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,

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Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking dishes coming to you every Tuesday from roughly 12 to roughly 1245 Lambertus pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and we're back after a two week hiatus because of random crap I was in I was I was in Dublin. I was in China working on spindles. But we're back and we have as usual Anastasia the hammer Lopez. How you doing? Good. Yeah, I noticed that you have your bike helmet, and it's hot as hell and I went to Union Square in the night. I was gonna say but still I mean like the only reason to bike in this weather is because you want to increase your hatred for mankind to bike in New York. I mean, like to bike in New York City in this weather. I'm fine with it, right? I mean, it's fine. Except for like every second on the bike. Your your gas tank of hatred must have been damn near empty. So for you to like get on the bike to top up that much hatred. You don't I mean, I'm sure that at lunchtime. I'm sure at lunchtime. I'll I'll I'll be you know treated to some of the classic Anastasia invective. Right?

Yeah, no, I went slow. It's still Yeah.

What's it like riding the subway lowers that hatred?

Right. And that's especially these days and in the booth. We got Dave How you doing? What up? Good. So the Stasi I have a question. So there's a there's a relatively new heritage Radio Network t shirt over here that says heritage Radio Network food radio since 2009. He's got a cow skull. And like some sort of Star Wars like X Wing fighter targeting grid. Yep. So I like it. Anastasia doesn't understand it says He wants to Yeah, she wants you to explain this t shirt.

What? What don't you understand?

Like, what's with the cow head? What's with the grid? What's with it together?

It's just we're all of those things.

Your grid. I like it.

I don't know. I think it's just a cool design. I don't think there was any real purpose behind

people. How do people get their hands on this if they want it? Well, if

you go to heritage radio network.org backslash donate. You can become a member today and get a t shirt like that. Man. Nice. Nice. I like that. Because the Tron aesthetic. Oh, that's

it the sutrayana set it you know what? Maybe you know what the thing is? I was having this discussion with Jack Schramm who is you know, he's been on the show before he's the was the head bartender at Booker and DAX. And we're discussing the merits and demerits of having you know, old school arcade games at at bars. What do you what are your thoughts? David, what are your thoughts on old school arcade games?

The great why, why wouldn't you want to have that?

Well, it's a different vibe. It's a different vibe. And I

don't think you should have them because it's too hipster. But what you should have is the log.

Wait, hold on to hipster. There's not a reason. Like what does that mean?

It's like,

I mean, am I a hipster? No. Do I like them?

I don't know. Yeah,

I mean, of course. I mean, I grew up with it. But like does have the lock in the nail. I'm not allowed to have the log in the day. Okay, everybody. Okay. So for those of you that don't know, I mean, we've talked about it on the show probably a million times. I don't know. But there's a game that Anastasia and I played against Peter and we kicked his butt. Yes, Peter. Peter can favorite favorite object of duration here on the show? And we love that mean? Like, look, you know what I mean? Listen, love him. Love him. Yeah. So the issue is, is that we were driving up from from was Chicago, we flew to, yeah, Chicago to Madison, Wisconsin to visit with Johnny hunter, a friend of the show. And you know, the underground meats collective back in the day, and we stopped at this German place in Milwaukee that had the log game, Don Lee went back there recently got me a t shirt, you see my T shirt, right, my log game t shirt. So anyway, they give you an old cut masonry, sorry, cut nails steel nail like this big triangle one. And then you have to knock it into the into this big old stump. And whoever takes the longest to knock it in basically the most number of blows to knock it in. They buy the next round of drinks. Anyway, I'm not going to say that Peter was trounced. But, but he was completely trashed. But they, the thing about it is is that like, I was like, I want one of those. But then everyone's like, you can't do that. Because if you hit then first of all people are drinking. And if you hit the nail even a little bit wrong, a nail goes flying across the room, like flying across the room.

