[0:00] Open Table is a proud sponsor of Heritage radio network. For more information, visit their blog, open for business at open forbusiness.opentable.com. Hi, this is Cecilia Kutcher, host of Animal Instinct, and you are listening to Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit heritageradionetwork.org for 1000s more.

[0:27] Hello and welcome to Cooking Intries. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking is just coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network, Broadcasting Ware Stats. Where? Brooklyn. Where? Roberta is. Oh, yeah. See sauce, this is why I don't let you do the beginning section. You know, it's like, it's like, You always say live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick. like that. That's how you gotta do it. Right? Call your questions two, 718-497-2128. That 718-497-2128. Join, as usual, with Nastasia. The Hammer Lopez. How you doing? Good. Yeah? Yeah. you think anything good happen? No. Nothing good. For real? Nothing good. anything bad? Anything terrible? No? Just the same old, same old. Same old, same old? How about you? Me? Oh, I got a lot of new stuff, but I can't talk about most of it. Are we joined as usual in the booth with Jack Jackie molecules Insley or is he still outside coming in in a minute? Jackie Molecules is having a field trip right now. Oh my goodness. I've seen it. We might we might be blessed with a little bit of a little bit of Jackie molecules in

[1:37] there. It's going to get back. Yeah, because otherwise it's going to get confusing because it's going to be Dave, David, confusing stuff in the booth. Anyway. My point being... Oh, yes, remember last week I said that I was going to build a chicken cannon?

[1:54] again, I can't talk about the specifics yet. But let me just say, It is not that complicated to launch a chicken at over 200 mile an hour. However, I will say this. Quarter inch thick, like polycarbonate, Lexand polycarbonate, is not up to the task of stopping said chicken.

[2:15] Oh my god, stars. We built this frame. Oh, you saw? Who sent it to you? I get your email. Oh, you didn't see the good one. Anyway, so it's like, oh my god, the frame basically just evaporated. I tried to pick up all the chicken off the ground, but I had forgotten to put a big enough tarp underneath the area. And

[2:38] like when I took it back inside, all the pieces and tried to wash the gravel and like, you know, oak leaves and stuff off of

[2:45] it. It was just like, everyone was like, I'm not going to eat. What are you doing? I'm not going to eat that. I won't eat that. That's the whole point of shooting the chicken stars is to eat the meat afterwards, like that janitor did. Why are you shooting it, though? Well, I told you, like ever since I was a kid, my grandpa would tell me about when he used to go to the testing facilities because he was doing radar work, right, for airplanes, how he would see them shoot the chickens into

[3:10] windshields, or, you know, and birds into windshields to test the windshields. This was in the 50s, I guess. Um, and he said that the janitor would pick them up and take them home and eat them. And I was like, oh man. Oh man. You know, and then, like, I've always been kind of fascinated with this guy picking up these chickens and eating them

[3:29] afterwards. And so I wanted to kind of see what the meat would taste like. But I have yet to I have yet to taste meat fired from the chicken cannon. But not that hard, frankly. I'll tell you this. If you are going to build one of your own, which I do not recommend for obvious reasons, because if you hurt yourself, you're going to say that I told you to do it, right? So I'm not going to, amazon.com. has some fantastic deals on large, on large cast iron butterfly valves. I'm talking like $600 valves on sale for like

[4:00] $120, like prime delivery. I don't know what I think someone made a mistake. It's like some idiot at a company was like, just like, was like, yeah, $500 for that, and they put in like $150. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like they're charging for an 8 inch valve. They're charging what you should charge for like a 4 inch file. crazy. So anyone who wants to build a crazy chicken cannon. Go look up cast-iron butterfly vowels in the 8 inch variety on Amazon. There's only a couple left when I bought them. So you know, your chance might be limited. Anyways, uh, did I cook anything good? Did I cook anything good? I don't think I cooked anything good. I think I just, I wanted to cook that chicken and then failed miserably. I cooked some really good stuff yesterday, but again, I cannot talk about it until

[4:46] May, because we shot a little thing in the jig for the Playboy. network. You want to know something else interesting? Maybe interesting. Somebody bought Playboytv.com, and that is not affiliated with the Playboy network, and they haven't gotten the news yet that Playboy is now safe for work.

[5:07] so if you were to go to playboytv.com, Apparently, not at all safe for your workplace. Anyways. Dave, what's going on, man? Let's walk in and it's Playboy? Well, I was saying that I shot something along with, I'm not allowed to give the particulars yesterday for Playboy, and they're going to release it sometime on the internet. Yeah, so more, we'll talk more about that in, you know, in the middle of next month. But it was a lot of fun. Uh, shot back at my, uh, where I used to teach there at the French culinary, the International Culinary Center. Nice. Sorry I'm late. How you doing, Jack? I'm good. How you doing? All right, did you have anything interesting happening over the past week to you? Um, I want to say yes, but I no, not really. I was at a wedding this weekend. Oh yeah? How bad was the food? How bad was the food? It was great, actually. It was pies and thighs. Oh okay. Pies and thighs. It was good stuff. Nice. I heard that it was an old. Remember pies and thighs like went through a reincarnation? Yep. And one of the old cooks back in the 1st carnation came and worked here for a while. Carolyn Bane, yeah. Yeah, and brought the fried chicken recipe. And their fried chicken recipe. I've mentioned this before on the show, but, you know, it's been a long time. This goes completely against everything that I've ever known about fried chicken.

