Hello, everybody, and welcome to a brand new series on heritage radio network called the culinary call sheet where we give a peek into the back kitchen of culinary media. I'm your host, April Jones,

and I'm your co host, Darren bresnitz. Part of why we started the show was to offer an unofficial mentorship for anyone who's interested in learning about all aspects of food and video, whether that's TV, social media online, or just something you want to do for fun.

Absolutely what was once niche or a little silly, as I'm sure you remember, Darren, when we started out, this man has now become such a massive playing field for so many creatives using food as the medium.

It's something that has driven us professionally and personally, for so many years. What excites me the most about this show is that we're going to sit down with some of the industry leaders to hear how they made it and what drew them into this industry.

With 20 years in the culinary production game ourselves. We're hoping we can give through these conversations an insider's view into personal stories from the field, as well as an in depth behind the scenes look into some of the most popular food programming. In today's evolving culinary media landscape.

We'll be covering everything from how to style your food, to how to license IP, to developing your own ideas, and some tips from the masters of how to host your own show.

Yeah, it's a little bit of conversation, how to and how do you do the things that you do in color media, which I'm so excited about? I love so many of the guests that are coming on this season. We have talent from Food Network from Vice media eater refinery 29,

we've met some of the best people in the world both in front of and behind the camera. And we're bringing them all together to share their stories, their delicious adventure and their unique journey into this crazy world.

So to be the first to hear our episodes when they launched this fall, go to wherever podcasts are streaming and hit subscribe and make sure to give us a follow at the Culinary call sheet on Instagram.

Hello, you're listening to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, the host of cooking issues coming to you today with Mr. Bhatia Lopez the cooking issues hammer. We are not live today. We are pre recording this because Tuesday we were normally broadcasting I will be teaching suevey and low temperature cooking class at the French Culinary Institute. A fine class this one's full unfortunately, so you can't sign up for it anymore. But you could sign up for the next one. So you can't call in live but I'm still gonna give you the number. So you can write it down for your record, the number to call into the studio here is 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128 that number to call into cooking issues a show where we answer all of your cooking issues. Okay, now, a couple of notes here if you might hear some music in the background. And that's because today Sunday is the Bushwick Block Party. Right? Bushwick, Brooklyn, for those of you that don't know is kind of like what hipsters paradise? Would you say hipster paradise? Yeah. So the whole block was shut down. And revertas Pizza, which hosts the heritage radio network is hosting this block party. And so it's kind of pandemonium outside of the studio right now. By the way, the studio for those who don't know, the studio here is actually I think, like a container, some sort of something that's sort of God that's been dropped into the middle of Brooklyn, and they put a garden on top of it. And there's kind of a window where we can, you know, view view Brooklyn out of this window, is that pretty much accurate? Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Okay. All right. Yeah. A couple other announcements before we get to the email questions that have come in. There's a lot of events coming up with us in the next month or so. So we're just gonna list some of them. Some of them are gonna require us to pre record again, some art. I think that next thing that's going to come up is star chefs, star chefs, you go to star chefs.com. Nils and I are doing a bunch of events there. We have a mixology demonstration, and we're doing some couple of cocktails. That's coming up the week of September 20. So you might want to stop by and see us there. Then heritage radio is having a big fundraising barbecue. It's called the heritage radio party, the heritage party, and it's on Saturday, September 25. It's here at Roberta's in Brooklyn. It's $100 a crack to attend $100 per person. We will be making some drinks probably with liquid nitrogen. What else we decided we were going to be Maker's Mark. Yeah, right. And we decided what kind of fruit we're going to use.

