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.

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Hi, this is Celia Kutcher, host of animal instinct and you are listening to heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick Brooklyn, if you like this program, visit heritage radio network.org for 1000s More Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking news coming to you live on the heritage Radio Network broadcasting where stars buschbeck Where? Where Robert is oh yeah, see says this is why I don't let you do the beginning affection. Yeah, it's like you always say live from Bushwick, Brooklyn, Roberta's pizzeria in Bushwick like that. That's a guy doing right. Calling your questions to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128 joined as usual with Anastasia the hammer Lopez. How you doing? Good. Yeah. Do you think anything could happen? No.

Nothing good. frill. Nothing good. Anything bad and terrible? No. Just the same old same old same old same old. How about you?

Me? I got a lot of new stuff, but I can't talk about most of it. Are we joined as usual in the booth with Jackie molecules Annesley or is he still outside coming in in a minute? Yeah, Jackie molecules is having a field trip right now. Oh my goodness. I seen him we might we might be blessed with a little bit of little bit of Jackie molecules and it's gonna get me back. Yeah. Because otherwise it's gonna get confusing, because it's gonna be Dave David confusing stuff in the booth. Anyway. My point being didn't want to Oh, yes. Remember last week I said that I was going to build a chicken cannon. But again, I can't talk about the specifics yet. But let me just say that it is not that complicated to launch a chicken at over 200 mile an hour. However, I will say this quarter inch thick, like polycarbonate lexan. Polycarbonate is not up to the task of stopping said chicken. Oh my god sighs we built this. Oh, you saw who shouldn't send it to you.

I get your email

if you didn't see the good one anyway. So it's like oh my god that the frame it basically just evaporated. I tried to pick up all the chicken off the ground, but I forgotten to put a big enough tarp underneath the area. And like it like when I took it back inside all the pieces and tried to wash the gravel and like, you know, oak leaves and stuff off of it. It was just like, everyone was like I'm not going to eat What are you doing? I'm not going to eat that. I won't eat that. That's the whole point of shooting the chicken stars is to eat the meat afterwards like that janitor did. Why are you shooting it though? Well, I told you like ever since I was a kid, my grandpa would tell me about when he used to go to the testing facilities because he was doing radar work right for airplanes, how he would see them shoot the chickens into windshields or birds into windshields to test the windshields. This was in the 50s, I guess. And he said that the janitor would pick them up and take them home and eat them. And I was like, oh, man, oh, man, you know. And then like, I've always been kind of fascinated with this guy, picking up these chickens and eating them afterwards. And so I wanted to kind of see what the meat would taste like. But I have yet to I've yet to taste meat fired from the chicken cannon. But not that hard. Frankly, I'll tell you this. If you're going to build one of your own, which I do not recommend, for obvious reasons, because if you hurt yourself, you're gonna say that I told you to do it, right. So I'm not going to amazon.com has some fan tastic deals on large enlarge cast iron butterfly vowels. I'm talking like $600 vows on sale for like $120 like prime delivery. I think someone made a mistake. It's like some idiot at a company was like, just like, was like, yeah, $500 for that. And they put in like $150 You know what I mean? It's like, it's like they're charging. For an eight inch valve. They're charging what you should charge for like a four inch valve is crazy. So anyone who wants to build a Crazy Chicken cannon, go look up. Cast iron butterfly valves in the eight inch variety on Amazon. There's only a couple left when I bought them so you know, your chance might be limited. Anyways. They cook anything good. They can cook anything good. I don't think I cooked anything good. I think I just wanted to cook that chicken and then failed miserably. I cooked some really good stuff yesterday. But again, I cannot talk about it until May we shot a little thing in the jig for the Playboy network. You want to do something else interesting, maybe interesting. Somebody bought playboy tv.com And that is not affiliated with the Playboy network. And they haven't gotten the news yet that Playboy is now safe for work. And so if you were to go to playboy tv.com Apparently not at all safe for your works.

