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[0:39] cure all of raw apple cider vinegar and honey. For more information visit firesider.com. Hey, hey, hey, I'm Jimmy Carbone from Beer Sessions Radio. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit heritageraidernetwork.org for 1000s more.

[1:03] Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking. coming to you live. Heritage Radio Network every Tuesday for me, a little late this time. Still roughly noon-ish to like, you know, around one o'clock. Every Tuesday from Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick. Brooklyn. What do you think? Hey, speaking of Bushwick, Brooklyn. My subway, you know, they're constructing or something, so it went like one stop too far and I got to take a different walk than I normally do, which means I was paying a little bit of attention. Some classic Bushwick on the walk over here. Check this out, Nastasia. First of all, pass by King's Distillery, you know, which is right near here, King's County Distillery.

[1:46] And, like, typical, like, by the way, this neighborhood, if you've never been to it, is like a bunch of hipsters have actually moved here, but this is supposed to be an industrial neighborhood,

[1:54] right? It's like all like low industrial neighborhood with rollups, like some residential buildings, and like just like a lot of trucks and stuff coming around. So anyway. Like, they have their warehouse here, I guess, or maybe it's even where they age it. The rollup is up because it's hot as hell, right? No one guarding it, all their whiskey barrels right there. Literally, like on the ground, like, if it had been you and me there, I would have been like, let's just, I mean, like, let's leave a note saying we're not actually

[2:19] stealing. This is a security test and just roll it. Just roll it, roll it up, roll it down the street and go. There was not a single soul there. Then I loop the corner and I find that, of course, someone's working on a high low, because someone's always working on the roads around here on the overheads, on the wires, and some incompetent truck driver, like, you know, okay, sideswiped

[2:40] it, so there's a, like, the complete street is completely shut down because of this, like, giant truck sideswiping a

[2:45] high low. Then I see like more classic Bushwick, a 76 El Dorado convertible, which, by the way, is a sweet car, but beat completely to hell, Nastasia, and being used as a extra storage closet because they don't want to pay for the, you know, what are those things

[3:02] called? The storage place, yeah, Manhattan. Yeah, but here's the classic and here's what makes it so awesome and something that I would have done back in the day. They got the historical license plate for it. So they wouldn't have to pay as much for insurance and they can still keep it on the street. Oh, Brooklyn, you know how I love it. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, do any good cooking? No. No. No, but you're getting a duck meal report from my sister's roommate. Yeah, a lot. Yeah. All right. So, roommate, like, lives with her. Okay, who is it? JR. JR. All right. So he's being called a roommate for the purpose of the roommate, but it's lame. She won't call in. She's always busy. Yeah, huh, busy. Busy, busy or scared? We're not sure. Well, that's JR when he calls in to the show at 1230.

[3:53] So, what else? Is your chance to check out JR then? Make sure he's like, you know, a solid dude. Well, I mean, Nastasia knows him quite well. I mean, I don't know. like, you know, my opinion on it is, you know, quite meaningless. Calling your question two, 718-497-2128. 718-49721, uh, 28. We have a lot of questions to get to because we didn't do any last week because of the rock star thing. By the way, I'll, uh, one thing... I'm not sure people liked it. Yeah, I'm not sure if people like it. Some people liked it. I got some tweets that some people at least liked. David in the booth. Hello, David, I forgot to call you out. How you doing? Hello, good, how are you? All right. Are you, did you hear anything one way or the other? Do they like the new that that style of show? Yeah, chat room, a couple people wanted to have some questions answered, but I think generally the response was favorable.

[4:38] By the way, I cannot believe that it was on August

[4:42] 8th, and no one made an 808 reference. Nothing sounds quite like an 808, David. Money making, money, money. Disco discovery. Anyway, okay, so we got a bunch of questions. We have a caller, too, whenever you're ready. take the caller first. Call her Get on the air. Hey, it's Judy from Malden. Hey, what's up? I was just gonna, in fact, I have a question from you today on cookies, right? Yeah, the cookies. Well, you don't have to answer the, how many cookies I should bake for a $100

[5:14] question because I think I figured that out. Well, was the answer? So the question, by the way, people, like, because I was going to go into it. What was the question was, a colleague offered her $100 to bake in quotes, a

[5:28] bucket, a bucket of cookies? And the problem is nobody knows what a bucket of cookies looks like. I mean, we know what a bucket of chicken looks like, but no one knows what a bucket of cookies looks like, right? So what was the answer? And how'd you come across the answer? Uh, I'm thinking three. Three cookies? No, no, no, 3 bats. Oh, 3 batches. I was like, 0 my goodness, that is a tiny bucket or a very large cookie. So how many cookies in the batch? Like, how many... How many how many cookies? Well, 1st of all, like, when you say a batch of cookies, how do you want to scale? you want to scale it in cookies? Because cookies, if you bake them like my grandma did, they're tiny. If you bake them like, you know, like Tozy does, they're bigger. We're talking

