[0:00] Today's program is brought to you by Heritage Foods USA, the nation's largest distributor of

[0:05] heritage breed pigs and turkeys. For more information, visit heritagefoodsusa.com. I'm Linda Pelagio, host of a Taste of the Past. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit heritageradionetwork.org for 1000s more.

[0:29] Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network and our

[0:38] Burns Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn, every Tuesday from roughly 12 to roughly 1245. Got a huge group of people here in the studio day. Join us usual witness Dasia. the Hammer Lopez. how you doing, Stas? Good. Uh, yeah, and we got Jordananna Rothman over here, and how you doing well? So well. Yeah, Jordana and Nastasia together, actually for the 4th of July, which we get to. But also special guest today. We got Cliff, Clifford. So how do you how do you actually pronounce your last name. You go by the last name, Endo, usually, but it's actually Guli Bear. It's Guli Bear, but that name was given to our family by French missionaries. Ooh, so... So the original, like, Palau is our Japanese...

[1:17] So Clifford Endo is what I usually go by. Oh, so why come how come I like your, like, when did this happen? When did you make this change in your name? 18 years old. Wow, all right. And though it is, no more gooly bear. Well, it's still there. just never say it. Alright. It exists for government documents only. Yeah, so, like, so you're interesting, actually, like, like, Japanese Palauan, that's what I like, because I like the word Palau. Palau, yeah. It's a small, tiny little island. My mom's from there. I was born there. They're half Japanese, half Palau one. Nice, yeah. You know, what I like, I would hate it, right? Tropical paradise, I would hate it. Yeah, it'd be terrible. The crystal blue waters, more fish than you could ever imagine. Oh, the fish delicious? Oh, God, yeah. I'll go. And so Jordan and Stas, you guys, by the way, calling your questions, 2718-497-2128. That 718-497-2128. You know, I do have a caller on the line. We can get to him whenever. All right, okay, I'm not going to let him hang. Call her. on the air. Uh, Dave, what's up? It's Joe from Greenpoint. How you doing? How's Green point doing today? Very, very good. I love your show. So lately I've been experimenting with smoking briskets, and I wanted to try to do like a combination of sous vide or like low temperature cooking and

[2:35] smoking, and I wanted to get your thoughts on how I might go about doing that. Like, should I do the smoking. I'm assuming I should do the smoke 1st and then, then the, put it, put it in, uh, in, in the water. But, uh, What temperature should I do? I was kind of thinking maybe it would be cool to do its like medium rare braise type thing, but I don't know if that's something that you would recommend for brisket. Just, yeah, what were your thoughts be? Just so you know, so the people we got here, you got your normal nastasia to tell me that I'm an idiot, but Cliff has been doing worked with me for a long time and has been doing culinary production for the past couple of years.

[3:11] So I've worked a lot with these kind of techniques. And Jordana, uh, was paid, uh, is currently paid to write about eating and cooking and formerly critic of other

[3:22] people's uh, uh, cooking, correct? Very critical. Very critical. Deeply critical person. Right. So, I mean, sure, you'll, like, you have probably your own views on low temperature brisket. And, you know, Cliff has his, but I'll just give you mine right away. If you're doing a low temp brisket and you're going to go medium rare. Let's divide this into 2 problems. Smoke problem, and the texture problem, the temperature you're going to do, right? So if you're going to go low temperature on it, it's not going to taste like a traditional brisket. So if you're, like, let Jordan, let's say you're going to a restaurant, someone's like, I'm going to give you a brisket. You have in your mind what a brisket is, right? Someone comes out with something, it's meat rare, even if it's tender, you're like,

[4:00] ah. It's more steaky. Something hit the spot. Well, yeah, because the spot you thought you were getting hit with was the brisket spot. And medium rare brisket doesn't hit, it hits, it's delicious, but it hits a different kind of a spot. So like, and I think that's, that's the main problem with, and I did this because I've, I don't know how many 1000s of short ribs I've

[4:21] cooked. you know, when I was at the French culinary as part of all the teaching stuff that we did, but, You know, the more and more I ate, I was like, this is delicious, but it's not really a short

[4:29] rib. And if you want a short rib, this is not what you want. Anyone, you guys agree with me here? So, like, you can do a medium rare thing. It's not going to taste as meaty, right? And it won't have as much moisture loss, so it won't have the same texture or concentration of

[4:45] flavor. So there's that, right? So you can choose. You can do like a relatively, you know, um, you know, medium, it's like when I do confit, I do high temp, honestly, I do. If you want to do the meat rare thing, do the meat rare thing, but it's not going to be the same. The other thing is, is that for smoke, for smoking for flavor, in color. Yeah, you could smoke it. You can smoke it before because that's going to prevent the drying out of it. So if you're going to do, if you're going to do a mead rare, I would smoke before, then I would do your low

[5:13] temp, and then I would do a final crisp up on the outside of the skin. Yeah, that was my word was bark degradation. Oh, oh, yeah. hell yeah. You got to give a final crisp up. The answer is always a final crisp up. Unless it's going to be all, you know, El Saso, but even in a case, like if you do a, like, remember, Cliff, when we used to do for the low temp SUV classes, we would do the short ribs and they come out of the sauce and they have that disgusting, like,

[5:37] green tinge. Yeah, you have to fix that. You have to fix that. right? So you just need a little bit of heat on the on the outside, even if you didn't care about the texture, even if you were going to chum it up and turn it into baby

[5:48] food, just to get the color right, much less the texture on the outside. But just remember, the pleasure of a fine brisket is a little bit of drying out on the

[5:56] out, in my opinion, it's a little bit of the drying out on the outside, unless you're, well, I mean, no, it is. I mean, it is. So, I mean, like a little bit of crust on the outside, even if you're going to go, uh, need rare. I, you know, one more last thing I'll give you. I don't really see any freaking point at all in going anywhere in between. Like, as soon as you hit, uh, as soon as you hit like, um, in beef, I would say like 60, 63 Celsius, anything above that, I don't see the damn point, just go, go, you know, go full temp. I don't really see much of a good range in there. Anyone agree, disagree with anyone, anyone, anyone? No? All right. Is this answering your question or not? I can't tell. Yeah, no, definitely, definitely. But what temp would you, 1st of all, do you think it's worth smoking it 1st