[6:18] I have yet to do the side by side, but they take directly from brine into flower and fry. Probably a self-rising flowers. But right in the, it's delicious, I have to say. Please tell me you like fried chicken, right? Okay. Well, what style of fries? Just no biscuits. I said, but, you know, I have to ask because it's like so many preposterous things. You, you know, come out of her mouth. The fear in your voice was real. Yeah, real, real. Because, you know, because how horrifying would it be that I sit next to this person all the time and she doesn't like fried chicken? That would be like, that would be, I don't know. Like, it's worse than biscuits. wouldn't you agree that not liking fried chicken is worse than not liking biscuits? Listen, I like biscuits a lot, so, but yes, I'll agree with you. Fried chicken would be worse. I still don't get the biscuit thing, though. I feel like maybe Stas, you haven't had a great biscuit. No, I bet you she has. you know, this is where Jack, you've known Nastasia long enough. Yeah, that's true. If she decides she's not going to like freaking biscuits. Like, like, God could come hand her a biscuit and she'd be like, this sucks. But I don't believe in him, so doesn't, you don't believe

[7:21] in him. he's got a, you know, he's got a gender all of a sudden now. But, like, my point is, like, no matter like what, like, literally, I could genetically, I could put electrodes in Nastasia's brain that literally made her think that when she was eating a

[7:34] biscuit. It tasted exactly like the finest caviar on earth, which is one of her favorite foods and she'd be like, nah, because it's a biscuit. You know what I'm saying? That's like stars for you. Just decided she's going to hate on the biscuit. And that's it. It's over. You know what I mean? She's the same way with people. True or false does. Yeah. she's like, yeah, you'll get it later. Be like, I'm going to let you say this on here now, and then I'm going to get you later. Uh, I got this in from uh, Jeffrey Given and Costa Mesa. Where's custom Mesa against us? Don't know. It's in California. Don't you know the whole damn state? No. Yeah, man, I come from a long state. We didn't have a lot of PlayStation. Hello, Stas, and the Fun Bunch. I like that you did not put Nastasia into the fun bunch. I don't Also, people are not allowed to call me stars, so it's nostasia. Wow, that's about it, right? For a stranger. It just Nastasia. Yeah. Yeah, she gets particular about this kind of stuff. Me, you know, call me jerk wad, whatever you want. They would never do that to you. Oh, me, me, me, me, me. Okay. Hello, Anastasia and the Fun Bunch. This is a word shout out to Culture City. It's been encouraging you to learn about Culture City by way of heritage radio support. I wholeheartedly agree with Dave that it's equally important, if not more so, than researching a cure for autism is the broadening of acceptance and understanding of without limiting expectations of potential ability for individuals on the spectrum.

[8:58] I don't yet have any children of my own. Just wait. I don't have any children of my own. My wife's an elementary school teacher who specializes in gives it intalent and education. These are students who think and learn differently and benefit from multiple and

[9:10] specific teaching methods while they tend to be highly creative and bright. They also often lack some of the social cognizance their peers might already possess. Ain't that the truth? You know what I'm saying? Um, uh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Sorry, my phone went really tiny guys. And my old eyeballs can't adjust. Anyway, um, sorry. sorry sorry. I get the opportunity to be in these classrooms regularly, and one of the most rewarding things to witness is the way my wife has helped to provide them with the space resources and confidence to thrive as individuals while learning to accept each other's quirks and behavioral

[9:46] idiosync idiosyncrasies. Idios. What's wrong with me today? I can't read, you know, it's because of my freaking bike ride. I'm more of that later. I'm still angry about my bike ride. Uh, idiosyncrasies in a loving and supportive way. So before I get to the question that they ask, that's a nice shutout, right? We're still working with the culture city people. Yeah, they're the best people. Like really some of the best people I've ever met. I actually went to their I spent some time on their on their website. Like, they're totally worthy of support. What do we do with them? Do they just like support us or do we do stuff for them? What? Um, both. I mean, they definitely supported us. Basically, the story with Culture City is Julian got in touch with us through a charity auction where he got to come here and meet Tom Kalikio and interview Tom Kalikio in the studio. That was the auction. It's like, come meet and interview Tom Clickio. And he asked him all about some of these autism initiatives, like putting iPads and restaurants and stuff. It was like a way for him to kind of get Culture City out there and start getting it in people's ears. So we did we did some work with them. We produced a whole radio documentary about what they do, and then we went down to Birmingham at their annual gala. And then I actually DJed their junior gala, which was a lot of

[10:51] fun. It was a Halloween party. Yeah. It's culture city with a K, by the way. It's with a K, yeah. Why? YK? That's a great question. I couldn't tell you. I have to say, like, I hope I'm not offending anyone out there, but I really don't like spelling C words with

[11:05] K's. Cars for kids. Uh, you know, I found out about that. You know that, well, anyway, I don't want, I'm not going to blow it. But anyway, like, but like, I don't know, specifically, I don't like country kitchen with 2K's. Whenever I see country kitchen with 2 K's. It makes me feel that you're one K short of being KKK. And I just don't like it. You know what I mean? I just get, like, 1st of all, I mean, I hate to, you know, I'm not, I want to, like, dive into stereotyping, but when

[11:30] you're seriously, when you go country kitchen 2K's, you're one step away, people, don't do it. But we'll accept Culture City. We'll accept culture city because the 2nd the 2nd seat is the C. They didn't go two-thirds of the way to KKK. And so, you know, it's still kind of acceptable. What do you think about the country kitchens does? Hate it, right? I also don't like, I don't like extra peas and Es on my Shoppies and my, I don't like any of that stuff. Do you like any of that stuff? I'm not into that, no. none of that stuff. Oh, the shop. I see you're saying. Just the E at the end of shop. kind of cool. That's like old timey. Really? Shopping? Depends on where we are, right? If someone open a Shopee over here, I'd be like, get out of here. Yeah. Oh my god. If Nastasia, I'm just going to guess, what would you do if you walked past the Shopee here, would you spin on? I don't know what a shop is. Like, Yodi Shoppy. like, like, would you like, be like, like in Brooklyn? I met a guy. can't talk about my May yesterday. Anyways. Okay, should I mention so I can get it out of my system real quick, the bike ride? Another freaking jerk on the freaking Williamsburg bridge going downhill, no hands on his freaking handlebars, earphones in, weaving back and forth. I didn't want to pass the guy. listen, you're not cool. Put your hands on the handlebars. What if someone like me isn't as cautious? And if you think I'm cautious, me? Come on. Like, someone who's like less cautious than me goes to pass you, you swerve and clip that freaking guy because you're texting your idiot buddy and you all go flying down that bridge at like 25 mile an hour onto pavement, skinning yourself like a freaking grape because you know that stupid bastard wasn't wearing a

[13:02] helmet. You know what I'm saying? Dumb. Dumb. And then you used to ride here, right, back before you hated riding in Brooklyn so much. Speaking of Nastasia now, you know when you're driving up grand on the way here, and there's that long line of parked cars, and then there's all that traffic next to you, so you're in like this tube, this corridor.