[6:05] Tozy style size cookies. I'm baking Tina's cookies, so they're about a heating tablespoons. Okay, and so 3 batches. like how many roughly cookies like that as 3 batches? Uh, well, last night, one batch was 26. All right, so this person's getting like 75 cookies, assuming that you eat one from each batch to prove that they're okay to yourself. They're getting like 75 cookies for 100 bucks? That's a freaking steal. That's a steal. This is still, it's like, um, you'd have to pay $200 if you want. What size bucket does that go into? Does that go into what size bucket is required to hold this thing? I'm not going to buy a bucket. It needs to buy a bucket. Yeah. See, see, I was thinking about this question, you know, and so

[6:54] the, by the way, folks, for those you don't know, they, they, you're not, you don't, like, do this for a living. And in fact, what the, the, the problem here is you're shifting from a, uh, I don't know if you've read, uh, either predictably irrational by Dan Arielli or, uh, Richard Thaylor's misbehaving or not, Dragales, but you're moving from a

[7:13] a social norm, right, where you're baking cookies for someone because, because they're your buddy, into a market norm and it's like totally different. And I think you've fallen into, you've fallen into this uncomfortable, like, in between situation because if the person was going to pay you for the, see, you're basically, you're putting yourself out in a discount situation, which, like, if you're happy to do it is one thing, but in general, when you switch from a social norm to a market norm, and then you undervalue yourself in a market

[7:44] norm situation, that can lead to, like, resentment, let's say you're not willing to bake that many cookies for that amount of money indefinitely,

[7:52] right? Then all of a sudden you put yourself in an untenable because you've anchored the price, right, with this coworker. Is that really what they want to do for a living? I don't necessarily want to have the same career trajectory as

[8:06] Christian Tozy. Right, right, right. But my point is, is that, okay, if you're over delivering, right? Let's, if someone asked me to do something, I'll give you another example. I know a wedding photographer, right? He hated shooting weddings. He hated it because he's a photographer. wasn't a wedding photographer. What happened was someone said, hey, we want you to shoot our wedding. And he's like, I don't really want to shoot weddings. They're like, well, we really want you to shoot the wedding. So he goes, okay. And he puts it at a number so freaking high, right? That he's like, you know what? Like, if they go for this, they're crazy and I should do it because that's so much money. They went for it. He did that and then he got a bunch of those other high, high, high paying jobs. If he had gone low just to do it as like a marginal favor, then he would keep getting asked. You see what I'm saying? So it's like, I would, like, I would, I would say... I

[8:54] charge more for cookies, I'd be able to buy a seed rack and more.

[9:00] Well that's the thing. let's say, let's say you think, like, let's say you were going to do this even like marginally, right? Like, the 1st batch you do, you have to say to yourself, okay, if I don't really want to do this for a living,

[9:11] like, what's a high enough number such that I won't be asked to do it again? Right? And then, like, that's what you that's what you charge. And if they go for it, you're like, well, maybe it's worth doing after all. I have to reassess my choices. If, if you do it, uh, and then, and then it doesn't even matter really what you make off that one batch, because you're like, okay, maybe I'll do this

[9:29] again, and I'll invest in a bunch of equipment I want in anyway, like a speed rack, a bunch of sheet pans, maybe some extra

[9:35] sill pads, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then down the line, you'll get a, you know, a bigger oven, yada, yada, yada,

[9:40] right? But you price yourself so high that you're like, but then if you put yourself in a situation where by the time you factor in your time and anything you have to buy and the goods that you're manufacturing, the actual

[9:51] cost, because remember, you're buying ingredients probably and paying a lot more for them than someone who does this for a living

[9:56] is. Do you see what I'm saying? So like you kind of like have undervalued yourself in this situation. I was thinking about it on the on the ride over here. I mean, of course, like uh, eggs cost a few dollars, butter

[10:07] costs $3. Yeah, yeah, that's on a good day. That's on a good day. I mean, butter on super sale in a regular supermarket paying retail is $3 a pound. You know what I mean? Anyway, my point being, you know, you just have to like kind of factor these things in when you're switching. Because, see, what I would do is like, like, I think that anything less than $2 a cookie and you're, you're valuing yourself below the market. And then if they say no, I don't want to charge professional prices. Well, but that's my point. These are people I know, like, I would, I would start, like, a perfect stranger, maybe more money. Yeah, but see, I think it's like tough. It's like, you got to read this book, particularly irrational, where here's the scenario. Let's say someone shows up at your house for Thanksgiving, is the scenario he gives in the book. I think it was this book. And, uh, and you cooked them a nice Thanksgiving meal because they're your family and you love them, right? So you cook a nice thing. And then what if someone got up afterwards, like, okay, how much do I owe you? You'd be like, what are you talking about? How much do you owe me, right? Because if you were going to do it for a living, you charge a lot more. So you're like putting yourself in this uncomfortable kind of in the middle position. Unless you're happy to do it. But then like be expected to ask to do it again and again. You see, I would charge, like, I would charge enough that it would be professional prices, then they would say, oh,

[11:22] man. And then you'd be like, you know what? Here's a batch of cookies on the house because you're my friend. See? And then like, you didn't have to go into the market, and yet they got some cookies and they're still your friend, but they won't ask you to do it again because they know now that when you are charging for cookies, you charge this high rate.

