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 show is brought to you by Bob's Red Mill sharing nothing but the best in whole grain nutrition and committed to their mission of good food for all learn more at Bob's Red mill.com/podcast. This episode is brought to you by Joule the immersion circulator for Su V by ChefSteps. Order now at chefsteps.com/j OULE. Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking shows coming to you live on the radio network every Tuesday from roughly 12 to roughly 1245 from Roberta's pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn. We got a banner day today and it starts with a hammer Lopez is not sitting right next to me because she is delayed on the ever problematic L train which kind of cease to exist pretty

soon brooding from afar.

Yeah, we got Dave in the booth. How you doing? Good. How you doing? Yeah, what are you? What do you do? Are you Easter person Passover person and nothing person? What do you

Well, as a matter of fact, I just celebrated Passover in LA but I grew up an Easter person on the East Coast.

Yeah, well, anyway, then if you celebrate Passover, sorry to have you out during the Passover time working. You know what I mean? Yeah, I

should go home. Yeah,

I mean, like I wouldn't until after the show, but then right after the show, I would just hightail it out of here. And just like you know, peace I'm out, you know, yeah. I need to drill in my house state. Exactly. To drill I need to two holes in the ceiling of my apartment. And there is a complete moratorium on any sort of drilling literally two holes and I would have gotten it done before Passover, but I had lent someone my hammer drill. And so I had to wait and I have to wait, is there's nothing more frustrating for someone like me than having to wait to drill two lousy freaking holes. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. All right. So we got we got a banner day today. While we're waiting for Anastasia, I'll introduce the three count them three guests that we have. I'll go first I'll say we have the often present people can well

wait away to take me for granted. I feel very really special. Peter, I'm really happy to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Somebody.

I'm going to Peter to you. Yeah.

Thank you all very much. Thank

you and Peter Kim channeling his days of being a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon has purposely turned off the air conditioner in this box. Because he can take pretty much anything

outside of a bunch of yuca cassava because I'm working on making bets on divine yoke. Sticks of cassava. Yeah, yeah. I'm particularly camera

thing about those kinds of tubers really are like they're I mean, I cook with them, but they're disturbing looking right? They look like something out of an alien movie. I guess now I'm missing my man, Bill Paxton is game over All right. Yeah,

I think for a lot of people, it just looks like voodoo. You know, Bill Paxton, I'm

pretty sure I didn't look at the credits was in The Terminator. I did not realize this until you know, Dax, my youngest wanted to see the Terminator. And I was like, Alright, you're ready. And I saw it at the beginning when Arnold Schwarzenegger comes down, and it's like, give me your clothes like that. Yeah, he's one of the plants. I was like. Yeah, awesome. Amazing. Also, we have in the studio with this JW Rogers from El Paso, who took Peter now to Juarez and El Paso a couple of weeks ago.

We go up, shout out to the border. Yeah, yeah.

I don't want you guys calling in and asking him whether he's visited the old El Paso factory. Because like he has a job. It's not because I think it's a bad question. I've asked him literally every time I've seen it was like, Have you visited the old El Paso factory yet? And no, he has not visited he doesn't even know if my son DAX again, has become addicted to old El Paso taco sauce. I just can't get down with it. Fair enough. Yeah, it's because not in a stylistic flavor. For me. It just tastes like produced

well, because you're from New York City,

New York City.

If any of you remember that commercial, there's a bunch of cowboys sitting around like I don't know what they're eating like beans and their poop farting or whatever they're doing like Allah Blazing Saddles. And they say, Where's this year Koco. Self Made and they go New York City like that. And then they just like they don't have this concept. But we also have here with a miraculous taste. Now listen, people when you're tasting today, no mouth noises into the microphone. People get very mad mouth noises into the microphone. You might know him as at our cook quest on the Twitter.

It's an Instagram.

Well, yeah, what do you prefer?

It's the same mostly Instagram because you know, Twitter's gone a little bit commercial and kind of

what does that mean commercial?

