Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave oral your host of cooking you just coming to you live from newsstands studios in Rockefeller Center joined as usual with Anastasia the hammer Lopez. How're you doing? Good back from wherever you were last time. When was it last week? You were away? No, you were away. You know, I was I was at Harvard doing the Harvard thing. Yeah. Well, I don't know if it comes up. It comes up. joined as usual in the studio with Joe Hasan, how're you doing? I'm doing great. How are you doing? All right. We got Jackie molecule still in Mexico. What's up?

Still Mexico recovering from my meat bucket meal.

Oh, yeah. So a couple of weeks ago, I told Jack that he needed to go what's the actual name of the meat bucket place?

I can't pronounce it off to look it up. But we should just continue to call me.

Call me back and we got to you put it on the Patreon. Like exactly where it is. Right? You geotag it? So it's this place in Mexico City? Where it's where they have this like, like, giant like, I guess what is? What does that Rando big, bigger, big, large, right? Full of some bubbling meat liquid, which it's unclear what percentage oil and what percentage waterbase liquid? Would you say that is Jack?

It had to be more on the oil side.

Yeah. And then just like all the meat, like all the meats, all of them, like just sitting there unit? Well, there had to be some broth in it because it did bubble. Right. So we know it wasn't strictly speaking oil because it also wasn't hot enough to dehydrate. So it wasn't like, remember back in the day, Anastasia used to spend her summers in Oh, I'm talking to someone I haven't introduced yet. Our special guest today on the show is Dorothy Caitlin's who is the founder of savour magazine, way back in the was at 1993 or 490 94, which was an N and then after savour went to Newsweek for a while. And as you put it, saw that through what was it 911 And two wars decided to get back to food. And since has become a producer of cookbooks, which we'll talk about but it's here today to talk about her new book, which is actually I read somewhere which is kind of unbelievable. Is this really the first book that you've done under just yourself with with no one else or No,

very first? And it may be the law?

Yeah, writing books does suck. The kitchen whispers cooking with the wisdom of our friends. Alright, so And by the way, so if you're listening live on Patreon. Call in your questions for Dorothy 2917410 1507. That's 917-410-1507. But back to meet buckets. So it's this it's this like bubbling cauldron with all these kinds of meats in it. But then you just order what type of meat and they pull it all out of they pull that chunk out? Correct? Yeah, hack it up. And then they they dip their toes now their tortillas game is not the best tortilla game in town. Come on, because it's Mexican. That's true, please. But again, you know, not everyone can have all the skills right. And so then they dip the tortilla into into the bubbling liquid and then put your your your hair shade meat onto it. Yeah, so was it was it everything you'd hoped for?

I had no first tacos de oho I bought tacos.

Oh. Oh, God. That sounds unpleasant. Was it was Why would you call for the I just call for the delicious don't go for the freak meat.

I have tried most of them. I've tried most of them. completionist

Dorothy ever had any freak meat that you like or did or not? I mean, I like awful, right? Yeah, yeah, sure. But like three breads. Yeah. Oh, great. You know when done well, do you like when they're super gooey? Or do you like a little crunch on the outside?

I like crunch. Yeah, always crunch. Yeah.

I've never been huge on like, just straight braised sweet bread things. pile of goo not my thing. Right? You

know, texture wise. Other brains are pretty good.

Do you still they have brain taco at this meat bucket place?

You can get it. And so when a hint is not in the pot with the rest of this?

I don't know what they do with it. I don't know. But

correct. That's correct. Yeah. On the top of the breast, right. They pull that separately.

Brains anymore. Ever since the Mad Cow Do you still eat brains?

Rarely, but I wouldn't turn it down in a good place.

Now do you eat brains? Do you like your brains? Like, like, egg style, like cooked in with eggs are you like just like, because I believe in the tacos. Once I had it was just like, like a like a like a tranche like, like brain. It's like,

yeah, the texture is yeah, the texture has to be played off against something. Yeah, yeah. Better crisp beer.

Yeah. But so like, so in a game of marrow versus brains. What do you go for?

Oh, you know, there's something fabulous about a roasted marrow bone.

