[0:00] Today's program has been brought to you by the International Culinary Center, offering courses that range from classic French techniques

[0:06] and culinary pastry and bread baking to Italian studies to management, from culinary technology to food writing, from cake making to wine tasting.

[0:14] For more information, visit internationalculinarycenter.com. I'm Damon Bolte, host of the Speakeasy. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit heritageradionetwork.org for 1000s more.

[0:35] Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to LA from the Britis Pizzeria in Bushwick,

[0:43] Brooklyn, on the Heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from roughly 12 to roughly 1245. Join, as usual, with Nastasia, the Hammer Lopez, Jack in the booth, but today, special guest, Mark

[0:53] Ladner from Del Posto Restaurant in the studio today. How you doing, Mark? Pretty well, Dave. Listen, he's here actually to push his Kickstarter. However, since we have him trapped here, call in all of your Margot Adner related questions to 718-4972-128 that 718-497-2128. That's the last of my energy. I bites here today, gentle Peoples. Let me tell you something. It is out of hell out there right now. Although, Nastasia, I broke my usual rule of not biking the wrong way down the

[1:21] street, just to avoid that one street with the cement. Because what always happens when I bike here is I bike down. I forget the name of it. It's like Johnson or White or something like that. There's a giant cement factory on it. And I inhale cement dust on the way here every day. I

[1:36] come, and that's why I'm like, I'm in the 1st section. That's why I could do the intro because I went the wrong way down the street. Hey, Mark, how you doing? doing well, dude. So before we get into the general cooking issues related questions, why don't you tell us a little bit about your

[1:52] Kickstarter? Well, um, yeah, so we have, I think, uh, this is 3 days left on our Kickstarter campaign. trying to raise some money to do a pop-up for a quick service gluten-free pasta bowl

[2:06] concept, and we're hoping to visit some northeastern college campuses in the fall. Hopefully most of the month of October. And we're looking for some donations to get this truck so we can make some visits and get some people excited about

[2:24] gluten-free pasta. Okay, a couple of things. Let's break this down a couple of things at a time, okay? Let's forget the gluten-free for one minute. Pasta bowl, right? Explain the idea, the genesis of the idea and why it's a necessary thing to have Italian style pasta done for lack of a better

[2:41] word, ramen style. in our speed, ramen speed, not style taste-wise, ramen speed. Well, I mean, in my extensive experience traveling, the U.S. and a lot of Italy, I've never really found a precedent for quick service, Italian style, pasta, and I found that to

[3:01] be frustrating and disappointing. When, for example, you and I, Dave, went to Tokyo and the hammer as well. Hammer was there too. We had a lot of examples of really great fast food that was ramen that was a nervishing meal as well as a quick

[3:22] snack, and there's no precedent for that in America. Obviously, you've seen there has been quite a bit of momentum in the ramen

[3:32] space as of late, with Momofuku, for example. But there is no sort of precedent for pasta done that way. And I don't really understand why. Is it more of a mental problem or a technical problem or both? No, it's mental. It's purely mental. I don't think there's any technical problems at all. Because you're dealing with fresh, fresh pasta. There's going to be fresh style pastas, not dried style pastas, right? Are you going to par cook? It dried pasta. Straight dried? It's made from fresh, but it's dry. But some others has to cook quickly, though, right? cooks quickly. Like how many so it's not like fully dried. It's not fully dried then. Or is it like air dried, but it's porous, so it picks up the water really quickly, not to give away too

[4:11] much air dried. Okay, so it rehydrates like super fast. And explain to us the gluten-free. Um, well, this, uh, the gluten-free aspect, uh, started for 2 reasons. One, because we found, obviously, dealing with the entire restriction and preference in the restaurant that it was becoming an increasing trend. We're currently at probably around 30% of our guests prefer gluten-free. The gluten free lifestyle. Today, whether it will remain that way, is obviously in question. But we realized with so many people demanding gluten-free pasta that we would need to have 2 inventories, a gluten and an

[4:54] gluten. If you're mixing the two, then you can't have a certified non-gluten, so you're not really doing much of a service to the gluten-free people. Plus you need different boiling water. Right, exactly. And some say different machines, depending upon whether you want to be certified or not. So we decided to focus all our energy on just making the absolute best gluten-free pasta, which I feel is as good as regular

[5:15] gluten pasta at this point. Well, I know you're a big side by side tasting, uh, fellow, as am I, and you've done many side by side at

[5:21] your restaurant del post. what are the results been? It's hard to say. I mean, it's non-gluten. It has a lot to do with the saucing, you know, if you have a delicious flavorful sauce, it's harder to taste the difference.

[5:37] So I'm going primarily for texture. And you feel you get the I feel that I've been able to simulate an al dente texture, which is very unusual in gluten-free pasta because there's no gluten.

