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,

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Today's program is brought to you by s Wallace Edwards and Sons third generation care masters producing the country's best dry, cured and aged hams bacon and sausage. For more information visit Edwards va hamme.com

I'm Erica Woods host of let's get real the cooking show about finding preparing and eating food. You're listening to heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick Brooklyn, if you like this program, visit heritage radio network.org for 1000s more

and welcome to cooking issue. Steve Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live on the heritage Radio Network broadcasting every week from from when about 12,000 now to over 912 90 roughly 1245 on the heritage radio network in berserk. Roberta's pizzeria as usual joined in the studio with Anastasia the hammer Lopez good we got Peter Kim from the Museum of food and drink I don't Peter yet again hey, you become like you become like the third Konos I kind of liked that you know on the chat room you should write in whether you enjoy having you know Peter here he called himself before the show started and abuse sponge remember that stuff and if you sponge in Anastasia and I noted Miss Darcy adding the salient point of course that the problem with a sponge is is that whatever you soak up with a sponge in this case abuse gets wrung back out on onto you again in the sink but plus that nasty smell.

Yeah, it gets progressively worse until the sponge is just falls apart.

Yeah, and you try to wash it in the dishwasher you try and somehow it the stank never fully goes away.

You know what I mean? These with the sponsor the rest of the sponges life.

Well where are you in a sponges life? Then? First of all, what kind of sponge Are you Peter? Do you have that like abrasive layer on the one side that gets all pilled up and nasty? The fake scotch? Brite Yeah. Are you real scotch? Brite or choirboy? Or are you Are you the kind that you buy in large plastic sacks that are fake

you know abrasive on one side yellow on the other

oh wow

whoa whoa no Peters Chinese oh wow

so racist feeders and we go yeah, you're actually Korean anyways and join not today in the in the engineering booth. There is no Jackie molecules in the engineering booth. But we have Liz which is which is very nice. Hey, doing this.

I'm great. I'm glad that we're getting off to a grand start today. Yeah.

least it's a start right now. At least we're not dead yet rice to us. It's true. Yeah. Never know. Never know. Remember, like my favorite. Remember back people say like You know, what kind of dishwashers like yeah, we have a dishwasher. His name is Carmelo. I love Carmelo. He's my favorite. Like one of my favorite human beings at the FCI. His favorite thing to say was you'd say how you doing? And he'd say fine for now. And it because you know, to me, he would always say Tomorrow, you never know. And he died. Yeah. Awkward silence. Well, I mean, you know, it happens. The good news is not only is it happened to the best of us, it also happens to the worst of us. Call your questions in to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128 up. Big news does an actual friend of mine, right? who's like, you know, not in the food business and architect in fact, you know, our kids hanging out together. came over to my house. You ready for this? cooked a meal with the Jedi? Whoa, yeah. First of all, he bought some weird, like knockoff Chinese, the Ju one. That's the exact one he came over. He's like, I bought this thing that cuts vegetables into into like little strips. I mean, I was like, You mean, the Jedi? I'm like, I'm familiar. And he goes, No, no, no, it's like, it's like a peeler that was modified to be the Jedi like so. So I was like, look, look, I you know, I have the real, there's no use, you don't need to like because it couldn't spiral. It couldn't make a continuous spiral. It could only go the length of the zucchini, or the length of the cucumber because it didn't rotate had no rotating facilities still had a middle word worse even than that. You basically it's like a peeler, just like chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk chunk. So unless you're like unless you're a rotational genius, unless you're doing it the way for instance, that like using a Suba to cut a vegetable into sheets, you would always end up with a very short noodle. So he and he came over and cooked a dish with my least favorite vegetable which is squash zucchini. Yeah, like, blossoms great vegetable crap. He literally came over to my house and cooked noodles with and he's like, I was like, I was like, listen, I was like, Listen, I don't have any cheese sundaes. Like, the recipe doesn't need cheese and I was like, oh, not only you're gonna give me a zucchini noodles, there's not going to be any like cheese or anything on it. What was it was Well, thankfully, he is not one of these anti carb nut jobs. And so it was a mixture of zucchini and actual pasta. Which is actually an interesting idea because the zucchini is soaking up the sauce and the flavors, it's any Friday. So like they like fried the zucchini like you're supposed to do. That's what the majority people say to do. I doubt the Virginia go fry star is

like I just write it because it's healthier. Like because you're eating a healthy squash. And it's fried so why because it's it's right but

what Wait Yeah, do it again but have it make sense? It's okay

if it's fried because it's squash and squash is healthy no matter how you prepare it is her

reasoning squash is solidified water Yeah, with some mildly vegetable cake.

