[0:06] Fishes, fish, and vodka. Oh, you did. Hello, welcome to Cooking Issues radio on the Heritage Radio Network. I'm Dave Arnold, the host of cooking issues here with Nastasia Lopez, cooking issues Hammer, and we are coming live to you every Tuesday from 12 to 1245. Call in with all of your cooking related questions. Our speciality is technical questions, but we will take any questions. Call in live to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. and today's show is brought to you by the Whole Foods Market and the Craft Beer Festival, which is coming up starting, I

[0:48] guess, Friday, right? It's a whole week of craft beer stuff. And to kick off the annual series, a Whole Foods market Bowery is hosting a beer and food pairing event at their beer room. Oscar blues is on tap, and chef Jacques Gautier of Park Slopes, Palo Santos, cooking up one of his South American delights to a company. The food tasting goes from 5 to 7 and the beer will continue till 9. With craft beer week passports, get $3 off, 64 ounce growler fill. That's quite a lot of beer, and meet Chef Gautier on Friday, September 24th and enjoy some special tastes on tap from the kitchen. By the way, that's right by my house, actually. The Whole Foods Bowery is right by my house where I live in the Lower East side of Manhattan. And I was happy to see that very recently they have actually a homebrew section

[1:29] there, and I think it's the only place that I know of in Manhattan where you can walk in and buy malt and yeast and all the stuff for homebrewing.

[1:38] So cheers to you, Whole Foods, for making homebrew accessible to us Manhattan

[1:44] Nights. I haven't brewed beer since I was since right before my 2nd son was born. And then my wife was like, hey, you know what? It's already a mess in the damn house. You got 2 kids, no more beer brewing. Because, of course, when I brew beer, like, I can't just be like a normal human being and use extracts. you know, I have full, you know, full malt, you know, I ground it all in my house. you know, it's a freaking mess. Delicious, but a freaking mess. Anyway, call in your questions too. 718-497-2128. 718-497-2128. So, Nastasia, it's been a busy week, right? For the cooking issues crew, which is why you haven't seen much on the blog recently because we've been super busy.

[2:20] We're in the middle of Star Chefs week, which, you know, is a yearly convention of chefs, I guess.

[2:26] What do you think? Star chefs. Anyway, at the armory, on the east side of Manhattan. And uh, you know, a lot of the uh, glitterati of the food world show up for 3 days and hang out and we, we did a cocktail event yesterday, which is good. We have another cocktail event this afternoon and Another one tomorrow. Another one tomorrow. And then coming up on Saturday, and there, I think I believe only 20 tickets left, we are doing a cocktail for the Heritage Radio Network's yearly fundraising barbecue, the

[2:54] Heritage radio party here at Roberta's Pizza in Brooklyn. And if you want to get one of those last remaining tickets. There are $100 a pop. You can email info at heritage radio network.com. That's info at heritageradionetwork.com. Okay, now, let's look for some questions. We have some email questions while we're waiting to see if we get any colors. Don Rollins writes in. And he said he just now listened to one of our previous shows. And there was a question we answered about vodka in sauces. And he says that Alton Brown mentioned, I suppose, on the, what's his good eats, right? On his good eats show, that tomatoes contain several compounds that are soluble in alcohol, but not in water or oil.

[3:31] And adding alcohol to a tomato sauce brings out more of its essential tomato ness based on that fact. Well, Don, I did some research early this morning. Uh, and there are many, many references on the internet to that being the

[3:45] case, to there being an alcohol, like a certain principles in the tomato that are more soluble in

[3:51] alcohol. But I was not able to find any specific technical reference that

[3:57] bore that out. Now, it is true that alcohol is going to change the release, like alcohol in

[4:05] in your in your project is going to change the release of volatiles from it and therefore change the, you know, the flavor impact of the sauce.

[4:13] And I was able to find several technical references to that. There's also some mention on some sites of alcohol actually reacting with the tomato, you know, with the actual tomato to produce flavorful components that were not there before. So those are, you know, some possible things, but I don't have any ironclad evidence that I could find, you know, a scientific paper that said, hey, look, here's what's going on. I do, though, have a text into Harold McGee. So if he gets back to me on the question of tomato sauce and

[4:42] vodka and whether there's anything more complicated going on, I will relay it to you next week. Okay. Jake Andrews writes in to Nastasia and says he wants to know whether anyone, my iPad just died. No, he wants to know, he got taken on eBay with an older poly-science poly-temp circulator that is missing the thermometer to control the bath. Is there anything he can do or is he shafted? Well, I really, you know, I sympathize with you. I had my 1st kind of eBay shellacking recently where I bought a piece of equipment, a refractometer, actually, an automatic refractometer. The thing is, would be, crazy awesome because it measures basically, uh, there were any, you know, the refractive index of almost anything.

[5:24] It'll do bricks 0 up to, you know, in the 90s automatically, uh, you know, automatic temperature compensation. I could put a flow-through device on it so that I could measure things as I'm producing them so I can measure alcohol content as I'm distilling.

[5:37] It has user uploadable software profiles where I can upload. Anyway, it should be like a $5000 piece of equipment. I bought it for $100 on eBay to say it was working, but guess what? It wasn't. And the company, I'm not going to mention Reichert my name, but they were not at all helpful to me. You know, they wouldn't even help me troubleshoot. I think there's a problem with the e-prom, which is the chip that, you know, loads the software into it because hardware wise, it seemed okay. They wouldn't even, like, open their mouths to tell me, like, what to look at. So, uh, shellac. Now, you're lucky in the one sense that polyscience is not like this. I did a quick search on poly temp. I don't have the actual model. Oh, and for those of you that don't know what the hell we're talking about. Immersion circulators are pieces of equipment that are becoming more and more common in kitchens today that very, very accurately control the temperature of liquid. They used to be lab equipment, but now they're basically used in kitchens for low temperature cooking. And Philip Preston from polycience just released the 1st kitchen model, you know, a couple of months ago that specifically designed for a kitchen.

[6:32] It's not just a piece of lab equipment. It a piece of kitchen equipment. Anyway, they're great. I use it every day. It's the party machine. It's the brunch machine. Like if you ever have a party or throw a brunch, this kind of equipment, you know, you should look into it. Anyway, you can see it on our website or go to polyscience.com. Anyhoo, Philip is not a huge fan of you going out and buying used equipment because he wants to sell new equipment.

