[0:00] This episode is brought to you by Jule, the emergent circulator for Sous vide by Chef Steps. Order now at chefsteps.com slash J-O-U-L-E. You're listening to Heritage radio network. We're a member supported food radio network, broadcasting over 35 weekly shows live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. Join our hosts as they lead you through the world of craft brewing, behind the scenes of the restaurant industry, inside the

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[0:39] Hello and welcome to Cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting every week from roughly 12 to roughly 1245 at Roberta Pizza Wee

[0:50] in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Joined as usual. with Nastasia, the Hammer Lopez, who's back from her birthday slash vacation in Rome, Italy.

[0:59] How was it? Good. I gotta go back next week. Next week? To Rome. to Milan. Why? Separate reason. For business? Yeah. Business? Milano? Just for 2 days. Okay, so do you already have the itinerary of who you're dealing with? Okay, my theory, I've told you this, is that, like, is that 3 out of 4 men in Milan's name is

[1:19] Luca. Oh. Oh yeah, no. I'm not dealing with anything. Not dealing no Lucas? I don't have an itiner. Yeah, no, all right. And we got Dave and Abooth. How you doing, Dave? Good. I love Milanos. Oh, those cookies? Here's my theory on Milanos, right? Milano's. The original Milano is like a gift from God. The Mint Milano, not as much. And then they have all these other flavors. could be off first. What? How do you do that? Did he break them away? No, I take I, like, scrape the cookie off both sides. That is straight up gross. You would eat, like a, like a free game? Not in front of anybody. That must be really difficult. It is. It's like a bunny rabbit. She's sitting there like gnawing on that, speaking of it. Or I try to like, you know? Yeah, and I say, well, she's doing a little, the teeth bite thing. trying to strip it to chocolate covered crumbs, I guess. Yeah, really. Nice. So speaking of how was your airline flight? Been a banner week in airline travel. Yeah, did you see all the awesome airline stuff that happened this week? No, I heard something on the radio this way. Well, recently there was a huge fist fight that broke out on

[2:20] a, on a plane on an expensive, probably ANA flight back from Tokyo to LA, like a fist fight, like before they took

[2:26] off. Of course, it was 2 American dudes, like, like, one guy ripped the other guy's Hawaiian shirt, like, basically half off of his body, and, like, were like, what? What? He tried to choke out a flight attendant. There was a guy we heard about that, remember? Well, a friend. A friend of our? Oh, wait, who was it? Not really a friend, but like a friend of a friend. But then my favorite story that more relates to cooking issues is have you heard of Simon the Bunny? This happened. I think during the last week. So United Airlines, you know, in battled airline than it is. This story took me so by surprise, killed, all right? killed and then would not return the body of Simon the giant bunny. Now, you're like, what? Like, when this new store came up, this one flew under the radar, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so Simon the giant bunny was now is dead, but was already over 3 feet long. Okay? Like 3.5 foot long rabbit. Yeah, yeah. Nastasi is making the 3.5 foot rabbit arms. Huge. was still growing and was slated to be the world's record, largest bunny. Like, they calculated they, they, the guess was it was going to come in over four, maybe 4.5 feet to be the world's largest rabbits, bred by this lunatic woman, ex-playboy

[3:41] model, and this story just gets crazier and crazier. ex-playboy model. with every detail. Yeah, in England, right, takes Simon the Giant Bunny sells it to some extremely rich rabbit fancier here in the United States, right?

[3:55] Gets on an airplane, flies all the way from London Heathrow to Chicago O'Hare

[4:01] airport. Here's where it gets weird. O'Hare. Oh, boom! I did even get that, nostasia. on fire. Oh, wow. On fire, Nastasia. Wow. So that's a daily newser. Yeah right there. O'Hare, boom. So it makes it all the way over there, right? And then all of a sudden, they're like, no rabbit. And then she's like, where's Simon? They're like, uh, it's dead. And they're like, what the hell happened? It died on the plane. What? It had just gotten a veterinary exam like 3 hours before it had flown because it's an expensive giant bunny. They want to make sure this sucker could fly. You can't put a price tag on that. You can't, well, apparently somebody did. Some rich buyer bought it. Anyway, but here's the thing. So turns out, like, they don't return the body. They don't return the body. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, it doesn't get a seat. It should just get a seat. Just buckle in. Doesn't, they don't give back the body. They're like, oh, we cremated it. Oh, my. Yeah, it's don't tell us. So finally, the story comes out. It made it to Chicago Hare alive, gets off, and some knucklehead puts the crate in a freezer, and just kills it, just freezes this freaking giant rabbit to death.

[5:10] Simon the bunny just freezes him to death. How the heck does that happen? You know what I mean? How does that happen? Like, he's like, hey, hey, for Christ's sakes, Tommy, is that box moving? Tommy. Tommy, is that box moving? Put in the freezer. Put it in the freezer. slow it down. And you know, the thing is, is like, what the heck happened? They didn't return the body. If it was me, here's what I think. I think that Tommy and the other guy whose name, I don't know, I'm making it all up. Yeah, Chicagoan name. Chuck. Chuck. Yeah. So Chuck and Tommy, I think they ate this freaking giant rabbit because they're thinking, when am I going to get a chance? They're both fans of rabbit. They like rabbit to eat. And they're like, when am I going to get such a giant freaking rabbit? I'm kind of curious what it tasted like, but I think that like cremate is some sort of like, yeah, some sort of, what's the word I'm looking for? euphemism for eating it. What do you think, Stas? Tommy. Put it in the freezer. somebody ate that thing. Yeah, somebody ate that. mean, I have to be honest. I'm kind of curious. You know, a 3 foot rabbit can't move that much, right? It's got to be pretty tender. I mean, how much, there are pictures on the web of this lady with her other giant rabbits. So... Sucks sucks to be her giant rat itself. Oh, speaking of cooking and eating things that I enjoy very much, this week, I had my 1st of the year, even though I think it's late in the season, Shad. You ever have the shad ever get you shad? Not Shad Bro. Everyone here is like, oh, shed, road shed, road. I like Shadow. Love the shed. Yeah, Shad, Shad, the fish. Yeah. It's freaking. my. There's a whole festival devoted to it in Philly. Really? Yeah, Shadfest. And you do go eat them? We've talked about this every year we talk about it. It's a it's an almost lost art boning out shad. It's got an extra set of why bones that go into the meat, and so it takes like a fishboning ninja who can like do it, and they bone it out, and then they reassemble the

