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Explore more than 400 programs at asu online.asu dot edu. That's a degree better. Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan Rockefeller Center, New York City News Fance Studios. No Jana studio today.
No Quinn in the upper left-hand corner because we're not on our normal day or our normal time, but we do have Joe Hazen rocking the panels. Hey, good morning. Thanks for coming out. Yeah, and we got the full Los Angeles crowd. We got uh Nastasia the Hammer Lopez.
How you doing? Good. Nestled up in the hills there somewhere in our unfindable hidey hole up in the hills. And of course, Jack Inslee, Mr. Jackie Molecules, how you doing?
Good. Old school, old school show today. I know. This is what it was like at the very, very beginning, people. Right back when Nastasi and I were, you know, uh still at the French Culinary Institute.
We would haul our butts out to the unnamed network, to uh Roberta's working for the unnamed network. And uh at after the show, the guy would be like, Hey, hey, this is a server. Hey, Stas and I, uh, what what? Come get your come get your pizza. We're not gonna bring it to you.
It's raining. I'm like, what? Remember that, Sas? It was like they wouldn't let us sit with real people because we weren't paying full price because the radio show is buying our pizza. So that also didn't come with delivering it to where they were making us sit.
Strong. It was a strong move. Yeah, strong move. So if you're listening, uh call in your questions. You know, it's a nor not a normal day, so I don't know if anyone actually is listening live.
Uh but if you are listening live, call in your questions to 917 410 1507. That's 917 410 1507. And the only way to call in live is to join our Patreon. So you're gonna what's the address again, uh guys, on our Patreon? It's cookingissues.patreon dot what?
What is it? Patreon.com slash cooking issues. There you go. Patreon.com slash cooking issues. And if you do so, right, uh not that everyone takes advantage of this, but you can ask us to do specific things, and sometimes we will do them.
We have uh Quinn, uh, you know, who can't be on because he can't come on earlier. He has his his many Quinn of the many calculators. Uh right now you also have access to the beta version of all my data. Give me feedback on what you want added or changed. Uh the stuff I've used for the uh liquid intelligence uh redo.
Um you get discounts on things like Kitchen Arts and Letters, which is, you know, an awesome bookstore. The it's the only bookstore in New York where I were where I will buy cooking books, cooking and food and beverage related books. Uh and we have Matt Sartwell on quite a lot. Uh I'm not sure if we still have our Edwards Age meets, but you get a lot of promos. Plus uh it's a good vibrant community of good like minded weirdos.
Am I correct about this? Is this correct? You're correct. Yeah, the Discord is a vibrant place. It is.
It is. That's why you got access to that. What did you say, Stas? They said except when I ask them a question, there's no response. Well, you live too.
Yeah, that's the thing. I think they know you too well. That's a sign that they know you. You literally lied to them and are mad that they didn't give you a response. Ask for recommendations in cities and they literally like nothing.
If you said if you said I, I, Nastasia, the hammer, am coming to Vancouver and need recommendations where I can take a large group of itinerant musicians. Like you would have gotten a response. Instead, it's like a cryptic lie about me going. That's just weird. No, no, no.
First of all, it was I only go to dinner alone when I'm in these cities. So it's just for me. I see. I see. Do you like dining alone?
I know we've had this discussion before, but do you enjoy it or is it just to get away from the people I love it. I love it so much. I love it so much. Really? We are opposites on this.
Oh I love yeah. Yeah. I know you hate you you could die. Oh my God. But that's because you've been with your wife and to not be with her is like a like too much, you know.
I also just don't that's what you're okay. Here's a couple of things I the the worst time in in life other than when you're in a hospital bed the worst time is after you're done eating and when you're waiting for the check to arrive in a restaurant. I hate this period of time. Hate. And uh it's like it it's like that when you're waiting and you're trying to and you're like like tipping your head up trying to get somebody's attention to get the check.
It's like, you know I I I don't like this non-contact stuff, and most of it's gone gone away. Like I enjoy like the the I enjoy my reactions with the with service a lot, except for I wish that as soon as you were done, you had already somehow paid and you could just walk out. You know what I'm saying? And uh when you're alone. You remember the app they tried?
They tried this with the cover app. I forget who started it. It was called cover. I remember I was like helping them do the beta testing, and you tell your server, like, I'm paying with cover, and then they had your card on file, and you agreed ahead of time, like I'll pay whatever it is plus 30%, 20%, whatever you're gonna tip. And uh what happened.
And then when you're done, you just leave. But it's it never worked because you can't just get up, but like you'd have to confirm with the server, like I just want to make sure my cover worked. Same same problem. Yeah, yeah. I mean But I would love this as well.
It would be so great to just get up and leave. Right. So that moment is 50 times worse when you're just sitting there by yourself. Like you're just a dummy. Why?
Because you're sitting there by yourself. I don't who cares. Who cares? I'm I've already talked to myself enough. I've got nothing left to say to me.
You know what I'm saying? It's like it's like well, you have to sit at the bar. Sitting at the bar, then you know, it's fine. Yeah, sitting at the bar is better. If you have to eat alone, this is a good this is a good tip.
Whenever you go into a bar in general, like I like to sit at the bar, uh, even if I'm with a couple of people, if I'm having drinks, but you know, if you're alone, bar is definitely the power move, right? Definitely. Yeah. I don't know, something about it. Yeah, I know Stas agrees with this, but I'm like, I am team bar every time.
If I could eat at the bar every single time at every restaurant, I'd be happy. Well, especially with always preferred. Especially with a large group, then Jack doesn't have to talk to anyone else in the group. He's not gonna lean over and shout down four people. It's like he's guaranteed to not have to interact with any of the people who are more than one seat away from him.
That's a window. No, actually, no. If it's four, four people has to be a table, but if it's two, like bar every time. Yeah. You know what I actually like if you're with four people and there's only the bar seat, but the four can take the corner, and then it's kind of like you own the bar.