[6:42] than doing this or is it just a stupid idea? And secondly, what temp would you do it if you were to do it? What temp for the cook? I mean, I like, yeah, for the, for the, for the, uh, yeah, for the, the CV part of it,

[6:56] the temp part of it. Okay, well, after, look, like when you're 1st doing a lot of low temp work, your inclination is to do the kind of virtuoso move that like Bruno

[7:08] Gouseau, like, you know, the granddaddy of low temp cooking used to do, where he'd do like his, you know, long cooked meats at rare at like 54, you know, degrees,

[7:19] which is like rare. You know what I mean? And he'd be like, awesome, right? And I remember this story. I haven't told a long time, so Nastasia is not going to throw up if I tell it again, but Chef Alon Sayak, who was, you know, like the dean at the French Culinary Institute, had went to a famous dinner that Jules Robuchon and Bruno

[7:40] Gousseau gave, and they gave them a 72 hour, like 52 or 54 degree short

[7:45] rib. And Chefalon was like, you know, this is nothing short for it. And things like, it made me sick. I was sick. I was like, it's not, it didn't make you sick, dude. It was like straight up bacteriologically safe. Sucker was the safest damn thing in the world. It can be served to people in like a nursing home. Thing was safe. But he thought it made him sick because he's like, it is disgusting. Who wants this? You know what I mean? So it's like it just wasn't anything he wanted. So for a virtuoso move with your with your food buddies who like like new stuff. Yeah, you can go all the way that low. In general, people like long cooked things higher, like 57,

[8:20] uh, which is about 135 is a good meat rare, long cook, but it's not going to be as meaty. You could push it all the way up to, like I say, to, like, I mean, if you're gonna, if you're gonna go low, I would just do 50, 50, between 57 and 60, somewhere in that range. And, um, never above like 62, 63. But like, I would stay in that 57 to 60 range. It gets a, that each increment in temperature you go up, it gets a little drier, but a little more meaty flavor.

[8:47] Remember, if you're going to put a sauce in the bag, reduce the hell out of it. This is the mistake people make. They don't reduce the hell out of it. You ever put like a meat in a bag and you cook it and all the juices come out and now it's like swimming in its own juices, especially at these higher temperatures. you're going to go like 60, right? So think about the fact that any like sauce that you put in, which is not going to evaporate at all, is going to get diluted by the meat zone juices, and then it's going to be like, it's going to be poached. And poaching is an entirely different technique, my friend. All right, cool. Thanks a lot, Dave. I appreciate it. All right, good luck. All right, all right. All right. So before we get into the questions that were written in. We got to talk about, you know, the, so Stas and Jordan, 4th of July. Oh, yeah. was really magical. Yeah, you were there in the Watch Hill, right? It was another time. It was like being in the 1930s and we built a fort and it was spectacular. Fort, I was told teepay, fort. It was a tea, it was a teepee. Yeah. No, it was a glowing teepee in the forest outside of our restored barn. I like that a lot. You know, I'm going to build a legit teepee, like 15 foot teepee with pull, this is the thing. I'm sure you're gonna do it better than I did it. Well, I mean, did you buy? Did you did you buy the the 2 best-known references on teepee and lodge construction? Actually, what I did was I went foraging in a shed for electrical cords, which I lashed around some trees and hung sheets over them. So if that's how you would do it. That's pretty baller. I mean, like, I like, you know this, you know what I like about Jordan Styles? She gets she gets it done. She gets it done. She gets it done. I'm resourceful check. You know, you didn't need a TV. You didn't need a TP in a week, right? What we actually did, although Anastasia disagrees with this, is that we danced, we weaved throughout the trees and I tried to pay attention to the trees to which Nastasia was particularly drawn.

[10:31] She hates trees. No, she doesn't. She tells me because I like them, so she says that she hates them. She doesn't like cooked fruit, the bottom of pools. biscuits Biscuits and eagles. It's cooked fruit. The Eagles. Yeah, she hates them. Not the team. The band. But she does like trees. She does like trees. This is a witchy woman. But she always told me she hates them because I like them. Well, when we have to stop and like eat the leaves. Yeah, she doesn't like the things that you do with trees. She likes what I do with trees. It's a different thing entirely. She likes S&Ming trees. She wasn't there for the lashings. Yeah, they did that in private. I lashed alone so that I could surprise her. Nice. I heard that you guys were crushing your beer cans and throwing them into Taylor Swift's

[11:15] deck. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what we did. We told them with fireworks, actually. Nice. And we created projectiles and they landed and Ed Sheeran's hair caught on fire. I like that. the origin tale of his red hair. That's sweet. like that a lot. So, you know, I actually, like, you know, one of your buddies who was there was supposed to get the fireworks for your

[11:33] shindig style, didn't do it. Yeah, no, but I had another buddy who showed up with Viber. Thank God for buddies. I had a huge amount of illegal fireworks at my place. And I have to say I think I talked about it on the show. If you have the opportunity. If you live near a state that like has decent laws about fireworks, go out right now because I'm sure it's

[11:52] cheap and buy the 500 grams zipper cake entitled American Trucker. It is 11 seconds of awesome. Awesome. Is that the name of a firework? Oh yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. And right before we played it, I cranked American woman, like Lenny Kravitz, and the American truck was like, I can hear the thing, like most times, so the 500 grams is the most amount of powder you can put into a firework and sell legally

[12:14] as one block of firework. And I bought some of the giant tubes that you like singly, which are awesome because they're like, poof. You know, they go really high. But the ones that you like light one and walk away. It's awesome So most of these last like 45 seconds a minute, but American trucker does its full 500 grams in 11 seconds,

[12:31] 11 and I like it. I'm that kind of guy. I hope this doesn't say, Tiffany. I'm the guy that I crunched my candy. You know what I'm saying? I put the hard candy in my mouth. I try to suck on it for a minute. I'm like, F this, and I crunch it, and that's it, because I want that burst. were different in that way. You're the long suck? I'm a slow burned gal. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, but so maybe you would prefer the big and bold, which is another one of the 500 grand cakes that I got, but I'm

[12:53] saying American trucker for my money, especially if you back it up with a bunch of like Excalibur and El Diablo