[11:39] You see what I'm saying? Oh, uh, I guess I see what you're saying, but there are also, for the people who have eaten these cookies in the past. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. it's an uncomfortable thing. No, I think we should, it's the topic. You tend to talk about the same subject. I think there, I was just finishing listening to the last podcast. It's fun if it was just 15 minutes. But nobody got to talk about anything else. Right. Well, that was a special, it was a one off special, like, rock and roll wine thing. It's not like a normal podcast. Yeah. Yeah. I would consider that like a... Yep, I would consider that just like especially. Okay, but... I didn't give that her home address to perfect strangers. She did that? Nastasi gave out her home address to Perfect Strangers last week on the show? the book Oh, yeah. The pressure cooker. Oh, you got it? I don't have it. Oh, she'll bring it in. She'll give it to me and I'll read it. Yeah, no, I don't have it yet, but I... Send it to her sister. Oh right. Yeah. Well, I'm going to read it 1st though, right? Because you wanted me to get some. Yeah, I'm going to read it 1st and then we'll give it to now the sister. She's not going to be, she doesn't want to be the dunk meals correspondent anymore, but apparently I was mean to her on the phone, but she's having her, We're calling him... No, now she's calling. Oh, she's calling? She's crying. with both you and stars. Well, that's what makes the show work, right? If you only sided with one of us, then it wouldn't be

[13:12] fun, and you would just, you know. But, yeah, I don't know. I think that's enough for today. All right, cool. I usually wouldn't be able to call in like this, but, um, working at squeaking, uh, has taken a big emotional psychological

[13:31] pull, and, uh, do you got, how much do you know about squeaking? Not much. Okay, so we make uh, 300,000 an hour at live store, Monday through Friday between 11 to people will wait upwards of

[13:50] the half hour, and there are several in your area. All right. in New York and Manhattan are over here in Brooklyn. Yeah, yeah, yeah, every, well, I don't know if they're in Brooklyn, but we're in Manhattan. Well, definitely check it out. And you think about the cookie price. weekday afternoon. All right, you think about the cookie pricing more and then, you know, email us back and let us know what you think. No, you think about the curing saber question. Okay, all right, will do. We'll talk about it soon. Alrighty? Okay, all right. All right, thanks. All right, bye. All right. Uh, wait, so what were we gonna what were you talking about? Don't know. All right. Let me see here. So your sister, like, decided to call in after all, Nastasia? think so. You think so? Anyway. All right, so I feel like, uh, we had, um, um, we got a question in last week from Chris. Here it is. Have you looked into the level of evidence linking Carragin into inflammation or bowel cancer? So, Karaginans, for those of you that don't know, are a class of hydrocoloids that are developed that are made from various species of red seaweed, right?

[15:02] And carraginans are thickeners, have been used for centuries and centuries in cooking. The common name would be like Irish moss, and they have a very specific synergistic reaction with

[15:18] milk. So the super interesting thing about kerraginens is that because of the synergistic reaction with milk, it takes a preposterously small amount of

[15:28] kerraginen to gel a milk system. So it's used extensively, especially in things like

[15:35] yogurt and ice cream, and other thickening chocolate milk, for instance. But it's typically used in vanishingly small amounts because of that

[15:47] synergistic effect with milk. Now, also an interesting thing about kerogenans is kerogenans are not a, it's not like sugar, which is pretty much just a molecule, sucrose,

[15:59] right? Uh, Carraginans are a, a, they're a polysacride, but they're not, in any sense, pure. In other words, they're a mixture of 3 or 4 different types of molecules. Now, the main molecule kinds are kappa carragin. And kappa carragin is brittle. And it's very, very closely related, actually, to Agar, which is another

[16:20] hydrocoloid. It just has the difference between them has to do with the sulfates on them. Anyway, so Cabacaragina very close to Agar in structure and in texture, in fact. It melts at a lower temperature than Nagar, but it's fairly similar. There is iota kerragen and iota is a lot softer and bouncier than kappa.

[16:43] So it's very different kind of, uh, even though it's very closely related, very, very different kind of texture. Iota is also interesting because gels made with iota. And when you shear them, will re somewhat reset after time. So they're interesting for that. They're widely used. Lamb kerraginans are more thickening kerraginans, they don't really gel, but all actual natural kerraginans are mixtures of these things, and they're made industrially to specify certain kinds of uses.

[17:15] So, it'll be, if someone says they're giving you cap the carragin, what they mean is they're giving you mostly cap the carragin, with a bunch of other stuff, and if it's been standardized, for a particular application, let's say ice cream. Anyway, so that's a long introduction into what, so long, in fact, my phone was like, maybe you're not watching me anymore and it turned off. So that's kind of what Carragin is. Now, um, The thing about it is that, um, it has been, It was rumored to have caused cancer. Now, most of the stuff about cancer and specifically in kappa

[17:48] keragin, and it comes from decades ago in the 80s.

