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.

This episode is brought to you by just egg you can't have plant based breakfast without a plant based egg. You can get started with a free sample just head to j u dot S T slash Hrn.

This week on meeting three we're celebrating the food culture of South Carolina with its chef ambassadors.

I'm super excited that it's softshell crabs season those little suckers are delicious. People think oh tomatoes, tomato no there is a good tomato and a bad tomato. So when they come to Hampton or even you know even in South Carolina, you can really find the incredible ingredient.

We started getting letters from Mike Rowley on farms in Conway he's a super sweet family that runs that will farm

tune in to meat and three available wherever you get your podcasts

Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cookie issues coming to network every Tuesday from well you know whenever we can make it really honestly whenever we can make it got the Stasi, the hammer Lopez up there and Stanford. How you doing? Hello? Good. We got we got John. He's in New York right now. Right? Yep. Correct. And Matt and his hidey hole booth up there in Rhode Island and Providence lands or wherever they're calling it now? Yeah. Yeah. By the way, Rhode Island people I got it. So I have a bunch of announcements. But first I want to mention this cuz I know I'm going to forget so in not in Providence, but what's it called? There's a town called North Kingston up there, right? Yeah, yeah. So in North Kingston when I was a kid, there was an all you can eat. There's gonna be long and ridiculous. There was an all you can eat seafood joint called crusties. Which they reopened in Stonington. Like sometime in early 2000s. But it closed right away, but back in the 70s and 80s When I went you could go to this place. And it was you ready for it? All you can eat lobster. Can you believe that? Like good good lobster. You know, all you can eat? You go in, you know and like the guy. I was a kid when I went, but like I was uh, I was a little I was a little a little fireplug of a kid I could eat you know what I mean? And I was weak but big you know, and and I'm Husky is what we call it now the trade. Anyway, so like, I went in there and they're trying to figure out whether they're going to charge me the kids value meal, or the adults value meal. And they charged me a kids and boy did I raked him over the coals. Do you know how much lobster Oh my goodness. And it was like I looked at a picture of it from the old school days. It was like, like, how many of you have like grandparents with a wood paneled basement? Like or you can kind of picture that wood paneled basement right? So this entire restaurant was kind of wood paneled. And it had like, and this only went once and I was maybe nine to 11 Somewhere in there. I still vividly remember it. Like he like you're at a wedding huge trays of like shrimp imagine like if trip cocktail like got like hit with the same media that like you know, made those animals big in in the in rampage. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm saying like, huge trip cocktail. So you'd pound that and then eat infinite losses. Isn't that sound fun? Are they still in business? No, those guys. While they didn't get driven out of business, they were also near a college town, which is so weird, right? There's a college near North Kingston right, Matt? Yeah, you're right. Yep. Yeah. So it's like, I mean, I can't imagine opening that they must have priced it just above what the college students could afford at the time. And because otherwise they would have been completely hosed. I think someone the record, I looked it up the record was 60 lobsters. Can you believe that? Oh, I mean, at that point, you're like, Congratulations, sir. Never come again. You don't I mean, Congratulations, sir. Please never come again. Here's the black. But like, ya know, they the guy retired, closed it and then somebody like there was still in the early 2000s. Like, you know, that 20 You know, that whatever, like 15 year nostalgia for something that had close to someone tried to reopen it right. And I just don't I just don't think they got the numbers to work right out of North Stonington. Anyway, so that got me thinking there used to be a line of kind of lobster joints like stretching starting. The first ones were like around in Mystic Connecticut right before the Rhode Island border, right? And then they would go all the way up to Maine, all these lobster joints. And then it got me thinking about a restaurant that I never went to but once I heard the name of it, I've always regretted because I used to go to mistake and Groton back when it was open. I just didn't know about it. You ready for the name of this restaurant that really existed? Yeah. Don Juan's international combat style cuisine. Well, yes, yeah. Oh, yeah. Don Juan's international combat style cuisine. Yeah. Yeah. It was.

It was you should bring that

back. Well, that's what I'm, what I just thought.