Anyways people what's going on man? walk in and it's Playboy

play it well. I was saying that I shot something along with amount of give the particulars yesterday for Playboy and they're gonna release it sometime in May on the on the internet. Right. That's exciting. Yeah. So more and more. We'll talk more about that in you know, in the middle of next month. But as a lot of fun. shot back at my where I used to teach there at the French Culinary Institute, the International Culinary Center.

Nice. So I'm like how're you doing? I'm good. How you doing? All right. Did

you have anything interesting happened over the past week to you?

I want to say yes, but no, not really. I was it a wedding this weekend?

Oh yeah. How bad was the food?

How bad was the food? Yeah, it was great actually was pies and dice Okay, pies

and dice.

It was good stuff. Nice.

Yeah, I heard that. There was an old remember pies and dies like went through a reincarnation? Yep. And one of the old cooks back in the first carnation came and worked here for a while right Carolyn Bane Yeah, brought the fried chicken recipe and their fried chicken recipe I've mentioned before on the show, but you know it's been a long time. This goes completely against everything that I've ever known about. Fried chicken I have yet to do this side by side but they take directly from Brian in the flour and fry probably self rising flour so they but right and it's delicious. I have to say please tell me you like fried chicken right? Well, what

what style is just no biscuit.

But you know I have to ask because it's like so many preposterous things. You know come out of her mouth.

The fear in your voice was real. Yeah, real

real cuz you know because how horrifying would it be that I sit next to this person all the time that she doesn't like fried chicken? That would be like that would be I don't know. Like it's it's worse than biscuits when you agree that not liking fried chicken is worse than not liking biscuits.

Listen, I like biscuits a lot. So but yes, I'll agree with you fried chicken would be worse. We still don't get the biscuit thing though. No, I feel like maybe sighs You haven't had a great biscuit.

No, I bet you she has it. But you know, yes. This is where Jack you've known the Stasi long enough. Yeah, that's true. If she decides she's not gonna like freaking biscuits, like, like, God could come hand her a biscuit. And she'd be like, this sucks, but I don't believe in him. So you don't believe in he gotta he's got to you know, he's got a gender all of a sudden now but like what like my point is that like, no matter like what, like literally I could genetically, I could put electrodes into stasis brain that literally made her think that when she was eating a biscuit, it tasted exactly like the finest caviar on Earth, which is one of her favorite foods and she'd be like napkins. It's a biscuit. You same same that's like Scotch for you. Yeah. Just she's decided she's gonna hate on the biscuit. Yeah. And that's it. It's over. You know what I mean? She's the same way with people. True or false does. Yeah. And she's like, No, you'll get it later. Like I'm gonna let you say this on your now. And then I'm gonna get you later. Got this in from Jeffrey given in Costa Mesa. Where's Costa Mesa against us? I don't know. It's in California. The whole damn state now. Name I come from a long state we didn't let the places name Hello stars and the fun bunch. I liked that you did not put Anastasia into the fun bunch. Anyway.

Also people are not allowed to call me stars. So it's this fast. Yeah. Wow. That's about it. Right First Ranger. It's just Anastasia. Yeah, yeah.

If she gets particular about this kind of stuff me, you know, call me jerk wide. And whatever you want. I would never do that. Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee okay. Hello, Anastasia in the fun bunch. This is a word. Shout out to culture city. And it's been encouraging to learn about culture city by way of heritage radio support. I wholeheartedly agree with David that it's equally important, if not more so than researching a cure for autism is the broadening of acceptance and understanding of without limiting expectations of potential ability for individuals on the spectrum. I don't yet have any children of my own. Just wait. I don't think I'd have any children of my own. My wife is an elementary school teacher who specializes in gifted and talented education. These are students who think and learn differently and benefit from multiple and specific teaching methods. While they tend to be highly creative and bright. They also often lack some of the social cognizance their peers might already possess. Ain't that the truth? You know, I'm saying where was everywhere appears sorry, my phone went really tiny guys, and my old eyeballs can't adjust anyway. Sorry, sorry. I get the opportunity to be in these classrooms regularly. And one of the most rewarding things to witness is the way my wife has helped to provide them with the space resources and confidence to thrive as individuals we're learning to accept each other's quirks and behavioral idiots and idiosyncrasies. It means what's wrong with me today? I can't wait. You know, it's because my freaking bike ride. I'm more of that later. I'm still angry about my bike ride. At idiosyncracies in a loving and supportive way. So before I get to the question that they asked, that's nice shout out, right. We're still working with the culture city.

