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Hello, and welcome to cookie issues coming to you from the back of Roberta's pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn on the heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from roughly 12 to roughly one calling to question is 27184972128 that's 71849721 to eight, all your questions, cooking, tech cooking non cooking questions about Natasha maybe who knows all welcome. joined in the studio as usual witness dosha hammer Lopez, and Joe is all alone in the booth today, Jack so lonely. Jack just got back from Bandura. So he's taking it easy. I'm sure he has a lot to recover from. Yeah. All right. We'll hear from it. Maybe next week. Maybe Jack will call in if he's listening. Yeah, what are the odds? Okay, got some questions. Oh, by the way, amazing stuff before we get into the questions. The Museum of food and drink Mofaz did its inaugural explosion of the puffing gun on Sunday. We did a test puff because our graphics team labor, Ryan and wioth amazing fellows are filming a Kickstarter campaign for us because we are going to kickstart the this late summer's exhibit of the puffing and for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, back in the day, starting in the I guess just around the turn of the last century, around 1900. They developed a technique for puffing grains where you seal the grain in a in a sealed kind of gun and you heat it and as you heat it in a sealed container that pressure increases dramatically but the liquid can't boil off because As it sealed inside of a container like a pressure cooker, but instead of going up to 15 psi like a pressure cooker, it goes up to like 180 psi 200 Psi, then you release the pressure all of a sudden, Bo, all of the grain instantly puffs as all of the water instantly vaporizes off. And there are various machines that are used for this nowadays that are small, but the museum wanted to get one that was actually used designed by Kellogg and is still made by the Puritan Manufacturing Corporation in Omaha, Nebraska. So we got one of these large machines that takes I think, 18 pounds of grain at a time or 18 or 20 pounds of grain, seven feet long, big machine. And we fired it for the first time on Sunday and didn't really have an idea kind of how kind of much of a poof there was going to be coming out of it. But in a stash unfortunately had to miss it. But I will just say that everyone involved had chunks of rice stuck in in their hair, that rice was sprayed all over heritage. All over the heritage headquarters was like, just everywhere. It was just amazing. Like, let me just say, first of all, you should find the Kickstarter when it comes up. And second of all, no one is going to be disappointed when they come visit the puffing gun in outdoor venues in New York City later this fall. later this summer. It's just it's just a crazy piece of equipment and super duper fun. And we have a picture actually follow mo fad the museum food and drink. They now have their Twitter up at mo fed on Twitter and you can see a picture of the inaugural puff inaugural puff it's pretty amazing picture right? It's amazing. I mean, I can't believe like stuff flying everywhere. It's like it's like you know Star Wars like you know, the Millennium Falcon going into hyperspace, that photo looks kind of like that. Good stuff. Good stuff. Okay, questions in. Alvin Schultz writes in carbonation question, how do you control the bubble size in different cocktails? Topo Chico versus champagne? Is it a question of psi Topo. Chico, by the way, is a Mexican mineral water. Right? I think so. You drink that stuff in LA? No. Like hell no. Hell no. Remember half Mexican. So she's allowed to be racist against her own kind, I guess? I guess not really. It's not really cool. Right? So anyway, so I don't really I've had it, but I don't remember the bubble kind of quality of Topo Chico Champagne is known obviously, for you know, the finer the champagne, the smaller the bubble size. However, it's fairly simple. In this respect, the bubble size of any given drink is directly related to the pressure of co2 that you put into it and the temperature at which you serve it. So basically how fast co2 is leaving. So the more pressure you carbonate to the bigger the bubbles are going to be forgiven liquid, that the colder you serve it or the warmer you're serving, rather, the larger the bubbles are going to be forgiven liquid because co2 is going to be leaving it faster. Okay, so if you want smaller bubbles, you carbonate to a lower psi downside is it also doesn't take us as carbonated, right. If you want larger bubbles just carbonate to a higher psi downside sometimes you can get over carbonated now. Now remember I said for a particular liquid, so whatever the alcohol content is, is going to increase is going to affect both the bubble size and how carbonated it tastes. The higher the alcohol content for given pressure, the less carbonated it's going to taste and the smaller the bubbles are going to be. For also, what is in the drink besides alcohol can vastly affect the bubble size. So in Champagne, that's actually done method Shemp and was the product sits during a secondary fermentation on its leaves. And those the yeast products break down over time and create the the liquid actually becomes such that the bubbles are smaller, so the bubble size will be smaller for champagne that is aged versus champagne that is unchanged and definitely champagne. So the longer you aged, the smaller the bubble is going to be. Also, they're smaller than if you were to take a base one that hadn't been re fermented and carbonated so it's what's in the product is going to determine the bubble size. how cold it is and the pressure. Yeah. Good. Good. Dave climbin writes in back on Father's Day, Happy Father's Day Dave question for the show are for here. Homemade jalapeno cheddar Doritos. I have adsorbent M way and cheddar powder. And also he wants to know the best breakfast in Williamsburg or Manhattan. I don't eat breakfast out. So what about Manhattan? Get free breakfast out? Not really. No, no. Don't make it. No. Joe. You breakfast out. Now he's gone. Sorry. I'm here. I generally do not. Yeah, Roberto is supposed to have a nice brunch. Right? What about brunch does you gotta get brunch? No, I eat a home for the first meal. You know what? I'm gonna tell you what if you're in Manhattan, and it's not a sit down thing. I mean, Barney Greengrass surgeon king ever been there does. Its Upper Manhattan, Barney Greengrass surgeon King gets like Old School New York and you You get their omelet with the fish in it, but you got to go to rest and daughters and get like some amazing lox and bagels get their amazing cream cheese go out have a picnic it's nice out. I mean Roberta's I haven't really haven't I don't think I've been here for brunch, but they're supposedly they have a good brunch, right? Yeah. Who else you can think of anyone? No, that's totally not really Yeah, I don't eat out for the morning this out. You don't need it at all. I mean, unless they have a you have a disgusting look on your face. Usually friends choose like this brunch places that are just bad and expensive. That's your favorite combination. Bad and expensive, right? Also, there's hardly ever a reservation so you're waiting forever. Yeah. And you could already be eating. Yeah. And you're starving. First thing in the morning. Yeah, and you're starving and like if you're gonna go out you want that Mimosa but no one else at the table is drinking. Yeah.

