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.

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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,

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You're listening to the heritage Radio Network broadcasting live to the cosmos from the backyard at Roberta's in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Welcome to Cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host and cooking issues coming to you live from approximately 12 to 1245 every Tuesday on the heritage radio network in the back of Virtus pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Natasha hammer Lopez not here today. But we are currently joined in the studio with Brooks Headley, the master pastry chef Del Posto restaurant. And as some of you might not know, a longtime hardcore musician true.

Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a very checkered past. So

you won't mean to and press it. You still play occasionally? Right? Yeah, of course. Meaning like, you know, Austin the whole night. What's your current band? Or banza?

It's, it's called CRASH

CRASH. Yeah, you've had names that were a little more or less safe for work having you in the past or now?

I mean, they're all pretty safe. So yeah, it's just words. Yeah.

And what do you what do you just words like that? And what do you what are you playing in the band?

I've always played drums. It's the only thing I know how to do. People that can play multiple instruments piss me off. So I like

that. I know what pisses me off is people who do like more than one thing at a time. That's like, what the hell you know, it's like, I mean, I was never I was never much of a hardcore guy. You hardcore. Just like, what do you think? Last person was hardcore?

I don't know. I mean,

you hate classification? Like every band member ever? No.

I don't know. I don't even know anymore. So people you play with what are they categorized as?

I don't think they know either. So

anywho

Yeah. So people who play multiple instruments, especially in any genre of music, were kind of like how good you are depends on how much physical energy you throw into the performance. Right? Which I don't know about your music. That's the way I was. If you do more than one thing. It's like you're just not spending enough energy doing the one thing that you're doing, you're not paying enough attention, right?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's so certain Yeah, I go with that. So

alright. Ariel Johnson, our favorite PhD candidate at University of California Davis. In what department here at Ariel grab them grab a mic over here. I don't really know what department she's in. She's gonna climb over me folks. You're gonna hear applause Oh, she's going back to me strong strong. I really don't know what department she's in. But if she deals as we deal with her mainly in the in the area of flavor and studies of flavor, and her speciality on her piece of equipment is a very nice gas chromatograph that can do small volumes for food being described as scrap

Okay, so my home department is medical terminology, but I do all kinds of flavor chemistry. But the GC that we have lets us separate complex mixtures of aromas and combine any amount that we want and then analyze their smell. That's our

gas chromatograph for all you fools. Oh, sorry. And and so basically what? You're correct me when I'm wrong, but this what this piece of equipment does, and it's something that we all want none of us own. What this basically does you take a sample, and it's slowly kind of, I guess the word is eluded, or drawn through along. Yeah, yeah. And the rate at which things are drawn through is characteristic for each compound. So you will you will separate it based on how fast it goes through this column. True or False? True?

definitely true. Right? Yeah. So you start with a complex mixture, and each component interacts differently with the column and then elutes in a nice order,

right? And then how does it how do you check then use it for people out there? How do you then check how much of that compound is there as it goes through? Well, we

have a detector called a mass spectrometer. Yeah, that, that shows the amount of each compound as a peak, and the area under the peak is related to concentration. Alright, so

now all you folks who don't already know this, which most of our listeners probably do, but if you don't, when you're watching CSI Miami and they say, do they still have the show? I don't have a TV, I don't know. Anyway, so when they do that, they're like, GC Mass Spec. So they're talking about gas chromatograph and then through a mass spectrometer, but the cool thing about aerials one is that you can true or false, you can bottle the crap and sniff it yourself. And you're done. Right?

Yeah, we use liquid co2 To condense everything down and remix it and then smell it

made me and made me made liquid co2, co2 for liquid co2. For all of you guys out there is like one of the world's great solvents. And it's also relatively nice and clean, simple and friendly to use in a lab. Assuming you have the equipment. Yes, yes. Yeah. Also does very little to degrade. It's fairly neutral, and it doesn't degrade most of the things. You're working with rain. Okay. I mean, I don't know whether I mean, I'm sure most of the solvents they use Don't degrade things. Otherwise they wouldn't use them. That's true. Yeah. Okay. All right. So calling all of your questions either about flavor chemistry, or about World's Greatest pastries, or about any random bullcrap you choose to send 184972128 That's 718-497-2128. And while we're at it last week, we made the horrible mistake of not talking about our sponsors, modernist pantry, if any of you guys use the modernist pantry before,

I've seen the website, see

the website, but you know, you've already you've had your suppliers for years. So you probably like you know, have you ever used?