It is a sponge. It's not like chicken

fried you know it's not like chicken. No, it is most definitely not like

chicken it makes no sense. It makes no sense. I don't

believe that Frying is necessarily unhealthy but I don't believe that like it's like all these like weird tit for tat things. You know what I mean? Like Well, I'm gonna go on the treadmill so that I can pound 50 Snickers bars does that make any sense? Right eat a Snickers bar if you want a Snickers bar workout if you want to work out they're unrelated fry your squash if you think it tastes good, don't fry your squash because somehow that lets you fry something as though fried squash is going to be as good as fried chicken which is not although it was good in this case is anyone there does anyone in the world think that fried squash is as good as fried chicken? Those of you who eat chicken anyone? Anyone know now you know like 10 poorest I mean like look, they're like okay look like if you if I was going to deal with zucchini and try to make it as good as possible right? I would squish the ever loving hell out of it like you would with an eggplant right? Right so that you would get rid of all of the sponginess of it. If you were going to fry it and then I would somehow batter it and try to make a nice texture out of zucchini and then batter it so it didn't become see I'm not afraid of oil but who likes like oil sponges who likes to eat non crunchy oil sponges see like the batter of of a properly fried thing absorbs a whole hell of a lot of oil right but it is what it is what what is it crunchy right it is crunchy so it is delicious.

You know I like zucchini core it keep it whole core IT stuff it with meatball sounds good. It's good.

That sounds good. It's good that you're well it's a it's like a non bitter version of stuff bitter melon. You like bitter melon know why Peter Peter Kim is making his shrug He shrugged shoulder because she's raised. Like that's his little thing.

Look, I'm showing solidarity with all sponge like vegetables out there today.

Wow. Do you like buttermilk Oh

no yeah like the Timon do I also like zucchini?

What? Any any guys? Oh not with someone who serves you when someone hands up and like I Asante you show up at their house they go I saw Cade zucchini for you.

Yeah, that's my side contribution to your dinner party.

Yeah, I know you bought me a taste good. Yeah, I know that like someone else brought wine something is delicious and it's gonna make your conversation tolerable. But like, but like you're like, you know, what did I bring? I brought burnt on the outside yet still soggy and oil soaked rancid zucchini product, right? How many times out of 10 when you get zucchinis out you get

always Oh, nobody else. They don't know what to do. Yeah. And

on that note, we have a caller. All

right, caller you're on the air.

Hey, Dave, Natasha, Jackie, everybody. Hey, I was just curious if you'd be willing to share maybe some weeknights, stapled for for your listeners. I'm a father of two young girls and you know always looking for ideas on quick dinners to knock out that are delicious. I'm familiar with your your steak and the garlic bread deal and whatnot. But yeah, be curious what you like the knockout.

How old are you girls?

I got a four year old and a nine month old but a four year old eat just about anything.

Hey, let me Well, good. So you're not in a picky situation? Yeah, I mean that most of my choices are actually based on how picky you know, especially my older kid. But did how many months is the young one.

She's nine. So she's starting to eat a little bit. Some solid foods here.

