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.

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The following program has been brought to you by kin Vineyard and Winery. Kane Vineyard and Winery supports heritage radio and the growing movement to change how Americans eat and how we think about our planet. For more information, visit www dot Kane five.com.

Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. I'm Dave Arnold, your host of cookie issues coming to you from roughly 12 to 1245. Every Tuesday here in the studio with Miss Dasha hammer Lopez, we're coming to you from the Heritage radio network in the back of Roberta's pizzeria, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. So listen, there's Tasha, what's the telephone number to call them? 718-497-2128? That's 1849721282128. Yes. Good. Just you know, it's kind of a thing. I can't remember the dang telephone number to displace when it comes to psychogenic glycosides and therefore your buddies but with telephone number can't help. Listen. We have a caller on the air. So let's go right to it. Hey, how you doing?

Good. I've got a two part question. All right. First one. I'm in London. Where should I go for drinks?

Well, that's easy before we even go any further. That is simple. Anywhere that my friend Tony conigliaro is involved you should go immediately for drinks. The one that I go to all the time is 69. So I bite here at about 1000 miles an hour so my throats a little scratchy. So 69 Colebrook row in Islington. It's like a 10 minute walk from the angel tube stop. I can't believe I said to stop on the air. And what else did you like we were there and especially where do you go? Oh, I

don't remember I wasn't with you most the time.

Well, that might work because I work quite close to the angels to stop me now. He said it twice on the air.

get anything. Here's the thing about it like that i nine times out of 1020 is a friend of mine. So when I go I typically don't pay which means I don't go anywhere. Okay, so I've had most of my drinks there. That said, I mean, we've been to Hicks. Apologize, man, I have to bike here earlier just seriously, I was breaking my neck to make it here because I was researching stuff. So I have something caught in my throat. I didn't have time to get it out. So I apologize again. So Tony is a it runs a very interesting bar there. He also has a new hotel bar, but I don't know where it is. I thought he has a lab than the Pink Floyd studios, the old Pink Floyd studios really. I think the drinks often may be interesting. There's new restaurant restaurant in Sumi. Remind me never to do this again. Always give myself five minutes before we start to no matter how late I am to get whenever it's in my throat, my throat. So quince the new restaurant I think has some interesting drinks as well. And hex, but Tony uses high tech stuff like rotary evaporators centrifuge, but you would never know it in his bar. Because the bar is like a little tiny. Like neighborhood bar, they just happen to serve some of the best drinks in the country. And it's not me saying that he's rated like constantly like one of the best people but like whatever they're making. My trick is I always walk in in scan, say bartenders choice. What do you want to make? And then typically, you know, if you if you if you tell them that your game for whatever they're going to make, typically they will make you something interesting if if you know if you're like, I really like tasteless vodka drinks, well, then they'll size you up and they'll give you something I mean, Tonio still give you something good. And all of his people are good. But you know what I'm saying a bartender choice is always the best choice.

Right? But can I say bartenders choice, preferably with whiskey and well?

Sure. Yeah, sure. Yeah, that's perfectly respectable. I mean, look, they're actually one of those great places where they're not going to make you feel bad. They're for whatever you drink. They're not. They're not snobs. That way, even though they're some of the best people in the business. But, yeah, you mean, you know, definitely. Typically, what I'll do is I'll say, you know, your choice. I'm feeling kind of like a brown liquor today. Or maybe I'll say whiskey or something like that. And they can, they, they have all things there, but they do a lot of really interesting stuff. And they have a piano and certain nights, there's 20 bands playing.

Even better. So the second part of the question is, what are your feelings on water chestnuts?

Interesting. water chestnuts. Okay, so my wife detests water chestnuts. So do I really, I like them for her to textural thing. And, you know, at one point I said to her look, maybe it's that you don't like canned water chestnuts and you grew up eating canned water chestnuts, so I made them fresh. She's like, No, I hate these too. And I was like, Oh, is it similar for you? Is it a textural issue?

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't really add anything and taste. I don't like the crispness of it. I pick them out of every food and I cannot for the life of me understand what anyone thinks that adds anything to a recipe.

What do you what do you think especially I bet you hate them too. And I used to like him as a kid I hated. Yeah, the stash. It hates most things, though. So you know, you and my wife are in the same camp. I'd like to I kind of like they have a very unique. Okay, so the texture is crispy and the way that a raw potato is crispy, but without that raw potato flavor. So if you like the texture of a raw potato, but not not that not that raw, starchy flavor, then a water chestnut seems like it's a good bet for you. If you don't like that texture, I think you're going to be in trouble. Would you agree or no?

No, I agree. It's, I mean, I'm not looking for a raw potato texture either, I guess.

