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[0:26] Hello and welcome to Cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues, coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network from Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Every Tuesday from about 12. Super late this time, 1215 to about, I don't know, when do they kick us off the air? 1245. But then, no, they really kick 1250. Stas, Mike's not on? Oh, it is. Oh, no. Oh, yeah, there you go. All right, nice. Joined as usual. Nastasia. Hammer, Lopez. How you doing, status? I see you've retired your Christmas hat, which I'm very sad about. Nastasia has perhaps the greatest Christmas hat of all times, all times. Like, it is like wearing a knit Christmas tree on her head.

[1:13] pretty sick. don't think it's hipster, do you? You know, if nothing you wear could possibly be hipster because, you know, then it would be like matter anti-matter coming together and, you know, you would dissolve in a burst of energy and light, you

[1:26] know? But this is quite a tall hat you got and it's kind of pretty... The one she has right now or the Christmas hat? I think the one now is potentially boring. I know, but it's warm. It's got a pretty sick pom-pom on top. It's like you've executed some sort of small fluffy animal and just directly put it on top of your hat. You know the thing about the pom-pom is it doesn't actually add any warmth to your hat. Yeah, I wonder what the history of it is. Oh, here stars coming down the street. I can tell by the pom-pom. Maybe. Maybe. In the booth, we have, what do we got over there? We got Jack and White over there in the engineering booth. We're here AY, do me a favor. Figure out who it was that wrote in about the Thai Basil, because I can't remember if I want to give them a shout out for their awesome idea. And joined in the studio with heritage radios. New intern for the next couple of months. What is it, Devlin? Declan. Declan. Declan. Nice. Hey, Declan, how you doing? pretty good. And tell you, why don't you tell people where you're from? I'm from Brooklyn. New York. I'm from Park Slope. Yeah, but what do you're here as part of something with your high school, right? Yeah, we, for the 2nd semester of our senior year, we do an internship instead of like regular classes. So I'm doing this. Yeah, nice. Nice. They didn't let me do that when I was in high school. No, that when I was in high school, you know what you did? You stayed in school. Although seniors were allowed to leave. I didn't have a car, so I didn't, because I wasn't that kid with a car, even though I did come from the land where, you know, everyone had Audis with dancing bears on the back.

[2:51] Uh, you know, I was not one of those. I wish I was one of those kids. But anyway, so and so how do you get into this intern thing? What do you? A little bit of nepotism. My sister works for Roberta's, so she kind of got me the gig here. You're a senior in high school, right? Let me teach you something very freaking early in life. Nepotism is like, everyone's like, oh, yeah, I want to do it all on my own. I don't want any help. That's crap. Take whatever help you can get from whoever you can get from wherever you can get it. Every, almost everyone that you've heard stories of, you know, later in life, we're like, I started with nothing. And I built it all myself without help. It's all lies and crap. Like, if you look into what most people like do, they have some freaking help, you know? So don't worry about the nepotism. Do not be ashamed. Like, here's the thing. once you get a position of, I don't know, are you going to be a wealth and power, is that what you're shooting for in life? I don't know about that. No, whatever. lets say you were. Like once you're there, then you can say, okay, maybe I shouldn't, maybe I shouldn't dole out the nepotism to someone who is unworthy.

[3:54] You know what I mean? Like, that's the responsibility. Once you have the crap to dole out. Then you have a responsibility. When you don't have anything, you have no responsibility not to accept the generosity of others. Just saying, what do you think, Stas? did it all myself. I did it all myself. I started from nothing. A lowly Stanford grad. Jack, what do you think? I agree. And I also just want to add that I'm doing a little research here. It seems like pom-poms are pretty much pointless and decorative. In some cultures and religions, they denote like the rank, you know, by color. So where do the black pom-pom rank? I don't know. She's been listening to the to the city as mine, just like, or not the city as mine. What's it? What's the one? All black, everything. Oh my god. My brain is erased. All my rap knowledge has been erased. Anyways, I have a question in from Matt in Chicago. Dear cooking issues, folk. I have a bit of a challenge for you. I'm writing on behalf of my daughter. She's doing her 5th grade science fair, and her project is about acids and bases. We have the assets down. She's dissolving an eggshell, a whole egg, and one container of vinegar, and setting the egg whites in another. Can you recommend some cool food-based experiments she can do with bases? I thought about pretzels or alkaline noodles, but didn't think either would be interactive enough. Also, she can't really cook anything on site, thoughts, Matt from Chicago. PS, she's a big fan of the show. I wish my kids were big fans of the show. Actually, I don't, because, like, sometimes I'll mention stuff, like, Dax is already mad at me because I mentioned, what was it? I mentioned something he did that. Oh, the burning eyes. Oh, my eyes. Yeah, yeah, what was that? The wasabi oil. Nah, sad. She's a big fan of the show and wants to come in, call in sometime. Unfortunately, she's in school when you guys are live. Maybe I'll have her whole class in one Tuesday. LOL. That'd be fun, actually. Where's the class, I wonder. 866-708. Where 708? We'll find out Um, I've done school presentations with liquid nitrogen. That stuff's fun. Like, I've done it to, like, Illinois. We have plenty of, what, Illinois? Maybe we will have something there. I don't know. Anyway, whatever. not what we're talking about. We're talking about acids and bases. Now, listen. You're doing eggs. Hey, Stas, I can hear you crinkling your mint, like from a mile of freaking way. You guys hear that online? This is what Stas thinks about. Mince, mince, mince. I was boundary in my pocket. Yeah, all right, all right. Well, we took a car ride. We were doing a demonstration with Mario Battali at his son's high school, in fact, where we demoed, among other things, liquid

