Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking your shoes coming to you live from Rockefeller Center in the heart of Manhattan newsstand studios joined as usual witness dassia The Hammer Lopez, how're you doing? Start you're taking over taking over the Jhansi you're sitting across me there. Yeah, by the way, you know people are watching right now. I know. Yeah. Okay. You can see how the Anastasia rolls on the show. With the Zappos remember when I used to accuse you

know, I'm Ana, what's it called?

I don't know discord. Are are really nice. So So with it. Rocking the panels. We got Joe Hasan, how you doing? How you doing? I'm alright. Are you nice? Ooh, nice. Happy today like that. It's very, very peppy Joe on a hot hot day. And we got John has decided to escape the heat of New York City and is in San Francisco, the coldest place in the his area of California. He done.

He's great, but it's actually supposed to get up to 90 today.

Whoa, you ruin San Francisco for them by going out there. Huh? Actually, I guess they probably like it. Yeah. I probably like it hot. You're doing anything fun or nothing fun?

I'll do some fun things for being to go to lazy there tomorrow night.

What's a lazy bear? Yeah. Yeah. Just messing with you. Patreon members call your questions into 917-410-1507. That's 917-410-1507. And Jonathan, not a Patreon member when you tell them how to become one

should go to patreon.com/cooking issues. And the newest and coolest thing about the Patreon perk for people is we have started a Google Map say listener compiled google maps where I'm also adding to it. Everyone's adding to it and just adding restaurants, bars, interesting food places, butcher shops, all that kind of stuff. And so the Google Map is populated with them, like 400 places already in countries all around the world. So it's really cool to see how it's coming together. So if you want access to this, join our Patreon. Hey, John, would you be willing to put in all my hotdog recommendations and Connecticut nice would you

be willing John to share your Belgium document with the Patreon people?

Yes, why not? I can do that.

So those of you that don't know John has the most in depth food tour related Belgium document ever compiled by a living human being as far as I know as far as I know, which I will say is not very far as far as I know. It turns out is not very far but you know there you have it. Right anyway. And Jackie molecules we got you your mic was muted a little bit for you right. Oh, I'm here. Can you hear me? Yeah, where? Where are you now? What? What? What city? What state? Were you? Oh, just LA. Yeah. I had a dream of regular regular la dreaming about LA left and right. No, I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. Maybe you gotta get out here. Maybe? I don't know. All right. And before I leave it, John, who we got coming up in upcoming shows that people should look out for

we have got very Quicken folks coming on in two weeks. Today we have a quick appearance from Garrett Richard we have Bob Florence with more me show you coming in and then the cofounders of made and cookware that's going to be a double banger of a week so on Tuesday we'll have Bob and then on Wednesday we will have Jake and ship for maidens it'll be a double episode week

