Hello and welcome to cookies. This is Dave oral your host of cooking issues coming to you from Newsday Studio The Rockefeller Center. joined as usual with Anastasia hammer Lopez, how're you doing? Good? Yeah. Got with us back again. John in the booth. How you doing? I'm

doing great. Thanks.

And both of our like Maestro engineering team, we have Jackie molecules. Hey, what's up in the studio in studio, which I appreciate and Joe Hasan as usual, what's up? Hey, how you doing? Doing all right. Hey, Jackie. Got that nice wool hop shirt on. I'm pretty sure man.

I were there for you guys.

I appreciate that. I like the wool.

I've never been there.

Now. Well, let me ask you this as a separate question. Do you appreciate his shirt? Yeah. Yeah. And you're What are you Queen of the Queens of the Stone Age? Yeah. Is that an actual concert? T?

Yeah. Oh, no, I didn't get it at a concert. Oh, yeah.

Okay, let me ask you guys questions. Questions when you go to a concert? At what age?

I saw Billy Eilish on Friday.

How was How was she? I was good. I mean, I'm not not a fan. But I'm not a fan either. I

wouldn't take you for Billy Eilish.

The tickets are really cheap. It was one of the governor's ball and I was like Santa. Randalls Island. No, it was at Citi Field. Oh, but outside of the parking lot was weird

in the parking lot. You have a whole stadium right there. And they put you in a pocket. Yeah. Listen, we got the stadium. We're not doing anything with it. But

yeah, okay. She was in a parking lot.

The nice thing about a parking lot is that you can't see very well. If you're in the back.

Yeah, there's no crappy. Yeah, but it was actually pretty small. There's probably like 400 people there. Yeah.

So you basically saw her at a small club that just had been knocked over by a tornado so that there's no worse. Yeah, yeah. The sound was bad. Yes. Cool. Is there anything worse than guys? Is there anything worse than an outdoor sound without like a nice setup stage with like an enclosure to put it out towards the audience? Like what sound could be worse than that? Terrible, right. All right. So what was there for you guys a certain age where so? When you're young, you're like, Oh, I can't afford that concert shirt. But I really want to wear it to school the next day. Right? Yeah, you bought it? Right? And then you, you you. You're like, Please give me some of the money back mom and dad, but they didn't. Right. So there's that. And then there's a certain age we're like, I don't need this concert. T Oh, yeah. I don't need this. Right.

Is that skip the merch? Um, maybe like 20 to

22 Joe. Now see, but

then the older I got then then it returns right then

you want it again? Go back to that you went to you wish you had the shirt from the concert? You went to like 1520 years goodness. Yeah. Now Anastasia, who used to be we won't discuss it in full but the queen of the backstage slime moves right? To steal merch or just getting like did you somehow snake free merch?

I would No. I would take their cigarettes, like cigarette butts. I would take like, like their water bottles. Like around my tongue around like,

Oh my God. I know. Wow,

I got a water bottle. Once the gwynn's to finally throughout the stage, at least one of my first concerts Tragic Kingdom tour. Oh, wow, that's, that's a good one.

That was the water.

I mean, there's no water in it. It was just like a crushed bottle.

Let me taste them. When you're on stage and you're working. There's no way you finish every last drop of that water as someone who has not been on stage. But as someone who has quickly drank and then crushed and thrown things for fun, a lot, like a lot. I can always tell you there is some stuff left at the bottom of the bottle. Unless you are being extremely careful. And you turn it all the way upside down as you throw it to make sure that you eject everything but you can but it's very hard to do that. on the sly.

Well, there's the rocks or move of spray, like kind of just like tossing the rest of the water out.

I mean load and then yeah, there's that point where like the people you want it's like we're not sweaty yet. What are you doing? You know what I mean? Especially if you're not if you're famous, they don't care. You can do whatever you want. You know what I mean? Like if your public image limited or something like that you could spit on the audience and they're happy. That's right. Yeah. In fact, if you don't get spit on it's the it's an insult. But a huge annual concert T man

not really only have one t shirt from one concert I ever went to and even then there was no bonobos and I like one concert but which t shirt Did you buy? Oh, you bought the overalls? Yeah, the over like everyone was done on the back and that's respectable there was neat. It's like very Bonnaroo ish like super tie dye and just like dreamy letters all that stuff. I don't really wear it but

yeah, when you were young did you make tie dyes

when I was in like camp rum six or seven? I think so. But

I did on my own. I never did it with a group of people because I was had never had no friends. Who here other than John who here did not tie dye.

