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[0:50] Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live every Tuesday on the Heritage Radio Network, from the back of Roberta's Pizzeria in Brooklyn, here today with a

[1:06] Nastasia to Hammer Lopez. We might be joined later by Brooks Headley, pastry chef at Del Posta, one of our favorite restaurants. Calling all of your questions to... 497. What? 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. Because for some reason, it is impossible for me to commit this number to memory, no matter how many times I said it, and I usually have a little slip of paper in front of

[1:29] me that tells me what the number is, and today I don't have it. So Nastasia is going to have to, to say it. Do you have any blocks like that, Nastasia, things you just can't remember for one reason or another? No. Nothing? Nothing? Nothing. Nothing. All right. So, uh, this is, uh, I guess this is our Cinco de Mayo edition, even though it's uh, it's not. What day is it? 3rd today? Third, yeah. Anyway. But today, Nastasia and I are going to be at the Lucky Rice Festival. I think you can still get tickets, right? Although they're expensive. What do they buy? Oh, it's 50 bucks? $50 for nine? So you can come by and we're going to make some, uh, we're taking strawberries, uh, blending them actually, uh, our intern cliff is doing it right now back at the

[2:10] lab so called in the back of the milk bar commissary. We're going to blend strawberries and tequila. I think we have a reposado, right? Yeah. And we're blending that. together, putting it through a centerfuge with some enzymes. We get crystal clear, strawberry, tequila. We're just gonna squeeze some lime into it. and stir it with some ice and I haven't figured out what the garnish is. Have figured out the garnish on that one yet? No, not that one. No? No? But it's called mummy juice. And the reason it's called mummy juice is because strawberries are guon in Mexican guon. Strawberries are grown in Mexico in Guanhuato, and that's also where they have the mummy. So because it's strawberries and Mexican. It's mummies. So we're doing mummy juice today, and we're also going to take some Bombay sapphire gin, blend it with bananas, spin it for another version of our gin Justino, drink we like very much,

[3:01] gin Justino. Justino means blending with bananas and spinning in a centerfiege with enzymes. Don't ask why. And that one we're going to serve probably with ginger, right? Yeah. But they only gave us 12 bottles of each. So Nastasia and I are gonna pour tall, kick fast, and then join the party as as party people instead of as dorks behind the counter, true or false true, right? Okay. So that order of business is out. We have a question in from Scott

[3:32] Hansma. Hansma has a some comments on what he thinks the name of our new company should be. And he says he likes the idea that if Escuffier wrote today, he would have an addition to the roast station and the fish station, a kind of rotavap centrifuge, cool stuff station, so that we should call the equipment company, something like future station, or Brigad,

[3:53] Brigad, Technologique, if you wanted to be fancy and French. Well, actually I kind of like some of these suggestions. I like a kitchen brigade sounds pretty sounds pretty badass. I think. Kitchen Brigade. Sounds pretty badass. Of course, if Escoffier was writing today, he would write in English, boom! Boom! But that's just me. So the... But, and I like these, and I think we might actually maybe use one of those things for a line of kitchen equipment, but I think pending the approval of our partners in this

[4:22] style. I'm thinking that we're going to go with, ready? Booker and Dax. These are the names of my 2 kids, right? So Booker sounds like, you know, kind of like an old dude, even though he's only 10, 9, rather. He sounds like an old dude who's kind of smart and knows what's up. Thats also true. And Dax is the kind of guy that's like, you know, you don't want to mess with him. Like this equipment's not going to break. Who said so, Dax, Dax said, so, Dax said. Anyway, so I think Booker and Dax, which, you know, name of my 2 kids together sounds like an old school company. What do you think, Sos? Yeah, no, I said they liked it. You like it, right? Yeah, Booker Index. But I like this, I like Kitchen Brigade as a line of tools or Brigade Kitchen Brigade. Yeah. You know who would come up with that? Booker and Dax. Right? Anyway. So I'll run that we'll run that past and we might have an announcement on that within the week, maybe, right? are the lawyers almost done talking? Anyway, thank you, Scott, for those questions. Now. Richard Koovic called in, wrote in and said, he ordered the Koava disc for his arrow press after mentioning it in his previous email. We spoke about it on an earlier thing. It's basically a fine mesh filter that fits into the

[5:30] AeroPress, which is the cheap kind of like piston-based coffee maker that I'm talking about, says that he likes it

[5:37] of very much. So that's good. And then he mentioned, because we were talking about the thermal mix last week. So I brought a bronze thermal mix, which is a an old immersion circulator. He wants to know about the therma mix proper. The thermal mix proper. Um, he said he's been interested in the device. It looks like they're no longer distributed in the US, though there's a Canadian distributor who allegedly shipped to the US. So there's not much in the way of reviews. And he sees that most reviews that are written are not by the type of people who would heat silicon carbide bricks in the microwave for

