[0:00] Today's program is brought to you by Firesider, a health tonic based on the traditional New England

[0:05] cure all of raw apple cider vinegar and honey. For more information, visit firesider.com. I'm Laura Stanley, host of Inside School Food. You are listening to Heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit heritageradionetwork.org for 1000s more. Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking. You just coming to you live from a British Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn, every Tuesday on the Heritage Radio

[0:41] Network from roughly 12-ish, a little late today, 1212. 12 is a nice number, though. To Revely, and then like 1245, 1250, depending on when we get. We only start the show on nice numbers. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, we should start at 8 and then we can always have it start at 808 and we can have a suite, the sweet cowbell. No, I like the boom. The kick, yeah, of course. But that's, that's, that's, that's so mainstream, though, like the 808 base. The cowbell is the unsung. Oh, you a great point, Peter. Well, no, Peter has betrayed his oldness. I would say the average young person has no idea what an 808 is. doesn't remember who the Beastie Boys were when they started name checking the 808 or anything

[1:19] about it. Oh, you're wrong. 808 has had a good Renaissance and resurgence. Well, nothing sounds quite like an 808. Can we hear that? you have it? I can pull up an 808. Give me a 2nd here. We'll make it. What's Stas laughing at? This guy is enamored with Dave. No, not even. Yeah, he can't take his eyes off you. That's because I'm a freak He's so, well, how would you describe it, Peter? All right, so listen. This is just an 808 beat. We're going to play. 808 Let's see. Make no mistake. Well, this is what happens when you pull up YouTube. never know. Oh, there's uh, yeah. Yep. Oh, yeah. See, like, that's like, that's like the 80s, 808. That's like run DMC style 808. Yeah exactly. Oh, too bad Dave can't rap over this. Well, you know, apparently, Peter Kim, from the Museum of Food and Drake, who's here with us again today, used to do freestyling.

[2:13] Known rapper but known liar, right? Wow. Ouch. Was that your rap name? Known liar. Known liar. Exactly. Wow. Damn. Wow. You know, Peter called me at 9.50 PM on Monday. Being yesterday. Do you know why that's important? No, why is that important? It's bachelor season. Do you know what happens? A rose ceremony. Yeah. Well, I think you can hear that. Rostasia Hammer Lopez is with us today as usual with her love of the Bachelor, which

[2:47] is new season. Is the Bachelor as bad for America as the Jerry Springer show? I don't think so. And joined as usual in the engineering booth with Jack, Jackie Molecules

[2:58] Insley. What do you think, Jack? I have to, I have to say something. Somebody just tweeted at us like 15 minutes ago and they sent me this. They said this is for Jackie Molecules, and I have to play it. It's 10 seconds long. Ready?

[3:16] The molecular man. Right? Wow. Wow, what is that? It's a Conan O'Brien sketch, the molecular, man. It's got the same voice as Will Ferrell from Megamind. Remember that movie? I've never seen it. I people. Get some kids. Get some freaking kids. Not yet. Wait, so what the hell's we talking about? 808s. Peter's rapping. Peter's rapping. 808s heartbreaks. Oh, see, now he's starting his freestyle career again. It's a Kanye West. Oh, really? Come on. Wait, is it more recent Kanye? Not so recent. Is it after you stopped being good? Circa 2008? nine? a while ago. Yeah, it was a while ago, man. whatever. Peter Kim does not care about Kanye West. Okay. Here we go. At Dear Dave Nastasia and Jack. And actually, Peter had a Peter had a comment on this earlier. This is last week's question. Cooks Illustrated recently ran an equipment test on carbon steel pans and concluded that they were a better choice than cast

[4:23] iron for home cooks, but none of the chefs I read and listen to have ever mentioned carbon steel skillets. You and Kenji Lopez alt, both seem enamored with your cast iron. I'm enamored strong. I mean, you know, like, you know, if there was a fire, 1st of all, the cast iron would survive, but I would save my family first. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? Never mind. Don't get me started on Parmigiano Reggiano. I was about to go onto a Parmigiano Reggiano rant for my honeymoon, but I won't do it. I won't do it. It won't happen. Stas is shaking her head right now. Just narrating. You like the Parmesan. You love your wife. That's what the guy said to me because I couldn't know how an Italian to say that, you know, I was like, I love the Parmigiana Red, whatever. We got a lot of free hats and Parmesan knives. Anyway, can you comment? Flush with cash from Christmas? I am trying to decide whether whether to buy a lodge cast iron pan or the carbon steel pan Cooks Illustrated recommends from

[5:18] Mottfer. Uh, Mat for Bouja. You want to pronounce that with your fake French accenter? Do it Cameroonian French. I guess it would be... What? Ah, nice.

[5:32] Strong. Peter K, of course, lived in Cameroon. I lived in Cameroon, guys, for 2.5 years. known liar. Wow. This one is currently sold out because of the demand generated by their review.

