Cooking Issues Transcript

Episode 276: Quality for the Holidays


Hello, everybody, and welcome to a brand new series on heritage radio network called the culinary call sheet where we give a peek into the back kitchen of culinary media. I'm your host, April Jones,

and I'm your co host, Darren bresnitz. Part of why we started the show was to offer an unofficial mentorship for anyone who's interested in learning about all aspects of food and video, whether that's TV, social media online, or just something you want to do for fun.

Absolutely what was once niche or a little silly, as I'm sure you remember, Darren, when we started out, this man has now become such a massive playing field for so many creatives using food as the medium.

It's something that has driven us professionally and personally, for so many years. What excites me the most about this show is that we're going to sit down with some of the industry leaders to hear how they made it and what drew them into this industry.

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Today's program is brought to you by the Christmas tree Farmers Association of New York partnering with grownyc to make farm fresh trees and wreaths available at Green markets. For more information visit Christmas trees and why.org Hey everyone, this is David tat ashore lead engineer and studio manager of the Heritage radio network. And I'm reaching out to ask for your support during our end of year fun drive. A contribution in any amount supports our weekly programming and our mission to make the world a more equitable, sustainable and delicious place. Plus, you'll receive exclusive member benefits like monthly playlists, discounted event tickets, party invitations and more. So if you'd like good food and you love good food radio, throw a little dough our way. Make your gift at Heritage radio network.org/donate Happy Holidays from all of us here at Heritage Radio Network.

Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold. Coming to you live every tuesday from roughly 12 to 1245 or one o'clock heritage pizza Heron pizzeria. Kind of a heritage pizzeria Roberta pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn, welcome to the day yeah Christmas any holiday really mean you and I happen to be Christmas folk. But any you know any holiday of your choice Happy

Hanukkah starts on the same day as Christmas Eve this month so

late that's unusual.

Why is it so dang late? Oh no. Need to synchronize these things? We did? It is semi synchronized

no gods no religion.

Wow. Wow. This is not a you know. This is not that kind of a show Dave sorry. Sorry about that kind

of show server going off the handle. All right. So anyway,

calling your questions to a 718497212 Wait that's 718-497-2128 cooking not really you know not cooking related. This is we do not have Harold McGee. Today. Booker is calling me on my phone. We like he's well maybe so well. All right. At home or the he's doing this thing called railfanning how second he's gonna get mad at me if I actually put them on the lines of some kind of extreme sport. What kind of it's it's these people. My son included who love riding on the trains. It's it's really all they care to do is ride on the trains and see what see what he has to say here

Yeah, Maybe whatever was it's not important anymore.

You found this train

found his train, or he's usually just called me. Hi. Hey Brooker. What's up? I'm on the radio show right now. What do you need? On my way back home now? Okay, I'll see you in a little bit. Square core square. Yes. Did you have a good railfanning? Trip? Yep, I'm coming back home now, by people. Listen, I know I'm in the middle of a radio program here. But when your son calls you, and He's nice, twice, and he's out, you know, by himself on the subway system, you take the call? Am I wrong about this and stuff? And you're right. We are these older people that go on things with him. Are they okay, so if you want to see what the railfanning crew looks like, I think you actually, you might have missed your opportunity this year, have you been on the holiday train. So one of the fun things to do in New York City during the holiday season is every Sunday, they won't do it this time, because it's Christmas, they run antique trains on from Second Avenue to Queens Plaza along the F line. So you can ride it and like it's it there's exactly two kinds of people on that train. We've talked about this already. There's two kinds of people on that train. There are like the people who are dressed up and fake 40s and 30s clothes, taking pictures of themselves. And then there's hardcore rail fanners and those two groups of people could not be any more different the hardcore rail fanners like typically are wearing some sort of like railroad Affinia you know what I mean? Some sort of like, you know, 207th Street track workers thing or whatever. You know what I mean? Some sort of like my son Booker has a baseball cap with every pin of every subway train on it, I think is missing one. Anyway. So yeah, it's it's an interesting cross section of New York and it's just the cost of a subway ride. Politics. Alright, well, let's get some. Get some question. Do you make anything good? This week? As I say no, no, but but for your holiday party? With my made pasta and salad like I usually do, because Oh, happy freaking Christmas. Pasta Salad. pastas. What kind of pasta do you make pesto because there was a vegetarian? Peter's wife. And she's vegetarian, Peter Kim. And you see him food and drink. My wife is a vegetarian. She's French. She's vegetarian. Yeah, like vegetables? Only? No fish. I don't know about this. I'm sure she eats fish. Didn't Thanksgiving two years ago. Didn't they bring some sort of like meat stew some sort of southern he needs to know that that was an Ethiopian meats do I know it was Southern French kids. Oh, there was an Ethiopian and Southern French. Anyway, point being that. Did she just suddenly become a?

No, I've known her for. We've known her. She's always been a vegetarian.

No chicken. No fish.

Not as far as I know.

So you made pesto for Christmas. And because basil did nothing's more in season than Basil is

here. Ragu meat Ragu.

But that you said you were cooking vegetarian, two different types, though. So you're basically just saying that you cheaped out and you made pasta. Yeah. Because it's like it's cheap. But not because of a vegetarian that was there. You will actually pass the because of it. I couldn't serve the red good everyone. So to make a pesto to so it's a secondary fat like the vegetarianism isn't the reason past Christmas. Now, that's cheap. Do you ever do the in your family? Did you ever do the meatless Christmas Eve? Or is that Italian only? We did the meatless Good Friday,

not meatless Christmas Eve. You mean Seven Fishes?