Okay, so here's, here's the story, people. Here's the story. Here's the story. This restaurant was it wasn't in mistake it was in it was in Groton, right? Like, you know, like, across the river. Now, for those of you that have never been to that section of Connecticut, like, that is a navy town. That's where like, you know, that's where electric boat is where we make all of our submarines in this country. It's like a navy. town like is like all navy. Up and down. There's a big sub base there. It's like huge. And I look, I'm not going to completely docks the guy out, right. But I figured out I mean, like, I figured out the name. It was it was a brothers two brothers. Right. It was it was Don Zell and I forget his brother's name, I think Joel or something. They came from a big family out of that area, right out of the, you know, kind of the New London area. And he went to John, the one went to Johnson and Wales and was like, let's start a restaurant. And they were they were basically just kids. So they were like, what's a fun name? Because he had spent his whole life cooking. He came from a big family and I again, I did a deep dive and he's hard to find this guy. And I've never spoken to him. And but he, his, I think it was his dad was in the Navy for a long time. So I guess and it's a navy town. So they were like combat style cuisine, Don Juan's international combat style cuisine, and they opened it up and it was a byo joint, right. So all of the kids from the entire area back in the 80s, who were under age would go there when they were and have their 18th 19th 20th birthday parties. And because the owners were basically also you know, young you know, in their 20s at the time, they were like yeah, who cares and so they were just serve and apparently everyone you know, loved the food they were cooking and it was great. problem was they expanded to a second location couldn't handle the expansion and shut both down. This was in the shutdown probably in the 90s. All right, now you with me now. So I then traced this chef right after he, you know, closed on ones international combat style cuisine. I try aced him to a lobster shack, then apparently the food there was great, right? And then he quit that he hasn't been there in a number of years he was there. I found a newspaper article that referenced him cooking, like seafood there in about 20 years ago, right about 15 to 20 years ago. I call that restaurant cold call them. I was like, Hi. Does this chef still cook for you guys? And they're like, No, I'm like, Ooh, well, how long? Have you worked there? Three and a half years will? Did he ever work there when you were there? No. Remember, I still don't know that he's alive at this point. Right? So then I find another like reference it behind a paywall in some Podunk, like, you know, southern Connecticut newspaper, rating, something I can't get to, but I it mentions in the photo, the chef's name and the owner of this new of this other place. So I go, I find it. It's a seasonal lobster, like like lobster shack thing, near mistake. And I call those guys I was like, Yo, is a is a shift on sale still cooking there. And they're like, Yeah, but he hasn't started again for the season. So he's not in today. I'm like, what, what, what, what, what they're like in two weeks, he's going to come in and he's going to be working for the season. So we're going to go there. We're going to, you know, get some lobster. And then we're going to be like, will you do a pop up of Don Juan's international combat style cuisine. Right. Yes.

Yeah. A little blurb about it. In the New York Times. It's a curious name for rest. It's as curious a name for a restaurant as the food it serves combining quote, the old southwest, Louisiana, Jamaica, Mexico, Italy, in our own heritage here in New England.

Yeah, yeah, I think he had Caribbean roots. Like, you know, I think I didn't want to go like too far into this guy's personal life without talking to him first, you know what I mean? So like, you know, like, but

is the idea that like, all of the international cuisines are engaged in combat on the menu of this restaurant.

He was quoted once. So one of the articles I found on him, he was cooking for a charity for like a Julia Child's charity. She wasn't there. She was still alive at the time. And there, they asked him about it, because the restaurant had only been closed like two or three years at that point. So they asked him about it. And I think he just said, we thought it was a fun sounding name that people would remember. I mean, it's like 30 years later, and yeah, we remember, you know what I mean? It's like, so yeah, you know, I mean, I just, I would just love to I would look, you know what we need to do. And Estancia. Let's do, we'll make some drinks. We'll figure out a place we'll do a pop up. And then we'll have him just come do the cooking. Maybe after he's done for the season. I don't know what you know what he does after the season. And we'll do we'll do a whole thing. We'll do Don Juan's international combat style cuisine. Throwback pop up. I'm down, man. I mean, I'm so excited for this. Like that. And he doesn't care what we do for drinks anyway, because remember, the original was byo.

