Hello and welcome to cookies use. This is Dave Arnold your host of cookies us coming to you live on newsstands studios in Rockefeller Center in New York City joined as usual Anastasia hammer Lopez, how're you doing? Good doing well? Yeah, we got over here in our in house booth. Joe. Hey Zane, what's up?

Hey, how are you guys? Good morning.

Morning. Good. All right, doing alright. And back from Mexico in Long Island. We don't know why. Because he does not live there. Jackie molecules How you doing?

My mom lives here. Oh, yeah. Hello. Yeah,

I forgot. Well, I'm from my hometown, right, which which hometown is your hometown among. You want to call it out?

West Babylon, West Babylon. So

what percentage of cars growing up in West Babylon was Camaros Oh my god. I don't know. Like 50% or 80%. Is that like Camaro? Like? Is that Camaro Long Island or is that BMW Long Island?

More Camaro Long Island. Right? A Buick growing up at a Buick Skylark. You know from my cousin Vinnie. Oh, Buick Skylark.

Yeah, it's pretty strong. I like that. I just went to the auto mania show at at the MoMA. If you like cars, European cars, but you don't want to see a lot of cars. If you want to see like an art museums interpretation. What's interesting about cars, it's worth going to. Oh, they're not very big on American cars there. They only have one American car and it's in their collection and it's a jeep.

Really? Yeah.

I like jeep. So nice. They have a freakin smart car. No Skylark. But

crazy. How old How far does it go back?

Well, it's that's the thing. It's not like so if you're a car lover, it's not like going to a car museum. Right? So it's, it's basically it's kind of more about mid century modern design. Mid last century modern design. So it's like, you know, a little sports job, guys. Like I like a really pretty jag like a Citro N dS.

What about like those?

That was a Corvair? Remember this, Cornell, you know, my, my freakin so the Corvair well known for being blowing up blowing up, right. That was what Ralph Nader kind of made his bones on. Right? Wasn't it? Wasn't it that one of the early? Yep, exactly. It was like the pinto of its day. My grandpa owned one. And I remember you remember the pinto was the car where? Like, you just touched the bumper and it explodes. Remember that? Do you remember that? Yeah. And the movie I referenced about three, three or four shows ago with Val Kilmer called Top Gun one of the gags in it. That's our top secret. One of the gags was like, all these guys are in a Pinto. And then like someone like pulls up behind him just goes, Tink and it the whole thing just explodes. I think of that. I believe it was that movie. I love 80s like stupid 80s gags like I love them. I love them. mustache and I can talk about my favorite Gregory Hines gag later if we want but right now we have a caller caller you're on the air. Oh no, you don't last a call last caller Well, if you want to call back or if you're listening live on Patreon calling your questions 2917410 1507. That's 9174010 1507 So anyway, Gregory Hines is in a movie with Chevy Chase called deal this Oh, we got to call her back caller you're on the air. Hey, what's up?

How are you? Good. So I have a kind of a weird conundrum that I was hoping you could help me with. My brain is broken. And I'm taking it apart and trying to fix it. But in the meantime, I don't have like a toaster oven. I have my burners I have my I have a couple inductions. I have a couple of sizzles. I have a microwave. But how do I like properly heat something without the use of that convection? You know, barring like letting my grill you know,

well how long? How waits. So you've seen the convection on your oven is broken, but the oven itself still operates?

No, sorry, just the range just just the burners operate the oven itself, like I don't get lifetime which means it's probably something early on and like there's some wire loose that I have defined. In the meantime, I don't have that nor do I have a toaster. And so but yeah, barring like, you know, firing up my grill, which I love to do, right, probably want to properly like reheat or cook or toast something. You know, we've I don't know.

I'm contractually obliged to tell you the secret vault can do all of those things

right and but which I've done, which I've done and but it's kind of a travail to you know, take something from cold Cook.

So your oven is electric. Right? Correct. Right? So

the range is the range is gas.

Nice. Listen, I, you could go around and do like a bunch of crazy nonsense like you could get like a Dutch oven, put a rack on it and then build it into an oven by insulating the top and putting it on. You could do all of this nonsense. Yeah, that was my thought, yeah, or just get yourself like a Breville smart air like toaster oven. Uh, here's, here's why I'm going to say that. The large oven is great to have, it's awesome. That sucker is like, probably on the order of somewhere between somewhere around five kilowatts of power going into that thing, right. So it's kind of an energy hog and it's heating up a large block. Now as we go into the winter, it's not going to be such a big deal that you're heating up your place, but it's just a lot more energy efficient to use a smaller oven, like like a toaster oven, right? So the Nova is like a little bit big, right? The like the Breville smart air is big for a toaster oven. But what's nice about it is is that when you are cooking when you get your oven fixed, it can operate like a normal oven and it can take like a full chicken, you know what I mean? And it has a very It has a very fast convection. So like they, I hesitate to use the word because they hate it because it doesn't exist. But the air fry setting on it has a pretty high, right? It's not real has it has a high conversion rate. And so it's really good for doing things like dehydrating, not the high, it does dehydrate as well, so you can use it as dehydrated or go low enough. It works great as a dehydrator. The only issue with it is is that it doesn't have as many racks as next caliber but as soon as I got that and move my x caliber into storage, they don't have room for an Excalibur and

