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696. All Tangent Tuesday: Genever, Grocery Stores & Cranberry Cordial

[0:00]

The holidays are supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year, but let's be real. Between family gatherings, endless plans, and trying to make everyone happy, they can also be overwhelming. Sometimes the biggest win is setting a boundary. Maybe it's saying no to an event you don't have energy for, or choosing to stay calm during a stressful family conversation. Those little moments can make a big difference.

[0:23]

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[0:44]

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[1:02]

That's grow therapy.com slash acast. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Cool fall nights always make me want to entertain more. A few friends around the table, maybe a fire outside when the sun goes down. Before everyone comes over, I stop at Total Wine and More.

[1:20]

Right now there's a cranberry flavored wine, a crisp apple wine, even a pumpkin spice cream that's perfect in coffee after dinner. And with the lowest prices, I can bring home a few different fall flavors for everyone to try. Find your favorite fall flavors at the lowest prices at Total Wine and More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly.

[1:41]

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[2:24]

Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan, Rockefeller Center, New York City, New Stand Studios. Well, just you and me today in the studio, Joe. How you doing? Joe Hazen.

[2:35]

Hey, hey, hey. Great to see you. Great to hear from you. Welcome back. Yeah.

[2:39]

Yeah. It's uh, you know, fall time here in the city. Uh over there in the lower left, at least for the beginning of the show, we have uh a Jackie Molecules. How you doing? Yeah, good.

[2:53]

All right, right. And we're supposed to be having Nastasia the Hammer Lopez, but she's having technical difficulties right now, so we'll go to the upper left, where we have, of course, Quinn. How you doing? I'm all right. Okay, good.

[3:07]

So, uh, anyone that happens to be listening live, which means you're a Patreon member, uh, you may call in your questions too. This is a an all-tangent Tuesday. I don't know how many tangents I have, because you know, we don't have that many questions, so we'll see whether or not, you know, just with this core group of people, we can come up with enough tangents to fill an hour. I think we probably will. Uh but uh yeah.

[3:26]

Call in your questions too at 917-4101507. That's 917-410-1507. And if you're thinking of becoming a Patreon member, Quinn, why don't you tell them why they might want to. Well, you can go to Patreon.com/slash cooking issues. Uh, the primary perk that all members get is you get uh early access to either the audio recording or the audio feed.

[3:54]

You get access to the Discord, which is a pretty active uh community of like-minded people. You'll get uh priority answers to your questions if you're a member. We have a higher tier for a video feed, and then uh also patronage exclusives get um, you know, the occasional 3D file or recipe or a document from Dave. Uh I come up with a uh recipe or two occasionally and post those as well. We have things like uh John's massive guide to Belgium, so a bunch of uh fun perks.

[4:40]

Oh, and uh by the way, Patreon people, should you ever want something out of me? You guys gotta let us know. Then Quinn will tell me to do it, and then I'll uh we'll post it. Isn't that how that works, Quinn? Pretty much.

[4:52]

Well, no, I'll tell you three times, and then you'll do it. Yeah, but they don't need to know that. That's that's that's a you problem, not a them problem. We'll get it done. You know what I'm saying?

[5:01]

Uh hey, I had a terrible idea, folks. If you think about this, what if we let people like in instead of like advertisements, we let people just pay on the Patreon and we'll read whatever they write. As long as it's only disparaging to me. It can't be disparaging to anyone else. Like you can't say anything negative about other that's the best idea you've ever had.

[5:21]

Yeah. Yeah, just like, you know, what we'll give it like a cap, like a number of words that I'll read. Verbatim, right? And you can rag on me all you want. Anyone else on the show who agrees to be ragged on can be ragged on.

[5:33]

But we won't uh take pot shots at uh anyone in the industry, and I'd prefer if we stayed away from overtly political messages. We we come up with like a rule book, but like if you you know, but if you just want to go off, if you have your own rant that you want read in mine or anyone else's voice on the air for that matter, you know what I mean? Uh, you know, any one of us, I'm sure will do it. I love it. Yeah?

[5:54]

So all right, so we'll figure out uh we'll figure out a thing. What do you think, Quinn? Okay, we'll see how that goes. Well before we see how it goes, we have to you know come up with a a system and put it on the Patreon. You know what I mean?

[6:09]

Who knows what people say? Hey, despite what Nastasia says, family show. She believes that the only children that have ever listened were the ones that were children 15 years ago, and now they're, you know, 30 year olds. And so that, you know, we we but as I told her, new children are made every year. You know what I'm saying?

[6:27]

And there's plenty of places you can go to hear people curse. For instance, my living room. You know what I mean? But uh we don't need to do it here. What do you guys think?

[6:37]

Yeah, I don't know. I I'd be curious to know how many kids actually listen, but also there's some adults who don't I mean, like, what's the point? It's the same reason that we're not political here, right? I mean, it's like, you know, we can talk about food without alienating people. You know what I mean?

[6:49]

Uh I mean I'm mostly impressed that you can do it, Dave. That's that's one of the real seats of accomplishment on the show. Right. Well, so for for those who don't know me personally, how foul mouthed am I in the real life? I'd go like eight out of ten, maybe.

[7:07]

Yeah. Yeah. I'm basically the dad from a Christmas story. You know what I mean? Only like with the with the real curse words.

[7:14]

You know what I mean? It's like uh I can I can, as they say, talk a blue streak. You know what I mean? But uh you code switch it for the show, you know. I guess maybe it's because I had kids and I wasn't allowed to curse around them, and I don't really curse around my in-laws.

[7:28]

You know what I mean? Yeah. I remember once I was uh at one of our like host parties back at the old network. I was it was like uh one of the fundraising events or a host some kind of party we were having, and I was giving a little speech, and I I made a big uh emphatical curse, and uh your kids were there, and I forgot about that, and they got all they started laughing. And you gave me the look of like, come on, family show family show, Jack.

[7:55]

Family, family show, family show. Come on. Uh yeah, of course, you know, now my youngest uh can drink and knows how to curse quite well. Um so uh Jack, since you might have to leave early, what do you what's first of all, you didn't go full Belgium on us yet, right? We saved that because oh man to say this last week, before you go on talking about Belgium, I mean, not before you leave.

[8:20]

Uh we had so much fish sauce last week because you know, like when when uh when Daniel and Andrea came in, they were using like eyedroppers. They thought we were gonna taste like just drops of the fish sauce, but like in the same way that when I'm tasting a cocktail and I really want to evaluate it, I need to take a full sip of it and swallow it just to evaluate it. You know what I'm saying? When I'm first having it. I mean, I'm not saying that you can't like taste and spit, but like for me, I can't evaluate the full impact of a cocktail unless I get a decent sip and swallow it.

[8:53]

See, the finish, etc. etc. Yeah, agreed. Yeah. Same with the fish sauce.