I've never tied?

Yeah, come on. Go I've tailored. Yeah. When I was a kid, I used to have this dye that they took off the market when I was a child, because it was like, so poisonous, and but it was so bright. And it was so colorfast and it didn't, you didn't need to have an industrial strength dryer to set it. You know what I mean? And so those tie dyes lasted until like, you know, until the shirt was more holes. Then I was that kid with a lot of holes and all my stuff, not for fashion reasons, just because I had holes and all my stuff and not because my mom couldn't buy me new clothes. It's just I'm like these parents work. What's wrong with you?

Right? You liked keeping the same pair? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Checks. Yeah.

We saw Booker. Oh, well, I

was gonna talk about that. So we, we had Mr. Garcia has this. The Stasi is obviously an interesting person. So she has this friend that she went to high school with in Covina lamp good burger. And so it's, you know how like, you'll create like an electron and an anti electron. Right and their opposite? Well, the you know, Mr. Garcia and Shannon, this her friend who's a New York Times science writer, are opposites in that way. On Elon Musk. So the Stasi loves Elon Musk, right regardless of whether he is an alien or a terrible person or whatever else right? Love the concept of Elon Musk is right. Yeah, no one person he is a concept. You've met the brother Musk melon. Yeah, but the but anyway. So but Shannon, not only does she hate Elon Musk, but here's the here's the real he hates her like personally.

Yeah, hazard his Twitter people go attack her.

Yeah. Wow. And like, that's kind of cool. Like if you can get through it. If you can get like now registered space alien, Elon Musk to personally hate on you. I mean, that's. That's impressive. Yeah. So now Anastasia, and this is why this is important for the show. So we had Booker Booker came up. You know, Booker hates leaving New York City. So it was a big accomplishment. You know how much you must like Anastasia, if he leaves New York City? Yeah, she asked for it. So Anastasia, a friend of hers had cooked these chickens by suspending the chickens over a flame and then pretending that they got cooked.

Okay, no, it was a famous chef. It was not my friend. Okay, but whatever. Now

listen, I just want to say something for the record. I looked at the setup and Stasi, the Stasi has a firepit on and it's not a blame for Anastasia literally she was going off of some famous chefs Instagram photo. There's another reason why Instagrams are terrible idea. So listen, people, it is true that there is an old old old school technique, vertical, vertical roasting. I'm a huge proponent of vertical roasting has, you know, has anyone heard me talk about the tandoor, I was vertical grilling knife for a long time, right? Old school spit roasting vertical spit roasting was done with a eight vertical flame. So you built a very hot, radiant wall of heat, and then spun the thing hung it hung you whatever, pig, a small animal chicken, you hung it and you rotate it in front of a flame much like an output store situation, or euros situation or something like this schwannomas situation, right? That works. Building a fire on the ground and suspending an animal over the top of the fire so that its butt faces the sky and going to cook the animal. It's just not going to work. It's just not going to happen. Right? Unless you're sitting there and you're like, I'm gonna spend the bottom until the bottom is done. And then I'm going to turn it around. I'm going to only spend the top until the top is gone. But it's not the way it works.

This was chef negru pa Tony's technique, or what he tried. Well,

I didn't see his picture. But did he? Did he have a fire on the side?

Shoot Dave.

I can't I mean, you know, I need Jon Snow you parse this image for me?

I mean, no, this isn't really what Dave's talking about. Though. This is like the more popular way that people do it. Now. It's like the way Francois Francis moment doesn't is on this TV.

He cooks on a TV.

TV shows on Chef's Table. Anyway,

listen, listen, if you look at people who do things for a long time, like like, like let's say you don't want to build a big fire, you want to build a fire that's just over this do like they do in in South America where you you turn that you basically splayed spatchcock it out, you put it on a grate and then you lean the grate over the fire and then you flip it every once in a while. To me this makes sense. To me. This makes sense. You know what I mean? Like, like trying to do something in an in kind of in an old school way. So anyway, so I took one look at it. I was like, I'm not getting involved.

I also have five fire pits in the shape of the constellation Cancer on my lawn.

This tree once.