Right? And water chestnuts and certain other things that grow in the water like that can have parasitic worms in them. I think it's worms. Maybe the bacteria forget. So you need to cook your water chestnuts before you before you eat them if you get them fresh, so don't you know eat them raw? Well, you shouldn't eat them at all because you don't like them. But here's, here's a good thing that Neil's Noren always used to get water chestnut flour, and he said that for dusting of fish and frying. He loves water chestnut flour. And I think that's a tricky pick up when he was working in China. What are chestnut flour is not so easy to come by here in the US. I don't know about the UK, but it's definitely available. So maybe there is a use for water chestnut for you yet.

Well, I'll look into it. And one final thing, David, it's a it's actually Brady.

Brady. This is my cousin Brady. I didn't know you hate it in the beginning. I didn't know you hated water, chestnut, water chestnuts

brioche and they keep showing up in the Thai dishes here. I'm like why do people do that? It's ruining the dish for me and I thought I'd uh, I'd ask you

Well, this is interesting that I unrelated you know, just we're family by my marriage my wife and Brady and and me actually but the two people in the family that hate water justice. The only two people I know are people who regularly come to my house when he coming back to the States.

But that's good because Jeff generates and that means you will not make them while I'm there so

correct. Go to Tony's bar, I'll kill you and you never invited My house again. No, I'm going at it after work so I thought it cool cool. Thanks a lot. Alright, Alright listen, I'm gonna recover my throat and we take the first commercial break come back and answer some email questions calling all your questions to 718497

to 128 That's

I want to ride my bike I want to ride my bike I want to ride my bike I want to ride

a bike was never my seen and I don't like Star Wars see Rolls Royces give me a choice. I don't believe in Peter van Frankenstein of Superman

ride my bike to ride my bike. I want to ride my bike to ride my

bike Welcome back to Cooking issues, I am almost fully recovered. You know, I must have swallowed something when I was writing over here just give you an idea what you're dealing with when you're biking from Manhattan to Brooklyn, I passed by a concrete factory on my way over here. And a giant you know what are those things called with the big thing in front the scoops bulldozer. A bulldozer dumps an entire bulldozer, like you know shovel load of dirty concrete water basically on my bike, as I'm biking paths, and that's, that's Brooklyn anyway, call on your questions. 27184972128. That's 718-497-2128 we're gonna be here for a little while because I got some email questions to answer. All right, by the way, we have this new kind of thing people just call in with kind of information and shout outs. Have you noticed that recently? We've gotten a lot of people just writing in with some info. Yeah. All right. Well, so here's some info for those of you who are in the New York area and don't have a job or who have a nighttime job. Tom Metcalf says there's a really good movie that you should look at at the moment today, this museum of modern art. Jiro Dreams of Sushi is basically it's playing today, I think August 23. Today, right? Yeah, yeah. 4pm at MoMA. And the film was about Jira, only the best JIRA? Oh, no, the best the best. I mean, I hate that best. But like, you know, one of the world's world's most renowned sushi chefs in Japan in Tokyo, and Chronicle chronicles his lifelong, complete devotion to becoming ever better at his craft. And Tom believes that I have made some comments that suggests I would admire his work ethic. I've seen it. You see it, it was a good it was good. Yeah. Compare it to the Firaon. Adrian movie. Friday, Jia was a bit better. Well, it's relatable, I guess. All right, well, so

let's actually have the filmmakers on a taste of the past episode 60. For those who want to hear,