Yeah. Yeah, let's do mango. Last eats.

Why? Because that's an international. Do you like those?

Yes. Really?

With dinner?

And they get the spicy food?

I look, I don't, again, I think he can cook a wide variety of things for the past 20 years or so. He's I just him craving those. Alright, we'll make them we'll make them. We'll make them for you. We'll make them do you know how to make them or not? I mean, I can find a recipe but we'll make them we'll make them but like, you know, as for me, like, you know, that's a little bit heavy on the drink side for me for when I'm eating. That's also like part of the meal at that point. Whatever. We will make them if you crave them, we will make them that's how this is going to work. Because, you know, because that's what it is. Alright, so now I got that off my off my head. I haven't forgotten to mention it. And if any of you out there have ever eaten there, let us know or have any memories of Don Juan's international combat style cuisine, which, by far and away the greatest restaurant name ever. It's like how like so on that's on one side of the spectrum of restaurant names. And what's on the other side? What's the worst restaurant is? Oh, I don't know. English is Italian. Oh, taught English. English is a tiny terrible name. I have nothing against taught English, but that's a terrible name for a restaurant. Am I wrong?

I thought you didn't like him.

I have no why would I not like him? I have nothing. I've never met the guy personally. Why would I not like him? I just think it's a terrible name for a restaurant. What do you think? It is a very large town of Florence with has a large physical head.

They both do.

Which one? What's your least favorite restaurant? And

I don't know if I can think of one off the top of my head. But English is Italian. It's pretty terrible.

It's terrible name. As joke names go. It's especially bad. Because he's is not whatever. I don't want to get into it. Now, I think Fuddruckers is a bad name.

Oh, yeah, that's a bad name. Yeah. Yeah.

Mr. C, what are your What are your feelings on? Fuddruckers? Yeah, bad, bad, bad, bad. All right. So now on to the announcements, if you have tuned in, because you are hoping to hear the wisdom of Pierre chomh. Our friend, Chef Pierre Tom, I have made an error he is not on today. You can turn off right now. He's going to be on on May 11. So please send us any questions for those of you that don't know him. And I'll reiterate this when he comes on. I first met him years ago when he was preparing for his appearance on Iron Chef at the French Culinary Institute. Koji did not koji. John's dog did not know that Pierre had been on Iron Chef. And so I was so surprised when I said he was an Iron Chef that he gave a bark. I forget who he was. I forget who is against anyway. And then he took me to Senegal. But the reason we're having him on in particular right now isn't because of his great cookbooks that he wrote on Senegal, which we'll also talk about. But because he started a food business and I know a lot of you out there listening to this who are either coming up in the food industry or maybe not in the food industry at all. Or maybe you're a cook and you're thinking of branching out into starting a food business. Remember, Anastasia that we we used to work for

school food school? Yeah.

So if you're looking at starting a food business, Pierre has started a food business and a complicated one at that, because it involves exporting a product from one country to another. It involves dealing with Farmer Equity, because he's you know, dealing with farmers in in, you know, his native country of Senegal and importing them here. And you know, everyone's worried whether or not you know, the farmers over there they using are going to the same kinds of things are going to happen to happen in Keene. Wa, you guys all familiar with the Kenai troubles. Yep. Yeah. For those of you out there who are not matter, you, I'm sure you're familiar with the heritage net, anyone working for heritage has to be familiar with qinhuai travels, right? Indeed, yeah. So for those of you that, like aren't part of that world, what happened was, is that, you know, people up here with a lot of money, decided that keen wa was the next great thing that everyone should eat. And we bought so much of it, that the people who actually depended on eating quinoa, like, because that's what they ate, didn't have it anymore. And so it was a huge nightmare. It koji agrees. And the so, you know, one of the things Pierre had to navigate was that, so we're going to talk to him about that. So if you know, ask us any questions about you know how to make sure that you're not shafting the people in the country that you're getting it from. And by the way, he's doing a lot of work on that front. On what it's like to package make sell, distribute, or any random questions you have about Senegalese ingredients to get get us those by May 11. And here's the next announcement. So starting possibly next week, but possibly on the 11th. We are going to reach a long time dream of Nastasia, the hammer, Lopez, correct, Anastasia, we are going to be recording at the newsstand studios in Rockefeller Center. So we will be saying live from Rockefeller Center. We're not sure if we're going to get it for the fourth. But starting, you know, at least by peers on May 11. And we're going to record same same time, right. And we're trying to figure out dotting all the I's and crossing all the T's. We don't know. The chat room probably won't work right away. But we're going to figure out how to get you know all the functionality back to you guys as fast as possible. Please, for any updates on that look to cooking issues on Twitter, look to cooking issues on Instagram, or Booker and DAX on weaker DAX lab right on Instagram. Is that pretty accurate?

