[0:06] Fishes, fish, vodka. Hello, you're listening to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, the host of Cooking Issues coming to you today with Nastasia Lopez, the cooking issues hammer. We are not live today. We are pre-recording this because Tuesday, when we're normally broadcasting. I will be teaching sous vide, and low temperature cooking class at the French Culinary Institute, a fine class. This one's full, unfortunately, so you can't sign up for it anymore. But you could sign up for the next one. So you can't call in live, but I'm still going to give you the number, so you can write it down for your records. The number to call in to the studio here is 718-497-2128.

[0:51] That's 718-497-2128. The number to call into cooking issues, a show where we answer all of your cooking issues. Okay. Now, a couple of, you know, notes here, you might hear some music in the background, and that's because

[1:05] today, Sunday is the Bushwick block party, right? Bushwick, Brooklyn, for those of you that don't, you know, know is kind of like, what, hipsters paradise? What do you say? History of Paradise? Yeah. So the whole block was shut down on Roberta's Pizza, which hosts the heritage radio network is hosting this block party. And so it's kind of pandemonium outside of the studio right now. By the way, the studio, for those of you that don't know, the studio here is actually, I think, like a container, some sort of something. I swear to God, that's been dropped into the middle of Brooklyn, and they put a garden on top of it, and there's kind of a window where we can, you know, view Brooklyn out of this window.

[1:39] Is that pretty much accurate? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway. Okay. Uh, come right? Yeah. A couple other announcements before we get to the email questions that have come in. There's a lot of events coming up with us in the next month or so. So I'm just going to list some of them. Some of them are going to require us to pre-record again. Some aren't. I think the next thing that's going to come up is Starchefs, Starchefs, you go to Starchefs.com. Nils and I are doing a bunch of events there. We have a mixology demonstration and we're doing some couple of cocktails. That's coming up the week of September 20th. So you might want to stop by and see us there. Then Heritage Radio is having a big fundraising barbecue. It's called the heritage radio party, the heritage party, and it's on Saturday, September 25th. It's here at Roberta's, in Brooklyn. It's $100 a crack to attend $100 per person. We will be making some drinks, probably with liquid nitrogen. What else? We decided what we're going to, to be maker's mark. Right? Have we decided what kind of fruit we're going to use? I thought it was peaches. Well, it depends on what. okay, here's what's going to happen. We're going to get maker's mark. We going to find whatever the most delicious fruit to add to maker's mark at that particular moment is. We're going to clarify it in a centrifuge. And then we're going to add liquid nitrogen to it, hopefully, on site here. Hopefully liquid nitrogen if we can get it delivered here and serve you some delicious cocktails. So you're going to want to call in to 718-38985. That's 718-389, uh, 0985 to uh, RSVP for that or uh, email info at heritageradio.com. Then, right? Then, uh, on October 4th, uh, we're going to. No, wait, there's a New York culinary experience. Oh, but that's something that's sold out already. Well, anyway, assuming it's not sold out. You can come, see Nils and I do cocktail demonstration. When is that when it starts? October 2nd at the French Culinary Institute. Seating is extremely limited. I don't know how much that guy costs. Then we have the Berlin bar show on October 4th, where I'm going to be doing a recap with Eben Clem of the

[3:49] science of shaking science of stirring in Berlin. It's actually the 1st time I've ever gone to Berlin. Luckily for me, I was supposed to go for 4 days and have kind of a mellow time fly in, have a day to recompress,

[4:00] but you know, something came up, and so I had to switch my flight, and I'm literally flying in on the red eye, landing at 6 and giving

[4:08] a talk at 12. So I don't sleep on airplanes. So if you come, if you live in Berlin and you come see us in Berlin, expect to see someone, you know, that may or may not have their hair

[4:20] slicked back with their own feces. We're not sure. Well see. We'll see we can do there. I'm just kidding. Yeah, anyway. Then, on October 16th, you can come see, is it the London Bar Show where we're going to be doing a presentation on roto vapping liquors. It's being sponsored by Oxley Jing, correct? Yes. All right. with our bookkeeping out of the way. I guess, right? We can get to some questions? Yes. Okay, let's get you some questions. Jacob Hartleb said, thank you for the show. Love listening to it. Thank you, Jacob. Although he writes his name, once is Jacob, and another one as my friend of mine has the same name Yakubs. I'm not sure which one. I don't know. Anyway. I'm not sure. He lives in Cooks in Oklahoma. And a trend he's noticed among chefs is using wild ingredients, right? Not farm to table, he says, more like wild. Find It Yourself ingredients, such as like the Noma, or like Michelle Bra does, or Mugarites. And he's fascinated with his style of cooking, and it's pretty sure it's been around for a long time. So he wants to know the following. Is there a book, blog, or guide on wilderness, plants, trees, berries, et cetera, that are edible, and, you know, what can guide you to do that? All right? So, this is a question that is close to my heart. Unfortunately, don't know any blogs to do it, but, you know,

[5:41] the only reason I like to travel to places that are near the wilderness is so that I can gather wild food when I'm

[5:49] there. For instance, when I go to the Grand Canyon, I don't really care that much about the actual Grand Canyon. It's like what kind of, you know, what can grow around there? I mean, this is this is a little piece of meat. You know me a little better, if you understand this. Like once you see the Grand Canyon, I'm like, yeah, that's beautiful. It is. It's beautiful, right? But, I mean, come on. Right? I've seen one holy, you know. Right. Now, food is a different matter altogether. Food you can keep eating all the time, right? No? Right? When I go to the beach, all I care about is the stuff that grows along the seashore and the stuff that I can get in the water at the seashore, that's basically

[6:22] it because I had to test sand and sun, right? When I go to forests, I want to know what grows there. Anyway. So this is a subject that I like a lot. And whenever I'm going to travel someplace new and I'm going to be, you know, outside in nature, I try to get a guidebook that helps me.

