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.

Today's program has been brought to you by the International Culinary Center, offering courses that range from classic French techniques and culinary pastry and bread baking to Italian studies to management from culinary technology to food writing from cake making to wine tasting. For more information visit international culinary center.com. broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn, you're listening to heritage Radio network.org.

Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live every tuesday from roughly 12 to roughly 1245 on the heritage Radio Network broadcasting out of the back of Roberta's pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn. We're joined as usual with Mr. Cameron Lopez, how you doing? Good. Are you and the whole crew in the engineering rooms? Give a shout out? Yeah, we're here. Yeah. Okay.

You were right on time today. I know it, you know, an up at 12.

Maybe I'm just getting faster on the bike.

It's awesome. Yeah, maybe.

I feel like I'm getting less in shape. So I doubt that's the case. Maybe I actually left on time today. It's possible, Dad doubt it. Probably not. So anyway, the cooking issues crew and stash. And I along with Tristan Willie from our bar book or index. We're on the Jimmy Fallon show yesterday. For the second time, right? Yeah, second time. So it was a lot of fun. They put a picture of my kids Booker and DAX up with the, with their bartenders mustaches on, thanks to Anastasia who emailed them the picture. But they were a great crew. Right? Were a great crew. They were I made a chocolate drink for Questlove as well, which was a lot of fun. Anyway. Enough about us. Okay. William writes in I hate eating potato potatoes, actually like peeling potatoes. It's weird. It's like, you know how like, in every book about like, a, like a famous chef. Well, no, no, it's like for instance, okay, so like, ever read a Romans book? So the chef, no, no, anyway, you haven't just haven't read it? It's not that long. I mean, you could read it. I'm not

interested. I don't want to Why do you hassle of a ship? Well, because I was like, Oh, hey, Mark, go get us all the chef. And I was

like, yeah, so it was enough. Like, what?

I wanted to try to understand and commiserate with the chef's having been dating a chef. I just haven't gotten around to reading it.

Not only have you not no. Choose not to read a choose.

Chose to read 50 Shades of Grey. What's that about? Nothing? What is that? Some people will know to really read it. No.