They're the best people like really, some of the best people I've

ever met actually went to their expense some time on their on their website. Like, they're totally worthy support. What do we do with them? Do they just like support us? Or do we do stuff for them? What

I'm both I mean, they've definitely supported us. Basically, the story with culture city is Julian got in touch with us through a charity auction where he got to come here and meet Tom Colicchio and interview Tom Colicchio in the studio. That was the auction like Come meet and interview Tom Colicchio. And he asked him all about some of these autism initiatives like putting iPads in restaurants and stuff. It was like a way for him to kind of get culture city out there and start getting it in people's ears. So we did we did some work with them. We produced a whole radio documentary about what they do and then we went down to Birmingham at their annual gala. And then I actually DJ their junior gala which was a lot of fun. It was a Halloween party.

Yeah, yeah, it's cultural city with a K by the way. Okay, yeah. Why why K?

That's a great question. I couldn't tell you I have

to say like I hope I'm not offending anyone out there but I really don't like spelling see words with ks cars for kids. You know, I found out about that you know that well what I don't want I'm not gonna I'm not gonna blow up anyway. But like, I don't know it's specifically I don't like country kitchen with two K's whenever I see country kitchen with two K's it makes me feel that you're 1k short of being kk k and I just don't like it you know what I mean? I just get like first of all I mean I hate to you know, I'm not I want to like dive into stereotypes here but when you're seriously when you go country kitchen two K's you're one step away people don't do it. But we'll accept culture city will accept culture say because the second the second CC see right they didn't go two thirds of the way to kk k. And so you know, it's still kind of acceptable. What do you think about the country gets his head right. I also don't like I don't like extra peace and ease on my Sharpies and my I don't like any of that stuff. Do you like any of that stuff

to ease I'm not into that. No, no, that's Oh, the Sharpie I serious Sharpie at the intercept. That's kind of cool. That's like old timey. Really? Sharpie depends on where we are right? Someone opened a Sharpie over here and be like, Get out of here.

Yeah. Oh my god. If Anastasia I was gonna guess what would you do? If you walk past a Sharpie here? Would you spit on? I don't know what? Like God. shopee like, Would you like be like, like in Brooklyn. I met a guy I can't talk to him on Main Street anyways, okay. She mentioned so I can get it out of my system real quick. The bike ride another freaking jerk on the freakin Williamsburg Bridge. Going downhill. No hands on his freaking handlebars earphones in weaving back and forth. I didn't want to pass the guy. Listen, you're not cool. Put your hands on the handlebars. What if someone like me isn't as cautious and if you think I'm cautious me Come on, like someone who's like like less cautious than me goes to pass you you swerving clip that freaking guy because you're texting your idiot buddy and you all go flying down that bridge at like 25 mile an hour on the pavements getting yourself like a freaking great because you know that stupid bastard wasn't wearing a helmet. You know what I'm saying? Dumb, dumb. And then you've used to ride here right back before you hated riding in Brooklyn so much speaking in the Stasi now, you know when you're driving up grand on the way here, and there's that like long line of parked cars and then there's all that traffic next to you. So you're in like this to this corridor, guy jumps out, walks out into it, like right out freaking into it not looking. I'm doing like a team, you know, 90 mile an hour below the speed limit. But like, you know, and like, I'm like, like that to him. You know what I mean? And like, he yells at me, he's like, use your brakes. And I'm like, you're in a bike lane. You know what I mean? I was like, What the hell people? I would have felt bad if I'd wipe that guy out a little bit, but I'm more angry at them. It's one of those things and then you know what the concrete plant today that you have to drive past people. New York is not pleasant. I love it here. I love it. I love it. But is there anything pleasant about New York City? No. Jack, what do you think anything? I mean, I love it. I love it deeply. The views? The views?