[6:36] The problem is, is that what you're going to particularly look for in an area really depends on where you

[6:41] live. So, I think a good 1st starting point, even though they're dated, right? The best writing on wild food that I have ever read is by a guy named

[6:51] Yule Gibbons. I don't forget how to spell Yule. I can't spell out loud. I don't have a piece of paper on me, but Yul Gibbons, his 2 most famous books are stalking the wild asparagus is stalking the wild scallop. And they're written probably late 60s somewhere in that late 60s, early 70s, somewhere in that range. And they are fantastic books. Now, again, they're a little bit dated, but he was a guy and all he really liked to do was go out. And Forage for Wild Foods, talking, you know, animals, you know, sea creatures. He never wrote any books on hunting. There is a book on how to illegally poach animals, if you're interested in that, but you can't really serve those things in a restaurant. But, you know, he has in-depth books on searching certain things. Now, he spent a lot of it. He spent time all over the country, which is why his books are good. So he has a little bit of something for everyone no matter where you live in the US. But a lot of his knowledge centers around Pennsylvania, where he lived. He did a lot of work up in Maine. He did a lot of work on the west coast in California. And so he has a lot of, you know, he has a lot of really interesting, interesting things, and he's got a really good perspective. So if you haven't ever read any book on Foraging, I would go immediately buy those books on Bookfinder, they're basically free. No one cares about them. I would get stalking the wild asparagus and stalking the wild scallop. Now, if you're interested in something specific like mushrooms, right? You know, I have a bunch of guidebooks on mushrooms and, you know, I

[8:15] guess, I don't remember off the top of my head which the best ones are, but if you go to Paul Stamitz's website, he's out on the west coast, I think, in I forget whether

[8:25] it's in Washington or in Oregon, but he's, you know, one of the worldwide authorities on

[8:29] fungus. I would not go collecting mushrooms for the 1st time by yourself. I would find any one of the local mycological societies in your area. They usually sponsor tours, where you can go learn how to properly gather mushrooms in your area without getting poisoned, right?

[8:44] It's important not to get poisoned. The same thing goes true with plants. So when you get beginner's books on wild, on wild food collecting, the important thing is to realize what is easy to recognize and what is easy to confuse with something poisonous,

[8:59] right? Because there are a couple of mistakes you can make that if you make that mistake, you can die, right? Yeah, yeah. But, but, and actually, that's the main problem that happens when someone's used to gathering something wild in one area,

[9:13] right? Where it's totally safe, and then they go to another area where there's something similar that looks similar, but it's poisonous, right? That can happen sometimes. So it's best to know what grows in your in your area. And also, if you go with someone who's ever done it, who's experienced, right? They can point to you, and once you see a plant live and you touch it live, you smell it live, and you gather it live, odds are, you're never going to make a mistake with it, right? And so in general, I would read all those books, and I wish I had more of the modern books available, but I would, you know, go with someone who's done it before as just a foolproof thing. Now, that aside, there are some things that are extremely easy to, you know, easy to figure out. Even in New York City, where I live. There's enough, there's a wild green called Oric, sorry, Lamb's

[10:00] Quarters laid Oric. And Lamb's Quarters is a great, you know, green, and it grows wild in New York City. Any place there's a vacant lot in New York City. I could, in the lower east side today, if I wasn't worried about back to feces, again, feces and urine sprayed all over it, and who

[10:15] know, God knows how much gas exhaust and all that. I could create a delicious salad out of stuff growing out of the vacant lots within 2 blocks of my house on the

[10:23] lower east side. I've never done it because, ew. Your wife would kill you. Yeah, yeah, but, you know, you could. So, you know, just because you live in a high density area, if there's vacant lots, there's still the opportunity to search for

[10:36] greens. Another mistake people make with wild foods is they try and have their entire, they, you know, look, you know, it's very

[10:42] difficult unless you live in the middle of some vast wilderness where there's known supplies of wild crap to be able to go and get all of your food or substantial portion of your food from

[10:52] wild wild items. But there is almost always something you can gather wild locally at any given time in the year to add an accent note or

[11:01] to, you know, round things out or to bring out a lot of flavors. So it's a subject I'm very interested in. And, you know, thanks, I think this is the 1st question we've had on that. I think so. Yeah, I mean, my favorite things to collect is there's a, in Maine, where I go every year, there's a wild sea rocket that is just, I mean, it's really, really

[11:18] spicy and a little bit bitter. rocket like arugula, but I love gathering that stuff, and I mix it with Oric, which is the seaside version of Lamb's Quarters. And it makes just a fantastic set. And they also have wild sea beans there, which are salty, so you don't need the extra salt from it.

[11:33] That's like the best seaside salad ever, you know? And then, of course, from the water there you get mussels and, you know, sea urchins and, you know, just fantastic things. But I don't know, I've never been to Oklahoma. It's unfortunately. So I don't know what grows around there, but I guarantee you that there is something good to be had. So thank you for calling that in. And the 2nd part of his question was, uh, do you, uh, how do you extract pine needle flavor or tree bark flavor? I don't have access to a roto app, but I do have a vacuum packer and a whipped cream maker. Um, So the, I'm not sure how he wants to know whether he can do it in oil. Presumably he doesn't want to do it in alcohol because he suggests oil and water. Pine needle flavor. You can extract extremely well into alcohol in a vacuum machine.

