Hello and welcome to cookie issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live from Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City joined in this intercontinental cooking issues edition by Anastasia the hammer Lopez live from an undisclosed location in the middle of the Nile river in Egypt. It might take her a second because she's got a mute and unmute because she's literally on a boat. How're you doing? I do.

I'm good. I'm good. Hear me?

Yeah. Yeah, so well. Okay. Well, I'll just tell you everyone else who's on it's not it's theoretically no tangent Tuesday, but here we are about to go on a tangent. We got Joe Hasan rockin the panels.

Hey, what's up?

How you doing? We got John is a a different undisclosed hidey hole in the small state best state of Connecticut. How're you doing, John? Doing all right. Yeah. And Jack and Malia what would you say?

Getting better my back? Better my back is thrown out. So

yeah, we throw out your back. You know, you know how, like all that heavy customer service mental lifting. You're like, you know, one more person spins all broken. You're like, I can't take it my back anyway. And Jackie molecules, where are you? This fine day?

Mexico City. Really?

Oh my god,

man. Man. We're really we're in north south, east and west kind of crew today. Alright, so I mean, I'm assuming you've gone back Jack and again and gotten some more Florida calabaza cases because if you haven't that just shows bad judgment on your part.

X actually the plan is today, I'm showing some friends who haven't been here. And the plan is to go to the market today. So I mean, okay, I have gone to I have already had my meat bucket meal, though. So that much has been done.

So me bucket and Florida calabaza. But more importantly, a place I've never been, but I've always desired to go. The Stasi Chilean in Egypt. So what's it like over there?

It's really it's like it's incredible. It's like nothing I've never I've ever, like come across. It's, it's been amazing. I'm like, oh, sorry. Sorry. The food is right now I'm eating watermelon popcorn and white wine.

Okay, let me ask you this. Watermelon, comma, popcorn, comma white wine or some sort of my life

yes, commas. Commas counts.

So how's the watermelon? Is this some sort of like fancy dancy watermelon or is it just good? Because it's so dang sunny over there?

No, it's just good because it's so dang sunny and the peaches are amazing. And the bread like all the fresh pizza I had ash cake made you know that is like you put the bread underneath the fire ash and then let it rise and like on an open fire in the desert. That was amazing. Sounds good. Yeah. It's, it's awesome. And the hieroglyphics and like all of the old things are just incredible. And the Nile is so beautiful. And the people are wonderful. They're really really great people.

Well, how's the date game? Not dating the date game?

You have you would love it. You love it? Yeah, you would love all the dates. There's like hard and soft and sweet and like not so sweet. I'll bring that up some backs.

Nice. Nice. So, like, have you been eating in like restaurants or as part of the tour group? Or both?

No combination, like a lot of like, open desert cooking. I don't know why.

I like I like that

a lot. Some restaurants. Yeah, yeah. Some restaurants and then now I'm on the boat. So the crew cooks and that's all like traditional Egyptian food.

And even the boat food is good.

Yeah, really good. I mean, I'm on like a call. Yeah, it's like a boat with like from the 20s with the big sales. It's really pretty. The whole like, tour group is Italian Argentinians YouTubers.

Oh geez Yeah. Anytime only talking about pooping and food are they only the only talk of poop and food

you know i i liked I liked them the best one couple are really great. So yeah,

yes, they're great. They're really funny. So let me ask you this because my my in laws once took a river not a river boat in the American sense of river boat but a boat on a river in Europe tour. And their assessment was boats or floating petri dishes. What do you think?

No, because it's so dry. I hear about it doesn't feel disgusting

right right so like like a boat on the dando petri dish. boat on the Nile. Fine. Yeah. Nice and no. We talked about no Agatha Christie no murders yet?

No, but but people on the boat thinks that the YouTubers are not real.

So we may not feel like they're not actual humans. I mean, here's a place you could find out. What's that thing called? It's on the internet. What's it called? YouTube? YouTube? Yes. tubers you can look up the YouTube videos.

No, no, I know. But it's a long it's a long where it's a it's a mystery right now. It's like an Agatha Christie type thing. And also the internet is like spotty, so like we're Yeah, I don't

remember death on the Nile very well. I saw the movie was from the 70s but because whenever I think Agatha Christie I can only think of the Murder on the Orient Express. One and you know, spoiler everyone did it. So but I don't remember what happened in murder on the Nile. John, you should remember because you're Belgian. You're Belgian so you should know everything about your boy Hercule poro right isn't it when you're born as a Belgian not they'd be like hey, here's here's your it's like being Swedish with RBU like you get the Eric you'll pass know what happened in that in that murder on the Nile?

I have no idea.