cool and they're coming in live yeah that's why we're having them on the off day because they're coming in live all right now just a you know a lot of people have been asking right about the new a nova vacuum sealer and I say what I always say I haven't used it so I have no idea now one did I they sent us one to look at and I started looking at I haven't finished my I haven't finished my assessment but I figured John better than like spending like 10 minutes or 12 minutes in one episode talking about it maybe better just to like mention snippets as they get and what do you think? Yeah, why not? Alright, so the first thing is this. Yeah. It is. Small, right? So it's it's easy to carry around like if you've ever If any of you have ever picked up a commercial vacuum machine because it's got the oil base pump in it, it those are super heavy Anastasia is favorite thing used to be when I used to get angry. Remember this does and I'd be like Can someone help? Can someone help? Can someone help it? Did anyone ever helps us? No, no. So I'm like, just lifted. And I'm not a strong guy. But I've anger strength, right? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Super anger strength. Right. So like, I would lift these heavy vacuum machines around. You know, so I'm used to it. I know how much they weigh. Oh, my God. sighs You remember Del Posto? Yes, yes, yeah. So Mark Ladner This is before you're going out with my right yeah. So Mark Ladner Del Posto used to have one of these floor standing vacuum machines right so vacuum machines that most of us use in the restaurants they come in, you know three basic sizes the the floor standing ones, which you'll hardly ever see anymore, right. So that's because it was so damn big. But the oh my god Are they monsters, the vacuum pumps and those things will like you know, he they rip anyway. And then that kind of big table top one which is kind of what most people have. And then the smaller one, which is the one that I liked the little the MVs, I think 45 The small and easy one to carry. Those are all commercial machines with with oil base vacuum pumps, and they're all heaviest lead. And pretty big. So the Nova does not have an oil based vacuum pump. And of course, it doesn't cost $1,500 either it costs I think like $400, right. So you can't assess it with the same kind of eyes that you would assess, you know, $1,500 unit. It's very lightweight, easy to move around. It's small and looks pretty it's well designed. But the chamber, you have to understand that it is small, right on the chamber. So for instance, it has a function, which I'll talk about in a second for cooling, cooling things like bread, so I use my chamber vacuum machine for cooling bread, my big one, right? This unit is too small to hold like a loaf that's made with like, five 550 600 grams of flour, like that size loaf is too big to fit into the chamber without smashing it. And so you can't cool it with that, right? So you just have to really keep in mind like it's more of like a one stake kind of a situation, right. The other thing is, is that and this is something that I'm a little disappointed in it doesn't have a firmware update or is not an updatable firmware. And why is that important? You might ask? Why would I need to update the firmware? Well, they've made a couple of choices that I don't enjoy. So one of the choices I've made, they've made that I really really don't enjoy any commercial vacuum machine that I've ever used in my life. You close it, the program starts and then you wait. When the liquids and stuff start boiling over, you hit stop. And when you hit stop, it instantly seals the bag. So stopping the cycle in a commercial vacuum machine seals the bag. If you don't want the bag to seal, you don't hit stop, you actually turn the power off. That's how you run a commercial vacuum machine. Every single one I've ever used, I'm talking. I've used many, you know, multi Vax mini packs. I've used whatever that German one that starts with an H J's I've used I've used zillions of different ones, and they all work this way. Berkel Merkel's. In this one, when you hit stop, it stops and then doesn't seal the bag. And what that means is, is that like for instance, if something's really light, the bag can get ejected around without getting sealed stuff can spill. And it just you can't. Let's say you're bagging chrome on glaze. Chrome on glaze is going to boil no matter what you can't help it criminally, it's going to boil because of the air bubbles, it's going to fall over. So how are you going to bag chrome on glaze because you can only set two modes vacuum long or short. So you can't just sit there Well, it'd be better if they let you just suck a vacuum for up to 60 seconds instead of 40 which is the long for them, then hit stop has sealed the bag. So if you could update the firmware on it, that's something that's easily fixable by them down the line, but like that, that's a another issue. So then they rate the they rate the vacuum pump in in some unit that I don't understand like, like cubic meters per hour or something like that, it ends up being about two point something five 2.3 cfm, which is how most Americans rate pumps and CFM you have to take CFM with a huge grain of salt. Why? Because CFM is CFM in a certain condition. What really matters to you in vacuum land isn't how many cubic feet of air the pump can pump when it's pumping at atmospheric pressure. What you care about is how fast it can suck a vacuum and it does a decent job of sucking a vacuum on a thing like a steak but my standard test is to put a cold tap water in and see if you can boil it and it will not boil cold tap water within 40 seconds. warm tap water not hot, warm tap water. It will just come to a boil right before it shut Soft. So it's got a lot of cool features like infusion features and cooling features, but I haven't really used them yet more on that later. Is this an okay first run on a on a thing, John Martin?

Yes. Yep. Sounds good so far. All right. All right. All right. Can you hear me?

Yeah. All right. Okay. So Mark Mandel wrote in for the beans episode and was talking about his rock beans, rock beans, and we got a response, which of course, I should have thought of two's search for the word rock been in Portuguese. If you search for the words rock bein in Portuguese, which I will now this is from Rob Bell. Sending in, said Miss the live show and just listening now, the person curious about rock beans and recipes for them. We'll find them by searching and I can't pronounce Portuguese Can any of you guys pronounce Portuguese? Anyone? John anyone? Molecules now? Alright, so I apologize in advance. Fire how of beans of the Pedro rock recipe? Don't you know recipes? I can't pronounce Portuguese. Sorry. These exists in some places in Brazil where the bean varieties are ultra regional. But this is really the national being of Cabo their day. And there are a lot of Cape Verde Islands in Massachusetts. I found a recipe for them. Even before I read this because I searched I wrote rock bean and translated it and look for it. Crumb snatched. It's kind of a like a crazy name for your your website right from snatched from snatch.com Sounds kind of dirty right. Crump snatched. I don't understand anyway,

because it has the word snatching. That's probably what you're thinking. Yeah, thank you for clarifying that. I wasn't sure. I don't know.

Yeah. All right. Well, because then it's like it's all you know what it is? It's like a mixture of crumb bomb and snatch. Which is super gross. Does anyone call anyone crumb bombs anymore? No, no, crumb bomb. I've never heard that crumble mom. That's a good old school insult. I mean, it's no dirtbag. But so then I also looked at pictures of these beans and they're kind of funny. They got like a little line down. Um, they almost look like like they've started to sprout a little bit in the picture because it got a little line down them. And they remind me of the fact that some people with barley miso, you guys remember this? They call them loincloth because a little bit of that line from the barley is leftover and I always thought it was like super gross to think of all of these dudes loin claws hanging out in my Mizo. Me. So no, anyone? No. All right. All right. Shake Shack give a bean rest. I came up with a vegetarian bean recipe. She gave it her later, later. Sure. I'll give it okay. So for those, I gave pretty much my regular baked bean recipe, but I had to work on a vegetarian baked bean because I thought that, you know, I thought a vegetarian was coming over to my house last night, but they didn't. But it's fine. Because the recipe actually I have to say, this recipe tastes to me as good as the one with pork in it. So the secret, there is no secret. Everybody knows this, the way you make vegetarian baked beans is by adding some sort of tomato product and then some other sort of umami product. For instance, nutritionally yeast, and then some form of smoky thing, I added a combination of both Hickory Smoke powder and smoked sweet paprika. So here's how you do it. And here's also how I'm doing these recipes. I need some feedback from you folks out there on whether or not this is a reasonable way to write a recipe because I really do do this by weight. Anyone with a five kilo scale? Can you think the average person has a five kilo scale? Who has a scale those who have a scale? Do you think five kilos is the number they have?