[7:01] fillet, so it looks whole, but if you lift it up, it falls apart like a piece of lace work. You know what I'm talking about, Dave? Anyway. And you like the meat too, right? It's like a giant herring. It's so delicious. I love it, yeah. I bought a boatload of. I bought a boatload of this stuff in Connecticut and had them where I buy shad. There's like one lady left who knows how to bone these things. And so like, you know, once she's gone, like the shad's gone, as far as I'm concerned, no one wants to eat the bones. You know what I mean? Anyways. So, uh, where was I going with this? Cooked 8 tons of shad on the cowboy grill, but here's the problem,

[7:35] Stas. I went to, you know, I'm doing it. I do it my super high heat multi, multi-step tandor style, like I always do now, which I have something that you'll enjoy later that I can't say on the

[7:43] air. It's not safe for not safe for public consumption. But, uh, family show. Really? So this is my review of the Pit Mitt grill glove. Watch the hell out, right? So, like, I've been using this grill mitt, which I bought so I could work on the tandor and grill. And so I had my all the shad. I had it in those, you know, those like, um, they're almost like clamshell grill holders that are meant so you can just like put a bunch of stuff so it doesn't, you don't have to put a spatula underneath it because that's the only way to move fish off and on multiple

[8:15] times because you don't want it to break apart. So I have it like in the in the thing. And I put it off, on, off, on, but like, damned if that glove didn't have a giant, like, it just, like, burned through on the side, went right into my thumb. was like, wow. I also got the freeze dryer working. I got the freeze dryer working, freeze dried a lot. Yeah, freeze dried out. Oh, here's another thing. You're gonna like this one, Nastasia, about shad. So shad's an oily fish, right? Like herring, right? And, uh, they can hear you talking. So, Nastasia, whispering on the air, people can still hear her. Anyway, the, um, So I had to, you know, bluefish, right? You like bluefish? Dave, you bluefish fan as well? Yeah sure. Yeah. So when I was a kid, right? In the 80s, no one ate bluefish. You just didn't eat bluefish, right? everyone liked the fish for bluefish because bluefish is a real, you know, it's a tough

[9:01] fight. It goes close to the shore, so it's good. It's also good fish from boats. It's real tough fight. Sharp teeth, mean suckers. Like if a bluefish run is going up the, up the shore, and like you wade out into it, it'll take like a hunk out of your, out of your ankle. You know what I mean? they're they're but they're delicious. So everyone fish for them forever, but no one ate them. And so this is the cooking tip that I've never actually tested, but to this day,

[9:24] like, like 30 years later, I still do. When I was like 12 or 13, we were in Cape Cod and this guy was like, hey, you want some free, you want some free fish?

[9:35] And they were like, what? So he caught all these bluefish, and he basically filled the trunk of our car with bluefish. He's like, I'm going to tell you a secret. He's like put mayonnaise on it before you grill it. And then this is what he said. These words, which ring in my ears, 30 something years later, grease gets out grease. And that's all he says. Wow. And so like whenever I grill like an oily fish, I coat the sucker with

[9:58] mayonnaise. salt, pepper mayonnaise. It's just like, I don't even know how to do it otherwise. It's like, it's like when you're a kid and someone says to you, kid. Bluefish has to be real fresh or it smells bad. So that works? Grease gets out grease. don't know. Who knows? I mean, I like my bluefish the way I cook it. You know what I mean? That would be the last thing I would reach for when cooking fish. Mayonnaise? Yeah, I kind of hate mayo. What the what? You're from what? You're from the snack food, like, capital of the of the East? You're from Philadelphia? Yeah, so what? I mean, you have to like mayonnaise if you're from Philadelphia, don't you? I don't think so. Mayo is revolting. You know what? You're getting ready to, you're gonna, you might... Bring it on, chat room. You might jump in here and punch me in the head. I put mayonnaise on cheeseburgers. I mean, not cheeseburgers. I put them on cheeseburgers and cheese steaks. I put mayonnaise on a cheesesteak. Ugh. I like I like... Well, I don't know. You know, grease could sell grease. You know what I'm saying? Grease could sell grease. You know another thing about me? I agree with that, logic. Another thing about mayonnaise is, it doesn't actually go bad. You know, my grandma used to, it's like a sandwich with mayonnaise on it was out of the fridge for more than like 2.2 seconds. She'd be like, um, um, oh. And she throw it away. What, because of the vinegar? Why is it? It's so much oil. There's so little water in it. Then, like, you know, the stuff doesn't, this is why if you go to New Orleans, which I think we talked about this on the