[13:20] Guy jumps out, walks out into it, like right out freaking into it, not looking. I'm doing like 18, you know, 19 mile an hour below the speed limit, but like, you know, and like, I'm like, like that to him, you know what I mean? And like, he yells at me. He's like, use your, it breaks. And I'm like, you're in a bike lane. You know what I mean? I was like, what the hell people? I would have felt bad if I had wiped that guy out a little bit, but I'm more angry at him. It's one of those things. And then, you know what? The concrete plant today that you have to drive past. People. New York is not pleasant. I love it here. I love it. I love it, but is there anything pleasant about New York City? No. Jack, what do you think? Anything? I mean, I love it. I love it. deeply. The views. The views. I got a caller on the line. that's what I think All right. But you're not gonna, you're not gonna, you're not gonna make a statement. I missed you. had to pick up the phone. I says, is there anything like, like literally the word pleasant. Is there anything pleasant about New York City in general? About New York City? Yeah. No. To live here, you have to like constant beat downs. I wouldn't say there's anything pleasant. I think if you were like mega rich. Maybe you could just squash all the people in front of you and then maybe have some sort of pleasant experience. Yeah,

[14:31] it would be pleasant if I had more money. that's true I don't know. I don't know. Call her, you're on the air. Hi, I have a question regarding baby food. Ah, okay. So we just had a baby. He's about 3 months old now and he'll be starting solid food in a couple months. to make all the food and freeze it myself. So I promise it's only one question, but I want to make sure this food tastes good and it's safe, but I don't want it to taste like canned baby

[14:59] food, but I want to do something a little bit more creative. Well, good news is, I mean, again, remember, not

[15:08] a, not a professional look into it. The good news, obviously, and since you're, you know, having a newborn relatively,

[15:17] you know, you probably looked at all the current research, which means that unlike when I was having children, they basically say that you can, in fact, encourage you to give kids a wide variety of

[15:27] things early on, thank goodness. You know what I mean? So you're extremely lucky in that regard. A couple of main concerns that you're going to have. Uh, and I don't know if they still say this, is you're gonna have to watch out for, um, certain foods that, um, are potentially toxic to infants, right? So you're not going to sweeten with honey, right? If you were going to sweeten something. And also, and this is, again, I haven't done the research in a number of years, but you're gonna, you'd be wary of serving large amounts of certain leafy greens like, um, spinach because of

[16:06] potentially, uh, I believe it's potentially high, um, uh, nitrogen nitrate levels, but I don't know if they still have

[16:12] that. I don't know if that's still a recommendation, but they used to, basically things like that, like Gerber's

[16:18] pitch and maybe Gerber was paying people to do this, was saying that they very tightly monitor the, like the levels of these things in their products. And so they can, they can adjust. Whereas like the ratios of those things can be very, very variant in a naturally produced item because the plants take up a lot of that stuff from the

[16:38] soil. So a lot depends on fertilizer laid down and, you know, how much rainfall they had prior to

[16:43] harvest and et cetera, et cetera. So, like, those are the only 2 caveats. Now, on that, obviously, you're not going to want to feed anything that's going to cause any sort of food poisoning, but you're not going to have to cook things to the same kind of level that you would have in a canned environment where, for instance, like a lot

[17:00] of, um, a lot a lot of vegetables can take on that canned kind of vegetable taste, right? Now, presumably, if you're going to do this, you're going to make the investment. Do you already own a Vita Prep? You said a Vita prep? Yeah. Do you, what is, do you mean like a vitamix? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, vitamix is, sorry, the commercial version of the Vitamix is a Vitaprep. It's the same thing. Yeah, you own one of those? Yeah, we have like a professional Vitamix at home, but we don't have the commercial version, obviously. Oh, they're the same motor. The only difference is, is they expect people in a commercial kitchen to beat it to death. And so they put a different label on it and they give you a different warranty, but it's it's literally the same people. It's not, it's one of the rare instances where the commercial version isn't any beefier than the home

[17:50] version. It just costs more because they know they're going to have to, like, uh, uh, you know, have a lot of warranty issues on it. Whereas like, you know, 99% of people at home aren't going to abuse their blenders the same way that a commercial kitchen will.

[18:03] So yeah, you're in good shape. So if you have that, you know, with those 2 caveats, I'd say go for it. You know, I don't know, like, are you guys vegetarian, you eat meat or what? Hello? Did we lose them? Yeah, we have a little bit of a bad connection. It's muffled. apologize. I say, do you guys eat meat? Because one of the great things about a Vita prep is you can blend meat like, like, like nobody's business. I would use meat. I don't know if you eat meat, but like you can do anything like that. I don't know whether people are like going to get mad at me for recommending feeding meat to a kid, but I did. I'd feed the kids everything, you know, it's just you want to be aware of choking and I would say look into those things that I mentioned, like certain leafy things. I think spinach was the one that they really talked about. I bet your celery is the same, but who's going to feed their kid pureed celery? That sounds kind of gross, right? Well, and I want him to learn at a young age what good food tastes like. So is there anything, like one idea I had was like in from modernist cuisine where you caramelize the

[19:02] carrots and do something like that so that you make the food taste a little bit better. Do you have any other recommendations like that? Yeah, you know, you look, you could take stuff that you're making for yourself. Just like, you don't even, like, if you're roasting carrots, which are delicious. Just roast extra and then just use a little stock or something to be able to blend it into the right

[19:20] texture and it's going to be a lot more delicious. Do you know what I'm saying? Obviously, I would adjust the texture. I would buy a couple of cans of the, of the, of the jars, rather, of the Gerber

[19:31] stuff just to check the consistency on it to see whether you're in the, in the kind of realm of

[19:36] consistency because if you go, obviously, if you go too gluey, you just want to be, you know, careful that they're not going to choke

[19:41] or, or ask great or anything like that. Of course. But yeah. So, like, I mean, I would say almost any, like, the great thing about the Vita Prep is you could take almost anything that you

[19:50] like and then turn it into the texture of a baby food. Most people who are making it are mainly worried about kind of trying to go like hyper healthy on a baby, which to me, it's like, you know, I don't know, like,

[20:05] don't please don't get me started on that, but it's like, you know,

[20:10] like, I wish to God that I could go back and have ignored my doctor's recommendations about what not to feed my children early on.