please go please go listen to that. Now, here's the thing. View listeners to the show are kind of specialized. They have specialized interest, right. So I went to go see that. What's the name of the front Adrian movie that we did the event for it? What's it called? It's a movie about Ferrania. Anyway, it's a so some reviewers have criticized it's basically just food porn? And how much can you? How long can you sit and watch for on tasting different pieces of food? This is a valid criticism for someone who's not interested in the process of making food. Right? So I went to go see it. And I thought it was extremely interesting because it gives you an insight into the way that LBE and Thrawn how they work, how they cook, how their process is. And as a as a cook as someone who's interested in cooking. To me, that's extremely valuable, because Phoronix clearly at the, at the very top of his game at the top of the field in what he does. So it would be extremely interesting, I think, very, very worthwhile. For anyone interested in Japanese cooking techniques, which I am extremely interested in interested in. I wish I could go to it today because I would but unfortunately, I can't drop what I'm doing this afternoon and go. Sure I'll see it eventually. It's very difficult to get an insight into Japanese cooking techniques, because the mode of learning in many high end Japanese kitchens is one of years of careful observation without much explanation. Let's put it that way. And so really the only way to learn what they're doing, you're never you're never going to learn what you're doing right because you have to sit there for you know, two years, you know, washing the rice before they let you cook it or whatever. Whatever the old You know, the old things are but in Japanese really any cooking demonstration, don't who cares what they're saying don't pay any attention because it nine times out of 10 they're not telling you what's really going on anyway, pay attention to their hands, pay attention to the ingredients they're using pay attention to the way their hands move. And these kinds of things are going to give you a big clue as to what is what is actually going on in the food. So and this is why videos and live demonstrations from top notch people are so valuable to watch. And so the ability to see in a movie, someone like this working is invaluable. So I do I do hope to see it. And it could almost be me It can't be silent because I have to hear what the ingredients are what's going on. But the explanation and any sort of plot or arc or narrative, I really could care less. And I shouldn't probably say that gets a meeting say but you know what? You know what I'm saying? It's like for me? It's gonna be valuable either way. Do you think it did? Who do you see it with? Mark? Did Mark Mark we're talking to Mark Ladner from Del Posto would he find it valuable? Yeah. Yeah, I bet Mark likes fish Mark likes to push a fish Mark used to get in those Hokkien iTunes butcher them up and send them back anyway. So very valuable for anyone interested in learning something about Japanese cooking. Yeah, yeah. So thank you, Tom, for writing in that information. Another interesting piece of little tidbit comes from Steve Crandall, via the Wall Street Journal, they had an article called scooped. And here's something I'd never heard of fracking. Have you heard of fracking before them? I mean, other than that, I'm gonna Okay, yes, I have heard of fracking from Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I have seen the new Battlestar Galactica thing. But I hadn't heard of fracking. The term fracking is basically hydraulic fracturing. So what you do as you're drilling for oil or whatever, you drill a pipe way to hell down into whatever you're going to do. And then you put a huge pressure on it to fracture the rock under there, and then you pump in junk, like sand or whatever to allow whatever you're trying to get oil to filter through that. And again, it's a way of getting more oil or water, whatever out of it, but a lot of people are pissed off about it, because it can, you know, pump poison into the aquifers, stuff like that, you know, anyway, so I will read the Wall Street Journal thing because it has to do with guar gum guar gum fracking has a new victim ice cream. Oh, I was just handed by by a by Jack a no frack button. Jack. I didn't realize that we were we were an anti fracking. It doesn't represent my opinion that somebody left that here. Oh, so in other words, some of our hosts and our guests are anti frack folk, correct? Yeah. Okay, well, apparently they're fresh. This is anti fracking button from the Catskill citizens.org. So presumably, there's some fracking a