Yes, that is Griffis right. ate. Yeah, haven't had that in years. You have

to you have to ask your butcher to slice them in half and then season them and royal women, man. Great.

I've never you ever used to eat the Mara stuff? sighs You remember about you, Joe? You marrow guy? No. Come on. What about like your Italian Did you Did your family? Would you grew up with us and buco? Would you also be cool? Yeah, of course. Did you pop the marrow out of the acid? buco. That's what your pinky was made for. I've done it a few times. Don't love it. The other side of my family is Jewish. We don't eat innards. Don't eat brains don't need any bone, anything like that? No. Yeah, I grew up you know, you chew the ends off the checking bonds. You pop the marijuana the acid bookable bond, for some reason, my mom maybe once or twice she did she never made. She never we never did the split marrowbone with the with like the parsley on top and all of that. That's the one to do. I had I remember the first time I was served super fancy, where the like, like, at a Michelin three star were in France, where my wife and I couldn't afford it. But we went there anyway. Have you ever been to pray Catalan and Guatemalan? No, but I know of it. Yeah. So like, you know, whatever. We didn't know we were really young. It was like super stuffy at the time. We didn't have the money. And we didn't realize that this is like where the hookers go to hang out. Right, the water bowl. So like, and we didn't have money. There was no cell phones. And there was no no taxis and we didn't speak French. And so we got lost in the water balloon. And we were super late for dinner and sweaty because we were running around trying to find it asking all of these French hookers in broken French how to get to this three star Michelin restaurant is quite an experience. Great meal though. Great meal. They had all that? Do you appreciate Goofy, Goofy French, like serving clothing? Like all of the weird like special clothing?

Yes. Yeah, whatever. And the dish towels tucked into the waist. Yeah, you like that stuff? I do.

I do to them? Yeah. Do you prefer French service or Italian service?

At this moment, I would take any kind of.

Alright, so how about this Anastasia? Since? Well, we'll do the questions later on. We'll bang them all out. So and you know, we'll get Dorothy to weigh in. And once you know, she's more used to the tangents that we're gonna, I'm never inevitably going to go on throughout this thing. Okay, so let's go back to the book, the new book, The Kitchen whispers. So it's it's interesting, because again, the what is this called? Again? A slug lines as slug. What do you call it thing afterwards? It's

kind of it's a subtitle, subtitle. Yeah.

So it's cooking with the wisdom of our friends. So not necessarily, by the way, like a lot of people talk about, you know, the wisdom of your ancestors. And while there are some people from you know, your parents generation, your grandparents generation, it's really a lot about the friends like people who are, you know, your age younger than you older than you. But not it's not about necessarily handed down wisdom. It's about shared wisdom. Right. That's,

that's right. And actually, the subtitle I wanted on the book was cooking with the voices on our heads. Because that's really the experience that I have, which is when I'm alone in the kitchen. I hear people telling me to do things or suggesting or whatever. But the publisher thought that that might sound like I was crazy prison. So we had to we did cooking with the wisdom of our friends. But basically, I think that we all, when we are in the kitchen, are listening to where where do we go next? Where do we take this ingredient? Next? How do we do this thing? We don't What do you know, and I have a constant dialogue. And I'm so lucky that I've got a lot of people who are whispering to me.

Well, that's well, yeah, I mean, you've known quite a few kind of amazing, amazing cooks. And so the thing about is it's not chronologically oriented, or chronologically organized, I should say, but it's you, it does end up reading somewhat like a memoir, because you can trace the kind of history of what you were doing through the people you choose and the stories that you tell about them. That's exactly right. Right. So it's, and so it's an interesting story. Let's let's talk about let's talk about this story. So savour. And even though this is not in the book, I can't help myself. So for those who I would guess what most of our listeners, how old would you say they are a little out there between 25 and 45. Okay, so they don't know necessarily what it was like to be a cook coming of age in the early 90s. And so that's my like you, you hit my prime sweetspot 50 Now, right. And so for people who grew up and kind of were, you know, in the basement Reading the you know, in my case, my mom's cookbooks, you know what I mean, in the 70s? And 80s. You know, then in the in the 90s, you know, in the early, early 90s, late 80s, early 90s, you just had this kind of breakthrough. Food was, Don't let anyone tell you different food was bad in the US. I mean, it really was, it was not good. You know what I mean? There were good, great cooks. Would you agree with