[12:22] I'm assuming you can do it in an ISI whipper. I haven't done it. I don't know what the results will be into oil. I can just say to try it out, but there are some varieties of things that look like pines that are

[12:35] poisonous. For instance, the U. It looks kind of like pine is poisonous, but most pine trees. Now, listen, please look this up. Like, don't go out and say Dave Arnold said pine trees are, but, you know, that's the old joke. they used to make about Yule Gibbons. So you go around saying many parts of a pine tree are edible because they are, right? You got your pine nuts. And, but, you know, I make a

[12:58] habit, and Nils makes a habit, actually, of walking around in the springtime, pulling the new shoot, the new growth pine needles off of pine trees and chewing on them because they're fantastic.

[13:06] So, you know, classically, you can make a tea out of pine needles. And you can, I'm sure you can make a flavored oil out of it or water using a vacuum or an ISI.

[13:15] The trick with pine is that most people have most people have an association with pine of, uh, like

[13:26] Lysol, uh, not Lysol. What that stuff called? Pine sol, pine sol. So, you know, they're really worried that it's going to go pine solly and it's going to taste. And so I like pine drinks and Nils likes pine drinks and we do them, but you have to be super, super careful. So you also want to make sure that you're, you know, that the type of pine you use, like, you know, whether it's

[13:43] kind of like a sprucey kind of flavor or a fur kind of flavor, like a dug fur or whatever. It doesn't taste too bathroom cleansery. Because if it does, even if it's delicious, people won't like it. For instance, lavender does the same thing. So a lot of people that like to mix with lavender, there's a good 50 to 60% of the population that if they detect lavender at all, they're going to say it tastes like

[14:03] perfume or a bathroom. And so it just has to do with association, not because it's not delicious. And so I've had a lot of problems, a lot of heartache, trying to make pine things that I think are delicious, and some people don't like them just because of their associations with them.

[14:18] And you know what? That's the brakes. You just got to be careful of it. So if you're making it for yourself, it's one thing, but if you're making it for someone else, it's just something to be aware of.

[14:27] Um, Anyway, so I hope that uh, answers. Oh, and bark, you want to know about bark. I've never done any work with Bark. I bet you can extract it, but the, I mean, I've, the closest I've had to bark is basically wood extracts and they're pretty weird. They're kind of sour and, uh, you know, if you if you've ever had a rotovap and you've rotovaped, uh, you know, alcohol out and you're left with basically oak water. And it's some pretty potent kind of barky wood taste. I bet you could do it. I don't know how potent it's gonna be, though, when it's done via a vacuum machine. But please give it a shot and tell us, right? Okay. Okay, now let's go to the next question from Chip Stadnick. Chip Stadnick asks us. First of all, he says hello. He hopes all is well, Nastasia, is it? Yeah. As well. He's doing well. Okay. He wants to know about the polyscience smoking gun versus an herbal vaporizer with a whip. And there's something called the pocket, travel, portable, butane handheld herbal vaporizer that he found on eBay. And so let me just, he wants to know about the difference between them. you know, is it worthwhile getting one versus the other? And I think most people aren't going to know what we're talking about. So I will tell you. So in the, I don't know, 80s or something, people started making little vacuum cleaners, handheld vacuum

[15:49] cleaners for computer keyboards, basically, to vacuum crap out of computer keyboards. And someone who is apparently enterprising when they're not stoned, but when they're

[15:58] stoned is extremely lazy, decided to reverse the battery in one of these things and drive them backwards.

[16:04] So instead of becoming vacuum cleaners, they're actually little blowers. And then they unscrewed the top and they screwed in a pipe bowl into the top of it, and then they would pack, well, tobacco, right? They'd pack marijuana into the top, light it, turn it on, and it would automatically, you know, create pot smoke without, you know, without you having to exert the extra energy to inhale,

[16:25] right? I mean, basically like extremely lazy pot smoker thing, right? And this became kind of a popular item in head shops, head shop here. I don't know if you're from abroad. That means a place where you go to buy pot stuff, you know, and listen to Grateful Dead and whatnot. About, you know, in the early 2000s, mid 2000s, these things started to be used in Europe primarily at the beginning to do smoking.

[16:46] So they would put wood chips and other flavored herbs into them, light them and blow out smoke. And so famously, uh, you know, the Roka brothers, uh, at

[16:54] Elkolar Conroca would blow smoke underneath a big cloche, and then they would lift the close up when

[16:59] they, when it came to your table. You wouldn't see the food. They would lift it up and the smoke would rise up, you know, and just, you know, envelop

[17:05] you or they had a thing where they had a slipper shaped glass and they would have a plastic over it and they would inject smoke into it. And every time you ate off of this tightly stretched plastic on the top, a smoke ring would puff up and you would get the aroma of the smoke.

[17:17] Okay? So that, and the polyscience, the people, the good people that make circulators, now available, Williams, Dima. Uh, they, um, they made basically a more robust version of this that they sell called the smoking gun.

[17:31] So most people use this to inject smoke into things or, you know, some people have rigged it to inject smoke into their vacuum machines right after it's

[17:38] vacuum. Smoking with them is kind of interesting. It's not the same thing as regular smoking. You notice if you inject smoke into a container and let it

[17:47] sit, that all of a sudden it'll become clear, the particles will settle out. So I don't think that continuous smoking gives it. I don't think that this smoking gun gives the same flavor as continuous smoking, but I think it's useful for a lot of things. Now, vaporizer is entirely different. In a smoking gun and anything like the smoking gun, you're actually lighting the product on fire, combusting

[18:07] it, and that's how you're making smoke. Okay? Now, in a vaporizer, and the most famous one of these is the volcano vaporizer, and it's most famously used in cooking by Grant

[18:16] Aikitz at Linea, restaurant in Chicago. And the way a vaporizer works is fundamentally different. Instead of lighting the material on fire, and then having, you know, having it burned. Instead, you heat a chamber to, you know, to a temperature that

[18:32] basically literally vaporizes the material without actually lighting it on fire. And then usually, you know, some sort of air is forced through it. And then you get like a, in the volcano, you get a bag full of flavor. So then, you know, Grant would do things like, you know, vaporized sage, things like that, and get those kind of aromas. And this thing that apparently now, and I didn't even know this, so thanks, Chip, for bringing this to my attention, they have vaporizers that are built on butane lighter technology that fit into your hand that are a whole hell of a lot cheaper than the volcano.

