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

[0:06] Heritage Breed Pigs and Turkeys. For more information, visit Heritage Foods, USA.com. This is Chef Emily Peterson, host of Sharp and Hot. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit heritageradionetwork.org for 1000s more.

[0:32] Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. Here's Dave Arnold, your host for cooking. She's coming to you live, but on a telephone, somewhere in Bushwick, Brooklyn, on the Heritage Radio Network. My train went out of service. So we're doing a, uh, does you there? I'm here. Yeah, we're doing a, do you remember that video or uh, uh, that Bruce Springsteen did for the uh, streets of Philadelphia? Yeah, like Street Superior. Have you heard of walking around doing that? You're like now. Only Philadelphia doesn't have an elevated railway that's going to drown out any noise that I can make. Like how much background noise is there for real? Just a little bit of wind. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, my big old iPhone 6 Plus is like, you know, it's like a billboard. So, you know, it's trying to shield me from the wind. I try to get off the main drag here, maybe be a little quieter. All right. So, Stas, we're going to have to do a little bit not what we normally do. You can still call your questions at two, 718-4972128. 718-497-2128. How you doing over there, Jack? Can you hear me? I can hear you. Yeah, we have the chat room too. So I'm able to actually communicate with people directly. Nice. And uh, and by the way, you want to tell everyone, well, uh, we're walking to today is the beginning of the live, the live tweet us on madness, at least for cooking issues, even live for a couple of days in general, but you want to explain how

[1:54] that, how that crud works. Yeah, I think if you're tuning in live right now, you can see the chat room. I've got a bunch of people in here now chatting with me. They say that the L Train is the enemy of quality, but they... wasn't the L. Yeah. It was what? Yeah, I was on the JMZ line. Wherever they call that thing now. The LA is the enemy equality. It's just, it was one of those things where like the train had a problem. And so, Stas, anyone who lives in New York is familiar with this. The trains already extremely late and it stopped all the other trains from going, but they don't take out

[2:25] of service as soon as they have a problem. Instead, they make the train, be 15 minutes late, and then they pull it out of service so that you're a half hour late. You know what I mean? My favorite, my favorite people. Uh, which is why uh, Emmanuel Kant never went more than 2 miles away from his house. This is why he never visited the mountains, you know why? He went on a carriage ride. You're the famous philosopher. I mean, by the way, like, a complete nutbag and a

[2:52] weirdo, but, uh, he, this is what people read, people read these people's, uh, work

[2:56] today, and they're like, you know, they, they never take the time to realize that these people were freaking lunatics. So he takes a carriage ride one day, and there's a problem with the carriage. Like, the, uh, you know, the actual breaks or something, I forget exactly what happened. And he is late for an appointment. So he jots down in his book. Don't take care of rides. They might make you wait for appointments. And so the guy never like left within a couple of miles of his house. freaking weirdo, and yet people for 100s of years are like, this is the person I should base, like how, you know, what I, what I think about thought on, a freaking,

[3:28] like, clear loony band? You know what I'm saying? Anyways, uh, I don't want to get any. don't want to get any hate down from philosopher people, but he's, I never really enjoyed reading Kant. You guys ever have to read that stuff? No, what was his big point? Well, it's kind of a big dent, like, uh, uh, well, it's a big dent kind of school of thought. We'll get into it. We get into some of that. We should probably get some questions. Oh, before we do that, um, there's something else that we had to talk about. No, I don't know. I don't know. Uh, okay, so Stas, uh, you got the questions booked or no? No. Well, get the questions up. Remember back when I said you're gonna read the questions? No, you never send that. I did. Remember, I said we're going to do it differently today. Nastasia's going to read. Oh, you were listening. Jack, do you have the does anyone have the questions up? There was a question on... What? There was a question on Mastiha, Mastika there. Uh, but I can't look at it because the only instrument that I would have to look at the question is currently against my

[4:31] ear as I'm uh, talking. I do have a question from Josh Weinstein about enzyme soak. Yeah, he says in episode 112, Dave said he now prefers a half inch

[4:43] fry. The enzyme soak was originally 25C one hour. What time and temperature does Dave Arnold now use for his enzyme soak? Same. The reason I liked the bigger fry is because, okay, it's the same basic

[5:01] procedure with the exception that the larger fry might actually require some dry time, whereas the thinner fries didn't require a lot of