[5:43] Please advise Alex. So here's the here's my issue. Here's my point on the deal, dealio. Current, no offense to the lodge folks, because didn't we meet them once or something like that? I wish that Lodge would come out with a set of cast iron,

[5:59] um, a set of cast iron pans that had the uh, inside sanded so that it was smooth, like the old school polished cast iron, because those suckers are uh, awesome. But, um, in my opinion, uh, trying to compare the 2 uh, trying to compare the 2 styles of pans, cast iron versus uh, black steel is kind of like missing

[6:22] the the point. It's like not, like, I wouldn't use them for the same for the same things. I think like the comparison, which I think also Cooks Illustrated makes is between the black steel pan, as I always call it, and

[6:36] the, um, in a regular nonstick, uh, nonstick, uh, skillet, right? And so, yeah, I think they're good. I think they're very good. They cast iron and the black steel are both steel, right? I mean, not steel. They're iron fundamentally, but the surface of them both form nonstick finishes in exactly the same way. So in the same way that a wok, which is, in essence, a black steel pan, right? In the same way that a wok becomes nonstick over time, as it's seasoned. Uh, so will uh, black steel. What? They're staring at me in a very strange way. See, okay, I have to go on a tangent. I'm sorry, Alex, for not answering a question in total before I go off on this tangent, but Peter Kim. Cannot, like, sit in an auditorium or in front of a group of people and have Nastasia and I near him making faces at him because he just breaks up.

[7:35] He's like freaking, uh, he's like one of those Saturday Night Live characters that like can't not laugh during a

[7:40] freaking uh, so he's trying to do something like that. But it's not even phasing me. You don't understand that, like, my whole family is partially autistic, so I cannot be phased. I unfadable. You know what I mean? Looks like you're getting a little faded right now, do you? I know. I just saw it Nastasia. One quick, knowing glance. had nothing to do with that. We have a caller that's been really patient on the line. All right, call her. Okay, okay, okay. Well, take the caller and then we'll finish the black iron. Anyway, call her, you're on the air. I did Andrew from Pittsburgh here. How you doing? I'm doing well. How are you? You know who I found out lives in Pittsburgh? You know who Betty Davis is, the musician from the 70s? Yep. Yeah, she lives in Pittsburgh, I think. I think after she dropped out of the music business, she just like was like, crap on it. I'm moving. I think that's where she lives. P Burgh. Pittsburgh was named the top food city by Zigat, I believe, recently. Over New York? Yeah. Really? What do you think about that? I mean, there's a bunch of really cool restaurant himself in Pittsburgh. I know, it's definitely not better than New York. I mean, New York is the food capital of the world, but it's pretty awesome. Thank you for just crushing the Zagat on your own. I like that a lot. All right, so where are we going? What do we got? The question that I had the late 2 frozen margaritas out of the kind of a frozen margarita

[8:51] slushing machine? Yep. Um, all the mixes for those are garbage, and I'm trying to figure out how to make a delicious frozen margarita, um, while having something that you can batch and have. And I'm sorry, I'm a bartender. And so having something you can bash and have around for a while, because lines go bad so quickly, even though they're very delicious, how do you make

[9:10] a, um, roast margarita mix that you, excuse me, that you can hold for some period of time to be realistic to serve in a

[9:18] restaurant? How long? First of all, I like the use of garbage. You're exactly right. They're garbage. We should have a garbage noise, Jack. as part of our New Year's thing, garbage. Garbage sound effect? garbage. They're like, you know, the margarita mix is garbage. Like, it just be like, you know what I mean? Anyway. I mean, you could do... No, he wants... I know, something better. I'll work on it. Anyway, Sega guy, but garbage. Garbage. Anyway, but like, so how long do you need it to last? Uh, I mean, not super, super long, but several days, you don't have to kind of, but they're babysit it all the time. I mean, probably no longer than 3 or 4 days, but, um, maybe you wouldn't really need to worry about that. The thing I'm kind of chasing down right now is just doing the limemaster that you do with Cedric Malik and Systemic acid, and then you do water, triple sex, tequila, uh, agave, a little bit of salt, and then do like a lime

[10:06] acid, uh, kind of mix for that to get you the lime taste. Um, what do you think about that versus doing straight line? I mean, obviously, I would prefer to do line, but you, I mean, here's the here's the issue, right? I mean, lime uh, lime changes. obviously. The good news about frozen specs is frozen specs typically have

[10:26] less because they're more diluted. Um, and because, you know, just because of their structure. They typically have less lime in them than, let's say, a shaken margarita wood, right? And so the less lime actual lime is in there, the

[10:44] less of the detrimental nonsense you're going to have based on lime degradation. Right? That said, you know, it's 100% going to be noticeable. So here's the other problem you're going to have, is that if you make a batch on day one, and let's say you're going to keep it for 3 days. The batch will taste fairly the same on day 2 as it does on day

[11:07] three, but it's not going to taste the same as it does on day one. And so, you know, one thing you could do is you're going to say, okay, listen, like, I'm just going to balance these, all these drinks around, uh,

[11:20] like one and 2 day old lime juice, right? Because probably the difference between 2 and 3 is not going to be that big of a deal either. So if you just keep some lime juice around, uh, and then run

[11:30] some, uh, batch tests on, uh, like doing your, doing your initial batch with day old lime juice and get it to taste where you want, and then you could put just the amount in that

[11:40] you, uh, that you desire. Another thing you could do. It's not going to taste like a margarita is going to taste different, is to base your specs around a cordial, right? Cordial lasts forever, right? So then you take your lime juice and heat it with sugar and do your, you know, do your batching around