[8:58]

I was like, you know, a drop isn't gonna do it for me. So like I'm sitting there filling, you know, spoons, not like tiny little, you know, uh ice cream tasting spoons, which are the most absurd spoons on earth, right? I mean, ice cream store tasting spoons are the nuttiest little things. The only thing worse than them is the little wooden canoe paddle that they give with the uh ice cream cups you used to get when you were a kid. You know what I'm talking about?

[9:23]

Oh, the worst, the worst. Yeah, because first of all, some some fool, you're the fool, you bought it, but some fool is pulling that out of something that they're storing those little ice cream cups on dry ice. So the ice cream might as well be a baseball. Remember this growing up? And then you have the canoe.

[9:39]

Yeah, you have the canoe paddle, and you you're not gonna wait because you're a kid. Your hot hands are melting, and so now it's sliding around on that melted outside layer in the cup, and the inside is still a rock, and you you jam the canoe into the ice cream, and you finally, when you jam it hard enough, the entire piece you jammed off flies off to your right if you're right-handed, flies off to your right, hits the ground. How many times has this happened to you in life? Exactly, right? Happens.

[10:04]

Yeah, too many. Too many. Anyway, uh too many. Or or if you're like me, you just like uh you just uncontrollably chew on the little wooden paddle and then it breaks and it's useless. Yeah, it's it's it's bad.

[10:16]

It's bad. Anyway, so I I feel the ice cream tasting spoons are like in that level of crazy. But uh they also look like Baskin Robbins tasting spoons. Yeah, yeah. Cause they're well, I think they invented that thing.

[10:28]

They might have. They probably invented it. Uh I used to go to Baskin Robins so often. Oh my god. You know what?

[10:34]

I I have a little tangent here because we were talking about not talking about politics, but something I heard last week I thought was absolutely a genius. Governor of Florida, DeSantis was honorated with a sculpture or a statue of himself at the Tallahassee um uh capital um of Florida. And um the people who designed the statue had a little funny thing about it that they designed the statue in gallium. Gallium is a metal so it melt? It melts at 86 degrees.

[11:08]

DeSantos, notorious for not believing in climate change, gives a speech in front of his own statue commemorating it, and it starts to melt because in Tallahassee it goes up to 90 and it melts right in front of him. This is real? This is real, real, real, real. Wow. Genius.

[11:24]

You know what that is? Expensive. Gallium, gallium, not cheap. Not cheap. Not cheap.

[11:30]

You know, uh good story. Much more expensive than bronze. And wait, and DeSantis paid for this or the taxpayers of Florida paid for it. Uh DeSantis paid for it. I mean not knowing that he was gonna be punked.

[11:44]

Exactly. Did he get his money back? I don't know. Can you sue someone for that? I don't know.

[11:49]

I mean, if you don't specifically say what the what the alloy has to be. You have no idea. There's a whole bunch of expensive metals that I used to want to play. In fact, I bought some called Cerro Bismuth alloys that melt at extremely low temperatures. My mom used to use them in um when she was doing uh nuclear medicine work at the at the hospital.

[12:10]

But they yeah, you can get some extremely low melting metals that are cheaper than gallium. Anyway, uh back to the fish sauce for a second, but I interrupted uh on the Belgian thing. I ate so much fish sauce out of like a regular plastic, you know, picnic spoon that I I like if you see the the video clip that I put on uh Instagram, my mouth is going 'cause like I had so much salt in my system, I had such a freaking headache because I consumed so much salt. It was the saltiest thing. Well, not the saltiest thing ever, the saltiest thing ever was when I did an all-day tasting of salty water at Saratoga Springs and just pounded their super salty water.

[12:51]

And just I mean, like I had the worst hangover the the the day after the first time I did a Saratoga water tasting. I just never felt anything like it. Like uh anyway. All right, so Belgium, give me some bed give me some bedlam in Belgium. Man, Paris and Belgium.

[13:06]

I mean Paris rocked too, I have to say. And uh shout out to Mike from Candelaria, big fan of the show who I ran into was um was great with Rex and stuff. But Belgium, man, I am uh actually I have a cooking issue for you. So I went to Ghent. I went to Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, and Bruges, and Ghent, I came back with their famous mustards.

[13:28]

Yeah, dude. So now yeah, dude. Did you go? Oh, hell yeah. Ghent is the money.

[13:36]

Yeah. Yeah, man, those mustards. So I'm sitting here and and I have the the you know, the regular mustard that they do. Did you have the 35-year-old guy mustard or whatever? Did you give the 35-year-old guy or the 60-year-old woman?

[13:50]

Uh the woman. Yeah, was she like like my age or a little older? Yeah. She's the one who won't tell you a dang thing about her mustard. If you try to ask her a question, she'll like give you a side s side stare and she'll clam up.

[14:03]

Well what I did here was uh this one's spicy, this one's regular. I was like, okay, well, I'll take a big jar of each. Um and the spicy one's like good and spicy, you know, like when mustard has the like full-on wasabi sensation. Yeah. Um, but I'm like, okay, so this mustard, especially the big jar of the spicy mustard, right?

[14:25]

This is gonna they say last a month or so. That's a lie. It lasts a while. How do I make the best use? Keep it, keep it in the fridge.

[14:31]

It lasts longer. What's the best? What's the best use of it anyway? Other than me just like dipping everything uh into it and you know, like that. But there's gotta be something cool I can do with the spicy mustard.

[14:43]

Let me preface. Make a steak. But this is a steak and mushrooms. Oh, yeah, no, I'm doing I'm doing stuff like that. Yeah, I did a carbonade with it recently, which is of course the Belgian uh the Belgian beef stew of note.

[14:56]

Oh, I have plenty of plenty of carbonide. Yeah, which my uh it's good, right? Great. Yeah, good. I will say by like the sixth Belgian place that I ate at, it's like y y you think I wonder what the specialty at this place up it's Carbonate.

[15:11]

Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah, carbonate, good stuff. But uh now, I'm gonna preface this with saying that, you know, I'm old. However, I want to make a pitch for liverwurst sandwich with mustard on rye. Is super money.

[15:29]

Liverwurst is money. And if you don't want to, if if liverwurst turns you off, call it by another name. Braunschweiger. You know what I mean? Like you can you can call it whatever you want.

[15:38]

Labor Kazah. You can do whatever you want as long as you eat it. Because mustard and liverwurst on rye is money. Another thing on rye with money, uh, the mustard and money, you know it, you know it. Brisket.

[15:51]

Brisket and yeah, any kind of brisket. I'm a pastrami brisket guy. But you could do corn beef. Pastrami, yeah. But pastrami, huge amounts of money.

[16:01]

You know what I'm saying? Uh huge. Uh, I'll tell you what I did with it just the other day. I was in Connecticut, as I do, and uh Martin Russell, who's uh one of the sausage makers of note in Connecticut in New Britain. Uh, you know what's funny?

[16:15]

In in in my state of New York, the things that we call new are in general better than the places that they were named after. Like, who cares about York? You know what I'm saying? Who cares about York in England? In Connecticut, like New London and New Britain, I don't think anyone thinks that New London and New, no offense.