[20:17] But like I said, as a parent, you just can't do that. Uh, you can't ignore what the doctor says because then if you're wrong, you know, you're you're a big jerk. You know, you've ruined your kids, you know? Uh, but, you know, you know, you live in a in a permissive time. So it's, uh, you know, you're you're very lucky. One thing I will say is that, um, and, you know, something that I've noticed, uh, that there's no way to judge from, um, a baby what your child will turn into when they get older in terms of their eating habits.

[20:50] So, uh, I know, for instance, like, my older

[20:53] son who uh, is on the, he's on the autistic spectrum. So a lot of those kids have um, a lot of those kids have issues with being very, very picky, not liking things mixed, right?

[21:04] Not liking things that are mixed together, being very sensitive to certain flavors, et cetera, et cetera. And who knows whether these things develop. It's hard to know if these things are going to develop, in fact, it's impossible. But the, um, but the funny thing is, is when he was a baby, he would pound things that tasted like

[21:17] very, adults would never think that you would like. So he used to eat fistfuls of capers. It was fistfuls and fistfuls and capers. He still has some strange tastes. like he loves like fish eggs. He and Nastasia would be like right up the same alley pounding, you know, cured fish eggs. Uh, so you never, you never, never can uh, judge. I mean, you know, I, you know, my hope for you is that you're lucky and you get a child who

[21:40] likes everything an early age and maintains that, love their whole life. I mean, that's a freaking joy as a parent. But, you know, we don't always get lucky. And you always don't, you don't always get to choose what, that's the thing. I thought when I was a parent that if I just expose my kids to all this stuff, then of course they're going to like it the same way I do. No, no, they're their own people, they'll choose what they want. You know what I mean? Yeah, definitely. All right. Thank you so much. All right, no problem. And check up on the chat room, because I'm sure some people in the chat room, who've had more recent children have some probably good advice on that. Wouldn't you say, Jack? Absolutely Yeah, all right. Okay, great. take a look at that. All right, thanks very much. Thank you. Okay, so back to the Jeffrey Givens cooking question. got a question for Dave. Oh, we had a question? All right, all right. Call her, you're on the air. Sorry about that. No problem. Call her around the air. up? Oh, hi, Dave. I traded a tweet were 2 of you last week about tandors and what you're looking for in one and want to follow up on that because there seems to be, you got the idea

[22:40] of, um, I mean, I walked through high heat grilling and I was looking at like hamachu likes and you got the idea of tandors in my head and I've been following up on it and there's a lot out there. I figured that one tandor was the same as the next, but they make them out of all sorts of different things, different sizes, no clue what's useful or

[22:55] not in a tandor. Okay, so here's here's. I really only had experience in the one that I have, right? And but I have, you know, a good bit, and I did look into a lot of them. The typical tandor, um, that, you know, that you read about is kind of this, and mine was made in Delhi,

[23:17] right? And so like a lot of those is, I'm pretty sure, and it's been a while that they're done, kind of rope style. They're built up, smoothed out. There's some form of hair fiber, mixed in with the clay, as a binder, right? Then those basic shells are kind of the standard tandor that they make in

[23:36] deli, and then at least for the one that I have, and then they're lined in various different kinds of

[23:40] casings, and they're made in various sizes and shapes, right? There are other people. For instance, there's a relatively, I think, well well regarded tandor maker in the United States. I forget his name. He's not he's not Indian, but he makes a lot of tandors for ovens and for, you know, some kind of fancier

[24:01] establishments. They uses a very different kind of clay makeup. And I think, although it's been a long time. I think he might throw them. In other words, like a traditional, like a traditional pot. So, like, when it comes to composition like that, I don't really have a lot of experience, so it's not like, you know, like using a 1000000 different kinds of ovens that I can come down and say, well, this person's full of

[24:21] crap. This one's not. When I did it just for price, and also for, um, for price, and I figure it's very traditional, I just went with the one that was made in Delhi, right?

[24:31] Because I figured those guys, they know from Tandors, right? And so then, you know, there are some companies that sell tandor shells or, you know, the ovens. Some people do 2 parts and they ship them and then you can encase them in your own sort of refractory. Initial. I was like, look, I just want to use a sucker right away. And so I got one where the guy gets it. They put it inside of a stainless steel bucket. You open it from the bottom and that's that's it. Beyond that, you have to choose what size you want, right? So the, you know, the size I got was the larger of the ones that

[25:03] have recommended for for home people because the guy was like, unless you're going to do really, really big parties,

[25:09] the bigger ones just take a lot more fuel to fire. So you're just going to go through a lot more coal, uh, you know, and it's just going to be kind of a bigger headache that way. And you know what? I think he was right. There are some times I wish I had a lot more space in it. But really, I've, you know, unless you're going to cook for more than 15 people a lot and cook exclusively in the tandor. I think the size that I have is good. And in fact, if I was going to up it, if I was going to get one of the really big ones, I would probably rather have 2 smaller tandors than one big one. So my small one, so if you go to tandors.com, which is in summit New Jersey, I have the larger of the 2 ones that they kind of recommend for home that's on wheels.

[25:47] It's fairly easy to move around if you're a giant hulking person. But I can put one, two, three, four. I could put 4 nans on the inside at once, which is about as much as I can put in before I have to start removing the other one because I'm not that fast.

[26:00] And so, um, you know, I think it's it's pretty, uh, good. But so like once you choose the construction and how it's made, then the size is the next

[26:09] thing. I wanted a freestanding one because I wanted to be more flexible. If you're going to build it in and maybe you can get your own liner and just fill it with

[26:15] a factory around. You know what I mean? I'm assuming you want coal and not gas, right? Um, it's open. And that was the other question I had for you because in my head, it was, um, cold seems like it would get hotter and the whole idea here is, as hot as you can get it. I mean, that's, you know, why I'm not doing it. It depends on what you're doing, frankly. So the problem with tandors is, well, it's not a problem, but like, the coal's at the bottom, and you still have the coal's at the bottom, and

[26:42] typically, the stuff that's at that coal end of the skewer gets really, like, almost like burnt.