[6:22] nitrogen and Dragon's Beard, 2 kind of fun demos to do in front of people. And the limo driver, what was his name again? Like Arturo or something like this. He had like a bunch of mints. So Stas was like, he didn't ask me whether my seat was comfortable. So she takes some scoops. Scoops, all of the mints into her pockets, like... Atomic fireballs and mints. She, like, looked, she, like her pockets were like, all chipmunked out with this dude's mints just because, and the sad thing is, Jack, is that the dude did ask her how her seat

[6:52] was. He totally did. Whatever. Okay. You are in luck, my friend, or I should say your daughter is in luck, because if you want to stick this entire thing with eggs. A really fantastic, uh, base demo is um, doing uh, lie soaked eggs. I hope you have a couple of days to do this. I believe that if cooking issues hasn't been entirely turned into one giant Cialis ad by now by the

[7:16] freaking hackers, right? I believe I put the recipe up there because it's something we used to do with Harold McGee, where we would take eggs. Now, interestingly, one of the interesting things about it is that it works differently on quail eggs, chicken

[7:30] eggs and duck eggs. I've never tried a, you know, a Rhea egg or an emu egg or an ostrich egg, but it works differently on the 3 normally available eggs that I can get.

[7:39] And I forget the exact percentages, but it's high. It's somewhere in the, in the, you have to get some food grade lie. Uh, don't lick it, uh, and uh, or don't let anyone near it who doesn't know what's going on. And be careful when you're following the rules on, um, on live because it's very

[7:56] exothermic and so you just have to, you know, follow the rules from mixing lie. But it's something high. It's in a couple of percent lie. There's a lot of lie. And salt, a lot of salt. I think it's like 5% salt. And you soak the eggs in it for I forget, but it's like a week or something like this. And what happens is, is then when you cook them, the base has denatured the proteins to the extent that, and you

[8:19] could, you know, cook them, you know, just with regular boiling water, even you could bring a pot of hot water and cook them

[8:23] all because it doesn't take a lot. It's denatured the proteins to the extent that they will still set, but they are completely translucent. You can like look through them. And there's pictures on the blog of this. And you can eat them. They're funky. They taste a bit like Lutt Fisk, you know, which is another good basic thing. It's a shame she can't cook on site because I think pretzels is actually a fantastic demo, just doing the

[8:46] pretzels because you can do the boil in regular water and then the boil in basic water and you can see the huge difference in browning between

[8:55] them. And when you taste one and then the other. You get a very, very clear sense of what the basicity does to the taste, right? I mean, if you taste a pretzel that's been boiled in regular water. like a, like a bagel in a pretzel shape. And if you do it, the other way, it's, well, it's pretzel. You know what I mean? So, I think it's interesting, but look into that egg thing. that was a cool demo, right? People like that demo because it's weird because you can see through the egg and you're already doing a lot of work with eggs here. So maybe it's a, you know, what do you think? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially if you can't cook. So most of the my art things are going to be out like my artists. I mean, the things with base that you have are, right? you have the alkaline noodles. You can show the stuff turning yellow. you know, if you get the right stuff. That's interesting. You have acceleration of Maillard, and you have, you have also like, increase in, um, uh, pectin breakdowns, right? So you could do like a mushy test by adding base to something like being adding too much base to something like beans and then shifting acidic and showing how they're cooking them side by side, but you can't really do cooking. Um, and then the other one is just, um, protein destruction. Or if you don't want to do straight food, you could do saponification, you could make soap, you know, but

[10:06] again, that also is going to take some cooking. Anyway, hopefully some of these things are of interest to you. But remember, when you're playing around with hardcore bases, especially lie. Uh, you're gonna want to be super duper careful. You know what my favorite acid thing with food is, even though it's not food related. You ever you ever done sulfuric acid and sugar? Do they do that for you in science class? No. It's sweet. Like the sugar just gets completely turned to carbon, but it

[10:32] happens so quickly. that it forms a column of carbon coming out of the, yeah. I've seen videos of that. really, really cool. Sweet. It's not food related in the sense that you can't eat it afterwards, but it does start with food. It starts with food. Um, yeah. And speaking of uh, speaking of fats and and uh, sponification, uh, Brian from uh, Mipples, that would be Minneapolis, Mipples, uh, writes in, does anyone in Minneapolis like take umbrage at

[11:01] like people calling it Mipples? I mean, I guess they wouldn't. Yeah, they wouldn't write it that way if they didn't want us to call it Mipples, right? I guess not. Nipples. Okay. Proving that no good deed goes unpunished. I have a 2nd question for you. You responded very thoughtfully to my question about chia seeds a few weeks ago. Stas. Give me your chia seed face. Your chia seed drink face. Yeah. Ch Ch Chia. Anyway, I want to solidify canola oil for disposal after using it for deep frying. I'm a bad person. I do it in a Dutch oven on the stovetop, not a commercial fryer like Dave. By the way, my commercial fryer at home right now is not fired up

[11:38] with my hood is currently not operating well enough to use my deep fryer, so I have been reduced to frying on the stove like a chump. But what that means is, is I'm frying, uh, I'm frying things that don't need, um, that are not going to abuse the oil too much and that don't need very stable uh, temperatures to work and it

[11:56] don't, like, so French fries, you don't want the stuff to get too low or you get too much oil, oil absorption, right? Chicken, obviously, you want to do a good job of frying. But like the easiest things in the world to fry, potato chips and tortilla

[12:08] chips, because you want those suckers. Hey, you know, anyone that disagrees with me, feel free to write in, but those suckers are saturated

[12:15] with oil. They're just saturated. You know what I mean? And all you're really doing with, like really what you're doing with that is you're using the oil as a dehydration technique to boil the liquids out of your stuff.

