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.

broadcasting live from Roberta's in Bushwick, Brooklyn, you're listening to heritage Radio network.com.

Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. Today more on your host of cooking issues coming to you live on the heritage radio network in the back of Roberta's pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn from approximately 12 to 1245. Every Tuesday, joined together in the studio with Mr. Shah hammer Lopez, I don't

like that. Yeah.

So last week, while I was here, chillin with Tony conigliaro, and they in the studio. Miss Dasha was pretending to be me in Orlando, Florida with the beauty people, makers of our favorite road of that. How'd that go? Good.

I get all the cool trips to Orlando. Dave goes to Sweden and Berlin.

I know you're just the lucky one. Yeah, well, I told you you supposed to get a free trip to Switzerland, that for those of you that don't know and establishes a Switzerland lover

Italian Swiss lovers that their German Swiss is not interesting. So

are you now insulting bugey? who, like me give us

I'm not they love me.

All right, call me other questions to send 184972128 That 718-497-2128 and Miss Dasha writes here today so indeed, Jesus. That's not in the

Jesus. I know who in the why haven't seen him in a while but

there's another no he he's here. He just doesn't work on Tuesdays. I saw him on Sunday. This is like India parcel right here. He's like a failed pale pale shadow of the real me Jesus. That's a real nice dude. Oh, yeah. He's not saying he's bad. I'm not saying he's a bad human being I'm saying he's a pale shadow of envy Jesus and Jesus SNESs that's all that's all I'm saying. Another note before we move on to more germane issues today Anastasia tells me is the first day of spring which is interesting that she cares about that because for those of you that ever gonna meet Miss Dasha never say to her that the weather is nice out never she is not that she hates bad weather like I do. I actually hate bad. Good weather weather. I hate the sun. I hate everything about it. I'd be a cave dwelling troglodyte if I could, but Miss Dasha likes nice weather, but hates people in nice weather. Yeah, true. I hate when they're happy. Yeah, if you want explain them for the phone. No,

I just don't I just don't like how people associate weather with their happiness. Their level of happiness and productivity. That's really deep.

