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Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Quicken issues coming to you live every tuesday on the heritage radio network from the back of Roberta's pizzeria in Brooklyn here today with Anastasia to hammer Lopez we might be joined later by Brooks Headley, pastry chef at Dell post on one of our favorite restaurants, calling all of your questions 2497. What?

Oh, 718497212. That's 718-497-2128

Because for some reason, it is impossible for me to commit this number to memory no matter how many times I've said it. And I usually have a little slip of paper in front of me. That tells me what the number is. And today I don't have it. So Natasha is going to have to say it. Do you have any blocks like that in the stash of things you just can't remember for one reason or another? No, nothing? Nothing? Nothing. All right. So this is I guess this is our Cinco Demayo edition even though it's it's not what day is it? Third? Today? Third? Yeah. Anyway, but today moustache and I are going to be at the lucky rice festival. I think you can still get tickets, right? Although they're expensive, what? $50.50 bucks and $50 per night. So you can come by and we're going to make some we're taking strawberries. blending them actually, our intern cliff is doing it right now. Back at the lab, so called in the back of the milk bar commissary. We're going to blend strawberries and tequila. I think we have a we have a reposado right. Yeah, yeah. And we're blending that together. Putting it through a centrifuge with some enzymes, we get crystal clear strawberry tequila, we're gonna just gonna squeeze some lime into it and stir it with some ice and I haven't figured out what the garnish is. And we figured out the garnish on that one yet and that one No, no, but it's called mommy juice. And the reason it's called mommy juice is because strawberries are grown in Mexico grown strawberries are grown in Mexico in one Quato and that's also where they have the money. So because it's striped areas and Mexican is mummies. So we're doing mummy juice today and we're also going to take some Bombay Sapphire gin, blend it with bananas spin it for another version of our gin who Steena drink we like very much Jen who's Dino who's Dino means blending with bananas and spinning in a centrifuge with enzymes Don't ask why. And that one we're gonna serve probably with ginger, right? Yeah. But they only gave us 12 bottles of each. So mustache and I are gonna pour tall kick fast and then join the party as as party people instead of as dorks behind the behind the counter True or False. True crew, right. Okay. So that order of business is out. We have a question in from Scott hands my hands man has a some comments on what he thinks the name of our new company should be. And he says he likes the idea that if a scuffie row today, he would have in addition to the row station and the fish station, a kind of roadmap centrifuge cool stuff stations, so that we should call the equipment company something like future station, or aid station or regard. Regard technologic if you wanted to be fancy and French, well actually, I kind of like some of these suggestions. I like a kitchen brigade sounds pretty sounds pretty badass. I think kitchen brigade. Sounds pretty badass. Of course, if Escoffier was writing today, he would write in English bow. But that's just me. So the bullet and I like these and I think we might actually maybe use one of those things for a line of kitchen equipment. But I think pending the approval of our partners in this status, I'm thinking that we're going to go with ready. Booker and DAX these are the names of my two kids, right? So Booker sounds like you know, kind of like an old dude, even though he's only 10 Nine rather, he sounds like an old dude, who's kind of smart knows what's up. That's also true. And DAX is the kind of guy that's like, you know, you don't want to mess with him like this equipment not gonna break who said so DAX DAX said, so back said anyway, so I think Booker and DAX which you know, name name of my two kids together. Sounds like an old school company. What do you think so? Yeah, no, I said, I liked it. You like it? Right? Yeah, Booker index. But I liked this. I like kitchen brigade as a line of tools, or brigade kitchen brigade. Yeah. You know, who would come up with that book or index? Right. Anyway, so I'll run that. We'll run that past. And we might have an announcement on that within the week, maybe right once or the lawyer is almost done talking. Yeah. Anyway, thank you, Scott, for those for those questions. Now, Richard cocovich, called in wrote in and said he ordered the koala disk for his Aeropress. After mentioning it in his previous email, we spoke about it on a on an earlier thing. It's a basically a fine mesh filter that fits into the AeroPress, which is the cheap, kind of like, piston based coffeemaker loom talking about says he likes it very much. So that's good. And then he mentioned cuz we were talking about the Thermomix. Last week. So I'm bought a Braun Thermomix, which is a, an old immersion circulator. He wants to know about the Thermomix proper Thermomix proper. He said, he's been interested in the device, it looks like they're no longer distributed. In the US, though. There's a Canadian distributor who allegedly shipped to the US. So there's not much in the way of reviews. And he sees that most reviews that are written are not by the type of people who would heat silicon carbide bricks in the microwave for Syria, that would that would be us. Yes. Have we ever had the opportunity to put a Thermomix through its paces? And you know, it's yes, I have, we don't have one anymore because it got stolen. So what the Thermomix is, for those of you that don't know, it is a blender with like a little almost like a food processor blade. But the bowl is also a scale, which is useful. It's useful. It's not a very accurate scale, but it's pretty useful. And also a heating device so it he can heat while it blends, which is useful for certain things like in hydrocolloid, like if you're going to do Joanne, you can heat and stir at the same time agitate and keep it hot, so you don't have to worry about it gelling up on you as it cools down. So yes, it's useful for that it's useful for making certain kinds of hot foams. It makes an awesome kind of cheese sauce, because it keeps stirring it when it doesn't burn while it's cooking. So it's great. It's good to weigh things out. It's not the world's greatest blender, but it is really cool, but it's very, very, very expensive. It costs in the US roughly what two Vita press would cost okay. I don't think it's worth to Vita preps, I would rather have to like unless you're at home, I would rather have two Vita preps in my kitchen, then one Thermomix. Now, all of the European shifts, they love the Thermomix because in Europe the Thermomix is it's around it's it's like consumers use it like they would use a Kitchenaid or anything else. I think it probably is a little bit cheaper in Europe where conversely Vita preps are very expensive, which are the high powered blenders that we all use a very expensive one there. So there's very few vitae preps in Europe and very many thermal mixes the exact opposite of here via prep kicks the crap out of the thermal mix as a blender but there is other there are other things things that the Thermomix can do. Were actually, Brooks just showed up. So he's going to I'm going to pass Do you guys have any thermal? The thermal mixes you ever played around with them?