What is it? What is 50 shades? What the hell? Why am I behind everything? What the hell? I'm like 80 years old. I don't know. I don't know what's going I don't know what any of the people are reading these days. I know nothing. Except about food technology these days. I guess I guess pathetic anyways, so you bought it was enough to buy it and be like, Hey, Mark, look, I own this book. Aren't I nice? They care. Yeah, but I don't want to read I'm not interested. Anyways. So in that book like they make a lot of hay over Thomas Keller liking to wash dishes as though it shows a sign that he's interested in all aspects of what goes on in the restaurant and the search for perfection. Not just you know that the finished cooking peppers, but everything from cooking dishes and scrubbing pads, not about really, I think he's just a cycle and likes to likes to scrub pots. It's like I like I like juicing limes and lemons, and I don't mind peeling potatoes. You know what I mean? It's just, it's like a Zen thing for me. It's not like because I care about the little things, which is also true. It's just I don't mind doing that freaking job. Cooks weird. Anyway. Back to the question. I hate peeling potatoes. Is there an alternative shortcut to peeling potatoes other than the blanche for 15 minutes, dunk in ice water and rub the skin off. I tried this technique with large russets. But it was quite messy and a pain in the petunias and feel that using a peeler would have been easier. Thanks, William. Well, William, you know, I've never actually used that technique for peeling potatoes, I peel all my potatoes with a white peeler. I mean, I just I mean, I can rip through, I can rip through. I've only really ever had to do like 20 pounds at a time though. So I don't know, if you're doing like a whole bunch of anything under 10 pounds, or even 15 pounds, you're going to be much faster. I think just busting out with a Y peeler. The only advantage I think of the blanch is if you're not going to soak them in water right away, after you peel them, I peel them and directly throw them into water. The blanching will probably kill the enzymes right at the surface of the potato, and, therefore stop the potato from discoloring. So if you weren't going to throw it into water right away, after you peel it, then maybe that Blanche would would help you on that. But I would just use a white peeler. If you're doing more than like 2030 pounds of these at a time. And you have space in your kitchen. They do sell for not that much money. nosiest use them in Sweden, actually, because the restaurants he used to work with in Sweden, it's like basically all they served were potatoes and herring and salmon. That was it. Potato staring. I'm just kidding. But that's not really though. And so they had these abrasive peelers and the way an abrasive peeler works, it's a drum. And it's got sandpaper on the inside on the bottom of the drum in a wavy shape, and the drum spins and you pour water into it. And the potatoes literally tumble around and, and produce like a potato peel sludge. And the longer you run it, the more crap that you get off of it. And that's how, like large larger restaurants that do a lot of potatoes sometimes get those, I think they're more common in Europe. And that's how potatoes are peeled in big potato factories abrasively. And then they'll also a lot of times use a high high pressure water jet to spray on the potatoes as well because that'll blast out any of the dark areas that are on a potato. So here's the other thing, right if you're going to blanch and and rub the rub this stuff off, you're still going to need some sort of a knife or a peeler to get rid of all the black spots that are on the insides of the potatoes. And you know, that's what this is another thing people who don't peel their potatoes beforehand. I mean, the problem with not peeling your potatoes beforehand, is that there are plenty of potatoes that look sound after you wash them, you know you scrub them and you wash them. But after you peel them you notice the black spot underneath. So if you're not peeling your potatoes before, you know you make french fries and stuff you didn't have to pick through all the french fries and worry about all the black spots right now. Anyway, my my two cents but Sorry, I couldn't. I didn't really help there. I think a lot of a lot of times when people are there peelings not as fast as they otherwise could be using a regular pillar. It's just because they're using a traditional straight pillar instead of the Y shaped pillar. In fact, the My favorite is and I feel like I'm shilling for these guys, because I also talk about their pressure cooker. I've never received a single thing from the Kuhn recon Corporation, but they're relatively inexpensive, and colorful why peelers work great, they cost like four bucks. And there's so much faster than the metal kind of more professional style while why peelers whose blade geometry I don't think is correct. Or any of the other expensive ones, the cheap plastic one. And they come in a bunch of different colors, which is nice because you'd be like your mind is the green one. It's the green one. You know what I mean? Yeah, I'd stay away from the serrated edge. peelers they're theoretically for soft peeling soft things where, I don't know. I've never had any damn luck with them. Natasha likes it for somebody she likes weighted look. You'd like to Serena peeler. Look. I do. But not there's no sort of functionality that you care about right now.

Gotta tweeted about the Fallon show. Oh, yeah. What they say most amazing thing about the Fallon appearance is cooking issues didn't drop the F bomb once.

Oh, someone must know

me. Someone tweeted in here. What's his name did Joseph Gordon

He dropped the F bomb. Yes, you I couldn't watch I was working. There's nothing to do nothing for you to do. You're sitting around in the in the fish room

up to you after

nothing to do. Tristan, I was sitting there prepping and stuff out during the during the with the producers. Oh, that's it I'll talk to you after and you wouldn't know because where were you not with me working with Tristan. Okay. After? Yeah right.

So it makes heritage radio better than Fallon will let you drop F bombs. I know but I don't know we appreciate that. Well, that's we had we had that met right in once and they said their kids listen.

Yeah, by the way. That's classic. Miss Dasha. For those of you that don't know her is to talk about something she was not even with me during the entire thing. She was working on email on the computer in the in the have these weird little rooms. They all have weird names. We were in the fish room. Right. And it had like all sorts of weird cereal boxes on the sidewall. But that's where that's where the stash was chillin most of the time. Right. Right. Right. Okay. Oh, and also from William. I've been catching up on older podcasts and and when you mentioned about not having the resources to buy certain things to test out. For the listeners, why not putting up a donation link on the site? I'm sure many of us are happy to donate. After all, you're giving us a wealth of info late in the game. That's a good idea. That is right. Yeah.

We started to look into that. listeners can donate to heritage radio on our homepage. Yeah.