So she's, she's like, That person said it was nice. Absolutely. They're going to have a go have a good time outside. Yeah, those bastards. She hates that right. Yeah. What if their hips are the worst? look worse like a fairweather happy hipster is like Miss Dasha kryptonite. Okay. This is from Elliot pattern now I make Hornby sausage over the weekend the idea came from Rob Levitt to butcher and Lardner in Chicago police. I've never been I haven't been to Chicago and a couple of years ago but I used to go to the NRA show, you know the National Restaurant Association at the rifle show. But you know, budgets been within our I haven't been in a while anyway. The corned beef sausages were outstanding corned beef, potato, carrot cabbage, cooked, ground and stuffed. I did it the same way you would do a Buddha noir started with some sauerkraut which is delicious. And mustard on a ripe sausage roll. I think this would also work and presented like Dave Chang's hot Brown had to go look up Dave's hot brand hot brown, as you may or may not know is a very famous Kentucky dish from the brown hotel in Louisville based on kind of like a Welsh Rarebit kind of thing, which I used to love welfare bit which was just toast with like a cheese sauce over the top. You were like you're having it has nothing to do with rabbit. It's not both ratted Welsh Rarebit it's basically toasted cheeses. It's good stuff, but it's like, it's got like some white wine and cheese sauce. So it's a little like fun. Do you like it actually? Sounds good. Yeah. Anyway, so this is a take on that. But of course because Kentucky they throw a bunch of meat in it. So it's got like Turkey and, and bacon and whatnot. So Dave Chang turns out, I hadn't seen it before. I wasn't lucky peach. I go did I looked at the video on the web, and it had a our boy Nick Wong in it. But the funny thing is Mick Huang was, you know, one of our great interns back at the SEI worked at at sambar mu sambar for many years. Fantastic guy. I think he's, the video was shot after Nick left. I think he was just there to pretend to be Dave Chang as a woman notice, because he used to walk around sambar with a hat pulled over his head and rush up on people as though he were Dave Chang to freak people out. Anyway, so what Dave did was to lighten it up by rolling it in a tube and CERAM like you know, like our Miko tubes like like or noses magnitudes more accurately, but it was turkey with a free it was on the there's another layer. Oh, country ham, which is delicious. And then he put up Joanne set, like a Mornay sauce in the middle of it. Fried it up started with a delicious looking broth anyway. Interesting. So yes, you probably could do it that way. Elliot anyway, second, I sent Dave a question about smoking tomatoes in the past. I vaguely remember that you were then not really remembering to get dry him out first. Anyway, and just read in The Wall Street Journal about the fatty queues, smoked tomato Bloody Mary, have you tasted it or tried to make your own at PDX? I have not. In fact, we haven't done any sort of smoked anything at the bar. And the main reason is because I have a bunch of friends who are very well known for doing smoky drinks. For me, we use smoke in the form of mezcal or certain scotches that have a smoky note, but we haven't actively smoked anything. Because if I smoked a syrup, Eben Freeman would come up to me and be like no smoking syrup. Now what do you make of smoked coconut? Remember myrrh? Right? Which, you know, I don't want to hear from Evan likes to read me anyway. Right? So I don't want to give them anything extra to read me on. And then if I did something with meat like bacon, Don Lee, and also Evan Freeman would come and be like, really? Dave really? Really smoky bacon anyway, so I'm sure it's delicious. haven't tasted I would love to taste it. But it's not something I can put on the bar menu without having a bunch of my friends come down and be like a ton of bricks. What do you think? Yeah. Okay. This in from Andrew. I was hoping you could talk about the possibility of using just pick the next Ultra SPL for enzymatic peeling. picknix Ultra SPL is the magical enzyme that we use that you can get from modernist bankrate.com Anyway, it eats any kind of pectin and hemicellulose. I use it for French fries. I use it for instamatic peeling which we're about to talk about in a minute are used to clarify all of our juices. I believe I believe I recall reading or hearing that 1000 grams of water AKA a leader 1000 grams of water and three grams of pectin X solution. Water mix with three grams of Peck next was sufficient. If a 12 hour refrigerated soak is used basically to peel fruit and somatically to get rid of the membranes. Alright, I peel my citrus and vacuum sealed it using a chamber sealer in 1000 grams print 3000 pounds water three grams pack the next and let it soak for 12 hours when I came back. Most of the pith was a gooey texture easily washed away. Unfortunately, the membrane between the segments was still intact and needed to be carefully removed. The exposed portion of the membrane was mostly dissolved in the future of just using pectin x I will need to will i need to separate each segment or is there another time saving method? I bag a mixture of cara cara oranges, Rio star grapefruit blood tangerine Keisha Mandarin and Mineola Tangela all have similar results but some are more easily peeled. Thanks for the great show and I'll be in New York this summer and plan on hitting up Booker index. Okay. Yes pick the next Ultra SPL is all you need. But and you actually don't even need a vacuum sealer for this guy. You remain Mr. And you don't even need to soak it that long and it doesn't need to be in fridge. In fact, it's going to act longer, act faster if you just keep it out. We usually keep ours up You know, in warm room temperature, so the enzyme acts faster, measures what we do. Now, I mean, you can use a vacuum to get it into the pit faster. But you do need to separate out the segments. Even with a vacuum. If you put a whole peeled citrus in a bag, it's not going to penetrate into the inner membranes, it's just not. And then by the time you've broken apart, it just never seems to work as well. So what you want to do, it might eat through one membrane, you want to break them into small segments as you can without breaking the actual segments apart or without actually cutting into the vesicle. So grapefruits are fairly easy. The hard ones are things like pomelo. And those you just kind of split in half and then in quarters, and there's so much pith and Apollo, that a lot of times you can eat between it as long as you break it into smaller pieces and let soak. You know, for a while I wouldn't again, I wouldn't do it refrigeration temperature, because I think that's just going to just slow things down. Another thing, you want to keep the peels, try to keep them as whole as possible, put them in the bag with it, and it'll eat the white albedo away from the peel and you get these amazing appeals. There's, I thought we used ice water wasn't that I bagged it, when I use a vacuum machine I bagged with ice water so that I can get a good vacuum seal on it. And then I would remember to throw it into hot water bath, warm water bath to heat it back up, melt out the ice and get the enzyme cooking. I didn't want to make it that complicated. But that's actually the way that's actually the way I do it when I do it. You can go on cooking issues.com which is still up even though I haven't written on it a long time and there's a whole article there I did on enzymatic peeling with all of my procedures I don't use three grams per liter I think I use for I use for now maybe I use three back when I wrote it but we typically use for now you can never know exactly how good the enzymatic activity is of your batch depending on how old it is. And for always seems to work and it's not going to add any off flavors. It's not particularly more expensive when you're using it in restaurant quantity. Right? If you're going to do the peels, sometimes a toothbrush is helpful to scrape away all the melted albedo. That's gross. Yeah. All right. You want to go to our first question, right? Okay, yeah, our first commercial break call your question is 27184972128 That's 718-497-2128 cooking news you

will excuse me take a few minutes to mellow out Big Daddy Kane is on the economic tell about a minimum level of strength and power. So listen to the man of the hour flow and go to a slow tempo and you know sing low swing low than yo The show will go on cipher for transforming those things. I got Decepticon but I'm not animated like a cartoon. I'm real shooting lyrics like a hop across the crowd listeners and spectators Solas groove with small Doppler radar self sold smooth

soft safe smooth

the big good and plenty several men again in competition wishing for an expedition of trade up.