No. Yeah, I think so.

Five? Yeah. Like they don't have a 10. But five, I mean, if you're, if your scale can't do five kilos, then you're really limiting yourself. You know what I mean? Five kilos is good number. All right. So you take a pound of dry beans for metric folks. That's 463 it's not actually but the average pound of dry beans isn't actually a pound. I've averaged about I've averaged a bunch of packages and they most of them come in around 463 I don't really know why. Okay, so here's what you do. Now. Ready? Put those into your pot. weigh them right. Right and now tear it out when it's dry. Tear it out before you wash and I'll tell you why. Then wash your beans and then put the pot back on the scale because now you've already measured the extra water that you have attached to the beans with me here guys with me John, you with me? Stars. He got me all right. So then add to that 1458 milliliters of water. And he honestly that number doesn't matter much at all, but you have to know what you've added. Then I add 2.6 to 2.7% assault on on being weight Bay says, which is 12.2 grams of salt per pound. And I do that because I know exactly how much water the beans roughly are going to absorb. Now my cook to dry ratio that I've measured many times with several beans is 2.3 to one, so I'm looking for the cooked beans to weigh 1065 grams, which means folks if you do the math, I have 857 grams of extra quote unquote water. Then I add onions I added one medium large 177 grams for closer garlic 23 grams, three medium carrots dice real small because I'm basically making the veg Doc as as it cooks. Actually, I'm lying first I did the water and salt and I let it soak for four hours at 104 degrees Fahrenheit on my induction burner with to be no caps in it to kind of wipe out the 40 Enos of it as we discussed last week. So then after the soaking for a couple of hours that 104 to try to wipe out the farts 177 nanyan 23 Garlic three medium carrots 208 peeled and finely diced, three medium things of celery, finely diced 125 grams of Crosby's molasses you can use Steens or maybe maple syrup instead, but probably not as much 75 of olive oil 4.5 grams of dried mustard if you don't have dried mustard, you can add prepared mustard but add it after the first cook step. 11 grams of nutritional yeast which is two tablespoons 5.5 grams of sweet smoked paprika, 2.5 tablespoons a little bit Hickory Smoke powder at about a gram and a half 1.5 grams of bayleaf and five grams of rosemary of time rather tied with string. And then after the soaking, I simmered that for 40 minutes. And here's what you do before you simmer it, put your pot on your scale, right, don't use a giant pocket away too much put your pot on your scale and weigh it. Okay, then, after you cook it for about 40 minutes of being should be about three quarters of the way done, weigh it again. Now you know how much water you've lost. So yesterday when I cooked it, I lost 626 grams of water, which means I have 231 grams of extra water left to get home doing this now, then I added the 75 grams of tomato paste, right and then I put it in my bean pop, you don't have to have a bean pot, you could put it in anything in an oven, right but weigh it before you put it in because you know that you're playing with 231 grams of water. So I put it in the oven at 250. And then after two hours I measured I waited again and I had lost 73 grams of water. That means I had 158 grams, put it back in the oven after four hours, I lost another 102 grams, which means I had 56 remaining. Now that's a little low, right? You want to have about 100 110 Left or something like that. So I added another 50 more water. And to be honest, I could have eaten it just then. Right I also that's when I taste it for salt after the four hour mark because then I'm pretty much where I'm going to be add another two grams of salt there. Then after another two more hours at six hours. After I'd have 50 More water I had I had lost 77 more I only had 29 remaining. Now I made a mistake there is I shouldn't have added 50 More water I probably should have added like 100 125 It was a little dry, but they're delicious. And that's how I do this recipe by just weighing in between. So I know exactly how much water is left. So that makes sense with anyone. It's not that hard once you get used to but what do you think? Is this a reasonable way to do something or no?

No, no, no. Yeah, perfect.

I think there's a delay with the phone. And I thought it was just when I was in Egypt. But apparently it's

there's a little bit of a delay. Yeah. So so this is like when when like calling into CNN or whatever and like then the person's like, waiting. Yeah. And they're talking about something horrible. So you want the response right away and then there Wait, I hate that. Don't you hate that? Oh my god, I hate that. Speaking of horrible, I was at my like, my wife's reunion at Yale this weekend. And they have a restaurant there called Louie's lunch which is famous for its hamburgers. It's the one where like they throw you out if you have asked for ketchup. Yeah, it's good. And then when I was there, they were only open for lunch. Right? That's why it's called Louie's lunch. Right. But now it's open till like 1am but so many weasels were there for the reunions, right, that they ran out of hamburger meat. How the hell do you run out of hamburger meat?