whole lot of fracking going on up in the Catskills. Presumably for water and not for oil anyway. Fracking has a new victim ice cream hydraulic fracturing this fracturing the sometimes controversial oil and gas drilling method is causing tremors in a small but vital corner of the food industry. This is I'm reading verbatim from the Wall Street Journal guar gum produced mainly in India helps thicken foods ranging from ketchup to ice cream. The problem is it's also mighty useful in fracking fluid. fracking fluid is the fluid that they pump pump pump into the into these places to actually cause the pressure to fracture them. With a surge in fracking tomorrow, demand for guar gum has rocketed having often languished under 50 cents per pound guar gum has recently changed hands at over $3 And so this is going to cause problems because they use a lot of guar in in ice cream. And the reason they use guar is because guar is cheap. The guar is from a seed and it's very similar to another product called locust bean gum. locust bean gum is actually for a lot of applications better, but because locust bean gum doesn't have a kind of tasting most guar is kind of crappy, tasty, tastes kind of crap has a beanie it's called a beanie tastes kind of like eating black eyed pea flour. If you've ever done that, I don't know I don't know why you would I have many times anyway. So they do tea ice gums. The good people from THC gums make a something called flavor free guar which is awesome. And guar and gelatin and other hydrocolloid is what we use to make the stretchy ice cream that I like so well. But guar has been cheap. So if guar prices go up good for the poor sons of guns that have to sit there and harvest guar you know what I mean? Good for them. If we have to pay like, you know, a nickel more for first of all $3 a pound. Let's put this in perspective with $3 a pound means for a guar. So you're gonna have well under well under a half, one half of 1% of guar in your ice cream. Okay, so we're talking that, you know, a miniscule amount cost wise increase in your ice cream. So if all of a sudden a bunch of people in the oil industry, and I'm not saying I'm not pro frack not pro frat here But, you know, if some poor sucker in India gets a lot more for their guar seeds as a result of this, God bless him, I'll pay the extra five tenths of a penny for my ice cream. Just make any sense to Sasha Yes, yeah. Anyway, all right. Glar All right. Guar Yeah, like we're done. We it's interesting. Our good friend Paul Adams from Popular Science, he writes mainly for their online but I think he's going to be doing something in the magazine as well. He did a nice write up of the Glenlivet experiment I did in New Orleans, where I was separate, separating Glenlivet Scotch into oak and spirits, and you can read about it on pop science.com Anyway, he writes in that popular science is doing some challenges, and maybe some of our readers are interested in. So the idea is, is that some knucklehead and the website is innocentive.com, no centive C E, and yet like, like innovation incentive innocentive.com. So they basically offer an award and the idea is, is that any knucklehead who wants to can write in and, you know, propose a solution to the problems, and if you win, you get either $10,000 or a chunk of that $10,000 And the guaranteed minimum, the guaranteed minimum, like maximum Hamilton for this. So the there will be someone who gets at least $5,000 They might get the full 10,000 And they are going to give $10,000 away make sense now. Yeah. Alright, so this one here is, and this one, by the way, is the one he sent, as already has 373 People who have signed up with solutions. Most of them I'm sure suck. Come on. God, most things in the world are bad. So why wouldn't most of the solutions to this problem be bad? The problem is, over time low fat batter for baked product sticks to the baking surface of aluminum baking pans. No duh. Right. I didn't mean it that way. It's stuck batter burns and must be removed from the baking service. The seeker that's the company here is looking for creative ideas for reducing either the adhesion of batter to the baking service, or for improving the speed and efficiency of the cleaning process. And More information is available from their challenge description. And so basically, they want you to come up with a new release agent or a nonstick baking service or new way of cleaning. But you only have a couple more days to solve that problem. Presumably they're gonna have more of these. I have a solution, but add some freaking fat to the batter. You know what I mean? Add some freaking fat. What is the problem with having a little fat? Here's the thing, right? To