[5:49] And currently you're using the cup for cup. I'm currently using cup for cup. fancy, fancy, fancy stuff. I like it a lot. But in volume, it's not, it's affordable in volume. Considering what you, considering the amount that goes per serving, you're saying it's reasonable. Absolutely. Now, uh, by the way, for those of you that don't see, here's the thing that maybe people don't know. Maybe they've never been to Del Posto. Maybe they don't realize kind of what, like a bonkers lunatic you are for pasta texture, but, you know, I mean, unlike Nastasia, who will eat, like, pasta freaking sludge soup, if it's handed to

[6:22] her, cooked by students, she still will eat, like, a paste, a pureed, a ribolito of pasta, you might say,

[6:32] that's just her style. I don't know. But, like, Mark... she prefers it done she prefers it done properly. She will eat slop. If you were to cook pasta to the point that I was going to dehydrate it and puff it. She would still eat it as a cooked pasta if I threw some crappy Marnara on it. That's just gross. It's wrong. It's just wrong. But I love it about her because it shows that she has some inherent, like, weird crap that you couldn't predict because she does appreciate, like, nicely cooked pasta. You, on the other hand, Mark, the test poorly cooked pasta. I do the test poorly cooked pasta. So one thing I can guarantee, uh, if you were to stop by, uh, this, uh,

[7:13] this quick serve pasta concept is that you will uh, appreciate the texture that Mark is able to get. Now here's another thing. Who's this who's this nana chick? Who's that? I'm kidding. Like you say, it's non-style, right? What does that mean? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This means grandmother. It's our matriarchal avatar, if you will. And so apparently she knows how to make the pot. Do you like her style of pizza that they now sell in New York or not? And whose grandmother makes that kind of pizza anyways? I don't know. One other thing I just wanted to say really quickly, David, it's important to mention that I would probably consider myself to be a better pasta cooker than a pasta maker, and I think a lot of people underestimate the importance of the cooking aspect of

[7:55] pasta. Yeah. That's how that texture is achieved. Are you a are you a believer in the undercook even more and then hot sauce, put it together, let it

[8:06] soak? Isn't everyone who knows who? Yeah, but I don't use the water. I don't believe in that technique. you make the sauce a little thinner, right? Or what? Yeah, make the sauce center, but I don't use the pasta water because I oversalt my water. Why just use top water? Yeah, what's up over salt? right. Well, because you can't, you can't, once you reduce salty water, it becomes inedible. And then if you're combining it with other really salty things like rendered cured pork product or sheep's milk cheeses that are aged and things like that, it becomes compounded to the point where you

[8:35] can't. I've never eat it. You know the uh, the commercial uh, pasta cookers that are like redone fryers with this

[8:42] dark skimmer on the top? You use those things? How do you keep the salt level constant? You have to keep tasting it. It's really not a big deal, but yes, you have to keep tasting. All right. I've never really used one. They suck. Really? Is there a better system out there? There is not. Yeah, it's really, it's, it's really frustrating. They've been decreasing the quality of steel a little bit every year over the past 15 years to the point where if you get one to

[9:08] last 3 months, a miracle. Really? It's that bad. Was it go at the well joints or where did it go? Does it just start throwing rust into the water or what? Yeah, it's the joints. They, they, they blow out. Or it's just, it's just really cheap fabricated steel. And also, um, they'll actually tell you that uh, they prefer that you don't use salt.

[9:29] I want to just say that you prefer that you not cook pasta in the pasta cooker. That would be easier. You know what I think it is? A lot of times, anytime there is, one of the problems with stainless steel, 304 and 316, which I think they mainly make these things out of 304 and

[9:42] 316, is that if there's any non-stainless stuff in it, it will migrate and shaft the stainless.

[9:49] So if they use any non-stainless stuff in it at all, this is

[9:54] like, if you look up for people, if you care about this stuff, like look up the dangers of using non-stainless screws in stainless fabrication when it's exposed to corrosive environments, and there is no other environment as corrosive

[10:06] as, well, there are. But, I mean, no cooking environment, as gross to hot, salted water, you know? So I don't know whether it's maybe like even just cooks using non-stainless,

[10:17] but like, you know how those fake stainless racks when you throw them in an emerging circulator? They rust out in like a day. Yeah, we've had, you know, $5000 machines that have pitted out in

[10:27] in 3 days. I wonder whether it's the racking search they're shafting it. Like whether it's just poor quality. I mean, something in there is shafting it. Like if they use the real stuff, it should last longer than that. In the past, it has. They've just, they've just chose to use cheaper and cheaper steel. Right. But I wonder whether it's... I wonder if they cheaped out on one particular thing. It's ruining everything. Like maybe they're maybe they're saving because I'm having this problem manufacturing in China now. Maybe they're saving a nickel and costing you 5 grand. You know what I mean? No, no, no, it seems like it could be true. It's like for 5000 bucks, I'll give you this plastic cook, it's going to last for a month and a half . For $5002. It'll last for 3 years. You know what I'm saying? So one last thing, one last thing before we just start that dealing with regular questions. So, like, let's say I was to go on the website and donate some money.

[11:14] What do I get? Well, you could get everything from, we've been working, Dave, on an instant possible because this pasta that we've created can actually be cooked in one

[11:25] minute. So, as I know, you are a huge fan of microwave cooking. I also am a proponent of the magic of the microwave. people just haven't thought enough about it. So this pasta is actually cooked in a microwave. You mean the, like, I mean, the one that you're going to the instant one. Both. And you're gonna, and so if I pay, are you going to send me some of this stuff? Is that how? Okay, so listen here. It's only for 10 bucks, Steve. That's a freaking bargain. You should charge more. Or like let people buy. Here's the problem with Kickstarter. Can someone go buy a case of this crap and give you a 100 bucks instead? Absolutely not. Freaking Kickstarter. I know. If I'm going to cookstarter campaigns. Hey, hey, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. Well, my point is, is that like, why don't they let you consider like a 10 box of this stuff like a different skew from like,

