Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live on newsstands studios in Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. joined as usual with Anastasia the hammer Lopez, how're you doing stocks? Good. Back from your California trip there? Yes. Yeah. You have a good time in California.

Yes. Except for in San Francisco.

Let me ask you a question. Why No, no, we have we have our San Francisco issue. Hey, here's a question for you says, ready but we'll go through remind me San Francisco. You're gonna remind me yeah, yes. Also, as usual, we got to we got John got Customer Service said John. How you doing?

Doing great. Thanks. Yeah, you're seeing these days? Yep. New York City this Yes. Yep. Yeah.

And we got of course, Joe Hasan in our freakin Rock Center booth. How you doing?

I'm doing well. How are you guys? Yeah,

I mean, you probably have the most report not that you want to report it? But you know, there you go. And we got Jackie molecules. Chillin. Now where are you now? Dude? Come on, man. Where are you Los Angeles. I'm home. Los Alamos. Oh, boy. All right. Where are you? Where do you live? What part of Los Angeles you from? Or where do you live? From New York? Whoa, first of all, I don't even know why ask because you could say anything. And unless it was literally the Hollywood Hills, I would have no idea where it is. You could just make stuff up. I have no idea. I would have no idea where you are. And we were supposed to have a mushroom farmer on the like a literal mushroom farmer. And if anybody is listening from the New York Botanical Garden, this is the botanical garden in the Bronx. Alright, for those of you that don't know, we have two very good botanical gardens here in New York City. We have the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. And we have the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Now, they were founded, I think back when Brooklyn was its own city, right. So Brooklyn, kind of even though Brooklyn is one of our five boroughs. They're kind of a pain in the behind to the rest of us because they didn't when they integrated the two cities together. They didn't want to integrate their systems. So four boroughs, I can borrow a book in in, if I'm from Staten Island, I can borrow a book in Manhattan and I can return it in Staten Island where I live because the library systems all the same. Staten Island, Bronx same i can i can get if there's a book in the Bronx, I can get it sent to me, right queens, not a problem. Remember Queens envelops. envelops Brooklyn. Brooklyn is completely surrounded by Staten Island, Queens, in Manhattan in water. I mean, that's it. I mean, it's completely invalid. Uh, yeah, Brooklyn. No, our library system is different. And we're not going to combine them. You guys have your library. We have ours and they do the same thing with a botanical garden. Right now. The Brooklyn Botanical Garden is an amazing, it's awesome. It's like a jewel. It's not. I wish they had handled their reopening differently and COVID. But whatever. That's what it is. It's beautiful place but the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx is one of its It's what got me through the pandemic. Remember, stars. You remember when people were like What is there to do in New York now? And I was like, I don't know. There's the Botanical Garden and like we have some parks and I couldn't think of anything else. Yeah, yeah. So in the Botanical Garden, there's this thing called the Enid helped conservatory now. Anyhow, it was a very, very rich lady so rich, she was able to keep herself alive until she was like 101 or some crazy thing. I mean, I think she was just transfused with money on a constant basis. And she paid for the redoing of this big old glass conservatory that looks kind of like Kew Gardens. You know, everything's based on Q anyway. In order to go through the Conservatory, you have to go through this underground tunnel made of corrugated metal. That looks like it looks like you're getting shot out of somebody's colon. It's like corrugated metal and it's dark and there's no plants in it. It's the only place whole freakin whole frickin Botanical Garden. No plants. I was like, you know, you should do down here. Mushrooms. It should grow mushrooms in that tube, even though and I want to hear about it from you people. Even though mushrooms are more closely related to people than they are to plants. They're not plants. I think the average person would enjoy it. Anyway, we were supposed to have a mushroom farmer on I could have asked him about it. But they apparently couldn't make farming mushrooms. Yeah. Anyway, if you're listening, live on Patreon. Call your questions and 2917410 1507. That's 917-410-1507. And if you'd like to know how to listen, live and call in questions,

where should they look us up on patreon.com/cooking issues? Yeah,

right now back to San Francisco stars. Lady on my floor is moving out of the buildings, right? So, you know, she's like, I saw her and you know, she has the dog dog sniffing around like I hate smells my dogs, which is the dumb thing that every dog owner says when another dog is sniffing you right now he smells my dogs, right? How many times you heard you get when you hear it coming out of your own mouth. It's absurd. You know what I mean? Because you've heard it so many times. Anyway, whatever. It's what it is. It's like, you know the equivalent talking about the weather anyways. So she's like, Yeah, I'm moving. I'm moving. I'm getting I'm getting out of this situation talking to her. I'm moving. I'm getting out of this city. I'm like, Oh, yeah. Where are you going? She goes London. I go. You have to get out of the city. So you move to London as like London's like the same place different accent and she completely Lee disagreed with me completely disagree with me. Don't you go? Am I wrong? Or Is she wrong?

