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[1:03] issues.

[1:27] Calling your questions, too! Cooking issues. Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live from Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn on Heritage Radio Network every Tuesday for roughly 12 to roughly 1245. Joined, as usual, in the studio with Nastasia. And the Hammer Lopez. How you doing, Stas? I figured I could feel crazy today because on the way in, I like swallowed a bug and some concrete. That was coffee and hacking. So you got to go full. Like, when you're not feeling 100%, you got to do like 120 and then you come out at like 105 or

[2:05] 110. you know what I'm saying? Join in the booth with Jack, the Jackie molecules. How you doing? I'm good. Yeah, calling your questions too, 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. And if that was too fast for you. The number is 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. Joined also in the studio with our favorite subject of abuse other than ourselves. Peter Kim. The, I don't know, director, president, you know, like head

[2:36] cheese. Like, he's, he's number, he's the 601st Wisconsin cheese that's produced. If you listen to the introductory print. 600 kinds of cheese in Wisconsin. Leave it to Dave the Dis's sponsors. Oh, are you saying that you wouldn't make a delicious Wisconsin cheese? Do you know that there are several Peter Kims that are not our Peter Kim? There is a... There's being Peter Kim, a blog. Yeah, there's Peter Kim, Peter Kim, who is an actor, right? An actor, yeah. Then there's all kinds of Dr. Peter Kim. Lots of doctors. Yeah, that's right. Are your parents now okay with you not being one of those doctors? Boom! Boom. Ouch. For those of you that don't know, Peter Kim. Not a doctor. Lawyer, actually, quit his lawyering job to start the museum of food and

[3:25] drink, much to his family's chagrin. But now they're on now they're on the side. You've proven that it's good viable concept. Yeah, I think they're taking pity on me. Wow. What a feel good story. Yeah, a feel good story of the week. Follow your dreams. Get your parents pity. Okay. Stas, Nastasia, Lopez, was in Mexico for about 5 hours last weekend. Revisiting her roots. Nastasia, yeah. It's the fatherland, right? Because it's on her father's side. back to Mexico. and, uh, stars. Let me see if I get this straight. You flew out Friday morning at like 5

[4:06] AM. Six. Right. But how many times did you're playing ping-pong around like Raiders have lost our style before you made it to Mexico? When do you? Okay. Now, uh, then you left Sunday morning at also like, so you were there for exactly one full day. 36 hours. Some of my friends thought I was getting abortion. Whoa. Wow. Whoa. Did you remind them you live in New York and you don't have to go to Mexico for that? They know my salary. Oh, wow. So not. We should talk stuff. So inappropriate on so many levels. Speaking of bad salary and people who happen to women, Dax has now watched 9 to 5 twice in one week. Wow. The classic movie 9 to 5. Lily Tomlin, by the way, freaking amazing. You know, I wish that she was involved in food somehow, Peter, so that we could twist her arm to be involved in

[5:02] a museum somehow. Really Tomlin is so freaking awesome. I mean, Dolly Parton also freaking awesome. Jane Fonda, you know, you know, fine. Good. Anyway, literally tell me. Okay. So why don't you talk to us about the food you had there? It was okay. There was a lot of like sushi, hamburgers. Like regular, like, American interpretations of Japanese sushi. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like it's like 3 times culturally removed. Yeah, but I found a good carnitas place and some other place. And then I saw a tortoise stand that said with pumpkin flowers. Yeah, the sweet, sweet. So you could do it with quesadillas. And they said, no. Did you have one of the sandwiches with Florida Calabaza? No, that was not an option either. Whoa, whoa, whoa. So what they have? Tortas. That's a sandwich. Oh, well, it was not... they weren't... Like, you saw the flowers already, like, done. when they sauteed and they threw them in the sandwiches? Yeah. And then they threw, why didn't you have the sandwich? I didn't want that. Did you think that they said tostada instead of torto? No, no, no. So why did why when I said, by the way, people... is like the little folded up fried thing. No, Torta is a freaking sandwich. sandwich. It's a freaking sandwich By the way, Nastasia Lopez, half Mexican chick that grew up in LA, doesn't know a torta. It's also really one of the finest sandwiches out there. Are we going to go back into sandwiches? Every time Peter comes on, people go into sandwiches. Yes, the tops of the list, to me, are Cuban. Oh, me too. Yeah, Cuban. This is not in order. Patty melt. If it's not considered a burger, it's a sandwich, and it's one of the finest. It's one of the finest burgaloids, whatever you want to call the burger genre. Torta. Torta. Pardon me? Yes, although it's not a single sandwich because you can have a variety of different banh mis, but yes. There's a format. Yeah, yeah, it's a good format. What else? Turkey club? Turkey club. BLT. If done right. BLT. Like, BLT to me, superior to a turkey club. Yeah, well, and then for me, the egg and cheese sandwich is a

[7:13] classic too. Yeah. Yeah. The day after Thanksgiving cold turkey sandwich. That's also good one. And then Italian cold cut sandwich is also... Also, not a specific thing. You're talking about like Philadelphia style. I'm talking about like the kind you get around where MoFat is. Like you get, you know, there's like 3 or 4 different kinds of... To me, this is

[7:34] classic, just liking what you're, love the one you're with. Wait, did you say Ruben? Ruben's a good sandwich. I don't know that it makes a top, though. It's good In other words, like, I don't know. There's so many. If we're starting listening sandwiches, pastrami with mustard on rye. I mean, please. Please. Yeah, exactly. Standard crappy grilled cheese. Where's PB&J? Turkey wrap with alfalfa sprouts. kill you if you ever mention that again. What are you trying to mention all the poisonous things in one thing? Is there a way to make a flour tortilla without cooking it at all? Because that would be even worse. Well, I think there are raw tortillas, yeah. They do it making, don't they do it like... Anyone that would make a raw tortilla wouldn't put turkey in. But they would have some sort of sprout abomination, some sort of hideous sprout. Italian beef. The chat room says Italian beef. They want that to just, they want to mention. Well, if we're going to go if we're going to go hot. which I guess we did. We've gone hot several times. Beef on whack, baby. any any buffalo people here? Beef on whack. Do you know why? They have the kumo buns, the the salt and caraway buns, and then the thin sliced beef with the juice with the juice.