[12:13] or, hey, hey, if it was a different flavor, you could do it? We're also selling a kilo bag. Sweet. of the instant stuff? On the, on the, on the, I'm not saying, but you know what I've always wanted to own? I've always wanted to own one of those things that can seal the top of a bowl or a cup with a little thing. Do you have that? Are you going to get the, or are you going to blow it? You know where to get one? I mean, I've gone to the packaging fairs. I don't know how much they cost, but wouldn't that be sick if you had the little, you could literally make the, my kids love hearty chicken. They don't like the actual Asian versions, but the really crappy, hearty chicken noodle one, because it doesn't have any vegetables, that's why. They love that that fake that fake soup stuff there. It's good stuff. They have new ones that are like perforated secondary skin lids, so you can like drain out the cooking water, which is pretty cool. So, is that your favorite new word, skin lid? Skin lid. She's got the look, she's got the lip. Best prize is having Marco cook at your house, I think. I will go cook at your house for a nominal fee. How much does that cost? How much stuff? Five grand? Five grand. And how many people you cook for? 12? 10 or 12. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Do the math. What is that? a lot. No, it's not that much. much is that? Well, it would be... Yeah, but we... roughly the cost of going to Del Posto. We bring all the food and some nice bottles of Chianti. It's like it's roughly the cost for you to go out to have a dinner at Del

[13:36] Posto. And instead, Mark Ladder will come to your house, which is sure to impress your buddies. We would impress my buddies. And we could enjoy some gluten-free pasta or some gluten pasta. Yeah, so I can cook that too. Are you going to make any, will you make any of your, like, famous, like, billion layer lasagna, please? Sure, why not? Love that stuff. Is it billionaire lasagna working? Is it working in no gluten form very well? It does very well. Yeah? Yeah, absolutely. It's good on a stick too, Dave, which I figured you'd appreciate. You could probably eat it on your bike. Well, geez, if you're going to put on a stick, do you, well, you can chill it. Skewer it. Exactly. And then, but then the question is, can you make it such that you, we will stick together enough once it's rethurned? No. We got to coat it with something and then fry it. We prefer to serve it cold with hot sauce. Mm, cold with hot sauce. That sounds like some sort of like a revenge-based, like metaphor. Stas will figure that out. of being the queen of revenge. Yeah, sure I figured it out. All right. Okay, so let's look at some question. I've got a live call. Oh, live caller. live caller. on the air. Hello, hello, Dave. I have a question for you. I have recently bought some carbon steel pants. Okay. Uh, and I, I seasoned on what I thought was properly at the time, but I think I used a little bit too much oil. I was wondering if you knew a good way to kind of set them back to factory

[14:56] without, and I prefer not to use anything like uh, electrolysis. Okay. So, uh, the way to tell if you have too much oil when you're seasoning it is you'll have A, you'll have drip marks on the inside, like little bumps and you'll have kind of a stickiness in the uh, in the bottom of the pan, right, Mark? Is that what you're noticing? How hot does your oven get? Do you have a self-clean? Do you have a self-cleans cycle in your oven? Uh, I, uh, I'm using these as in a professional setting, so... I mean, if you have someone with access to a self-cleaning oven, just remove any, any, any plastic handles and throw the pans in on self-clean, and it'll incinerate all of the stuff that's on

[15:39] it, and then you're starting from scratch. I mean, you can do it. You can do it on your on like a commercial range top. The problem is, is it's really going to smoke out the kitchen and you have a real, like, unless you're really careful with it. You going to warp the bottom of your pan. Neither of which is things you want. You much prefer the even heat of an oven, but a standard commercial oven in

[16:06] a runaway is only going to get up to about 550 and you need to get, you need to get over 6 and 6, I would say 656 and change to burn that stuff off.

[16:14] If you have access to like a wood fired oven, you can do that or if you have access to like a real pizza, you know,

[16:21] oven, that'll probably get hot enough to burn the sucker off. What do you think, Mark? Have you had access to a wood fire oven? Oh yeah, cool. fire the hell out of it. Like fire the ever loving hell out of it, then brush the stuff to the sides, throw the pan in, and

[16:35] this, you know, stand back, let the smoke. it'll smoke off. Uh, it might take it a while. You can tell because it'll look like steel again. It'll never look fresh. It's going to look kind of black, but it won't have that coating on it, and then just, I would like, I would like, just give it a scotch Brady and then, and then re-season, but, you know, obviously be careful about not dripping too much oil in it next time. You know what I usually do? I usually put the oil. I put a little in the bottom. I run it around, and then I quickly just take a, uh, uh, like

[17:04] a, the problem with paper towels, I use them, but is they can throw lint into it and leave little lintty jobbies into things, so you have to be kind of

[17:11] careful. They make specific kind of, like, brushes and things like this if

[17:15] you, like, the crate making people have, like, oiling pads that don't throw lint off, but then I just wipe it around the pan,

[17:21] like, let it drip, wipe it off to get the excess out and then throw it in the oven. I do that like five, 6 times, and then it builds up enough of a coat so that you can build from there, you