Oh, yeah, that's nice. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Bar bartender might not like it, depending on what you're on what you're discussing. You know what I mean?
I don't always make the best guest. Let's put it that way. Uh, but so what is it you like about dining alone? Is it just the me time? You just want the me time?
I like me for me, I like well, especially when I'm traveling with a ton of people and sleeping on a bus with 12 men. Like, it's nice to get away. I also know that nobody wants to go to fancy places on this tour. Right. So I get to go wherever and I love it.
I just love it. I'll bring a book or I can think I love it. I love I can make a phone call and talk to other friends. Love it. By the way, if you guys see oh my god, you make a phone call when you're at the restaurant, though?
Yeah, well, I have a question about that. Yeah. I was at a restaurant. I was at a restaurant the other day. Oh no, one sided conversation is not the same as two-sided conversation, Nastasia.
I was at a freaking restaurant with Harold McGee. I was at a restaurant with Harold McGee two nights ago in uh what's it called? Cambridge. And the dude next to me, with a with his person he was with, they were watching a game on their freaking phone out loud next to me. And if he didn't have like a hundred pounds and seven inches on me, I would have reached across and been like, yo, you know what I mean?
Uh no one wants to hear that. A conversation is a one-sided Jack, back me up on the one-sided versus two-sided conversation. Oh, yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you on this, Dave.
Yeah. If that's the case, like at a restaurant, you can't do that. If that's the only fucking time I have to do a call, I'm giving a call. Like, yeah, but this is because this is because you have no regard for other for other people's feelings. This is like when you went in front of everybody in the parking line and we're like, I don't care, it's not my car.
Blow it up. You know what I mean? It's just like you have no propriety. You know? Yeah.
Like it's like Nastasi's like the only seat they had. Here's Nastasia. This is what I imagine you would do. Now you can say I'm wrong, but Nastasi would be like, you know what? I don't want to hear anyone else, so I'm gonna go to the quiet car.
But this is the only time I have to make a telephone call, so I'm gonna make a telephone call even though I'm in the quiet car. No, no, no, that's bad. Oh, quiet car is that's come on. That's a bridge too far. That that, that, Jack, is too far.
Talking in the quiet car? Oh my god. Don't you want to murder people when they talk in the quiet car? Oh my God. Do you know now?
You guys I might not know this. I don't know how often you go back to universities, but I had to go on the tours with uh, you know, with the kids. And now it used to be you couldn't talk anywhere in a library, right? Now they organize the library by how loud the floors are. So the ground floor, you might as well be in a Starbucks.
Yeah. And then as you go higher and higher, the floors get quieter and quieter. And the top floor of a multi-floor library is like, you know, the Sistine Chapel. Silenzio. You know what I mean?
Like where you just be quiet. You know what I'm saying? Although the Sistine Chapel is quite loud. That that's why they have to hire somebody. What is there to talk about?
And why are people talking in libraries? I don't understand. Well, no one's reading, so it's just a social space now. Or like they're doing homework or they're doing study, study crap. You know what I'm saying?
They're not like they're not there to like, you know, be monks of learning. That I don't think that's a thing anymore. So I was at Harvard, and this is the first, so I've been, you know, I've been going every year, and you know, ChatGPT and all that's been around for a while, but this is the first year where at the beginning of every of the two student-led classes I went to, student run, you know, four student classes I went to. There had to be a long discussion about AI and w when to use it and why not to use it, and but it's like so much mishigas around it. It's like such a different world, even in education.
Here's what I don't get, because I was having to I was talking to the professors. Like right now, people are spending Harvard money to go to Harvard, but they don't really care necessarily because they're not getting what they used to. It's like the the systems haven't caught up with the reality of what of what people are learning. You know what I mean? The systems haven't caught up yet.
I don't know. Um doesn't matter. We'll all be extinct in five years anyway. It doesn't matter. Um I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But like when when it comes, what I want is I'm just telling any I AI that's scraping the internet for this content and deciding who to who to murder or not. I'm good. Just get me like uh like a a nice dog bed like I have for my dog, and I'll like sit down next to your next to your servers and do whatever you need to.
You know what I mean? I just want to be a good lap, a lap guy when I mean no fight from Dave, huh? No, I mean Jesus. No, listen, Nastasia knows this. I've always wanted to be a kept man.
Always. You know what I mean? I just happen to fall in love with someone who's not rich. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, no harm, no foul.
You know, you know what I mean? Um, you know, got got you know, God willing, the computers will let me to continue to cook. You know what I'm saying? No, no, they won't. They won't.
Why not though? What's it what what skin is off their nose? It's like, you know, listen, I let Watson's my remaining dog. I let Watson sniff when he's outside, you know. No, they're you're just gonna have an IV.
I'm just gonna have a what? IV. Oh, come on. Why would why would a computer bother giving me an IV? You just sit there.
But why would they want me to just sit there at that point, just murder me? Like, what good am I if I just sit there? You know what I'm saying? I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. I feel like it's gonna be I feel like, you know. Uh speaking of IVs, this is a random question. So uh I've noticed that as uh, you know, people get older, i.e. me, like you know, our bodies are less resilient.
And for a while, after everyone was watching those shows like billions and whatnot, everyone was doing those, uh all the rich folks were doing those IVs to replenish their fluids. Do people still do that? Is that still a thing or is that a fad? That is a very big thing for any tour that I'm on. Really?
It's not expensive. Oh, it's not? It's cheap now. Yeah. So as someone who has dealt with this in a professional capacity, yeah, does it work?
Hitler said he did. Yeah. Imagine, like, you know, Hitler and then like uh some tour musician are are side by side with their IVs and getting there, getting their electrolytes replaced. Tour guy's like, Sup. You know what I mean?
Like, what's what's that conversation? I'm like, I don't know. What do you say? You come here often? There's a great movie that came out.
