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

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

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

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

With 20 years in the culinary production game ourselves. We're hoping we can give through these conversations an insider's view into personal stories from the field, as well as an in depth behind the scenes look into some of the most popular food programming. In today's evolving culinary media landscape.

We'll be covering everything from how to style your food, to how to license IP, to developing your own ideas, and some tips from the masters of how to host your own show.

Yeah, it's a little bit of conversation, how to and how do you do the things that you do in color media, which I'm so excited about? I love so many of the guests that are coming on this season. We have talent from Food Network from Vice media eater refinery 29,

we've met some of the best people in the world both in front of and behind the camera. And we're bringing them all together to share their stories, their delicious adventure and their unique journey into this crazy world.

So to be the first to hear our episodes when they launched this fall, go to wherever podcasts are streaming and hit subscribe and make sure to give us a follow at the Culinary call sheet on Instagram.

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This is Chef Emily Peterson host of sharp and hot you're listening to heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn, if you liked this program, visit heritage radio network.org for 1000s more.

Dave Arnold, your host of crooked news coming to you live on the heritage radio network from Roberta's pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn every Tuesday, you know, like 12 ish 1245 to 50 Depends on whether we have a show coming after kicking us out or you know something else to do you know how this call in your questions to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128 joined in the studio as usual witness darcia other hair Mr. Lopez, how're you doing? Good. Yeah. Doing all right. Yeah, yeah, we got Jackie molecules jacking in the engineering booth. How

you doing? Jack? I'm good. What's up with the iPads man?

All right. All right. We'll talk about the iPads. I'm doing pirate Dave right now. And we're joined. We're joined by we'll use like political terminology Engineer Joe. We got Engineer Joe in the in the booth today. How you doing, Joe?

Good afternoon.

So if you should and by the way, when I say engineer, I don't mean like rocket engineer or automobile engineer, like kitchen equipment engineer. So if you guys have any questions about, for instance, why does my XYZ do XY and Z, you can call and ask Joe and maybe he can tell you why x y is he does X y&z Right. I hope so. Yeah. All right, should provide an interesting perspective here on the program. So why am I wearing an eyepatch? This is an excellent question. So it turns out that so I am the I don't I do not have a detached retina. That's not what happened. Let's just let's start with that. Let's start with that do not have a detachment Yeah. However, a, you know, mid 40s You know, white dude who was born like very nearsighted, like I was gonna have the late I had the laser surgery so I can see well could see normally, right? Like we are prime candidates like white male, like mid age nearsighted folk prime suspects for retinal detachment. So on Sunday, I start getting like a floater. Right. You know, like, you know, I'm saying like a floater in your eye, like, but usually floaters they look kind of like gray. You know what I mean? So, I didn't I didn't think much of it was bigger than normal. I was like, this sucks. You know what I mean? And then I did you know, my, my daily. I hate even say these words workout routine. Right? Yeah, no, it's terrible to awful. Anyone think about it, write it, test it, test it anyways. So I did that. And then like, all of a sudden, my it looked like the beginning of a James Bond. Like movie situation like, you know, some Goldeneye crap like just like swirls of like black like galaxies and stars of dust and like blackness and like, big inky swirl. Yeah, like when someone gets shot and the James Bond thing and all the blood pours out of them, like ink and shadow effect. Like, this is what my vision was like, in my eye. So I'm like, so I go online. And they're like, Yeah, floaters. I'm like, seems worse than a Florida like, if it's flashing if you have flashing lights, this is when you know you're getting a detached retina. Or if like, a portion of your vision just literally goes blank, like blank, not like looking through a James Bond film like blank potential. And so I'm like, not a big deal. So at dinner because I cook dinner that night. Which by the way, we could talk about dinner I like I have my new favorite go to quick meal, because I've met a man anyways. So I can tell the people who've been hanger man. Yeah, I tell the people at dinner. I'm like, Hey, so I can't really read. And it's hard for me to concentrate when I'm slicing. And I'm sorry if I seem a little distracted. But like, you know, I have a James Bond movie going in my right eye. And they're like, what's wrong with you? And so then, like, I call my mom mom's like, what's wrong with you? You could be having a cat retina. I was like, the internet tells me No mom, she's like, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot. So I had to go to see a doctor. Luckily, all I did was my eye sack ripped away from the edge tore open a blood vessel and sprayed blood all over the inside of my eye, which you can see but anyways, so apparently, I am in an increased risk for retinal detachment for the next two weeks. So please, nobody who sees me on the street. Please Don't punch me in the right side of the head. You know what I mean? Like, if you see me on the street, try to avoid your your primary urge, which will be to punch me in the right side of the can be tough, man. I know. Like go for a kidney blow something. It's not going to send too much shock to the head. You know what I mean? Like, you know, maybe if you hit me in the kidney, maybe I could get some match bleeding, bleeding down low bleeding up high. Could be good. You know what I mean? So anyways, so yeah, so it's taking me out of strenuous activity for the next couple of weeks. But oh, and I have to wear I don't have to wear an eyepatch. In fact, my doctor says that I should wear the eyepatch as little as possible. Because he wants me to be looking through the eye in case something terrible happens so I can rush to the hospital and they can like glue all the stuff back together shouldn't start coming apart, like a poorly glued model airplane. But the but it's impossible for me to read. So there's no way I can do. There's no way I could do the radio show without the eyepatch. I didn't read a cowboy hat yesterday, I had the cowboy hat in the eyepatch. And I have to say, I have never in my life gotten such looks of respect on the street, as I did when I was walking around with like a vest like you know, like a puffy vest. Like my, you know, my brown cowboy hat and an eyepatch people like I don't know, but I don't want to I'm not gonna I don't know, but I'm just not gonna I'm not going to mess with this one. This one? Not now. I mean, I mean, Jack. Yeah.