[17:30] know? You have a better thing other than paper towels, Mark, to use for that? I mean, I do, but it sucks. like, um, like kitchen side towels or white balls. I like white balls. which is a white ball? Is that the Japanese sport towel? What is that? Yeah, I can believe it is. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about, those Japanese sushi sports house? is so expensive, man. Yeah, they're good. Yeah, but like the only issue with paper, side towels and paper towels. Hey, you know, you could probably you'd ruin it. So the front of house is going to get pissed, but you could use a polishing cloth. they would hate you Those were great. Yeah, they would hate you though. But whatever. I mean, the thing is, if you throw it away, you can blame the front of house for having lost it, right? I'm kidding. dont do that to your front house. Anyway, all right, hold on, let's go on to a question. We have a question. Oh, is that good? Is that good? You happy with that? Let us know how it works. Perfect, thank you very much. All right, cool. Okay, Alex, in Toronto wrote in, and we'll take this question and then we'll go to a break. A few weeks ago, I sent in a question about Fond. I think you'll like this one, Mark. Not like fond, like fond of you, like fond in the bottom of a pan when you're making the meat. And one about an upcoming event you mentioned. I was wondering if you had chosen not to answer or maybe you got lost in the shuffle of the last few weeks. I totally understand if this sort of thing is limited interest, but if it did simply get

[18:44] forgotten, here are the questions I sent before. Alex, we do not ignore our questions. If we missed it, it means we missed it. So please, anyone, if they send a question and we don't get to it, it means it got lost in the shuffle, like, maybe it got put on my iPad and

[18:57] then, like, I didn't see it because I didn't boldface it or whatever, but, no, we don't we don't ever purposely, have we ever purposely ignored a question? No, no, no. We take anything. Wow. Just, like, remember, like, just like my grandma. That Stas is most famous, I think, saying back at the SCI about our intern, cliff, a go there. Now we're getting through now. Anyway, okay. Let's take the 2nd one first. Last week he started talking about an upcoming trip to Toronto. I'm a huge fan of cooking issues, and on the one occasion I was able to go, I love Booker and Dax. Will this Toronto event be something it is possible for a regular schlub like myself to get tickets

[19:31] to best Alex. Uh, well, uh, being a schlub myself, I will be there. But what am I doing? I'm actually tending bar in which restaurant over there. You're going to look it up like I remember you're supposed to look it up. No, I didn't know. you want to know your flights. Why would the people on the air want to know about my flights? was a personal thing. No, it was not a personal thing. rate it. We'll look it up and we'll figure it out, but I believe that, you know, anyone in the restaurant that night can order the cocktails that I will theoretically be

[19:59] making on the 10th. And then the other thing is there's a Toronto film festival and I'm going to be discussing the relative merits or demerits of Soylent

[20:10] Green. And you guys have fire in the movie theater. Check this out people. Did I mention this on air already? Okay. So they want me to do a Sears all demonstration. In a movie theater. Let me repeat this. They want me to do a Searzal demonstration, involving torches and fire in a movie theater. Now, I like fire more than the next guy. In fact, yesterday my wife, Jen, was like, Dave, you're a freaking Pyro. Like, the theme that runs through your whole life is that you're a freaking pyro. From the time you're a kid. I said, whatever. building more rockets with Dax. I got like a, I got like a 5 foot rocket called G-Force that uses a G scale motor and like, you know, huge like crazy. Last time I made one. We had a problem with the ejection charge and a thing burrowed like a foot into the ground, would have gone through any car that hit crazy. Anyway, so she's like, you're a Pyro, you're imprinting the Pyro on the children, whatever. So I'm just saying, I like fire. Uh, uh, I'm a cook. I think most cooks like fire. Mark? Yeah, you love it, right? If you didn't like fire and you were a cook, that's kind of like a doctor who's afraid of blood. You know what I mean? I mean... Questionable character. Yeah, it's like, yeah, go into raw food then. You could be a raw food preparationist if you if you don't like the fire. Anywho, uh, I think it's unwise to do a fire demo. In a movie theater. It's like the classic you don't yell fire in a crowded theater. You know what the corollary to that is, math people? You don't make a fire in a crowded movie theater. You know? I'm gonna cry fire. I'm going to make the, I'm going to turn on the, this here's all. I'm going to go, fire. Just kidding. No, I mean, it's a ridiculous idea. You know what? Thank God it's not my movie theater. And you know what? Anyone in Canada listening, are your rules different in Canada? Are you allowed to light fires in movie theaters in Canada? Where I come from, movie theaters are made like a fabric and crap and like, you know, like it's easy to have people get jammed in the doors and trampled to death. So we tend not to light fires in movie theaters here in this country. You said the movie was soiling green, right? And that your demo is based off soil and green. Are you saying I'm supposed to cook people? Did you see that there's this? We talked about this already on air that there's a person marketing something called Soylent? Yeah, no, you were supposed to do something with it, remember? No, that was a different soil. So this soylent, like that one was the one that's supposed to, like that, like a television personality show remain nameless, said, will you do something with this product, soylent, which was meant to kind of simulate milt, as the guy said,

[22:43] milt, for those of you that are up on your fish, fish bodily product terminology. I won't say the other. I won't say the human analogy on the air, but so I guess that would be made from proto people. But this Soylent is, how far can we stretch that? But this Soylent is literally, this person who's an engineering person says, don't you hate how you spend all this time wondering what you're going to eat and whether or not you're going to enjoy