[8:48] Yeah. I think what we're coming to realize is sandwiches are delicious. Yeah they are. I've been saying this for years man. What do you eat? Peter, like, you know, people are like, uh, if the bomb was going to drop. And you only had 15 minutes, which is like, I can I can make a sandwich in 15 minutes. He'll be eating a sandwich. I kiss my wife, make a sandwich. Yeah, well, in that order? Yeah, simultaneously. Honey, honey, yeah, okay. Enough with the smooching. I sandwiches. sandwiches, sandwiches. What are your thoughts on the muffaletta? Do you appreciate the muffler, or do you not appreciate the muffler? I like the muffaletta, yeah. It's very hard to get the bread to meets ratio, correct, and a muffle it, I think. Here's a question. Do you like your muffoletta hot or cold? That's an excellent question. For those who don't know, it's the New Orleans sandwich. I like them both, actually. I've had both styles be good. When I was a kid, I didn't used to, so for tourists, right? If central grocery is like the classic tourist one. I like that now playing when I was a kid, I thought it was too much bread, but I'm good with it now.

[9:55] I like them hot. I think whatever it is, Napoleon House, I think serves them hot. How do you like them, Jack? Yeah, I go hot usually with that. Really? I don't love a muffleta. I not like. Oh, why? You don't like the chopped up... Jardinier salad stuff. Yeah. That stuff good. Yeah, I like it. You don't like New Orleans. I like it. I like having a sour element in shrimp and oyster po boys all day in New Orleans. Really? Oh, yeah. Really? Yeah. I don't really like the po boy bread. go on record. Wow. Kind of gummy. Boy's not really a specific sandwich. It's a whole class of sandwiches. Yeah, but if you're in New Orleans and you ask for that particular sandwich. Then you're getting that. I mean, then it's like that sandwich is what you like, for that matter, what are your thoughts on the, all the various Philadelphia cheesesteaky things? Oh, I mean, I love cheesesteaks. Why wouldn't you love cheesesteaks? Why wouldn't you? wrong with loving a cheesesteak? You giving me like it's a guilty pleasure? What's wrong with liking a cheesesteak? No, I mean, the only reason I said it with a size because I feel like now the list is growing and growing where we were trying to come up with a tight list of like top sandwiches. Now we're just saying sandwiches. I think from a strictly sense of pure, pure, right? So let's let's take anything out that served on a, on a whatever you want to call it, a hoagie roll, a, you know, a subroll, whatever. Let's take all those things out for a second. Let's remove that crap. That gets rid of your eggplant parms. It gets rid of your meatball subs. Which, by the way, are 2 things we didn't mention. Spice spreads. Let's go on sliced bread. That also takes out tortoises. Yeah, yeah. And takes out, no, burglaids. Patty melts are served on freaking... I know, but like... So not grilled. You're saying not like no grilled cheese is that doesn't count anymore. You're saying, like, something served on regular or toasted sliced bread. Yeah, yeah. BLT scrape. Yeah, I would go. That's God sandwich. got to be the one. God came down and said, oh, by the way, check this out, BLT. Yeah. In season. Tomatoes in season. Yeah, yeah. Either that or the turkey club, I'd say. No, turkey club. The best turkey club. I'm sure throw this one out there because this is what I have most often at the deli around the corner.

[11:57] I do a grilled cheese with bacon and tomato. Yeah, good, but you've just grilled the cheese, dude. You just cheated. Nastasia doesn't like sandwiches because Peter Kim likes them. We ate sandwiches yesterday. They were good. What's your worst nightmare of a sandwich does? I don't know. Biscuit with what? What do you hate more? Biscuit-based sandwich. We all know you hate biscuits or a croissant-based sandwich. Not everyone knows Nastasi also hates croissant. Really? You know what I hate? Our catering platter sandwiches. Oh, yeah. You just see that platter. Okay, listen, that's the worst. Under... hold on. Yes, under lubrication. Like, like, there's a rainstorm every time there's a dry sandwich out there and it's God crying. I know. That's why I always go for the chicken salad of the tuna salad when I hit the catering sound. Except for what's the problem with all the tuna salad out there. undersalted Salt, your freaking tuna salad. Salt it. Okay. Also, like, I like it when there's some texture in my in my tuna salad. Like I like a little celery in mine. Me too, man, yeah. like pickles in mine. Chicken salad. Oh my god, good. Here's the thing. So for catering, 1st of all, if you're catering, there are always some D-bags out there who don't want salt on there. So you should just put the salt out. Who is that person? They're the people who are in cater sandwiches. So what you got to do is you got to like put salt out there so that humans consult it. Yeah, yeah. And like catered sandwiches also do a really poor job of getting like filling coverage. So you always get like the 13rd of the edge of the sandwich is just bread. You know why? like empty space in between. It's some it's some jerk. It's some jerk filling the sandwiches with an ice cream scoop with a doser. in the middle. And the person's like everyone gets the exact same amount of tuna salad. So like you scoop out like that amount of tuna salad because this person doesn't care. It's like they've never eaten a sandwich. It's either they don't care about you as a human being or they've never eaten a sandwich before in their life or some combination of those two. And they just go, they put that tuna salad scoop right in the middle of that bread, smack the next piece of

[13:56] bread, do the diagonal cut next. It's really horror show. It really is a freaking horror show. Well, and also those things aren't designed to sit around for a long time. So then the moisture migrates into the bread and it turns to a gum, gum, it's