[26:48] So it's like, like when I have some time, what I'm going to do. So there's a sweet spot in the skewer above that level where everything is kind of cooked evenly and it's

[26:56] nice and but that's only at medium. If you have roaring hot coals in the bottom, like you're still heating it, then, um, then there isn't necessarily that much of a sweet spot because you just have such intense radiation from the coals on the bottom.

[27:09] I'm going to build a little like blast shield from my skewers that can kind of clip on so that like, I can like have a roaring hot flame, but reflect a lot of that heat back so that that 1st couple of pieces don't have

[27:20] that like, I've just reentered the Earth's atmosphere look to them. Like putting things on a fencing soil? Yeah exactly. on the bottom? Exactly. Yeah, like a reverse fencing foil there. But the, um, so like what I typically do is just throw something I don't care about on the

[27:35] end, like, uh, like half a potato. The other trick is, is like getting the, um, getting the stuff not to slide down is a little bit of an art. But also, not everything wants to cook at the high temperature. So typically what I'll do, and gas, you know, it's probably going to be more nimble. I think people make one that you can just shove the gas burner in when you're using it, pull it

[27:55] out and fire it with coal, which would probably be a good kind of middle ground. Um, but like non doesn't want to be that hot. If the if your oven's too hot for the non, um, it's just going to scorch the bottom before the top gets nice and brown because the clay will heat up so much.

[28:10] So you really, you know, there are, there is a sweet spot. It's not just all like intense ripping, ripping heats. For some things it is. You know what I mean? Shrimp, like you can't really get it, like too hot to do shrimp. You know what I mean? But a lot depends. So there's like, um, the more you use it, the more you'll get the, the hang of that stuff. But typically what I'll do is I'll fire the tandor with a fairly big load of coal. That's like big load gross. Uh, fill the whole thing, uh, and then let it let it come down a little bit. Meanwhile, I'll start a big chimney starter of coals. I'll do my nans when the temperature is kind of mellowed out and the whole thing's relatively even. I'll do my nans, pull them, throw them into the warming oven, like inside. Then I'll dump in the chimney, and then I'll do the proteins that I want to go ripping hot. That's typically what I do. All right, well, thank you. That seems, gives me some more information to look in on. Yeah, and I look, and also like Tandor, it's just immense fun to work with, but don't necessarily feel like you need to go traditional.

[29:11] one of the most rewarding kind of like cooking like fun things that I get to do because it's not technical at all. I mean, it is. You have to think about it technically, but it's not like accurate technical, the way a lot of stuff that I do is. And so, um, if you go to like, uh, one of these, uh, home, you know, home improvement stores, they sell all these, uh, um, gadgets for people's normal grills, like baskets and stuff, which in general,

[29:33] I don't really use when I'm using a normal grill, but they're really kind of cool to hang in the

[29:38] tandor. So like I'll get baskets and you can feel like a, you could like put the baskets like that you could do like hamburgers in it and things that are hard to skewer that you don't necessarily want to

[29:47] skewer, you want to get a higher density and you can expose them very evenly to the radiant heat of the wall by suspending these baskets on a skewer over the thing.

[29:55] Oh, I mentioned this. The other thing you have to get kind of good with is manipulating the lids and the lid and the open vent at the bottom to kind of adjust a flow of heat through it. So if you're, you know, it's all about like putting the skewers around,

[30:09] like rotating them and in and out, in and out. I know I've mentioned that before, but like, you know, it's like all of my all of my breads go in once, duh. But like most of the other things go in at least twice, sometimes 3 times to get that kind of

[30:23] surface the way you want. So you're gonna want to, wherever your tandor is, you're gonna need to have a, and it's better to air hang them, to hang the racks. I mean, you can lay them down, but I find it's better to hang the skewers or whatever you're using in between when they're running. So I have a, uh, like a, a rim near my tandor where I can hang all my skewers in between when they're going in and out and I spray them with

[30:45] Pam to, you want a light oil coat on them. let them dry off before you put in. I hit him with Pam on the 2nd or 3rd go around to get the sizzle going quickly. Little pro tip for you. All right. And are you using Kingsford here or like something special? I use, I use, um, was I forget the name of it. It's in a red bag. It's in a big red bag and it's not Kingsford. I don't use bricks or brickquettes. I use hardwood charcoal, so it looks like pieces of wood. And I throw it in, and it's not that expensive, and the big box stores sell it. And it's great. And, you know, you're not, you know, it's slightly more expensive than the compressed briquettes, but, you know, you kind of, you know what you're

[31:24] getting and I don't know, it just feels right and I use it, you know? Yeah, and lastly, um, do you have any special tools for the nan or like what do you use to get in there? Do you have a, like a welding glove or do you, um, Okay, so here's the thing. The putting the putting it in is not a big deal. They give you like a coconut fiber stuffed pillow,

[31:45] which when you're learning, you'll accidentally catch on fire if you're anything like me. So mine has like all the stuffing coming out of and everything, but I still use it. And, uh, you have this, um, this like, it looks like a little pillow, like, you know, like a, like a catcher's mitt slash pillow. And you stretch out the, you stretch out the bread, you wet the side. It's gonna go against the tandor slightly. I use my hands, but I guess you could use a mister. Do not wet the side that's on the pillow. And then you put your hand in and whack. You get the you get the thing on the side, right? And that's part of the art. When you're learning, you're going to drop a bunch into the fire. Once it touches the coal at the bottom, ignore it. it's done. It's done. It's over, right? Then when you get it off, you don't need a glove either because you're using this dual skewer. You shoving this like pointed stick into the bottom of the of the naan and then scraping it off with this like spatula like stick with the