[23:10] it? Why not just take all the enjoyment out? Here's all of the nutrients you need that they currently know about mixed into a paste that you can squeeze into your mouth or drink. Takes 2 minutes and you can prepare a week's worth of meals and you could just drink it on the go. You don't no long have to worry about like whether you enjoy your life. More time for kickboxing and other crap that makes you not live any longer. You know what I mean? It's like, let's say you, look, when you're, look, I love kickboxing. I love kickboxing. I think it's really awesome. kickboxing. Because it was on the, it was on the damn, uh, like, video for it. Like, they show this person who's like, here's the thing about overly healthy people, right? Like, I think, like, crazy kung fu people that can do amazing stuff are freaking amazing. Like, I love that they exist. I love it that they exist. But like the idea that we all need to be like hypercut, hyper fit, like somehow that's part of what it means to be like an

[23:59] active, active, healthy, like urban person in today's environment. I think it's just it's just gross. It's, it's, it's, it's like, instead of like your car. Expense of every other joy in life. Expensive every other joy in life and at considerable actual monetary expense. It's like, it's it's the current version of having a really sweet car. And I think in a way, it's just as gross as like, I think like being fit and healthy is awesome. I think like the hyper fit, healthy polish thing, it's just, it's another like modern craziness, no? Especially if it means that you're not, if you're, if you're eating this. Here's a note, here's how you can tell whether you fall on the right side of the wrong side of like health. If you're buying Soylent, you're on the wrong side. You know what I'm saying? like that's it. That the marker right there. If you if you are purchasing, uh, Soylent because you spend too much of your time, enjoying your life, and not enough

[24:51] time, uh, uh, with more kickboxing. problems. Did you want to know your flights? No, I don't. I want to know. I mean eventually, but not right now. Okay, so the 2nd question Alex had was, uh, let's hang tight on the 2nd question. I have an enthusiastic caller on the line right now. All right, color, you were on the air. Hi, this is Matt from Milwaukee. I have a question about making an alcoholic splutch. Okay. So, we purchased, uh, our restaurant operates 4 nights a week and then on Fridays and

[25:21] Saturdays, starting at 1130, we kind of switch it to an underground ramen shop, just flying ramen and beers and

[25:28] stuff. We thought it'd be awesome to buy a slushy machine and make boozy slushies. And we were just wondering, is there any special formulation that we're going to have to do to make certain cocktails in the

[25:44] slushy mode? I know Parsons, chicken and fish in Chicago. The Negroni slushies, and that was when we learned of that, we were like, oh, my bulb. Oh, nice, nice, uh, nice, uh, despicable me reference. I appreciate that. Uh, the, uh, so here's the trick. Negronis are, the reason why, 1st of all, as we all know, Negronis are delicious, and hugely popular in the food service sector for the past, um, you know, a long

[26:10] time and recently have become kind of popular in, like, kind of general, general, uh, issue,

[26:17] but one of the amazing things about Negroni, one of the reasons you see it in so many different guys is, is that that sucker is bulletproof. So it's it's good, uh, too cold. It's not really, the one thing it's not good. It's not really good too warm, but it's good too cold. It's good, uh, overdiluted, it's good, uh, carbonated. Very few drinks are as malleable as the Negroni is, which is why it lends itself to a lot of things. So it's not a surprise that someone made a good tasting Negroni in a

[26:50] slushy format. It's a little trickier when you're dealing with with other products. We have to realize is that a slushy is in general going to be more diluted than a regular cocktail. So the 1st mistake people make with a slushy-based, um, with a slushy-based drink, is getting the alcohol level too high. You need to pull the alcohol level lower. Also, Negroni is interesting because it doesn't contain other than the acidity from the vermouth. There's not a lot of added acity, unless you're adding juices. And so you don't have to worry as much about the acid balance in a Negroni that's watered down as you do in

[27:31] a, in a cocktail that contains acidity, for instance, a margarita. When you're gonna dilute and chill something more than normal. What you need to do is slightly reduce the acidity and slightly increase the

[27:46] ratios, sugar. In general. So I'm not saying make it sweeter on a volume basis because you don't want to do that, but I'm saying you're going to want to decrease the acid to sugar ratio slightly.

[27:58] Uh, and you'll notice this as you dilute uh, drinks down, drinks that, um, uh,

[28:04] you'll, you'll note it. just notice this. That, that, that's the way your kind of palate works. For a general guideline, I would look up, uh, I have a published, uh, blender drink that works in a slushy machine that's done using a freezer in the New York Times magazine a couple months ago called the Italiana Stalliano, which is a take on a Harvey

[28:24] Wallbanger. And that, that recipe is tweaked to work either in a fridge or in

[28:31] a, uh, in a slushy machine. And if you follow those ratios of liquid to alcohol, you should be in the right range. And, you know, you know, if I had it with me, I don't have it with me. I have a bunch of recipes with those specs, and actually I have the percentages in my cocktail book, which is coming out in November. Uh, liquid intelligence from WW Norton. But so those have the specs, but I would start right around there. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. Thanks. Thanks. We're always, it has like cute slots in it. So we're always going to have like a Wisconsin old-fashioned in one of them with the brandy. And then the other one, we actually want to have like stuff from around town and

[29:11] cocktail guys from around town come by and do like whatever the hell they want for a week and just kind of have that as like a special

[29:18] mark. Right. Well, one of the one of the things in my cocktail book that is kind of, you know, relatively new for cocktail books, as far as I can tell,

[29:27] is, um, I have a chapter in it called cocktail calculus. And in cocktail calculus. What I've done is I've looked at, you know, the standard ingredients that we use in our battery cocktail. And I've knocked, I've, like, I've broken them down by percentage acidity and percentage sugar, and then looked at, like, alcohol, sugar, and dilution numbers for something