[14:11] either... Let's do the right architecture. Well, this is why you need to listen to the British. This is one of the times I'm going to tell you. need to listen to the British tea sandwiches. Tea sandwiches. Those are the best catered sandwiches, man. When I need to do a picnic, I do tea sandwiches. Oh yeah. I love tea sandwiches. Of course. This is the classic thing that people do. Even professionals, when they move into catering or people when they order catering. Here's classic mistake people make. What they do is they say, what sandwich would I like to eat if I made it fresh right now? Right. And then they make that. That's why you get all those rancid buffalo, fake buffalo milk and tomato sandwiches at airports on that bread that has that wavy line of like water migration and the top's too dry and it's undersalted and you want to die and you're gumming that thing down and you're waiting for

[14:52] it to get on an airplane. You know what I'm talking about? So rather than that, any like person should think, okay, here's the problem. I'm going to make a sandwich that's going to either sit on a platter for like hours or I'm going to wrap it and it's going to sit for hours. So what do you do? The Brits, the Brits have that nailed. Just make the British and then like, so what? If an American's like, man, Atlantic, you come with ham. Don't eat. Jerks. Right? Yeah, yeah, I'm right there with you, man. How the hell do we get on this? By the way, next week we have on the program. Super exciting. So I want you guys to think about questions for the guest we have on next week.

[15:30] We're having on, right? This is confirmed us. So far. Yeah. We have Richard Rangam coming on. Esteemed professor at Harvard University, who wrote the book Catching Fire, How Cooking Made Us Human. And it's very topical that he's on next week because very recently a letter was published in Nature by 2 other people at Harvard, Catherine

[15:56] Zinc, with a K, not like the metal, Zinc, and Daniel Lieberman. Daniel Lieberman, well known for writing books about the head, the human head, including his theory that humans have much more wide variety of taste sensations because we're one of the few animals that

[16:15] have retronasal old faction. one of his shticks. Anyway, they came out with an article in nature saying that Rangum's hypothesis might not hold water. So briefly put, so that you don't, you should go out and buy his book. Anyway, it's a very interesting read. You can buy it on audible.com and listen to it on the way to the to the work. But, um, which is actually what I did. But his basic theory is this, that the human brain takes up a very large amount of energy,

[16:42] right, relative to other primates. How can we afford to have such a kind of a large and sophisticated brain? How can we afford to be the way we are? And he says that if cooking came very early in our split off from being

[16:58] regular primate to being a human, then the availability of a denser, easier to digest and more efficient caloric intake, right, actually allowed for all of the other, all of the other

[17:15] developments, evolutionary developments to take place. So that actually cooking is intertwined with human evolution, and what makes us human, what allowed us to evolve into humans, is our ability to cook

[17:26] foods. That's the, in a nutshell, and it's been months since I've read it slash, listen to it, but that's his theory in a nutshell. And I think it's super interesting. And I want to have him on and also to address this new article by Zinc and Lieberman basically saying, look

[17:41] at, you don't need to cook to actually, I happen to think that their letter is not accurate. We'll get into it, but you don't necessarily need to cook things in order to get those benefits that just pounding the

[17:52] ever-loving crap out of them can do that as well. So, Rangum's, his actual thesis is super interesting and he's done such things as hang out with chimps for months on end, trying to chew chimp food,

[18:05] uh, et cetera, et cetera. Done a lot of interesting stuff, super interesting character, other things in it. you know, in his, one of his prior books is about kind of male, male,

[18:16] female, relations. I haven't read that one yet. Hopefully I'll get to it by next week. So there's lots of interesting sociological things about, like, who did the cooking, how early that split off happened between, like, gender relations as it relates to food, super interesting. Also, he has some choice words about raw food diet. So I'm sure we'll get into that as well. So please save up some awesome questions for Richard Rangam on next week's show. make a good exhibit, the museum too. Interesting topic to explore. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. And so the real question for a museum exhibit based on this

[18:48] is, I mean, as it's a relatively new theory, you have to present it, I don't know, I don't know how

[18:55] we do it, but it is super interesting. You know, everyone's like, what is it that makes us human? It our language. It's our this, it's our that. He's like, it's our cooking. But what I like about his argument, uh, is the style of presentation is, look it, uh,

[19:10] if you just use Occam's razor, like, what's the simplest way to figure out, like, we all know we have cooking now, right? He's very difficult to figure out exactly when cooking happened from the from the record, from the archaeological record. Um, But he said, Occam's razor shows that the simplest explanation for how

[19:30] he got to where we are is cooking. And so like any other explanation is actually more convoluted. And so until someone comes out with a simpler explanation that fits the

[19:39] data or finds data that contravenes this theory. This is the theory you should work with. And I like that kind of, that's my mode of, my mode of thinking. Before Peter has to leave, Let's talk to him about his stuff. Oh, no. There's a call. You want to speak that in first? Let's do the call. Call her on the air. Dave, this is Jeffrey and Costa Mensa. How it going? All right. How you doing? Doing well. I recently mentioned your book, Liquid Intelligence, too, an associate, not a friend. Uh, not a friend, person's a bartender, and uh, his his response was, oh, it's a new science fee for me. What? And it reminded me of the reviews that you read on Amazon, uh, years ago, just

[20:28] muddle headed pools. Uh, and here's, so here's the thing, even if I, God forbid, never have access to a rotary

[20:36] evaporator. I still benefit from understanding what vacuuming the solution can achieve, what kind of flavor attention you can get. Uh, if I never have access to, or if I don't have access to a