It's a great look. Yeah, like the eyepatch wants to go to quick meal though. Oh, yeah. Go to quick meal. So do you have a caller will stay pee. I told him to stay patient when we

do the caller with the callers problem, and then we'll talk about so go to quick meal. All right, caller you're on the air.

Hey, guys. Coleman from from Brooklyn has gone on. All right. Hey, done. Not bad. Thanks. Two questions. First of all, I'm going to Vancouver this coming weekend unless you have any restaurant recommendations out there.

You know what, you know what that's for? That's for the chat room. I haven't been to Vancouver in I think like four years. And I went with you know, the food writer out there Fung. He was good. But I can't remember I went to like, whatever the top rated sushi restaurant was in Vancouver and it was quite good. But I don't remember the name of it. You know what I mean? And so much has happened in Vancouver over the past. Over the past couple of years. I would hesitate even to have you been there recently. Did you go there styles when you went to Seattle and Portland? No, no. Joe, you've been to Vancouver recently in the mid 90s. That's even earlier. I was there too. In the mid 90s. It was crazy time. That's when all of Hong Kong was buying up Vancouver when that Yeah, yeah. Interesting time. Yes. But no, Jack you're gonna put that out to the chat room. Yeah, well, alright. So I'm sorry, that aren't anything specific, but we'll get the chat room working on it and you can, you know, get the cooking issues crew weighing in on that. Do you have any other questions that maybe I know,

one of the one I have a friend whose birthday coming up who just turned vegetarian. And you know, I don't approve of that, but it's a friend. And I want to see if you have any good vegetarian cookbooks that you actually liked and thought would be worth getting as a president.

Yeah, sure. You need to get a Michel napkins are voracious. Which one again? Michel napkins. Herb, a voracious, voracious, Michel napkin does work with ChefSteps and even the Stasio hater of vegans everywhere. thinks it's a good book, right? Do you just heard and Stasio say it again? Good to see. You heard Anastasia Lopez actually praising something on air if you can believe that. Mustache proud. Yeah, yeah, the Stasi Lopez has actually cooked recipes out of this book. Right? That's yeah, that like yeah, that's crazy endorsement. Now if I might go forward and not just as he is going to disagree with me here. I would go purchase any one of the number of excellent Indian vegetarian cookbooks out there? The one that I happen to own is extremely old and so it doesn't I mean, I don't even know whether it's current it's not really current anymore but I have the old Munna Debbie one but, you know, anyone who's become vegetarian better get themselves very, very acquainted with Indian food