I thought it was peaches. Why? It

depends on what well okay, here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna get Maker's Mark. We're gonna Find whatever the most delicious fruit to add to Maker's Mark at that particular moment is, we're going to clarify a centrifuge. And then we're going to, we're going to add liquid nitrogen to it, hopefully on site here, hopefully liquid nitrogen, if we can get it delivered here and serve you some delicious cocktails. So you're going to want to call in to 718-389-8985. That's 718-389-0985 To RSVP for that or email info at Heritage radio.com. Then, right then, on October 4, we're gonna wait there's the New York culinary experience. Oh, but that's gonna get sold out already. Well, anyway, assuming it's not sold out, you can come see knows and I do cocktail demonstration. When is that when it's done over a second October 2, at the French Culinary Institute, seating is extremely limited. I don't know how much that guy costs. Then we have the Berlin bar show on October 4, where I'm going to be doing a recap with Evan Clem, of the science of shaking science of staring in Berlin. It's actually the first time we've ever gone to Berlin. Luckily for me, I was supposed to go for four days and have kind of a mellow time fly and have a day to re compress. But you know if something came up and so I had to switch my flight and I'm literally flying in on the Red Eye landing at six and giving a talk at 12. So I don't sleep on airplane. So I'm if you come if you live in Berlin, and you come see us in Berlin expect to see someone where you know, they may or may not have their hair slicked back with their own feces, we're not sure. Let's see. We'll see what we can do there. I'm just kidding. Anyway, then, on October 16. You can come see us at the London bar show where we're going to be doing a presentation on roto mapping, liquor liquors, it's being sponsored by Oxley drink, correct? Yes. Who? All right. So that with our bookkeeping out of the way, I guess, right, we can get to some questions. Yes. Okay. Let's get to some questions. Jacob heartleaf said, Thanks for the show. love listening to it. Thank you, Jacob. Although he writes his name once his Jacob and another one as my friend of mine has the same name. Yeah. Coops I'm not sure which one. I'm not sure he lives in cooks in Oklahoma. And a trend is noticed among chefs is using wild ingredients, right? Not farm to table he says more like wild find it yourself ingredients, such as like the Noma or like Michel bra does or UberEATS. And he's fascinated with the style of cooking, and it's pretty sure it's been around for a long time. So he wants to know the following. Is there a book blog or guide on wild herbs, plants, trees, berries, etc, that are edible? And you know, what can guide you to do that? Right. So this is a question that is close to my heart. I unfortunately, don't know any blogs to do it. But, you know, I the only reason I like to travel to places that are near the wilderness is so that I can gather wild food when I'm there. For instance, when I go to the Grand Canyon, I don't really care that much about the the actual Grand Canyon. It's like what kind of you know what can grow around there? I mean, this is this is a little piece of me, you'll know me a little better. If you understand this. Like once you see the Grand Canyon. I'm like, Yeah, that's beautiful. It is it's beautiful. Right? But I mean, come on. Right? I mean, one all right. Now food is a different matter altogether. Food you can keep eating all the time, right? No, right? When I go to the beach, all I care about is the stuff that grows along the seashore and the stuff that I can get in the water at the seashore. That's basically it. Because I detest sand and sun. Right, right. When I go to forests, I want to know what grows there anyway. So this is a subject that I like a lot. And whenever I'm going to travel someplace new, and I'm going to be you know, outside in nature, I try to get a guide book that helps me the problem is is that what you're going to particularly look for in an area really depends on where you live. So I think a good first starting point, even though they're dated, right? The best writing on wild food that I've ever read, is by a guy named Euell. Gibbons, I forget how to spell you will, I can't spell out loud, don't have a piece of paper on me, but you'll give him his two most famous books are stocking the wild asparagus and stalking the wild scallop, and they're written probably late 60s, somewhere in that late 60s, early 70s. Somewhere in that range. And they are fantastic books. Again, they're a little bit dated, but he was a guy and all he really liked to do was go out and forage for wild foods talking, you know, animals, like sea creatures. He never wrote any books on hunting. There is a book on how to illegally poach animals if you're interested in that, but you can't really serve those things in a restaurant. But you know, he has an in depth books on on searching certain things. Now he