I just can't interact. Well,

Levine This is Rich. This is this is Richie from Boston engineer, friend of the museum helped us a lot with the flavor exhibition came in to help us a lot with many development during the chow exhibition, and is otherwise known. Just a me actually as Captain koji. So he's here with a bunch of he's been working. I don't know what, three years. Yeah,

yeah, a little under three years, probably

about two and a half on koji. But like kind of gone kind of koji crazy. Like he'll put koji on anything like you know, like a mouse dies in the cupboard. We'll cover that some gun with koji and see what happens to it. And so he's brought us a bunch of koji products. And so yeah, I think there's a good number of people, especially on this show, who are kind of hip to the hip to what koji is wanting to give us the 32nd on koji. So coaching is

basically a mold inoculated rice, the mold does fit very specific mold is called Aspergillus Oryzae. It's used to power sugar production, as well as enzymatic activity to create amino acid Oh, sorry, to create amino acids in with protein mediums. So, so kind of the world is your oyster in terms of what you can do with it. But primary ideas in terms of what's out there, primarily, Japanese are sock a miso. And, you know, in terms of just in general soy sauce, those are the primary known mediums

that's also used on katsuobushi. Right? Yes, yeah. So but basically, if you're Japanese, and you don't have Aspergillus, you are hosed. You're just hopeless. Yeah, you ruined you know and destroyed. So why don't you give us the again the quick the 30% 32nd on like, inoculation in general and what

you do. So, in terms of inoculation, what you need to do is basically basically take a grain, take it to a certain level that for lack of a better term, is authentic, such that the mold will grow on the surface of the grain, and then be able to proliferate not to be too sticky or wet, because other micro has an organism or grow outside of that. And then if the grain isn't moist enough for the and soft enough for the Aspergillus to penetrate, it won't and it'll just basically not grow and sporulate and give you something that you don't desire.

You're lucky that Anastasia is not here because you said sporulate Matt would like she would just like rip the microphones out. Like she hates the word Spore. Imagine sporulate worse now actually, we had a question a couple of weeks ago on wild on wild kind of molding with koji ever had or read about pathogenic Aspergillus showing up on wild type fermentation of codes. I've read some studies that say, odds are that you're going to get a regular like healthy one. I've read studies Babos years ago. Do you have any update to information on that? Yeah, I haven't

really looked into it. I just feel like you know, you can easily accessible it's easily accessible to buy spores that are specific to what you need and in terms of the flavor conversion, or whether it's focused on proteins or carbohydrates for sugars. I feel like it's so easy to just buy it

Yeah, I mean, but they're, you know, on the meat front. So when you people have tried to it looked at everything in life now, especially in fermentation world in any of these food worlds is a point of difference and so everyone's trying to make their own products. So I know a lot of people have branched out in obviously in beer with different yeast strains or in cured meats with different you know, bacterial and or, you know, they're basically a shotgun a bunch of different stuff, bacteria, yeast, everything strains for their fermentation in sausages and whatnot. But you don't see that giant difference in like different exact strains of Aspergillus for koji versus, let's say, oh, yeast for beer,

I wouldn't imagine. So I think any of the other flavors that you get are from other micro micro organisms doing their jobs. Mostly what Aspergillus in terms of what I've been investigating is the ability to create amino acids. And if you're just creating amino acids, you know, maybe some have different ways of creating enzymes for different proteins. But in terms of a difference in umami, I don't know if you can parse that. Okay. Cool.

Spicy spores people? Yeah,

yeah. Or get a small package and generate your own. Now,

generate your own? Well, you make it like like, and by the way, it's not just for rice anymore. You do? I don't know if you mentioned that because opening up the questions I have to answer later on, but you do you inoculate everything, like you inoculate like your family?

Yeah. So I brought some examples of things that, that I've actually applied koji to. But yeah, I mean, in terms of the you bring the code code you cheese, that's

what I heard. I should I should try it. Yeah. So So I have the code

the cheese, which is basically what I'm calling a miso method cheese, because I'm already taking finished koji and using a mixing of with ricotta and a little bit of salt and basically you create a particular cheese like substance that you can get on the order of flavor in two months, do the enzyme activity and then I'm looking

at people It looks like a prey lien it looks like like proteins. multi-use term it looks like a chunk of Brown, like cooked brown sugar. Like it might contain almonds or pecans, but it oh, by the way, JW pecan or pecan? Pecan, your pecan comes from

the south. So you're from the southwest, go west West Texas.