I want on the discord. By the way. Never read it. You can call your questions to no tension, no tension yet, right? 917-410-1507 That's 9174010 1507 If you're a Patreon member, if you want to become a patreon member, where do they go? John?

patreon.com/cooking issues

now. Now. I want to know on the discord. Also, you can get on the discord. If you're joining the Patreon I want to know what percentage of people think Mr. Garcia would be the murderer in this situation. And what percentage thinks she would be the person murdered? I doubt there's anyone who thinks that she's completely uninvolved when it happens on this boat. My right says she has to unmute whenever you want to mute. What do you think, John?

I think the clear answer is that she would be she would be an accomplice. That's a clear answer for me

and accomplished. Oh, that's totally that's totally on point. She would cause it to happen. Yeah, she would be the puppet master.

Right? No, I would be the one that everyone tells that they did it. Or that would be the one I would be the confidant.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Oh, originally, when you started talking? I thought you were gonna say Patsy like they're gonna blame you even though you didn't do it. So now there's all these different roles. Right. So like, now you're the confidant. You made it happen. Here's what happened. You said. Wouldn't it be nice if they were dead? Oh, don't you wish they were dead? You'd keep saying that until they did it and then the person will be like you told me told me to you told me to

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that was like last night on the boat. Yeah.

Hey, would be the accomplice flash confidant but then use that as blackmail extortion fuel is what someone in Discord is saying.

Good job. Wow.

Yeah, yeah. Well, this all checks out. This all checks out, by the way, and just to remind you, Anastasia, that low level crimes that you commit in other countries won't get prosecuted in America when you come back but high level crimes we'll just say she's no, just as us No. Okay.

Yeah, I remember

All right, so who do we got as upcoming guest John, wet wet people's whistle

we have the folks from Joy of Cooking coming out in June that's gonna

be fun. We that's gonna be fun. So when a family cookbook since the 30s people in case you didn't know this, it's been the joy of cooking was a family was it's a family run operation it was taken in and kind of taken away from the family for a little while and then kind of the control was given back to them like two times it's a fantastic story. We're gonna have them on about like family and cooking and like doing a cookbook like the joy of cooking in the modern era it's gonna be a lot of fun so can't wait for that one. What else

Barbara we have Bob Florence of moremy show you going on

as well he products good soy products yep great food product and for mystic by Richie yep yeah just barely got their toe in Connecticut they're just barely not Rhode Island mistake you know what I mean? Shit barely.

Yeah true. Then it looks like we're gonna have the two founders have made in cookware coming on. We're working on that dates for all your Monsanto from Rancho Gordo.

So listen, when we have made in the reason we thought this would be interesting to you folks. Is because I know that and you know John, John Anastasia and I like we you know, believe it or not, we talk outside of this, and we think that a lot of people, not only, like, do they make products that, you know, our listeners might be interested in, that you guys might be interested in. But I think like a lot of people who listen to us are kind of like in between a lot of worlds and might be interested in how these businesses got started. Right, John?

Yeah, agreed. Yeah. You know, are two young guys. I mean, it's a really new company and learned a lot of the best kitchens in the country. So yeah, they've been, they have, you know, we have some of their products and they're great products. Yeah.

And also on the rancho Gordo. I mean, they make great, they make great beans. And someone asked me what I do with the yellow eyed yellow eyed beans. And I will say this, so no one reads it anymore. I don't think but Matt and John Thorn used to put out a newsletter. And there's a compilation of their of their work. And it's, it was really good writing, I want to say maybe in the 90s I think this stuff came out like serious pig was one of their noses serious pig, or something on the fire. I forget the names of the books, but I read them all but they lived in Maine for a long time. They did a lot of writing on main cooking, specifically on Main potatoes and main beans. And so I kind of went down a bean hole. You know, reading that stuff, especially when I'm working on my new book. And there's three really great varieties of main beans that are baked beans, and everyone from Maine knows that Boston's baked beans mean that's just something that tourists say Maine is baked bean land, right? And so the three varieties of beans that are the big deal there for baked beans are soldier beans, yellow eyed or stupid beans, and Marfan beans. And so far I've experimented with Marfan X and yelloweye. But I'm doing fundamentally I mean, I'm doing some stuff I can't talk about yet because I don't know whether it works. And so I don't want to get people involved but I've been doing basically baked beans, I just bought a ceramic bean pot. I've been doing that versus doing an akuna recon. So I do a very traditional kind of soak long cook with Crosby's molasses Of course, Crosby's molasses, pork, you know, oil, onion, mustard powder, mustard powder, people mustard powder, and just, you know, letting it cook you what you do is you pre cook it till they're tender, and then you put it in you and you bake it off slow for like eight hours. And I have to say they are delicious, but I'm not ready to quite give out the actual recipe yet because I'm still working on is that fair, John? Yes, fair. Yeah. And the difference between I've been doing a lot of work on evaporation and exactly how much water the beans absorb and how much you want them to absorbing. There's a huge difference between when they become tender and eight hours later when you take them out. And I haven't run the tests on how much of that is just the fact that you have molasses in it and it just gets progressively darker as they cook but they go in as a much lighter color and they come out like dark brown baked bean color. It's really kind of amazing and I really anyone who's never cooked with yellow eyes or more faxes before more facts is very hard to get a hold of you have to order it shipped direct from someone who grows it in Vermont or Maine. But But yelloweye you can get from Rancho Gordo. Alright, is that enough to answer that question? Someone had John Am I good?