Hello and welcome back to Cooking issues. Alright. Now last week because I had Tony here. I didn't make it to all of the questions from last week. So Natasha Riley says I should go over last week's questions before I go over this week's questions. So from Joel Gargano hello guys are really weird, an interesting corporate kitchen cafeteria really here in New Haven, New Haven. I lived in New Haven for many years I was at Yale and I lived there for two years afterwards. This town actually like maybe anyway, feeding lunch to the company's employees. I wonder what company it is. Anyway, being a trained chef and working in a fine working in fine dining as a cook for the past 10 years I took the opportunity to not only run my own kitchen, but experiment as much as possible and throw some cool shiznit out to the staff. I'm a bread Baker second generation charcuterie not DIY, DIY obsessive and really in the modernist technique. For example, I'm doing all my deli meats Brian and then cvwd So Soviets both salami and for sausages, and they're all coming out killer doing charcuterie in an office building weird. They all come through the buffet line pulling housemade bread and freshly cooked into our cured meats and put them onto plastic cafeteria trays, walk to their high school appropriate lunch table and discuss marketing strategies. It's pretty hilarious. Thought I'd share that with you guys. The movement is all over the place. It's nice when people use not like that stuff. The question I'm currently attempting to create some vegan desserts for select group the company using hydrocarbons. I developed a super good chocolate mousse appropriate for an ISI that's the cream makers using Versa whip which is either soy protein or milk protein depending on whether it is whey or soy protein, and ultra Tex eight which is precooked SCART starch. Total success. Soy whipped cream, however is totally failing. I need some help what type of hydrocolloid should I use for this Xanthan and LBG which is locust bean gum turned it into snaps Anthony has known to do that. Xanthan is the snotty gum if you use it in too high quantity. And I tried to use Versa whip minus xanthan gum and LB G but got it A runny mess. I'm assuming that the chocolate works so well because it stabilizes the mixture while the soy milk does not. If the fat content is the fat if the fat content of soy milk is messing with me, should I try gelatin? Well, you shouldn't try gelatin if you want it to be vegan Joel that's for sure. I'm not even going to tell anyone right now. If you want to try something that's like gelatin it might whip into it. They make a karagin and Aguilar people use Agata but I wouldn't people typically use Carageenan for things like this and in particular, they use a specialist karagin and for whipping if you're going to make marshmallows called Jen new teen and Jenny team is made by the CP Kelco Corporation and it's specifically a karagin. And it's meant to be a gelatin replacer for applications like marshmallows, aka things that need to be whipped and hold their texture. Well. Now, I think I looked up there's a I think what it is is it's a lack of fat is the problem is why it's not it might whip up it's not a holding it's it's whipping I looked up a like an in Catholic already whip situation. Soy whip topping that's available I think mainly in the UK called soya too. And luckily their ingredient list was on the web. So I read it. It's organic soy milk, organic coconut oil, organic fat, fractionated palm kernel oil, organic sugar, beet syrup, maltodextrin tartaric acid karagin, and sea salt and vanilla extract. Okay, so let's break this down one by one soy milk is the main thing that you want to make out of, it's what you want to whip up, right, they've added coconut oil and palm kernel oil, probably to get something that's fairly solid, I think you're gonna want a fairly solid fat like a coconut stuff like coconut fat mixed with a little coconut milk, maybe something that's going to give it some body that is a fat that is fairly solid at refrigerator temperatures, because it's gonna give you more body. Okay, and then they're adding maltodextrin no sugar for sugar, and it's obviously very maltodextrin what that's doing is adding some extra mass somebody to the soy milk and giving it extra kind of whipping property start tartaric acid is probably there just for flavor. And Carageenan is there as the karagin is there as the gelling agent, which is going to be a weapon a whipping agent. And it's going to be also something that's going to provide some structure after it's been whipped. I would guess they add a little bit of something called Iota carrageenan in with because karagin into a blend, because it will reform the gel after it stands still. Vanilla is just for flavor and they add nitrous oxide to whip it. So I would do that I would add fat first of all is going to get you a higher whipping of quality on it. I would have it be cold as hell same way you would with whipped cream, I would add some maltodextrin. And I would use some karagin and preferably a genuine team in the mix with it. And you should be able to get a good we should be able to get good result. Yeah, yes, yes. Okay. And by the way, I thought you think is funniest actually, when I was researching it, one of the first people to come out with vegan marshmallows were using a vegan gelatin replacer from this company called Ames. And it turns out that these these guys, it was kosher gelatin, right? And it was advertised that it was vegan. Hmm. Turns out whole thing was made out of regular gelatin. We're just selling it to all these vegans and these kosher guys. And it literally like what happened is like this woman who was making vegan marshmallows, she like quit her job and finance or law or something like that and became a vegan marshmallow maker. She called up the guy and was like, Hey, are these mark is this gelatin? Is this totally vegan? He's like, Yeah, this vegan was vegan. You know what I mean? So the company ended up going out of business, and yada yadi bloody bloody

