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[1:06] in culinary pastry and bread baking to Italian studies to management. From culinary technology to food writing, from cake making to wine tasting. For more information, visit international culinarycenter.com. Broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. You're listening to heritageradionetwork.org.

[1:29] Hello and welcome to Cooking Ages. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live every Tuesday from the back of Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick,

[1:41] Brooklyn at roughly 12 here in the studio today with Nastasia the Hammer Lopez and Jack and Joe in the Engineering Booth.

[1:47] How you doing, everyone? Good. You were here early today. I was here damn early. I decided that I'm going to come to the studio and do some of my

[1:56] research here. See, typically the reason I'm late is I'm researching whatever the questions are up until the last possible minute, at which point I get on my bike and come

[2:04] here and, you know, I'm sweating profusely. And remember the one time I came and I couldn't breathe. I literally had to go to an early break because I couldn't I could not breathe. Uh, you know, plus uh, I have to bike, you know, next to a concrete uh, manufacturing plant, which, you know, I always inhale. It takes me a good 15 minutes to get all the concrete dust out of my lungs. So I thought to myself being, you know, like, why not actually do some of the research here at the freaking studio? Right? Doesn't that make me, like, it's unusual for me to do something that makes sense. But you know, there you have it. So I start the research and I'm like, oh. Now, I'll leave at uh, 10 instead of, you know, 1120. On that note, we have a caller. Oh, caller, you are on the air. All right, David, it's Brady. Hey, Brady, hi. is my cousin Brady, folks. My cousin Brady. How you doing? got a important question for you. All right, what do you got? The cocktail related. Oh, good. So a cousin of mine, um, is she has this thing where she goes

[3:03] to, uh, like a dinner party every month or so with 4 other couples, and everybody's responsible for bringing in some sort of appetizer, and then they rank them by the end of the night, and someone is a winner, someone's a runner up, et cetera. Um, and they've come in 5th out of 5 couples for the past couple

[3:18] events, and their daughter is beginning to, um, I think, think of them as losers, if you will. So the new one coming up is an adult beverage based

[3:28] on sort of Mexican themed. The food is going to be fajitas, and everyone brings in a beverage, and they want to come in first. Their daughter's like, we can't have a 5th place finish again. Now, is the daughter going to be consuming the adult beverage? No, she will be home with the babysitter. Now, have they enjoyed all of the things they brought before, and they thought they were good, or did they acknowledge that they lost, or did they feel like they were robbed? Because if they felt like they were robbed, my suggestion is get new friends. No, see, like the last time I went, actually, I was in Boston, I went with them and they were fifth. I mean, what they brought was still good and all the food is actually really good, but they were fifths. They just are not taking it up a level where, I mean, the other couples are taking really seriously and they're sort of doing this in their spare time right before they go. Right, right. Right. And the other thing is this does not need to be tequila-based. But it is Mexican themed. Yep. Yeah. Well, I mean, okay. So these other people are thinking a lot. Are these people, are they kind of food snobs? Yes, but yes. Okay. So if people are not food snobs, I think it's a very bad idea to make them feel bad to guilt them into giving you

[4:37] points. However, if someone is a food snob, then the best way to win is to pummel them with evidence such that they feel that they are the smallest human beings on

[4:48] Earth with their lack of knowledge, in which case, I would suggest making something with an extremely rare mezcal.

[4:54] I would go get an extremely rare mezcal. Uh, like, what's that one we carry now at the bar? It's like something that Almas. Like it's like super tiny, right? So it's not even that it's more expensive than some of the other stuff you can get that's better known like Del Maguay and all this other

[5:08] stuff, don't like it rather. It's just that it's harder to find. And so be like, you don't know about this? What? You know what I mean? And then like, and mix with there. But if you're gonna go, um, Mexican, I mean, I would suggest maybe going

[5:19] with a mezcal, the, there's a, there's always a question, do you want to try to go over the top or do you just want to

[5:27] go, uh, really, really, just like spot on? I mean, do these people live in New York? No, they live in Boston. Are you going to be up there or no? No, I'm not going to be. They're living in Westboro, so that's sort of the western suburb of Boston. All right, because I was going to say if they really want to do something strange, they could do something similar to, you know, at Booker and Dax

[5:45] Bar, we have a mezcal-based drink called Son of a Peach that has clarified peach juice in it, canned peach juice and

[5:52] mezcal. So it's kind of Mexican themed, but doesn't take, it's not just a margarita. And, you know, that, I mean, I think that's probably going to be different from anything

[6:00] that, that's at that place. They could probably go buy clarified peach juice and do something similar. I'd have to go get the specs in my head. I can't give them to you later, but do you think something like that might might win? I mean, I have a feeling that if everyone's going to do adult, everyone's doing adult beverages, that's just what they have. No, everyone's doing adult beverages. And I mean, I'm not for sure that everyone's going to do tequila, but if it's

[6:22] a Mexican team, I can't see that, you know, out of the 5 couples that 4 of them are going to think outside the box and do, you know, something that's

[6:28] gin-based, but still Mexican and team. Yeah, I mean, I don't even, I'm not sure. I mean, like, you can go super, like our friend Evan Clem once did a, you know, corn-based beverage as his Mexican themed

[6:39] beverage. I mean, there are kinds of things you can do. The question is how challenging do you want to get? Do you want to just go kind of, like, food, like food knowledge geeky? you want to get like, you want it? You definitely don't want to go with tequila. You want to go with one of the other agave-based beverages just to, you know, kind of be an outlier, like maybe like a sotole or like a really interesting mezcal. Um, uh, you know, I think like, you know, what's in order is like a trip to uh, my well and uh, you know, here in New York and just like look at the, their cocktail list and then basically steal some of their ideas.