[19:02] But they're fundamentally different technologies for making, uh, uh, flavored, you know, aroma airs. One is combusting the material and the other one is held at a temperature below outright combustion.

[19:14] The theory of vaporization is that it's going to provide cleaner flavors. The theory when you're smoking it, right? Because they're both meant for pot. You're both supposed to smoke pot with them. And the theory is, is that you can get all the THC when you vaporize it without all kind of nasty tar and crap like that because it's happening at a lower

[19:29] temperature. So you're not forming a lot of the nasty chemicals. May or may not be true. I haven't read the science behind it, but they do, I know from experience, doing using them for cooking, that they do produce different results because one's a lower temperature than the other. So they're not, they're not identical. So, you know, I haven't done a lot of super side by side, but I know that they're not equivalent items. One's more of smoker, and the other one's more of kind of like a aroma

[19:54] that's slightly kind of combusted, smoky smelling, but not the same thing as outright smoke. So I'm interested in this. I have a volcano. I haven't really used it because I haven't thought of a culinary application. It wouldn't make me feel like I was ripping grant off, but if I ever did, I would use it. It's a fine piece of equipment and this portable thing also seems interesting. So I hope that has answered your question, chip, and this brings us to our 1st break. Cooking issues radio on the heritage radio network. One, two, three, four.

[20:33] I don't care. About your best. I just want, I love to live, I don't care Got it. About your fault I

[21:02] just want To

[21:06] satisfy your fault. Oh When

[21:14] you kiss me? Would you marry me? Hold my head Make me

[21:28] under I make up In a cold sweat

[21:36] Oh

[21:48] I don't care. About your walk. I just wanna... Tell you about the dues and

[22:03] don't I don't care.

[22:07] How about the way you take me, darling? I just want You

[22:19] understand me, Holly. Oh, When

[22:27] you kiss me. Can you mad at me? Welcome back to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold cooking issues here with Nastasia, the Hammer Lopez, coming to you not live from the

[22:41] Bushwick Block Party on Sunday, Heritage Radio Network. Today's show, I don't know if I mentioned this before, today's show is brought to you by the fine folks at Fairway, like no other market. So Fairway has, I think, 3 locations here in the New York areas. Best my knowledge, they have the original one on the Upper West Side, which is, you know, a mob house because so many people want to go shop there. And then they have one that's up in Harlem that opened actually, I

[23:08] guess in the late 90s, mid late 90s back when I used to have my studio up there in art school. And man, did we love shopping at that because they have a giant refrigerated, where, you know,

[23:17] warehouse, where the meat is stored, like the meat and the fish. And I used to love that because I could just, you know, all of a

[23:25] sudden I didn't have to go walk to shop to get really good, you know, cheese and things like that. At the time, it was really inexpensive. I haven't been back. And then, of course, they have the one near IKEA in Red Hook. So Fairway, like no other market. Okay. Now, we have a question from Aaron Hart. So, Erinhart, uh, was is particularly thinking about a couple of uh, a couple of radio programs ago, uh, I told someone who was just going back to college that what she should do

[23:52] is uh, is use her microwave to achieve extraordinarily high temperatures uh, so that she could uh, sear things, right?

[24:00] And so, you know, for those of you that, you know, didn't hear it before. Basically, the issue is, is that you can get certain materials,

[24:08] absorb microwaves, right? Water absorbs microwaves very well, which is why microwaves are, you know, they're used, right? So they choose a frequency that absorbs water absorbs very well and things get hot. Now water can't get above boiling, right? Unless it's under pressure or can't get above boiling. So it kind of self-regulates, but there are other things that also absorb microwaves quite well. They can get way above the temperature of boiling water. And this is used by certain people to do things like, you know, melt low temperature metals using microwave absorbing crucibles in their

[24:42] in their microwave. And this is entirely feasible. Now, the a really easy to get material that absorbs microwave fairly well is silicon

[24:50] carbide, because that's what they may cut a lot of cutting stones out of them, right? So you can just go buy one of these carbide, silicon

[24:57] carbide, cutting stones, and throw it in your microwave. Please don't put it directly on the floor of your microwave because it will ruin your microwave, put it on something that is insulating that can take the heat. And you nuke it. Now, how long you have to nuke it depends on how thick it is, but it can get really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really hot. Uh, you know, I'd mentioned, I think, you know, another couple, you know, week or 2 ago that we, you know, cracked an egg onto one that we did and it just, you know, instantly huge bubbles came up. It's a little too hot for the egg. So it overcooked the egg. Nastasia thought it was gross because it was a used cutting stone. You know how nastasia gets about things. Once she has a mental problem with it, it's all over. She can't deal with it. But Aaron wonders, is it somehow possible to use this interaction to rig up a better than conventional oven for doing things like tandori chicken or

[25:43] pizza. Well, that's an excellent question. I would say yes and no. So the pizza, the problem with, you could clearly get a small stone for small pizza up to temperatures easily, easily up to temperatures required to do

[25:59] the floor of a pizza oven, right? So you're talking, you're talking up in the 800 Fahrenheit range in that

[26:08] area easily. Now, the problem is that you have to also get the ceiling up to that or you're just going to light the bottom of the pizza on fire without cooking the top. And if you put 2 stones in there, It's going to be almost impossible for you to determine, you know, to

[26:25] kind of get the ratio right between heat from the top and heat from the bottom.