[6:53] And also, because he says he doesn't know what happened to the equipment back in the day. The other problem is I've worked on many of these eBay things that, you know, in the past 8 years, I've maybe had, or 10 years, I've had, I don't know, 10, 12 ones off of eBay. And a lot of the older models break because they've been used in laboratories for a long, long

[7:13] time, the bearings tend to go bad on them. You tend to have corrosion on the internal contacts, which leads to resistance and overheating on the internal parts. So there are issues with the older ones. I'm assuming if it's older, it's analog. The good news is, if you can get it to work, the analog ones are fairly accurate. Once you set them, you just need to get a separate thermocouple to monitor digitally what's going on. Now the problem is, is that you don't have a temperature probe on it. Now, I did some research and it appears that some of the older polyscience circulators have what's called a thermocouple, basically, which is easy to source. The newer ones all use platinum RTDs, which also are not difficult to source or to wire. So what I would do is contact, you know, give me the model

[7:54] number, or contact polycience directly and ask them what type of what type of probe that unit has. And any one of those probes is very easy to source via eBay or McMaster

[8:06] car, not that you want to necessarily source on eBay again after you got shafted. But anyway, they're fairly easy to source. So you just need to find out exactly what it is that you need to get. And then make a determination as to whether or not it's worthwhile. First of all, you should fire it up, make sure the motor is still working. You know, make sure the electronics still come on. Anyway, I hope I hope this helps. Okay. One of our people from our SUV class last week, which is the reason why we, you know, couldn't be here live last week,

[8:34] Matt, wrote in and he said, he has actually has a restaurant uptown in my old

[8:39] neighborhood up 109th or 10th, 108th called SIP. And check it out. you're up there. I haven't made it up there yet, but I intend to. So he was wondering whether we ever tried to carbonate liquor. Everyone who knows me personally knows that I carbonate nothing but liquor, basically. Liquor and water. I don't, I don't, I like everything with most everything I like with bubbles in it, right? Nastasia? Yeah, bubbles. What about us? anyway, I like bubbles a lot. So his question is, have we ever tried to carbonate in an old fashion soda water

[9:08] container because he wants to put it behind his bar because he thinks it's, you know, because they do look cool. not because he thinks they look cool. They do look cool. Uh, and he's actually going to make a, uh, he's going to make an infused liquor, um, based on like a pepper and tomato and he wants to carbonate.

[9:23] Now, uh, whether or not it's feasible to use these old bottles depends on what you mean by old bottles. So roughly you can divide into 2 different categories. One is the kind that take chargers on them, like, and to, uh, sorry, CO2 chargers, and these are kind of the older variety home units. Um, that glass with a metal cage around, uh, you know, EC made them,

[9:44] aka ISI, whatever you want to call them, uh, number of other manufacturers used to be made a lot in Czechoslovakia, very thick glasses. And these ones can be used to carbonate. The problem with them is, is that it's very hard to get a very good level of carbonation. First of all, liquor is going to require more CO2 than water. And it's hard to get the headspace out of the top of the unit. So what I recommend is if you're going to use one of those with 2

[10:08] charge, you have to use 2 chargers. And what you do is make sure your liquor is super, super cold, right? Super cold. If you have a vacuum machine, de-erate it 1st to get rid of some of the air. If you don't, don't worry about it because you're going to go to the 2nd step. You're going to put your liquor in, make sure you always fill it to the exact same level every time. This way, you know your recipe is going to work. Changing the level of liquid in the bottle is going to change the amount of carbonation. you have each time. Okay? So make sure it's just the same every time. Make sure the temperature of the liquid is the same every time as cold as possible. Then, put a CO2 cartridge in, swirl it to get it all dissolved, and then vent it so that it foams up, and so you lose, sorry,

[10:46] apologize. Turn it upside down so that the actual siphons, these old seltzer siphons have a rod, which goes down to the bottom so that when you press it, the pressure forces the liquid up through the rod and out the nozzle,

[10:58] right? When you're venting, you have to turn the seltzer siphon upside down so that you're venting the gas and not the product out. Otherwise you're going to be in for a terrible mess. Anyway, so turn the thing upside down, vent out the gas. That's going to get rid of the air, that's still trapped on the inside. And it's also going to get rid of a lot of what's called the nucleation sites, which cause excess bubbling, right? So that's the key step, turning it upside down and venting it. Then turn it right side up, put another charger into it, shake

[11:24] it, and chill it, and you should have a good product. Now, if you mean by old seltzer bottles, the kind that the seltzer man delivers on a truck, or woman, I guess, but typically they were seltzer man, delivers

[11:34] a, on a, delivers on a truck, like 3 Stooges style, and you have a little lever and you squeeze them and you spray your buddy in the face or put out a fire or whatever. No, that one is much more difficult to fill. They don't take a charger and they don't unscrew. Those are actually, the tops are left on them, and they are washed and filled by a machine by actually, you squeeze the nozzle,

[11:57] like, you squeeze the lever like you were going to spray seltzer out of it, and then a machine squeezes a nozzle and fills it without taking the top off.

[12:04] So I've considered for several years actually building something to do that, but I haven't done

[12:09] it and it's not a trivial process. So it tells, and I didn't see anyone on the internet until someone works out like a super slick,

[12:17] do it-yourself way of refilling those old, old seltzer bottles, I would not try to get one of those. Although it's always been a project that I've been interested in. It's just too many projects and too little times. I saw a lot at flea markets and I was going to get you one. Yeah, but also, if you're going to do it, get one with a metal mesh around it because, you know, if someone nicks one of those old glasses and you're inflating it up to 60

[12:36] psi or so, I mean, those were built for 120 psi, but who knows? You know what I mean? I don't want it to shatter and explode glass hole over you. And then you say, hey, Dave Arnold, they're okay to use it. Anyway, that's not... okay. Oh so we have a caller. Hello, caller. How are you doing? Hi, I'm fine. are you? doing well. Okay, I have a question. It's about chicken, because I cook chicken thighs all the time, and it seems like no matter how I cook them, they come out wonderfully and everyone thinks they're

[13:01] great. So whenever I cook chicken breasts or chicken cutlets or even a whole chicken, it just seems like the chicken breasts are never that tasty.

[13:08] They're often dry and especially the next day. Like, the next day, you can heat up a stew with chicken thighs, and it's really good and even better. But whenever I try to heat up chicken breast, the next day, they're even drier. So I just wondered if you have any tips. First of all, you are correct. The chicken thighs are inherently superior to chicken breasts. And I do not know what kind of marketing nonsense has convinced the majority of Americans that somehow white meat chicken is superior to dark meat chicken. It's insane. It's insanity. The thigh is inherently has more taste, it's more fat and connective tissue. It's going to stay more moist and has a higher tolerance to overcooking than the breast meat does. I mean, that's just straight up fact. Okay. And breast meat in like a typical American chicken doesn't have as much flavor as you'd like,

[14:00] but, you know, here is here are some things. do you brine the breasts? No, but that's a good thought. Yeah, here's here's the thing. So when you brine the breast, 2 things are happening, or I brine both, but if you brine the breast with, I usually make some,

[14:14] like a, even you can just do water, solution till it's salty, tasted like salty, almost like ocean salty, and then you add sugar until it just gets sweet.