Just eat that sparingly. It's pretty concentrated like Parmesan.

So anyway, and it breaks up and it looks almost like like a cooked through like soda bread but it's one color all the way through. And it's kind of it's magnetized. It has a very has more of a Romano nose than I would say parmigiana knows what do you think guys? Maybe in between?

I'm getting some Parmesan Romano I get the smell of Romano but I'm tasting some farmers

have you seen the movie? Corky was so

intense. Oh, my mouth noise sorry

yeah, okay, so Peter waiting.

I mean it's incredible. We I'm trying

to so it has the protein breakdown flavor in it to me honestly is closer to like a Romano because to me, especially like the remodels you get like a look at tele style or mono here in the US are kind of heavily heavily enzyme they have a lot of breakdown a lot of breakdown flavor so I'm getting a lot a lot of breakdown flavors and what do you think now you think it's closer to a parmigiano style finish than or a mono style finish closer to a mono Yeah, so maybe the nose is more superficial? How long does it take three months

start to finish so only two months and also for those of you who work in restaurant kitchens takes about two months in a region or walking so you can do this under refrigeration conditions safe controlled in a way such that you know you don't have to worry about the environment fluxing also I've I've pretty much put it in an environment where it's totally me so

nice dirty what reaching sounds dirty Yeah,

it's kind of like reach around yeah

it was all in

which you were the new line stepper Peter was our you were the new line staffer.

Let me give him the line stepping scepter

usually Peters the guy that like you know once just one step too far, like you take it out to the brink such that someone who

doesn't already know I like to leave a little to the imagination though. Yeah. Okay, so

what we got next boss. So,

since we're already talking about me says one of the things in terms of El Paso, a buddy of mine who works at Commonwealth restaurant in Cambridge, shout out my buddy dico moratoria that I've been working with for a very long time on projects. We dropped a whole bunch of koji into kitchen and we started experimenting. And I said you can pretty much add any protein to koji and create a delicious miso. So he pulled out this refried beans Canada refried beans and we made refried bean miso.

What was it was

it glia? No soy pasa Oh baby.

So JW brings up the accent. So I

have some of that, but they add it. So we did it, we added two, we had it on a dinner we did over the course of a few days on a workshop during our tour of koji. So we added some apple butter to make it kind of like a hoisin sauce. Next to it, we have a basically a full out whey whey protein powder with a little bit of water and Koji, and salt to create a crazy umami bombed processed cheese. And then on a lark, even though I'm big on proteins, I took avocado and I made a miso with it. And it tastes pretty cool. Even though it doesn't have a lot of protein, it's got a pretty crazy flavor and texture. So pass this around,

we'll do straw on it so that we don't make mountain crackers and then break, we can take bigger transit with cracker songs that you guys talk for a second while I taste here. Good job talking.

So, so I found all this stuff in terms of if you're looking to create musos, short term, you know, in the course of a couple of months, what you look at is if you have some sort of animal protein, it seems like in terms of the enzyme enzymatic action, it occurs much faster. So if we're talking about meats, you know, in terms of what's the folks of Noma had been doing for a while making, you know, fish sauces and meat sauces. But dairy was one of those discoveries I came upon. You know, a couple years ago when I was first playing around thinking about what has protein what has, you know, a minimum amount of fat actually, just the easiest way that I found to originally track it was I would just look at nutritional facts and match it against soybeans. And then I just went on a lark and just went crazy and started adding everything I did. I've done baking, I've done butter. That was bacon. It's actually crazy. X added umami. It's not right. It's not writing the overload. Yeah, it's umami overload. Yeah, I mean, you could add it to a stock or you know, to something Yeah,

what about what are the other failed misses? That's my Oh,

yeah.

So so if you take butter because it's pretty much full out fat and you leave it out really hot and under normal like miso fermentation conditions, because the because koji actually creates enzymes to break the lipase is to break down fats you get rid of Man City pretty easily,

like break down fat fat breakdown products and cheeses I can always tell a full fat cheese its age because those lipid breakdown products like make my my tastebuds pop like little mushrooms I can always tell when a second Miss dassia The Hammer Lopez has graced us Yeah, I

saved your see.