It's true, I've seen it. I've seen it. The guy did it. I tried to. She has a flock of mean geese that I tried to run down when night when I don't know the so anyway, so it took like, I don't know, she started cooking the chicken they left like three hours later they weren't done yet. They did they ever get done really good. Here's my theory, yes, it doesn't actually matter. And this is why I think people are gonna get mad at me, when you're hanging out with your friends and you're doing something that feels kind of cool, like having a bunch of hot rocks with a chicken like slung over it. And it gets mildly Brown, whether it's overcooked, or a little undercooked, you're just going to skip the undercooked part, you're gonna salt the hell out of it anyway, you have a couple of bottles of Rosae, you're getting a little bit hammered. It doesn't really matter. And I think people need to realize this, like when you're going to do something crazy, just accept, like crazy, like, bury a whole animal for the first time. Or this goes back to a question we had a couple of weeks ago about what kind of big cat meat should you do? And we said, like, you know, at the time, say, Wait, just and I'm saying this kind of a self help. I'm doing a little self diagnosis as well. Like I get all like bent, internally bent and therefore probably at my family externally bit about like, you know, is the quality going to be good as anyone? It doesn't matter

doesn't matter. It doesn't have you finally think that

it matters to think about it beforehand. Like I still for me, it's the it's the it's the plan of attack. It's the game plan of trying to get the plan of attack such that you have the best possible thing. But, you know, on the other hand, there's also that people got to eat, people got eat. And so for if you are a guest where someone has some sort of crazy plan of attack, and it's taking longer than they expected. Don't be a butthead. Don't give them crap about it. You gave her a little bit of crap. Who Aereo I think the very Oh crap, really? Oh, not even one bit. Okay, because it

was used to where you said you don't have to do this area. You don't have to do this.

Before she started. I was like, don't feel obliged to follow the Stasi is Instagram dream. If I didn't even

post it. It wasn't even like I was like, I want to show the world. I just was like, You're just like saw

this and you wanted it. Yeah, that makes it your Instagram feed. Anyway, I think that's fair. Yeah. So like, my point was to her, and then people were like, oh, you know, go I'm like, I'm not gonna help look aerials. We're gonna have back on the show soon. I hope Ariel 100% capable. And like you don't want two cooks with opinions. Working on the same problem. You just don't want that. So I was like, Listen, I'll be Scott work. I'll do scut work if you want Scott worked on. And if you don't, I'm just going to leave you the hell alone here. I mean, and I think that's the way to deal with it. But anyway, I noted that by the time I had left it chicken was not done yet.

Yeah, it was done like an hour after you left. Yeah, but it was really good.

But hour after I left. Hilarious. So listen, the great thing about Stasi though is she had a giant table full of crap. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, I knew I wasn't gonna be.

Yeah, so. So people, I want all of you out there. Because I know that the kind of people a chunk of the people that listen to this show are the kind of people who, like me get all bent out of shape and do all like jumped through all kinds of hoops to get something done. And I love that about people. I don't mind that about myself. But just you got to learn to let go. And it doesn't really matter whether the stuff that comes out is the best thing since sliced bread. Right?

Just this weekend at the bachelor party I was at I did a suevey carnitas. And it was like, Oh, well, I have to wait the full eight hours. We're not going to wait till 11pm To eat these tacos. I'm like, Okay, no, finish them a different way.