[32:44] other. These 2 skewers typically come with your tandor. And then it swings down like a pendulum, you lift it out, and you're good to go. that, but you do want to invest in, uh, you're going to have to have some side towels there, and I would also invest in one of those grill gloves because the skewers are intensely freaking hot,

[33:04] right? And if you ever need to work with them and the lid can also get it. Now, the lid, I usually pick up with a side towel, but the skewers and stuff, you don't want to use a side

[33:14] towel, and I'll tell you why. The skewers have a little hook shape on the end of them, right? That's how you're hanging them when they're in between. And when you're trying to manipulate that hook around with a side towel, the side towel gets jumbled around in the hook and it just becomes impossible to do like a lot of fine rotation with

[33:28] it with a side towel. So for the, for lifting out the, the hooks and manipulating them, I use a, um, I

[33:36] use, uh, one of those grill mitts, the, the, I think Weber makes them. And then I use a side towel and to slide the things off of the skewer, typically, I'll slide the stuff off the skewer into a butter dish and then throw it in a warming oven if I'm doing a lot before we're eating.

[33:51] And when you're sliding food off of the skewers, the bottom part of the skewer typically is red hot from being in the coals. So I'll slide it down and get a little bit of that sizzle, drop it into

[34:02] the drop it into the bucket, which goes back into the warming oven inside. And you don't want to try to, you don't want to try to strip a whole skewer at once. Like, like, fragile foods, like shrimp, if you're stripping a whole skewer, they'll literally just blow themselves apart because the

[34:17] proteins on the, on the shrimp have kind of welded themselves around part of the skewer potatoes also do this.

[34:22] The heat will travel up the skewer, and the very bottom potato will have this like incredibly hard to scrape

[34:28] off like ring of potato, like kind of melded to the skewer at the bottom. So if you try to pull the whole skewer off at once, you'll just shred everything that's on the skewer. So what you want to do is kind of like take take the 1st thing off the bottom and then either one or 2 things at a time off. The good thing about that is, is that if you have a situation where there's a huge temperature delta in your oven from the bottom to the top, you can take off

[34:54] that, that bottom one that's going to get done and then throw the, throw the rest of this or the bottom 2 and throw the rest back in to finish

[35:01] up. You do not have to remove all of them at once, which is another pro tip. Nice. Nice. Well, thank you very much. I think this was, um, yeah, you got me all amped up for tandors now. Nice. Well, you know, right back and let us know. I've never met someone who's like, you know, I got a tandor, and you know what? It wasn't very good. Never had that happen. You know what I mean? Sounds good. All right. Thank you very much. All right, no problem. Okay, so back to Jeffrey Givens question and custom makeup. On to the cooking issue. We recently held a fry fest with our outdoor 6 gallon, 6

[35:35] gallon, Cajun fryer, about which I spoke with you on air just after Thanksgiving. It holds £47 of oil. You must, must acquire one of these for your outdoor Connecticut kitchen. Well, I have a regular, uh, £35, I think, uh, you know, commercial fryer, but if I had to go back, I might not get the commercial fryer. might have gotten the Cajun fryer. Who knows, because it's meant to go outside, and mine is not meant to go outside, which means I have to keep it under an eve, which is a little bit of a pain in the

[35:59] butt. But if I told my wife that I was going to go spend money on another fryer,

[36:03] like I would be talking out of the other side of my face because she would have slapped it like, like, right? I mean, like there's no way. Imagine telling Jen that I was going to buy another deep fryer stats. You know? No, no, no, all right. The little monster could handle every freaking thing we threw at it, and we literally could not keep up with battering and chucking all manner of food into it due to the high heat capacity and

[36:23] recovery. By the way, I did your take a whole chicken, break it down and circulated 2 different temperatures with debone, meat glued thighs, rolled up in their own

[36:31] skin and drumsticks debone by snipping the tendons and popping the thing out with the skin still intact. Incredible. Good. I glad people are still using that technique. I love that technique. I like fried chicken, as we've mentioned before. The only thing that didn't work from a functional standpoint, there were a few flavor disasters, were battered cheese sticks. When you say battered cheesesteaks, do you think of like cheesesteaks that have taken a beating or you think of battered as Nastasia, and that's why I love Nastasia, because she thinks about like those cheesesteaks

[36:55] taking a freaking beating. Whereas like most people would think like breaded, right, right, Jack? Most people would think breaded, I think. He gone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway. Right. We tried a smoked Gouda. And you like smoked Gouda stars? Not really. Really? Do you? Yeah. I grew up eating it. You know, like it grew up getting it in all those like 1970s like cheese baskets. I like, so I grew up liking any kind of smoked cheese. Jack thoughts. He's not there anymore? Dave Good is great. You smoked? Oh yeah, absolutely. What about other smoked cheeses? Do you like other smoked cheeses? Oh, yeah, yeah. Like them all. Yeah. Stas, what are your thoughts on the Italian, like, Fumicato, like, Pecorino

[37:36] Saros? Really hard, like smoked cheeses. No? I do in small quantities. I wouldn't wanna eat a lot. What are your thoughts on truffle to cheeses? Don't like at all. Wow nice. Do you? Oh, I don't want to not like them, but I don't like them. Most of my family likes. Anyway, trouble is tough. Truffle... Wow, it's almost a rhyme. Truffle, truffle, truffle, truffle tough one. Get into a truffle tussle. Yeah, now it's like a Dr. Seuss, like a truffle tree. Anyway, the cheese. Okay, anyway. We try to smoked Gouda and a pepper jack cut into sticks and battered, ensuring full coating. The cheese invariably disappeared, leaving only a thin melted layer stuck to the inside of the battered shell. The rest was hollow. Even cream cheese stuffed peppers with an open top had no problem. So it didn't seem as though simple moisture content was the issue. What gives and are there other products you found surprisingly problematic in the fryer? Good question. I too have had this problem. I think I mentioned last week that like the worst thing I've ever done was the falafel balls that just like blew themselves apart. So you have a couple of issues going on here. Most people, when they're breading and frying stuff, are overheating their oil because they're doing it at home. You're not overheating it because you're doing it in a real fryer, right? So they overheat their oil. So the oil will get ruined very quickly, which yours won't. But on the flip side, their cheesesteaks are only in the oil for like 30 seconds tops before they're all brown and starting to burn. So they can pull it out before the entire thing turns to a massive goo and sprays out. In your case, you probably have a more reasonable temperature of like 360,