greatest like it's like a warming oven as well. You can boy get the bagels, okay, it can pre Yeah, all right, I'm gonna look into

what it can prove. And so then for for sub 200 bucks, you have a backup there. Right? And it's I mean, I find it useful when I had to move it out for a while because you know, I was doing a lot of tests with the with the steam oven with the Nova steam oven. But you know, and I love the a nova but it's just not as nimble. So my family was like bring the toaster oven back and I have a giant oven it works fine. They don't talk that way. Yeah,

for sure. Well, you know, so sorry. Just one last thing that does it does it have a steam said it because I also dehydrate I also brew but Okay, so there's no but I could just you know, throw some cubes in a tray.

Yeah. And when I when I when I when I prove I was covered in it. Always prove covered.

Right. Okay. Okay, great. Well, thank you very much for the advice. I appreciate it. Hope you're staying

safe. And good luck. And be careful when you fix your oven. Don't zap yourself. The Stasi. Did. Stasi Lopez is definitely afraid of Elert of electricity such that like I could be hold. I could be holding up like I could be holding a pin and attach to that pin is 500 pounds. It's going to crush me. And I'm like Anastasia hand me the pliers. I'm gonna die. She's like, will the player shock me? Will they shock me? Right or wrong? Yes. Yes. Why are you so afraid of getting shot?

I really hate the feeling. I hate the field.

You're more than hated. There's lots of things that you hate that you do daily like talk to me. Yeah. But like why is it what is it about electricity?

I don't know. I don't know. I really hate the feeling.

Alright, so people go to sleep. And you used to threaten me with the threaten you? I say come on. I wasn't a threat. I was saying Come on.

No, you said I'm going to shock you. I

didn't say I'm going to shock you I say why don't you let me shock there's a big difference between threatening you. But you would never agree to do it. No. Alright, so here's what we're talking about people are here here's the thing. So EKG May is the Japanese fish killing technique and are proud to say that in the United States we were some of the first people who are researching that crap Am I right about that says we were some of the first people way back in the day researching Japanese fish killing techniques in here in the US trying to read as much of the Japanese materials we could talk to as many Japanese chefs but the basic concept of it is well you could Jimmy is just fish killing but the the leave the term is Shinken Nuki. But it's a long time deed spinal ablation technique where you run a rod through the spinal cord of a fish and zap it spinal cord is a way to improve the quality of the of the of the meat of the flesh. We did a lot of work on it such that a company sent us a muscle tester so for those of you that took high school biology it when you dissect the you euthanize the frog and you get the muscle the gastroc anemia so wherever you pronounce it gasps You know the the leg muscle out of the frog and then you you zap it with electricity Joe you done this? Jack you've done this anyone? No, I've never done that. See, zap the frog muscle and it goes and like pulsates when you put the electricity on it because you Exciting the muscle. And so, you know, one of the claims was with the you know, the EKG made that we were doing with a spinal ablation is is that the muscles retain their ability to jump more they've taped Patane there, they keep the potential longer so they sent us this little muscle shock meter. That's like, you're supposed to stick on to the fish and see whether the fish contracts at all when you know the dead fish contracts at all when you put on the muscle. Alright, so I would shock myself with it. Because what else am I gonna do? You know, I mean, and and Nastasia never agreed to let herself get shocked with it. No, not one time.

No, I used to work in the garage with my dad like on stuff and he would do a lot of our like, electric work and I remember being he's trained by the way he he's, he's not you know, he's only one boy. Yeah, yeah. But like electrical is different. He won't do hardcore electrical, you know? Well, what's

hardcore? Doesn't he climb telephone poles? Yeah, like much more hardcore.

real hardcore.

But yeah, I remember being shocked on like, things I really hated it. Shock was what was

in this house I grew up in. There's a in our garage. We have a refrigerator like an extra refrigerator and growing up, every single time I would go to turn the light on in the garage. It would shock me and it's like, I would never learn. I've never learned my lesson. But then it came to kind of like, not enjoy it, but it was like it was just light enough to be like, Oh, that's kind of cool.