[11:58] that. And it won't be the same because it's going to lack some of that, the brightness, right? But you could pop, you could pop back in, um, you could pop back in some of that brightness from, uh, fresh lime. Here's another thing you can do. You can use regular lime. Right, to give some of that liminess and then use a orange with lime acid added to

[12:21] it. And that'll give, because the orange, sour, you know, like acid adjusted orange juice keeps its brightness longer than lime does, right? So you could do a mix with acid adjusted OJ, right? If you only have a little bit of lime in there. And orange is a flavor in margaritas anyway, right? So you could do something like that. And then, you know, you wouldn't have as much of the, um, day two, day 3 blues with the margaritas as, in fact, I've done margarita style specs that

[12:54] have are entirely done with acid adjusted OJ just so that I don't have to deal

[12:58] with, uh, lime juice going bad. Right. How do you deal with the orange juice becoming bitter? I was looking into the kind of actual chemistry of that a while ago, the, I'm totally spacing all the names. Right, yeah, it's totally dependent on the genetics of the particular orange you use. So, you know, as long as, you know, you run a test, like, you run a test, you juice it, and you see whether or not it goes bitter. It happens within like several hours, right? So like some some tangerines are like get incredibly bitter and, you know, some don't. I mean, the real problem from a bar perspective is that we're getting navels in, right? I mean, at least if you're like me, you're getting navels in because you're using the

[13:39] peel and you're not going to get crappy looking, you know, okay, listen, everyone knows California, citrus looks

[13:46] good, and Florida citrus looks terrible, even though Florida citrus is typically the one used for

[13:51] juices because they don't care about peels, right? So you're not you're not going to get Florida. And it's just, it's just a question of climate. I'm not saying that the Floridians are bad people and they can't grow good citrus. climate of ugly. I mean, you know, so that, so, you know, you're not going to want to pull in like a bunch of Valencia so that you can get like the juice you want and then have to still throw away the juice from your navel.

[14:13] So, like, we're very lucky the navels that we get don't go bitter. And, you know, it's just a test we've run. But then, you know, someday some knucklehead might decide to switch the supplier, get a different kind of navel in, and who knows, we'll get

[14:25] hosed because I have read that some navels will get bitter, although I know ours don't. That's all that's, I mean, that's basically all I can say about that. But you're definitely going to want your orange is to do double duty. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I mean, I hate throwing all those away, you know, whenever you're talking about that, I love finding ways to repurpose things where you've got that. Oh, yeah. And so, like, if you can use them in margarita is, right? So if you have a machine, what that tells me is that you're doing high volumes on margaritas, which means you have a use for a lot of

[14:53] OJ. If you can purpose your OJ into it, you know what I mean? You're probably going to get good use and you can put a relatively large amount of OJ into a margarita to good effect

[15:02] because like I said, orange is already one of the flavors that's in there. Right. So that's the direction that you would go is do LyMass with OJ, uh, and then make

[15:10] sure mix around that and bounce it on day old, uh, cheers. Yeah, or like I say, try a cordial, see whether see whether you like it. Um, But yeah, I would, I would, yeah, I would go that route. And by the way, like what I would do is, uh, you know, just to save yourself some uh, time and headache, I would, I would do like 2 drink versions of all the different batches you want to try, throw them in ziplocs, and then throw them in your freezer,

[15:35] uh, and then just kind of rough them up to taste them. It'll give you a good approximation for what your slushy machine will do, but you won't have to fill an entire selection machine to do it. Okay, would you do, like, a dead rabbit pork before they do the oleo and then sugar and juice? say that again? But the way that dead rabbit does there, cordial where they do an oleo with the lime, and then they do the juice and do it that way, or would you do a

[15:57] different... I mean, like, like I'm real, look, we have a lot of clarified lime juice leftover, so when I do a cordial. I want it to be dead clear, like roses. So, like, I don't necessarily do it as like I would do it if I was going to have a cloudy, cordial from the ground up. So for me, it's I just do clarified lime juice, sugar, and lime peel. So I don't make an oleo and I don't extract any of that extra stuff from

[16:21] it. And, um, you know, I just get a little extra punch out of out of a lime peel. But you definitely don't want to use clarified lime views for this application.

[16:30] So I don't know, like, you know, uh, you know, taste the dead rabbits, and if it's, that's a flavor profile you want, then do it. Otherwise, just boil some freaking lime juice with some sugar and some lime peel in it as a 1st approximation, see which one you like better. You know what I mean? We have tons of leftover lime juice. So, and I'm sure you do too. So taking a little bit of that and just, you know, boiling it with some sugar and seeing whether you like it is like, you know, no brainer. All right, well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. No problem. Good luck. What if I just play everybody out with an 808 beats? Right? Hey, I have to say thanks to Nastasia, who got me an early birthday present, which is a DJ cheese grater.