Is that how many fishes? So my family does? Why seven? Is that like a Bible thing? Probably. Yeah. I mean, it's just one of those days that you're not supposed to be eating meat back in the day Italian style. Yeah,

I mean, so we worked on a fish instead.

What do you what do you use your family? Do the Bacala Oh, yeah, that's my favorite. Yeah, yeah. How do they make it?

So we soak it for a few days. And then my grandmother cooks it with marinara sauce, onions. It's delicious.

That's your favorite hot my favorite. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever spilled the soaking water all into the laundry hamper?

No, I have the saltwater. Yeah.

Yeah, cuz we used to soak it downstairs. Like we had like, you know how like, you know, like, you know, you've made it your family's made it when you get that second fridge downstairs. It's like you have the fridge in the kitchen. But then you have that second fridge there. Yeah. So my mom used to soak the block a lot in the second, like right next to the second fridge downstairs. And she had it out because I guess she was going to change it. And I dumped as like I was at nonroad junior high or high school I dumped the entire water thing into like, like the clean laundry basket. Because you know that the washing machine is right next to the second fridge right? You don't I mean? Yeah.

because this is the setup at my grandmother's house to actually yeah,

that works. You know what I mean? It's like, Man, that was a nightmare that stuff stank. Oh my god that is thank you what the worst thing is, is when you say you take all this time soaking it and if you let it come up to temperature even too high you let it boil even a little bit in the bucket Loggos hard. Do you hate that?

Yeah, well, so I actually don't like it to soak too long because I love the saltiness of it. I like when it has that. The Tang,

yeah, but Okay, so another thing people might not know Bacala by the way, like is the dried salt. White Fish are used typically, you know, the high rents does cod but now they use Pollack or whatever they whatever, so we get the code. Yeah. Hi, rent. A Yeah, the fix stuff is expensive. You know what I mean? But a lot of people find it somewhat challenging. It takes a long time to cook. What is delicious though, and can be done right away, is if you buy the cheaper stuff, right? And it's just basically you It's thin so It rehydrates and soaks out really quickly. Just like Bring a large pot of water up to a simmer, turn it off, throw it in, right. This is not buckle either but this with this fish, like throw it in and then like do that like once or twice you're tasting like basically shred it. And then make like a mashed potato, right? Almost like a brand dad and you mix it in with that third, Lucia's like delicious you can also make it with actual mashed yams and it becomes closer to like Trinidad Tobago kind of thing but like salt fish, and and like Smash traditional yams or even like potatoes more of a brand dodge style, delicious and easy way to get into it. My other favorite way the Stasi to your family ever eat salt caught it in any form. Did you ever go out like to restaurants and get in? If you did if you ever had salt cod fritters bucket Ito's. God that's another really good way to have salt cod anyway. So you're not supposed to have meat. So we used to have the Byculla we would always have some form of octopus and we would always have this what maybe think of it the pasta with the anchovies day. Have you ever do that one?

We do the anchovies with the Savoy cabbage. Oh, I

haven't had that one. Do you like that? Oh, I

love it. Yeah, and they get they just melt in the cabbage. She can't even see them anymore. But the flavor is there.

Yeah, well, we used to do the we would do that. We would do the the anchovy pasta but the trick with the anchovy pasta is not only not supposed to have meat you're also not supposed to have really dairy on this night. Right? So it's it's a fish only like it's similar to Lent. Right? So we would do bread crumbs instead of the cheese. You ever do that? Once does. Yeah, you got to get the you've never done bread crumbs on pasta.

Yeah, why not? This thing you're talking about? Which will what thing to add to it? I don't know what that is.

Well, instead of cheese like for like texture to soak up extra stuff. You put bread crumbs on top and actually it's really good like bread crumbs on top of pasta sounds stupid like star Tron star. It's good. It's really good.

I never heard this thing about no cheese, but none of them think about it. There isn't really any cheese in this meal.

That's because yeah, all the recipes are designed to not have cheese. You forget that it was a religious injunction against having many wasn't just lent. And Fridays. It was like Christmas Eve. It not only no meat, no dairy, typically no egg. Because these are all like Lenten fast rules built around kind of religious strictures from religious. Well, you know, some really good, really good cuisine. Why do you think does anyone really think for even one second, that the reason that Italian fish dishes don't contain cheese is because cheese and fish don't taste good together? Anyone that's had a fried fish sandwich with melted American cheese on it knows that cheese tastes good with fish, right? I mean, anyone that's had shrimp and grits realizes that shrimp and cheese and grits and bacon are all on friendly first name basis is with each other. It's that all of the fish dishes from the Italian repertoire are designed to be eaten on fast days where you're not consuming dairy that's why you don't get kind of creamy fish sauces that's why you don't get you don't get cheese on your on your fish sauce. That's why fat history factory folk. It was at a call Dave coming in or as a call caller you're on the air.

It is it's Matt and mystic. How you doing good. So we have a little holiday party coming up. And I'm gonna make a festive, sparkling drink and I was thinking about doing like a carbonated French 75

Nice since it's already semi carbonated anyway, right? Yeah,

so it's thinking but I was wondering if like give us like a sweeter sparkling wine like an ASCII and so like sort of skipping the skipping the simple syrup and doing the Ask the

I like how you're doing it with the full like kind of like East Coast Boston Italian pronunciation Asti Spumante Yeah, already? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, honestly, why not? You might have to adjust the other stuff, but I don't see why you couldn't do it. When you're when you're going to let me see what do you know what, what, what recipe you're going to use for what the build is?