No, actually, we don't have one. I'm terrified of them.

Really. It's fun, but they like a lot of this stuff that they serve into Thermomix that they sell with it is like, who hides nonsense? Like, you don't need the steaming basket? Because you can just steam with it. I don't know anyone. Like, even if you're a pro. I mean, are you really gonna like time everything right? So that the stuff that stirring in the underneath is done at the exact same time that your broccoli steamed, right? I mean, it doesn't make so much sense to me. But if you have $700 in your pocket, and it's burning a hole in your pocket, and you don't already own a vital prep or a good blender, and you're looking for something, it's pretty interesting that a lot of people in Europe like a lot. Thermomix is good, right? I mean, it's okay.

No, no, I've never been completely fascinated by them. Yes.

But again, I would rather take that 700 bucks and buy two vital preps with it. Because you can't ever have enough fighter preps. Okay. So any, any. So by the way, for those of you that don't know, Brooks Brooks is the the pastry chef but is there like a title that goes above pastry chef at Del Posto?

No, just I mean, technically, it's executive pastry executive pastry that I was looking for. I'm not very much of an executive. So

now now, mr. chef is fun right at guy that makes desserts guy. Yeah, right. Totally. Dessert dude at Del Posto Del Posto one of our favorite restaurants in Manhattan. It's the only Italian restaurant that has four stars. True. True. Yeah. The only Italian restaurant that has four stars. Our our good friend. Mark Ladner is the is the chef there. And it's a it's a great meal. I think one of the interesting things about Brooks's work and I put them on the spot because I didn't say I was going to do this is that even though? You know a lot of the dishes have traditional basis to them at Del Posto even though they're not necessarily 100% traditional. I think that it's some of the like, most interesting freshest desserts out there that Brooks is putting out. I think what do you think this dosha Yeah, yeah, I mean, like, not that they're the flavors aren't wacky. It's not about being wacky, but I think just like very literally fresh presentations. Interesting using flavors that aren't necessarily crazy, but I think just you know, pretty interesting stuff. But for some reason the guys that don't post it don't like being thought of as as innovative comments.