[14:21] And what you're doing is by adding that salt, you are changing the amount of water that the muscle can hold

[14:29] onto, right? So it seems counterintuitive because when you add salt, usually you're drawing moisture out. But when the salt gets into the meat, it's actually changing the amount of moisture that the meat can hold

[14:38] onto when it cooks, and it gives you a couple extra degrees of temperature before the meat dries out.

[14:43] And it'll also appear moisture when it's when it's cooled down. Um, the, the other, you know, obviously, you want to be careful not to overcook the breast. If you cook the breast separately from the thigh, it's easier. Um, but, um, that the main thing is the brining. Also, the brining is going to increase the salt level on the inside of the meat, which is going to increase the flavor of that

[15:04] meat make it a little less inherently flavorless, you know? So you win 2 times with that. You know, if you have an immersion circulator, that is a spot on way to, you know, the piece of equipment we were just talking

[15:17] about. It's a spot on way to cook it because then you can cook a chicken breast to like 63, 64 Celsius. And when it cools down, it's super juicy and the texture is just right. But I personally, I think it's hard to, you know, using traditional cooking techniques to achieve a good chicken breast that's good as a cold preparation

[15:37] the next day. You know, that's why we tend to chop it up and toss it with mayonnaise. You know what I mean? Okay, yeah, that makes sense. That's what I always. Yeah, I mean, that's delicious too. I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, I love chicken salad. I mean, you know, we grew up on that stuff. I love chicken salad, but, um, So I don't know whether I've been helpful. You probably make it with homemade mayonnaise, right? Uh, you know, I wish I could say that's true, but I like, but there's certain things that you grow up with in life and you just tend to like them and one of them

[16:03] is, I like store bought mayonnaise. I hate to say it. I just like... Yeah, I mean, you know, that's just... Well, what about poaching chicken breast. I mean, that's sort of something we all grew up with too. Right, well, poaching chicken breasts, you know, there's a couple of, I used to do it quite a lot. You know, Jacques Pepin came out with a cookbook in the 80s and he has a chicken salad recipe, poached chicken recipe that he attributes to Danny

[16:26] Kay, the famous actor was also, I believe, a conductor and a fine, fine cook. And he used a technique where he would put it into water, although I would use

[16:36] broth, right? And then you can raise, you raise the temperature until it just comes to the boil and then you cover it and then you let the, the, the heat ride out. Now, it's no way an accurate cooking technique, but it's a variation on a cooking technique that has been used for

[16:49] millennia. For instance, hams used to be cooked that way in a 5 gallon lard container. You would, you know, you would heat the water up in the lard, put the handman, close it, and then wrap it

[16:59] up and let the carryover heat. And the theory is, is that the carryover heat is going to be enough to cook it, but the temperature is going to drop enough that it's not

[17:07] going to horribly overcook the meat by the time it's done. So I used to fill up a, you know, like a pot of water and put, you know, a pot with some, you know, vegetables

[17:17] and, you know, if you had some broth or stock, you could put it in, and then chicken breasts, I would also use thighs, bring it up to the, just to the simmer, close

[17:25] it, and let it ride out, and you get 2 things. You get a nice broth, and you get some nice chicken meat that's good for a cold salad because it was not overcooked but cooked in water, so it didn't lose or cooked in

[17:35] moisture, so it didn't lose a lot of a lot of, you know, a lot of it's, it's not dry. So, and that's, you know, attributable to Danny K through Jacques Pepin, if that's helpful. Well, that's really helpful. Thank you so much. Hey, thanks for listening. Okay, take care. Bye. Take your break, Dave. Oh, and I'm told that we are coming onto our 1st commercial break. This is Cooking Issues.com Cooking Issues radio on Heritage Radio Network. 718-497-2128. That 718-497-2128.

[18:15] Going down from the field. I wear a team of beef, but I know what it's about.

[18:25] And let it all hang out. Well, so big, but nose, but it's about them. Where people can find it, let your hands, black. And then hear the music, it ain't my band. They're dancing on the good foot. I got to do it. Do it with a good foot. Says a long, yeah, hip, the new, apple, pack, all get together, walk, strike, and they party. Oh, good, good, good, good. They go, good, good, good, good. But the winter... A whole lot of building, nobody spin. That's on my back. You know, my face, getting short, man, got my boots. I got to put the yard, but I'm paying it to use on the good foot.

[19:32] You don't... You got

[19:40] that, did it. Get it! Shop now. Come on get it done.

[19:53] Welcome back to Cookie Issues on the Heritage Radio Network, where we answer your cooking questions at 718-497-2128 718-497-2128.

[20:06] Uh, okay, so Michael Griffiths, uh, from Philadelphia is a follower of the blog. Thank you so much. And he called in because he has having a problem with some seafood sausages he's

[20:16] making, because they added ginger to them, and he says they didn't come out the same, and he's pretty sure that the ginger reacted. He thinks with the eggs and messed it up. He said, because he also has put, um, ginger into consomme, and you couldn't get the raft. When you're clarifying, uh, when you're clarifying things, you add, you traditionally, you add an egg white raft, and the protein, along with whatever ground

[20:38] up, lean meat you put in helps hold onto the, uh, the, what makes it turbid, the turbidity,

[20:42] and uh, helps clarify the stock over time. The actual, the proteins are charged and they actually hold on to, they hold on to the stuff that's making it cloudy. And he's saying, he thinks it's the ginger that's messing it up, and what the hell is going on? Now, I don't actually know that it's the egg white specifically that's having a problem with the ginger. It might actually be the meat and the binding of the muscle proteins together because ginger, you know, it's a well well-known enzyme in ginger is there's a protease enzyme in it. And I believe the name of it, although I could be wrong, is, and I don't know how to pronounce anything, is

[21:19] Zinjabane, Zinjabane. And that's a, you know, a protease enzyme, it's going to break things down. And it's used as a meat tenderizer. And in fact, you know, it's it's, you know, just as effective, if not more effective than Papayin and, you know, all these other commercial meat tenderizer. So ginger juice is a well-known, has been a well-known tenderizer. I believe since antiquity. So, you know, it does contain protease enzymes, and that's going to mess up your raft and might also mess up your sausage. You could cook the ginger, but then beforehand, that would, that would, you know, wipe out the enzyme, but might change the flavor of the ginger, but these things are being cooked anyway. So I think if you pre-cook the ginger, you're not going to have a problem, an interesting recipe to look up that has to do with ginger and proteins is a Chinese dessert called a ginger milk