And then you don't want to be the dick because you know, they're gonna split the check and you don't want to be the day. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you hate that. Right. So that's the look, I could sense all of that just from the you can't see the look on her face, but I can sense all that. Okay, back to the Doritos. Alright, so here's the trick. I called Piper on the way in Piper Kristiansand, who's our kind of coding snack chips with powders kind of fellow right? He's our guru on that. He says that Doritos are actually applied not as a powder but as a slurried spray if you're not sure whether it's an oil based slurry or water based slurry, that they then dry out later, but they make a slurry and spray it onto the chips which is why they get such an even coating over such a fine thing. Piper typically when he's making slurries does about 40% oil by weight with spice mixtures that he's going to put in but your results may vary. Here's what you definitely don't want to do. You don't want to add and Zorba to that thing, what you want is in fact the into cheddar powder that you have is a lot of maltodextrin already, which is an anti caking agent and what's allowed them to spray dry it and that's gonna get in your way, too. But here are the basic ingredients for Doritos. Piper did some research when I was on the train over here they are cheese powder, they add milk powder and whey proteins because they want to be cheap and don't want to add extra cheese powder you can just add more cheese powder if you want. Or if you want to be more kind of milky. You know without more cheesy flavor, you can add milk powder and whey protein powder. Okay? whey powder rather. Also tomato powder if you want it read right and to get that tomato powder, then they add various pepper powder though you could source all this stuff by the way, pepper powder, so you want jalapeno The problem is I couldn't find, I don't know if they have a source of freeze dried jalapeno which you could just pulse. Otherwise, you're gonna have to just get like slice very thin and dry them out and then pulse them and then maybe rehydrate them or this is why Piper says maybe incorporate them into a slurry or get other forms of powdered peppers probably both sweet and, and spicy. And then salt, probably a healthy chunk of salt, and everyone's favorite ingredient especially anastasius MSG. And so then you wouldn't want to mix all those things together. And don't add any extra bulking agent because these things are gonna be bulky enough. Now you could either take the fresh chip as a first thing like fry it, pull it out, like shake it off a little bit and then shake it with the powder in a core container but you're gonna get clumps. Piper thinks the clumps are coming probably from the maltodextrin but it's hard to say or you could try spreading them out and then making the oil slurry and spraying it with a sprayer The trick is you gotta get a sprayer that can spray powders I don't have one so we don't do that Piper's tried doing a slurry just was shaking but it was kind of uneven coverage so you might have to stay with powders but stay away from the absorbent because you're not trying to absorb oil off of it. You're trying to spread a powder over top of the chip. Yep. Okay. The other John Stuart writes in that that's so it's what he calls himself the other Jon Stewart. Jon Stewart doesn't write us well you know what you know what the other John Stuart you You are our real John Stuart the other like the what everyone else considers the real John Stuart is the other John Stuart for us right yeah, right about Rice hammer Dave and the boys are just the boy today. Thank you for the popcorn advice the other week I ended up finding a decent youth popcorn machine on Craigslist for 125 bucks worked great for family outdoor movie night Craigslist. Do you got Are you crazy shopper used to me? Yeah, but you mainly for apartments or for stuff? Both? Did you sell stuff on Craigslist? Do you like those people? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've never been a big Craigslist guy. Sure. Get into that because I'm a big auction guy on eBay guy. I'm so used to eBay that I gotta get used to the Craigslist, the whole kind of like where they don't necessarily call you back. So I was like, that means they already sold it. I'm like, Well, why don't they want to take it off the listing, but they just don't do that. So I'm not into that many that the starship comes from the generation where it's just like it's whatever. It's free flow. Hey, man, maybe they sold it. Maybe they didn't. They don't want my money. They don't want my money. You know? Whatever. The question I have for you today is about sticky rice, which I cook pretty regularly and it's glorious stuff. I take a white glutinous rice which by the way, has no gluten as we all know, rinse it soak in for a couple of hours and steam it and by the way, that is the traditional technique. You steam sticky rice traditionally, it's not how I cook it anymore. But that's the trician The way and the pre soak gets that kind of water and get it started and the steaming you can steam it through without any sort of agitation and it doesn't kind of wash the awesomeness off of it and so it stays sticky and awesome and shiny and it looks great. Anyway, yeah, it isn't really good way to cook. I mean, come on. It's the way to cook. Stick around, let's be honest. Okay. I've wondered if there's some way to do with brown rice for both the nutty flavor and the purported health benefits. My one experiment in this regard was a miserable failure of mixing white glutinous rice and brown rice cooking similarly ie soaking and then steaming, it didn't stick and the brown rice never cooked through. Do you see a way thanks, John Stuart. Okay, first of all. First of all, if you haven't already tried this, you need to go out and this is a separate has nothing to do with what you just asked. But you need to go out and buy some black sticky rice or Thai black sticky rice or whatever the black glutinous rice, there's a number of different things they call it but it's it's a long green sticky rice. So it's already unique there and they don't mill the outside so it's got and they end the brand layer is black. And when you cook it, it kind of turns purple. And it's it doesn't stick together. But what's awesome about it is the inside of it has that gooey texture of sticky rice and the outside still has some like snap from the hole on the outside. And it's typically used for sweet recipes, but I use it all the time. Or I used to use it all the time. Because I just think it's awesome. I love it it also if you cook it, overcook it dehydrated it puffs and leaves kind of a black puff thing with a white thing coming out of the inside and puffs extremely well. So black sticky rice if you haven't already tried it. You're gonna love it everyone who tries it loves it. And very few people I know use it for as traditional dessert, you know, applications but like most people I know just like they just end up loving it. I know I do. Okay, here's the thing. My rice cooking has gone we downhill. You know, since the past 10 years, basically because about 10 years ago, I was given the most butt kicking at the time. I think there's higher levels now. Zojirushi induction neuro fuzzy rice cooker. And that sucker is so awesome that it can cook fairly good sticky rice just by pushing a button and letting it go. Well, I was like So wait, Jonathan, I have a caller on the air. I don't want to lose him. I'm gonna finish your question. So stay tuned for rice cooking. And I think for a traditional steaming solution to your problem after this call our caller you're on the air.