[6:05] searing. would be us. Yes. Have we ever had the opportunity to put a thermal mix through its paces? And, you know, it's yes, I have. We don't have one anymore because it got stolen. So what the thermal mix is for those of you that don't know, it is a blender with

[6:20] like a little, almost like a food processor blade. Um, but the bowl is also a scale, which is useful, um, it's useful. not a very accurate scale, but it's pretty useful. And also a heating device. So it, uh, it can heat while it blends, uh, which is useful for certain things like uh, in hydrocolloids. Like if you're going to do gelan, you can heat and stir at the same time, agitate and keep it

[6:43] hot so you don't have to worry about it, you know, geling up on you as it cools down. So yes, it's useful for that. It's useful for making certain kinds of hot foams. It makes an awesome kind of cheese sauce that because it keeps stirring it when it doesn't burn while it's cooking. So it's great. It's good to weigh things out. It's not the world's greatest blender, but it is really cool, but it's

[7:01] very, very, very expensive. It costs in the U.S. roughly what 2 Vitapreps would cost. Okay? Um, I don't think it's worth 2 Vitapreps. I would rather have 2 like unless you're at home, I would rather have 2 Vita Preps in my kitchen than one

[7:17] thermal mix. Now, all of the European chefs. They love the thermomix because in Europe, the thermomix is, um, it's it's around. It's like consumers use it like they would use a kitchenator or anything else. I think it probably is a little bit cheaper in Europe where, conversely, vitapreps are very expensive, which are the high power blenders that we all use are very expensive over there.

[7:37] So there's very few Vitapreps in Europe, and very many thermal mixes. the exact opposite of here. Uh, Vitaprep kicks the crap out of the thermal mix as a blender, but there is other, there are other things that uh, the thermomex can do. Actually, Brooks just showed up. So he's gonna, I'm gonna pass. Do you guys have any thermal, you know, the thermal mixes? You ever play around with them? No, actually, we don't have one. I'm terrified of them. Really? That's funny. But they, you know, they, like, a lot of the stuff that they serve at the thermal mix that they sell with it is like hoo-ha. nonsense. Like you don't need the steaming basket because you can just steam with it. I don't know anyone, like, even if you're a pro. I mean, are you really going to, like, time everything right so that the stuff that's stirring in the underneath is done at the exact same time that your broccoli is

[8:19] steamed right? I mean, it doesn't make so much sense to me. But if you have $700 in your pocket and it's burning a hole in your pocket, uh, and you don't already own a

[8:28] vider prep or a good blender and you're looking for something, it's pretty interesting that a lot of people in Europe like a lot, thermal mix,

[8:33] it tastes good, right? I mean, it's okay. No, no, I'm completely fascinated by them. But again, I would rather take that 700 bucks and buy 2 Vita Preps with it. Um, because you can't ever have enough Vitapreps. Okay. So, uh, any, uh, any, any, so by the way, for those of you that don't know Brooks, Brooks

[8:55] is uh, the, well, the pastry chef, but is there like a title that goes above pastry chef at Del

[9:00] Posto? No, no, just, I mean, technically, it's executive pastry. Exactly. I was looking for. I'm not very much of an executive, so... Paster chef is fine. guy that makes desserts. Yeah, right. Dessert dude at Del Posto. Del Posto, one of our favorite restaurants in Manhattan. It's the only um, Italian restaurant that has 4 stars, true. True? Yeah. The only Italian restaurant that has 4 stars. Our good friend Mark Ladner is the chef there. And it's a great meal. I think one of the interesting things about Brooks's work, I'm going to put them on the spot that I didn't say I was going to do this, is that even though, um, you know, a lot of the dishes, um, have traditional bases to them at Del Posto, even though they're not necessarily 100%

[9:48] traditional. I think that it's some of the, like, most interesting, freshest desserts out there that Brooks is putting out. think, what do you think, Nastasia? Yeah, I mean, like not that they're, the flavors aren't wacky. It's not about being wacky, but I think just like very, literally fresh presentations, interesting using flavors that aren't necessarily crazy, but I think

[10:09] just, you know, pretty interesting stuff. But for some reason, the guys that don't post it, don't like being thought of as innovative comments. Wow, yeah. No, it's just it's like we're, I don't know. I just, I consider myself like, like a, like a grandma. Wow. And, like, in terms of like the style of the food or the way that I cook it or whatever, like, um, and

[10:36] I definitely think of it as cooking. Like, a lot of pastry chefs think of their, like, bakers or whatever, like,

[10:42] I'm, I'm a cook, so. Right. But, yeah, innovative. I don't really invent anything, so I don't know. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, I think, but that's the thing. I think, um, here's the thing. People who get labeled as innovative who, right, are pushing certain boundaries of techniques or ingredients, to me, it's enough to be innovative if I haven't tasted something like that