[7:13] And that's the that's the best way to do it. Now, the other question is, is winning going to be strictly based on flavor or is it going to have to be some sort of strange garnish to pull out a win or at least like a 2nd place? The only the criteria for winning is your favorite. You vote for your favorite out of the five. Okay. And you're not allowed to vote for your own, of course. So you vote on the other four. Right. And do people tell stories? Um, yeah. Yeah. So you got to beef up on the story. Like, half of this stuff is this story. I can, I mean, if you serve people things and you have a really good story beforehand, then, you know, that makes

[7:48] this stuff actually taste better because you have this big story. So I would choose like some sort of a rare, although not necessarily expensive, but, you know, more difficult to source or

[7:58] strange spirit. I would then choose, like an herb or a fruit that is not kind of normal. And then everything else can kind of even out. Like you can just use lime juice if you want to as your as your acidity. I would probably do. I mean, I think it's interesting to do stirred drinks. I wouldn't necessarily go for a shake and drink, like a margarita, just because that's kind of what you're expecting. I would maybe go for a stir drink, which you could probably pull off a little more of the

[8:28] sophistication, and that adds a little more to the monocle in the eye, food snob kind of a vibe that I think you need to win these sorts of things. Uh, and probably get some sort of a spot on garnish. I mean, you know what, Booker and Dax. We kind of don't typically do the garnish thing just because we don't want to be labeled as like the, you know, the people who, you know, do all the fancy tech

[8:49] garnishes. Although in this case, that seems like it'd probably be a good idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is this being helpful at all or is this too general? No, this is helpful, but I mean, she also, she sort of made a point of saying that she does not have liquid nitrogen. You know what I mean? So like they, they can do stuff, but, um, I think if it gets too difficult, they're just

[9:05] going to not, you know, they have 2 kids, so. If you're going to do a stirred cocktail, the best way to do it to get the temperature almost exactly right

[9:12] is, especially if you're going to use a fruit juice. So let's say they're going to use a fruit juice in it. You can't use a fruit juice and a spirit and then stir it and then have the temperature right. Okay. If you store the whole thing in the freezer, then the temperature won't be right because it's going to be too cold. What they should do is just go buy some 2 inch ice cube freezing thing so that they can get like nice, fairly nice. I mean, not like, you know, not super clear grade, you know, the style that we

[9:41] use that we pay a lot of money for, but, you know, fairly nice ice cubes. Get like double old fashioned, figure out whatever garnish their glasses, figure out whatever kind of garnish they're going to use. Freeze the ice cubes, get the liquor base, freeze that, and then keep the fruit

[9:54] juice or whatever in, you know, plus whatever water they need in the fridge. Then when they mix the freezer, they mix the freezer booze with the fridge, um, juice, it'll add up to the exact right temperature in the glass, at least usually does. And so they can get something that's in perfect condition without a lot of stirring and

[10:13] mess and worrying about it. And all they have to do at home is, you know, to practice is choose the booze, keep it in the freezer and whatever fruit juices they're going to balance it with in the fridge, do their mix

[10:25] testing and then and then go. But a stir drink is going to be easier because it doesn't require a lot of texture. They can prefigure out the balance they need in terms of dilution. It can all be kind of pre-done, mixed, and then just, as long as you have access to that other person's freezer, bang, and then a nice 2 inch ice cube, and then, you know, a good either twist or some sort of fancy fruit as a garnish. It shouldn't take too much longer. It's going to take more because they're going to have to think in advance of what they're going to do, but it shouldn't actually take many hours of work. Okay. And I might say peach juice, if you can get clarified peach juice, even if you can't, doesn't have to be clarified. It's just, you know, how that's how we roll. We clarify most things. But like something like peach and mezcal go very, very well together because it's reminiscent of smoky, kind of like a grilled smoky peach, which everybody likes.

[11:12] So like peach, uh, lime views, some sort of like smoky mezcal, uh, maybe even then balance with a little bit of uh,

[11:19] tequila because mezcal can sometimes be a little overpowering a drink like that, uh, stirred with some sort of nice garnish in

[11:25] a in a double old-fashioned. It's not a lot of work, but it's good. You're probably going to have to add a little bit of water just because otherwise it's going to be too intense, just like straight peach and booze and lime too intense. Then you might have to add some sugar to it, like a couple bar spoons of like Demerara syrup to give it more brown sugar notes, which brings it more on the grilled peach. And that's just if you're going to do peach. You can do a different fruit. But it is summertime. Right. Okay, so just in the final thing, you keep saying maybe throw garnish in there, like what? What would be a good garnish? Everyone likes like some sort of like fresh piece of fruit. I mean, they can't vacuum infuse, I'm assuming they don't have a vacuum. No, but they could like, you know, they could marinate some fruit in a different kind of a booze for a couple of days and then put it on a

[12:08] skewer and that always looks festive and tastes good, but it should taste good. Garnishes shouldn't just be. I mean, I'm not an umbrella sort of. okay, I am. I really like an umbrella and I like a cocktail monkey. I have to say. Nastasia, do you enjoy the cocktail monkey? Yeah, everyone really, everyone we say that we don't enjoy it, but we love it. We do. Everyone does. The little flamingo. I mean, who doesn't like that? you know? So, you know, there's that. Oh, man, here's another one. If you really want to, if you want to go Looney Tunes, you can go buy some, and, you know, but if you want to go on the

[12:35] kitch side of Delicious, then go buy some fresh juice coconuts. They're still available right now and then serve everyone, you know, hack the top off, drain the stuff out, throw the coconuts in the freezer. Those become the glasses, and then you can make a drink. Normally I do rum with the coconut water stuff because but you could definitely balance out a mezcal or tequila drink with coconut