[11:19] show. If you go to New Orleans, and you, uh, and, you know, you, their mayonnaise is just out. You know what I mean? And it's 8000000000 degrees there. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. cultural thing. I'm going to do my pre-roll ad right now. What do you think, Dave? Oh, I would love. Today's program is brought to you by Modernist Pantry, providing magical ingredients for the modern cook, for free videos, recipes, tips and tricks. visit blog.modernestpantry.com. All right, do we have any callers or should I crank some questions? Yeah, crank some questions. behind on that, right? We are totally behind it. Now that Nastasia has left the room momentarily. She's momentarily left the room. She'll be. Darren writes in, I'm a student with free access to scientific and technical literature. That's good, good kudos to you. What have you learned in terms of finding reputable information quickly? Authors are increasingly under pressure to publish and are sometimes funded by institutions with specific commercial

[12:13] interests? Furthermore, conclusions and abstracts are sometimes worded misleadingly, making scan reading rather difficult. Uh, yeah, so I mean, it depends on what you're trying to do. I don't trust almost any health related news that I get in the scientific

[12:29] literature. And you can usually look for those things for, um, you know, the letters that are written to kind of attack them right away. Like, especially if they're going to make a, like a particularly outlandish claim, there'll be, um, letters in, in, in the actual issue where the stuff comes out that you can kind

[12:46] of, uh, look at. But when it comes to, and the other thing I do, when I'm looking something up, is I print, I, you know, I do a search and I'll, I'll PDF

[12:55] out like 100s and 100s of documents, and then, uh, in general, uh, yeah, the abstract is only gives you a general idea of what you're doing.

[13:04] And then I usually hit the methods real quick to see what's going

[13:09] on, and then I skip almost everything, go to the discussions,

[13:13] conclusions, and then if it warrants it, go back and see whether I agree with how it got there.

[13:18] But for actual cooking ideas and techniques, Um, you know, it's, it's a lot, I think, easier to scan because you can get a really, you know, quick idea

[13:29] whether uh, something, for instance, if they're like 15, a lot of times they'll be like, oh, I bought 15 lamb to do this

[13:37] experiment and it's sponsored by someone who grows lamb, you're like, okay, they're just focused on on

[13:42] lamb. Sometimes you can see the articles are really, really interesting. Another way you can do it is you can go to like review articles on things like meat texture, friendships, with something I've done recently. Go to the review articles and then instead of trying to go forward, burrow backwards, if you find a recent review, you can burrow backwards into the articles that they

[14:00] cite. And so usually if you read a good review article by a good person, sometimes they just do like a poop spray of citations, but sometimes they give a nice kind of focus

[14:09] citations or in the body of the paper, they'll reference what they're talking about. And so you'll hit the links on those, go back and get those papers. And then furthermore, you can see kind of who cited the review and you can go forward a little bit that way, find something you trust and then kind of work backwards. But yeah, it's hit or miss and it takes a long time to research anything. I have like, a couple 1000 pages of stuff on meat texture, maybe 50 of those pages are useful, um, and so it just takes like a lot of sifting through a bunch of garbage, you know, unfortunately.

[14:39] And 2nd question is, what do you think of the big green egg barbecue? I can't afford one yet, but I'm putting intrigued by the design and they seem to be all over the place. Yeah, I'm not like a, you know, I have a Nastasia and Mark's big green egg up at, you know, my place in Connecticut, but I don't use it that much because, um,

[14:56] I'm not much of the stored. I'm not doing a stored heat kind of cooking binge right now. you know, a steady, even kind of thing. I'm more into the, uh, either very low, like low temperature stuff or kind of jet engine screaming, uh, radiant heat and or actual exposed fire.

[15:15] Like, you should see, I have a picture of the shad I might put up, Nastasia, where it's like, like,

[15:19] literally like fire is licking up around it so high because of all the grease getting out the grease that it's like, you know, threatening to

[15:25] light, light me and my cocktail on fire, which is good. Yeah, cocktail. was hoping it was something else. Oh, family show, Nastasia, family show. Jesse wrote in. What can I do to make salsa have a nice consistency besides just pureeing it more in a vitamix? Now, 1st of all, it's a very specific kind of salsa that you want to be that, you know, that pureed out on, right? I mean, stuff. So what do you think of salsa? What are you thinking? Like you're from Los Angeles. What's your, if you just, if someone just says to you salsa, what do you think? Chunky, like chunky, like pico de gallo kind of stuff? Anyway, this is not that. So roasting tomatoes and tomatillos create a nice, smooth, emotion-like consistency. What do you think of the word emulsion? Right. Fine. okay. Was wondering if you had any recommendations? I pureed serranos, onions, poblanos, and pineapple, and it came out like little small granules of fruit and wanted to have a sexier texture without adding another flavor. My question is, is the pineapple roasted? Um, and I, you know, the thing is, if you got a good texture with

[16:22] tomatillos, which tomatillo skins break pretty easily, but tomatoes, depending on which tomato you're using, has, you know, a skin. I'm wondering whether the texture is from the pineapple primarily or from the skins on the peppers, if they were tougher than the ones you were using before. In either case, if you really want to, uh, you know, I would take, like, not all of it, I would take some of it, like the pineapple, hit it with, like, an

[16:45] enzyme, like SPL, blend the hell out of it, let it, like, kill itself down like