[22:08] curd where they basically they take a milk and they add ginger and it causes it to curdle and

[22:14] set. So this is a, uh, is a well-known and interesting fact. Thanks for, you know, calling our attention to it. And another interesting thing I looked. I was looking at the technical literature on ginger enzymes. And ginger enzymes, you know, is in Japan or whatever it's called, is very

[22:30] effective specifically at collagen, at breaking down connective tissue, as opposed to, it seems to have a higher affinity for that than other protease meat

[22:39] tenderizing enzymes do. again, thank you for that question. And he also had a question about lobsters, because he heard that lobsters that are in the tanks start to feed off their own flesh, which, you know, is

[22:52] true, because they typically don't feed lobsters in tanks, because if you feel lobster in a tank, it's going to raise the, you know, the waste products that are in the

[22:59] tank and any feed that's not used up is going to, you know, cause

[23:03] problems. So they tend not to feed. I guess also it might cause aggression problems, but I don't remember. been a long time since I've read that kind of technical literature on lobsters. But that is true, but they can survive a very, very, very long time. So I don't know how, I don't know how much flesh degradation there is just from being stored on a tank, although it's something I've heard quite a bit.

[23:22] The next time I speak to a lobster scientist, I will definitely ask them that question. The 2nd thing is, what is the enzyme that breaks down lobster meat after you kill them? Uh, and uh, how long till the enzyme starts to work, et cetera, et cetera. Can you prevent that enzyme from working by freezing it? Now, listen, this is an incredibly complicated question because there's very, very, very many enzymes on the inside of a lobster.

[23:47] Lobster tends to have a breakdown of tissue relatively quickly because the circulatory system and basically all the guts of the lobster, everything's in close proximity and kind of an open system.

[23:56] So once the animal is dead, those enzymes really start to work quickly. There's a number of enzymes. It's not just one enzyme that goes to work in lobsters. There's enzymes in it that breakdown, that breakdown ATP, and other nucleotides, and eventually become products that affect flavor. In fact, um, you know, uh, IMP, and it's, uh, monophosphate is reduced to, or, you know, uh, changed to other things that have a negative impact on quality, and that is easily traced and is used as

[24:25] an indicator of quality because, uh, as that starts to progress, other

[24:30] things, like proteolytic enzymes have also been working, uh, breaking down the, um,

[24:34] the meat. So, and it's, you know, very well known that, uh, I forget what the thing is called, the organ on the inside of the lobster. something like capato pancreas, something like that, contains a variety of protease enzymes that are just going to wreak havoc with the meat.

[24:49] Now, here's the bad news. You cannot stop those enzymes by freezing because as you thaw the meat out, like freezing it, they will work somewhat as they're frozen because unless there's something called the eutectic point where when you freeze something below the point at which there's no water left at all,

[25:05] then, yes, enzymatic activity stops. But in fact, what happens is, is that a normal freezer temperatures, there's still a good bit of unfrozen water left inside of your tissue and enzymes can continue to work in that

[25:18] situation. But real hell breaks loose when you thought, because then you have a lot of water that becomes available to these enzymes that are in a

[25:25] hyperconcentrated state in the remaining tissue of the animal, and they just go to town. And so you end up having huge degradation on thawing. especially if things are, apparently, things are rapidly thawed. So, I hope this answers your question. I plan on doing a lot more work with lobster soon. I've been for literally for a year and a half . I've been supposed to be pitching something to the New York Times on lobsters and what we do with them. So look for more in the somewhat near future, although I don't know, Nastasia. How near future do you think realistically? What are we talking? Oh, Jesus, come on now. It's not right. Okay. Anyway. Oh, another interesting thing. Not only are the enzymes working more, but I found a study that says that the muscle fibers of lobster are something like

[26:17] 4 times more liable to breaking by prolytic enzymes than

[26:23] like mammal tissue. The one they use was rabbit. They said that the lobster meat was broken down 4 times easier than rabbit meat. And I only saw one paper in passing this morning, but anyway. And also, cool thing. There's a paper called novel uses of fish and marine invertebrate enzymes in food industry from 2000, and they have a cool thing that, and it's because of this question. I looked it up. They have a cool technique where they use enzymes to descale fish.

[26:52] So the scales can basically just be washed off and then the skin is perfect. You don't have any problem with knife marks or scraping in the

[26:59] skin, and it's used because people tan fish skins for leather, and those guys don't want any scraping on their

[27:06] skin, and so the enzymatic. I wonder whether there's any application for food industry. What you think? Fun? Look it up. Yeah. Marine Pepsi. The one I found came from salmon. Anyway, soup, thank you for that question. And now, uh, for our former favorite Thai intern, of course, our only Thai intern, we do love him. We pop. We pop soupy pot, asked about the old cucumber trick of rubbing cucumber ends

[27:30] together to get the bitterness out. So for those of you that aren't aware, there's a, there's an old kind of, what do you want to call it? Like a kitchen. What are you going to call it? Old piece of kitchen wisdom. Yeah. Yeah, right. Because I hate that term old wives tale. Yeah, I know. I hate it. What does that mean? First of all, is it old wives or old wives? Why? Why? With a V. Why? Sure. Yes, I'm sure. Okay. Anyway. So, if it was old wives tale, then it would... Why? That's crazy. Anyway, so anyway, there is an old kitchen piece of kitchen wisdom, or maybe not wisdom, that if you take and cut the end of a cucumber off, and then

[28:12] both ends of the cucumber flip it and rub the other end with the other end, then all of a

[28:17] sudden, the bitterness is going to go away. Now, for those of you out there that are like, hey, cucumbers aren't bitter, what the hell is you talking

[28:23] about, right? Now, listen, there are wild cucumbers are bitter. Pickling cucumbers can be bitter. Most supermarket cucumbers, in fact, are not bitter. And if they are bitter, it's the skin that's bitter. It's a very, very small percentage of supermarket cucumbers are bitter.