Did you see Ellen how to how to be a vegan on our website?

I did not. Yeah, I was on Ellen last week for St. Patty's Day. And she turns out she's a vegan. She's nice lady though. I didn't mean like that only you mean things like that? No, I just live with people want. It has their unrelated they're unrelated statements like people always want to know is the person a nice person? She's known just as like a crazy person. But you know, it's funny. I show up at the show and the producers very nice. Were said you know, Ellen I was making alcoholic drinks da for St. Patrick's Day and you know, because I'm at a bar and they're like, you know, Ellen is not going to be able to drink drink the alcohol because she's shooting to show she shoots to shows on a Thursday. And I was like crap in this I had to go in. I was trying to make all these non alcoholic versions that looked like and tasted similar to the ones meant I didn't even drink it's impossible to do it non alcoholic because it turns brown anyway. So so she shows up. She's like, What are you talking about? I'll drink it.

I'll say yeah, Helen. Yeah,

she's Lampson. Jameson.

What Yeah, is she pounding Jameson? I'm kidding. She didn't she just took a sip. My kids you know, we never don't know Ellen. I was like, it's story from Nemo. They're like crap. You met Dory. That's freaking awesome. Anyway, this question in this is a long one from Ali ZF Colette or call it I don't know Colette Colette call it for that. Anyway. First of all, I'd like to say how much I've enjoyed listening to your show over the past few months. I say months because I only discovered this Recently I spent most of my commute to and from work catching up with every single podcast will appreciate all they appreciate. It's really refreshing to hear a cooking show from people who understand the practical application of science and cooking and who are not afraid of using ingredients and methods with which others might deem foolish or we might foolishly dismiss or both maybe I do have lots of questions to ask but I thought I'd keep things brief. Sorry for not calling you up to ask you the time differences in in the UK the show overlaps with my my way home make from work making things difficult. I was wondering what your thoughts were on seasoning meat, taking steak, and as an example, I tend to a season roughly an hour in advance, generously sprinkle the salt, sprinkle the salt and occasionally adding a small amount of minutes makes me that minced garlic salt. After an hour, I'll wipe off the excess moisture before cooking using the sear flip every 2030 seconds method that's the biggie special where you flipping a bunch of times to get a more even heat, it's a good way to approximate. It's a good way actually to approximate kind of either a rotisserie or a low temp cook using a regular thing because the heat meat never overheats all the way through. It's basically a very high instantaneous heat input but a low average heat input good technique anyway, this method seems to work very well but it does raise some questions. First, you have of course covered on your blog about how if you are cooking a steak CV you should not salt the meat pre sear it unless you're serving it immediately. If you're only salting it afterwards, it does not result in an inferior flavor due to the salt only being on the surface and Nazies me through the meat. I guess I'm looking for further tests between salt cook serve and salt chill salt serve. Second is the seasoning well an advanced method only really useful for less tender cuts because they've not been dry aged for any serious length of time, which will contain more moisture or shouldn't always be used. I didn't notice that when Heston Blumenthal has covered steaks in two separate cooking shows. He's never really talked about seasoning as if, as if it had much importance, which I found odd. But maybe I'm thinking it's more of an issue than it really is now. Okay, now look, here's the deal. If I'm going to serve a steak right away, and by right away, I mean within a couple of hours, I always season the meat beforehand, because yes, I do think it probably makes a better tasting steak. However, that is not just the seasoning and retaining of moisture, the textural difference in the color difference of a steak that's been salted a long time in advance, let's say three hours four hours in advance is not just not nearly as good to me as a steak than it would be if you didn't solve it beforehand. And so you know the any advantage which is relatively minor of salting the meat meats there, I agree but relatively minor compared to the textural breakdown in the meat from over salting beforehand. I just don't think it's worth it. So I tend not to salt meat beforehand. Now, when I'm serving a steak I almost always will slice i First of all I sought the be Jesus or the out of the steak but outside of the steak right before I sear it like yeah, when like a home cooked when they see when when you know when most people serious steaks matter where they're working they they put a small amount of salt on the outside. Look, when you're searing steak, people put an absurd amount of salt on the outside before you see it because most of its going to come off anyway, you know what I mean? Your size, so sear the heck out of it. And then I find that the advantages of pre salting way beforehand aren't nearly as great. Also, I tend to cut my steaks before I serve them and serve them in pieces. So I can also solve the cut face if I need to. It's not a situation for instance, like bread, where if you don't solve it beforehand, your bread is going to be awful like the Toughskins bread although this dosha claims to like Tuscan bread even though everyone in the world knows it tastes awful, you know? Right? Right? You like it right? That's why