[20:49] centrifuge, yet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know, I get your point. We're coming as soon as we can. I can't get I can't get the centrifuge. I have to make it good enough for for release. That's the thing. The Stasia vouch for the fact that we're working hard on it. working hard. working hard. All right, go ahead. That's bad. We can wait. But yeah, so even though I don't have a centrifuge, I still benefit from understanding various clarification techniques and what you can do on different products. So the book is useful, no matter whether you have access to all of the equipment or not, because it makes you a

[21:22] better, a better cook. I hope so. This bartender probably still can't even make a proper, uh, exist in Manhattan, because they

[21:30] think that you can chill, like, drink harder with large ice cubes without them, basically, uh, diluting, because they don't know the fundamental law of

[21:39] cocktail dirt. Well, okay, let me ask you this. Your associate, here's the thing, you can be wrong. You can be very, very wrong and still make good drinks as long as your actual, a lot of times people's practice doesn't jibe with

[21:55] their, with their mental representation of what they're doing. Is this person's drinks? Are they good? They're okay, but they're not consistent. Yeah, of course. Okay. Yeah, I mean, like, interesting, but it's more whether they can make a good drink or not. It's more just sort of like gimming the book and then deciding whatever those reviews were, like too much information, that just doesn't even make sense. I know, but look, look, I have a very particular attitude and sounds like you also have a very particular attitude. Some people just don't respond well to like analytical thinking. You know what I mean? They just don't respond, they just don't respond. So it's not for... just the section on apples is worth the worth the sticker price and that's not as analytical, you know,

[22:44] it's just a more interesting read. Anyway, people should buy the book. Well, thank you, thank you so much. And tell your friend, very gently, just be like, your drinks are good. I'm not saying that you have to do all science-y stuff, but maybe you can work on the consistency. Maybe. Yeah, yeah. Gentleness is key when interacting. Yeah, unless unless he's going to go full Japanese, in which case it's like you don't want it consistent. Every drink should be like a journey from beginning to end. A drink should take 10 to 15 minutes to complete. Um, you know, it should cost $30. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know, there's that whole there's that whole genre as well. Yeah. Okay. Well, my question is about cocktails. I plan to, for my future sister-in-law's bridal shower. I plan to force carbonate, French 75 and bottle it. So I've done this in the past just by, by, uh, clarifying lemon, chilling down gin and water, uh, sort of carbonating

[23:41] that, and then just pop the bottle. Right. Does Nastasia like a French 75, or is that just ruining champagne with gin? She's not a huge gin fan. Yeah, don't like it. Oh, good. Okay. Yeah. So my question is, pouring twice into those little 187 mil bottles is kind of a

[24:04] pain. And I'm wondering if there's a wine that could reasonably, reasonably

[24:09] approach a champagne type note if it's carbonated a lower PSI. Hmm. You know, I could just do the whole thing, dilute it, chill it down, and carbonate. I don't even know what pressure champagne usually likes to sit at. Hi, but remember, once you turn it into a French 75. It's got so the classic French 75 is not very carbonated at all because it's just champagne added to

[24:33] the to the drink. Um, Yeah, so I did I diluted it further than I normally would if I was just

[24:40] shaking and I went up to like 60% water for that original base. Yeah, I have to do some... I mean, I don't have my numbers. I'd have to do some calculation. I once did some work. In fact, I was gonna have a sidebar in the book on French 75s, but I never did

[24:55] it, and I can't remember the numbers off the top of my head. I mean, champagne is obviously a very good carbonated

[25:05] wine, and it's going to add its own kind of yeasty

[25:09] notes to it, but you could use it. I mean yeah, you could use anything. I mean, I would use something that doesn't, that, you just have to test it. You know what I mean? Like, I wouldn't use anything that didn't that tasted, you know, wildly different. You want to do it for, you don't want to do, you don't want to use champagne because of the, of the price? No, no, no. I was just wondering if I just pouring into those little bottles because I'm going to make a bunch of these, uh, is just a pain and then I have to do it twice because I'm horse carbonating the gin

[25:37] mixture, bring that. Yeah, no, don't do that. Don't do that. Just, like, dump the entire, whatever wine you use, just dump the entire mixture together, throw it in the

[25:46] freezer. losing too much gas that way, though, just by pouring it all out. It all kind of foams, you know, you can't, all of the nucleation sites. But you're going to recarbonate it. recarbonate it, right? So the actual... Oh, so hit the whole thing, recarbonated then with the original champagne? Yeah, yeah. Whenever I do this stuff, I batch everything, including the stuff that's

[26:07] like originally carbonated, that original carbonation, that foaming that happens actually helps to kind of get some of the other gases and crap out of your

[26:16] mixture. Then you take that whole thing. Now you can taste it to make sure it's completely homogenous. Chill it down until it's almost frozen, and then just recarb the whole thing and pour it into

[26:29] bottles much easier and much more consistent. But then when you did mention price when you're buying champagne, are you paying for the bubbles at all, is that gonna... Well, it's a different, you're paying, when you're buying for champagne, you're paying for, A, you're paying for the fact that it's champagne, you're paying for the amount of time it takes, the process it goes through, right?

[26:52] So they're very, they're typically relatively, uh, uh, acidic, um, grapes, uh, they have to go through

[27:00] like, uh, you know, the, you know, long process. They then they get they get disgorged and then, you know, dosage and all

[27:08] this other stuff. So you're going through a big rigmarole to produce. But I'm sure you can make a delicious, uh, you know, you know, French, you know, 74 or 76, uh, with a with a different, um... Yeah. Prosecco and lower

[27:22] the, lower the sugar or something, something that... Yeah, I mean, Prosecco Cava or even like a, maybe even a crement might be nice. I mean, like, I would just, I would just get like a bottle. Look, it's not a hard, as long as you're getting, you know, something that you like drinking, it's not a hardship to, you know, open a bottle, make 175 with it, feel how you feel about

[27:42] it, and then drink the rest as bubbles, right? Especially if you're going to make a bunch. And then once you lock it down, then, um, once you lock it down, then now you have something in your pocket that you can do inexpensively.