Yep, good. All right.

Quinn wrote in did I cut off does that all the guests we have that we know coming up or what?

Yes, correct. from others from listeners working on more Yeah, we have to talk to him.

Quinn wrote in question. I'm getting into making my own masa so we're going to be talking about you know, masa not you know masa the corn the corn product masa, right so we're gonna be we're talking about Nick's atomization people the process of using an Alkalyn you you pour Cook, typically corn in an alkaline solution typically calcium hydroxide, although you can also use potash or there's various Alkalyn solutions you can use to do it, you park cook it, then you soak it. Then you rub off a you know a good portion of the skin that you've kind of solubilized with the with the Alkalyn you drain it, rinse it and grind it and there you have masa which makes Nick's mais masa which is why tortillas tastes like tortillas and not like cornmeal. So that's what we're talking about, in case I don't know. In case you don't know. I'm getting into making my own masa going off your old archived instructions on the blog I wrote how many 1000s of words did we write on that stuff is like 4000 words on on masa back in the day, though we lost we lost internet got cut off. Yeah. What she's on a boat in the Nile. I mean, yeah, you know, I can't get internet on the boat here either. Sometimes, you know you're in a boat. I think it was like 4000 words. Oh, You know, I tried to read some of the old blog posts John. And like, they got re formatted when, like, you know, when we got turned into a Russian porn site and then a Russian Cialis site for a while, like some of this stuff got reformatted. So it's hard to read because everything now is percent signs and all this other garbage he noticed that?

I did not. I mean, I'll take a look at it. Yeah. Anyway, hopefully we can fix.

Of course, I immediately went to experiment with using a flavorful liquid in the process. So typically, water is what you use use cow's reason calcium hydroxide is a good thing to use as a bass is because it's not extraordinarily soluble. So you're not going to like heavily OD on calcium hydroxide, I mean, flavor wise OD on calcium hydroxide in, in the water, as as opposed to using other basic substances. But typically, you do it in water, not an inflator of a liquid, of course, immediately went to use experiment using flavored liquids. I was also tempted to save the liquid. But even with the Alkalyn protection, I was be squeamish about saving something like poultry stock after sitting at room temperature for many, many hours. Could I potentially do the initial simmering stage and then hold the entire mixture around 60 C for a much shorter steeping time? Or is that just a recipe for overcooking the corn? Oh, 60 seat? Look, I'll tell you from my being experiments, when increasing the temperature of the water radically increases how fast things absorb radically increases how fast things absorb water, I would think 60 is a little bit high, because starch will actually start swelling at that temperature. So I would go a little bit lower. But listen, this is all stuff that you know I could that could just be tried, I would actually argue to go lower temp for longer as a probably better thing, right, like cooled it down and let it go longer at refrigeration temperature if that's what you're going to want to do. My second idea this is Quinn second idea is to do the initial simmering with a flavor for liquid then it is cooling down swap that liquid for fresh warm water at the same with the same proportion of calcium, I think it'll probably leach out a lot of the flavor. I don't even know how much it's going to penetrate because a lot of the stuff that goes in his water. So the heavier molecules, I don't know, over the short cooking time. How long are they going to make him? What do you think, John?