spent a lot of it he spent time all over the country, which is why his books are good. So he has a little bit of something for everyone, no matter where you live in the US. But a lot of his knowledge centers around Pennsylvania where he lived. He did a lot of work up in Maine. He did a lot of work. him on the west coast in California. And so he has a lot of, you know, he has a lot of really interesting, interesting things. And he's got a really good perspective. So if you haven't ever read any book on foraging, I would go immediately buy those books on Bookfinder. They're basically free. No one cares about them. I would get stalking the wild asparagus and stalking the wild scallop. Now, if you're interested in something specific, like mushrooms right? out, you know, I have a bunch of guidebooks on mushrooms. And you know, I guess I don't remember off the top of my head, which the best ones are. But if you go to Paul Stamets his website, he's out on the west coast to think in Italy, there's a Washington or in Oregon, but he's, you know, one of the worldwide authorities on fungus, I would not go collecting mushrooms. For the first time by yourself, I would find any one of the local psychological societies in your area, they usually sponsor tours, where you can go learn how to properly gather mushrooms in your area without getting poisoned, right, it's important not to get poisoned. The same thing goes true with plants. So when you get beginners books on wild on wild food collecting, the important thing is to realize what is easy to recognize, and what is easy to confuse with something poisonous, right? Because there are a couple of mistakes you can make that if you make that mistake, you can die, right? Yeah, yeah. But But. But actually, that's the main problem that happens when someone's used to gathering something wild in one area, right? Where it's totally safe. And then they go to another area where there's something similar that looks similar, but as poisonous, right? That's, that can happen sometimes. So it's best to know what grows in your in your area. And also, if you go with someone who's ever done it, who's experienced, right, they can point it at once you see a plant live, and you touch it live, you smell it live and you gather it live, odds are you're never going to make a mistake with it. Right. And so in general, I would read all those books. And I wish I had more of the modern books available. But I would, you know, go with someone who's done it before as just a foolproof thing. Now that aside, there's some things that are extremely easy to easy to figure out. Even in New York City where I live, there's enough there's a wild green called auric, Asare, lambsquarters, lay dork. And lambsquarters is a great green, and it grows wild in New York City. Any place there's a vacant lot in New York City, I could in the Lower East Side today, if I wasn't worried about back to feces, again, feces and urine sprayed all over it. And who know God knows how much gas exhaust and all that I could create a delicious salad out of stuff growing out of the vacant lots within two blocks of my house on the Lower East Side. I've never done it. Because Ill your wife. Yeah, yeah. But you know, you could so you know, just because you live in a high density area, if there's vacant lots, there's still the opportunity to search for greens. Another mistake people make with wild foods is they try and have their entire that, you know, look, it's very difficult unless you live in the middle of some vast wilderness where there's known supplies of wild crap to be able to go and get all of your food or a substantial portion of your food from Wild Wild items. But there is almost always something you can gather wild locally at any given time in the year to add an accent note or to or to, you know, round things out or to bring out a lot of flavor. So it's a subject I'm very interested in. And you know, thanks. I think this is the first question we've had on that. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I mean, my favorite things to collect is, there's a in Maine where I go every year, there's a wild sea rocket that is just me, it's really, really spicy, and a little bit bitter rocket like arugula, but I love gathering that stuff. And I mix it with auric, which is the seaside version of lambsquarters. And it makes just a fantastic sound. They also have wild sea beans there which are salty, so you don't need the extra salt from that that's a like the best seaside salad ever, you know? And then, of course, from the water there, you get mussels, and you know, sea urchins and you know, just fantastic things, but I don't know, I've never been to Oklahoma, unfortunately. So I don't know what grows around there. But I guarantee you that there is something good to be had. So thank you for calling that and the second part of his question was do you how do you extract pineapple flavor or tree bark favor flavor, I don't have access to a roto Vapp but I do have a vacuum packer and whipped cream maker.