Nice Peter tried to get JW to sit there so that you know Peter, why would you enjoy somebody else's pain so much? It's not it's not accurate? Well,

I'm just taking a page from the stats book. Yeah. Alright,

so you can go back and taste the the other stuff in a second. So what else was what about this chatter blog? Tell me about your market chatter blogs.

So supermarket chatter blog. Basically, I took some super because a good friend of mine named Jeremy Umansky has been experimenting a lot with curing meats and ageing meats with growing Aspergillus with rice flour pack under the same conditions, you would grow Aspergillus on a grain to create this, basically this enzyme pack such that you can cure meats faster and create aging flavors, really fast. So on the order of, you know, a third less time that you would normally hang to dry. So what I did, and in terms of seeing what he was doing is because I was on this cheesecake, I just took some supermarket chatter. And I did this, this, you know, Koji can Aspergillus pack on the outside. And basically, when you do that, it just has this enzymatic action, but not so much in adding flavor to this particular piece of cheese, but it kind of petrified it. So it has this interesting drying effect through the through the enzyme activity that I don't quite understand. So maybe if we have some scientists out there, that'd be really helpful to try to understand this.

Now, Pierre, have you tried this before? So when you try it, you can tell me what's going on? Right? Yeah. Gross. All right. You got some meat here. Yeah. So

in terms of one of the investigations that I was thinking about, because there's a lot of you know, talk about whether you should do the koji growing on the on the surface of the meat or should pack koji on the outside. So I just kind of went on a lark and decided because I had some Brizola I was working on to basically put a coat actually supposed to safety Do you say you're the

Italian salad? Like I don't know, but like, but oh no, no, it's different, like so when I say like Boston style, where are you from Boston

Richard just went there because the school just went there because of school but well actually, I went to school in Amherst, but Right, like,

but that's different. That's the, that's the, that's like gradual, like, you're gonna mean like, you gotta say it like, it's in the, it's in the it's in the gravy. You roll up the pork and you put it in the gravy and you get Brazil. You and so yeah, anyway, go ahead. So what are you guys

so, so I just decided that so I figured, you know, instead of growing the particular Aspergillus Oryzae on the surface with the rice pack, I would just take some Finnish Koji, mix it in with a little bit of salt, like 3% salt to ensure that other microbes wouldn't come into play. And I packed it around a Brizola and then, and then I carried it so it only took 12 days to get to the final actually got over the 30% and got to 33% and it creates this interesting it's a lot moister than traditional air cured Brizola it's good too. What's

the spices you put on it?

Just put a curry spice in Korea yeah into the into the koji para weird did

write for curry curry curry drive the like that the like the curry though. What do you guys think about the curry? Curry? Rizzoli?

You know, he made miso fortune cookies with our fortune cookie machines. Yeah,

I didn't get that one. Yes, actually go to Chong. Sorry, because we had Peter don't give us your alternate translation. Peters got inappropriate alternative translations for anything.

Oh, right. Yeah, no, no, what go to means in Korean Yeah, no.

I've been told that like, use a slightly different version of the word when you mean the slang word that you're talking about. But I don't know what I'll just let that what might what might anyway Never mind I gotta get this in question. So this this this, by the way, calling your freaking koji questions now like technical questions on how to use koji Why do you have beats here? Why beats with extra Jasmine?

Yeah, no. Basically so I was you know, I

was just giving you the beat I with this you know, you're not nice. I like beats it's just I like a particular kind of be right first of all, you're like, Martin thing. So you should love beats you should be swimming in beet juice on a constant pace a lot of beats going up. Yeah, so just hated them. No, okay, so I can deal with the thin slice like as I'm pretty chill got beats right? I can deal with that. I can deal with fully cooked beats. Yeah, it's that inbetweeners also I really love par dehydrated beats Love Party hydrated beats it's those in between our beats were like you get a giant chunk of beat and it's like not cooked it's not not cooked and then somehow they managed to cook the dirt flavor into the beat instead of getting here we get three big baseball's of beats as a dish I can't I can't plow my way through a baseball of beat like became chunks I can deal with what are your guys thoughts on on baseball's of beats?