I am not sure. Yeah, I mean, never. So yeah, I

don't know. I mean, look. So Fabian von Houska of you know, Jeremiah stones partner at Contra. And while they're back when he was, you know, one of the times he was an intern with us at the French Culinary Institute, is when we were doing a lot of the externalization stuff. And you know, our most successful non standard next immunization was to nixtamal lies right now, calcium hydroxide isn't strong enough to minimalize right before, it's overcooked. So I had to use lie, like lie. And then and then rinse it and then put calcium hydroxide in to give that classic calcium hydroxide taste to it. And I got it was a pain in the butt. But they were delicious. The right NIC symbolizes right tortillas are great. And if you have someone else who will make them for you, I highly recommend that you have someone else make them for you their real pain because there's extremely sticky, because right itself is extremely sticky. Once it's hydrated. We experiment. So Fabian, who I will call fabulous, because I always have so to make that mental substitution in your head. He had always said that his grandma used to cook chicken with cow which has calcium hydroxide, but I can't remember whether it was actually cow or a related substance called a ticket skeet day, which is actually a mixture of salts. So take a ski day is like it just you know, it's like a it's a non pure salt. So it's partially sodium chloride. It's partially partially sodium carbonate, partially sodium bicarbonate, and then a bunch of other things. So it's Alkalyn and salty. And it's used as a as a flavoring, but also as a meat tenderizer. And also as something to keep things green because it'll keep things green. Because when you shift green vegetables into a basic regime, basic meaning Alkalyn regime, they don't turn color, but they also get mushy faster. So one of the interesting things about mixtures of basic salts, like take a ski day is if you have calcium in that mix calcium because basic things also make things mushy. So if you have calcium colorless, something that's basic right, then you can keep something very green but also not overcook it at the same time. So it's an interesting phenomenon, but but fabulous used to say that his grandma would cook chicken with it. So we did some tests of making chicken stock with cow and also with lye and I was not able to get something that I liked and in fact, one of the problems was when I went to go neutralize the the product afterwards to make it not so basic. Not so Alkalyn the fat in the chicken saponified and it tasted like soap, or I don't know whether it happened during the procedure. It was what After I finally made it neutral enough to taste it by I didn't even taste it when it was basic. It was very basic. By the time I could taste it, it had saponified and tastes like soap. So I would just be wary of making something extremely basic that has a lot of fat in it because you might get some off flavors. This is Was this an okay answer, John?

Yep, good answer me.

DJ Mustard. Again, I need someone on the discord to weigh in DJ Mustard. We said this a couple of times, ideas on good veggies to grow in a home garden. I'm zone seven b I have not had a garden. DJ Mustard. I have not had a garden in years and years and years. But I will say this back when I did have a garden. I was in a similar zone on the coast, you know, near the coast of Connecticut over there. And do you guys have a garden? John?

Yeah, my mom has a garden. Spotless bench from Home Depot.

I mean, if you live in Connecticut, what if you live in Connecticut. First of all, find a good seed store near you. If you live in Connecticut, you're blessed because Baker's Baker's Creek, I think heirloom seeds, they're out of old weathers feel better feel Yeah, you can go to Weathersfield, which is like a quaint little Connecticut, kind of a McGillicutty. There you go there, you stop in, you can get some sort of like, you know, kind of farm to table like foodie stuff at the thing. And then you go, and you know, it's quaint and all this. And then you go to the seed store. And the people who are working at the seed store actually grow the things that they sell. So even though they ship nationwide, they know exactly how this stuff grows in this neighborhood. Remember, it's not just your zone, it's the actual dirt you have, right? That's why like, you know, that's why Stokes farms tomatoes, even though that the temperature regime might be the exact same as someone that's 20 miles away the combination of temperature, regime, water and dirt and husbandry is different. And so they're a different product, but like, you know, the person who is there can recommend, it's much better to get recommendations from people that actually grow stuff, not just based on the climate. And I'm not an expert in any of this, but not just based on the climate but based on exactly where you are. And I'll tell you the thing that as a non gardener that was shocked me with stuff that grew great the first year that I had it, man by the second year the pests had really caught on. You know what I mean? You guys, anyone else get this problem? When the growing stars you grow stuff in the garden a lot, right? The second year you plant something that pests are like, Oh, that was delicious. Last oh, you should not hear. That was delicious last year. You know, I mean, that was delicious. I'm gonna eat all of it. You know what I mean? But if I ever have any land in this zone again, I'm going to plant pawpaw trees. Papaw trees, get you some papaya trees, because they don't ship well. I've never even had one. But I would plant it taste unseen based on what people say it's the it is the I'm told tropical tasting temperate fruit of choice because you know, everyone knows. No one knows. But I like may apples which are poisonous pool like deadly poisonous, when they're not ripe. it delicious. When they're ripe. I mean, delicious. But the problem is you have to fight the chipmunks and squirrels to get to him because they're also going to eat all those suckers. So I will get a paw paw tree. John get a paw paw tree over there at your mom's house. You can get them shipped they grow in Jersey. Well.

I don't know that would that's a good idea. Yeah, no, no. Yeah, that's I grew up in New Jersey.

Yeah. You grow mature. And if you plant a tree, right, couple trees, then like, you know, it's like you plan it. You don't get anything for a couple of years. So there's no immediate gratification like with gardening, but once they take it's a free country. You get it year after year. You know what I mean? I love trees. Yeah, I theoretically love pawpaws I mentally love them someday. I forget who it is. Someone keeps writing in threatening to send it to us. But then we never we never actually make contact when it's Papaw time. Let's not have that happen this year. John, let's not sleep on pulposus here. Yeah, I've only ever had a Native American, you know, American native to this country and others, not your non Asian and non european persimmon once I stole it off of a tree and in a horticulture cultural Garden in Washington, DC. So I also don't feel like I know anything about like, American persimmons Do you John? No, I do not. But I've never I've never I've never been like, if someone said to me, if I woke up in the morning, someone shook me awake at night and we're like, Dave, you're never gonna have another persimmon in your whole life. I'd be like, Okay. I mean, like, if you never I mean, I'm not saying I don't like persimmons. I like the concept of them. But if you never had one again in your life, you wouldn't be like, oh, man, right.