[12:58] shells right afterwards. Awesome. Anyway, also... I got another caller, by the way. Also, I hooked up my deep fryer to go LP. So I took my natural gas deep fryer out of the city. I'm no longer a deep fryer in the city, brought it to Connecticut, fired it up on propane, have it outside. So for years, been telling people to put their deep fryer outside. And so I can report on how it's going to work with weather and propane usage and all that. I'll be testing it the whole freaking summer, but I was busting out fries and chicken and shrimp like the end of the freaking world was coming. Anyway, color, you're on the air. It's Colin. Down in DC, calling in? And I had a question, uh, sort of set of questions about ice for you. I got a friend who is opening and I got a friend who's opening up a bar in, you know,

[13:49] a former restaurant space. And they've got some equipment still there. We're trying to see if it makes any sense to hold on to that for their ice program. So you mean like an ice machine? They have, okay, they have some ice machines you want to hold on to. Yeah, they got an ice machine and they got like a victory 2 door reach in freezer. We were hoping to try to use to do some like bigger, clear presentation kind of cubes and stuff. Okay. Um, on, on the, with the small, with the small stuff. Uh, they've got an isomatic little thing that like pushes out the little waffle shaped cube things. Uh, is that, it's like smaller than you suggest in your book for shaking stuff or stirred stuff because it's just too much surface and they

[14:42] don't click. Yeah, they're kind of execrable little things. I mean, like, do you have a use? do you have a non-cocktail use for them? Um, I think they might. I mean, I think he's shipped in this place to mainly, mainly cocktail bar with like a small, small food program. I mean, I don't know how much it, I don't know what the cost of ownership on that sucker is, but I mean, like, if I could, if I could, like,

[15:08] do whatever I wanted, I would get, like, a medium decent ice machine,

[15:12] right? with decent size, uh, you know, not like huge cues, but decent size cues when it's easy to kind of, uh, work with. I would do my own ice program by freezing down cubes, probably in a chest freezer. You could do reach in, but chest, in igloos. And then if I had like super money, I would go get a nugget machine because I've always wanted a nugget machine. And then that's what I would do. And then if you wanted like a serious, like, if you wanted a serious, what's it called? Like raw bar, you could get a flake, but, or you could just, uh, or you could just get a, like a machine to flake out the cubes that you got. But that's, I mean, that's what I would do. Here's the thing, like, if you're strapped for cash, yeah, make it work with the crap ice that, you know, comes out of that machine,

[15:52] but, uh, you know, make sure you make sure that you change the filters and make sure everything, like, you know, if it's coming out clear,

[15:59] your filters are partly good. Like the water's like the water off that ice is quite nice. It's good, but it's just, you know, it's kind of small. We sort of see that it's got limitations and, you know, we could calibrate around that and just try to work with it, but you could. You could,

[16:15] but you know, with the idea of like, try for something like, it's like a cold draft machine, sort of sounds like what has the, has the buzz or something. Yeah, I mean, cold

[16:25] draft. People use a lot around here. I like cold draft for, like, cocktail stuff, but, you know, if you're going to do any culinary with it, it's kind of a crappy culinary ice because it doesn't stack very well into, like if you actually need to ice a bunch of stuff

[16:37] down. It's a little bit of a pain in the butt. Here's another thing I want to say. Uh, if you, look, if you, in New York, a lot of the times what you do is you hire, like, the bartender comes in and they're working a couple shifts here, a couple shifts there,

[16:49] right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then it's going to be hard to have everyone bend their head around the fact that you're using shell ice and everyone

[16:56] else is not. And so you're probably gonna have some issues with it. If your bar team is only your bar team and they're only working with you. Yeah, then you can crank, you know, like as long as you know what your tools are, you can crank delicious stuff out no matter what ice you have. It doesn't matter. You just have to like alter your alter your techniques a little bit, but then it requires you to make sure that everyone does alter their

[17:15] techniques. And if someone comes in, you have to beat them around the head and tell them that, you know,

[17:19] that it's a little different from where they were before, et cetera, et cetera, to make sure that everything's right. You're going to have to keep a really eagle eye on your wash lines when the drinks come out and stuff like that.

[17:28] But, you know, it can be done. I mean, ice, ice is, ice. just the rate at which it dilutes. That's all that's all you're messing with, right? And then how much surface water's on it. Yeah. Well, one thing we had heard in talking to some of our friends down here that had places is that, you know, a couple of them

[17:44] had had some kind of recurring maintenance issues with their cold draft

[17:48] machine. Is there stuff to really pay attention to with those or is there like, I don't know, what makes, is there something that makes them a little bit higher maintenance than just the shell ice machines?

[17:58] They claim that they fix those maintenance problems, but I don't know whether that's true. It also used to be that there weren't as many people around servicing cold drafts. So when they went down, there was like problems. I mean, a lot of times in the summer, especially as your machine ages, you're going to get problems with your ice machine because they're running all the time. But, you know, I had heard that I thought that they fixed that problem. I'd heard that that was a problem. I haven't I haven't owned one or, you know, had to use one on a daily basis in years, so I don't currently

[18:26] know like, but someone will probably tweet in and be like, nah, they fixed that. They work fine. they'll tweet and be like, no, it's still a problem. You know what I mean? I mean, are there are there other sort of brands in that ballpark that are recommended by people?