[17:07] It's a cheese grater that looks like a turntable. You want to see it? I do. Oh, my. Oh, Jiggy, Jiggy. killing me because I need the baseline to come in. Jiggy, Jiggy, Jiggy. Just drums today. We get there. right. I'm like let me see something here. So you actually wouldn't kill yourself here. You could like just get rid of some, like, you could use it for your feet. I'm not feet. You could use it for your feet. Jack, that's the beginning of southern playlist, right? Cadillac funky music. Ooh, it's similar. I think so, yeah. One of those YouTube videos. It's like, you know. All right. Oh, there you go. Oh yeah, this wasn't, that wasn't my, that's not like, that's not like my growing up sound. It's the prior stuff's my growing up sound. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so back to where we were. We were talking about Alex and Cooks Illustrated and their cast iron. So I looked up on Cook's Illustrated's website and by the way, Peter, because he's a Francophile, he likes him

[18:10] these kinds of black steel pans, right? That's not because I'm a Francophile. I just, I like I like my egg pan a lot. Oh, it's great. That's why I, for me, the main thing is really, it's like the weight, right? And, you know, cast iron's great for getting a good seer on, right? But, like, I don't want to be flipping around a really heavy cast iron pandemic, my sunny side up eggs. So you're weak. That's one way to look at it. bastard. Oh man. Yeah. But that is stuff. You're gonna use you're gonna use a freaking cast iron pan to make your... Okay, you know what I have? I have because they're incredibly cheap. I have, you know, the fajita, the sizzles, the sizzle plates, like the oblong, like cast iron things. I have like 6 of those sitting right next to my stone bowls, and they seem a whole lot lighter than my Korean stone bowls do. You know what I mean? And so like I drop them on the, on the, on the, on my range and then, you know, boom, I'm off to the races. week. Just weak. I mean, like, you know, there's no way around. just weak. No, look, if you're making an omelet, you're going to be like moving the pan around. You don't want to have to deal with something super bulky. No, I think they make great omelet pants. That's my primary use for it. Yeah, I mean, fantastic omelette pans, and, you know, for most people, I think omelets and cast iron can be difficult because it takes a long time for the heat

[19:26] to spread out evenly. So yeah, anyway, let's get back to what Cooks Illustrated specifically said about Black Steel, and then we'll have discussions about it. Okay. In their opinion, it sears like cast iron, a carbon steel skillet can brown food just as deeply and evenly as cast

[19:44] iron. It also has 2 advantages. It heats up more quickly, and its lighter weight makes it easier to handle. What we have here is an oxymoronic statement. Yeah, the 2 things don't go alert together. Yeah, that's like saying, like, that's like saying, you know, the sky is blue, but really it's not blue at all.

[20:00] Like, you can't, you can't, like, it's just the, the 2 phrases don't fit. It doesn't see her as well as cast iron, but it heats up more quickly. Yeah, it's like when Spock said, I'm alive. Well, epimenides, I guess, not really Spock. You know, I'm a liar. I'm lying. You know what I mean? You can't. It's contradiction. A carbon steel skillet cannot brown food as deeply for a given initial heat input. It's not the case. You know what I mean? It's like, and the reason is, going back to one of the purported advantages, it's lighter and heats up more quickly, right? The fact that it is lighter and heats up more quickly means it is not storing as much heat, right? Because it heated up more quickly. Therefore, it didn't store as much heat before it delivered it to your food. Otherwise it wouldn't have heated it more. And it weighs less. So it's not storing as much energy, especially because they're fundamentally similar in their heat storage properties. Now, the carbon steel is a lot better heat conductor, right, which is why it's

[20:55] going to be more even for a given level of quick overheating, right? But if you really want to sear the ever-loving crap out of something, right? Nothing beats, uh, keeping your cast iron pans in a hot oven where it gets incredibly even heat and the whole thing turns into like a searing machine, then throwing it on top of a burner for residual heat and throwing meat in it.

[21:17] You can't beat that. You know what I mean? And um, not that people necessarily go through that trouble. And I think that if you were searing meat, I think also a lot depends on the burners that you have, right? So, you know, I have my burners at home are ridiculous. I mean, in fact, they're not safe. It's not my fault because it's because my, you know, my wife said, you know, you're too old for this crap. We're going to hire a plumber. The plumber didn't install it properly, didn't put the proper regulator on my

[21:45] oven, and so my my burners now are very hard to use on low, but they put out 8 bazillion BTUs.

[21:51] You see my bill. They have a mind of their own. They're crazy. They go up and down, but when they're on screen, they scream. Like I can run a walk like a professional restaurant can because they're so freaking,

[22:01] like powerful, too powerful. for most applications except for wok. Um, which I like. I like it. walk. But the, where was I going with this? So the point is, if you have a tiny burner, right, I would prefer to have a pan that heated kind of quickly and more

[22:16] evenly, because you just don't have enough power to really get anything up to the temperatures that I'm going to want to do that kind of work, in which case, maybe you should consider getting a cast iron and throwing it in your oven and heating it beforehand up to a hot temperature so you can

[22:30] sear. Yeah? So anyway, so we've already seen the very 1st thing, no offense to Cook's Illustrated, because, you know, the magazine in 1993 when it 1st came out was like,

[22:39] like change my life. Like, honestly. Yeah, for me, it's primarily weight heat retention and then the smoothness of the surface. Yeah. Well, their next point about the black steel is performs like stainless triply, which let's just call

[22:56] it all clad, let's just say, all clad, like, and all clad similar devices, right? They say carbon steel heats virtually as evenly as stainless steel

[23:05] tri ply, aluminum sandwich between stainless, but can brown more deeply. Our winter costs 13rd of the price of our favorite