Read Yeah.

And this this is a challenge. I want to feel as though it's something that I crave. I just don't you know, I want to anyway, You know who knows that? I know she can't she's not on but Anastasia is friend Joe made the that persimmon compote that we spoke about a year or so ago. Remember that John pursuing compote? Yeah, I was so shocked. So me to pursuing compote. So then when I finally met Joe, I was like, talk to me about the pursuing compote. And you know what? He didn't even remember it. Didn't even remember it. Mike, who the hell makes persimmon compote and it doesn't remember it. The hell is that? Hey, listen, here's another thing I would plant, obviously, get apples, right? Obviously, plant apple trees. Again, I'm going to only recommend trees. And if you're going to get apple trees in this zone, get yourself a copy. It's old, it's but not out of date and small. So like, you know, you can get Burford book, and there's a bunch of like very, very comprehensive books on growing apple trees, especially in this region. But get the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens book on apple trees, broke it. I don't even have a garden. And yet I own about two thirds of the collection of Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, books on gardening for the home. And they are absolute treasures, classics in the field. They're very short. They're very cheap. And they're very to the point. So they'll they have a book on you want to grow potatoes, which by the way, everyone should grow potatoes once in their life, twice in their life three times in their life. Do you ever grow potato?

No, I never have told me about it. I mean, you know what, actually, I love sweet potatoes are different. They are potatoes.

I mean, they're different. They're not the same. It's not the it's got the word potato in them. That's true in the way that I love apples or potato books. Yeah, yeah, but not they're botanically not related, I guess is what I'm saying. Starchy. Yeah, yeah, true. True. But the thing about potatoes, I didn't realize until I grew up, first of all, it's like a lot of fun, right? Because you put the potato in, right, and the potatoes grow around this, like, like, near the surface where they're growing. So what you do is, is and they make for this purpose, these kind of like potato, potato sacks but not like potato sack like you jump in, it's more like a like a like a like a top hat that like opens up so you started low and then as it grows up, you keep mounting more dirt around the stock so that it will grow potatoes deeper, right the idea is is that you don't want to potatoes you just grow at the surface. You want to get a lot of potatoes out of a very like narrow things you're doing it on your deck right or whatever. And so you you keep mounting it up so that you can get a larger depth of potatoes right and then at certain point you stop and it throws off all the leaves and stuff like this but not only are potatoes delicious, I recommend getting a potato at a farmers market because they haven't necessarily been treated with sprouting inhibitors right and then you cut up the potatoes and then you let the potato parts sprout and then you plant those but potato leaves are gorgeous potato flowers are gorgeous potato plants are gorgeous they grow relatively quickly they're relatively easy to grow and at the end you get potatoes kind of when is that we have a caller caller you're on the air

Hey David gang Josh from Norfolk here how you doing? So I'm I'm well how are you? Good. Not an Egypt I'm jealous of that. Yeah, me too. So I'm I'm doing a bottled cocktail for an event this Sunday, blanc vermouth, Campari and clarified strawberry which are popping off here in Virginia now.

Write it down so I can see it. So like are using donor or using Dolan. What are you using for your blog from

either Dolan? Either Dolan or ocho which is like a Spanish group we have

okay. And but it's it's a it's a sweet white not not a dry white. Off Dry? Yeah, like, like similar to the dog. Yeah. Okay, not that dull and dry. Like, yeah, okay. You say Dolan clarify strawberry. What else?

Campari.

Okay. All right, question I got it really plan is to just

the plan is to carbonate them in, you know, ECS and then bottle them. And I'm trying to figure out whether best practice would be to just make like a who's Dino out of the Campari in the vermouth with the strawberries and then dilute that down. Or to just use clarified strawberry juice.

Well, okay, so normally, if you're making a spirit that you're going to age, right, Christina is always a different process, you get a different taste, right? So like making a banana whose Dino tastes different from making a from making banana clarify banana juice and adding it right? Because what happens is, is that a lot of the stuff in the rum like a lot of the poly phenols and whatnot kind of get attached onto the banana. So the banana like the Banana is adding to the liquor, but the banana is also subtracting from the liquor. Does that make sense? Sure. So I would think that in especially in a long drink that's going to be carbonated, right? I would think that too much would get stripped out of the Dolan or whatever the vermouth and the Campari in whose Dino process and it could be delicious, it could be what you want, but it's actually going to lower your overall yield to do it who's Dino? Right. And in a long drink, where you actually have the space to make it up with the strawberry, I think it's gonna be much more cost effective and brighter tasting, right? Because you can make the strawberry and then freeze it. And then it's good, right? So like, you can make the strawberry today, clarify strawberry today, freeze it, and then thaw it. And it'll be great in like six months, as long as your freezer is good, right? And so I think from, from just from the fact that it's going to be a long drink anyway. And I think you're going to strip a lot of the characteristic notes of the vermouth and Campari that you're kind of going for. And because of the like, kind of the money you're going to lose in that, especially for a long drink. I would say clarify the strawberry, if that makes sense.