I was actually just exposed to beats when I came up to New York at Lupo and I had to cook about like 60 pounds a week of beats and so I had a lot of baseball beat experience. To be honest, I am I'm a baseball fan. Yeah. So you

just pick up like a beat that craps running down your arm leaving your whites and you take a big old Shaw Your teeth are all stain running down the sides of your mouth and you're like yeah down that's what

we had that assault big beats at. What's it called?

Agar. Yeah, it sounds good. Good, I guess Lesson What am I what am I earliest rose memories and nightmare memories is that we did a salt cooked fish. My mom decided to do it and the salt crust collapsed. And we couldn't get all the salt off fish. And so it was more like this. Yeah. And my mom was a fantastic cook. And a pediatric cardiologist like world renowned for starting the transplant program at Columbia, the first pediatric heart transplant ever and the only thing that my stepfather gives her constantly reminds her of is that one freakin fish will save lives but save so many lives. Like literally so many lies that no one no one else would have transplanted these kids and yet that's what that's what she's going to be remembered for that one. So what do we got with the beats? And so yeah,

so it's a better as Okay, preparation. Traditionally, it's done with daikon. So just took the recipe straight out of the book of me so fiercely call out shout out to certainly Yeah, it's my goal to bring that back into publication.

I told it's non publication. No, I told you I called him on the phone. He picked up and insulted me why? Yeah. I said I was like, Listen, this was a long time ago and he literally he picked up the phone. I was like, okay, because I thought I was gonna get like, you know, somebody somebody that peon at soy organised Yeah, sure. Yeah. So whenever and he picks up and I was like, have you had I was trying to do ultimate tofu. Sure. earned this way before a bad name. Yeah. This is like, long, long time ago and I was like, Can you make it with edamame and he almost like he could have like choked me with peace through the phone. He would have like, choked me out with peace. He's like, that is such a waste of edamame a while you try to make tofu out of edamame. I was like, My people have a lot of money. It's not about saving the world through protein. It's just about food. You don't I mean, I was asking to try to ask him about alternative things. He was just like, look, soybeans are for tofu at a mommy is for eating. That's it. You know what I mean? He was not having it. He certainly is the guy who wrote the book of tofu in the book of meat. So we've talked about it many times on the air, and his wife whose name I can never pronounce, which is why I never say her name. Yeah. I feel you on that. Oh, yeah. And so which I feel bad. Like I would give her like the credit she's due if I could pronounce her name, because I can't pronounce her name. I can't remember it is a freaking nightmare. It's horrifying. Like, anyway, whatever. And she didn't pick up the phone. If he had picked up the phone, I would have made the you know, the conscious effort to remember anyway, that's not the point. The point is, is that he wanted to save they wanted to save the earth through protein. You know what I mean? Yeah, it didn't work so much, though. I think they

should uh, I mean, if people knew what mommy bombs were back then then it would have been a totally different story.

Yeah, so two of them wrote two books, The Book of tofu the book of meet me, so please do not buy. There is a pocket version that's reasonable. And then there's a pocket version, it's mutilated, please get when you're getting it, make sure you get the full on edition. When they hacked up. One of one or two. I forget. I've seen several editions of their books that have been hacked up in such a way that they don't flow well. And they're kind of unreadable. If you can get the large format one they're the they're the easiest on the eyes and the best to read Rich agree. Yeah,

I own I own four copies.

What's your last name? Oh, no, not surely. Okay.

So on those pickles, basically, I took that technique. You just make a slurry out of koji you've made or koji you've bought you had cooked rice and a little bit of sock a and salt. And then you have this pickling flurry and you let it ferment out for about a week. And then you just add you add typically root vegetables to it because they can hand kind of handle the the the environment and hold up. And then I've just found it to be delicious. The

other end chi they are crunchy. Is that bad or good? Well, in my normal realm, that's not but I'm remembering now I'm thinking of now more as tsukamoto so I can that's good it's