look at my go to my girlfriend's vegetarian. So I cook a lot of Indian at

home. Yeah, and let me say this, I wouldn't worry so much about while you know, you're not the vegetarian, you don't care. But like the point is, is that is it like a lot of times I think when someone I mean, the great thing about Indian cooking vegetarian cooking, is that they have so many centuries of practice at doing this properly, in a very kind of integrated and holistic way. So it's not just trying to glue the vegetarian precepts onto like some other form of eating so it's really a good place to start. But I find that a lot of people when they start out, get rather daunted because of the spice mixtures and you know, all of the all of these other things and I think that I don't know how kind of creative your friend is, but a lot of the techniques that are used in Indian cooking or the basic flavor combinations even without the huge mix of spices in the masala and whatnot are extremely useful. So you know, like, you know, if you're making like a like, you know, mint coconut chutney, it can be really, really complicated or it can literally be, I'm going to throw a coconut with some men and, and coriander and ginger and some spice, you know, in a couple of knots in a blender and go with some water in oil bang, you know what I mean? Like super fresh. So I think like some willingness to not necessarily adhere to the letter of what's going on in those cookbooks is very helpful. Because you're not shooting for authentic you're shooting for delicious and right and things can be authentic and delicious, or they can be your own creation and delicious you know, so that's those are my suggestions. Cool. All right. Hey, thanks

so much, man.

No problem. Hey, Jack, Did we get any one Oh, weighing in and Vancouver? Yeah, no,

but I just texted you and stars. We have a first time chatter here. Jay Heaton just made a enemies of quality t shirt design Wow, you got to look at it I just texted it to you and says Do you see it?

I'm looking through my one my one as Ellen would say my one dying i For those of you that listen to the hurricane people still talk about that that the hurricane about Bob Dylan know about the songs Wow tomatoes in the fridge we got to send Mr. Daniel grips are and see what Dan Daniel grits are famously said that I was the enemy of truth by saying that putting tomatoes in the fridge you can go back we can look we can reference whatever episode that was where Daniel was actually on. But he said you know I famously not famously for me often say rather than putting tomatoes in the fridge makes you the enemy of quality because as we all know, tomatoes turn mealy when they're stored in the in the fridge for a long time. It's it's more severe of a problem in tomatoes that have large amounts of flesh, right? When I say flesh, I mean the actual like granular part of the flesh as opposed to just seeds and water like a cherry tomato has to ever tell you guys how bitter cherry tomato skins are. We're getting an image anyway. So I said it was like super enemy of quality situation. Because it's true. And so I tend to leave my tomatoes on the counter. And this is especially true when I shop for very high end tomatoes in August at the farmers market. And Daniel said to me look at when you take especially not such a great tomato or tomato that's ripe, and you leave it on the counter, it loses it loses a lot of its qualities and becomes not good compared to one that's stored in a fridge for a day or two and then removed and allowed to come up to temperature and he had a lot of things and I think that's Maybe correct except for when I buy. When I buy garbage tomatoes, I don't really care because they're garbage. You know what I mean? When I buy like a really good tomato, I always buy them. I buy ones I'm going to eat today and they're ready. I buy ones I'm going to eat tomorrow and they have like a day left and I turn them upside down. In other words the stem side down because the stem side is the firmer side of the tomatoes tomatoes ripen from the part that's furthest away from the plant towards the stem. So the stem is the stem end is the most is the strongest part of the tomato so it's not going to break when you store it that way. It usually has a natural resting point, and you won't burst the skin and I let them sit out, you know on a cool counter. Or if I'm in a snooty mood my wine storage container that starts is made fun of me because just because I was having to given as a gift I like like when I was little wine holding refrigerators and Anastasia thinks that I walk around with a monocle. I don't I walk around with an eyepatch Da Fu and boom stars. So there goes you and your hopes of seeing me as the planters peanut man.