that? Absolutely. Great. There were there were great cooks. There were old style cooks, French trained, Italian trained, whatever classically trained. But they're also beginning to be a new generation of American cooks. And that was the thing that we were excited about. Even at Med home, which I was the editor of before we did the cover, we traced that that burgeoning American cooking, who think about Alice Waters, think about Jonathan Waxman, think about Larry Forgey own Wolfgang Puck, all those people I'm with was not American, originally, but basically, they were interested in dealing with American ingredients, American traditions, let's not try to be the French chef. Let's not try to be the Italian let's make our food.

Exactly. And I think someone now can't possibly imagine how focused Americans were on other people's food instead of our own. They can't imagine it perfectly said, Yeah. By the way, going back to that time, so just before maybe he I forget exactly what year it was, do you remember when Julia Child did cooking with master chefs where she got a bunch of young lady and then she put them all on her television show? That was kind of that was an early I think, for me, you know, an East Coast, kind of sign that, oh, there's this whole group of other people. Now a lot of them were doing Frenchie style stuff. But some of them weren't, like Emeril, and you know, who was first made fast and that, but So 9093 and 94. Within that span of two years, two very different publications came out that both unclick include radically altered the landscape of food thought yours, and cooks illustrate. And I just, you know, they seem so diametrically opposed in their mental attitude about kind of what's going on. They seem so like kind of diametrically opposed about what's going on. But over the years, have you found that the two attitudes have both woven their, their way in in kind of an interesting way into kind of American food culture?

I think so. That's a it's a very good thing. I mean, cooks illustrated was a real book, a real magazine about cooking, and techniques and recipes. And it wasn't filtered down through an Italian chef or a French cook or, or, or even a Mexican one. It was really, what, what to American people, what are they going to cook. And that was that was a good magazine then. And as for severe our our point of view was there's so much fakery going on in food, there's no, our great example was low fat has to lay well, who wants to have low fat castle? If you're gonna do it once and do it right. So you honor the place the ingredients, the, the, the the experience? And we we one of the great surprises for me, when we we launched that magazine was how many chefs plugged sever. And they loved it. Because they they told me there were holes in their practical knowledge and their restaurant experience that didn't tell them for example, where to saffron come from? How do you know how do those little that way? They're the center of the steeples of crocus's. Nobody knew that. And that's was interesting to us. I'm not saying nobody knew that well, but clearly remember, there's no internet either. There's no there was, I mean, there was only you, you'd have to read a book.

Yeah, you'd have to go to a library and get a book. Again, people don't. People can't possibly imagine how it was like in those old like, like, I still when I can still smell the library. Like when I like that I think about it, like the smell of those musty books. I love it. You know what I mean? But that's gone forever. And you know, the internet's fantastic. I love it. I use it all the time. But like, I love the live the live. Yeah. So there was not a way for someone to know that. So you were pointing people towards these things that In truth, were completely lost here on most on most people, right 99% of people unless you could travel a lot, and my god reading this, you guys traveled a lot. How did you get the budget to do this stuff?

Well, we, we it was hook or by crook, we didn't, we had a very small staff. And we paid very mid level wages. And we it was the experience of working there that mattered to all of us. And we managed, we managed to travel because we traveled very light. There was only Sometimes there was only a writer and a photographer, produce his story. And the stories could be eight or 10, or 12 pages long, because they went deep into something. And they gave you the experience of being there and understanding it. And we really believe profoundly that where you grew up, wherever in the world it was, you use those ingredients for a reason. And that cuisine came out of those ingredients and the practices. And we knew we wanted to know it, we were starving for it. We were hungry for it. But you know, you couldn't do that magazine. Now. We've all agreed that my co founders and I you couldn't do suffer because there's so much going on in the world. And there's so much everybody knows everybody knows everything now, and they think they do.