[18:39] Almost everyone now makes a, uh, almost everyone now makes a larger size cube that you can use in a

[18:48] nicer, nicer cube. I would look, look, you know, you're going to have a service contract at the at the bar restaurant. So I would, I mean, honestly, whoever services this stuff Well, I haven't done, it used to be that every year or so I would have to read all of the company's specs on their ice machines and freezers and fridges and see who

[19:05] was coming out with like the new stuff because I used to write about it for food arts, but I haven't specked one in a long time. So, you know, I don't know, you know, things things to look for are, you know, is the filtration good? Does it have a problem with, you know, mold and slime growing on the inside of the unit because that's, you know, an issue. Who's that guy? Some guy told me about the guy in Texas who used to like go into every restaurant, bust into the kitchen with the camera crew, go to the ice machine and be like, green's rhyme. And was like all he ever did. That was his only restaurant steak. You heard of this guy? Definitely. I think he's dead now. But anyway, it's a kind of a good shtick. right? Queen slime. So you want to make sure that, you know, that that's the thing. It's easy to clean and it's not going to harbor nasty bacteria. That's it. You don't want to harbor nasty bacteria. You want a good filter. You want to make nice clear ice. It doesn't taste like crap. Don't you hate when you go to a place and the ice machine has some sort of like crazy ass infection and the ice tastes wrong? Did you hate that? I hate it. It never gets dry. Just stays wet. Yeah, you know what else? Yeah, I hate that. You know what else I hate when they don't fix the filters on their ice machines and the ice machine gets that crumply look on the outside of the ice, that like raggedy look on the outside of the ice because it wasn't like

[20:11] filtered right. I hate that. Or when you start getting the cloudy sprays through the ice because it's... I hate that. Hate, hate. Yeah. Anyways, I hope that helps. on the, on the, like, big clear box side. We tried, we did a run, try and just, like, uh, double stacking, like, uh, like, shorty in the regular depth hotel

[20:30] fans, to kind of create, uh, you know, an empty space beneath, and, uh,

[20:35] Do you see something like that working? I mean, do you see like an inherent problem with that? Other than that, like, the bottom chunk's gonna not be beautiful as long as we, like, kind

[20:46] of... did it work? Yeah, it seemed to. It's just the way, the way it's, the way it is right now is kind of slow because it's a little hot in that room, so we're working on the ventilation to make the

[20:57] uh, refrigeration work a little more efficiently. I mean, it's supposed to be slow. like you should only be freezing. Look, to get a really nice clear cube, you should probably only be freezing, like, you know, in that kind of a freezer without movement, because remember, you're not moving in like a climb belt. Climbel can freeze faster because the water's moving. In a fridge, it probably shouldn't be free a freezer out it. You probably shouldn't be freezing more than like two, 2.5 inches a day. Yeah, okay. That was another thing I was curious about. And, you know, look, if the double pans works for you, if it insulates it enough such that you're not trapping stuff in the underside of it and you're still getting clear cubes that you can, like, you know, chip off the stuff,

[21:37] then yeah, I mean, that's easier to deal with than igloos. I've always just done it in igloo because, I don't know, I just have. I've never tried a double hotel pick. Yeah, I mean, that's what I've done at home. It works. Well, the last, okay, last thing is in, in, in, in the freezer, right? It's got a defrost cycle and individual timer to run that. Is there, you would, if we're using this primarily just for freezing blocks of ice? Is there a best way to kind of game that defrost cycles? I would just, look, not. Yeah, no, I don't think the defrost is going to, defrost is not going to hurt your, your, as far as I can tell, the defrost is not going to hurt your ice making, and it will, it will shaft your coils if you don't defrost it. Defrost. Obviously, don't ever put freaking ice cream in a freezer that has a defrost

[22:27] cycle because you're just asking for pain. Obviously, ruining everything. But like, but remember, the whole goal of a big ice cube is giant freaking ice crystals. So the enemy, the enemy of your ice, which is like melting the small crystals and melting and like free freezing the back of your ice

[22:43] cream, rather, melting them back into larger ice crystals is in fact your friend when it comes to Big Eyes, your friend. Draft coils. Don't shaft those coils. mom always told me. Yeah. All right. Uh, we're not gonna, we're gonna go through a whole nother episode without getting to any of the written questions, aren't we? Is that going to happen to us? Well people should only ask one question per call. I know, but that's not been our rule. if you want to establish a rule. If you want to establish a rule, you can establish a rule, but that's not been all right. So should we do some questions before we go to break? Jack. Yes. Yes? Yes. Oh, by the way, I'll just put this in. I shouldn't do this. But John Rivett wrote in. And so Dave carried a weigh in on the latest peas and guacamole debate. I didn't even hear about this till it was too late. Apparently, the president, like our president of our United States cares about whether there's peas in the guacamole.

[23:34] Guacamole. And people put peas in water. Melissa Clark does, apparently. I don't know. Jordan hook me up with this. I know you know, but Stas doesn't care because she hates to talk about food when she's not at work and we don't do that for work. So, you know. Well, the peas and glass. Well, I actually, I miss the hullabaloo myself, but I'm aware of it because, you know,

[23:50] I'm aware of it. But, um, there was actually, there was a pea guacamole, ABC Cosina, like a year and a half ago. I mean, like, this is not like a new debate, and it sort of sparked up then. And then Melissa Clark published, I think, a recipe in the New York Times, and it was like this whole Twitter

[24:06] hullablue, and people were debating, whether they were Team P or Team, no P. Well, I understand. It's variant, right? If you like to taste do it, yeah? Yeah, like, is it good? is kind of like the baseline for everything. Yeah, did it taste good or not? Well, like, I like I like Alex Dupax like pistachio guacamole. I think delicious. And he actually makes a great one with Uni as well, which is quite good. It's quite good. . Yeah. Yeah, that wouldn't be my first, that wouldn't be my 1st way to describe it, but I like where you went with it. But, you know, whatever, right, exactly. But, like, we need things to debate because, like, we're, you know, What's the debate? like hungry for, you know, arguments that, you know, there's everyone wins. It's an approach, it's an approach, approach, debate, and we can all feel good at the end of the day. I like these. I don't. Okay then. I mean, how's that an argument? Well, because it's like, it's a, it's a light way to have a debate and sort of like exorcise some of our demons without, you know,