I gotta call her on the land, that sort of thing.

But you're not gonna you're not gonna you're not gonna make a statement. I missed you. I had to pick up the phone. It says Is there anything like Like, literally the word pleasant? Is there anything pleasant about New York City? In general?

about New York City? Yeah. Now you get to

live here, you have to like, constant beat downs.

I wouldn't say there's anything pleasant.

I think if you were like mega rich, maybe you could just squash all the people in front of you, and then maybe have some sort of pleasant experience that

might be pleasant if I had more money. That's true.

I don't know. I don't know. Caller, you're on the air.

Hi, I have a question regarding baby food. Okay, so we just had a baby. He's about three months old now. And he'll be starting solid food in a couple months. Why should I make all the food and freeze it myself? So I promised only one question. But I want to make sure that food tastes good and it's safe. But I don't want it to taste like canned baby food, I want to do something a little bit more creative.

Well, good news is I mean, again, remember, not a not a professional look into it. The good news, obviously. And since you're, you know, have a newborn, relatively, you know, you've probably looked at all the current research, which means that unlike when I was having children, they basically say that you can, in fact encourage you to give kids a wide variety of things early on. Thank goodness, you know what I mean? So you're extremely lucky in that regard, your a couple of main concerns that you're going to have, and I don't know, if they still say this is you're going to have to watch out for certain foods that can potentially toxic to infants, right? So you're not going to sweeten with honey, right? If you were going to sweeten something. And also, and this is again, I haven't done the research in a number of years. But you're gonna you'd be wary of serving large amounts of certain leafy greens, like spinach, because of potentially, I believe it's potentially high nitrogen nitrate levels, but I don't know if they still have that. I don't know if that's still a recommendation. But they used to basically things like that like Gerber's pitch, and maybe Gerber was paying people to do this was saying that they very tightly monitor the, like the levels of these things in their products. And so they can, they can adjust, whereas like the ratios of those things can be very, very variant in a naturally produced item, because the plants take up a lot of that stuff from the soil. So a lot depends on fertilizer laid down, and you know how much rainfall they had prior to harvest and etc, etc. So like, those are the only two caveats now on that, obviously, you're not going to want to feed anything that's going to cause any sort of food poisoning, but you're not going to have to cook things to the same kind of level that you would have in a canned environment where, for instance, like a lot of a lot, a lot of vegetables can take on that can kind of vegetable taste right now. Presumably, you're if you're going to do this, you're going to make the investment Do you already own a Vita prep?

You said a Vita prep? Yeah. What do you mean like a Vitamix? Yeah,

yeah. So like Vitamix is sorry, the the commercial version of the Vitamix is a Vita prep. It's the same thing. Yeah, you only own one of those.

Yeah, we have like a professional Vitamix at home, but we don't have the commercial version. Obviously,

they're the same motor. The only differences is they expect people in a commercial kitchen to beat it to death. And so they put a different label on it. And in they give you a different warranty, but it's it's literally the same people it's not. It's one of the rare instances where the commercial version isn't any beefier than the home version, it just cost more because they know they're going to have to, like, you know, have a lot of warranty issues on it where, whereas like, you know, 99% of people at home aren't going to abuse their blenders the same way that a commercial kitchen will. So yeah, you're in good shape. So if you have that, you know, with those two caveats, I'd say go for it. You know, I don't know like, are you guys vegetarian? You eat meat or? Or what? Hello, do we lose?