answer the question, why? What you're gonna help them out?

No, they're not gonna, they're not going to add fat to it because they want to make a low fat product. And therein lies their problem. Therein lies the problem. Look, why is a waffle batter different from a pancake batter? Hint, it has more fat in it so that you can get it off of the waffle iron, right? When you have fat in these things, right? Typically, if you're a normal human being and you're not paying attention to what's going on, you eat slightly less of it and you're slightly more satisfied because there's more fat in it and you get more sated the idea that you I mean, like you don't I'm saying I'm not saying like have your baked goods swim swimming in Greece, like a Popeyes biscuit which are also delicious. Even though you don't like Popeyes biscuits. You don't like biscuits? Jack helped me out here. You don't like biscuits. People, people.

This is what I'm dealing with. The person I've ever heard say that they don't like biscuits. Yeah, you

know what else Jack? Like? Interesting show like later on. She won't say it on the air. But she'll be like it's because I'm so discriminating. What what do you say things like I don't like peanuts because I have a more discriminating palate. No, it's not that I can't discriminate a peanut. It's if they're delicious. Biscuits are delicious. We need to talk about this for a minute. Like even if even if I can't answer all the questions. What is it you don't like about a biscuit?

I don't like how dry and flaky when I

put butter on the biscuit?

No, I still I just I really don't like biscuits. I like bread.

I also like bread. I don't like biscuits. I see you're learning this attack. It's nothing like heart attack heart attack is a form of biscuits similar to a beaten biscuit which is nowhere near like the standard biscuit that we eat. First of all, there are fluffy biscuits and there are flaky biscuits and a huge range in between depending on on the hydration ratio and how they're mixed and how they're formed. Okay, so let's just start there. And and then like this is a kind of a classic thing that I don't understand and so like you know if anyone ever you know tries to analyze like the relate the working relationship here here's what I don't get. I don't like biscuits because I like bread when she leaves off his like a an implicit instead. Like I like bread instead of biscuits they I can have in a single meal. I would consume several slices of bread and then when I handed a biscuit I would also consider several biscuits jack back me up on this. He doesn't want to get in. He doesn't want to get into it anyway. Don't like biscuits don't like this. I love biscuits. Biscuits are good. I like a flaky biscuit especially

the biscuits it Roberta's. They are good. Seriously, that's not even promotion. Good biscuit.

I can't remember do they do a flaky or a cake? Guys,

we'll get you to biscuits.