I don't actually I was gonna look in liquid intelligence and see what do you call it for, but

I think I have that recipe in there is one of the things is is one of the, I can't remember it has been such a long time. If I don't have the recipe, it's because it didn't fit my normal analysis methods because it's got the added champagne afterwards. And so what happens with the added Champagne is it didn't fit into any one of my kind of normal dilution equations because it has like post dilution afterwards. And so I can't remember whether I made an exception to it and tried to fit it into like one of the standard kind of drink categories that they did, because I didn't go into full on analysis of that style. So I don't know, but, but it is a obviously a delicious drink, if you're going to do an actual forced carbonated version, or you're going to you're going to clarify the citrus or no,

we're gonna do like a lemon acid with citric acid,

I would instead since there's you're not going to have that much probably acid in each cocktail depending on how you balance it out. I might just carbonate it all and you could basically pre batch that stuff and then I would just add a little bit of the fresh at the end unless you want be able people to be able to pour it from the bottle like themselves and everything depends on what you're what you're going to do. If you're going to use straight acid. I mean like for a drink like that if you're going to use straight acid I would also use a little peel to kind of like brighten it up a little bit you know, but you know give it a test but that should be delicious and you know what I can do is I can have my family entire family come by your house and mistake on Christmas Eve because I'll be there and and we'll just you know we'll be right you as an enemy of quality. If we find that the cocktail is not up to snuff, we think

that sounds good. It's 60 Washington street. The street from the liquor store

weighed down by where the a&p the old a&p liquor store. Yeah, on the other hand, you're on the other side of the bridge Man What if the bridge is out? I could be hours on Christmas eve before I get back to the house. Has anyone seen the bridge? The bridge so in the middle of mystic is this thing called like the mystic. I don't know what a bascule is, but it's a bascule bridge and the people in Mystic they love this freakin bridge. They every couple of years. They raised, you know, eight jillion dollars so they can repaint it. You know what I mean? And it what happens is is that is it the two sides of mistake are separated by this drawbridge. And all it takes is like one knucklehead with you with a boat that's too tall and a horn and traffic's tied up forever in the middle of town. You know what I mean? Anyway, anyway, all right. Maybe I don't know parents. We will be down in town. We'll be walking around on the Christmas Eve depending. It's going to be crappy weather though. I think.

Yeah, I don't know the weather can be the party Friday. So if you're around you want to come you know I'll hit you up on the Twitter.

Oh, yeah, hit me up. I might actually still be down in Chester on the Friday because believe this or not this New York City schools are running on Friday. And then like they didn't even cancel after school programs. So DAX has basketball freakin practices so stupid. Anyway. Anyway, let us if I if I don't make it let us know how the cocktail is working of enemies of quality in the Stasi, pump it you're the pump we made our shirts finally. Yeah, anime quality shirts. So go online and look up. I'll just go to Booker index.com/enemy equality slash enemy of quality. And you can see Anastasia and myself the Queen and kings of anti equality. They want to take another call. Yeah, sure. Caller you're on the air.

Yeah, hi, Dave. Asher, Merry Christmas. Happy Christmas Hanukkah Kwanzaa, whatever we call it now. I had a question about breathing. in lots of different recipes from all over, there's different temperatures for grazing, and some of them and some people prefer to lower temperature braising like 200 to 225 degrees versus 350 degree. Since the temperature of the liquid inside of the brace can't get above the boiling point. Is it beneficial or not to do a lower temperature raise or a hardest temperature brace? And does it does the food really interact that much with the radiant heat different?

I think Alaska depend on exactly how you how how the whole thing is configured right? So like if you have a braising vessel in an oven, and the vessel is sealed, then anything in other words like the lids on it or it's got coil on top of it, any temperature in the oven, assuming the oven is accurate, above 212 degrees, Fahrenheit is going to cause the liquid and eventually the meat and or vegetables inside to reach 212 Fahrenheit because there'll be no evaporative cooling, if you remove the lid, or allow there to be evaporation, you know, and they're in between zones, right levels of amounts of evaporation, then the meat and the product will evaporate idli cool itself. And so it will not typically reach boiling temperature, unless the heat input into the product is so high that the entire thing can actually reach the boiling point now meet will never have reached the boiling point until the surface dries out. And there's no longer evaporative cooling at the surface. However, the parts of the meat that are underneath the liquid can reach those temperatures if you're in a hot, hot oven. So higher temperatures, like you know, 353 60 can be enough to overcome some of the evaporative cooling effects and push the surfaces have meet up above those kinds of temperatures. Whereas lower temperatures in the two hundreds don't, because you're never going to overcome the kind of evaporative cooling effect to get the full drying and cross formation on the top of the meat. So I mean, I don't know if I'm answering the question, I would say that those lower numbers are, you know, safer in terms of like if a piece of meats poking out, it's going to stay more braised and not kind of crossed over as much, you're not going to get above that above that level. But then you might be in a situation where your heat input is not necessarily fast enough, and it just takes a lot longer for you to get your braids done. That said, I really don't think it's going to make too much of a difference. I think your main difference is going to be if you seal it, or if you don't, if you don't seal it, the difference between a 250 and a 325 is going to be kind of minimal. I think it might just take a little longer one way or the other because it's going to go above to 12. You know, all of the interesting stuff happen. What happens once there's evaporative cooling?