I think we're just Booker and DAX Alright, John. Yep.

We dropped the lab. Okay.

Okay. Yeah, because it was like, where's your lab? It's up here. But right? Yeah, so yeah, so Booker and DAX on Instagram. And we will keep you posted as soon as we get more information and last announcement before we get to questions. Is you ready for people? Amazon is still hosing us for the Sears all however, however, however, we have a new business, what's the name of this business and Stasha?

Oh, I thought we hired a new business but okay,

we hired a new business. Their employees are Nastasia, Dave and John. And this new business is name that has no relationship to Booker and DAX whatsoever. This completely unrelated business venture. What does it call this dasya

trailing edge technologies now we will have to start another business.

Oh, we're fine. Amazon does not believe us. Amazon does not listen to us. They say we sold my menstrual cups. Now. Listen, the reason trailing edge technologies is such a great business is because we are the stuff that really happens after all the lifting takes place like where this stuff where it falls off the plane. What happens does

its planes to Lance. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Don't worry, planes gonna land fine. Like, you know, maybe, you know, maybe the flights gonna cost a little more because we burned a little more fuel. But don't worry, you're gonna land fine. We are trailing edge technologies. So if we Anastasia has engineered a load of sizzles to appear on eBay to be and she's using a company that's very good for fulfillment. So we expect it to be the fulfillment to be like as good. I don't know whether it'd be just as fast but fast. No.

No, it's gonna be two to three days. So everyone Yeah, but that's calmed down. And then to know international so sorry, Canada.

Is Canada still International? Do you know my new driver's license? They arouse me

lately International, so just the US.

All right. All right. Well, anyway, we're going to have a load of us. Sears hauls it is actually in the country, which is why I'm talking about it is actually in the warehouse. We're just waiting for the last little weird Pay Pal nonsenses to get updated. However, I can assure you on a stack of choose the religious tome of your choice that the the trailing edge technology, Sears hauls trailing edge technologies is the only authorized reseller currently of Sears halls, all other ones are Joker's lies, cheats, or someone trying to swindle you. So trailing edge technologies are like that's going to be the way to get it on eBay going forward. Is this true or false and stuff? Yep.

That's, that's awesome that you guys have finally figured out a way of making this

work. That's a way and then hopefully, you know, in four months, we'll have a way to get back on to Amazon. But you know, we can't wait around and get completely bankrupted waiting for your you know, waiting for the world to change. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. And just real quick, so when everything's live, just everyone else will send out a newsletter and we'll post it on our social medias as well. So you guys can find the link right there and don't have to wade through all the nonsense

one. Yeah, I mean, if look, if you if you're interested, you could always just follow Booker and DAX on Instagram or cooking issues on Instagram or on the Twitter, right. Yeah, especially if you want to hear like updates about when the Don Juan's international combat style because he is going to happen, but my guess is that's probably going to be in the fall. Right?

Yeah. Because we might be doing additional

will also he's but he's working, right. I mean, I'm not gonna like try to take him out of his current job. And you know, for one night What, what, what do you say about me? Nothing. What? No, come on.