Yeah, yeah. Well, everyone knows a tiny bit about a lot. Yeah. Which of course, that was my whole skill set. Growing up. I was a tiny bit about allows that guy I knew a tiny bit about a law now that everyone does I know one anymore, right? It's over. It's over, it's gone. So initially, one of the things you bring up here, again, it's now very fun to go and look at old food photography, magazine, food photography, because of the weird, stilted imagery and the way everything looks you talk about having to because you were in magazines, you didn't just start savour. One day you you were working as an editor at a medical home, you start you started that one, right.

Sorry, that was editor for 11 years. Yeah, yeah.

And then where were you before that?

I was a freelance journalism. Yeah.

So in other words, like you're well steeped in this kind of like 80s, like 80s Food journalism, you know, and photography, and you're saying that they were shooting everything on a 10 which, by the way, people don't know, describe this term

even know what it is. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's a person, it's big. As a person, it has a head that's bigger than any of ours, or all three of ours put together. And it you had to look upside down under a black cloth at the food that was set up on a table. That was how I came into food photography. And anything we could do to run as fast as we could away from that kind of, because what it does is it makes it fake. Yeah, it's not real. And and it and, and part of the problem of food in America was that it was all so twirled up, so painted and propped and messed with and it never looked like anything you cooked. Yeah. So the first thing we did when we started server was, we had a kitchen, we were lucky enough to have offices in Soho. And we had a big table and the kitchen was right next door and we would come out and it was a big room full of lots and lots of available light. And that's how we shot our food just cooked vailable light. And in

the in the early 90s They said this wasn't it wasn't a thing. You know, I remember even in low, late 90s Like after you know you kind of made this style more popular. It was still you know, food and wine did a shoot at my loft. And they were for fried chicken because every every Sunday we would have family dinner and I would cook a bunch of fried chicken rice stuff and Yours Yours. Still make fried chicken the and they were like oh we're gonna get we're gonna get a photographer who likes to work with natural light. I was like ooh.

Brain surgery.

Yeah, well, I only once I used to have to you know, everyone has to make money. I'm not very pretty good at it. But I did a couple of food styling jobs back in the day. And I once had to do one for one of those old school cam very famous photographer. I can never remember which is which which is the movie maker and which one is the photographer but Penn they're both dead now I think was Arthur Penn was

the photographer Arthur Penn was the movie. So his brother editor Irving perving yet with was a photographer in Irving Penn. Everything about his his pictures was was predetermined

all day one shot. You were not allowed to speak to him. And it was a giant to

know how you make your Your fried chicken?

Well, it's interesting question. So my fried chicken fried chicken is all about how, you know kind of what you're trying to achieve. I don't believe in perfection. I you know, I believe that there is a particular goal that you're looking for. I do I Brian mine. I Brian had actually in milk, not in buttermilk. buttermilk. Well, the reason is, is I think the acidity. And look, if you're going to cook it really hard, then buttermilk is good, because the the acid will kind of soften the chicken flesh. But if you're not going to take the extra step of overcooking the chicken, I find that buttermilk soak can make it a little bit soft. Yeah, yeah, so I do and I don't even know if water would be the same as milk. I just, I've always used milk for 30 years of 40 years, you know, whatever. I've used milk. So I use milk, soy milk, salt, sugar, sugar, basically as the as the soak, and then overnight brine. Well, so if I if I need to make it faster, I will just increase the salt and sugar content and cheat a little bit. But yeah, then then, again, I haven't tested because this is the way I grew up like old school, dry him out on racks, you know, for a couple of hours. Then I do flour, then buttermilk, egg, soda, buttermilk, buttermilk, egg, salt, pepper, soda powder, then, you know, back into the flour again and then and then fry. That's the reason it. The reason I do dry wet is because I don't like to work with batter based chicken just because it's too complicated. It's not bulletproof. If you don't get the viscosity of the battery just right. It either slips off. I

thought oh yeah, that's an awful thing when it slips off into the pan, you think?