[26:28] I'm told, although I am not sure, right? Most things that are called combination microwave toaster ovens aren't really a combination microwave toaster

[26:37] oven, they're like a microwave and then a toaster oven, but I believe there is one that has the heating elements, the toaster heating elements in the same

[26:43] box as the microwave. If you had one of those suckers. You could put the thing in the bottom, heat the hell out of that rock till it got up to like 600 degrees, crank that

[26:52] toast element up and, you know, to as high as that sucker will go. Put your pizza into that thing and then rip the hell out of it and get

[26:58] it get it to, you know, get the bottom done and the top done at the same time. Another alternative would be. If you had a broiler in a regular oven, you could get your pizza stone in your microwave up to a zillion degrees, put the thing on, cook the bottom of it, pull it out, flash it underneath the broiler for a while to get it done. This is the way Otto, Otto is the restaurant here in New York City that makes

[27:17] pizza as part of the Batali Empire. And their style of pizza is to actually griddle, griddle or grill. I can't remember where they use a grill or grill, something like that. Anyway. But they cooked the bottom of the pizza first, basically, and, you know, cooked the bread a little bit first. Then after they're done, flash under a broiler with the toppings. I do this at home in the summertime when I make pizza because it doesn't heat up my kitchen as much. When I crank my oven up to 800 degrees, my kitchen gets extremely hot. If I just have my crate maker, which is basically like a griddle and I flash cooked a pizza on both sides and then stick it under my salamander to finish out in a broil, I don't think the results are as good as an oven that is, you know, really cranked out for pizza.

[27:58] but it's it's pretty damn good. You know what I mean? And it doesn't heat up your kitchen as much. So it's definitely viable. I hadn't thought about a tandor, but that's kind of an interesting, interesting idea. I bet you could. The real problem is going to be, like I said, regulating heat from the top and heat from the bottom at the same time. And, um, like I said, I don't think it's exactly the same to break it into 2 parts, to 1st do the bottom on a hot

[28:21] rock, and then to do, uh, you know, the top from a from a broiler standpoint, but, you know, maybe you could get it to work. What do you think? What do you think? You know what I think. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe. I think you're thinking maybe. don't know. think she's saying she's not paying attention. doesn't matter what I'm saying. Oh, I am, I am. Yeah. So, uh, anyway, so I definitely think there's a lot to be a lot to be learned, a lot to be discovered um, with uh, with microwave. The trick is to get a silicon carbide piece that's the right size, so you could cook something reasonable on it without having it be so thick that the majority of microwaves get absorbed into something that's not useful underneath

[28:56] the bottom, but at the same time that has enough retained energy, such that when you stick a pizza or something onto it, that it gets

[29:01] it, that real wallop that you want to get out of the stone oven. Uh, you know, you also you could maybe do a thicker pizza than you could normally this way because if you kept the microwave going while you're doing

[29:10] it. You'd also internally cook the bread a little bit while it was going. It might actually be really good technique. Estasia, you can't see her, but she looks extremely unconvinced. No, no, no, no. Thinking about it. I have a fireplace at home behind my kitchen. And Nastasia, Nastasia's favorite thing is to rent apartments from people that have their fireplaces plugged up because the chimneys are unsafe because they haven't been cleaned in 8000

[29:34] years and then to make them functional again merely by ripping out the bricks that have been bricked

[29:40] over. She literally will invite anyone, like any neighbor, anyone she meets within 5 blocks of her house. She'll buy a sledgehammer. Actually, she'll make them bring the sledgehammer, make them go buy the sledgehammer, bring it. And then for the pleasure of having her company, right? And a beer or two, they will slay slavishly break open the old fireplace and then she will use it again, like come hell or high water.

[30:03] true or false. Yeah, and someday I want to cook in a fireplace. Yeah, me too. There a couple of excellent books on fireplaces. I don't even have an old fireplace in my building because my building was built in the 50s. Um, but yeah, you know, if I ever get a place out in the country, which I hope to do, if, you know, if we can ever scrape 2 nickels together long enough

[30:22] to, for my wife and I to go and get a place in the country, I will have a giant

[30:26] indoor outdoor kitchen with an outdoor, outdoor on one side and fireplace on the other, huge freaking

[30:32] hearth. mean, I can't wait. Someday it's gonna, you know, cooking with fire is great. You know, that's another thing. People think that because you cook with high tech all the time that you don't enjoy like all those other forms of cooking. Those people are wrong. They're dumb. Dumb, dumb. dumb, dumb. Yeah, fire is delicious. Anyway, uh, and and by the way, going back to tandor, I almost bought and put in my house a gas fired

[30:57] tandor. I didn't have the money at the time to put it in. It would have cost me probably a grand or something like that. I didn't have the money. But I was thinking of building one just by hand anyway. And then I realized that my wife already puts up with enough crap. And I would have had to get rid of something. And, you know, it would probably have been the fryer, and since frying is God's cooking technique, and fryer is the last thing on

[31:18] earth I would give up, like the fryer and a bathroom or the last 2 things I would give up in in my house, probably. And, um, And so, yeah, I just couldn't, I couldn't do it. But I'm going to bury I'm going to dig a hole in the ground. If I ever get a piece of ground for myself, I'm going to dig a hole in the ground, put a tandor in, it's going to be one of the very 1st things I do

[31:38] as part of the indoor outdoor kitchen because I think if everyone had a tandor, everyone would just be a little happier,