Sure, no, I was kind of going along with that. This is also interesting to see how fast how fast is collagen and other connective tissue breaks down? Is that just a result of the time and temperature or actually a higher temperature has the result of doing that faster? If it's sealed per se, I don't really care about the meat being exposed above the liquid, let's say and I don't care about that. But just breaking down to the shooting colleges.

Yeah, so the hotter it is, the faster it'll happen. It's like all other things equal, right. So assuming you have the same. So to convert College in two gelatin requires heat, time. And moisture, right. So like obviously, it's hard to break down collagen and beef jerky. Because there's no moisture there, you know what I mean? So it's, it's like a combination kind of have also typically there's enough moisture in meat to have it happen. But then you're looking at. And also, moisture is being released from the meat as it heats. So there might there might be some effect in higher temperature situations, as opposed to like sub sub boiling temperatures, where there might be so in other words, like take a look, when you're doing low temperature work, like let's say you were going to do a short rib, let's say for like three days, and you're going to cook it at like 5556 Celsius, which is you know, down in the kind of meat medium, high medium rare range, or medium rare range. So if you're going to cook down there, the connective tissue never breaks down. Now, I mean, it breaks down, it gets soft, but it doesn't kind of melt out. And so I I don't I'm actually researching this, and I shouldn't talk about it. But the next book is going to be on low temperature cooking. For probably for more home applications. Not probably it's going to be a low temperature cooking in home applications. But the one of the interesting things is the texture of meat in those situations kind of stays the same structurally, even though it gets softer and softer. And so it's probably some combination of the college and not maybe breaking down as much because there was not as much moisture released because the meat doesn't squeeze out all of its juices as much because you didn't overcook the meat. Right?

Kind of how you say is a nice thing to have if that's what you want to have. It's a lot of stuff for loads of it's a tricky thing that people are saying, well this is at this higher temperature. This is like a brace but it isn't exactly the same thing because it's not high enough. to actually construct new tissue and melt all our colleges, it's just softening it and breaking it down.

Right? It doesn't actually, it doesn't actually render it in the same way as that doesn't render out, you know, the gelatin. Gelatin doesn't suffuse the entire piece of meat. And in fact, if what you want is a traditional braise, and that you go in and expecting a traditional braise, in general, most people don't want the low temperature product in that case, in that, what was

the temperature that that sort of stuff produces and melt out?

That's an interesting question, I'll probably have to do some research on that. But in general, in my head, right, there is such a time penalty for doing long term low temperature work, that roughly anytime I go above, like 6465 Celsius, I'm just like To hell with it. And I go all the way up into the 80s. So when you're in the 80s, right, you don't have to worry about overcooking things, you also your water bath isn't boiling over a lot makes it convenient. You see, if you're actually doing bad work in boiling water, it can be a pain in the butt because the bags can touch the sides of your thing melt and, and you get like really fast evaporation at boiling, you have to replenish your water constantly. So typically, like when I want a traditional high temperature, texture for something like a coffee, which I liked doing in bags a lot because it's easier to store. You know, they last a lot longer. It's you know a lot. You don't have to have that kind of excess of liquid or fat you can do you know, with very little amount of fat and or liquid and braise. It's not quite the same because you don't get any evaporation. But I do those in the in the 80s because I want that traditional texture. And once you're up like 80 to 83 you know you're going to start you're going to get those kind of traditional textures.

Very cool. I appreciate it. All right, cool.

Okay, let me see we had a comment Anastasia about our private conversation from Carlos. I want to start by thanking you guys for the hours of edutainment on the show. entertainment show actually makes me look forward to my commute who and Mr. McGee drops by we left him in the Herald. It was good man. Like having him also he knows all this stuff. Yeah, good, man. I was very relieved when you mentioned that the tastebud blowout pine nuts are a specific Chinese nut. In New Mexico, we eat pine nuts like crazy pretty much year round. But especially so in the winter months. We roasted salted pine nuts in a similar fashion to sunflower seeds. Pop a handful in your mouth. One by one crack the shell and enjoy the nut and spit out the shell and repeat. Do you ever see people like eating the sunflower seeds sitting there spitting in the subway? Oh my god, people people. Jeez Louise Johnston, assault me and it's just, you know, it's like like, why would you think that that's okay to sit there and spray shells out your mouth on the freakin subway. Why would you think that's okay.

We're living in a society.

Yeah, you don't do that kind of crap. Right? Okay, let me ask you a question because my family is people in my family are on the other side of this from me. Okay, so Are you guys familiar? I don't like Okay. Remember, I'm a wasp. I'm a 41 of my five year old wasp. Okay. Now, just bear that in mind. So like, I don't like kind of like I don't like dueling music. I don't like hearing two different stereos at the same time bothers me. And it bothers me in like, public situations where I have to listen to somebody else's music because me like Azar like if I was listening to my house, I would probably like it because I like all forms of music, but it's just kind of like, Why do I have to listen to this guy's music for your understanding stars? Are you the same way? Because, because why? Cuz I feel like you know, I don't get to go over there. And like, I don't know harangue them. Yeah,

your presence just rings them. And you don't know it though.