[16:32]

They're not really topping all of Britain or London. You know what I'm saying? You know, anyway. No. No.

[16:39]

But uh Martin Russell is in New Britain, which is what made me think of that. And their kilbasa on point. And uh I will talk about it a little bit later, but I did some open flame grilling of the of the to heat up the kilbasa, because who cares? It's already cooked all the way through, so all you need to do is get it warm and get the outside nice and crunchy. Sauerkraut, I'll tell you this also.

[17:00]

Surprise, Costco sauerkraut, freaking good. Costco does a Costco does a raw, not pasteurized, in the fridge case, like no additives, cabbage and salt, sauerkraut that is, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna get shot for this. As good as the pickle guys one, and is a little bit coarser cut than Bubbies, but like similar quality to Bubbies if you buy. And I don't know whether that's just on the East Coast, but I bought a container of it. So I had that, the mustard, and the and the Kilbasa.

[17:31]

Huge win. Huge win. Hmm. Yeah. Huge win.

[17:36]

Was it is the kraut Canadian? I don't look and see where it came from, but I was just like so shocked that they had something that I thought was like that high quality. Like, because you know for those of you that have never had fresh kraut, right? Fresh sauerkraut is so much better than the canned or the packaged. It's not like jacked with uh preservatives.

[17:55]

It's not heated at all. It's like super crunchy and fresh. You know what I mean? Uh love it. Love kraut.

[18:01]

I eat a lot of kraut. You know what I mean? For a non-German person. Although I got the German Germany last name, I guess, but what it's like the German kimchi. Yeah.

[18:12]

Although I guess, you know, come to think of it, my great grandfather's birth certificate was in German, but they're from Pennsylvania. So it doesn't really count. You know what I mean? On my dad's side. Whatever.

[18:23]

Uh all right. So those are some things you can do with the mustard. Dave, one other thing. Uh it what's that? Those are some things you can do at the mustard.

[18:33]

Yeah. No, I've been I love that. Um the other thing I was gonna tell you about is uh did you go to the um Geneva bar? No, no, because I was I was I was with uh I was with a bunch of kids. So we didn't go to any bar only places.

[18:48]

We just went to, you know, I had a lot of beer because we were at restaurants, but I didn't go to any bars. That was great. They had like, you know, 200 different Genevers or something. It was overwhelming and um not speaking a ton of English there, so I just kind of had to try to point and try things. It was all delicious.

[19:09]

And then I saw uh um an older man, a local, like drinking his Geneva, and I sort of tried to ask him. He didn't speak English, of course, but um what he was having, and he just kind of looked at me and grunted. Yeah. And then he did back at the chirped back at the bartender, and I said, Oh, what did he what did he say? And she said, He says the big one.

[19:34]

And so did you have it? Did you have the big one? Uh yeah. Yeah, yeah. I did.

[19:40]

You know what a really kind of uh the same thing I was having. What what ticks me off is how people constantly try to compare just because like of like the the the history of how they came about, gin Geneva and and London dry gin. They don't have a similar use case or really a similar flavor profile. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, not at all.

[20:06]

No, I mean they're they're a different product. So like, you know, like the fact like, but I think there's this like mental people in trying to get people to to have Geneva, which is you know, its own thing. People try to like bend your mind around it by using terms like gin, but like why? Why I don't know. What do you like using it for?

[20:26]

I mean, I've I know that Martinez, but like uh we're just kind of swapping it in in a grony or we've only used it uh at the bar a couple of times. Like we had one called the Duff Man because I think we were using Philip Duff's Geneva. Uh, but I forget all the stuff we had in it. And then we had another one that used bowls at uh Booker and Dax that was a reverse angle drink. That was uh Tristan Willie's drink.

[20:52]

It was Bowl's Geneva and Angus Dora, and maybe another modifier, like maybe some sort of like Remouthy crap in it. I don't remember. It's been such a long time. But we don't use it as much just because it's not in my mental, it's not in my mental go-to, but I should put it in my mental go-to. You know what I'm saying?

[21:10]

Because like in my mind, I forgot all about it until I had it again. My mental go-to that I try to get people to use that nobody wants to use in the United States is Akavite. So like anytime I'm gonna go like do like a spirit, I'm Accavie. You know what I mean? Because I love the I I love it.

[21:26]

You know what I mean? Uh it goes well with some of my favorite things, like grapefruit. You know what I mean? It works well in shakens, so like, you know, I I feel like you can only get a couple, and I push like uh I like I use a lot of like uh apple brandy and um use a lot of apple brandy and I use a lot of uh a lot of aquavine. So those are my two non, you know, rum agave, you know, cane agave, uh vodka, gin, uh one am I missing, oh bourbon, you know, you know, whiskey things that I that go on, but I should bring I should branch out.

[22:04]

I should branch out. Um what else you got? What else you got? What about you trying to pretend and Dax also did Dax also said this, and uh okay, I can't say that either of you are wrong because I haven't been to the Netherlands since I was like seven, literally seven years old. But uh people claiming that the fries are as good in the Netherlands as they are in Belgium, come on, that can't be the case.

[22:29]

Oh, I don't know. Oh, I thought you were one of those people who were like I will say the fries in Belgium. No. No, no, no, no, no, no. The fries in Belgium were like probably I I had, you know, like uh muscle street um with maybe the best French fries I've ever had in my life.

[22:44]

Like unbelievable. Yeah, unbelievable. Yeah, and did you perfection? In Brussels? Did you go to Maison Dandoy, go outside and get their waffles from the outside stand with the long line?

[22:55]

Dude, but at least three times, yes. Right? Right? Correct. Incredible.

[23:01]

I mean, I mean, but the thing is, like, okay, how old are you now, Jack? I mean, if you don't mind me asking. 40. Okay. So you're 40, and you had never been to Belgium before, right?

[23:11]

So this is like, you know, like I I went there, I don't know, like right before the pandemic. So I was like in my 40s, but not, you know, you know, late 40s, right? And how rare is it at this point in your life? I'm assuming this happened that you were like, oh crap, I thought I knew this product, and I was a tool this whole time. I didn't know squat.

[23:30]

You know what I'm saying? Right? Yes. Yeah. 100%.

[23:35]

I heard you say this on the show, and I thought, like, well, it's just a waffle. It can't be. What's the big deal? Right? It's really that good.

[23:40]

Right? And it's like, and like you see those freak shows running up to the stand with the batter because they're making it all the time. It's one of those things. They're making them all the time. So the smaller places, even in Belgium that you go where they have to sandbag them because they're not constantly making enough to keep selling them.

[23:55]

You know what I mean? It's like that place is just, you know, it's like an Al Pastor game. You have to keep making it. You know what I mean? Oh my God, so good.

[24:04]

Did you go in and see the giant inside their store and see the giant speckaloo's cookies? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you break one? No. I wanted to go in there.