[28:42] And certain people can't even taste a bitterness even in the cucumbers that are bitter. What's making it bitter and is a thing called

[28:49] cure, I can't, I will never be able to pronounce this. Cucurbitation, B and C. And these are present in all the cucumber plants, but usually not so much in the actual

[29:01] fruit. And if they are in the fruit, they predominate at the stem end. So if you cut the stem end off and then peel it, you're going to get rid of most of the

[29:10] bitter, but I have not found any sort of evidence for rubbing it, getting rid of that

[29:14] bitterness, and it doesn't make any sense. If you're cutting the ends off of the cucumber, well, then hell, you're getting rid of the most bitter part of the cucumber, especially if you peel it. So that's going to help right there. The rubbing looks like it's doing something because it foams up and forms a slime. But if you think about it, and I'm willing to be proven wrong on this, how the heck is you going to pull bitterness out of a whole cucumber just by rubbing the end? I mean, I could stick a the end of a cucumber in a in a pot, a stink for like, you know, half an hour and then cut the stink off and the rest of the cucumber

[29:43] is still fine. So how you going to draw the bitterness out just by rubbing the end, true or false, does he? True. true. She looks upset now. She's never going to eat a cucumber again. So anyway, so if you have a bitter cucumber. The bad news is, is that even on the same plant, some cucumbers will be better and some won't. And, you know, no one's exactly sure it's like the stress of growing, like how old they are, but your best bet is to cut off the ends and peel

[30:04] it, and then wash it to get rid of the bitterness and you're going to be okay. Oh, we have a collar. Hello, caller. Hey, hello, how are you? Doing well. I had a question. I've been making a drink for a few, few, few years now into, uh, espresso open, uh,

[30:20] Coca-Cola, and, uh, split just, uh, put it over ice. I played around with it a bunch. But the main thing is, the way I do it is I take

[30:28] ice. I just took out espresso over the ice. Oh, okay, it doesn't matter. Uh, what happens is, uh, Coco, so, uh, stiffens up a lot. I wanted to know if you know why that would be. Jose, I'm having a lot of trouble hearing you because your cell phone, your cell phone's breaking up on

[30:45] me. I heard what I was able to hear was espresso beverage and foam, but

[30:51] what do you say? Do you put cocoa in it? Right, I make a beverage with espresso and Coca-Cola. Oh, Coca-Cola espresso. okay And the problem with the film as well? thickens up a lot. I wanted to know if you know why that would be. Yeah, so if you've ever carbonated coffee before, It's a nightmare in terms of foaming, it really foams up a lot, like a lot, lot. Um, and I've never done the research on why, but there's a, you know, you know, coffee has a lot of uh, espresso specifically has a lot of body to

[31:23] it, and a lot of uh, emulsified oils in it, and it has a high uh, total dissolve, solid content, and it's known for holding a head, like a good espresso, right, has a crema on it.

[31:33] So when you dump an espresso into a Coca-Cola and then try to uncap it, you're going to get like a serious head formation. I've had, I, you know, when I carbonate coffee beverages, I usually carbonate with

[31:46] nitrous. It's not carbonating, but carbonate with nitrous, to add the creaminess back to the coffee

[31:52] beverage. Like when I'm doing cold, like espresso-based cocktails, and they foam like the dickens. You just can't you can't get around it. I should have done more research moving on one. Honestly. That's my favorite part of the drink. Yeah, but it's a, if you're pouring it in, but when you're doing it in a bottle under pressure, it's a, it's a, it's hard to not have it spray all over the kitchen. It is delicious. I mean, you should try, you know, if you like that, if you do you have one of those ISI cream whippers where you are? I don't have one. Now, I've used them in the past in a lot of restaurants. I worked in. planning on getting one for the restaurant. I'm starting with how? Yeah, so just, you know, just for giggles, when you're not doing a Coca-Cola one, when you're doing a regular one, just try hitting a cold espresso beverage with a shot of

[32:34] nitrous and you get a lot of that body and creaminess back that you get from a fresh shot, even more so, but it doesn't have the carbonation taste.

[32:42] So the carbonation taste, like there's a Manhattan soda, called Manhattan soda, I think, that's really good, that is a carbonated coffee drink. But a lot of people, if they don't, they want that creaminess without the, and that foaminess, without the carbonation, you could try nitrous. And that, I've had good success with that. Great. All right, thank you. Thanks for calling in. My pleasure. Thank you. Let me see here. We got some more questions on the email. Okay, so Anthony Wong, who took our sous vide class, wrote in and said,

[33:11] I mentioned that I use stainless steel pins for cooking a duck breast instead of scoring the skin. Now, a word he wants to know where he can get it, what kind? A word of background here, when you're cooking a duck breast, you want to cut most people will tell you you want to score the duck breast, you know, the skin side of

[33:28] it so that when you render the skin, when you when you crisp up the skin, the fat's going to render out. Now, Nils Norin, you know, you know, my buddy, partner in crime, head of the French culinary culinary department, do test this practice because he says that where the scoring is, you're going to overcook the meat. But people who say who are pro scoring, say, well, they want more fat rendered out. So where, you know, where do you come down on this? Well, Chris Young, uh, chef, formerly the research chef at the Fat Duck Restaurant in, um, in, uh,

[33:58] in, in England and uh, Nathan Mirvold, the uh, Microsoft billionaire, inventor of

[34:03] PowerPoint and many other things. Um, you know, are coming out with, uh, you know, supposedly the, well, I suppose I've seen it. really good. You know, the greatest tech cookbook ever written. It's a huge magnum opus coming out at the end of the year. Um, they demonstrated a technique last year at Star Chefs where they said, well, what if you took a dog brush? And, you know, like you go, it's like a steel dog brush. Just go to a pet store, make sure you get one that's stainless steel, and it's got zillions of

[34:30] little tiny stainless steel spines on it, and you just smack the duck breast with this dog brush a couple times, and it makes all these micro perforations in the skin, and they allow the fat to render out of the duck breast

[34:43] without giving you enough area to overcook the meat that's underneath.

[34:49] And you know what? We've tested it several times and it's a fantastic idea. So I think anyone that cooks duck breast on a regular, you know, regular basis needs to go by a dog brush. Please don't use the brush you've already used on your dog. That's gross. Go get a brand new dog brush. I think they're like $3 They're $4. You can give it any pet food store, pet store or, you know, pet supply mart, right? And uh, they do, they do, uh, they do wonders. So, uh, break time. All right, I've been told we're going to our next commercial break. So call your questions into 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128 cooking issues. If you want to get down with a bar. This is the way you do it. Walk up and rap, too. Put your hand on the lower left. Come on, you go, yeah. It doesn't watch your rap, too. I mean, come on, like you should. Come on, would you? Come on. Yeah! Give me, say, give me your thing. What did she say? Give me what you say. Give them a thing, what to say. Jimmy what you say? Give them a thing. Get what you say. Feels so good. Let's get along, say it. Get it, let's say. Make it stone to the fight. Get him a thing. What you say? Give me, what you say? Give me the name. What you say? Baby. Got this. But I won't. Never forget Give me, give me thing, what do you say? Give me what to say. Give me a thing. Say. Give me what you say. Give me the thing Say, Baby, say, just move. Hey, excuse me. H Call it. Hey! Make me.