So the I'm not sure how he wants to know whether he can do it in oil. Presumably he doesn't want to do it in alcohol because he suggests oil and water. Pine Needle flavor. You can extract extremely well in the alcohol in a vacuum machine. I'm assuming you can do it in an ISI Whipper I haven't done it. I don't know what the results will be into oil. I can just say to try it out. But there are some varieties of things that look like pines that are poisonous. For instance, the you it looks kind of like pine is poisonous. But most pine trees that Listen, please look this up like don't go out and say Dave Arnold said pine trees are but you know, that's the old joke actually, they used to make about Euell Gibbons and he'd go around saying many parts of a pine tree are edible because they are right you got your pine nuts. And but, you know I make a habit and Neil's makes a habit actually of walking around in the springtime pulling the new chute the new new growth pine needles off of pine trees and chewing on it because they're fantastic. So you know if classically, you can make a tea out of pine needles, and you can I'm sure you can make a flavored oil out of it or water using a vacuum or an ISI The trick with pine is that most people have most people have an association with pine have Lysol, not like so what's that stuff called Pine Sol, Pine Sol. So you know, they're really worried that it's going to go pine Solly. And it's going to taste and so I'd like pine drinks and mills likes pine drinks, and we do them but you have to be super, super careful. So you also want to make sure that you're you know, the the type of pine you use, like you know whether it was kind of like a spruce II kind of flavor or a fur kind of flavor, like a duck for whatever it is. It doesn't taste to bathroom cleanser worry. Because if it does, even if it's delicious, people won't like it. For instance, lavender does the same thing. So a lot of people don't like to mix with lavender, there's a good 50 to 60% of the population that if they detect Lavender at all, they're going to say it tastes like like perfume or a bathroom. And so it just has to do with Association, not because it's not delicious. And so I've had a lot of problems, a lot of heartache, trying to make pine things that I think are delicious. And some people don't like them just because of their associations with them. And you know what, that's that's the brakes. He's got to be careful. And so if you're making it for yourself, it's one thing but if you're making it for someone else is just something to be aware of. Anyway, so I hope that answered Oh, and barking wonder about bark. I've never done any work with bark at bay, you can extract it, but I mean, I've the closest I've had to bark is basically wood extracts, and they're pretty weird. They're kind of sour. And, you know, if you've ever had a road of AP and you've wrote a VAT, you know, alcohol out, you're left with basically oak water, and it's some pretty potent kind of barky would taste but you could do it. I don't know how potent it's going to be though when it's done via vacuum machine, but please give it a shot and tell us right. Okay. Okay, now let's go to the next question from Chipstead Nick Chipstead. Nick asks us, first of all, he says hello, he hopes all's well the session is it? Yeah, as well. Doing well. Okay. He wants to know about the Poly Science smoking gun versus an herbal vaporizer with a whip. And there's something called the pocket travel portable butane handheld herbal vaporizer that he found on ebay. And so let me just say he wants to know about the difference between them, when is it worthwhile getting one versus the other. And I think most people aren't going to know what we're talking about. So I will tell you so in the 80s, or something, people started making little vacuum cleaners, handheld vacuum cleaners for for computer keyboards, basically to vacuum crap out of computer keyboards and someone who is apparently enterprising when they're not stoned, but when they're stoned is extremely lazy decided to reverse the battery in one of these things and drive them backwards so instead of becoming vacuum cleaners, they're actually little blowers and then the unscrewed the top and they screwed in a pipe bowl into the top of it and then they would pack marrow tobacco right they pack marijuana into the top light it turned it on and it would automatically you know create pot smoke without you know without you having to exert the extra energy to inhale right made basically like extremely lazy pot smoker thing right? And this became kind of a popular item in headshops had shopped here I don't know if you're from abroad that means a place where you go to buy pot stuff you know and listen to Grateful Dead and whatnot. The about you know, in the early 2000s, mid 2000s These things started to be used in Europe primarily at the beginning to do smoking so they would put wood chips and other flavored herbs into them light them and blow out smoke. And so famously, you know, the Roca brothers at Elkhart can Roca would blow smoke underneath a big closure and and they would lift the clothes shop when they when it came to your table, you wouldn't see the food they would lift it up and the smoke would rise up. You know and you know envelop you, or they had a thing where they had a slipper shaped glass and they would have a plastic over it and they would inject smoke into it and every time you ate off of this tightly stretch plastic on the top of smoke ring would puff up and you would get the aroma of the smoke, okay. So that in the Pali science that people the good people that make circulators now available wisdom, they they made basically a more robust version of this that they sell called the smoking gun. So most people use this to inject smoke into things or you know, some people have rigged it to inject smoke into their vacuum machines right after it's vacuum. Smoking with them is kind of interesting. It's not the same thing as regular smoking. You'll notice if you inject smoke into into a container and let it sit there then all of a sudden it will become clearer the particles will settle out. So I don't think that's continuous smoking is that I don't think that this smoking gun gives the same flavor as continuous smoking but I think it's useful for a lot of things. Now a vaporizer is entirely different in smoking in the smoking gun and anything like the smoking gun, you're actually lighting the product on fire combusting it and that's how you're making smoke. Okay, now in a vaporizer and the most famous one of these is the volcano vaporizer and it's most famously used in in cooking by Grant Aikens at Alinea restaurant in Chicago. And and the way a vaporizer works is fundamentally different instead of lighting the material on fire, and then having you know, having it burned, instead you heat a chamber to you know, to a temperature they basically literally vaporizes the, the material without actually lighting it on fire. And then usually the you know, some sort of air is forced through it, and then you get like a volcano, you get a bag full of flavor. So then, you know, grant would do things like you know, vaporize sage, things like that, and get those kinds of aromas. And this this thing that apparently now and I didn't even know this so thanks chip for bringing this to my attention. They have vaporizers that are built on butane lighter technology that fit into your hand that are a whole hell of a lot cheaper than the volcano but they're fundamentally different technologies for making flavor aroma errs one is combusting the material and the other one is held at a temperature below outright combustion. The theory of vaporization is that it it's going to provide cleaner flavors the theory when you're smoking it right because they're both meant for pot you're both supposed to smoke pot with them. And the theory is is that you can get all the THC when you vaporize it without all kinds of nasty tar and crap like that because it's happening at a lower temperature so you're not forming a lot of the nasty chemicals may or may not be true I haven't read the science behind it but they do I know from experience doing using using them for cooking that they do produce different results because one's a lower temperature than the other so they're not they're not identical. So you know I haven't done a lot of a super side by side but I know that they're not equivalent items one's more of smoker and the other one's more of kind of like a an aroma that slightly kind of combusted smoky smelling but not the same thing as outright smoke. So I'm interested in this I have a volcano and I haven't really used it because I haven't thought of a culinary application that wouldn't make me feel like I was ripping grant off but if I ever did I would use them it's a fine piece of equipment and this portable thing also seems interesting. So I hope that has answered your question chip and this brings us to our first break cooking issues radio on the heritage Radio Network 230. About Your