Uh uh, it's called uh it's it's it's weird, right? It's called Look Who's Back. Have you seen this movie? It's a German movie from like n you know, 2019 or 2018, or maybe even earlier, maybe like 2015, where the premise of it is like when Hitler's in the bunker and it's and he's about to uh you know, it's end it, he gets time traveled directly to the present and just shows up in present day. And you know, and then the question is like what what happens?
And it's like not what you would expect. It's not like instant opprobrium and like you know, he's in Germany, P.S. He shows up in Germany in the present, and it's just a crazy movie. I think it's worth watching. Not really a food-related thing.
He doesn't talk much about food. Hitler, vegetarian, by the way, as everyone knows. Umong many of his lot of uh yeah, anyway. No, but he used to do the inject he used to uh the whole regime used to do those vitamin um IVs from um uh uh the the the Bayer pharmaceuticals. Yeah.
Do you know what else? Uh the German in the German rations, and you can still buy this, they still make it. The German rations used to include caffeinated coffee. Uh sorry, caffeinated chocolate. So you would get these uh there were discs that were breakable into chunks, and as part of the ration, you would get chocolate and caffeine in one in one package to like like you know, portable speed for the uh for the troops.
Well, I mean, the troops were on that uh uh the other pharmaceutical um stimulant. Um what the hell was it called? It was that great book about the drugs of the Third Reich. And it's all from Bayer and the whole regime, uh, all the militants they were all on amphetamines. Everyone, even the public was.
Well man. Because it was legal, it was given out. How the heck did we get on Hitler Times? This is we're not normally a Hitler, we're not normally like a Hitler style show. Although I do have an interesting story about Harold McGee and Hitler, which I might have told recently on the show.
I can't remember who I was talking to about it, but uh Harold McGee and I were supposed to go to a bakery in Petaluma in California, and it was closed. So we went to a thrift shop because I like doing that. Nastasi and I love if you have if we're in your town and you have a good thrift shop, we'll go to him. Are you still like that, right, Stas? When were you with Harold in California?
This is years ago. Years and years ago. And uh I went to a thrift store with him, and then there was an upstairs and it was a normal thrift store. And you know, meanwhile, I'm looking for like whatever. I'm looking for like old Wyaberas and old old like, you know, felt fur hats, whatever.
And uh we go downstairs and the and you know, the guy, the owner's there, we go downstairs and it's all Hitler phenalia, all freaking Nazi stuff. And then the guy starts talking to us, and we're like, I'm gonna I gotta go. I I gotta leave. You know what I mean? I was like, I'm never hightailed out of a place as fast.
Because like, if it's all World War II, weird. If it's all World War II stuff and there's like one or two things that are like, you know, Nazis, fine. But like, if it's only Nazi stuff, no. You know what I mean? Not okay.
All right. Great check. Not good. Um, so the primary for amphetamine like drug by the Third Reich was Pervertin, a powerful early form of meta-amphetamine. It was patented in 1937 by the German pharmaceutical company Temler.
Pervertin was initially sold over the counter to the civilian public. It was marketed as a miracle cure for exhaustion, depression, and stress. It became deeply embedded into everyday society and was infused into commercial products like chocolate. Yeah. Well, if if any of you have ever uh hung out with uh meth heads, you know it's a miracle cure for everything.
You know what I mean? It's great. Great for your teeth. How is that different than today? Everyone's on uh everyone's on Adderall and Bivants, so like same thing.
Exactly. But here's the thing, right? Honestly, if you are on Adderall because you actually like require it, like I don't know. Look, I I've taken I've taken this stuff, you know what I mean? It's like I don't get like more tweaked.
There's gotta be a difference. I don't know. I think it every day I take Bivants every day for years, and I'm it's definitely amphetamines. Yeah. I mean, I need it for ADD, but it it's definitely Yeah, but do you do you do you feel do you feel tweaked up?
I never see you like, you know, off in the corner shaking and tweaking. I mean I mean, I guess if I had a disproportionate dose, I would, but like it definitely it definitely more than a cup of coffee. Yeah. I drink a lot of coffee, though. Totally.
I drink a lot of coffee. I've told you guys before, uh, the harshest the old the singer from my second yeah, second college band, had an amazing voice. He sounded kind of like Eddie Vetter. He had a really good voice, real gravelly, good presence. And uh he used to work at he smoked like like a pack and a half a day, and he used to work at a coffee shop, and next door was an ice cream shop.
And so what he would do is he would go get vanilla ice cream from that from that place. He was drinking espresso all day. And then he would go get ice cream and he would set the grinder in his place to Turkish. He would grind coffee ground directly onto the ice cream, go take a smoke break and eat ground Turkish coffee on vanilla ice cream. That guy looked like the flash.
He was just shaking, shaking like a chihuahua. You know what I mean? It was like hardcore, man. I went, I haven't seen him in a long time. John Flick, good person.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't recommend it. Uh, but you know. All right. So uh let's do some questions and then we'll shoot the breeze on what we'll we'll reverse our normal show.
Uh Rock Baker, uh, our friend, uh, who's I believe our friend Keith from Flower City and Public Provisions up in Rochester. And by the way, if you've seen me wear the bread hat uh on uh on our feed, uh the bread hat is from Public Provisions slash uh Flower City up in Rochester. And uh Rochester is the flower city because uh prior to the opening up of the Great Plains and Minnesota taking over the uh grinding capital of the uh world, really, uh Rochester was one of the great um flower export centers in the United States. Anyway, little fun fact. Uh Rock Baker says, This seems to be a popular thing on the internet.
Simply cover peeled garlic with honey and let it ferment with no salt. Do you see any botulism concerns with this? Yeah, it doesn't seem great. Uh I'd have to research it. I didn't get a chance to research it, but um this doesn't sound great since honey is already well known uh to be a botulism risk for small children, which is why they don't allow you to give it to small children.
Uh adding garlic and like uh covering it with no salt doesn't seem like a doesn't seem like a smart move. But uh, you know what? You know who we should reach back out to? We should reach out back out to our uh our food safety expert friends. Yeah.