I don't enjoy the taste in my mouth. No, no, I

hate that too. Oh, no. Yeah, that is weird.

So I'll tell you how to to shock stories that I had because it really is dangerous you can get there was a kid killed. We talked about this like a couple of weeks ago with lightning a whole like a group of kindergarteners got hit with lightning and one of them died. Really? Yeah. So So cup a couple of times. I got shocked memorable times I got shocked when I was a kid. I used to find and disassemble oscilloscopes so like all the oscilloscope was from like the, you know, the 50s like that look like you know those 50s movies, they had storage oscilloscope. I had all sorts of really cool. So I don't know, how do you describe it an oscilloscope? Somebody doesn't know what an oscilloscope is.

It's cool question.

It's like when you look at the screen, there's a like radar, but yeah, yeah, it's cool. It's green. Yeah. Shows you frequency waves. Yeah, yeah. So when I was a kid, I used to watch this thing called Marvin in the Magic Movie machine where the computer was an oscilloscope right and you in and it makes that like line that you know, anyway, so I used to play with them. And I remember they had these ones from the 60s with modular units in them and I was completely unattended. Nobody was paying attention. I don't know what the heck my parents was. My mom was being a doctor, you know, hoping I didn't call myself my dad was being an engineer. I know whatever. So I pulled I pulled them open and I put my finger right up against like a 400 volt terminal in the back of the oscilloscope blam and I got blown across them but it didn't kill me. I guess it wasn't very much current it just hurt like hell like 400 volts hurts like hell. The other the other shock one I used to love was you guys you know Joe and Jack have been you know done been around music people right so when I was in college, obviously I had no money so I bought an old so I was in college in the 90s Right? And I was buying equipment from the 70s used and used equipment was free back then no one wanted old equipment especially unless it was like some special to crap. So I bought this thing called up custom with a K amplifier that was have you guys seen these? Their vinyl?

Yeah, of course it has the the soft, the soft padding on the outside. Yeah, it looks like Eddie monsters card bait bait, great bass amp.

That's what I had. I had a custom with a K bass amplifier ahead and I had a twin 15 Evie cabs that I was running as loud as you know. I mean, I was loud dude. Anyway. Of course, a problem with being a bass person is you have to lug all that frickin equipment everywhere. So anyway, so I've got my customer with a K amplifier for like $110 at a US shop in Hartford, Connecticut. But that sucker was not grounded at all. So every time I touched the cabinet, I got blown back every single time that I had my bass and I went to go flick the metal switch on the front of the custom I will get blown back worth a dope because who had the money to buy a properly grounded amplifier? You know what I mean?

Yeah, they do the same thing when you're like, you're using like a laptop and you go to touch the laptop and you're like, you're done. You're like you're gonna fry something.

Yeah. Oh, well get can nowadays you're worried about the equipment back then they were just worried about you. I mean, no one was really worried about me. No one's really worried about me, especially Randy Scott, the jerk who became a math professor who stuck a drum stick on purpose through our speakers because he chose to live in the housing unit right above the music practice room. It was a known thing. You don't I mean, it's like the idiot who moves in above a bar and complaints. Don't you hate that guy?

hate that guy.

I hate that guy. The bar is here. You moved up. Love the bar. That's your problem. Yeah, man, I still don't forgive him. Randy Scott is a psychopath. For any of you that have Randy Scott as a professor, he's the one person on earth, I will just call out here right now as a psychopath. And I don't think you can change, right? You can change, right? You could change, you can get better, you can get worse if inside, you're at your core, if you're a good human being, you can change if you're presented with things right. But if if your core is that you're a psychopath, right, you can't change that. I don't think, right? You're not going to grow. If you didn't have a conscience in college. You're not going to grow one. Apparently very good mathematician, though. Very smart guy. Just goes to show what happened

to that what happened to your speaker cabin? You put a drumstick through it? I mean, that does change the sound in a cool way.

