[0:00] Broadcasting live from Roberta's in Bushwood, Brooklyn, you're listening to HeritageRadioNetwork.com.

[0:20] Hello and welcome to Cooking Your Shoes. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to your live. In the back of Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn, on the Heritage Radio Network. Joining the studio as always. Nastasio, Hammer Lopez. How you doing, sis? Fine, how are you? All right. Nastasia is trying to contact someone to set up one of our 8000000000 events. How many events do we have this? How many do we have today? Only one today. Yeah, but Bobby Flay's going to be at the bar at 6 filming. I know, but we won't be there. But you should be there. I'm going to be there. Our event starts at six. Mr. Tam right after this. But no one knows what we're talking about. No, just letting you know. Nastasia's like, and my and my brother Phil, he was, no, no one knows who we're talking about. Mr. Tam is the contractor at the new booker in Dak space. I mean, nice to speak on the air, you know, can't wait 15 minutes to tell me off the air. It's okay. 15. 15. We go on break every 15 minutes. Also joined with Jack. Intrepid Jack. How you doing, brother? good. Good, calling all your questions live too, 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. I missed you guys last week because I was in Germany and we couldn't get the scheduling going with the, you know,

[1:28] because I was actually, I think, teaching something or doing some sort of judging during the actual radio program.

[1:33] But had a good time in Germany. didn't get to have any really good, solid, real German, German food because I didn't have time to go out to any kind of good restaurants, which is not, I went out to good restaurants. I didn't go out to like a hardcore German German restaurant. I love German food. You like the German food? German food? Oh, you know why? Because it's hearty. You love some hardy, hardy food. Um, did, it was interesting. The contest I was judging was for a Havana Club, which, you know, is a rum. There is a Havana Club rum here in the United States, but it's not the actual Havana Club. The actual Havana clubs made in Havana, and therefore we can't get it in the United States, which is kind of an irritant. But, you know, they got to straighten that crap out. how long can we hold a grudge against those guys? I mean, it's been like, it's been like what? Like, uh, see, 40, 50, like 50 years almost? 50? 50 freaking years? We been holding a grudge against these guys? I mean, I don't really care about the cigars one way or the other, but it would be nice to get the rumen. You know, you can take planes there, apparently, now much more easily than you did before. You don't need to like pretend. It used to be to take a plane from Cuba. There was like 2 planes a day or something like that, and you had to pretend that you were a journalist or some sort of crazy nonsense, but apparently now it's okay. Uh, spend a good deal of time when I was in Germany with uh, Ryan. I'm not going to pronounce his last name right. He's another C last name from London, so I can pronounce Connell Yaro for some reason, I can do that. But Ryan's last name from the Worship Street Whistling Shop. Used to work with Tony, actually, Tony C at 69. Ready? Chete, Chete, ya wardana. Whoa. It's hardcore. Even he says he can't pronounce his name properly. And check this out. He's doing some interesting stuff. like he's, you might know some of the bar stuff. he's doing because he has a balloon and then he has like a lemon, I think, essence sprayed on. He then, like, lights a string, the balloon flies up in the air and explodes over your head, like as he serves you to drink. Int interesting stuff. He's aging aging drinks with radioactivity. He's like handing him to, you know, people who are, I guess, doing radiation experiments either for food or for medicine and, you know, nuking the hell out of stuff to see whether he can accelerate it. interesting stuff. I look forward next time in London to go to the bar. Anyways, so what was I talking about? Just talking about Ryan. Is that right? Oh, anyways, check this out. Dude's from dude's family. I mean, he's, you know, he's British, right? Dude's family from Sri Lanka hates spice. Says he is like a complete pariah at family gatherings. Like black pepper is too spicy for him. It's messed up, huh? Messed up. Anyway, we were talking roto app because he's got roto apps coming out of his ears, as most people tech people in London, dude. We going to get the new road of app? We might get a new road of app. That's just 2 hours emailing. Really? Nice. Anyway, let's start... Oh, we're going to wrote of that stuff in Japan. Nastasia and I are going to Japan in how long? Like 3 weeks? Yeah. Anyways, we're gonna roto that stuff there? Oh, man, it's gonna be a freaking nightmare. All right. see how it works. Okay. First in from Bjorn, in Sweden, in Umea, I guess is how you pronounce the name, right? Because the A with the little dot over the top is all, which means river, I

[4:34] think, in Swedish. Question on wild game. Hi, David, my name is Bjorn and I am a chef in the north of Sweden. I have a problem when I, Brian, Wild game, especially reindeer and Lagapus, which is what they call grouse, Lagapus. good one I normally do a solution between 4 and 10% with normal salt, sodium chloride. But when I cook the meat in low temp, I get a gray line around the meat. Maybe 2 or 3 millimeters, depending on the time and the percent of the solution. It seems that the line gets more present on darker meat, especially when you cook low temperature. With normal frying and cooking, it's harder to see. If I use nitrates to get a pink line, I get a pink line, I don't want to do that. I've done some testing using ascorbic acid and citric acid with no result. What can I do best regards Bjorn? Okay, now listen, this is actually a big, a big problem in general. One of the reasons that we don't recommend, uh, salting pre-salting on a lot of low temperature meat. We're brining, for that matter, is it changes the texture of the meat as it's cooked over a

[5:29] long, a long period of time. But, um, color also can be uh, quite, quite affected. In fact, the color of meat is due in large part to the state of myoglobin, which is one of the proteins, you know, in the

[5:44] meat, as it's cooking. So there's three, you know, there's many actually, but there's, you know, some of the main kinds of myoglobin that we deal with are deoxymyoglobin, which is what something looks like inside of a vacuum bag.

[5:56] That's myoglobin with kind of no oxygen bound to it. There's, um, oxymyoglobin, which is the bright pink red color you get from what we associate with kind of fresh meat.

[6:06] And then there's met myoglobin, which is basically a reduced form of it's like, you know, it's a different iron oxide that gives it kind of the brown, brown color. Now, Salting, right, affects several of these things. First of all, when you cook meat low temperature. When you cook meat in a vacuum bag, 1st of all, you're cooking with you're reducing the oxygen compound so much that you get a lot more deoxymyoglobin than you would under normal circumstances.