[12:25] So tortilla chips and potato chips, you can start from a cold pot of oil if you want, heat it up till it's boiling, let it boil until it suckers

[12:34] crisp, and then just not brown it. So at home, when I'm using a crappy fryer for, you know, crappy Dutch oven for that, like, why don't use a Dutch oven? I actually use a pasta pot with a colander in it so I can pull and drain. And, you know, I just heat it till it goes, mellow, turn it off in between batches and it's good to go. I mean, I ain't frying chicken like that, though, because, I mean, I'm not that much of a chump. anyway. The only product that I can find that supposedly solidifies things like canola oil is a Japanese product called

[13:00] Cantomeda Tempuru. By the way, remember we were given a package of that after the show. I haven't had a chance to play with it yet. in a couple of weeks. hopefully I'll have a chance. busy, but hopefully I have a chance to play with it and see what's going on. And there's a post you can look to on Chopsticks and why. I've only found one online seller and it's crazy expensive. $89 for 50 packets. What is that per package size? Come on, Matt. Hey, you're in high school. Give me some math. 8950. Do it right now. Do it, do it, do it. 20 grams each. Uh, and that was on uh, Japan goods finder. You got it yet? 89 bucks, 50. Come on. Come on, come on. All right. Reports say that this powder is derived from seaweed. This makes me wonder, can something like carry Jean and solidify oil? I don't think so. Or something else available from modernist pantry, modernistpantry.com. Anyway, so then after this, he writes in, by the way, I answered my own question about the oil solidifiers when I found some at

[13:47] a local Asian grocery store. It's hydroxystheric acid almost certainly with some bulking agent not listed in the ingredient list. I've attached pictures on the front and back of the package, and it looks like you heat the oil to

[13:56] 80 C, then stir in this stuff, and then it thickens as it cools down to 40 C. I used 118 grand packet and about 2 quarts of oil and it got very thick but not quite solid. I guess I need to use more. I still have 2 questions about it. Still Brian from Mipples asking questions about solidifying oil. Any idea about the proper oil to acid ratio to get solidification? No. I can't read Japanese and neither can I. Um, but I could find someone that read Japanese. I have plenty of people that can read Japanese. I, you know, I should take the package to them and see. I'll do that. I'll try to, you know what, the thing is, if I throw the, if I throw it in my backpack, then I'll just have it there. And then when I meet, you know, one of my friends just speaks Japanese. I'll look at them and say, why do I need someone who speaks Japanese and be like, oh,

[14:38] cat American important, and then I'll get this stuff out. anyway. Um, and then uh, finally, I found one chemical supplier that sells smallish quantities of hydroxysteric acid, TCI America, which sells 25

[14:48] grand for 18 bucks. Uh, the product I got was um, uh, was 180 grams for 8 bucks. So it can't be pure hydroxysteric acid based on TCI's pricing. Well, there's his where this is where I disagree with you, my friend. I looked on TCI's website a couple of points before we go on the next thing. I looked at TCI's website and while they do, in fact, sell 25 grams for 18, you got, by the way, you got that 8950 thing? Come on, you're not even looking. I looking at you, you're not even doing the math in here. I can't man. Oh, man. Man. putting all this pressure on you. Oh, jeez. All right. So well, they do, in fact, sell 25 grams for 18 US dollars. They sell 500 grams for $39. It's $1.78. Yeah, stars. Yeah. Yeah, but resourcefulness. She didn't even bring her phone out for that. She did. She did. She has hid it from you. She's so used to hiding the phone for you. trying to make her look good. Yeah. So anyway, so but you can buy 500 grams off the same website for only $39, proving to you one thing that you should know in

[15:48] advance. Any chemical site that will sell to you is going to rip you off major

[15:52] time just for repackaging it. They're selling an order of magnitude more. In fact, an order of magnitude times 2 of the product for a mirror twice as much. So you're just paying for the small quantities there. Another thing I might add. I did a little poking around on this stuff, which I'm not going to attempt to say without looking at it. Hydroxysteric acid. And the thickening power of it depends a lot on what salt it

[16:19] is, right? So remember, it's a fatty, it's an acid, right? And it's usually sold in a salt format. And the lithium salts of it, various lithium salts of it are what is used to make

[16:31] lith grease. Like, you know, like very thick lithium grease. And so who knows whether or not like basically you're making lith grease in your in your house with this, in which case maybe the stuff would be a good lubricant. Don't know. Do I know? I don't know. But I could try to look more into it if I remember, although odds are I won't because odds are I'll forget. Odds are, I'll forget. But maybe one of you out there knows and you can tell me. Call her, you're on the air. Yeah, I had a question. What would be your death row meal, if you could only have one meal, either for you. Well, hopefully for you, Nastasia and Jack. What would be your last meal on Earth and how would you cook it? All right. Well, I'll go a little bit 1st before I say, like, I don't know that I'd be hungry. You know what I mean? I'd be so freaking anxious that I don't know that I'd be