But well that by us cooking equipment to test out for our readers know that it's funny, okay. Joe writes in amazon.com is advertising near voles, modern info Myhrvold at all Myhrvold at all Modernist Cuisine at home to be released on October 8. So what's the story? Is this just an edited version of the original? Or will there be new content? Can those of us that have the original safely give this a pass? Thanks, Joe, Listen, I gotta be honest, I didn't have time to get in touch with any of those guys. So I don't know, I haven't read any of the pre press on that. Like, you know, our heads have pretty much been in a hole because we got a lot of projects we're working on. So the outside world hasn't really been penetrating much. I don't know that they've I think it's probably a Redux of stuff that's in the larger book might have been represented somewhat, or changed. But I don't think those guys have had the time to do anything. We put it this way. If that crew is going to do a totally fresh thing, they're going to put as much energy into it as they put into anything else they do. And I don't think they've had the time to do that. So it's probably going to be pulled from the other one, but I'm gonna you know, if anyone else knows or wants to write in, I'm anxious to hear because I don't know. Okay. passing along this question. In my most recent article about the benefits of anesthetizing fish, lobsters and crabs for enhanced flavors, I was wondering if if I've ever tried doing the same with bivalves, and if so, whether it's made any difference in the flavor. Thanks, Craig. Okay, so we're talking about the recent three weeks old now, cooking issues posed on using anesthesia, specifically clove oil on lobsters, and crabs. And the theory is, is that if you anesthetize them before you kill them, they taste better, which is true, we've done that test many many times, and they taste cleaner, sweeter, they're awesome. And plus, if you should feel bad about throwing alive crustacean into a pot of boiling water, this will allay your nervousness somewhat because they don't they don't Twitch they don't move at all. They don't they just sink to the bottom of the pot, and there's no sort of reaction from them at all. So anyway, so I wrote about the technique of how to do that using clove oil that you get at at Whole Foods. Anyway, so plus, you know, all the benefits of just shoving a knife through them and taking out all of their ganglion and then and then and then boiling them problem with that being that you lose some of the juices on the inside of the lobster and so you lose some of its taste anyway. Question is, can you do that on bivalves? I don't know. I've never I've never tried to anesthetize A by A bivalve bivalve meaning. I would guess the specifically clams and and mussels or you know perhaps something like a welke or, or something else I got. It's not a bivalve. That's a uni valve. Right. Anyway, the sofa talking about mussels and clams, and oysters. Here's the problem clove oil water that you anesthetize things in has an aroma of clothes. And this is why when you're using clove oil, you have to be especially careful to not get it on your hands because it becomes impossible to find out whether anything's been contaminated because whenever you bring your hands to your nose to see what's going on. You smell clothes, when you're dealing with lobsters that are then going to get boiled, or you're dealing with fish that are going to get, you know, scrubbed and gutted, you don't the clove oil flavor doesn't come through because it's been diluted twice. Right? But like it's not really enough of it is not on the fish or the lobster or anything, so you can detect it. But in a bivalve where you have the worst like part of its juices are the fluids in which it is sitting, then I'm pretty sure you're going to detect the the aroma of clove. And so I don't think you'd be able to do a valid taste test between anesthetizing a lobster an oyster versus not. It's an interesting question. Now I've tried using gases to gas them open. Without much luck, you know Myhrvold, and Chris Young and those guys use a quick freeze with liquid nitrogen to shuck their oysters quickly to you know, kill them kill them quickly. I don't know how fast high hydrostatic pressure is, which is also used on oil. I've never actually tasted one of those oysters, it's killed and pasteurized with high hydrostatic pressure. So I don't can't tell you whether they taste good or they taste bad. But there's a lot of other effects other than not cutting open a living creature. And in that in that scenario, what I have done with and it's totally separate has nothing to do with Indonesia is I've put oysters is years and years and years ago, I would make flavored seawater using we would use for clams, we want to use chicken stock with bacon in it. For oysters, we used to use carrot juice and cardamom. And we would I would add aquarium salt back to it to get it to be just like the ocean and then I would have the oysters or clams. Drink the fluid, right, they would basically I would put them in this I would aerate it, I would you know, keep it at the temperature that the clams and oysters would want to feed that they would feed. And then when you shocked the oyster Oh, it'd be bright orange like so you'd have an oyster there in the shell, you'd shuck it and it'd be bright orange, and it would taste like carrots and cardamom. And that was a nifty trick. I haven't done that a long time I've ever done that before. It was before you were working with us, but and it's been a long, long time since I've done it but it's a fun. It's a fun little trick. Anyway, so that's the way it's worked out Greg anyway, you wanna take a break, let's take a break come back to Cooking new shoes.