Yeah, please show that'd be great. And we'll talk about them next time. Anyway, my saying is just add a little bit of fat to your baked goods and cook it a little bit less. Whether it's a waffle or some sort of, you know, you're not gonna cook biscuit in an iron, obviously, like maybe it's corn bread or something. And we're trying to reduce the amount of fat and cornbread. absurd, absurd. absurd, okay? Not really, look, I'm sure there's many people who think it's a good idea to reduce the fat in their baked goods, I just happen to think they're wrong, they're wrong. Just eat less, just eat less, right, just eat less and be more satisfied with a better product. Right? Although apparently, this is marketing that hasn't worked. People just eat then they're like, Oh, it's okay to eat high fat. So they just eat more of it stupid. By the way, that we spoke to a person, this last week named Pat Brown. And Pat Brown is a doctor and is a has a company out in, in the San Francisco Bay Area. And he's interested in making basically not meat analogues, but things that someone would choose over meat. In other words, that they, they are a viable main source of protein that are built not just as a protein that, you know, has crap sprayed on it that kind of resembles meat, but actually engineered from the ground up to be delicious, such that someone who is a meat eater would choose it based on its taste. And its inherent low cost over meat. Breathing. Okay. Anyway, next time I'm out in the San Francisco Bay Area, I'm going to I'm going to visit it but he's the only person I've spoken to who wants to do plant based and he has kind of an interesting philosophy. He wants to put all meat and dairy farmers literally he'll say this, he wants to put them out of business. But he's like, he's like, you know, to make an omelet. You gotta crack a few eggs. The world's gonna be around for a long time. And these guys are hurting the planet. So even if it hurts them right now, you know, you know, you can't you can't help out someone now at the expense of killing your grandkids. Yes, he's vegetarian, but he doesn't necessarily want. He doesn't want to make he doesn't want to beat you over the head. And have you become a vegetarian because he's a vegetarian. He wants you to buy this. This plant based food because it's so freakin delicious. And so cheap. That's what you want to do. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, so it's an interesting reversal. And it seems like an interesting guy. I can't wait to go out there and meet him. Okay, I have a question in from Priscilla Andrews regarding transglutaminase noodles, and I have to apologize in advance. Priscilla, I don't have the answer for you right now. But the question is, what is the starting ratio and using meat glue and gelatin to glue fruits and vegetables together and help us appreciate it? Okay, so what we're talking about here is using transglutaminase meat glue, which is an enzyme that Bond's proteins together to make gelatin into something that won't melt when it's reheated. So this is a technique that was developed by my brother in law Wiley to frame up WD 50 restaurant where what you do is you take gelatin, right and normally gelatin, when you heat it, it melts and when it when it cools down again, it turns back into a gel. If you take transglutaminase and mix it in with the gelatin, the gelatin crosslinks and now it no longer melts again. So it sets and never again will it melt. And so while he uses this technique to basically make noodles out of anything. So key noir, peas, peanut butter, things that you can't normally glue together or can't normally make a sheet or a noodle out of he can make one out of the can be fried toss like a pasta. Anything so basically, the trick with it is, is and I would start with about 1% trans. I'm just making this up because I don't have the recipe in front of me and aurvey Molly bear who runs the who runs the tech stuff when I'm not at the at the French culinary. He has the recipe because while he came in demoed it once and I just keep on forgetting to write it down. But I would best bet at somewhere about 1% transglutaminase not Aktiva RM which is meat glue plus casein milk protein, but Aktiva ti which is just the meat glue. And the reason is, is because you want gelatin to link to other gelatin, if gelatin links to a casein molecule that doesn't increase the gel strength. Okay. And also if you're gluing together a veg or something that has a lot of protein in it, right like peanut butter or something You don't want the gelatin bonding to the protein from your product either. So what you what you want to do, and John McGee, Harold son, who's one of the TAs in the lecture series up at Harvard, the food Lecture Series, which I'm going to be doing with Harold, on September, what sixth, sixth and eighth and there's a public lecture for those as well. Right? Yeah, I think there's a public lecture in the evening after the students go there. So his son did like a couple days dives with Wiley to figure out this problem of what's the best way to do it. And of course, I forgot, but basically what you do is is you make a paste, you dehydrate it to get a lot of the water out, you don't want to be too watery, then you make a gel slurry and use however much gelatin you would normally use to set what you're doing. I think that's a good starting point or maybe a little more well, it's warm but not hot, the gel, the gelatin mix in transglutaminase Aktiva Tei, right. Let it sit for several minutes start cross linking, you know, while it's warm, and then whisk that together with your product, shoot it out and let it sit overnight in the fridge at which point it should be set but I wish I had a better information for the starting ratios. All right, so we're gonna take one more commercial break and come back and answer some questions call in your questions 271-849-7212 A that's 718-497-2128 Good that's pretty good Dave

impression thank you

we have your back so I thought a little while had just gone I guess you could have scaled yourself but if you have a change of shoes that you don't want to call me send me one you jack in a starship making fun of me for not being able to remember the dang number of the radio station and furthermore making fun of me for the early one the Ron to ride my bicycle for my constant bike problems you're gonna see. Thanks, guys. Thanks. I appreciate it. All right, caller you're on the air.