I never have I have an order I keep meaning to buy from them. Yeah,

maybe now's the time. I haven't either. I'm ashamed to say but I have sent many people to them, and have heard only good things. So here's this week's What do you call it? Plug, plug. Let's hear okay. 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 ingredients and packages that make sense for the home cook and enthusiast. And most cost only around five bucks, saving you time, money and storage space. Presumably they just size whatever it is they're using to a $5 size, right? I mean, you know, it's like you could say that crack only costs five bucks, but then they keep making the size of the crack vial smaller and smaller crew.

I'll take that like with Coca Cola moving to a 20 ounce bottle. What? Well they used to only have small bottles and they moved to 20 ounce but charge the same price.

Wait, maybe it's sweet. So you're talking about like the leader went down to 20 Cuz I always bought 20s to Pat like a 20 is a nice I'm gonna plan this right now says

yeah, in like a vending machine.

I want a vending machine. Yeah, yeah. I haven't purchased code from vending machine lunch on my wife on now that we purchase soda for the children. Even though I grew up, I only drank carbonated beverages growing up, except for a very short kind of Crystal Light phase that I went through where I and for

those of you out there, Crystal Light is actually a huge influence on me. So really,

for real, you also grew up drinking the Crystal Light or I always

hated it. And I thought it tasted terrible but hugely influential and how I look at food

for sure, really? And now is true, true or false? You only use aspartame and all of your restaurants. That's it. Yeah, only aspartame. were lying. By the way. That was a joke for all of you who are very concrete thinkers out there. That is not the case. Well, the problem is is if you drink diet, sodas and or diet, lemonade mixes or whatever they have horrible new fake mocktails by the way, Crystal I haven't tried them, but the idea is horrible. They have a powder that they labeled Mojito, which is That's an impossibility to have a mojito powder. That sounds gross. That's horrible. Especially, you know, I'm sure they don't use aspartame anymore. I detest stevia. By the way, anyone out there who tries to call me up and say that your stevia is better than anyone else's. The freakin plant tastes bad. I've tasted it like directly like grown. I've walked up to the plant tape, pick the leaf off and be like, yes, that awful, metallic, bitter, crappy aftertaste is inherent to the product. And not mean unless it what I freaking love about this is that there are companies who sit there working around how to mask the incredibly awful tastes.

Anyways, it's pretty gross.