I mean, yeah, but I mean, I'm not freaking you know, Nirvana. I'm not doing this stuff on purpose. You know, I put duct tape on the columns. I didn't have the money to recall those things. But you know what, like, my equipment I played so loud, everything was so distorted anyway. And then anytime we would play in a club that back then, nobody cared about the bassist at all, they would talk to the guitarist, oh, what do you want, we're gonna make you're gonna make ramp all this stuff. Bases, put it through the direct box for those that Okay, so the direct box is saying you plug your base into the direct box and it goes right to the board, where the sound guy who universally had a mullet back then so much so mullet wasn't a term that people use for that kind of hair cut back in the 80s and 90s. So we just call it the sound man hair cut. You don't I mean? Anyway, I digress. As usual. Again, we didn't talk about that much last week, because, you know, Dorothy Collins was on But Alexander asked when we're going to make spins off again, Alexander, I do not know. I do not know if we do it. It will be with a Kickstarter, because we don't have the money to pay for a whole round out to bring in. And it's month out. We do not have any word from the factory, you would not believe how hard it is to get something like that. Produced once the factory stops making it right says yep, we would like to, we would like to, and, okay, I spoke about Miguel with his graphite pens a little bit, right. Yeah. If you have any more questions, I also talked a little bit about bills shagbark hickory problem, but I'll go more into detail. So the shagbark hickory is a fantastic hickory tree. I believe it's Korea. ovata, I think and you can recognize a shagbark hickory, because the bark on it, hence its name Shagbark. Looks like it's peeling off in like long strips, right? It looks like it's coming off in long strips. And it also happens to have other hickories have very good nuts, but the shagbark hickory is considered the it is the royalty of Northern nuts, right? So like, you know, we don't really grow pecans here. So pecans, and Shagbark hickories are close cousins, right. The The difference is, is that pecan is relatively easy to shell. And a hickory is incredibly difficult to shell. And so the hickory therefore never became and they're also they take a long time before they become a nut bearing age. And didn't you have to fight with the frickin squirrels. They're tall trees. So you have to it's a whole thing. So hickory nuts are expensive, but delicious. But the Shagbark hickories, which grow a lot around here. And in fact, I don't know how far south they grow. They go I know they grow all the way down to southern Pennsylvania and probably even further down. And then they grow all the way west. I think I know they go all the way through to Ohio, they might go all the way through the plains up north all the way over to the Rockies for all I know. And when you peel the bark off, the outer bark is sloughing off, right. So the stuff that's peeling off is not going to hurt the tree. Don't peel it all the way down, just like peel some of it off the outside, break it into tiny pieces. If you have a VAC, rinse it with cold water. If you have a vacuum machine, you know break up the little pieces and do a vacuum infusion just to get the water into a quickly then use like you know a bunch of water, bring it up to the boil and then let it steep. And then if you you know once you remove the wood, if you find that it's not concentrated enough for your flavor, well, you can just reduce it because why not? Right? reduce it to the flavor you want and then take it to 50 bricks and you're done. Yeah, yeah. All right. Okay. We also talked a little bit about what mica should do for his large format. meats. When we said it's going to be tough, and no one really cares what it tastes like. So just make it fun. I would like you know, I've never done an underground cook. You ever been in an underground cook? And stuff? You know, Joe, or Jackie band was underground cooks? I have never even done an underground like in the earth seaweed clambake was it good or was it just fun? Just fun. Yeah, right. Yeah, not good, but fun. Yeah. And then like because everything was viciously over or viciously on render. Oh, So you didn't build enough of a retain heat.

So then yeah, and then erielle had to fix it all by building an actual fire.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's the class they look. Sometime it's it's since I don't have an outdoor like a, you know, I'm not, you know, I don't do this but some someone has to just do the calculations on how much energy you need to dump into the earth in order to use the entire Earth as a retain heat masonry oven. You know what I mean? Yeah. And then, you know, then you would know, yeah, yep. You know, because like, I feel like, if you did this, like four times, by the third time, you'd be good at it. Then the fourth time we'd go the fifth time, then you wouldn't do it for 10 years, and you'd forget and you'd come back and you'd be bad at it again. You know, it's like, it's like, it's like, no one. No one. No one is great at bowling when they first start. You have to Bolson first. I'm terrible bowling.

I hate bowling. Why? I don't like sports. We have to wait your turn. Golf. Bowling.

So what's a sport where you don't have to wait. You're

like a like flag football. You know? You're all but then if no one throws you though, then. Yeah, you're still there's a chance you could get the ball.

But if you're playing soccer. Oh, so you just want the chance? Yeah, you don't need to have it. So if you're that person just standing there and no one's passing you the ball. You're fine with it. Because theoretically, you're in it to win it. Yeah, my leg tennis because the ball well, tennis. I mean, yeah. Tennis. I mean, you're always playing about badman. That's a big Yeah, like that. No, it's a great game. You know what I would like to you up on some time. Ping pong. Let's go. Let's

do have we done that.

My place? Yeah. Just you know, I'm sure you can all imagine this. A star scene I get real aggressive. With things like ping pong. Yeah, I mean, yeah. No, we should do. We should do engineers versus versus us. We should have Jackie molecules and Joe on one side and doubles. We would suck at doubles? We would we would. We would be the worst. Oh, yeah.