If you want to be a great chef, you can't learn everything from within the walls of a classroom. That's why the French Culinary Institute has evolved into the International Culinary Center. When you come here you don't just learn basic culinary skills you come to understand and to feel the whole culinary world. You have to network, you have to observe the true meaning of world class performance. You have to intern at some of the world's great restaurants at the International Culinary centers campuses in New York, California and Italy. We will expose you to the whole of the culinary world, one that is evolving daily at a very high speed. The International Culinary Center offers a wide range of courses including culinary pastry and bread baking to Italian wine management, culinary technology and food writing. For more information visit international culinary center.com

The International Culinary Center right? Yeah. Anyway, back in cooking issues call in your questions to 718-497-2128 That's 718-497-2128 this one into Natasha, myself

real quick and the Milka says why the why peeler feel like I'm going to peel my hand somehow love traditional straight peeler?

Well, I don't recommend peeling your hand. That would be a mistake. It's all about Ailis here's the thing, right? watch someone who's adept at a wide pillar to different kind of a skill right from using it so but I know what you're for those of you that don't know we're talking about this pillar looks like a why That's why they call it a wide pillar. And if you're not used to using it, you what you feel like you're gonna get is like let's say you're holding a potato, you're holding a potato in the palm of your hand, and your thumb and your index are like on it right? And you're peeling down and then you're using your thumb and index to rotate the potato as the as the y peeler is going Shep Shep Shep Shep shot, and you do if you're not used to it, get the feeling that you're going to nick your thumb somehow. But I haven't, you know what I mean? It's just like, get gets getting getting used to it. But it's just, I mean, look at anyone who's really good with a Y peeler, and they're just much, much faster with it, I guess just because of the stroke. Now, what you don't get is that same feeling. So with a regular straight pillar, you're keeping the straight pillar kind of in between your four fingers in kind of like, in a I don't know, what would you call that kind of a palm I'm making? Like the comfortable Iron Fist. Yeah, no Black Power Fist. Yeah. But like, like, kind of like a kung fu like like, like palm slap thing. And you're using your thumb and you can pull the straight pillar towards you with a curl of your of your wrist, kind of like a snapping motion, but still not as fast is as a really adept person with a Y peeler. Another thing and I got a call we went second in a but with a with a Y peeler. Like let's say you're doing carrots, you put the carrot flat on a baking sheet. And then you just you just do this the Y period slash as you're rotating the carrot underneath you and the peels just go flying everywhere. Amazing. Try the why. Anyway, caller you're on the air.

Hi, how are you doing? Well, how are you? Good, your sounds great. So far, I'm really enjoying it.

I have a really silly question. Now I always try to like with my own whipped cream. And I don't know if it's because I'm buying ultra pasteurized, or I'm not whipping it at the right speed, but it's literally about two steps away from becoming butter. Maybe you know what I'm doing wrong?

Yeah, I think you're probably just whipping too long. So okay, usually when you're when you're whipping your own cream, right? You it's not going to be as hard or as stiff as the stuff that you know, that is commercial out of a out of a can or you know what I mean? Those guys Yeah, cuz those guys add a lot of stabilizer. So I would start with like a really cold cream get the highest fat content cream you can get. I've never done a lot of tests on ultra pasteurized versus not. But I can tell you that at the school they they use a non ultra pasteurized or regular pasteurized cream, which is hard to get in supermarket. And it really it tastes better. I mean, it tastes better. And the cream we get is also a very high fat content cream. So it all it also whips up quite nicely. If I mean if you want to cheat and you want it a little bit stiffer, stiffer, you could add stabilizers, I mean, and if you look at the label on on whipped cream, especially the ones that are trying to reduce the fat content, they use light cream, and they stabilize the hell out of those things. Okay, yeah, and that'll get it a little bit if you whip it even a little bit too much. What happens is is so cream is a is an oil in water emulsion, the continuous phase is its water and then if you over whip it right and then when you whip it the fat is basically you're forming like a foam and the fats at the at the layer with air. If you over whip it the fat starts to kind of agglomerate together and the emulsion starts to invert and if you go too long, obviously you get butter but first thing you get is that kind of grainy feel and starts watering down a little bit. The texture loses and you start getting a buttery taste to the whipped cream which is not what you want.