What how do they have one,

I guess in Milwaukee? Like people don't sue each other. It's more of like an old style settled things the old fashioned way. Right? I mean, imagine like, look, everybody knows each other, right? I mean, this is the kind of place where people have their names on their mugs behind the counter behind that bar. So it's like, I imagine that if anyone like if you and I went there and hit ourselves in the eye with a nail, and we're like, we're gonna sue that, like we would end up like, at the bottom of the river. You know what I mean? Like, it just wouldn't happen. So anyway, Milwaukee

people in the chat room, feel free to chime in on that one. Yeah,

but the but anyway, back to the kind of Tron aesthetic, not Tron specifically. But like early video games, I really love it's really hard to find the old vector graphics games. You know, I'm talking about days,

when you mentioned Star Wars, there was that one at I forget exactly what it was called. But at the public pool that I went to as a kid, they had that game where you were like, you know, flying in the Death Star. And it was all vector graphics. Yeah,

that's the original hard to beat. The original one, the 1983. Star Wars is one of the all time classic vector graphic games. And it was interesting because it was a color vector graphic because it was using all three all three tubes. So the interesting thing about a vector graphic game, as opposed to raster graphic, is that in the vector graphic games, they're literally controlling the electron beams like an old CRT Stiles is why you can't emulate them accurately with you can but very hard with modern kind of screens. They're literally drawing the lines with the electron beam so you don't have you don't have pixels, really, they're literally drawing the lines. And so it has this kind of amazing, you know, glow that looks very, very specific and very awesome. So you think you're asteroids, your Tempest, anyway, but I would like to game like that. You think that's too hipster. Hipsters don't care about that. They just want to play Dig Dug, right?

I don't know. But you have a game plaisance would you say you have a cabaret like I don't have any license yet people.

We're not announcing where the new bar is going to be. We haven't accepted. I will say this. Don Lee and I and our other partner Greg have an accepted offer. Right? Someone has accepted our offer on a space which means that I feel more confident than I have in the past because I've never had an offer that was accepted by all parties. That we will have a space that we can announce in near future, but I can. Yeah, don't jinx it. Yeah. Do you believe in it? Do you believe in that?

No, no, I only believe in it. And when we're in traffic and someone's like, we're almost home. This is a woman. We're not in traffic. Oh, yeah. And you're like,

What's the origin of the word Jinx? Is there some sort of stupid racial slur in that? Probably? I don't know. What does it mean? Where does drinks come from?

About gypsies? Right?

No, that's true. That's it. Can you get us that? First of all? No, I don't think so. You're thinking of the of the Oh, yeah, the slur base were to rip someone off which when I was growing up, we had no idea that it was a slur. Yeah, that

was so common. Who who knew?

I did not. And then someone was like, Dave, you can't say that. Like why? I'm like, because of this. I'm like, oh, and yeah, so you can't, you should not do that. Okay, so we got a boat ton of questions to get to because we've been I've been out of business. Let's

talk about big things first, right. But to get it out of the way.

Oh, spins. Let's do the spins off stuff to work towards you. Have enough time. We'll do it at the end. Or in the middle. How about this? We'll do it. We'll do it. Right. We come back from the break.

I have enough time to even take a break.

Watch. Oh, yes, we are. Oh, yeah.

I gotta do some reading there on it.

We got to pay those bills. You gotta

pay to pay this bill certain stuff. So you have any good food recently? No, I had some good. Let me know. Why would you not? Because you're like, let's get to questions. Oh, yeah. But I like you know,

curious when you know, I haven't we got to transition from gaming issues to cooking issues somehow.

That's right. Dave, anything anything interesting,

meaning a nice cup of yogurt right now. It's pretty good.

Come on. How good can the old repeat what did like the hell?

It's just you know, whatever. Some it's full fat, I should say, because he got it. Am I allowed to say that on the spot? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Just what's in the corner store?

Did Bobby Flay convince you to buy that? No, you bought it without Bobby Flay? Did Bobby flays endorsed follow angry Bobby Flay on Twitter? I don't, I should. Yeah, he's funny. Is it the real Bobby Flay?