Yeah. So for those of you that are like, Well, why don't you just drink during the day when it's because those of us who drink predominantly diet liquids don't like to drink flat water for our hydration, we don't enjoy the flat water. We are throwback, some sort of Lamarckian genetic throwback to the days when water was poisonous. And none of us like to drink that. And so the issue is, is if you were to drink regular soda, or regular lemonade as your sole source of hydration, that would be absurd. Like who wants to drink a jug of maple syrup everyday, very few of us, right? So where diet soda drinkers are coming from as we in your ourself to the horrible aftertaste. And eventually you learned to like it right? If you haven't done it a long time, you know, it's hard sometimes to go back. But you kind of get over that taste hump. And then all of a sudden, it doesn't bother you anymore. And we pound We pound leader after leader this crap every day. Now. That is why when you're shopping for somebody's party, and you are a regular soda drinker, you make the horrible error of purchasing equal amounts of diet soda and regular soda when anybody knows if even to diet soda drinkers show up to your party, they will pound every amount of data that you have provided. You all know this to be true. Anyway, my recommendation to you is instead of getting on these crappy like, you know Mojito powder, first of all, for if you're gonna put alcohol into it, just make it a real drink. Otherwise, you're a bad person, but I didn't mean that strongly. Maybe but kind of close. Right? You should you should stand by that. Yeah, all right. Okay. But my big suggestion is learn to like seltzer. When I was a kid, I always drink soda. So I was bubbles all the way back, like all the way back bubbles, Bubbles, bubbles, my whole life bubbles. I started on tab in the 70s right bubbles. But, but I didn't like Seltzer for a long time. And then when I was going to the college, I realized that that I was gonna be cheaper for me to drink seltzer water. And I'm really I'm a cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, man. And so at that time, that cheap, cheap, cheap boy. And so what I did was I I trained myself over the course of a couple of weeks to like the seltzer and then much like diet soda flavors in general aspartame at the time. You learned to love it and now I'll never go back. I'm a I'm a social man forever. Back to the monitors pantry. This all came from the five bucks. Thanks. I think that's where it was. Okay. Whether you're looking for hydrocolloids 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. Modernist pantry carries three types of spray dried vinegar powder, white malt and balsamic. By the way, if you use vinegar powder, you gotta realize acetic acid is volatile, right? It's one of the few acids that we use in cooking that is extremely volatile, a lot of organic acids are volatile. But and this gives a lot of characteristic flavor, you know aroma flavors to certain alcoholic beverages distilled beverages, but the majority of acids that we deal with on a daily basis Nick extreme citric acid, malic acid tartaric acid, non volatile acetic acid is so if you get spray dried vinegar powder, it has the flavor like taste of a vinegar, but there's almost no acidity. And so when you're adding a vinegar powder something to make it acidic, you will have to cheat it with another acid. So typical cheater acid would be citric acid because it's the most neutral of the dry powdered acids that that you can buy. And people are used to associating the kind of lemony acid hit of citric acid with coronary acid in general. And so apparently there are cheater acids out there that are specifically meant to give the acidic kick to things like potato chips. I don't have so I had a guy who slipped me his card once he's like, I make them call me but Natasha, I don't know whether she ever called the guy so I don't have the source for them yet and I can't tell you what they are. So if you buy it, I would also suggest buying from them. Some citric acid powder. The one gripe I have with the commercial citric acid powders is the granule size is relatively large it's somewhere in between us granulated sugar and and and a US superfine sugar. So it's a little bit too granular for me for the compared to the spray dried powders which are very, very powdery because of the method in which they're made. So there's no ideal solution yet. Maybe buy some citric acid pulse it and spice grinder for a little while to try and get it out. Little more powder today integrates better with the vinegar powder anyway, okay. We carry three types of spray dried vinegar powders, white malt and balsamic fans of cooking issues, it plays an order of $25 or more before next week's show, we'll get a free package of malt vinegar powder, good choice mother powder, good stuff, which is perfect for making modernist fish and ships do they use that inefficient ship recipe in a Modernist Cuisine, anyone anyone should have had that crap on last week when Maxime was here, simply use the promo code CIE 80 When placing your order online at modernist pantry.com Visit modernist pantry.com today for all of your modernist cooking needs. Okay, so by the way, you know, I have no idea whether these guys are pissed off or not that I constantly like stop in the middle of their promos and make comments and when I mean, I think that's

why they keep coming back. I think they like it really? Yeah, who knows? All right.

So hey, Brooks, I know you haven't. Cuz, by the way, folks, if you don't know me, I'm a jerk. And I haven't given Brooks, any of the information that we're going to talk about before the shows he has no idea what the hell's going on. I plan to be completely sandbagged here. So that's how that's how it goes. So we're going to start though, with the reason Ariel, we hadn't planned on having her on the show today. But she wrote in a comment based on the kind of flavor pairings question we had last week and the paper on flavor pairings. By the way, I'm going to buy that book by that summer. Yeah, he's very interested in this. Or the taste buds and molecules. Yeah, yeah, I have no judgment on it, because I have not read it yet. And I refuse to make comments on things I hadn't read yet either. Pro or negative. The reviews are mixed on Amazon, but mainly about the graphics presentation of it, which some people really like and some people really hate, but I'm going to check it. So for those of you that don't know what the hell we're talking about, flavor pairing is this concept, I think, largely bunk. And by bunk I mean crap, that you should be able to pick out the different flavors that you use based on their underlying chemical composition. In other words, if, if parrot meat shares a specific flavor compound with Donkey poo, that you might want to put the parrot and the donkey poo together in a dish. Obviously, I don't really mean it. But whatever. You don't kill parrots, but,