Oh my god. Oh my god. So are you familiar with Willie Mays, scotch house? And yeah. So I had the great pleasure a couple of years ago back when, you know, traveling was a thing of eating at dooky Chase's and Willie Mays in one day, one day, I had bought their fried chickens one day fabulous. And so you know, Willie Mays Scotch house is an all batter situation with no pre dust. Now I've got some people on the air. Some friends of mine, I won't call them out who I had researching this because it's incredibly difficult if you don't make chicken every day to to get an all batter recipe to work, especially with no pretest it's just very hard to get it to stick to get it to stick. The viscosity has to be done on every time. So like one of the theories is and I've seen videos of them doing it. They never got the recipe of course, right. I think they're using a they're using a high acid I think marinade just to stop. So like you know one of the things that I do that's odd in mine and I saw you raise your eyebrows Oh, but I put soda in it so but buttermilk is good in a in a in an outside batter because if your batter or your breading is slightly acidic, it won't Brown as much in the long cooking of a frying as if you had a baking soda. But I don't know I just always put baking soda in. And but if I'm going to do a super long fry, sometimes I'll scale it back so it's still slightly acidic.

Anyway, you're always feeling the fingertips or at work. Yeah, yeah.

But anyway, I can't get that. And so I'm writing a book now, which you know, late. And in my fry thing I'm going to be like listen, I've worked a lot on trying to figure out this batter only thing but I just don't think it's it's worth it. Because if you're not going to fry every day, you're not going to get that in your bones. It's yours not going to get it in your bones

so great. I love that I love it's exactly the way cooking should be is that you feel it in your bones if you're lucky enough.

Speaking with somebody text me I haven't had chance look at the video yet. Made the lake balls. I'm going to look at your video and we'll talk about it next next week. So I do my I have it here in the thing. So like people in my family, I won't call them out because they get mad when I call them out. Don't like to eat meat on bones. Well, by the way. Interesting in your book you mentioned bring the rabbit back you have like a little couple paragraphs, couple graphs. I'm bringing the rabbit back if I think so you speculate or maybe it's the person you're talking with. I can't remember speculates that rabbits are pets and that's why we don't eat them. I think it's the tiny bones. Oh, you do? I mean maybe it's a combination of the of the of the bones and yeah, I don't think

people have the experience of eating it. And that and that's the barrier to entry. That was David Tanis, though Yeah, you know it's a great rabbit cook

never had his food.

Best because he's He's a chef, but he's not a chef. He's cook

so rad. But you don't you think it's just the kind of what do you guys think pet or bone? Some combination? Just we don't eat it. What? Bones. Joe, what is your feeling? I think it has to do with the bones as well, but I love a rabbit Ragu. Yeah. Love it. A lot of good Italian rabbit dishes. Yeah. Wonderful. You don't my issue also, like rabbits dry out when you overcook them. They really, really do. Now, if you're going to shred it, and have like a sauce, then who cares whether you've cooked better, but like, you know, I don't know like that, again, as someone who? My age, right, I'm in that that kind of demographic where we all were aspiring to serve kind of the unadorned kind of like that there was an anti sauce period. You know what I mean? That's

right. There was a purist? Well, it was that I think much of the French and Italian cooking that we knew as, as really cooking was sauce based. Right, right. Right. But we wanted to do the opposite. Yeah. Right. And so you know, and so then, you know, those kinds of meats are hard to do. unadorned.

I would say, yes, you know, because if you're just knowing,

throw a rabbit on the grill kind of thing. Yeah, right. Right. You have to you have to really work with it a little bit. Yeah,

yeah. Hey, speaking sauces. Do you remember when Peterson sauce book came out? Was Peterson, right? Was that his name? His name just went on my head. Oh, my God, I was just thinking about how we were anti sauce for a while, and then this magnificent sauce book from 19 9019. Anyway, I'll get to it. I'll get to it. I'll get to it later, my brain will come back. Okay, so let's talk about what do you want to what do you what do you want to talk about? Here's what I want to ask you about. After you left? savour. And then you went to Newsweek for a while, right? But that a little bit, then you started doing what you call in the book and even in your thing on the back producing cookbooks. Now, it's an interesting way to think about it. The production of and your, you know, your husband has mentioned here as a filmmaker, so you seem like, you know, production in the blood here. So

you know what it really was treating the work of a chef, like, I was making a magazine about it. What size was this book? What was the feel that I wanted readers to get from it? How much of how much? How to Could you put into it? How much? How helpful should it be? And how beautiful should it be? And it's always the bounce the balance of those things. So for me, producing a cookbook was just like producing a magazine, you decided on the size of it, you decided on who the photographer would be, you'd work with, with the photographer, and the chef, the cook with every thing that there was every every chapter, every idea. And then and I wrote them with the with the person who was the was the chef. And so it was a it was like a magazine. But when you're going and I did the layout with I was I'm so lucky to have a wonderful art director who I've worked with actually unmet home. And we've we've produced books together and often he's on the shoot with with me. And we're deciding, oh, that could be a great spread. So all of a sudden, which is a means picture that goes across two pages. You're you're you're controlling it from the very beginning.