Can I tell you something about carnitas and specifically. So met after many, many years teaching cvwd and low temperature. I actually if you do a side by side taste test of we'll call it like low temperature smoothie wherever want to call it meats that we're used to eating cooked at a high temperature. They're very different. Okay. And it turns out that side by side for now, I'll tell you what I've tested on this. I've tested well, mainly short ribs, right mainly I've tested short ribs, but I've also tested conceded that they like it turns out that while it's true that coffee is viciously overcooked from a technical standpoint, right, the meat itself is horrendously hammered if you know if it were a chicken let's say although you can also compete it whatever. And a short rib is also viciously overcooked from from a steak perspective. Right? Yeah, it most people actually prefer the traditional product and and so I've come to realize that most of the time on stuff that people want high cooked I just cook it high. You know what I'm saying? Now, do I love the special effect of a low temp short rib cut into a perfect cube and seared off as an appetizer and some sort of fancy restaurant sitch? Yeah, but it's not going to be like you know a stick to your ribs situation like you know with you know, you get your short ribs you get something you guys like Radeon planta I really like review on player. I like reviewing when I know it's not what you're supposed to like No, but it's good. Imagine short ribs planted gravy, what's wrong with this group? What's wrong with that? Nothing, nothing wrong with that. Acid buco. Likewise, I prefer my acid buco cooked, like my mom used to cook the ASA buco not because I don't know how to cook it a different way. But that's just how I prefer it. So, I actually so on things like carnitas, I'm a huge fan of the pressure cooker, because sucker is done super fast. And if you do a side by side, if you use a non venting pressure cooker, you do a side by side, you will notice that it actually has an even deeper, meaty flavor. You know, what the problem with pressure cooking is, is that there is no reduction inside of a pressure cooking. And so you have to alter the recipe of pressure cooked products to, to deal with that. And in fact, I have a chapter in my new book on how to manage moisture inside of a pressure cooker. And I'm not gonna tell you 100% Because my publisher kill me, but I learned this at my current version of the technique. When I went to Belgium right before the pandemic, John sent me to have one of his favorites carbon non Yep. And the people who have figured out how to make a delicious carbon on have also figured out even though they didn't know it, the problem the pressure cooker. Got a caller. Caller you're on the air.

Hey, this is Jacob calling from Des Moines with a follow up another question and a potential Patreon thought, Oh, cool. I called back a couple of weeks ago about doing a lemon powder for drag queens. Oh, yeah. Has anyone die? It turns? Nobody died for you.

State Question, by the way. Go ahead.

Okay, great. I'm happy to report that I gave many notices many warnings. And I don't think so far as I know, nobody did it. So as far as the actual product itself, I don't know if I had some issues with humidity. But it wasn't as light and fluffy as I had wanted. I definitely nailed the flavor of it ended up being what did I do. I measured the weight of the powder in the oil, and then did 20% of that as powdered sugar and then kind of hit tear in my mind and then did 2% of that as citric acid and that was pretty spot on as far as flavor and acidity for a palate cleanser and whatnot.

I wish I could get here in my mind and just go to zero in my brain. He imagined your brain has all this stuff in it. You're just like you hit tear and your brain goes to 00 my God, that's my new. That's my new thing. Now I'm gonna hit mental tear

I buy that T shirt if you guys put that on a t shirt.

Yeah, cuz he issues mental.

mental care. So yeah, it all went well. But it wasn't as light and powdery as I wanted, it served its function, but I don't know if it was the humidity thing or what the deal was, but it was still kind of clumpy.

Yeah, that stuff's very vicious with humidity, but you just need to add more of that maltodextrin but the problem then is you reduce the flavor and that's why it's very hard to get balanced between flavor. So you so like, the way that you do it is the way that you either you have to use extremely concentrated flavors, or you'd have to like, like, like like lemon oil, right? Or right, you know, or add an excess of the absorbent in which case you're gonna reduce the flavor delivery so there's not like Like most things in life not losing is the new winning.

Yeah, yeah, pretty much and that's kind of the point that I got to two and I mentioned my my procrastination with the whole thing. So I actually ended up using the lemon infused olive oil from down the street from the you know, the spice shop

is gonna taste like olives.

It didn't it didn't know once you had the citric acid in the sugar in there it was It wasn't it probably wasn't like, you know, three Michelin star level lemon coriander powder, whatever, but it served its purpose. I think once the citric acid and the sugar was in there, it kind of gave the lemon flavor more context and it all worked out. I was really happy with it everybody that reported back that it was freaking delicious. There were

spirits. Speaking of lemon olive oil being limonada we're going to have Nick what's next last name again?

Don't know anything? Really? Yeah.

What's his company?

Groban vine?