[29:53] like, uh, I think like, uh, I forget what it was, like 50 or 60 kind of classic cocktails, and then all

[29:59] of the recipes that I've ever created. And what I noticed stunningly is that the ranges for different styles of cocktail are fairly limited in terms of

[30:09] their acid sugar ratios. And then in terms of how those acid sugar ratios mix with, um, mixed with ethanol levels for various styles of drinks. And so you can calculate all this stuff. So if you look up the numbers that are in that Italian

[30:24] Estagliano, and you try to hit those numbers for sugar. And if you if you email me in a

[30:29] question and I can get you the actual numbers, you're looking for a percentage ethanol, percentage sugar, percentage acid. I could talk about it next week. But that's ostensibly one of the interesting things about my cocktail book is this kind of new system where you're just looking at overall sugar acid and, um, ethanol percentages for different styles of drinks. But I have those numbers for blender drinks. And what I do for carbonated drinks at the bar is literally when I'm developing it, I just have those numbers and I just move the ingredients around until I hit the proper numbers and then it's a go from there.

[30:57] Excellent. That's exactly what we're kind of looking for. Just to see if we could just formulate something like a sorbet, so if someone tells us like a day

[31:06] out, like, hey, will this work in the machine, then we can, then we can do that, be ready for go time instead of wasting a bunch of hammer time without having a good product.

[31:17] All right, well, I'll give you some of the numbers if you email any question, but you still have to go out and buy my book deal. Absolutely. You're going to have like 8 guys at this restaurant by your book. Cool, thanks. We're big we're big fans. I've been a listener since day one. Oh, I appreciate it. Like, you know, I I am, uh, I cannot believe the people listen to us for that long, but thank you so much. I appreciate it. Bye. still there? No, you gone? All right. All right. We're going to come to a break. Come back with more of cooking issues.

[31:57] Hi, I'm Damon Bolty, host of the Speakeasy. This summer, Heritage Radio Network is turning 5 years old. Since our launch in 2009, we've continued to bring you food and culture

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[33:20] restorateurs, and wine professionals. We're proud to claim Dan Barber, Bobby Clay, and David Chang among our honored alumni. This is Dorothy Can Hamilton from Chef Story. Check out our ICC website at internationalculinarycenter.com. And we're back. Welcome back to cooking issues. You still have time to call any questions. 2 more Gladner at 718-497-2128. 718-4972128. But before we get back to you, Alex's question about Fund. Uh, I'd like to give a big shout out thanks to John Reiper for his donation to Heritage Radio Network. Am I correct, Jack? Yeah. And you have some other fundraiser you wanted to talk about. Why don't you describe it? Well, it's our five. Did you know it's our five year anniversary this summer? I did not. Five years. Five, five, five, four. for what, four? Four? been a long... somewhere in that range. So what do we got for 5 years? So we're doing a summer fundraiser, and John Riper, thank you for donating, and we hope the other cooking issues listeners might consider supporting the network for all of the programming we offer for free, and we are

[34:24] listeners supported, nonprofit organization. So any amount helps. It's heritageradionetwork.org, and you can click the donate button. Jack, let me ask you a question. So this programming on this show here. We provide this for how much do we charge for this? zero. Wait, but is it free for us to make this? Oh, it's not free for us to make? No, it's free for you to listen to. Wait, so there are costs that come along with running an internet radio station. So like all this stuff, this is not free yet. We do not charge for the product. Correct. So this is a bad a bad business model. Is it a kind miss business? Right. Yeah. So in other words, what you guys out there need to do is support our bad business model by giving poor Jack some money so that he can, by the way, Jack, the intro music today, was that, was that you with, like, the kind of almost

[35:15] newsy, ding, ding, ding, in the back? Was that you? The only people who hear that are the ones tuning in live. That was before the actual show started, and those are friends of the network. Who also give us music for free? So, you know. Oh, by the way, Jack, the not you, Jack, Jack, the bar back at Booker and Dax, who's also in the NYU food program. You know what? You know what he saw the other day, talking about a friend of ours. He saw big ups in concert, Joe's band. He said, Joe, you know,

[35:40] Joe also, you know, engineer here wasn't here. Those of you that listen back in the day, or when you were on the break, said he was an amazing

[35:48] front man. It was an awesome show. He's unreal. He's really really good. Maybe we should all go see a big up show sometimes. You remember Carlos? Yeah. He's in big ups also. Yeah? Nice. Well, apparently big ups to big ups. But, like, I heard that Joe, like, strangles himself with the mic. He does, yeah, it's true. He like rips his face apart on stage. insane. He like stares at the ground sullenly for a minute, then wraps the mic cord around himself, chokes himself and then goes crazy or something like this? You would never guess if you met the guy. No, he seems like a nice fellow. insane on stage. He's not like alien Jorgensen. He doesn't cut himself, does he? No, it doesn't take it that far. Well, I hope not because Alien Jorgensen, I mean, God love him. I can't believe he's still alive. But not from cutting himself, but just all the freaking heroin, you know what I mean? So much heroin. I mean, I like old ministry. You like old ministry, Mark, and Japanese Styles? Yeah, right? Jesus built my hot rod, not the version on the album, which I think is not as good, but the version on the EP that had the giant motor on the front of