[25:05] offending anyone. Well, I'll tell you what, you know, mine. I'm talking about human nature. My welcome only thing. cumin in mind all the time. Well, I mean, you bring shame upon this family. Yeah, well, you know what? I paid for the avocados. I do what I want. And the debate there ends. If you don't want to eat my guac, I put I really want to eat your guac, actually. You know, that's what I'm saying. I put, you know what? Nastasia doesn't like human. And so she doesn't put it. We've had this discussion on the air before. So listen to this. You ready for this? Nastasia does not put cumin in her chili. Wow. Well, too much cumin goes BO. Whoa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the thing. but too little cumin and you got tomato stew. You know what I'm saying? Like beef tomato stew. For me, a guacamole is measured. I mean, you can put whatever you want in it, frankly, like I wouldn't put cumin, but it's a tasty flavor. I can understand why you would. It's about the gradient of color. If you overmash your guacamole and it's like all like the same color green, then you and I have some words. Here's here's the issue. Like, I like a chunky, like, old style. I also like hyper pureed both. Yeah, I'm on the chunky style. I can't do the pure. Okay, I also like both kinds of peanut butter. I'm just gonna go there. Yeah, that's a totally different thing. Guacamolos. You want to see the grain, you want to see the dark green and the light green and the sort of yellowy, and it reminds you what you're eating and it connects you to the earth and it's like a whole thing. You don't watch it. They grow in trees. The puree. Yeah. What does a tree grow out of? Arnold? Well, so do I grow out of the earth? You look at me, it don't remind you of the earth. Well, when I mash you into a guacamole. The great hand of color. Strong. Hey, speaking of mashed and peas, though. I was just in London, and those guys make the mashed minted peas, which I didn't know I liked. I didn't know I liked mashed minted peas. Super tasty. They're delicious. I had one excellent version of it that spoiled me forever and one like,

[26:53] oh my god, why didn't I have the excellent one all the time because the 2nd one I had, I was like, oh, mashed minted peas, mashed minted

[26:59] peas, and they were like, you know, like all kind of like, you know what I mean? like, give them the bad stuff. He too excited. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. ruined forever. Oh, man, doesn't it suck to like just get turned on to something and have gotten a really good one? And then someone gives you the crap the next day. The worst. All right. And one more thing, uh, EW Nasser wrote in, uh, friend of the show. Regarding the caller about eggless ice cream a while ago, he's been using Jenny's ice cream recipes for a while. J-E-N-I, look it up on the internet with great results. Should we do a question, Jack? Do we have time? I have one more caller, if we want to squeeze that in. Let's do it. You're on the air. You have one question caller. Oh, Jack is the hammer today. Hi, I wanted to ask you, I had a great time at Booker and Dak last weekend, by the way. Oh, thanks. I wanted to ask you about the, um, how to recreate the

[27:48] Razumatazarak and also just kind of like your general formula for rattlers or like any kind of information, uh, interesting

[27:57] ideas, ideas you would try with them. The Rasmatazerac is they were doing, they were getting dried, freeze dried raspberries, and then blending them

[28:07] custinoed into the liquor and spinning them out. So any sort of like freeze dried raspberry. And I think they're still using freeze dried raspberries. So that's what they use for their base. And then otherwise, it's a straight Sazerac. It's the only use of pay shows I allow in the bar because I do test pay shows, bidders. Tastes like cough syrup. Jordana, you love cough syrup. why. what they're looking for. Scissor. Scissor. Scissor. Oh, some scissor. I know what? We actually used to have Robotussin on the back bar. Remember that? If it's not a controlled substance. No interest. Whoa. Whoa. You're getting the real, you getting the real, what's it? That's what scissor is. It not just like rotus. But we were doing it for flavor, Jordana, just for flavor, and it tastes remarkably

[28:48] like paste shots. Because pastries taste. I know where I see that. I can see that. And then we flamed it with the red hot pot. Anyway, back to the question. So, like, that's how they do that. And other than that, I think it's fairly straight up, like, you know, Sazerac, I think they do the absent

[29:03] for it. They might rinse with something else. I got to get the spec. It's not actually my spec. I didn't write the spec, so I got to get it. But the Rattler, honestly, it's the only recipe that I that I've written that's written in cans. So like you do it just like you do the old school orange juice. We take a can of clarified of the beer, and then we take, and you want like a relatively non-hoppy, relatively light

[29:25] beer, and then we pour a can of clarified grapefruit juice into it and carbonate it. That's it. It's like super simple, a couple drops of salt. Super simple, super refreshing, very light alcohol, but I like

[29:38] rattlers a lot. Even Styles likes them. She's not a beery person. You had the rattler at BDX, any of you guys? So, like, obviously, like a lot of people, they do like the lemon and the beer, but I like grapefruit. I like grapefruit and beer. I think it's delicious, but you can't go to to Hoppy. You know what I mean? And also, I don't think the one we use is not cascade, even though that would be a more grapefruity fruity thing, but anyway, we don't. But anyway, so like, I would think, like, anything like that, I think in the summer, people like the low alcohol stuff. People like to, people like a pounder. And the juice itself is too damn sweet, but when you cut it with the beer, then

[30:10] like the sweetness is right on the thing and like the beeriness is right. So it's like right in between. It's like the Arnold Palmer of beers. Candy. Candy. Yeah. But like the grapefruit in particular, I find refreshing. Mika with some mushy peas. Some mushy minted peas, but a bright green, mushy minted peas. Anyway, don't that helps go into commercial break coming right back with cooking issues?

[30:48] Hello out there. It's Steve Jenkins. I'm with Fairway Markets, White Leghorn, Red Wattle, Bourbon Red. Navajo Churro. Wow, these aren't names you're likely to hear at a fairway butcher counter or any other counter today, but before the rise of factory

[31:07] farming, you would have. And at Heritage Foods USA, you still do. Heritage Foods, USA, exists to promote genetic diversity. Small family farms, and a fully traceable food supply. You see, we believe the best way to help a family farmers to buy from them, and

[31:25] heritage foods is honored to represent a network of family farmers and artisanal producers whose work presents an immeasurable gift to our food

[31:33] system, and to biodiversity. The meat we celebrate, whether it's heritage, turkey, Japanese steaks, Berkshire pork, or Navajo churro lamb

[31:43] chops is the righteous kind, from healthy animals, of sound genetics that have been treated humanely and allowed to pursue their natural instincts. It's a simple fact. Animals raised according to this philosophy, taste better. And as we like to say, you have to eat them to save them. Visit us at heritagefoodsusa.com for more information.