Love Lives gonna satisfy me Spock tell you do

you Welcome back to Cooking issues this is Dave Arnold cooking issues here with Mr. Atia the hammer Lopez coming to you not live from the Bushwick Block Party on Sunday heritage Radio Network. Today's show I don't know if I mentioned this before. Today's show is brought to you by the fine folks at fairway like no other market. So fairway has, I think three locations here in the New York area's best my knowledge, they have the original one in the Upper West Side, which is, you know, a mob house because so many people want to go shop there. And then they have one that's up in Harlem that opened actually, I guess in the late 90s, mid late 90s. Back when I used to have my studio up there in art school, and man and we love shopping in that because they have a giant refrigerated where in a warehouse where the meat is stored that the meat and the fish and, and I used to love that because I could just you know, all of a sudden, I didn't have to go walk the shop to get really good, you know, cheese and things like that, at the time was really inexpensive. I haven't been back and then of course, they have the one near IKEA in Red Hook. So fairway like no other market. Okay, now, we have a question from Erin Hart. So Aaron Hart was particularly thinking about a couple of a couple of radio programs ago, I told someone who was just going back to college that what she should do is, is use her microwave to achieve extraordinarily high temperatures, so that she could sear things, right. And so, you know, for those you that didn't hear it before, basically the the issue is, is that you can get certain materials, absorbed microwaves, right? water absorbs microwaves very well, which is why microwaves are, you know, their use, right, so they choose a frequency that absorbs water absorbs very well. And things get hot. Now water can't get above boiling, right? Unless it's under pressure, it can't get above boiling. So it kind of self regulates. But there are other things that also absorb microwaves quite well, they can get way above the temperature of boiling water. And this is used by certain people to do things like melt low temperature metals, using microwave absorbing crucibles in their in their microwaves. And this is entirely feasible. Now the really easy to get material that absorbs microwaves fairly well is silicon carbide, because that's what they make cut it a lot of cutting stones out of right. So you can just go buy one of these carbide, silicon carbide cutting stones and throw it in your microwave, please don't put it directly on the floor of your microwave because it will ruin your microwave, put it on something that is insulating that can take the heat, and you nuke it now how long you have to nuke it depends on how thick it is. But it can get really really really really, really, really really really hot. You know, I'd mentioned I think you know another couple a week or two ago that we cracked an egg on to one that we did and it just you know instantly huge bubbles came up a little too hot for the egg so it overcook the egg and the Stasha thought it was gross because it was a huge cutting stones. You know how Natasha gets about things once a month. She has a mental problem with it. It's all over she or she can't deal with it. But Aaron wonders, is it somehow possible to use this interaction to rig up a better than conventional oven for doing things like Tandoori chicken or pizza? Well, it's an excellent question. I would say yes and no. So the pizza the problem with you could clearly get a small stone for small pizza up to temperatures easily easily up to temperatures required to do the floor of a pizza oven. Right so you're talking here you're talking up in the 800 Fahrenheit range in that area easily. Now, the problem is that you have to also get the ceiling up to that or you're not going to like the bottom of the pizza on fire without cooking the top and if you put two stones in there, it's going to be almost impossible for you to determine. You know to to kind of get the ratio right between heat from the top and heat from the bottom. I am told although I am not sure right. Most things that are called combination microwave toaster ovens aren't really a combination microwave toaster oven. They're like a microwave and then a toaster oven but I believe there is one that has the heating elements, the toaster heating elements in the same box as the microwave. If you had one of those suckers, you could put the thing in the bottom heat the hell out of that rock till it got up to like 600 degrees crank that toaster element up and you know to as high as that sucker will go put your pizza into that thing and then rip the hell out of it and get it get it to you know get the bottom done and the top done at the same time. Another alternative would be if you had a boiler in a regular oven, you could get your pizza stone in your microwave up to a zillion degrees. Put the thing on cook the bottom of it pull it out flashing underneath the boiler for a while to get it done. This is a way Ohto OTOs a restaurant here in New York City that makes pizza as part of the Batali empire and their style of pizza is to actually griddle grill or grill and you can remember they use a grill or grill some like that anyway but they cooked the bottom of the pizza first basically and you know cooked the bread a little bit first then after they're done flash under a broiler with the with the toppings. I do this at home in the summertime when I make pizza because it doesn't heat up my kitchen as much. When I crank my oven up to 800 degrees. My Kitchen gets extremely hot. If I just have my crate maker which is basically like griddle and I flashed cooked a pizza on both sides and then stick it under my salamander to finish out in a boil. I don't think the results are as good as an oven that is, you know, really cranked out for pizza. But it's, it's pretty damn good, you know what I mean? And it doesn't heat up your your kitchen as much so it's so it's definitely viable. I had thought about a tandoor. But that's kind of an interesting interesting idea. I bet you could the real problem is gonna be like I said, regulating heat from the top and heat from the bottom at the same time. And like I said, I don't think it's exactly the same to break it into two parts. The first do the bottom on a hot rock, and then to do you know, the top from up from a boiler standpoint, but you know, maybe you could get it to work. What do you think?