I don't know. I don't know.

We have to know whether our desire to eff with each other would be stronger, no or weaker

than our desire to win. We our desire to win would when

you hear that you guys are on notice. You're on notice. They don't care. All right. Do we talk about it? We talked about this question that Zachary had. I don't know. We talked a little bit because they we listen, I'm going to get in touch with they want a list of Maria Gorna Shelley's books. I'm going to try to get in touch with my editor, which I owe her more work. Melanie and Norton and see whether or not we can get a personal Oh, also, there's an author I want to have on but there's no reason for me to have her on. So it's I need someone to make up a reason for me to have right well, who is Mary Roach just came out with a new book. She's like one of my favorite science writers. She wrote gulp. She wrote stiff, she has a new book called fuzz that's about like animal human run ins where the animals are doing things that are technically illegal, like monkeys, stealing things from people and she has a story where monkeys pull out people's IVs and then suck on the side on the on the solution. Strong Right? And how do you respond to that? You know what the answer is? They hire a bigger, meaner monkey to pee all over the property of so like if you're rich and you have a mechanic problem. You can hire someone to bring their langurs in to pee all over your property. So that the mechanics are like I'm going with the length of piers. Anyway, so I need an excuse because not a food book.

I mean, it's interesting. We can do like, I don't know.

I also like there's that tree ring scientists value tree I want to get because I love dendrochronology but I can't think of a food related reason to have a dendro chronologist on the show trees produce food. Yeah, all right. Alright. Anyway, somebody think about it. So also, Zachary said I don't know if I talked about this. Kenji Lopez all suggested removing the cap from a household gas range to get a more focused flame on a wok. Does this deliver more heat and is this dangerous at all? Well, I'm trying to think windows I mean, I have a serious getting fish bowl. I have a serious burner at my house that doesn't have a cap. So it's been a long time Do either of you have the the thing with the cap on it? No, I had one with a cap on once when you pulled it off. It didn't change the flame at all. Anything that you could do to change the flame it's not going to be it's not going to be dangerous. If you can remove the cap. It's not going to be dangerous. I don't know how much it's going to help. I think the thing that you can do most to help with a with a crappy home range is to you know make a ring to keep the flame inside if it's coming out. The other thing you can do is just go buy a wok burner they're amazing. You can get a standalone outdoors you have outdoor space, you can get a standalone wok burner and they are ridiculous. They're so awesome. Do that. All right. Where do you say? We don't have a call right now, gotta figure out which questions we haven't answered yet. Okay. Stephen reveal called in via Instagram. How do you have a question about cocktail preparation using my hat's up I shave her. My plan is to pour the cocktail or shaved ice in a coupe glass. Should I dry? Shake all my ingredients before I pour over the ice? Or should I just measure out the ingredients and pour them without shaking? How did you do it at Booker and DAX and existing conditions? Thanks all right. It's a good question by the way. I need to get my shaver back out now. Now now that it's gonna get cold, right? Jerk what a dummy I have mine in storage. I love my shaver. Anyway, I have to now Nicholas here's the problem. So you guys like do what do you guys feelings on shave ice in general love. Yeah. Which style of shave it like? Soft but I mean like, Do you like it with like the coconut milk and like condensed serum you like it like you like like the Spanish guy with the with the giant block and the scraper and then like the things like you have juice the things that juice? Yeah. What about you tell us shave ice guy.

I love shaved those yeah what style that style like with the little block on the on the street that guy? Love those are kind of crunchy too. Yeah,

I like those guys. By Where are you sitting with magic? Where are you? Where's your shave? Is head at Jack right now. Oh, no, we lost Yeah. Oh, that's what that was we lost Jack Jack went from. He's in Long Island, they don't have the internet Long Island yet. It hasn't made it all the way out to to Babylon where he is in in the Long Island anyway. So the shave ice that we're talking about is a is a Japanese shave ice machine. There are some inexpensive versions of the Katsuyuki that you can buy now for like, like a quarter of the price. There's a company in Hawaii because that's where it's the most popular that ships them out. And they're, I've I have one of the cheaper ones and I have the real hot set up. So I will tell you this. The cheaper one is not as nice. It will make shaved ice fine. So if you're rich by the good one, which Anastasia and I found it, and I carried it on my back while we were last in Tokyo and kept on we had a we were in Tokyo, we went to the chef's district remember this in the Stasi, and I found that and it came in a flat thing as heavy as hell. And I had it like on my back. And then you just kept showing the business card of the hotel to anyone on the street who had tried it. And we were just asking them to point us in the direction of the hotel.

