like to eat with our hands. We're just not oh my god.
My um, my old head bartender who was uh also at existing conditions, but also at Co. for uh a long time, Theo Uya, he's he's Kenyan. I won't trying to get him to get me to do a pop-up sometime in Nairobi. But he was saying that they have, I forget the name of it, but the the starch that they use to eat in in Kenya, you literally mold it like play-doh and then use it to like make a spoon with it. Yeah, then you grab with it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've had um it was actually funny. The only time I've had Kenyan food was in Italy. Um, but it was very much it's like Ethiopians do the same thing. Like they do they they use the starch, whatever it is.
I I not coming to me, but like whatever they make, they do that to use as a spoon so you don't get your hand like dirty, but that's how you eat. Right, right, right. But I'm used to the Ethiopian, like the injira. I'm used to injira, but like I just never thought of like basically making a spoon out of a play-doh consistency corn product. Yeah, yeah.
Whose name escapes. It's almost like a mot like a muscle, like they make it with like massa, right? Like I'd like a co some kind of corn, but not mixed up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, but like I was like, man, I was like, and so like when people are trying it for the first time, do they mechanically suck at doing it?
He's like, Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's gotta be hard. I mean, honestly, in Thailand they do the same. It's sticky rice, right?
Like I cook a lot of Southern Thai food, but you get North, Shang Mai, Shanghrai, um, even Yi San. Very like you mold the sticky rice and you use it as a vessel as well. You have to do they wet your fingers first. Is there some sort of like wetness on the You don't have to? Um you can just like the sticky rice is when it, because like they cook it for every like they cook it every meal, and then whatever's left over, we make something else with it, right?
Like it's always fresh. Every meal, you're gonna have a fresh rice. Like you make it in the morning and they leave it out all day. And it's there's a reason it's sticky rice, not jasmine, because sticky rice will have that consistency where you can mold it and you basically fold it in your hands like this and then do the same, just like pick it up. But you don't have to wet your fingers first.
You have to wet your fingers. You can get in there. Doesn't uh stick to your doesn't like does it no, it doesn't get too sticky the way they do it. Yeah, it's pretty, it's cool. It's not like you have to wet it or like what don't worry about it.
Like we literally just go in. What's the difference when I'm making sticky rice of doing the actual real way of doing it where you have to freaking like soak it, drain it, I put it over a freaking conical McGill or whatever, I steam the hell out of it. In the basket? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What's what's the difference between doing it that way and just the chump way that I do it, like in a rice cooker or like on a stove? I mean, I think honestly, like so, even on a stove or like in a perforated pan with like cheesecloth, right? Or even in a um combi ovens nowadays. That because we're just the mass, yeah, the masked people. Um, I still at our even at our restaurant, we still use the baskets and the conical because it I think it comes out, you can't overcook it.
Like I think it's perfect. The thing is the key is making sure you soak it, right? Having it soaked. Um, and then in the vessel, it's 30 minutes at the first, and then you flip it and go 15 minutes. And then you can shut it off, you can eat it all day.
Um that's I I love it that way. I think it's the simplest way. I don't like even the combi oven, like it gets sometimes the outer gets it gets sticky, like, or even on the oven, like if it's too much water, like if you don't like poke enough holes in it if you don't have it properly the way that you need it done in a hotel pan. Like the outside's gonna get cooked and the inside won't be as cooked. So you're saying you can keep it warm with the traditional technique all day without it over watering.
Yeah, without overwatering. Just like keeping it standing and like just keeping it like that all day. Like you can't overcook, it's almost crazy. Like it, it's more of a foolproof than our comedy ovens that we built to be foolproof, right? To take the cooking out of the cooking.
Like it's almost like I've I've done it, and you can sit there and you can forget about it. You're still fine. This is the problem with science. The problem with science is that unless there's an industrial monetary reason to do so, no one will check and see whether or not something has a there anytime something works better, there's a reason. Yeah.
Right. And so like we all have our theories what they are. Most of the time they're wrong. Me, you, anybody, right? And there's not a lot of money to investigate why certain traditional things work the way that they do.
Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's weird, right? I think it's crazy.
Like I had my combi ovens broke in Brooklyn, just this is what exactly what we're talking about. I thought my chefs' heads were gonna explode. And I'm talking like steaming corn. And like they called me and they're like we don't know what to do. We can't print the colour.
They didn't have a back they didn't have a backup thing. I was like in their head of a pot and a and water? Like how do you think they used to cook corn? Like boil some water and cook corn. I'm like guys it's not the end of the world.
Yeah. But like it we're so dependent now on that the combi ovens, the you know the CVAPs, the pressure cookers, like everything and it's like nowadays the like even for me the circulators and stuff and it it's taken a lot of cooking out of a lot of chefs and a lot of cooks. Like if one thing happens they can't and in in my head it's like what did you think happened a hundred years ago? Right when they were actually doing it. But here's the thing, right?
So you know you started in the early 2000s right? Yeah cooking I started in early 2000s. Right. So people now who in people now are in their twenties who were born in the early 2000s. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Yeah. So I mean, think about that. And so I I remember, I don't know, even three or four years ago, and the first post pandemic lecture I think that I did at Harvard, because I go there every year to do that thing. Um, I was like, this is interesting.