[31:45] right? Right. Right? Let's go to break. Okay, we'll go to break and we'll come back with the last segment of cooking issues. On the way you're doing. Don't know why All the way to do it If I keep loving you My life will be ruined. I've come down here. I'll be running around. Run, God, hip. Look here, to your running back. But do you know one thing? I'm gonna put you down. Get it together. Get it together. Get it together. Get it together. Oh, you decided you wanted. A brand new bag. You said you want it. A brand new bag. But you, you were just diving. You wanted to feel drank. It's up down at school. Welcome back to cooking issues on the Heritage Radio Network. Dave Arnold and Nastasia Lopez coming to you not live today, answering your cooking questions. So let me get right into the last question we had emailed. It's actually a question and an answer. So we've had an ongoing kind of question with a friend of mine, Julio, who's actually a well-known fashion

[33:27] designer here in the city. And, by the way, was, uh, is it good friend to Priscilla Morgan, who was amused to Isama No Gucci, and one of the people's part of the Batterbury friends. People I know through Michael Batterberry, uh, and through Jonathan Marvel, an architect friend of mine. Anyway, so long way in introduction. Anyway, he's interested. He, for some reason, wants to reduce his caloric intake, even though the man looks great. He does not look at all fat, but he's worried about his caloric intake. And so he has a sweet tooth. And so he's been asking how to reduce sugar content, especially in things like meringues. And I should have thought of this kind of stuff right away, but because I'm a dunce, I didn't. And, um, uh, George, uh, Davidson called in and he said or wrote in and said, I have an answer. Why not use Maltadextrin to stabilize it? And that is excellent. I don't know what the hell I was thinking to not say it. an excellent suggestion. George came up with this because his wife had gestational diabetes, you know, for those of you that don't know a lot of women, not a lot,

[34:35] but, you know, a certain percentage of women, when they get pregnant, get diabetes during the

[34:40] pregnancy and then they have issues with sugar. So maltodextrin, right? What maltodextrin is, is it you take starch, which is a bunch of repeating glucose units and you break it up into smaller units.

[34:54] And so the maltodextrans are, uh, you know, they're, like, you know, several glucose glucose is long. They're like, I don't know, like eight, 10, six, eight, 10 glucose is long, right? So the more glucoses are in a row in Maltodextrin, the bigger they are, the less taste they have. So, uh, the shorter they get, like like 3 glucosis for it, they start tasting sweet, right? So, and 2 glucoses together is called maltose, right? So, and then one glucose is called glucose. Anyway, so basically, maltodextrins are these things that are kind of like, you know, they're not long chain things, like starches, like, you know,

[35:35] 100s 1000s of glucose is long. And, um, uh, maltodextrins are much shorter, and they're usually very bland. Sometimes they're sweet. Depends on which one you get, and they can be derived from any kind of starch. Tapioca, starch, corn, starch, rice, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't matter, right? But they all have extremely different physical properties, which is why you have to be careful. So, for instance, one of the one of the applications, people will always say, hey, Dave, I want to use tapioca

[36:03] maltodextrin, to make oils into pallors, right? And we hear this a lot. Yes. I hear this a lot. Don't ever say that, right? saying like tapioca maltodextrin is like saying, hey, I need to do something. I need some sort of vehicle on wheels that rolls. Do you need, like, a flexible flyer wagon, or do you need, like, a Hummer? You know what I mean? Like, because, like, they're very different in properties, right? So, for instance, the tapioca maltadextrin, that you use to turn powders into oils, is something called Enzorbit, and Zorbit,

[36:38] and I think, and Zorbit, from the National Starch Corporation. And it's a very specific maltodextrin made from tapioca that is extremely not

[36:48] dense, right? It's extremely has a very, very high volume, very low density. And so they use it as a bulking agent, but the reason they can turn oils into powders is because when you put a starch,

[37:02] right? It's basically a big helix, right? Just like DNA is a double helix. is a single helix, it's a helix. And the inside of that helix hates water, hates it, hydrophobic, right? But likes oil. So oil can go on the inside of that starch helix, right? But on the outside of that loves water, right? And that's why this maltodextrin can, that is helical like a starch. That's why the maltadextrin dissolves in water so well and why it, you know, dissolves in your palate on your mouth so well. So, what happens, what happens is that you put the oil in, the oil goes into the inside of the helix, but because the maltodextrine has such a, you know, so

[37:45] so not dense. It's so fluffy, then it can basically fluff out and stay separate and you have this kind of powdery oil.

[37:53] But as soon as you put this stuff in your mouth, right, it goes instantly dissolves back and there's very little actual material there. So like a bag of, you know, a bag of a pound of maltadextrin, a tapioca maltadextrin, a kilo of it. like, you know, like a size of a beanbag chair. It's crazy. You know what I mean? so not dense. That's basically what it does. Now, um, the reason this helps you, uh, it gets, you can digest it. So it has calories, like a starch. It's the same number of calories per gram, but typically for usage, you use far fewer grams because it bulks up very well. And so you won't use as much. So you can actually get a reduced caloric intake by using it. Now, if you're diabetic, This is a great thing to use because it doesn't have any sort of insulin problems. So what he was doing for his wife was using a tapioca maltadextrum, presumably not Enzorbit. He doesn't specify which one. And saccharine as a sweetener, but you could use anything that, you know, is

[38:52] safe for diabetics as a sweetener, and he uses, um, he uses, uh, what does he use? He doesn't say how much. Yeah, he uses Sweden low, but he doesn't say how much maltidextrin he uses. Um, but the whole advantage is that you can use a lot less Malta Dexter. Maltadexter is also good. Anytime you want to add bulk to something. So another kind of meringue that we make at the school, actually, quite a lot, is made with something called, my brain's on Friday, because I'm listening to this music from the Bushwick

[39:22] Block party. But it's called methocellulose. So methocellulosis, I always like to say that all the hydrocollids we use are all 100% natural. This is the one that kind of isn't. It's not natural. I mean, it's not, like, I always say it's not a natural, but I don't think it's ungodly, right? It's basically a modified cellulose product. Its not found in nature. But it has a very interesting property that it gels when it's heated. And also, it can act certain of them. The one we use is methylcel, F, like frank,

[39:50] 50, like Hawaii 50, F 50. And basically, it is a good whipping agent. So we use it when we're making meringues that we don't want to add egg white too, right?