I don't think so. I'm like, 99%. Sure. It's not okay.

I had some interesting food. When I was in China. I had one interesting thing I should say. And we went to this restaurant. It's actually the second time I've been to this straight. Okay, so Shenzen Miss dassia is like 13 million people. Right? 13 million, even though the city is only like 40 years old. 30 million, 30 million people there. And for some reason, two separate people brought me to the same freaking restaurant that the expats like in Shenzen. What are the odds of that? Crazy Crazy, right? So I went there, but I had this really, really good kind of, like, semi fusion eggplant dish. I'm going to figure out how to make because it was a grilled eggplant, but it was completely flat. Like super garlicky, super buttery, and like, lots of chili and then they put like, which is fusion II they put Well, first, I guess the butter, but then they put bonito flakes on top. So yeah, so it had that, like, you know, you've had bonito pizza before, right? Where this does, it was like that, but it was really, really good eating style. So I'm gonna I'm gonna work on that as soon as I get back to Connecticut and have a grill that I'm going to work with, then maybe I'll adapted for a regular place recipe, you know, that way you don't need to grill but anyway, I was psyched on that. Okay. And that would have been if we were talking about the spins all now an entree because I was in I was in China. Do you ever flown. So this is the first time in my life. I've flown all the way around the world, like all the way around, like I flew from New York, to Dublin, to then to London, then to Frankfurt, then to Hong Kong, then back to Newark. Wow. Kind of sad to fly all the way around the world and up in Newark. Ah, no offense to Newark, no offense to Cory Booker and you know, Newark and all that, but I mean, come on Newark. You know, I mean, Newark. They if you're not a fan of Newark, I mean, you're not against Newark, right? Yeah,

I guess I'm ambivalent. Now. Trenton on the other hand,

what do you have against Trenton? No, no,

they just love to sign. Trend take or Trenton makes the world takes

that Yeah, well, that's fine. What's the one near the turnpike? It's like, world capital of embroidery. You seen this one? You see this one? Right. Anastasia? There's like, like one of the towns? Yeah, right before the Lincoln. Well, yeah, world capital of embroidery. You're like, wow, who knows?

Oh, it's gotta be Bayonne, right?

I don't know. I don't know. I love all of those town name Passaic. You know what I mean? Like,

Hocus Pocus,

my wha Ramapo like all these like words over there. You don't I mean, it's like okay, I didn't know wrote in on the Twitter question is he's making a wallet ketchup recipe so you're using your unripe your green, green walnuts. And you're making some ketchup obviously originally wasn't the highest style ketchup in other words, it wasn't tomato based sauces in general. There was mushroom ketchup There was everything blah blah blah and in fact, if you go back even modern right the phenomenon that took the New York culinary scene by storm like eight years ago catch up my nice right is catch up money says like that sweetened kind of soy thing which I think is delicious. Remember window snapper used to put ketchup and isn't everything. Yes, like what does this need a kid to bunnies? You don't I mean, it's like everything so, so ketchup was a more generic thing. Now of course, ketchup is what's the brand of ketchup? They were branded ketchup to us. Oh, Heinz, obviously. There you go. So it's like because that's Heinz ketchup and everything else is in arrears. Everything else is just a different sauce that is in order. Even if you're not a huge fan of Heinz, which I don't understand why you wouldn't be because Heinz Ketchup is delicious. But if you weren't a fan of Heinz ketchup, you would still rate other ketchups relative to Heinz. You know what I'm saying? You would say? It's like Heinz, but thinner. It has the flavor of a one but the texture of Heinz which doesn't happen, right. Anyway. So anyway, so ketchup used to be more all inclusive thing and there are old recipes for mushroom mushroom ketchup, which I made it was okay. It wasn't great ever give you that everyone I made that.

I was told last weekend that sir Kensington's was the same as Heinz that dinner by someone and I got so angry. They have quality.

Were they a food person?

They work in food?