[36:43] it was a song that's gotten me through many problems in my life. Many late nights. Jesus built my car. You know that song, Jack? I don't. Oh my goodness. He can't play it either because we need to get authorization. Do you think we can get Alien Jorgensen? You know who sings the lyrics on that is the guy from the

[37:01] butthole surfers? Yeah. Anyways, that is a good song. And now it's going through my head, so I don't know if I'm going to be able to answer these questions. Yeah, I mean to talk about editable stuff. Yeah, it's fast. you know, our good friend's edible schoolyard before we go back into the question. And then we'll just go do questions like rapid fire on the way out. So, uh, you know, our good friends at the edible schoolyard, who, you know, they just they just help kids, like, you know, grow things and understand where their food comes from and make them appreciate things like, you know, fresh

[37:28] vegetables. I mean, really terrible idea, right? It's terrible. Terrible. Terrible idea. Anyway, great. So they are having a fun raising event as well. And so Styles, why don't you talk about? It's to benefit there, a new school in Harlem, or a new edible schoolyard in Harlem,

[37:46] and, uh, it'll, if you donate, you'll go toward vital infrastructure improvements.

[37:51] So they have one where it's in Brooklyn, right? The current one? So they want to do one in Harlem and people, this is a good project to support. Where do they go? crowd rise.com. I think just look for edible schoolyard within it. Edible school year crowd rise. My son, actually, Booker is no longer going to be, his school's no longer going to be up in Harlem, but he's going downtown next year, but he's been going to school in Harlem for the past

[38:16] six, 6 years or so. And like, you know, like a lot of the schools up there, they could use this sort of program. It'd be really helpful, useful, awesome, and worthwhile for your expert nickels. Now, you can't get Mark Ladner to come cook for you in that. But how do they get to before we don't forget. We didn't say where the Kickstarter is to find your thing. Go to wwwpastaflyer.com. pastaflyer.com. You also get to hear the voice of Phil Bravo, right? Phil Bravo. Phil Bravo. Yeah, but giant D-bag for not coming and announcing on our show. I mean, I'm just going to say huge debag. That's why we couldn't get a personal guard service or something. What is he such a D-bag? I don't know what the hell is. It doesn't work for free, Dave. Well, but it doesn't work at all. Hey, how many times has Phil mooched like liquor and or food off of some event that we've been a part of? Yeah, think of it. Don't have enough finger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no one has enough fingers. Even if you had a genetic anomaly and you were born with like quadruple fingers, you wouldn't have enough fingers and toes to make up

[39:14] for the number of times, fill his mooched food and booze off of us. And like, you know, I'm just saying, all I wanted in return was a little bit of his sweet, sweet, thorough Ravencroft-esque voice doing his Tony the Tiger action.

[39:27] You've not lived until you've heard Phil Bravo do a sad Tony the Tiger, saying they're great

[39:32] in a really mopey voice. Yeah, I mean, you know, Mark, you have quite a sonorous resonant voice, but even you would have to admit, Phil Bravo has like the... And he's like a satin kerchief, that... Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, back to Alex's question before I get kicked off the air. A few weeks ago, I sent her a question about Fond. I was wondering, let's get to the question. I make many recipes from Cooks Illustrated, which rely on searing meat to create a fond, which is then used as a base for a sauce or a gravy.

[40:00] Do you like the word gravies does? Mezzo mezzo? Okay. What about, you know, Mark, I know that you're not from there, but like, you know, you hang out in Rhode Island, right? Are they like Boston where they call sauce, gravy when it's on macaroni, real times? Do they call it macaroni and gravy like they do in Boston? Sure. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, in Boston, they get that weird. Where in New Haven, Dave? Do they do that? I didn't hang out with real like Italian Americans there. I used to go to a place actually called the Markagana Club, which was real, but I didn't talk to the cooks. It was all cops, nuns, dirty linoleum floor, and soap operas. And it was like, you had to have a key, and you went in and it was just like the weird, like, the weird, like, salad bar, and, you know, it's like the whole real deal. And, you know, but you know what they say about people from Marque. Better to have a death in the family than a Marca John at the door. You know what I'm saying? Yeah? Yeah, nice. Anyway, no offense to people from market. Anyway, so the, you know, tax collectors. Anyways, um, uh, I make many recipes from Cooks Illustrated, which rely on searing meat to create a fond, which is then

[41:00] uses a bass for sauce or gravy. I was wondering if you could give me some tips about how to do this more effectively and efficiently. I sometimes have trouble getting a Fonda form at all, and often it takes a long time to form when I do succeed. It does take a long time. I mean that's the idea. I mean, there's no way, I mean, you can't not have it take a long time because the idea is to create those, those brown bits without burning it. I mean, there's no... You need some BTUs too. I mean, you can't do it. Oh, yeah, yeah. Anyway, let's hope. So, uh, when I do succeed, uh, much longer than the recipe descriptions would indicate. Maybe underpowered stove. Yeah. Yeah. Also, it seems that the delicious brown particles that are created end up suspended in the oil, much of

[41:39] which must be discarded to avoid making the recipe greasy. I think a lot of people use too much oil when they're trying to do something like this anyway. I mean, like, think about it this way. Well we'll get into it. It seems to me that several other several factors affect this process, including the amount of oil in the pan. Yes, the temperature of the pan when the meat hits the metal, maybe more like the amount of heat you can deliver to it, really. You know what I mean? Um, uh, how high the element is turned and probably oh, element is turned. See, I'm thinking now that you have an electric range, which I've never had a good result