No. Wow. Yeah. No, it's just it's like, we're, I don't know, I just I consider myself like, like a, like a grandma. So. Wow. And like, in terms of like, the style of the food or the way that I cook it or whatever, like, and I definitely think of it as cooking like a lot of pastry chefs think of they're like bakers, or whatever. Like I'm, I'm a cook so. But yeah, I innovative I don't really invent anything so

well, I mean, I think the Podesta thing, I think here's the thing, people who get labeled as innovative who, right are pushing certain boundaries of techniques or your ingredients to me, it's enough to be innovative if I hadn't tasted something like that before. Or it's surprising, surprising and yet surprising and yet familiar In terms of it's not outside of my bounds of comfort, but yet I'm still surprised like these are the kinds of things that I enjoy tasting. Kind of the most like in particular like It's dead simple, but your salary survey is a buttkicker it's still on the menu in

Yeah, I I'm not gonna take it off anytime soon. So

delicious product right. I don't think I had it. You haven't? You haven't had it. Crazy. And you know the dish you did for the Why didn't talk about the dish you did for the for the museum? Event the the Hebrew food in Italy.

That was the artichoke. Yeah, carciofi? Well, it's funny, like, I actually, I had a chef, maybe like, 10 years ago that wanted me to do an artichoke dessert. And I did and it was terrible. So I chose to do it again as like a challenge to myself, like making an artichoke into some sort of sweet thing, you know, so, I mean, I think it came out pretty good. So why was the last one terrible? Oh, it was I mean, I had no idea what I was doing. So I don't remember what I think I like, like, chopped it up and carmelized it and like hammered it and put it on some ice cream. It was pretty gross. Really? Yeah. But that was you know, I've evolved since then.

Yeah, a little bit.

I hope I hope a little bit.

So isn't calling your what's the what are the Okay, 7184972128718497212 a, Colin? Any questions you have for Brooks or for us? And I can either talk more we can go to our first break anything Jack. What do you think breaker talk breaker talk breaker talk right now. tuk tuk. Alright, so, uh, Ben I'm gonna try to pronounce his name tshwane year one year like that. Yeah, one year. Then 20 year says have ever tried one of the wonderful French fry SoCal. Burritos is basically like a big breakfast burrito with a bunch of French fries jammed into it. I have not yet got one local Mexican spot. This is continuing our Cinco Demayo theme. Got one of his local Mexican spot and it took him back but we are burrito we like burritos. I do Natasha doesn't because she hates anything she had growing up. Alright, I swear to God, she doesn't like like limes because they grew in her backyard. She doesn't like freaking what is it? You know, like anything that you had as a child? She's like, I ate a peanut when I was a kid. So I don't like him anymore. Right? It's crazy. So she doesn't like burritos because she grew up in LA and she ate them as a child. Most people on earth like stuff that they ate as a child. She's the exact opposite. She's like my mom shortbread tasted like heart attack. Not that she's ever had heart attack. Right. I made her heart attack. So she now has a reference to it. But beaten biscuits are basically hard tech anyway. So Sorry for that little tirade. So I've not tried to French fried butter. That would be delicious. But I am a fan of speaking of frying burritos of the chimichanga Do you enjoy the chimichanga Oh,

fried burrito? Amazing. Yeah, right. Amazing.

Right so I don't know if we've ever discussed this on the show. But we had we did a pilot for like what do we ever talk about this? Yeah, for what stoners like what stoners would do and he stoners came in and it's not actually the first time I've heard this idea if you can believe that. For like burrito tape your burrito together. You know tape it like some sort of tape so your burrito won't come apart as a pilot that they never picked up to show but I think the greatest invention maybe in my whole life was something we did for this it's called the semi Chunga we've talked about this on the air before the semi Chunga anyway, so what this Okay why don't you just eat the chimney chunk of walking around the answers because the top when you eat it will shatter and then the parts will fall all over the place right? When you eat a burrito. The problem is the burrito like kind of slams out and then gets crapped all over your hands. The semi Chunga is where you make a burrito and you fry only like the bottom third to half of it to make it crispy like a chimichanga you wrap that in the paper and now the top is still soft like a burrito right and then you can eat the top like an ice cream cone because it's a burrito and then when you get down to the bottom where it's crunchy it's not so tall so it's not gonna explode and go flying all over your shirt. This semi Chunga you heard it here first. All right now we will go to the break we'll come back was questions for Brooks at 718-497-2128 That's 718-497-2128 cooking issues. Mean watching

you is a public service announcement from Heritage Radio Network? take a swig of beer sessions radio every Tuesday at 5pm Jimmy Carboni the owner of Jimmy's number 43 and radiator owner of DBA. Beer loving racking tours offer toasts share craft beer news and swap anecdotes about their lives on the frontlines of the craft beer movement. Again, beer sessions radio every Tuesday at 5pm on the heritage Radio Network