[17:18] that hungry. And here's another thing. Like, if I was in prison on death row, right? I've heard that they don't really like put the energy into it that you would want. You'd be like, you know, you'd be like, all right, I mean, like, you'd be tempted to bust out all the stuff that you never got to eat, right? Be like, uh, what I would like is I would like, um, I would like an Ordolon side by side with, uh, you know, a bubble link, which is like the rice bird, which is

[17:45] traditional. It's illegal to take them now, but like I want one fatted as it flies down and eats the newly planted rice crop in South Carolina on its way down to South America. And I would like a similar passerine migratory bird from

[17:58] China. Uh, you know, the uh, patty swallows that they have over there. I would like them all, roughly at similar points in their migration, similarly fattened, so I can do a side by side comparison on my way out.

[18:08] Like that's what I would want. You know who would end up doing their work for that would be me. You'd be like, oh, man. You know, strangely, I think I said this on the air, but the bobble, like, after 1919, I

[18:20] think was a migratory bird act, you're no longer allowed to shoot birds unless you're specifically allowed to shoot them, right? So they was protected, and it's been protected for a long time,

[18:28] obviously, since 1919, but, you know, almost 100 years. But, uh, you know what kills them now? Like they get killed by the bushel. you know, but you know, by what? They're a ground nesting bird. They get killed by lawnmowers up in the northeast on golf courses because the bird's

[18:42] like, what a great place for a nest. You know what I mean? Yeah, maybe maybe the question is not so much death row, but like if you had one meal, what would it, what would be your, if you could only have one more meal, what would be

[18:56] that, you know, maybe minus the death part? Minus the death. Yeah, well, it would be a boring life afterwards with the no food. I think I would still do some sort of crazy comparison of stuff I couldn't otherwise do. I wouldn't necessarily go for the comfort food because there's no comfort to be had. You know, you're going to have... You're going to have... even if it's not, you're like, hey, well, it's the last meal you're going to have to say, oh, whoa, I want to learn something, you know? And that was Francois Mitteron's last meal, minus the bobble link, because, you know, he's such a freaking French chauvinist, Mitteron, that he was like, eh, I think it was Mitteron. He was just like, uh, it wasn't Degal. It was minor on. And he was, you know, he's like, I only want the French one. Anyway, but so Stas, what would you have? I think I would do caviar with sour cream and Pringles

[19:37] and champagne. You like you like your caviar on a Pringle? Pound it out, Stas. Caviar and a freaking Pringle. I thought she'd be like blinis. No. And she's like, I want my caviar and Pringle. By the way, you know how we're like, we're discussing giving arms to Ukraine? This guy was this guy from the Ukraine? I loved it. Instead of saying night vision goggles on the news. Night Vision Googles, Night Vision Googles. I'm like, I want some Night Vision Google. That'd be sick. That's a sick internet search. Magvision, Google. Jack, what do you got? Mine's weird, but it would be like the best, best, best bread and butter. Yeah, that would be it. Bread and butter is some delicious. We got Peter Kim and Peter, what would your last meal be? I'll give you about 13 seconds to think about it because of money. Fried chicken? I'm done. What kind of fried chicken, dude? That's like saying, I would like to have, I don't know, food. Like, what kind of fried chicken? Like what style? Do you equate fried chicken with food? I'm saying there's a wide range of fried chickens, my man. So what style of fried chicken? Or would you like a panoply of styles of fried chicken? Look at me. What kind of thing? By the way, those of you that might not know. Kim isn't like Kim is a Korean name. Peter Kim from the Museum of Food and Drink says he wants Korean fried chicken, but since he's pulling the race card on me, I'm going to make you say it with the accent... Could he

[20:54] unput a chicken? There you go. Nice. Nice. Nice. Not really nice but there you have it. Anyway, caller, I hope that answered your question. Yeah, I'm just glad to hear like Natasha actually would like something and she gave such a good answer with Pringles and Caviar. No. No, that's classic Nastasia high and low for you. Like, that's classic stars. I did not even know the shit. Actually, I did know you were a fan of the Pringles, because they're basically a potato paste. It's a weird product of Pringle. But she has a big, she has that weird, like, like, smile plus revolt. You know when kids like get themselves into something they know they shouldn't do, but they love it? That's the look stars has on her face when she talks about Pringles. That's good stuff I would have expected Nastasia to do something more like, you know, a baked potato bar or like

[21:37] twice. Have you ever seen her eat a potato? Have you ever seen her eat a baked potato? Yes. Really? Where? We had baked potatoes. That one time when we went to, where was it for the Pats game? Oh, yeah. I like a baked potato. Remember in this? you don't. But in the 70s, man, baked potatoes were like, boom, baked potatoes everywhere. Baked potatoes delicious. Hey, let's take that quick break now. Oh, quick break. coming back with some more cooking issues.

[22:14] Hey, what's up, guys? It's me, Jack, as in Jack, from cooking issues, as in the guy that's probably been talking on this show. So, here on the break to tell you about molecular recipes.com, which is not only an awesome website and store and resource, but

[22:28] also they support us, which makes them even that much cooler. So I know Dave gives you plenty and plenty of information on the show, but should you need further

[22:36] resource, should you want to get some of the things. about molecular recipes.com has recipes, techniques, ingredients, tools, all in the world of this modernist thing we love so much on the show.