Hi, Dave. I have a question about gum arabic and simple syrups in the New York area and I'm looking to pick some up and also I'd like to just know how to add it simple syrup like a just you know, one cup water one cup sugar, how much to put in.

Okay, so it's interesting where her pick it up in if you want if you're in the New York, New York City, I believe Calusa Ian's on Lexington in the 20s has it. If they don't have it, there's a place called dual specialty shop down in. Where's it first avenue Avenue de down near death and CO the bar. That's how I remember where it's close to death and coke. And it's downstairs. They might have it. If not, there's plenty of mail order supplies for gum arabic, but one of those two places would be the first places that I would go in the city to get them. Get it. Now. Gum Arabic is very interesting because as a hydrocolloid and you know hydrocolloids for those you that don't know what the heck I'm talking about are kind of these new group of thickeners. What's interesting about it is most hydrocolloid are long, linear chain molecules with a small number of backbones on it, right? Small number of little side units rather. The gum arabic is the only normal one other than a Milla pectin, which is the big bald starch molecule. That is ball shaped, right. And so what that means for gum arabic is that you can have very high percentage gum arabic solutions that aren't too thick, right? So you can put a fairly high percentage of gum arabic into your solutions and still have them be portable fluid right. The other cool thing about gum arabic is gum arabic has in it a protein that is is basically it comes with the gum and originally was considered an impurity. But when you remove the gum The protein from the gum arabic gum arabic doesn't work anymore to do what you want it to do because gum arabic isn't just a thickener, although it is a bonding agent, right. And when you add a lot of it, it can add a lot of body viscosity to your syrup. It's also an emulsifier. So you can get flavors into things using it. And it's pretty cool because unlike other emulsifiers, when it's diluted, it doesn't break. And that's why it used to be made for us to be used to as an emulsifier for soda syrup's. Now they have other things that are, you know, not necessarily dependent upon the Sudan to for their sourcing, but the NRA cheaper but it was one of its original uses is so it could probably also stabilize ahead and a shake and drink or stabilize bubbles in a shaken drink. So it's very interesting. I don't happen to have any of the ratios in my head, but what I would do is put the gum arabic into the water first. It should dissolve I believe at room temperature but you can heat it to speed it's not going to hurt it at all right? I would try to powder the gum arabic as much as you can beforehand to speed the dissolution of it. And then after that, you can heat it add the sugar to it and make I would definitely do it that way not the other way around. I would add the gum arabic first and then add the sugar afterwards. And you can you can add a fairly large amount but I would look into like anyone you know all the old references have it I think maybe the imbibe the old days one rich the first you know the imbibe book, I think maybe has a couple recipe for it. But that one's easy to Google. I just don't have it in my head. Alright, thanks. No problem. Good luck with it. All right, thank you. All right, Sue. See what we're gonna go into now. Okay, we have a question from EPAP. And oh, just wrote in wants to know about smoking tomatoes. Well, I've never smoked it. Tomato. Yeah. Have you ever had a smoked tomato? I've had smoked tomato things. Yeah, no, I've never smoked it tomato. But in general, when you're smoking something, the rule is, is that it I mean, I don't know how you're gonna pick up color. But you're going to want to get it somewhat dry and tacky not overly wet, you're obviously going to want to peel the tomatoes are very least kind of split. But I would peel them and semi desiccate them, like partially dry them first, then after they're partially dried, then I would smoke them and then finish the drying out. I mean, I wouldn't, you know, tomato, when you're smoking something, smoking a certain kind of preservative effects and bacteriostatic effects and things like that. But really with a tomato. It's just it's got a huge water content. And so to preserve it, you're really going to want to just reduce that water content. And so that's going to be the main preservation technique. If you want the smoke flavor to pick up, you don't want it too heavy or to become accurate. I would just make sure that they're mostly you know, maybe two thirds or three quarters dry. Then smoke them until they pick up the flavor that you want and then continue your dehydration at a low temperature. So you don't alter the flavor too much from that point out. This is a good advice, right? Yes. The rare piece of good advice. Okay, Derek Botkin. Like that name. Botkin fucking like that. Derek Botkin writes in about rice flour. You don't have pumpkins in my family. Really? Yes. Anyway. Derek Viking writes in on rice flour. Hi, everyone. Another quick question. I've got a bunch of rice flour. What sort of cool things can I do with it? Since it lacks gluten, right? I'd imagine baking with it would be tricky. How about a roux? All right, well, interesting. You should say. There's no such thing as just rice flour, right? I mean, there is it's labeled that way but basically rice flour breaks down into two separate kinds of things. There's glutinous rice flour, aka sweet rice flour, aka waxy rice flour, aka sticky rice flour. Right? And that's rice flour that's made from what they call glutinous rice and what glutinous rice is it has no gluten, but it's very high very low in amylose the long chain starch molecules I told you before an extremely high like 100% amylopectin. And what those are what that kind of flour is great for is making mochi and mochi you know you don't have to make it in the flour I've made I can make mochi from just from sticky rice, which is kind of the cool way to do it. Right and you know, the really cool way to do it is to get sumo wrestler dudes and loincloth beating it with mallets after you cook it that's a real cool way to make mochi but most of us just gonna buy glutinous rice flour or mochi flour they sell if you really want the high grade stuff, buy stuff called mochi flour. And you mix it and the cool thing is is that it's got this dense flavor but you can grill it or fry it and it puffs up like a lunatic and Milla pectin is fantastic at puffing whether or not it's uh, you know, semi dried and then it pumps like a puff snack or whether or not it's just like in a doughnut form. Have you ever had a mochi doughnut like Japanese mochi donut great anyway. So that's one form of right flour. And then the other one is, you know, rice flour that has a certain amount of Amarillo Senate now. And that's what you use for most other kind of cooking applications. So in terms of thickening for making a roux, right, so ru we typically think of with wheat flour. Now wheat flour is kind of the weakest of the flowers in terms of thickening rice is rice flour is going to thicken a little bit more than wheat flour or corn a little bit more than rice arrow root a little bit more than corn and potato the most starch the problem was something like potato starch. And the reason we don't use it more often is even though it makes things super thick, as you cook it, it breaks down very quickly. Right? Cornstarch also has problems because it gets thick, really real fast, it's gonna stay thick, but when it cools down, it sets up a lot harder than when it was hot, whereas wheat starch is a little less finicky that way then corn but rice is kind of in between the corn and the wheat and will work fine for a roux especially if you want to do something that's gluten free if that's interested, interesting to you.