Hey, Dave, Natasha and Joe, this is salmon queens. How are you

doing? All right, how's Queens doing?

Queens is great. I have questions about cocktail cherries. And I know you're I know you're allergic to them, which is a tragedy but hoping you could help me out. Okay. So chiefly I'm concerned with storage and firmness. I've been doing cocktail cherries every year with sour cherries from the Green Market. And I use a recipe from the New York Times where I heat up Maraschino liqueur and add a splash of almond extract and pored over the pitted cherries in the jars and put the jars in the fridge and two weeks later, they are delicious.

Is that Toby's recipe by the way? What's that? Is that Toby's recipe?

It very well maybe I don't remember it's just in my files. But my first question is I'm assuming that I need to store it in the fridge. But I've wondered if the sugar in the liquor or the alcohol level because it's about 6060 or 64 proof. If that inhibits mold formation or other nastiness? I mean, can I store it outside the fridge at at room temperature?

What's the total weight? I mean total weight of cherries for weight of alcohol?

Gosh, it's probably it's probably I would say about a about a four to three or four to one ratio with cherries to alcohol. But I basically just fill up I fill up a pint jar of a pint mason jar with cherries and then just cover them with the alcohol.

I mean the question on yeast and mold is strictly comes down to the final proof of the product. You know what I mean? If you're if you're if your product is, you know, well above 2020 25% Then you're inhibiting a Seto factor you're inhibiting inhibiting. You're inhibiting I think most yeas I mean this is off the top of my head. I would think although trying to think of what there's a bunch of reactions going for like and they have How long do they stay firm when you leave them out? Why do you want to leave now just you don't have room in your fridge?

Just to save to save storage space I mean I think keep more or less indefinitely in the fridge. I have some that are two or three years old that are that are still fantastic and no signs of mold or anything.

Well, I'll tell you they haven't killed me yet. I'll tell you this. My my stepfather's grandfather in about 1920. Put cherries in high proof brandy. And they aren't stored in the fridge. They're stored in. They're stored in the in the basement, in in my stepfather's father's basement. He's now 9394 They're in his basement and they're still good.

Did they do they can those are those? Nope. Are the models vacuum sealed or no?

Just a bottle anyway in a mason jar and then they pull them out and they're still three left. I haven't had one since I was probably you know 1312 13 It knocked me on my butt. But at the time is still you know, it's still good to go. Another thing you might want to do if you want to experiment with extremely firm flesh ones, is hit them with a little Novo shape. Let's soak them for a while in Novo shape and calcium just prior to the alcohol soak, and see whether or not they cuz I haven't I haven't run the test because you know, I can't eat them. They the old Italian way is that you leave the you clip the stems, but leave the stems you leave the stems in and they say that that is what keeps them from going mushy. I don't know if that's true or false. I mean, and now people do that just so that they have the stem and the cocktail, but I don't know, what's your experience been with that? Are you a stem on person or stem? Ah,

I'm usually a stem off person, because I just just throw them, you know, throw them in the bottom of Manhattan and, you know, the stems given the way and I don't want people to choke on them. But yeah, that was my next question was actually going to be about the firmness because you know, the Luxardo brand cherries are really just kind of meaty. And you know, mine well, they taste great. After two weeks in the in the in the liquor, they get kind of flabby, and I was just wondering if there was some sort of additive, you know, I could use to preserve the texture. So it's, you call it Novo Chem