Anyway, Grove and Vine. We're gonna have Nick on who's an olive oil? Well, he's like, he's like an olive oil hunter. He goes around the world hunting olive oil. Steve jeezum around with the bottle. Yeah, let's go. Okay, so there was suddenly he has all of this like super fancy. Like, he knows the farmer. Like he's he's raises the harvest. He's like, he's pet the trees that came from, you know, like all over the world. And so he shows up in the Stasi, of course, being the star sia has a giant bottle of Colavita on a picnic table that she's using to work with. And so I pick up the Colavita and I run after him like it's a dead fish on the beach. And he's like Are they running away? Alright, so here's my Iowa State Question. I illustrate, there was a there are two people, Louise Pete and, and Belle Lowe, or Delia bello who were like the Home Ec professors in the 30s 40s 50s 60s and 70s, who did all of the amazing original kind of like science cooking work in the US, like five leagues above, like, family farmer and all of that stuff. And so if you know anyone out there at at Iowa State, like, I'm now currently buying all of the editions of all of their books from like the 30s, up to 1970, to see kind of how it changes because these people not only did they kind of like pioneer this, like hard science version of kind of what we do, right, and kind of what McGee has done. Not only that, but they modified their additions over the course of like 30 or 40 years. And so they went from an era where at the beginning, they're telling you how to run a coal stove of Intel, like microwaves are common in the kitchen. And so it's just this breath. And so like, I'm interested in getting in touch with anyone at the Iowa State, who I don't know is interested or scholars or knew these people back in the day show her leave

me what are those? What are those names? Again, I might be able to connect you with somebody Louise pizza names again, Louise, Pete.

And there's a murderer named Louise. Pete not heard they're not related. And, okay, Belle, with an E and low with an E.

All right, like the German. Okay,

cool, but not low.

But my mind goes to World of Tanks. There's a tank called the Lova or whatever. Anyway. Okay, so my question

now Oh, that wasn't a question. All right. Well, yeah,

that was the follow up. That was the follow up. So my question is, I do a monthly event where we make pizzas, and I have the dough dialed in. Pretty, pretty tight. And I usually make it in an industrial kitchen, obviously. But the mixer that we're using is one of those giant like six foot tall probably 60 cord. And mixers like a whole barn. Yeah, yeah. With like the attorney, the wheel that you have to turn to like lift the bolts, right? Things I think, think think could rip a wheel off of a frickin freight train. Yeah. And so when I do that, it's usually 15 to 20 pounds of dough. I have no problems. The dough comes out exactly as it should. When I tried to make it at home in my KitchenAid I cannot get the dough. The same it doesn't it's in fact, the dough itself almost looks like a broken emulsion. Like it doesn't get smooth.

Which is amazing process. What size kitchen at

the four and a half quart one. Oh, the smallest. Yeah, the smallest one you can get

and how big is the how big bread dough batch you making?

I mean, the one that I made yesterday was 1200 grams.

Yeah, that's a lot for that small guy.

Is it? Do you think if I did

1200 grams total? Total? What's the height? What's the hydration

65% should be able to do it. But

like the look at that little hook. I borrowed someone stole KitchenAid the other day because I needed to do some experiments on on small loaves. Because my big the big KitchenAid let's just be honest, I've used KitchenAid my whole life. I grew up my mom had one from like, when I was born before I was born must have been given to her when she got married. It was that weird yellow almond color. You know, I'm saying and, and like tilted. And I use that thing. My whole life growing up. And when I got married, I was like I'm getting a Kitchenaid In fact, I think I got one beforehand, maybe for graduation, right? Like, you know, I had it, I moved up the new KitchenAid blow. You know what I mean? Like, I know people love them, or like the really big kitchen aides that the dough hook doesn't touch the bottom of the freaking Yeah. Oh, and so it

doesn't work when I do the piece when I when I do this pizza dough I like when I do it in the big one I can throw I do it. It's a cooler style. So I feed it fermented overnight, and then put some more flour in and let it mix for like 20 minutes. So and that thing incorporates the flour into that pre ferment in like a minute. This one when I do it at home, I have to like take the ball out lift like mess around with it with a spatula to try to get the whole thing to absorb because the very, very first time I tried to do it at home, it just didn't absorb so there was like this like hard packed layer of flour on the bottom and then the ratio of the flour wasn't right in the dough and it was just like, ended up getting this whole friggin mess. Anyway, so my question is, like, that's what this question is boiling down to is, is there any or do you have any sort of connection with anybody that knows anything about this? scaling things up or down? As far as like fixing times, and because I know it's a there's a lot there's a lot of things to consider. Because it's all like a physics thing, right? Like how well it works. But yeah, just like general guidelines for how you know,