Right. But that's got to be a huge investment for you to choose someone to do that with. Yeah. So how do you find the people that you're going to do this kind of thing with and they a lot of them show up in? In the book, obviously. Yes.

Yeah. I've been a very lucky girl I've been I've been able to after I left magazines, and I don't ever feel like I'm gonna leave magazines because magazines are dear to my heart and picked

a good time to leave mag. Yeah.

The the I, I was put together with Michael Anthony, for example, who is the executive Stephen at Gramercy Tavern, by the way, just a sweetheart, I couldn't be a finer person. And I said to Michael, well, this is we sold that book. I have a wonderful Agent David Black, who just sees the potential and things sharp. He he is a lovely human being. I owe a lot to David. If you

want to go getter if you if you're if you're a cookbook writer and you want someone to eviscerate the the publisher to get the advance he's a good guy, right? Well, it's

not it's not really that because that publisher is going to pretty much no have a range that they're going to give the advance to But at any rate, so so so when I did the grammars The tavern book, the first thing I knew people would want was, was to be able to cook the recipes. So we immediately eliminated everything that demanded a stratospheric skill in the kitchen, because it's just ridiculous to try to even put that in a cookbook. Now there's some some things there things that recipes that vary in in skill, necessity, but we explained everything we explained how to do pickles.

You bring it up in your book, actually,

I love that. I mean, Michael taught me that it was a it was an it open doors for me.

But it was also I mean, again, and I don't know how much people who don't live in this world will understand this. But you. You, when you write about it, you seem almost surprised yourself that here's something that he was actually doing in the restaurant that also works well for a different reason for a home cook. And so I could see almost a light bulb going off in your head, as I'm reading you like talking about that? Because they're going through that with my book that I'm writing. Now, there are certain things that strangely work for both not necessarily for the same reason. And so it seemed to kind of jump out at me with that when reading that thing. Is that do you? Do you feel those kind of moments?

salutely I'm for the reader. And I think that's what an editor really has to be. I'm also for Michael and the out of the wonderful chefs I get to work with. And I want to make sure that their ideas are clearly and importantly, transfer ported to a reader. But basically, no, no, you're not going to ask a home cook to do a certain number of things. That's why you go to a restaurant like grammar, see, for example, so and I knew grammar she needed to have the Gramercy Tavern book needed to have a lot of the glory that is the space of that restaurant and I interviewed the architect talked about that and how he you know how he thought that through and how he and Danny Meyer decided that it was going to be like, Italian country inns inside even though it was an American restaurant, because it wanted to have some intimacy. It you know, it was it was, you know, kind of before the knock them dead, walk into a room and gasp You also I guess we'll have restaurant design.

Danny Meyer must have had a budget because as you say, in the book stars he would have liked to see sent him to Italy to go eat a bunch of nice looking restaurants. Yeah.

So they weren't going to Italy on their honeymoon. And he just sent them to the places. No, he didn't.

All right. All right. So Anastasia and I actually had, so you know, we were working on the Museum of food and drink. We, we did a fundraiser we had Michael Anthony through. Remember, we gave him TV dinners.

And he knocked it out. Because you know what, he's a dad. And he has had to cook for his kids.