[11:07] before, or it's surprising. surprising and yet surprising and yet familiar in terms of it's not outside of my bounds of comfort, but yet I'm still surprised. Like these are the kinds of things that I enjoy tasting, um, kind of the most. Like, in particular, like it's dead simple, but your celery sorbet is a butt kicker. It's still on the menu. Yeah. Yeah, no, yeah, I'm not going to take it off anytime soon, so. Delicious product, right? don't think I've had it. You haven't had it? You haven't had it? Crazy. And, you know, the dish you did for that. Why don't you talk about the dish you did for the, uh, for the museum uh, event, the uh, the Hebrew food in Italy? Uh, that was the artichoke. Yes. Car trophy. Um, Well, it's funny. I actually, yeah, I had a chef maybe like 10 years ago that wanted me to do an artichoke

[11:57] dessert, and I did, and it was terrible. So I chose to do it again as like a challenge to myself, like making an artichoke into some sort of sweet thing, you know,

[12:08] so I mean, I think it came out pretty good, so. Why was the last one terrible? Oh, it was, I mean, I had no idea what I was doing. So I don't remember what I think I like chopped it up and caramelized it and like hammered it and put it on some ice

[12:23] cream. It was pretty gross. Really? Yeah. But that was, you know, I've evolved since then. Yeah, a little bit. I hope. I hope. A little bit. All right. So listen, call in your question. What's the, what are the... Okay, 718-497-2128, 718-497-2128. Colin, any questions you have for Brooks or for us, and I can either talk more, we can go to our 1st break. What do you think? Jack, what do you think? Break or talk? Break or talk, break or talk? Great. Talk. Talk. All right. So, Ben, I'm going to try to pronounce his name. Shoanier, Shoanier. You like that? Yeah. Schwanier. Ben Choanier, um, says, have I ever tried one of the wonderful uh, French fry SoCal uh, burritos. It's basically like a breakfast burrito with a bunch of french fries jammed into it. I have not. He got one of his local Mexican spot. This is, you know, continuing our Cinco de Mayo theme. I got one of his local Mexican spot and it took him back. But we are burrito. We like burritos. I do. Nastasia doesn't because she hates anything she had growing up. All right? I swear to God. She doesn't like, like, limes because they grew in her backyard. She doesn't like, uh, uh, freaking. What is it you don't like? Anything that you had as a child. She's like, I ate a peanut when I was a kid, so I don't like him anymore. Right? It's crazy. So she doesn't like burritos because she grew up in LA and she ate them as a child. Most people on earth likes stuff that they ate as a child. She's the exact opposite. She's like, my mom's short bread tasted like hardtack. Not that she's ever had heart attack, right? I made her hardtack, so she now has a reference to it, but beaten biscuits are basically hardtack. Anyway. So, sorry, for that little tirade. So I've not tried the French fry, but that would be delicious, but I am a fan of speaking of frying burritos of the

[14:04] chimichanga. Do you enjoy the chimichanga? Oh, fried burrito? amazing. Yeah, right? Right? So I don't know if we've ever discussed this on the show, but we had, we did a pilot for, like, what's, did we ever talk about this? Yeah, for what stoners, like, what stoners would do? Any stoners came in, and it's not actually the 1st time I've heard this idea, if you can believe that,

[14:22] of, for like, tape your burrito together, you know, tape it, like some sort of tape, so your burrito won't come apart. This is a pilot that they never picked up the show. But I think the greatest invention, maybe of my whole life, was something we did for this, it's called the Semichanga. Have we talked about this on the air before? The semi-changa? Anyway, so what this, okay, why don't you just eat the chimichanga walking around? The answer is because the top, when you eat it, will shatter, and then the parts will fall all over the place, right? When you eat a burrito, the problem is the burrito like kind of slimes out and then gets crappy all over your hands. The semi Changa, huh? is where you make a burrito and you fry only like the bottom 3rd half of

[14:58] it to make it crispy like a chimichanga. You wrap that in the paper and now the top is still soft like a burrito, right? And then you can eat the top like an ice cream cone because it's a burrito. And then when you get down to the bottom where it's crunchy, it's not so tall, so it's not going to explode and go flying all over your

[15:13] shirt, the semi-changa, you heard it here first. All right, now we will go to the break. We'll come back with questions for Brooks at 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. cooking issues.

[16:02] You'll only come by tonight. I mean, hug retire. Nothing you do, I've seen it here before. Watching the wedding Wish she's sitting with you But her eyes are on the door. So many a pain to see. What you think, you get it for free? The woman's wild, she can't tap by the public, I you want. Money is a matter. This is a public service announcement from Heritage radio network. Take a swig of Beer Sessions radio every Tuesday at 5 PM with Jimmy Carboni, the owner of Jimmy's number 43, and Ray Dieter, owner of DBA.

[16:53] Beer loving raconteurs offer toasts, share craft beer news, and swap anecdotes about their lives on the front lines of the craft beer movement.