Novo shape, which is no time that's being sold by you, it's you could buy it now monitors pantry, I think they carry it now. You know, you can test it, but it requires extra calcium to work. And you could also just try adding calcium, and that's going to firm it up to the calcium helps the pectins crosslink. And when the pectin is crosslink, then they the thing stays firmer, doesn't break down. Novo shape is an enzyme that actively crosslinks. The stuff in the presence of calcium so just accelerates that there are it's called pectin was affected methyl esterase is the enzyme and it there are natural ones in the in the fruit that will continue to work. But you can just you know jacket with that the one issue with it is that unlike the pectinase enzymes that we use to break down fruit pulp, I don't know how Novo shape responds to alcohol concentration. So I know that I know that the pectin X Ultra SPL pectinase that I use works fine. In liquor. I don't know about Novo shape. You know, it'd be nice to run some experiments. Maybe you know, I can't I've been so strapped recently, I haven't had the chance. But the guys that goes in there might even have like a protocol for it. Because I'm pretty sure they use stuff like that to do the cherries. And in absence of that any sort of added calcium is going to help you.

Okay, I think I'll I think I will soon as the the very brief Secretary season starts I'll give it a whack myself. And I'll put the results up on cocktail. Yeah, and thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. You didn't say was that Sam ASAM. Okay, so, John, Stuart back on rice. So here's the daily. So the rice cooker. First of all, if you don't already own those urushi or equivalent, like super rice cooker, they're, they're just freaking they're just, they're just awesome. But so what it does is it just controls the temperature very accurately use a pre measured amount of water. So unlike steaming, where you keep steaming it until it absorbs enough water for it to be perfect. You have to pre measure the amount of water and they have a line for sticky rice and whatnot. But the good news about these rice cookers is that they can cook mixed Rice's fairly effectively because they just wait for everything to absorb the proper amount. And then they click out for instance, I today cooked white rice, regular crappy white rice on the brown rice setting of my rice cooker this morning for like an hour and a half. And it was a little more blown out than normal, but was pretty much fine. So you might be able to get away just using like the semi brown setting, or even maybe the sticky rice setting. But I will try to send me brown maybe have one of those cookers with mixed rice and get it the other thing is, is that you're never going to get stickiness out of the brown rice. Right. So you need to have enough sticky rice to to have it stick together. Even though the brown the brown rice is always going to be inhibiting on your stickiness. It's always going to be ruining it's always gonna be like kind of, you know, a fly and you're sticking ointment so to say because, you know it's not going to provide that stickiness, but the actual accurate answer to do it your traditional way is is pretty simple. And here it is ready. Do your do your soak, do your soak Adoke whatever you're going to do on the sticky rice unfortunately don't have times because I didn't I didn't have any sticky rice. I couldn't run a quick test. Do your soak. Then before you steam the sticky rice, boil the brown rice in copious water, right like it's pasta right now you're gonna want to boil it for anywhere between 10 and probably 25 minutes depending on how much more steaming time it's going to take in with the sticky rice. Okay, then, after you parboil the stuff, don't let it cool down. We're not doing a retro graded parboiling thing we drain it like it's pasta start mix it in with your sticky rice and steam as as usual. Now the major very trouble here that's going to change is how much you pre boil the brown rice. Before you start steaming it. I can't say I would start if, if the brown rice last time you did it was close to being done, I would boil it for maybe eight minutes, 10 minutes somewhere in there. The hard thing is, is that brown like rice is going to cook a lot faster in copious boiling water because it can absorb water a lot faster than when you're doing typical absorption methods that don't have a lot of extra water around. You'll know like everyone knows when you cook beans or when you cook rice, that the last little bit of cooking is the hardest part to get right stars when you're making like ants because there's not as much free water around to get back into your product. So you don't might it might only take like five minutes of a pre boil or eight or 10 I don't know. And then mix it in steam it that should work. What do you think? Good. She's like, I don't care. All right, you wanna go to our first commercial break, coming back with Google News?