[12:58] water and then serve it in that thing of coconut, which is, if you want to go on the kitchen side, is cool. As long as you're like, oh, we know it's kitch, but, you know, the monocle will pop the monocle out of your eye, and then, you know, you know what I mean? Yeah. Okay. That's good. I wrote all this down, Dave. So that's very helpful. I'm going to pass it along and fingers crossed that she wins. All right, thanks, Brady. Let us know how goes. Thanks. All righty. Okay. Now, I have some questions in from last week. I'm going to go. Oh by the way, call any questions. 718-4972128 718-497-2128. Okay. Uh, question from last week uh, that I didn't answer from Brian. I don't think. didn't answer the birth syrup question, did I? Okay. I've heard that birch syrup is also wonderful and different from maple maple syrup. What do you know about it? It is true that maples are not the only trees that are tapped for their sap to produce

[13:49] syrups. Birch is as well. I have had birch syrup only once, and it was many years ago, I would say, like 6 years ago when I 1st kind of learned about it, and I don't really, I can't really say that I've tasted it because the sample that I got of birch syrup

[14:06] was, in my opinion, flawed. It tasted like it had kind of gone, it had a sour taste to it, that I wasn't expecting, and it tasted like it had been burnt a bit when it was being reduced.

[14:16] And so I'm going to go ahead and say that I haven't actually had birch syrup at

[14:23] its, at what I assume is going to be its best. I will say this about birch syrup. The production is incredibly small. I, you know, we should go get some more, see what it's like now because I, I love anything, anything like that. You know, Styles, we should get some birch syrup. Burst sap has a much lower sugar content than maple sap does.

[14:43] And so you have to acquire more of it and boil it down more. But I'm anxious to hear anyone else's experience on birch sap. Maybe it's supposed to have a little bit of a sour note to it. Maybe it's supposed to taste a little bit burnt, but my impression of it was that my sample was

[14:57] flawed, and I handed it to a bunch of chefs. I gave some to nils. I gave some to a bunch of people. I said, do you think that this is what this is supposed to be like, or do you think this is flawed? And everyone said, this is flawed. So I don't, I don't, I can't say I know what it, what it tastes like, but I also am intrigued and I love any sort

[15:16] of new, I'm a new ingredient freak. So, you know, if we can use birch syrup, then, hey, let's do it. Let's get it, right? Sorry, I couldn't be more help. Okay. Now, we had another question that I didn't get to on cream liqueurs. And I said, I would deal with it this week. So here I am. So I looked up on the interwebs, some recipes, some industrial recipes for making cream liqueurs. And what's what's in them? And typically, you're not required to have an emulsifier in the cream liquor, although it can help, but they are typically in the range of 12 to 16%, milk fat, 15 to 20% sugar, uh, 2.5 to 3.5%, uh, sodium, case in

[16:06] eight, that's milk protein, uh, non-fat milk solids, uh, one to 3.5%, and 14%

[16:13] booze, balance of 46 to 50% uh, water. Now, what does this mean? What does this, what does this mean? It means they're fairly high in fat. And they are clearly having it milk solids and caseine, and the caseine is acting as the emulsifier there to keep everything together, which is a

[16:30] protein. Notice the booze content. By that, I mean, ethanol is low. So it's in the range of 14%. So I think that once you add more alcohol, the alcohol is

[16:42] going to start to destabilize the emulsion. So it, you know, the caller that called in before, I think he was having phase separation problems with my memory serves me right, not curdling, not breaking, but phase separation.

[16:54] And so to me, that means that the emotion is destabilized. And that might be because the alcohol content is too high. The other thing that you might want to do, which is what he says, add an emulsifier. And by adding an emulsifier to it, you're going to reduce the amount of creaming,

[17:10] i.e. separate phase separation that you have. And you're going to want to go look at a book, and it's going to be the next book that I try and get on the highly technical stuff called Food Emulsifiers and

[17:20] their Applications by Gerard Hassen Hoodle, Hassen Hoodle, I think, is how you pronounce the person's name. And it really talks about the different kinds of emulsifiers and why you would use one versus the other. And when you're using something in a cream liqueur, you want to use what's called an alpha tending emulsifier,

[17:39] and it's just a technical term, alpha tending emulsifier, and those types of emulsifiers tend to form

[17:45] films. They're film forming emulsifiers that form at the interface between a liquid and an oil,

[17:52] I should say, a water-based liquid and an oil-based liquid or air or whatever. And so those film forming ones are better at stabilizing things and cream emulsions, and one of those alpha tending,

[18:02] film forming, emulsifiers is propylene, glycol, monosteriate, or PGMS. We have a collar collar on the air. Hey, Dave, it's Michael Matkin. Hey, how you doing? I'm doing great. How are you? Doing doing well. I like the cookbook. How's the cookbook doing? It's doing really good. You know, we sold out the 1st printing, so that's exciting. Awesome. Congratulations. Jack, can we get the applause meet applause meeter on that? He's slow on the apartment. There you go. Don't. Oh, I'm walking over here. So what's up? So I'm working on the equipment list for my 1st restaurant. It's going to be a sort of a small lunchtime place, and I wanted to get your advice on whether I should go Paco Jet versus another kind of ice cream machine. Okay. Uh, okay. So you familiar with pure food here in Manhattan? No. Okay, pure, it's called pure food and wine, right? That's Sarma Melangais's restaurant. And, uh, she is the only person I have ever seen who does all of her ice creams in

[19:01] Paco Jet, um, all of them. And she had an ice cream shop attached to the restaurant called, I forget what the ice cream shop's called, like Lucky Duck or something like

[19:11] that at one Lucky Duck. And she did like a lot of ice cream service just out of a pocket jet. So it is feasible, even in someone that's pushing a lot of ice cream to do it. But how much ice cream do you plan on serving? Um, not a ton. It's not like it's going to be an ice cream restaurant, but I want the flexibility that, you know, if I'm doing a dish to have an ice cream component