[17:01] Again, Beer Sessions radio every Tuesday at 5 p.m. on the Heritage Radio Network. Welcome back to Cooking Issues with Nastasia and Brooks Headley of Del Posto, calling

[17:17] your questions to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. But I have a question in from, oh, I don't have any questions. Can you can you look up who came from, unfortunately? No, that's that's a chef. So the question, oh, Nick Philip. Hi, Dave and Nastasia, I currently go to Schoolcraft College, culinary school, and they are known here in Michigan for having quite a few master chefs. I'm assuming he's meeting certified MasterChefs. This title really mean much to most chefs or any of the other titles like certified executive chef, et cetera. And I would eventually like to work in New York restaurants, but from what I hear, it's hard to get into some of the restaurants without contacts. Do you have any tips? Thanks, Nick. Well, the school where you are, I believe, has Brian Poulsen, who's very well regarded charcuterie, chef, who also, I believe, happens to be a certified MasterChef.

[18:04] There aren't that many certified MasterChefs. There's only, I think, like 60 or 70 certified MasterChefs, and you have to go through a preposterous battery of tests to do it. And it was famously chronicled in that Roman book sold a chef, right? Wasn't that about certified MasterChefs? And I think, and, you know, Brooks will come in at any mini here, I think it's an amazing accomplishment to be able to pass all those tests, but I don't think

[18:29] it necessarily, I mean, in New York, It's more like, is your restaurant good? Where have you worked, right? Yeah, yeah, I mean, absolutely. It's all about, like, was your last dish good? Right, right. I mean, in other words, you, well, we have a caller, so we'll discuss this more after, after

[18:49] we take to call it, collar, you're on the air. Hi, um, I was just curious, do you have any tips for like avoiding cracks and cheesecakes? Oh, Brooks, when you bake them. Brooks, do you have any tips for avoiding cracks in cheesecake? Ah, that's a tough one. It depends on a lot of things, like, like, the temperature and obviously the, uh, whether you're cooking in a water bath or there's so many different, like, variations, uh, in terms of, like, the cracks, though, um,

[19:18] like, in, like, a classic, like, New York cheesecake or whatever. Yeah. It's, uh, no, it's, it's, it's, it's really, it's really, it's really, it's a really, I have, I have no specific, like, tips to, like, like, tell you, like, this is absolutely

[19:34] going to work because there's so many variations or variables. Well, the cracks happening because the top, like, sets and dries out too soon and then splits as it cools or when

[19:43] it's, like, what's causing the cracks? not a big cheesecake. Do you cook it in a water bath, by the way? I have not cooked in a water bath. When I make my cheesecakes, What always happens, I get a big crack and then I just cover it with cherries or something.

[19:57] Yeah, actually, that's what I do too. That makes sense, though, that the heat probably cooks it too fast and it doesn't know what to do, but just split. Or if it dries out a little bit on top from the oven. there's a moisture in there, I would assume it would get a little bit tougher, and then it might, it might, uh, split instead of giving. I'm not sure. Right, like, no, I mean, in like a, in like a still oven at home, like, you don't have any. I mean, you have one setting basically on, you know? Like, I mean, if you have like a, like, obviously we have super fancy, like, combi ovens and stuff, but you can adjust everything, you know? So like, technically I could probably get a cheesecake that doesn't crack, but... Oh, you mean like a convection oven? Or, yeah, I mean, like at the restaurant, we have, like, super fancy ovens that do all sorts of things, but... But the funny thing is, is like, if I was going to bake a cheesecake, I would just bake it in a still oven the same way that you would bake it at home. Yeah. And do it the 4 star way and just put some cherries on top. Okay. All right, buddy, if I think of anything, I might see McGee later this

[20:59] week and he thinks about those kinds of things a lot. So if I if I come up with anything, then I'll I'll mention it next week. Yeah, if anybody should know, be him. Oh, yeah. Well, anyway, thanks for the call. try and figure out some more stuff for you. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye. So back to this certified MasterChef thing, right? I mean, I definitely have respect that someone can accomplish it, but it's not necessarily gonna get them. I mean, a certified MasterChef is not like looking for a line job, right, on at a restaurant. Uh, no. That they're probably mainly working for larger institutions or teaching or... Yeah, I think mostly like when I hear about people with

[21:38] that, a title like that, they're either like, yeah, they're working for a school or they're, or they're like the corporate chef for like a big company or something, you know,

[21:46] so. Right. But it is a great achievement. So I'm not. No, no, of course. And as to, I would eventually like to work in New York restaurants, but from what I

[21:54] hear, it's hard to get into some of the restaurants without contacts. Do you have any tips? It definitely helps to have in the high-end restaurants. It definitely helps to have some human being that will vouch for you and say that you're a good worker. And I'm going to say something and then Brooks will tell me whether I'm right or wrong. But it's very compelling argument to write a bunch of times

[22:13] saying, I'm willing to come work for free to do whatever to be in your kitchen. And then, and I will work like a dog and expect nothing. And I will do it for free is a fairly compelling argument. No, no, it totally works. Especially like if you're relentless. Like, one letter like that, maybe you look at it like, ah, whatever. But if you get like 10 letters from the same person, like, eventually they stop being a crazy person. I mean, maybe up until a certain point they're a crazy person, but then you're like, well, maybe they're just really into it.