[39:11] 350, 360, And if you're doing like chicken that hasn't been pre-cooked, sometimes even lower, like 33, 43 in this 330 in this area. I, you know, I do, you know, anyway, so the point being that the longer the stuff's in the fryer, the more chance you have for a pin leak to happen in your coating, and then those kinds of cheeses will literally pump, as opposed to cream cheese, which

[39:32] won't will pump themselves out under the pressure of the, um, of the boiling

[39:37] water, uh, and steam will pump themselves out of the case and leave you with a kind of a hollow

[39:42] shell. And so I've literally done things like candy bars, uh, and I think I've done candy bars, uh, like ice creams, things like this, and you'll see

[39:50] them and you'll be like, it's perfect, it's perfect, it's perfect. And then you'll, like at the last minute, you won't pull it out in time. It'll blast a hole in the coating and then it will pump all of it out into your oil like almost instantaneously because it's complete liquid on the inside. So I would just say, take your cheese sticks, double dip them to make sure you've got a really good coating on double dip, double dip.

[40:12] In fact, I saw a lady on the internet who wrapped a wonton skin around her cheesestick. What do you think about that says? weird, huh? Wonton sticker. I think it might be too hard. Anyway, double dip and freeze those suckers for a while so that the outside, not for a long time. Don't freeze them all the way through, but freeze them so the outside's really, really cold. There's not a lot of water, not that much water in the breading. It will come at the temperature and brown fast enough, and you might be able to get the thing out and do leave them in for the minimum amount of time possible. And, you know, that's kind of what I would say about that. What do you think so? Anyway, let us know how it works. Here we go. We got a, we got a, uh, okay, thanks for keeping me company on my commute every day. You guys are awesome. I've got another technical question, but this one doesn't involve Sabbath or Jewish holidays. And this is from, this is from, oh, my God, my brain, from

[41:03] David Statman, a.k.a. a Jews Bouche. Stas likes this. Stas put an I like face on with that Twitter handle. Anyway, he thinks that I'd make a good Talmudic rabbi. What he thinks does? Yeah. Yeah? Because I'm so why? Because I like to analyze everything. That's what Stas hates about me the most. I'm researching how I can use a CO2 tank to charge my whipping siphon for

[41:29] carbonation of liquids, alcohol, fruit, et cetera. instead of using CO2 cartridges. What pressure should I set the regulator for for equal charging with one or 2 CO2 charges? And consequently, what I need a regulator for carbonating beer or the higher pressure soda fountain regulator, always get the higher pressure one, by the way. Right up. I'm just going to say as to anyone. Anyone who's asking, unless all you're doing is beer in a restaurant, get the freaking higher pressure

[41:52] one. Please, don't ever buy. Why would you want to limit yourself? It's not more money, right, Stas? Staz is like, I don't care. I just going shake my head so Dave stops looking at me. Here's more information I've collected on the setups and pressures, including information from EC customer service, which, you know, ignore. I plan on making a barb fitting like this guy did. you can't see what this guy is because you're on the, you know, this is, you know, not a visual medium. But what this guy did was he took a hose barb. Uh, so for those of you who are not familiar, we're talking about whipped cream makers, uh, that uh, EC makes, and uh,

[42:23] you, you screw those little cartridges of CO2 in, right? And it punctures, there's a little needle and a rubber gasket that you push

[42:32] the, that you screw the cartridge into. It punctures the cartridge, the gasket seals it, such that all of the pressure from the CO2 cartridge gets directed into the whipper. That's how it works. So at this, it's rather clever actually. actually person did was they took like a hose barb fitting. Looks like it's about a quarter an inch hose barb fitting, attached to their CO2 line with a little ball valve, and you just push it onto the gasket so it

[42:57] seals, and then you let the pressure into the thing. That's what it looks like they're doing. And so it's kind of clever. Like, when I did it, when I built it, obviously, when I built my attachment to my UC, it was considerably more complicated. I machined a mating piece to go on to the, um, to go on to that thing, which is really complicated. But what my system, what this system does, is it acts just like a the CO2 cartridge that you get when you put it in. In other words, you inject a certain amount of pressure and then you pull it away. You can't inject and that's the amount of gas that's in your product. This is the key, by the way. Well, let me finish the question. So the guy in the above reference link, which you don't have because you can't see me. Uh, carbonates at £140 per square inch. I inquire from EC directly about the regular operating pressure of their

[43:48] siphons, and I've repetited their response, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, and referring to N2O whipping siphons. Chris Young said in the comments on a chef steps infusion process that one is unlikely to achieve pressures of over 80 PSI and the whipping siphon. That not true. Listen, forget what anyone told you. Forget what EC told you. Forget what anyone told you. What's happening to you is you're clouding your mind. Think about this. You get to completely erase anything that you've thought and think about how carbonation works. This is going to help anyone who's kind of carbonating. You're dealing with 3 very different ways of carbonating and the confusion that you're having is trying to operate between those different ways of carbonating.

[44:31] One, the way I carbonate, I have my gas tank, my CO2

[44:36] tank, in always connected to my product as I'm carbonating. So I choose a pressure, right? And typically for cocktails, it's £45 per square inch. I choose a pressure, right? And then I attach, I put CO2 at that pressure onto my product and I agitate it violently. As I'm agitating, more gas is supplied from my tank into the bottle until the pressure on the inside of the liquid. There's enough CO2 on the inside of liquid to counterbalance that 45 PSI and no more gas is supplied because it's relatively in equilibrium, right?

[45:14] So I can pressure, I can carbonate at a low pressure, and I get a very consistent, very consistent result.