This is Chris Young co author of Modernist Cuisine, and co founder of chefsteps.com. We've just launched our free short course on verification, a modernist technique that can imbue a flavorful liquid with the appearance of being solid, a culinary illusion that's broken when the spheres burst with flavor as they're eaten. Our free course offers helpful step by step demonstrations of reverse, frozen, reverse and directs verification. We also explore the science behind verification so that you can go beyond our recipes, and create your own to surprise and delight your family and friends. And as always, at ChefSteps you get the support of a friendly community of experienced cooks, and world class chefs who will answer your questions. If you're interested in learning modernist cooking techniques. If you want more from the creative team behind Modernist Cuisine, and if like us, you're a fan of Dave Arnold and cooking issues, then we think you'll find a lot you'll like, sign up now@chefsteps.com

Like Chris busting out in view. It's a good word, right? Yeah, it's great and nice. Nice. Go check out ChefSteps are good friends. It wasn't that good people that the people know them longtime good people. Okay. Oh, by the way, this weekend. I went up to Riverside Drive. Fest and friends up there up in 100 and 50s. You know if you ever been up there says yeah, you've ever gone under the under the George Washington Bridge. There's a little red lighthouse. Yeah. When I was a kid, I used to go there. But as a kid I didn't. I didn't know any better. So I went there. And the entire riverside park over there is nothing but blue. Okay, there are other plants. There's a lot of oaks and stuff like that. But the three things that struck me were so many mulberry trees are completely in season right now. So many different kinds of shad slash serviceberry trees almost pretty much in season right now. And eight boatloads of poison ivy like so much poison ivy like so much poison ivy, but the good news is that the mulberry trees and the service berries are not in the poison ivy, so you don't need to ruin yourself to get these things. But the really sad part about it is is that I when I was there, I saw no one, no one gathering the mulberries or the service berries, and I you know, me and my crew, we picked a couple of quarts of mulberries, you know the red ones, and made a delicious pie. I made a cook myself a pie on on Father's Day, but mulberry pie but delicious. And then I started noticing there's so many mulberry trees around New York. And so I've now started sampling them and it turns out they're incredibly variable in quality, like like astoundingly variable and quality like some are almost inedible, they're crap. And some of them are amazing with the thing that the thing that makes it really great mulberry is a no kind of like not to muskie off flavored, although I like a little bit of musky mulberry flavor in there. But enough sweetness and also enough acidity. A lot of like when the mulberries are very ripe. They kind of lack acidity and they're kind little flabby and flat. So you have to taste all your mulberry trees around you. And now is the time if you live in New York where the upper bounds of and taste them. So the interesting is that over there, there's here in the United States, our native mulberries, the red Mulberry, morus rubra, right, which is can be very delicious, but the problem is, is that they imported these white mulberries Morozova. Which, which the good news about them is that that's what the silkworms eat when they're doing the silkworm stuff. But silkworm as you can tell if you've been to the United States, we don't have a giant silk production here. So that whole silk worm thing didn't take off. But these these freakin white mulberry trees now like a white mulberry stars, they're like a little more vegetal. Like they're all right. I mean, like, they're no kind of they're no, they're no more rubrum you know, I'm saying, but the, the problem is, is these these white mulberry freaking things a hybridized like lunatics. They're just like they hybridize with our, with our native mulberry trees, and they produce all of these like weird crosses, some of which are delicious and some of which are bad. And so you just have to go and and also even within just straight up, you know, red mulberries or white mulberries the tastes are incredibly different than some fool has developed fruitless mulberry trees, which is like I can't even I can't even describe I can't there are no polite terms to describe kind of what I think because Oh, the mulberry tree is so messy crap on you for like two to three weeks a year that the mulberries are coming off the tree. It's like it's like the most awesome the first of all, Margaret, they're they're beautiful trees. I can see why you would want one but if you don't want the fruit just don't park your car under it. You don't I'm saying jerks. Jerks? Yeah. Anniversary. Oh yeah. 18th year anniversary. Good. I had some leftover pie on that. Last night. What did I cook I cooked I what I cook I cook craps out. My wife likes crab salad. Like that's one of our big like, and