[32:16] the white the city Oh, you're coming to play once, I'm coming up again. You just Right in the nighttime Yeah, I wanna see you Down the moonlight, baby nothing on the thrills When the You

[32:58] antic When you living in the city the radio sh up again If you want to get away the nime Yeah, I wanna see you I down the moonlight baby But when the ground starts stopping now. And a longer than normal break, back with cooking issues. Jack, did you play any Jackie molecules while we were on break? No, you did. I did not play Jackie Mollock. Can you play the Jackie molecules ringtone, please? Oh, man, I absolutely will. Here, hold on. Let me pull it up. Did you did you download it yet? don't know how to. You don't know how to. No, I made a ringtone for our friend Peter Peter Kim. Who is the... Yeah, Peter Kim is, by the way, the director of the August museum of food and drink, and we actually have an exhibit that's going to open in October. We can't say he's paying for it yet, but we got a chunk of change to do it. And so, but I made him a ringtone that Nastasi and I enjoy. And I'll play it for you now while Jack is getting up his jacket. I actually have mine. Here we go. I mean, I got my... Oh, you have yours ready? Can you hear that? Yeah, he was doing that. I love to play with a theater. In the box?

[34:15] Yeah, yeah. Because Nastasi and I are obsessed with Rudolph the Rudolph. Oh, wow. My name's all wrong. No child wants to play with a Peter. I'm the boss, so I had to come here. I love that show. King Moon racer. That show makes less and less sense every time I watch it. Stasi, you've seen it, what, 857 times? You've probably seen it more because you have kids. Yeah, but I think it freaks Booker out. You know what he doesn't like to watch? He doesn't like to watch the other one, the one with Heat Miser, and Snow Miser. Even though Thomas Waugh, the bartender, is an exact mix of Heat Miser and Snow Miser. Oh my god. He totally is. Yeah. Yep. All right. Okay, so, uh, Jackie Molecules, where are my Jackie Molecules at?

[35:04] Oh, that was the one without you. Not even better. Jackie Molecule. Oh man. Can any cooking issues, listener, download that? You had to donate to the Kickstarter campaign, but I'll tell you this, if you email Heritage Radio and ask specifically and ask nicely, I'll send it over.

[35:25] I'm going to put that on. You never call me, Jack. never call me anymore. I'm going to have that be your ringtone when you... Oh, perfect. I want like all my buddies to have custom ringtones. Why not? live in a world where that's possible. You know Nastasias, right? No. I shouldn't do this. This is not about cooking. And really, like, I have so many questions to get to, but you know, I can't help it. Those of you that have met Nastasia in the real life will appreciate this.

[35:54] You are mean to me. You are mean to me. Yeah. Okay, we got a question in Matt from Aquan. I have to do this. who's been waiting the whole time. All right, call her, you were on the air. Hi Dave. How you doing? Hey, this is Chris from the Green Zone with the mint question. Oh, what happened? You already had your event, yeah? Well, it's ongoing series of events, so it's never too late. All right. All right, all right. So what happened with the one that you did? So the question, by the way, you're trying to do mint, trying to do mint, right? I tried to batch it several times in advance. I blend it in my, uh, Len tech, uh, I have a blend check, not a Vita prep, but, um, and I tried adding

[36:40] a scorbic acid as an antioxidant. That didn't help. I'm basically using your blender muddling technique from liquid intelligence. And escorbic acid didn't work. I thought it might keep it from browning, but then I remembered all your talks about acids turning angles chlorophyll brown. Well, yeah, except... Yeah, modern amounts of ascorbic acid didn't help. Because I know that alkaline things will keep things green, but then it stayed

[37:07] green, but it tasted funny. And so for my events so far, I've just been blending it on the spot and serving

[37:12] the drink on the spot at the bar. But I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to keep that green color for more than like half an hour. Now, mint is much harder than the rest of the herbs. Escorbic acid didn't help at all? No, I mean, in fact, if anything that made it worse. Well, if you add small amounts. So too much acidity can go the other way, but like, like it should, it should, the baking soda did work, though, and you tried even like toning it down to, to, it's hard. Mint is really hard. Mint wants to go brown really badly. Have you tried using, like, semi-dried? Well, I haven't, but so the whole point is that in, in, you know, my bar is a Middle Eastern

[37:54] game called Tobar, in the Middle East, lends it mint lemonade is super popular, and it always has this vivid green color and really fresh taste.

[38:01] That's what I'm going for. But they're using dried, right? No, no, they're using fresh, but they blend its order on the spot. Yeah, I mean, I look, I've never had luck keeping fresh mint. First of all, you can't blanch it. It's destroyed. You can't blanch it. You can't hear. No, a bunch didn't work. I tried that too. No, as soon as you heat the mint trimming. rent. Yeah. Uh, but then, uh, yeah, I think the baking soda is

[38:29] going to make it taste soapy. It didn't taste soapy. tasted almost like creamy, if that makes sense. Creamy. That sounds like that could be good. Yeah, it doesn't have like a creamy texture or anything, but like it has this sweet, almost vaguely

[38:44] fatty dairy taste. Cliff says plan peas into it, but he's just joking. That goes back to the guacamole debate we were having earlier. Although, you know what? fake green, not fake, but like chlorophyll extracts, one thing you could do.

[38:57] Uh, well, you know, could do that. You could do chlorophyll extracts in it. That's cheating. It's cheating like a mofo. What the extracts about turn brown over time? No, I think like you make like a good spinach extract. Uh, that'll stay green. Keeps for a while. Green. Yeah. Green. I heard that's actually the source of the color in Chartres, but... You heard right. Yeah. Spinach. Spinach. Interesting. Yeah, see as soon as that works. pension reduce it down or what? Uh, I mean, you don't need that much. I don't think. Like if you make a good extra. Do you have a good recipe off top of your head, Cliff, for that? Do you make that for the TV shows ever for the green? Oh, it's, we just, we said a blanch blend strange. But you squeeze the hell out of it before you blend it, right? Blanche, squeeze the hell, get that black, dark stuff out, then blend strain, right? Yeah. For the spinach. Yeah. The, you know, the other problem, though, is when mint turns brown, it also the flavor changes. So if it's mainly the color, but you're not getting oxidative flavor changes in it, then you're going to be okay, but if it starts tasting swamping. That's when you know you're going to. Yeah, it doesn't actually taste so bad. It's definitely, I know what you mean. Like, you know, if I muddle a mojito and I let it sit out for a while. smell and taste awful. Did you know that you're not allowed to yell at customers for not drinking their stuff fast

[40:21] enough? to know that? Well, I mean, you know, when I let the order, the customers are definitely drinking it fast enough. Good. Good for them. Anyway, look, just keep calling and tweeting back and let me know whether you come up with something that works because it's a problem that everyone has had. We do all of our stuff on mint to order just because I've never been able to get it to

[40:42] keep. And I never do mint for outside events when we're going to do bottle batching because I can't get it to work.