Listen, before I go into your question. Have you heard the fantastic new news that now they say that everything they told you go online, don't take my word for it. Everything that they told you about not having have not exposing kids to potential allergens is exactly wrong. The new wisdom, so for years, including when my kids were little I wasn't allowed to expose them early on to things that might be allergens, even though at the time I was like, this is a load of crap. I was like, not only is this a load of crap, intuitively, it is a load of crap. Intuitively, you want to expose the kids to a bunch of everything, such that they can kind of hack it as we go on. It's this this is the you know, this is the you know, we killed almost everyone on this continent with our with our blankets full of like disease kind of thing, that constant exposure to low levels of things from a young age seems to make you more invulnerable to them later. Right. So, right. So now they've come out and said that yes. In fact, with the exception of honey, which, you know, you could get botulism from, you know, feed up, feed them everything from an even earlier age than we thought before. You know, we hate to be the ones here that said, we always freaking thought that the sad thing is, is that I couldn't act on it when I had kids. Because if I was, you know, and when you're not a doctor, what do you know? You know what I mean? If you're wrong and your kids end up with some hardcore allergy, they're going to be like, Well, it's because dad thought he knew best and didn't feed him frequent peanut butter, like you're supposed to. But now they're like, in fact, the allergies are caused by this kind of stuff. You've been reading this?

I have not but yeah, no, it makes sense. So yeah, look

into it again, like, Do not mistake cooking issues for medical advice. But look it up. You know what I mean? It's a fantastic new thing, because I have a new niece in the family. And yeah, we're all remarking on on that, in fact, last night at dinner, so. So apparently you're a meat eater?

Yeah, I do have a circulator.

Do you have a rice cooker? I do. I do. Yeah. So like I use I do a lot of stuff with the rice cooker just because it it holds things so well. So you know, you can bust out at any point like white when you get home, you can throw like any sort of thing that cooks in the rice cooker. In fact, I'm kind of like I don't really tend to cook finished dishes in the rice cooker I tend to have I have a bunch of Korean stone bowls that totes and like they're super fast to bust stuff out on promises. They're not kid friendly. You know what I mean? So usually what I'll do is I'll just have like a boatload of rice. And then I'll take whatever I have in the fridge leftover from the last couple of days. I'll hack that stuff up and throw it into the stone bowl with like a quickly improvised talk because I always keep in my pantry. Like depending on what kind of moods I'm in cans of coconut milk cans of tomato paste, like you know a bunch of stuff that I can just bust out sauces quickly crack an egg into it with a tool so but it requires you buying tool sets, which is probably not what you wanted. And again, your kids can't really have that. I suppose. Would you like for quick? Pasta? Yes, that starts at a pasta Queen sounds like pasta pasta pasta clean. Yep. But the kids get lost after a while. I wouldn't know. Because you never get sick of it. Because I don't have kids and I don't get sick of it. You never get sick of pasta. No, ever. No. Never. Because there's lots of ways you can do backflips back before I had kids and even when I had kids one kid when I was used to live on 38th Street and my pasta machine was out I was in a routine where twice a week I would make pasta. I mean, like, make it. And I, you know, I would ignore all the relaxing steps when you were rolling it out. And so I could, I could make pasta by the time the water was boiling now was fun, because it gives me a sense of accomplishment. And it's like a fresh pasta thing, but it can be done in under an under 45 minutes. I mean, the thing is, honestly, now it's like, by the time I'm done working, and you know, my wife is home, I really only have 15 to 20 minutes to cook dinner. I mean, like, you know, Rachael Ray with her 30 Minute Meals, I don't know where she has the luxury of such time. You know, it's like 15 to 20 is about the limit. So like, that's why a lot of pre cooking is really good. We got into habit. You know, a couple of months ago, we sadly fell out of it where, like on a Saturday or Sunday, we'd or you know, we'd roast two chickens instead of one right? Because it doesn't take any more energy to roast two chickens and one and then you know, we would do the old school rip apart the carcass, maybe, you know, maybe make a broth, do some chicken salads, do some stuff like that. And now even on Sundays, like if I'm, you know, up in Connecticut, I'll bust out the tandoor. And I'll always make extra of everything and then use the leftovers like a really good leftover. Or like, Oh, I know I said it before in the radio show. But seriously, like show up at home throw the potatoes in the oven baked potato bar. So freakin delicious. So delicious. And we'd all forget everyone is forgotten how delicious the big potato bar is that the last thing you did? I love it. You didn't tell me that. How was it? Good name? Good. You know what I bought a couple of weeks ago. Okay, you ready for it? Baker's I went out and bought. I went full seven days and got Baker's, that's what our bakers speaking did they convince Baker's texturized vegetable protein in the form of bacon bit lids. And it brought back some good memories, Dax, who did not grow up on them thought they were crap that they were garbage. I enjoy them anyway. So baked potato bars. Good. And if you do make the big potato bars save a couple of extra because if you chip those, they fry fantastically, very quickly later without any pre prep even after they've been especially if they've been refrigerated. Is any of this helpful? Yep. Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Well, let us know if you come up with anything good. Send it on in, you know, to the questions, we'll talk about it on air, etc, etc. Callback tells you experience. And remember now you can feed your kids everything. Okay. You know, like, seriously, that's like a big one for me. Anyway. Alright. Thanks a lot. Okay. See, I had some unanswered questions. What? What? I just like looking at Peter. Oh, boy. What's Peter doing? Well, yes. Okay. So I had some questions that went unanswered last week, and my phone is not wanting me to see what they are. Okay. I just moved into a new apartment. A decent if a little shabby pre war building, aren't they all right. Aren't they all? Like, you're you're not gonna pre war coming