[37:10] I need you, baby. What you say? Need you now? Hey, I don't care, hey, Welcome back to Cooking Issues on the Heritage Radio Network, calling your questions to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128 and we have a caller. Hello, caller. on the air. Hi, hi, Dave, how are you? Hey. I had a question about steak. Oh, good. like steak. I'm a, I'm big fan of steak, especially uh, ribeyes and grass fed ribeyes. Nice. Uh, but sometimes, uh, when I've cooked the steak, there, sometimes there's this really hard sort of tendon that runs through

[37:52] it and I'm not sure what the reason for that is or, or what to, what to do with those. Uh, I mean, the silver skin or the actual piece of connective tissue that is, uh, that little, I mean, that, that one little section on the upper part of the

[38:04] muscle, that's, that's in one part of it, but not the other. There's not there's not a lot you can do about that. As far as I know, you have to kind of cut it out. I tend to trim it. I mean, one thing you can do. You can see it before you before you cook it, right? Um, and you can trim that out and then uh, and then reglue it back together with uh, transglutaminates. I can't remember what that's made out of. I mean, I don't think that's going to render even under long cooking. I could be wrong. I don't remember whether that does, but of course you're never going to cook that kind of meat long enough to render it in. I don't think short of removing it and gluing it back together, which I have done many

[38:41] times. I don't know of a of a good way to get that done. Do you have access to meat glue? No, I don't, but I do have a circulator. Okay. Yeah, you know, the problem is this. So let's, okay, so for those of you who don't know what we're talking about, you know, in certain cuts of stake, like in, like, as you go along the, you know,

[39:03] the, the rib steak, you'll see that there's certain ones that have these little, like, dots in the, in

[39:07] the, in between the 2 muscle parts that are, you know, that don't, they can stay hard, basically. Now, the, there's an enzyme called transgutaminates, Activa, transgutaminates that will glue proteins together, and it's very simple to use. Problems you have to buy a whole bag of it. And I have a question on that actually came out on email and an answer in a minute. But they can rebond the meat together and I use it for taking out pieces of connective tissue and then gluing meat back together. And that's viable, but you know, you have to have the stuff lying around. The problem with circulators with that is that to render a piece, if it was connective tissue, which is going to get soft with long cooking, and I don't know that that's the case, at the

[39:49] temperatures, you're going to want to cook a ribeye, which is roughly 55 degrees Celsius,

[39:53] it would take several days to really break it down. And, um, you know, in the test that we've done with with rib eyes, you don't want to cook them more than about, um, you know,

[40:05] you know, 6 hours. We've done one hours, 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours, 6 hours, 7 hours, 8 hours, 9 hours, 10 hours, and overnight on ribeyes, and

[40:14] we like them best in the ribeyes, that is, in the 2 to 4 hour

[40:21] range, and we like them okay, you know, up to about 6. At eight, we feel that they're, you know, starting to take on kind of a little bit of a squashy texture and

[40:29] it gets fivery as you chew. And that long, long cooking on ribeye is not going to be necessarily so good for it.

[40:36] So I don't know that you have a long cooking way of getting out of it. Hey, you know, you could do if you don't have meat glue, though. You can still cut out that portion that you don't like. And, uh, and then basically almost, you, I don't know what this is going to worry. You could try dusting it. I don't think gelatin's going to hold it together at the high temperature. I'm trying to think of something you can use other than, um, other than meat glue, because all you really want to have to do is bind it together. Do you have a vacuum sealer as well? Yeah I do. I mean, you could try sprinkling a little bit of salt and then some sort of gelatin. kind of melt when you do it, but if you vacuum it together, it's going to hold together while you cook

[41:15] it and it'll probably hold together while you sear it, but then as you cut it on the plate,

[41:19] obviously you're going to see that you've trimmed out a piece of the of the muscle, you know? Sorry, I couldn't be more helpful on this one. No, it just sounds like I have to get some transgluments. Yeah, you definitely you definitely do. You definitely do. Uh, well, uh, thanks for calling in. That leaves great into our next question from Matt, who says, um, he's been reading up on

[41:39] translutaminates after seeing the Iron Chef episode where my brother-in-law, Wiley Dufrayne, used it to make, uh, unfortunately not shrimp noodles, tilapia noodles, tilapia is, you know, not our favorite fish.

[41:50] Anyway, he said that he really wants to start using it, but he has a couple questions. Do you know of a supplier who sells quantities smaller than the $90 bags online, which are one kilo? Uh, either an online supplier or brick and mortar store in Boston or New York. And the short answer is, no, I do not. It used to be that, um, and it might still be, for all I know, that if you call up, um,

[42:10] Agina Moto, the company that makes it. It's Agina Moto makes transglutaminase enzyme, which is meat glue, the stuff that glues proteins together. You sprinkle it on like powdered sugar, and the meat she sticks together. It's great stuff. They make it, uh, a Ginomoto under Aji Foods USA makes it, and the brand name they use is

[42:29] Activa. And the one that you want to get to start with is Activa RM. They used to give out like small 200 gram, I think, sample packs to chefs, but the chef community

[42:41] is taken to it so much, they might no longer give out sample packs. And unfortunately, Igina Moto does not sell increments smaller than one kilo, and because they come packed direct from a

[42:53] Ginamoto in one kilo packs, and not in like £50 sacks, the way that, um, the way

[42:58] that, like, you know, most powders and hydrocolates come. Companies haven't been willing to break them down into smaller packs. And Genomoto hasn't been willing to make available for to pay for their sample packs. Now, if a Gino Moto just said, hey, look, we're going to quadruple the amount of sample packs we're going to make. And then just charge 3 times as much per pound. People would still buy it because people would rather to test, spend 15 bucks on 200 grams, uh,

[43:24] then, um, then shelling off for a whole kilo if they don't know if they're going to use it over time, especially, yeah, they figure they're not going to use it before it goes bad. Now, we have toyed with the idea. cooking issues of making that enzyme available the same way we make Pectinex, Ultra

[43:40] SPL and Pectinex smash, you know, the miracle pectin breaking down enzymes that make the world's greatest

[43:45] French fry and the world's greatest juices. Um, but we decided against it because we didn't know that we wanted to get in the business of cutting open

[43:54] that, uh, you know, retail pack and then repacking it and selling it. Maybe we should. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I have to figure out whether or not, whether or not it's a problem to do it or whether or not, you know, we're going to run into any issues with