I think you're wrong.

You think I'm wrong? I think San Francisco is much more different from New York than London is. I mean, one is huge. It's a pain in the butt. People are jerks. You have good food. And they have a lot of culture. In the end, they they speak English. They're more like us than San Francisco is for sure.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, they have a they have a they have, you know, a big mix of people like we have, you know what I mean? It's like, I don't know, I would feel much more at home in no offense, San Francisco. But I feel much more at home in London than I would in San Francisco. Aside from like, you know. London's like the most New York City outside of New York. I agree. Yeah. And what is it that you hate about New York? It's fixed by moving to London. You know, I'm saying that's the other thing. I mean, I'm sure they're different. Because

like, you had to travel to Europe. Yeah. to other places in Europe.

All right, but your Philly friends becomes your Philly. Wow, France becomes your Philly. All right. I hadn't thought about that. I was just thinking about strictly on a city basis, not on a leaving basis. Because as everybody knows, as soon as you move to a big city, unless you're richer, a specific kind of person, your life contracts to a two block radius. You don't I mean? Like, like, oh, you live in you live in the big city? No, actually, I live in like a four block five block radius. And anytime someone asks you to go like far afield from that. You're like, Oh, God starts. What do I gotta do to get you to cross a river?

We never cross a river. That's right.

Like eat. Like, if you had to clean up. If you had to clean up somebody's like, you know, murdered body, and you had to cross a river to do it. You would hire TaskRabbit instead of going to do it yourself. You know, I'm saying because you don't want to cross the river. Am I wrong? Yes. Yeah. All right. Yeah, the only river she crosses is when she's getting out of dodge and going back up to Connecticut. Right? What a nightmare. Anyway, all right, sorry. All right. So we're since we don't have a guest, we're going to answer a lot of the Patreon question stars you want to talk about. What are these things here that are sitting on our desk? Well,

Joe, oh, I

forgot. I forgot.

We were Oh, oh, family shot sorry.

I believe you're talking about a chicken male a male chicken. A male chicken. Do you know that there's actually a bird called cock of the walk? It's an actual thing. I was told by my what's a bird a file called a bird lover where there's there's a word for him, right? People who like love birds. My cut. My nephew and my brother in law are burned people cock of the walk. Yeah. Where's it from? John? I'm assuming you're looking it up.

It's orange and black. Let's see. ornithology. ornithology

person, one who studies birds. That's a study or just like a hobbyist bird. Yes, yeah. The Cock of the walk is a South American bird. Now it's it's all coming back to me.

The Indian kaka the rock is the national bird of Peru. Ah,

man, we should have asked our man about that. Yeah, it was a bad connection. So it was hard to get through. All right. So stars. Also one more thing. We have Joe. Joe pronounce your last name so I don't mutilate it. It's Joe. Good, Tisha. Good. But like how much of an emphasis do I put on the tongue goo Tisha?

Like is that it's a T. So I want it to sound like a T. You don't want it to be deed out like no, yeah. Oh, well, sometimes that happens. Gouda. Yeah.

You hate a lot. No, I don't. And Joe is a fresh new Yorker. He's a freshly minted New Yorker.

That is true. Hi,

how are you? Like so far?

I'm still adjusting. Huh?

Yeah. You know, you know, I'm going to ask you in about 20 years, you know, you're gonna say what? still adjusting.

It's still adjusting.

You know what the best thing about New York is Have I already told you this is what I tell everybody. So probably not the best thing. Honestly, the best thing about New York they the one thing that keeps me loving the city, like after everything, is that the thing about New York is Is it because it's such a like a garbage disposal. Like it just Trump's you up and spits you out. Like as soon as you show up in New York and pay your first rent check. As soon as you say you're a New Yorker, you're a New Yorker. I mean, I think that's the best thing about us. Like we're from everywhere. We're like, you know, and like, you know, even if you've lived in New York for 8 billion years, you try to flex on someone saying you're a legitimate New Yorker and someone else isn't and you'll get smacked right down to the street top. You know what I mean? And I think that's the best thing about us. You know, unlike some other cities, I know where you know, if you haven't been there 18 generations, you're fake. You know what I mean? Whatever. You feel that way, Joe?