[24:15]

No. I wanted to go in there with the baseball so badly just to see what would happen. And then play the dumb American. You know what I mean? I'll just whoops.

[24:23]

Oh, I'm so sorry. You know what I mean? One of those. But uh I didn't because I don't have the I don't have the stones to do such a thing. Need Nastasia to do something like that.

[24:35]

She would do it. She would have no problem. No problems. Uh I didn't go. I have uh I went to Antwerp maybe.

[24:44]

No, I didn't. I'm wondering whether I went to see the diamond, because I remember I went to a diamond thing when I was it went to the Netherlands. So I may have dipped my toe into Antwerp when I was a kid, but I can't remember because I was only seven. How was that? How was the food there?

[24:56]

Was there anything of note there? No, not really. I mean, that was uh, you know, my girlfriend's into fashion stuff, so they have like uh there's there's a lot of that there. Uh the there are a lot of fashion designers that came from Antwerp, the Antwerp Six, like a big movement in the uh late 80s, early 90s. So we went to a museum for that and some shopping and stuff.

[25:19]

But man, yeah. I mean, you know, it was mostly a Paris trip. Paris is delicious, of course. You know, everybody, you know, it's it's hard to not eat and drink well in Paris, but Belgium was a it was a really pleasant surprise. Were you uh where were where were you?

[25:32]

Were you below the river? Uh in the 11th for most of it, yeah. Uh like what what cheese? Yeah, what cheese did you have when you were there? That's all I care about.

[25:45]

I mean, I care about meat too, but I mean all of them. Is Vachon Vachron's not in yesterday? Oh, really? Did anyone ask you or catch you? Or were they legal?

[26:00]

No. With the cheese that I brought home? I no, I don't think they're illegal because I asked the cheesemonger basically for the youngest Robin cheese. I was just like, what are all the things I can't get at home, basically? Yeah.

[26:11]

Um Yeah, the only the only straight faced lie, first of all, uh Jeffrey Steingarden, the man who wrote uh uh The Man Who Ate Everything, uh, you know, famously, you know, nutty guy, and broke a lot of rules. But the one rule he said is he never lied to a customs officer. And somehow he managed yeah, and somehow he managed to bring all kinds of crazy crap in into the country. But I think a semi-legitimate lie is and just tell them it's 60 days old. And then they don't care.

[26:43]

You know what I mean? You're like, does this cheese blah, blah, blah? It's 60 days old. Oh. What are they gonna do?

[26:49]

Say no, it's not? You know what I mean? Can you do that with truffles? Truffles, no. I don't think any froth they don't first of all, you can be like, but officer, uh, a mushroom is neither a fruit nor a vegetable.

[27:04]

In fact, it's more closely related to humans than it is to vegetables. But they're not gonna be. What about pig fat? Pig fat. Uh uh, if it's canned, but not fresh.

[27:17]

Candy should be fine. Yeah. I believe I don't remember what the rule on Salumi in general is. Uh I think you can't bring Salumi. Salumi is not okay.

[27:26]

Canned products are okay. You're not supposed to. Right. And cheeses. I mean, my my position's always been just play dumb though.

[27:33]

I'm like, what? Oh, I was just on vacation. I had no idea. Sorry, you know. Ask for forgiveness, not permission.

[27:40]

But it's uh it was too early in the season for Vacheron, right? That's another month or two. Oh my god, that's my favorite cheese. Oh my god. Did you go to Bartolome, the cheese store?

[27:51]

No. I forget the name of the cheese where I went through the 11th. It was very good. Next time, dude, next time, you gotta go. Uh it's off the Rue de Box stop uh on like what is it called?

[28:00]

Not Rue Grenouille, but something very close, grinnel, something like this. Uh Bartolome. And uh famously they're supposed to be mean. They've always been nothing but nice to me, but maybe it's because I just looked so excited when I go there. You know what I mean?

[28:13]

I look so stoked for their cheese. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I just you know when I walk in there my my eyes turn like huge saucers and like you know I just I can feel the happiness. Maybe they are being mean to me and I just can't sense it because the cheese is getting me so jacked.

[28:27]

We got Nastasia Nastasia you're on the line maybe not. This is this is not Nastasia. Oh all right who who we got who this is Patrick calling for this is Patrick Colling from Brooklyn. How are you doing Dave? Oh all right Joe lied to me and said it was Nastasia but you're just as good you're just as good.

[28:49]

We were expecting Nastasia to call in and she I assume because I can't pre-filter the call so well welcome to the show Patrick Yeah what do you think this is M PR? We can we can you know come on man. Anyway I have some bad news for you that the Western my uh localish Western beef became a food bazaar so the turkey butt supply uh appears to have been extinguished there at least there may be other western beefs open but well okay so because I so we we talked we on the show about turkey butts being a thing and then you chimed in on the insta that turkey butts are available at Western Beef. Now here's the question you don't know and I haven't looked it up all the western beefs are gone is they they don't still have the one on 14th Street right that's long gone right it looks like the others the others are open but it's no longer it's at least no longer in the online invent inventory. So the reason for informing you of this too, beyond the the loss of of a potential turkey butt location, is the question I've long wanted to ask on the show, and I know you're a fine fare shopper, is your on the spot ranking from worst to best of New York City supermarket.

[30:03]

Oh, this is a very, very five borough specific question, but I think it reveals it's it's it's it's one I ponder often. Okay. So for those of you who have never lived or shopped in New York City, let me tell you a couple of things that might shock you. One produce and many food items here, things like frozen frozen foods are much cheaper here to buy at at like local supermarkets than they are in the suburbs. It's weird.

[30:34]

You know what I mean? Like unless you're going to like a Costco or something like that. But the places that I shop, places like Fine Fair or like the newer, like, you know, cheaper places like Lidl and whatnot, I'm getting like big bags of peas, frozen peas for like ninety-nine cents. Right. I go, I get uh I go to my cut rate avocado dealer at the Essex Street Market and I get like avocados for like ninety-nine cents apiece or less, right?

[30:57]

I get limes like six six, seven a dollar, right? So like we can get our especially if you use like on on street or you know where to go, you can get food cheap cheaper here than you can in the suburbs. Pat Patrick, can you back me up on this or you disagree? Oh, we have, yeah. And our our blog, uh a a cut rate uh street vendor opened up.

[31:18]

So you're getting Juriscal's you know, the Driscoll stuff is literally like one dollar. I mean, it's you know, uh as opposed to, you know, even stuff like that. So you know, there's even even the uh let's say the used car market of produce available in a lot of neighborhoods. Right. So for those of you that want to look back, uh an episode that I really enjoyed, we had the person who wrote The Secret Life of Groceries on, and he was talking about Trader Joe's.

[31:40]

And the way Trader Joe's makes this stuff cheap is they use what's called short code short code produce, which means stuff's not going to last long. So for those of you who live up near Port Authority, there's the uh Styles Farmers Market. They do the same thing. They only get in like short code stuff, and you can get artichokes like for like nothing, but you have to use them now. Can't use them, can't use them later.