[17:53] But every once in a while, there's a kind of a resurgence of it. And the question is how strong is the data? Uh, and then, um, I'll read exactly what uh, the question was if, uh, oh, it got, uh, it got Oh, okay. Have you looked into the level of evidence linking Kerogans to inflammation or bowel cancer? I'm still on a quest for a fresh espresso, espresso, frappe, that is stable for at least 5 minutes, and land the Kerrigan scenes promising, but Wikipedia and a few other sources, not just crackheads, suggest a potential risk. Thanks for any insight you might have, data or alternative approaches. Love the show every week and looking forward to the centrifuge. Chris. Okay, so the deal is, is that most of the current stuff that's being put out, when I say current, really like 15 years old, in this country anyway, is put out by a particular person. Her article, her name is Tobacman, and her review article from 2001 is available on the web for free.

[18:47] Um, and it's called something like uh, potential health effects of Kerogen and the dietary Kerogenen. And here's the deal. No one really thinks that Kerragen, the actual Kerragen is bad for your health. All of the all of the data is focused on something called degraded kerogenin or polygenin. And what this is, is, uh, carraginens that have been broken down into real, real, much smaller, um, molecular, uh, weight molecules than you would have in, um,

[19:19] carraginum that's actually kind of used, uh, industrially. And so her point is, and so basically, no one thinks that regular kerragin is causing cancer, okay? Now, the question is, is, okay, now does this degraded kerogen and

[19:36] polygen and cause cancer? Now, most of the studies for degraded kerraginen are feeding directly feeding degraded kerraginen to things like rats. pigs and mice. And in general, they're feeding them at levels like one% in the diet, i.e. one% of everything that you eat is

[19:57] degraded or drink is degraded carraginen. And at levels between one% and 5%, which is a gigundous amount of

[20:07] keraginen, um, of degraded straight. They feeding a straight degraded carragin in either in the liquid diet or in the solid diet. There, like, it does show, um, it does show the, um, the

[20:20] increased, uh, cancer rates and inflammation rates in those things. The studies in, 1st of all, you can't do that study in humans, that would be ridiculous, so no one's done that. I believe she has participated in some epidemiological studies. I didn't get a chance to read them. Now, here's the issue, right? That's all degraded Keragen. one of her main arguments. She has 2 main arguments. One, that, uh, Karaginan's as sold, like I told you before, don't have a specific molecular weight.

[20:48] So any carrogenan sample that you have, possibly has a bunch of lower molecular weight polygenon in it,

[20:55] right? Because they're not specified. Now, whether or not an actual sample has that in it. Who knows? I don't, but it's not specified, for instance, or written in it that this contains no fraction smaller than, let's say, you know, 10,000, uh, you know, uh,

[21:10] Daltons, and whatever, however they measure it. I don't know how they measure it. Um, Because Dalton's, I think, is only for proteins. I can't remember. Okay. Point being that it might be poly dispersed this way. The other issue, she has is that, is that in the stomach. Now, when you, the way you make polygenin, degraded carragenin, is you take

[21:28] carragenin, and you heat it in the presence of acid. And so one of the contentions has always been that in the stomach,

[21:34] possibly kerogenans can get converted into degraded kerogenen. So there is a study that she references in her in her 2001 study from 1983, done in Europe, where they just took

[21:46] Carraginan. They put it in at 37 degrees, which is roughly body

[21:51] temperature, and they put it at one .one molar hydrochloric acid, which

[21:56] is, by the way, the maximum that your stomach gastric juices ever

[22:00] get. And actually the pH that they had, which they referenced. I dont know if it was a typo. They referenced that they had a pH of one that might have just been a typo, which is way below the pH of gastric

[22:09] juices most of the time. Most of the time your gastric juices are about 0.5 0.5 to

[22:16] 0.one molar hydrochloric acid equivalent. Anyway, that neither here nor there. And they showed that there was kerogen degradation being done over that length of time, 6 hours inside the stomach, to the point where it was classified as having some degraded

[22:32] kerogen in it. Now, 1st of all, that's showing that taking kerogen in and putting it in the stomach creates some degraded kerogen. Remember, though, in the other ones, they're feeding straight degraded carrot gin and not partially degraded, you know, full carrot

[22:45] gin. And furthermore, logic would dictate that that degraded care

[22:49] gain, it gets degraded even further into smaller subfractions. So I would say the evidence relatively weak, very kind of weak. The evidence is weak? The evidence is weak? are weak. Anyway, I would say it's weak evidence. I don't feel bad feeding it to my family in the levels that are currently being used. I don't see any reason why this particular hydrocolloid. In other words, I don't know that, like, they didn't say, okay, we did the study with

[23:15] Carragin and now we're going to run it with Agar, and yes, Agar is much worse than Carragin. So I don't really, the studies didn't have kind of that level of understanding why there would be a causal relationship versus other kinds of similar undigestible fibers.

[23:30] So until I see that or until I research more, I would continue. Me personally would continue to use it, but that's the actual data if you want to go look at it and make a decision for

[23:41] yourself. Yeah? Hey, Dave, we got JR on the line. Oh, so it was JR. All right, JR, you're on the air. Our dump meals, our dump meals, co-corresponding JR. How you doing? I'm good. How about yourself? Doing well, doing well. So describe the dump meal you made for this this week. didn't make it. Okay, describe the dump meal that Natty made for us, our other dump meal correspondent Natty. the reporter on the dump meal. So what was it? Right. If Natty's the dumb meal correspondent, I'm like the auxiliary reporter. Oh, I like that. So you're like, okay, the yeah, I don't know. Well figure it out. You know how like CNN has a 1000000000 titles so that like every one somehow seems like they're the chief political correspondent. You have to, seriously, like, there's 50,000 people at CNN who are all somehow the chief correspondent for something.