I remember Mark was with us. And he's like you guys like doing this kind of stuff. We're like

you hate it. We hate it. And also Anastasia and I are so cheap that we didn't turn on data. So we had no way to find because this was back before you could just pay like $10 a day and get data. And they were like, if you leave and look at your phone, it's like $100 a day.

We took the bus eventually with it. Yeah, that's what we got.

And we had no idea we were looking for the hotel out of the bus windows. It's kind of a nightmare. Anyway, so I got a very good deal on it, which is why I got but they're much more expensive here. Anyway, I digress as usual. The problem with shave ice and cocktails is alcohol is an incredibly powerful ice melting thing. So if you listen back to the episode when Quinn came on to talk about his gelato obsession book, you will remember that alcohol has a huge amount of anti freezing power. And so in cocktails it melts ice tremendously quickly. So what you need to do what we used to do at Booker and DAX is we would put half of the cocktail we would premix it we will put half of the cocktail into the coop glass. Then we would shave ice directly into the coop get glass and it would start melting and create a slush and then we would make a giant mound of it. So come looking like a mountain out of the out of the a shaver look real pretty and then you can change whether you like it crunchy or or softer on the ice like Anastasia likes it depending on you know you got you got your Joe who likes the crunchy we got your sassy, who likes the soft and then you bring it to the table. And then you pour the rest of the cocktail over the top and it instantly melts all the ice down and drops it right to the flush line on the on the drink. If you want to have substantially more ice leftover, then you're going to need something bigger than a coupe glass you're going to need like a bowl and it's going to get real slushy and soupy but just experiment that's how we used to do it that good enough answer says. Yep. All right. See grade wrote in. Please explain the science of stirring. In other words, why does stirring help prevent my sugary barbecue sauce from spilling over the lip of the pot when bringing my sauce to a hard simmer? Hard simmer. Would you think about that as a phrase? Fine, hard simmer. I was reading. Every once in a while there's words that I wonder whether in stasis going to hate to close your ears, ear muffs, ear muffs, spores. I was reading about spore prints the other day. A and these people are making like T shirts where they they walk around. These are Michael logical minded folks. And they put mushrooms on their back. And they make spore print t shirts. And they walk around with these spore prints. And as soon as I saw it, I was like, instead he would hate that.

She would wait, they grow mushrooms on their back. And that'd

be awesome. No, what they do is, is like they're walking around the forest, they find an interesting mushroom, they take off their, their shirt, they put it down, and they put the gills of the mushroom down, and they let it do the spore print thing. And then they put their shirt back on and it develops into like, it looks almost like, like a like a like a like, like they got sucked on by space leeches, you know, through their shirt. That's something that freaks me out the Leech. And I like the Leech. here's this, here's the science, here's the science for you. And it's an interesting point, because I was actually dealing with this topic in my book recently. So when something is thick, right, what happens is, is it gets kind of superheated at the bottom, right. And as it does, it's forming all of these bubbles, but they can't readily make it to the top to disperse. So you get these kind of large bubbles, and you also have a much thicker, more viscous solution. And so it has the ability to to hold bubbles more. And so they build up, and they have no way to get out until they build up kind of violently, and then they move up and move out over. That makes sense. So when you stir it, what you're doing is you're allowing that gas, it's building up into those big bubbles, you're breaking those bubbles and letting them get to the surface, you're also preventing they're so in a thick sauce, right? In a thick sauce. In water, you have maybe not even like like most one or two degrees difference between the top and the bottom because convection works right? In a thick thing like a barbecue sauce. Convection doesn't work anymore. Because you know, the natural convection that happens isn't enough to actually circulate it, it's not moving around. So that means the bottom can like actually build up a little bit of pressure, it gets all the way up to the boiling and sometimes even beyond, which is how you scorch the bottom of the sauce on the pan. And then all of a sudden, when the bubble gets big enough to make it through the sauce, boom, it comes up. And so when you stir it, you're getting the entire barbecue sauce to the same temperature. And when you get the entire thing to the same temperature it can boil more gently and you can ventilate it. Was this a decent answer? Just make sense? Yeah. All right. Nick Robertson writes in what do you truly sacrifice when subbing citric malic and ORTEC tartaric acid solution for true lemon or lime? Is it mouthfeel aromatics more? Is it reduced the is it worth the reduced cost per per item. I mean, you lose a lot. It's like it's the difference between you know, like a real fruit. And like acid Mila, it's like fruit is not just acid. It's also flavor, right? So if you look at like one of my favorite techniques, acid adjusting, you take a fruit that doesn't have enough acid and you add acid to it to you know, bring up the flavor of the fruit, right? So you can use it as an acidified fruit. But there's always that fruit flavor there, the flavor of orange is something other than just, you know, citric acid, the flavor of a lemon isn't just the citric acid. Now, lemons are so high in citric acid, that sometimes all you perceive is a citric acid. But there's other flavors or lime especially has a lot of flavor, like in the oils and in the fruits. And you can taste remember those sweet lemons that we were tasting size at the place? And you're like No, not as interesting, right? Because it's just lemon. I'm sorry, lemons. Lemons just aren't that interesting as a fruit flavor. You know what I mean? Compared to like, let's say mandarins, but they definitely do have a flavor. So you're you're, you're losing that real citrus. Note. The other thing you're losing, of course, is that the pulp that's in there, if you're going to use it for like a shake in cocktail, you need real like, acids have no no kind of surface active property so they don't help a drink stay foamy or or make a nice texture on on a shaking cocktail. So that's why, you know, when you're shaking a cocktail, you never want to use clarified or just acid base things because you're not going to have the right texture, right? And stir drink. It's not as big a deal on that, but you're still not going to have the kind of the depth of flavor. Now if you like it, you like it, right? But in general, I try to only use acids to augment real, real fruits or real base flavors. I know. Yeah. Look, taste is not in dispute, if you like the flavor of it, as well who said that? That's dumb. Of course you can dispute somebody's idea of what tastes good, right? It's ridiculous. It goes to this nondistrict What's that? What's that phrase? You guys remember it? I don't know. Anyway, it's ridiculous. Of course you can you can whatever Brian wrote in I'm trying to get around to stasis rule of one question per person, but what What are all of Dave's french fry recipes? What do I mean? Brian? That is a long like I could like go on the blog.