I'm one of those wines. That's like such a classic example of a gift somebody would give right? Yeah, right. Yeah, you're like I guess I'll use it. Yeah,

it's really good for Jack. Tomatoes. Clearly. You know what else wine? You know what else? Chocolate? Oh, yeah. Chocolate. Chocolate. Yeah. So you know it's holding now box after box of box wines. Everyone knows that's how I rock it. Now the box wines. If you if you've been converted the box wines? Yes. Does No, no. Anyway, so Daniel is basically saying that if I say that you're an enemy of quality for putting a tomato in the fridge. I'm being too simplistic and not taking into account the way that the majority of people consumed tomatoes here in the good old US of A and you know what? He's probably right.

So what's your go to quick meal? Go to quick meal.

It's so I forget. I forget how the situation started. I think it was because Peter Kim from the Museum of food and drink said something about Trinidad food. And I somehow went into some rabbit hole on Trinidad or something. And I saw this dish for yet now. You know yams aren't yams. You know America in America. When we say yam, we really mean sweet potato. Did you know that check? I suspected as much yeah, so sweet potato is not a yam. It is an entirely different species like what we call yam. I forget the name of the actual thing. But it's like, it's like something. It's like a batata epiphany moment. So

I ran into this problem with a recipe called for sweet potatoes and yams. And I was like, wait, what?

Yeah, but most like 99.9% of Americans when they say yam what they mean is a different color of sweet potato. Right? So they're still talking about two different varieties of the same exact plant neither of which is a yam, right? A Yam is an entirely different tuber. That is neither a potato nor a sweet potato and it's there's a variety of them yams anyway, the particular one I was using, it's called Nami anyway so it was a mixture of Are you familiar with the French dish brand dad if I talked about this dish on so you know Brian dad your granddad anyone brand out anyone brand dad so it's like mashed potatoes and like shredded salt cod? Yes. And like with like butter, like butter and cream finished typically with walnut oil. You know, I think it's basket or some crap and it's right on the border crossings around the border. So anyway, so I saw this like smashed yam and salt fish recipe with like, peppers and onions. I was like, dang. So I don't I don't do it traditional. I do like like a huge bunch of sauteed tomatoes. A huge bunch of sauteed red and greens. Sorry, I can't help myself. I can't just have green peppers. It's you know, whatever. And the it's super simple. You just do that. Oh, and the trick with this. You know how any of you guys do Catholic? Any of you guys do Catholic Christmas Eve? Tell anyone Catholic Christmas Eve we're gonna have you have good so what do you see? What do you eat on a on a classic Italian classic Catholic fish. Right? So you're eating fish. So one of the great fishes you eat of course is Byculla. Right? So Byculla is the is the salt cod. It's reconstituted now when you're eating Italian Christmas eve dinner. The problem with the back a lot in this situation is you have to buy the nice big pieces and you have to reconstitute them over over a couple of days to get the right texture and the right taste and good. Dried cod is quite expensive. However, for this recipe or if you're making cod fritters like baccala Ito's, like those stuff. You had a delicious you like those Joe Dakki ever has these. Yeah, they're delicious, right? The advantage of these things is you can use the crappier thin pieces of cod that aren't fit for serving on Christmas Eve but still have a lot of that flavor. So all you do is you throw you throw all the cod into into a big pot of water like you would for pasta with no salt. You take it from cold you bring it up just below to a simmer you let it ride for a couple of minutes dump it do it once more and the cars ready to use within like 10 minutes. You pull it out, you hack it up with a knife you throw it into the sun Okay, after you're done, you just you know, peel your hand which gets really, really slippery and gross. Chop it, boil it, smash it up, I add a boatload of butter and oil to it, and serve it with limes and avocados, tomatoes. And that's it. Let us boom, done. Boom, done. Fast, delicious. You can put any any sort of topping you could put on it's not traditional, maybe Trinidad but like you must have avocados and you must have line if you don't have those two things. You don't deserve to have you know the meal name but that's my go to now because I can I can get it on the table in under an hour. And you know, it's unusual for people that haven't had it yet, so it's cheap, super cheap. Anyway,

this can wait till you're really quick breaks, we can get that out of the way. Sure. Yep, let's do it from the back and cooking issues.