out? Nope. Seven days, seven days.

So just seven days, buildings have like all the roaches and stuff that are cooler. No, no. What about what floor? Are you on? Six. So it's too high for the giant water bugs? I guess. So. Yeah. You never see the giant water bugs that high? Unless I guess it's like a really old building. No, pull that up to you get the giant water bugs here at your shabby pre war building. You just get the mini roaches.

Yeah, I get roaches. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, Liz. While I'm talking about this, is it possible to get Sam Edwards on the phone? Let me work on it. Because I have a question that he can answer. See whether he can I'm not saying because I didn't call I didn't know ahead of time that he was going to be the sponsor. But since Sam Edwards is sponsoring the show, and I have a question on country hands. If he wants to spend a couple of minutes on the phone with us towards the end of the program. We can you know,

let me see what I can do. All right.

Just moved into a shabby pre war building in Brooklyn. The kitchen is new and that's nice. But there's one major drawback as with most New York City apartments, there is no hood over the stove. And every time I try to roast a chicken or sear a steak. Oh my God, my phone when I was trying to move it thought I wanted to define the word steak. I know what a steak is iPhone jerk. Every time I tried to roast a chicken or sear a steak, the hard wired smoke detectors go off. I thought maybe I could recalibrate them but no dice. I've opened windows employed fans but nothing I seem to do prevents the problems. Do you have any advice short of moving? This is driving me? effing nuts. Thanks, Matt Banbury. Okay. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a big, big problem, like the laws are that we have to have smoke detectors. But the problem is, is that smoke detectors are not designed with kitchens in mind and install

them over the stove. Well, there's

some people's apartments like you got your stove, you got your bed, you know what I mean? It's like, there's no logical All kinds of separation. And it's true that some places, even with the windows wide open and like a fan in them, which I recommend, they're still going to go off. Now that, you know, look, there's a couple of ways around this, you know, you can certain manufacturers of cooking detectors, as you know, I like to call them have a button on it called a hush button, right? And a lot of them do and yours might, and you might not know about it. So the thing that says the test button on it, right, so some manufacturers and you can look up online, you can look up yours. I know, like I think the brand kitty, you know, makes some that do this, where if you press the button once, right, just press it, it will beep it'll go once at you. And for the next eight to 10 minutes, depending on the detector, it is not gonna go off, right based on what you're on what you're doing, unless it has what they call and I put this in air quotes, you can't see because you can't see me but excessive smoke. So basically it goes from being a cooking detector to a yo this is really messed up detector. Now the problem is I many times my life would set set this off and at least go on a little bit of a rant here for a second because as I was looking this crap up, I was getting so angry about it the cooking people, people who manufacture these cooking detectors, and the idiots who talk about them online. Assume that the only time you make smoke is when you're doing something improper in the kitchen. False. False. There are many cooking techniques that when done properly create boatloads of smoke diridon saying, have they been to a traditional kitchen? Do they only eat bull crap for like maybe like 50 style with no freaking crust? No freaking texture, no freaking zazz no freaking life. It is not only when you're making a mistake in the kitchen that you create smoke. And this is the error that causes people to create cooking detectors because people don't cook people are bad right at cooking.