I'm sure my presence who rings it. But that's a whole that's the whole bargain you live make for living in New York City anyway, it's not my point. So my point is, is that there's these like, the new thing is bicyclers have like, boom boxes, but they're these new mini boom boxes, like the new Bluetooth things. And they strap them to their person age to their bicycles. And they zip around the town playing loud music on their bicycles. Right? Now. The reason is that they want you to know that they're coming so that you don't hit them and or walk out in front of them. Which I totally understand. Because how many times have you had some idiot walk in front of you when you're riding a bike? They walk there, they look the wrong freaking way and they step right into a freaking bike lane. And then you're the bad person because you slammed into an 80 year old lady. Yeah. Is it your fault? No. Oh, but like my point is, is it so where do you where do you feel about the music blaring of the bicycle?

I've only heard like one school r&b bikes. My bro

My brother has James Brown 100% of the time. Good. Dave, what do you think about the bicycle music?

I think that's fine. It's it's more like when it's in an enclosed space, like a subway car that bothers me out on the street is

whatever. What are your thoughts about those idiots who they invest in a giant stereo for their car, but they don't invest in enough automotive adhesive to glue all the parts of their trunk down. And so their entire car sounds like it's rattling himself to pieces when the bass drum hits and they can't hear it because it's so loud. Their hearing is so distorted out on the inside of the car, that they don't know that they're that their car sounds like a baby rattle.

I mean, enemies of quality. What else can you say? That's right.

If you're gonna play music that loud which I endorse heartily, then, you know, have the decency to have some, you know, quality stereo work done on your vehicle now. Anyways, speaking of James Brown, I had a request to do some James Brown, but I'm not I do own James Brown's Christmas album on on anonim vinyl, which has been loaded on a cassette before I finished the pilot thing, Anastasia, what are your favorite Christmas carols? I like the temptations. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Really? Really because of the bass guy who comes in? Yeah, I forget what part he has. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. I listened to it this other day. Dave you?

Donny Hathaway this Christmas? Yeah,

yeah. Okay, here's what I like. I like I like Mahalia Jackson's Hark the herald angels sing because Mahalia Jackson knows how to like, build some crap out. You know what I mean? First of all, let's just stipulate Anastasia the entire the entire Andrew sisters. The entire Andrews Sisters being Crosby album is like as consider that one song that's like one whole song all the way from a desk de Fidelis, or silentnight. All the way through to Mele Kalikimaka. That whole album is like a song. And it's like a classic rise again. But I like the least NaVi that. Oh, I like Holly Jolly Christmas. I like that. I know. I'm forgetting one of my favorites. Oh, I like Perry Comos version of home for the holidays. Hmm, anything that can cool. Really? Your neck and neck can call kind of a Christmas. Oh, he's great. Yeah. All right. Anyway, it's a goal. James Brown's Christmas is interesting. Yes, I will. James Brown's Christmas album is interesting because he is incredibly crazy. He has a song called soulful Christmas tree. I think this is a song where he sits around and basically says that Merry Christmas to the people that bought his album and saw his show. And that's it. He's like, I love you because you bought my son. James, call you're on the air. Is he is he or she? Hello? Hello. Hi. Hey, Don. Is it me? Yeah, you're on

the air. All right. Awesome. Hey, what's up, man? Thanks.

Cool. Let's just nice

question, Charlie. I want to make one Charley. Last year, I had a five pounds of pork cheese sitting around so I'd watch all the bottom. And it made me go on Chalian I got a little nervous. Food Safety nervous, I guess and I decided to throw him in my dehydrator to speed up the quantifying process. And they didn't come out bad but it definitely did something that a texture where the fat had like a snappiness to it and, you know, they weren't the best. That was the best thing in the world, right. But I got thrilled. So I got another five pounds of warm scholly or pork cheeks. And I wanted to try it again. Now what is the safest way so I did like a week or so ago care and then I then I hung them on my porch the thing that got me nervous was the porch tabs during the day, it was getting a little warm, and it was kind of melting my fat a little bit and all that. So yeah, where's the best spot to hang the suckers up? I'm gonna get consistent.

Did you? Did you? Did you assault them flat and then roll them after some of the initial cure? Or what do you do? Are you carrying them

sitting at a half an assault with like a half inch assault on top of them?

Right? And so then after you hang them, they're already basically in equalization stage and they're pretty thin, right? I mean, they're pretty thin and like most of it and think you're all right. I mean like I just I wouldn't worry about it too much. I would keep it a little bit cooler. Are you a spice on your guanciale guy or not?

You know what I'm pretty sure I had like all spice or Juniper but I can't remember.

Yeah, like that. I'm a huge guanciale fan. I wouldn't worry about it overly much. It's thin, it's very high in fat and you added some curing salt to it. Nothing bad I think is going to happen. All right.

So I can just let it rip. Yeah. Okay. That is rendering out a little bit midday. On my blog.

Maybe from a safety standpoint. Yeah. I mean, like, you don't want to you don't want that happening. I don't think you know what I mean, like, but like, I think from a safety standpoint, you should be alright. Okay, cool. All right. Cool. Hey, speak. Speaking of fat. I took you know how, like, you know, how, like, different pork fats have different textures, depending where they come from? Yeah, yeah. So like, one of the things I did in the spins all is I took it's not I haven't posted it yet. But one of the things that this is a centrifuge I'm working on one of the things I did was I took a regular rendered lard, right. So regular rendered large, really hard to bake with because it's too unsaturated, right. It's not like the back the back lard or the leaf lard or any of that stuff. So what I did was I took regular lard and spun it in the spins are with some ice cubes around the outside of the of the bowl, and I was able to get hard lard out of it that I can bake pastry with, and then a soft, like, kind of pig oil that I can use for frying stuff. Pretty sweet. Best biscuits, right? No best biscuits, not that the Stasi cares. But yeah, best pie, like lard, biscuits, lard pie. I mean, there's look, lard was the primary fat for a whole group of people, right? I mean, like, you know, butter was relatively expensive. And you know, you know, nut oils and or olive oils were not available to like, you know, a lot of people in the north of Europe so and Americans a lot. Lard was the stuff you don't I mean, like lard was the way to go. Lard, also,

large pieces, kind of extra trim and a fat off of briskets and things like that, just to render it down. Because what you end up doing, you end up spending a ton of money on olive oil, you know, but meanwhile, you're throwing away perfectly good cooking fat every time you trim a piece of pork or a piece of beef. Yeah. I think stop render it down. You're good to go.