Yeah, and we have a little bit of a bad connection. Oh, muffled I

apologize. I do you do you guys eat meat? Because one of the great things about a vida prep is you can blend meat like like, like nobody's business, I would use meats, or I don't know if you eat meat, but like you can do anything. I don't know whether people are like, gonna get mad at me for recommending eating meat to a kid. But I did. I fed the kids, everything. You know, it's just you want to be aware of choking and, and I would say look into those things that I mentioned, like certain leafy things. I think spinach was the one that they really talked about. I bet your celery is the same, but who's going to feed their kid pureed celery? That sounds kind of gross, right? You're going

to learn at a young age what good food tastes like? So is there anything like when I get I had was like, from Modernist Cuisine where you criminalize the carrot. And do something like that, so that you make the food taste a little bit better is there Do you have any other recommendations like that

you look, you could take stuff that you're making for yourself, just like you don't even like if you're roasting carrots, which are delicious, just roast extra, and then just use a little stock or something to be able to blend it into the right texture, and it's going to be a lot more delicious. Do you know what I'm saying? I obviously I would adjust the texture, I would buy a couple of cans of the of the of the jars rather of the Gerber stuff just to check the consistency on it to see whether you're in in the kind of realm of consistency because if you go obviously, if you go to gluey, you just want to be careful that they're not going to choke or aspirate or anything like that, of course. But yeah, so like, I would say almost any, like, the great thing about the vitae prep is you could take almost anything that you like, and then turn it into the texture of a baby food. Most people who are making it are mainly worried about kind of trying to go like hyper healthy, on on a baby, which to me, it's like, you know, I don't know, like, Don't please don't get me started on that. But it's like, you know, like, I wish to God that I could go back and have ignored my doctor's recommendations about what not to feed my children early on. But like I said, as a parent, you just can't do that. You can't ignore what the doctor says. Because then if you're wrong, you know, you're you're a big jerk, you know, you're you've ruined your kids, you know. But, you know, you live in a in a permissive time. So it's, you know, you're very lucky. One thing I will say is that is, you know, something that I've noticed that there's no way to judge from a baby, what your child will turn into when they get older in terms of their eating habits. So I know for instance, like my older son, who is on the he's on the autistic spectrum, so a lot of those kids have a lot of those kids have issues with being very, very picky, not liking things mixed, right, not liking things that are mixed together, being very sensitive to certain flavors, etc, etc. And who knows whether these things develop, it's hard to know if these things are going to develop, in fact, is impossible. But the but the funny thing is, is when he was a baby, he would pound things that tasted like very slim adults would never think that you'd like so he used to eat fistfuls of capers, fistfuls and Fissler. capers, he still has some strange tastes like he loves like fish eggs, he and Miss dasya would be like right up the same alley pounding you know, cured fish eggs. So you never you never never can judge the mean, you know, you know, my hope for you is that you're lucky and you get a child who likes everything an early Asian maintains that love their whole life. I mean, that's it freakin joy as a parent, but you know, definitely we don't always get lucky and you always don't You don't always get to choose what you're that's the thing. I thought when I was a parent that if I just expose my kids to all this stuff, that of course, they're gonna like it the same way. I do. Know, now. They're their own people. They'll choose what they want. You know what I mean?

Yeah, definitely.

All right. Thank you so much. I know from Anna chat up on the chat room, because I'm sure some people in the chat room who've had more recent children have some probably good advice on on that. Would you say Jack?

Absolutely. All right. Okay. I'll have to take a look at that. All right.

Thanks very much. Thank you. Okay, so back to the Jeffrey Gibbons. Question for Dave. question. Caller you're on the air. Sorry about that. No problem. Caller you're on the air. What's up?

Oh, hi, Dave. I tried to tweet word to you last week about tandoors and what you're looking for and one want to follow up on that because there seems to be you got the idea of I mean, I want to do high heat grilling and I was looking for mochi likes. And you got the idea of tandoors in my head, and I've been following up on it and they There's a lot out there, I figured that one hand or as soon as the next but it may come out of all sorts of different things, different sizes, no clue what's useful or not in Sandor.