He bought a bunch of those, you know, those like Swanson style again. I think Swanson might be the name might be back in business. But for those of you that, you know weren't alive back then you they literally had these things do they show? Do they still have these things? Do you notice? Anyone know Jack? You're? Yeah, I've seen him in the store. But they don't have that. It was called literally the Swanson hungry. May I saw them in the store. And it was it was like a triangle shape pressed into aluminum foil. Right. And it's exactly what yeah, it was like some sort of like space program. Like, the potatoes were wet and dry at the same time. Wonderful. This guy was just like, and the the overcooked quote unquote Saulsbury steak. They were an abomination. Anyway, so he bought the data of, you know, got amazing produce and did something very but but serve them in those trays. And it was, that's great. Yeah, perfect. It was it was kind of Oh, another thing. So you when you're talking about him, there's a couple of ingredients that weave their way in and out of the book a couple of times, so I'm going to bring them up, one of which Jack in Mexico City has something to say about squash blossoms makes several appearances in the book. And last week, I sent jack to my favorite squash blossom experience of all times how was the squash blossom lady

so good. And it was a it was a scavenger hunt to get it and you were so kind as to send me the exact coordinates from the photo you've taken and you were able to find it there she was.

Yeah, yeah. So So describe where and where in the Merced it is Jack because my memory is old go.

I mean, just as you entered basically, there's a whole row of sort of, you know, people preparing fresh hot foods and it's it's hard to miss.

But if you're if you're looking No matter if you're looking at a map of the Merced market mark at the Merced market in Mexico City, if you're looking at a map of the Merced and North is enormous, right? But if north is up on your map, you enter from the lower left side of the market, right? Yeah. Okay. So you enter from the lower left side of the market, and is are there still pinata dealers at that entrance?

No, nothing out of dealers at that entrance. All right, rightly beach balls, something we're still putting out as you had you had said there were no going out as that there were.

But what I said was that the pandemic was very tough on the pinata business. Yeah. You know, if people have been making pin Jada's for generations is tough on it. I'm not just talking about the garbage Kenyatta is like the ad opinion. I'm talking about like real like clay pot, Pina is nice pin Jada's anyway. So you go in and then you hook a right and you go down and she's on the left, that's still accurate. Does she still have a contractor's trash bag full of squash blossoms?

No, there was not a contract is that they were just sort of there with the rest of the ingredients. Although maybe when she replenishes she breaks up the contract.

But there was there was was copious amounts

that that lifts and that's gorgeous.

What an image. And I was saying so sorry if you heard me say a couple of weeks ago, but I had someone translate for me is like, is this just like it might just hitting this peak season? And she's like, No, we have this all the time. And I was like, Oh, and did she the same way. She's just lightly hacks him up on the Kamal cooks them shreds this stretch the cheese and puts them on the tortilla and then that is Is there anything better than that? Do you have any? Have you had anything better than that recently?

It was pretty good. It was pretty impressive. It made me question a lot of the street meet at the meetings like well, squash blossom caucus with this good,

how much? How much did it cost? Nothing. It's an abomination, like 60

cents, 60 cents each or something? It's ridiculous.

I mean, I mean, how much does one clamshell of squash blossoms class at the at the market now,

for $5? It's ridiculous. It's half a dozen or 10 of them if she would have put

more than that into one serving. It's just like the other story I tell a lot. So sorry, Anastasia is when I went to Dakar and Gooseneck barnacles are free there. And so you're just like crazy. Anyway. All right, right. So squash blossom. So let's talk about the squash blossoms because it comes up several different times in the book. You grew them because you were also

I had a little garden Yeah. Which I cuz I was editor of garden design. That wasn't why I grew them. It's just because I love them. And Christopher Shimer who I talk about in the book, who runs canal house station, which is wonderful restaurant in Milford, New Jersey. Was she was at my house and we we were she we just went out and picked squash bathrooms and she told me that or batter which is simply half a cup of flour and half a cup of soda water.

Oh wait was that but then someone else you said did a wine and a wine and flour batter was that not for squash blossoms? Is that for something else like

that? Maybe was half white wine? White wine and have fine flour?

Yeah. I've never had I read an Italian book recently. I can't the name escapes me old. And they had some fried fried foods where the batter was liquid was predominantly wine. I've never tried it.