[22:42] And like, definitely, if you're relentless with it, and it can definitely get your foot in the door, so. Right, but you have to be willing to do whatever, work like a dog, right? Or just, or just basically show up and expect anything, you know, like, I mean, like, when we have trails or stodges come in, like, sometimes the nature of the day or whatever, they're just rolling chocolate truffles for like 4 hours, you know, so, and that's usually like a good gold standard or a litmus test, whatever,

[23:17] for like, if someone comes in and like rolls truffles really fast. And it's like, all right, what can I do next? Then you're like, oh, okay. Maybe this maybe this is a good person or whatever. And then sometimes people will just roll the truffles really slow and they'll be like, oh, is that

[23:32] your is that your 3rd tray? Like, no, it's my 1st and they're like really, like, then, you know, like, wow, what's going on here? Yeah. Yeah. But so what if they're one of those unfortunate people like me with hot hands and they're smearing all the? Um, well, we then we will move you into the walk-in freezer. It's a known thing for pastry people. Yeah, no, hot hands. It's a rough one, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Hot hands. Not much of a chocolate guy. Never have been. hands. It's not just looking at me like I'm a freak. This is not I'm not making this stuff up, Nastasia. So anyway, Nick, I hope that that helps you out and start making

[24:07] the list of places you want to work at and then just start piling emails on, but if you go to a culinary school, one of the main things of a culinary school is that there are people there who know

[24:16] chefs and I guarantee you there's someone there who knows someone who can get you vouched into a

[24:22] place, so you might not have to write a 1000 letters, but I would be prepared to do it if you have a particular place that you want to work.

[24:28] There are some places because their kitchens aren't very big, where they actually, it can be hard to get a stage even working for free, but usually if you pester them long enough, like Brooke says, you can make it in because, you know,

[24:42] they, uh, kitchen people seem to enjoy persistence. Yeah, no, of course. Like, it shows that you're, like, committed to the cause, which is exactly the kind of person that you want working for you in a kitchen

[24:55] as someone completely entirely committed,

[24:59] like, like a soldier without any question, you know? So. What percentage of the people who come in as a stod you think burn out? Um, I mean, like people that start as a stage or? Or in other words, like, yeah, people that really want to, you know, go the, you know, high-end

[25:17] perfectionist, fine dining, restaurant route, come in, do a stash, and then they're like, wow, this really wasn't what I thought I wanted. It wasn't what I thought. Oh, you mean like right off the bat? Yeah, a lot. A lot of people, yeah. Like, a lot of people would be like, I had no idea this is what it's going to be like, or, or, I mean, usually, like, I find for, like, for, for a lot of my staff, it comes at the end of the night, where, you know, they think of, like, working in, like, a fancy fine dining restaurant is, like, this very glamorous thing, but at the end of the night, like, you know, you're on your hands and knees, like, scrubbing out the low boy, like, and, and, especially for dessert people, like, every single other person in the entire

[25:58] restaurant is gone. So you're there basically by yourself scrubbing out the low boy and it might be like 2 in the morning. And that's, I find that that's like a crack, like a cracking point for people. Like, because they're like looking around and like they're just like, what is going on? They're like, this is bull crap. This is bull crap. I didn't, yeah, I thought I'd be making like beautiful cakes. Yeah. I went to college. What? Like, you get that a lot too, right? Someone who's like, like, I worked, like, especially people who have career changers, right? They're like, they don't feel like, do you ever have that happen? You have someone who's a career changer, comes in, doesn't feel like they should have to do all that? Um, every once in a while. I mean, I would say more in the past, like, in recent times, like, I think people seem to, like, kind of get, like, working in, I

[26:40] find out a restaurant is going to be pretty tough, so. I mean, but the idea is, though, is it, I mean, everything you do down to cleaning

[26:46] the, the, the low boy out is actually a, a quality thing in the end, right? It's like keeping the quality high. there's no, no, absolutely, yeah. I mean, so it's important. That's why like... Yeah, it's like cleaning out the low boy at the end of the night is probably more important than being able to like roll fondant to a certain thickness to make a wedding cake, you

[27:06] know, so. Right. So someone who's going to make it understands that there basically is nothing that's beneath them, right? I mean, there's No, nothing, nothing, nothing at all. Yeah. Yeah. See, if there's, if, if something's on the floor, grab them up and clean it up, you know. Right. So, uh, you know, I know Dave Chang complains a lot about um, the people coming out of cooking school nowadays saying that they're not willing to do all that stuff anymore, but you think that

[27:28] that's that's passing. I mean, it really, it depends. I mean, it depends on the person. Um, it's uh, it's almost like a case-by-case thing. Like, sometimes, sometimes you, you, you get people that are, like, just complete