I don't know it would feel dishonest still, for me to present as a New Yorker.

It's it's not about if you don't have to present as a New Yorker, it's as soon as you feel you're a New Yorker, you are. Oh, that's the nice thing about it. You know what I mean? That's what's so cool about it, you know? And then as soon as you feel like you can't hack it anymore, and you need to move to the burbs, because you have some sort of battle? No, then you're not anymore. But you can still say you are. If you've lived here for an appreciable length of time, you can still say you are. What do you think? What do you think, John? Do you think if you live it, if you live in Manhattan for like 10 years, or Brooklyn or Queens, whatever. And then you move out to like, you know, New Jersey? How long can you say you're a New Yorker?

I think once you leave New York, you can't anymore. You have any say I was a New Yorker?

What about when you're traveling? And people ask you where you're from? The city? Yeah. I told everybody in Mexico, I was from New York City, and I said lived in LA, from New York lived in. Alright, that makes sense. All right. I'm from New York. I live in a way that makes sense. You know, I'm from Palo Alto and live in New York and have like, since forever. I mean, but like, you know, I haven't been back to Palo Alto since I was like three. So doesn't really count. Johnny want to tell him about what we have coming up on Patreon. And for our Patreon subscribers and people that are coming up soon. Yeah, super

exciting. Next week, we have Francisco McCoy coming on to talk about modernist pizza. So it's gonna be great. Then the following. We have Nick from Grove and Vine, and we're going to do an olive oil tasting. We're going to have Kenji Lopez on on a Monday at a different time, but we're going to have him on in person. So just giving everyone a heads up that that's coming.

Just got the workbook haven't ready yet. Yep.

I just got it. Good. Yeah. James Hoffman, Matt from kitchen Arts and Letters. Top and coffee. Coffee genius. Yep. Coffee genius. Yeah, people have been asking for him. The mat from kitchens and letters is going to be making guest appearances to talk about some classics in the field. And we are still working on running a 20% off of most authors books coming up. I don't know if that applies to modernist pizza, I'd guess No, but I'll be in touch with them. And we also wanted to thank

you guys. We had to figure it out right now. Because yeah, I

mean, I'll email him today. Yeah. But he wants to run that promotion after we have the guests on the air anyways, we have a couple of days or whatever. I'll find that out for everyone. And then we also have been meaning to call out to people who sent us some products recently, long time ago. Yondu. Vegetable umami either way. Yeah, good product. Great product. Yeah, you mentioned it on there a couple weeks ago, and we didn't have the brand names. I wanted everyone to know about that.

I legitimately use it in my house. Same even in non vegetarian applications. Oh, we got to talk. If there's time at the end, Licious. Let's go out on vegan Fridays, and Eric Adams and like, what's going on here and like, it's the verbal language. It's not vegan Fridays. It bothers me aside from like, the weird cast of like Catholicism that, you know, putting on a Friday when anyway, but like, Let's go because of the language that's surrounding it. is, I think troublesome but we'll we'll do that later.

Okay, good. And then we also want to thank out Mike from Toronto pentatone. He is obviously in Toronto, and he sent us a Pantone right before the holidays. We've had to thank him on, you know, publicly for it. It was one it was probably the best Pantone I've personally had. So thank you, Mike for that.

And he cut off a piece of it and then threw it out the window masked in the height of the pandemic tossed it at me and drove I had I had to like I had to like, make sure it didn't fall into a puddle of filth. Hitting the Stasi. Remember when we were moving in the we were moving stuff into Eldridge street back we had the lab, and I'm trying to stay clean, and we're moving all this like big heavy stuff.

And what was your favorite?

My favorite shirt? My favorite, my favorite? You know, like guayabera that Jen bought me when she was working in Panama. It's like it was that peach colored like linen like the whole nine yards and like, I don't want to ruin your shirt. So I take it off. I mean, it's you know, shirt sleeves, because of course I always wear 1000 shirts, you know, I mean, say so like I take off the my outer vest said guard it with your light. I put it in the backseat of my car. The stasis like opens the door and like just like partials it with her butt into now. It's hard to be to New York City filled puddle. Yeah, it's like dirt, dead rats, oil, and like street sweeping garbage, melted snow, water and spit. And in this particular location, the shavings off of coconut foots feet who lived next to us and kept shaving his feet into the sidewalk every morning. Remember that? Remember coconut foot? Yeah, yeah. So sure it goes right in there. I'm like, it's done. It's done so angry. It's too it's too wet. I can't even burn it and give it a decent burial. It's like it's over. That's our relationship. In a nutshell. All right. Back to yonder we should get that maybe they will want to sponsor because I legitimately think it's a good product.