Yeah, totally. Thanks,

everyone. Let me know how it works out, tweet me back and tell me how the drink is. I would just be I mean, obviously, you notice, the Kumari Campari takes over in a good way. I love comparo. But obviously comparte is like rides over the top. So it's gonna be an interesting balance to get it to get it right on. But, you know, I'll do love Campari. I do. I'm gonna go real light on it. Yeah. Yeah, I

love Campari, though, it's, it's for a pairing with a dessert and stuff. So I'm kind of looking forward to a little bit of bitterness to you know, cut through the richness of, of the dessert course.

Yeah, what's the what's the dessert

I don't have the menu in front of me, it's the chef doing it, but the plan is to be like kind of oops, all strawberries. So a couple different ways over like a pretty simple cake. And so we wanted to keep a strawberry drink but then you know, start something that's going to get a cut. I mean, even like jacket with a little citric acid just to brighten it up.

Yeah, no shame in that or think Campari a lot. If you are the champagne acid is nice, because it really pushes it in a wind direction and like pushes it away from a citrus direction. So with vermouth, and Campari especially carbonated if you want to like make it taste really kind of different and not citrusy? Like try don't you know, whatever try the champagne acid which is you know, the the 6% of 3% lactic acid by the crystal form and 3% Well, my god tartaric acid, right, so it's 3% are Tarik and 3% lactic to make the same as long and it's like a little bit not a lot because it's quite short, but a little bit of that, try it. I think you might like it sounds like it would work well in that if, again, we've typically will add like a bar spoon just to brighten it, but it definitely brings a whiny or note to it as opposed to a more citrusy note, which i i do a do appreciate and I also appreciate the Captain Crunch reference. Oops, all berries. Although, Captain Korea Yeah, Captain Crunch is one of those things that I really, I ate a lot of it growing up. And every time I ate it, I was like, why am I eating it? You know? I mean, every time I ate it, I'm like, why am I eating this? I mean, the two things that I did every single time when I was a kid, burn the hell out of the roof of my mouth with pizza because who's waiting right in the roof of your mouth? How much does that hurt when you have your skin like like coming off? Like, like, like, like you're in a cave coming off the top of your mouth from the burnt pizza. No one likes that. Right, Joe?

Hell no. You know what? I never had never had the captain crunch. We didn't have sugar in the house. Well,

look, you weren't missing what I'm missing. You know, because the captain crunch is an extruded cereal. And I love extruded cereals. But Captain Crunch even though it contains no grease taste greasy, and I don't know why. And also, it's the hardest thing it's physically hard, right? So like a pizza that ruins the top of your mouth. When you eat a bowl of Captain Crunch at the end of it. You're like my mouth hurts. What the hell am I doing? Like not your teeth? Your teeth break right through it but it's that roof of the mouth. John back me up on this since you I'm sure you had this or Jack Come on. No, I

do not back you up on this. I am actively against him and matter of factly I have a bowl of Captain Crunch yesterday.

And how's your mind? Okay. All right. Listen. The joy of being a human is the ability to disagree with each other.

Very true. Yeah.

We are nothing if not interested. I did not like it and all berries. I mean like that's just like that's just like, that's just like juiced up tricks. The hell is that? All berries is just that

no yeah. I only liked the original Captain Crunch. I don't like only I don't like the peanut butter. I don't like the berry.

Cannon. I think we had Froot Loops in the house a few times.

Oh, Froot Loops. I mean, it's all the same stuff.

It is all the same natural.

Well, it's all extruded stuff, but I feel Froot Loops. I feel Froot Loops weren't as hard on my mouth maybe because they weren't as sharp. They're round. You know, Froot Loops are like mini donut II things when they're hard as hell, but like for somebody that didn't do it, you know, like, Sunday, we should just do like a cereal aroma because I studied cereal. I've done I've studied cereal quite extensively, we should have some one of the cereal experts on what so like, if you didn't have a lot of sugar, Joe, what was the cereal that you had in your house cereal?

It was honestly it was Honey Nut Cheerios. Those are that was basically that was basically it or oatmeal. But you know what, you know actually, I was just thinking about this the other day and on the Y product Froot Loops but this anyone feel the same way as me like when you order pork Fah I think it's when we pork. The glaze that they use on the pork farm reminds me of the taste of Froot Loops, not per se like a particular flavor, but something about it. There's an essence of Froot Loops in pork fall.

I'm going to have John comment on this as the resident expert. What do you think, John?

I don't know. I've actually never had pork. Chicken. Yeah, okay.