Well, the blog, watch the movie.

Oh yeah, you should watch the French fry movie which is what's that on now? They just released it on something. I don't know. I don't agree with some of the like one of the people in there says that McDonald's french fries are still good, which they're not. They're not when they're they're good hot. It tastes like cardboard when they're cold. Right? I haven't had you don't like french fries.

I forgot. I haven't eaten at McDonald's in a very long time. Really? years decades. Maybe really? You know, when's the last time you you eat there? The kids

like it. So like they would like on the drive thru the last to go through but not me. And I basically have a milkshake. I love fake shakes. You know, did we talk about grimace already on the air? Yes, I was made of milkshakes. When I graduated from college, though, I was that guy that went to McDonald's, ordered the cheeseburger and then individually asked for all the toppings to be put on it. So they were huge, but they cost the same amount. So if you go to McDonald's and you're like, I want a cheeseburger, but I want tomato and I want lettuce. And I want onion and I want pickles and I want and like you can ask for all this stuff and they'll completely trick out the cheeseburger for you. Same cost same cost. Like I was also that guy Roy Rogers who completely completely just ran roughshod over there free fixes bar, you know, I mean, this still is Roy Rogers still thing? I don't know. I don't know you fix this bar. So anyway, the issue with french fries I'll give you some hints. Just as Anastasia says read the read the blog post. Okay, you have to choose what size french fry you want to make. The recipe is radically different and different people like different things. Do you want a half inch? The answer is the only things that are valid to me. I like half inch fries. I like three eighths inch fries. Okay, I don't really like the style of the thinner style of fry. They're much easier to make the thinner the French fry the much easier it is to make and have it stay crispy. That's just the truth. Right? You're gonna want to use a high gravity potato. Do you have to use russets? No? Anything high gravity so if you like something like a Yukon, Yukon is relatively high gravity. What does that mean? It means that it has a it's not as high in water, it's higher in in in starch than a low gravity, potato, low gravity potatoes are great for making potato salad. All right. Now, the question is, how do you make a crispy you're gonna have to cook it twice. Period, right? If like anyone who believes that they can like just throw something in cold oil, and then bring it up and then all of a sudden are going to get a delicious french fry. It's possible for it to happen. But it's very unlikely because there's too many variables, you need to cook it at least twice. My recipe on the blog is cooked three times blanched in water, then oil fried and oil fried again, it is possible some of the best french fries I've ever had ever in Belgium. In fact, they don't do a water blanch, they just go directly into oil. Now if you want to do it that way, you just have to use the oil at a very much lower temperature and cook it for a lot longer. And they also use a lower temperature on there finish fry and cook it for longer. And what you're balancing is how much liquid you're getting rid of, versus the color of the fry. So I'm going to have some recipes in the book. They're coming up but you really have to there's no such thing as that. There's how to achieve the French fry you want with with the equipment you have. And for American style restaurants. You know, I thought it was easier to do a water blanch and then to oil fries. But, you know, the Belgians like I say who are the best at it only just due to oil blanches them? Is that enough size? Yes. All right. Jonathan Mamia wrote in any tips for flavoring a keg of seltzer? Am I better off using a slice of lemon for each class rather than attempting to flavor the whole batch? are there options that would hold up over a weekend versus up to a month? Thanks. Well, I'm that guy that thinks that all flavored seltzer is tastes like poison. I would still like I would rather I would always rather have a fresh squeeze of fresh stuff in my in my seltzer. Even if it's unclarified. That said, you want to use something that's not going to it's not just it's not going to go bad, but it's that it's not going to ruin the bubble. So anything you add to it has to be clarified. This is why that all these flavored seltzer is us kind of poisonous tasting you know, flavoring things because they also don't want to have sugar. So they have to make something that