Yeah, no, I Grif I agree. Yeah, I'll try and find a million.

But stupidly whenever I use it. I sing this Katmandu song with just Yondu I'm gonna use Yondu I'm gonna do like that like stupid, dumb, dumb. This is the problem of cooking alone. And like, you know, you just had to sit there and sing things to yourself. You need some form of infotainment. I have no infotainment in my kitchen, so I should I should rectify that. Anyways. Yeah. So stars. You have some stuff here we can it's not for

me. That is from Joe. It's from Joe. All right. So

what do we got? I brought some Ruth from Mexico. Keep your face in

the Miko is not about his face in the mic. All right. So what about my

voice? Okay, so I can't see them from where I'm sitting. Yeah, those are Pandita. Yes. They are. enchilada flavored gummy bears.

All right. All right. Last what? Well,

let's try that first. And then we do the rest of them after All right,

listen. Gummy pen Ditas enchiladas. Let's see here. This is this is not a mouth noise. This is the crinkling of the bag, which is anastasius reasons she doesn't go to movies. Hold on. Give me a mouth noise way

they're good. They taste like gummy bears rolled in in that Lucas powder. I could use more spice on it though. I could use a little more acidity a little more spice but I'm gonna go ahead with good but stars you like your gummy bears? Tacky like that. Are you like them harder? Like, I'm like this. Do you want I like I like when you get the Haribo bears. And then you let them go stale? Yes. Yeah, yes, yes.

I like textured candy.

Why is it that a stale? Haribo is good but a stale marshmallow is bad because even a white stale Haribo is good. Yeah. Anyway, I like them in all of their phases. Joe, the to Joe's What are your favorite stage of gummy bear? Come fresh? Are you like? You like them hard?

I don't have a preference. They're both. They're both great, I guess.

All right. And what about you? What about you? Wacky Jackie, what do you got for me on your gun? What's your gummy bear preference? Fresh, fresh. Do you like pectin based candies like like those? You know those fruit wedges? Those heartless pectin fruit wedges that love them? Yeah, they're good, right? Love them. Yeah. Yeah. Because yeah, no, I don't want I think they're delicious. And they're like, what's the one that when the French make them they make them all high end and sleep.

But I call them fruit slices. Open the white one. Open the white

one. Alright, this one says we're just by the way like my favorite gummy bear. Yeah, are the hairbows but the you can only get them in Germany. They're called soft as a ft which means juice in German. And I believe they're like 75% fruit juice. They set a whole new bar for gummy bears.

Well, we got to get them. You gotta ship here. And we'll try it.

I found them on Amazon. I'll

get some frozen. Excellent. All right. Yeah, let's pull expense that stuff. And we'll even sing their little jingle. Haribo Mosh Kinja fro winter vaccinate. Aiden ZIL. Right.

Yeah. And you know during the holidays during December time, if you I don't know why, but if supposedly you bring chestnuts to the Haribo factory, you can trade chestnuts for gummy bears.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? First of all, you know, they're opening a factory in the US out if they haven't already opened it. It's in construction right now. A new factory in the US. Can you pull that chestnut business here in the US? Can we go to the US factory handle chestnuts and get gummy bears? I

really don't. When we were in Germany in Berlin. They were like oh yeah, everyone goes round this time to go to collect chestnuts and bring them over to the factory I'm like that's interesting. Wonder why that is the case and no one knew why

they Tooth Fairy but with chestnuts it says a good factual. This is a good fact. I think our I think our listeners are will enjoy. Enjoy this fact. Yeah. It's kind of like the Pope's hat. You know about the Pope's hat. There's a ratio if you carry a skullcap around with you at all times and you happen to meet the Pope and you hand the pope your skullcap. He will try on your skullcap and if it fits him he will give you his old one and if not who hand you back yours but still Yeah, it's a thing is he's still walking around like, yeah, he's it's one of those things. It's like if the Stasi were the Pope to be like, ah, the hat thing again. God, that's right. So as you would hate that, you're calling into that tradition. What's the ratio John?