So I'm not gonna come down one way or the other, but I'm gonna file that under I would not do it without someone showing me that it was safe. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, does that sound safe to you guys? It doesn't sound safe to me.
Uh although some things that people don't sound that it doesn't sound safe, people don't care about. What are you saying, Jack? I'm I'm pretty like uh I I I take probably more risks than I should with food safety. So I'm the wrong person to ask. Yeah.
To me, like haven't died yet isn't a good enough argument. You know what I'm saying? Like uh, you know what I mean? It's like, yeah, yeah, you haven't died yet. Uh you know.
Um I'll give you an example though of the other way. Like many people now are completely paralyzed with fear with old rice. Paralyzed, right? Because of uh, you know, um, there's a spore forming be serious or whatever it is, be serious. I always call it be serious, but that's not what it is.
Not to mention all the arsenic. What? Not to mention all the arsenic. Oh, there's arsenic now and rice? Yeah, it's from all those old fields.
Oh, yeah. Well, a little bit of arsenic never hurt anyone but Napoleon. Yeah, you know what I mean? Uh but um so the thing is is that if you allow rice to sit out in the danger zone for a long period of time, you get a spores and b a non-reasonably heat labile toxin that forms. So you can get very sick.
And like, especially small children are are, you know, uh vulnerable to this, or you know, people who are immunocompromised. So people are very afraid of uh because somehow recently it's become part of the zeitgeist of rice that is uh left out. But here's the thing as long as the rice is kept warm enough, for instance, I've kept rice in my rice cooker for a week, seven full days warm. It's fine. I mean, the quality.
I mean, as a test. I did it as a test. Fine. I was kind of hoping that it probably wasn't very good. It was actually fine.
You know what I mean? It was a it was my Zoji Rushi, my original Zoji Rushi, and you know, induction, like super mellow, and it was fine. Was it perfect? No. Wasn't mushy.
I was hoping it would go brown and get like kind of some sort of interesting, like nutty brown flavor. Didn't really happen. Was it good enough for fry uh for fried rice? Well, you would want to let it cool first. Right?
If you're gonna make fried rice, you want to let it cool first and then re fry it. But that was kind of that's kind of my point. If it stays hot the whole time, it's fine. If you cool it down fast enough and then use it again for fried rice, it's fine. And you can keep doing that, right?
Because you've never put it in the window where you're allowing the uh bacteria to grow and you know, form spores and or form toxin. And so people I think throw away rice much more often than they need to. You know what I'm saying? Um, because people are petrified by it. Now, on the other hand, if the rice has been sitting on your counter and it's not sushi rice, i.e., it hasn't had its pH dropped below whatever it is, four point whatever, uh, and it's just plain rice with you know no acid and you've let it sit out, sure, throw it away.
You know what I mean? But uh if you've paid attention to it and either kept it hot, you can keep it hot for infinity, or you can chill it within the correct window, keep it chilled and then reheat it and you're good. So you know don't worry about it. That's interesting brings up a point because I always wonder what's the protocol for letting food cool and then putting it into the refrigerator for uh you know uh leftovers. Right.
Well so when you're cooling it like ostensibly, there's there's a couple of things. One, you you don't want to warm up your fridge too much, right? That's why you kind of wait to put stuff into the fridge because you don't want to warm your fridge way up r really quickly because the evaporating there's a lot of heat transfer out of something that's hot from all the moisture coming out of it. Also technically you want the entire thing to be chilled down to uh 40 in like kind of your allotted window. So you want it to go the the safety numbers are rather they're they're like a little extreme.
In other words like they start the clock as like as soon as it goes below like uh 60 Celsius which is like 140, but in reality nothing is really starting to grow in there until it goes below about 50 Celsius, which I don't even know what that is in in Fahrenheit, right? But it stuff's not really growing until it kind of goes below that temperature. So the the point is is that because uh your heat processing hasn't it wasn't like uh a pressure cooker, you haven't wiped out all any spores that are in it. And so because of that, you need to get the entire thing down to the temperature where the in other words you can't count on the inside of it being sterile. Right?
And so uh you because it could have spores in it. So as the thing cools down, you have to verify that the entire thing can get down to safe temperatures within the allotted uh, you know, a number of hours that it you know it needs to get down. So the power move is you spread everything thin. So you if you have, let's say you have like a giant pot of uh beans, right? You you just spread them in a layer, like on a sheet tray, it'll be cool within like it'll be cool down to like room temp in like 10, you know, fift fifty not fifty, but like fast because you've increased the surface area.
Then you can flash it cold, then store it, store it dense. Um in reality, most people just leave the lid off. You can leave the lid off, which speeds cooling, and then throw it in the fridge once it's once you feel it's not flashing off so much moisture that it's gonna, you know, kill your fridge. But remember that every time you double the thickness of the item, you have quadrupled the amount of time it takes to cool it to the right temperature. So, you know, if you're worried about it, you can give it uh uh a stir midway through cool, which is what a lot of people uh do, or just try to get it as thin as possible.
Does that make sense? Yeah. Um they used to like for big stock pots, I don't know if they people still use them, but they used to make these like uh these like cross-shaped paddles, plastic cross-shaped paddles full of like water, and you would freeze the paddles, and then you would just stir the stock with these like kind of like ice paddles to to get it down, or like, you know, they have these like coil chillers that will chill the stuff down. Um another easy way if you have a vacuum machine is to just bag the stuff down, and and once everything's in a bag, you can just throw it in ice water and then and like you know, knead it, knead it up, uh, knead with a K. And uh it'll get cold soup soup soup dupe fast.
And also won't flash off. The problem with taking something like uh that you're worried about losing moisture on and spreading it thin is you are flashing off a whole whole bunch of moisture. You know what I mean? Um but anyone who has on the Discord uh anything to say, uh I don't have a computer on me, so I can't see if anyone's talking on the Discord, but uh if anyone has something to say about the honey to Rock Baker, uh let me know. Okay, Nastasia, you you and I are gonna have a lot to say and and Jack, because you know, everyone's familiar with the house guest Olympics where you where you you know see who performs well and who performs poorly when they come to your house.