[44:08] it, um, but, you know, it would be useful to people. So I apologize that there is no way. But here's what here's what you should do. You should get together with some buddies. You should split a package of it. And then when you buy it, make sure that you cut it open, you instantly get all the air out and store it in the freezer, and it will last a

[44:25] good long time in the freezer, like six, six, 8 months in the freezer. And you'll get good use out of it. So, I mean, it's definitely worth getting if you can split the bag with like, you know, 4 or 5 people, even more so. Um, but anyway, I'm sorry, I couldn't be more help with that. But then the 2nd part of the question is can meat glue be used with non-meat proteins. Can you do something interesting with nuts, for example? Well, I've never done anything with nuts, but it does make tofu firmer. And, you know, you can make, for instance, peanut tofu, but peanut tofu is very, very

[44:53] soft, and it's very hard to get to hold together. So perhaps you could use, and this is perhaps because I've never done it. Perhaps you could use transgutaminates to help cross-link proteins in like a peanut curd, for example, and then make a more effective peanut tofu. Panto was a real pain in the butt. It really clogs things up. It's hard to get it to set up nicely. It's delicious when you get it right, though. So that's possible. So yeah, transgutaminous works on any protein like that works, like I say, I haven't tried nuts, but it works on cheese. You can glue things to cheese, works on egg yolk, thickens up egg yolk quite nicely, and you can glue things to egg yolks. We glue bacon to egg yolks, which is meat, but you could glue cheese to an egg yolk, I guess. Um, you know, any protein like that. I mean, the problem with slurry is if there's not enough protein and there's too much fat, like in a nut paste, then the protein doesn't have anything to bind onto, and it makes for very kind of weak bonds. And so in certain situations, it tends to act more as a thickener than as

[45:51] a, you know, a gluing agent. They also have one for dairy that's used for yogurt to make yogurt set up better, but is used by, you know, like Johnny Yazini to make ricotta dumplings or gnocchi, rather. So yes, it will bond any anyone or it will, it will be active on any one of those, um, on any one of those proteins. There's a lot of there's a lot of things yet to be done with it. Wiley, my brother-in-law, Wiley, Defrain. He has a very, very interesting application. Unfortunately, it's meat because it uses gelatin, but basically he uses transgutaminates to cross-link gelatin so that it doesn't melt anymore, and he makes sheets out of vegetables, like pasta, and then lets it set overnight with the

[46:30] transglutaminates, and once the gelatin sets up in cross-links, it no longer melts, but stays

[46:35] flexible like a noodle. And these things can be fried into crisps or used as pasta. It's fantastic technique. You can look for it on the internet. That one you want to use the Activa, there's a special one called TI that's just the enzyme. It doesn't have the most of the ones we use have casing or added gelatin in it. You want to make sure you use the one that's just straight enzyme for that technique, but hopefully that's

[46:55] helpful and I wish you luck in your in your translutaminase journeys. I have another question from Ray in DC. Hi, Ray. And he likes our show, which is nice. Thank you. And a friend of his went to a place called PX in Alexandria,

[47:14] Virginia, and he said they had a drink that was made with tobacco, tobacco and they drink tobacco infused, and he thinks it's made with bourbon. Well, that place PX is the guy there's a guy named Todd Thrasher, and for a number of years now, I think, 3 or four. He's been well known for infusing cocktail cocktails with tobacco. Um, and I forget, I saw him interviewed on it once and it was, uh, something about like his childhood memories. I think he grew up maybe near a tobacco farm. Anyway, it has a lot of childhood memories for him, the smell of tobacco. I believe he does not infuse the tobacco into the bourbon. He infuses it into, I believe, water, and then adds the tobacco,

[47:54] water, as a syrup to the bourbon. That's, I think how he does it. But I'm not sure, because I don't think he publishes his recipe. Now, the 2nd part of that question was, what do you think about the health effects of that, well, it's definitely, probably, you know, ingesting it that way is definitely, you know, less harmful than, um, than smoking it,

[48:16] uh, because, you know, a lot of the harmful products and tobacco come from combustion of tobacco. But it's not risk free, obviously. You know, I don't know what the long-term effects of ingestion are, you know, but nicotine by itself has, you know, effects on

[48:31] your cardiovascular system. You know, if you ingested huge amounts of it. For any of you have ever tried dipping tobacco, you know, uh, like, you know, the stuff dip that you put in your lip and have accidentally swallowed the juices, you know that concentrated tobacco juices,

[48:47] uh, you know, make throw up like a demon. At least they make me throw up like a demon. Apparently, if you dip all day, every day. You can start swallowing the juices without spitting and not vomit. But the one time I was in my buddy Charlie's room when I was in high school and he gave me some

[49:00] dip and then he said, why aren't you spitting? And I said, you need to spit, and 30 seconds later, his entire room was coated with my lunch. Like, uh, you know, from now on in, I was like, large concentrations of tobacco juice, don't sit well,

[49:12] literally in your stomach. And so, uh, you know, I doubt he's putting enough tobacco in to have that kind of effect, which means he's probably putting a very small amount in, which means

[49:21] any health effect is probably small. Uh, you know, especially because how many are you drinking? I don't know. What do you think, Stasi? I don't like tobacco. No, all right. So I hope that hope that answers your question. And Ray also says that he's been infusing vodka using our infusion

[49:37] technique and we appreciate. We appreciate it. Thank you for your question. Now, Curtis wrote in and he said, regarding freezing and enzymes, because we were talking about that earlier, then this is like live email. crazy. I have found that pork tenderloin is much more tender when frozen than thought as compared with fresh. Well, I haven't done the test myself, but that's entirely possible. If you slow freeze a piece of meat. What happens is as you're freezing it, water is drawn out of the tissue and forms ice crystals. The slower that it's frozen, the bigger the ice crystals are. And they can have a tendency to not only puncture the

[50:11] meat cells. So when you thaw, you get lost, but also those big ones are harder to reabsorb back into the meat tissue as it thaws.