You were the first class that was born after low temperature cooking became a kind of normal thing in high end restaurants. It's like so your intuition is not shaped by the same kind of weird things that my intuition growing up was about how food was. But the flip side of it is what you're bringing up now, which is that they also don't have the mental backups to the old ways of doing things that we were at growing up doing. It's like even me, like, you know, like I'm old, right? 55.
I still like sometimes if I know a piece of equipment is gonna be broken or gone, I'm like, I think about I'm like, you know, because my work anytime your workflow changes, you're like, well, you know, it's not so much of a big deal at home, but professionally. If you're working if if your system is gonna break, you're like, oh, like when they run out of LN at the bar, they're like they lose their minds. I'm like, well, look, this is 86 and this is 86. Do this, do this, do that. You know what I mean?
But it's like totally, and that's what I mean. I I I take pride in that because I don't think a lot of people have that uh as much anymore because of what you said, because now everything is such like it's the scientific at the low low temperature cooking, it's taking the mistakes out, which I understand. Don't get me wrong. Like, I still use a sous V. I still use some of those things, but I always go back to a lot of my cooking is I always keep it pretty old school.
Like, we're gonna do it because that I like the human error. And I want somebody to like I if they if they are really good at it, it shows in the dish. Like if I just ask somebody to put something in a bag or then cryovac it and then cook it in a circulator, and all they're doing is like, hey, just put grill marks on it. You know, I have I enjoy that. I have my issue with grill marks.
Yeah. I don't I don't like things that are um symbol of yeah, showing you like, hey, it was on the grill for a minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of like uh you know how when you go to a strip mall and there's like a a fake roof, gabled roof on the front of the of like the single rise, like you know, flat top building, and they have that fake like roof on it on the front. I hate that.
Yeah, I'm like, be what you are. Yeah. You know what I mean? And to me, like, unless the grill, unless you put it on a grill long enough to flavor the outside, it's the same thing as one of those roofs on on a strip mall. You know what I mean?
It's like anyway. Yeah. Because a roof, there should be an attic behind it where I can store crap. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Yeah. Anyway. Oh, 100%. Joe, when you were in Portugal, did you have any of their and I think this is not southern, so maybe not. I'm a huge fan of uh Portuguese thistle rented cheeses.
Oh wow. I did not. Yeah. They ate a lot of clams. Really?
Delicious clams. They those the people they slave over the clams there for sure. What variety of clam in particular? Very small, probably maybe double the size of your two thumbnails, depending on how cockles, right? They look like cockles.
I said cockles to them and they didn't know what I was speaking about. Yeah, but I mean, do they speak English? They spoke English. I mean, cockle is though a very specific word. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I feel like you would know cockle. Yeah, exactly. Um but the uh the octopus is phenomenal, and there's so many different types of so many. They're huge. Yeah.
I mean huge, meaning large. Very large in size, and they're delicious. Yeah. I wonder what they do. I wonder what this classic prep in Portugal is.
I wonder whether they're a washing machine people or not. Yeah, with the rocks. Yeah, yeah. You tumble them in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or if they I think they don't they line dry them? I thought they I think they beat them on rocks, and I think they hang them on the lines from what I spent a lot of time in Portugal um in 2019. Yeah. So is that what you saw? Yeah, I saw like there's like a line.
So like you beat them, you come out of the water and like they literally just on rocks take the heads and they're just beating them, like breaking them down. Basically the washing machine method. Yeah, but before the washing. Before the washing. Um, then they hang them and they kind of sun dry them.
So in Portugal, you think there's someone being like, what do you think they did before washing machines? 100%. They need to. And also they should buy some washing machines. Yeah, yeah.
It'll be a lot easier. Exactly, exactly. Well, well, while we're on the uh while we're on the topic of uh cephalopods, uh I noticed I looked at so uh um and Dustin's at Fish Cheeks, uh both or which one are you at? I I I'm a I I oversee all of it. I'm the chef.
I just became a partner a couple years ago. So I'm the chef partner. So I got chefs at both of my locations, but I'm usually in no ho. I'm in I I've I've been in both today, put it that way. Like I'm in Brooklyn, I'm in no ho.
So you have right now, I saw on the on the internets a squid in squid ink situation. Yeah. Yeah. And in that one, you are you're a crosshatch. You're a crosshatch man on on the exterior of your squid.
What are you what is your theory on first of all, let me ask you this. What is your theory on I like frozen squid? Yeah. Because I think it's more tender when it falls out. But this could be me.
I've never side by sided because I don't have a really awesome fresh squid. Yeah. Vervare. You want to hear something crazy? This is off topic.
You know Nyland in in Sydney, the fish guy? Yeah. I don't know him personally. You know him? I don't know him, but I know.
Yeah. So Wiley Dufrain, my brother-in-law. Yeah. Just gets back from uh from Sydney. He was doing an event at that at that restaurant right in Sydney.
And he said to me, it's gonna blow your mind. He's like, they don't believe in for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about. This is a famous restaurant. I think he was the first person really to push this like age for a long period of time. Not like traditional Japanese, like, oh, your tuna is a week old.