but you don't keep. Well,

that's up to you. I mean, you're not hurting anyone. There's like, no one's gonna get angry at you for it true. Yeah. And you know, my family said, parents, please no, no comments on how I'm anti parent pro parrot, I want to get a pair of extra. My wife doesn't like birds. But I want a bird because my kids want a pet. We have no room for a dog. We can't have cats because we're allergic to the cats and that my sister was allergic to cats. But I want a pet that will give a crap about people. And parrots are like the other pet that cares about people, even though they're weird about it. Like they're weird about it, because the birds but whatever. Anyway, so we're talking about this concept of there's this paper that came out recently that actually what they did is they did a mass Database, Data Mining study of recipes. And then those recipes, they look to see whether or not they shared chemical, the hammer just walked in Russia. They compare those recipes to see whether or not there was any actual whether it's true that recipes that we tend to make over the course of decades, years, centuries, actually share more flavor components than would be if you just chose recipes at random, which is the horrible idea that RVTs actually espouses that we should make sauces on randomly based on a computer have them generated and then see whether or not they taste good, which seems to me to be the monkey typing Shakespeare way of making food which is preposterous and horrible. So Brooksie familiar with this tastes pairing hypothesis

crap. Not not entirely nice, but

so far. I mean, I know I presented it in a rather bias John disliked sound like a good idea. Would you prefer to base flavor combinations? On the years you spent tasting and cooking?

Yeah, I mean, I mean, it's like, it's all repetition, you know, like, repetition of, of making things or tasting things. Like you kind of like build your palate, I guess. Yeah, that's the way I think about it. So areas that just seems just like normal. So not it. Yeah.

And of course, like, not like it's very rare that I'm in a position of being like the old codger son of a bitch who's like, just modern stuff. jacked, you know what I mean? But like, it seems to me that in the end, anything that helps you make better food, good idea, like, I don't care what your inspiration is, if your inspiration is, you know, looking at constellations and somehow looking at constellations and you'd have some sort of matrix that then like gets your creative juices flowing and your food ends up tasting good wine. Oh, but you know what I mean,

the crystal the Crystal Light logo. Yeah, sure, like sure Brooks that splash

Brooks the splash on the chrysolite logo. Apparently Brooks is now telling me true false. That's the inspiration for all of your

cooking. Not all of it but a lot. A lot of the fruit based things for sure. What about the salary survey your amazing salary survey?

Now I don't think that anything to do with the Chris crystallite logo. So

for those of you that don't know, by the way, but For I'm gonna get erielle on this in a second about the, what she thinks about it and I want her to give me her unvarnished opinion Pro or pro or negative because nothing I like better than a good a good argument. But Brooks and we said this a million times on the show. You know, whenever you try and say that he's doing innovative work, he'll say he's not, but the fact of the matter is makes delicious desserts that you aren't expecting. So for me that's, that's innovation right there. What do you think the stock? What do you think you have to? You have to speak up? You're not buying microphone? Yeah. Okay. So area, what do you what are your thoughts on? What are your thoughts on this flavor pairing stuff unflavored pairing around this paper? First give me flavor pairing nutshell. And then this paper in you know, another another separate nutshell? Well,

I would imagine that shared compounds and shared volatiles may play some role in a novel flavor pairing, whether or not someone eating it likes it or not, but it's not going to be a deterministic guarantee that apparent will work. And it might have to do more with the non shared compounds and how those go together when you make a pairing out of out of things.

So what you're saying is it may or may not have any relevance at all. Yes. Do you find it an interesting like, is it interesting to you that as a as a as a starting point, or as a framework in which to work? Do you think Have you seen any dishes that have come out of it that would otherwise not have come into the world that you think are gonna be here for a long time because they're so freakin awesome.

Well, I don't know that I could comment on longevity, but I have had some interesting like, orange beetroot type things that has been Blumenthal made and

that makes sense to me. Well,

it makes sense to you. But would it make sense to anybody?

Oh, it's orange. And beets don't sound like they're so they're not so far if the ring they make makes sense to me from a cooks perspective.

Yeah, no, that doesn't sound weird to

liver and Jasmine sounds weird.

So then Well, yeah.

That sounds weird.

I've never had that one. Yeah, but I mean, that's one of the classic. Yeah, yeah. And I haven't had the white chocolate and caviar before. Yeah,

yeah. Maxine was talking about Alexa.

Yeah. Yeah. Just tasted it. It was, um, it depends on the proportion between white chocolate and caviar, but it can be kind of

cool. Also, caviar is such a wide ranging flavor. That's true.

And white chocolate is evil.

Yeah, it's true. Also true. Thank God. We have Brooks here. That's awesome. Okay, so wait a minute. We're not done talking about this paper yet. They will take a break. All right. So and by the way, while we're taking a break, you better call in your freaking questions and seven, one, a four and a 721287184972128. Okay, now about the paper. Well, by the way, can I describe the paper very quickly.