Yeah,

I mean, it's not like it's not like one of these Texas barbecue joints. It's hamburger meat. I guess it's because they're closed on the Sunday and the Monday so like, I guess on a Saturday like they can run low but I was like, Oh my goodness. I was very upset. But I want for those of you that never been here's what's cool about it. First of all, everything served on toasted white bread. For everything. The hamburgers are served on toasted white bread. And they have one of those vertical toasters, you know that like that like lifts it up. You don't talk about as the toaster comes up in the air and goes around. And then all of the hamburgers are cooked in these like many crematoriums my describing this right John the you know what I'm saying? It's like, it's like, it's like, you look like they're in the monsters and there's like a chimney coming out of the top and it's all gas and fire in And they've got these two tall skinny doors that you open up. And then they put the burgers into these weird little slots in these crematorium things which is where they cook them. And then it's onion and Cheez Whiz. And then and that's it. There are no toppings. If you ask for toppings you are summarily ejected, but they're good. I think. I think they're a good burger. Anyway. Luis launch

container salad.

Potatoes. I've never had potato salad there. I will just have another burger. What kind of what kind of potato salad? American or German?

German style.

Do you prefer a German style to an American style?

No, I'd prefer whichever one tastes better when I'm eating.

So your equal opportunity potato salad. Just you're not a purist on your potato style. Yeah, correct. Okay. Okay. What about you styles? What's your potato salad that go to potato salad?

Um, with mayonnaise and mustard and?

Yeah, so classic American picnic style. tearsa. About you, Joe. You potato salad, man. I don't know who I'm talking to. Yeah, it says hello, guy. Um, I don't know. I like to work when there's vinegar. You like vinegar? You like a German style? Yeah. So and Jackie haven't weighed in. You know, you don't tell me you don't like potato salad. Jack. Don't Don't get me. Don't get me started. I am not a potato salad. cheeses. You know, it sucks. No one sucks folks. Other than Jack not liking potato salad. Another thing that sucks is when you have an American style. This is why like, when you have an American style, okay. Okay, so on coleslaw. I'll do a man a style with vinegar in it. Right, like sort of like a little bit tart. But what I don't like is sometimes an American style potato salad when it's been kept in the deli too long starts fermenting and starts tasting carbonated and sour. I hate that so much. I feel like I'm being poisoned. How many times I haven't used us. Not a lot. No, that happened to me all the time. I hate that. You know, how about us eatin a lot of poisonous potato salad is our friend Peter. Kevin. Yeah, yeah. Man who loves a moldy egg salad sandwich from a gas station has to have eaten a lot of fermented potato salad is life. Oh, yeah. What about celery is in your potato salad? Just like celery? Yeah, me too. Like, like, do you like Well, aside from gas station? Do you like egg salad? You know why? Good? Tastes good. Like everyone likes deviled eggs. Why wouldn't you want the basic thing hacked up on a sandwich? That tastes good? Yeah, good product. What about that Jack? Do you like freaking egg salad?

Oh, you don't like a salad? Do you know what? Two things I'm not that into? I just happened to pick two of them. Okay. All right. Well, how do you not like mayonnaise?

Yeah, that's kind of that's that's sort of the thing here. Whoa.

Yeah, that's problematic. Yeah, yeah. Now to each their own. I guess. I hadn't had another one in this in this in this vein in this genre. You know what? I liked it. Nobody likes tuna Mac. I like tuna Mac. I like both hot and cold tuna macaroni salad. Anyway, and everybody hates it. I don't know why. Here's another thing. Do any of you guys grow up eating cream ship beef on toast? No, none of you. None of you have ever had beef on toast. Do you know what shipped beef is?

I know you've talked about it before.

Chip beef is like super thin dried beef that comes in like a plastic package that's already been like hacked into tiny pieces, and it's dry and salty. And then you make it into a cream sauce and you put it on toast. And it was a real like, it was a real kind of like, this is the only beef we can kind of get kind of a food. So it was reviled by a lot of people but I grew up eating it. Like my grandparents would make it a lot. So I used to have it a lot. It's dissimilar, because it doesn't have like the acid of like a Welsh. Rarebit you guys ever do the Arabic growing up? No. No, Joe, you did the rabbit. A little bit. Yeah. John did the rabbit Yeah, rabbits. No, I didn't do the rabbit. I only got introduced to the rabbit when my wife came to the States. Now. Yeah, she enjoys it. So do you. Do she make it? No, she doesn't make it. No, but uh, you know, we'll we'll we'll have it out. Like, alright, alright, enough enough of enough of what the 70s used to taste like. Alright, so Oh, yeah, by the way, we have Garrett calling in in any any minute I think to answer your question about how best to use your milk, your milkshake making machine. Let's see what else we got here. So Dollar wrote in

not holding shrimp. Yeah, right. Holding shrimp, what I can find is 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

What does that in Celsius land fifth?