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And welcome back to Cooking issues. All right. So on for that. Did you think I sound like a good dish there, Jack? Yeah, I'm into it, Joe. Yes. sounded great. Yeah, very fast. Very cheap. Okay. I'm a cheap man. Did you know that? What I'm super cheap. I'm like, I liked being generous with food quantities. But if I can, I have no, I feel no compunction except when buying steak and cheese to buy like super expensive stuff.

You know, just steak and cheese? Well,

I'm just thinking two things off the top of my head. I don't buy cheap steak. I don't buy cheap cheese. I mean, I don't buy expensive cheese explicitly. But most of the cheeses that I like end up costing a good deal of money. You know what I mean? So what I tend to do is I try to find the highest quality supplier of the cheese at a reasonable price. Which means I end up eating a lot of Italian cheese here in New York, because I go to the Palos because Depaolo is is like the greatest Italian cheese shop. By the way, this was super depressing. I was in Milan last week, which is why we didn't do the show. And that to the stars. Like what I found depressing was I went to like some of the high end markets in, in, you know, in Milan. And there was nothing that I saw that I was like, I need to bring this home because I can't get this here in New York. And I was really depressed by that. Like that, you know, there was stuff I couldn't bring home because it's illegal, like meats and stuff like this. But you know, most of the cheeses and I tried them like the quality difference wasn't that good? It wasn't like I was getting a lot of loss bringing it over. And maybe it's because Milan you know, Milan isn't the heart of the super micro artigianale blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like, you know, farmer with his cap and all this other stuff had some delicious liquors over there. But yeah, it was net depressing, that couldn't find anything that I was like, Oh, yeah. And it's not like I went to like, I did also go to supermarkets while I was there, because I always when I travel go to supermarkets to see what people's supermarkets are like, and I recommend anyone do this. Like take a good 20 minutes out. Everyone passes a supermarket when they're in a foreign country. Go into the supermarket and see how they see how people shop. Do you like doing that? Or do you not like it? Yeah, yeah. And weird stuff there anyway, but the point is, I was just super depressed by that because almost always I can find some crap that you know, I'm like, oh, man, that's awesome. I don't know. depressing, but I did have a lot of good results. Oh, since you know Milan, good results. And I did have the big Melanie's breaded cutlet, you know, talking about you know, they call it the elephant because they leave the bone on it. So do you like cutlets Do you like you like you like those things too? Yes, I do. They're delicious. I had an interesting risotto at a restaurant called Daniel no relation to our Daniel here. He's an Italian Daniel. Get this. Licorice and lemon. What do you think? I don't know. I mean, would you be willing to try it? Licorice and lemon licorice and lemon risotto risotto. Delicious. Really delicious. And Anastasia you would have liked it. Perfectly cooked the best cooked so I had a couple of of you know well reviewed restaurants in Milan I went to that had the risotto that was like a little bit starched out and gloopy on the outside. You hate that right and with with the core that's cooked all the way through all the way through you hate hate right hate hate and where the grains come up in big clumps of stuff hate right this thing like all the grains were still themselves but they had a nice like you know awesome like texture on the outside tiny core on the inside still done perfectly cooked best anyway also, I went to this crazy restaurant whose name escapes me well check this out does I think it's called like booking DeVito book on Davina or something like this. You go in that table just when you go in and they just Joe and Jackie like this they you order nothing which already I like I hate making choices. I hate choices. Choices are the worst. Like every day, your life, you have to make choices all the time. Where am I going to go? What am I going to do? Who am I going to hang out with? What bearing am I going to use in the center fuse blah, blah, blah, you know what I mean? Like choices all freaking day. And then all of a sudden, you go to a place and they're like, You know what crap on you. And here's what they do. They just bring like plate after plate after plate of salumi. And they're just chopping it off. Like all different like, you know, like these weird ones from like, North shed their slice thick. So your hands are good stuff. But they just open a bottle of wine bring it to you open because I think they cheat. I think they we use the bottle and we feel that but that's that's not important. It's very host friendly. They bring the bottle of wine, they pour you the two glasses because only two of us eating and then they just put the bottle of wine on the table with the first course no choice. You don't get to choose a bottle of wine, because that's not your job. That's the somebody Aisha that's his free congests Right, of course, and it's his restaurant, there's a picture of him with his kid in the backpack in the mountains, you know, because it's very close to the Alps. Anyway. So I'm like, Oh, this is kind of nice. It's kind of refreshing. You can pour yourself more. Then they come with the next play to salumi, check attack attack attack attacker and the next open bottle of wine and they pour into new glasses and they put that freaking bottle on the table and they don't take away the other bottle. Then comes then comes the freaking pasta and the pasta is in you know they serve it like like old school like what I saw was an old school like 70s like kind of like this is the kind of cheese not cheese literally but you know, cheesy thing that I kitschy thing that I love. They had the half Parmesan bowl that they tossed like the Thai Italian and they serve it out of that with another freaking bottle of wine. Then comes the cheese course with another freakin bottle of wine. Then comes the dessert, they brought a dessert with like some sort of local like Vinsanto style thing that wasn't Vinsanto was from near Milan, then the carapa in an open freaking bottle. So our table with no choice at table is just like littered with glasses. And obviously I did eight all the solutions. There wasn't any of that. But it was a good experience. And you know what some idiot walks in. I'm talking I don't speak Italian. So the other guy saying some idiot walks in and says says everything on TripAdvisor. It's read on TripAdvisor every single thing is like you do not choose you do not choose there is no choice. And by the way, there's no choice some guy comes in, he's like, there's no choices here. I kind of thought you know, we could choose what we wanted. And the guy was like, hey, leave, you know what I mean? It's like, it's like,