[27:44] all-stars and, like, you're like, wow, where'd you come from? You came from space or something. And then every once in a while you get someone who's like really doesn't get it at all. But I would say for the most part, it's kind of like in the middle there. And another thing that people don't think about is, you know, you're going to a place, you're working for free, right? Which is, it's kind of crazy. Not that many, you know, with industries work that way, where you're

[28:08] working like a dog, getting yelled at, and doing it for free and long hours and many days a week, right? So, okay. Um, but on the other hand, the flip side is that, um, the restaurant's also putting an investment in you as well because you might mess up product, you take time away from the cooks who have to explain

[28:27] things. Is there, you see, that side of it too? Like, do you feel that you're actually giving them something? Yeah, I mean, like when, like, in the past, like, I, I, I mean, before I worked at Del Posto, I

[28:41] did that all the time. Like I would, I would work for weeks for free places or if I found a place that I, that I really wanted to be, I would do whatever I could to like just hang out there for work. I mean, yeah, I mean, if I could, like, log all

[28:57] the, like, free hours that I've worked in, like, the past 13 years or whatever, like, I could probably buy a house or something. In New York. Wow, that's rough. Any tips on how to get the most out of a stage? Um, honestly, it's just, uh, like, you can totally tell, after about an hour, if someone's, like,

[29:20] gonna be an all-star, and, like, they can, you just know, like, just the

[29:25] way, I usually just watch their hands. I think it's like a, I think I heard, um, like, Payard say that one time, like, like, just watch people's hands, like, if they, if they're constantly moving and constantly working, like, um, you know that they're going to

[29:40] be like a good, a good person to have on the team. So. Nice. All right. So should we take another commercial break or push this? Take a commercial break? All right, call in your questions too. 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128 cooking issues.

[30:12] In time for the world, love last episode. There's nowhere to go. Oh, no. You made your choice. Now it's up to me. To follow our gracefully. Though you hold the key, but baby. Whenever you call me, I'll be there whenever you want it. I'll be there. Whenever you need me. I'll be there. I'll be around. Knew just what to say. That's a new one, huh? I like that, Jack. Nice, Jack. Welcome back to cooking issues. You have another couple of minutes to call your questions in for us for Brooks at 718-497-2128. That 718-497-2128. Go for me. I just take care of issues. Well, what is it? Anastasia answered a question yet on the show? I don't know. We tried it. She sits there texting too much, so it's not. See, that's the thing. Like, here's the problem. Like, I'm like, I'm all nice, sweet, sugar and candy. Well, that's also true, but until someone tries to call me out, like, in a public situation, and then I'm just like, oh, really? The gloves are off. I hadn't realized that. All right. That's kind of where I'm at with Nastasia too. Wow. Oh. Anyway, we would love a, we've had a couple of nostalgia questions, right? like, are you single? What's your sign kind of thing? Wait, your sign has changed, right? Aren't you on the, didn't we talk about this? Yeah, same sign now. Oh, jeez. Let's not go by that. Oh my god. All right. So if you have a legitimate question that's not asking Nastasia for a

[32:15] date or about, I mean, you can ask her why she hates everything that she ate growing up or why she has such a conflicted relationship with, you know, the foods of Los

[32:24] Angeles. say her mother. You said that. Not me. Not me. Anyway, you're welcome to call him for a question for her. So Naveen Sinha wrote in and he's one of the TAs, he might be the lead TAZ. don't know. of the Harvard class that Faran did last year, Fran Adria. And I'm going to assist McGee actually on the 1st lecture of the New Year coming up in September, which should be fun. I don't know what I'm going to do there, but something maybe, you know, blow, blow, blow everyone up. Everyone thinks I'm going to go to places and blow everyone up. I've never blown up another person. You know what I mean? I've never blown up someone other than myself. Anyway, so Naveen writes in, says, hi, Dave, I'm fascinated by chocolate, especially transformation from the bitter seeds, the cacao tree,

[33:12] to a tasty chocolate bar that is a very interesting transformation. Are there any other foods that undergo a similar set of steps, fermentation, roasting, grinding? Also, do you know of any other tropical fruit seeds? It could become delicious through such a process. Thanks, Naveen. That's an interesting question. I mean, obviously coffee, right? Coffee goes through, you know, a similar set of procedures, quite literally, fermentation, drying, roasting, grinding, brewing. Um, and uh, vanilla goes through picking uh, fermentation, right? It's dipped in, usually in boiling water, uh, and then wilted and then fermented. So it's similar, and then I guess it can be ground to form a paste. But vanilla doesn't taste like vanilla until it goes through. It's, uh, it's pastes, um, to be fermented. In fact, the vanilla that's uncured is called red vanilla. You can get it. It's interesting, but it's not, it doesn't taste like vanilla. I don't know offhand, although I'm going to do some research because we're going to do a tropical food tasting in July. So we could do some tests, but I don't know of any other tropical fruit seeds other than those that go through these kinds of