[6:34] And that takes a long time to denature it. It actually denatures slower, under heat than either oxymyoglobin or met myoglobin does. So that's why, in low temperature meets, also, the slower you heat it, the less the, any kind of myoglobin denature. So that's why in low temperature cooking, especially in high vacuum vacuum bag cooking, you can get kind of very kind of pink

[6:55] results, even at higher temperatures, because you're not going to, and also when you cut the meat, it's going to cherry up and get this bloom because you're not going to get denature as much of the myoglobin as you would otherwise.

[7:06] Now, salting does 2 things. It increases the rate of met myoglobin, which is brown kind of production, right? And it also increases the rate at which myoglobin is denatured and takes on a cooked look.

[7:20] So, like, by a lot, by more than double. Uh, and, and that effect is more pronounced at lower temperature cooking than it

[7:28] is at higher temperature cooking. So the study to look at here is, um, it's fun. the effect of muscle type, salt, and pH on cooked meat, hemoprotein formation in lamb and beef, which came out in 1999.

[7:43] And so it's just, it's right there. You can read it. It's the adding salt rapidly increases the rate at which myoglobin is going to get denatured. That effect is going to be magnified at low temperatures. And so having the salt in there is going to give you more of a cooked color and give you a line, a color line in that

[7:59] meat that there's really kind of no way around. But one of the good news is, is that you might not need to brine your meat as

[8:07] much, or at all, really, if you're doing low temperature cooking, because you don't need to protect the meat against overcooking. Now, if you're doing it for flavor, that's one thing, but, you know,

[8:18] you know, not going to affect it. Another problem is, is let's say you were going to marinate for flavor, use a brine like an acid. The lower the pH. Also, uh, the, uh, faster the hemoglobin is going

[8:29] to, um, faster the, uh, sorry, the myoglobin is going to denature. So you can't win by putting an acid in. You can't win necessarily by putting an antioxidant in like you did. It's just one of the things. If there's salt there and you're low temperature cooking, you're probably going to see a line to the extent that salt is soaked into the meat.

[8:48] So that's all there is to it. They did in that study, which you should look at. They also tested to see whether they're adding fat, change the rate, maybe to help you out. It did not. They also added polyphosphates, soy proteins, casing, and none of these things had any effect on the rate of myoglobin

[9:05] denatration, which is, I believe, what's causing the problem. Uh, so that's uh, that's that. What do you think? Also, salt can increase the rate of lipid oxidation. Can will increase the rate of lipid oxidation in meat. Anywho, caller, you're on the air. Hey, Dave, Nastasia and the rest. How you guys doing? Doing all right. What up? Hey, um, before I ask my question, I want to say, uh, thanks for the

[9:28] next stimilization, uh, thing on your blog I made, uh, corned beef tacos for St. Patrick's Day with, uh, rye tortillas. It was awesome. Oh, I love the rye tortillas with corned beef. That's sweet. That's a great idea. They were good? They were awesome. grinding it, of course, is a problem. I tried, you know, a mortar and pastelone. didn't work. What I ended up doing was uh, just putting all the rye berries in a blender with enough water to make a puree out of it, and then I added just enough of

[9:56] that uh, maseca. Uh, to thicken it back up again, but still had tons of rye flavor, and the, the texture was so great. Even fried, you know, for crunchy tacos, had just a great, great chew to it. I think that's a great idea, adding the mistake of back, because really, the only reason that you need the hardcore grinding, um, you know, implements like

[10:16] the corona, which doesn't even work that well, or like, you know, the, the, um, the really, you know, the big professional

[10:22] jobs, is because to grind it at home in a processor or blender, you really need to add more water than you can to make a

[10:29] tortilla. But adding the Maseca back is genius way to get around that. And I think, you know, well within the bounds of, I mean, like, mistake, like, as much as I gripe about it in the, in the article, it's not a,

[10:43] it's a, it's not a horrible product. It's just, and it sounds like it's a, man, it sounds like a great plan. I'm glad that worked. I might do that from now on, make my life easy. I hate using that corona grinder. Yeah. Hey, how'd your rum talk out? Oh, rum talk went, well, I, uh, you know, I was, I didn't talk about it. When I was in Germany, I was supposed to be talking about and was talking about the effect of yeast on

[11:04] distillation because everyone who does homebrewing kind of knows that yeast really affects, like what yeast you use affects the flavor of the beer that comes out, but a lot of people don't think about it when it applies to distilled beverages.

[11:16] So what I did was I took the same crappy Whole Food molasses. It wasn't crappy, whatever. I't mean to insult it, although it was crappy. And then, um, took 3 identical batches, pasteurized them

[11:26] all, and pitched uh, 2 different yeast into it, and then did it at 2 different temperatures to show the effects that the yeast does.

[11:33] And the yeast is, I mean, the a huge majority of the flavors that are produced in a lot of distilled beverages, the esters, the fusel oils, all

[11:41] these, all the conjurers that we think about, with the exception of just pure molasses aroma or

[11:45] canaroma, come from the yeast. And so I think it was really kind of an eye opener to some people to see, you know, kind of how important particular yeast strain

[11:53] is, which is why people are kind of proud of it. But have you ever visited a distillery? When you visit distilleries, they never talk about their yeast, they go right past, they maybe they let you taste the fermentation, they show it to you, but they don't make a big deal out of it. The way they make a big deal about their stills or the way they make a big deal about the raw materials that go

[12:09] in and it's really kind of a vital thing. So the talk went well, in other words. Yeah, I used to be a head distiller at a run distillery, and we did a lot of experimenting with, uh, we were doing like fermenting with German

[12:20] heefe vies and yeast and, uh, you know, uh, British, uh,

[12:25] fruity, British ale yeast at high temperatures to try to get different character, and they were just wildly different. uh, not only just the flavors, but the distillates themselves, we're just, you know, one would be just full of

[12:36] acetone and the next one would have virtually none. So it was really interesting. Huh, are you allowed to say who you used to do still with? Uh, it's a rum distillery in New Orleans, called the celebration distillation. We make New Orleans drum and uh, yeah, we even tried, we, we found this dry yeast that's uh, isolated off of Guatemalan sugarcane, and it was, you know, to make the rum agricole, and it was, just so