Welcome back to Cooking issues with Natasha and Brooks Headley of Del Posto calling your questions to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. But I have a question in from Oh, I don't have the question is Can you can you look up who came from unfortunately? No, that's that's a shift. So the question Oh Nick Philip. Hi, Dave Anastasia. I currently go to Schoolcraft College Culinary School and they are known here in Michigan for having quite a few master chefs. I'm assuming he's meeting certified master chefs this title really mean much to most chefs or any of the other titles like certified executive chef etc. And I would eventually like to work in New York restaurants. But from what I hear, it's hard to get into some of the restaurants without context. Do you have any tips? Thanks, Nick. Well, the school where you are, I believe, has Brian Polson, who is very well regarded charcuterie chef who also I believe happens to be a certified master chef. There aren't that many certified master chefs. There's only I think, like 60 or 70 certified master chefs, and you have to go through a preposterous battery of tests to do it. And it was famously chronicled in that Ruhlman book, sold a chef right. Wasn't that about certified master chefs? Yeah. And I think it and you know, Brooks, coming in any minute here. I think it's an amazing accomplishment to be able to pass all those tests, but I don't think necessarily. I mean, in New York, it's more like is your restaurant good? Wherever you worked, right?

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. It's all about like, was your last dish good? Right,

right. I mean, other words, while we have a caller, so we'll discuss this more after activity to Hello, caller, you're on the air.

Hi. I was just curious, do you have any tips for like, avoiding cracks and cheesecakes? Holbrooks when you pick them?

Brooks, do you have any tips for avoiding cracks and cheesecake?

Oh, that's a tough one. Um, it depends on a lot of things like, like the temperature and obviously the whether it's whether you're cooking in a water bath, or there's so many different like variations. In terms of like the cracks, though. Like in like a classic, like New York cheesecake or whatever. Um, yeah, it's, uh, now it's, it's, it's really, it's really, it's really, it's a really, I have no specific like, tips to like, like, tell you like this is absolutely going to work because there's so many variations or variables,

the cracks happening because the top like, sets and dries out too soon, and then splits as it cools, or when it's like what is what's causing the cracks. Not a big cheesecake. Do you cook it in a water bath? By the way,

I have not cooked in a water bath. I when I make my cheesecakes what always happens, I get a big crack and then I just cover it with cherries or something.

Yeah, actually, that's what I do, too.

That makes sense, though, that the heat probably cooks it too fast. And it doesn't know what to do but just split

or if it dries out a little bit on top from the oven. If it's not the moisture in there, I would assume it would get a little bit tougher. And then then it might it might split instead of giving I'm not

sure like, you know, I mean in like a, like a steal oven at home like you don't have. I mean, you have one setting basically on, you know, like, I mean, if you have like a like obviously we have super fancy like combi ovens and stuff that you can adjust everything you know, so like, technically, I could probably get a cheesecake

that doesn't crack. But oh, you mean like a convection oven.

Or I mean, like at the restaurant, we have like super fancy ovens that do all sorts of things. But there's still a fraction. But the funny thing is, is like if I was going to make a cheesecake, I would just bake it and still have in the same way that you would make it at home. So

yeah, and do it the four star way and just put some cherries on top. If I think of anything I might see McGee later this week, and he thinks about those kinds of things a lot. So if I if I come up with anything, then I'll I'll mentioned it next week. Yes. Anybody should not be him. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for the call. We'll try and figure out some more stuff where Thank you. Bye. Bye. So back to the Certified Master Chef thing, right? I mean, I definitely have respect to someone can accomplish it. But it's not necessarily going to get them meat certified master chef is not like looking for a line job. Right on at a restaurant. Now, they're probably mainly working for larger institutions or teaching or

Yeah, I think mostly like when I hear about people with that a title like that. They're either like, yeah, they're working for a school or they're, or they're like, the corporate chef for like a big company or something that so right.