Not traditional, like past that. Yeah. And he believes that water is the enemy of fish. Okay. That once the w fish comes out of the water, he gets all of his fish and other products whole into the restaurant, not gutted, whole.
Yeah. And no water touches him. He believes, I don't know whether salt water would hurt in his theory, but like theory is fresh water. So you ready for this? They do all of their cleaning with paper towels.
That's wild. So including squid. So like they get they get squid, which for any of you that have ever cleaned squid, and if I told you you're gonna clean this squid with no water, yeah, you would punch me. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Let's be able to walk out. Yeah, you're like, no, yeah. Yeah. But you know, and we're talking professionally. This isn't in like your house where like you're like, oh, this person's just a lunatic.
I'm gonna have to do these paper towel things, but I'm never coming to this house again. Imagine going to your crew and being like, you're gonna do this. No, 100%. I mean, even all my fish, I I mean, I let them rinse it. I don't like it to touch like a I don't want it soaking, but like, you know, after they pinbone it, like kind of just rinse it off.
And right, the the thing I said a million times. Yeah, I was like, what if what what about the backbone? Because like to me, like if if you don't clean the backbone of the fish, what the hell? You know what I mean? Get that get that gross stuff up.
I was like, what if they pop the bile duct? Yeah. And like, you know, like, you know, like no. Because they got them all whole and they're just very careful when they when they gut them out. But yeah, he's like water is the enemy.
Isn't that a crazy thing? That's crazy. I didn't realize that. But I mean it makes sense to his brand because of what he's done with the dry aging and stuff. And you know, there's restaurants that can afford that amount of time.
And then there's restaurants that have to, like, hey, yeah, I'm open from 12 to 12 all day and busy all day, so I gotta get it done. Right. His argument is is that uh when you put fresh water onto a fish, it's uh osmotically improper, and so the fish absorbs water, and therefore and what I think he might be right also is that you're enhancing. So if you store your fish on ice, for instance, there's like a there's like a wet zone there where a bacteria can thrive as opposed to if the fish dries out tacky. Yeah, yeah.
You know what I mean? Yeah. We all know what quote unquote dry fish looks like. You know, if you've ever done if you've ever done fish storage high in a box with not that, you know, with minimal or some but minimal circulation, you know what I'm talking about. Fish gets a particular look where the mucus dries.
Yep. Anyway, but it's not bad. It's just any um I mean it kind of makes sense. It's osmosis, right? Like you got fresh water if it's sitting in there, right?
Like maybe some of that salt comes out of the flesh, especially a salt watered fish. Yeah, and water goes in. Water goes in. But what if you use salt water rinse? Uh yeah, exactly.
Like it that's why you do a brine, some like you know, you do your five percent brine. Or just go go down to the ocean and pick up water. I mean, like they the restaurant's like five minutes from Bontai Beach. You know what I mean? Like uh anyway, so my so first of all, what are your thoughts on frozen versus fresh squid?
So uh it's interesting you guys that I actually use both. Um it depends on my cooking. Uh depends on what I'm doing. So for that dish that you described, um, I use only fresh because I also harvest squid ink from the squid. Um so I only have a certain number of those dishes a day.
Um and don't get me wrong, I buy cuttlefish ink because I have to just to make up for the sauce. Um and make sure I have, but I like the fresh in that because it's a little more buttery. Um now my fried calamari, I'm with you. Frozen. Frozen.
It's tender. It's it's uh once it hits like because like I do a very light battery um and once it I get that for that frozen calamari, and then right into that hot fryer kind of like tenderizes it, and it's just the best. That's a good good point. Different uses different. So uh huh, interesting.
Yeah. All right, Queen, what do you got for the last couple of weeks since we uh been gone for a little gone for a little while? Well, did we just come off break? Yeah. Yeah, all right.
So what what do you got? Uh let's see. A few uh baking duds. I think the best thing I made in the last few weeks though is I did like sort of a more of a vegetable-based pesto, like you might do do a kale pesto. I might not do a kale pesto though.
Um you would never catch me doing a kale pesto. Yeah, I probably wouldn't do a kale pesto. I understand that that might be what you're doing. Yeah, yeah. This was Swiss chard, scallion greens, blanched, and then pistachio, cheese, and then b lots lots of basil for garnish.
Um stir fried with uh garlic scapes, because we had those instead of garlic. And then actually, instead of a regular pasta, we did the Korean style sweet potato starch noodles. Yeah, how were they? Well, first of all, let me ask you a uh a separate question. Really good.
Separate question. At what point does your quote unquote non basil related, in other words, nothing in the mint family, no square stalked aromatic items, right? At what point does that just become like a pallock or a SOG sauce? Yeah, I mean pesto means paste. Pesto means paste.
Yeah, and prosciutto means ham. I mean, come on, dude. Play that with me. All right, go ahead. All right.
That was good. So uh in in in in uh in Thailand, Dustin, how do you do a green pesto versus a red pesto? Come on, dude. Pesto has meaning here in the United States. We call them curries.
All right, all right, point taken. I'm not I'm not in I'm not in the United States. We know, we know. Yeah. Not yet.