[32:02]

G got to use them now. And so that's a misconception. Even though New York is incredibly expensive in general, for certain things like this, if you live here and you know what you're doing, you you can get off cheaper than you'd think. That's one. Uh two, uh, you know, until maybe 10 years ago, right?

[32:21]

Like maybe t 20 years ago, Fairway expanded before it contracted, but that was only in a couple of locations, right? They had decent prices. Zaybars had decent prices for higher end foods, right? Then maybe like 10 years ago, we started getting the 12 years ago, we started getting Trader Joe's. Now we have Letles, we have Wegmans, right?

[32:39]

These are relatively new in the in the Pantheon of New York shopping, right? And some of them have done a lot of I would almost exclude them from this from this list, too. I mean, potentially this is the classic. And all of them are bad, basically in some way. Right, right.

[32:58]

But but my point being that like these are the people might be thinking of those, and we're we're not talking about these. What we're talking about are Gristetis, Key Foods, Sea Town, Fine Fair, uh, and what's that other one? Morton. Pathmark, Pathmark, oh, Pathmark sometimes. I think would be the R Pathmark closed.

[33:20]

I don't know if there's any any any left. Am I missing any of the major New Yorkey ones? Well, food well, um the West Meat became a food bazaar, but that might be a new entrance. And we said C Town, right? Yeah, C Town.

[33:29]

Food Bazaar is another one. What's if because food bazaar is the one that runs the food town. Which is the one that runs the giant uh the giant uh Latin market that is uh right near the right near where the F train goes near Broadway, like a couple stops near flushing. You know what I'm talking about? That giant is that a food bazaar?

[33:55]

Maybe. Um I think so. I'm not sure. Right. And and we're not including in this list like the multiple location Chinatowns Morton Williams, Morton Williams.

[34:05]

Now I don't have a lot of I don't have a lot of experience with with that one. So I'm gonna stick, let's just look at C Town, Fine Fair, C Town, Fine Fair Key Foods, right? I think of those and of the neighborhoods I've lived, C Town is the worst of them. You agree or disagree? I c I concur.

[34:31]

That's definitely at the bottom. Yeah. So the weird thing about fine fair is every couple of years, my local fine fare changed to Metro Acres, which, you know, I don't know why they changed to Metro Acres, but there's another fine fare down the block, like maybe like, you know, literally like a third of a mile down Grand Street from where I I live. It's still a fine fair. And fine fare, like for as much as everyone always hated on fine fare, I think they have they they do a decent job of catering to the local market where they are, right?

[35:03]

So they always have a decent selection of dried peppers. You know, they have uh they have a decent selection of like actual yams like name. Like they they've always done an okay job of that at reasonable prices. Now, is some of the stuff expired? Yes.

[35:19]

Like, you know, are are there issues? For sure. Should you ever get prepared salads at a fine fair? No. Everyone in my family, except for me, because I would never eat that, has been food poisoned by trying.

[35:34]

I literally, my cousin went to Fine Fair once. Did I already talk about this? He buys, and I'm not trying to throw shade. It's just don't buy this stuff there, right? He bought a parfait, a parfait at Fine Fair.

[35:48]

Now, what kind of lunatic do you need to be to go buy an in-store-packed parfait at a fine fair? He was knocked out for like a week and a half. You know what I mean? He had to go to the hospital. My wife, get this.

[36:02]

My wife, fine fair sushi. I had to go to the subway station and basically carry her home. Don't get that stuff there. It's not for that. You with me, Patrick?

[36:13]

You agree with me or don't agree with me. But I have to say I like the fine fair. I've never been in a fine a fine I've never been in a fine fair because it just did not in my geography. But I I I I concur with with that opinion. Yeah.

[36:26]

And we may have left out food town. Oh, food town. I mean, and it and point yeah, and pointing out for listeners on the metro, some these are not necessarily chains, like they have independent owners, but it's sort of it's not they they all have the same vibe, even if they're chain. What about associated in our group? Oh, associated, associated.

[36:45]

Oh, we forgot associated. Yeah. Key Foods, I think is interesting because key Foods, I think, is this is the switch hitter. It can go either way. It depends on the local clientele of the key foods.

[36:57]

The key foods, the key foods don't close down necessarily when the places gentrify out. And so like they can kind of change. You know what I mean? Christities has always been overpriced, but like it's got that old school New York feel to the to the word graffiti uh gristitis. Rustitis, here's the other one for you.

[37:14]

Ready for this one? If this is a real blast from the past, food emporium. Sucker went out of business. I think maybe they got into that. But when I was a kid, Food Emporium, Food Emporium, they had TV commercials.

[37:26]

They're the only one of these people that have had TV commercials. You know what I mean? Or maybe they were radio commercials. Someone had a store that's just for me. Someone, someone, you know, knows my kind of quality.

[37:37]

You know what I'm saying? Food Emporium. I never shocked at a food emploi. I mean, I have shocked, but it was never my standard store. The last food emporium that I remember was on 14th Street right by Union Square.

[37:47]

And it got knocked out by the Whole Foods when that opened up maybe like 20 years ago or whatever. That was the first big Whole Foods I remember in New York City, was the one on uh 14th Street, which by the way, no matter what you say negative about Whole Foods, this was prior to the Amazon buying them, it was it was very well placed at Union Square because if you went to the green market at Union Square and you couldn't get everything you needed, you could walk right to the Whole Foods and and bolster your buy. You know what I'm saying? Anyway. Have I said anything you disagree with yet, Patrick?

[38:18]

Or no? I I know I can't I think so far. I mean, it's sort of like I said, is this this for the non-New York City listeners on this, this is places we shop all the time, too. It's not like we're sneering on this, but it's just an interesting New York City uh, you know, high m mental map of of of where to go or not based on the the the chain. Right.

[38:39]

And and I know I said this on the air before, but the other thing about it is is that what I like about local grocery stores, is I know where everything is in my local grocery store. And I hate when they change the way it's organized. Because like, you know, I I live in the opposite. I'm I'm in the lower east side and for a long time the only grocery we really had, we you could walk the other one, like walk a decent distance to it, but Fine Fair was the only grocery store. And then as they've, you know, as that area has kind of like trended, you know, more more people with more money and whatnot, they we now have like like grocery stores coming out of our ears.

[39:15]

We have a fake target. We have uh by fake target I mean it's a tiny target, but they do have some groceries. We have a Trader Joe's on the in the same building. We th a Lethal just opened across the street, which I shop there most unpleasant shopping experience in the world. Unpleasant.

[39:31]

I still shop there. Why is that? Is it just because it's cheaper and I'm cheap? Is it because it's cheaper and I'm a cheap human? Maybe.