[40:47] So if you come up with something that you like, just let us know, all right? Okay, so good. All right. Matt wrote in for. Oh, wait, Jordan is on the air for a reason. We only have 5 minutes up. She had a big question. Let me just finish Matt because I started it and then we'll do it. Matt from Aquron wrote in on quinine. I haven't been able to get quinine, sulfate USP from Spectrum Chemical. Tips on that would be appreciated. They rejected my LLC's attempt. Tell them you're a school, right? Tell them your school. Wait, I didn't tell you to just falsely represented your school. I take that back. I don't know. figure something out. to make tonic, but I have been able to get Kinchona bark. The tonic I've made from the Kinchona bark is, is it Chinchon or Kinchon? I've always said kin. I think it's chinchono. Well, it's chin, like chin, chin, chin. Okay. Chinchona is great tasting, but it's brownish color that many find unappealing. Can you think of any way to clarify it? Well, remember, clarity and color are 2 different things. I can have something that's totally clear, it's still going to be brown, right? So you want colorless and clear. When I do it, I can make it totally clear. I mean, yeah, clear in a centrifuge or with good filtration. And that's going to be good for good enough for carbonation. Anyway, here's a link to Jeffrey Morgenthaler's page if you need the recipe. I have the recipe. He also adds other spices to it. I've done a decent. I've done a decent quinine. In fact, I have a recipe for it in liquid intelligence, how to use the bark. The problem is that even when it's fully clear, There are foaming agents in the Conchona bark that aren't the

[42:13] quinine and it's going to, you're going to get more foam out. So you just need to be careful. If you do a good job clarifying and you could put it through a filter to try and do that, like you could put it through some sort of

[42:24] like some sort of, you know, filter that gets all the particles out, but I hate doing that. You could spin it in a low grade centrifuge, that would also work so you don't need to do that much. But you need to get it crystal clear. Once it's crystal clear, I mean, the color's not that unappealing, once it's really watered down to the point where you're

[42:38] going to use it, then it looks almost like a ginger ale and people will find that it's pleasant. And if you do get it clear, you will get foaming when you open the bottle, but you won't continuously lose

[42:47] carbonation because of constant nucleation of bubbles. So hope that helps. Now, Jordan, we're going to have to do another freaking ketchup. I'm ready when you are I got I got 2 whole weeks. Well, of course, the questions here. I'm not going to get to answer. Jordana, what do we got going? Okay, so here's my situation. I'm going to Burning Man again this summer. Wait, you went once and you're going to go again? Yeah, I'm going to go for like as long as they'll have me, basically. I thought the whole thing was if they have anyone that shows up. Definitely not the whole thing. It's like a very regimented thing with like tickets and a hole. Really? Oh, yeah. Didn't it just like a bunch of people like lighting gas fires and it didn't start as a bunch of

[43:26] people like bringing a bunch of crazy stuff and lighting big gas fires in the desert? Um, it actually started on a beach in San Francisco, um, and it's grown to, I mean, it's the 2nd largest city in Nevada outside of Las Vegas for one week out of the year.

[43:39] It's 70,000 people. And it's like an entire infrastructure. It's a city. I mean it's. Are there gas fires? Because, like, there's no gas fires. There are definitely fires. You burn the effigy, don't worry. And a lot of the art burns as well. Um, and it's really amazing community. I mean, it's like a staggering infrastructure actually. It's really, it's really stunning what how well it actually works, considering its reputation. Where do you live in this situation? Do you have like some sort of like... I live in a camp. Yeah. Like a Bedouin tent? pretty awesome. I actually, I live in like a trailer. Double wide. Really classy. Oh, wait, double wide. They bring double wides into this? Well, I bring we bring it. Yeah, we bring it from Reno, drive it in. Damn. Yeah. upping the game. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people live in tents, and that's still the majority, for sure. I don't have to do the trailer. Yeah, to, I mean, listen, like, basically what it's to buy. It provides, I mean, it's not a whole, I mean, it's not like luxurious by any means, and I share it with 6 people, so it's not, it's Crampton. When you say double wide, like, you're talking about the ones that my grandma used to live in in Wappers. And you drive it in. So you hitch it to a truck and you drive it in and then you park it and then you press a button and it expands.

[44:48] Oh, it's a movie trailer. It's like Hadads. I don't know what Hadad's is, but... No, no, no. Oh, right, right, right. Actually, I do know what Hadads is. Amazing. No. It's snow. I mean, it looks it looks like an RV. just doesn't have the driving mechanism inside of it. It's hitched to a truck. Um, basically what it provides is like a little bit more protection from the elements and it

[45:10] provides, actually it has a, you know, has a, has a bathroom for, you know, but

[45:15] it, and then it has a, um, a refrigerator. So that actually helps with some storage issues, but not to the extent that I'm going to need them this summer

[45:24] because so part of the whole experience there is that you go and you want to contribute to the community last year, I really kind of let it all wash over

[45:31] me and it was really amazing and I took so much from the experience, but I felt like I didn't contribute that

[45:36] much. So this year, my group and I decided that we want to build a bar, um, at Bernie Man, to give back to the community. You mean you're not going to sell liquor, you're going to give it away? There's no selling. There's no selling. It's a gift. It's gift. And so actually last year, it sort of happened organically. We start to, we were making Palomas for everyone, which was really nice. But, um, this year we wanna, we wanna, you know, make it a little bit more formal. We actually want to build a structure and we have this idea for like a rope installation art piece. And I want to do, and our camp is day of the dead themed, um, shout out La Kalaka. So we want to do, you know, Mexican cocktails, but part of that is

[46:12] citrus and the environment, the climate of Bernie Man, the citrus will go immediately. So you can't actually bring citrus. So I started to think about what are some alternatives