[22:48] So, you know, explore the world of foams and spheres and invisible foods and

[22:53] mind blowing cocktails, all that awesome stuff. There's a community of over 400,000 chef, scientists, and food lovers sharing their favorite recipes, tips, and tricks.

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[23:08] molecularecipes.com. And just for being a listener of this show, you'll get 10% off any of their popular

[23:15] kits just by using the promo code heritage at checkout. That's promo code heritage. So again, check them out, molecularecipes.com, tons of really awesome stuff there. Definitely right up your alley. And remember to tell them that you love them and that we sent you there, but that you hate the name because you should never call cooking molecular. Am I right? And, you know, listen, we've had this conversation before, so I'm not going to belabor the point or beat a horse that's already dead. But anyway, did we have that discussion about beating a dead horse? Really interesting, interesting idea. You're trying to get more work out of the horse anyway. Beating a dead horse. So anyway, you can still, I still hate it. Everyone knows I hate the word molecular, and I'm allowed to say I hate it, even though they're a sponsor. Anyway, Tyler writes in about high pressure cooking. Dear Dave, Nastasia, Jack, Joe. Wow, this is like pulling them all out, Eddie, Carlos, and Indie Jesus. You're missing. Yeah, you're missing some Wyatt, and you're also missing. you're also missing Satan's little helper. Our hipster, hipster, hipster, elf. That name really just keeps going south every time. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. But is he, anyway. He changed his look after Christmas, I noticed. He's not quite so elfin anymore. I've recently become interested in high-pressure cooking, i.e. above the standard 15 PSI of a pressure

[24:31] cooker, and the my art and caramelization reactions that occur therein. I thought it would be interesting to see which compounds are created and if it would lead to a super flavorful product. I remember your post on the blog about Mayard pipe potatoes and was hoping you could expand on what you thought about this process. You seem to come to the conclusion that no matter what the treatment or substrate used, the product was disgusting. My question is, do you think that this process, by high pressure, um, produces uniquely different compounds, uh, of the 2 browning reactions due to the presence of water, or do you think that the acrid smell is based purely on the concentration of these

[25:05] compounds? Also, I've been looking for information on this process and the literature and unable to find anything good. Can you recommend some articles into our books on the subject of high pressure cooking? Love the show, keep up the good work. Thanks, Tyler, from UC Davis. Class of 2016. Um, I don't have any scholarly articles on it. Um, you know, from what I do know, is that, you know, my art in particular is extremely complicated, and that the, uh, you know, the end products of uh, the Mayard reactions are like, you know, a shotgun spray of different, um, different

[25:36] things, and that the, the flavor, an aroma of them is wildly dependent

[25:41] on uh, the temperature, the pressure, uh, the, you know,

[25:46] the precursors that are there, uh, and probably also, you know, what the moisture level is.

[25:51] So basically everything that can, that can be a factor is, and that some of the things are delicious, like

[25:58] bread and brown and delicious. And some of them are just awful crap. And I don't think that it's merely a concentration. I think it's probably different compounds being produced under

[26:09] different conditions, but I don't have any scholarly articles to back that up. What I did was I took a pipe, and I put liquid and food, and I did some without extra liquid, just using their own moisture, and I did potatoes. I did a variety of meats. I did some other veg. I think I might have done beans or something like this. And I sealed them in a pipe, and then I threw the pipe into a deep fryer. Don't do this. Please don't do this. Uh, you know, especially uh, Matt from Chicago's daughter. Please don't do this And so the deep fryer is away for me to stably get the temperature up without overheating it,

[26:51] right? Because if I, if I was trying to control the pressure some other, there's a very, you know, strict relationship between the internal pressure and the temperature on the outside, assuming that it's sealed.

[27:00] So by throwing it in the deep fryer, I could get a very constant temperature and pressure on the inside. So I was pulling like 150 PSI or thereabouts at like 300 and change degrees, Fahrenheit, and then pull it out, and the potatoes were completely brown all the way through, and were the most putrid potatoes I've ever put in my mouth,

[27:19] ditto with the meats, putrid, putrid, putrid. And someone said, well, maybe it's the, maybe you're getting some medals off the pipe. So I tried stainless. I tried copper. I tried aluminum, all putrid. I was never able to get any kind of good thing that didn't taste incredibly awful out of it. The only time I've done kind of ultra high pressure cooking. Uh, so, so then another, like another pressure thing, I've cooked in regular pressure cookers up to about 30 PSI by modifying

[27:49] them. Don't do this. Please don't do this. And then testing, you know, the stock. And it turns out that 15 PSI tasted better than like 25 PSI did for

[28:00] stock. So there's definitely a shift in the flavor of what's going on as the pressure increases or

[28:06] decreases. And we noticed kind of a, you know, a spike in the

[28:10] Hadonic curve for at least stock around 15 PSI

[28:16] thereabouts and, you know, worse below and and not as good above either. Now that said, I have cooked some things at higher pressure. I did a thing called Desk Nachos for First Week Feast. And I very unsafely raised the pressure

[28:33] inside. Did I do that with the seers all or a regular torch? I think I might have, but I might have a regular, whatever anyway, I think I might use a regular torch on it. I took an EC and then shoved a thermometer into it to