Okay, so here's here's, I really only had experience in the one that I have. Right. And but I have a good bit and I did look into a lot of them. So the typical Tandoor that, you know, that you read about is kind of this and mine was made in Delhi, right. And so like a lot of those is pretty sure. And it's been a while that they're done, kind of rope style. They're built up, smoothed out. There's some form of hair fiber mixed in with the clay as a binder. Right, then those basic shells are kind of the standard tandoori that they make in Delhi. And then at least for the one that I have, and then they're lined in various different kinds of casings, and they're made in various sizes and shapes, right? Where there are other people. For instance, there's a relatively I think, well, well regarded Tandoor maker in the United States. I forget his name. He's not he's not Indian. But he makes a lot of tandoors for ovens. And for you know, some kind of fancier establishments, they use a very different kind of clay makeup. And I think, although it's been a long time, I think he might throw them in other words, like, it's like a traditional, like a traditional pot. So like, when it comes to composition like that, I don't really have a lot of experience. So it's not like, you know, like using a million different kinds of ovens that I can come down and say, well, this person's full of crap. This one's not when I did it, just for price. And also for, for price, and I figure it's very traditional, I just went with the one that was made in Delhi, right? Because I figured those guys they know from tandoors, right. And so then, you know, there are some companies that sell Tandoor shells or the other the ovens. Some people do two parts, and they ship them and then you can encase them in your own sort of refractory. Initially, I was like, Look, I just want to use this sucker right away. And so I've got one where the guy gets it, they put it inside of a stainless steel bucket, you'll open it from the bottom. And that's, that's it. But beyond that, you have to choose what size you want, right. So the, you know, the size I got was the larger of the ones that have recommended for for home people, because the guy was like, unless you're going to do really, really big parties, the bigger ones just take a lot more fuel to fire. So you just gonna go through a lot more coal. You know, it's just going to be kind of a bigger headache that way. And you know what, I think he was right, there are some times I wish I had a lot more space in it. But really, I've you know, unless you're going to cook for more than 15 people a lot and cook exclusively in the tandoor, I think the size that I have is good. And in fact, if I was going to up it, if I was gonna get one of the really big ones, I would probably rather have to tattoo smaller tandoors than one big one. So my small one. So if you go to tandoors.com, which is in Summit, New Jersey, I have the larger of the two ones that they kind of recommend for home that's on wheels, it's fairly easy to move around if you're a John bulking person, but I can put 1234 I can put four nones on the inside at once, which is about as much as I can put in before I have to start removing the other one because I'm not that fast. And so you know, I think it's it's pretty good. But so like, once you choose the construction, how it's made, then the size is the next thing, I wanted a freestanding one because I wanted to be more flexible if you're going to build it in and maybe you can get your own liner and just fill it with refractory around, you know what I mean? I'm assuming you want coal and not gas, right?

It's open. And that was the other question I have for you. Because in my head, it was cold seems like it would get hot. And the whole idea here is as hard as you can get it. I mean, that's, you know, what I'm not doing.

It depends on what you're doing, frankly. So the problem with tandoors is not a problem, but like the coals at the bottom and you still have the coals at the at the bottom. And typically the stuff that said that coal into the skewer gets really like almost like burnt so it's like like when I have some time what I'm going to do so there's a sweet spot in the skewer above that level where everything is kind of cooked evenly and it's nice and but that's only at medium. If you have a roaring hot coals in the bottom like you're still heating it then then there isn't necessarily that much of a sweet spot because you just have such intense radiation from the coals on the bottom. I'm going to build a little like blast shield from my skewers that can kind of clip on so that like I can like have a roaring hot flame but reflect a lot of that heat back so that that first couple of pieces don't have that like I've just reentered the Earth's atmosphere look to them.

Like putting things on a fencing foil. Yeah,

exactly. seal on the bottom. Exactly. Yeah, like like, like a reverse fencing foil there. But the so like, what I typically do is just throw something I don't care about on the end, like like half a potato. The other trick is is like getting the getting the stuff not to slide down. It's a little bit of an art, but also not everything wants to cook at the high temperature. So typically What I'll do and gas as you know, it's probably going to be more nimble. I think people make one that you can just shove the gas burner in when you're using it pull it out and fire with coal which would probably be a good kind of middle ground. But like non doesn't want to be that hot if the if your ovens too hot for the non it's just going to scorch the bottom before the top gets nice and brown because the clay will heat up so much. So you really you know, there are there is a sweet spot. It's not just all like intense ripping ripping heats for some things it is, you know, I mean shrimp like you can't really get it, like too hot to do shrimp. You know what I mean? But a lot that depends. So there's like, the more you use it, the more you'll get the hang of that stuff. But typically what I'll do is I'll fire the tandoor with a fairly big load of coal does like big load, gross, fill the whole thing, then let it let it come down a little bit. Meanwhile, I'll start at a big chimney starter of coals. I'll do my nones when the temperature is kind of mellowed out in the whole thing is relatively even I'll do my nones pull them throw them into the warming oven like inside, then I'll dump in the chimney, and then I'll do the proteins that I want to go ripping hot. That's typically what I do.