[13:01] phenolic and plasticky that no matter how tight of a cut we did it. It was just really too much. But it was fun experimenting with all that. Yeah, I mean, the tough part, I guess, is like, you know, I was talking to the Havana Club guys, and, you know, they, um, you know, they make a big deal about getting their own yeast off the off the cane that comes out of the

[13:20] field then, but then they need to be consistent, and that's the big pain in the butt. That's why you can't go totally wild on this stuff and why no one, you know, none of the big players can go totally wild because if they go totally wild, there's no way they're

[13:31] going to get a consistent product out of it. So then they're put in the position of kind of propagating a particular yeast strain over the course of years, which then becomes, you know,

[13:39] difficult, I guess. I mean, I don't they don't talk about that aspect of it. They make a big deal about their yeast coming from, you know, their area being kind of endogenous to their area, but they

[13:50] don't, uh, are indigenous to their area, but they don't, um, you know, they don't talk much about how it's, you know, kind of kept as a culture over time or kind of how many strains of yeast there are in it, you

[14:00] know? Yeah. So, um, my question is, I'm, uh, I'm looking to start a small craft soda business, and um, I've got a lot of good recipes already, like a ginger habanero

[14:13] soda, and a cucumber Thai basil soda, and my question is, uh, you know, with a lot of the, like the cucumber and watermelon, I mean, it tastes

[14:22] awesome, and the color's beautiful, but if it sits overnight, all the particulate matter settles

[14:27] out. Right. So what do I need to add, to add? is it like guargum or something like that? Is there anything, because I want this to be as, you know, natural as possible. Is there anything that's not going to scare people off to see it on the uh the label? of a. So you want to keep the stuff suspended? Yeah. Well, I mean, you can add, I mean, I mean, the problem is, is that anything that's going to keep it suspended is going to also, I mean, obviously you're going for kind of low levels of carbonation.

[14:59] Otherwise, you're going to get massive foam out anyway with the particular matter that's in there, but there's, you know, you probably don't want to move to something like a PGA

[15:07] Pectin. I mean, certain pectins would do the job suspending. I mean, that's what I spend most of my time obliterating pecked and to try and desuspend everything that's in it. You know what I mean? So depending on the particle size that you have, I mean, if it's stuff that'll pass through a coffee filter, for instance, it can easily be suspended with pectin. Now, the next, you know, thing down is you could, I mean, I wouldn't want to go in a soda because I don't like what happens to the body of it, but, uh, you know,

[15:32] are you suspending big things or small things, like big pieces of herbs or like just it just... Yeah, like I'll juice a cucumber and strain it out through a fine strainer

[15:42] and, you know, mix maybe like a Thai basil tea in with it. And, uh, but just all, you know, it's, it's, the particles are, are, big enough, I guess,

[15:54] where, are small enough where they'll go through a fine mesh strainer. Right. And, and it'll, it'll be in solution for a day, but, you know, if I'm serving this in draft, you know, it's all going to settle to the bottom of the keg.

[16:07] Oh, so you're not, you're not bottling it. You're just putting it in a keg. Just, yeah, I'm going to just do Cornelius kegs and, you know, sell it as a kind of an alternative to craft beer for people who are, you know, trying to, you know, sober up at the end of the night or just people who like, you know, interesting sodas, but, you

[16:25] know, Right. I mean, one thing to do is you treat it. I mean, obviously, you know, you're a distiller in a brewery, treat it like a beer and racket, but do you like the flavor of it better before with the particles in it? Do you like the look and flavor of the particles or you want to try and think of a way to get rid of the flavor of the particles? I mean, you could just go a wine finding route, racket, and then get that all of that stuff out of there and be left with a clear, clear soda, in which case you could up the volumes of CO2 that you pump into it as well and get more of a bite out of it from a CO2 standpoint.

[16:55] You know, the flip route is to try and stabilize it. I would guess if you want a really good label declaration with something like that. This is just a straight up guess because I hadn't haven't thought about it is some form of pectin. Um, you know, similar to, I mean, like, think about all the crud that's sitting in grapefruit juice, and that stuff is totally stable. Do you know what I mean? And it's basically because of pectin. Um, you know, and other suspended kind of plant, uh, you know, matter in there. hemicellulose infection. So I would bet you could get some sort of stabilization that way. Um, I haven't researched, particularly what product, but like, you know who would what you would talk to on that is the guys at CP Kelco. CP Kelco, they make all of the, um, you know, they're like the pectin people. Um, and so, you know, and they're fairly helpful. So they would probably have some sort of product that you could use. If you want to go like a straight hydro route. I mean, the good thing about pectin, fantastic label declaration, you could just say what it comes from,

[17:49] like citrus, citrus peel or apple pomace or whatever in the hell. you know what I mean? But, um, and then the other people who I would talk to on stability. And CP Calco also handles some of the other stability stuff. I mean, FMC biopolymer, they handle a lot of the beer stuff, but I don't think you want to go, like I said, PGA, like

[18:08] propylene glycolalgenate, all that stuff, kind of head stabilizers for beer and things like that. I don't think you want to do that. And I don't think you want to add so much body because it's going to be a real huge problem on foam out to do something like a gum Arab

[18:18] Xanthan mix, which is what we use as our main emulsifier. Now, Gum Arabic is a good emulsifier and might hold stuff in, I don't

[18:25] know, though. It's not really a thickener. You know what I mean, but that was used to stabilize soda emulsions, but I don't know that it's going to stabilize stuff from sinking.

[18:35] It's more of an emulsifier in case you had fats and oils in it. You know what I'm saying? Uh, then TIC gums, uh, you know, they're pretty good and they spend a lot of time thinking about label declarations and they might have a good way to go. You know, Scott Reeffler's their guy out on the west coast, and I don't know, I don't remember who is here on the east coast, but they have a lot of proprietary blends, which are, you know, might be a monetary issue for you if

[18:59] you were a huge producer, but, you know, if you're not a huge producer, then the cost is going to be negligible based on the fact that you're juicing fresh cucumbers.