[28:43] test and make sure I wasn't getting it too hot. And I did beans in there. And I think I was probably pulling something close to 3540 PSI or higher in it. And they tasted good. The beans tasted good. Anyways. So it's possible to do things at higher pressure, but, you know, I didn't do that in a controlled way, and I would never recommend somebody do what I did for those desk nachos. And the guy next to me, I think, wanted to kill us because of like the danger involved. But it's not going to blow. Those EC things are constructed. So, well, definitely don't do it with an off-market whipper. Anyways, so check it out. Uh, yeah, yeah. Alex writes in about one. Hello, Nastasi Jack, and Dave. You know, let's take this caller real quick. Oh, call her, you're on the air. Hi, actually, this is Alex who wrote in about London. You're totally different question. All right, what's up? First off, thank you so much for the show. I enjoyed immensely. Secondly, I get to go to New York for the 1st time in my life at the end of the month. And everybody that I ask about what to do in New York, where to go in New York, what the, you know, not necessarily the greatest hits album, but like

[29:48] the good mixtape compilation. Um, they don't really get like food and drink and stuff like that. So besides Booker index. I want to end up at TGI Fridays in Times Square because my mother-in-law likes it a lot. Um, where? No, again, not the greatest hits, but once a good, well-rounded, like things I don't want to miss while I'm there, or that just kind of, you should get pizza, you should get a bagel, you should

[30:11] get what? Right. Okay. So where, where, so where are you from? Santa Barbara. Okay. And is your mother-in-law coming with you? Not at all Okay. Okay, well, you're in luck that we have Peter Kim here today because Peter Kim, as you might know, is the director,

[30:30] so what is, associate? What is it? President, head of the Museum of Food and Drink, Emperor? Galactic Emperor. And he's been actually spending a lot of time. So the thing is like, what do you want to do? So, you know, Peter could make up and has made up lists of, you know, really interesting trips into, for instance,

[30:47] Queens to do some of like the kind of hardcore ethnic enclaves that we have here. that's super interesting. And, you know, he could run down, you know, a list of that stuff. But if, you know, or you could try kind of higher, higher end New York centric kind

[31:02] of things for bagels. I mean, look, if you if I were to tell you one bagel place, then like all the other bagel people would shoot me in the face for picking that bagel place. Right. Well, I happen to, like, it's down in my neighborhood. They just changed hands recently, and their style, I noticed, changed a little bit the last time I was there, was Cosars. The cosars is right near me. I like cosars a lot. And right near Cosars actually are like the pickle guys. You can get the real kind of lower east side feeling, but hands down, like without, like without any sort

[31:35] of, go to Russ and Daughters and and get their, um, try the Norwegian,

[31:41] because let me tell you something. Like, if you go out and you get, um, smoked cured salmon, right? So Nova locks, or it's, you know, it's equivalent, and you get it pre-packed, and you've never had someone hand

[31:53] slice like a super high quality version of it, then you haven't, you haven't had it. You know what I mean? And it's expensive, but by far and away, Russian Daughters has the best sliced salmon I've ever had in my

[32:06] life and they slice it for you. In particular, I would try their, uh, if they have the Baltic, I would get the Baltic, but it's very rare to have it

[32:13] there, and the Norwegian king is delicious, they're all delicious. They'll give you a little taste of each one. And their cream cheese, they're playing cream cheese is an unstabilized cream cheese. It's a little bit grainy, but I find it doesn't keep, so you're not going to take it home with you, but it's just, I think, incomparably delicious to any other cream cheese I've had.

[32:31] I don't know who makes their bagels. They're okay. And they also have the older Union style bagels. But cosars bagels are good. With a bagel, you want to know, like, am I going for, like, do you like a doughier, like, S style that's kind of puffier and doughier? Do you like, like a harder style or like, you know, like a thinner, like a, like an H and H style? Uh, I used to, like, I used to live up near Columbia, you know, uptown, and they had both styles in kind of, um, you know, they had an absolute up

[32:59] there, and they had, uh, Columbia bagels, which were kind of like diametrically opposed styles because, you know, the guys up at Absolute were, were from Esa. Um, they, you know, they had apprenticed it all at Esa. But you should have an S, but who else has the good bagels now, like Peter, who else is known for bagels? But, like, S style is a style of bagel. But yeah, there's that trendy spot on the lower East Side. What it called? black seed or something like that. I haven't been. I heard it. I mean, it's popular. Anyway, but you know what? if you want traditional Russian we're going to go to Russian Daughters. If you want like an old school, Italian store, uh, with super high quality stuff, go

[33:34] to Apollos on grand, it's also, but, you know, budget time in either of these places, unless you go off, you know, off time, like go in the

[33:41] mid-afternoon when there's not a lot of people. Otherwise, you're going to be there for like forever in a day. Um, you know, then if you want to see, I mean, the problem is there's like so many like places have cropped up,

[33:50] but when I was a kid, like I used to love going to Dean and DeLuca's because you couldn't, you couldn't see it anywhere else, but now you can get this kind of market kind of more often in other

[33:57] places. You know, uh, or like uptowns, you know, Zabar's used to be a mecca for, you know, in

[34:03] the in the 80s for people going. you know, I haven't been in many years. Italy would be good on a quick trip, right? I can't stand the crowds. I'm sure it's like, the crowds make me want to make me want to stab myself like repeatedly. Well, Dave just generally wants to stab himself repeatedly so that doesn't mean much. Yeah. And then, you know, in the bars, like a bar crawl here, like you can do an intense bar crawl and I'm like, I'm not going to mention any because then I'll insult the rest,