[27:54] Like I used, I don't use it anymore, but like when I got married, because it was 20, you know, 22 years ago, uh, you know,

[28:00] I, I, we went on a side by, we tasted like a 1000000000 cavas side by side and I stuck with that cheap cava for like 15 years. Do you know what I'm saying? I think it's kind of gone downhill, so I'm not going to recommend it. But, you know what I'm saying? Like once you get a good thing in your pocket, then it's there for a long time. I happen to go. And what pressure range would you, would you try at least at first? 45. 45, 4, 4, 4, 45 at, yeah, 4, 5. last the last the fruit app? No. No, no. what typically, it depends on what your alcohol content is. If you're getting your alcohol content down to like between 13 and 15% on your final batch, then 45

[28:40] PSI at cold temperature is going to be is going to be good. All right, I'll give it a try. All righty. Let us know how goes. All right, cool. All right. Here's some here's some stuff in. Wait, what were we going to talk about with Peter again? Yeah, Peter's back. Are you are you staying for the rest of the time? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so let me, let me, let me get some stuff written there and then we'll talk about Peters. We'll talk about, uh, have you ever heard of the, um, the Houseguest Olympics? It's something that my wife and I, Jen, we used to do. It's called the House Guest Olympics. Nobody knew they were participating in the Houseguest Olympics, but we would rate people after they came based on

[29:16] like how good of a houseguest or how bad of a houseguest. Well, this changes every time I come over to your place now. How bad was I? Houseguests have to sleep over, by the way. How bad am I? You're fine, Stas. You're fine. I can't rate you on a house guest. So you're basically like, you know, almost like a family member at this point, so it doesn't count. But, um, you know, we've known each other for how many, that's not true. I've rated people that I've known for like... It's a question of like how you... I love snacks. Snacks is good. No, but also it's like House gets Olympics is most normally when they're staying there when you're there. So it's how they interact with you. So if someone shows up at your house, right? And then is like, and I don't want to be a bother. I don't want to be a bother. So they bring like their own, like, milk and stuff. That's weird. Like, that, like, knocks you down and housekeep limits. When people like leave crap in your bathroom, house guest, house guest Olympics way down. Would someone like, like Nastasia like leaves wine and snacks in the thing, that's very good on the Housecats Olympics. When I thought that she blew up our fireworks, that knocked her down a couple of pegs, but, but,

[30:21] but, fireworks, they were phoned. Yeah. So like, yeah, so the fireworks. So that knocks her back up on the house guest Olympics. And plus when you came with Mark, you guys brought tons of awesome Italian

[30:32] products. So you're doing quite well in the House Guest Olympics. So but anyway, so Peter has some houseguest Olympic stuff going on that we'll talk about after we get some questions. She doesn't look like a cliffhanger. This is from, well, we assume not. This is from Mark Powie in the District of Columbia. Dave mentioned that he wanted to investigate the contents of cooked versus

[30:54] rotovapt maple syrup. I did say that. Sap, actually, maple sap. So the theory being that if you're doing it at low temperature that you're not going to have the same flavor. There's already some work in this area, but with more of a focus on human health

[31:09] and on deliciousness, of course, of course. See, uh, Navindra, uh, serums work at the University of Rhode Island. Cooking the sap does, in fact, result in new process derived molecules, like a polyphenol named

[31:21] Quebecol, like Quebec. Why do they name it after? It has a weird voice. Hey, what's the... What's the...? What's his nationality? What did you want to make? Oh, uh... Tre Equois. Yeah, his own nationality. And if you're a Trebequois, you not only pronounce French in a weird way. No offense, Kevois, folks, but you also try to pronounce everyone else's language like Alex

[31:49] Trebeca. That's what it takes. Do you like Alex Trubeck, Peter? What are your feelings, Jack, on Alex Trebeck? Neutral? I don't know. What's with the no? Why? Like, what's wrong with Alex Trebek? I don't know man. You know what it is? It's seeing him in taxis that pisses me off. It's like before I was like, oh, Alex Trebeck, he's an intellectual guy. He's entirely curious. You know, he seems to be a good arbiter of the truth. And then you see him in the tax and you realize he's just another, like, show. Well, he became really self-aware and got all kind of like a parody of himself. Yeah, exactly. When I was a kid, when I was with my grandma, We used to sit and we would watch Wheel of Fortune with Pat Sajak and

[32:25] Vanna White and then Jeopardy with the Alex. Oh yeah, same. a huge fan. H huge fan. And then like, you know, just after a while, like him like pronouncing all the Spanish words with that freaking lisp, even if this person was freaking Mexican or from South

[32:37] America. I'm like, you know what I mean? That's a big pet view of mine. Like, that's where he lives. Like, listen, like... What the hell? If it's a Spanish person, fine. If you're going to pronounce someone... But what if he learned his Spanish in Spain? From like Ecuador, from like Colombia, from Mexico, then you don't pronounce the

[32:56] Spanish, that would just pronounce it like an American or a Canadian then. You know what I'm saying? If you're going to mutilate, if you're not going to do it like the person who would, if they were alive, right? But that's where he learned to speak Spanish with Spain. What? Yeah. Oh, really? I didn't realize he was a Spanish professor in Spain. I was wrong. Here's the other thing. Also, like, like how he like, he's like, oh, no, the answer was blah, like, or the question was blah. Of course he knows. He has the answer in front of him, on a card. I don't know, man. Trebek. Trebequa. Uh, anyway, uh, polyphenol named Kebicol. Given that there are amino acids and a lot of sugar in the sap, I expect some

[33:39] Myard products as well. I wonder if any volatile components can be pulled off and collected from maple syrup. I think I've tried. It's hard. I mean, like there is a volatile note to it, obviously, but I can't, I think I've tried distilling syrup, but I don't,