[24:29] It's kind of like, you know, there's a sculpture in front of Columbia University's art, uh, sorry, a law library that is the largest of something, but it has so many qualifiers on it. It's like the largest semi-relief, semi-freestanding, attached law school. like one of those. So we'll figure out some title for you like that where it seems like you're in charge. Right, right. You've got a chief, like, country correspondent, chief, US correspondent, chief, US

[24:54] correspondent, it's all about, you know, trying to get some names. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what do you want to? what do you want to be? You want to be the chief national dump meal correspondent? You know, I'm just kind of taking it day by day here, just kind of not get yelled at. All right, all right. Well, listen, if I yell, remember, I've never met you. So if I yell at you, it can't be personal. Right exactly. Yeah, yeah. All right, so go ahead. So what was the meal? So the so the dump meal? So there were 3 actually this week that we tried out. Again, I didn't make them personally, but I had some kind of role. Um, we had a peach cobbler. Oh, peach cobbler, describe. How do you how the hell do you make a cobbler dump? What was the crunchy on top of the cobbler that was done in the in the crock pot? Yes, um, there, it was pretty. I was surprised at kind of the texture and that it was actually like crunchy. Oh, what was it? had a good element there. Well, what was it? Do you know what was in it? Sorry, I couldn't hear you on that one. What was in it? Like what were the ingredients? Like, what was the preparation? Um, so, again, I was working the late shift, so I didn't have great details on how it was made,

[26:04] uh, but I do know that there was some granola and I think peaches and a few other things.

[26:10] But peaches, when you say peaches, are we talking like peaches like off a tree? Are we talking peaches from a can? Are we talking peaches, the rock star? We're talking about peaches from a can, not from a tree, but they were actually pretty good. It was delicious actually. So canned peaches and granola for a 1000000000 hours in a crock pot is fundamentally what we're talking about? Here we go. Recipe called for one. 5 cup oats, two-third cup buttermilk baking mix. Buttermilk baking mix. What is buttermilk baking mix? He said, I used the one for waffles and pancakes. This quick. Teaspoon, cinnamon, teaspoon, nutmeg, one cup sugar, one cup light brown sugar, 8 medium, peaches, slice. Whoa. So an actual peach was killed for this? I used for because it was a mini crockpot. I left it in for 6 hours. It took some night cool and passed out. And never mind. I was actually told, I, you know, again, my correspondent gave me the details that it was actually real

[27:07] peaches. Yeah, yeah. Real peaches, yeah. Is there NyQuel in the dump meal? Is it like a is it like a nutcracker dump meal? Wow. In which case, you have visions of it being awesome. And you're passing out. So the oatmeal somehow crunched out on top. All right, what was the 2nd dump meal? By the way, what is your idea of delicious? Do you find McDonald's apple pies delicious? No, I don't. Okay, why? Tell me why. So I know where you're coming from. Why do you not find the delicious? There's a, I mean, I think there's a feeling of freshness in the cobbler that we made that isn't there in the McDonald's. He's being like a real CNN reporter. They're avoiding the question. Anastasia, 1st of all, takes exception to the Wii aspect of this. Secondly, like one of the fundamental problems of the McDonald's apple pie is it is weak in acidity and salt.

[28:02] At least, okay, I haven't had one in 20 years. But back the last time I had one. And I've had them both baked and fried because they did a switchover, right? And they're just not, they're not, you know, what is, what, in your opinion, what is the best easily gettable fake, mass-produced pie? Right. No, I mean, what is it? What's the what? Yeah, it's like, do you like hostess pies? don't. Okay, hostess pies are poor quality, but they taste good. See, I'm trying to like ferret you out here. Why do you not like hostess pies? Why do I not like them? Yeah, do you not like them in theory or do you actually think that they are a bad tasting item of food? Um, I think they're bad taste and, like, frankly, I think that people want things that feel fresh and feel like there's real sugar in

[28:49] it as opposed to artificial. What's artificial sugar? You mean corn syrup? Yeah. Don't get me started, JR. All right. All right, what's the next what's the next dump meal? What the next dump meal? The next one is mac and cheese. Oh my god. Okay. So how was mac and cheese that had been kept in a crockpot for 6 hours? It was actually quite good. Use some shell, Austin noodles. Um, and I don't know, like very good. Oh, it wasn't necessarily very, like, dewey, um, in the way that, like, Wait, so wait. So if it wasn't, in what way was it good if it wasn't, give me the recipe,