[34:22] processes. Any, have you ever heard of anything that go, what else goes through that kind of, no, I mean, like, that, tea, tea leaves, right? Tea leaves go through a fermentation process like that. I mean, there's olives, but that's not fully like the same kind of process, but still have to be

[34:38] like processed to make them edible. Right. I mean, yeah, I mean, is that the thing is, is it just that, yeah, is it things that need to be processed to make edible? There are a lot of things like that, right? But I'd have to think more about it. It's an interesting question. I like the whole, like, I'm fascinated by how we figured out that, for instance, Aki fruit will kill you if you eat it unless the pods open up all the way and the fruit's right. Some dude must AccuFruit is, you know, the like kind of the national food in Jamaica. Aki, how would you say it? Is that the A-Q-C-A? A-A-C-K-E-E. Aki and Sawfish is like the classic, but you can only buy Kandaki here in New York as far as I know. I've never seen Fresh Aki. And um, But if you eat it, uh, and it hasn't opened up, it's poisonous. But if you and you shouldn't eat it all, apparently, if you're pregnant. Uh, but uh, acting saltfish is one of the Jamaican national dishes. So some dude ate like probably a whole tree's worth of ripe Aki, right? And was like, this dove is good. You know what I mean? And then like his buddy picked it too early and died. And it was like, oh, yeah, you know, don't do that. So anyway, I'm fascinated by this kind of stuff, Naveen. So we will look more into different things like this. And people call and write in with your various, you know, fermentation and deadly poison things. All right. So, uh, I think being posted this week on eater is gonna be our our burger extravaganza. Is that true, Nastasia? Yeah. Today. Today? So, um, So basically, eaters doing like a whole, they have some sort of like burger festival week, some

[36:14] crap. I don't know. Not crap. not crap. You know what I mean? Some burger festival, everything's crap. I say crap a lot. Anyway. And so they wanted some sort of fantabulous, fancy burger, but it turns out that the burgers that I typically like to make aren't that fancy. My favorite, one of my favorite burgers is patty melt. I think patty melt is delicious burger. Patty melt, for those of you not hip to patty melts, patty melt is rye bread, uh... It's gotta be rye bread, right? Yeah, rye bread. It's not rye bread, it's like a something else melt, right? It's like a grilled cheese with a burger slid inside. Right. I mean, it might be delicious, but it's not a patty melt, right? Right? Caramelized onions, Swiss cheese, and the whole thing, you cook the burger, and then you put it in and you cook it like a grilled cheese sandwich with the

[36:54] onions so the bread gets toasted with, you know, mashed with butter. Fantastic. I like mine with ketchup, delicious. So I did a slightly high-tech version of a patty melt where it was all pretty much traditional, except I cooked the burger low temperature in a

[37:09] ziploc bag in butter and made the burger thicker than it normally was. And I grilled it like a grilled cheese sandwich with the onions and then separated it and put the burger in

[37:18] between so the burger didn't actually get smashed, but the bread did. I thought it was good. I thought it was delicious. But Eater came back and they're like, listen, we wanted something wacky. We went to you not for something that doesn't taste good. We want something that's wacky. So then they had to go reshoot, something that was wackier. Is this true or false? True. Yeah. So I was like, all right, well, I wanted to keep some of the patty milk stuff. So I was like, okay, we're still going to use the rye bread. We're still going to do grilled cheese. But I'm going to add meat glued bacon sheets, right? So we, you know, we made the sheets out of bacon, laminate with meat glue, vacuum it down. And then we cut everything into rings so that it all looked perfect because we figured that was fancier and

[37:57] wackier. So the rye bread was cut into a ring. We then took Conte, which is like Gruyere, and cut it into a ring, and then the bacon sheets cut into a

[38:06] ring, and then so that was the basis of the grilled cheese sandwich. We didn't put the caramelized onions on at this time. So it was bacon Gruyere, all made like a grilled cheese sandwich. The burger, we also took pickle sheets and turned them like you would Japanese style with like a new Suba. Grace did, our intern Grace did that. And they cut that into a ring so that you had a ring shaped pickle that was the size of the burger, which was nice.

[38:25] And then for the burger to make it all fantabulously fancy dancy. We reduced veal stock down till it was really thick and

[38:33] beefy, and the gelatin was really, you know, very strong, added ketchup to it, added calcium,

[38:38] lactate, glucinate, right? Set it into a sheet, cut the sheets into rings, and then threw those into

[38:45] alginate. So that formed a layer around the gelatin. So now we have like a little hockey puck of beef, ketchup gelatin with a layer of algernate around. We chose algenet because it's a little bit tough. It's going to used to withstand this kind of rough handling and it's also heatproof. So then we built a burger around that, uh, around that sheet of, uh, of, uh, that like

[39:07] gelet, and then low temp, fried it to set it, low temp, cooked that in butter, and then roasted it over charcoal, to get a nice charcoal