But it is a great achievement. So I'm not No, no, of course like, and as to I would eventually like to work in New York restaurants. But from what I hear, it's hard to get into some of the restaurants without context, do you have any tip it definitely helps to have in the high end restaurants, it definitely helps to have some human being that will vouch for you and say that you're a good worker, and I'm going to say something and then Brooks will tell me whether I'm right or wrong. But it's very compelling argument to write a bunch of times saying I'm willing to come work for free to do whatever to be in your kitchen. And then I will work like a dog and expect nothing and I will do it for free is fairly compelling argument.

No, no, it totally totally works. Especially like if you're relentless, like, like one letter like that. Maybe you look at it, like yeah, whatever. But if you get like 10 letters from the same person, like, eventually they stop being a crazy person. I mean, maybe up until a certain point, that crazy person but then then you're like, Well, maybe they're just really into it and like, definitely, if you're relentless with it, and it can definitely be like get your foot In the door, so

right, but you have to be willing to do whatever work like a dog. Right and, or just

or just basically show up and expect anything. You know, like, I mean, like, when we have trails or soldiers come in, like, sometimes the the nature of the day or whatever, they're just rolling chocolate truffles for like four hours, you know, so, and that's usually like a good, gold standard or litmus test whatever for like, if someone comes in and like rolls truffles really fast. It's like, alright, what can I do next? Then, then you're like, oh, okay, maybe this, maybe this is a good person or whatever, then sometimes people will just roll the truffles really slow. And they'll be like, Oh, is that your? Is that your third tray? Like? No, it's my first and they're like, really? Like men, you know? Like, what's going on here? So

yeah, but so what if they're one of those unfortunate people like me with hot hands and they're smearing all the trucks?

Well, we then we will move you into the walk in freezer.

It's a known thing for pastry people. Hot Hands. Yeah. No

hot hands. It's a rough one.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, hot hands. Not much of a chocolate guy. Never have been started looking to be like, like a freak. This is not I'm not making this up mustache. So anyway, Nick, I hope that that helps you out and start making a list of places you want to work at and then just start piling emails on. But if you go to a culinary school, one of the main things of a culinary school is that there are people there who know chefs. And I guarantee you there's someone there who knows someone who can get you vouched into a place. So you might not have to write 1000 letters, but I would be prepared to do it. If you have a particular place that you want to work. There are some places because their kitchens aren't very big, where they actually, it can be hard to get a stock even working for free. But usually if you pester them long enough, like Brooke says, you can make it in because, you know they kitchen people seem to enjoy persistence.

Yeah, no, of course, like it shows that you're like, committed to the cause, which is exactly the kind of person that you want. Working for you in the kitchen is someone completely entirely committed. Like, like a soldier without any question, you know, so

what percentage of the people who come in as a star Do you think burnout?

Um, mean like, people that start as a stash

are men or just like, yeah, people that really want to, you know, go the, you know, high end perfectionist, fine dining restaurant route, come in, do a stash and then they're like, wow, this really wasn't what I thought I wanted. It wasn't what I

mean. Like, right off the bat. Yeah, I'm a lot. A lot of people Yeah, like, a lot of people would be like, I had no idea this was going to be like or, or, I mean, it usually like I find for like, for for a lot of my staff. It comes at the end of the night, where, you know, they think of like working in like a fancy fine dining restaurant is like this very glamorous thing. But at the end of the night, like, you know, you're on your hands and knees like scrubbing out the lowboy like, and every and especially for dessert people like every single other person in the entire restaurant is gone. So you're there basically by yourself scrubbing out the lowboy? And it's it might be like, two in the morning, and that's that. I find that that's like a crack, like a cracking point for people. Because I like looking around and like they're just like, What is going on?