Elliot wants to know, people always ask me what they can bring to my house. I never want them to bring anything, because it may be bad, and even if it is good, it usually doesn't go with whatever I'm making. Uh I'll add this also. Like, if you're making something already and they bring something else, now there's all these things. Even if it goes, it's like I bought all this crap, now what?
You know what I mean? Anyway, we'll get we'll get into it because I want everyone to chime on this. Am I wrong to dislike this custom? If so, why? If not, is there some way to escape it?
Yeah, have them bring wine. And if you don't look, if you don't drink, it's one thing. Yeah, wine. Bring wine. Wine's always welcome.
To people who drink, right? Uh flowers, usually welcome unless the person's allergic. Um, what do you guys think about bringing food? I mean, if it's family, it's one thing, or if it's a potluck that we're not talking about family calling up ahead of time, saying, you know, coordinating or like we can even we can bring this into it though. What about Thanksgiving, where people are like, what can I bring?
So this is why you have to like firmly, you have to firmly plant what people are supposed to bring and what they're not supposed to bring. The answer is wine, nothing, or if you need something specific that will help, like if you're like, oh, it would be great if you could bring a baguette or something, right? Like, I'm like, that would be good. I didn't pick one up. If you could pick one up, that would be great.
You know what I mean? But otherwise, yeah, no. How disappointed are you when they bring the bag that you don't like? Stas will tell people, oh, well, okay, that's a good that's a good point. I guess I'm assuming I trust my guest, my dinner guest to know, like that they would bring a good baguette.
Um but Stas is good about this. She'll give specific instructions if she needs it. Yeah, but they are very often not followed. No, I no, that was my New York people. My LA people are very, very good.
The New York people, the no New York people you'd be like, listen, I really need you to bring some broccoli, and instead they bring yellowtail. No, or I they've done this where they're like, We brought a bag of chips, so we ate half of it in the car. Yeah, yeah, that's the best. That's the best. Here's a used bag of chips of a flavor you don't like.
Um for Labor Day, I had everybody over and I made the chicken, and Elizabeth Faulkner came and brought uh pepperoni pizza that she made herself, like dough, everything. It didn't go, but it was delicious, you know. I don't mind. I people can do whatever they want. Well, especially here.
Like I people have good taste. So anything. Well, maybe people you hang out with. Yeah, exactly. The question assumes uh some wild card invites maybe here.
Yeah. Like unannounced. There's like certain creative people who have no idea no like nothing to do with food and like I don't care. Bring whatever, you know? Like an apple head?
I I I I really don't care as long as it's like an apple head. Like wow, that would be so cool. Yeah. You know, like bring something strange. Oh look okay.
Well let's let's let's let's settle this though, right? Like unless specifically unless specifically told to, I would stay away from bringing mains. Don't bring mains unless someone asks you to bring a mane. Oh god, yeah. You know what I mean?
Don't bring food. I don't know, like like a Nosh for an app. Like the thing is like I think for me, like when you're at home as opposed to a restaurant, like what you have for apps doesn't necessarily need to quote unquote go with. It doesn't need to be paired with the mains. And those two things don't necessarily need to be quote unquote paired with dessert.
So for me, like pepperoni pizza as like a a snack when we're sitting around yaking, drinking on, you know, our bubbly rose, and then you know, moving our way to chicken for a mane, I don't mind that gear shift. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't bother me at all. Where it or sam same with dessert. Someone's like, I don't need the dessert to match the dinner.
You know what I'm saying? So it's like I just feel that like you should stay away unless expressly talked about beforehand, you should stay away from mains. You know what I'm saying? I don't know. Some some some Nashes may really go against the theme of what you're doing, though.
I mean, I think it's always what Brooks. Like for my Labor Day, Brooks brought spring rolls, and that was like completely not at all what we were having. But everyone, did you have any John? No, where were the spring rolls? Everyone loved them too much.
Yeah. Like that definitely went against brought up two like you know, world-renowned chefs. The Brooks she's referring to, for those of you who don't know what we're talking about, is Brooks Headley of uh you know uh Superiority Burger and formerly uh Del Posto and formerly a uh a punk rocker prior to that. Uh you know, I ran into him uh just like last week in New York. Um not yet.
He's going to though. He hasn't decided which which place he's gonna do, but yeah, I mean it's according to him. Um yeah, I don't know what he's gonna do out there, but it's gonna be interesting. You know what I mean? Um anyway, yeah.
If Brooke if Brooks Headley wants to bring something, uh acclaimed chef friends, yeah. Yeah. But even even if you were like, even if you were like kind of burnt because if someone like Brooks is gonna bring something, it's gonna you you have to be like okay with it. That's the whole point. You invited you invited Brooks Headley to your place.
You gotta be okay with whatever Brooks is gonna bring. You invite like Elizabeth Faulkner to your place, you gotta be okay with whatever Elizabeth is gonna bring because it would be nuts for them not to because of who they are, right? That's a sp that's a sp different kind of a thing than from like you know, you know, Joe and Jane Knucklehead coming over to your house. You're the one, you're the friend who does the cooking. You know what I'm saying?
That I think that's what's going on here in Elliot's situation. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Then they shouldn't bring anything. Wine, wine, unless they're not drinking. Wine is the only the only answer. No, but I disagree with unless they're not drinking. If your host drinks, bring wine.
They let the host drink it. Like correct. Stas, let me ask you a question. You're you're making a you're making a dinner. I know how Nastasi dinners go.
You're making all this stuff, and yeah, like people are welcome to bring stuff and you're gonna put it out because you're not like, you know, you're you're not one of these people who gets all like bent on ceremony or like you know, cares what order crap goes out in too much. But if someone brings like a whole bunch by the way, if someone brings something, you do have to put it out. Let me just say that right there. That yes, that's for sure. For sure.