Not yet. I'm just kidding. Uh all right, so uh, but so you honestly in your heart, when you think pesto, you're not like something that is either basil or is replacing basil, a mixture of parmesan, parmigiano and uh romano, you know, pecorino, and uh uh, or one or the other of those, a pine nut or pine nut replacement, salt and oil, and pepper, maybe garlic. I also add to mine uh lemon rind. I was gonna say lemon, yeah, little acid.
Yeah, yeah. But uh I had some acid, but I had a lot of rind. Yeah. To brighten it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But you're telling me honestly that your mind just goes paste. Well I'm telling you. What do you what do you got? What are your feelings? Yeah, yeah.
I'm I I'm calling the dish a green pesto. It's not basil pesto, it's not jobese pesto. All right. How was it? It was very good.
And then the very, you know, those those Korean style uh noodles they use for like uh jap chain, they're very much like literally just texture, like no flavor, so it works very well with the pesto, I think. Huh. Most noodles are low in flavor if you think about it. But but that like how do they absorb? There are they're my memory, they're not hyperabsorbent, right?
It's just what sticks to them. They don't soak, right? Yeah, so again, they sort of they get i if the the sauce is the right viscosity, it's it clings to it very well. And then, you know, even as as they get cold, there's still a pleasant texture. You know, I haven't cooked with Swiss chard in a long time.
I actually haven't either. It's been a very long time. It's not a bad product. It's just there was a time in the 90s when everyone was like, you know what you need to cook with? With a shark.
Yeah, and then it became rainbow. Yeah, now there's colors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like. It's the same thing that happened with cauliflower.
It's like, oh, there's purple cauliflower. Nope, too much. Yeah. You know, uh, at home, I started cooking cauliflower again only recently because, you know, uh, for those of you that have kids, right? A lot of kids go through this no green vegetable phase.
And maybe they come out of it, maybe they don't. So I was like, you know what? Fine. To hell with it. I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do old school.
And I did the I did the old school just steamed broccoli cheese sauce. Yeah. A lot of cheese sauce. I'm like, I didn't add any flavors. Like this is basically mac and cheese with cauliflower underneath.
It's gonna be fine. Both kids burst into tears, wouldn't eat it, screaming matches, yelling, and then like I was like, the hell of this. Even though cauliflower is straight delicious, yeah. I only use it as dish components, never as prime side or anything just because triggered from that one event. Now my kids laugh about it.
I don't. Yeah. I remember that. Just because you forgot about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly, exactly. Well, now you deserve when you go to their house. Now you deserve you, you should throw a tantrum if they give you cauliflower. God damn it. Yeah, yeah, like Jack, what do you have you've been eating anything for your uh for your your your stomach, your stomach food?
Do you have a a be a beef tea equivalent for your ulcers? No, I'm just doing I'm like I said, I'm just dealing with discomfort and eating whatever I want. Um I I was at Firstborn, our friends at Firstborn uh the other night, a really truly fantastic meal. I don't know if you well did you eat there, Dave? Yeah.
I there when uh I went for the last uh McGillet. You know what they have that they're trying to get rid of? They have a uh cotch Industries, not the Koch brothers. Okay. They have a Koch Industries uh vacu vacuum machine, which is one of the, you know, it's you don't see it as commonly anymore because uh multivac and uh Mini Pack uh and you know a couple of other people kind of own the U.S.
vacuum machine market in restaurants. Yeah. And uh they have a Coke, it's a fine machine, it's you know, it's not digital and the circuit board fried, right? And they don't have the they don't want to or they don't have the money to fix it, they don't want to fix it. So they want to find a home for it.
But I think the pump is still good. And I was like, listen, there's gotta be a maker somewhere who uh there's gotta be a maker somewhere who can use this because the the bush pump in that thing alone is worth like eight hundred dollars, a grand or something like that. And if the tubing, if all the tubing and stuff still works, anyone who can do basic circuit work with uh with solenoids, uh, you know, uh and uh you know and uh reglays can you know make that thing do. I mean, you know, I wouldn't use it in your restaurant, but like, you know, like but I would use it. Yeah, you know what I mean?
Someone constructed a vacuum-safe container, they put a very expensive oil-based vacuum pump on it, and uh a release solenoid, it's all there. Yeah. Just the electronics are fried. Yeah. And for like $30, you could buy the electronics to make that thing work.
So anyway, get go over there, you know, give me go on their Instagram, send them a DM. Yeah, tell them I sketch you. I'll take it. I'll take it. Uh it's the kind of thing that I would take for a you should only take it if you have a project you want to do right now.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like a lot because we're opening Miami, so I'm like back and forth between Miami. We're getting Miami open in December. I don't think I have the project time.
Um unfortunately. But I do get into those projects when I do have the time. Now in Miami, Miami culture is still like Miami culture, to my it's true or false. There's still a like a kind of a restaurant club culture that feels like almost like 20 years ago here in terms of like people still going out doing coke in the bathroom, tell Infinity at night and 100%. 120%.
Um yes. I'm a New York guy to the T. Um, I do have to move down there for six months to get it open, but a hundred like when we went down to look at locations. That was one of the reasons we're not doing South Beach. Because we went there and it was like, what is this the 80s still?
Yeah, yeah. What is happening? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it was such a club vibe, like, but like it was a nice restaurant. Like our bill was crazy expensive, but it was a club vibe.