Yeah, yeah, I tried to make a peanut butter pie was like oh, this should be super duper easy. I'll just do it this way and it still came out like really good but it was like super thick and like not that aerated. I'm I got crap but I keep doing wrong.

Right you could fortify like so you look at traditional mousse recipes and they got their whipped cream and they're fortified with like a gelatin mix afterwards they're folded together and that'll cue something like that pretty stiff you know another C over whipping What else could be mean that's that's the that's the main thing and you know, obviously something that people I mean, I'm sure you know this already, but just to tell people when you're working with him Don't forget to add salt to it because it really pops up. Yeah, a little bit. Not a lot. You don't want to salty but it just really rounds out the flavor makes it makes it a lot better.

Oh wow. I never knew that. Well, thanks so much for your help.

No problem. Hope it helps. Yeah,

thank you have a good one.

You too. Alright, so it was it was it was like ranting about potato. Oh, the white peeler anyway, yeah. Okay. By the way, Jack, this one's for you. And for anyone out there listening wants to download the podcast. This is to everyone including indeed Jesus. This is from Kevin but remember indeed Jesus is no longer with us. He doesn't work our shift anymore made it sound like he died. No. Jesus is she You guys, and you're gonna get me in some big trouble. No, it's indeed Jesus hates this dosha that's the point. Yeah, that mean that's my best guess. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, first off is from Kevin. First off, enjoy the show and want to share a tip. For anyone who is on the Android and doesn't have an iPhone. You can download heritage radios RSS feed for the show into the Google listen app, and it will automatically download and sync all the episodes over the air. That's right. I did not know that it just mp3 is Yeah, I did not know this. It used to be a huge pain to download the episodes one by one and copy them over USB. So I hope this helps some folks. Number two, this is from Kevin still. I have the opportunity to give talks on food science for Australia's National Science Week in Melbourne in August although they pronounce it like Melbourne right and how do they pronounce it? I don't know. It's I can't do it. I can't do the Australian version of Melbourne the way they pronounce it. So I'm gonna say it like an American Melbourne. Anyway. I'd like to tailor the message to the ingredients and cooking equipment available. Down there ie in Melbourne. Do you have any experience working in Australia? And would you mind plugging my request to your Australian listeners? The best contact would be Kevin at science fair.org fair as in food FA R E keep up the inspirational work. Kevin, I do not have any experience in Australia. I've never been to Australia. If there's anyone out there that wants to fly cooking and she's down to Australia for any reason. We'll do it right. But I'm sure you know if anyone from the Breville Corporation is listening. They can hook you up with some equipment, right? I mean, like a Breville like owns up like like Australia's cooking implement universe, don't a pretzel. They also they love Momofuku. They love like, you know our partners Dave Chang, they love Christina Tozi Christina toesies. I think her her shop is basically constructed out of Breville Breville pieces of equipment instead of bricks because they have so much rebel equipment. True or False? Yes. Not mean honestly. I mean, it's like you know, it's an exam. I'm exaggerating. Anyway. Dave, Natasha and Jack by the way, it's it's I always pronounce pronounce your name properly, because I always mispronounce it as Deus Yeah, yeah, I say this Dasha. So people one syllable s. Yeah, it's one syllable s because I'm a Lazy, Lazy son of a bitch. All right. Tom Fisher writes in a Dave Nastasia and Jack. Hope you had a great Fourth of July, I've run into a snag. I've been making clarified fruit juices using your instructions for some time, and recently started using them to make flavored ice cream. The juices were not strong enough on their own. So I froze them and re melted them drawing off the concentrated juice. This worked well. But I got very inconsistent results as I have no way to determine the concentration of the juice. I remember you were mentioning a brix refractometer to measure the concentration of sugar and solution. Will this work for my application as well? Many thanks, Tom Fisher of hell yes, yes. That's the easiest question I've ever had to answer. Yes. Now, here's what you got to do, you got to figure out. So you want the sugar content of the ice cream probably to be on the same order of concentration as a sorbet. And I can't remember off the top of my head what a proper Brix concentration for a sorbet is, but it's on the order of I think 20 20% sugar or something like that, like, like 1720, so I can't remember. So what you're going to want to do is figure out what percentage of your recipe is, is is juice, right? And then figure out any other added