[23:11] tri ply skillet from all clad. Right. So it costs less than all clad, but I don't really think it's going to heat as evenly. I've done many studies, but I haven't done it for years, but I've done many studies of different pans over different heat

[23:24] sources, and I think, again, a lot of this depends on your burner. So in particular, induction burners, like most home crappy induction burners, where they fall flat, is the fact that the actual heating element is quite small. So what you should do to any one of your pans, or if you can test them, is, you know, McGee uses beans and paper. I use a light dusting of flour, and I put it on the hub, and I wait to see what the burn pattern is on the thing. And you can see very clearly, how even or not even a particular uh, kind of heat transfer, um, heat transfer uh, pattern is. But, I mean, I just, I like they say virtually carbon steel heats virtually as evenly. What does that even mean, virtually as evenly? means not, right? means almost as good. Anyway, as slick as non-stick. Carbon steel is as slippery as brand new nonstick, but it sears better, doesn't have a synthetic coating. Well, it does have, it's not synthetic, but it has a coating of polymerized oil. So you mean, there is, in fact, a coating on black steel pants because if there wasn't, it wouldn't be

[24:27] non-stick. Steel, as it comes from the factory, is not, in fact, nonstick. You have to season it. Uh, has no uh, oven safe temperature limits. Also not true. If you stick it in the oven and you put the oven on self-clean, you'll ruin the seasoning on it and have to do it again. In fact, if you've poorly seasoned a pan, the best way to fix it is to throw it in the oven on

[24:46] self-clean where it gets wiped off. What they mean is no reasonable limits. I think that's what they mean, no reasonable limits, uh, and last forever. That's true. Here are the problems with, uh, the only problems if you go into a professional restaurant and you see the black steel, if it's treated poorly, a lot of times,

[25:01] um, because they are thinner than cast iron, here's where they don't work as well as cast iron. Because they're thinner, if you viciously overheat them, they warp in the center. So like a cast iron pan. I mean, a cast iron pan's never going to warp, right? Also, they talk about how cast iron's a problem because it's brittle. Have you ever seen a cast iron pan break in normal service? Nope. No, at home? No. I've seen cast iron burner spiders break all the time. So I prefer steel spiders in on an oven. You know what I'm talking about, the burner covers, you know what I'm saying? I prefer them every day. But, uh, I don't know. Like, I just sing them as different. I think if you're going to make omelets, buy you a, buy you a an omelette pan that's made of black steel, it's awesome. I'm going to also go out on a limb here and say that, like, did I ever mention Jeffrey Steingarten, you know, he always used to say, he's like, knives are like puppies, right?

[25:54] Like, they're always good when they're new, right? Like, it's like, it's like how well it works like after you've had it for a while. Like, you know, does it resharpen? Does it stop pooping on your floor? you know, stuff like this, right? And I'm going to extend this out to non-stick skillets, right? So nonstick skillets, like when you 1st get them, you're like, it's awesome. And then the manufacturer tells you, yeah, you know, you know how like everyone else's

[26:17] nonstick stuff like is going to wear off over time? Ours isn't. They're like, everyone else like, you know how everyone else says you can use metal tools, but you really can't. Well, and ours you can. Or, you know how everyone else says that you can't dishwash it? Yeah, nice product spokesman voice. I like that. Yeah, a new voice. Yeah, anyway, it's never true. Like, they, they always, they always crap out. They're the worst. They worst. And like they're like puppies. They're great when you get them and then they turn to crap. And so, you know, I would say that, like, in general, I, unless someone comes up with a nonstick that really freaking works, right? I'm not gonna buy them anymore. And the next time I need a nonstick pan, I will probably go out and buy a black steel pan. Just because those, I mean, those Teflon things are nonsense. Now, another thing of black steel is never going to be as good at generating, give me

[27:03] your, give me your camera in French for phone, for phone. phone, give it to me. Phone. Le font. Le font. Le font. The crusty stuff at the bottom. With one syllable, there's not a lot of room for accents, Steve. Yeah, you can, because you have to add all the burbling crap beforehand. Like, do you want do you want the phone? Yeah, yeah, no, it's all right. Yeah. Uh, my point being that like, uh, non-stick is not good when you want to develop, like, some crusties, right? So if you want to emulate a, this is why you don't use non-stick like roasting pants. It will make sense. You know what I mean? So, like, if you're going to generate crusties, then I would say, you know, use your uh, use

[27:43] your, your all clads, you know, or your tripods. One thing I'll say is that I got some bum advice from the interwebs on how to season my black steel

[27:52] pan. No, it's talking about flaxseed oil. That's total disaster. Oh, man. Flaxseed oil should, like, so the theory of flaxseed oil is that it's a drying oil, and

[28:01] therefore, you flax the same as linseed, right? I don't know. isn't it? Isn't flax the same as linseed? I have no idea. Anyways, it's a drying oil, so it gets like, it stickies up faster than other oils. That's probably, it's used in, if flaxseed oil, and just by the way, I hadn't even looked this up in a 1000000 years, but if flaxseed oil is linseed oil, it's the oil