And it's just like everybody just wants to be seen. Yeah. Um, girls are dancing on the bar, like, and you're sitting there having a $400 per head meal. And you're like, what is happening? Like, um, it is.
It is definitely a little different. We're in Winwood. We decided to go to Winwood. A little bit more edgy, um, you know, right there with Art Basil. I'm sure that'll get crazy.
I haven't been down there for that, but um, it's a little bit more of our vibe. I I consider it like the East Village or Brooklyn kind of of Miami. So hopefully there's not too much of that. Did someone earlier on this program say Broken Brooklyn, which should be like either like a book or a movie? I think it doesn't.
I think you said broken Brooklyn. Broken Brooklyn. Um Brooklyn Brooklyn. But Brooklyn's so expensive now. It is.
It's crazy. Williamsburg is basically. I mean, I l I moved to Brooklyn and I'm basically paying what I was. I was living in an East Village for years when we worked together. I mean, we're talking when I started in 2009, 10 and at Momo, I was in the East Village and living happy.
And now I'm like basically paying like Soho money in downtown Fort Green, Brooklyn. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. That's nuts.
We are not far away. We are not far away from the next affordable neighborhood just being Long Island. I have not been to Staten Island to do the Sri Lankan thing. I need to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I need to go. Did uh where where are you from originally, Dustin? Uh so I I grew up in California, the Bay Area. All right, right. So for the okay, so people who are from around here, uh someone I know went to Norwalk for the aquarium and a bunch of other stuff.
They stayed over one night in Norwalk, and I was like, oh, so I haven't been to Norwalk in a long time. So Norwalk, for those of you that don't know, is just up the highway from us in Connecticut. It's like it should be a 30-minute drive, but it's an hour. You know what I mean? But it should be a 30-minute drive.
100%. And um, you know, in a good day. It could be worse. Yeah. You know what I mean?
I could be a two-hour drive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's right on the water on the Long Island Sound. And uh I was like, oh yeah, so what's that? Like he's like, well, they say it's like the Williamsburg of Connecticut.
I was like, well, what's the Manhattan of Connecticut? Nothing. Nothing. Manhattan's the Manhattan of Connecticut. I was like, all right, geez.
You know what I mean? That totally makes sense, though. Yeah, but we already have our own Williamsburg. It is Williamsburg. Uh, anyways.
Um Quinn, you got anything else in the cook zone? You've been cooking a long time there. What what what duds? Listen, when I when I'm asking you for a dud, there's a difference between just this sucked and this sucked, but I learned something important. Well, I can've been doing some experimental bread things.
I uh tried to turn cultured cream into butter, use the buttermilk entirely as the liquid for the bread, and then reintegrate the butter into the bread. But that didn't work. Well what would the advantage of that well what what didn't work about it and what would be the advantage? Was the pH just too low? Did the acid was it too acidic and it broke the gluten structure?
Yeah I mean that that would be my guess. Yeah. Maybe I didn't form gluten well enough. But basically I was trying to maximize the like flavor of the cultured dairy in a sort of demi brioche style format. So I'm like well were you using AP flour the cultured butter.
Uh those red flour and again some some of my fresh milk flour see that's the thing now you've now you've in you've multiple variables at one time then you don't know. Now if you really want to know you have to test because if you're challenging the gluten and you're adding bran at the same time you've double challenged your gluten so you don't know where the line is you know what I'm saying? Like if you were going to try it again you should try it with Bog standard AP and then you know no it's too acidic. You have a pH meter right you could test it couldn't you uh my mom has a pH meter I'll have to borrow hers. But I would do that because then you you can rectify that you undercent as a buffer yeah yeah.
Well, I mean, I'll I would just use uh, you know, uh something that's not a buffer, I would just use a base because you're trying to get rid of the of the you're not trying to buffer against you're trying to literally neutralize. Yeah. And so I would just use a base. And that and you know, uh I mean you can't really get the base I would want to use. But you know what I mean?
Like you could, yeah, you know, just even just a little bit of baking soda just to get it within the zone where the just to get it within the zone where the the pH isn't gonna be too much for the for the for the gluten. It's like if you've ever had, well, your Bay Area dust, and if you know the old school like overly sour breads have that kind of like obviously that bread was too sour texture, you know what I mean? 100%. And those are done with AP. So if you tried to do that with uh P will help, because like if you use your own flour, like it's hydration, like figure out the like figure out like a store brand like basic flour and then like what you said, then work from there if you're gonna add your because now you have a base of it.
You now you know, and then kind of tweak it a little bit how you want to tweak it. Right, because the when you have the brand in it, now you're now you have to add extra water to to to hydrate the brand to get the texture where you want it, but then that extra hydration isn't providing structure during the bake. And so I could see whether that'd be a problem. It'd be interesting to know where the line is. Yeah what I mean.
I mean, I I when you asked them that, I was I in my head thought you were gonna say bread. I've never met you, but like bread is always so that's the one thing of like, hey, what did you try and you messed up? What happened and how can we do better? Because bread is a big that's always a fun game. Like different time of year, different night, like how has it been stored?
Was it in a cold environment? Was it hot? Was it, you know, and I mean, was the humidity there? Was it open? There's a lot that goes with bread and brand.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh oh, by the way, I forgot we didn't do this, and uh Joe will Joe will kill me. Well, first we'll do this.