sugar that you're going to add to it. And then you can calculate on a weight basis of your ice cream mix what the bricks because all bricks means is is percentage by weight that have a solution that is sugar. Okay, so you know, let's say your your mixture was going to be one quarter fruit juice, and it was going to be the only sugar that's in the in the recipe. Well, then you'd need a very high Brix, right, because you were looking for 20% of the thing to be sugar and you want to add, you know, only a quarter of it being juice, almost all of it would have to be sugar. But that said it's all doable, right. But what you need is you need a brix refractometer most of the ones that people buy are zero to 32 Brix, so they can only do from zero, well zero to 32% sugar and a solution. And that's fine for fruit juice and find for sorbet. But not fine if you're going to need to use something as concentrated as a simple syrup. Let's say typical simple syrup somewhere between 50 bricks normal or which simple syrup is going to be at like 66 bricks. So I use I use an electronic one that's a lot more expensive because I need to be very, very quick for the bar, but you can get a brix refractometer, that's zero to 85% breaks, which will take care of a lot of what you're going to do for about 40 $50. If you want you can buy two of the cheaper ones, one for the higher range and one for the lower range. The disadvantage of getting a single Brix refractometer that's an extremely wide range like zero to 85 is it's just not very accurate because it's hard to look into the refractometer and read the scale but you know they're not complicated. Have you use they're easy to take care of. I've only ever had one person break one. Me. But, but yeah, go ahead and get them and that's another one of those things. You know, if you ever need one, the needs are going to come up for it again and again. No one's ever said, Man, I wish I didn't have that refractometer you know what I mean? Okay. Okay, have some Twitter questions that are gonna take care of real quick before we go to our other commercial break at cooking issues. Have you ever run tests on centrifuges to clarify high density items like bean puree? If so, would it be efficient? Okay. Well, ya know, we've done a lot of work. Obviously, with nut oils. We're trying to get the nut obviously mean, only if you know me and have for years is it obvious, but we do a lot of work with nut oils, where we blend nuts. And we've done we've got a bunch right walnuts, pistachios, hazelnuts, Brazil, nuts, macadamia nuts, bunch of nuts, pecans, peanuts, which aren't nuts and blend them and then spit them in a centrifuge to extract the oil. And it's I wouldn't call it efficient, but it it is. It is delicious. I have spun tomato paste. And it's not efficient at all. But that tiny bit of of juice that you get at the top of the tomato paste after you spin it is is you tasted that right says that was good. You'd like that. It's incredibly inefficient, though. Well, here's for more inefficiency. Tony conigliaro, our buddy at 69, called Cobra grow, I'm going to see this week, I guess, is going to be in New York before tails, although I don't know when he where it tells the cocktail. By the way, next week, I'm probably gonna have to do that show from New Orleans. I gotta find out when my plane lands. He literally sticks whole olives in a centrifuge talk about talk about paste, and spins them and gets a ridiculously small amount of ridiculously delicious product. I've never done bean puree, your success is going to be based on two factors. One, how tightly bound is the water to the puree. And two, how much physical water is in the puree versus solids because the centrifuge at 4000 times the force of gravity is only going to have a certain amount of separating capability. So I guess the answer is not very helpful as it depends. Not very helpful. You can also try to use something that breaks the puree down if the puree is basically based on pectin, you can use a an enzyme to break down the pectin and increase your yield. It'll be at the expense probably of the texture of the pace. It's leftover because you would want to be able to use both. Yeah. Okay. At cooking issues, heritage radio, where to eat in Chicago, coming from Dublin, Ireland, first time in Shy Town, whereas interesting cheers. Well, unfortunately, I haven't been in a couple of years to Chicago. So I don't know what's happening anymore. I mean, obviously, for the kind of work that we do, you're going to want to go to Alinea. But you got to book up kind of well in advance. Right. And the problem is, is that a lot of the places that I really want to go in Chicago, I haven't gone yet like I haven't gone to aviary and I'm just not I'm not plugged in in Chicago anymore. Unfortunately. Because it's been it's been years and I'm loathe to recommend places that I haven't been yet. Right so is that fair? Fair, but I would like readers to or answer back on the Twitter answer me back on the AT AT cooking issues on the Twitter and get some recommendations for eating in Chicago. Okay. A Jackie wanna take one more commercial break?