It should work just fine. It's also used a lot in deep frying as either a portion of your batter or as a dusting beforehand. The reason it's used is because it doesn't have any gluten. It makes things very crispy without making them hard, right because it doesn't have the kind of the protein that forms together you get from a wheat flour. So adding a certain amount of white rice you know neutral white rice flour to a batter recipe is going to increase the crispy crunchiness but not the hardness of the batter. So Heston Blumenthal uses it in his in his fish and chips recipe. A lot of Thai recipes have it and you can make actually almost like puffed crispy snacks just by making a rice batter and frying it and it's good as a garnish. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily eat it on its own. In bread baking, you can add a certain amount to bread to round out the wheat flour and reduce the amount of wheat in there slightly, although I don't really see the point in that. But it is used as a dusting for almost like an anti stick along with flour in the same way that cornmeal is used for so can be used that way. Another interesting thing you might want to look at, it's something that I used to make like a long time ago when I was reading my mom's cookbooks, one of the first cookbooks I rated I started making bread in college in a general electric or Westinghouse, I forget used to sell Turkey ovens and they're basically like large crock pots that you cook turkeys in for Thanksgiving. And in the 50s and 60s these were used because you want to be able to use your oven for something else and cook your turkey on your countertop. And it kind of fell out of popularity probably because they probably don't make a good Turkey. I don't know I never cooked turkey one. But I picked one up for about two bucks at a thrift shop when I was in college and use it to bake bread in my dorm room. And one of the first books I stole from my mom was her 1977 copy of the sunset bed bread bread baking book. And which at the time I thought it was a pretty good book. And they had something in it called Dutch crunch, which is a bread coding bread tree crust treatment that I've never seen really around. But I'm sure people still make it but it's really cool. And it's a rice flour trick. So here's what you do. You take and I'm sorry, it's in tablespoons, but I just wrote it down this morning from the book. Yeah, one and a half tablespoons sugar. I still kept the book I stole it, you know 20 Change years ago more than 20 years ago and I still have it anyway. 1.5 tablespoons sugar for pet four packs of yeast, right, which is a lot. Pay attention at four packs, half teaspoon salt, three quarters cup rice flour, two teaspoons oil, and basically a half to two thirds cup of warm water. Let it stir it let it rise for 30 minutes and you paint it on your bread before you bake it and it gets this like intensely thick crunchy, like funny looking but delicious crust crust called Dutch crunch. So try that out, Derek and tell me how it works. All right. So have an interesting and this is one of the reasons I was late because this is what I was researching and time just ran away from me Hastings from the underground bar, which is a portion of the underground food collective rights and about cherry pits. We're processing what's essentially a pallets worth of cherries at our prep kitchen right now. And I'm sitting on an insane quantity of cherry pits. We've made delicious demonstration batches of cherry pit amaretto with brandy and a relatively high concentration of cherry pits, but I'm generally aware of the risks associated with the pits of stone fruit and haven't been able to find a concrete source that conclusively outlines how they can be manipulated or process to eliminate that risk prior to infusion. Varying sources say roasting or blanching the pitch takes care of the problem. I assume if a method works for one variety of stone pits, it will be applicable to the others as well. Could I weigh in on this? Earlier this week, Hastings emailed Darcy O'Neill to ask the same question because Darcy had a recipe for infused machine on the cooler that involve the pits of the bear Tino cherry, they're not really whatever the cherries are called anyway, the cherry cherry pits it's a an aside in a larger post on purpose. Serving cocktail cherries. The problem is the amaretto that Hastings is making and some of the other applications they've been toying with involve pick concentrations that are 20 to 100 times greater than the recipe Darcy referenced. Okay, Darcy O'Neill for those of you not, don't know cocktail blogs is one of the great like scientific technical drinking cocktail writers wrote a book called Fix the pumps, which was extremely influential over the last year and a half or two years, I forget how long ago it came out, basically reviving old soda traditions, and in fact, is selling products that have been kind of extinct for a while, including lactose heart, which is, you know, a lactic acid based acidifier for use and sodas, and acid phosphates, which is phosphoric acid based soda acidifiers. So he's selling these things. And that book, extremely, extremely influential in the comeback of interesting sodas. I mean, people have been working on interesting sodas for a while, but kind of without a lot of basis. And he's providing a lot of basis and contextualizing of the old recipes for kind of modern people. So under red by JQ public but very influential among the kind of cocktail and drink thinking crowd, fix the pumps. Anyway. So Darcy wrote back to Ellen, by the way, in case you don't know what's going on stone fruits contain two different things, many different things, but two things that people are worried about amygdalin which basically breaks down into cyanide, which is why and that's why you know, cyanide smells like burnt almonds, you don't want too much anyway, Magdalene, and a lesser quantity is something called prednisone, which is, you know, also breaks down into cyanide. So Darcy wrote wrote back to Hastings, the problem with a megalin in the stone and pits Is it the form in there, which is what's called a glycoside, which has a sugar bound to the cyanide, right? It's only released when it encounters specific digestive enzymes, which are found in our digestive systems. And Darcy's had some conversations with sugar syrup companies that make syrup from fruit stones, and say that there aren't any, there isn't any cyanide in their product. And the problem with that method Dorothy says Darcy says is that they're actually looking for cyanide and not for the amygdala, which is what's going to get you when you when you do it. Buddy says that small amounts of pits aren't going to hurt you. But Hastings is pointing out what the hell I'm using 20 to 100 times what you use, am I going to die or not? Well, it's a very interesting question Hastings, I don't know if you're going to die. Here's what happens when you eat a whole bunch of products with a Magdalene in it like apricot kernels, or the classic one or of pits from cherries, etc. The amygdala and and it breaks down and forms cyanide, cyanide, HCS, you know, hydrocyanic acid or whatever. And benzaldehyde benzaldehyde is what gives you the tastes that you want, right, and it's done via an enzymatic reaction. Now, there is an enzyme in the pit. So what you want to do, the way they get rid of this is Hugh Grant, you don't roast it roasting I've up some people say roasting gets rid of gets rid of it, roasting is going to get rid of any free cyanide in the pit, but isn't going to degrade the megalin at all. So as soon as you eat it, you're still going to have it, what I would do what everyone does, commercially, they break it, they grind up the seeds roughly, then they soak them in water for a period of one to three days. What's happening there is cyanide, a free the free cyanide, things are very soluble in water, whereas the benzaldehyde, which is the aroma and the flavor you want is not Furthermore, enzyme, it's soluble, but not that much. Enzymes are in the pit. And when you break it up, those enzymes are going to go to work on the amygdalin and break it down into the sign free cyanide stuff and the stuff with the flavor the benzaldehyde. So what you then do is you soak it for a couple of days, then you drain it and you cook it and when you cook it any free Cyanide is extremely volatile and will boil off because it's the cyanide stuff, they're going to kill you boils off at like 78 Fahrenheit, you know, obviously leave the lid off the pan and don't breathe in the vapors. And then what's leftover should be fairly amygdala free and fairly cyanide free. That said, I can't give you any numbers that are going to be 100% safe. It's kind of it's a tough thing I can't I can't really give you a number and say that you won't die but that is the way things are things are reduced. You can further reduce the amount of amygdala and stuff through fermentation but you have to get a specific strain of yeast the one that does temporary works or specific bacteria specific funguses they weren't like template fermentation works and certain other things but don't count on it.