The fruits of the forest are weighed in exchange for prepackaged Haribo products at a ratio of 10 to one for chestnuts. I

can Wait 10 chestnuts one bear or 10 Bears one chestnut by weight or by unit

by kilogram and then five to one for acorns according to the number of kilograms of acorns

what are we going to do with acorns

only chestnuts in acorns without shells will be accepted the company said you have to

shell the acorns. Oh my god wave which is the 1010 bears or 10 nut and contenders to nuts I think so if I show up with a pound of Shell chestnuts I get 10 pounds of gummy bears. It can't be you can't be that's that that is a that is an economically non feasible ratio and figure it out. So what are they?

So might just be a bad translation to

are they doing something with the nuts that kind of helped the process of making the government originally

organized for children in 1936 the collecting and weighing of chestnuts as any known annual event for both young and old so

they feed the Olympus Alright, so we got these things. I've actually had these but not this brand. Are Ark. How you pronounce is pronounced this for me in pretend it's a boy. Don't drive it don't drive it. Alright, so I'm looking at these things. I've had them before. Joe here. Take this one go. Alright, so these are graham crackers with marshmallow blob lids. And like, I think coconut usually and like half of the blob lids are pink. And the other half are like our whites like a checkerboard. It's like a checkerboard. I've had these before. I'm gonna go with a style. Oh, this one's not grand cracker. Looks like a butter cracker. Let's try this try this guy's already very sorry for the mouth noises I like it. Oh, artificial strawberry on point.

Kind of tastes like Nestle quick.

What I like especially about this. No fruit was harmed in the making of this product. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's nothing there's nothing natural about that. I'm gonna guess. Where's the price? I'm gonna guess. Margarine for sure. Is there anything? See if I can read this is undoubtedly in Spanish here. Ba ba ba ba ba they have. They don't want you to know anything about the nutrition. So they printed black on foil. So it's even if my eyes were still a young person's eyes, it would be completely illegible. Now. We'll worry about it later. So stars that's your favorite so far? I think so. Yeah. You don't want to try? Yeah, you think it's principIe? I think you pronounce that

principle. Principle a those are my favorite. Those like, fueled me and my team and Mexico. You know

what? In my stepfather's family when they're making fun of someone who's like a very delicate, put in ship as a delegate. You know what I mean? Like she's a she's a delicate princess. You know, I mean, and so trade Sorry, sorry, people, but we got to try all these things for you. So what I'm looking at here are principles. You must have had these in your checked luggage show because they got the EverLiving heck beat out of them. They're still they're still there seats. Are Here you. By the way. Do you know what I had recently when I was in the airport that I haven't had in decades, but I love love love them. The keyboard Corporation these are the elves that live in trees Keibler. And they they cook big things. So they have various little snack packs that are cookies, little cookies, usually buttery cookie so it crossed between a rich and a salty and you guys know I'm talking about these cookies. Yeah, and the combinations are regular cookie, cheese cookie. And then the other combination is peanut butter or cheese in the middle. The Money money money Money, Money Money money money combo that I found I saw and I haven't had it since I was a kid. The combo to end all combos is the cheese cracker with the peanut butter on the inside. That is hyper money. And I had that in the airport. And it made airport travel so much more. And I was like ah, oh, that bright orange. That bright orange fake colored like cheese colored cookie. With that peanut butter in it. What are you guys thoughts on the Princey bass?

I like the chocolate in it.

Like it reminds me of a cookies. By comparison. I was a kid. Can't remember the name of it though.

So like, yeah, what's nice about the talk of feeling is it's real breezy. I mean, it's like almost, it's almost like it's a liquid. You know, I'm saying? Yeah, all right. I'm for it. And very cocoa like do you guys like chocolate flavors where it's like you can literally taste a cocoa powder. It's like, do you like Tootsie Rolls? Yeah, yeah, because they are. Tootsie Rolls are objectively bad. Didn't like it, if you had never had a tootsie roll before. And so it was like, I made this. You'd be like, the texture is good, but it sucks. You don't saying but because you grew up. But because you grew up having them. You're like, I love this. This is good. It's also the kind of thing where like Like, one hand it's like it's the you know, the, you know, the the southern time Cookie Monster trolley. No. So my budget everything is a call bus controller. But the one that like that we eat right is like basically just honey and flour work together into a paste and bait and they break your teeth. They're absurd. You don't I mean, they're ridiculous. And then the first time you eat it, you're like, This sucks. Then you eat another one to be polite. And the third time now you want them again. I'm sure Tootsie Rolls are the same thing. It's like you have to get over that hump. No one tastes their first tootsie rolls like all right, do they? I don't know. I'm wrong about this. I

can be completely wrong. I like the flavored ones.