Like, this is crap. This is bullcrap. I

didn't, I thought I'd be making like beautiful cakes. Yeah,

I went to college. What? Like that you get that a lot, too, right? Someone who's like, like, I worked, especially people who are career changers, right? They're like, they don't feel like Do you ever have that happen? You have someone as a career changer comes in doesn't feel like they should have to do all that

every once in a while. I mean, I would say more in the past, like, in recent times, like I think people seem to like, kind of get like, working in a fine dining restaurant is going to be pretty tough. So

Right. I mean, but the idea is, though, is it? I mean, everything you do down to cleaning the lowboy out is actually a quality thing in the end, right. It's like keeping the quality high. Like there's there's no no no, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, so it's it's important. That's why like,

That's it, like cleaning out the lowboy at the end of the night is, is probably more important than being able to like roll fondant to a certain thickness to make a wedding cake you know, so

right so someone who's going to make it understands that there basically is nothing that's beneath them, right? I mean, there's no

nothing nothing, nothing at all like Yeah, yeah. If there's if, if if something's on the floor, grab a mop and clean it

up. Right so you know, I know Dave Chang is complains a lot about the people coming out of cooking school nowadays saying that they're not willing to do all that stuff anymore. But you think that that's that's passing?

I mean, it really it depends. I mean, it depends on the person. It's a it's almost like a case by case thing like sometimes. Sometimes you you you get people that are like, just complete all stars and like, you're like wow, where do you come Don't you came from space or something. And then every once awhile, you got someone who's like, really doesn't get it at all. But I would say for the most part, it's kind of like in the middle there. So. And

another thing that people don't think about is, you know, you're going to a place you're working for free, right, which is, it's kind of crazy. Not that many, you know, what industries work that way, right? Where you're working, like, like a dog getting yelled at, and doing it for free and long hours and many days a week. Right. So okay. But on the other hand, the flip side is that the restaurants also putting an investment in you as well, because you might mess up product, you take time away from the cooks who have to explain things. Is there the see that side of it, too? Like, do you feel that you're actually giving them something?

Yeah, I mean, like, when, like, in the past, like, I mean, before I said, Before I worked at Del Posto, I do that all the time, like I would, I would work for weeks for free places. Or if I found a place that that I really wanted to be, I would do whatever I could to, like, just hang out there for work. I mean, yeah, I mean, if I could, like, log all the, like, free hours that I've worked in, like the past 13 years or whatever, like, I could probably buy a house or something. In New York,

wow. That's rough. Any any tips on how to get the most out of a stash?

Honestly, it's just a like, you can totally tell after about an hour of someone's like, going to be an all star and like they can you just know like, just the way I usually just wash their hands. I think it's like a I think I heard on like PR and say that one time like, like, just watch people's hands. Like if they if they're constantly moving and constantly working like you know, they're going to be like a good a good person to have on the team. So

nice. All right. So should we take another commercial break and fishes take a commercial break? All right, calling your questions to 718-497-2128 That's 718-497-2128 cooking issues

there's no way to go up to? Need a new one, huh? Nice. Jack. Welcome back to Cooking issues. You have another couple of minutes to call your questions in for us for Brooks at 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128 for me. You guys. I just take care of issues. Well,

what is the answer to question yet on the show?

I don't know. We try and she sits there texting too much. So it's not. Wow. See, that's the thing. Like, here's the problem. Like, I'm like, I'm all nice, sweet sugar and candy to me not Well, that's also true. But until someone tries to call me out, like in a public situation, and then I'm just like, Oh, really? The gloves are off. I hadn't realized that. All right.

That's kind of where I'm at with mustache.

Wow. Oh, anyway, we would love it. We've, we've had a couple of mustache questions. Right. So Carmen, like Are you single? What's your sign? Like your sign has changed? Right? Aren't you on that? Didn't we talk about this? Oh, geez. Oh, my God. All right. So if you have a legitimate question that's not asking the Stasha for a date. Or about mean you can ask her why she hates everything that she ate growing up, or why she has such a conflicted relationship with you know, the foods of Los Angeles their mother. You said that Not me. Not me. Anyway. You're welcome to call him for a question for him. So Naveen Sinha wrote in and he's one of the TAs might be the lead TAS he I don't know of the Harvard class that from did last year front Adria and I'm going to assist McGee actually on the floor. first lecture of the new year coming up in September, which should be fun. I don't know what I'm going to do there, but something maybe, you know, blow blow blow everyone up. Everyone thinks I'm gonna go to places and blow everyone up, but I've never blown up another person. You know what I mean? I've never blown up someone other than myself. Anyway, so Naveen writes in and says Hi, Dave, I'm fascinated by chocolate, especially transformation from the bitter seeds, the cacao tree to a tasty chocolate bar. That is a very interesting transformation. Are there any other foods that undergo a similar set of steps? Fermentation roasting, grinding? Also, do you know of any other tropical fruit seeds that could become delicious through such a process? Thanks, Naveen. That's an interesting question. I mean, obviously coffee, right? Coffee goes through, you know, a similar, similar set of procedures, quite literally. Fermentation, drying, roasting, grinding, brewing. And vanilla goes through picking. Fermentation, right. It's dipped in usually in boiling water. And then wilted and then fermented. So it's similar. And then I guess it can be ground a form of paste, but vanilla doesn't taste like vanilla until it goes through its, its its paces to be fermented. And in fact, the vanilla that's uncurious called Red vanilla. You can get it. It's interesting, but it's not. It doesn't taste like vanilla. I don't know offhand, although I'm gonna do some research because we're going to do a tropical fruit tasting in July. So we can do some do some tests. But I don't know of any other tropical fruit seeds, other than those that go through these kinds of processes any. If you ever heard of anything that go what else goes through