The temperature? 49

flat. Alright, so FYI, 49 degrees Celsius, you're, you're slipping into the danger zone. They're right. And John was saying, so dollar had a question of how to hold his shrimp. And then he said he uses a reverse sear method. And I mentioned that I can never remember. Which is reversed, because you can see or something before and after. And I don't know which one would be reversed. Which one's reversed, John?

Well, I think it's that you're reversing by putting it in the oven first and then searing it?

Why is that reverse? Putting in the oven? Yeah, but like I always say at the end. Alright. I don't know. Any classic recipe for, you know, it can go either way. It says the question and when you do it or both. We need to like people need to stop. People need to stop. It's not a good term. Anyway. So on this, you said the the restaurant used to hold them in a burger Blanc, right? Yeah, that's

right, hold it in numberblock on that shelf above the range. And we'd keep them in there for like, an hour and a half, two hours tops. We usually sell them by them. But if they were over two hours, then wouldn't, you know, eat them or toss them?

Right? Because you're basically realize that you're keeping them in the danger zone. This is his great thermometer idea. Right? So I don't want

to tell anybody again.

What? Because it's a

viable product. I mean, I guess it's like wine Santa, which it will never be. Well, it's not

only that, not only that, we've already said it. So yeah, but I don't, I don't

want to talk about it. Okay. All right. So you get an idea.

Speaking of too good, it's just too good to be evil. Well, that's like the idea I want someone else to become a millionaire on is labs and labs. Remember that idea. It's all Labrador Retrievers in laboratories easy to do with coats on anything, how many calendars you'd sell so many calendars. Speaking of ideas that we've said before, like someone out there in, you know, who can hear our voices needs to figure out a way people still, when you search for cooking issues on the internet's you get the old Hrn feed. So like, every week, I get a tweet from someone saying, you haven't done a show since 2021. And I'm like we have every week. Like someone out there has to be some sort of like search engine monster, or someone can tell us how we can get the real show to show up first. Right? So what's the trick? John? Doesn't Jack know. Jack knows John knows someone? What's the dealy? What do they have to search for? What's the point on Google or in the podcast? Well, here's the thing. Anyone that can hear me already knows how to get where you need to find anyone that can hear this already knows how to find it because they're hearing it. It's one of those things. It's crazy

or your Instagram or anything.

Crazy, maddening. It's maddening. Oh, so back on, on dollars problem. So the verb Blanc is interesting because when, when what's his name, Thomas Keller and Ruhlman came out with their book under pressure. Like they did their lobster, they cook their lobster in a bourbon. And there's two reasons to do that one, because when you add water based product to butter, you can add flavor to it. Secondly, it's going to increase the heat capacity, although I think that's actually a negative. I'll tell you why. If you increase the heat capacity of the fluid that you use to hold it right, then you're increasing the chances that you can overcook. Right you with me there, John? By increasing the heat capacity by adding water, right? Because remember, oil has about half the heat capacity of water. So it doesn't heat things nearly as quickly. It also doesn't move as quickly so it doesn't convict as much. And so it's a lot more gentle have a heating method than water now beurre blanc is thicker than either oil or water. So the lack of convection maybe makes up for it. I don't know. I'd have to do some measurements. Right? But it's an interesting idea. But it's also a boat ton cheaper because water turns out it's a lot cheaper than butter. You know I'm saying a lot cheaper than butter. Yeah, anyway. So yeah, you can oil hold, you can butter hold, and it will overcook it less quickly. And John was rocking them around 49. And remember, the problem with machinists in shrimp is that if you cook it at a low temperature, they turn mushy, especially if you cook it for a long time. It's not a hot doesn't have 100% of the time, but if you've ever had a pasty shrimp in your mouth that was cooked this way. Like you can't even swallow it. You have to spit it out. It's so gross and so gross. But if you high hook high heat cook your shrimp which I think you should write that in activates the enzyme and then a low hold isn't going to cause it to go mushy as long as that enzyme is deactivated that makes sense to everyone. Yes, Crump snatched. enrolled in did you get this answer for an yet John? Did you look at my, my, the in wants to know what our technique is.

So you didn't post a recipe or a video?

No on all of my videos on all that a picture of it? No, but on all the videos, I wrote down, I remember I made the titles for them. I wrote down what I was doing. When I did it. I was like, here's 400 grams of this, here's 400 grams that whatever bump up and I wrote down all of the numbers.

In the video, I have looked through all of your Instagram and Booker indexes, Instagram and I see nothing. I didn't see anything in the Dropbox either. But

you didn't see my making. I never made a nut milk in our Instagram. In the 12 days of spins all I made freaking

posted about you. You made four pints of milk three something other than to something else and you didn't post the recipes. And you only posted a picture of that one every other video is only a

no no no, it wasn't a video No. No. And there's no not

on the fourth day of Christmas. My sense all made for me four pints of milk three French hens mulches, smelters, two sticks of butter and a quick batch of cold brewed coffee. And you posted no recipe. Sounds right.