Okay, so what the paper did they took a gigantic set of recipes online, I think from all recipes and some Korean site.

But oh, yeah, did a Korean site to see whether or not Western perception of Korean food was the same as Korean perception Korean food, right.

So they took this gigantic online recipe database and took each recipe and looked at the ingredients and each and then from some Handbook of essential oils and a couple of other things determine what compounds were in each ingredient, which is a horseshit technique, right? Well, considering that the aroma character of any given compound is dependent on concentration and they didn't look at concentration. I'm not sure how relatable to flavor. Their dataset is wildly dependent, right? Oh, extremely.

I'm told I'm what I meant to say was horse poop. Yeah, so in other words, you'll know off the tip of your tongue, but like certain things can go from being like pleasantly grassy to vomit, like depending on concentration. Yeah,

ethyl butyrate is a good example of that. That at a nice medium concentration smells like green apple. As you increase the concentration, it starts pulling like rotten apples. And then finally like feet, or really, really stinky

cheese was last name your last band. So Ethel Merman. butyrate that's your next band. So I'm running butyrate you know, Brooke, sometimes we'll have like nano bands that like you know, are only there for maybe one of them could be

like, a pop up.

Yeah. So micro band, like a band a nano band. Yeah.

Okay, so was that the only gripe we had about the paper? I think the site was had all recipes I think was all recipe I think it was all recipes and the to every restaurant that is one of Brooks's by the way Oh, single. Okay, so

I won't hit on it. I don't know actually what recipes went into their data set. They didn't give a list. But if you look at the primary ingredients for what they call a North American recipes, it's all butter, eggs, wheat, sugar and cream, which suggests to me that the recipes they use to represent North American cuisine are desserts. And there's so much more to North American cuisine that just desserts, I mean dessert, although

it is what we're what we're after that as opposed to what other people are good at.

But I don't think all of North American flavor pairing in a cultural context can be described just by cake recipes on all recipes.

Right. The other problem is, is that the cooked aroma of those is vastly different from the I mean, no one thinks that if you were to gather the ingredients for a pie, they do not the smell of a cooked pie make that is true. In fact that the compounds aren't even there yet. They're all in precursor form. So, but what's interesting about it is that the the findings of the study are basically if you remove a certain subset of things like these very basic ingredients from either Asian cuisine, or, you know, Wes what they call Western whom, who the hell knows, because we don't have the recipes. Turns out that they don't share any more than would be statistically randomly associated, you know, once you take out the top, six ingredients, and so but you say, you would be loath to take these this study on to accept either a positive or negative finding because you think the methodology is poor?

Yeah, I think large data driven studies like this are valuable and interesting, but they're only as good as the datasets that they use. And I think that their dataset and their approach are flawed to make the too flawed to make the broad conclusions that they do. Yeah, pretty

pictures, though, that I mentioned. Oh, yeah. Cool. pretty pictures. I think that's the problem, because this study is getting a lot of traction. Yeah. And so people are paying a lot of attention to it, but it's one of my many gripes in the world as it is that someone makes a study puts a big, splashy like, you know, statement in the abstract or conclusion and then it gets a lot of traction because no one goes back and reads the damn study. Exactly. Alright. And with that call into question is 278-497-2128 That's 718-497-2128 Take a break cooking issues.

Right, that had to have been the Sasha the Downton Abbey, could you use us Downton Abbey edition,

that's the most used break song of 2012 on this stage, people love this

really didn't think that we're gonna come back with British accents and be kind of like Lords and Ladies, I always hope that I want to be the servant. I want to be your accent I want to be I'm not gonna do the accent. Okay, carrying or the bartender do it. I'm going to come back as Mr. Bates. Mr. Bates never gets what he wants to poor son of a bitch. All right, caller you're on the air. Hi, this

is Sterling. I guess we've just had a question on whether you think of the problems with this with the called the flavor, flavor pairings, whether that's with its flavor on these specific studies? Or is it based on the fact that you don't think it's an interesting way of, of finding new new flavor compounds at all?