that kind of No, I mean, like that.

Tea, tea leaves, right? Tea leaves go through a fermentation process like that.

I mean, there's olives, but that's not really like the same kind of process. But right, we still have to be like, process to make them edible. So

Right. Me, I mean, is that the thing? Is it just Yes, it things that need to be processed to make edible? There are a lot of things like that, right. But I'd have to think more about it. It's an interesting question. I liked the whole like, I'm fascinated by how we figured out that for instance, AQI fruit will kill you if you eat it. Unless the pods open up all the way in the fruits. Right? Some dude must AQI food is you know, the like kind of the national food in Jamaica AQI How would you say it?

Is that the AQCA

AC AC ke Akki unselfish is like the classic but you can only buy Kandak you here in New York. As far as I know. I've never seen Jackie and but if you eat it, and it hasn't opened up, it's poisonous. But if you and you shouldn't eat it all apparently, for pregnant, but acting salt fish is one of the Jamaican national dishes. So some dude ate like probably a whole trees worth of ripe AQI right. It was like this stuff is good. You know what I mean? And then like his buddy picked it too early and died. And it was like, oh, yeah, you know, don't do that. So anyway, I'm fascinated by this kind of stuff. Naveen. So we will look more into different things like this and people call and write in with your with your various various, you know, fermentation and deadly poison things. Alright. So I think being posted this week on Eater is going to be our burger extravaganza. Is that Troodon session? Yeah. Today so so basically eaters doing like a whole to have some sort of like burger festival week some crap. I don't know what not. It's not crap. You know what I mean? Some burger festival. Everything's crap. I say crap a lot anyway. And so they wanted some sort of fantabulous fancy burger, but it turns out that the burgers that I typically like to make aren't that fancy. My favorite one of my favorite burgers is Patty melt. I think Patty melt is delicious burger. Patty melt for those of you not hip to Patty melts Patty melt is rye bread.

It's gotta be rye bread, right? Yeah. Rye bread.