[19:06] You know what I mean? So, um, so I would hit up CP Kelco, see whether they have a pectin product for you. I would hit up TIC gums and see whether they have a straight up stabilization, and then as a last resort, I would go to FMC biopolymer. All right, I'll look into those. Any, uh, I remember before in a previous show, you had talked about, uh, like coriander and green Thai chili soda or

[19:28] something, if any other interesting flavors, you could, uh, throw my way. Oh, I don't know. Well, really expensive ones, but that one's good. In fact, we're using that one tonight. We're making a drink. We doing a lucky rice event tonight, and we're doing we're making an old-fashioned with that coriander syrup. You know, in general, for us at Booker and Dax, we like to stock one or 2 syrups around that are dual purpose, so I

[19:47] can, we can use the coriander fun old-fashioned, and then I can also make a soda out of it. You know what I mean? So like we always have, you know, I always have a clarified lime juice sitting around so we can always make a lime soda if we needed to. Um, you know, obviously, but, you know, the stuff that the Nastasia and I have done in the past before we had a bar, uh, has been extraordinarily expensive stuff, like straight strawberry juice and raspberry juice, you know,

[20:11] turn into a soda. Delicious. Remember that one it does? Straw buncle soda? Yeah, that stuff's amazing. Fantastically expensive though. I don't know what you'd have to charge someone to serve that as a soda. You know what I mean? I mean, I'd have to charge like mixed drink prices or more even. And then people would be like, I'm paying 14 bucks for a freaking soda. like, well, there's 2 pints of blueberries in it. What do you want out of me? You know what I mean? Yeah, I'm looking to do kind of like similar prices to a pint of beer, you know, 354 bucks for a pint of, you know,

[20:38] craft soda. Right. So you want to stick with stronger flavors that you don't have to put as much in and then have the majority of what goes in be water. Exactly. Exactly, exactly. All right, thank, uh, do you have time for 11 question? and then we got to go to a break. Okay, um, I was wondering about uh, Parities and Digest, Steve. Um, do you think that it really works? Is alcohol good for, does it impe- impede digestion and uh, or does it stimulate digestion or

[21:10] is is basically alcohol bad for digestion? And if you have any favorite Paritis and Tai Testifs? Huh. I've never thought of that. Whether it actually doesn't, because I discount all health claims in general for everything at all times. So I've never actually thought about it, but I'm sure someone has done the study of kind of rate of digestion and alcohol consumption both before and after.

[21:32] What do you like to have before a meal? Do you like, you like it? You don't really do that kind of stuff, right? I mean, I like Campari. Yeah, that's true. I like a Campari beforehand. And afterwards, I, you know, I don't, I don't go for like the,

[21:46] like, upset stomach pound some for net afterwards or, like, you know, the late night for net shot that all the bartenders go for, but I don't know. I haven't thought about it. I'm going to think about that one though and come back. In fact, if you send a question to Nastasia for next week's radio show, I'll try to remember to do some actual research on alcohol and digestion,

[22:03] all right? Okay, thanks, man. All right, thank you. All right. Hey, Jack, you want to go to our 1st commercial break? Yep. Let's do it. Oh, turn me on.

[22:20] Bump, bump, bump, baby, bump, bump, bump. You get it. We'll

[22:30] bounce on. It's all right.

[22:38] music my bad now.

[22:54] Bub, bub, bub, bub Bootsie. Oh, hell yeah, Jack. That was a good call. What album is that? Uh, I'll check it out in a minute. I not sure what album it's from. Bootsies rubber band. Hell yes. I love Bootsie. You know, Boots, he's still playing. Still out there with the star colored bass and the star shaped glasses. Amazing dude. Stretching out in Bootsie's rubber band. That's the album, yeah. I tell you something. If you don't like Booty Collins, you just have some severe problems with you. Like, your butt's broken. Your funk motor is busted. You need to turn that son of a bitch on and go out and listen to some bootsie. Anyway, today's show is brought to you by Chris? Who's it brought to you? Tell it, Today Show is brought to you by Modernist Pantry. You're back. We love you. We missed you. We missed you, modernist pantry. Supplying innovative ingredients for the modern cook. Do you love to experiment with new cooking techniques and ingredients, but hate to overspend for pounds of supplies when only a few grams are needed per application? Modernist pantry has a solution. They offer a wide range of modern ingredients in packages that makes sense for the home cook and enthusiast, and most costs only around 5 bucks. Saving you time, money, and storage space. Whether you're looking for hydrocoloids, pH buffers or even meat glue, you'll find it at modernist pantry. And if you need something that they don't carry, just ask. Chris Anderson and his team will be happy to source it for you with inexpensive shipping to any country in the world. There's got to be some country he won't chip to. Maybe. Hey, listen, here's a challenge. All you suckers out there, go try to come from a country that he will not shift to. There got to be something. Cuba. Zimbabwe. We'll talk about that later. Okay, if we have time, we'll talk about our Zimbabwe trip later. Anyway, oh, whatever. anyway, we'll talk about it. All right. Within expensive shipping to any country in the world. Modest pantry is your one-stop shop for innovative cooking ingredients. Modernist pantry carries, versa whip, 600 K, a modified soy protein, which is a great replacement for egg whites and gelatin and whipped applications like meringue, mousse, and other

[24:45] hotter cold foams. Fans of cooking issues that place an order of $25 or more before next week's show, we'll get a free package of versa whip to play with. Simply use the promo code CI 81 when placing your order online at modernestpantry.com. Visit modernistpantry.com today for all of your modernist cooking needs. So there are several versa whips out there. And as they say, versa whip is a, it's either a soy protein or actually a milk protein, whey protein. There's 2 different ones, soy one and a whey one. And they function slightly different. I guess, you know, Chris is selling the soy one. If you're using verse whip for the 1st time, the other good whipping agent that a lot of us use is

[25:24] methocell F, like Frank 50 is a good whipping agent, it's different. Proteins are whipping agents because they're large, charged, and they're large and in charged. anyway. And so they they're good at aerations and whipping agents. And, well, actually, foam stabilizers. That's actually it's not really a whipping agent, they're foam stabilizer, and I guess