For those of you that uh in the next 13 minutes or so, if you're listening live, I know it's not our normal day, so you might not be listening live, but Patreon members can call in your questions to 917-4101507. That's 917-4101507 for our Dustin Everett. And then uh why don't you tell them why they might want to join the Patreon, uh, Quinn? Uh yeah, you get uh you get to listen to the show live or you get the recording early. If you're at the higher tier, you get the video feed.
Uh if you submit questions, they get uh prioritized. We have deals with uh people like uh Kitchenards and Letters, Grove and Rhine, Olive Oil, uh, and a few other you know, friends of the show, and uh of first access to the Discord where there is a lot of uh like-minded uh in-depth uh discussion about food and drinks. Yeah, more in-depth than you want. Uh to that point, uh Eddie wrote in and said, uh regarding Patreon, so let's take care of it right now. Uh Eddie said, Would you publish the list of juices and their acidity and adjustment to lemon or lime recipes here to Patreon?
Uh I have well, I thought you were gonna ask a different question, Eddie. Sorry, I didn't read it carefully. I thought you were gonna write, could you publish all of the sugar and alcohol data for all of the uh syrups? But I have my juices, my alcohol, my liquor, so like if you need to know like cafo, amaro, what is the what is the sugar and alcohol level? I actually have that all published for all the Patreon people already.
It's just you guys might not know it. About two months ago or three months ago, I said, hey, there's some alcohol and sugar calculators going up on that basically only the Patreon people have access to right now at liquid intelligence dot cooking issues dot com. I was like, but and uh but I I keep updating it. So there's a list of all of my ingredients on it that I use with all of the numbers that you guys are welcome to use if you're on the Patreon. Eventually it'll go public, you know, uh before I launched the liquid intelligence two point oh, but uh it's there right now.
Yeah. I make all my bartenders read your liquid intelligence. Well, thank you. Thank you. That's what I'm saying.
Thank you. Who knows when it's coming out? So it's it's a 12 years old now. Uh who knows when the new one's gonna come out, but it's done. Okay.
You know, so keep buying the old one. That's what I'm gonna say. Yeah, keep buying the old one. Um anyway, so that's that's on Patreon. And uh if you guys have questions, uh please let us know what you'd like to see, because we're also using you as a beta tester.
Let me know what you want it to do. Yeah. There's even I don't want you to go to it yet because uh I haven't vetted it and it's very hard. Like for years, for for decades now, I've been doing all of my cocktail development in a database that is uh MS Access, which is an old school database. That's how I used to make my money as a database designer.
That's how I became who I am, is I charged lawyers money to do their database work for them. Oh wow. So I could back in the day do anything with an access database, like anything. So stupid. I could do anything with an access database.
And so that's how I built my cocktail database. And so I'm moving that to web-based SQL MySQL uh thing. And so there is a beta of that up there, but it doesn't I I can't guarantee any of that works. So if you go to it and look at it from my Patreon, I I can't guarantee that it works. You know what I mean?
Because and I'm also constantly changing it. So no guarantees express or implied. Yeah. You know what I mean? Uh uh anyway.
Um, okay. So now back to uh Dustin for a minute. Now, I first met you because you were at a part of the Momafuku Empire at Sambar while I was over at Booker and Dax next door. Yeah, that was quite a an arrangement. Yeah.
Very much so. I remember cooking uh roasting ducks in your bar. Yeah. So so the way it worked was the way it worked was uh the original Booker and Dax, there was Momofuku Sambar, which by the way was fantastic restaurant. It was a fantastic restaurant.
I I I I still to the day think it was his best. I I mean I loved Co. But Sambar was just more of our style. Well, Sambar just eating wise and like being in an environment. Yeah, especially before like before like there was a period in time when you could do a restaurant like that, and it was it was just fun and it didn't have to be hyped, and then not you know what I mean?
And so it was just because remember when Dave opened that restaurant, it was originally supposed to be like like burritos in bosom style, fast food during the day, and it he what he like couldn't get it to click. And then just you know, because it was larger than Noodle Bar and it wasn't set yet, he just you know, he and you know Ten Ho and those guys just like they uh remember Chef Ryan Miller too. Yeah, yeah from Nova. Yeah, and so like they would just go, you know, they just busted out this menu that was just hitting on all cylinders, is so so good. You know what I mean?
And it was it was fun, wasn't that ex wasn't that it wasn't cheap, but it wasn't that expensive. Yep. You know what I mean? And uh yeah, it was great. And so then they took over the laundry behind them, turned it originally into milk bar.
That was Christina Tozy's first joint, right? Because remember, for those of you that don't know, Christina Toasey, obviously like super like worldwide famous now, but started as a pastry chef and was working for like Wiley at WD and and um you know opens Milk Bar. She was at that time still literally writing people's hasset plans for them. Really? Yeah, isn't that crazy?
That's crazy. She was the first person writing Hasset plans after the Department of Um Health started cracking down on people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was the first person to start writing Hasset plans for New York City restaurants. Oh, cool.
I didn't know that. Yeah, because she had the connection to to Chang and Wiley. Okay, and they needed Hasset plans. Well, Chang was the first person to get hit. Yeah.