[16:50] that. Then you don't want to use it straight like that because it'll settle out. It'll self-clarify. Uh, then uh, heat it to kill off the, um, and by the way, if you didn't cook the pineapple, like that's also going to lead to a grainier texture. So cooking the pineapple is going to help cook it off. Then, uh, then blend it, maybe it's smoother. But let me know. I am not exactly sure what you're trying to go for here. So, you know, give me some more information. Uh, Sandeep wrote about, uh, ICE, uh, says, I've been fascinated with the innovations. Oh, my phone decided to mess with me. I've been fascinated by the innovations made by tinkering with ice. It's significance as a key ingredient is largely has largely been ignored until recently. Indeed, high-end bars tend to concentrate on developing in-house ice program, as is common in the US. So this is a non-US question, I would guess. Or sources, their crystal clear ice products from special providers, has certainly helped bring ice to the forefront, enhancing both flavor and visual appeal. I was interested to read about your experiences and ice preparation at bars, uh, across Chicago, such as defamed aviary. Now, listen, when I went to aviary, I saw their ice stuff. I mean, obviously I wasn't involved. I've never like lifted a finger other than to drink a drink at aviary, but yes, I saw some of their ice production stuff. I'm trying to understand the types of technology and gadgets that are often used in such bars to constantly create innovative and functional products that complement one's drink. I'd appreciate it if you could provide me with some advice and methods to take advantage of artisanal license cocktails. Well, 1st of all, at Booker Index, we, you know, we used, um, 3 basic kinds of ice. We used what I call crappy ice and the crappy ice we would use for stirring, the crappy ice we would use to icings down,

[18:30] uh, and, uh, you know, general, you know, dilution related stuff, uh, like that. We use something called shake ice, which is a 2 inch, basically a 2 inch, but not very high quality. In other words, just frozen in the freezer or cloudy, 2 inch or 2 inch inch ice cubes for shaking. We call that shake ice. And we'd use that for the texture, right? Because it adds texture, but you add that one +one or 2 small crappy ice cubes, almost almost cursed. You hear that stuff? Almost cursed. Uh, one or 2 uh, crappy cubes in it to get the dilution down. And then we used cut ice. And so for cut ice, we would buy sheets and then slice those sheets. So you can buy fully cut ice cubes that are perfect squares. I don't think there is nice as the ones that have like 2 machine cut sides, but then you cut the last 4 sides with a

[19:18] knife and it gives it a little bit of a regularity. And I think it looks nicer. What do you think, Stud? I mean, I've never actually asked you. What do you think? Which one do you like to look at better? I like the precut ones. You like the look of them or you like dealing with them? I guess I can separate it. What about when the precut ones come and they don't fit in the glasses and you have to cut them all down, which is 100% of the

[19:37] time. Yeah, I hate them. I don't like the way they look and I like the way they look. I much prefer the ones that are partially hand cut. But yeah, for you, someone like you, it is hard to distinguish between what you think is easier. Although, what's weird is I don't understand why you would think it's easier or harder sense than number of times I've made you cut ice in an event is, let me see,

[19:57] zero. No, I have cut down the pre-cut one. Yes. I've never cut. Right. So, like, since you hate doing the ladder. You should probably order the other one because I'm never gonna... Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, whatever. Now, at the aviary, they do other stuff like they'll fill a balloon with water. They'll buy something called a, they'll buy something called a, a chiller, like a, you know, a circulating chiller. Polyscience is. I think the one they use, that's the one I had that circulates either alcohol or glycol or something like this at a very low temperature, and then they'll fill a balloon with water, and then they'll spin the

[20:32] balloon, and then, you know, Moto used to do a similar thing with other things. They'll spin the balloon in the in the stuff and freeze a layer of water on the inside of the balloon, rip the balloon off, poke a hole, drain the water out of it, freeze it

[20:46] solid, and then they can fill it with a drink and cap it off. So that's the kind of stuff. That's like a presentation ice trick. I never did that stuff. Um, because that's not my style, but that's like, you know, something something you can do. Other people, they buy, they like spherical ice. I am not a fan of spherical ice. Like spherical ice is not my friend. Like, I'll tell you why. When you, um, But anyway, you can buy these spherical ice molds that you take a large cube and then you melt it down using the fact that aluminum like tends to melt things very quickly and you melt them into spheres.

[21:18] Uh, and I don't know if anyone ever built it, but you're supposed to build like a little, uh, it'd be easy to build like a circulating water through the aluminum block to keep it

[21:26] warm such that you could do fast throughput. Here's why I don't like, like, if you had a drink and it sat there and it kept spinning the

[21:34] ball, so it looked like one of those, like, sculpture things that you see in Chinatown or found. you like those things to us, the rock ball things? You know what I'm saying? It's like a rock ball on a thing and a water goes through, hate those. What about waving cat? You don't like the waving cat? What about the intertwined bamboo? No. Do you have nothing nice to say about Chinatown Chotchkes? Do not like trotch. Speaking of Shotkis, you know, who passed is Joni. Oh, yeah. Joni Cunningham. I can never make my my show idea that I had for years, which, you know, it's... Joni loves Chotchis. He's going out flea marketing. I mean, that was my show idea. I mean I never met her. Now it's too late, but wouldn't that, Dave? have been a great show? I mean, it would have made it for like one good episode, maybe. No more. So many. I would watch that. I would watch that. No, I could see that actually on like HDTV or something. Yes, Jo loves Jochke's. Yeah. And like, you know, that puts my my punning skills at their, you know, highest use. I have another one that's a really good business idea. I'm probably never going to do it. If anyone does this idea out there. You owe Dax like several million dollars. You ready for it, Nastasia? think I've heard it. What is it? I don't know, just... All right. So you make you make peeps, marshmallow peeps. I told you this one? I'm already losing interest. Chocolate marshmallows, right? In the shape of poop emojis, with the

[22:58] chocolate with brown, with granulated brown sugar on the outside, marshmallow poops, and you sell them in the