[28:21] used. the drying oil used in oil paints. Am I right on this? Can someone Google this crap? Google seems to suggest they're the same thing. Yeah. Estas is like, my hand's too cold. I can't even pick up my phone. It's not even cold outside today. I mean it is, I guess. It is relative. Anyway, point being that, so what happened? It gummed up and was a nightmare. Yeah, well, then the main thing. No, it was actually great at first, but then it starts flaking off. Yeah, if you in big flakes. If you if you improperly season, uh, and you get these layers that can separate and it's a freaking nightmare. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Which is why everyone like, you know, so what was the advice? did they say to do it? Well, so there's, you can look this up online. It's a well-visited site and this woman gives this very long account on the science behind seasoning pans. It's very convincing, and she suggests using flaxseed oil. And I followed her advice and screwed up my pen. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and say that in my life, I mean, I can't tell you how many pants I've seasoned,

[29:18] but, you know, dozens, many dozens. You know what I mean? And, um, I have never purchased in my life a special anything to do it. You know, I always do it like, uh, and like in one of 2 ways, either like on the burner or in the

[29:37] oven. I think one of the main issues that people have is over oily, trying to get it all done at once. So like, you know, get a rag. And, you know, soak the rag in oil, do the wipe, let it sit, wipe it out, let it let it polymerize, and do it again and again and again. And I've, you know, it's been a long time since I've ruined one. I ruined the initial work, the initial seasoning. went too thick on a crate maker that I bought like 15, 16 years

[30:09] ago, because when you buy a crate maker, the real ones, the crampose ones, they've actually machined a

[30:15] spiral, snail-like groove all the way around the thing that's supposed to build up an oil coating over time because crate makers have to be incredibly

[30:24] non-stick. And I tried to do it too fast. And so I got flakies that never kind of went away. It still works, but it's like a little unsatisfying because you get those little divots and pits in

[30:33] the, uh, in the non, but still works. But yeah, yeah. A friend of mine just came. He like, I messed up my walk. I overseason it, now it's got big, you know, I try to season it with too much oil at once and it's got big drips in the bottom of the pan.

[30:46] He's like, what should I do? It was like, your SOL. This is why, by the way, if you're buying something that needs to get seasoned, don't buy one that has a handle on it that can't go in the

[30:55] oven because by far and away the easiest way to start from scratch is to just burn off the old

[31:02] seasoning and you can't do it. Uh, you shouldn't do it with a torch or anything. It's uneven unless it's like a cast iron and you can't do it if there's a wooden handle on it, you can't take off. You can't throw it in the oven and put it on self-clean if it's got a wooden handle, like dir. You know what I mean? Hey, I got some clarification of flaxseed and linseed from a Joel Stob in the chat room. So they're both extracted from seeds of the plant, leanum... can't say that word. Anyway, flaxseed oil is pure and fit for human conception. Lindseed oil goes through a refinement process and may contain additives that improve its paint cleaning

[31:34] properties. So don't cook with linseed oil, but cook with flaxseed. That way. All right, nice. Thank you. All right, so should we take a commercial break and come back with it? Yeah, let's do that. Today's program was brought to you by Firesider. Did your grandmother ever tell you to drink raw apple cider vinegar? It's good advice and more common than you may think. For generations of New Englanders. A tot of vinegar was a morning ritual. Taken daily, a tablespoon of unfiltered apple cider vinegar can help support immune

[32:10] function and digestive functions. To the base of certified organic apple cider vinegar, fire cider added whole raw certified organic oranges, lemons, onions, ginger, horseradish, habanero pepper,

[32:23] garlic and turmeric. They let this mixture steep for 6 weeks at room temperature, to preserve the living vinegar culture and delicate flavors of the ingredients. Lastly, they blend a generous helping of raw wildflower honey into the mix. The result is potent but balanced, offering layers of sweet, tart, and spice. Firesider tastes great on its own, or as in addition to tea, juice, or salad, firesider ships direct from their online store and is available at over 500 locations nationwide. Use their store locator to find one near you and ask for a free sample. For more information, visit firesider.com. All right, we are back. Hey, so Jack, have we ever tasted this stuff? No. I want to drive some. Yeah, me too. Tast what? I'll tell you something, my grandma never told me anything about Apple Cider Vander. She was just like, why don't you go work? Why don't you do some work? Why don't you get? Yeah, same. do some freaking chores. How come I didn't have a grandma that gave me apple cider vinegar? No, my grandma was like, you know, why aren't you, if you can sit, like, my grandma, well, one of my 2 grandmas, absolutely hated the act of reading.

[33:29] And it was like one of my favorite things to do is like read and like learn. And she, the things she could stand on Earth least was seeing people trying to learn. And so she would, you know, anytime you try to... Yeah. Anytime you try to sit down with a book, she would like just, and my grandpa, one of the reasons he was bitter until the day he died was that he also loved to read and grandma would

[33:54] never, ever, ever, ever let him read. If he had only lived long enough for like, you know, audible to exist, if he could just listen to that stuff while he was toiling away in the

[34:04] freaking, uh, in the freaking yard for no apparent reason. You know what I'm saying? I know what you were saying. Like, you know, you know, anyway, whatever. So anyway, my my grandma, not apple cider, uh, and my other grandma was from West Virginia, so, you know, it was more... Yeah, it was more like, uh, yeah, so it was more like, uh, have some country ham and some, uh, and some lard. You know what I mean? That was the kind of cure all. country ham and lard. Uh, although, you know, they didn't have a lot of lard in the, you know, when I was hanging out with her in the 70s, 80s, that was already kind of day