[50:20] So when you're freezing something, it's think of it as a partial dehydration, and when you're thawing it, the meat is reabsorbing that liquid. Now, the more something drips liquid when it's thawed, the more damage you've done to the meat. Now, that damage, though, it's possible. I haven't studied it, but it's possible that that actually could make it more

[50:39] tender as long as you're not cooking it to the point where it's going to dry out again. So it's entirely, uh, oh, and also, it's entirely possible, as you say in your question, that the, uh, that the proteolytic enzymes uh, present in the meat uh, kick into overdrive as they're

[50:57] thawed. But I don't know that information off the top of my head. I'm going to have to do some research. So, Stasi, if you want to rejot this question down, I'll try and look

[51:07] for I'll try and look for freeze thaw tenderizing in the scientific literature over the course of the week. It's an interesting question. I hadn't thought of it, but it's probably, you know, the effect, um, which, again, I haven't tested, is probably a multi, like a

[51:21] multifactorial thing I'm a jig, right? Anywho. All right, so we were trying to call our good buddy, Mark Ladner, for this next question. Mark Ladner is a chef at Del Posto and a tall man. How tall is Mark Ladder? 610? 610? crazy? He's like 6465. So he's tall. He's tall. Anyway, this will make sense the next question. So, um, Steve writes in and said, uh, a friend whose name is uh, Colleen, right? is a tall woman. She is 6 foot seven. It's tall Yeah, just under 6 foot seven, actually, 6 foot six, short. Yeah. Not even 6 foot seven. No. So she's 6 foot, basically 6 foot seven. She loves to cook, but she gets terrible back pains when working in the kitchen, particularly when preparing food. And so they have a, you know, you know, the standard countertops are 36 inches high and is, you know, inadequate for her. They did some calculations. And they figured that the average countertop is built for someone who's

[52:22] five, four to five, five. They think it's based on kind of, you know, like the average World War 2 era housewife is that, and

[52:30] that, so they constructed a butcher block that's 13 inches, 13.5

[52:35] inches high, you know, a table that fits on top of the countertop that she can do her cutting on. But, and she loves it. And you can look on the internets. There's pictures of her using it and she enjoys it. But she's enrolling in a culinary school. And the question is, what can be done for a very tall cook? Does she have to bend over or can she bring something like her modified butcher block

[52:57] with her to school or are there other approaches? Well, that's an interesting question. First of all, I don't know that 65, 64 is actually, I mean, I haven't read, I'm sure you've read the studies. I haven't. I'm 510, and I like countertop heights a lot. Um, when they're even like a couple inches taller. Like, let's say like they were 5 inches taller for me. I get fatigued because of the way that I'm used to cooking. So a lot of how you, a lot of, of what's happening with your, with your back and working at a countertop has to do with how you position yourself at the counter, like what your stance is and where

[53:33] your, where your wrist and your arm is. So, I'm used to working at 36. So when you go lower or you go higher, like I get I get totally messed up, right? Um, now, but that's because I'm used to that. Now, I stood on a stool that made me as tall as Colleen,

[53:52] right? And indeed, my arms, I could not get a comfortable stance. no matter how I tried. Now, of course, I'm sure Colleen's arms were longer than mine. You know what I mean? I mean, you know, you know, so I don't know whether it's 100%, you know, accurate, but I can see the definite need for someone that height to increase the

[54:09] height of their countertop. Now, Here's the problem. If you're going to a cooking school, I think what what you're going to do depends entirely on why you're going to cooking school and what kind of cooking school you're going

[54:20] to. If you, um, I was had this discussion, my wife's an architect, and I was having this discussion with her last night after this question came in. Well, for instance, would a workplace be required to allow you to bring something

[54:34] in, um, because of your height? Could you, for instance, go in? And obviously, I'm not saying being tall is a disability. you know, I wish I was tall. You know what I mean? But like, in other words, we have in the US, we have the American Disabilities Act, and you have to make the workplace with the exception of a couple jobs, like airline, you know, a flight

[54:54] attendant and whatnot, safety jobs like that. You have to make the workplace accessible to anyone based on something that's classified as a disability, but I don't know

[55:02] that I don't know that you would classify being too tall for the countertops as something that a workplace would necessarily have to make compensation for.

[55:12] But I don't know. It's a very interesting question. Um, Now, if you're going to cooking school and you're not interested in working in a pro kitchen, you know, for years and years, then by all means, I would say, you know, ask them,

[55:26] let let let you bring it in and use it. You know, there's no reason to break your back. But if you're going to be working in professional kitchens for, you know, a long, long time, you know, I

[55:38] would I would recommend at least trying to figure out some way to modify

[55:42] your your stance or modify something or maybe use like a weightlifting belt or something that can help support your

[55:48] back. I don't know whether that's help because my, you know, I was talking to my wife, again, architect and designer. And she's like, there's 2 choices. Modify your environment or modify yourself. And what this boils down to is, I don't know if you're going to be able to modify your environment if you're going to go out into the professional cooking environment.

[56:03] If you can't modify your environment, then the only thing left is modify yourself. And that could be with supports for your back or, you know, Alton Brown is apparently very tall. And he designed these knives that have like a bend in the handle so that he doesn't have to bring his wrist all the way down to do the chopping.

[56:21] Now, for me, they're goofy because, you know, I'm short. You know, I'm 510 and so regular knives were great, but, you know, I don't know whether she's tried these knives with the bend in the handle that are designed specifically for tall people and to make up for the, um, the difference in

[56:37] heightened countertops. So it's an interesting question. I don't have a resolution. Um, what do you think, Zadi? I think, I don't know. Well, but then I told you about the other part where we knew the guy who was really tiny. Well, he still works in a professional kitchen. That's easier to modify, I think. No, a stool. Yeah, or something. But again, it's a very interesting question and I wish, you know, I'm going to get in touch with some cooks who are very, very tall and some cooks who are not so

[57:09] tall. And, you know, you know, very untall. And we will, and we'll try to figure out what the, what the answer is, because I think it's, I think it's super interesting. But the long story short, if you're not going to go pro into a professional

[57:22] kitchen. And by the way, I never think any professional kitchen should discriminate against anyone for any reason. obviously, but I'm just saying like, what can you realistically expect to happen when you go to a

[57:33] kitchen? That's the real question. It's not what they should do. We all know what my stepfather said. should, you know, I can't give it to the wells course. But like, it's not what they should do. It's what they will do, is what you need to worry about. But if you're not in it to go pro. Um, you know, I think a long talk with a cooking school, uh, I'm sure they would like to have her money. So I'm sure they will make some accommodation. Am I wrong about this? I mean, I don't see it as being that disruptive to the class. And then she has her own station and everything. Yeah, I mean, it's not like, you know, she's saying, hey, I need to listen to loud music while I cook or I can't learn, you know, which would be

[58:06] disruptive to the rest of the class. So, you know, I don't see why they wouldn't. But anyway, hopefully this is helpful and you've raised definitely an interesting question that I will be thinking more

[58:13] about it. I love ergonomics and design. So I'll think more about this problem. And thank you all for listening to cooking issues. This year, this week's cooking issues brought to you by Whole Foods Market and the craft beer week cooking issues. Thanks so much. Fishes, fish, vodka. Oh, you did. Got me on this corner. And I don't know where I'm at.