good structure does not like that at all

that's the most polite I've ever seen the sassy a bee in her life. A look of horror with and fine Miss dassia Miss dassia like you need to rearrange your your mind like you and I have an idea of what something's supposed to be. just rearrange your mind this is now a soup we're now in Sookie Mona land. We're not in like Western beat Ville. One thing I will say is that I can taste starch more in this beat than I normally can taste in beets. I wonder why that's the case. So like when you eat an apple that has some residual starch. It's got a note in it and usually in an undercooked beat or non it's it's non coat. It's not undercooked or is it? So yeah. Okay, so that's why I'm not used to having a raw beat of this texture. So I get a little bit of that starch note, which lovers of patients will love. Yeah, I'm a big fan of those beats. Yeah. Are you a lover of pea shoots? I do like pea shoots, why? You're allowed to like whatever you want our house and let's get some questions before we have to go to break. And then we'll talk more about what Cody but if I don't get to some of these questions Anastasia is going to be see when I get off the air Anastasia is just gonna be like you didn't answer any of those damn questions. I'd like three weeks behind, right? Yes, details but I'm going to handle one from this week. Because it needs a bunch of people talking about it. All right, well, let's do that. And then take a break. All right, Richie. Got a couple more things. First, it takes we'll talk about after the break. Yeah, we'll do it after break. Okay. Andrew from Los Angeles writes in regarding toast. Greetings, Dave the hammer and family I consider myself a knowledgeable amateur Cook. I'm uncomfortable with a variety of techniques and cuisines. I say this first because my question is super basic. How do you make toast? lately? I feel like my toast game is lacking. The bread doesn't get crunchy enough unless it's buoyant. I've had some pretty delicious toast out at various breakfast spots, but can't seem to replicate that at home. I know enough to avoid saga fIying the toast by say putting on a plate directly after toasting. Oh my God even thinking about that friggin toast steaming itself on a plate is making me angry. It's just making me very angry right now. But well, I could use some more pro wisdom. Should I look into a new toaster? I don't know you didn't tell me what kind of toaster you're using. How do I know I don't know what you have, although the toaster does make a huge difference if I'm not getting the shot looking at a new toaster if I'm not getting the desired outcome, toaster oven versus standard slotted toaster, you know, etc is this entirely about the brand of bread? Do I have to be a crazy person and leave sliced bread on the counter every night to get it appropriately stale? Any and all thoughts would be appreciated love the show Andrew from Los Angeles first of all, you should go and read. Oh my God, what's so the wife name is Matt. What's his name? John Thorne has a book the several books they write in Maine. I think it's I forget they have a bunch of books. Look them up. One of them has an essay on toast. That's quite good. But I can't remember the name of the which one it is they have. I can't remember the name of any of their books now but it's all like pig fire stuff like this. But like what like one has an essay on toast which is definitely worth the read. Toast is an underappreciated product and the there is no one toast. It's not like Highlander where there can be only one there are multiple toasts. And so the question is what are you looking for in a slice of toast and I would say that the average American in a slice of toast wants a crispy but not burnt exterior but a still still soft interior. My right yeah hungry Is that Yeah. Whereas there are a host of people when they say toast, they want something basically fully Melba FIDE like a you know crunchy throughout a desiccated Rusk right now. So and a lot of this has to do with the with the toasting rate. And I'll say it again, and I've said it a million times on the air. This is all about the miracle of moisture management, right? Toast is all a moisture management technique. So there there is a huge difference in quality between different toasters, that's for sure. Right? On evenness on on everything on the programming, you can in general get decent toast out of any, any toaster you desire. But, in general, if your toast isn't coming out of the way you want it, I would do two toast things on it, I would do two light toast things with a rest in between rather than a single long toasting to the desired color. That's going to give you a little more dehydration on the outside of the bread. And after the very first toasting when it comes out. You'll flash some of the moisture off and ruin the kind of based initial very blonde crust that you produced. And then when you put it in for the second time, you're gonna develop a little more of a durable crust on the outside, but you won't have dehydrated at all all the way through. If you want a very dehydrated internal with a very, very long lasting crust for let's say, you're going to put something on top like brisket or something like this. Then I would say multiple low passes or just throw it in the freaking oven at a low baking temperature with air circulation. The other thing is as soon as the toaster turns off, open the toaster oven. If you're using an oven, open the toaster oven, let the steam come out when you look at your toaster oven JW Do you not see that freaking condensation on the inside of the toaster oven? Yeah, I see. And does that not cause your heart pain?

It does, causes a little a little a little tingle.