[5:11] drying. Remember, French fry, like good French fry, uh, work is all about, um, managing with here, right? So you have, the main problem with uh, French fries is either, there's too much moisture in the center and you haven't developed a good enough crust. And if you haven't developed a good enough crust. They go soggy. Conversely, if you focus all of our energy on a super good crust, Uh, you can create what we call the hollow fry. So it's like super crunchy on the outside, the hollow in the middle. So what you want to do, it's very difficult balancing act, and the enzyme soak is one of the things you can do to, um, kind of skew that balancing act in your favor. Now, because we've, in, you know, my opinion, gotten, um, successful enough, uh, with the

[5:56] French fry recipe, that you could have both a good exterior and interior. I then wanted to up the amount of interior that was there because the whole French fry was enjoyable, right? Whereas if really all you can do is make a good crust and anything on the interior just messing up your

[6:11] fry. Well, then you go thinner, right? Which is why people make those shoestring fries, which by the way, I don't like. I mean, I like them. I don't like them. You guys like shoe sweet fries? No, I don't mind them. You don't mind about it. you like let me ask you a question. Yeah, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. They're either gonna usually poorly done shoestream fries or either greasy or just like fried crunchies.

[6:34] No, no, I'm not insulting a fried crunchy, by the way. I like a fried crunchy. But, um, anyways, so I think in general, uh, the larger fries are also technically more, uh, interesting to tackle. Uh, I don't like the giant giant fries though, like those giant like, I don't like those giant fries. you guys like those? No, I'm not really a fan of them. So the answer is uh, the same, but you might need a little dry

[7:01] time, uh, to get a little more moisture out than you would if you were using a, uh, 38 uh, inch fry. Was that a good answer? Did I answer that? think you got it. This is an this is an easy one. I got from Joan Zuckerberg. Is there a culinary book which Dave Arnold would recommend above all others? Well, of course, you should buy liquid intelligence simply for its use of the coaster. I'm kidding. I'm just kidding. Um, you know, I buy, I like, huh, I don't buy books, um, because I'm going to use them for recipes usually. I usually buy books because I really, um, want to see somebody's point of view. Sometimes I'll get them for, uh you know, like a specific culture to learn about a specific culture. Um, so it's kind of tough. It's like if you ask me a particular area, then I'm like, oh, you got to get that book. If you're interested in sauces, like, even though it's, you know, very old at this point, you should go pick up a copy of

[8:04] Peterson's sauce book because it was seminal. Now, would I say that's the 1st cookbook you should go buy? No, but if I was doing sauces. It's also a really interesting. I like old books because they're a window into, uh, somebody else's, uh, like a different, a different time, a different frames. So you look at those recipes in that book, for instance, and there's a lot of reduced cream

[8:26] sauces because that was very involved in, and they can give you kind of a slice of what was happening at a particular time.

[8:34] Take this style. like name a type of cookbook. I tell you what I like. Um, you like Harold McGee's? Yeah, yeah, I don't care. yeah okay. I mean, you gotta go buy on food and cooking. You need to own that. That's like saying, you know, do you breathe, you know, do you buy liquids? You know what I mean? like, I mean, like cookbooks, like, like, what style? Italian. Ooh, that's interesting. What do you like for Italian style? I don't. Oh, God. Do you love Italian food? I don't use I don't use the cookbook, no. You don't like to read cookbooks, right? Because you don't care what people think about things, right? Yeah. I used to really enjoy, uh, when I was starting to, you know, cook seriously, like, you know, 25, uh, or

[9:20] so years ago, uh, Giuliano Bujali's books because he's such a nut on, uh, what he thinks about sending what he's

[9:28] not. like classic like old school, northern, Italian, uh, where

[9:33] like if it deviates even slightly from what he considers to be authentic. It's crap. And although I don't cook that way, I think it's kind of hilarious to like, to read a book that's written from that perspective. So, I like, ooh, the cement truck is coming by, the one that always tries to kill me on my bicycle. Are you walking toward here or are you? Yeah. I'm going to show up in the studio at some point. At which point I will be able to read the questions off of my phone. So I like his stuff for that. I really liked, I don't know whether it's still dated or anyone reads it. I liked cooking by hand, Bertoli's book, because it was the 1st book that I had that, you know, went through the