I just like maybe its memory Orient, do you? Is

it the sallow disgusting crust? Or is it the lack of flavor in the crumb that you like best off? Anyway, so the the thing is, is it's not the same as that it's also not the same as when you're cooking something in a braise, and you undersold it and then you don't get the seasoning all the way through. It's something it's long cook like a pot roast or something like that, because in a situation like that, you're relying on the seasoning penetrating the meat for the flavor of the dish. Anyway, that's just my that's just my to my two cents that make sense does. Now my other question is regards to New York City. I know someone calls some time ago about places to visit and I did note down some of them. But I think you mentioned you would email a list of suggestions to them personally for bars, restaurants. We're going to be heading over what? Yes, we're going to be heading over for a week on the first leg of my two week tour of gluttony. The following week we're on we're on a grant aid kits, pilgrimage to Chicago for next slash Alinea slash aviary place we've never been been to you know Lynnie Of course we have a pretty tight schedule by third ask for some feedback on what I've got down so far. During my first week of April. We're gonna go to jitsu mustache, you're supposed to make your vegan face but you've been right. That's the Japanese temple food place the one that's the it's vegan are supposed to be really really good. WD 50. Gotta go to WD 50 My brother in law Wiley, his joint mama focus arm and Noodle Bar, and then few there go to PDX per se that's Tony's favorite place. She mentioned that lesson. Roberta's year Tuesday. Although listen, if you want to see indeed Jesus turns out Sunday at lunchtime Sunday

is appropriate to see and maybe I haven't even thought of that.

That's crazy. And 11 Madison Park, I think we could squeeze one more nice meal and I'm basically left with going for one of the nice sushi places like your pseudo monster is way out of the league budget was

no go to bar masa it's it's it's the same and it's amazing and you aren't losing anything.

Yeah. Now see here is good information from the start the rare piece of good

only thing I've ever said on all forms doc. Oh, but it is true. Barbarossa

same thing. Last money. Amazing.

Yeah, yes, it was that on your list that you had in your email list. And Blue Hill at Stone barns is another place he's looking to go anyway. So what we're going to do is at the end of the show, if there's time to stop she's going to read out her email list

and my phone is not recognizing the word restaurant in any I've never typed

phones iPhones. Maybe next week we can start the show we're just reading off a list of stuff. And don't forget to come to Booker index bar from Ali Colette all the way from London England and so let's go to our second commercial break call your questions to 718-497-2128 That's 718-497-2128 cooking issue.

Seldom tribal Bob motor to the devil's gavel has a couple of my culture screwed because this word is misconstrued small countries exempt from food because leaders have different views YouTube will

mean the world to me is be free to live and let live and just let it being. Love Peace and harmony with universal family. One God one Amen. One destiny. imagine life without a choice at all. Given what out of