It's not rye bread. It's like it's something else melt right? Like it's like a grilled cheese with a burger slitting sides, right? I mean, it might be delicious, but it's not a patty mill, right. Right. Caramelized onions, Swiss cheese and the whole thing. You cook the burger and then you put it in and you cook it like a grilled cheese sandwich with the onion. So the bread gets toasted with you know, mashed with butter. Fantastic. I like mine with ketchup delicious. So So I did a slightly high tech version of Patty melt where it was all pretty much traditional, except I cooked the burger low temperature in a ziplock bag in butter and made the burger thicker than it normally was. And I grilled it like a grilled cheese sandwich with the onions and then separated it and put the burger in between so the burger didn't actually get smashed. But the bread did. I thought it was good. I thought it was delicious. But eater came back and they're like, listen, we wanted something wacky. We went to you not for something that just didn't taste good. We want something that's wacky. So then they had to go reshoot something that was wacky. Is this true or false? Yeah. True. Yeah. So as I go, All right, well, I wanted to keep some of the patty mill stuff. So I was like, Okay, we're still going to use the rye bread. We're still going to do grilled cheese, but I'm going to add meat glued bacon sheets, right We made it we made the sheets out of bacon laminate with meat glue, vacuum it down. And then we cut everything into ring. So that all look perfect because we figured that was fancier and wackier. So the rye bread was cut into a ring. We then took contae which is like green air and cut it into a ring and then the bacon sheets cut into a ring. And then so that was the basis of the grilled cheese sandwich. We didn't put the caramelized onions on at this time so it was bacon grease it all made like a grilled cheese sandwich. The burger we also took pickle sheets and turn them like you would Japanese style with like a new Suba gray state or in turn grace did that they cut that into a ring so that you had a ring shaped pickle that was the size of the burger, which was nice. And then for the burger to make it all fan fabulously fancy dancy we reduced veal stock down till it was really thick and beefy. And the gelatin was really you know, very strong, added ketchup to it at a calcium lactate glucan aid right, set it into a sheet, cut the sheets into rings and then threw those into alginate so that formed a layer around the gelatin so now we have like a little hockey puck of of beef ketchup gelatin with a layer of alginate around we chose alginate because it's a little bit tougher skin needs to withstand this kind of rough handling and it's also heat proof. So then we built a burger around that around that sheet of of that like UCLA, and then low temp fried it to set it low TIM COOK THAT and butter and then roasted it over charcoal to get a nice charcoal outside put that in between and when you cut the burger it's like a soup dumpling it explodes ketchup and and veal stock all over the plate. And that we did one without when you do with a bun it like sprays out a little bit kind of like when you take a cherry tomato and you bite it and like if you don't close your mouth and you do it you spray your buddy youngtimer anyway, kind of like that. But we did it by itself. It was kind of like almost obscene we just cut a burger and it was like blue. Like shot up like a fountain like the like the like the burger couldn't hold it in a putt that way. Okay. So. So that's the I don't know what they're going to use from that. I don't know what they're going to use from that.

Yeah, anyway,

it's actually going to be online today. I see. Well, supposedly, a photo is there a photo of it, it's a bit of an exploding,

there's a video so there might be I mean, I would actually prefer like I'm a firm believer. And by the way it goes back to when I was doing art for you know trying to do art for a living and we're in a cooking issues in an art show. Now I'm in an art show at Columbia, I just put a post up today on the blog. So you can go look at the posts on the blog and see what we put into the art show, including something about our our, you know, so we met in California, Roy Fong, who owns the Imperial tea court and does a lot of really interesting stuff with tea, including, he's gonna He's growing his own tea and a tea farm in California, which I think is really cool and unprecedented. Anyway, so where it's going, but yeah, suppose it was gonna be a video but when I was doing art, sometimes a good still photo is better than a video. Like if you just had like a six still photo of the burger with the stuff shooting out of the top of it and you caught it. Like, just as it was like be in midair. Like somehow that's more badass than the video of it happening. Because it's very hard. I mean, these guys are good. So I'm sure it's good. But like, for me, it was very hard to get videos that were as compelling as a good steel shot. Like I always prefer the one good steel shot, like take the video and then choose the one awesome steal from it and put that up. I don't know, it's like, it seems to me because then your mind fills in the rest of everything you don't need. You don't need the actual whole whole video. A lot of times this is my theory is when I was doing performance art anyway. So what else do we do last week and start? Should we go to Martha last week? Why don't you talk about it because apparently you don't you know, you can't you can't be bothered not to lean back in your chair. And with the gangster leash, this guy just got a serious gangster lien going on and in the studio. Alright, so Martha Stewart wanted a centrifuge. We bought her the damn centrifuge, and I fixed it. And then it was nice one, I paid I think, like 300 bucks or something like that, which was her limit on eBay. Yes, yes. She only wanted to pay $300 for the centrifuge, which is like, you know, I've paid more for dinner. And she that's what she wanted. Anyway, whatever. So we bring it to her studio. She wants to learn about it and the one we bring, when we show up, sucker literally breaks. I was like, you know, this happens with stuff that you get off of eBay. Like even though I fixed one problem, there was another problem in the machine. And it turned out that it's an it's a $900 $9 problem to fix. So I was like, man, crap. So we ended up taking what Sasha described the situation we were both with is not pleased. Wow, that's that's all you can say. It's almost just gonna say she was not pleased. Wow. All right. Yeah. And so basically, I gave her this