[10:09] procedures, uh, pretty in depth for curing. This is way before the charcuterie book came out. Uh, it went through the production of, uh, falsanic vinegars. It went through a bunch of stuff. I thought it was a really good book. I don't know if people read it anymore. I mean, I like some of the old classics like uh, you know, the 1st uh, cookbook that someone bought me. Uh, to cook out of was uh, Julia Childs uh, way to cook, which I like. I like Jacques Pepin. We call him Jackie Peps, but I like Jacopin's, uh, he has a 2 volume color work that was put

[10:42] out by, uh, knops back when they didn't know any better. It literally shows you how to skin a baby lamb. So, obviously, it went out of print very quickly because no American back in the, you know, late 70s or 80s, whatever it was,

[10:55] uh, wanted to learn to skin a baby lamb. Um, I don't know. I really like old versions of Pella Brat, the ones with the weird crazy 60s photos. I really love the time life, uh, encyclopedia of, uh, foods of the of the world. I think that's an amazing reference. Anyway, I don't know. I could go on and on and I probably shouldn't. What's the next question? Ask your question, Jack. Oh, yeah, I was speaking of cookbooks, I tried to cook out of the Zahav cookbook, this Moroccan carrot recipe, and they wanted you to kind of cook the carrots in a pan with water, just covering the carrots for about 20 minutes, and then you take the carrots out of the

[11:35] water, and they want you to reduce that carrot water into like a syrup.

[11:39] And it's said to cook it for about 15 minutes more and it should turn into a syrup, but it never turned into a syrup. It just stayed like boiling water, you know, and it stayed the consistency. Okay, okay, okay. It's getting this year. So how do you slice the? First of all, like, what are we talking? the ratio carrot to water? About 6 carats in a saucepan just barely covered with water. So like, you know, the, you know, just covering the carrots, but 6 whole carrots. Yeah, large. How tall was the pan? What's that? How tall is the pan? It was probably, I don't know, 6 inches deep. Yeah, see, I'm looking at it. So, but it was one of those ones it's like roughly 6 by 6, so it was as tall as wide or taller than wide. Oh, no, it was definitely more wide than tall. Yeah, so you're adding probably more water than you would need to. Um, because you're probably not getting the packing density that you want to get

[12:36] the, so you probably started out with a higher level of water, which in and of itself isn't going to give you problems, except for you probably have to reduce it much more

[12:44] than, uh, than you think. So there's, there's a couple things that are going on. If it's reducing to a syrup, what that means is you've extracted stuff out of the carrots. So if your carrots aren't very flavorful. They're not very sweet. You're not going to have a lot of stuff to extract, and there you have it. So you should be able to taste the water at the end of boiling, and you'll know, you know, like this doesn't have much flavor, so I'm going to have to reduce the living hell out of it, right? So in that case, you know, you might have to reduce it. Also, it's impossible to say how many minutes you need to reduce something. Like, uh, if I was going to do this for a bar or or something, you would reduce it to a particular solid content, right? Like, that's how you make, like, uh, jellies, you know, you, you take things down to a certain bricks level, because you need a certain solid content to get the body. You need X percentage of sugar in the water. So, and once you get to, you know, so the difference between, like, something that's, uh, let me put it this way, 66% sugar by weight is maple syrup.

[13:40] 82 is honey. Right? Uh, 50 uh, is 50% sugar even, still pours, uh, you know, almost like water. Do we already talk about whipped creams pouring like a waterfall? We already talked about pizza. CCA. Anyway, remember that song? Anyway, so, uh, it doesn't take that much less sugar in a product, all of a sudden make

[14:01] it, um, much less, um, biscuit. Did it taste good or no? It tasted fine. Yeah, it was just kind of soupy, you know, it was very watery. All right, Bush, man, I'm at Boorum and McKibben. I want to go towards McKibben, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I think that was probably your problem. So it tasted good, but it wasn't syrup, but you need to reduce it more. Look, they don't know how powerful your stove is. Like, how are you going to tell someone to reduce something for 15 minutes? You know what I'm saying? I don't know. Like, you know, maybe maybe I have a, in fact, I do have a stove as poorly regulated, and I could, I could boil a cow. know what I mean? Because that's how much energy comes out of my burners. You know what I'm saying? It's like almost like, it is like a wok burner. My regular stuff is like a wok burner. So if I crank that sucker, I can reduce it. Uh, you know, if I can reduce anything almost into it, the problem is you might scorch things. Whereas, you know, you might be in a situation where you have a low output stove, and it could take you twice as long easily to reduce it. So it really needs to be reduced on a consistency. Maybe you should have stuck with it longer. Or maybe you didn't cut your carrots small enough so you didn't get full extraction out. Is that possibility? No, I think more likely I should have just reduced it for longer. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Dave. Yeah, because if you're doing a short cook. Also, how much is extract? I mean, if you cooked it per the recipe, then probably cooked it for the recipe. You know that uh, back in the day, are you a fan of uh, vegetables that are on the crunchy side or vegetables that are cooked through? No, crunchy. Yeah, yeah. So you're extracting less, like the crunchier the vegetable is, unless you've broken this stuff down, unless you've extracted out. You see what I'm saying? So like if you're pulling them early, then even no matter what, you're in a situation where you're going to have less sugar than you would