[29:31] Nastasia. I don't have that one. We have to get the actual recipe so I can insult the actual recipe bit by bit. I don't have any idea what JR's actual, like, yeah, no, what his like idea of a good mac and cheese is. JR, you're a, you're a, you're a Yale, yes? Yeah. Okay. I have had Yale University's macaroni dishes in the past and they're Roman rice and beans and all of those things. How did it compare to Yale Dining Hall? Um, I actually, this was... Wait, what? He fuzzed out there. He's got, he's just like a real correspondent when like, when the going gets tough, the, the, the feed gets dicey. right. Chat room is suggesting that JR is in the pocket of big dump meal. We're keeping it. We're keeping it accurate on the show, though. We're going for real. Alright. So wait, so wait, how are you there, JR? Okay, how was it compared to the Yale dining hall, macaroni? I said, I thought it was bar superior. Far superior. I would also tell you that personally, I'm not a very big fan of the dish general, but I really like this, and it was, even

[30:39] in like the heat of the summer, It was very good. It felt like very even light, I would say. Okay, but like, what was in it? Was it just like a mac and cheese or did it have chopped up tomatoes on top, for instance? Did it have a breadcrumb topping on top that was added after it came out of the dump extravaganza? Because that would add some sort of texture to an otherwise textureless overcooked pasta dish. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. What was the, uh, what was the, what was the cheese component? Do you know? Did you see what cheese went into it? I, um, but I, I, I, I, Velveeta, please. I know, I will. Please, Velveeta, Velveeta. By the way, Velveeta. I don't think we've talked about this on the show before, but Velveeta was built for queso. You like queso, right, Stas? Yeah. Yes, queso delicious. Rotel, tomatoes, Velveeta. Here's a secret, though. Velveeta is very expensive. So if you don't want to use all Velveeta, you can take Velveeta and supplement the rest of it

[31:39] with like other cheeses and use the excess emulsifiers that are in the Velveeta to pull everything back into the queso kind of

[31:47] a rum. All right, did you have another dump meal to describe to us today? have one last one. Yes, I have sticky rice pudding. Oh, that was actually, this is the one that was used from a new

[31:59] book that we received recently, and as opposed to all the others that you've heard about over the

[32:07] course past few weeks that were from one book. And this one was also good. It was kind of like a coconut sticky rice pudding. very flavorful. Um, and yeah, very positive readout. Literally all 3 were very, very good. Did it use Thai black, sticky rice, or did it use regular, short grain, glutinous white rice? We use it. What? Was it white or black? See, my sticky rice puddings, I like I like using the Thai black, sticky rice. It still has a hole on it because it, like, do you ever use that stuff, Styles? Remember, we used to cook with it occasionally. I love that stuff because it's glutenous rice on the inside, but not as sticky on the outside. It's got that beautiful color to it. That, well, look, honestly, if you're gonna crock pot something, like a sticky rice pudding, that's the one that I would go for of these three, right?

[33:00] That's the one that I would probably go for. But what we need is we don't have a list of the stuff. And so we know what went on top. The main problem we have here, JR, is that there needs to be a differentiation

[33:10] in texture in foods that you eat. Otherwise, this is the problem with nursing home food is that there's no freaking differentiation and texture. Everything is made so that it can be gummed by anyone because they don't actually respect the people they're feeding. That's a harsh generalization. But I'm saying that in many places that I have seen, there's a lack of in hospitals as well, a lack of respect for the eater. And what that typically means is I'm going to make life easy for myself, and I'm going to jam Pablum down your throat with no texture, right? And so the problem with the dump meal in general is the creation of alternate textures, same problem with

[33:42] anything. Same problem, low temperature cooking. Same problem with all this is that you need a variation in texture. So, like, my, one of the key questions here is if I'm going to write a dump meal book, right, all of the

[33:54] textural adjuncts are going to have to be thrown on after it comes out of its 6 hour hell steep inside of the little bucket of

[34:00] death. You know what I mean? Like, there's plenty of stuff that can chill for 6 hours that are relatively high temperature. It's just, but you need to somehow crunch it up. Like, what's one of the greatest things on earth? Duck confit. One of the greatest things on earth, right? Yeah, but who eats it right out of the thing without crisping up the skin? Enemies of quality do that. Evil people do that. You know what I mean? It's like, anyway. So, like, what we have to figure out is how the different textures were black. with the ingredients. not to be scared. Yeah, don't be scared. And listen, if you want to be the chief national dump meal correspondent, you got to get the recipes

[34:32] down, so you can insult them or whatever. I mean, I don't know whether you're taking like, we have people accusing you, JR, being in the pocket of Big Dump. Hey, I mean, I guess I should have disclosed my interest before I came on weird. Yeah, definitely. All right. Well, listen, we appreciate it. And we'll get those recipes and we'll report back to people maybe next week. Thank you. Thanks a lot. All right. Thanks for having me on. Have a good rest of the show. Cool, thanks, bye. Okay. By the way, remember Russ, who is 23 wrote in about espresso a while ago. I feel like we didn't fully answer this question. We did? All right, Russ, if you need more information on how to go cheap on espresso. I'll say this one thing in case I forgot to say it before. The issue is, is that because he was interested in using that ROK, which is the pressure thing. in it. All right, look, I'll just say this. Again, there is some thing cool about taking the incredibly hard route to make a single cup of coffee when you're 23.