What do you think? You know?

Maybe I think you're thinking maybe I think she thinks she's not paying attention anyway, no matter what I'm saying. Yeah. So So anyway, so I definitely think there's a lot to be a lot to be learned a lot to be discovered with with microwaves. The trick is to get a silicon carbide piece that's the right size so you could cook something reasonable on it without having it be so thick that the majority of microwaves get absorbed in something that's not useful on the bottom but at the same time that has enough retained energy such that when you stick a pizza or something on to it, that gets it that real wallop that you want to get out of a stone. Stone oven. You know you also you can maybe do a thicker pizza than you could normally this way because if you kept the microwaves going while you're doing you'd also internally cook the the bread a little bit while I was going might actually be really good technique. Estancia you can't see her but she looks extremely unconvinced.

Thinking about I have a fireplace at home. Behind my kitchen and

dystocia mustaches favorite thing is to rent apartments from people that have their fireplaces plugged up because the chimneys are unsafe because they haven't been cleaned in 1000 years to and then to make them functional again merely by ripping out the bricks that have been bricked over she literally will invite any anyone like any neighbor anyone she meets within five blocks of her house. She'll buy a sledge hammer actually she'll make them bring the sledge hammer make them go buy this item or bring it and then for the pleasure of having her company right and a beer or two they will sweat slate slavishly break open the old fireplace and then she will use it again like come hell or high water. True or false.

But yeah, Sunday I'm gonna cook in a fireplace. Yeah, me too. There's

a couple of excellent books on fireplaces. I don't even have an old fireplace in my buildings. My building was built in the 50s. But yeah, you know, if I ever get a place out in the country, which I hope to do, if you know if we can ever scrape two nickels together long enough to for my wife and I to go and get a place in the country, I will have a giant indoor outdoor kitchen with an outdoor outdoor on one side and fireplace on the other huge freaking hearth. I mean, I can't wait Sunday. It's gonna you know, cooking with fire is great. You know, that's another thing people think that because you cook with high tech all the time that you don't enjoy. Like all those other forms of cooking. Those people are wrong, right? They're dumb. Yeah, fires delicious. Anyway. And, and by the way, going back to Tandoor, I almost bought and put in my house a gas fired 10 door. He didn't have the money at the time to put it in it would have cost me probably a grand or something like that. I didn't have the money but I was thinking of building one just by hand anyway. And then I realized that my wife already puts up with enough crap and I would have had to get rid of something. And you know, it would probably have been the fryer and since Frying is God's cooking technique and fryers is the last thing on earth I would give up like the the fryer and a bathroom or the last two things I would give up in my house probably and and so yeah, I just couldn't I couldn't do it. But I'm going to bury I'm going to dig a hole in the ground. If I ever get a piece of ground for myself. I'm going to dig a hole on the ground put a 10 door in it's gonna be one of the very first things I do as part of the indoor outdoor kitchen because I think if everyone had a 10 door everyone would just be a little happier right right right let's get a break Okay, we'll go to break and we'll come back with the last segment of cooking issues my god him to your run any day. But do you know what I'm gonna do A brand new bag a brand new school. Welcome back to Cooking issues on the heritage Radio Network. Dave Arnold and Mr. Marshall Lopez coming to you not live today, answering your cooking questions. So let me get right into the last question we had emailed is actually a question and an answer. So we've had an ongoing kind of question with a friend of mine, Julio, who is actually a well known fashion designer here in the city. And by the way, was is a good friend to Priscilla Morgan, who was amused a Samana Gucci, and a one of the people's part of the batter Berry, friends, people I know, through Michael Burberry, and to Jonathan Marvell and architect friend of mine anyway, so long way introduction, he's interested, he is, for some reason wants to reduce his caloric intake, even though the man looks, that looks great. And he does not look at all fat, but he's worried about his caloric intake. And so he has a sweet tooth. And so he's been asking how to reduce sugar content, especially in things like Merengues. And I should have thought of this kind of stuff right away, but because I'm dance, I didn't. And George Davidson called in he said, or wrote in and said, I have an answer. Why not use maltodextrin destabilize it? And that is excellent. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. To not say it. That's an excellent suggestion. George came up with this because his wife had gestational diabetes. You know, you know, for those of you that don't know, a lot of women, not a lot, but you know, a certain percentage women when they get pregnant, get diabetes during the pregnancy, and then they have issues with sugar. So maltodextrin, right. What maltodextrin is, is it you take starch, which has a bunch of repeating glucose units, and you break it up into smaller units. And so the maltodextrins are, you know, they're like, you know, several glucose glucose as long they're like, I don't know, like, 810, six, 810, glucose as long, right? So the more glucose is, are in a row, in maltodextrin, the bigger they are, the less taste they have. So the shorter they get, like, like three glucose for it, they start tasting sweet, right? So and two glucose together, it's called maltose. Right? So and then one glucose is called glucose anyway, so basically, maltodextrins are these things that are kind of like, you know, they're not long chain things like starches, like you know, hundreds 1000s of of glucose as long and maltodextrins are much shorter. And they're usually very bland. Sometimes they're sweet, and depends on which one you get. And they can be derived from any kind of starch, tapioca starch, corn starch, rice, blah, blah, blah, doesn't matter, right. But they all have extremely different physical properties, which is why you have to be careful. So for instance, one of the one of the applications, people will always say, Hey, Dave, I want to use tapioca. maltodextrin to make oils into powders, right, and we hear this a lot. You hear this a lot. Don't ever say that, right? Tap it saying, like tapioca. maltodextrin is like saying, hey, I need to do something. I need some sort of vehicle on wheels. That rolls do you need, like a flexible Flyer wagon? Or do you need like a Hummer? You know what I mean? Like, because, like, they're very different in properties, right? So for instance, the tapioca maltodextrin that you use the term powders and oils is something called absorb it, absorb it anything absorb it for the National starch Corporation, and it's a very specific maltodextrin made from tapioca that is extremely not dense, right? It's extremely, has very, very high volume, very low density. And so they use it as a bulking agent. But the reason they can turn oils into powders is because when you put a starch right is basically a big helix, right? Just like DNA is a double helix. It's a is a single helix, the helix, and the inside of that helix hates water hates it hydrophobic, right, but likes oil. So oil can go on the inside of that starch helix, right? But on the outside of that loves water, right? And that's why these this maltodextrin can that is helical like a starch. That's why the maltodextrin dissolves in water so well and why you know dissolves in your palate on your mouth so well. So what happens it what happens is that you put the oil in the oil goes into the inside of the helix, but because the maltodextrin has such a, you know, so so not dense, It's so fluffy. then it can basically fluff out and stay separate. And you have this kind of powdery oil. But as soon as you put this stuff in your mouth, right, it goes, instantly dissolves back, and there's very little actual material there. So like a bag of, you know, a bag of a pound of maltodextrin tapioca. maltodextrin a kilo of it, it's like, you know, like a size of a beanbag chair. It's crazy. You know what I mean? It's so not dense. And that's basically what it does. Now. The reason this helps you, it's you can digest it. So it has calories, like a starch, the same number of calories per gram, but typically for use as you use far fewer grams because it bulks up very well. And so you won't use as much so you can actually get a reduced caloric intake by by using it. Now, if you're diabetic. This is a great thing to use, because it doesn't have any sort of insulin problem. So what he was doing for his wife was using a tapioca maltodextrin presumably not absorb it. He doesn't specify which one and saccharin as a sweetener, but you could use anything that you know, is safe for diabetics as a sweetener. And he uses he uses, what does he use? He doesn't say how much you're using Sweden love, it isn't say how much maltodextrin he uses. But the whole advantage is that you can use a lot less maltodextrin maltodextrin is also good anytime you want to add bulk to something. So another kind of Marang that we make at the school actually quite a lot is made with something called