Okay, no, I just have beef all day every day. Kind of a dude. Beef all day beef every day. Oh, speaking of beef from Papa wagyu we had some pecan ha. Which was what was the what was the story with that one? It was so delicious, though. I will talk about it later. We'll post it there was so delicious. It was so stupid. Oh my god. It was so dumb. It's tasted so good. Anyway. All right. Oh, on cereals though. In my house. I mean, life. Life is a great cereal, and frosted Mini Wheats.

Life. Was that my he likes it. Yeah, that was my legs. Yeah.

Yeah. He didn't die from Pop Rocks. By the way. They tell you I met the inventor of Pop Rocks. No, yeah, he took a class with me at the French Culinary Institute I believe on. I don't think it was hydrocolloid. I think it was low temperature cooking. And he was one of the people who worked on the team that did pop rocks. And really Yeah, Pop Rocks are amazing, right? And it used to be maybe you still can you could get custom Pop Rocks made by there's companies that have it because what you do is you essentially make sugar candy under extreme pressure in co2, then you release the pressure it fractures but like there is co2 still trapped in it. That's how it works, right? Yeah. And, and it was huge. In the early to mid 2000s Pop Rocks were everywhere in all fine dining as all fine dining went through like the same three phases. Like first everyone was like, well, everyone's using tonka beans now and they're like, No, it's not so good for you. So they stopped doing it. And then everyone's like, Oh, we're all using menthol now and was like, Oh, that that's actually gross. And then everyone's laid the crystals. And then it's like, oh, everyone's using Pop Rocks. John, you remember this? You are old enough to remember this. Anyway, neutral pop rock. So what people do is they would they would, I think was chef robber or someone would sell neutral just non flavored Pop Rocks and then people would just mix the neutral Pop Rocks with whatever flavor they wanted. And make you know the pop rock a du jour Well,

you know the chocolate company Tony's has a I'm not a big fan of white chocolate, but I had a taste it they have a white chocolate raspberry. I can't remember what they call it on the packaging, but it's basically raspberry and Pop Rocks. Yeah, pretty good.

I mean like Bob rocks. So Mikey did not die. That's not true. From Pop Rocks and coke I believe was the was the earliest Pepsi. Oh, could be Pepsi. I don't know some a soda product and pop rocks do not kill. But it is true. This part is I must tell you is true. According to the guy that they had a truck that was full of Pop Rocks once and it got caught in a storm and had a massive leak and the truck was damaged by the Pop Rocks reaction. someday they'll find it the Pop Rocks reaction. Yeah. No. I think so. That's what he told me. It could be a lie.

But that's what he said. I'd like to see what that truckload deformed.

I would like to remember what that guy's name was. I mean, I think one of the greatest koozie cooking issues ever had was we had the you know, the inventor of Fudgie, the whale and cookie puss on me. That was sick.

Oh, that was great.

All right. Josh s writes in any suggestions on doing waffle in whoever will infused whiskey without a hydraulic press? Josh, I have good news for you, my friend. The hydraulic press is completely unnecessary for the production of waffle infused whiskey. What the hydraulic press does is vastly increase your yield. Right? So if you're willing to lose more product, and you're willing to put and also remember, so people here's what we did. I cooked waffles. I use my waffle recipe, John. John. This is my American waffle. recipe IRA and I want to hear from you. Okay, it wasn't. I thought you use Legos. No. Am I an animal? Or am I a brute? Come on. Now we're going to have to agree to disagree. I do not like I do not like Legos. I do not like I guess. I do not like them. Sam. I am I do not like them. I mean, yeah,

I mean, definitely. I know they're not good, but I enjoyed them. And they're definitely like a childhood nostalgia thing.

I mean, I can, I can maybe see using them as a component in something else because they are a thing. They're like a thing. You know what I mean? But like, I don't know. I mean, I liked their advertising campaign. Joe. Yes. Lego. My ego is was a good advertising campaign. Anywho right. No, we made waffles. You know, I mean, but American style rifles, not not, not Brussels. Not not Lea. Not Stroop. We just made American style waffles, which I love them. I grew up making them until I was 49 years old. All I ever made and knew and loved was American waffles until I went to Belgium and was like, I'm an idiot. And now I realize that all of our waffles are vastly inferior to a common grade. Belgian waffle of any variety. And right right or wrong.

Yeah, no, very, right. Yeah.

I mean, like, our waffles are, like, so. Let Eggos or a different style of waffle that's like it like you know, it goes are based on like this. I don't even know what they would be called. But like a very thin waffle iron that looks like the kind of early cast iron waffle iron pans or they're thin waffle. I don't even know what they would be called where they come from. I don't really know. Right. But what I think of as, like the the waffle that you get what we used to call when I was a kid belgian waffles, right. Right. that most closely mimics what would be known in Belgium as the Brussels style. Right. However, ours is ours is not good. compared to theirs. Right. I don't think it's a matter of Oh, it's just different. No, sorry, Brussels. This stuff's better. What do you think, John?