Alright, well, thank you, that seems, uh, give you some more information to look in on.

Yeah, and I look and also like Tandoor is just immense fun to work with. But don't necessarily feel like you need to go traditional. It's one of the most rewarding kind of like cooking like fun things that I get to do, because it's not technical at all. I mean, it is you have to think about it technically. But it's not like accurate technical, the way that a lot of stuff that I do is and so if you go to like one of these home, you know, home improvement stores, they sell all these gadgets for people's normal grills, like baskets and stuff, which in general, I don't really use when I'm using a normal grill. But they're really kind of cool to hang in the tandoor. So like, I'll get baskets and you can feel like you could like put the baskets like that you could do like hamburgers in it. And things that are hard to secure that you don't necessarily want to skewer, you want to get a higher density and you can expose them very evenly to the radiant heat of the wall. by suspending these baskets on a skewer over the thing. Oh, I mentioned this. The other thing you have to get kind of good with is manipulating the lids and the lid and the and the open vent at the bottom to kind of adjust the flow of heat through it. So if you're, you know, it's all about like putting the skewers around wrote, like rotating them and in and out, in and out. I know I've mentioned that before but like, you know, it's like all of my, all of my pro breads go in once done. But like most of the other things go in at least twice, sometimes three times to get that kind of surface the way you want. So you're going to want to wherever you're Tandoor is, you're going to need to have a it's better to err hang them to hang the racks. I mean, you can lay him down but I find it's better to hang the skewers or whatever you're using in between when they're running. So I have a like a like a rim near my Tandoor where I can hang all my skewers in between when they're going in and out. And I spray them with Pam to you want to light oil coat on and let them dry off before you put in I hit him with Pam on the second or third go around to get the sizzle going quickly. A little pro tip for you.

All right, are using Kingsford here like something special or

I use I use was forget the name of it. It's in a red bag. It's in a big red bag and it's not Kingsford. I don't use bricks or briquettes. I use a hardwood charcoal, so it looks like pieces of wood. Throw it in, and it's not that expensive in the big box stores. Sell it. And it's great. And you know, you're not you know, it's slightly more expensive than the compressed briquettes. But, you know, you kind of you know what you're getting and I don't know, it just feels right. And I use it, you know? Yeah. And lastly,

do you have any special tools for the NAND or like, what do you use to get in there? Do you have like a welding glove? Or do you