I'll give you my perspective really quickly. I'm not gonna talk about the study. I'll let erielle do that. My feeling is it's going to be both I look, here's here's my thing, I think. I think it's scientifically flawed. In other words, look, I don't think that there's any reason a priority to believe that because two ingredients share chemical compounds that they go well together, right. But that said, it's not an invalid source of inspiration for somebody if you find it interesting and inspirational. And if you get good ideas from it any more than reading a book can give you ideas for a dish, or, you know, being out in a in a field in the middle of spring. And like thinking about things can give you inspiration. So I don't, there's no such thing as an invalid source of inspiration. It's just I think that there's no reason for me to believe that that things should go together just because they share compounds. That's my gripe now on the study, what do you think?

Well, I think if we can go back to flavor pairing really quickly, the takeaway from that is that there are a huge number of fascinating and interactive perceptual things that are going on between chemistry and flavor. When we mix ingredients together, we just have no idea how they work yet.

So what are your What are your thoughts? Do you think we're full of full of crap? Or do you agree, disagree? what's your what's your take? Me? Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think that a lot of the things you would get would be, you know, you've got you've got your base flavors and different cuisines, right. And so if you were to look if you were just take a bunch of, in this case Korean recipes, or, you know, Thai recipes or anything like that, right, you're gonna get all these compounds that are most commonly coming up in those in those recipes, you know, so whether that's that's based spices or bass or you know, or herbs and spices that are used a lot in those in those cuisines, they're going to keep coming up. So I think what you would get then is just a repetitive kind of pairing that oh, you know, Kenyans like you know, just, you know, an Indian cuisine, you know, curries, you know, all the spices that go into that, right? Well, they're in practically everything. So, every every, you know, you keep going through these dishes, and that's what you're gonna get. So I don't, I don't really see how you would get new things because I guess it would only come together when you're crossing cuisines? And then it was like some random ingredient from one cuisine and another random ingredient, now the cuisine and they share flavor compounds. And so then you would just assume that they could be swapped out with each other? And then I think it would be I just, I don't, I don't know, I kind

of see what you're saying, I kind of disagree that you can't get new flavors by going into a look at the genius of kind of American cuisine. Right? We started with kind of the now much maligned kind of fusion stuff, right? Which everyone now is we got a fusion? Well, you know, that's an old, right, maybe people are pro fusion again. But you know, back when I was a kid, like fusion was the passe thing, no one wants to be labeled with a fusion label. But what we are at at base here in the US, and certainly abroad in the mountain, the modernist kind of thinking, if you take that as an actual movement, which you know, we can have a debate is we steal things, right. So we steal things from industry, we steal things from, we steal things from anything, and so we steal things from other cultures. And so I think that the best way to steal something, is to use their flavor components straight up for a while to kind of get a feel for it. And then you can take bits and pieces, because you know, how they work together. And so you can get, you know, really kind of new and different flavors, without doing straight fusion, right, you know, flavor of India with French technique, or will be more interesting. The other way around Indian technique with French ingredients, but the, what do you guys think about this as a mode of innovation? Otherwise, I don't think it's unless this flavor pairing thing isn't obviously, it's not necessary for innovation. I mean, it could be interesting, it could be interesting to kind of trip your mind into new new things. But again, anything could do that. You know, I don't know what anyone Brooks.

I mean, as a as like, a bass a form of inspiration or whatever, then sure, that's cool. But I mean, like, you know, when it comes down to it, it's just like, tasting and, and putting the things together and doing it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, until you have something that that that kind of works, you know, so

Right. I mean, I mean, certainly, chemistry is not as ripe a place for inspiration as the Crystal Light splash. But you want to talk about that for a second. The splash again Yeah, what do you like about it? I'm hoping that we can have a small commercial break and that we can get into I believe in Crystal Light song for just looks so

refreshing. That that you that's what you want to sort of aspire to is

I believe that's you know, that's the thing is like, not all food is meant to be refreshing but I really like refreshing things like I really liked as you know, refreshing is always good. No one's like, oh my god, I went and I had a you know, I had this dessert I had this sorbet. And he was refreshing I mean, no one's ever no one's ever anti refreshing. No one ever wants to you know I want the I want the heavy mental beat down. Like for my that's what you I guess the ponderous who wants a ponderous meal. refreshing thing I've got the ad if you want it Yeah. Alright, let's go to a tiny micro commercial break where we're going to do some Crystal Light.

Session is fun as can be. Because I'm Crystal Light trick mix is sweetened with 100% NutraSweet. So there's no sugar, no sacrum and no sacrum aftertaste. All these natural flavors stay so terrific. It's hard to believe there's only four calories a glass

refreshing Crystal Light, only four calories per serving.