Yeah, give me one second. All right.

718-497-2128 That's 718-497-2128 cooking issues.

is jack from Heritage radio reminding all listeners that we are a 501 C three nonprofit organization and you can donate to become a member today by visiting heritage radio network.or

You Hi. And welcome back, by the way, crazy guitar, right? Oh, yeah, that's Tim power going crazy. And he was a nerdy guitarist,

any any comments about the music from listeners on your end? No, nobody? No.

Look, it's like it's like a freak shows college band from 1991. They're like, Okay, we'll put up with it. I'm pretty sure what's going on maybe? Yeah, pretty sure. Although, again, like one of the best parts about being in the Fallon show is getting to listen to the roots play. Those guys are awesome.

Did you get to hang out with Questlove at all?

I mean, look, those guys are busy. I mean, the way the way it works is, you know, we I wanted to I wanted to do something with him. It's gonna be up by the guest on their blog on Thursday. But he likes chocolate drinks, and this is his quote, not mine. So I don't want to hear anything. He also like He's accused of all by all of his buddies of liking his words, not mine bitch drinks. And so you know, he likes he liked last time chocolate flavors. And he liked kind of drinks. It tasted lighter. So I wanted to make a drink. I want to make a drink for You for Him. That it was also about the album that came out a year or two ago he did with Booker T called the road from Memphis because obviously the bars name is Booker and DAX. My son's Booker. And you know, Booker T, and quest love and chocolate and beverage. So I made one and we did a little he and I did a little segment it's going to be on Fallon's blog. Or is it MBCs are 1000s and 1000s blog sometime later this week. So yeah, I got to hang out a little bit as I think he liked to drink he drank. He drank it.

I met him at milk bar once he was buying a lot of cookies. Really? Yeah.