Right? Yeah, I do the pressure. I do pressure cooker rendering typically cuz it's easier. I mean, I think like saving fat. I think it's a bad rap because the only fat that most people save is bacon fat. And the problem with bacon. Yeah, I mean, your shot

your shot. Yeah. I pressed the corned beef for Christmas. You turn the fat off the brisket. You got yourself two weeks for the frog.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. All right, save the fat my brother. Did everything. All right. All right, cool. Let us know how it turns out. It's true. Save the fat. The problem the problem with bacon fat people obviously is that it goes rancid fairly quickly. So and it's been exposed to such a high temperature during the bacon cooking. It's got like all salt in it. It's got there's everything that can assault fat is happening inside of bacon fat. So cooking something in bacon fat right away is delicious. But saving the bacon fat for a long time can be problematic because it develops rancidity very quickly. You think oh my god, Anastasia. You're wearing the shirt, just Stasi Lopez is wearing her. For those of you that don't know, there's there's one thing on earth that and Stasiuk loves and that is the Rankin bass production of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. And she is wearing so in that production is an abominable snowman. But he's not called the he's called via abominable or the Bumble. And she is wearing a a bumble sweater. And in fact not just that, but your shirt is incorrect because he has teeth right? And he's hanging the mistletoe show the bumble who hangs hangs the missile or the mistletoe stuff is a toothless Bumblebee. So this is not the official Rankin bass Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

right but it's the only one we're gonna have. You know, it's

Burl Ives that sings Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

we can we can only afford the General MIDI versions or

Burl Ives is dead can't be I guess we still have to pay him somebody still owns that money. Right the Rankin and bass corporation

goes way way up the chain. Wow,

that's rough. Dude. Like nothing sacred. The only tasting like Christmas music with like, anything MIDI is like unless it's like Super Mario Brothers. Like all the soul has been removed. You know what I mean? Anyway, back to Carlos and the pine nuts. You probably have one your mouth one by one crack the shell enjoy the nuts spit it out. If you drive through New Mexico and Arizona you'll see vans parked on the side of the road with Pinyon painted on the side in big red letters. They fetch a pretty penny. I haven't been to Arizona in like two decades. I need to get back. I love the way Arizona smells sometimes like the desert has a very particular smell, especially if it's a little moist. If it's not like one of those plus hot days they have there. They fetch a pretty penny usually upwards of $20 a pound. I have a friend who sells them and they roast them in a big metal drum over an open flame similar to how we roast green chilies. I'll be in New Mexico for the holidays and we'll make sure to replenish my stash. If you're interested in trying some I can part ways with a bit and send you some to dry. I love it. Yeah, please. I find that tastes better than pre shelled European and Chinese from the store. But I know I'm biased. Happy Holidays and best of luck with the spins off. Thanks again. By the way people buy the lemon days by just pre order the freakin spins on where you preorder the frequent spins off. We print we pre order we do me a favor and when you pre order the freaking spins. Listen. We need enough people who are early adopters who have the cash look what do you need me to see it do? What do you need? What do you need at dawn citrus? I've done tomatoes. I've done coffee. I've done fat fractionation I've done what else and stuff I've done like gin I've done I've done yogurt and beloved now I've done butter. I've done chocolate butter. I've done I've done what do you need? What

are you gonna do wheatgrass?