people what makes people think they'll make the right choice.

And there's a no reason why anyone should make the right choice. And if you have like if you are picky, you should not go to a restaurant whose whole shtick is you have no choice you're gonna say yeah, I mean

whatever wish there were more of those here. I love the

no choice well that's like you know, even places here that are no choice it's really is like marginal choice you can walk into like a place that you know has like a like a prefix only like you know three course and you can say oh, yes but this and but that this guy doesn't even tell you there's no menu. There's no, there's no here's what you might have kind of situation because shows up. There's no opportunity to be like I like that. Anyway. And we went to the place in Greece. It was like this does no choice as Jeffree Star Stein gardens. wife Karen says no choice. No problem. By the way, I'm going to talk about this on the air while we're here. And Stasi Lopez is the queen of of not putting up with crap that she hates. Okay. It is a well known fact here. Roberta's pizzeria. And I love her burgers. You know that Jack? Right? Yes. Right. It's a well known fact that they have greens in this restaurant. How do I know this? Because they always have specials with greens, right? For the past year, the Stasi and I every single time we sit down every Tuesday, we're like, can we get greens on our pizza and stars? What's the answer? No. Yeah, no greens on the pizza. So they're like, we're like how about you just take greens and throw them on the pizza like, and what do they say? No. Right. So the Stasi for the past couple of weeks has turned Roberta's pizzeria into a byo G restaurant. She literally goes to the store on the way to the radio program. She has to leave Five minutes earlier, picks up the what's your favorite green on pizza does? Oh yeah, the right answer. Oh yeah, baby arugula. Oh yeah, with some oil brings it and then we put it on our own pizza. But how crazy is that so good and they never say anything about it. They're never giving us crap about it.

Giving them what it's like. And other tables. I got one of those. They should

start stocking the freaking greens for the pizza. You know what?

I should have? I should have the head of the Pizza Kitchen come in. We should. We should. We should talk about this on there.

Here's the thing. They could say hey, I'm gonna charge you six bucks. I'd be like, Okay. Anyway, whatever. So it's a byo G restaurant. The only outside food we can bring into Roberta's as greens for our pizza, whatever. Okay, some questions. To tick quick, two quick questions for the year of starch research. I've been making the flour tortilla recipe in the new stupid taco cookbook written with Alex Tupac. And Jordana Rothman. Do you have a copy that No, me neither shows what kind of friends we are. We don't even write a copy. Thanks. Of course, I'm sure we would have gotten a copy had we gone to the book launch party but we were doing we were doing others James