[15:44] otherwise because you haven't extracted as much out. I mean, the Frenchy French is, uh, you know, back when I was at the French culinary institute. They, when I 1st started there, everyone was still very, very old school French.

[15:55] So they would get all pretzled out if you gave them, uh, you know, a crunchy vegetable that, you know,

[16:01] they said, this is part cooked. This is not, you know what I mean? Like they were like, it's not cooked. They want it. they want it basically cooked all the way through. Not mushy, but crypto all the way through. Whereas the average American case now, I think, skews towards, um, slightly

[16:15] under, because we know Stas likes freaking raw rice and pasta, basically, she's a freaking animal,

[16:20] a barbarian. vegetables that are completely mushy. How is it? You're the opposite of everything always. I love it. I'm on more street people. We're getting close. Let's squeeze in a few chat. I got a few chat room questions we'll get to. Elliot wants to know if he grinds nixtimilized corn in a food processor. Will it suck? Uh, will it suck? So for those of you that, like, you know, aren't hip to the fact. Niximalizing corn is when you treat corn with calcium, hydroxide, usually treat weather, alkali, and it takes on the, uh, the, uh, it changes the structure and the flavor, uh, and

[17:01] nutritial properties, actually, of the corn. And when you grind it properly in, uh, in a nix-to-mound grinder, Uh, you get masa, which is the thing from which uh, corn tortillas are made. Okay, uh, will it suck? And the problem with making, uh, nixonizing corn, uh, is that is very hard to grind it properly. I now have a grinder I like, I have made it in a food processor. The problem with it is you have to add more water than you should, right? So it'll work. You're gonna burn out the last time I did it. I didn't burn it out, but I ran my cuisine art so hard that it never was quite the same again, because you have to have to sit there and just grind the ever loving crap out of it until you get the right texture, and you also need to, um, you need to, uh, like I

[17:48] say, add more water. So then sometimes, I'm not saying to do this, but sometimes, if it's too watery, when you're done. Don't add a lot. Take a little bit of extra water. You can add some solids back in, cheat it back to the right moisture content uh to get it right. That's what I would do. I have done it. It's not ideal, not the best, but it works. And I'm in the studio. All right. You ever get the questions upstairs? Yeah. Okay. And I'm back. Does that sound better? Wow, that was really cool. Yeah. I like how, like, I was able to get a Beastie Boy reference in there on

[18:26] the, on the way in. It's like a magic trick. It is. here you are. Here I am, in the studio. Wow. Not just calling in anymore, like a like a freaking chump. What if one of our callers did this one day? Just showed up. be really weird, huh? Listen, if you do, like, I'm not saying don't do this. But Nastasio will probably stab you because she'll

[18:47] assume she'll assume that you mean her harm. Right. That big a scene in a scary movie, and, like, you think it's a bad guy, but it's not, but then she stabbed them anyway. Well, one thing, like anyone that knows her knows. Nastasia, not so much a wait and see kind of a lady. You know what I mean? Gut reaction. Not even just gut. It's like, oh, uh, we're stabbing this dude now? Okay. You know what I mean? Like, you see the beginning of that movie, Three Kings with Ice Cube and Mark Wahlberg back in the day? No. You didn't see that? You should say that's a good movie. At least I remember it being a good movie. But the point is, is that, you know, Mark Wahlberg sees someone and like, he's like, are we shooting people? You know what I mean? Like, that's how the movie starts, and they're like, yes. And so he shoots the person. Stas is like that. oh, so that's that's what's happening. I'm just saying you're likely to get stabbed. If you show up unannounced. Jack won't stab you. I won't stab you. Nastasi will stab you. Not out of hate. Just instinct. Let's take a quick little break so I can get the sponsor message in and you can catch up. All right. We'll be right back live.