Wheatgrass tastes terrible. Let me tell you something. I'll give you guys thing. So like so I was trying to do something we're doing the 12 days of Christmas with the spins are 12 days of spinning all spinning everything. And so I Paul Adams who's you know, helping us out. He was like six six cheese's D weighing and then you get like ricotta. I was like a genius. So I get ricotta. But I'm doing it not doing it for taste. So I don't go to the Palos and get the nice ricotta. I go to the supermarket and buy garbage brand parade, you know, garbage ricotta, I put it in, I spin it, nothing. I look at it, and oh my god, the ricotta is so heavily stabilized with Xanthan guar and LBG. That it doesn't get rid of any of its way even when it's like, you know what I mean? I wish I wish I had my 4000 G centrifuge running or I would have thrown it in that just to see whether it could do anything to it. But it was like so hyper stabilized. I was so pissed. Then I took wheatgrass. Right. So we grass is poisoned. I took wheat grass, and I put it in my vitae prep, I hit it with every enzyme in the book, right? And I got actually a good amount of wheatgrass juice out of it. And I tasted it and I was like yes, the spins all can do this, but you should not do this. I was like, This is not something you should do. This stuff tastes simple, do it. This is horrific. And it's a lot of work. I mean, like other words, you take, you take $5 worth of wheatgrass, and you get one little shot out of that $5 With a freaking wheatgrass. So you're spending $5 And you're working hard to get something that tastes poisonous. Like why would anyone do that? Do you like this stuff? Oh, no, I don't know what it does. It smells good. It smells almost like fresh pressed olive oil. It's kind of like a kind of linkage supposed to hold your nose when you drink it right? Or you know what, or I'll only drink stuff that tastes good about that. Instead, Michael writes in on cider, I like fresh cider and hard cider. But my favorite is in between the stuff you get when you leave fresh cider in the fridge too long and it just gets slightly effervescent alcoholic and less sweet. Conveniently from my stingy and lazy but the cheap pasteurized cider with potassium sorbate works great. I fermented with champagne yeast, and stops right about at the point I like questions. Any safety concerns when bottling compared with drier, more alcoholic cider. I expect the sorbate and atmosphere to be even more hostile to mold and yeast. And the acid should inhibit bacterial pathogens but I'm still concerned about the sugar. I look I looked at so remember, there's a key thing is a whole technique of making cider specifically where the fermentation is arrested and there's sugar left in the bottle. And I couldn't find any records of safety issues with Keith cider anywhere. I couldn't find any anything nothing. Anyway, is the ease killed or just inhibited by the sorbate? Can I can I expect priming the bottle of sugar to restart fermentation or do I just need to bottle it before primary fermentation ends? Okay, and then how come pasteurized cider stays cloudy forever? Well, raw cider sediments out eventually gelatinous, gelatinous Apple storage. That's the questions. That's how I let you know that that's a question part. Thanks, Michael. Here's my feelings on this. First of all, I don't think it's starch. I think something happens with the pectin where it doesn't settle out once it's cooked, although I don't know it's interesting to look at it could be a starch thing, but I doubt it. I do know that even in a centrifuge, pasteurized apple cider is more of a pain Much, much much more of a pain to filter out than or to sediment out then fresh apple juice or uncooked Apple, you know, what you would call cider. It's much, much more difficult. I'd always described it to because a lot of our apples don't really contain any starch because if they did contain starch, some apples do but you know mostly balls don't have that much starch or otherwise, they'd be difficult for me to clarify at all, because starch doesn't do that much. So I know for a fact that cooked apple juice can be a pain in the butt. And I've always described that to peckmon. Although it could be wrong, because I've never actually investigated it, I don't really have the tools to investigate it. Or as to your other thing, what's going on with the sorbate. So, sorbet does a number of things. First of all, the amount of inhibition that sorbet provides for yeast and other things growing is highly dependent on the alcohol concentration. So the higher the alcohol concentration, the less sorbate is required for, for inhibition, for growth, you know, growth, inhibition, also sorbate tends to sorbate won't necessarily kill lose, this is what I've read sorbate won't necessarily or doesn't kill yeast, what it does is prevent yeast from growing. So and, you know, prevent them from doing anything at a certain level, it will also I think, you know, kind of wipe them out. But, you know, at the levels, we're using it, it's an inhibition to growth. So if you if you take a champagne yeast, and you pitch it into a starter, right, so the yeast can become active, and you have all these yeast cells that are alive, they can keep fermenting in the sorbate, up to the level where the alcohol and the sorbate match, and they stop working, and then the fermentation won't restart at that point. So I think you might have problems, adding more sugar and getting it to start again, unless you pitched a fresh starter with maybe with a little bit of sugar, in which case, you might be able to get it to go again. But that's that's my feeling. And that's kind of how the sorbet works. So sorbet with sorbate, I think that you're kind of auto keeping situation here is due in keeping the way it works is you have packed in the pack and craps the yeast nutrients. And the yeast, the lack of yeast nutrients means that they can't keep producing up to their finished level. So they're inhibited by the alcohol earlier than they otherwise would be. And you're left with residual sugar. And I think once they do that, at the end, they hit it with sort of agents to stop anything else from growing in it. But in your case, you're not doing that you're just pre inhibiting it with sorbate and letting it ferment up to where it gets to. So anyway, I would assume that different brands of cider will have different interactions depending on how much sorbate they put into it anyway. Cesar Delgado writes in about beer Hey Anastasia Dave, Dave and guest in case there is one longtime listener first time emailer I'm wondering what the maximum temperature this spins all can handle. I homebrew beer and was wondering if I could use it to spin out all the hops and other gunk to come out of the kettle before passing the beer through the chiller. From what I know the cold break which are the solids that precipitate After chilling beer are good for fermentation. But all of the heartbreaks I was at forming the kettle due to boiling and hot residues are best kept out of the carboy I figured this spins off continuous fee would be great for doing that if it can survive boiling hot work that is as well as anyone tried to spin the yeast out from bottle conditioned beers to harvest the yeast on the prototype. I figured you could run star sand through it which is a sanitizer and stuff you know that you give a rat's behind for a couple of minutes to make sure it's sanitized and then pour the bottle drugs into it might be a fun experiment for yeast Wranglers. In fact, in fact, Caesars from Cesar Delgado In fact, I have some really nice beers that were sent to me by lapins. To spin out, I drank wine, it was delicious. The name for some reason just went right out of my head. But I'm going to try to harvest the other two yeas, but the thing is I have to find something to pitch it into and then like put it into a liquid and mail it back up so someone can re pitch it and see whether it works. But yes, I am considering doing I'm going to do that probably right after I get back from from New Years. The other thing is I think it'll handle it's not going to be 100% Boiling by the time it hits the rotor because it has to go through the peristaltic pump first you're gonna have to get rid of any big residue because like leaves tend to kind of get clogged in the peristaltic pump as they go through. But anything smaller than like a like leaf like little fine particles is fine like albumin particles all fine and it should handle it fine because it's dishwasher safe I've run I've run boiling water through it to do I forgot what I was doing what was I doing? I was running boiling whoa from nut milk I basically the way I did not know because I did a very very stiff nut milk and then let that go through because I didn't want to have to do double work you know the blend twice I blended all the nuts in the Vita prep once sucked it through this spins all and then just put boiling water through it not boiling but like you know, simmer simmer, I boiled it in the microwave and then just pumped it through to kind of steep out the rest of the nut milk products to make nut milk. So at least in the prototype and the prototype is less tough than the real one. So yeah, it should handle those temperatures just fine. Okay, we have a Two questions from Patrick. Patrick says, how much time we got two minutes. All right. Thanks for holding the show together and we're going through the back catalogue and have begun to develop a theory that's about you, Anastasia, that the presence of Eastern organized woman might be the best treatment option for the management of adult ADHD. Without your This is you anastasius influence. I fear that Dave might just be holed up in a kitchen lab somewhere filling up notebooks with information that would otherwise never see the light of day. That said, I think a lot of his listeners would like to hear you chime in more on the show. You can see yourself organized and stern. I'll agree with stern I'll agree with speaking of stern last week, we had we had sunchokes here after we had the monkey conversation Stassi went out and ordered a giant sunchoke pile sunchokes. And did you get your butts on? Yeah,