[19:29] on it. You know, I would imagine it would be smaller scoops. You know, it's not like I would be serving Sundays, at least not very often. Right, right. So, I mean, Paco Jet is fantastic at having lots of flavors available in smaller quantities. So you could kind of, you, you, it's feasible to have like a flavor base that is there. And then, you know, even if you only use a scoop at night, it's okay because you can, you can only process the amount you need and keep the rest kind of, and you can reprocess it again and get it back into perfect

[20:00] temper, unlike normal ice cream where you make the batch, and then from there on out, it's turning to crap, you know, as you look at it,

[20:07] it's, it's losing its, you know, stuff. It's crystall, you know, decrystallizing, recrystallizing, blah, blah, blah, losing its texture.

[20:13] Paco Jet is fantastic at, you know, the perfect texture, you know,

[20:19] you know, because you just reprocess it if you need to. Right. How long does it take to spin one scoop? Not long. I mean, if you're spinning the entire PacoJet container, that probably takes, I don't know, 2 minutes or something like that.

[20:32] All told. No, but three, maybe three. It's loud. You know, so you wouldn't necessarily want to have it in front of a customer, but it doesn't take a long time. And processing just, you know, one or 2 things

[20:43] doesn't take very long at all. The one trick is you have to. Some people pre-spin some just because it's sometimes it gets a little soft when it, you know, right after it's spun and they like to firm it up a little more. The big problem... The big problem with the paco jet is the freezer temperature that you have it at is critical to the making sure that if it's too cold, if it's too cold, the product comes out kind of

[21:06] powdery. If it's too warm, the product comes out soupy. So it's a lot about temperature maintenance in inside the freezer, and especially during a busy service going in and out, making sure you can maintain the temperature

[21:19] stability. And I think that's why a lot of people will process a couple of scoops and then, you know, keep those scoops in a dipping well or whatever. But, you know, I've done it out of a freezer. You know, everyone kind of gets that thing to work in their own sort of way. The one, uh, some of the problems with paco jets are that, uh, if they break, they might have gotten better, but years ago, which is the last time that, you know, I had to use one a bunch at

[21:42] the school, uh, if one breaks, they don't necessarily get you a loner

[21:46] instantly, and then you're without a paco jet. And so, you know, I've had to help people out. If you have a friend that has one that can loan you one when yours is down, or if you can afford to have a 2nd one lying around. Uh, you know, then it's kind of okay, but, you know, they break more, they used to break more often than, for instance,

[22:04] they Carpagianis do. Now, Carpagani, you know, uh, you know, the LB 100 is going to take up a lot more space in your kitchen, which I don't know whether that's

[22:11] at a premium. It's going to cost like 12 grand. Do you know what I mean? They're fantastic. But if you don't need the volume on, you know, on the Carpaganis, then, you know, I would say, you know,

[22:24] Paco Jet is viable. Just, you know, just be aware of the of the issues. Make sure that whoever you buy it from. you know, I haven't had to buy one in a long time, but make sure that whoever you buy from is going to help you get the parts quickly. It's not like all the parts are kind of proprietary on the inside, like all the belts and cogwheels are not labeled with any sort of normal labeling, so you can't just go to an industrial website and buy the parts for it.

[22:46] which is irritating. But, um, they're great. The texture is great. They're fantastic. The other issue that's expensive is the stainless steel containers are expensive and people in your kitchen are going to tend to not realize that they're not Bane,

[23:01] Maries, and sift them around, which can be also problematic. Uh, the guys at pure food uh, and wine used to freeze their stuff in quart containers and then jam those into the uh, stainless steel buckets for spinning.

[23:16] And it works great. The one problem is is that if you jam it in crooked. and it's loose, and the blade, as it comes down, hits it cockeyed, you can shatter the blade. So, you know, it's a question of what, you know, what risks are you willing to take? It won't ruin the Paco jet, but it could, you know, could cause that kind of a problem. You're shoving it down in there, in the plastic or you're taking out of the plastic tub and shoving that block of ice down into the

[23:42] stainless. Yeah, the ladder. You pop it out of the, uh, you pop it out of the core container and jam it into the, into the stains, but it's not an exact fit. You have to really jam it down and make sure it's not at an angle. The blade really doesn't want to all of a sudden hit something thicker than its, you know, incremental slicing. Yeah, I got it. I got it. Okay. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, but yeah, I love Paco Jet. They great. I mean, they really are great. For all that I'm, you know, complain about the fact that they cost a lot. And, you know, that they're still fantastic pieces of equipment. Cool. Well, thanks for the advice. That helps a lot. All right, thank you. Thanks for calling. Don't be a stranger. All right, bye bye. All right. Hey Jack, you want to go to our 1st commercial break? Yes, sir. Coming right back with cooking issues.

[24:31] This is up from the South from the Buddhos band.