What did that as what as a cashier?

My rimshot sound?

Like like what? Like what's their they are in food. They're in food, media.

Food media, they write about

food, they do production, like film production. Work with Food Network people, right? Know from food, they know how to take pictures of food, they know everything about food. But in this case, how could they say same as same as just no high fructose corn syrup was their thing? And I was like, I don't care.

I seriously don't like well, my point is, is that like, not the same? Not the same? It's like not ketchup. If you know, well, I look I'm not gonna go that far. Because, you know, I have to be honest, I don't know that I've had their ketchup as as as a tasting. But of course, it's not the same. Mr. Garcia Lopez, Peter Kim Sang sin. Sin, you know, the only differences there is no different. So the same person, right? They both have two eyes, nose, mouth, cold dis full sets of digits.

That that is the coldest of this is since Peter him is like

who said this too, though? Me. But my point being like, it's ridiculous to say it's the same and whoever that was, should be ashamed of themselves. They were just trying to piss you off.

No, they were not. They weren't that we don't have that relationship.

I have a friend who honestly believes Hans is better than Heinz.

You're allowed to believe these kinds of things. As long as as long as you're as long as you you know, as long as you don't think they're the same. It's like if you say they're the same, that's when I'm like, Well, if nothing you say has merit you like you're willing to just stand up there and say things that are false alternative facts. Yeah, alternative facts. It's like, you know, anyway, so this is an alternative ketchup is not meant to be a substitute for the Heinz style of ketchup. So a recipe is about 50, green walnuts, some salt, some two different kinds of vinegars there. You got your malt vinegar, your cider vinegar. And of course, this is one of those recipes, who's clearly written by someone because it's partially in cups, partially and ounces, partially in teaspoons, one of those malt vinegar, cider vinegar, anchovies, onion, red wine, or port, ground nutmeg, black pepper, cayenne, grated horseradish, ginger. And here's the problem. Here's what Edie was wondering about. xanthan gum. So the issue with this is, is that you master ate the walnuts in this vinegar Melange for a while, and then you heat it up, and then you strain it out. And there's solids in it, right? And it's thin, like Worcestershire sauce thin, right? So it's not at all like a kind of a modern kind of ketchup that we would have. It's not thick. And because it doesn't contain any real, like fruit pulp. Remember, tomato being fruit? So the question is, isn't that going to be make it snotty? Now, I didn't have time to do the calculations on this or look up how much a teaspoon of xanthan gum weighs. But you definitely don't want to add enough Xanthan to this ketchup to make it snotty. I think like, like I've said many times on the show. There are cultures, Spain, where like you're allowed to have really snotty Xanthan textures and like it's kind of accepted. But obviously here in the US, we don't appreciate snot sauce so much. You know what I mean? Which is why a lot of people have problems with okra base sauce is dead. And Stasi. Do you like kind of snotty okra? No, Dave Yeah. Okay. See? Do you like do have you been to Spain? Do you enjoy snotty Spanish sauces? I have not but I think I would there not be that by the way I'm just being harsh like back in the modern back when like the the modern wave was hitting like real hard on all cylinders like in like oh four in the in the US a lot of like, like the like super modern. People were using a lot of Santa. And so I'm not saying traditionally Spanish food has Xanthan because of course it's not a crucial ingredient. I'm just saying When those very high end chefs were making thickened sauce is in that era, and that Oh 4030405 era, they didn't have any qualms about using a good bit of Xanth. And that's all I'm saying, I'm not making any comments about traditional Spanish cooking. So, yes, but when you read the recipe at either the Xanthan is really it's not there to thicken that is not a thickening agent. They're using the Xanthan as a suspending agent. So there's lots of finds fine particles in this, you know, walnut ketchup, that will settle out over time, and a small amount of Santana. And now we'll add some kind of surface. So if you're going to drink it as a beverage, you would kind of notice that it has a little bit of that jiggle to it. But if you're keeping the amount of xanthan very low, like you know, we're well under a quarter of a percent, and I have to like test the the I have to look at this and see what they're what they're talking about. I think you should I think you should be fine, it's gonna suspend but it's not there to thicken, it's there to suspend. If you want to thicken it, I definitely would not thicken it with xanthan gum, well, under quarter percent. In fact, let me see that what I was thinking so if you're using three grams of tickler to 1.6 Add to do the calculations, but you only want just enough to suspend you can do it by testing and add a little more remember not to add a boat ton of xanthan at once, even when you're working with very small amounts because it will hydrate over time. And so you'll if you try to thick in a minute with Xanthan you'll a lot of times you'll find that 1015 minutes later because you haven't hydrated it properly at the get go you've overs and found it and then kind of then you're in snot Ville. So small amount of xanthan is there to suspend if you want to thicken it I would use something else like for instance, if you thought that maybe a fruit might be nice in there choose like a less sweet fruit that has a lot of kind of, you know a lot of body to it and you could cook that into but you know really get it to you know be thick you need to add something that has body and so I wouldn't necessarily thicken it with mean you could thicken it with something like that like it'll be gee I guess or one of these things but the problem is anytime you thicken something you really deaden the flavor out right if you thicken it with a thickener and you're basically turning it into more solid has a tendency to lock in flavor and kind of inhibit flavor release so anyway that's my my feeling what do you think so