[40:03] So they're basically, you don't have to add, the egg white is a protein, so it's a whipping agent, but it also forms the structure of the meringue. Uh, of the, of these, like, making little quote marks. I don't know how to say it, meringue, you know. And so what we can do is we can basically take pure fruit purees, and then we that are bulked up by having a lot of pectin in them, having a lot of solids from the

[40:27] fruit. And then we usually add sugar for taste, but you could add anything to it. You wouldn't need to add sugar for taste, because the sugar's not such a structural component in these meringues. Then we add methyl cellulose, which we use as a whipping agent. And then, um, we whip them up and they, uh, and then you dehydrate them and they're like a meringue. They're fantastic. The only problem is they don't really last outside too long because they suck up moisture. hygroscopic. Anyway. But if there's not enough bulking agent in the product, like if you're doing, let's say, Nori or something, something that doesn't have a lot of stuff to it, you can put Maltodextrin in as the bulking

[41:06] agent. So you have any sort of maltodextrin in there, usually along with

[41:10] xanthan to make it a little thicker and then methocellulose, and you whip it like a meringue. You pipe it and you dehydrate it and it eats just like a meringue, but you can have extremely low sugar volumes. And actually, this is kind of something that I endorse. And normally, like I say, I don't endorse necessarily removing products just to reduce their caloric

[41:27] intake, but, you know, we can do this and we can get really interesting flavor results. And that's why I think it's kind of an interesting, an interesting thing to do. Uh, you know, so what do you think? I think we finally answered this question or have we not? I think so. Well, we'll find out the week after. We'll find out the week after. Okay. I think, you know, but okay, so the 2nd part of the, this was a comment, thank you and a question. And the question was, he's interested in making habanero vodka because we've been

[41:57] discussing, we've been discussing habanero vodka for a while. And he said, how long will it last? And do you think it would do well in a vodka cream sauce? And then also, why do vodka cream sauce recipes tell you to reduce the vodka? When I say reduce the vodka, not make less of it, but to put it in the pan, flash it off, right? This is pointless vodka, pure ethanol, or ethanol, and water, actually, and reducing it, just remove some. Why not add it near the end and reduce the amount? And do you think this makes a difference flavor wise? Well, that's an excellent question. I will answer the 1st one because I know the answer. When you use hobbanero to make a vodka, if you are using green habaneros, the flavor, I think, will be fairly stable. If you were, I don't use green habaneros. If you are using red habaneros, um, the flavor, in my experience, in my experience has not been with infused habanero, it's been with distilled

[42:48] habanero. My experience has been the flavor is unstable, uh, that it's pretty good for a couple of months. It's not that it goes bad. it goes green. So after, you know, 6 months a year, when you taste it, it's no longer going to taste like that amazing floral fruity habanero that you're used to, it's going to taste closer

[43:07] to, um, it's going to definitely taste greener, right? And it's going to, and I don't know why. And it's definitely going to taste. Some people say it tastes more like a jalapeno at that point. You've tasted it, right? It does. Yeah. And so that's what happens. you've got a good couple of months if you keep it in the freezer. You got a good couple of months out of it before it starts to go on you. We've also never stored it at extremely high proofs. We've stored it basically at 100 proof at about 50%. And that's been our experience. It does work well in sauces. I have used it in sauces and the flavor really comes through in a sauce. It's really a great way to add habanero. Well, the way we do it, it's got the habanero aroma, but not the capsation, not the spiciness. And so it's a great way to add habanero flavor to something like a sauce without adding a lot of spice. I don't know why the hell you would reduce the vodka when you put in. You're not getting rid of the alcohol, obviously, when you're boiling it. getting rid of some alcohol. Like, you know, some people think you boil all the alcohol away, and that's not the case. You boil some away. I don't know why you would add more and then reduce it to get rid of some of the ethanol because I would guess that

[44:12] the, the, you know, it's not like, um, it's not like in a, uh, in situation

[44:18] with, uh, where you put alcohol in a batter to reduce a gluten formation or something like that. I mean, presumably it's there just to increase

[44:26] the volatile release of, you know, aroma wise, I would guess, although I haven't done a lot of research on it. So I would think that adding a smaller amount later would probably do the same

[44:35] thing, I'm guessing, but that's a guess. Um, and I'm sure I'll get some emails telling me why that is completely wrong. But anyway, I hope that answered that question. So let me see, to finish out, this is some other interesting stuff. We just did a party. How many days ago was that? Two days ago, we did a, yeah, Vogue, Vogue magazine, Jeffrey Steingarten, who was on this program. Basically, friends with Dave Chang, convinced Dave Chang to do this party for Vogue, for fashion, fashion

[45:05] week night out. some, I don't know, some sort of, yeah, some sort of show. Anyway. And so, and then somehow we got roped into doing a cocktail for it. And Dave had on his clean black shirt. Yeah, I put on my, I put my special, my special vogue fashion clean, clean black t-shirt to serve these drinks. But anyway, so, uh, we might do a, we might do a version of this for the uh, heritage radio if the peaches aren't good. We might, yeah, so it's Concord grape. Clarified, the way we clarified it. The problem with concord grapes is concord grapes, they're delicious, but if you are too aggressive when you're getting the juice out of

[45:40] them, You crush the seeds and it takes on a bitter note. So you have to kind of do a good job crushing, but then you also want to get really good extraction.