It's not like a starburst in a tube. Yep. Yeah, right. Starburst is a delicious candy. Sounds great. Starburst. That's right. Yeah, I think have we talked about Starburst versus haiku?

No, no.

I believe I believe that the high chew while I like the flavors little to waxy sometimes on the What are you guys thoughts? I mean, John's with me. Well, what do you guys I don't like them. You know? Do you like Starburst? Yeah, yeah. What about Twizzler? Red wine wizardry? Well, your red wine. Your red wine? Oh,

no, I don't like all right. I don't like either.

Do you know why I like them starch based candy to starch based candy. Love a starch based candy. All right. I don't like red lines at all. Really? Because they don't have flavor. I do like a Twizzler. Do you not like the Red Vines because of their complete lack of flavor.

I'm not just that it's I don't like the texture as much. But like I grew up in a weirdly enough I grew up in a kosher home. And we had our liquids that we had was made by Joya. Oh, yeah, I know them. The joy of licorice is dynamite. I have

not had their licorice. But of course, we've all had their fruit roll ups because they invented the freakin fruit roll up and they're out of Brooklyn. Brooklyn, what's your favorite fruit roll up flavor. Apple, whoo. I'm an apricot man. Because I love myself some dried African. This is some New York history for you people. If you want more New York related food crap because that asked and we can go on forever and ever and ever. But we should not write we should not know should not be lifted wrote in Hey, oh, I shouldn't have done this on because this is more just talking talk. But Dave, you mentioned quickly that you got into the food business and Michael Badbury found you can you actually fill in that blank from what I can remember you're doing sculpture in Brooklyn after college and somehow got a job teaching at the FCI How did that happen? Not Brooklyn, my friend. Now Brooklyn, Manhattan, I've always managed to somehow keep my feet firmly planted on on the island. So when I moved back to New York, after college in 95, we you know, I went to Columbia for grad school. So we were like, wait way uptown, and I lived up there for a little while and then moved into the garment district. This was so at that time, people were already saying Soho so expensive. No one. No artists could live in Soho. It's too much money. And artists were moving out to Brooklyn. And so people were like, I remember when like Williamsburg was a friggin nightmare. I would go over there to work right. So I had jobs in Williamsburg. I was working for a sculptor named John Kessler, who had his studio over there. And it was an entirely different planet back in the in the 90s, like Williamsburg, completely, completely unrecognizable. Anyway, after grad school, I went and moved to the garment district I lived in an illegal loft. And that's where I started buying commercial restaurant equipment. And then because it was illegal, so I originally built a kitchen that was completely hidden like so because I wasn't allowed to live there. Our bedroom was hidden. So like the bedroom was exactly the width of a queen size bed and had a had a wall so that you wouldn't even know there was a bedroom there was unfindable it was in this like secret hallway. And then the kitchen I built a floor to ceiling bookshelf on casters that floated the entire bookshelf a quarter of an inch off the floor so nothing was visible. And then I built a wall out where the kitchen was where the sink and all the kitchen was and the entire bookshelf wheeled in and completely closed off where the kitchen area was. So it was completely invisible. Like completely. So like it was like if someone walked in, they would not know that anyone lived there except for we had a shower and what I said was I'm an artist, I do a lot of welding I need to be able to wash up so I put a shower in and that was legit, like they knew I had a shower. Then back in New York back in the day, we used to have something called a fox police lock. Now Fox police lock. If you're looking at the old school, they're gone. They don't exist anymore. But what it was is is that, you know, we used to have these like glass doors in our loft buildings and the locks on them. Were these giant steel bars that would you have you'd pull out on a knob and you'd rotate the knob and just like an old school Anjaneya would make that old school dungeon noise. And these these, I had the cheap one with only two metal bars. But the real hardcore people had four metal bars top bottom left, right, and the bars would just expand out and go into the cement of your wall. And it would take like, it would take a bulldozer to break your door down if you had a fox police lock. So I had a fox police lock, and then I just never answered my phone. And I wouldn't answer the door if people not and I realized the landlord was never going to come in. So I started Colette, I went from having a completely hidden kitchen to having a commercial deep fat fryer, a commercial two door deli case, glass fridge, which is life changing, but also incredibly inefficient. A garland sick burnt garland with a salamander. And so I started customizing restaurant equipment. And I was moving away from art. And I came up with the idea of museum of food and drink, actually, and when's that thing opening up?