[39:14] outside, put that in between. And when you cut the burger, it's like a soup dumpling. It explodes ketchup and veal stock all over the plate. And we did one without, when you do it with a bun, it like sprays out a little bit, kind of like when you take a cherry tomato and you bite it and

[39:28] like if you don't close your mouth when you do it, you spray your buddy, you know what I'm talking about? Anyway, kind of like that. But when we did it by itself, it was kind of like almost obscene. We, we just cut a burger and it was like, like shot up like a fountain, like the, like the, like the burger couldn't hold

[39:43] it and I'll put it that way. Okay. So, uh, so that's the, I don't know what they're going to use from that. I don't know what they're gonna use from that. Yeah. Anyway. But it's actually going to be online today. Well, supposedly. Is there a photo of it exploding? There's a video, so there might be... I mean, I would actually prefer, like, I'm a firm believer, and by the way, it goes back

[40:05] to when I was doing art for, you know, trying to do art for a living, and we're in cooking issues in an art show now. in an art show at Columbia. I just put a post up today on the blog, so you can go look at the post on the blog and see what we put into the art show, including something about our, you know,

[40:19] someone we met in California, Roy Fong, who owns the imperial tea court. does a lot of really interesting stuff with tea, including he's got, he's growing his own tea and a tea farm in California, which I think is really cool and unprecedented.

[40:29] Anyway. So, uh, uh, where are this going? Yeah, supposedly there's going to be a video. But when I was doing art, sometimes a good still photo is better than a video. Like if you just had like a sick still photo of the burger with the stuff shooting out of the top of it and you caught

[40:43] it like just as it was like in midair, like somehow that's more badass than the video of it happening. Because it's very hard. I mean, these guys are good, so I'm sure it's good. But like, for me, it was very hard to get videos that were as compelling as a good still shot.

[40:57] Like, I always preferred the one good still shot. Like take the video and then choose the one awesome still from it and put that up.

[41:04] I don't know. It's like, it seems to me, because then your mind fills in the rest of everything. You don't need you don't need the actual whole video a lot of times. This is my theory as when I was doing performance art anyway. So what else do we do last week, Nastasia? Martha last week? Yeah, why did you talk about that? Why don't you talk about it? Because apparently you don't, you know, you can't, you can't be bothered not to lean back in your chair and with the gangster leash. The Stach's got a serious gangster lean going on in the studio. Talk about it, dude. All right, so Martha Stewart. wanted a centrifuge. We bought her the damn centrifuge, and I fixed it, and then it was a nice one. I paid, I think like, I don't know, 300 bucks or something like that, which was her limit. on eBay. Yes, yes, she only wanted to pay $300 for this interview, which is like, you know, I've paid more for

[41:50] dinner, and she, that's what she wanted. anyway, whatever. So we bring it to her studio and she wants to learn about it. And the one we bring, when we show up, sucker literally breaks. I was like, you know, this happens with stuff that you get off of eBay. Like, even though I fixed one problem, there's another problem in the machine, and it turned out that it's a $900, it's a $900 problem to fix. So I was like, oh, man, crap. So we ended up taking, well, Nastasia, described the situation. We were both... was not pleased. Wow, this, that's all I got. That's all Stach was going to say. She was not pleased. Wow. All right. Yeah. And so basically I gave her... The hardest part is that you're like singing and laughing to yourself and talking to

[42:36] yourself. But what am I supposed to do? Sit there and look depressed because the machine is broken? Brooks. Am I supposed to look depressed? Tell me that. What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to? I don't have a hair shirt with me that I can put on? Puts a hair shirt? You know, it's with hair shirt. She says a woman who's not used to punishing herself. That's why she hasn't, you know, that's why she hasn't, you know, it's, you know, Catholic too. It's crazy. Anyway. So, yeah, you know, I didn't have something to beat myself with. I didn't bring like, you know, the, the, you know, the little small whip to like whip my back and apologize that the $300 centrifuge that we had spent hours

[43:15] fixing broke again. Take the check away. She did not threaten. She did not. She said, I'm going to need to get my money back, Dave. Do you remember that? No, you made that up. I did not hear that. You were singing. Well, thank God. Anyway, so I gave her a different centrifuge, and so hopefully she's happy with it because she has it now, right? Yeah, we haven't heard anything. I haven't heard of it. So hopefully she's happy with it, but now I'm stuck. What was she going to do with it? What's her plans for it? They thought she was going to make baby food. Because she just had a baby. She did not have a baby. For adoption. First of all, like, I don't know how much is his privilege. So here's talking about, like Martha listens. Martha, if you're listening, I'm sorry. This has been cooking issues.

[44:07] Vicious, fish, vodka. Oh, you did Thanks for listening to this program on the Heritage Radio Network. You can find all of our archived programs on HeritageRadioNetwork.com as well as a schedule of upcoming live shows. You can also podcast all of our programs on iTunes by searching

[44:32] Heritage radio network in the iTunes store. You can find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for up-to-date news and information. Thanks for listening.