[25:13] The International Culinary Center is a proud sponsor of the Heritage Radio Network.org, the ICC with locations in New York and

[25:23] California, provide cutting edge education to future chefs, restorateurs, and wine professionals. We're proud to claim Dan Barber, Bobby Flay, and David Chang among our honored alumni. This is Dorothy Can Hamilton from Chef Story. Check out our ICC website at internationalculinarycenter.com. Hey Jack, what's the music that you put there with Dorothy? Oh yeah, some dreamy music. Yeah, there is some dreamy music. It's like ad music. Hey, what's up? No Wiley? No Wiley? No, no love for Wiley. I don't know. Maybe that's on the second commercial. Second commercial. That's the problem with having so many good graduates, is that, you know, you list, you make one

[26:04] list, and then they were like, what? The deans, too. All those deans? Yeah, we got some good deans over there. They've been promoting you a lot, actually. Nice. I appreciate promotion's good, right, status? So I say, I don't care. I don't care. Don't talk to me. I'm emailing people. All right. I had somebody real quick. I had a cooking issues listener ask if Nastasia is actually, this is real. They're like, is she actually like rolling her eyes in the studio sometimes? Because it sounds like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can hear the eyesight, right? How do you hear that, you know? It's the pause and then I think the sardonic reply. I think that's what it is I confirm that it does indeed happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right now, Nastasia is buying some shoes on Sapos. Okay, I'm paying lots of bills. What kind of bills? debt. Awesome. Okay. She didn't have the debt at 10 AM this morning. The deck came in at noon, just so you know, deck wasn't there at 10. That's only there at noon. Okay. Uh, this question in from, uh, Gene. I assume it's Gene and not a Jean. Uh, Gene Doe, which is an awesome name, Doe, right? Dough? Like dough, not like dough, like dore mi, like dough likes dough nut. And not, well, not like do, not deep. You shouldn't spell donut, Dio, and UT. That's horrible. It's an abomination. It's dough, like, dough that you work with. Anyway, I want to posted this to me and to ideas and food. Want to poach using ocean water? Any thoughts on dilution or other consideration? I would dilute it, right? It's just, I would filter the heck out of it. You know what I mean? And make sure that you don't get it from like the swampy tidal pool thing, which is what I already responded to this on the Twitter, but, um, just saying, I don't think you needed Luda, but be aware that seawater is a lot more bitter than salt water because there are many other salts in seawater other

[27:54] than uh, other than, you know, sodium chloride, table salt. And to kind of get an idea of what that does for flavor, you can pick up Nigari, which

[28:03] is, you know, the Japanese salt that they use to set tofu. You can also set tofu, by the way, in seawater. It's possible to set tofu in sea water. That an old school way of doing it. But if you taste Nigari, which are all the salts left over after most of the sodium chloride is removed. That bitterness is what you get out of seawater. So just be aware that that flavor is there. But people have been using microfiltered seawater for, you know, a long, long time. It was especially popular ingredient in kind of high-tech Spanish cooking, um, and probably still is for all I know. Okay. Uh, we got anonymous in. Please ask Dave Arnold, if venison from a deer, addled with Lyme disease is still edible, yuck from Anonymous. What are your thoughts in session? before I tell you the answer, what do you think? I know the answer is probably, it's fine. Just because you know me and my answer to everything is fine. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, you happen to be right. I mean, I don't think the reasoning is good on your part, but you happen to be correct. I went on the CDC, which is the Center for Disease Controls website, and I've kind of looked up to see what the theory is. And Lyme disease is a disease. Actually, you know, it can be easy to treat if you catch it early. If you don't catch it early, it can be really horrible and can cause central nervous system problems that can be

[29:19] persistent almost indefinitely. It can be really bad. Uh, and they, you know, it's named after the town in Connecticut nearby here, uh, Lyme, where I guess it was 1st uh, noticed, and you get it from deer ticks. Most, you know, most from deer ticks. And it has a life cycle that goes from deer tick to rodent to deer, but, you know, around

[29:39] in this big circle, and you get it, that tick bites you, the spiracet is injected into you, and then you get the

[29:45] lime disease. Sometimes you get a bull's eye rash, sometimes you don't, and you get muscular, you know, muscular pains and

[29:51] headaches blur, all the nasty stuff, and you treat it with antibiotics, but you got to catch it early. Okay. There's no evidence. This is from the CDC directly. There's no evidence that Lyme disease is transmitted from person to person, so you can't get it from infected from touching,

[30:05] kissing, or having sex with a person that has Lyme disease. So what this means is that bodily fluid contact is not what's going to cause the Lyme disease. And similarly, although Lyme disease during pregnancy can cause problems. Um, a lot of problems, such as infection of the placenta and whatnot. If the baby makes it baby's okay. And although there have been no cases of Lyme disease linked to blood transfusion, they still don't recommend that you give blood if you know you

[30:34] have Lyme disease. So what this means, what all this means is that you're not going to get it from eating venison or squirrel meat. And they say, for instance, that you're not going to get Lyme disease from eating venison or squirrel meat, but in keeping the general food safety principles, meat should always be cooked thoroughly. And here's the here's the key. The key is, note, hunting and dressing deer or squirrels may bring you into close contact with infected

[30:56] ticks. So if you are hunting deer that are been addled with Lyme disease, then you are in much greater contact with

[31:05] the, with the, you know, the environment where you're going to get a tick.

[31:10] So you do tick checks, be careful, put, you know, repellents on you to keep ticks from jumping on you, you know, like soak your clothes and whatever that is, pyrethra or whatever it is that stops

[31:20] it, that takes from getting there. But that's the main thing. Now, the interesting thing with deer, disease that no one knows what the what the final thing is going to be on isn't Lyme disease. It's chronic wasting disease, which you get from elk and I guess other deer, but not here on the

[31:32] east coast. you get it in kind of the north, middle of the country. And this is a sponge of form encephalopathy, you know, a TSE, a transmissible sponge of form encephalopathy, similar to

[31:45] Jakobs Kreutschfeld or Mad Cow, and causing neurological disease in elk and deer, not thought to be transmissible to humans.

[31:56] However, wise word on the street is that you never know when uh, the TSC, which is a pre-on-related, uh, so like this weird little protein,

[32:05] pre-on-related, Jesus, when they're going to be able to change a little bit and make the jump from one animal, uh, for instance,

[32:13] cows from mad cow disease to human beings. So we don't know. Like, uh, we don't know whether there's ever going to be a sheep-based uh, scrapey that can come over to us. We don't know if there's going to be a chronic wasting disease that can jump and come to us. And the fun part about, uh, you know, transmissible uh, sponge reform encephalopathies is they have something like 10, 15 year incubation period.