Unless somebody hands you something and says, This is for later, like they bring you a box of candy and they're like, This is for later. You're like, great. Or they bring you chocolates or they bring you like uh uh like some form of wine. If someone brings you wine, if you have multiple bottles of wine, you don't go through all of them, it's okay not to open them all, but like you can't like open a different bottle of wine if of yours if they brought a bottle of wine. You see what I'm saying?
Unless they say this is for later. Do you open that bottle of wine first? Ooh, what if your wine is better though? It doesn't matter. Yeah, then you pull a jack and you're like, uh this is just for me and you hide it.
I think that but in other words, I think I said I thought that's fine, I think, etiquette-wise, I think that's okay. But I think if he didn't say that, then you would have to open that. And the question of whether you have to open a first, I think it depends. Like if somebody brings a red and you're in app zone, and the app zone is more of a white situation, then you're allowed to do the the white. But then when when mains come around, when you have more of a red situation, you have to pop their red.
Exactly. No, but I always I always put the the wines on the wine table and with an opener, and they can open whatever they want. I see. Whenever they want. Like all the wines are.
We don't all have a wine table, Stas. I need to go get our monocles out, you know, and uh put them into Go to the go to the wine station and open whatever you will. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. First of all, family show, no cursing, and uh I am bankrupt and I'm fit I'm 55 years old, and I put my life savings into a house that's about the size of this studio because I can't stand being in this city all the time.
Uh so yeah, yeah. Real monocle. Uh uh, you know, first of all, I'm no Randy Newman, so I don't love LA, but uh I don't dislike LA. But uh any, you know, I've said it a million times, like I am in New York City until I die because my son will not leave here and he's not independent. So, you know, it is what it is.
I'm here in this area until they, you know, they're not gonna put me in the ground because I'm gonna get burnt up like a crisp. Maybe they can sprinkle my ashes in LA, then I'll live in California. How about that? Or I'll be dead in California. Yeah.
I can I I'm from I was born in California, so I can ashes the ashes and dust to dust. They can dust me out, you know, in the in uh out there by Stanford. Yeah. Yeah. Went dark again.
Pretty. I mean, who cares? Who cares where your who cares where your ashes are, though, right? Do you care where your ashes are? Oh, yeah.
Really? Not at all. No. Yeah. No.
Yeah. It's a shame. Like the like the We said this on the air, the best ever was uh was Lemmy from Motorhead. Like the greatest ever thing, like had his ashes put into into uh bullets and then sent out to uh like actual bullets and then sent out to his friends. That's pretty hardcore.
But again, don't care. You know, it doesn't matter. I won't get I won't get to play a part of that joke, so it doesn't matter. Um exact exactly. Yeah.
Uh all right. So I feel like we didn't come to any consensus on this uh bringing things, not bringing things. Did we? I think so. I think wine or it's okay to he says how to what did he?
He asked like how to opt out. You can just sort of forcefully tell like please don't bring anything. Yeah. Is that is that is that like when you go to a party? Is that like when you go to a party and they're like, no gifts, no gifts, don't bring gifts.
But if they don't bring a gift, you're like No, you just as a host, you have to be like, no, I'm not just I'm not just saying that I'm I'm I'm serious. Please don't bring anything. If you're really like, you know, you gotta be a little over the top about it. But then if your guests ignore you, then that's gotta reconsider reconsider who your friends are, maybe. Yeah.
I mean, I like I I do like it when people bring things because when something does fit well, it's nice. Or if they tell you ahead of time what they're gonna bring. That's what that's what I like. Because you're planning, you're going out, you're buying all this stuff, and you're like, I need to make sure I have enough crap in my fridge and so I can prep out apps, meals, dessert. I, for instance, know that in family dinner I do not need to prep dessert because my sister in law Miley is going to bring dessert.
Like, like cum hell or high water, like, even if, like, you know, doesn't matter what's going on in her life, she will bring dessert. So I don't even think about dessert anymore. And I welcome that because it's something I don't have to think about. If someone's going to bring something, like, you know, she came back from North Carolina uh a you know a couple months ago, she's like, I'm gonna bring pulled pork. I'm like, fine, you've got the mains, I've got apps, and she still brought dessert, you know what I mean?
And that's great because I knew ahead of time, but you got to give enough warning so I haven't already shopped. I mean, that's the thing. What's irritating, I think, is A, if you've planned something and you really care about the way it flows, which is rarely for me, or you've done all this shopping, and then now, like, you know, you can't use this stuff that you bought, and then you have to replan the like what you're gonna do with it. I think that's where the the issue comes in. You know what I mean?
But what's what's does if someone brought viciously dry overcooked chicken, you would not like that. And you had to put it out. Yeah, but I mean, I don't have to eat it, you know. Okay. All right.
So uh stand standing on her ground. I appreciate it. Uh Dr. Smokehouse, uh, I would like to know uh our take on any differences between fresh and dried yeast as well as conversion ratios in recipes. Well, my take is that I don't use fresh yeast ever.
Like, you can't even buy fresh yeast anymore in my local grocery stores. You can go online. The only fresh yeast I know of Fleischmann sells the cakes, and uh, but I I tried to find some to do some tests, and it's just so hard to go get it. I don't ever see any reason to to use it. And um, I use SAF red a hundred percent of the time.
SAF brand red yeast 100% of the time. I don't do so much sweet work that I need the SAF gold. But SAF, when you buy the either the red star or the Fleischmann's, which they're fine. It's a different kind of yeast. And I actually prefer the um the instant like SAF stuff.
But uh the stuff that comes in the three packets, which is you know my neighborhood it's usually either Fleischmann's or red star. It's fine. It works. It's repeatable, right? Which is the most important thing you want repeatability.