Right? Right. So first thing I would say is let's say you're using a toaster oven, I would do a you know relatively short toast, then I would open it and let it flash off. Wait a couple minutes and toast it one more time light and you should get a good quality toast. That's the answer on a pop up toaster. I don't really think I mean maybe moving it slightly because if your toaster is particularly crappy, you'll notice that it puts banding on your toast and not just banding on where the grates are. But you can literally see the heating elements running along you're toast this is an indication that your toast is probably that's not an even enough kind of heat. Perhaps the reflector on the bottom of your thing is is very dirty you're not getting a lot of radiant heat back up or there's number of reasons but you know if you need to move it to eat in and out you can do that too. Or just get a higher quality toaster oven. Anyone else agree or disagree on my toast technology anything further to add on toasting?

It sounds like a pain in the ass good toast.

It's super easy. It's just like everything else is like my new book if you don't feel it if you're not into this and just don't buy the new book. It's thinking a lot ahead of time but making your life easy like in other words like you're putting your toast in and you're hitting it you're hitting go and you're walking away and coming back and it's done all I'm advocating is that in between that you like turn it off, let it flash off for like you know 3040 seconds let it cool down a little bit then run it through another toast cycle that's

all so are you saying toaster ovens the way to go over pop up toaster?

No, I think you could do the same thing and the pop up toaster pop up toaster shoots the toast up and allows pretty good airflow. So like I would just set your pop up toaster to like a lower level than you normally would. And then just let it pop hit it again. Let it pop and go and then it's just dialing in how long those short segments are but you're gonna get a better toast but look if you want crappy toast that's up to you. I'm kind

of in a mixed right here because I have my grandmother's toaster. So it's sentimental but it's fundamentally produces crappy toast so What style of toaster Toastmaster toast modes pop up pop up from like 1976 or something like that?

Yeah, you might well I do. So if it's pop up is like What's bad about the toast

is like, so the knob doesn't really work. So you don't really know how you're gonna if you're gonna over darken it, or if you're gonna lightly darkened,

you need to keep that knob in one freaking position, you need to dial that sucker in and then like, let her go.

Past was more of a tortilla game. So we never really kind of jumped in. Do you put tortillas and a pop up toaster? No, no, but I don't really that's why I guess I don't know the art of toast per se, and haven't really paid attention to the quality of the toast. And so I don't know.

Yeah, also, I like crappy American bread for toast I do for a sandwich. For a sandwich. Here's something else I would say. I'm going to make a small pitch here. Large pitch actually, if you're getting a new toaster one of the advantages of a toaster oven is the bagel setting and the bagel setting is the best thing to happen to toasters since toasting because there are many things on earth a bagel is not one of them because I don't toast bagels. But there are many things on Earth where you want toasting on the one side only you guys agree with me on this? Yeah, a hamburger bun. I don't want the part touching my hands to be toasted. I want the part touching the mayonnaise and or the burger. I want that to be toasted. sogginess too. Yeah, right. That's functional and delicious. But I want I want the top of my sesame seed bun to be a bun and not a piece of toast. And they're gonna Patito fluffy. I would always get a patty. Well, if someone says what do you have? What like, would you have a patty melt? I pretty much they can just stop. They can just stop Would you like a patty melt and as soon as they say the word or I'm like I'm done because that's what I want. Patty melt is like God's like what God would do to a burger. That's why it's not even a hamburger in my mind. It's like, it's another category of awesome. Like, I love the patty milk. But anyway, Patty, well, obviously you don't. That's interesting question. What do you create toast? Would you pre toast the inside of a patty melt? I don't do I know you would take

a break and think about it.

Yeah, okay, we'll come right back with more questions on cooking issues.