Anyway. I remember that at some bar. And also just by the way, uh, you know, Wiley saved my life. We'll get back. We can we'll talk about that later.
But like I was getting reamed by Chef Day. Oh and Wiley came. Really? And saved my life. Like he was like, yo, I need it.
I was like, oh my god, it's so funny. Uh yeah, it was not a chill kitchen. No. Yeah. So yeah, so they opened milk bar, milk bar closed, and then they opened uh duck bar, and then they put that rotisserie in.
And then every day my bartenders getting their backsides blasted. Every day. Dude, uh, yeah, when you get on that station when you're like the junior sioux and you're on the meat station, right? And you have to run and get that boat, like get that duck, and you have to go across the bartenders while they're busy. Oh my god.
Oh my god. Oh jeez. For those of you that don't know, those rotisseries are not they they throw off heat. Even yeah, I mean, when the glass is open for sure. But even when the glass is up.
Yeah. Yeah. It was a nice rotisserie, though. It was a very and it was a very good duck. Yeah.
It was a very good duck. And so then uh wait, so before that though, you were working in New Orleans for Besh? I did. I worked for Bash and I worked a little bit for Susan Spicer, but mostly for Besh. I was with Besh for almost two years.
But I don't know, I don't I don't know Bash. I mean I've I've met him. Yeah, you know. Um when it comes to light that someone's done terrible things and they get and then they get canceled out, like what effect, downstream effect does that have on the people that have worked for them. Um, you know, for me it was, you know, obviously it was that was a big come up for me.
I mean, he was, I mean, what was he, nineteen in ninety nine he was the best best new chef. Like he had all the accolades I moved there to work for him at Restaurant August. Um you stopped talking about it, I guess. You know, I don't put it on I don't put it out a lot anymore, especially when the stuff like that getting canceled. I just it's kind of a past that I don't need to talk about anymore.
I mean, it was years ago, right? It's 20 years ago. Um, because it with the thing is it's the same thing like uh at a certain point you stopped talking about where you went to school because it doesn't matter anymore. It's what did you do last week? Just what did you do?
Yeah. So like I just talk about my New York experience now. Once he got because I was long gone when that all happened, right? Like um, but it's just sad not to be able to not to be able to talk about it. Like he did.
He sent me to Italy, like I cooked in Italy so I could open Dominica for him. Like I I done a lot of stuff, and it's just like, man. Well, I hope you f I'm sorry to bring it up, but I hope that I'm not doing it in an uncomfortable way. That's not at all. Yeah.
I mean, that's you know, I mean, it's I mean, the culture was I could you I understood it. Like I I when it happened, the people that I was there with, like I I knew it was gonna something was gonna happen at some point. Right. Like even when I was there, that culture was there. And you felt it.
But you know, like I said, when we started, a lot of places had cultures like that. And it was just something that you dealt with, you know, whatever it was. Um, not necessarily some of the other things he did, but like just the the way the the way it runs and like that, the heat at the heat of the battle, the yelling, the throwing and all that kind of stuff. Like, that was just something I I grew up with, right? Like it's that's the kitchen.
Well, where where are you mentally now on stress in in a kitchen or applied stress? Let's put it this way. There's always stress in a kitchen, but then there's applied stress. Exactly. Like stress testing people in a way.
I think it was good to grow up in that because I think you need to know how bad it was and how good you can actually be. Um I consider myself a very low-key guy. Excuse me. Um very relaxed. Um I do I deal well with pressure, I think because I grew up with that, but I also know how to handle it and then uh release that to my workers where they're not feeling the pressure.
I feel like I do a good job of I can take it, and then I slowly bring it on to them, if you know what I mean. Right. So you don't uh you don't want you don't want uh Yeah. Cause I happy kitchen, happy food. Like that uh always.
Like the more stressed you are, the more mistakes happen. You know how it is. Like if somebody's berating you, and don't get me wrong, it's not like I've it's not like I'm not saying I've never yelled. I I've yelled, we've all yelled as parents, we've all yelled. But um I I do agree.
I like nowadays you just you have to. Happy, happy kitchen. Happy kitchen, happy food. The hard part for you know I don't have to do it because I'm not in service now, but you you know, but even back when like you know, I was at Booker and Dax every day or whatever, you know. Yeah, it's like the hard part is to get people to understand when you're just upset about a situation, but you're not upset with them.
Exactly. You know what I mean? Exactly, exactly. But you know, and I think if you treat people the right way, like they know when I'm upset, and like you can tell everybody gets they they can see it and they know and like I do the same way, and honestly, a lot of it is saying please and thank you. And also if you do get upset, I'm a big person on coming back around and being like, hey, it's not you, like, but this happened.
Let's fix it. I appreciate it. Thank you for everything you do. You know what I mean? Don't walk out of the building without them knowing that you don't recognize like what the situation that happened, or just everyone flies off a handle now again.
You've been in service. It's yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's it's a chaotic business. It's what it is. So but I think people appreciate it if they realize like just a handshake or a please and thank you, is uh goes a long way.
Hey, Quinn. Next week, next week is no tangent. So can I get to these questions next week and we can uh I can ask some questions about fish cheeks? Yeah, sure. All right, we got like no change, yeah.