[25:44] I could be a whipping agent. But you might want to add some solids, also increase whipping when you're going. Another thing about versa whip. Versa whip can be weird. In other words, like when you're whipping an egg white, it kind of lifts up kind of like slow and steady. Versa whip, you can whip it for a while, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, bang. you have a foam. So if you buy it, just be aware that that is it might happen and don't give up right away when you're whipping stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Steven writes in from Moscow with, remember he was moving to Moscow? Yeah. And, uh, with water for coffee. That sounds like a book. water for chocolate? Oh, yeah. But water makes much more sense for coffee than for chocolate. Right? Anyway. Hello, love lifting into the show, listening for a long time. Wanted to follow up on equipment issues I called in a few weeks back. I live in Moscow and the water is absolutely horrible. That's too bad. Too bad. I usually get bottered, our water here is good. That's me. That's me. That's mean. Anyway, that's mean. Anyway, I usually get bottled mineral water shipped in, but I want to go for an under the sink filter. The local bottled water is not too bad and has an okay taste as everything's not filtered out of it. The big coffee head that I am. I need to have something to play with, water wise, filter wise. So see that filters seem to clean out most of the crud, the filters that he that he finds that seem to clean out most of the

[27:00] crud, tend to be reverse osmosis filters. But at least from what I hear, the water tastes really bad out of an reverse osmosis, a.k.a. an RO machine, because it filters out almost everything. But it's on RO machine, really, the only way to go, well, the basic multi filter system

[27:15] work for me, any specific processes that you would recommend brands, et cetera. Okay. Keep up the good work and let us know when you're heading to Moscow. Stasi was almost going to go to Moscow like 2 years ago. What the hell happened? The storm. Oh, no, no, no. It was Iceland. volcano erupted, right? Yeah, and then, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then no one would fly over that thing. And so she's like, meh, meh. It's typical, right? You were like, you were like, resign yourself to it. You're like, that's it. Because, you know, as those of you that, no, Nastasia is the curious mix. Well, not really half Russian. Like, quarter quarter Russian, quarter Ukrainian, but we call it Russian, no offense, Ukraine. And half Mexican. So she's trying to see whether she can go to Russia and also deny that half of her existence.

[27:56] I'm just messing with it. Just messing with her. Anyways. The problem with reverse osmosis is that it takes out almost everything in it and coffee needs to have some mineralization in order for it to taste good.

[28:08] So there's a couple different things you could do. You could go, uh, RO, and then use, actually mineralize it afterwards. And I didn't have a chance to look up. There's some companies that will sell kind of, um, kids where you can kind of remineralize the water. That said, I don't know what's in the water in Moscow that makes it taste bad. At my house,

[28:29] you know, even in New York, we have a decent water supply. The particular pipe that mine comes through occasionally is chlorinated. And so I filter all of my water for coffee and I use a multi-stage filter. You want to go a big filter first. you know, when I say big, I mean, you know, somewhat porous, and it's going to capture most of the stuff that will clog the later filter. And they have filters that, you know, so they'll have filters that'll take down almost everything down to cysts and tiny little

[28:57] things, but they'll also remove almost all of the flavor out of it as long as the water is safe to go. The issue with those filters is, is that when you add multiple

[29:05] systems filters in a house system, you are decreasing the pressure coming through it by a lot.

[29:11] And so you want to make sure that you get enough pressure through it. You want to make sure you change your filters. I use the GE home water stuff. I don't know whether it's sufficient for what's going on in Moscow. Or you could have an alternate problem is that the water is not just bad tasting,

[29:26] right? Or, you know, it has problems, but is also too mineralized, in which case you need to demineralize

[29:32] it and then remineralize it somewhat. But I totally agree with you. Reverse osmosis system is not the way to go. I'll, you know, send us back some more parameters about what actually your problem with the water is over

[29:43] there, and I'll take a look and see whether or anyone else who has some experience with some real hard water places and coffee maybe can write us in and tell us what they

[29:49] use. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. Tom Fisher writes in about gum syrup. Hello, Dave, Anastasia, Jack, and Carlos Carlos is not with us anymore, brother. Carlos doesn't like us anymore. Jack, what are you going to do? He's around. But he is working at a hotel. I think he's delivering meals as a room service or something like that? specifically because he hated us at the radio show. I think specifically because he hated Nastasia. Wow. Hardcore. You should see the faces that Nastasia shoots off at the people. crazy. won too many vegan faces, I think. Yeah, you know, we have people here, like they're eating their pizza. Nastasia gives them the look out the window. They just push the pizza to the side. They can't eat anymore. They leave. It's crazy. Anyway, Tom Fisher writes in. Recently, I've been given a book of cocktail recipes and glancing through it, one ingredient kept jumping out at me. an old book, I guess. Gum syrup. Confused. I looked up several classic recipes, drinks that normally have sugar sugar syrup added, but in this book, all these drinks call for gum syrup. I have the ingredients on hand, so I don't necessarily mind making the syrup, but is there any need to do so? Does the gum Arabic really make a difference? Also, in searching for a recipe for gum syrup, I found half a dozen different versions. What do you recommend? Thanks and hoping you're having fun in Germany, Tom Fisher. Okay. Uh, for those of you that don't know what we're talking about, gum syrup is uh, gum syrup is where you, instead of just making a regular simple syrup, uh, which is just sugar and water, you add a boatload of

[31:12] gum Arabic to it, right? Now, I would add as much as you kind of can, right? Within the realm of poorability. The interesting thing about gum Arabic, is other than the fact that it comes from tree sap,

[31:23] is, or if it comes from tree, it really comes out of tree. And the fact that, you know, for a while, there's problems with it because it was coming from an area in Sudan and maybe you were supporting terrorism and or genocide by buying

[31:32] it. I think that's been fixed now. I'm not sure. Anyway, I shouldn't say stuff like that. like, you're kind of like off the cuff as though like, because it sounds horrible. I think they might have fixed those problems. Anyways, gum Arabic is really cool because unlike most hydrocolloids, which are long chains, right? Uh, uh, gum Arabic is very highly branched in a similar way to a millipect and is very highly branched. And so it's a very kind of large weight hydrocolloid polymer, but is also, you know, not too thick, even in kind of very heavy solutions. It also has a protein in it that acts as an emulsifier, which is why it was used for a long, long time, or still is used, while

[32:11] it's expensive, to stabilize soda syrups that have some oil in them because it also has the really cool capacity that it holds its emulsifying capabilities, even when it's diluted radically and quickly, which is why it's great for things like soda syrups.