Listen to you. Thanks for all the help with all stars. Thanks for all the help of those videos.

So let's talk about making video. Yeah.

You need to post another video Dave did you make it yet? Did you develop the recipe and do the video yet? Alright, so in I thought it was out there and there's nothing in the in the manual on nut milk.

Nope. All right, triple check.

I biffed it wrote in and wants to know, considering what Joker's we are how we can possibly make money. I don't think I could talk about that on air for instance, I was literally biffed. It wants to know, like, how the hell we're able to live in New York, considering that our restaurants have closed.

Well, you you have your wife is helps with

that. I mean, my wife and I, my wife's an architect. I don't think she's our printing money. I

know. I know. And I don't live in the city.

I was an architect. I got two kids and two dogs, right? If it's not easy, man.

And I don't live here and John is barely making it.

We're okay. We're as okay as we can be until we're back on top again. We'll be back on top again. Hey, speaking of Booker, and DAX closing. Anyone out there wants to open a book or index while you come talk to me. Alexander wrote in Hey, got a question for no tangent Tuesday. Is there any way to safely infuse spirit with cigars? When I searched for it all I find is techniques for the opposite where they put a shot of rum in close container with their cigars. I assume this will not remember

that cigar party.

Oh my god. Yeah. Was there anything worse? Now listen,

I think that may have been okay, no, that wasn't the worst event. You know what the worst of it was?

What? Which one?

All right, couldn't go behind the bar.

Okay, so, can we talk a little bit? A little bit?

Okay. All right, you can do this.

I need you guys to imagine there's a situation where for some reason, Anastasia is not allowed to go behind the bar and does so anyway. First of all, let me say I won't say anything specific about anything. But I will say that it is unreasonable to ask two people to come and make drinks at a place and not give them a place to do so. Like literally we were trying to make pecan bourbon old fashions in

in Alexa and with a with the hand blender plugged into a wall in the hallway. Or not even

not even have it next to a trash can at a fire exit in law in a venue. Yeah. And I have never been I, I mean, like I'm used to being the Stasi and I are used to being disrespected. Right? We're used to being literally treated as garbage at the French Culinary Institute. Our office was in fact a garbage room. Right? Literally garbage room. But that was the first time in a long time I actually got bent after a while like that. Remember that one time And the person came in and said that we had to move again. Yeah. And I just, I gave that Weirding. Or I gave that weird high pitch laugh. Yeah, yeah. That was anyway, the cigars. So the cigars was most physically punishing event we've ever done because we were invited to do a rum event. I think we did banana Justino. Right. And maybe one other drink. Yeah. Right. Because it was for Ron Zacapa. Back when they could still say 23 celerra on their label, right. Yeah. And speaking of which, afterwards, from Miami wine, you're gonna like this idea. Right? Right. So we're like, yeah, we'll do it. They're like, Oh, it's a it's a whoop. Somebody's down. Someone's got an old school darling. We were doing a, a rum and cigar party. And I think Mr. Garcia, and I didn't know, I don't know whether we thought it was gonna be outdoors, or what? We were in a basement doing rum and cigar party where they were encouraged to smoke their cigars while we were making the rum. And it was, it was the two of us. And then like, a bunch of six foot two model type people. Yeah. And I never speak to model type people, right stars. Yeah. And I was like, Yo, how are you guys okay with this? And they were like, no, because that was the worst event.

I mean, we smelled so bad.

I think we just burned our clothes. Yeah, I think just burned our clothes. I mean, I think that people had fun who who can tolerate that? But like, man, if that's what it was like to be a robber baron in the 1800s. No, thanks. You know, I mean, not worth it. You know? So is that was that BBT? boobity? boppity. Was that Garrett? Calling in Joe? We got Garrett on the line. Garrett. Richard, how you doing? You? They're busy. We lost him?

I don't I don't think he's there yet.