All right, we got like two, we got two minutes going on. So, what's this story with uh what's the story with uh Thai soy soy paste as opposed to other people's soy paste? It just depends. I mean, it's all I mean, honestly, Thai soy paste, it it's it's really kind of what you want. Uh, it's just honestly it to me, it's in the person.
I don't think it's necessarily like you gotta use Thai soy paste. Like I use Vietnamese products, I use Korean products. Um I think it's more just about like what it is. Well, your last place you were doing like Filipino inspired. I was doing Filipino, yeah.
So like I've gone I've only been to Philippines for one day. I need to go back. Yeah, I need to go back too. Um, but yeah, that's it. It's just but I do use a lot of Thai products and I um I make my own paste, but Thai soy paste, like to me, it just depends.
Like it it's it's on the flavor, and like even in Thailand, you see the same thing. Like it's not always specific. Like you'll get Vietnamese fish sauces, like sh um, you know. All right, talk to me about your chicken wings. Chicken wings, that powder.
That's it. Well, and you what what what kind of are you putting the the toasted rice powder in it too? It's a toasted rice powder, yeah. So basically, I don't know if you guys have ever had it, but it's uh ramen noodle called Mama's. Um then's Narama noodle.
Uh inspiration from uh my two partners, Jin and Chad, who grew up in Thailand, they would go around and crush the ramen noodle and empty the seasoning pack into it. So that's my play on the zaps using. So you have toasted rice powder, macro, lime leaf, lemongrasska, langul, um dehydrated lime, and then a couple steak-rate ingredients. I'm not gonna give out. But yeah.
Um we toss that. So they're not breaded, uh, marinated overnight. Um flash, and then we just I bake them off and then it's basically a double fry. But like the first one's a bake, not a fry. Yeah, first one's a bake.
First one I do a bake just to make them tender and get that skin crispy, and then I and then I flash fry them very high, three three eighty. So it's like very so the skin's very crispy. Okay, I'm gonna ask you two quick ones. I know we're out, but like what is a Thai oyster dog? You guys did a hot dog situation.
So I did. Um, real quick, the oyster dog was a thing I did. I uh with Black Cress and I also ran wild edibles, and I used to do an oyster dog. Um so it's my play with oysters to taste like a hot dog. So I cold smoke the oysters to give them like that nice smoky flavor.
And then I fry pork rinds and I make that into a powder, and I deep fry the oysters in that. Um and then the rest was basically a p like my Chicago style with but like a nom gin seafood relish, long red pickled, long red peppers, um, instead of tomato for the acid I used bango. Alright. Um, yeah, and then uh I was doing uh uh collab with Grazza, so I use their mayonnaise. The squeezy, the squeezy people.
The squeezy people, yep. Uh are you gonna bring that back next year? Yeah, I'm probably gonna bring it back next July fourth. You don't want to do all that work and then not bring it back. I know.
No, exactly. It uh yeah, it doesn't make sense to do that. Uh but it's cool. It then it kind of plays with your mind. It tastes almost like a like a like a hot dog, but it's oysters.
I used to use wild edibles all the time. Do they still have consumer facing or is it wholesale only now? It's wholesale only now. They used to do they used to be really good consumer facing because you could buy their professional commercial like their their restaurant quality fish you could buy as a human. Yeah, I took over their restaurant.
I don't know if you remember at 35th, uh between 35th and 36th on what, Third Avenue, Murray Hill. And that used to have a that was actually like a seafood stand in the restaurant. I took that over. Really, yeah. It used to be some of the best seafood you could buy as a consumer in New York.
Yeah, yeah. That's too bad. I wonder if it's a good idea. Yeah, I don't know if they're around. I mean, I use Aquabest, so I'm a big Steven guy.
I like I like aqua. I've been using them for years. Yeah, dude. My son bankrupts me whenever I go to uh uh aqua vest. All right, I had another question, but we're out of time.
So uh have you back sometime. Go to Fish Cheeks, either in uh you can go to William Williamsburg. Williamsburg on Driggs or uh Noho on Bond Street. Or it turns out in Miami. Or in Miami, yeah.
All right, does it winwood? Thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. All right, cooking issues. Insurance isn't one size fits all.
That's why drivers have enjoyed progressives name your price tool for years now. With the name your price tool, you tell them what you want to pay, and they'll show you options that fit your budget. So whether you're picking out your first policy or just looking for something that works better for you and your family, they make it easy to see your options. Visit progressive.com. Find a rate that works for you with the name your price tool.
Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers.
It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection.
With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to five million dollars in identity theft insurance. All backed by 24-7 US-based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or even just a VPN. Aura gives you all of it together at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at Aura.com slash safety.
Protect yourself now at aura.com slash safety. After three years, the world of the award winning horror podcast, the Magnus Archives, is back with the Magnus Protocol. Immerse yourself in a brand new terror and uncover the secrets behind the mysterious work of the Office of Incident Assessment and Response, and try to find out what really happened to the Magnus Institute. Though remember that too many questions can come at a cost. The Magnus Protocol is available now, wherever you get your podcasts.com.
Timestamps may be off due to dynamic ad insertion.