she loves pineapple crab salads. I made her pineapple crab salad and some salmon. But Dave Did you know There used to be a mulberry tree on this very block. Did you eat Did you partake? I used to all of the time until they built the they built a parking lot for the for at the end right next to Roberta's. And this would you know just walk by and you could just you know pull down a branch pull some berries off and be on your way sons of bitches. When did they knock it down? It was probably two or three years ago at this point. But when I first moved in around here, and it was a sad day when I noticed it was gone. That sucks. Yeah, bummer. That sucks. So you know when you're gonna catch when you're gonna get mulberries just like don't wear clothes that stain because the suckers are super fragile and they're gonna break out Yeah, your hands right? Even if you just get a couple they're gonna stay in the hell out of your hands. You're gonna look like like a vampire to like a blood all over yourself. Oh, I know, Dax. When he was eating on me. His whole face was all encoded and sprayed and mold reduced but away it's worth it. You know what I mean? So you know there's a couple on up near we had some yesterday stars right near Cosmo know where we went for lunch? Yeah, they're really good. The ones by my by the parking lot near my house, real spitters real spinners. But I wish we still had the one from Roberto. It wasn't it wasn't a Roberta's person who knocked it down. Was it? I don't think so. I think it's for that there's a parking lot for the wanton factory that's also down the street. I think it's has to do with that. Yeah. I can't imagine that the rubbers people would knock down the Mulberry. Yeah, that'd be crazy. That would be absolutely antithetical. Yeah. Because they could they could just be making pies left and right. Yeah, exactly. very local. You know what the thing is, like, I'm not like a, like a local forger by any means compared to people who actually are local foragers. But I mean, that stuff is delicious. And it's right there. It's so depressing to not see people eating it. Yeah, free food, free berries, free food, right. You know, like, if you like if you live See, see the problem is that people aren't used to branching out of their normal what they eat what they eat, you know? So like a tree plan. Oh, wow. Yeah, I didn't know. Like when I used to go to Arizona all the time because my inlaws lives in Arizona, there's all this free free citrus on the street and no one eats it because it's sour but it makes great lemonade there basically are marmalade and they're sitting there rotting because no one wants to free fruit. But if Balder was going to sell you that fruit at you know x, you know for whatever, then you'd be like, Oh, that's great. People are done. Not you guys, not listeners. People. Okay. Tom Fisher Ilana Kuhn recon follow up. It's probably a strong before. Didn't need them. I just meant they should worry our listeners love you. Wherever. Okay. Tom Fisher followed up with his tune recorder Matthew. Remember, Tom was having some trouble with some leaking of steam around the valve on his Kuhn recon pressure cooker. And I had a couple other people write in saying that they'd had similar problems that maybe there was a QC issue for a while because mine never did that. You know, mine never did that. Anyway, so couldn't recon wrote him back. And here's what Gil stroupe from Kuhn recon did. Thank you. This is to to Tom, thank you for providing the additional information about where it was leaking and whatnot. It is normal to have a slight hissing coming from your valve. As long as it is coming up to pressure and not leaking any water from the valve your pressure cooker will work as it should. Please let me know if you have any additional questions regard Gil strips that are not owning it, owning it. I'm sorry about that, Tom. You know a little bit of steam that remember we talked about steam coming out of the pressure cooker and the flavor loss in a pressure cooker because of the steam coming out. You got the ones that actually vent steam vent a lot of steam, they're like the whole time and you can see steam coming out. And I think that you know, small amounts of steam coming out probably won't have as much effect but that's probably a little solace to you. Okay. William Magee writes in we need an episode after him when he became a member about dehydrators and vacuum machines. I'll do I'll do it in reverse. I'll do man I'll do it. I recently bought an Excalibur five tray dehydrator and been using it like crazy good call it's calibers, good dehydrator, dehydrating things like do you like when people say herbs instead of herbs? Or do you hate that? Like herb? You don't like herb? No, no offense. Anyone out there named herb? No, dude. Herb is okay. That herbs okay, but not herbs that you eat. Okay, so herb the guy He's okay. He's okay. All right. Tomatoes and bananas. The bananas tastes grape. The texture is leathery. And it's truly I've read storebought banana chips are either freeze dried or fried anyway, to make them crispy without frying. Yeah, freeze dried. Okay, anyway.