Dave, I've got two ideas what so one is this is a solution I employ at my place, I have a small Weber gas grill that I got that I use if I need to do some really heavy like smoky stuff. And that I can put right by the window and have the fans suck the air right out. That's one thing you don't put it outside your window, you know, outside the window. But I set up a table right in front of the window with you know, I have that big window fan, right, and then I'll set up a cross, you know, cross breeze thing going from the other side of the apartment, and then grill right in front of the fan and the smoke goes right out

is it good. Also a good point is that you have to figure out what the air patterns are in your apartment. So like my current my current apartment, the air pattern come, unfortunately, the natural direction is to come into the kitchen. But my old apartment, the natural direction was to go out of the kitchen. So that's one of the things

I'm lucky that I have my kitchen sits in between two windows on opposite ends of the apartment. So when I have the fan going on one side, then I usually don't have problems. Generally neutral, generally, there's no flow, it'll flow through the smoke, whichever direction the smoke will come out my oven or whatever. And

we had to test which way the air wants to know which way your cross ventilation works. So that you know, that's definitely one thing, here's something I don't recommend doing although it's all over the internet is a plastic bag, rubber bands or a shower cap over your smoke detector while you're cooking. Because the part it's it's measuring particulates, right. So you can put that over it and the particulates can't get to it, but you have to seal pretty well for it for it to work and good number of people have had success with that. But the problem is, is now you're literally shutting down your detector so that when you go to sleep, if something's going on, you have a problem. But, but back to our other things some and yours might already have it have this thing where you can tell the smoke detector, I'm cooking, don't go off for like only eight minutes. I don't know who can only cook for eight minutes, but it's reasonable most of the time when the smokes happening, it's like high intensity short duration stuff, right? You know, Barbra Kafka in her book roasting, right, which started the kind of super high temperature roasting kind of phenomenon people's houses, how the hell you not gonna have smoke when you're busting your oven up at 450 500 how you're gonna do it, no matter how you cook. Jerks anyway, the other thing is, is that maybe you can if your smoke detector doesn't have that maybe you can replace a smoke detector with one that does. You know, but I'm hesitant to tell you anything that's going to actually shoot your smoke detector in the head permanently. Right. I mean, obviously, you know, like, I have removed my smoke detectors and forgotten to put them back in like, and I've unwired hardwired ones but it's not really advisable it's not good. Don't do it. You know what I mean? Get one that has this. This cooking detect undo? No, it's messed up stuff. I was gonna recommend buying a nest you know the nest ones now. just protect because they're controlled from your phone. But what's weird is this from what I can tell currently, the way the firmware works, when you press it, it'll go off, and then you press don't, and it will, it will then stop. But there's no way to say, don't go off. I am doing something, you know what I mean? Like, like a anti virus, like when you have an anti virus, it's like turn off your anti virus for 15 minutes, because I'm installing a program. Like apparently nest hasn't figured this out yet. And even worse on the nest, is that if you have multiple nests, and they and they're inter wired, which all hardwired smoke detectors are supposed to be inter wired now. So the reason being that if a smoke detector goes off in your kitchen, and because clearly you live in some sort of like four storey suburban mansion, right, you're in your room, you're not going to hear it at night, they want your smoke detector in your room to go off as well. So they're all inter wired. Now, that's how the codes are. But so if your nest goes off in the kitchen, it'll also go off in your bedroom, which is apparently irritating, whatever. But nest is something that could do that. Like if nest like thought about cooks a little more. They could have a um, you know, I'm cooking now shut up for 15 minutes, because you don't need a smoke detector when you're awake. Anyway, so do you think we gave enough ideas on what to do with it? Yeah. All right. We do have a caller. Oh, all right. Caller you are on the air.

This is Matt from Mystic Connecticut. Oh,

hey, Mr. Connecticut, where Mr. Garcia

I am on the you know, technically the Stonington side of the river. I do, which is, uh, you know, the other side of the drawbridge? Yeah.

The other side, the other side of Mr. bascule. Bridge. But again, the other side of the mystic bascule. Bridge. Yes. So I had a question about haggis. Oh, nice.