[42:09] with an electric range, right? Have you marked? I mean, induction, yes, but like, like a regular, like, electric,

[42:15] whenever anyone says the, uh, element is turned makes me think they have one of those old school electric ranges, which

[42:23] of, they're like, they're bad. I mean, you can work with it. You who like those things? James Beard. weird, right? Also, James Beard did not like fresh sardines. liked canned sardines, which I also like, but they're not the same product. Why would you even compare them? They're not the same. Anyway. Probably the temperature and the dryness in the meat itself. What are the optimal conditions for creating a delicious my art tastic fond, and what is my best bet for doing so either quickly or efficiently in the home

[42:50] kitchen? Okay, so, uh, here's the thing. What do you think? Mark, I think like a lot of people, they put, they're going to put too much oil in the pan, right? completely agree with that. Yeah. You want a little bit so that you get good contact, but you don't want some, think about it this way. No fun develops on the inside of your deep fry pan. And the reason is, is because the meat is not sticking to the side of your deep fryer. If the meat don't stick, then you must acquit or whatever. However, the OJ reference for it works. If the meat don't stick, there's no fond, which is why you can't create a good fondant and nonstick pan. Agree with me here, Mark? Yes, that's true. So a little bit of oil in there and you drop the meat in and and don't move it. Let it sit, develop the color. Stuff needs to stick to the pan. Stuff don't stick. Remember, the OJ, there's no font. You know what I'm saying? Uh, I think the other thing is, is that usually when I'm doing it, uh, I'm doing a bunch of meat in the

[43:40] pan, and like, and in the same pan, and the 1st couple of pieces aren't ever as good as like the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, you know, when

[43:49] you're when you're doing multi, let's say you're doing a braise and you're doing, the 1st couple are never going to be, uh, as, uh, as good. Um, I'm not, I mean, It needs to be hot enough to create, uh,

[44:01] the, it needs to be hot enough to actually create the Mayard products that stick to the thing. So in that sense, if you overcrowd your pan and it never gets up to those temperatures, then you're just going to be, you know, steaming your meat and you're not going to get a good

[44:12] fund, but, I mean, I'm also not one of these people who like puts like one little piece in and then because if you

[44:18] underfill your pan, then you're going to burn the fond on the edges that have already been created.

[44:23] So it's a, it's a, this is why, like, you need to start out hot once it's actually in searing mode. You can torque back on it a little bit. And if you overcrowd your pan, you're not going to create a fond at all. And if you undercrowd your pan, you're going to get burning of, especially around the edges of the pan. If your flame is, if you have a flame, if it's licking up or over on the sides. And burnt fond is nasty fond. am I right? is true. So I always do it in this order. I do meat first, then the onion. product, right? Do you always do the same way? Yeah, but like after the meat, right? Me first, and then you can increase the oil a little bit and do the onions. If what if you're doing a meat only, if you don't have that much oil, you're not going to get that problem with losing it

[45:04] all the particles in the oil. And the 2nd thing is, is that don't scrape your pan, when you're doing this stuff, because you're trying to get the stuff to stick to the pan. So you shouldn't have too much stuff floating in the in the oil, right? Or no? Yeah, I think the main problem is using too much oil. The main purpose of the fat is just so that the meat doesn't stick. Yeah. Yeah. And I've never thought about, I've never thought about, I always saw it beforehand when I'm doing these because it's always in braces, but do you think that affects it at all, the salting? I mean, I think it would pull protein to the, it would pull protein to the surface and maybe get more proteinaceous stuff onto the pan, which is

[45:43] going to make more fun, but I don't know for sure. Maybe someone out there knows. What about cold? Do you temper your meat or do you start it cold like right out of the refrigerator? I mean, it's interesting. I've never done a side by side, uh, but, um, I mean, you and I both know that usually what happens is, is you get the stuff out, you're doing your pre-prep

[46:02] work and then you see her on it. So it's never fridge cold by the time it gets into the pan because I'm never that if I'm going to be searing it, unless I'm doing low temp work, which sometimes I am,

[46:12] when I'm doing low temp work, then I'm very careful about keeping it cold while I'm doing my initial

[46:16] sear, but if I'm doing a standard braise, I mean, that stuff warms

[46:20] up. I dont even give a crap because I know I'm, in fact, you know, like I'm throwing them in and out of the same buckets where I'm like seared, you know, the seared versus

[46:27] I'm seared stuff because it just doesn't freaking matter to me. Are you the same way or no? No, I keep it separate. You keep it totally separate. Even though you're going to braise the hell out of it? Compartmentalized, dude. I know. Well, you know what? the difference between like an actual pro and someone who came at being a semi-pro from the back end. You know what I mean? And this is why people yell at me. So I'm told that I have to get the hell off of the air. So I have some questions. I have one, some interesting stuff actually about soy, how to get a soy sauce flavor without

[46:57] soy that I'm going to get to next week. Some low temperature bags and also, I have one. Maybe I can do I have like 30 seconds? Oh really? All right. So I'll also get to the care for nonstick pans, how to clean them out. Hint, Scotch Bright makes a non-scratch version that you can use in your Teflon in your non-stick pants. And about Teflon in general next week on cooking issues. Thanks for listening to this program on Heritage Radio Network.org. You can find all of our archive programs on our website, orders 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 anytime at info at heritageradionetwork.org. Heritage Radio Network is a 501 C3 nonprofit. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.