and Welcome back to Cooking issues. Call your questions to 718-497-2128 this and when he 4972128 coming out a question from last week. I can't remember whether I answered it. So I'll answer it again. If I did last week, Stephen Garrett wrote in with two questions. I think I only answered one. The second one comes off the tail of Ruhlman that's, you know, Roman from Seoul, the chef and who writes all of Thomas not read all whatever times color books, and also charcuterie, Poles and Roman anyway, leaving his stock on the stove, the heat not on for days on end and heating it up to the boilers. He needs it and subsequently Harold McGee, our buddy Harold McGee is still in China, I think. What cool yeah. calling them out for unsafe food practice. So so basically Ruhlman wrote this article or this blog post where he's like, Hey, listen, our great grandpappy didn't have a, you know, a refrigerator to put the stock in. So we would just leave it out. And then the next day would boil it again, before we used to kill all the nasty stuff. And then that said, Go Come on. Well, I'm not dead yet. Come on. grandpappy Well, he's dead. But you know, anyway, not from that. And then McGee was like, so I think the Times asked me to comment on this. And McGee was like, Well, I mean, of course, the odds are that nothing bad is gonna happen. But there are things that can happen, especially if it's not brought up properly, etc, etc. And, and it basically it's not considered 100% safe practice to do so. And since most of us own a refrigerator, why wouldn't we put it in a refrigerator? And the other thing is, is you're gonna get quality degradation as the thing sits out over time at room temperature, so why wouldn't you just refrigerate it? That's the point. So, so then he's like, okay, so if rumen was kind of mistaken about that, and I'm not getting it. That's what McGee said about Ruhlman. Although I tend to agree. So when rules takes talks about meat and saying, when it's cured, it's cured and nothing bad is going to happen to it. i You don't have to worry about meat that's being left out if it's cured, is should I take that with a grain of salt or a salt stopping all the bad stuff? That is in it? Question from Stephen Garrett, Wellington, New Zealand? Well, you know, I read the post Roman was talking about he was talking about I think it was, it was last week I was looking it up. It was duck prosciutto, I think or some sort of, you know, hanging meat that he just wiped with, you know, a mixture of nitrates and salt and hung it up. And you know, certain sometimes mold can develop on it depending on the moisture content of it and relative, you know, the temperature and the humidity in the atmosphere, etc, etc. The question is, is Is it true? What Ruhlman says that nothing bad is going to grow on that meet, so you don't really need to worry about it. Well, mostly Yes. Mostly. That's true. Although, I mean, I would take it with a you know, I would take it with a little bit of a grain of salt. I mean, there are bad things that can happen to meat that has been cured. The cured meat itself probably isn't bad, but for instance, you could contaminate cured meat and then it can have really nasty stuff on it that doesn't die right away. Right. So yes, you know, and also it depends on whether you've used enough salt. So you know, if you haven't used enough salt and you haven't cured, you haven't killed all the bad stuff. So just the fact that you have cured it and that looks cured isn't necessarily mean that it's always going to be okay in all circumstances. However, for the most part, if you properly cure something and follow the instructions, then yes, nothing bad is going to happen. But let's not forget that in ground meats, especially if you don't get the proper pH and you don't use the proper salt amount, you don't have the proper amount of nitrates that you could do yourself some serious damage. Let's not forget that the word botulism comes from the Latin word for sausage. Okay. Yeah, although that doesn't really happen anymore, because people, you know, they cured things properly, anyway. Okay, now, now, I gotta find another question. Okay. Derek Botkin wrote in with a question saying, David Co. That will be you and Dec and the rest. Is it possible to substitute eastern red cedar berries for juniper berries, thanks for your help and insight and keep being awesome. Okay. So here in the US, a lot of us don't have the, you know, the standard Juniper that we use and flavoring which is Juniper, I guess. communis, I think is what it's called, you know, Paris Commune or something like that. I don't have the Latin in front of me. And that's the one that's used for flavoring but a lot of us have around the eastern red cedar, which is I'm going to make it up now. Gina Parris, and then like Virginia, Virginia, Anika, or something like that sounds like Virginia, whatever. Anyway, common, you know, it's a common Juniper that's around here a lot. It's also used a lot as an ornamental. It turns out that the red cedar The berries are edible, in fact, and have been used since prehistoric times by Native American tribes living in America, as both the leaves, the berries and the bark, have been used in various decoctions and teas for various various ailments that you might have. So yes, they can be used. The word apparently is also quite nice. But the downside is that it doesn't have the same powerful aromatic quality that the traditional Juniper is. So it's not going to, well, it's not going to be as baller necessarily of juniper flavor that said, you know, if you taste it and you like it, then maybe you can use it in a way that's different from a, you know, the Juniper that we're used to, you might again, I'm a big believer in, you know, it might not be as good as Juniper at being Juniper, but it might be very good at being what it is the eastern red cedar, do you know what I'm saying size? Anyway, so give it a try. It's not going to poison you. However, I've read some sources that say it's mildly toxic. But again, it's been used for a long time, it was in my herbal book. It was in it's in a bunch of the references I've read. I wouldn't eat a whole boatload of them. And there are Juniper species out there that are toxic to a greater or lesser degree. So make sure you have your identification, right. Don't eat boatloads of it and maybe try to find an application where it tastes as good or better than regular Juniper for what you're trying to use it for. There's a great article in 2000, I think is somewhere between 2006 and 2009. In the New York Times in the gardening section, you can find it on the internet, about juniper and which junipers to use and and so on, so forth. Right like that. Okay, now, the leap. As you get his first name and wagon, he gets last name. Anyway, Philippe writes in a question about knives. He's been contemplating picking up Michel bras, which is the famous French chef from where's he from all Brock or something like that? Michel bras Chanel for years now. I've read many reviews and they're split half in half. I'm worried about the platinum oxide coating on the blades. titanium oxide actually, I believe is not platinum. I think it's titanium oxide, titanium oxide coating on the blade. Do you have one and does it scratch easily. Thanks so much. Okay. Titanium to get first of all, Shawn aka Kershaw has a bunch of lines of knives out that are associated with celebrities one type or another so they have Alton Brown knives have a funky angle because Alton Brown is tall and he can't cut properly with a regular knife because the angle is bad. So he says I can't use the Alton Brown nose but I'm not that tall. Maybe Mark Mark tried those marks tall man. He's never tried one of those knows you should try them and so I'd be interested to know whether or not a tall person whether it's actually helpful for them. It's an interesting fact for me I can probably get them one anyway. Can onion a famous knife designer also made one a knife for those guys. It's completely non traditional chef's knife has a very curved belly. So you you rock it as you cut it and it's got like a kind of kind of strange ergonomic handle on it. Chef Andre Soldner, international old school badass enjoys that knife. He actually uses it. And then they did a line with Michel bras and Michel bras. His knife. Michel bras is all about aesthetics. And so the knife is really pretty, right. So it's kind of a matte, kind of like, like gunmetal gray color and it's got fit Indium oxide coating on it. Titanium, the metal is not very hard, it's tough as hell and it doesn't ever it basically won't rust. But it's not that hard. titanium oxide, on the other hand, I believe is quite hard. It's used as a coating for drills for high speed drills and things of that nature. So I'm pretty sure that it's kind of a baller coating to put on the outside, right, the knife itself has two different grades of stainless steel, a softer stainless steel on the outside for toughness, and a harder stainless steel in the center for the edge. So toe it should be okay. I mean, I don't know if it's worth a huge price tag, I don't think it's gonna cut appreciably better than the less expensive. Kershaw slash shun knives because I don't think the blade chemistry itself is any different. It might be balanced better, it might be made better, it definitely looks better than those other ones. But I don't know if it's actually going to cut better. The other interesting thing about it is that it's unlike a lot of Japanese Western knives I read on their website, actually, I went on the website, it's sharpened with a 5050 bevel, meaning it's sharpened the same way on either side, like a traditional French or German knife, which means it should be fairly easy for someone who's used to European knives to sharpen it. It sharpened 15 degrees on each side. So it's not it's fairly, it's a fairly sharp, fairly sharp blade. I've read some reports on the internet saying that they are well, very well balanced blades and that they handle quite well.