well, other than the next time we have ag on right. The next time we have Leahy on we can do that. Or I can ask Wiley, I guess, you know, while he's been doing his pizza, he'd been testing his stuff on he's been testing on a KitchenAid. But he has that even bigger giant one that seven liter one. Let me ask you a question. Why do I have one or when I have to pick the bowl up lifted off of its pins and jacket back just so that I can make dough? It's ridiculous. Those guys put their bowls on washers on the pins to lift it up. Why can't they just make it freakin work. KitchenAid is supposed to have an adjustment people listened. Listen, if you take the bowl off, there's a little screw behind on the KitchenAid on the column where it goes up and down. This is supposed to be an adjustment so you can adjust where the bowl sits when it goes up and down. But guess what? It doesn't work? You don't I mean? It doesn't work. Look, I'm a machine guy. I like machines far more than I like people and I can't get it to do what I want to do. It's a near tinta. But

that's kind of that's that's, that's kind of related to this. So when I was younger, before I had my first Vitamix, and I had my tax return, I was like, Alright, I'm going to either get a tattoo a Vitamix, or KitchenAid. What do you guys think? I asked the kitchen crew that I was working with. And I got, I think the best response I could have gotten from the pastry chef, she said, a Vitamix, there is nothing that you can do to replace the Vitamix,

right ballpoint. Give yourself a tattoo. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

She said a KitchenAid is really more of a convenience thing. Kitchen aides do what they do. They don't necessarily do it as well as you were to do it if you were to like do it by hand. But it's something that just makes it a little bit more convenient, a little bit less work for you. And I was like, Oh, that's a that's a perfect answer. I got the Vitamix Of course. Yeah,

that's a good call. Hit me back when you figure that out. Thanks for calling in. And by the way,

I got I got one more thing.

She's gonna murder you.

Make a quick suggestion for the suggestion for the Patreon. Okay, Jersey Bible.

Well, we know that we want Oh, we for the Patreon, do the jersey Bible.

Do that

do something, do something do Noah with his sons is not understandable unless you do it in Jersey, like the fact that like they looked at the dead naked, and that somehow caused all those problems. And one of them got like,

what did they say? What was their response?

I gotta I gotta look at it. I gotta look. backs up. backs up. Oh, oh. Back up. And if you looked at me,

if you if you printed a version of that Bible, I would buy that like, and I fell off the church wagon many years ago, but I would buy that and keep that like, in prominent display. In my, in my apartment, if you printed a jersey version of the Bible. I mean,

the trick is to just do it. Like it's real. Like that's like, you know, not like, it's not about like changing the story or like, you know, poking fun at the story. It's just like, what if it was all folks from Jersey? And oak is yeah, you know, Staten Island counts too. We can get up to the island I mean, you know, it's like you know, you got all the way like Israel you got the Sinai you got like, all these different areas. I think it stretches from like, Long Island down. I don't know like I don't know how far down you think we go like Kearney. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we don't know like Southern jersey. Oh, no, no, that's different. Oh, Southern jersey is Philly. I'm not the No way. No one's showing up and saying water. No, no, that's North Philly. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, none of that. No Camden towns. All right. All right. Well, thanks. Oh, little note of clarification for those people who listen to this that have the A novice steam oven. I had a little bit of a Twitter flurry last night with someone asking a question about holding chicken and Scott who no longer you know Seattle Food geek who no longer works for a nova but still answers people's questions because he's a kindly fellow said this piece of information which is actually not that easy to find on the internet. When you have the steam oven set to su V mode. You with me people and you set it at a temperature in Soviet mode below the boiling point of water. Right? You are actually setting the wet bulb temperature you understand I'm saying? You understand what I'm saying? Yeah, the wet bulb. So you're setting basically what the internal temperature of the meat or food is, is going to get you the wet bulb temperature and then the percentage right of steam isn't actually doing the percentage of steam what it's doing is just driving the what the dry bulb temperature up as high as it can get without messing with the wet bulb. That is how it actually works. So like if you had fried chicken, which was what the poster was asking about, right, you set the you set it to su lead mode, then you set it to the temperature you want to hold the meat at. And you know, he said 63, but I would recommend 60 Because you know, don't actually set it at the temperature, it's cooked too, because it will keep moving. You don't want to keep moving, there's no way you want you want to be stationary or whatever. So I would say 60 and then set the humidity level as low as you need to to maintain the Crispin's on the outside. And that's what it's actually doing, which is unclear. It's unclear labeling or as it's said in a fanfare was a Fantastic Mr. Fox. That's bad songwriting PD. Here's the thing. So Booker, we're talking about two things on Booker Booker is extremely nervous that a lot of people are harvesting mushrooms right now, right? Because it's wet and falls coming out people having too much. So whenever anyone sends me something saying, Oh, I've harvested all these amazing hen of the woods, which I know, I know, man Joe loves over here. I do. Yeah. So I got someone who was like, a friend of mine from Connecticut who was like, look at us, I got pounds and pounds of this crap. And I was like, Oh, nice. I'm gonna show up. And Booker goes, What if you accidentally get a destroying angel, which is Emma Anita, which is an avenue to species that will kill you. And I'm like Booker, they look nothing alike. But here's the thing that I want to talk about. Apparently, they are an incredibly delicious mushroom. So you can eat and once you started eating an m&m, you're going to need a liver transplant anyway, or you're going to die. So you might as well eat a bunch because apparently they are delicious. They're just delicious. Yeah. Can you imagine if someone eats one and they know they're going to die? And someone goes, Yo, yo, how's it taste? What was it good? Cause Are you for real? Give me a dress plan. What's wrong with you? Ah, but, but I wasn't worth it was it? What did? Did you use butter? You know, I mean, garlic. You know, I mean, it's like, I'm trying to imagine having the stones to ask someone how it tasted when they've given themselves a desert. It's also unpleasant because you have a couple of days of being 100% Fine. Anyway, whatever. But that wasn't what I was gonna talk about. So Booker, I want to go around the room. What's a strawberry shortcake to you John? John was a strawberry shortcake to you.