Yeah, agreed. Yeah. No, it is better.

And then the urges are

different ingredients.

Well, they're gonna buckwheat classically, no, the classically, they're yeasted, first of all, and they whip the egg whites and then put the egg whites back into the batter that provides nucleation sites. So interestingly, most of the recipes that you'll read the the whipped egg whites go in before the rise, and you're like, why would you do that the egg whites you just gonna go flat. But what it does is it provides nucleation sites so that the entire batter really air raids. And so you get just like kind of massive amount of aeration, and kind of a really good yeasty thing. And they're just light and their waffle irons just kick the crap out of our waffle irons. They just kick the ever loving crap. Like like they get like really freaking hot. And they're heavy, heavy, and they're heavy. So even like the hunter heavy, even the the waffle iron that people use at home in Belgium is not the same waffle iron that we use at home here. It's heavier, right, John? I mean, it's not as heavy as the commercial ones, but it's still heavier than the one that we use here. And so it's just because no one here has had a decent waffle. The ones that we eat tastes good. So we're not like, oh, you know, this is bad. You know what I mean? But it's the kind of thing that then when you have the other one, you're like, Oh my God, I didn't know that there was this other level of waffle. That was attainable. Fair, John. Very, sir. Yeah. So regular American style waffles, which, by the way, here's how you can tell that your waffle game isn't very good. And this is the way I live my life until I was like I say like, almost 50 is if your pancake waffle, if your pancake recipe and your waffle recipe are basically the same, right? Which so the difference for most people between their pancake recipe and their waffle recipe is strictly the amount of oil and or butter they put in, right? You need to have a decent amount of butter or oil in a waffle recipe to get good release from the pan. Whereas you can lower the amount when you put in a peg. I don't I use the same amount of butter in both because I'm not afraid of putting butter in my pancakes. You know what I mean? No, I'm saying people. I'm not afraid of it. But that's the main difference that most Americans do. And that's just not the ideal. If you have a good iron that's just not the ideal waffle spec is the same as pancake makes your life easy, right? Because you only have to remember the one recipe and hell you know, you can make waffles and pancakes on the same day. pour some into the iron and some into a griddle right? But it's just not not going once you had this other kind of waffle, it's just not going to be the same anyways. So what I'm talking about here is you're fundamentally making a American style waffle which is a pancake with, you know about twice what a pancake would have in terms of oil or butter, I would make sure you put vanilla in, I would not go totally dry, I would put some sugar into that waffle, were more than you would in a Brussels style waffle because that's typically an uncovered waffle as opposed to the edge waffles. Then let it cool, slice it into strips, put it in soak the and what I would do is I would get a container, I would put the the strip's in, and then basically fill it to cover the strip's just exactly with your your whiskey, right, cover it and let it sit, just let it sit. That's it now then what I would do afterwards, after letting it sit for whatever it doesn't really matter is I would, I would dump it into a hydraulic press. And then I would press the hell out of it, like really pressed the hell out of it. So I would get almost 100% of my product back. I also was squeezing it so hard that I squeezed all the butter back out. So we used to have this like whiskey butter that would float on the top right. So we would get these, we would have these, you know these containers. And then you would let the containers after you press it settle for a day or two. And at the top, you'd have this amazing whiskey waffle butter. And like that stuff was crazy to use for cooking, right? It's great. And then you would you would decant off of that or like you know get we would use separatory funnels to anyway. But you can accomplish pretty much the same thing with a super bag. Just squeeze the EverLiving snot out of it, man, you know what I mean? It's just you're not going to yield. The taste will be good, but the yield won't be as high. Is that. Is that fair, John? Yep. All right. So the science slot writes in and I wish I could have gotten more information on this for you, but we're going to read it anyway. Maybe someone in the discord can help us out. I recently had a good a really good Mezcal flavored with a local wild avocado. The flavor was impressively clean, with fresh avocado notes, any tips on how one can recreate this was such a mushy, volatile fruit as an avocado. So that's interesting. And it made me think of maybe think of many things. First, I'm wondering what kind of avocado they use, whether they use mint, so like, you know, like most of the avocados that we get here in the US. Most of the ones that you know, that people use for things like avocado toast, are a variety of avocado that are very high in oil, right. But there are varieties of avocado that are very popular in other places that are fairly low in oil, right? So they're lower in oil. Sometimes, like brighter green, less of that kind of olive color to it. And I'm wondering whether this local wild avocado was maybe a lower oil avocado so I'm not clear on it. I'm not clear on whether this is like a soupy thing, like they blended the avocado when or whether this is a liqueur that's kind of clear ish with like avocado in it right, John? Were you clear on what they what they meant?