[33:54] um, I can't remember whether I got good results or not. I don't think I did. I don't remember. I also wonder about separating some of the flavorance from the sugars. I'm thinking of trying a recrystallization from ethanol,

[34:06] Mark Pelli. Man. And then he links to some of the papers. I can't access the full articles, but, you know, it's on University of Rhode Island's website. That's super interesting. Thanks for writing that in and hopefully if you, you know, do anything interesting with it. write back and tell us more. I'm interested. Were we ever going to get some maple sap and do a demo at the museum, Peter? No, I don't remember. don't think so. Maybe we should. Maybe we should. A little late in the season. Do you know that the NPR did an April Fools joke a long time back saying that if you that trees were exploding because people weren't tapping them and if you don't tap the maple trees that they would explode, they did it and people actually believed it, which

[34:49] is pretty hilarious. The best NPR April Fools joke was when they did the headline was studies show that nobody reads head, no, people only read headlines and not the actual article. And then there were like 1000s of comments

[35:00] of people like, you jerks. I read the article. I read the article. Of course I do. And then the body of the article is... That's pretty... that's awesome. I have a good April foolish joke, the best one I ever did. If we have time at the end of the show, You can have me tell it because it is our April. not food. is Dave's birthday. is my birthday. How old are you gonna be? 45. Hey, it's Jeremy from Seattle. Hope all is well on your what? What? What? Hope all is well on your side of the world. I have a quick question for the show finally. I brined in water bath, a 3 pound. This is late, by the way, because obviously this is no longer relevant to Jeremy, but I brined

[35:38] and water bath. a £3 pork loin at 145 Fahrenheit for 3.5 hours last

[35:42] night. So we'll get me that number in Celsius, please. I pulled it out, dried it, and seared it. After ate a few slices at about 9.30 p.m. All right? Popped it back in the bag, displacement sealed it, and tossed it into an ice bath. He didn't really do a vacuum on it. So it's probably, you know, not 100% oxygen free. Then I promptly passed out on the couch. I am familiar with this problem. I woke up about 1230 AM and having completely forgotten about the pork, crawled upstairs and got ready for bed.

[36:09] Got up around 5.30 and remembered. and ran down and checked the water temp. It was 61 degrees Fahrenheit. So I threw it in the fridge to chill, hoping it's okay to eat tonight or tomorrow. Any suggestions or warnings? How old is this question? That's from last week. So if you're alive, Jeremy, I would eat it. Like, I would just reheat it. You're probably, look, you killed all of the aerobic stuff. I don't think, you know, I'm not an expert in this. I didn't have time to look it up too much. I don't think there's a lot of spore forming aerobic bacteria. I don't think you made an anaerobic enough environment to cause the spores to germinate during that period of time.

[36:47] And anything you did, you could just do a quick kill on the outside. Remember, you cooked it and totally killed everything, then you seared it, then you put it back in a bag. So to me, it's like similar to like a deli meat that's been sitting out, even though it

[36:57] wasn't it was brine too. So it was salted on the outside. So my feeling is, is that if, you know, if you ate it, you're probably safe and if you didn't eat it, you probably would have been safe, especially with a light seer to make the family less queasy and nervous about it. A slight chance that you're wrong, you'll just die. He could be dead. No, the thing is, like, I always use the same thing. Would I feed it to my family or not? Yes. Bang. You know what I mean? That way you can't say, Dave says it's safe. I'm just saying, what would I do? Just in a similar way to what would Brian Boytano do? Ben wrote in about salmon. I have a question about locks slash smoked salmon. I love this stuff, and I'm happy to patronize its local purveyors. Patronize is a weird term because it's either very good or very bad. How did that happen? I don't know. Yeah. Local purveyors. patronizing. Oh, look into little Lux. Anyway, no, patronize. Give them money. Very good. See what I mean? Could go either way. Shout out to Shelsky's and Russian Daughters. You been to Shelski's yet? Nope. I haven't either. I mean, Russ and Daughters. I have to go like, I hear it's good. I have to go like, I go to Wrestling Daughters probably once a week because Booker and Dax forced me to go. I mean, I would go anyway, but they force me to go. Anyway. Trout caviar is on the Dave Bingo game. that Nastasi and I play. What's that? What's that? Well, there's like stories that you bring up here and there. So if we... I didn't even mention it. You mentioned it. I know. So you see how you self-perpetuate things. I know, but I'm just saying, you were about to go there. I wasn't. very much like to see the bingo board. It's a bingo board. It's our heads. Yeah, okay. And they add to it whenever. Nastasi is the queen of this. I knew you were going to say that. Well, then why didn't you say it beforehand, so you could prove it. Why didn't you write it on a piece of paper, fold it in half and hand it to me after I said it? See, that would be that would be like the amazing Randy movie. Let's build an actual board. No, it's because they can't put their freaking money where their mouth is because they're jokers. We can't. Jokers. That, by the way, is also a bingo item. Jokers, Jokers? Jack, when was the last time you heard me call somebody? I've never heard you say the word joker. Boom. Putting us down is definitely on the bingo. No, that's just because it needs to happen. That's not a bingo. That's like saying, oh, Dave, do you need to breathe? Yeah, or you die. You know what I mean? Okay. Call her on the line. Also on the bingo board. All right, call her. We'll get back to your salmon question. Call her, you're on the air. Okay, yeah, I hope your retina has not attached, but I'll quickly get to my question. I had a curious idea. You know, they have like that debate in barbecue where some people cook things hot and fast and some people cook things low and slow. What do you think of that, number one? And the other question is, how does that relate to regular braising? Like, some people like to braid stuff at, like, a 350 degree temperature, and some people like to bring stuff at, like, a, you know,