[32:35] So the thing that kills you, you could have eaten 10, 15 years ago. Awesome, right? Is that super happy times? Super happy times. And so because of that, I make a general rule of not eating, not eating brain matter or nerve tissue unless like someone really offers it to me and I'm like, and I feel like I'm going to be extremely rude, not eating

[32:56] it because being impolite is much worse than dying in 15

[33:01] years, not really, but it's kind of what happens. So, uh, I tend to stay away from that stuff and I know a lot of other people that do too, just because we don't know how that stuff's

[33:09] going to suss out yet. Okay. Uh, hello, Dave, Nastasia, Jack, and Joe. Finally, we're getting called out in the right and the right stuff. Dave, you mentioned in several shows, including the last one, that you like making chicken stock at home in the pressure cooker. You've alluded to several changes to regular recipes that are required to get a good result, such as doubling or

[33:30] tripping tripling the amount of onion using less water, et cetera. Could you spell out specifically a typical recipe that you will use that you would use? Also, I make a cocktail that uses a leucuma puree. However, it's very difficult to find here in the Bay Area, and I cannot always get it. Do you know of any reasonable substitutes I could try? I've bought lucuma powder, but I haven't had much luck. It doesn't taste the same and imparts a gritty texture to the drink. Thanks, love the show, Michael in Oakland, California. Okay, I'm going to handle this in reverse. I don't yet have a good substitute for Lucoma puree. I haven't used it really. That much. I've had it kind of preserved, but I've never had the fresh stuff. I've had similar related fruits from South America and

[34:14] Colombia, but I'm going to have to do more research on it. In fact, I'm going to Columbia in at the end of August and I'm in Luca's Peruvian. And it's like one of these Peruvian superfruit jobies that they're doing a good job marketing. So when I go, I'm specifically going to do some research, I'm going to try to get the fresh stuff that's closely related as I can to it, even though

[34:35] it's not, I won't be in Peru, I be in Colombia, and then the other substitutes. And then once I have more experience using the real deal fresh stuff, then I will be able to make a

[34:44] good substitution for it. Powders. Yeah, there, you know, there, you know, yeah, typically things like that might, in part, a gritty texture to a drink. And the real question is, are you adding the lucuma for what purpose? For creaminess, for taste, for what? Uh, so I'm going to do more research. And then, uh, if you want to send an email back, like at the beginning of next month, right when I get back from Columbia, I'll have an answer for you. And also, please email why, you know, what it is

[35:12] you want, what it is you want to mimic about the Luke. Everything or just the flavor or just the texture, right? And then we can kind of work from there. Okay? Now, back to the stock. Um, When I make, so it's, I don't actually have a specific recipe. I feel like I'm really doing you wrong, Michael, but I don't have like a specific recipe that I use. I just know that I kind of, I always do stocks really by eye, which is dumb, but when I do it at home, I'll

[35:44] typically, uh, I'll typically won't even roast off my bones. I'll brown the bones in a pan. So let's do chicken. Like, I'll take chicken, uh, a lot of backs and, you know, the excess meat from that. Usually when I fry chickens. I have a lot of bones and backs and stuff left over. I have all the bones, in fact, because I make boneless fried chicken. I'll chop them up fairly fine and then I'll cook them actually in the pressure cooker in

[36:09] batches just so I don't have to go roast. When I'm cooking, you know, in a professional kitchen, I'll roast. Uh, and I'll, you know, I'll also like uh, roast off uh, the vegetables as well. Uh, and then put them in. I do typically add probably twice as much onion when I'm doing pressure cookers when I'm doing a traditional stock. You don't need to, just be aware that the onion flavor will be different and will be a little bit muted.

[36:31] You can add a little bit of fresh onion afterwards and do like a 10, 15 minute simmer of freshly sweated, not fresh, fresh onions, but freshly sweated onions

[36:39] to bolster, bolster that back up. Don't alter your celery, uh, or your carrot uh, amount or it'll come out kind of to carrot and 2 celery. I jam the bones down in as hard as I can. And then I add water basically just to cover the bones and no more. And I think, you know, one of the issues, everything depends on what you're going to use it for. you know, from years of having the stock that they make at the at the French

[37:03] Culinary Institute, now the ICC. In my opinion, all of that stock was, uh, it's too too watery. So like normal professional procedure is to add excess water and then, um, you know, boil it for, you know, simmer it for a very, very long time. And in the end, you always end up having to reduce that stock before you use it because the flavor profile is just not high enough.

[37:27] Now, from an economic standpoint, it does make sense to use

[37:30] excess. Well, I don't know, accepting the cost of gas to boil the stuff down. It makes some economic sense to use excess water because it means that the flavor, the liquids that are left in the stuff after you drain

[37:43] it, have less of the less of the flavor and protein in them than they would if you diluted

[37:48] it, and then you can boil it back down. My feeling, which kind of goes back to reading, you know, Peterson's

[37:53] book so many times, is that the super long boiling times and reduction, constant

[37:58] reduction while intensifying flavors can tend to dull the flavor. So I prefer to make a much more flavorful initial stock, even though I might lose some of that flavor

[38:07] in the fact that there still is liquid clinging to the bones and whatnot when they come

[38:12] out. So when I'm doing it at home. I try to go for the most flavorful one because cost isn't necessarily an issue. I'm not serving a lot of people. I'm just trying to effectively use a whole bunch of chicken backs that I have in carcasses. So I'll actually do a triple stock. I'll do veg, and then I'll roast off a whole bunch of

[38:31] bones and I'll pack them in, fill just over the top with water, hit it once, and then drain that