[45:47] So we 1st put it through an ice crusher, and then we put them along with our SPL, which is our pectin breaking down enzyme, put that, which you can

[45:57] contain from cookingissues.com. And then we put it into our chocolate grinder, but we set the chocolate grinder up

[46:03] high so that it wouldn't crush the seeds. So it was just smashing them and then we spun them in the centrifuge. Then we added we added lemon juice and maple syrup, and we'd chill that sucker with liquid and some water. Not a lot, but some. And, you know, that was delicious. Right? Yeah, that was a delicious product. We use rye whiskey in that one, but we'd be using maker's mark in this next. We probably have to change the recipe a bit, but that was that was a delicious, delicious product. And even though, uh, you know, it was like, we sold those drinks. What would we pour, like 400 drinks in like an hour or something like that? Yeah. Yeah. And we sold out. So if you came to that event and you didn't get one of the drinks, I heartily

[46:42] apologize. And let me see. Talk about your new vacuum machine, please. Oh, all right. Well, let me preface it by saying that everyone thinks Dave is very fun,

[46:51] like really, and you are really fun, but you're also the cheapest man alive. Well, about some things, I could not possibly be cheaper. For instance, um, I will not take a cab unless what

[47:04] I'm carrying, well, not even. I was going to say, not even, but I just, yeah, I was, you know, carry it. My legs are not broken. I'm not, I don't see why I'm going to take a cab. Like when I come out to here, I don't take the subway because that costs $2.50, so I or whatever it is. So I bike out here to Brooklyn because my legs are not broken. Why would I do that? Anyway, so the, uh, uh, so Mark Ladner from Del Posto, who, by the way,

[47:25] is, you know, great guy, Mark Ladner, we all love Mark Ladner from Del Posto Restaurant here in New York City,

[47:31] basically, uh, donated to Nastasia, really. I had nothing to do with it. Right? I mean, let's be honest here. You know what I mean? Donated to Nastasia, this old vacuum machine from Del

[47:41] Posto that's like, no, it's like, you know, it's like halfway working. It's almost working. Right? So anyway, so donated to the French culinary institute. And I'm like, a vacuum machine. huh, You know, he's like, you know, you're going to need to get a truck. I'm like, truck, what the heck? Hey, truck, truck. This thing is about half the size of Dave and weighs like 500 pounds. Yeah, anyways, so I show up and look at it, I'm like, oh, geez, because the problem is, like, it'd be hard to lift into a truck without a lift gate. So this is becoming, you know, and, you know, Del Posto is on like what, 16th and like basically the river. Hudson River. 3 miles away from this. No. Yes. Come on. It was like 2.5 . Anyways. So I'm like, to hell with it. I'm not going to pay for a damn truck to come pick up this thing and move it when my legs are not broken.

[48:25] So that picture on the blog that Nastasia posted, in case name I was wondering was, you know, I am that guy who's dumb enough to push the damn vacuum machine from Del Posto to the French

[48:38] culinary institute on the hottest day of the year. And, uh, you know, here's the thing, right? It's like, this is how I get things done. You know, that, you know, it's like, you know, when I was in school, I, you know, I needed

[48:54] something. I jumped into a dumpster, I would get it. You know what I mean? When I when I need to do something, I get on eBay and, you know, you find it for the cheapest possible price just because I've never had enough money to to do things, you know, in a non-getta way. And I've always been willing to spend more time and energy than I probably should to do

[49:13] things. I have since met some people who have not done it that way and are much more efficient. Uh, so maybe, you know, in the future, look for us to be uh, less stupid. But on the other hand, being stupid this way and cheap has, you know, for whatever it's

[49:31] worth, gotten me, you know, where I am. What? It's endearing a little bit. My extreme cheapness. Well, it's good that, you know, the Scottish blood in me brings my extreme

[49:42] cheapness, and is, I'm glad it's at least somewhat endearing. It can be a pain in the butt, especially for, you know, people like my

[49:50] wife who has to deal with my extraordinary cheapness. But, you know, like I say, sometimes, and I'm not cheap when it comes. I buy the best ingredients, all right? I buy the best ingredients. I'm not cheap about that. So it's weird. Like my wife is mad because I spend a ton of money on food because I'm not going to buy food that I think is substandard. Um, which doesn't mean snobby. That's a big problem. Like people think that food, you know, it's between like some effete bastard who only cares about spending a lot of money on their

[50:15] food and between somebody who, you know, just buys crap and doesn't care. you know, there's a lot of people out there. And I think this is the word everyone needs to spread about food, about what's going on with food now. It's just not about, it's not about being a food snob. It's not about outspending the person next to you or getting the rarest ingredient or anything like that, even though I, you know, I deal professionally, I deal in a rarefied world of high-tech cooking. And a lot of that is really expensive, right? So people think that what we're doing is elitist and, well, okay, the stuff that I do for a living kind of necessity is because it's a very, like, very niche

[50:47] high-tech food, but that's not the way, that doesn't mean that's the only thing that's, that good food is, right? Or the only thing that I enjoy doing. And, you know, I think that we all need to step back and make sure that whatever we're doing, we're never being food snobs because

[51:01] I, you know, that's not that way it doesn't lie the best food for the, for the most amount of people, which I think what we're shooting at. And then I will leave you on this note. Heritage Foods, you know, Patrick, Heritage Foods, is interested, has been talking with us about reviving an idea. you know, I had a while ago for a food museum in New York. And so look for, he's starting to put people working on it,

[51:30] right, Stas? Yes. And so look for, look for in a couple of years, look for that to finally actually happen. And that's going to be, you know, I think the best, because we're going to be focused specifically on making sure that it's not about just elitist food or just

[51:47] snobby food. We got to show people that good food is for everyone. Fairway. Fairway, like no other market. That was cooking issue, snakes for listening. will be back live next time. Fishes, fish, rock, bro. Oh, you did.