[39:38]

Uh and a and a fine fair. And we actually like I said, uh a m a Metro Acres now and a new fine fair. And I go to each one knowing exactly what I need and where I'm gonna go get it and what it is. And so like I feel like a lot of New York shoppers, old school ones, new ones I guess they just go on that whatever fresh direct or whatever and get crap delivered to their house. But I I know exactly what I want and it's pretty fast if you know Essex Market is the other one.

[40:02]

If you if you know what you want it's pretty fast. Don't you think so Patrick? It's not that inefficient if you know what you're doing. Yeah and I think I think the inefficiency in this is that the newer places that are I've I have on this show made fun of my l immediately local, supposedly upscale supermarket, which I shall not name, but they don't carry some basic things too. So it's impossible.

[40:23]

It's it's it's actually more useful to go to the the old cheapo one because they have base. They sell goldfish, you know. The new supermarket does not sell cold fish, for example. So, like, okay, so I remember if you if you have a a three-year-old. Let's say you go to a I'll say this.

[40:38]

Let's say you go to Trader Joe's and you're like, where's the salt? And they're like, they show you this tiny container of salt, and you're like, what am I supposed to do with this? You know what I mean? And they're like, well, it's not a bulk store. I'm like, what?

[40:51]

You know what I mean? Like sell a three-pound box of salt. You know what I mean? What am I gonna do with this? Tiny thing of salt, please.

[40:58]

Nuts. Uh, yeah. All right. That's like an interesting question. Uh these are the kind of questions I like, but the problem is is that people who don't live here, by the way, I just became a Costco member recently, and I'm still wrapping my head around the size of the freaking carts there.

[41:14]

Also, you ever been to a Costco, Joe? Hate it. Yeah. People in a Costco, people in general who don't live in busy places, I don't know how to move. No, of course not.

[41:26]

Everyone's going the opposite direction. Like, it's traveling the right, pass on the left. Keep yeah, keep it moving or get it out of the way. Yeah, and if you got a big thing, move it off to the side to let your fellow patron come in, or otherwise we're gonna You ever shop at a restaurant depot slash Jetro? Never have.

[41:43]

It's like Tsukiji Market was. You're gonna get run over, you're gonna get murdered. People come with like giant flats, like like with like hundreds and hundreds of pounds of flour, and they'll just run you flat. Everyone just drives with uh with a forklift. No, no, but human powered, but there's this like blasting through you.

[42:00]

No, do not care. Do not care. Zero care. Uh we had to have another caller on the line, but I'm not sure exactly who it is. I don't find out.

[42:08]

Patrick, thanks for calling in. Any I did did I did we answer the questions? All right. All right. Uh oh, yes, yeah.

[42:15]

All right. Caller. You're on the air. What's up, Dave? Shift drinking the Discord here.

[42:21]

Hey, what's up? Beautiful Detroit, Michigan, where you famously judged the cocktail competition with drinks so bad you had to fix along with cantaloupe. Uh but I did love I did love Detroit. I gotta get I gotta get back there someday. Home of like the greatest show ever.

[42:37]

The Detroiters is like one of the great shows ever. Deserved way more than two seasons. Am I wrong about this? No, not at all. And those guys are out at the bars all the time when they're in town.

[42:47]

It's great. Really? Oh man, what a good show that was. Guys, look it, look it up. Like that show was so good.

[42:54]

I have a Kramlin Duvet like t-shirt that was made up like for me for Christmas once. It's good it's good stuff. Good show. Anyways, what do you got for me? What's the name of your hot dog that everyone uses for Coneys, by the way?

[43:05]

What's the manufacturer of the one that everyone uses for Coneys over there? Kogles, K-O-E-G-E-L-S, natural casing, good snap. Yeah, those are so good, dude. I mean, I have to say, like I've said this on the air. Yeah.

[43:20]

Why though? I have no idea. For first, first you rep on Coney Island, which it shouldn't because, you know, whatever. Coney Island's whatever. And then you rep on freaking Chicago.

[43:31]

Why? Isn't it correct though that Stas didn't even get a Coney? She just got the chili, a bowl of chili. That just sounds like her. That's probably right.

[43:40]

It's something she would do because she she loves nothing more than to go and say whatever's important to you is not important to me. That's her favorite thing to do. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah.

[43:49]

Yeah, absolutely. Queen, I had, of course, the whole thing. So a Martin D and the R and Yeah, go ahead. Oh, sorry. No, go ahead.

[43:56]

No, no, go ahead. Um, R and D and some drinks. Um, I want to use your cranberry cordial. And I was just wondering, I have a two part question. Uh, can I scale it up?

[43:59]

Um, just double the recipe, reduce it down to a double the amount, add double the sugar. And the second part is I'd like to use a tart cherry concentrate. And I was wondering the math behind how you arrived at the recipe and how to do that for other bottled things. All right. It's gonna get a little the first answer to the first one, yes.

[44:24]

The only thing that becomes difficult with so what we're talking about here is is that for juices that um concentrate well and taste good cooked, right? One of your options, don't try with unclarified juices because they tend to scorch. One of your options for making a cordial instead of either adding a bunch of acid or adding a bunch of sugar, depending on whether it's a high sugar juice or a high acid juice. Another option is to um another option is to boil it way down. So in cranberry cordial, what you're doing is you boil unsweetened cranberry juice all the way down until when you add the sugar to it to make it a 50 bricks, it's at 6% acid.

[45:03]

So you're not adding any acid to it. And also it allows you to add a bunch of cranberry flavor, and since cranberry tastes delicious cooked, as we all know, uh, you know, you're you peep people like it. And yes, you can double it, but the issue with doing it this way is you have to keep your weights clear. So if the person spills anything, it throws all of your numbers off. That's the main issue.

[45:25]

And you don't want to add the sugar in advance because then you're boiling a high sugar mixture, and that's a huge pain in the butt. You don't want to don't want to do that, right? Okay. So now this this is gonna get mathy, but here's here's what I do. I say to myself, uh, and I'd have to, you know, I can't I kind of cheated a little bit, but here's where it is.

[45:45]

You want to say that, okay, for every thousand grams of cordial, right? Uh every thousand grams of cordil should contain 500 grams of sugar, right? And I'd have to do the math, but it's one, it's approximately one point, the density is approximately 1.23, right? So um, geez, should I do this and let me do it a different way? So for every 1,230 grams of finished cordial, you should have 615 grams of sugar and whatever 6% of 1,230 is of acid in it, right?

[46:25]

I just can't do the math in my head, right? So those are the numbers, right? And so then you then you look at your whatever your juice is, and you say, okay, this juice has whatever X amount of sugar and Y amount of acid. And you figure out which one is gonna hit either six percent or on acid or 50% on sugar first, right? And then you boil it down to the number where when you add either the acid back to it or you add the sugar back to it, you get the magic number of of uh, you know, one uh I don't even sorry, I'll just I'll open my calculator.