Now I'm gonna go on a little bit of a rant, a lot of people worry about the sharpness of their knives and they buy the most, you know, the best deal the best this the best that ceramic knives, all this other stuff. And, you know, in the words of Jeffrey Stein guard, which I think I've quoted here several times, you know, knives are like puppies. They're always good when they're new. It's only later that the problems come out. And I think the main thing about a knife is how easy is it to sharpen? How fast is it for you to sharpen and how well can you re sharpen and I know I've talked about sharpening here a bunch, but I'll say something I don't think I've said before, which is I would prefer steel that isn't quite as bad as that sharpens really well and just sharpen the dang thing more often, right? A lesser quality read softer steel that you sharpen right before you use it is going to do a much better job in general than the super hard, high quality powdered sintered steel that you buy, and then haven't sharpened and four months. I mean, that's just truth. What do you think? Those are gonna start she takes people's knives and beats them about their head. She's She's a strange alien station. Yes or no? What? Oh, yeah. Okay. We'll talk about later. Okay. Thanks for answering your busy. Thanks for answering my liver question a few weeks back. You're welcome. And then one more question. My chef asked me It turns from already old blanch cauliflower into a puree. I was hesitant. So I pumped the florets into a small pot and covered with half and half. And then with a paper lid. I slowly simmer the cauliflower until it's tender, but the weird side effect was that a lot of the cauliflower turned brown as if it were caramelized. Or you know mired it. No, it didn't taste good. Even in the first place. Do you know what happened? It's interesting. First of all, I did some punch research this morning on cauliflower. Looks like we'll have to wrap up with this but I did a bunch of research on cauliflower. And did you know that in the biz, it they don't call cauliflower florets. florets. They call it curd. Weird Can I guess because it looks like you know like cheese curd. Weird right?