Beard Award nominee really for

the book? Well, I hope they win. Me To me it not that I've read it yet but

like quick aside we had we did panels itself by and Alex Tupac was on a panel and he is awesome. Yeah, he's really good on panels that guy tells you like it is

yeah, he's he's also really really good at demos. Never seen him do a really good like, like hardcore, like everything like he's the anti me when it comes to demos. Like literally the polar opposite. Like in this he does a lot of stuff. So in that way it's like similar but like every single thing he does is perfectly tightened down and like neat and clean and comes off like a machine. Right? Whereas you it's like imagine a machine that like where parts are flying off of it at all points and like just like oil and grease and gas or spraying everywhere. That's more like how I operate. Yeah, sounds like I know that too. Well anyway. Lately I've been making flour tortillas from the stew pack taco cookbook and I've noticed some variation across other recipes I've seen some say to use cold water others say to use very hot water some say to knead the dough well and rested a while to develop gluten all those probably mean they mean relaxed anyway. Well, resting a short while is going to relax it resting a long time well let the gluten hydrate and develop whatever. Well others recommend a very short need and a short rest to keep the dough from getting tough. What's actually going on here I know nothing will be as good as fresh masa tacos. Now listen. I too, and apparently so Alex, because I read it. You know, we originally were saying that the only good tortilla is a corn tortilla. I have recanted this because the issue isn't that flour tortillas can't be delicious. They they can be obviously they are. The issue is that corn tortilla, which is like to me the base of the cuisine was so completely disrespected and debased here in the United States. That and even apparently in Mexico and a lot of places that you almost needed to make a statement. And so you needed to go all in for corn tortillas, right? And let's be honest, corn tortillas are a lot harder to frickin make than a flour tortilla. If you're going to start with raw corn just a lot harder, you know what I mean? Oh really a lot harder. So there in the fact that there's a you know, a lot more of an art and a lot more going into making a corn tortilla and also such a huge quality difference between the craft that you buy and the and you know what you know what you can make I think that is what led people like me people like Alex many people to say that the flour tortilla is garbage. And like you should only focus on the corn tortilla, not true flour tortilla Delicious, right? So, you know, I wouldn't I'm going to I'm going to dial back a lot that I've said and I've never I've never frankly made a lot of flour tortillas. I don't I'm not an expert in them because I have spent all my time on corn but I'm here to tell you that I am now a believer that the flour tortilla is just as honorable to make as a corn tortilla just not as difficult now, so what's going on in a flour tortilla flour tortilla is a mixture of basically lard, flour, water salt, right? And most of the recipes and I took a glance not in his book because of course we don't have a copy because of course we didn't go to the party like I already told you. And like you know stars and I aren't in the business of like shelling out actually, you know it's natural. We buy we buy books, we should just buy their freakin book and support Alex and Jordanna whatever If you put the lard which is, you know has a is what's the word I'm looking for it has a lower melt point it's an oilier has a more or less solid and butter right into the flour. And then stew pack adds hot, hot or very warm water to it not hot enough to affect the actual flour. My guess is is that unlike a biscuit where you're looking to keep your lard particles or your butter particles or your shortening particles separate so that you create flake layers in between the pieces of flour. So if you're making like a biscuit dough, depending on the style that you make, but if you're doing a flaky style biscuit dough as opposed to the ones that are done with scoops you know like the if you're doing an old school flaky thing, you really want the butter things to say separate so you put it into the flour, you've worked it into your hands until it resembles like a corn meal with some larger pieces of butter. You do the minimum amount of of work on the on the dough because you don't want it to get tough in any way. Right and then you make them the butter then melts the water that's in the butter expands you get pockets you get flaky things in between the thing everybody's happy everyone likes your biscuits go by the way, stars I can't talk to her about it because she doesn't like biscuits. I need that like x sign again because I can't believe there's someone next to me who doesn't like biscuits. Do you like biscuits right? Of course. Are you a fluffy or a flaky? Flaky? Flaky? Jack? fluffier? Flaky?