[45:21] Why? Because the only variable that is really changing is the

[45:26] temperature and the composition of the liquid. So as long as my liquid is cold enough, then I know I'm going to get the same result all the time. Even if I have a little bit in the bottle, I'm going to get the same result as if I have a lot in the bottle because I keep supplying gas at that same pressure until I reach relatively until I reach equilibrium,

[45:44] right? And I can vent in between and I can keep doing it over and over, very repeatable results. Okay. The way that EC does it, right, is they sell you 7.5 gram carbon dioxide cartridges, it pumps the entire 7.5 gram cartridge into your

[46:03] whipping siphon, right? And then the pressures become whatever the pressures become, right? And it depends on a lot of things. It depends on how much liquid is in, what the composition of the liquid

[46:16] is that's in it, and the temperature involved. So, uh, right? And now there's a 3rd way of doing it, right? And because, uh, what, remember, what easy is doing is putting a fixed weight of CO2 into

[46:30] your uh, into your thing. When you move to a tank with this fitting that you're going to make, this hose barb fitting that you're going to make, you're doing neither of those 2 things. You are injecting a specific weight of

[46:43] CO2, but based solely on the pressure of the CO2 that you're putting

[46:49] in and the amount of headspace that you have. So with EC, it's a fixed weight. With you, the weight is dependent on the headspace and the pressure. Confusing enough so far, so does. Yeah, super confusing, right? So, but this is why everyone gets all this stuff wrong because you have to think about exactly what you're doing. I will just give you some numbers to make this clear. I'm just going to apologize. It's going to be a headache for anyone that doesn't care about it. But look at this. A 500 milliliter EC whipped cream maker, right? Hold 500 milliliters. And this chart's in my book so you can look at it later. If you want. 500 milliliters of liquid, right? And has 272 milliliters of headspace, meaning it's blank space. When you inject the 7.5 grams of CO2 into that,

[47:37] right, into water there. The pressure is 197 psi. These numbers, they did them in front of me when I was in Austria, at EC, at their

[47:45] factory, where they had a head with a gauge on it, right? 197 PSI. Thats 13.6 bar for all you euro folks, right? Now, when you shake it, right, that this is with 20 degrees Celsius water, right? So it doesn't absorb that much CO2, it goes down to 119 PSI, which is 8.2 bar. That's one charger. Now, look at, look at what we're, look what we're saying. I did some calculations. I went online, use what called an ideal gas calculator where I determined exactly what was going on. What that pressure means in that headspace is that 6.67 grams of that 7 of that 7.5 grams of CO2 is in the headspace.

[48:25] Less than one gram of that CO2 is actually in the liquid in that point. And what that means is pretty much 100% of the CO2 that you

[48:33] inject, if you're not shaking, is right in that headspace. And remember, the way that you're going to put CO2 in, you are not going to shake it while it's under pressure. And what that means is, is that you're limited with the pressure on how much is CO2 you can inject into your headspace.

[48:49] Does this make any sense to us? Like, I don't care. The good news is, is that you don't need to have a super high pressure, but you might need to keep reinjecting CO2 into the headspace over and over and over and over again,

[49:04] right? Um, I'll give you another example. So if you were to do a 100 milliliters, right, sorry, if you had a one liter whipper and you put a full liter into it, there's still only 262 milliliters of headspace in that in that whipper, you're going to get the

[49:20] same roughly 200 PSI in the headspace because not that much is going into the water,

[49:25] right? When you shake it, the PSI drops to a lot lower to 77 PSI because you have a lot more liquid in there. Now, if you were to use ethanol, pure almost, ethanol, right? You get the same about, you know, it's only 15% lower. You get about 170 PSI and that thing before. When you shake it, the pressure's over 3 times lower because it's absorbing so much

[49:45] more CO2. So what you're going to want to do is just choose a pressure. You want to choose 140, choose 140, right? The more headspace you put in, the more CO2 you're going to inject, right? So if you were to do 140 PSI, you're going to put 4.7 grams of CO2 into a

[50:02] head into the headspace of an EC if it's full at capacity, right? If you were to reduce it, let's say you were to increase the head capacity to

[50:10] uh, 500 mils instead of 200, uh, 70 or 250, you'll double the amount of CO2 that's in that headspace, right? So you can you can do that. But, let's say you were to, so confusing. I'm sorry. But like what you should probably do is just keep testing. And when you see what you like, weigh the damn thing and figure out how many grams of CO2 you have in it. That's what I would do. Weigh it. figure out how many grams. A volume of CO2 is 2 grams per liter. This is not including the headspace. You have to calculate how much. And so if you did 140 psi and you fill it all the way to the top, you know that the headspace contains 4.7 grams.

[50:47] Then if you have, for instance, a liter bottle and you have a liter in there, you're going to want about 4 volumes of CO2 to have a really strong carbonation, 4 volumes of CO2 is 8 grams per liter. And so you're going to want 8 +4.7, 12.7 grams heavier than it is when you

[51:04] started, and that should give you the good answer. What do you think? Does that make any damn sense? Does anyone, is this one making any damn sense at all? Do we have 30 seconds? 30 seconds. All right. Brandon Hodgkins wrote in. He wants to make some bacon popcorn. I want to know if you have any tips on how to make the bacon bits adhere to the popcorn so the bits don't end up all on the bottom. I was considering using exorbit mixed with bacon renderings to make a bacon powder for added bacon flavor. Do you think that would work well? Yeah, here's what you want to do. Make sure you get like a Benton's bacon, something with very heavy smoke because it's going to have a lot more smoke. When you're using the ends orbit. Remember, the enemy of Anzorbit is, um, is liquids. So what you should do is render your bacon out in the oven, right? Save the fat, right? Take the things that are rendered, render them long and low so that you're not burning it. You can then dehydrate the bacon further. You can blitz the ends orbit with the fat and the bacon solids as long as there's enough endsorbit in there to not let the oil go out and ruin the powderiness of it,

[52:00] right? That's what's going to what'll gum it up. So you could actually blitz the bacon and the

[52:05] insorbit together so that you have a lot stronger bacon flavor that should coat the thing.

[52:11] Remember, also, you need some liquid oil to get the adhesion, but I'm assuming that you're popping this in the rendered bacon fat anyway, because otherwise, why would you air pop,

[52:19] bacon, popcorn, and then make it bacon flavor. That makes no sense. Does this does? Cooking issues.

[52:30] 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. HeritageRadio Network as a nonprofit organization. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.