Just like Angel fruitcakes, I'm aspirated strawberries. Whipped cream.

Okay. Yeah, huh? Stars.

Those little like cup. Angel Food cup things.

Oh, the ones that used to get in the store that have that weird shame. Huh?

Exactly what I thought that you are some kind of mind. Yo, yo,

man, a fan of angel of strawberry shortcake. See, to me Strawberry Shortcake is basically biscuits, whipped cream and strawberries. Like maybe with like some sauce on it. But like old school, old school. So I remember in the 70s those things being sold as shortcake things and I did like them those orange weird spongy things. But at some point, it's I think kind of almost lost its meaning with a lot of people. No one even remembers this biscuit thing anymore. Like shortcake is like biscuit dough, maybe slightly sweetened biscuit dough with cream and strawberry. It's a very lightly sweet dessert. Anyway, so Booker has become obsessed with the what he believes is an Italian bakery phenomenon of the strawberry shortcake that looks like a standard cake. Looks like a standard cake. It's basically a light, like cross between whipped cream and butter cream. And like a gin Huazi base, right. It's not a full Angel. It's not a full sponge. It's somewhere in the middle, and was the weakest of all cakes. And it's got like glazed strawberries on top. And Booker travels around the five boroughs on the subway going to various bakeries to sample their version of this strawberry shortcake and he will come home after a day's railfanning with a whole cake. Throw away anything that's important in the fridge, stick it in the fridge, and then proceed to eat it fundamentally on his own over the course of a day. Wow. All right. So I need anyone out there. First of all, to tell me the onpoint strawberry, this type cake type of strawberry shortcake in the five boroughs he can go visit. So I was like you know Booker, a lot of people love veneers. Veneers is a widely loved bakery down here near grammar. See, it's been around since the 20s. I haven't been there many years but they used to have an amazing box wrapping if you guys seen the box wrapper. Yeah, I love it right yeah. So they they they put the cake or the pastries in the box they put the box down in the box, whoever that and it like ties it in a bow without any you know Yeah, I love it. Although I do appreciate seeing someone who can who can tie a pastry box we could fast you know what I mean with with the string that comes down from the ceiling triggered above up and then they sit there and they somehow they go whip around their fingers and they break it but they never cut their fingers. It's sick. It's a good skill. Whenever I try to do that. I like pull too slowly and it I tend to my fingers. I'm like, oh, and then like you can't stop. And then when you pull it, you have that like line around it. And meanwhile, there's like this like 70 year old person just like, pow. And then they hand you your box. Their skill in that. Yeah, it's a good skill anyway. So I was like, Yeah, what about De Niro's? He was like, he goes online. They don't glaze their strawberries. Oh, wow. And I was like, wow, hate Nana. I was like, Booker, maybe it's because they sell them so fast that they don't need to glaze them because they don't need to be preserved the way does anyone who by the way, like those pastries, that it's custard, sliced fruit and goop on top? No, nobody likes you. Oh,

just Brussels last week with my brother were outside of pastry shop. And they had those were like, oh my god, we want to eat all of them.