Sorry about that, um, flaky,

flaky? Really? I used to be exclusively flaky. And I that's how I make them. I have in the past couple of years come to respect. The fluffy biscuit. Yeah, yeah, they're I think they're different. They're different in the way that like Northern corn, Britain and southern cornbread are different. Anyway. So Matt, Colorado, let's finish. Let me finish this talk to Mr. Okay. So anyhow, I think what the hot water is for there is to literally like help melt the Lord out. Because here what the Lord is doing, is it forming little pockets to live and to make something flaky because that's not what it's all about. And there's going to be enough water on the inside. And it's going to be thin enough that you didn't get puffing just from the hot come out, come on where you're cooking the tortilla. Here, what the hot water is doing is causing the lard to run out and mix with the flour particles and prevent this is my guess, I don't know, prevent the gluten from forming. And so the hot water is actually in this case, going to prevent excess gluten development by causing the lard to be more evenly distributed in the dough. This is a 100% Guess. And not based in any sort of actual knowledge. This is just me thinking off the top of my head. And with that caller you're on the air.

Hey, Dave. It's Alex from Brooklyn. First I wanted to give you a quick update, I had called in about doing an outdoor deep fryer, and you'd recommend it a walk instead. And I ended up buying a propane wok burner. And it is awesome. So it's so perfect. So thank you for your help. And now my quandary is I do an annual pig roast in Prospect Park. Right. And I was wondering about doing a whole 75 pound pig low Tim, is that a good strategy? Or do you have something else you recommend?

Well, let me think here. So I'm trying to look in my head, I can picture a 200 pound pig. And I can picture a 20 pound pig. A 75 pound pig is what like three feet long.

Yeah, give or take. It fits in one of those big, like hunting coolers pretty nicely with a lot of ice.

Got it? Oh, so you're going to do the cooler method. Here's the issue with low temping a whole pig. The loin is always going to be stringy. I mean, it's always going to have that like cook too long taste, you know what I mean? So you can you can do it. It's it won't be bad, but it's going to be best on on the legs, obviously are going to come out better the majority of the belly will be good, except for like there's one or two muscles that don't have a lot of kind of fat or connective tissue in there. And that they're going to end up being dry. You know what might be an interesting technique that I've never tried. What if you and I was talking off the top my head here What if you were to in place in the pig rub curing salt into the loin section so that you almost got some cure in the loin section. And then see I've always wanted to do is like almost like take them take the major muscles like almost disassemble the pig. Cook it all perfectly reassemble it and then do the roast off to get the skin kind of quick crackly and awesome. But I've never done it. You know what I've my real dream is is to do the Colombian style where you take the whole skin off like electro no or you take the whole skin off, turn it into a cape. Then cook all the different pieces kind of separately reassemble with meat glue, and then roast and crisp off the whole thing and then meanwhile returning the stuff on the inside. that'd be the ultimate that's kind of hard. That's kind of hardcore.

It's a dream very hardcore,

it's a dream, and someday I will do it. But it look, it's gonna work. It's just like, they're always muscles in a pig that I don't think want to be cooked that long. That's all you know what I mean, it's the same reason why I have my issues with a whole pig BBQ, that I think that there are some cuts that are, you know, better done. Otherwise, it'll still be good, it's gonna be good. I just, it's hard to get a whole animal cooked right all at the same time. But you know, what, you what I would do is test it a little bit, I would get like the relevant pieces in small bags before you do the cook. And then that's what I did when I was working on the turkey recipe. When I was working on the, on the bionic Turkey, I don't know if you know, where I ripped all the bones out of the turkey and then reassemble the skeleton and did all that stuff. The way that we did the tests on that was, we first thing we did is I went and bought turkey breasts and turkey legs, and just ran a bunch of side by sides and said, Okay, this level of salt, cooked for this many hours, how does it taste, and then at this temperature, and then choosing things that were within a degree or two of each other, so I could get them to come together at the same time. And that's the way I've developed the recipe. So if I was going to do a whole pig, I would do the same thing, I would choose some of the larger muscles, I would get like a little piece of the belly a little piece of the not gonna have that much of it a little piece of the loin a little piece of the of like parts of the leg. And I would just run some time tense to see kind of where it was harmonious and then see whether I could do something like add more or less salt to the, to the parts that like might get stronger, or maybe cure them so that they stay kind of better over a long period. Because if they're cured, they'll hold up to that long ride better than not. So we that's what I would do, and then figure out how much of a crazy person you want to be in terms of disassembling and reassembling this pig before you do the final roast.