yes

sounds like guess what they don't care clear road in yeah clear road in but not your clear right there's a different clear No, no, it's probably not like this clear cares about food. Just being just being me. I still can't believe someone who works in food said that like that they're the same I know

where they name names No, I can't name names. Yeah.

Which company were they trying to insult Hi, you're trying to insult Hi

not insult just very like calm like oh, yes, sir. Kensington's is the same with no high fructose corn syrup.

Why wouldn't I just say why would they just say try sir Kensington's. I like it.

I think they said I like it too.

So that would have been fine. They said I like it. Then that's, that's a valid opinion. It's an opinion, right?

Yeah, that's possible. But to say it's the same.

It's just not right. Try this try this Peter. Kim. It's the same as Anastasia Lopez. You know what it is like? My sister and I have become rather obsessed with the flavor of habanero and Manzano peppers I've never really worked with Manzano peppers before, but they are a medium sweet, medium hot, like you know, hotter than a jalapeno but not anywhere near a habanero hot, but supposedly kind of very fruity has a lot of those kinds of fruity floral notes that you get from a habanero, but again, I don't know because I've never really worked with them. We've been trying to create a dish where the sweet floral flavors of these peppers come through and are not overwhelmed by the spice. We thought a buttercream frosting for cupcakes might do the trick since it has such a high fat content that could counteract the spiciness however, we had some problems getting enough of the pepper flavor into the frosting to be detectable. Adding blended up peppers at the end results in a buttercream that is kind of sweaty and too watery. What do you think about this sweaty, gross right? Sweaty,

sweaty pepper sweaty?

Sweaty, perhaps. But you do you like sweaty balls because you love Alec, but you love Alec Baldwin? I do love Alex. Do you know that the Stasi Lopez went to Alec Baldwin's wife's yoga class just to be closer to Alico? And

it's actually good I have to say, yeah, it's one of the few good ones

it smell like shorty balls.