That was he's he's a nice guy. Really nice guy. Yeah. Impressive fro in the real life very well more impressive, even in real life than it is on the on the television. Anyway, got a question in a really interesting one. And actually, I'm just trying to find it on my on my machine here from Mike. I've been reading a lot of Chinese cookbooks, and which is a good plan. I wonder which Chinese Cookbooks You like I gotta get the fuchsia Dunlop books. I don't have those yet. But always a good plan reading Chinese cookbooks. Some talk about the importance of seasoning walks. The general method is to heat up oil and or lard and some sort of Allium traditionally, garlic chives, but a combination of Skyn. And ginger is also recommended. They say that the heating process opens the pores of the metal. The aromatics permeate the metal and the whole process helps create a nonstick surface. Could you please talk a bit about seasoning a pan? Is it crap? Or is it something I shouldn't be doing? And if so, do you have a better method? Thanks, Mike. Excellent question. So the last time I spent a lot of time researching seasoning, in general, is when I did a post years ago on cast iron pans, and in general cast iron pans. And seasoning is not crap seasoning is actually important. And there's a slight debate in the community about what exactly is going on when you're seasoning a pan. I think pretty much for me the the accepted reason seasoning a pan is that you are creating, you put a thin layer of oil and then or fat and when you heat it, the fat is breaking down and polymerize thing and forming a basically a polymerize oil film on top of the pan, it's binding with the pan and it's that surface that is nonstick. Okay. And also, you know, black, you know, you have a there because it's black, or it's brown. And it's the same sort of reaction that happens in oil paint when oil paints dry, right, they use oil paints, they use specifically something called a drying oil because it polymerize is and forms this kind of solid network. If you've ever seen vegetable oil that's spilled on a surface or been allowed to stay on a surface for a long time. And it forms that yellow gunk, right and stuff you know, I'm talking about that yellow gunk that is partially polymerized oil. And so that's what's going on and it works now there's a there's a another group that thinks it's a different kind of oxidized iron that's the same it's what's it called magnet magnetite or whatever it is that is the another form of iron oxide. It's not rust that's protective. And is a similar one that they use when you're blue in guns blue you know blue steel for blue and guns similar sort of thing. I don't think that's the case. I think it's a polymerize oil. Now in a pan when your seasoning, a couple of things are important. First is that you want to i A lot of people debate whether or not a particular kind of oil is more or less imported. I don't really think it's that big of a deal. What you want to make sure of is that you don't put a thin a sick, sick, sick gloppy layer of oil on it when you're seasoning it. And the reason is that if you do, it's going to form thicker layers and those layers will partially polymerize. But they're never going to be as tough or as uniform, as lots of thin layers built up. And if you if you and you'll see this, if you let a thin layer thick there, when you start when you start scraping it down with a spatula, you'll, you'll it'll dig into it and pieces of the seasoning will flake up and that's not considered good. So that's why there's a lot of rubbing with paper towels. That's why when you're seasoning a pot in the oven, they turn them upside down so that any oil that is free that's not been wiped around enough drips off of the pan before it gets to polymerize and forms kind of Google crappy spots. All right. So I mean the classic technique is multiple coatings of oil in an oven that is hotter than frying temperature, so like for 50 I usually use something like that. Or like if you're seasoning a griddle I can season it directly I can even season pans on a flame as long as you don't heat them up too much because you know you'll you can burn the seasoning off of a pan if you if you put it at like 650 or self clean cycle in an oven you can burn the seasoning off of a pan of I don't know the exact temperature now the The interesting thing about the the the onions alliums when you're seasoning a wok and I looked into this before I get into the seasoning of the allium with with the wok, let me say this. I don't have a lot of experience, because another thing I was interested in was when question came in, is it you know, what's the difference? Is there a difference in cooking in cooking capabilities or style or field between a traditional hand hammered walk, which is made by taking a sheet of steel and hammering it into a walk shape, or a spun walk where basically they take the disk and press it between two wooden chucks and and spin it fast and then use a stick to push the walk down into a walk shape, or a stamp walk which is basically just you know, a big hydraulic press boom stamps out the stamps out the walk. And I don't know if there's a difference and I wasn't able to find any sort of difference on line. Now there is a possibility and you mentioned in your question, porosity, and I think it is no one as I don't remember it because it has been a long time since I researched but I don't think that I don't know what the difference is in porosity between different things. But I will say this, the surface of the pan does make a difference in how something works when it cooks. And let's go back to regular cast iron pans which I have a lot more experienced with modern cast iron cookware that is produced is basically straight from the cast. So if you look at the surface of a cast iron pan, it's got a little bit of hard to say like you know I'm talking about little rough sandpaper you look to it. And I don't like that, right. That's always got that little bit of a rough feel. Some people think that's going to actually enhance the nonstick notice because it decreases the actual area of contact of the food with the pan, which therefore less area to stick. That's why certain nonstick pans have those little dimples in the bottom I think it's horrible idea. The pans I like were sanded to relate to show a bare metal surface at the bottom something that they called polishing but you could literally just take like a sander or a grinder to get that kind of sandpaper that sandpaper feel finished off the bottom of it. And those things take seasoning like a mother and they come out like a black piece of glass. They're so slick and and my cast iron that is you know, at least 50 years old that was made that way is the is the cast iron in my place that is the best in terms of non non stickiness. It's just it's great. And another thing by the way back to walks when you're looking at a walk some people worried about using a metal spatula with their cast iron Don't be worried about it. In fact, with a walk you're always using a cast iron it actually helps to knock a little bit if you have a good seasoning on it and using something metal will help to knock little bits that were that will stick off and build up on your in your products. Don't worry about that. But the interesting part of your question and something I hadn't thought about was the reaction of the chives or garlic chives with the pen. And I don't think that it's horse hockey. I think that there's something to it but I will because I watched a couple of videos of people seasoning walks online. Here's a couple of things first. First of all, most people don't cook with a cut with carbon knives anymore with knives that other words that will stain that aren't stainless I have a couple of my house because I happen to like them Every one who has a carbon steel knife one that you know will rust will will tell you that when you're cutting an onion, that onion will taste bad, especially if there's if it's not properly. Like, you know what I got a quick call. I'll take the call and then I'll go back to onions and knives and watch these because it's super interesting, at least to me, hopefully to somebody else. Caller you're on the air.