[47:10]

What do you how how many units do you want? You want a kilo total code cordial? Correct, yeah. All right, hold on. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[47:19]

RPN. Okay. I use reverse Polish notation. For those of you that don't know what that is, go look up HP calculators. I can't use it.

[47:26]

My dad poisoned me, so I can only use this old style of calculator, which means I can't use regular people calculating. So a thousand grams of cordial will have 500 grams of sugar in it, right? Okay. Yep. Now, uh a thousand grams of cordial with a density of 1.23 grams per CC is 813 milliliters.

[47:48]

Okay. So 813 milliliters. Uh okay should have 40, 49, let's call it like 48, 49, 40, you know, 48.8 grams of acid in it all day, right? So you have uh let's call it, we'll call it, we'll call it 48.5. How about that?

[48:14]

48.5. So 1,000 grams should have 500 of sugar minus and 48 grams roughly of acid. So 452 grams of water. So you just calculate how much water is in your juice, and then you boil it down such that you know the the numbers add up such that you're only getting 452 grams of water from the juice. And then everything else is acid or sugar, and you want to target it such that you boil it down until you either are getting 40, 48 grams of acid out of your original juice, or you're getting uh 500 grams of sugar out of your original juice.

[49:07]

Now you can always bolster it, but that that's the basic math. Does that make sense? Makes sense, yeah. Perfect. Yeah.

[49:14]

But uh the trick with the technique is like I say, not spilling anything and getting your weights pretty accurate. Sorry, that was so mathy people. And how do you relay that to somebody the to the prep team? Is it are they going back and forth between the scale and the and the pot, or is it a time that they have to boil it down for or uh uh I tell them it's okay to over boil it a little, right? Because it usually takes longer than they think.

[49:39]

It's oh it's okay to over boil it a little bit. What I recommend is that if you have a scale that's uh that can handle the weight, uh, that you weigh the pot, write the weight of the pot down, and then you add the juice, write the total weight, and then write down what the weight of the juice plus pot should be, and then make everything in the pot so you're never moving stuff back and forth, and then you can always kind of calculate what the finished weight should be in the pot, and then if it over evaporates, you can always just dope it with a little water at the end. That's what I do. Cool. Thank you.

[50:11]

Yeah, no worries. Let me know how it works. I will appreciate it. Thanks. All right.

[50:16]

We still got Jack. All right, Jack. Did I do yep, I'm here. Did we get enough Belgium? We haven't even talked to Quinn yet.

[50:27]

I know, and we've got Belgium. Yeah, I'm gonna answer the questions. I got I got time for the questions. Let's see. All right, I'm just making sure.

[50:38]

Um let's see. There was something I did uh two weeks ago, but I didn't mention it because we had guests last week. I did attempt uh like reunion clams. But uh, yeah, glams not for me. No, too chewy.

[50:59]

Yeah, and honestly, I didn't like the flavor. My dad liked it, so they weren't they weren't subbar clams. But yeah, it was both texture and flavor. Okay. But now you can cross out off my list of things that are uh disgraceful that I haven't tasted.

[51:20]

Listen, you know, man, whatever whatever you do, I'll I will make a pitch for this one thing before you give up on clams entirely. Have you had razor clams done on like a on like a real hot griddle? Razor clams, no. We dodge local uh not saying in the linguini, but I'm saying vanilla clams, I think razor clams. What's the clams?

[51:46]

The razor clams are the long ones. All right, if we come across those, I will I will also I will say that you that we teased this a little bit, but someone wrote in and and mentioned Canadian fish sauce. There's a Vancouver Island fish sauce. You have that on the way. Yeah, it's on the way.

[52:05]

Apparently, have you ever seen a fish sauce made with roe bearing fish? I thought that was interesting. No, I haven't. I know for a fact that uh puffer fish roe. Uh you know, fugu poison pufferfish roe, which is poisonous.

[52:22]

The roe is poisonous, can be fermented for a couple of years and become non-poisonous. Uh, but no, I've never heard of a fish sauce made with it. So, you know, I'm anxious to hear what you're anxious to hear what you said. Um I believe pairing pairing with roe, and we did. There's a one year and a five-year we ordered both.

[52:46]

Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. It's on Vancouver Island. So they make this fish sauce on the island where Quinn lives. How could it not have arrived already?

[52:54]

What is it on? A pony? Like, how's it getting to you? Well, I don't know. We we ordered it, what was that?

[53:04]

Two days ago, one day ago? I mean, uh again. I mean, like, literally, like, can't they just like like dry on their way to work, like toss it in your window? Like, when what the hell? They're on Vancouver Island.

[53:14]

Anyway. Uh, let us let us know. Uh there was one other thing, fish sauce related. Another thing someone brought up, uh a listener brought up, was that there was in I think in Quebec or in uh somewhere on the east coast of Canada, there was a fish sauce company that went out of business like 10 years ago, I want to say or more. And they literally ran out of money.

[53:35]

So you know what they did, Joe? They just left the factory with all of the fish sauce in the tanks. And apparently it was like like tons and tons, like huge vats of fish sauce. And the building started deteriorating, the whole neighborhood could smell the fish sauce, and then they they had to clean up this fish sauce, and apparently, like cutting into these tanks of like 10-year-old untemperature controlled fish sauce was quite the quite the experience. But I I tell you what, I would have tasted it.

[54:06]

I totally would have tasted it. It's not gonna kill you, I don't think. So high in salt, you know what I mean? Anyway. Um, all right, what else what else you got other other than uh other than not liking the linguini with clam sauce?

[54:19]

You like linguini, though. Uh let's see. Yeah, yeah. So I I tried the clams first uh before we made the whole dish. But yeah sauce not substantial enough for you?

[54:34]

Yeah I made uh well I mean yeah I we didn't attempt it once I tried the clam and it was uh it was a no go. Alright um we did I did make a sort of improvised uh mapo tofu variation which again if you remember the other week I mentioned a Ming Dynasty inspired chicken dish where it was before chilies were introduced. Right I remember so I took sort of that flavor profile of that like black pepper heavy uh chicken dish and applied it to sort of the mapo tofu uh format. So but uh what about that turned out good well so what kind of fermented bean paste did you use it was like a straight up very aged just Chinese style soybean paste so not the not broad beans with chili that you would normally use for you can get I believe non-spicy fermented broad bean for future reference. Potentially but again we knew where to get this um sort of Chinese fermented soybean paste so broad bean.

[56:04]

Anyway I like I like uh I, Jack, you still there? Do you love do you love uh the spicy fermented broad bean paste, the Sichuan one as much as I do? Oh yeah. That's yeah. That's special stuff.

[56:19]

That's big money, cash money. Stuff's so good. You know what I mean? That's right. I like what you know what I'll go through like phases where I'll be like, I'm like, I'm gonna put because I go through a lot of chili crips too.

[56:29]

Like, I like la I should own stock in Lao Gun Ma. You know what I mean? But like I'll go through a bunch of that, and then once I'm like, you know what I've forgotten to use in a while? Broad bean paste. And then I'll get on the broad bean paste for a while.