[34:37] class A, but we did have a lot of country ham, and she did enjoy herself some red-eye gravy, which is delicious. Okay. Uh, and we have a note from Ben from last week saying it's Lutfisk season in Minnesota. I remember Dave mentioning the slimy fish dish once on cooking issues, and he's pointing out to us that we can go to CBS, Minnesota, did a finding Minnesota, taste of

[34:59] Lootfisk. I'm going to go look that up and see what that, you like Lute Fist? Did you like that when we made it before? I remember it. Well, we didn't actually make the Lute Fisk. What we did is we made we made the lye eggs, remember? And then we served it with regular fish and it was kind of with nils. It was kind of a lute fisk turned on its kind of head. You know what I mean? But it's like lie, treated, basic treated fish. Speaking of which, if there is anyone who can hear my voice who's an expert on clearing and staining. Remember clearing and standing, we try to give someone to do that. So in clearing and stating what you do, is you use a base base. I believe, well, just much like the one in the 808. Only this one's more potassium hydroxide. And you soak something like a fish in this base. It like kind of like messes with the proteins, you can leach out all of the color and everything in in something like a fish, right? And then you introduce stains to it. And you can selectively by using different, uh, like stains that are used also like in slides. You can have like the nervous system, suck up a certain color, and the skeletal system suck up another, and then leach it back out of the muscular tissues, and you have these amazing

[36:02] 3D, like fish and other animals. There's a book on it, but wouldn't you love to be able to clear and stain something big, like a whole

[36:09] striper so that you could see all the structure of the striper? be pretty baller, right? Maybe for the museum. So if there's anyone out there who knows how to clear and stay. Now, typically they don't do it on such large things, which is why the pictures are small fish and frogs. But if someone wants to take on clearing and standing or know someone that can help us out with large clearing and standing,

[36:28] that would be. Sweet. Oh, by the way, Dave, speaking of bases, you've got your, want to plug your program coming up at the museum on February 4th. You're playing with Johnny Hunter. Nice. Down acids and bases. What am I doing? You're doing basses. He's doing it. Yeah. So, so yeah, on programs.mofed.org, February 4. Come see Dave. How much is it? It's 45 bucks. 45 bucks? Tastings, drinks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what do we know what Johnny's going to make? I don't know. We've got it down somewhere. It's on the website. Johnny, Johnny, our good friend from Madtown. Yeah, yeah, underground meets. We don't know where we don't know what he's going to do. He's going to be something awesome. Yeah, it's going to be great. Do we know what I'm going to do? Probably not till the morning up. It's going to be good people. something bad basic, yo. It's going to be good. I'm gonna maybe I'll bring my next to Mattic. Maybe we'll do some next normalization. Oh, hey, Patrick. No, that's not, that's not. That's bordering on. That's not Patrick. Peter, you're the only guy who's allowed to imitate Patrick on the on the network. That's, you know. Okay. Hello, Dave and Crew, longtime listener and fan. I'll cut straight to the Chase, my Chase, my fiance and I are planning a wedding this coming fall or perhaps summer, and are on a fairly limited budget.

[37:39] We've already identified numerous cost cutting measures, but remain a fair amount above our goal. While I am not suggesting that we personally prepare a full food and beverage program for 140

[37:50] people, I was curious if it might be possible to make a meaningful dent in the total cost. I have a fair amount of equipment. I've picked up at auctions over the years listed below. And power shouldn't be an issue. So let's see what they got here. They got, uh, this is John, by the way, in Portland. Three circulators. The SA circulator. Circle later. Circle later. or Portland, Maine. Maine. Maine. Come on. Uh, I don't know why I say, come on. But like, I don't know, I don't know why I say, come on. I don't know. Portland, Maine, Portland, Maine. because Maine was in my head. That why I say, come on. Three circulators, one Randell FX, uh, fridge freezer, one VACMaster, VP 112,

[38:30] one £20 CO2 tank with regulator, one Paco jet. Man, there's a high rent. You're like, ah, I got like a £20 CO2 tank, yep, and a paco jet. It's like, boom, Paco jet. You know what I'm saying? Pocket jet. I would love to have a pocket jet. One sears all, not yet, but soon. One grindmaster, 875 coffee grinder, although I don't know if you're going to use that. At least they're going to make a lot of coffee. Aren't there coffee gars? Coffee course? Coffee time? Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, but like, but that's, you know, that, I mean, yeah, I mean, you still need to brew the coffee for everything unless you're going to do like some sort of weird. Anyway, 2 vitamixes and like a bunch of Weber charcoal grills. Well, yeah, I mean, you're in good shape on equipment there, except for like you're pretty low on, well, I guess if you do everything on Weber, hot side, I see your point. Anyway, we have a good number of volunteers who would be able to assist with prep. However we personally would want to handle the serving and set up on the actual wedding day. I realize this is a potentially disastrous idea. I almost didn't bother asking, but I have the nagging feeling it might be possible to sous vide

[39:31] a good amount of food beforehand and simply reheat it before and during the

[39:34] ceremony or batch some cocktails the day before or not. No. What the hell? No, dude. John, don't do it, brother. Don't do it, man. Just get married. Yes, Jesus. It's not going to turn out. Tim in the chat room has an answer. saving money. Stop buying Paco Jets.