[39:47] a 280 degree temperature. Is there really that big of a difference? and what do you think? Here's here's the thing. To me, when it comes to barbecuing. Hot and fast is really just like some variant of grilling. You know what I mean? So it's just going to be it's going to be different. You're not going to get like what you consider barbecue from a pit standpoint is like you have to do a lot of tissue

[40:11] breakdown and that just doesn't happen quickly. You know what I mean? That happens. Yeah. There's just so many people that do that. Like, not, you know, garbage web blogger people, like major people that do

[40:22] that, and they don't think it matters. Like how fast? Yeah, like, I mean, like Ed Mitchell cooks at, like, 350 degree. But, like, open or, like, wrapped and closed? Yeah, no, I mean, like, for a temperature for a time of, you know, 4 hours order, but it's a locked and closed, and then several other big barbecue guys, they cook stuff at like +300 degrees. They're also doing... He's doing whole hog, right? Ed Mitchell's doing whole. Yeah, whole Hog, but I've seen him do other things like the same exact way. Smaller stuff? Yeah, like ribs or setting like that. I mean, the bigger, the bigger something, I think it was like a, if we were going to braise something in a liquid, you could get the 350 degrees, you know, for that amount of time,

[41:10] then they seem to be kind of doing that same temperature on a, on a smoker.

[41:16] Right. Look, look. So, Let's look at it this way. When you're, let's go to braising first. If you're braising, and remember, like, you know, if you like Ed Mitchell's product, then obviously they're doing something right, whether or not it, whether or not it fits with kind of what we theoretically think, right, if you like their product, then they make a good

[41:37] product, and so you have to investigate what they do to figure out, like, why it works the way it does. I was going to say that off the top. Now, when you go to braising, and you're looking at a braising phenomenon, the biggest difference in a

[41:52] braise is whether or not the lids offer lids on, right? So if your lid is on, then the braves is getting up to 212, right?

[42:02] You're not really building any pressure. Anyone who says that you're building pressure, it's nonsense. It's horse crap. You know what I mean? Unless it's in a pressure cooker. Because even a very slight overpressure on the order of, you know, decimal PSI would be is enough physical force to make the lid fly off of anything that you would have on there, right?

[42:20] Uh, so that whole thing about, like, pressurizing it, that people used to say, like,

[42:25] pit aluminum foil and then push it down and you form a pressure. No, crap, you know what I mean? But you are getting it up to 212 or higher, actually, depending on how not much higher, but higher, depending on how thick the goop is that you have the thing braising in. With the lid off, you're getting evaporative cooling. And so the temperature is significantly lower. Like, you know, somewhere probably in the, you know, high 80s or 90s, right? Celsius. Um, McGee knows the exact answer because you've done these things,

[42:56] but, um, so with the lid off, as long as you keep the liquid level right, I don't know that you're going to have that much of a difference, um, whether your oven is above 212 or not, it's just

[43:07] going to, you'll probably increase the evaporation rate if you have a higher oven, but you're not probably going to materially

[43:14] affect uh, uh, what you're doing. Now, when it comes now, let's transfer this over to barbecue land now. So let's say you're doing, let's say you're doing something at like 350, right? So what's the difference to the meat at the very inside of

[43:32] a whole hog when you're doing 350? Answer, not a whole hell of a lot, right? Because still locally where you are in the meat, assuming that you're a tiny trichinosis worm on the inside of a piece of pork, right? Assuming, right. If you're in there, you are never going to get above 212 ever. You know what I'm saying? Until all of your moisture is out, and the temperature then can rise above the boiling point of water. So a high temperature on what would typically be a braising cut or something

[44:06] that's going to cook for a long period of time is just going to affect the amount of meat that can be desiccated on the outside,

[44:15] right? And so what I assume that he would get would be a much higher portion of desiccated, dried out,

[44:25] overcooked crunchy bits. And maybe he likes them. You know what I'm saying? That's why I ask, on smaller cuts of meat, it would seem to be a lot more detrimental because you could dry out a significant portion of it before the inside is tender enough for your for your, you know, hopes and desires.

[44:39] Does that make sense? I would think so. Yeah, I just remember, you know, on the breathing side, I remember reading, you know, like in the French laundry

[44:47] cookbook where they, they talked about raising everything under 300 degrees because they thought it was more gentler, but if your, if your water temperature is never getting over a significant

[44:56] thing, It doesn't seem to matter. I don't think, yeah. I don't think it matters much. You know, next time we get McGee on, see if you can, like, like, we, like, he loves to talk about this stuff, so we can, uh, we'll, we'll have that debate. I'm sure he, you know, he'll, he'll go on a tear as much as McGee goes on a tear, which is not, you know, he's not like a, he's not like a

[45:14] rant. Well, he doesn't rant in public much. It does seem it does seem to it does seem to take longer when you brace things in liquid at a lower temperature

[45:22] than versus at a 350 Even smaller, even small changes in temperature effect

[45:31] by a bit, how long it takes collagen to break down? And that's what I'm really wondering about. is it more of a collagen thing or a, you know. Yeah, collagen breakdown, but the difference in the in the texture of a protein at, uh, you know, 85 Celsius and at

[45:49] 100 is like, you know, it's just freaking same. You know what I mean? It's like, it's overcooked. You know what I mean? That's why I have to have other flavors or things or a lot of collagen to breakdown. And one of the reasons why I am not the biggest fan of whole

[46:01] hog because then stuff, you're doing that rancid overcooking to stuff like the loin.