[23:04] thing, 1000000s of dollars. 1000000s of dollars I think you're right, actually. Marshmallow would be a hit. Marshmallow poops. I want anyone make the check payable to Dax Arnold. I'll give you the address and like that poop is a trademark. No, but well, the emoji is not a trademark. You can do whatever you want with the emoji. And secondly, I believe that you wouldn't have to pay the, I swear to God, this is the name of the corporation, the just born corporation. You would not have to pay the just born corporation in my non-accurate legal mind, right? My my non-trained, non-lawyer legal mind, because it is satire. And as such, would not actually be infringing on their copyright, because it is satire, in the way that garbage

[23:46] pail kids, baseball cards, when I was a kid, weren't infringing on products like scope and everything. I think you're wading into a gray area of the pool. Hey, I hope it's a brown area of the pool with some sweet marshmallow poops. Ooh, ooh. Um, anyways, how did we get to where were we? What were we talking about? Ice? we take a break and come back? Yeah, let's do that. All right, read back, clicking issues. You have to read that.

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[25:14] For more information and to order yours now, visit chefsteps.com slash J-O-U-L-E. Oh, yeah, you guys, you guys miss it. I was doing my not safe for radio stuff. It was very good. All right, some more doing some more business here, more business. Mid-roll ad. That's what these are called people. Mid-roll ad. Modernist pantry is created by food lovers and cooking issues fans just like you.

[25:41] Janie, Chris and the Modernist Pantry family share your passion for experimentation and have everything you need to make culinary magic happen in your own kitchen.

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[26:01] gathering and more time creating memorable dishes and culinary experiences. Visit monitorspantry.com today to discover why cooking issues listeners call modernist pantry the cook's secret weapon. Be sure to, I'm breathing a heavy man, because it's, you know, these are long things, and if they want the projection stuff out, I got to be like, I need to learn how to circular breathe. I can circular whistle. Can you circular whistle? You gotta go. Like blowing out, sucking in. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, be sure to check out their new kitchen alchemy blog at blog.modernistpantry.com for free recipes,

[26:35] tips, and tricks, and don't forget to follow modernist pantry on social media to keep up with what's new and exciting in the world of culinary ingredients and

[26:42] tools. And yes, that is what they call it, Anastasia. culinary tools. They're our friends. They are our friends. They're selling the spins all. They're gonna make an enzyme kit. They're making, ah, hear that, people? Enzyme kit. Enzyme kit. Enzyme kit. Spins all an enzyme, kid. Okay, Nick wrote in. Uh, this is a long, it says last week's episode, but that was like, I feel like it was like last year when

[27:04] they uh, when we did this. Last week's episode got me thinking about slushy machines, specifically the type that makes frozen beer foam. Kieran Ichiban makes a machine as well as a South Korean company called Ice Trow. I'd like to buy one of these, but as you'd expect, there's very little info available online, and I can't find them for purchase anywhere. Will a standard slushy machine work as an alternative? No. No, no, no. Or these specialized machines doing something differently. Yes. I don't want to risk breaking a standard machine. You will, as the sugar alcohol content of the beer is not high enough to prevent it from freezing solid, thanks and keep up the good work,

[27:38] Nick. Okay, so I'll tell you a little story. It not about a slushy machine. Margaritaville, Michigan. No, it's about, uh, it's about a tailor software ice cream machine. So ice cream, ice cream, savant, uh, um, Sam Mason came to the French Culinary Institute, you know, like well over a decade ago. This is when he was still at WD 50. And he's like, hey, Dave, I want a carbonate ice cream. I'm like, hey, Sam, I don't know, but you know what? Um, we have an ice cream machine here and uh, you know, I mean, let's try it. And so like, I like, take the ice cream machine. I try to seal it up as best as I can. I shove a, uh, I shove a, you know, a CO2 line into

[28:21] it and we try to carbonate the ice cream mix as it's going. And that sucker, like, I blew the gasket off and, like, ice cream base went all over the pastry kitchen. This was on the 2nd floor pastry kitchen that they turned into the family kitchen. Remember that place? ice cream base everywhere. And then the pastry, the pastry chefs never let me, they never let me live it down. It's like, well, how are you going to learn unless you fail? You know what I mean? How are you gonna learn unless you fail? So the answer is no. You need a special machine that can hold the pressure. Now, here's another thing. To keep in mind. when people want to carbonate things that are slushy, you cannot carbonate ice. Let me repeat this again. You cannot carbonate ice, right? What happens is, is you use in a slushy, you have a good chunk of the water is still unfrozen. Somewhere like north of 50% of the stuff is still unfrozen. It just has crystals in it. And when it's that cold, right? You can get like a hypercarbonation feeling just because the liquid that's there is very highly charged with CO2. But remember that you can't set your machine to freeze it even close to

[29:30] solid. So close to like, I would guess what, like a, you know, I don't really know the water percentage versus ice percentage on a commercial slushy. I don't really know. Do you know Stas? No I do not. Anyway, in one of these machines, it's like 10 to 50%, but it's all done under

[29:44] pressure and so you cannot do it with a regular selecting machine. Someone tell me that they've done it. Tell me how to do it, and I'd be happy. The easiest way to approximate it is just to do the old

[29:53] school, like, uh, you know, super chill it in uh, carbonated thing in your freezer, like hit it. And you know who used to have a machine that would do this is, um, Andy Ricker had a machine from Thailand where they took a windshield washer motor, windshield wiper motor, and they hooked it up to a giant, like, bucket, like almost like a washing machine bucket, and then you salt and ice, and it put the beer, and it was like, like a hula