[20:05] This is not an advertisement. I promise. This is not an ad. Cooking issues, listener, you're already cooler than most people for listening to this show. And if you do listen to this show, then you know I'm Jack Insley, a.k.a. Jackie Molecules, a.k.a.

[20:23] the man behind the booth. I need you to make us look cool against all the other shows. Let's make cooking issues the most supported show on the network. $one, $5, $20, $50. Really, anything you can afford. Please donate today to heritageradionetwork.org. Click on the donate tab in the top right corner. Send us a note and let us know you came from cooking issues. Dave will appreciate it. I will appreciate it. Even Nastasia will appreciate it. I promise. Give something today. Do it. Do it. Give it, do it, do it. Right? All right. So should I get to some email questions now that I have the email questions up? Yeah. All right. Okay. I see who wrote this in. You know, that was the 1st question I asked on cooking issues ever, I think. Yeah? Did I answer it properly? You did. I'm so stoked. calling again next week. I mean, sometimes I meet people at the bar, right? Because people at the bar, like, MAGA, they're like, they're like, oh, I listen to them. Oh, you ever ask a question like, no? Like, all right. You don't have to ask a question if you don't want to. Matthew M from the Seattle area. I like Seattle area, although I'm angry at the Seattle area now because my cousins are slowly drifting to it. So, you know, I'm losing, like, you know, I've basically lost my entire family dinner kitchen staff now. You know, like we had like the crew, we would crank it out and like one half of the, of the, you know, the 2 brothers, that would always come over,

[21:48] Rage and James. They, you know, Ridge is like, hell with us. I'm moving back to Seattle. And I was like, oh, man. And then, you know, the 3rd brother, Kai, he's like, I'm moving back to Seattle. So then you know James is gone. Worst, worst, worst. You know what the sad thing is? Like, you know, look, I'm a New Yorker. I don't know if you know this. I'm a New Yorker. You know what I mean? My son, Booker, would, like he would murder anyone so that he could stay in New York, probably. I mean, he would definitely like throw me off a bridge if it meant he got to stay in New York and not like move somewhere else. I mean, I'm not saying he doesn't love me. I'm just saying he loves New York more. know what I mean? But I think I could deal with Seattle. I mean, the weather and the looks and like the Pacific Northwest, like I groove on all that kind of stuff, except for the fact that I'm a New Yorker. You know what I mean? What are your thoughts on Seattle Jack? I've never been, but I got a little brother out there. Well, half brother living in Seattle. You never visit him? I'm not saying, I'm not saying, I'm not calling you, you know, bad brother or anything. I'm just saying... Look, you know. That was one of the few places I haven't been in the country, like that area. haven't really been to the Pacific Northwest. Have you say they've been to Portland, i.e. Seattle Light? Boom. Boom. No, I'm kidding. I love Portland. Portland's nice. You know, I think Portland, like at some point, like back in the in the 90s and like, you know, like 2000, 2001, 2002, I think the Seattle guys were like, we are the supreme leaders of this

[23:10] area. You know what I mean? Everyone else is a fake us. And I think Portland was like, no, no. I think Portland has the mantle now, right? Like if you were going to say, what would you think of first? Jack, what would you think of first? Do you think of Portland 1st or Seattle first? Portland. See? That's a complete reversal. It is, you're right. So it was all Seattle in the 90s. Seattle, Seattle, Seattle, Seattle, Seattle. And not just because of, you know, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Pearl. Pl Jam. Yeah, although, you know, I don't know. I think, you know, don't hold on to the past Seattle, you know. Come back to the future. Yeah, what else do they got? The salmon, coffee, they're delicious. they got all, of course, they got Nathan Mirville. They got Chris Young, Chef Steph's crew. They got, you know, Microsoft. They got a lot going for them. Chef Steps is in DC. No, Shastef is in Seattle. Yeah. Well, anyways. Uh, good salmon. Good salmon. Okay. I should get to the question. I'm a listener since January this year and I've worked through most of the backlog. I find the podcast to be an inspiring resource, so thanks for your great work. One hobby that I picked up through listening to the podcast is homemade liqueurs. You like what do you call it, liquors, liqueur. Do you say you like liqueur? liquor, liquor. Like, booze. Meta guy. Yesterday, it smelled like my uncle Ralph. Yeah. Where? Billiard, a billiard place. He's like boost. They're like in the store drinking beer, what? Oh, outside of my old, where my apartment is, the neighborhood's totally changed, and one of the downtown billiard places was up there. So I walked in because Dax's like, I want to look at the pool table. So, like, I go into the pool tables, I'm like, uh, these gentlemen smell like Michael Ralph. You know what I mean? You know, that, like, slightly sweet, like, smoke, sweet, drink, smoke, sweet, yeah. New Jersey slash. You know what I'm talking about? Anyways, no one knows what I'm talking about. All right. In that vein, I was looking to experiment with some wood infusions via EC rapid infusion method or steeping as a component for the liqueurs. My main question is, do you have any advice in general for wood flavor infusion,