my brains on Friday, because listen to this music from the bushes. But it's it's called methyl cellulose and methyl cellulose is I always like to say that all the hydrocarbons we use are all 100% Natural. This is the one that kind of isn't. It's, it's it's not natural. I mean, it's not. Like I always say it's not a natural, but I don't think it's ungodly, right. It's basically a modified cellulose product. It's not found in nature. But it has the very interesting property that it gels when it's heated. And also, it can act certain of them then when we use this method, cell F like Frank 50, like Hawaii, five o f 50. And basically, it is a good whipping agent. So we use it when we're making Merengues that we don't want to add egg white to right. So they're basically you don't have to add the egg white is a protein. So it's a whipping agent. But it also forms a structure of the Marang of the of these, like I'm making little quote marks, I don't know how to say it Marang, you know, and so what we can do is we can basically take pure fruit purees and then we end that are bulked up by having a lot of pectin in them having a lot of solids from the fruit. And then we usually add sugar for taste, but you could add anything to it, you wouldn't need to add sugar for taste. Now because the sugar is not such a structural component these mornings, then we add methylcellulose, which we use as a whipping agent, and then we whip them up and they and then you dehydrate them and they're like a moraine. They're fantastic. The only problem is they don't really last outside too long, because they suck up moisture to very hygroscopic anyway. But if there's not enough bulking agent in the product, like if you're doing let's say nori or something, and something that doesn't have a lot of stuff to it, you can put maltodextrin in as the bulking agents. So you have any sort of maltodextrin in there, usually along with Xanthan to make it a little thicker, and then methylcellulose and you whip it like a Marang. You pipe it and you dehydrate it and it's it's just like a Marang. But you can have extremely low sugar volumes. And, and actually, this is kind of something that I endorse, I normally like I say I don't endorse unnecessarily removing products just to reduce their caloric intake. But you know, we can do this and we can get really interesting flavor results. And that's why I think it's kind of an interesting and interesting thing to do. You know, so what do you think? I think we finally answered this question or not, I think so. We'll find out the week after we'll find out the week after Okay, well, I think you know, but But okay, so the second part of the this was a comment as a thank you and a question. And the question was, he's interested in making habanero vodka because we've been discussing. We were discussing habanero vodka for a while, and he said, How long will it last? And do you think it would do well in a vodka cream sauce? And then also, why did cream sauce recipes tell you to reduce the vodka? When I say reduce the vodka not make less of it, but to put it in the pan? Flash it off, right? This is pointless vodka is pure ethanol or ethanol water actually, and reducing it just removes some why not add it near the end and reduce the amount then do you think this makes a difference flavor wise? Well, that's an excellent question. I'll answer the first one because I know the answer. When you use habanero, to make a vodka if you were using green habaneros the flavor will I think will be fairly stable. If you're I don't use green habaneros if you are using red habaneros the flavor in my my experience and my experience has not been with infuse habanero. It's been with distilled habanero, my experience has been a state that flavor is unstable, that it's pretty good for a couple of months. And still not that it goes bad, it goes green. So after, you know, six months a year, when you taste it, it's no longer going to taste like that amazing floral, fruity habanero that you're used to. It's going to taste closer to. It's gonna definitely taste greener. Right? And it's going to and I don't know why it's definitely going to taste it's some people say it tastes tastes more like jalapeno at that point. You've tasted, right. Yeah, yeah. And so that's what happens. But you're, you've got a good couple of months. If you keep it in the freezer, you got a good couple of months out of it before it starts to go on you. We've also never started at extremely high proofs. We started basically at 100 proof at about 50%. And that's been our experience. It does work well in sauces, I have used it and sauces and the flavor really comes through in a sauce, it's really a great way to add habanero. Well, we the way we do it. It's got the habanero aroma, but not the obsession, not the spiciness. And so it's a great way to add habanero flavor to something like a sauce without without adding a lot of spice. I don't know why the hell you would reduce the vaca. When you put it in, you're not getting rid of the alcohol. Obviously, when you're boiling it, you're getting rid of some alcohol, like you know, some people think you boil all the alcohol away. And that's not the case, you boil some away. I don't know why you would add more and then reduce it to get rid of some of the ethanol because I would guess that the the, you know, it's not like, it's not like in a situation with where you put alcohol in a batter to reduce a gluten formation or something like that. I mean, presumably, it's there, just to increase the volatile release, you know, aroma wise, I would guess, although I haven't done a lot of research on it. So I would think that adding a smaller amount later would probably do the same thing. I'm guessing, but that's a guess. And I'm sure I'll get some emails telling me why that is completely wrong. But anyway, I hope that answered that question. So let me say to finish out because of some other interesting stuff. We just did a party how many days it goes up to two days ago, we did a Yeah. voga Vogue magazine Jeffree Star and garden who was on this program, basically is friends with Dave Chang convinced Dave Chang to do this party for Vogue for fashions and fashion week night out some night out some sort of Yeah, some sort of show anyway. And and so and then somehow we got roped into doing a cocktail for it. And Dave had on his clean black shirt. Yeah, I put on my I put on my special my special Vogue Fashion clean, clean black T shirt to serve these drinks. But anyway, so we might do we might do a version of this for the heritage radio of the peaches aren't good. We might Yeah, so as Concord grape clarified the way we clarified it, the problem with concord grapes is concord grapes. They're delicious. But if you are too aggressive when you're getting the juice out of them, you crush the seeds, and they takes on a better note. So you have to kind of do a good job crushing, but then you also want to get really good extraction. So we we first put it through an ice crusher, and then we put them along with our SPL which is our pectin breaking down enzyme, put that which you can obtain from cooking issues.com. And then we put it into our chocolate grinder, but we set the chocolate grinder up high so that it wouldn't crush the seeds. So it was just smashing them and then we spun them into centrifuge. Then we added we added lemon juice and maple syrup. And we show that sucker with liquid and some water. Not a lot, but some. And you know, that was delicious, right? Yeah, that was delicious product. We use rye whiskey in that one, but we'd be using Maker's Mark and this next we'd probably have to change the recipe a bit. But that was that was a delicious, delicious product. And even though you know they it was like we sold those drinks. We pour like 400 drinks in like an hour or something like that. Yeah. And we sold out. So if you came to that event, and you didn't get one of the drinks, I heartily apologize. And let me see