[30:17] dance. And then he would pull out the beer, pop it, and hit it, and it would just crystallize up like that into a beer slushie. Yeah, New Yorker likes cats. That is a true, not germane, but possibly interesting fact. about Andy Ricker. Yeah. Um, all right. So got another question in here, which I can't see because my phone's decides that I don't want to see it. I don't know why. Daniel writes in. Um, I'm in the planning stages of rebuilding our kitchen and had a question. I've heard you talk repeatedly about how Dave's home oven can really crank. Did you install a commercial range? Okay, listen. Uh, okay, I was saying. Or hack a traditional rage to bump up the BTUs. I've been doing some research about installing a commercial range, but my contractor and family

[31:03] members, read, the wife, seem to think I've lost my mind. You might have lost your mind. here's the problem, right? Depending on your jurisdiction, commercial range might be illegal in your house, right? And the reason is, is that commercial ranges don't have the same kind of insulation on them that a residential range does. Could also have issues with your, um, With insurance, et cetera, et cetera. Now, what I did is I bought the commercial line of a company that also makes residential ranges so that everyone could say, oh,

[31:36] he's just putting in a wolf oven. That's like an oven that people have in their house. It's like some high, you know, high-end, like, you know, some sort of like home chef, which, by the way, is a word I hate. Home chef oven. You know what I mean? Home chef. What does that mean, stuff? Nothing. means nothing. Home chef. Cook, home cook. Love the word cook, cook has honor, right? Like a chef runs a kitchen, right? Unless you're paying your kids and your family to cook for you, you're not a chef in the kitchen, right? You might be the best cook in the world. You might kick the pants off of any, you know, actual chef, but the fact of the matter is, you're a

[32:07] cook and there's honor in that. Am I wrong about this, does it? Anyways. So you have this, uh, he's putting a wolf in. So I'm sure it's fine, but my wolf really, really, really, really screams, and I did modify, but don't tell anyone I did. And it is not necessarily smart for a bunch of things because, as you note, you will not have a commercial fire retardation system, like an

[32:24] ansel in your place. So I don't recommend anyone ever do any of the stuff that I do. I mean, I just don't recommend it. Um, but it is awesome. The results I'm looking for are a broiler that can get as close to as salamander as possible and burners that can help pots recover a little more reasonably. Been stuck on with a puny 5000 BTU gas range in our NYC rental and really looking for an upgrade.

[32:48] Yeah, 5000 is weak, weak. You can get, like, I'm putting air quotes on, like, uh, like, prosumer ranges that'll do, like, upwards of 20. Five is just incredibly weak. Here's what you want to look for, though. When you're buying a commercial range, don't modify your range, please don't like, don't get like kicked out of your place or like, you know,

[33:06] like get sued or better yet or worse yet brought up on criminal charges because you killed someone because your house burnt

[33:12] down. Apartment building burnt down. But the, um, especially nowadays in New York, you you know, gas work, you know, is really, really, really touchy. Um, but, uh, when you have a very high powered burner, a lot of times you lose

[33:25] low-end throttling capabilities. So you want to make sure that, um, for instance, like, let's say you were going to, which I don't recommend bore out

[33:32] the uh, the orifice on your gas jets to get a, and you were able to increase

[33:36] the uh, air in such that you weren't uh, red tipping too hard. You were getting nice blue flames on it, but you were getting a bigger flame. Let's say you knew how to do that, right? Often you'll won't be able to throttle it low to get a good simmer. So, like, on my oven, because I told my, uh, the plumber, because I was told that I had to do it legitimately, I

[33:56] with a plumber, I was like, please install this regulator in front of my gas oven because

[34:00] any, even semi-commercial oven needs a regulator on it, and they didn't install it, even though I told them to, the same way that they didn't install freaking quarter turn ball valves on my, on my water plumbing, even though I told them I would pay twice as much, even though they only cost a nickel more.

[34:15] And they, like, there's no reason to ever use non-quarter turn ball valves on any water

[34:20] fixture in your house for the shutoff. Anyway, I digress. But the point is, didn't install the regulator, and so my oven, my burners scream, scream, but they don't throttle down. And so I'm thinking of one of these days, like doing it myself, putting the regulator in properly. Uh, anyway, uh, I think I might have answered this, but uh, BJD wrote in and said, I see a lot of recipes for soaking Shagbar, hickory, bark, and shag bark, not

[34:47] shad, shag, like shaggy, like the character. Yeah. to make a syrup, but nothing about tapping a hickory tree. A guy in a house down the street taps his shag barks. Are you familiar with hickory syrup via tapping and not an infusion? Any thoughts? I have many shag barks I can tap, uses sent respectfully from my phone, BJD. I don't. What I would do is, do you hate this person? If you do not hate this person with a passion, right, go ask for some of their syrup and see or the sap and see how it

[35:18] tastes, and then let me know how it is. I mean, I have no, you know, I only have one or, most of the hickories on, on my property are, uh, mocker nuts and bitter nuts, uh, pig nuts. I don't have like a, I have like only a couple uh, good, um, shag barks, so I can't really tap them, but, you know,

[35:36] I'd be curious to know. I think a lot of our listeners would be curious to know. I've had a number of birch syrups, which I think I talked about recently on air, and they tend to be much more acidic. And I think one of the reasons, although I don't know, is that it requires a lot more boiled down. So there's a lot other, I guess you'd call congeners in it than there would be in maple syrup. Anyway. Martin Hodgson writes in. Oh, no, Martin writes in from Hudson, Wisconsin about walks. Hey, uh, Dave Nastasia and David, uh, and any honored or dishonored in the case of Peter Kim, guess. We emailed, we emailed Peter Kim this morning, we're like... Oh, really? Oh, I emailed him again and he, and he finally got back to us. So, like, he's like, dishonored guest. And then he was like, you know, he was... He's playing like a 1000 like tiny violins for his pity party. You know what I mean? It's like, I should be so honored as to be someone's dishonored guest. You know what I'm saying? Anyways, uh... People like the Peter Kim on the show, though. Not like love. They love the Peter kid. They love Peter Kim because, I don't know, he, you know, he pushes, he pushes the buttons, Peter Kim. Peter Foil. Speaking of, uh, the reason I wanted Peter Kim on today, not just because he's a dishonored guest, but because uh,

[36:48] MoFad, the Museum of Food and Drink at, you know, www.mofad.org, just got rated by Grub Street, one of the top, like, uh, not that

[36:56] not even know, we were like number two. So I didn't even know, see how long the list was, a museum to take kids to in New York.