[32:26] It also adds body, which is why it's in these drinks. So it's an emulsifier, which means it's going to, in a shaken drink, It's going to make the bubbles hold longer and it's going to get a better texture on it. Um, and that's basically why it's there. I'd say it's worth it. I've never experimented exclusively with straight gum syrup, uh, but we use a mixture of gum Arabic and xanthan called tickoloid 210 S for all of our emulsified fat

[32:51] drinks like cold butted rum, uh, in all of our housemade orjas that we have. We have like a walnut orja, we have a pistachio orja, we have a toasted almond orja that we do at Booker and

[33:00] Dex, and we use this Tickleoid 210. We also have, we never put it on the menu, but we do it for one-offs. We have basically what we call tick syrup, or tick simple. And it is a mixture of gum Arabic and Xanthan. And it's basically like a modern day gum syrup. And when you shake it into a daiquiri, let's say, you get kind of a, it's a different mouth feel. So half the people really love it, half the people prefer regular simple syrup in it. And so it's hard to say it's not better or worse. I think it's creamy and it kind of gets a better head, more foamy. I kind of like it. Do you like the tick simple or do you like the regular better? Do you remember? don't remember. You remember, like, but it splits along lines. So I would definitely recommend making some and trying, and we should do some regular good old-fashioned comes here. But if you're going to do it, freaking do it right at a boatload of gum Arabic, right? I mean, like, don't sissy around with it. It's expensive though. Maybe one reason not to. Anyway, hope that helps. Uh, okay. Should we take one more and then we take a commercial break? We don't have time for commercial break? I going to rip this stuff through. rip through this. Teddy DeVico wrote in about the foie gras band in California. I'm curious to hear your opinions on the upcoming foie gras band in California. The way I see it is that animal rights activists are just choosing a battle they can win, so they game momentum to tackle the real criminals like Purdue, Tyson, etc. I enjoy foie gras and personally think banning all foie gras in California's ludicrous. However, some foie gras producers do treat their ducks and geese horribly. But then again, the same goes for chicken, pork, beef, etc. The government should send out inspectors to approve of farms before they are allowed to sell their products. And also they should check up on the farms on at least a yearly basis to make sure the animals are treated humanely. Teddy DeVico. Um, Well, I you know, I don't really know. Here's a problem, right? And I'm going to, like, everyone's going to jump down my throat now. I going to be an outcast in in the in the chef world. I'm like, I like foie gras fine, but I could really live without it. I mean, like, you know what I mean? Like, most of my friends, you know, like, if you, you know, take away their foie gras, like taking, you know, taking the guns away from an NRA member,

[35:00] like, they freak out. You know what I mean? But I don't think it's reasonable for me to decide like what I think is right or wrong just based on whether or not I really personally care about it that much. Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, I do like a hot, hot foie gras. You know, like nice. I like I like it. I like it fine. It's not my favorite freaking thing on earth. What about you, Stas? Yeah. And thanks for taking the bullet with me. I like that. See, stars, you know, stars, for all the crap we give stars. She is loyal, right? is true. Yeah, anyway. Did you try the foie gras donut last night? I didn't, no, I didn't. Was it good? I don't know. Someone said it was, they thought it was going to be like a cream, like foie gras cream inside, but it was just straight foie gras. Really? Really? Was it good? They did not like it. Yeah, doesn't sound good. I did not try it. I did not try it. I do not know. Anyway, I heard someone else who tried it. They said that they liked it, though, and their foie gras was more like a moose on the inside. Hey, we're not here to talk about it. Anyway, foie gras. So, um, I really don't know where I stand on this. You know, I believe that we should, you know, I eat meat, obviously. I think we should move towards humane methods of production in

[36:05] all in all forms of farming, you know, to the greatest extent possible. The question is, I think the real, there's 2 things, right? There's one is that, you know, I don't like anyone being forbidden

[36:21] to do something or search something that they want to serve in their restaurant, but there needs to be a limit.

[36:27] I mean, obviously you're not allowed to, like, you know, murder people insert them in restaurants, right? So there's obviously a limit on what chefs should be allowed to do in a restaurant. Um, you know, and then, but there's the question of whether or not foie gras is basically just the poster child for what's perceived as

[36:45] cruelty because, you know, for those, if there's anyone out there doesn't know how foie gras is produced. Basically, uh, uh, animals eat, uh, you force feed animals, a whole boatload of stuff, their

[36:55] livers uh, inflate, uh, and then uh, and become delicious, uh, and it's called gavage. And that's really what people are griping about is gavage. You know, there's arguments that come in on a bunch of different sizes because then you have people coming in saying, well,

[37:08] you're shafting my cultural heritage. In fact, you know, Gavage is not a recent thing. Like the ancient Romans practiced Gavage on various different animals to kind of fatten them up and increase their liver. So it's very old practice, which doesn't make it right. And, you know, people enjoy the product, which doesn't make it right. The real question is, is, is this practice, um, bad or not? I really haven't done the research on it to find out whether or not I actually think it is torture or cruelty. I'm sure that there are places where it's done in a completely horrible, inhumane manner, and I'm, but the question is, is that necessarily the

[37:43] case? And from people I've spoken to, albeit unbiased people, Um, sorry, albeit biased people. Um, There are ways to produce foie gras, where it is not a torture for the animals, and then, you know, there's the possibly, but, you know, what do I know about it?