Because my buddy and I throw a big Bernstein party every year. And we're coming up on it. And typically what we do is we just seem that haggis as sort of like a giant ball of loose form sausage in a big colander. Right. But for presentation purposes, this year, I bought a beef bomb. And I want to do it in the beef bone so that we get the whole, you know, cutting cutting of the hair gets open. And so I'm wondering if there's enough moisture? Like is the bone permeable? And if I steam it, is it going to work in the bone? Or should I pre cook it you think and then stuff it?

You know, it's interesting. I've never I've used pig stomachs before. And stuffed them not actually strangely for haggis. But because I've only done the haggis, like, cloth bound actually, I think it should work. I mean, is it how big is a beef bone?

I mean, you know, it's typically I think that type of thing they use for like a mortadella. So it can hold, it can hold a fair amount. And the haggis we make is huge. You know, I'm talking like you know, like something you strain your pasta with. That's we typically just like pack it in there and then steam it covered in foil. So that you know.

Yeah, I'm gonna say it's gonna work. You think so? Just straight in the book. I think it's gonna work. I don't like this guy. Like, hey, Liz. Is the chat room working right now it is working is anyone I mean, like there's got to be a charcuterie expert out there. Who has who has done this before? We're waiting. We're waiting for our expert to tap in. Yeah. Hello, Abdullah. Look, I'm gonna go ahead and say that. That's going to work. Okay, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I'm gonna go ahead and say it's gonna work to try them. Yeah, please let us know how it works. As anyone who is like, Listen long enough knows haggis is is deserving of so much respect. It's so freakin delicious. It's just mis sold. We have exactly right.

Yeah, we may everyone. Everyone gets freaked out about it every year and then they might have it and they say this is delicious.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's there's things like that, like people have less revulsion over scrapple although some people's don't like scrambled either scrambled up me different obviously also, like incredibly delicious. And I know they're not the same or even really similar, but like, I mean, like, haggis is delicious. What kind of oats do you use?

We use like the quick cutting the quick cooking steel cut, if that makes sense.

Oh, I've never had that. Are they still made? Or they come in that tin?

I know. So it's like a Bob's Red Mill thing. Oh, Bob's Red Mill. Yeah, they have ones that are like supposedly quick cooking. And so we just do that and it's always worked out. Great. Do you

notice Do you notice a difference between using those and like the standard like Scottish steel cut guys?

I don't think we've ever used like the fully traditional ones. I think we've only ever used the quick cutting ones but they you know, like quick cooking in this scenario means like, I think 20 minutes if you're making on the stovetop or something so right so

it's not like it's not like the quick quick cooking like the flakes stuff is like a five minute or less,

right? Yeah, no, it's not like it's not they're not blown out at all. They're still like this thing. little cups you know? So Oh,

yeah. Oh man, I love haggis. What day is it? Yeah,

it is. So not this Saturday, but next Saturday. So if you want if you're a mystic come on by. I wish

I like I'm going to be up there this weekend but not, not the weekend after. Man. I love haggis. Anyway, enjoy your haggis and let us know how it comes out.

I will do it. Thanks. All right. Thank

you. All right, let's take a break and be back with more hooking your shoes.

following program is brought to you by s Wallace Edwards and sons. Edward Suriano hands are aged perfection for no less than 400 days and hickory smoked to achieve a deep mahogany color. The Edwards name is well known for its world class aged and cured meats. Their exclusive curing and aging recipe produces a unique flavor profile that enhances the quality characteristics of Berkshire poor. Optimum amounts of pure white fat marbling contribute to a flavor that's a delicate perfect balance between sweet and salty. For more information visit Edwards va ham.com

and welcome back to Cooking issues for some reason to stop you and Peter are rearranging the studio as you speak so if you hear like all kinds of chairs like wheeling around so how many years have you sat next to me and now you decided I'm no longer good to sit next to

like all wires on the springs

stuff just wants to give me the more uncomfortable to hear.