[37:02] So booyah, just below the American Museum of Natural History. Boo and yah. That's my favorite. It is a pretty butt kicking museum. Did you go see the mummies? You gotta go see the mummies. So crowded. Yeah, go during the week. Yeah that's true. Yeah. I think I have a card that will get you in for free. I go through the gift shop. Whoa, old school cheat. You know, someday Nastasia and I just have to do an episode that is

[37:29] purely like the shady, crappy things that

[37:34] like I had to stop doing once I had kids because I was no longer proud to do them and be a father, but ways to get around paying for X,

[37:41] Y, and Z. Nastasia, Nastasia is like the queen of such tricks. That's true. You know what I used to do because like, this is how like, you're trying to maintain some sort of dignity. I used to scrouge around at the Met on the ground for the buttons. Do you ever do that? You can go into the gift shop. And then you could be like, oh, my God, I don't know where it is. Oh, it's the way that says lying. lying. You know what, you know what? No one has the stones to do. My suggested price is zero. You know what I mean? which one's the one that suggested? Is that the... Yeah, but, like, who has? I mean, you have to look that person in the eye and tell them that you're that cheap, that you won't pay anything for what is undoubtedly one of the finest museums in the whole world.

[38:24] You know what I mean? Even though, honestly, at this point in our lives, we can afford to go to that museum. It's not like we're, but this, like, being like, you know, 20 years old and, like, like, you know, not having any money is still in your head, right? When you're going up to pay for it. you can't suddenly jump out. Someday it goes away. That feeling? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Uh, we had another question in, uh, from Darren. I mentioned, I'm an aerospace engineering intern, and I'm currently designing a two-face heat exchanger for

[38:58] metal 3D printing. The resolution of these systems is pretty awesome. think details of less than half a millimeter, which is, by the way, pretty good. So the parks can be very complex. If you guys, meeting us, had access to selective laser centering. What would you like to make for the bar of your own kitchen? I don't know. That's a really interesting question I'd like to hear from the cooking issues, listeners, what they

[39:18] think like the best 3D metal print, because I would just print every damn thing.

[39:22] I would just wake up and be like, this spoon, I don't like it anymore. And I would print a new one, right? wouldn't you? Yeah. I would just do all sorts of... I would make my, I would go on solid works and make a, you know, a juicer that I could print out a metal for no problem. like, you know, finally, the ultimate juicer. I would definitely do that. I would print a bunch of metal jiggers because right now I'm using plastic jiggers. I would print like, you know, there's so much stuff I would print. If I had, um... Chat room says a lot of espresso parts. I guess they mean it for an espresso machine. Oh, to build their own, like what, like a custom porta filter? I guess. Problem is, he right now is printing out of alumina, but he can print, check this people. He can print titanium and magnesium. How sick is that? Titanium. But in general, people for their porta filters. I think stupidly, by the way, I'm just going to go ahead and say that. They like brass. Brass is more stable, but it also sucks energy up. So when it does go out of temperature, it throws all the other temperatures off. I mean, I could go for a long time about, like, you know, old school versus kind of what I think more modern approach to certain of those designs, not that I'm an expert anymore. Anyway. Um, see what else we got here. Uh, John. Uh relatively new listener. Um, I saw, I heard a podcast where you talked about soda streams and carbonation, wanted to offer some advice. I'm a brewer. So I know a fair amount about carbonation. For home carbonation, this is John saying this. Simplest, cheapest way to go is to buy old soda kegs, a CO2 regulator, and a tank, carbonate 5 gallons at a

[40:46] time can be served on tap. That's what I do. I have 4 taps at home, one is dedicated to soda water. I say, I, a slight disagreement with you here. I think if you have a refrigerator that holds kegs, then I would say yes. But otherwise, if you're doing a 5 gallon, like corny keg, and you're putting soda water in it, you're going to have to put it through a cold plate, which you have to ice down, right? So either you keep the water cold and you have to do the carbonation on the 5 gallons or you're putting it through a cold plate. Cold plate is, I think, beyond what anyone is going to do. And I think once you get a cold plate. If you're actually going to get a cold plate, you might as well just get a carbonator, which is what I have.

[41:22] You know, like a McCann, big Mac carbonator, which is a lot more expensive, but it's pretty sick. And then putting it through a really good valve. You know, I use one with a nice compensator on it. But, you know, I think if you have a beer system already with a, like a keggerator or a fridge that's dedicated to holding beer, then 100%, I think you're right, like a 5 gallon corny keg is a good way to go.