No, I heard BBD boppity boop. I thought we had him. Alright. So I'll answer this question on cigars. So what a lot of people used to do is they would Light the cigar and they would put the smoke under a close, right? Or they would leave a burning cigar. And some people would even like, like you could pump air through a cigar and like burn it and under a close and then that will definitely infuse that flavor into it. But that's burning, right. So if what you want is tobacco and not burnt tobacco. You couldn't use it. Todd Thrasher used to do it tobacco? I think bourbon I can't remember back in the like, early mid 2000s when he was working in DC, I think with well, my God, what's his name? Famous man famous man. Spanish guy famous. World Central. Yeah. Jose Andreas is in in DC. I've always shied away because I think it's probably poisonous. You know? I mean, we put it this way. Have you ever tried chewing tobacco and accidentally swallowed the juice? Do you know what happens? You blow chunks everywhere. My friend Charlie. Cargill, when I was in high school. I was in his room. And he's like, Here, try this. And he gave me the chewing tobacco. And I had never done it before I put in my mouth. And like, all of a sudden, I felt like my head was in a vise because I also don't smoke, right? So like, my head was like, I was like, ah, you know that feeling? And then he was like, what? He's like, Where have you been spitting? Oh, geez. And I said what do you what do you mean? No, no. Yeah. So I just been smiling all of that charges. And then like literally right after I said that all like like all over his room all over his backpack all over his books all over his giant Grateful Dead bootleg collection because like, you know, all the dead heads back then we had like, you know, 5060 Grateful Dead tapes. Yeah, and then you know what? I never tried it again. I never. And even to this day, like, like at a wedding. Like I'll take a couple of puffs on a cigar and like that nicotine hits my head and I don't like it. I think it's just because of that one like super aversion therapy thing. You know what I mean? Yeah, so to answer your question, I don't know. Alexander. I don't know what his safe level is. Just remember, you know, don't sip the juice you want has a really good smell to it. Everyone likes I think the smell of not necessarily when it's burning but he was burning a bit pipe tobacco why? Because they add smell to it. They add add like fun stuff to it. Don't you like the smell of pipe tobacco? Smells good. Fruits. Yeah. All right. Joe Waterhouse I've been thinking about tab cocktails for a while now and wondered if you could have asked me if this is smart or stupid. I've attached a keg to a sump. Oh, we did this cement mixer, didn't we? Did we do the cement mixer question? We did this mix question

we did. Yes. Yes. Sorry. It's difficult group world.

The other thing is this. You can shake a five gallon corny keg, if it's only got a couple of gallons into it. It just hurts your chest and makes you feel really stupid. You know, I mean, but you can do it. And as dasya has watched me do it, and laughed at me heartily. Yeah, you know why? Because it's funny. That's why I was in the elevator. Going back to deviled eggs a little bit. I was in the elevator. I don't know why. person says to me. I've been making a lot of deviled eggs recently. Or I know why. Because I had like three dozen eggs in my bag. Because I cook a lot of eggs. And he's like, I've made a lot of deviled eggs recently. I was like, because they're delicious. Right? He goes, Yeah. Now is it kind of a non normal elevator conversation though? Any of these questions here, John, that I should know, we've already answered. Nicholas writes in, would you recommend? Would you recommend any resources or books on how to get the most out of your road of that? Can we answer this, there is no good information about road maps, there is no good information about road maps. The reason there is no good information about road maps is why would someone write a book on it? Wrote of apps or listen, in order for someone to write a book, there has to be a market for the book. So one has to put like, you know, a bunch of time into writing it, shooting it, editing it, and then a publisher has to come out with it. Right? This is why and it's just there's just not that many of them. And even like a lot of people who use them don't use them necessarily to their best effect. So that's why I think there's a dearth of information on rotary evaporators out there. I mean, the old blog, you can search it has like a bunch of stuff on it. But the thing is, is that you really need to find someone who runs one and, and train live. It's not the kind of thing I think you could do from a book we could someday, you know, once I get mine hooked up again, we could do a YouTube thing on it. Right, right, John, something like that. If you're on tick tock, it's more of like a half hour hour thing but a book. I just don't think that's going to happen. Did we I think we partially answered this, but we can go more into it. And Stasio hopefully we'll remember. From Jay, why does meet I think we did this. Why does Miko draw. So what happens people by the way is is that at the end of everything are questions that John thinks I haven't answered yet. Right. And so what that usually means is not here on this day when you answer these. Well, what it usually means is he doesn't think I've answered them well enough. That's usually what it means. That's true. So you can get Garrett to come and I don't want to miss him because I told told him I'd answer that. Ileana answer it. Why does Miko dry me Lee if you Suvi for too long, even at low temperature for larger cuts, I noticed it continues. Even at lower temps cooking at lower temps than desired ie dropping down to what's 125 Fahrenheit and Celsius.

120 is 51.6.