That makes sense. You're the this question in I was recently lucky enough to have the electric drop in combo unit meaning a stove fail on me and with the help of my awesome dad gas lines were run holes, cut counters altered and I am now the owner of a sturdy and simple gas range. Well congratulations to you. I hate resistance. Fed old, like gas, electric range. Have you ever used one of those with the squirrely use that you had in California? Why don't want to talk to the mics does not your first time at the rodeo. No, you never use one.

Yes. Not in California. When did you have one? Megan Airbnbs Oh, Jesus.

What about you, Peter?

I grew up with that. Yeah,

for real. Yeah. Champaign Urbana was the Lando trick.

Yeah. Yeah. The worst is when like stuff gets burned onto it. You know, you can't really get it off.

When I was a kid. We had one when I lived in New Jersey, and I leaned on it with my winter coat and like melted my winter coat into it.

And then after like when you're cooking something you can't have it stopped cooking. Now, I mean, turn it off, and it's like, I'm gonna keep cooking this. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Oh, there it goes. It's especially bad for stuff like cooking sugar. Oh, my God, like making like candies. Because you're like, hey, it's pretty. Oh, no. Oh, you know what? I mean?

I guess it's arguably better for keeping a low simmer, though.

Who would? No, no. Well, maybe. I mean, because it can't. It can't flame out at super low temperatures. I don't know. I just hate the hell out of it. And you know what else I used to hate? I used to hate the way pots and pans. And this is going back to when I was like 11 We moved when I was like 12. But I even now I remember and I've used them since the way pots feel on them. It's just I don't like it like pots don't slide right on them. They have that rapid Tapi Yeah. And like they're like I still like it. Yeah, horrible. Or all around bad, just bad. I'm the owner of a sturdy and simple gas range. Okay, after decades using the same thin to bottom sauce pots and thin bottom stockpot. I'm getting more scorching that I'm used to. So there's an interesting thing it is more even over the space of it because the burner itself it's physically larger. Right, right. Right. Okay, so there's a theoretical advantage. Maybe that's why James Beard liked them. Maybe James Beard had thin thin crappy pots and so he was getting scorching. And maybe if James Beard had replaced his pots with like my like a more modern Potter a thicker pot, maybe he would have not liked electric stoves. Because it's incomprehensible me why he liked electric stoves. Yeah,

that's the only advantage I could think of. Yeah, yeah, I

mean, right. Okay. I've tried backing off the heat and I will certainly keep practicing. But I was wondering if there was any advice you would share on sauce, pots, stockpots, etc. Imagine finding yourself with a new gas range and wondering what would be the best use for it. I love it technical. Of course, my cast iron is more fun with Gasteiner Thanks, Nathan. Okay. So, here's here's the thing. Super thin bottom pots With a concentrated gas flame are going to have problems. They're fine. Don't let anyone tell you any differently. They're fine for boiling stuff, right? So you're always going to need to have a pot that you can boil water for pasta in or you know, anything, anything of that nature. But you're gonna, you're gonna want to go invest in a thick bottom. Your saucepan should have a thick bottom. And anything if you're going to brown or like make a roux or sweat out vegetables, you're going to want something thicker that spreads the heat out more evenly. That's just my my feeling is that you're not going to be happy with the thin bottom stuff on on your range. And what do you what do you guys think? Peter Woody,

I'm thinking he should play that song from spinal tap right now the big bottom?

Fat? Fat bottom isn't that that's queen? Oh, it's queen. Oh, big bottoms. Micro is

looking up his own spinal. This Is Spinal Tap. They have that song. Anyway, whatever.

So you consider your pots to be female? That's it. You're telling me? No, it's just interesting facts about theater. Like for me, like pots and pans are one of the few gender neutral kind of like pieces of equipment that I can think of what do you what gender Do you think your pots and pans have says,

Do you have pots are probably female pans. Male. Really, really? Why? long handles on the pens.