[41:44] Um, I think for people at home, you know, who don't want to use a soda stream, the good thing about doing it in the bottles with the carbonation cap and the liquid bread people, which is what I use for

[41:54] cocktails, is that you only have to chill the bottles that you're about to use, right? And so pretty much everyone can just stick a bunch of one liter bottles of water in their

[42:01] fridge and then carbonate it when the time comes. Uh, two, uh, this is John referring to me. You keep saying nitrous, it's not nitrous, it's nitrogen. Nitrous gets you high, nitrogen, doesn't. And then you go on and say nitrogen only stays in solution of very high pressure. So when something is dispensed on nitrogen, it wants to come out of solution, you get beautiful waterfall effect like Guinness, you can have a variety of blends, but Guinness blend is

[42:24] 75, nitrogen, and 25 CO2. Yeah, I know that. That is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about nitrous. I specifically do not want nitrogen. Uh, you know, I want nitrous, which is very soluble and allows you to get really interesting texture effects. Commercially, the only things I've ever seen that have been done with nitrous. Uh, A&W and Sunkist did kind of cream sickle and root beer float drinks that were charged with nitrous. They didn't really catch on. Now people are doing coffee beverages with nitrous, N2O. And because it provides a very lively effect without having the prickliness of

[43:03] carbonation. So in a nitrogen situation, other than just having the kind of waterfall effect, you also, you are able to dispense at a higher pressure without having too much CO2 in it,

[43:13] overcarbonated, right? Like a beer gas situation. But yeah, I'm specifically doing nitrous. Nitrous is difficult to source because, as you say, it will get you high if you huff it. Back,

[43:22] the tank I used to have at the French Cullinary Institute, and we had one at Booker and Dax as well. Like the one rule I really had that was hard and fast with our interns where you may not huff the nitrous. You may not huff the nitrous. It's one of our only rules. But yeah, when I carbonate on a mixed gas system, I am definitely not pushing

[43:41] nitrogen. In fact, if anyone tried to push nitrogen into my water, I'd give them a stern, a stern

[43:47] look and a stern talking to. Nastas, you've seen my stern look in talking too. Yeah. Uh, anyways, uh, there's a company called Atheist 3. There is a company called AC Beverage who makes a product called Cellar Stream. It is used to take still beer kegs, hooked them up, and it will neutrogenate them on the fly. This is a great asset to allow bluers brewers do not have to worry about getting the proper amount of nitrogen in solution, the keg, they can simply pull the beer out from fermentation, fill the kegs, hook them up, and let the seller stream do the work.

[44:15] Oh, interesting. I don't know that product. I am interested. There's a person that makes an in-line carbonator that basically just circulates a 5 gallon corny keg through a carbonation

[44:25] stone a bunch of times. I forget who makes it. Same people that make the beer gun, which I've never been that happy with. anyway. I hope this helps you guys have a very informative podcast and I enjoy it. Cheers, John. Your sister, what time is it says? Woo! Your sister wrote in. Last question. Last question. What do you want, take your sister or Claire? Oh, God. My sister. Your sister? All right. So, uh, Natty wrote in. Natty Lopez wrote in, who where is she now? She's at the home in country, garden, town and country. She not doing the show anymore? We frighten the hell out of her. You upset her. Oh, she just hung up on you. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you did. I remember. When do you know that eggs are old? That's the that's it. Now, people, remember Family Show? We're not talking about like, I'm not talking about the latest... Yeah, 1st of all, what is she, like 25,

[45:23] 22, some of it is. Maybe she should see an OBGYN. Yeah, like, listen, you're too young to worry about the quality of the eggs at this point.

[45:33] You don't need to go on a freezer on a freezer binge. Like other people who shall remain nameless. This has it true or false. Like the thing that the city thing to do now is to like freeze up a passel of eggs so that you might want to use them

[45:45] later. It's not the cool thing to do. It's not the cool thing to do. People are scared. Of what? lots of things. They don't understand it. The only reason I think it's great is because I understand liquid nitrogen. Ah, I see. Uh, so we're not talking about that kind of eggs, people. We talking about like, you know, eggs in your fridge eggs. So classically, 1st of all, if you just look at a package, they have a date on

[46:09] them, and I forget what the number is, I think it's like 4 months or something like that. You threw it away. If you threw away the package, you just do the old float test. If the egg sinks, it means that the air cell at the top is relatively small. What happens is as an egg ages, eggs are porous, and the gas cell in it will get bigger and bigger. So an egg that goes to the bottom is very fresh. An egg that stands up in a bowl of water, and then an egg that floats. It's not necessarily bad, but it's older, so it's going to have a lot more thin white versus thick white. It will have lost life as thick white, and so it won't make as nice of a fried egg, and it'll have a big air sack in it. But it still probably is not spoiled. It's still probably okay. egg is fine. Most eggs are fine, especially you're going to cook them. You know what I mean? Like most eggs are fine. Um, you know, when was the last time you had back when I was a kid, if you wanted to throw rotten egg at someone Halloween time, you had to like store those things for weeks and weeks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dave you used to do that when you were hanging out when you were a kid? Sorry, what did you say? Th storing eggs to get them rotten for Halloween time. No. Yeah, yeah, you have to storm a long, long time. Eggs don't want to go back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Are we are we are we done or no? Because we have a related quick question. Alright, real quick. All right, Claire wrote in and said, was reading this article from February this year in the New York

[47:34] Times from Kim Seversen about refrigerating eggs. And it's like our culinary compatriots in Europe, Asian, other parts of the world leave beautiful bowls of eggs on their kitchen counters. Uh, so uh, what giz? And actually, I shouldn't have started this, Dave, because it's a whole thing. We've dealt with it before on the washing days versus not. So if anyone wants to hear the whole why we refrigerate our eggs in this country, like a lot has to do, you know, 1st of all,

[48:00] with, I can get into it next time. If anyone's interested in hearing the rant on eggs, email

[48:06] me, email Nastasia and see what's going on. Otherwise, we finally caught up on questions. Boom. Cooking issues.

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