[38:38] one and put it with a fresh thing of bones and do it again. I don't do remiage at home, just because I don't do remiage at home, but, you know, if you want to do a remi stock with it, you also could. Um, Anyway, sorry, I don't have a specific. Obviously, I don't salt the stuff because I don't know what I'm going to use it for later. If you're making a broth or soup, you know, do whatever, do whatever you want. I do typically add the peppercorns beforehand, and bay, just because I'm used to it, even though Jeffrey Steingarten tells me that I'm an idiot for doing

[39:08] so, because all that's happening there is imparting bitterness from the pepper, and not the aroma, which is very fleeting and goes away. But I like that bitterness. So I'm going to do it anyway, even though Jeffrey tells me I shouldn't. What do you think? I haven't spoken to Jeffrey in a long time, have we? Yeah, I know. Now, if we're going to say hello to my man Jeffrey. Sorry, I could not be more accurate. I looked up Miss Vicki's pressure cooker stock. She actually tends to be more Miss Vicki writes pressure cooker things. Actually, you know, I snuck around. You know, the Amazon, I did the look inside on Amazon because they don't actually own her book and it didn't give me the one key page in American Amazon. So I went to Amazon UK and they gave me that one page. So, like, you know, if at 1st you don't succeed on the Amazon, look inside, try a different

[39:47] country again. Thank God to like amazon dot Czechoslovakia or whatever. Because I wouldn't be able to read the I'd have to go through translation, which is irritation. Anyway, but yeah, she cooks her pressure cooker stock for like half an hour on chicken, which I think is

[40:03] reasonable, but not on beef. Um, the, you know, uh, whereas Heston, I think Blumenthal cooks for like an hour. When we were running our

[40:10] test at the French culinary, I think we cooked an hour or longer for our pressure cooker stocks. Really, you're going to get, especially if you chop up

[40:16] the bones pretty fine. You're going to get the vast majority of extraction in half an hour at 15 PSI. And so I think that's probably good enough, half hour, 45 minutes, then let it come down naturally. The coming down naturally is the key on the recipe there so that you're not boiling all the stuff out of the

[40:31] bones and causing all sorts of emulsification problems, which we're going to deal with in a

[40:37] 2nd because the next question, should we take a break real quick? We don't have much. Yeah, there's like 5 minutes, so I mean, maybe let's just power through it. Power through? I think that's probably a good idea. Power? Okay, power it is. Power. Okay. So which leads to our next question. Yo, what up with you guys? Can't get enough of y'all anyway. Thank you very much, by the way, for not being able to get enough of us. I can certainly get enough of this, right? Stas? Stas has enough of me all the time. Oh, wait, we have another food. Okay. Dave, I was wondering when your book is supposed to be put on the market. Well, I have to finish writing it first. The fact that I have not written it is putting me in deep hot water with my publisher,

[41:15] but, you know, be, you know, sure that it's like my top priority now is finishing this book. And but after I write it, it's still going to be about a year before it comes onto the market. So unfortunately, no time too soon. Um, And 2nd question, more food related. Been having a little trouble with stocks lately. I always blanch or roast my bones, and skim, skim, skim, pass through a

[41:37] chinois, and cloth, like, you know, cheesecloth. After reducing by half or more and chilling, I still notice there being too much suspended particulate. What's going on? Also, this refers to beef and chicken stock, not pork. Thank you very much. Philippe. Okay. Look, there's an interesting article on clarity and whatnot that I don't have time necessarily to go through in detail, but you can get the abstract for it online and take a look at

[42:01] it. And it's called The Effects of Cooking Temperatures on the Physiochemical Properties and Consumer Acceptance of Chicken

[42:07] Stock by Mark Krasnow, which came out in 2011. And they basically do cold start, simmered at 85 Celsius for a long time. It's cold water start, hot water start at 85. Cold water start, cooked at 99 Celsius, and hot water start cooked at 99 Celsius. And they run through, you know, questions of whether, which is clear, which is cloudy, which has higher protein, which has higher taste acceptance.

[42:38] And I will just read, um, maybe their final results. Overall, the results of the studies show that there is a clear physiochemical difference between stocks cooked at 85 Celsius, i.e.

[42:49] Simmer, and 99, which is right at the boil. The starting temperature of the water, however, did not greatly affect these properties. The assertion, however, the protein extraction is greater in cold started stocks, was partially supported by the results of this study, for the stocks cooked at

[43:01] 99 C. The one that was hot started, had more dissolved protein, then the one that was at 85, the 85 had more dissolved protein,

[43:09] then the hot started at 85. Okay? So, uh, so, so there you go. You can go read their paper on it because it's too complicated to suss out, you know,

[43:18] just us out instantly. They did mention, by the way, that blanching beforehand was something they didn't treat as part of their study, but

[43:28] it's in there in the discussion. So you should definitely read about it. But I'll give you my my points, my points on it. Okay. Um, So what you did is you said, you uh, blanch to roast your bones 1st and then uh, skim, skim, skim. Now, the skimming is supposed to get the scum off the top that otherwise gets emulsified into the sauce. By the way, you do this initial thing where you skim off the initial stuff and then you want to boil the hell out of it for certain Chinese stocks because they actually want to emulsify the fat. So they're using protein to emulsify the fat into your stock. And that's basically, that's the idea for called, like, cream stocks or milk stocks. I happen not to like them too much, but I haven't had that much experience with them, but

[44:08] I'm just maybe just because I'm not used to them. I mean, I'm sure they're great in when they're used properly, but I haven't had enough experience with them. So, uh, so you want to do the opposite of that for a normal stock, which is to, you want to bring it up to the boil, uh, and then skim the stuff that floats off to the top because that's