This is an odd conversation. So I so I would, I would go ahead and say you're gonna want to get you don't need a lot keep your thin stuff for for like I say for boiling also, I'm going to say you can get pretty cheaply depends on your feeling about them, right, but the they're relatively thick and they work relatively well. Just aluminum pots, and they're pretty cheap. They work really well. As long as you don't mind cooking in aluminum. I know some people don't like cooking in aluminum and the truth of the matter is that those pots do get pitted after a long time especially if you use them in a dishwasher because they get kind of the dishwashing detergent kind of eats them out but I have a couple of those because they're cheap. I have a couple because I've been collecting a long time really good. Stockpile some thin ones that I use for other things but if you have a thin potom like like two quart SOT like saucepan like I would take that into the into the garage or something and use it to melt wax for like you know kids candle projects or something like that because that's what that's going to be good for. I wouldn't it's just you're gonna like it so much more once you get a real thing and you don't have to do it all at once you can get them piece by piece or find them in thrift shops or or you know, when people move away i i no longer look I got married a long time ago when I got married we got our set of all clad I can't imagine going out and like forking over the money to buy a full set of pans, you guys know, right?

I mean, I guess you can you could also have things like putting something underneath the thin bottom pan right?

Well that's the thing but a flame tamer then you're back into the same situation you are back with another and you don't have your you don't have your reaction rate. So like a way to make the thin bottom pan act more like you used to like it used to act is to just put a slug of metal underneath your burner. And then it'll ride up and down up and down and lacking almost exactly like your your your electric range did. But then you don't have the what you want, which is the off on that an electric range has it makes it so so awesome. Right? No. Okay. Got a question in from Joan. If it is all possible, can you ask Dave the following question? Do you ever use a freezing step for your French fry recipe? Does it still yield the same results? And do you alter your processing When freezing? Yes, I like freezing french fries, freezing french fries can help. What freezing does is it's an additional dehydration stage. So if your french fries were suffering from hollow core, meaning that you didn't have the internal texture of the french fry, be potato anymore but just hollow and crust then freezing will accentuate hollow core. If you were not getting hollow core when you were doing it. Then freezing in general will make the texture of the X is the outside of the fry better right and it will also allow you to fry it harder before the potato kind of overcooked because you should frog you should fry directly from Frozen. So frying from frozen and freezing in general is can be extremely advantageous so long as you don't get hollowcore now if you find that you're getting hollowcore. Also, you can keep fries. And definitely Once they're frozen, which is nice, just make sure that you let them freeze almost like IQ F like individual like on a pan, then combine them into portions in bags and put them in your freezer. If you find after you're done that you're getting too much hollowcore on your french fry after the free step, then what I would do is if you have a dri step, so if you're going to do if you do enzyme, you'll do enzyme, if you don't, you don't. If you're doing the modernist thing, you're going to hit it with a ultrasonic, you know, what's it called cleaner, right or not, then you're going to do your initial blanch out step where you're cooking the potato and putting salt into the potato by boiling or boiling, it's

like cooking issues blog, isn't it,

I'm just going through it, I'm just saying you're not it's trying to be mean anyway, then then you're gonna go through, optionally a drying step, right. And this is where this is where you really get to play with it, right. So it's the length of the boil step. And then the length of the dry step is where you're doing a lot of the moisture control. And it's all about the moisture control, where you're trying to balance the internal texture of the fryer with the external temperature, texture of the fry, then your first fry, now you're going to do your, your free step or not. And I think freezing is almost always beneficial. So like if, if you get hollow core, just decrease your just decrease your dry time, if you're using it, you Conversely, if the texture of the outside of the fry is not what you want it to be, and you're not getting hollowcore yet, then increase your drive time in between your interior blank Blanche and your fry. I hope that helps without you having to go and sift through the 4000 words of the cooking issues. By the way. I'm not saying we're going to do this, but I was talking to Jackie molecules last week who's by the way in New Orleans for his birthday. Hopefully he's you know, not passed out drunk on the street somewhere. I don't think he is because it's kind of early in the day. Right? Yeah, yeah. considering putting the blog on, like having IT admins by the good folks here at Heritage radio, and perhaps making it semi live again. What do you think says Yes, like that? Semi semi life nice semi life, but like, like, you know, we'll see. We'll see. Oh, see what the people in the chatroom whether they want it to ever go live again, new new things, new information, new cooking issues anyway. Hope that helps. Do we get anything for? Did we get anything for from Sam or no lists?