[25:13] e.g. wood format, chunks, chips, dust, spiral, spiral? Oh wait, chunks, chips, dust, and spirals don't seem good for small scale. All right, I'm going to hit piece by piece because otherwise I'll go on tangents, right? So, uh, wood format. Listen, the surface area of wood exposed

[25:31] is in any rapid, in any infusion thing, frankly, this amount of surface area exposed is like super vitally important.

[25:40] So usually the, like, the bigger the piece is, the slower the process, but that also means if you're going to do something quickly, the more controllable the process, right?

[25:49] Also, like sometimes like larger things can skew things in different ways. So, for instance, like certain things might extract more slowly, from the center of a piece of wood, but you might get more kind of overall total extraction of everything once the pieces are

[26:05] smaller because everything makes it out into the liquor as fast as possible. Does that make sense to us? So the size is super important. I would shoot, for rapid infusion, I usually, you want to choose a size that is not too, too

[26:18] rapid because you don't want, if you have like a one minute infusion, and then you go like 30 seconds long or 22nd short. It's ruined. Like, I like, it's nice to have an infusion time. It's like, you know, three, 4 minutes because then you have like a bigger window. Also, if you make things too fine, it can be very difficult to strain the stuff out fast enough, and then while you're straining it, it'll go too much. That's like coffee is a problem with that, which is why I switch to kind of a coarser grind of coffee than I used to originally because if your filter clogs, by the time you've gotten it through the filter. And by the way, this is the one thing I hate as much as Nastasia is putting things through coffee filters, right? I hate it. I hate it. If there was one thing, there's like a couple things in my life that I'm like, you know what, I don't ever need to do that again. Putting like a bunch of crap through coffee filters, um, drywall. I hate doing drywall. I hate it. I like working with my hands. I like carpentry, drywall. You like drywall? Taking the stuff off garlic. Oh I hate that. I don't ever want to do that. You know what the thing is, people come to your house, right? And they're like, hey, could I help? Yeah, Peter all this garlic. And they're like, no, no, I mean, can I help doing something that I want to do? And you're like, what? The hell is this? You know what I'm saying? Yes. You know, because also, like, you're not going to have them cut something because they're going to mess it

[27:31] up, and then here's the problem with, here's the problem with this. I'm going to get back to your question. Don't worry. But the problem with this is this. You come to me and you say, can I help, and I say, yes, cut this cucumber. And then you cut it wrong, right? Now, maybe I didn't tell you exactly how I wanted to cut, but I did tell you what I was going to use it for. right? Okay. So then you get mad at me because I have an obvious look of displeasure on my face.

[27:57] Now, I haven't said anything mean to you. I haven't called you a bad person or an enemy of quality or any of these things. I just look at the cucumbers and look sad. you know what I'm saying? Does that make me bad? I mean, I'm getting better in my in my old age, like, I'm like, you know what? Because here's the thing, right? Here's the problem when you go to somebody's house and you ask them to do something. You're cutting the cucumbers up and you've mangled it, right? But once it goes out, you've completely mangled these cucumbers. you ruined them. All the pieces are all different sizes. They no longer get coated with whatever properly. It just a frigging nightmare. I don't know. I don't know what the hell you did to them but you've ruined them. Now, the problem is, is that when the host brings that crap out to the table,