My other, let's do that first. Okay, here's the problem. Whenever you're drying something in a normal dehydrator, as it as it dehydrates, the cells are going to collapse down. And there's really almost nothing you can do about it unless you can either preserve the structure which is done in freeze drying, by freezing and then sublimating the liquid out of it, or frying where the water is boiling out of it at a kind of a ferocious rate and keeping the structure expanded until it's dry enough to hold its own weight afterwards. So really like that's the problem there is, you know that there are very few things you can do at at home. To mimic that you can for instance, par dehydrate bananas, and then explosively puff them in the Museum of food and drinks puffing gun, there are a bunch of people who have dried fruits and vegetables using explosive puffing techniques, it's a little bit outside the range of what you can do at home. Another thing that's outside of the range of what you could do at home that does a similar thing is microwave vacuum dehydration. Now, please do not tamper with your microwave in any way, it can be very, very dangerous. That said, I've done it. And I had very miserable results when I was trying to do vacuum microwave dehydration, which shows that even if you have you know, a fair amount of a willingness to mess around with the technical aspects of things, it's not exactly simple to do, I'll tell you what the main problem with microwave vacuum dehydration is. And the principle there is that you put a vacuum on your product, and then you put a microwave to boil the water out. But because it's under a vacuum, it doesn't boil at very high temperatures so that the products don't get cooked. And the sugars don't caramelized. And it keeps it's it's you know, it works nicely. Now, the problem is, is that if you even slightly overheat a portion of the thing with the microwave and it's under a vacuum, you can sort of carbonize the outside once it goes black you get huge plasma arcs coming out of it. And so it forms almost like a giant light bulb on the inside of your microwave and we get some awful burning terrible smells. And not to mention the fact that you've you know, you modified your microwave and you know had to hook a vacuum machine up to it's just just a nightmare. It's it's a real nightmare. Right? So I'd say I'd say I have no good solution for you there. Right. Okay, sorry. Now the other question I have an opportunity to buy a used VacMaster VP 215 The one with the oil base pump for good price, what are the things you need to check out to make sure it's in good working condition the unit's about a year old it was primarily used in a home as always keep up the awesome work waiting to get here's what you need to do. First of all check to make sure it seals bags if the Teflon seal bar across it if the seal bars kind of burnt that's not such a big deal because you have to replace the Teflon tape that goes over the seal bar on a relatively regular basis. Anyway open the machine run it for like 510 minutes to heat up the pump and to boil out any contaminants that are in the oil then stick a container of ice water into it close it and run it if you can eventually want to say eventually after like you know several minutes boil the ice water then you're then your pumps probably in pretty good shape it can boil it off and then you know you're doing well. If you can't boil that see if it can boil like cold tap water if you could boil cold tap water also probably doing okay make sure the gauges work properly. Other than that, right i mean that's those are things I would check right off the bat. I mean it should sound smooth. Shouldn't sound like it has any any problems. Other than that that's those are the main things to check. Also, make sure that the vacuum setting knob that allows you to change what the preset vacuum is makes Whether it works properly because a lot of times the vacuum gauge can go on it. And by the way, when you're running those tests, you want to maximum vacuum so you can see what it can do when it's trying to pull all the way down. You make sure that it can actually that thing works a lot of times that goes not that that's a big deal. But check those out and see what's going on. Right. Okay, we got this one in from Scott at in Guelph, but although we don't know whether he's at the University of Guelph or not, okay, we don't know yet. We don't know. Maybe he'll tell us. Hey, hammer, he wrote two different things. I'm combining them. Hey, hammer and the nails Jack Joe, and whoever the heck is working today? That made me the nails, which, which I guess sounds like it's cool, except for I'm getting hit over the head with a hammer. Anyway. I've been inadvertently reading a lot lately about coffee. I love espresso, as well as the balanced American style cup of coffee. And then he says stop burning your beans. Starbucks. You're angry? Yeah, yes. Well, yeah, I love Oh, stop. Now she perks up when someone throws a similar hate down. Well, we all know that Anastasia prefers coffee that she gets on the corner out of the person who like lives in that metal box. Which has been no offense to the guy in the metal box. Yeah, but I know I still don't don't think he's sourcing, you know, the highest quality beans or really cares about them. I know. I mean, if the quality if the quality of the coffee mimics the quality of the buttered kaiser