February 20 seconds.

Yeah. So I was trying to transition into the food world. And I came to the attention of Michael Barbary who hired me actually to write history pieces. Until because I you know, my I was a food history guy, until he realized that I was also a food tech guy, because I had been helping wildly out I befriended Wiley, because while he was hitting on Miley, my sister in law, who runs a Food Network magazine now, but at the time was writing for time out in New York. And the rest, as they say, is history. I started writing for food arts magazine, and then he got me hired onto the FCI. And there you go. There you go. That a

great answer.

Done, all right. From oxy, why do you press down and espresso shot dents into a machine into the portafilter. But to tamp a mocha pot is not done oxy my friend, it is a matter of pressure. In a in a commercial espresso machine, you have like many, many bars of pressure, like 130 540 pounds per square inch of pressure going in there. So the idea is that make a very finely compacted Puck, and you want to vary even percolation through it. You're barely getting like any pressure at all in a Moka Pot in a mocha pot. You're boiling stuff. And it's percolating up through the through the coffee grounds and into the pot. But the pressure is, as we say, minimal. If it's not, you're in deep, deep doo doo. So you've you've compacted a Moka Pot too much, you're not going to get the percolation you need it's not going to work that a decent answer. They're entirely different. By the way, the next time. Someone says to you that I know many people who love Moka Pot coffee, you guys all know what I'm talking about Moka Pot, right, the little hexagonal or octagonal things, right? It's fine to love mocha pot coffee, it's not espresso. Okay. They're different products. They're different products. And the next time someone conflates them, just drop whatever you're doing. I don't care whether you're doing surgery on somebody, just drop the stuff and walk out. Don't you know, don't be mean or anything like that. Just you have to you have to get your you have to get yourself out of that out of that situation. It's just a bad situation. Brandon Byrd, when, with Modernist Cuisine turning 11 years old this year, can you believe that 11 years old thing? Not so modern anymore? This is the problem with using the term modern, like modern art is from almost 100 years ago. It's like the 50s Yeah, yeah, right. And people will make modern art anymore. No, it's dumb. It's a dumb term.

We're even done with postmodern art now. Yeah, but

no postmodern art was back when I was doing it. And it was like, you know, at least like come up with a dumb term that no one understands. And then you could widgetized right, like, oh, structuralist, yo Structuralism. Oh, you know, Neo Marxist post Structuralism. At least these are just like, widget words, you can move around. Yeah, you know what I mean? And then every 20 years, you can change their meaning and whether or not you like the people who wrote about it. But modernism, I mean, modern supposed to have a word modern. It's like nouvelle cuisine. Dumb. Yeah, people are short sighted. Anyway, with Modernist Cuisine turning 11 this year. It's like, why not just call it now cooking? You know what I mean? And then you can look back at like, the 1970s. And see, like, you know, the old Conrad's ads or like old Macy's ads where people are like, right with those goofy 70s fonts, you know? 70s is coming back. Do you guys see this? If you guys look through furniture design manuals now and like food stuff, like the 70s is huge again. Why? I don't know. What's the worst era that you hope never comes back?

I don't know. The Dark Ages sounded pretty terrible. I mean, for food, for food, or for food.

80s were pretty trashy. 70s and 80s 80s 90s. I mean, the 90s we had some good stuff. I don't know. 80s, early 90s. The Stasi What about for rock'n'roll haircuts? Which what era is do you hope never comes back? And what era Do you love the most?

Early late 80s, early 90s Never again and what will oh that's your time. I don't know.

have that as my I don't love, but what about early 80s? Like totally frosted? You like that?

No, actually, no.