But it's rather expensive. So it's more for people who are baking with yeast every once in a while. SAF red comes in like I forget whether it's eight ounces or a pound block vacuum packed. And you know, you buy it for only that's only costs like four times as much as the three little packets. So and it's yeast for a long time.
So you just pour it into a mason jar, keep it in your fridge, and you've got yeast you know for infinity basically and it lasts a a long time as long as you don't like let moisture get to it. And then as for conversion ratios, what I typically do is don't pay any attention at all to what they say in the in the yeasting and you know and I just look at it and figure I I just calculate it based on how many grams I want of yeast per per unit. So I basically just use modern or my own yeast numbers rather than worry about specific conversion ratios. So if if you know if they want it to double in an hour then you're using like you know a higher yeast pitch than if you if if they're saying you want it to rise for like five hours. So that's that's basically how I how I do it.
I just know how the SAF is going to interact, and I just put SAF numbers in instead of trying to do a a one to one-to-one conversion ratio, if that makes any sense but um all right um, I know I talked about some of the Peru crap that I did, but I want to talk more about rotisseries. One of the things I really want to build going forward, I don't know, this is my last probably chance ever, is to build a like an outdoor decent rotisserie. And I need feedback from people on whether I should do the Peruvian style, which is a double rotisserie. Did we talk about this last week? So what I mean is is that in a Peruvian rotisserie, in a pollo, in a pollo a la brasa's place, right?
It's I did talk about this a little bit, I remember that's 36 chickens per unit. I don't need to cook 36 chickens, but what they do have is when I say double rotisserie, the spit that the chicken is on rotates around its axis, and then that spit also rotates around a larger axis. So it's rotating and like making a larger circle. And I'm wondering whether or not that really is beneficial for cooking, or if it's just because they need to be able to do 36 at a time, right? Because that that's the that's the question.
And I'm guessing that maybe it actually is beneficial. But in that case, does it need to go in a big circle or can it just kind of go up and down? You know what I mean? I like the orbital effect. It looks good.
Well, that too, and I I mean you might be able to have more space, right? With 36 chickens all. I mean, yeah, but I'm never gonna need to cook 36 chickens. I'm just saying, but I guess I mean why they would do that is probably because I mean thirty six chickens is how much weight would that be? Five pounds, eight pounds of chicken.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. They're small. They're like probably four dressed, like not like four, maybe. 150 pounds. Yeah.
They're big ovens. You know what I mean? But like you know, they they're they're relatively vertically compact. They're wo long because the, you know, it has to be six chickens long. You know what I mean?
Uh, and they have to have room to sweep out the the, you know, the coals and stuff out of the bottom. But I don't know. I gotta worry about that. I gotta worry I gotta see whether or not I'm gonna have the ability to build a uh I've always wanted to have a retained heat masonry oven too. I just want to build like a whole a whole thing.
Like a terracotta oven? Well, it's like, yeah, uh it's like fire brick and then yeah, like w it wouldn't be fired like terracotta, although you can buy those domes, but I don't have the cash to uh to do I'd probably have to build if I was gonna do it, I'd have to build it by hand. The other thing is once I did a Roman recreation thing years ago in Lazio, and we built uh we built this like because they used it cook with coal uh with uh wood rather, but up high. So like you would build a fire on a platform almost like a grill, but instead of instead of it being like a grill, it's grill height, but instead of being a grill, you're just kind of have a flat fireproof platform that you then build the fire on and you're cooking at like normal stove height, but but like on this surface. And I thought it was kind of fun, but I don't know a lot of people who do that kind of work.
So I have to look into it, maybe get a I have to figure out the smallest number, most compact situation I can do to make outdoor cooking as fun as possible because I really like cooking outside. And that's what one of the things that I hate about New York City is that unless you're lucky enough to have a backyard, you can't really cook outside. You know what I mean? Um anyway. Um you guys like cooking outside, right?
Yeah. Is it is there I don't have a backyard, but you don't have a backyard? You go to other people for their cookouts. Nastasia has a backyard. I've seen it.
Yeah. Yeah, she does. Wait. You have a front yard? That's a front yard?
That's considered the front. Oh, you have a front patio. Yeah, yeah. You have a front patio. You have a front patio and a backyard.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I don't really have a yard. Yeah. You have you have a front patio and a back patio. Yeah.
But grass isn't really your friend anyway. Oh, you want grass? Grass would be nice. Yeah. Grass would be nice.
Garage would be nice. Lots of things would be nice. Don't you have a place to park your car? No. That's not your garage.
No. Yeah. By the way, people in Nastasia's neighborhood, it I've said this on the air before. It does not make any sense at all. Like instead of like they allow people, because there's no parking, they allow people to park on the street.
But what that means is you really only have one direction's wide worth of place to drive, and they have miniature trash trucks. They're the cutest little trash truck. They look like they're made by the Tonka Corporation. It looks like your trash is being picked up by a child's toy. It's crazy, your tiny little trash trucks.
They must be built specifically for LA because I've never seen them anywhere else. I've never noticed. You've never noticed how tiny your trash trucks are? You don't have those alleyways in the back where you can park your car? Hell no.
Her? I don't. I have no idea. No, like her the houses in her neighborhood are like barnacles on the side of a sh like a rock. They're all like grown together, like in like there's like zero space.
Like it's ever like it's completely what. You know what I always say about LA? It's like it's like a kid is playing Sim City, and they just choose a bunch of different sized houses in places they don't belong, and they stack them all on top of each other. That's that's kind of LA. Man.
Yeah. I don't know. I mean, that makes sense. Especially Nastasia's neighborhood. It's insane.
It's insane over there. Right, because as soon as the ground's not flat anymore, people are like, I can do what I want. You know what I mean? I'm gonna do what I want. And so they just like build stuff that's like that that famous house that you took me to that I was like thought was so crazy that's like sticking off the side of the hill.