Okay, so, here's the thing. The putting them putting it in is not a big deal you they give you like a coconut fiber stuffed pillow, which when you're learning you'll accidentally catch on fire if you're anything like me. So mine has like all the stuffing coming out and everything but I still use it. And you have this. This like It looks like a little pillow like you know, like, like a catcher's mitt slash pillow and you stretch out the you stretch out the bread. You wet the side, it's gonna go against the tandoor slightly, I use my hands, but I guess you could use a mister do not wet the side, it's on the pillow. And then you put your hand in whack, you get to get the thing on the side, right. And that's part of the art when you're learning you're gonna drop a bunch into the fire once it touches the coal at the bottom. Ignore it's done. It's done. It's over. Right. Then when you get it off. You don't need a glove either because you're using this dual skewer you're shoving this like pointed stick into the bottom of the of the non and then scraping it off with this like spatula like, like stick with the other. These two skewers typically come with your Tandoor and then it's sweet. things down like a pendulum you lifted out and you're good to go. That but you do want to invest in, you're going to have to have some side towels there. And I would also invest in one of those grill gloves, because the skewers are intensely freakin hot, right. And if you ever need to work with them in the lid can also get another lid I usually pick up with a side towel, but the skewers and stuff, you don't want to use a side towel and I'll tell you why this skewers have a little hook shape on the end of them, right that's how you're hanging them when they're in between. And when you're trying to manipulate that hook around with the side Tao the side towel gets jumbled around into hook and it just becomes impossible to do like a lot of fine rotation with it with a side towel. So for the for lifting out the hooks and manipulating them I use a I use one of those grill mitts the I think Weber makes them and then I use a side towel. And to slide the things off of the skewer. Typically I'll slide the stuff off the skewer into a butter dish and and throw it in a warming oven if I'm doing a lot before we're eating. And when you're sliding food off of the skewers. The bottom part of the skewer typically is red hot from being in the coals. So I slow slide it down and get a little bit of that sizzle, drop it into the drop it into the bucket which goes back into the warming oven inside. And you don't want to try to you don't want to try to strip a whole skewer at once like say like fragile foods like shrimp, if you're stripping a whole skewer, they'll literally just blow themselves apart because the proteins on the on shrimp have kind of welded themselves around part of the skewer potatoes also do this, the heat will travel up the skewer and the very bottom potato will have this like incredibly hard to scrape off like ring of potato like kind of meld into the skewer at the bottom. So if you try to pull the whole skewer skewer off at once, you'll just shred everything it's on the skewer. So what you want to do is kind of like take, take the first thing off the bottom and then either one or two things at a time off. The good thing about that is is that if you have a situation where there's a huge temperature delta in your oven from the bottom to the top, you can take off that that bottom one that's going to get done and then throw that throw the rest of this or the bottom two, and throw the rest back in to to finish up you do not have to remove all of them at once, which is a little another pro tip. Nice. Nice. Well,

thank you very much. I think this was yeah, you got me all amped up for tandoors. Now

Nice. Well, you know, write back and let us know have never met someone who's like, you know, I got a tandoor and you know what? Wasn't very good. never had that happen. Sounds good. All right. Thank you very much. No problem. Okay, so back to Jeffrey Gibbons questioning costume makeup onto the cooking issue. We recently held a fry fest with our outdoor six gallon, six gallon Cajun fryer about which I spoke with you on air just after Thanksgiving. It holds 47 pounds of oil. You must must acquire one of these for your outdoor Connecticut kitchen. Well I have a regular 35 pound I think, you know commercial fryer but if I had to go back I might not get the commercial fryer might have gotten the Cajun fried who knows because it's meant to go outside and mine is not meant to go outside which means I have to keep it under an eve which is a little bit of a pain in the butt. But if I told my wife that I was going to go spend money on another fryer, like I would be talking to the other side of my face because she would have slapped it like like right i mean like there's no way Imagine telling Jen that I was going to buy another deep fryer says Yeah. Little monster can handle every freaking thing we threw at it. And we literally could not keep up with battering and chucking all manner of food into it due to the high heat capacity and recovery. By the way I did your take the whole chicken break it down and circulate it to different temperatures with D bone meat glued thighs rolled up in their own skin and drumsticks T bone by snipping the tendons and popping the thing out with the skin still intact. Incredible Good. Well, I'm glad that people still using that technique. I love that technique. I like fried chicken. As we've mentioned before, the only thing that didn't work from a functional standpoint, there were a few flavor disasters were battered cheese sticks. When you say better cheese sticks do you think of like cheese sticks that have taken a beating? Or do you think of battered as Stasio and that's why I love Anastasia because she thinks about like those cheese sticks taking a freakin beating whereas like most people would think like breaded. Right, right, Jack. Right. Most people think breaded I think he's gone. Yeah. We tried a smoked gouda. And he likes my goodness does not really, really do. Yeah, I grew up eating it. You know, like I grew up getting it and all those like 1970s like cheese baskets. I like so I grew up liking any kind of smoked cheese. Jack thoughts is not there anymore. Dave Good is great. Good. You smoked. Yeah, absolutely. What about other smoked cheeses? Do you like other smoked cheeses? Oh, yeah.