[39:59] Boom, boom, boom. Look, here's my point, right? Do not do not cook at your wedding. Don't. Now, listen, here's the other thing. I'm going to tell you this right now, is like, is that everything, everything is going to depend on a few decisions that you're about to make in your life, right?

[40:18] No, I mean, in terms of the wedding, not in terms of life in general. Once you fall into the wedding trap, like you are host, you are you are completely, you are host, right? So, like, the question is how far do you fall in? Here's where you're wrong. You're thinking, uh, I've thrown parties for large groups of people, so I can just throw this like I'm throwing a party. But remember, the last time you threw a party where you cooked, the best part about that was you didn't have to interact with your

[40:44] guests. That's why cooks like to throw parties because they can have lots of people around, but they don't have to interact with them. They can sit around cooking and have marginal interactions. Hey, hey, how's the food? Oh, great. Bye. See you. You know what I mean? And then just get and then just get back to their kitchens and cook, right? I mean, that's like, even in an open kitchen situation, when you're sitting there sweating a bunch of pants and flicking around, no one expects more than a 52nd response from you at

[41:06] best. It's genius for someone who's kind of a social moron. You know what I mean? You get to look social and not be. At a wedding, you actually need to be social. I'm sorry. Clearly, he doesn't want to be. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's not about you. The wedding. You think the wedding's about you, but it's not, right? So here's the thing. It's about your family coming in. Like, you're going to have to spend time going from table to table, even if you don't have... It's not

[41:31] a, like, but don't, the other thing is, is that you're not even going to have time to think about food if you fall into all the traps. Like, I got to get this, 1st of all, you're going to have some

[41:40] some form of like, you know, man of matron of honor of people, honor guard, whatever

[41:45] the honor role, whatever they call the, whatever they call these people nowadays who are standing there up on the stage with you. They're going to have to do a bunch of bull crap, right? Like right before the wedding, there's all these little gazzies that you have to freaking do to get married. Like, I got to get this thing. I got to have this old thing, this borrowed thing, this new thing, this blue thing. All this crud is going to conspire to make it very difficult for you to focus on the fact that you need to crank out a dinner for

[42:10] 140 people and it needs to be good, right? Because your mom or whatever, you know, is flying in, you know, your crazy

[42:19] uncle Ralph from Jersey's flying in. Uncle Diamond, he was dead, but by the time I got married, but yeah, I mean, Uncle Diamond could be coming in. Dave's not speaking from experience at all. It's all theoretical. I had enough problems. I made my cake stand because I was like, I'll be damned if I'm going to buy a cake stand for my wedding. So I was welding my cake stand like a couple days before the wedding and also underneath the 67 valiant that we drove to the wedding

[42:43] in, like making sure that it wouldn't break down between the church and, and, you know, my uncle's house where the reception was, but even that was like a little bit of a stretch.

[42:51] Look, if you can pre-batch your cocktails a week in advance, a week in advance, and you have

[42:58] someone you trust, who for some reason was not invited to the wedding, and yet you trust them enough to make cocktails for you without pay, then imagine

[43:06] that. Imagine finding someone that you would trust to make the cocktails at your wedding that is not

[43:12] invited. Have them do the cliff old fashioned. Right, but I'm saying you still need someone to do it for you, right? Because don't make the cocktails. But if you can make them a week in advance, yeah, I can give you some recipes that are easy to bust out

[43:22] in like large fashion to go around, but also, here's a secret. Everyone wants champagne at the freaking wedding. You know what I mean? Like just pour a lot of freaking champagne, have some cocktails beforehand. Look, when I got married, like, like, we went super cheap. One of the ways we went super cheap was we did brunch instead of

[43:39] dinner because you could put on a decent brunch a lot cheaper than you could put on a decent dinner.

[43:44] People don't get as hosed. even my friends don't get as hosed, and you just pour like an unbelievable amount of cava, and everybody's, everybody's happy. You know, if you have some form of bubbly, pretty much everyone's going to be happy. And then it's just a question of getting it all iced down and you can just keep eyes on to make sure it's right.

[44:00] And as to whether or not to do sous vide and finishing, yeah, I mean, that's the ultimate way to do it, but don't do it yourself. Don't do it yourself. Don't do anything that requires you to spend a lot of time that you can't finish more than a week before your wedding. That's my. Save money and make a great playlist and maybe skip the DJ for that track. Whoa, Jack telling people to skip the DJ. huh? Well, they get expensive. Wedding DJs are expensive. I know this because I secretly wish I was one. By the way, John also seconds having some sort of transcripts for

[44:32] the cooking issues. I'm being told that we're being ripped off the air. However, I do have something next week for trying to get around cooking detectors, right? So, you know, we all know that we hate smoke detectors, but we also hate dying in conflagrations. So we have a question about that, which I'll deal with next time, and I guess that's it. I'm not in next week, so you'll have Liz. I'll be in New Orleans really drunk. What? Sorry. Oh my god, we're going to have a week without molecules. A show with no molecules. will you do? frowning face cooking issues.

[45:13] 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 questions at any time at info at heritageradionetwork.org. Heritage Radio Network as a nonprofit organization. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.