Cauliflower, by the way your kid's favorite.

Oh my God, my kids. I swear to God, you know what? I love cauliflower. And I was like, there's no one on earth. That doesn't unless you're vegan. That doesn't like cauliflower drench get a cheese sauce. Right? I mean, it's just it's just good. Good stuff. Right? And so and you know, my kids for a long time have already talked about my kids for a long time. wouldn't eat green vegetables really if any of any sort what by a longtime I mean still, they don't like read vegetables. It's one of these demented things that put in their head by their by. I don't know by other kids. It's one of these like weird things. It's perpetuated generation after generation. I love green vegetables growing up anyway, that's me. So I was like, okay, and then we'll get cauliflower. It's not green. I'm going to drench it in cheese sauce. Everyone freaking loves cheese sauce. And it was the worst dinner I've ever had in my in my life. The worst experience of the cauliflower is delicious. It was the worst experience of a meal I've ever had in my entire life. The screaming, the moaning, the pleading, the crying. And ever since that, that day, all I've ever had to say is threatened my kids with cauliflower for dinner and they're quiet, endless odd thing about my kid Booker loves sardines. They'd like some weird stuff. It's like look, it's all it's all mental. It doesn't know and you feel the setting. Oh, I feel the sardine can gave it to my son Booker who loves sardines. I filled it with cauliflower and he opened it up he's like ah Yeah, like I had had, like, I don't know, some sort of like, I don't know, toxic, toxic, something like that Anywho. So, turns out that cauliflower like all other, you know, kind of brassica style things like cabbages like broccoli, like brussel sprouts contain a lot of sulfur containing compounds. And so when you add sulfur, the chemistry of these sulfur compounds and food is extremely complicated. And as you cook these things for a long time, various things happen, they get stinky, right, then they get old, then you have lipid oxidation. And then it turns out sometimes I guess they can change colors. I couldn't find I didn't have time to run it down. And since Mickey is still in China, I guarantee you McGee knows right off the top of his head exactly what's going on. But since he's in China, I can't call him to get that information out of his head. But, you know, some of the stuff that's in it, I was thinking about there's there's a couple of articles like the non enzymatic browning of cauliflower in storage. And one of the culprits might be these kinds of poly phenols that are in it that can react with iron. I'm wondering if you had any sort of, if you're using a steel pot, it's possible that maybe the steel in the pot had something to do with it. In which case, if it is something like that, like non enzymatic Browning, it's happening or some sort of weird mired reaction, maybe in conjunction with the half and half that you use a little ascorbic acid might make it better. But there's all sorts of very complicated sulfur breakdown components in cauliflower that can change over time get stinkier over time, it's a known it's a known fact, you might want to look for reference to some articles like the volatile constituents from romanesco cauliflower, the glucose glucose in no late and free sugar content and cauliflower and the nonenzymatic branding of cauliflower on storage, but haven't found a you know, 100% you know, ironclad reason why it would happen. The more I read, the more complicated cauliflower turns out, just don't serve it to my kids. All right, and before we leave, today's show is sponsored by modernist pantry supplying innovative ingredients for the modern cook. Do you love to experiment with new cooking techniques and ingredients but hate to overspend for pounds of supplies when only a few grams are needed per application? Modernist pantry has a solution they offer a wide range of modern modern ingredients and packages that makes sense for the home cook and enthusiast and most cost only around five bucks saving you time, money and storage space. Whether you're looking for hydrocolloid pH buffers or even meat glue, you'll find it at modernist pantry and if you need something that they don't carry, just ask Chris Anderson and his team will be happy to source it for you with inexpensive shipping to any country in the world. Modernist pantry is your one stop shop for innovative cooking ingredients. Mindless pantry carries crisp coat you see a modified starch that can be used in batters and breading to get fried foods and extra crispy crust of that word extra crispy crust. Fans of cooking issues a placeholder of $25 or more before next week's show we're gonna free packet of crisp coat to play with simple use the promo code ci 77 When placing your order online at modernist pantry.com Visit modernist pantry.com For all of your cooking needs of the modernist nature and that's been cooking issues come back next week