[35:35] The problem is, and I say the same thing. It's about people who are doing, like, back when everyone was writing about doing, um, low temperature cooking, by using coolers, giant, like, uh, insulated

[35:47] coolers, and, you know, can you cook a steak using a 5 gallon cooler and, you know, heated tap water by calculating

[35:54] that all the, the final temperature and your temperature drop and the, and the strike temperature of the water? Sure. Let me ask you this. Would you do this on a regular basis? Answer, no, right? Because when do you actually need coffee, Russ? Like, you need coffee in the morning when you are not a human being? When you wake up and your eyelids are glued shut because

[36:14] you're like kind of sick and you had all those things, you were working on the night before, you're tired is all, heck, you can barely get up to go to the bathroom and take a shower.

[36:22] And at that moment in your life, it's when you really want a nice good cup of coffee. And if you have to go jump through 18 flaming hoops at that point in your life to get that cup of coffee, you're just never

[36:36] going to have that cup of coffee. That's all, right? What do you think, Stas? don't care. About coffee? really don't care. About what? About coffee, about making coffee. I just don't care. Nastasia buys her coffee on the street. No, I just make it into Mr. Coffee. Why do you not care about coffee? I just don't care at all. Why? I don't know. Why? Because I put milk and sugar in it. So you're saying that people who put milk and sugar in their coffee shouldn't care? I just really don't Why? I just don't hear coffee to me is coffee. What's interesting, what's interesting to me is that you're like obstinately don't care. It's not like, well, because it's only because you care so much that

[37:15] I I'm letting you know I do not care. Because I care, you don't. So if I didn't care, you would care. That's what you just said. That's what you just said. But I'm letting you know, because you can't, that does not get through your head. I do not care about coffee. All these years, 8 years. I don't care about coffee. Before I met you, didn't care about coffee. Do not care about coffee. How do you consume something every day and not care? How do you like every day consume something? I like care. what I brew and that's it. Well, but you said you like it. doesn't mean you don't care. Well, no, it's my point is... Well, you should share a ton, and I'm saying, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, she doesn't even listen to what I freaking say. What I'm saying is make your life easy because in the morning, when you actually need a cup of coffee, you don't want to have to jump through a bunch of hoops. You literally didn't listen to anything I said. You didn't listen to one word that I said. I said that when you're 23, you were willing to go through a bunch of steps to do something, but taken

[38:12] mind, the fact that you need to do it a lot and you don't necessarily want to jump through those hoops all the time. You're telling him to perfect it. That's not what I said at all. That's not what I said. I said you can do that as an interesting exercise, but it's not something you necessarily want to do

[38:25] every day. Didn't listen to anything. People does not listen to a thing I say. Did not even get the gist of what I was saying. I do. You did not even get them. I didn't know what you were saying. How do you not get the gist of what I was saying? You start talking about coffee and I'm done. See, that's what I'm saying don't even care about what I'm saying. I could be saying, don't drink coffee. I can be saying... You know what you should do? That doesn't matter what you say about it. Just buy no do. Just buy no dose, crush it up and put in Kool-Aid and drink in the morning, caffeine pills. Just get something to make you poop in the morning. buy you a mixture of X-Lax and no-dos. grind it up and put it into milk and have you drink it. Coffee. Like when I stayed at your house, I had to bring my own Mr. coffee. Do you care enough to bring your own freaking coffee machine? No, but I'm saying you're just a liar. You can't only be confident. all you care about. You care a lot. She care people, she doesn't care about popping. I have an automated machine. since, like, I have an automated machine. She cares enough about coffee to bring her own coffee machine. If she really didn't care, she would just turn on my machine and take whatever came out of it. I don't how to use it. You had that like drill on the top of your bean thing. No. No, 1st of all, then you could just bring coffee and throw coffee into the machine. You don't care what it's like. You don't care if it's pee water. You don't carry a machine. No, no. keep on making up new things to go along. You said to me, I'm not touching your machine because I don't want it. No, no, no, no, no. That's garbage. You are just obstinate. I'm not. You want me to care about coffee? No, okay, people. anyone in the chat room happens to be there right now. Does someone who does not care about coffee bring a coffee machine to somebody's house 3 hours away that they had to unplug and take off

[40:03] their counter, bring special coffee to use because I don't have that kind of ground? Yes, you did. special meaning any. I had coffee in my house. So the she goes, stay out of my house, brings her coffee machine and brings her coffee. I submit to you. Does this sound like a person who does not care about coffee, especially because you could drive

[40:21] 5 minutes and buy other coffee. No, no, no. Or does this mean someone who just obstinately, like my racist dead grandpa,

[40:29] obstinately only enjoys having garbage to shove it in other people's face and say, see, I like