Right. So Jay has noticed that it gets dry me Lee even when cooking at 51. For beef steaks, is there a way to prevent this while still breaking down collagen? And if not, as it suggests that some stakes are too thick for suevey. All right, Jay. So you have talked about one of the things I do which is I take it to the temperature I want and then drop it down, right, which is what I do to usually about 52 is where I drop it because that's like the lowest where I feel comfortable to let it ride for infinity, right. And then I can break down break down the collagen, but some cuts of meat that don't have enough connective tissue. You just can't cook for a long time, like filet right. So all of the anything that doesn't have enough structure to taste good. When it's long cooked, you should just avoid doing that way like I just don't think there's a good way to cook tenderloin for a long time. You're just not whereas like a rib steak, I don't perceive it as going dry me Lee even when it's cooked for hours, right? If you cook it at 54 Five or 55 Celsius for hours, then you know it'll actually get kind of harder, right and then it can have some of that dry chewy but if you if you take it 5554 Five for 45 minutes an hour just to get the inside up and then drop it down to 52 in my taste. It doesn't go dry me Lee even for many hours afterwards. Right. strip steak. You know, I think it's a little more texturally difficult than rib, but kind of the same. And things that have higher amounts of connective tissue. The textures overwhelmingly created by the connective tissue and not by the actual muscle fibers themselves in as long as you don't overcook them. Okay. But cuts of meat like tenderloin. Yeah, like the texture of that meat is entirely based on the muscle fibers. And there is not a way to cook that thing that I have ever found to cook it longer than about 45 minutes or an hour and not have it end up being, as you say, mealy, dry, gross. So I don't know that answer that question, John, to your satisfaction at 10. That was a great answer. Great answer. All right. Plus? I asked. I already answered the one about pressure cooker. I already answered the pressure cooker. The next one. Yeah. And we also answered him like I think these are all questions because we talked with, we talked about tomato paste in a tube with because we know that that Jackie molecules likes this tomato paste in a tube. Right. So the question that was asked back in the day, I did do some more research, though, since the last time we talked about it. And it turns out that in Europe, I think there are different levels of tomato paste concentration, right. Whereas I think in the United States, there's really kind of only one, like all the tomato paste is roughly the same. And I had written down. You know, whenever the last time I looked about this, what the actual solids level was in tomato paste. But in the US, they're pretty much I think all the same. Does that make sense? Yeah, interesting. Yeah. No, I think that's all the questions. So we're waiting for Garrett to come in tonight. I can talk about someone that I'd like to because we get his 30 minutes to call in. We got did you send him a text there, John? Hi, dad. Yeah. So I know, this is a super old story, but he just got released from prison like last year and then deported to Indonesia. But there's a guy Rudy, and his last name starts with a K, but I didn't write it down. I don't remember what it is. So Rudy was in the early 2000s. A super famous wine forger, right. So what he used to do is he would buy a bunch of wines at auction, and he would spend like $500,000 a year in wine so that everyone's like, Oh, this guy spends a lot of money in wine, right? This guy knows his stuff. So he would get invited to all the fancy wine parties, and he got to know all like the mega rich wine weasels out there, right. And then, when he got to know all the mega rich wine, weasels, all of a sudden, he started saying, Oh, I have these other super fancy wines. And he would auction off these super fancy wines. And he sold millions of dollars worth of hyper fancy wines at auctions. And so this was his scam, right, because they were all forgeries. They were all fake. And he got caught because he invented some wines that never existed, like one of the one of the, you know, owners of the vineyard was like, that venue didn't exist back then. Or like, he sold like, you know, six bottles of I forget what it was, like 45 Petros and like there's only like 600 bottles ever made. And so like he sold more bottles than anyone had seen, like in anyone's lifetime. So it's like now possible. So and like, you know, occasionally, the label would mess up. Now, here's the thing, they say, when they caught this dude, right? They say that they broke into his California apartment. And in there, they found a bunch of empty wine bottles, right? Because one of one of the tricks and they interviewed some people from UC Davis about how he did this. So one of the tricks was, he would buy like kind of a crappy old vintage from a famous thing. So he'd buy like a Roman a caliente, you know, super famous burgundy. But he wouldn't buy the best year. Right? He would open that sucker. And he would put a little bit of fresh wine into it. So he could market it as the super expensive one, right? Because then it turns out, because here's the thing you didn't get caught on. Guess what? You didn't get caught on stuff. At a label? I don't know, he did not get caught on the fact that the wind didn't taste accurate. Are you seeing where I'm going with this? Like so all of the stories are written by journalists who know a lot of them basically are like Ha ha, super rich wine. People get the wool pulled over their eyes, because it turns out that this crappy wine this guy was making and I'm hearing the exact opposite. What I'm hearing is is this guy has a secret to making things taste like bottles of wine that cost 1000s of dollars. Give me those secrets. So like one of the secrets, right is to take a $400 bottle of wine That's old. And like, you know, a newer bottle of wine. It's like $100, and then pop up like dose a little bit in, and now all of a sudden you have, you know, bottles that are worth 1000s of dollars as long as you forged the labels for them. I'm not as interested in that technique. Why? Because I'm not about to spend $400 of my money to make a fake $1,000 wine, right? That just doesn't, that's not a good bargain for me. But it is interesting from a technological standpoint, right? That you could, you know, synthesize the freshness of this super fancy wine. You know, even Robert Parker apparently gave one of his fake wines. 100 points, right. So the guy knows how to make a decent fake wine. But he also had formulas for taking wines and making them taste like they had, like the right flavor and age on them. I want those formulas. He got deported to Indonesia. Do you think we could get him on the show to talk about the formulas? Wouldn't it be amazing if he gave us the like the formula for like all of these super fancy wines? There's got to be one where he takes like, a less expensive bottle of wine and knows how to jazz it up. Right. When it wouldn't be an interesting thing says it would be interesting. It would be cool. Yeah. I mean, how could the