[34:28] but, uh, you know, uh, you know, but, you know, there's like so many, uh, famous bars, all actually, like you can even just stay in the neighborhood of Brooklyn Dex. you like, uh, McSor leaves. Oh, McSorley's, you can go to go to McSorley's. Go to McSorley's before the frat douches show up. So go like, am I allowed to say that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, that's not too offensive, right? not offensive. All right. You know, we have kids that listen to the showcase. right. So I apologize. Maybe we can bleep that on the thing going out. But anyway, so my point is, is that you want to go there early. And they have the greatest urinals ever. Like, so I detest public restrooms. I hate them with a passion, but they're actually okay. But you get the get the cheese plate, which is basically a sleeve of saltines, onions, the world's spiciest

[35:20] mustard. Don't overdo it. I've actually burnt my tongue on their mustard by overconsuming. And I say, raw onions, cheddar, or their liverwurst sandwich, well-known. And like 2

[35:28] pints. It used to be 2 pints, like 2 bucks or 250 back when I was in college, but it's probably like 350 now, and they're not real pints. They're short pints. But you see, I remember once I went in there in the in the early 90s or maybe like 1990. right after I turned 21 So 92 maybe. Anyway, and I said, I was like, what are you? I was like, what kind of beer do you have? And he goes, we have McSorley's and more McSorley's because that's all they have. dark and light. Yeah, dark and light. And they served all through prohibition and no one else, no one messed with them. So that's old school New York. Um, what else, Peter? do you got? I mean, in general, as Dave said, I think my favorite way to eat in the city is really visiting the ethnic

[36:09] enclaves. And if there's one train line you had to pick, I'd say the 7 train out to Queens. It's pretty amazing what you can find on there. You can pretty much get off anywhere and you can have, you can find everything from, you know, Thailand,

[36:20] uh, you know, food from Thai food, uh, Nepali, uh, you know, mainland China, uh, you know, they're like, I think the best Korean stuff is also out in Flushing. You can find incredible Colombian Peruvian, Venezuelan. It's all on this train, and it's kind of amazing. And, you know, if you look up, you can reach out to me, actually, if you want, but also, you know, if you look online, you know, there are a lot of people who've put together great, you know,

[36:45] like tasting guys. Seats has got a few good. Yeah, seats of that's a good guy to look at, if you're interested in that. But that's just one slice of it. And I mean, I think that's one of the most incredible things about the city is that you can go and get off a train somewhere and it's just like, you know, you're in another country.

[37:00] Like, you walk into markets and you don't recognize any of the products, you're going into these places. People don't necessarily speak English. And, uh, yeah, and, you know, it's sort of a hybrid cuisine that's been created in New York City. Right. And if you want to break the bank, you know, like pick one, like, pick one of the super high ends to go to because they're they're fun to do,

[37:19] like kind of, you know, once, like, I don't know, go to, it depends on what style you want. Like, you know, you go to, you know, Mark's place, you know, Del Posto, if you want the high-end Italian or, you know, JG is a great place to

[37:30] go. And then you have, like, you know, all the awesome. Oh, you go to Contra, which is a really interesting place. Fabulous, like, uh, and Jeremiah, like who I used to work with, that's their place. Or, like, you know, uh, Stupax, uh, Empeyon Casino,

[37:43] Wiley has Alder, which you can't go to WD anymore, but you can go, uh, there. Those are all in kind of a concentrated neighborhood as well. But there's a bajillion, good places to go. There's also Olive Garden. Oh, yeah. those breadsticks and salad? Did you know that those breadsticks are unlimited? Yes. Without limit. I know. That's why you have to go. Yeah. But I have one of those here. There you go. It's not the same. It's not the same. Like Olive Garden in Times Square is incomparable. It's like the Chevy's Fresh Mex is so much more Chevy in Times Square. I'm kidding Don't ever eat. I'm kidding. Don't ever don't ever don't ever go. It's not don't ever go. I'm not saying that, but, you know, remember the freakingomics book basically saying it's impossible to get good food in those kind of locations because it's not possible.

[38:32] It doesn't make economic sense for them to make good food in those in those locations. Um, I'll tell you something that's not so good is, and I'm embarrassed to say it, is that the standard New York City street pretzel is useless.

[38:45] Yeah horrible. Yeah, agree. Like, the idea of it is fantastic. they can be delicious, but they're always just a horrifying mess. Oh, oh, I have to just put this in there because this is probably for me, one of my favorite ways to eat in New York is going to Coney Island. if you're coming in the summer and getting Nathan's dog and sitting on the beach and eating it. I'll tell you what, Coney Island is awesome in the crazy winter too, because there's no one there but the dude who has no teeth and the one dude dragging his limbs, you know what I mean? But yeah, that's true. But I mean, I think I think Coney Island is one of my favorite destinations in New York City. And you can hit some of the cool Russian neighborhoods outside of that where you can, you know... Does Uzbek Korean food? For real? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there were Koreans that were forcibly moved into Uzbekistan by Stalin. And I guess they're, they, they fused Korean cuisine with his Becky cuisine. And so there's a restaurant called at your mother-in-law's. And, uh, and it's at, uh, in Brighton Beach. So near Coney Island. You know that there's Italian slang word that translates to your mother-in-law's pillow that's the chestnut sold in the case with the