[38:00] You know, apocryphal stories of, you know, in certain places, well

[38:04] treated geese and ducks, actually coming up to the person who's going to perform the gavage. So in other words, they're not they're not afraid of it. Then there's the problem of like, yeah, you're taking care of like, you know, this one really high priced product, but on the other hand, you know, you're allowing the horrible farming

[38:23] practices to take, you don't even call it farming, like horrible factory meat processes to take place, and not really bothering with those people because you're targeting someone that you can easily target because you are making people feel guilty for going out and spending a lot of money on a product that you're then associating with torture, the same way it worked on

[38:39] fur, right? Uh, you know, so again, I don't really know where I stand. I know Dave Chang, trust his foie gras producers. I think we get from Hudson Valley at Mamafuku and, you know, and has visited their farm, has seen how they treat the animals.

[38:55] And for all the crap that Dave gets for being like all pro meat. Like he is also pro-responsible farming. And so, you know, I know he vouches for that, or at least he told, I think he said he vouches for that. Thomas Keller signed on saying, you know, he vouches for some of the producers out

[39:11] that he deals with as being humane. So I think if we can do it in a humane fashion, then I don't think it's necessarily inhumane just because their livers are diseased, unquote. That doesn't make sense, right? Does that make sense to you, Nastasia? Anyway. My mom overfeeds my cat? Can we eat the cat's liver? My mom overfeeds my cat. Uh, just in case you missed that, Nastasia just advocated uh, eating pet cats. Just saying. That's what I heard too. Yeah, just, just, just what I'm saying. Anyway. Okay. Okay, I'm going to rip through some Jack, do I have a little bit of time or no? Oh, yeah, you got like 5 more. Okay. So let me let me rip through some Let me rip through some questions. Greg writes in with a few questions. One, when you do low temperature cooking low temperature sausage, low temperature

[39:59] normal, which we're going to do for the Museum of Food and Drink. We're gonna do beer brats or something similar, low temperatures, come eat them. Do you pierce the casings and let the oils into the casing or is this unnecessary? Do not do that. You want to keep the oils that were in the thing, in the thing to begin with. Water-based things like beer, we'll actually go through the membrane of the casing and like, you know, suck flavors out and put flavors

[40:19] in. But you're trying to get as little flavor leech in or out as possible when you're using oil in like a Ziploc bag. So don't pierce it. And then you're just going to lose juices. You know, when you take a properly cooked sausage and you poke it. It like juice sprays out of it. And that's what you kind of want. You want to keep that stuff in there. So no. Two, I've been playing around with sous vide chicken breast recently and really love how they come out. I've been following Jason Lodchen's recommendations at 56 Celsius for 2.5 to 3 hours. That's low for me. Of course, the chicken looks anemic right out of the bag, so I've been trying to come up with a way to make fried chicken using a cheapo deep fryer. Alternatively, I could use a very hot pot of high smoke point oil, most likely peanut. Can you give me some recommendations about batters or coatings that would help here? I think it's too low. you're going to fry it, you're going to bring the stuff up. Um, Anyway, oh, I'm looking for something that would hear nicely, but be a decent vehicle for herbs and spices that would fry up quickly without significant heat soaking to the meat.

[41:09] Listen, what you want to do is make sure you pull the stuff out when you're cooking it. Let hot. Let it flash off for a 2nd to get, you know, get a little bit of a pellicle on the outside, then straight flour, right? You could salt, but straight flour, and then put all of the flavor into like a liquid. I use buttermilk, egg, and I use bikes, basically buttermilk, egg, baking soda, baking powder, and you can put all the flavor you want in there, and then back into flour and fry. That's what I do. Now I got yelled at, you know, by some southern guys at the last thing because they use an entirely different technique. But that, using low temperature cooking, adheres like a bastard and you can get flavors into it. So that's what I do and that's what I would recommend. Also, I'm the habanero pepper taming guy from way back other than Steingarten, Jeffrey Steingart, and our good buddy. haven't spoken to him in a while, though, right? Anyway, it's good to labor over pepper's techniques. I haven't found a decent way to reduce capsation load in habanero peppers, which are extremely hot. Not as hot as not get Joloki or whatever they're pronounced, ghost peppers, but they taste a whole hell of a lot better. Anyway, I still have a few more experiments to try, but recently I got access to a centrifuge, and this technique struck me. Could you emulsify the trim pepper flesh with some oleophilic, that means fat, loving, medium,

[42:16] centrifuse, that whole mess, and extract the supposedly capsation minimized goodness from the bottom. My thought is the capsation is an only immerse. if I can get it to stick to something. Can I filter or separate? I guess I didn't mean fat. Anyway, I should be in good shape. Any thoughts during the process? What about olive files? As the 1st cut, I was thinking about just using olive oil, but there's also casing or other things out there that might work.

[42:36] Thanks, take care. Greg, I don't think that's going to work, Greg, because you might be able to... I mean, there's no doubt you could probably get a capsation enriched section of it, right? But you're not going to get all, you're not going to get all of it out or even probably enough to make a huge dent. I did some preliminary research last week when this question came in. I didn't find anything. I'm going to keep looking to see whether there's anyone that's done any research on centrifugally except separated capsation at lower at lower speeds.

[43:01] But I have I am not holding out high hopes, but I'll look into it, right? you writing that down as you're writing an email? No, you're not. See, I could tell because you can hear the clacks. If I ask her to write an email and you hear the claggity clack, then you know she did. Yeah, sure, sure. Not the email about that. All right. Those are some cats that called in. Wow. That's hardcore. That's hardcore. Uh, man, we're not going to, we're not going to get, we're not going to get to all the questions. No, I don't think so. Okay, listen, just because we had a week without the show. Okay, so let me let me do this and then hopefully I can get it one more, but Michael Nakkin wrote in. Leo, longtime reason, our buddy, right? Urbivoracious. And comment on last 2 weeks ago on the show. So he said, so I couldn't possibly listen to the discussion of the vegan menu at Del Posto without writing in. The idea that this is talking about what, you know, you know, Mark and those guys said about cooking the vegan menus. The idea that vegetarians mostly don't really love food and are just difficult diners who mainly want some sort of health food sustenance

[44:03] is, how could I say this for the radio, complete and utter crap? I've been a lacto ovo vegetarian for 23 years, and I pretty much never think about anything besides food and how to maximize the pleasure of my next meal.