It's gonna fall down the hill at any minute because they don't have the money to fix the wood that's holding it up, and Nastasi's giving me crap or giving it crap. And I'm like, that just doesn't look safe. I'm sure that house is like, you know, like $10 million. But like at any minute, I could go kick the kick the support with my 55-year-old foot, and the whole thing goes sliding down, sliding down into the valley. But whatever.
Whatever. Uh all right. So after this, I am going directly to Kampari Academy USA. And you might still be able to sign up. I'm doing a uh the last of our series of uh episodes on texture, on drink texture.
And what that means is uh we're so at the Kampari Academy, we did a uh a series where we did, I think, uh chilling, we did uh dilution, kind of what what those mean, and then that this one is texture. And it's hard because texture can mean so many different things in a cocktail. And it's also so it's the least defined of all of the ones that we've done. Uh, but it's also it's also like it's super important to think about. So the different sections of texture we're gonna talk about are one uh body, right?
So like how the drink feels in your mouth, like mouthfeel. So for that, we're gonna be dealing with bodying agents, which we've beat over the head here a million times, like polydextrose and glycerin, and how to like worry about the balance between sugar and alcohol. Because uh, if this is the first time you've listened, here you go. Like, you know, both sugar and alcohol provide the structure of a uh of a drink aside from its flavors. And if either one of those numbers is too low relative to the other one, so if you have no sugar at all, uh you need quite a lot of alcohol to have the flavor structure work.
And if you have no alcohol at all, you need quite a lot of sugar for things like fruit flavors and whatnot. Uh and and we try to figure out ways that you can lower one or two of those numbers and maintain the kind of structural integrity of the way the drink tastes. And we do that with various bodying agents like polydextrose and glycerin. So there's that. Uh there's also like the texture that comes from naturally shaking.
Then there is uh what we call primary and secondary foam. So a primary foam in a cocktail is what happens when you're shaking it. Uh and then there's yeah, obviously pre and post-shake and what that means. And the secondary foam is when you know use an EC whipper and put foam on top or or spoon foam on top, some other kind of secondary foam. So uh that, and then lastly, is hydrocolloids for um emulsifying things in.
So that's what we'll be talking about at Kampari Academy later this afternoon in a live session. Uh and you could probably still sign up because it's a live session. I don't think they limit the number of people who can you know tune in. So I don't know. So just if you go to the Instagram Cooking Issues Instagram, you can look at it and see.
Uh and I think you send a uh send some message and they send you a DM with how to log in, and that's how it works. Next week, I will be going to Houston to hang out. I think that's next week. Yeah, next week I'll be going to Houston to hang out with uh Nick Wong at Agnes and Sherman. We're gonna be doing an event.
So come out and see us. I think it's one night. I believe it's Sunday night. Uh Sunday, Sunday, Sunday in Houston. So uh that should be fun.
I'm gonna figure out. Haven't been back to Houston since uh two years ago for my sister's wedding. So and I've never been to Agnes and Sherman, so it'll be good to uh finally get to go and have his cheeseburger fried rice live. That cheeseburger fried rice, by the way, super good. Super good.
Um anyway. So what else? What else we got before we wrap it up, folks? What do you got? Well, yeah, you know, Jack, you never, Jack and Nastasia said she didn't have anything interesting to eat last week, but she talked about her labor day.
What about you, Jack? You've been eating anything good? Yeah, I went to the Domocase thing they're doing at Major Domo, like their new uh tasting menu, and it was fantastic. Yeah. Any any standouts?
How long is the tasting menu? How long do you have? How long what what's what's the what's the ask in terms of your time? Not not long. It's not precious, but it's still like that good.
I think it's a I think it's a good bargain in LA right now. Um I forget exactly what like they they do a course at the end that's not quite bosom, but like it's like uh I think it's like three ways, I think. Um but I yeah, I uh you know, it's a blur and it was a few weeks ago, but it was definitely worth doing. Yeah. Um and then and then selfishly I want to say I am going to Paris in uh few weeks, like two weeks, I think.
So uh there are any friends of the show in Paris or uh I mean John sent me some great recs for for Paris and Membro and Brussels, which I might also go to for a weekend. Um if you go to Brussels, man, you gotta follow John's recommendations. John knows from Brussels, oh my god, you gotta get the correct waffles. You have to get the correct waffles if you get a Brussels. But listen, so the the uh I think it's Maison Dandoi in in Brussels, like the waffle place, there's the i the indoor and the outdoor.
The indoor is the speckaloose place, the outdoor is the waffle. You must stand in line and get that waffle. Okay. And you have to get you have to can't just get one, you have to get like all their waffles. You just have to just just just waffles.
And then when you when you're done with when you eat that waffle, because you've never been to Belgium before, right? You know? When you eat that waffle, you're gonna be like, Oh. And every time you come back to the United States and someone's like, Here's a Belgian waffle, you're gonna do this. Nah.
Nah. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's fine, it's not a bad product. You know what I'm saying? Like I I grew up eating American waffles.
I grew up making American waffles. But, you know, those folks just know their waffles. But you know, I'm interested in hearing what current recommendations you have for Paris, 'cause I haven't been back to Paris since probably twenty nineteen. And uh, and my knowledge extends mainly to my my knowledge is mainly uh charcuterie and cheese stores and almost nothing else. Museums.
I mean, I have a reservation at 17, which is apparently the new newish, trendy, um, popular spot. So I'll report back. But yeah. You've never been to Versailles? I have not.
Oh my god. Vers Okay, listen, this is not a food recommendation, but you have to make the time to go to Versailles. I don't care about the inside stuff, all like the palaces and stuff, but I'm a I'm a sucker for uh gardens. So like in Italy, if you ever go to Italy, go outside of Rome in Dolazio, go to the old like uh Roman uh not Roman, uh like Renaissance villas, all of their gardens. Versailles is choice.
Any time of year, Versailles, the gardens at Versailles, any time of year is choice. It's a whole day, so you have to be willing to spend the time. But definitely do it. For sure do it. All right, well, uh we're back next week.
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