Shoe at the buttercream is kind of sweaty and too watery, but only just barely tasted pepper. We serve this stuff at a family occasion and nobody actually noticed the pepper taste at all. So well. The answer there is to put more freaking pepper in amber than that Okay, so our second attempt was to actually infuse the egg whites for the buttercream with the peppers for a while to get the flavor in that way. We let chopped up pepper sit in egg whites for about 24 hours about a cup of chopped up peppers with three egg whites. We did three types of peppers, habanero Manzano and she lack of peppers which are milder. Basically, the egg whites with the tilaka peppers in them whipped up fine, but didn't have much of the pepper taste. But the egg whites from the Monsanto and the habanero peppers were fairly flavorful but completely failed to whip up at all. We even tried quip we even tried cutting them with fresh egg whites and no look what's going on here. Is the capsulation disrupting the egg white proteins or is there just so much more oil in the habaneros and manzanas. than in the tilaka? Is, is there anything we can do to combat this or some other way to get that lovely pepper flavor into our frosting? Thanks for the show. I've been listening to all your back episodes while driving across the country as I moved from Connecticut to Vancouver. That's a long move on Have you ever been to Vancouver? I liked Vancouver? Great, nice. You know what the problem with Canada is? Who's priced too high? Oh Canadians Oh, they're not our worst customers, please. Canadians aren't bad customers. Canadian customers are a pain in the ass. It's not that

Europeans are bad customers. It's

not that What if so Europeans are fine, Canadians

cheese. Anyways, I would say I don't know, it was interesting. I tried to look into surface I did a brief search on surface active properties of peppers, I'm not able to find that. If I was looking into, I couldn't find anything specifically on whipping egg whites, and capsulation or any of this stuff. So I wasn't able to find anything specific. But it sounds like from your test that you know that there is something with these hotter peppers, it's probably messing with the egg whites. So my my feeling is is that you might want to move on to a different kind of buttercream frosting when it doesn't require with egg whites. So a good place to start. In terms of like figuring out what you want to do is Nyla Jones has a was like three or four years ago did something on a Serious Seeds called the world of buttercreams. Six varieties to try at home and just goes through the various different kinds of ones. But I think the one that stands out that I think you might want to try for this is the kind of flour based so you make what amounts to a roux with milk. And then you heat that with the flour. And with flour making like literally like a roux. And then you let that root cool down, you make sure your skin doesn't form and you beat that into the butter. And that is a prime candidate assuming that the hot peppers don't break the milk, which I haven't tested whether super hot peppers will break the milk, but I don't think they will, that you can get that pepper flavor into the milk and there's a fairly high quantity of milk per unit butter. So I think you could do well to get a good kind of flavor into your butter cream that way now I'd always thought you just made a straight kind of milk flour. Kind of a rule even though it's not butter, but kind of a rule, you'd have to make sure you blend that how like blend the hell out of us it doesn't have you don't want like starch particles in it, you want to make sure that you you know, like either slurry at first slurry the flour with the milk, or you know, just make sure that you break it up before you heat it. Otherwise you're gonna get clumping but and obviously you have to cool it all the way out. It's gonna mess up the butter when after you put it into the whipped butter. But what's interesting is she actually adds the sugar to the milk mixture and doesn't cream the sugar into the butter and then add the stuff and she says it's a much smoother result than you would get if you cream the if you fluffed up the butter cream, you know the cream the sugar into it, and then added the stuff which is interesting. So I had never thought about that before but I would do that kind of situation because I feel that you definitely be able to get a very heavy pepper flavor into a milk base and then whip into the buttercream really good. Sounds like again, don't care.

All right, sounds good.

But yet, Anastasia. I think rightly so. Loves any sort of new hot mess of a server that we get here at Roberta's and you want to describe the cat. You can't it's kind of like

a German type thing, right?

Like craft bear. Yeah. Like I listened to craft fair, but the I don't know like the speaking which is a weird day in New York. Like when I was when I was walking here in Bushwick. It was like I can't describe everything because there's no polite way to describe everything I saw on the way over, but it was like I was living just that brief walk from flushing Avenue or We're here through Bushwick was like living in a Terry Gilliam movie like Time Bandits or like Brazil's. Yeah, like it was like, like there were like crowds gathered around dead rats. There was a giant set of hands coming out of the back of a pickup truck that were attached to a giant White Buddha head. There was just like just there was trucks parked in the middle of the road on the street here more like big trucks just parked and then cars driving on the sidewalk like some backwards reality like and other things that literally I cannot mention on the air. It was like living in one of those movies. I was like, wow, Family Show Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes in Europe. So Mark writes in from Pittsburgh, PA, who I guarantee you mark from Pittsburgh, you like signs? He likes Heinz. He's not sitting there like, you know, telling us someone else's st man's server really is kind of messed up.