Well, it's just perfect. And I do sage leaves like that. I just I do you can I do wild mushrooms like that? It's no nn a little pot. That was the other thing that she taught me. That's why she's one of my keys kitchen. whispers not you know you think oh well let's do a frying pan so we can keep his channel. No, keep it deep. A small saucepan with enough oil chip dip the the blossoms in and they'll cook all at once. And it's perfect. And sassy

loves squash blossoms you grown used to is out of your window. You know what's weird? What do you do? I not all squash blossoms tastes as good as the others for instance, like the blossoms on pumpkins don't taste

they don't they're not as sweet as zucchini blossoms.

So the ones that the ones that they have specific varieties that are better for the fruit of that I find basically worthless or do they are they are all zucchini blossoms equally good are their varieties his blossoms are I think

there's probably not very much difference but among zucchini squash blossom,

pumpkin blossoms are not good.

There there is a different animal Well,

yeah, I remember when, right after my parents got divorced, my dad moved into somebody's house. He lived in their attic. You know what I mean? was an apartment. He didn't like living somebody. Anyway, the mom there she grew squash blossoms. And when I was a kid, that was the first time and she would do it in the batter and fry him. But because I was an American, she let me put syrup on them. So I saw I grew up with fried squash blossoms. Like, like pancakes. She's like us American kids. You know what I mean? But like, yeah, that's where I learned. But I think most Americans, it's just too expensive for us to grow up liking them unless you grow them. Right. And then you have them in such

rows. And you have them in it's not a luxury. Yeah,

yeah, musculoskeletal. All right. The other one is that I feel like you when you were younger, hated on rutabagas and only learn to like them later. I feel Yeah.

Then that was another Michael Anthony. It was there's big clunkers and then you realize I mean, he there's a recipe in the book we did after grammar C called V is for vegetables and he's just a vegetable head. He's just loves vegetables and and he slices these thing like silk thin little thin. It never occurred to me to treat something as as beautiful as that. I mean, any made a great time out of it, which of course we did with potatoes and I've done it with parsnips, and I've done it with celery root, but but rutabaga Well, it's lovely.

I mean, I love Ruby. Of course I worked for years with the Swedes so you know, I love rutabaga. I can't make myself love parsnips.

Parsnips are David toughness loves parsnips, and he taught me about those and he said do you have to remove the hard core center of them?

I'll try it so like quarter and then lop off the middle middle section. Yep, like you would a pineapple. All right, exactly.

And because that they're they're truly not very flavorful.

I mean I always think of a person who has a trash can carrot no they have there's a sweetness All right them I look I tried to tell my kids I'm like you know try keep trying everything maybe the other one that you you learned to like is persimmon it took you a while yes, I still have not I don't care about them. I don't hate them. I just don't care about them you now care

about I do I do care about them and I welcome them because when tomatoes are gone it's almost half my my food vocabularies is when when the tomato season is over I can't get myself to use I use canned tomatoes but I don't use tomatoes from the from the store

right it was because their trash. Garbage filth Did you although I have you learned to like the Campari tomatoes that have come out and

tries I've tried is the only one I use I'll roast them when I you know when I'm getting desperate about April or March or April and I just can't stand not having tomatoes anymore. I I put little I put herbs and garlic in them and roasted in the oven. And that's that gives gives them some flavor.

Alright, so another tomato thing you mentioned. And I've read it so many times my life and I've never done it because it just seems horrific to me taking a tomato a ripe tomato to a box grater like what

the heck. So that's Catalan Yeah, but what Coleman taught me that and what what what you do with it is you get this rich puree have flavorful tomatoes and you throw the skins away.

Oh, so it allows you to keep the skin on your side of it. So it's sad. Absolutely. So it's a cheap way. So if you don't want to buy a tomato strainer if you're making sauce, right, you have a tomato strainer in the house Joe growing up. Yes. Yeah. I mean, they're actually tomato spinners. People are not that expensive. They really aren't. Okay, if you want to KitchenAid I know you're you're kind of anti equipment. And I'm not anti equipment.

I'm learning my way around them. But yeah,

I mean, the impression I get is that you feel that you know if you need all that equipment, maybe you should have just spent more time learning to cook. Yeah,

that's exactly it. That's exactly it.

But I am a gearhead. I've always been a gearhead I like equipment, but tomato strainer because again I can't remember whether I said this on the air or whether this is what I'm writing in the book now but like tomato skins tastes bad yeah, they taste bad.