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Maybe you already know that su VT is the best way to get a kick ass juicy steak and withdrawal a new Suvi tool from ChefSteps you can do so much more smoky tend to ribs, homemade yogurt, creme brulee, bright, crunchy pickles, vibrant purees, even smooth, creamy ice cream all perfectly cooked every time. Joule is sleek and small enough to fit in your kitchen drawer. And it's operated by an elegant smartphone app that's been designed to remove the guesswork. Get you cooking faster and give you the information and inspiration you want when you want it. Browse ChefSteps amazing recipes and helpful guides. Choose your perfect doneness for any meet and get notified when your food is ready. You know you'll get great results so you can focus on sides and sauces or just pour yourself a cocktail and chill until you're ready for a delicious dinner. For more information and to order yours now visit chefsteps.com/joul II. And we're back. We didn't enter Javier about his equipment question. Did we even start you know? Okay, I hope you're doing well. I wanted to send a question for the show but don't have the address. Well, apparently you found it. Okay. I'm looking at expanding the equipment from my kitchen. I live in a small apartment so I don't have too much space to put many appliances and I wanted to get a suggestion on what I should get next. I currently own an Innova immersion circulator. Unfortunately, it's not a jewel, I guess because you know, we had jewel is a sponsor of our program. We had Chris on what two weeks ago. A Vitamix KitchenAid a copycat easy whimper and a preorder the spins all thank you you have everything you need them baby. I was looking at a vacuum chamber machine the RV VacMaster 215 Richie ever used that one? Nope. No, I know JW hasn't because he's got too fancy. Fancy minipack where why? But I don't know if I should go for it. Are there another machine like it or a different type of equipment? And he suggestions I would only use it at home so I'm debating whether I should shell out $500 Plus for a machine like that. Thanks for your help. Best heavy So have you so here's my issue. I've never used that. All these years later, I've what have you out here, whatever man. Anyway, week that I'm known weak sauce, I'm the sauce that is weak. So my point is this, I've never used that machine, I should probably since I'm doing this book that has to beat on it just bite the bullet and buy or steal one or find someone that has one and use it. Now I'm going to actually go French aurvey Chef aurvey malware from the French culinary while the ACC formerly the French Culinary Institute, he seems to like it, but I've never used it. And I will never, I can't ever won't ever recommend a piece of equipment that I haven't used. Just because that would be stupid on my part. But, you know, like what you I don't know, the ultimate vacuum it can produce really, for a vacuum vacuum machine at home is super handy. Most things you can do without a vacuum machine. But I gotta be honest, when like I'm doing chicken marination, or any kind of marination I throw crap in the vacuum machine because it just makes the marination happen faster. It just does like backpacking the stuff down, and for infusions, and when you're packing stuff to freeze, you want to get all the oxygen out. So backpacking for freezing is like a really smart idea to maintain quality on long frozen items. Or you can get away with a zippy but but vacuuming is generally a lot better. I all I only like chamber machines, I think that this the one you're talking about, I can't remember whether it has a chamber or whether it's like a chamber like one or something like this. But I really only recommend chamber machines, I will say this mini pack, which is the company who makes the unit that I use, and that JW mini pack not not multivalue Yeah, you know why to get mini pack is because they care about cooks, whereas multifactor give a rat's behind about you. They don't care about you or your problems not at all. You want a mini pack and they don't want to be packed but they're coming out with a with they're coming out with a new home unit called the cube in the next six months or so. And so I'm waiting when when that comes out. Unfortunately, I don't think it'll be out in time for my book to be in it. But I'm having high hopes for it is relatively small unit it will allow for chamber and for external vacuum. But I can't comment on it because they're not using all the good vacuum machines use what's called a bush pump, or equivalent. It's an oil based vacuum pump and they just kick so much behind. That's why like, food savers are you know, relatively useless for that sort of stuff because they have those little piston pumps. But then they get they get jammed with you and no one's ever done that I know of here's a trick for you. FoodSaver people. Has anyone ever modified a FoodSaver for a wolf jar? You want a wolf char is? No so a wolf jar is vacuum in and vacuum out all from the top. And it collects liquids in the bottom. So like I can imagine modifying a Food Saver with one of their smaller because it takes a long time to evacuate those things with that crappy little pump. But you could probably handle liquids. Oh no, you can't because you kind of put the freakin seal bar. Someday I'll just make my own like like DIY, I'll just make like a $100 DIY so that not not for production because people already are in that business. But I mean just like you know, you have access to like a fun fundamental woodshop or a 3d printer. Here's a VAC machine. Yeah, cuz you can't Wiltshire that sucker son of a gun. I don't know. Anyway, it would be good. If you could then you wouldn't need a chamber as much, but I would. I would wait for a chamber machine. What do you think? I agree. Yeah. How do you like your new chamber machine? I love it. I love it. Okay, I'm