No. Yeah, I mean, like what's not to love about that? It's not even it's everything about that is refreshing and exciting. And the guitar line and the drums it's it's just plain awesome.

Yeah, and the word NutraSweet is cool too. Yeah, it gives you nutrients without giving you calories and it's sweet. That's awesome. Awesome. No wonder I drink buckets of that stuff growing up, man. All right, I got a question that hopefully Brooks will enjoy from last week. Angela are one of our favorite interns from Nebraska land of endless possibilities, wants to make fluffy butterscotch. Can she do it? She's using it to build a cake. But she doesn't just want to do butterscotch buttercream. What's up like? Well, we're doing a show right now. Okay, so, okay, so Brooks, you're going to be good at this. So butterscotch for those you that don't know what the hell we're talking about is butterscotch. And basically, it's like brown sugar cooked with butter. And then usually some cream is added in and it's turned into a sauce, right? Yeah. So super important. Yes. Thank you. So the question is, without just using that as a basis for a butter cream, if you want to make it fluffy, what would you do? Would you make a mousse out of it? For a cake, but you don't want?

Yeah, I mean, you could easily take take like say, like make a butterscotch sauce and, you know, get with egg whites into it to make it sort of light in musi or whatever.

But you need to add gelatin though. So the egg whites don't break down after seconds. Right? Yeah,

yeah. So that's like, I'm not. That's, I wouldn't do that. So what would you do? If I wanted like a butterscotch flavor,

but fluff. Yeah, but Fluffy, fluffy, but not like a butter? Not like a butter cream?

Honestly, I would, I think like really perfect butterscotch sauce made with the best possible butter and, and a dark brown sugar and salt. And like, I would just use that and use that as a garnishing agent. Rather than try to make it something different because perfect butterscotch sauce is just perfect. And it doesn't need to be fluffy. So.

Alright, so basically Butchie reporting the question. Let's say you wanted that son of a gun to be flooded. I mean, like, Could you take something like that and make a fond on and then beat it? Or would the fat interfere?

I mean, I think like that, yeah, there's there's ways that it could be done. I just like my for something like that my brain doesn't really work that way. So

I mean, obviously, you could make something with the texture of a chocolate mousse. Just, you know, treat it like a chocolate mousse. Lower the liquid base a little bit because you already have a little bit more liquid in the butterscotch, but it should work. So that's egg whites. Like he said, gelatin folded together and set. Can you spread a moose and have it not break? Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. But you wouldn't do it.

I wouldn't know not personally, I'm I'm actually I'm actually trying to eliminate all of the use of gelatin period. And all of my desert vegetarian thing. No, no, no, just I think it's it's a crutch that people use too much. And just not for any real reason other than just to say I did it. So

right. So in other words, like, here's another source of inspiration, kind of self limitation. A lot of really good dishes come out of self limitation, whole cuisines are based on self limitation. And so when you've already achieved a certain level, the question is, how do you branch out and get some new stuff? Give yourself a limit. And then see what happens. Is this why you did or just for the hell of it.

Just just, I don't know, I think gelatin is kind of creepy. And just pig hooves. No, no, I'm totally into pig hooves. It's just the like, it's just the joke. I just think it's used a lot. overly so. And yeah, that's all Yeah, all right.

Natasha, what do you remember the recipe for the inside of gets caramel creams which are like gods candy? Yeah, no, I don't remember off the top of my head stuff. Good. You like caramel cream? Of course. Absolutely. For those of you that don't live in the United States of America, or I think the West Coast are the only East Coast I mean, there are Pennsylvania Dutch style of thing gets as a Pennsylvania company. It's pronounced it's written like Geurts G O E, like tz pronounced gets and what it is it's caramel with the little bullseye of that kind of like whipped fat crap in the middle, which is delicious. Mr. Brooks, you're gonna get Yeah,

it's kind of dry. Yeah. And like, yeah, it's like, it's like, it's like somewhere between like Oreo filling in something else where it's just like dry. Almost like, like a crumbles in your mouth. Yeah, that'd