Explain it.

I can't I can't. Hey, look. I don't know. He's not messed up. He just has a look. He has a very specific look. You know, I'm saying like super specific look like here. Dave, what do you think about this? My feeling on is like a place like Roberta's is interesting, because I love it here. Yeah, please like, I love it here. Like what are you mentoring candidate for Roberta's Jesus? What I'm saying is is that Roberta's is interesting because it was built on this idea of we're like going to do whatever we want, like rock and roll blah, blah, blah, right. Sure. Right. So like, I think Roberta's can pull it off like Roberta is basically you can do almost anything you want like that. But I mean, I think not everyone can pull that off. What do you think they? Yeah, I

think that's true. Yeah,

I don't know. It's just, it's interesting. Like, I like looking around at places as we're looking to open the new bar, I'm just looking at kind of what you know, what you as a place the culture that you make in a place like what that gives you permission to do with your customers, but also at the same time, kind of how that can guide your future. So here, it's like, okay, look like established with this kind of rock and roll vibe, we're just going to do it. And it's kind of a miracle that this displays in here for whatever, 10 years. Yeah, but it's not just that it's like flourished, you know what I mean? And so it started with this kind of, like, you know, like, at the odds when you started there was going to be successful, right with it. I don't know, I don't know what the odds are. But they've kind of amazing, they like flourishing, this kind of huge thing. But now there's a place where yeah, you can have cut offs, you know, you can wear be a dude wearing cut off shorts so short that I can basically see your junk and like, you know, wear like, you know, a bunch of like super tight choker necklaces, and like, I can see your midriff and like all this other stuff. You can do that as a server at Riverdale. And your customers aren't like, Wow, your your junk is up in my face with those hyper short cut off shorts. They're just like, oh, it's perverted.

I'm here, you're you're buying into that experience. Right, right.

Show me your junk. Show me your junk. But the thing is, I think that that's fine, but it's just a great, you know, it's the interesting thing is is that like how many places can do that? You know what I mean? Like, how is it that the culture you choose at the beginning of starting your restaurant allows you or your bar allows you to do certain things, but I think also can shackle you, right? Because you can't do other things. If you make a choice to be this kind of rock and roll that you can't all of a sudden be like, You know what we're gonna do, we're going to spiff it up a little bit. You know, I'm saying we're gonna, you know, Dave Chang famously said, right? He said, Dave Chang said, you can be 100 millionaire and still be a good person. But the minute you become a billionaire, you must have killed someone to get there. That's his theory. True. Yeah, he thinks so. But he hangs out with billionaires now.

I don't think so.

Anyone can call? Yeah. Caller you're on here.

Hey, Dave. Absolutely love your show. Hi, everybody. Hi, Natasha. The faster you come from Covina, right? Yeah. Yeah, me too.

Whoa.

Do you also like good burger? The movie?

You liked that movie? I

don't like how old are you? How old are you?

Oh, I'm older than you. I'm Daisy.

So good burger came.

All right, um, my son wants to get into welding he's six years 16 years old. What do you suggest for a small stick? Welding rig?