[46:22] to how can I fake citrus, basically, in the desert. So my 1st thought was that I would do minding that there are sort of packing issues as well, you know, like I'm bringing 2 duffels. We don't have a tremendous amount of room. There's not, you know, you got to be a little bit scrappy. So my 1st thought was maybe inspired by the acid tasting that you did at the

[46:41] Fantastic MoFAD benefit at Carnegie Hall. I thought maybe I would do like, I would fake lime juice with some of the powdered acids. And so I want more information upon that. But then I was told by my friend Anastasia that you actually had another idea. Yes, many, many. So let's talk about it. Whenever you have a problem, clear parameters. How many drinks we talk about? How many drinks? Well, yeah, well, that's a, give me a, I'm going to say... I'm going to say 400. 400 to 500, let's say. So let's say you were going to just bring straight up lime juice. Let's say I can make a keep for you, right? Okay. You're going to be talking about in the levels that I'm doing this, you have about an ounce per

[47:21] drink. How many? How many drinks? I would say, let's say five, four, 500. So like 500 ounces. We'll call that like, uh, 82 liter bottles. Can you do it? Could I bring 82 liter bottles? No, it's too heavy. I can't travel with that Now you're getting tough. Here's the problem with acids. Yeah, talk to me. Acids don't have, 1st of all, they don't have the richness of flavor that are real, you know, citrus is

[47:51] going to have. They're good for making sodas and things that are going to keep infinitely, and the good news is the amount of acid that's contained in a liter, right?

[48:02] So a kilogram of lime juice only weighs 60 grams. Right? But, uh, things that are shaken, they have acids in them, have no texture, because they don't have any of the proteins that you get out of the out of the citrus. Um, and it's never going to have that kind of fresh kind of fruit kind of a thing going on. Um, you know, if you could have someone deliver the citrus

[48:27] to the trailer, then you could juice it and cook it. The answer to keeping it is doing cordial, right? So like, you know, if you wanted to use real citrus. The answer is, is like, you don't want to be juicing every day and the juice is going to go bad. It's not even though we do have refrigeration in the trailer and there's actually a little bit of added refrigeration in this sort of like desert kitchen thing. It's not, it's, it's not something I can count on. It's not. equal quantities of sugar and lime juice. Because you're gonna remember, you're gonna need sugar out there too. Equal quantities of sugar and lime juice. If you just bring it up to a boil with some peel in it and let it settle out, that can stay out in the

[49:06] desert covered not in a fridge forever. We're talking about, by the way, like temperatures can rise during the day to over 100 degrees and higher, and at night they can drop to freezing. very, very challenging environment. Yeah, but it's all good. You'll be good for how long is it? listen a week. Yeah. So you'll be good because the combination of the acidity and the sugar ain't nothing growing in

[49:27] that cordial, right? So it's totally preserved. Now, if you can't fly it out there, but, you know, you could, like, like, when you pick up the thing, like, quickly juice, like, the limes or have someone buy the, hey, actually, don't buy the really bad stuff, but once you're

[49:43] going to cook it, the lime juice doesn't have to be super fresh anyway, because you're going to make a cordial with it, right? Test it here 1st so you get the recipe right. But you could literally just buy the, I'm making air quotes like fresh lime juice that's been juiced a couple of days ago. You could buy it by the court out there in Reno. You know, my Crazy Uncle Ralph Vigorito was a pit boss in Reno back in the day. Did not know that. Glad to pay me a visit if you'd like. Oh, no, he's in Jersey now. I haven't seen him in a while. Anyway, oh my god, he's an awesome character. Anyways, so, uh, yeah, like equal quantities of that lime juice, not the real, not the

[50:18] real, real BS, you know, but like semi-fresh. Oh, here's another good one. Ah, even easier. Even easier. Take the malac acid and the citric acid that I'm talking about. The powders. Yeah. Test this. haven't done it. I haven't made an orange cordial. But take the malloc and the citric, and it's 32 grams of citric, and 20 grams of malloc acid per liter of OJ, because OJ is fantastically easy to

[50:43] buy, fresh squeeze, right? Combine that and every, you know, every liter of that OJ, which you can source anywhere, and you can just fly out with the powders, put equal quantity, a kilo of sugar in, bring it up to the boil, let it come down, and use that as your sour mix, should be stable, should be,

[51:00] uh, should be good. Should be good. I haven't done it, so we have to test it. It's going to have a cooked orange flavor, not a fresh orange flavor, but it'll have still

[51:09] like a bright acidity to it. I'll test it. I'll see how it works I throw a couple peels in anyway, but that should be easy and you can source everything. But I don't know. I'm just talking off the top of my head. It's also a matter. I mean, there are other logistical issues. I mean, there is actually there's this desert kitchen, so there is there is a stove. I mean, it's a propane, you know, like one burner, but so there's capability to boil. You only need to do it one time. Yeah, but it's also like, you know, I don't want to, I, you know, there's a lot of people that need to be fed in this kitchen, so I

[51:35] can't, like, commandeer that. I'll tell you what I'll do just for you. When do you have to go? Leaving the last day of August. All right, so we have, you know what I will do? I will take and I will make a non-boiled version of this cordial in quotes because it's not boiled. And I'll throw it in my D high at 110 degrees for a week and we'll see how it

[51:56] tastes. And then we're going to make a powder. Well, no, I'll take the In other words, like, you'll just go out there. You'll buy OJ and sugar out there in Reno, dump the powder, the

[52:05] OJ and the sugar together, stir it until it dissolves, and see how it tastes. I'll just do a test in my dehydrator and see what happens to it. Yeah that sounds great. So this is the key. Light enough to travel with. In the luggage, yeah. In the luggage. shelf stable. Yeah. Enough. Yeah. You know? And is approximates the flavor of real citrus. I mean, well, it will be real citrus. That's what I'm saying. We're not just going to approximate. We're going to make it happening. Okay. We're gonna make it happen. All right. And listen, we're going to have to do a catchup show because I did not get to hardly any. I got exactly to one question. We have lots of questions that I know I owe you guys the answers to. Please don't get angry. We still have your questions. We'll get back to them next time on 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 store by searching Heritage

[53:02] Radio Network. You can like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at heritage underscore radio. You can email us with questions anytime at info@heritageradionetwork.org. Heritage Radio Network is a 501c3 nonprofit. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.