[44:24] gonna contain, uh, proteins that are gonna, if they get churned in, will help to emulsify the fat into your stock, which is gonna make it cloudy. All right? So, so, one thing I want to make sure you're not doing is that you're not, um,

[44:36] uh, they, you're not boiling it too hard, right? The 2nd thing is you say you pass it through a shinois and cloth, and then after reducing by half or more and chilling, there's too much suspended

[44:46] particulate. Here's what you need to do. You need to pass it through a shinois and a cloth carefully, like Layla. Don't upset it or stir it around too much, like pour it gently and whatnot. Then chill it 1st before you reduce it. If you reduce, before you chill it, you're not going to get all of the fat and stuff off the top. You're supposed to chill it. There'll be a lay, it'll separate into layers, you separate it, and then scoop out the gelet,

[45:13] and then reduce the gelet. So maybe maybe that's the problem you're having. So the one problem you might be having, boiling a little bit too hard. It sounds like you're skimming it enough, so that's probably not the issue. Um, and the other thing is make sure you chill it thoroughly before you uh, do any reduction. Um, and if those aren't the problems, uh, there could be other things like the type of, uh, I mean,

[45:37] that maybe you're including bits of the chicken, like uh, certain giblets can apparently cause cloudy stocks or whatnot,

[45:43] but call, you know, email us back and tell us what the issues are. Okay, uh, we're about to have to go, but I just want to uh, go, why don't we have one last, uh, what is this, Twitter or email coming in? Hey, Dave, Nastasia, and Jack. First off, just want to say the Changua demo at SF Chefs last week was a great time. I didn't make it to the cocktail demonstration of the tent, but I'm sure it was awesome. Thank you. I'm a big fan of iced coffee. Usually cold brewed and sparkling water. But when I combine the two, it isn't a good result. Any tips on how to make a sparkling iced coffee. I'm particularly looking at ways to improve the mouthfield. Also, is there a way to make a cocktail version thanks, Tim. Okay, very good question, Tim. We'll take this as our last question today. Uh, there are certain uh, coffee bars. For instance, Bluebottle in San Francisco that serve you carbonated water with your

[46:27] with your espresso shots. And it's kind of interesting. It's a different mouth. Also, Columba here in New York. You can get some carbonated water with your with your espresso

[46:37] shopping, nastachia. You wouldn't like the carbonated water. I think they serve San Benedetto, which is not your favorite because you call it Agua de Boca. Because it doesn't have a high enough carbonation level for you. Because Nastasia, like me, likes a very bubbly bubble, right? You don't like like a, you don't like like a, like a petillon, like a minor bubble. You like a major bubble. Yeah, yeah, true, true. And in that, I am wholeheartedly agree. So this is one situation where I'm not going to rant against Nastasia's food choices because

[47:02] we... Jeez. Okay. Now, the problem is, is that you get some very unusual results when you

[47:12] add, um, the bubbliness, which has that sharp biting and people perceive as acidic, although I don't perceive it that way. I mean, you know, the science says that I do, but I don't feel about it that way. When that's mixed with coffee can be kind of strange. If you want to taste the only commercially carbonated coffee thing that I know of, there's a soda called Manhattan

[47:31] special, coffee soda, which I don't know whether it's only regional or not. Have you had that, Jack? I don't leave in there right now. No, or Joe, have you had that? No, have actually. What do you think about it? I think it's pretty awesome. Yeah, it's a local specialty though. Right, exactly. It's actually pretty hard to find too. Yeah. And well, it's not made in Manhattan. on Manhattan Avenue in Brooklyn. Right. Yeah. Manhattan Avenue spot. Yeah, the factory is pretty close to here, actually, right? Yeah, yeah. But so what you should do is try to get a hold of that and then taste that to see kind of what the commercial version of it is. But yeah, it is it is a unique. It is a unique, kind of a flavor. My only problem with Manhattan special is that it's kind of too sweet. You know, what do you think, Joe? Too sweet? Or do you like it that way? Oh, I'm into it. You're into it? So go get a hold of that. One issue when you're making a cocktail and you want to carbonate it. Or any sort of carbonated coffee beverages, coffee, especially espresso, which is what I deal with, has some foaming properties to

[48:31] it. And so, uh, it can foam like a, like a weasel when you want to carbonate. So when you uncap a carbonated coffee drink, especially espresso, which has a lot of suspended solids in it. You're gonna you're gonna get some serious filming problem. If you are a milk and coffee person, and you want to carbonate it. The milk can have problems because you can get curdling reactions with certain milk-based things, especially as the alcohol level goes up, but you're even more going to have an extreme extreme foaming a problem. And so you're going to have to make a very small amount of it and then let it foam off in

[49:02] order in order to get it to work properly. I going to have to think more. I also, if anyone has a good carbonated coffee thing, Please write in. I'm interested because I haven't done enough experimenting with carbonation and coffee, but I definitely have experimented with it. When I make coffee drinks and I want them super foamy and creamy and cocktails, I don't use CO2. I use nitrous oxide, which makes a nice creamy beverage. And you can, I've made many coffee cocktails with nitrous oxide, although they do

[49:28] foam. And that gives you the super creaminess that you get out of a fresh cup of

[49:33] coffee, but in a cold situation. So I would try nitrous instead of CO2 unless you really want the prickly texture of CO2, in which case, um, experiment away. Cooking issues.

[49:51] Vicious fish and vodka. Thanks for listening to this program on Heritage Radio Network.org. You can find all of our archived programs on our website or as podcasts in the iTunes store by searching Heritage Radio Network. You can like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at Heritage underscore radio. You can email us questions at any time at info@heritageradionetwork.org. Heritage Radio Network is a nonprofit organization. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening. Fishes, fish, vodka.

[50:35] me