[39:45] spikes. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, all right, they're going to kick us off here. Yeah, we have one more caller. Do you want to try to squeeze it in? It's up to you, brother. Yeah, we can do it. All right. Call her again. Call her, you're on the air. Hey, David, it's Andy from Chicago. How it going? Hey, all right, what's up? Not too much. One quick thing. M. Wells at the PS one in Long Island City is a great spot for New York dining. Real rich, heavy, good place for lunch or brunch, something like that. Nice. Good call. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I'm renovating my kitchen. I was thinking I was thinking about going with a foot pedal faucet, but I've started to see those sort of electronic touch ones. No, no, no, you know, where you just kind of bump them. What are your thoughts? How hard is it to retrofit? Do I need to plan for a foot pedal ahead of time? I would plan temperature control on both? I would plan. There's a couple different ways you can go with foot pedals. I've never gone with a full temperature control. I've just gone with a dual pedal situation. There are ones where you can set like a mixing valve and then use a single pedal to press

[40:46] the mix out and that's probably what I would do in a bathroom. If I was going to put, which, by the way, I am, going to put foot pedals in the next bathroom that I

[40:55] do. I'll probably just have a central mix and not even have the ability to turn it on with your hands because there's no reason to leave a bathroom faucet running. There's no freaking reason to leave a bath and faucet running. Unlike a kitchen where you might want to leave it running for like a pot or a pan or something like this. But in a kitchen, typically what you're going to want to do, I would stay away from the electronics, it's just something that can fail, and it's like, you know, you don't want

[41:17] to, you ever been in an airport and you put your hand under the thing and you're like, go, go, go, go. You know what I'm saying? I hate that more than anything. I'm like, I just want water now. And then like, you know how you pull your hand out? And as soon as you put your hand out, the freaking thing comes on. How many times has this happened to you? Yeah, right, right. Yeah, I hate it. I mean, I'm not talking like a sensor one. There's one that kind of works like the old touchlamp, so you literally just tap the faucet with your forearm or wrist or something that's not

[41:43] contaminated, it turns on. No touch, no touch. Here's what you're going to do. So what you want to do, are you going to go deck mounted or wall mounted on the faucet? Probably deck mounted. Deck mounted. Okay. If you don't mind stuff that looks a little bit commercial and I don't is

[41:57] go. I mean, TNS brass, make some nice stuff, and I use, I use almost exclusively TNS brass when I buy just because I'm used to using it for a long time.

[42:06] Um, and you want a, you, they sell some uh, faucets and you can look around, you can buy things that are individual. The key thing is that you need to have separate control over, you need to have a

[42:20] T that goes into the central spout, right? So the main problem with retrofitting a foot pedal onto a faucet is that in general, it goes directly from the 2 hand valves right into the main spout. But there are some that don't. There are some that are just sold separately, right? So you buy the spout and then you buy the mixing valves separately. And in those situations, it's very simple to put a T, and then with check valves, you don't want any back, you know, flushing of stuff, you put the foot pedals on. Super simple. And that's what I did in my last place. I had a faucet and a spout separately and I just mounted the stuff all separately. The other alternative is, is that some systems that have sprayers attached to them, you can disassemble the sprayer before the little

[43:08] flat valve that, um, well, actually, can you? Well, the one I have, you can run both the faucet and the sprayer at the same time. So you don't have to worry about whether or not it shuts off the stuff. And for that one, you just throw a t in between and put the, you know, put the input, the output of the of the foot pedals directly to it with speedy, you know, with with steel, you know, stainless steel braided flex lines and check

[43:31] valves and you're good to go. And so it's all dependent upon buying the right stuff. But if you go through TNS brass, everything's modular with TNS brass. And I don't know whether it's still the case, but K-Tom, which is somewhere in the South, and they

[43:43] go to Florida, usually has pretty good rates on TNS brass, and they'll

[43:47] get, even if they don't carry it, they'll get it for you. It's a pain because you got to call them and get the right part numbers for it. But I used to buy all my TNS brass off of eBay because people were doing renovations and then they had extra faucets and then they're free, you know,

[44:00] not free, but, you know, almost free. Yeah, cool. All right, I'll check it all out. App appreciate the advice. All right, thank you. All right, listen, I got a lot of questions I didn't get to, Jack, maybe we were going to have to do another catch up, right? Like Max from Sweden who wants to know about building his outdoor barbecue, but there's going to be a lot more on that as I build my own in the coming season.

[44:18] And then the one thing I will do on the way out because it's time sensitive very quickly is, where are you? Ryan writes in, hey, I managed to score a sweet deal on a 10 kilogram leg of pork yesterday, bone in, skin

[44:32] on, 20 bucks, and then realize I have no idea what to do with it. I'm assuming a brine of some sort is in order, followed by a trip to the oven or barbecue, but again, no idea. I'd appreciate any tips or advice. You can throw my way. Listen. Don't bother with anything complicated. If you don't have a lot of time. Like, I cook one of those in like, in like 13 freaking, like, well, not 13 seconds, but you just take off, take off the skin, chop it up,

[44:52] like hack the meat up into, you know, relatively small pieces, break the bone at the knuckle point, throw it in, pressure cook that sucker, make pork chili, pull it

[45:00] out. You can pull out the skins afterwards because they're all gelatinous, chop them up real fine, chop up the meat real fine, and make pork chili. Pork chili. What do you think? Pork chili? Yep. Yeah. Pork chili. Pork chili. What's your favorite bands too? Ah, next time. Cooking issues. Thanks for listening to this program on heritageradionetwork.org. You can find all of our archived programs on our website or as podcasts in the iTunes

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