[28:39] what are they going to do? Everybody, Jokimo, cut the cucumbers like a chump. It wasn't me. You know what I mean? You can't do that. You have to suck it up and make it look like you're the idiot to cut the cucumbers that way. That's the problem. Maybe this is why your cousins left. No, they know I've cooked with them for like decades. They know how I want it. They know how I want that stuff. You know? All right, Jackie, you with me? You're not with me on this. I can tell you how. Secretly not with me on this stuff. talking to people in the chat room about browsers. That's the beautiful thing about this new stream. It cut out for a 2nd and then everyone's like, hey, mine cut out, and the other guy's like, well, I refreshed and it worked, so then everybody can refresh. It's great. I think browser needs to be, like, it's a word that needs to be said in a more highbrow fashion browser, right? Doesn't it deserve to, like, that's not like Bowser. Browser sounds like Bowser from Shana-an. Remember Shana? Man, I'm old. All right. Wood preparation, raw, toasted, uh, chard. Now listen, uh, when you're charring like an oak barrel, for instance, let's say you're making whiskey and you're charring an oak barrel, uh, you're getting a surface char, but then it's also extracting stuff out of, uh, you know, it goes through the point all through toasting and try to say,

[29:50] like, if you char small pieces of wood, that's a whole hell of a lot of char. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But look, you know, there are people who all they do all day, all night is thinking about different ways to

[30:02] toast wood. I mean, this is like a field of endeavor that people study like or practice for decades and never get it right. So it's like, you know, I would shoot for something that you know you can repeat, right? So I would 1st try to settle in on a size of wood. And then I would try to figure out kind of some reproducible toasting thing, which is going to be difficult because if the moisture content of the wood changes, your

[30:27] timing will be different. You know what I mean? It's very hard to do it by temperature or by color because it's hard, you know? Anyways. Uh, best solvent, water, alcohol, blend, and temperature. Well, duh alcohol, but not straight alcohol, probably alcohol, alcohol and water. As we like to call it, booze. Now, the higher proof that you'd, I mean, like, look, different flavors, the alcohol is gonna extract a lot faster than the water, a lot of the stuff. And so, you know, there's an optimum, um, there's an optimum kind of extract, but I don't really know what it is. I in general work with, um, um, pre-watered booze at like 40, 40, but you know, it depends. If you're using a higher proof stuff, you can, but most of the stuff that we operate is somewhere between 40 and 50%

[31:07] alcohol and you'd have to search far and wide to get a higher, but you know, you could go get this. We use this stuff called Technical Reserve that's made here in Brooklyn. Brooklyn, and it's like 95% pure, and it's pretty clean, right? It doesn't smell too much like a hospital. So you can make a tincture with that. We do that sometimes, but it's like extraction. I've done ISI with straight liquor, but man, you gotta watch out because it's some super hardcore. Uh, web resources for food grade wood and infusion. I can only find oak chips for wine making and wood pellets for smoking. I'm assuming the woods for smoking and infusion have different safety considerations. The pellets, I wouldn't do the pellets, but like any piece of wood, like, you're kidding yourself if you think that they, look, don't use pressure treated woods. You know what I mean? Like, but like, like, I've used, oh, from Home Depot. But you know what I mean? Like, you know, just like, you know, get the surface off of it. It's it's wood. You know what I mean? It's like imagine, you know, you go to the store, you buy a cucumber, you go to the lumber yard. Yeah, you buy some wood. You know what I mean? I could be wrong. Someone write me in and tell me that I've just told someone to do something terrible. Are there woods that are generally safe at high extractions, assuming typical barrel oaks? Not sure what else do you use? Maybe sugar, maples, birch. People, I mean, there are people who have done a lot of work with alternate woods. I have not. I would want to. I mean, it depends also on what you believe, right? So there are woods, tropical woods that are toxic, but in general, like a woodworker would know that. The other question is, is like, once you start doing infusions, like, you could go get, um, sassafras, uh, wood, for instance, right? But it contains saffro. So, you may believe that Saffral is, well, the United States government believes that it's a carcinogen and won't let you put it

[32:51] in the food. You may believe that it's not a problem, in which case you could use it. I don't believe it's a problem. I use it. It's traditional. You know what I mean? But whatevs. anyway. Woods that should be widely avoided due to high risks, even at low extractions. I mean, the good thing is, like I say, stay, I would stay away from any sort of like weird tropical, toxic wood that you don't know what it is. Stay away from any sort of, any sort of, um, pressure treated or any sort of treated wood whatsoever, any wood that's ever been painted, any wood that's ever been

[33:21] shellacked, any wood that's ever been finished at all under any circumstances. stay away from. I would also say that like a lot of pines will probably not be 100% pleasant on an extraction basis, whereas like some of their resins

[33:35] are good, but I don't know that they'd be good from a wood extraction standpoint, yeah? Yeah, good. Anyway. Um, 2nd related question. Are you aware of common herbs and spices that become dangerous under high extractions, nutmeg, for instance, could become psychotropic and toxic, though I doubt it would be palatable