[44:15] But I'm fully engaged with food. I listen to your show. I've read modernist cuisine from cover to cover, and nostalgia at a few restaurants. My 1st book, uh, cookbook is coming out this week, uh, and it's called uh, Herbivoracious, a Flavor Revolution with 150 vibrant and a visual, original vegetarian recipes.

[44:31] In fact, publication date is today. I looked it up on Amazon. Should be interesting. Congratulations and good luck with the book. Anyway, and I think if you take a look at it, you'll agree that there's no aspect of self-sacrifice

[44:42] involved, for me being a vegetarian is just a completely personal thing, I'm not wired to want to eat animals.

[44:48] And I don't think I'm alone. There are many of us who don't eat animals, but love food. I'd love to see more high-end restaurants, take that seriously, not simply throw some pasta in a beurre blanc, our way and hope we don't care. Thanks, Michael. Now, 1st of all, in defensive no post. So clearly that's not what they were doing. Right? You know what I mean? Also, I think, um, look, here's the thing, right? I mean... Yeah, it's a tough problem. I mean, like, obviously you love, you know, Michael, you love food and and there's whole cultures, whole civilizations that are based on, uh, especially lacto ovo vegetarian. I think the chef's gripe is probably more against vegans, I would say, right? Yeah. Yeah. No? I mean, I don't know. But even so, like, there's no such thing as like... Whatever the thing, you're just, it's like, it's like racism, basically. You're basically a racist. I have something to say. Okay. Last night, we were coming back from dinner after Mark and I were coming back from dinner, just a small dinner of like miso

[45:51] soup, salad and fried chicken, and we have leftover fried chicken, and we're walking on like 58th and ninth or something. Sounds like a classic mustache store right here. And there's a homeless person on... Hardboard. wrapped in like a very nasty blanket. This poor guy, right? And he's asking everyone who passes for change. And I say, I have some food in this bag. And he said, what is it? And I said, it's fried chicken. And he said, I don't eat chicken because it depends on where it's been raised. Okay. See, you have no respect for human dignity. Nastasia has no respect for human dignity. I'm saying, no, no. I'm saying, look at how, you know, lots of people are very discerning. It doesn't matter. It's not decerning. The guys have more, because the guy doesn't have a home, he can't have morals on whether or not he's chicken.

[46:39] But, yes. No, I'm saying good for him. Are you saying good for him? good for him, yeah. Good for him. Good for him. All right, so you're not I know, I'm not. You're not saying anything bad about this. No, not at all. All right. Well, I misjudge you then. Thank you. All right. The, the, the, the point is that, um, you know, I

[46:58] get, the, the issue is, is that a lot of chefs, here's the deal. Chefs don't like pick what they perceive as pickiness in any form, right? And so the issue is, is if they perceive what's going on as just being pickiness. It's not that they don't mind the work. Chefs love work and they love problems. You know what I mean? They like to, they like a challenge. They like this. They don't like picky people in general, as a generalization. And what they do is, is that people, they don't necessarily, and here's the real crux, respect the decisions other people make based on their diet, right?

[47:34] Say it's accurate, Nastachia. And so they perceive that as

[47:40] being, they perceive certain dietary choices, not in 100% of the cases, but they perceive that people who make them as making decisions that are either a picky, be, whiny, or

[47:52] C antisocial in some cases. Right, right? I think they spent a lot of time, they work with food. They make choices, they make recipes based on their love of food. And when there's a picky eater and it creates a whole new... Well, Michael's clearly not a picky eater. That's what I'm saying, but here's the problem was when it comes to generalization. You know what I mean? So, I mean, and it's disingenuous to basically give, you know, Michael a past because he's lacto oval vegetarian. I guarantee you there's vegans out there who love food. You know what I mean? Um, it's a lot harder, I think, you know, anytime you limit your palate, it's more of a challenge. It becomes more difficult and then it becomes harder for people who don't cook that way to produce a product on the

[48:32] quality of the quality level that they want to produce. See in other words, another problem that chefs have is that they want to produce the best quality stuff that they can produce for

[48:42] you. And if they don't sit around all day thinking about the best way to make a vegan meal, then it's hard for them to produce

[48:47] their, what they think is their best showing, right? uh, uh, when they're doing vegan. If you add onto that, this is, I mean, sorry to say it, but this is like innate, right? Like an innate distrust of any sort of thing that they see as picky, then

[49:04] you're like, you know, you're adding insult to injury. But I think, uh, I mean, I don't know how the hell this is coming off

[49:10] the outside, uh, world. Probably horribly. But, I mean, the fact of the matter is, uh, that, you know, you're you're right. We should judge every, a chef should judge every customer they come in on their own merits and there's plenty of meat eaters who are some picky some bitches who, you know,

[49:28] who chefs don't like dealing with. I don't like salt. I don't like, you know what I mean? There are people who legitimately can't have too much salt because they're hypertensive. But then there's people who say that they don't like it. People, it's like, okay, like, I'm allergic to stuff. I, like, I'll die if I eat like a large quantity of, uh, raw cherries, and the only reason I'm allergic to it is because I'm being punished for making fun of people's allergies for years.

[49:49] Do you know what I'm saying? But chefs do that all the time. You know what I'm saying? Uh, but I think, you know, uh, you know, part of it, if you read, if you go to uh, the Amazon, and you, and you look at uh, Michael's cookbook, Michael

[50:01] Nakkin's new cookbook, uh, and you read the copy for it, which I did today, basically saying, you know, this is food that you'll be happy to cook for your meat eating friends because it's basically just delicious.

[50:09] I love that. I support that. And it's very similar, actually, Pat Brown, who's a professor at Stanford,

[50:15] who's was working on the, he's a vegetarian, is working to try and make meat analogs. He's like, he's like, you know, and he's doing it actually because he does want to proselytize. He wants people to stop eating meat. He wants meat to stop being produced. He wants people to stop farming meat. He's friends with Harold McGee, he's poached him. Anyways. So his point is, you will never decrease the amount of meat that is consumed in this country by the average person unless you make a product that a meat eater wants to eat more than the meat they're

[50:40] eating now. And that's it, right? All right, listen, I got a couple questions I didn't get to. We'll get you next week, cooking issues.