Okay, this is a great question. It's fantastic question and I will say this when I was learning to weld they still made you do the very old school kind of thing, which is you start learning how to use an oxy acetylene torch. And then you know learn to cut with an oxy acetylene torch and ferrous metal and then learn to braise and actually do torch welding. And from there the you graduated to welding with a stick welder. And from there, they taught you MIG welding. And then if you were lucky, you got to learn TIG right and So that's kind of the progression that we were taught I never you know and I and by the way Lindy the compressed gas people Lindy have an old book, which is, I think almost free the oxy acetylene handbook, which I highly recommend you buy, I think it came out in the 40s or 50s. It's really cool. It's not up to date, obviously, but it has everything you need to know about torches, if you care about torches, which, you know, why wouldn't you care about torches, I'm gonna have to say that. I don't know that I agree with the old school pedagogy. Now, if your child is the kind of person so like, let's say I was going to teach DAX, which I am teaching DAX, how to weld. I'm not taking him I'm not making him do the stick and all that I just went straight to MiG. And the reason I went straight to MiG is, is it you know, you could teach all the safety and everything but if you really want someone to get into it, and they're the kind of person that gets frustrated easily, like learning to do good work with a stick welder is much harder than learning to do like decent work with a MIG because a MiG is basically just like a hot glue gun for metal. So, and I think that you obviously I think you should learn a stick welder because it's going to give you kind of the control over the, you know, over your hands, over the, the metal and the melt puddle, there and it's really good. But I would say get a decent quality stick welder, I would also say that, sorry, MIG welder, and I don't know kind of how much space you have, or kind of what kind of power you have. But they make some decent now, like 125 to 20 Like, that can go kind of in both on the small side that are very portable. You know, it's very easy to get the the, you know, the kind of the gas hooks hookups for them. And if it's that you don't want to worry about the gas, and that's why you're doing stick flux core is also a good way to start with, with welding with, you know, with with a feeder, I just think it's a lot easier. But if you really want to start with a stick, I mean, I don't, I don't I haven't used a stick on a daily basis in it's got to be 20 years now, I haven't used a stick on a daily basis, just because I've always wanted to have access to a MIG welder. But I would say that, like if it was modern, I would still teach how to learn how to use a torch, I would get a MIG welder, get them into the welding. And then after that, I would go to where I never actually went, which is I would get into TIG welding because TIG welding is a real art and you're gonna learn a lot of the kind of control patients and, and you know, craft work with a TIG, like more than any other kind of welding, right. And so I think an entree into that, especially if it was going to be my you know, my teenage boys who like you know, are hard to kind of get to focus for a long time, especially if they're just practicing making well beads one after another. I would go that way. The other thing to note is that you're going to want to get someone to teach them serious safety when they're learning to weld and that doesn't just mean safety when they're welding for instance, like making sure they don't get sunburned from the arc making sure that they don't burn themselves making sure they don't weld onto things that have zinc and and you know, get overcome by zinc fumes, you know, making sure they're kind of making sure that they don't catch fire to their surroundings. So there's all this safety but there's the further safety of all of a sudden you can weld metal together, which means that you can make very large very heavy potentially dangerous things that can kill you. And frankly, I was not taught these things when I was taught to weld because when they teach you to weld at a liberal arts college and art art classes there, they don't expect you to make big giant dangerous things that can kill you. And so if you don't have a thorough understanding of the theory of of welding, it's very easy to do things like make a giant 1000 pound spinning you know articulated kinetic sculpture where the main axle has been welded on with 110 volt welder in the bathroom of your dorm and it looks like a goodwill because you don't know you're you're behind from a hot rock but instead you've really just crystallized weld on the outside and the two pieces of metal aren't joined and the entire thing falls and just barely misses killing you by like fractions of an inch like that is entirely possible if they don't have training in kind of what constitutes a good weld, how to evaluate a weld making sure that you get good weld penetration and are using the using the proper you know, you're not trying to go over the capacity of your welder so I, you know, like that stuff I would kind of inculcate early, but I'm not necessarily a believer in having to start with the stick. Does it make any sense or no?

Yeah, that you have addressed all my concerns, because I mean, I don't want to kill himself, and I don't want to burn the house down. Right. So I'm trying to find somebody to teach them but it's all welding classes that are, you know, 1000s of dollars, trying to find somebody to teach him because I don't know how to do it, my husband knows a little bit about it. But trying to find somebody that just is like a hobbyist around here in South Florida is a little challenging,

right, I would do like, you know, I would make sure that you look the sparks, and these things can cause they fly along way and they can go really far. stick welding throws