roll, then, you know, yeah. Okay. Kaiser rolls are so awesome. No, but you know, for I haven't eaten one in many years. I love Kaiser Will you guys roll those swirly shapes with the poppies, right. You don't like a plain kaiser roll? No. Yeah. Okay, good. Finally, we can agree on something. All right. I got a chance. Oh, sorry. There are a lot of people out there doing a lot of techniques and experimenting with different variables. I got a chance to try cat crap coffee a couple years ago and I really liked the richness and strength of the coffee without the bitterness or harshness. What he's referring to here, of course, is Kopi Luwak and it's not actually a cat. It's so it's called the civet, cat civet, just little creature. It's also the same creature that they that they kind of keep in cages in North Africa. I think it's in North Africa, and get Musk from the civet but that perfumed thing and people are up in arms. I don't really know whether it's good or bad for the animals or if it's painful, I've known nothing about it. But what happens over and Kopi Luwak land. In the Pacific there is the civet cats. Run around. Eat the choicest ripest coffee cherries, which by the way don't taste good. I've had coffee cherries they don't taste anything like a cherry so I thought I was gonna go I think could be off limits. No, no, no, don't get me not terrible, but like like I papery husk with like a little bit of mucilage whatever. So eat or choices ripest ones. And the great thing about these civic cat things is they they always go to the same place and they crapped in the same place and they crap out a load of beans and you know they do it pretty quick because you know they're hyped up caffeinated because there's caffeine in those beans as well and I'm sure that the fruit does a similar thing to you that the brew does and so I'm sure that the Civic cats are like running over there to crap out their little pile of beans. And you the they've been kind of D hauled at that point and their intestinal system which is somewhat short, does some work on the outside of it and supposedly makes these beans awesome, right? That's the theory of the cat crab coffee. Cat crab coffee sounds like Cat Scratch Fever like the Nugent does Ted Nugent. Right? Right. So there's Ted Nugent, right. Cats catch Weaver? Definitely. Yeah. Okay. So here's my rundown to try and recreate the cat crap with non excreted coffee beans first of all, and this is just Scott letting letting you listeners know his technique, which I've never tried before, so maybe we'll try it or maybe one of you guys will try it. Here's my rundown to create this with non excreted beans. First of all, you need a funnel in a coffee filter. The key is to hydrate the grounds. First you boil a kettle of water and then pour the freshly boiled water on the grounds a little bit. Like the ISI method you developed developed for infusion. This allows the liquid to get intimate with the grounds and start the process of dissolving all the coffee goodness. After about five minutes, the kettle is cooled to the ideal temperature for coffee extraction. Slowly Slowly pour the water over the grounds keeping the ground swirling around for a maximum extraction rate. I use three tablespoons of coffee for regular 12 ounce coffee cup the whole extraction takes between 30 seconds and one minute. This is enough to get all the richness and flavor out of the coffee but not long enough to get the acidity in the tannins. The result is a very rich brew. Without the harshness it even tastes good when it has gone cold. I know you love the espresso but this is a brew that is impressive even if it lacks a slap in the face beauty of espresso. So someone give that a try. See whether you like it. Interesting. I haven't tried I have not tried that. I do not know I have not tried it. Now on the topic of sugar. I've been teaching my hospitality students hospitality. I've teach my hospitality students how to make hard candy stained glass sculptures. We've been assembling the structures with hot glue or molten sugar. Although you know isomalt is much easier as you know because you're about to talk to me about my smile because isomalt is non hygroscopic so it doesn't suck up. You know it doesn't suck up moisture from the atmosphere as readily as sugar does. And it also doesn't brown as much when you boil it and you can reuse when you heat it and you can reheat it and re melt a couple of times without getting all brown and breaking down the way sucrose does anyway. It occurred to me that a hot glue gun might be loaded with sugar to melt it with caramelized again we use a mix of granulated sugar and straight vinegar brought up to 310 districts. Vinegar there for those of you that don't don't do sugar work is there to invert a portion of the sugar because the acid at high temperature hydrolyzed sugar breaks the sucrose into fructose and glucose glucose that's invert and the invert is there to prevent re crystallization of the sugar as it cools, you gotta get the amount right otherwise, otherwise it's too soft. Anyway, whatever. And straight vinegar brought to 310 to get crystal clear sugar glass without re crystallization. Since you have experience with 3d printing food, I was wondering if you had any thoughts about 3d printing sugar, rather than chocolate or masa paste? Can you imagine chowing down on an A star shaped Jawbreaker or just breaking it? Just breaking it?