[46:06] Now what? You know what I mean? It's like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I don't know why people like it. Because they hack the whole freaking thing up and you have some stuff that tastes really good and some stuff that's overcooked. And so you average it out to being something that's good. But I, you know, I, in my book, why not like cook the loin exactly the way you want it, then cook all the,

[46:28] like the low and slow stuff the way you want it, hack it up and have it all be better, right, Peter? Well there's the ceremony to it, right? I mean, it's the reason why we do whole turkeys. Well, that's why you want to do... You're right, you're right. Okay. Okay. Okay. The high pitched was bingo. Wow. Yeah. Can we get to Peter's story? Yeah, we have to, because we're wrapping up here. Well, hold on a second. I gotta finish the salmon question. Justino. hold on a second. All right. So, um, I'm happy to patronize local purveyors. Shout out to Shelskis and Russ and Daughters, but I was wondering if it was worth making this stuff at home. I would also be curious to hear the cooking issues team thoughts on the product. We all like smoked salmon, right? Locks. By the way, in my world, locks is locks, i.e. not smoked. Salt, salt, and sugar cure, either wet or dry, and then, you know, allowed to dry off a little bit and sliced.

[47:19] To me, that's locks, right? And the smoked salmon, like nova style, gas belt, that stuff. Smoked salmon. Okay? Bump, bump. And we're talking cold smoked salmon here, not hot smoked, all right? We're all on the same page. Okay. Uh, I think basically I need a primer, but here are my questions. Any thoughts on reliable books slash recipes, especially for traditional Jewish appetizing styles, i.e.

[47:42] Nova locks, belly locks, et cetera. Thoughts on the curing step, drive versus wet, and equipment. I have a backyard and a Weber charcoal grill, but I assume I'll need to invest some sort of cold smoking rig, yes. Do you have any recommendations on make styles, et cetera? Are there any that do double duty as a hot smoker that are worthwhile? How about wood? Thoughts on the species, pellets versus chips, others, et cetera. And fish, how high a grade do I need to go? Should I be looking for this stuff I'd make sashimi with or is my usual pricey NYC supermarket salmon? Okay. Thanks in advance. Been a listener since day one, and the show has seriously helped me up my cooking, eating, mixing, and drinking game. Ben. Okay, 1st of all, let's start on salmon because we're going to run out of time here. And we got to get a Peters thing. So we start on salmon. Definitely, salmon's going to make a huge freaking difference in this. And you're gonna want to choose what you want based on the fat variety.

[48:29] So I would go to Russian Daughters, and I would ask them what kind of salmon things are made out of. So for your 1st choices, Atlantic salmon versus Pacific salmon, and then if you're going to go, um, either of those, uh, you really should either buy stuff that's sushi grade, uh, which has been frozen or you should freeze it hard in your in your freezer

[48:48] for uh, over for over a week to uh, kill any uh, worms and a sack of worms or tapeworms that are in it because the curing step may not kill it, especially

[48:57] uh, cold smoke step. But investigate this. So Chinook obviously has the highest fat content, king salmon. So if you want a very high fat content, this is like the salmon that you

[49:06] would get from New Zealand, New Zealand King salmon or a gold. Like that's the stuff that they make the New Zealand King salmon that you get at Russen Daughters. I think that stuff's fantastic. It's super high in fat. It's got a very nice texture because it's been anesthetized before they kill

[49:19] it, so it stays very firm. So over, you know, you know, that stuff is good. I think the salmon is going to make a huge difference. I also called up Nils Norin to get his regular gravadlocks recipe

[49:32] and 0 my god, I can't, oh, here it is. I'm trying to find it. I wrote it down, but I guess it didn't get pasted in. Should I do that next week? Should I talk about it? I talk about the salmon recipe next week. And versus cold smoking, like I'm sure other people have a lot more experience with different cold smokers. Typically it's done with like pipes and ice over the things to make it done, but the people on the

[49:55] internets will help us out and we'll talk about it more next week. So Ben, we're going to get back to your question more next week. Peter, Nastasi, why don't you go? Why don't you say what the story is? Peter had a terrible houseguest. All right, it's that terrible houseguest. What did they do, Peter? First of all, there was an Airbnb person. Peter had an Airbnb person come over. So, and they stayed there. They are a med school student and they drank all of his liquor. without saying anything. They drank all of his freaking liquor. Including, and I don't know why you had a bottle of this, a whole bottle of Malibu. Look, there are things that people bring over who are low on the

[50:33] Houseguest Olympics. So this lady was doing you a favor. Those things sit in the bar. So this lady, that's a favor, that particular case. And she had bottles of magnum bottles of yellowtail lying around empty lying around her room in the Airbnb thing and she never had

[50:48] houseguests over. This is some nice... Or it's Harold McGee. She blamed Harold McGee because Harold McGee did stay there once. All right, so listen, on the way out, I'll tell you quickly. my April fool show that we did. So this was in 1990. This was before we had anyone. We had one guy on the floor. This is in college. my freshman year, had a laser printer. He was a senior. No one had a laser printer. No one even no one laser printer, right? So what we did for April Fool's Day is all the freshmen lived in specific entryways in our college in our college dorm. And we wrote a letter, and I can still remember it to this day. We faked Yale Stationery, which is where I went to college. We faked Yale stationery, faked everything, and printed this letter out and gave it to every single freshman.

[51:34] Due to the unusually high number of matriculating transfer students, we will not be able to offer a place in the sophomore class to all of our current freshmen. Please find below an application for sophomore standing to be filled out and handed in to your RA by the end of the week. And we folded it up along with an application and put it in everyone's cubbyhole

[51:55] on like laser printed. And our state, our fake stationary looked better than Yale's real stationary at the time. We got the linen paper, we got everything. People flipped out and all of the all of the freshman counselors, right? played along. They all played along. and we didn't even talk to them about it. They just all played along. We like had people flipping the hell out. And that is the roughest April fools joke that I've ever been involved in playing on somebody. Cooking issues. Happy birthday.

[52:34] Thanks for listening to this program on heritageradionetwork.org. You can find all of our archived programs on our website or as podcasts in the iTunes

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[53:01] Thanks for listening.