tastes roughly like a fruit but doesn't have sugar and maintains that flavor even though it's incredibly diluted, which is a tough thing to do, which is why I think it is poisonous, but the least poisonous tasting are like lemon and lime. And for those you could add a mixture of acids or you could add some cordial and a mixture of acids and get something approaching it but I would just say squeeze something fresh where you think says yes. Elizabeth wells writes in and trade a podcast keep up the work. Question about blue steel pans. I'm used to cooking almost everything on nonstick. Do we do this one already? No, no. I'm used to cooking almost everything on nonstick. Please don't judge but I now have two high quality blue steel pans. I can get decent initial seasoning on them using the serious eats method and basic soy vegetable oil, but I have no clue how to maintain it. By the way, don't use oil for frying. Don't use soy oil for frying. And going back to the French fry thing. I think a huge mistake people make soil has a lot of a specific fatty acid in it called lino Lee Nick Lena Lena ik not lino lake. I don't want to hear people saying that Lena laic as they said Lee inlet leg is bad. Lena Lena IK. And that is the reason why. Here's a little secret when they make oil, right? They have it's called deodorised. Bleached, like reduced, like, you know, they do all this stuff to oil to make it as neutral as possible. But then it starts going bad, right? And one of the things that goes bad is with Lena linic acid is that you get these kind of like terrible fishy aromas. Right? You guys have all stars you hate that right when someone overheats like soil, and you get that kind of like gross fish aroma. Yeah, I like that. Even the thought of it makes me kind of. Right. And that's because soil sucks. For frying. It's fine, like neutral now. Now you're gonna say But Dave. Dave, some of the best fried oils are soil. Yeah, well, industrial fry oils have all of their Lina linic acid removed from them. They also add special antioxidants to those oils and antifoaming things to make them specifically good for frying. Those oils are so heavily tweaked that it doesn't matter what the original ingredients that they made them out of are because they're just they're basically like Franken oils. You know what I mean? Yes, so don't use soy. You know what, like for frying. I like and I know peanuts. Great if you like peanut? Corn oil is cheap, and it doesn't taste like corn oil when it's heated up. So Cornella was one of those oils that tastes like corn when it's raw. And so you're like, why would I use this for frying? It makes a bad salad oil. Right? Cornell makes a bad salad oil. Yeah. But corn oil is good for frying. And it's cheap as hell. Right? And by the way, just as you know, if it just says vegetable oil, it's probably some mixture of like canola and soy and canola. I have my problems with too on stinking when it gets over fried if it's not done, right. Remember, you guys probably don't. But like early canola oil smelled real bad anyway. So don't judge a fry oil by how it tastes if it hasn't been how it hasn't been cooked. You got to worry about two things like I say, is it going to make those disgusting fishy aromas? Or is it going to get what's called reversion flavors, where it all of a sudden starts tasting like the craft and made it out if that happens, but not with corn. Anyway, back to your question. I use a soil and the Syrian soil on the serious eats method. But I have no clue how to maintain it. My pens never get truly nonstick. No way I could cook an egg in them without serious sticking. It seems that every time I use and need to clean them using soap and the soft side of a dish bunch. The seasoning comes off. What am I doing wrong? We need them with kosher salt alone seems to help. But it's still a huge pain to have to essentially receive and every time I use them. Am I using the wrong oil? Am I using the wrong seasoning method? Does it just take a while to fully break them in? And Will someone with a soy allergy have a reaction? If I use oil this season? I don't think so. Please help me use these gorgeous pans. Thanks. So alright, so on Instagram, right now you can go look Meezan, who is one of the companies they sell some of these blue steel pans has a really cool graphic up now where they show like a brand new pan. And then like in various stages of seasoning. And, you know, it's actually a pretty cool graphic, I think what you need to do is just don't worry about it, it's just going to take a long time to season like I don't even think about calling one of these things nonstick for like a couple months after I keep using it a lot.