my stomach was not so good. He were fine.

I mean, that was fine. Really? Yeah. That's fine. I mean, you know, I'm an animal, though. Yes, that's true. Anyway, here are the questions we have from Patrick. When I'm reducing liquids, I frequently see no visible evaporation when the saucepan is on the flame, but then a ton of evaporation as soon as I pull it off, what's going on there? Is it actually invisibly evaporating while more on the flat on the flame? Or does it speed up production to pull the pan and stir periodically, which seems to be how I get maximum visible evaporation. I think what's going on here is that when you have it over the flame, you have a lot of hot vapor coming around the sides of the pan and up and you are inhibiting the condensation of the water that's coming off of the pan because of the extra heat. And as soon as you pull it off, and you don't have that extra like heat around the outside, it takes a lot less time for the water vapor to condense. And so you see less visible vapor, but there is probably much more actual liquid coming off of it. When it's on the flame. That's it. Yes. What do you think status? Yes. Okay. She said I wasn't listening, I'm texting somebody. Second, and probably more theoretically, I often get preposterously hung over from drinking craft beers. For a long time, I assumed this was just a pure rate of alcohol consumption issue that was getting fuzzed up by variable ABVS and serving sizes. But I've been paying closer attention to actual total alcohol consumption and running into situations where I've woken up feeling like crap from the craft beer alcohol equivalent of 2.5 80 Proof shots, which would normally not even register the next morning for me any idea what's going on here scientifically. Thanks for doing the show. I try harder do my morning commute with informative but reasonably entertaining things to listen to and y'all nail that balance, like a steak with just enough fat on it. Let me answer your question before your sign off thing. I think the cause of hangovers has been studied kind of extensively recently. I don't think it's 100% determined, I haven't looked at the research in the past like three or four years. But like prior to that, it was kind of shown that for instance, hangovers are not necessarily dehydration related, because people used to think that it was dehydration instead, it's just mimics kind of what goes on with dehydration. One of the other theories is that things that are higher in congeners, right like so things like fusel oils, higher alcohols, other fermentation things can lead to a hangover. I don't think it's necessarily been proven. However, if you're drinking craft beers, so we're not drinking a craft beer, you're probably drinking a logger logger is going to happen to low temperatures produces relatively fewer conjures fewer higher alcohols, fewer esters, you have all these things. So like higher, higher temperatures, more during fermentation, which I guess can happen in a lot of craft beers and aren't being lager, right? Because they're doing it more at ale temperatures. We're talking about ales here. They can develop a lot more of these contours, which we perceive as being good taste, but maybe can lead to hangovers. So maybe that's what's going on? I don't know. Take a look at that. Are they one more thought before I sign off? I have no, I mean no economic position to drop $700 on kitchen equipment. But I really believe in the project. And we're talking about a spindle and want to see this thing work. Is there any way you could open up the spins off Kickstarter to general support or donations? I think yeah, I think it is vital. But here's the idea. Here's the Patrick's idea. After all the hours of cooking issues I've listened to I'd love to drop $20 in the hat. And imagine there's a lot of others like me as well. Even better, you could do some sort of raffle where everyone that donates 20 or 50 to the Kickstarter gets entered in a drawing to win a spins. It's an interesting idea. Good idea. Good idea. Anyway, so listen, when you're making your holiday meets, if you're doing a roast, let me just suggest I've said this before, the day before the day before. Don't bother doing anything to it. Just get it in a bag. Maybe it already came in a bag, low temperature cook it isn't talking about rib roast here, low temperature cook it through to like 55 degrees, right for a long time. Rep. You don't have to watch it, then pull it out. And then the day of right just put it in a high heat and let's put a thermometer as soon as the inside of the meat gets even barely warm like enough so that it's just surface temperature ready to suckers down Aren't the suckers down you don't have to worry about it low temperature for insurance people for insurance not necessarily for cooking effect but the holidays what you want with your fantastically expensive rib roast that you're serving to your whole family and praying it comes out is you just don't want it undercooked in the middle and you don't want it overcooked you just want low temperature for insurance and we that Merry Christmas Happy Holidays cooking issues.

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