They have been built. Because like, whenever they show up, I'm like, well, they look good, but who's gonna eat these things? And now I know like you. Yeah, it's

usually Yeah, my house. It's difficult to share. Yeah, I don't want to share what those I don't

know. What about like when they've been sitting to do they need to be maybe if they're hyper fresh. I would like them.

Yeah, I mean, you still want I don't know, like to be crunchy crust on the bottom and all that stuff. But yeah. Well,

okay. Yeah. Okay, interesting. You learn something new about people. Every day. Every day. Speaking of Belgium, you have some Belgian products here you want to talk about?

I do. Yeah. So I got you at the checkout because it was your own. I figured why not get it for you. It's similar to yours. So it's a like fruit butter from the edge. It's really a typical kind of thing. It's got made of apples, dates and pears.

And is it is it like like an American fruit butter like apple butter? Yeah, I love apple butter I grew up on

delicious this is really good too. But this also in the as you can find it's a local speciality of Kabu laelia Joie so it's a big meatball that's braised in a sauce that's based on this and served over french fries with all the gravy and everything. It's really delicious. They

say like, like a fruity meatball.

Kind of Yeah, like the length sweet. I like a sweet meat. Oh, no, it's delicious. And then I got you the mustard from Danton.

Fabulous mustard. Yeah, so like for those of you that don't know, if you're ever again, you gotta go to the mustard lady or her sons. She will not answer any of your questions. She will get surly if you attempt to continue to ask questions about how she makes the mustard. It's piped up from the basement and then she serves it with a big ladle into your buckets. It is I believe, John, you said it is unparalleled? Yeah, yeah. Which

means it's the best they've been making since 1790. They now have four or five other products too that they make but this

is that's the one we're about. I had they're like mustard pickles define? Yeah. Let me ask you a separate question. Have you had this? Oh, the name of it. Can you pronounce it for me and gentlemen, like Verryn what is it? Very long. Right now there is another mustard from Belgium with a very similar name that is made and sold in places other than that one store. And so they're kind of like riding on the name? Yep. Is it bonk or is it just not as good?

I don't know. I've never had it because why would Yeah, that's where my my dad was from and everything so yeah, just one. It's what we'd always get. Yeah, yeah. Again,

dish to get dish mustard. What's the name of the nasty little get pyramid shaped candies?

Oh, I had one of those nasty Yeah, they're not great. They taste super medicinal. Like an out diabetes and a bite essentially. It's so sweet. But it's like a hard not hard gummy hard outer shell thing with like the sweet syrupy kind of filming. Yeah, Cooper done. This was Yeah. Yeah, for the shape of Pinocchio's nose,

which also it's like an early Pinocchio before he tells lies because it's not that big of a pyramid. True. You know? I mean, it's just an unpleasant thing. Listen, if you're going through building Yeah, if you're going to Belgium, they have many many many good things. Yes. The waffles are that good? Yes. The fries are that good? Yes, they just are okay. Like a bad fry in Belgium is better than a good fry here. That's just the truth. I'm sorry. You know what I mean? There look, you want to get someone you want to choose one of the waffle places. It's making it fresh, not people who sandbag them right but even so even a sandbagged Belgian actual the edge style waffle is better than a fresh made one here. Absolutely. It just is. You know, they're tiny shrimp are great. Their muscles are great. The beer is as good as you think it is. It's all true. It's all true. But this thing sucks. You don't I mean, they're they're allowed to have they're allowed to have one complete fail. Yes. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yep. Yeah. Never been to leash. So the I will go back to Belgium in a heartbeat though. I like it. Yeah. Which is really nice. Yeah. So who do we have as upcoming guests because I want people to get ready. Oh, and by the way, let me give the telephone number because I realized they didn't do it. If you have questions you're listening live on the Patreon call them in 2917410 1507. That's 917410 1507 And if you're listening to this later because you're not a Patreon member, if you want to call in or Listen Live, you can join us at what is it? What's our website for that?