be the little butterscotch flavor, right? Yeah, sure. I don't know how to make that stuff. Mister. I think it's powdered sugar and we try well, you tried Yeah, yeah. We're trying to make a coconut base one we wanted to cook like a coconut caramel cream. Whatever we're trying to do something else with it. That is delicious. Carrot cream is delicious candy sauce on an Economy Candy which is like the one of the local big candy shops here in the in New York. By the way. Speaking of Oreos, Brooks makes a delicious freakin Oreo. Delicious Oreo. So much better than Nabisco is Oreo. Makes him wish that he had made the Oreo instead anyway, guy was like what can you shed take back? You know, to England, English. He's like that's really says America. I was like Hey tick the caramel cream so delicious okay so anyways maybe we've moved as Brooks is not going to Angela Brooks will not tell you how to do that's just that's all there is to it he's not going to tell you Sorry. Okay, so oh my god I had to put a password on my iPad so when when it goes down it because my my kids were invading my iPad so now it takes me an extra 10 seconds to come up okay. And I had a question in from and I can't seem to get to it. Okay Jack someone's having problems with the heritage Radio Live Feed we fix that crap.

So right now No, no before. Oh, that's working. Very good.

Okay, dear Dave and CO Josh in Somerset, UK says I have to keep buying new cooking prose and one with the cable to a device so that I can put it in the oven. Because either the probe and or the device keep breaking. Can you please suggest a reliable make something with good reaction speed good range up to 200 See, that's 400 Fahrenheit for you Fahrenheit folk, and if possible, but not essential, a probe that's mildly resistant to water. So cleaning is made easier? No, they all suck. I've broken many of them. I've broken Taylor's I've broken polders of broken every single one of them I've ever used. They've all crapped out. I've used them to try and do a roast inside of a pot, the steam gets inside of their crib around the probe on around that cable, and they break and they die on me. Is anyone in this room had a good experience one of those sons of guns?

No, they suck. Yeah. So what do you recommend them?

Well either just keep buying a crap ton of them, which is not a good solution. Or I would suggest getting an industrial thermocouple. There, they're ruggedized the actual cases are ruggedized you can get like basically look like multimeters with like a rubberized outside, and they're pretty much impervious to whatever ails you. And then you get relatively cheap thermocouple probes that attach into them. You want to make sure thermocouple probes come in a wide variety of cable configurations, right and also head configurations. So you find that obviously, the fatter the thinner they are, the better their response time, but the more fragile they are. And also the more expensive they are typically, you want to avoid for oven use anything that has a complicated head or the micro like the ones that are using su V the hypodermic because the heads of those things aren't rated for high temperatures, and they'll burn out like they epoxies they used to put everything together on the inside of those heads, not meant to withstand the oven. That said, you get a good fiberglass cable insulated thermocouple probe. And it's good to 900 Celsius. Sometimes some of these like are minor Fahrenheit and Celsius. I can't remember probably, but like, but you can get cables that are withstand basically kills. And I've had thermocouple cables in my oven that have been in there for years, and my oven routinely gets up to 850 Fahrenheit tops out of my oven tops out at like 875 at this point Fahrenheit, or a little better. And I have embedded thermocouple probes that don't break. And I have air temperature probes that don't break. And I use industrial thermocouple. And the good news is if you find a good source, mcmaster carr is a fast source, but an expensive source. You can get them for, you know, like, like 1520 bucks, you can get waterproof ones just pay attention to the cable, you can make your own thermocouples, which I do, they're typically not waterproof, but they usually last for the application that you're doing. If you make your own probes by twisting the wires together, it's on the order of $1 per you know what I mean for that because you just buy lengths of the cable and make it as long as you want and get that get the connector. So that's what I recommend, but I've never had those the ones that they're using ovens are typically RTD their resistance, resistance temperature things. They break. They're just they just don't they break. They break all the dang time. They just don't seem to last. Yeah. Yeah. All right, very quickly. Tony, Tony herion from the mixing bar in Brazil writes in and this is last week, it didn't make it in last December, we started investing a little more in our cooking lab, we've been working with a conventional distillation of our own booze I'm glad you can do that. I can't do that here in the US of A the throw me in the jail or didn't want me to do this take away the liquor license. It's not even my liquor license is Sam's liquor license, and then everyone will hate me anyway. Not that they don't already hate me. Okay, but now we have a roll of AP soxhlet Sox it's an interesting extraction technique, which I don't have time to talk to you about right now. Maybe some other time I like soxhlet extraction, it's kind of old. People only don't do it lab so much anymore. We're