[56:39]

I'm like, oh yeah, broad bean paste. You know what I mean? Uh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[56:45]

Yeah. Uh all right, Quinn, you got some more, or should I blast through some questions? Uh yeah, let's answer the question. Radar writes in. I'm curious if you have ever tried Jim Leahy's panko-ish bread crumbs, the ones where you let the bread stale, then soak it, wring it out, and dry and crumble it.

[57:03]

I realize this is not panko, but I'm wondering if he crystallized, uh, if the crystallized starch does something interesting. Personally, I think the panko I get from Whole Foods is too dense. That may be, I don't know how I've never had Whole Foods uh panko. And no, I have not tried uh his specific recipe. However, I have gotten bread wet as a test and let it dry, and it is, as they say, sharp as heck.

[57:24]

It gets very physically sharp. You know what I mean? Compared, so I haven't tried it in a fried application, but uh as we all were saying to Jim when he was on the show, uh, that's not panko. That's not how panko works, Jim. But I'm not saying it's not a great bread crumb, but no, I haven't tested it more.

[57:41]

I need to do uh more testing. By the way, I did text him uh to ask him what he thought of $60 rye bread. I'm not gonna put publish what what is it? But like I tried the $60 rye bread, by the way. Uh it's good.

[57:55]

You know what I mean? You know, if I was rich enough, I guess it would be fine. Do you know that the same loaf of rye bread from the same company in Austria is only sixteen dollars instead of sixty dollars? So I asked uh uh, you know, my computer, I said, how many loaves of bread would I need to pay for a flight to Graz, Austria, so I can buy the bread and break even. Depending, if I get a decent flight ticket and I fly economy, 20 loaves.

[58:27]

Yeah, 20 loaves. So if you want to eat 20 loaves of rye bread, just go to Graz. Yeah. Yeah, right? Yeah.

[58:35]

Um I I have I have a quick uh bread crumb comment and a rye bread comment. Okay. Um, I am a big advocate now of for like fried cutlets or similar breaded fried foods. I'm all about the soft shredded breadcrumbs now instead of a dry bread crumb. I mean, that's just crazy.

[59:02]

You're just talking crazy talk. First of all, you mean larger breadcrumbs. Well, uh, no, I'm talking about soft non-dried bread crumbs. Right, so they're big because you can't make tiny non dried breadcrumbs. You can still pull it up or or slice it in or shred it.

[59:25]

And the reason I do this is because when I re whenever I've seen video of really fancy Japanese katsu restaurants. They are using Penko, which again is obviously made in a different way than any regular bread, but they're not using a dried panko. They're using a fresh, like feathery, shredded, soft panko. Like a milk bread? Well I don't know.

[59:54]

I gotta I gotta I'll I'll I'll I'll research this more because sandwich to me. Panko is something you buy. You know what I mean? You don't make it. I will look into it.

[1:00:06]

No, no, they they buy the panko, but again it's not dry at all. It's a flu fluffy software but they dry it, I think pretty sure they dry it before they shred it. I'm pretty sure it's dried then then broken up. I mean it it looks it probably just very fancy. Alright, hold on a sec.

[1:00:25]

So alright let's blast through these. Rock Baker writes hey by the way, howdy Rochester. Uh please discuss Thanksgiving gravy making what does everyone do to jazz up the stock. I'm interested in gluten free thickener but happy to hear about all the options. Oh plenty of gluten free thickeners.

[1:00:39]

My issue with most gluten free thickeners is that they make it look kind of glossy. Right? And so you gotta add something that has like a little bit of like a visual dispersive thing. Otherwise it doesn't look like gravy it looks more like a cornstarch sauce. I gotta think more about what that would be.

[1:00:55]

But my main thing is is that I always uh bone out my turkeys no matter what I'm doing and then I have a whole bunch of turkey bones. And so I can do a reinforced stock. So I usually actually start with chicken stock and then I reinforce it with all of the turkey bones that I have because I boned out my turkeys uh and that's the main that's the main trick I do. Um, do you guys have any fancy gravy techniques before I go on to the next next ones or no? And a sherry.

[1:01:23]

I put sharing. I haven't used this for um I haven't used this directly for a like poultry gravy, but I think just possibly puree vegetables or also kind of a underrated thickener. Like we made a uh sort of rose sauce. The other week was like half tomato and then a bunch of leaps. And a small amount.

[1:01:48]

Like a sweet potato. Yeah, that's a good idea. Uh I will try it. Uh Christian wrote in, and I know we're out, but let me just uh address this. Uh Christian from Lake Hawaiian, New Zealand.

[1:02:00]

I was intrigued by uh Dave's ideas for his outdoor cooking setup. I'm also thinking about building a raised hearth. So we were talking about Roman-style raised hearth. I was interested in making it do double duty as a fireplace oven with an insulated steel firebox, a removable hood, and modular slots or racks for fire bricks to add thermal mass and options for gas or wood. Um I have a couple questions about the compromises this would induce.

[1:02:20]

All right, so Christian, this is a complicated problem. None of the Romans ever built those things together. They built their oven next to it. I also agree with you. I wonder why you couldn't have the stuff kind of stacked.

[1:02:32]

I think it's because uh Montague used to make deck broilers. They're a company here in the US. They used to make deck broilers that were we they were called like crotch rockets because they would fire the the heat was below your your waist level and they would shoot fire into your crotch. And uh I think maybe it's just unpleasant to have the under be that hot when it's like an open hearth, if uh that's what you're talking about. We're gonna talk more about this because I'm probably not gonna get to build this for a while because uh uh frankly don't have the money.

[1:03:02]

So I'm gonna talk more about um I'm gonna talk more about the outdoor stuff on the next no tangent. And Quinn, if you can fold their question back into it, we'll we'll we'll come back to it. Um I because I I just need to think more about your questions and retain heat ovens to to get it right uh do we have a guest next week or are we no tangenting next week more tangents send in your questions and uh that's something coming up yeah send in your questions and we will answer them hopefully on cooking issues network freedom and flexibility that's what you want in a healthcare plan with a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare including specialists no referrals no kidding learn more at gethumana.com see any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to build Humana Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

[1:04:41]

ACASC powers the world's best podcasts here's a show we recommend. Previously on Sister Wives. Wait, didn't you hear Cody and Robin quit. Do you watch Sister Wives and immediately need to talk about everything you just saw? Do you have questions, concerns, strong opinions about a man named Cody?

[1:05:03]

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[1:05:17]

Because every week we recap Sister Wives with sarcasm, deep dives, and questionable impressions. Because when you spend your Sunday night watching Sister Wives, you shouldn't have to process all of that alone. So whether you've been here since the beginning or you're just discovering this beautiful disaster, come hang out with us. We'll bring the snark, you bring the opinions, and together we'll survive Sister Wives. Follow Surviving Sister Wives wherever you get your podcasts.

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