[33:51] available. It really is. People have to hide it. They mix in with, I think peanut butter. Fishbone did a whole song and maybe even a whole section of an album on trying to trip off of

[34:00] Nutmeg. You ever done that, Jack? Or do you know anyone that's ever done that? whose name might be backy molecules? Like, uh, like I haven't. Oh, the thing about nutmeg is, right? I mean, like, nutmeg highs are for, like, uh, like 14 year olds who, like, are interested in trying something, but don't have a source. You know what I mean? So they go into the pantry and they pound like, you know, nutmegs like. condoning this. No, no, you should never do this. This is not smart because the actual thing about nutmeg is,

[34:30] uh, from what I've read is that the, um, 1st of all, it's terrible in large quantities. Secondly, I believe that the dose line between psychotropic and toxic is very is not very big. So I don't I don't think it's necessarily a safe thing to OD on. You know what I mean? But, like I said, if you want to go look up herbs and their effects, there is a whole community, it's, I haven't been to it a long time, but it's called like

[34:59] Arrowwit or the vault. It's a place where I used to go to get information on extracting stuff from. Yeah, the drug site. Yeah, but those people are fantastic because they've tested every freaking thing. You know what I mean? Like, they're like, how do you get the most, uh, you know, uh, uh, well, they're interested in psychotropic principles, but how do you get the most stuff out of X, Y,

[35:17] Z urban? And so all these knuckleheads have tried all these solvents. You know what I mean? Most of them not food grade. And then, um, and, you know, they've tried anything that anyone has ever said has a psychotropic effect, they have

[35:29] uh, pounded. Rue is one you should probably also stay away from. Not for psychotropic. There's lots of things. I would get an herbal guide. Plenty of those things have toxicity levels, and in general, I... Man, this list is crazy on the site. Of what? Mint, garlic, ginger. I'm telling you, man. it's crazy. These guys are like, like, there are people who, what they do, is they sit down in the morning when they get up and they're like, what have I not tried to eat in large enough quantities to mess my brain up and will it do anything?

[36:00] And then they report on it. I mean, I think it's a great public service. I don't know. What do you think, Jack? Yeah, I support it. Anyways, uh, also, obviously, like, um, uh, spices that are toxic and super high doses,

[36:14] like uh, Thujone is toxic and super high doses, and it's very prevalent in like sage extracts. I wouldn't pound sage extract. I wouldn't pound clove oil extract. It's an anesthetic. There can be other, you know, there's, so things that are high in Thujone, things that are high in, uh, usual. There's all sorts of things. These things aren't meant to be eaten in super high quantities. In fact, one of the things that, you know, we were coming across, we didn't make it into the exhibition that the museum is

[36:37] doing, but, um, you know, most of these things are toxic or at least irritants are noxious in super high quantities. So if you want to see what it's like for an insect. The reason insects don't eat mint. Take a, like, a quarter teaspoon of pure mint oil and put that sucker in your mouth.

[36:55] You did that with me, right, Stas? It is freaking, but banana lamas. Anyway. What? Wait, we're over? It's one. Ah, all right. Well, sorry about the whole streets of Philadelphia issue. I got propane questions to get to. I've got Wagyu beef. Listen, Wagyu beef. Who wrote that in? Who wrote that in? Kevin from Los Gatos. I answer you more in depth, but listen, you already have the beef, so I have to answer you quickly right now. Listen, listen, listen. The reason you need, he had a, he was, by the way, people, what he's doing is he's aging a, he's aging a big, what has he got? He's got a Wagyu, but what has he got? He's got a 7 rib, A5 wagy beef roast. He wants a dry agent for 30 days, and his fridge that he has it in, is running at 55, 50 to 55% relative humidity. And he's wondering, does he really needed to get up to 70 or 80 because he doesn't? he doesn't, he's like, I don't care if it, if I lose a little more moisture because that's, um, just more flavor, right? No, no, no, no. Get the moisture up. Listen, you're gonna case harden. That's what you're worried about. If you go that low on your moisture, you're at the case harden the outside of the meat, which is not what you want for proper aging. So take a salt pan, old school, take a pan, saturated salt solution, put extra crystals in the bottom. It should be able to maintain about 80, I think. Someone go look it up for me, tweet it back on out. We'll get you next week on the 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 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. HeritageRadio Network is a 501c3 nonprofit. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.