[40:35] garbage? That I submit to you is what is actually happening. No, I'm not saying I like garbage. Yes, you are. I'm saying I like garbage. You are saying that I will drink water. No, that's not. Someone who doesn't want to spend time wouldn't have thought to pack a coffee machine. Because everybody needs coffee, right? doesn't everybody need coffee? No? No. No? In the morning? No, like I say, I mean, I'm going to buy you X-Lax. No, no. And grind it up, it'll have you go to the bathroom the same way and it'll wake you up the same way. Chat room is a fan of Mr. Coffee, by the way. Thank you, chat room. Yeah, but I'm not, I don't, I've never shown anything negative about Mr. Coffee. Like, I mean, if you're gonna do that, like, you probably get a techniform. I don't know if they still sew those, but I'm not a saying that there's anything wrong with that kind of coffee. Nastasia is saying there's something bad about that kind of coffee because she doesn't care about it. And so because she hasn't cared about it. told me that you think it's crap. I never said that. I said, the coffee that you buy every day in the morning. No. Nastasia goes to a street corner. I don't anymore. That's what we were talking about. Okay. That, when I was telling you, you like crap. That to me tastes like Mr. Coffee stuff tastes like the street coffee. Tastes like the stuff I grew up with. Nastasia used to say that the apogee of coffee production was to go to a quilted metal box on the side of the street with

[41:58] plexiglass and get coffee that had been brewed at 3 a.m. With beans that God knows how old they are, like makes chock full of nuts look like the greatest coffee on earth, was kept in a swill bucket that entire time, right?

[42:15] And then served her at some point later in a Styrofoam

[42:18] cup that she then ate, drank 20 minutes after that. That, she didn't just say that that was acceptable to her, which would have been one thing. She said, that's my favorite coffee. The apogee of all coffees. The apogee of all coffees, people. I never said that. Uh okay. You said that's your favorite. Anyway. Okay. Uh, do we get any, uh, David from the chat room on whether anyone's tested

[42:46] vacuum, uh, tumbling or uh, pressure infusion? I'm not sure. Let me check. Yeah, because remember, we're going to try to do something with Greg Blonder from genuine ideas on that. My gracious. Did we did we handle the bitter orange question? Just got an email from Ken Inber, who said fantastic fight. The I don't care about coffee even fight is fantastic. You are taking the husband part and Dave is taking the wife part in a high energy, pointless bicker. First of all, what makes the what makes one wife and one husband? What's the difference? I don't know. Chat room did say this is the Godwin's law of cooking issues. What's Godwin's? I know what that means. That is the adage that any discussion on the internet eventually devolves into somebody making a comparison to Hitler or Nazism. So wait, which one's Hitler or Nazism? No, you made a, you made a racist. Oh, my grandpa was racist and is actually dead. No, not that specifically, but just the idea that, like, a discussion will eventually devolve into that. Yeah. Well, that's like, you know, I don't know about Godwin, but it is 100% true that high school debate, everything there ends up with nuclear war or

[43:59] fascism, like Hitler, everything, everything. Anyway, do we answer the bitter orange question already or no? Last week? No. Okay. This is from Matt Hall. I recently prepared some Cuban style pork shoulder marinated in a mojo sauce. I initially cooked sous vide and finished off on the grill. I live in Rochester, New York. Our local Wegmans grocery stores are great, but they're not bitter orange is great. The usual recommendation for simulating bitter oranges is a mix of sweet orange and lime. I decided to research the actual composition of bitter oranges, uh, and sure enough, uh, citric acid and malic acid are the primary constituents, but I also found references to fumaric acid.

[44:37] The below article is once as example, blah, blah, blah. Further research shows that fumaric acid is a well-known assigilant for foods. My question, do you have any experience to comment on whether fumeric acid provides a unique contribution to the flavor profile? Spectrum Chemical supplies food rate for Mark acid, and so I'm ready to give this a shot one way or the other. Thanks. Um, and so the answer, short answer is no. I also know that it is used as an acidulant in foods, but I never bothered sourcing it, um, because I was talking to some professional, um, food formulators, and I talked to them about it, and they

[45:12] said it's mainly there to adjust, uh, pH, to be to be an acidifier without having that much flavor impact.

[45:20] So it's actually more, it's less of a flavor impact to sigilant and more of just a, um, like something to adjust a

[45:29] pH down. I don't know if that's true or not, but I remember that they, they, someone said that to me and it stuck in my head. And once that's stuck in my head, like kind of the fire inside of me to go get it kind of fizzled out. Um, also, you know, I try, I try to, you know, when I recommend things, recommend things that are easier to get than stuff that you get on spectrum

[45:55] chemical, because their prices are really high. The exception is quinine, just because quinine's a unique kind of a thing that you

[46:03] need and the results you get using quinine sulfate are so different from the results you get using

[46:09] cinchona bark. But I get your point. If anyone out there in Chatland or of can tweet me that they've used fumaric acid and whether it tastes substantially different,

[46:21] I'd appreciate it. I mean, obviously, you know, the major acids we use are all different lactic, uh,

[46:27] malic, citric, tartaric, uh, and uh, phosphoric, phosphoric being the most different and one that Nastasia does not enjoy. But do you like cola? But you don't, you never liked anyone's, like, any, everyone who's tried to make a drink with phosphoric acid in the bar you've hated, right? I think so. Is it just because they think they overuse it? Yeah. I can taste it pretty... You also don't like, if you know there's bicarb in it, you don't like bicarb, like all those adjusted waters with bicarb you don't like, right? David got to wrap up in a minute. Oh man. Yeah. All right. Wasted on a fight. Wasted on a fight. All right, well, let me, oh my god, we have so much else to talk about. Like plums and bitterness. But anyway, I guess we'll have to get back to it next week. Cooking issues.

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