I love the memory of it. But when I see it now again, I'm like, Yeah, that wasn't so good. But my memory of it is that it's fantastic. I carry a picture of my wife from the 80s in my wallet with me at all times. I used to show it to people. And they would, she got so mad at me that she threw the picture away. And then her mom gave me another copy of the picture recently. So her her 80s picture is again, what happened to the permanent? What do you mean? The hairstyle? The permanent what happened? People don't do that anymore. Do they stop? Do people still do that? I don't know get permanent? Have you seen someone with a permanent recently? No, that was a thing. You never got a permanent? Did you know? I love that. All right. With Maurice cozy in 2011. This year low temperature cooking and Suvi techniques have been popular for a decade or so I would say they were able to write the books because the techniques were already popular. That's what I would say. In my estimation, what are the best new techniques or applications that have emerged in the years since Modernist Cuisine is publication? Curious about both low temperature cooking with circulators and comedies as well as actual Suvi using vacuum machines. Also stars. Josh Bell is on record is enjoying Genesis, Genesis says suppers ready. And the lamb lies down on Broadway which are both squarely in the Peter Gabriel era. Did you know that says

no. We only have the one date as you

recall. Yeah. But you know, you like you like any sort of Phil Collins reference. And now you I mean, unless you have even less in common with him. Yeah, he chose a Gabriel Genesis because you're not you're not Peter Gabriel person or you know, really mean Sledge Hammer was a good solo first effort, right? Yeah. Good video. Brandon, I'm not exactly sure I understand what you mean. Because like, new see, the crazy kind of explosion of creativity that happened in that time was about a certain like going after a just a boat ton of different pieces of equipment, like everyone was racing. People, that just me, I just figured eBay, I was buying stuff on eBay before people like bought kitchen equipment on eBay for Wiley, this is why I was able to get them stuff. So cheap. And even though we didn't have any money. And people were just getting all kinds of lab equipment. And there's this huge explosion, which I guess you could trace pretty squarely to what Ron and a bunch of other people were doing over in Spain. And it was also a huge moment in history because people with, you know, this is before that this is in the late 90s people really were looking not as much at France anymore. And because of Spain, and we're looking at Spain as and they understood that, that the finest of fine dining and what was going on didn't have to be centralized didn't have to be French didn't have to be like kind of what we'd grown up classically thinking. And it was kind of a mind explosion moment. And I think that that same level of creativity is happening today. It's just not in that same vein anymore. Right. So I think that, you know, what's happened over the past, you know, 510 years with fermentation with, you know, various kind of, you know, new fermenting and new products, like the stuff that Jeremy and Richard doing. And, you know, like this kind of even the explosion, like 10 years ago, have, you know, new charcuterie products and all these sorts of like just attempts to control your environment, I think our work going forward, but I don't know that of any new, amazing technical techniques mean, we develop new techniques all the time, but nothing on the order of, you know, using a circulator, or low temperature cooking, which I believe is the biggest fundamental change in how you think about cooking that's happened in like, you know, 200 years. So it's like, you know, it's like you have you have fire, right, then you have like controlled fire in ovens. That's a big deal. Refrigeration is a big deal. And then figuring out low temperature cooking is a big deal in terms of how it changes the way you think about the way food cooks. And so you know, it's unlikely that something's going to make that big a dent. Again, soon. I don't know. What are you guessing?

Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely not been. Uh, no, I don't wanna say not exciting but it hasn't been exciting me personally the last couple of years food soon

yeah, but I think you're just burning out. Yeah could be I mean, the thing is like you know, you have to do you have to the pandemic is damaging. This is the thing it's like every you have to every couple of years, you have to have an OH MY GOD experience somewhere. You know,

the the other night I went to zoos on Hudson Yards if you guys haven't been in It is excellent. That place was really really delicious. Yeah, yeah. Great Mediterranean food. Really fun. It's with a lot. A lot. A lot of the old stuff from Nomad, the Nomad Hotel. Yeah, front and back of house and yeah, the food was really good. Really exciting.

What was it that surprised you about it?

They did this duck El Mirage play but inside the sick the sink Ira burek. You'll see you know the phyllo dough shaped thing that's like in the spiral nice stuff that with duck and then this like really nice orange glaze on top was really delicious and fun. This stick up while on a kebab was really good and just fun and innovative. I don't know. It's just it was it was a really good meal. I'd recommend going kebab

bla bla bla cut of steak that they use fillet. Yeah, that was good. I think people need to stop hating on the filet because even though it doesn't have that much flavor, it's texturally amazing. It's got its place. It's got its place. I feel like you know everyone who knows about food has hated on it long enough. And now you can just be like, yes, there's not that very much of it. They've seen a cow so to only want to go eat filet is a huge mistake. But that doesn't mean you have to hate on it. Yeah. You know, the grid? Yeah. La now New York. Joe, what are your thoughts on steak up wealth?