It's hard to get you to do stuff.

All right. This man erected a teepee for you. Yeah.

Yes, I helped him move a piano on so I think we're even

I help you move your fireplace. I babysat your and by the way, when you helped me move the piano. You had a truck because I was giving you stuff like kayaks. I gave you kayak

we're not gonna go we're not gonna go into

this could easily chew up the next 30

Now I see why we're not gonna go into it. Yes. No, no, I

don't.

That book or video. Anywhere. I could see by the way, right. Wait, oh sorry. When you When stars was like, I feel like I babysat your kids. I was like, after last week's show where Booker did the video thing. I feel like I've babysat your kids. But anyway, did that video get posted anywhere where I can see it? I don't think so. He's

Booker. Like, he doesn't want to mess up his instagram with stuff like that. It's

like, like, yeah. Okay, so for those you that like don't like so I have two kids, I Booker and DAX Yeah, that the company is named after anyway. So like, you know, Booker is, you know, he's on the spectrum. And it's fine. You know, he knows that we talk about it. It's great. And but like, he has certain reactions that you just can't like, so something happened in literally, he just told us, he's 19 Something happened in middle school, that pissed him off about his email. And so just three days ago, he obliterated his old email and started fresh and like Booker, what the heck, man? He's like, Well, it's done now. I was like, what could have happened in middle school? He's like, I don't want to talk about it. Isn't that? I mean, like, I still don't know. I don't know. So, you know, the odds of me getting it in a situation where, you know, maybe, maybe he'll send the video and we can post it to one of our stories or something like this. How about that. And he definitely isn't the Stasi. He says, you know, try to get him to post something that's not a very particular subway thing on his on his Instagram and good luck. He has a very, he has a very, you know, a decent following of fellow rail fenders on his on this thing. New York City Subway, by the way, somehow, you know, I don't know the New York City subway. I love the subway. I love our subway system not back yet. You know what I mean? It's not it's it's still feels a little bit crazy down there in the subway. You know what I mean? Cuz I think a lot of the normals like having gone back to he

doesn't really.

He just feels like, like the younger, like people who aren't from New York. They're like, I'm all New York. There's so many crazy people in New York. Oh, I don't want it. Oh, it's all and you're like, now listen, it's like there's 8 million people here. Yeah. And so you we have our percentage of crazy people, but you see them more than you would see them in a town of like 20,000 people because you know, where the three crazies are in that town of 20,000 people and you just avoid them where they stay in their house or whatever. And in New York, you see him, right?

What's crazy now is that, like, in New York, two people without masks are the crazy people, you know, and yeah,

I think it's good though, because it gives you a signal. It's a signal I enjoy. You know what I mean? I enjoy a signal, right? And then there's the other thing in New York that like, you know, if you're smoking or drinking really crappy coffee, you also don't need to wear a mask. Obviously. My favorite is people walking down the street who pull down their masks to talk on the cell phones like what you want me to lip read what you're saying they can hear you through the frickin mask on the cell phone

was not just a New York phenomenon just to be clear, it's happening here as well.

Really what the cell phone requires the cell phone

must you can't possibly communicate on a cell phone with a mask on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I'm talking to someone in person, though, I do use like, like inside like when we're all vaccinated and stuff. Like I actually when there's a lot of noise, I do use the lip references. So it is useful it's not useful over a cell phone because they can't see your lips anyway. But it like Stasi and I always used to comment and it's springtime too. Once the weather gets to a certain point in New York City, the flowers and the crazies come out right so it's like well, it's

because it's it follows like an animalistic thing right? People start there they get in heat.

Wow, I'm not going to go there and but

Alright, finally show we can't talk about procreation.

wasn't talking about procreation. I was just talking about referring to all these people. They were

and he doesn't, he doesn't want to see them. Okay.

Like springtime people, they they feel it they go into heat. Well,

all I'm saying is is that the also the people who used to like spend most of their time like you know, yelling at nothing, were yelling at nothing inside and now they're yelling at nothing outside you know what I mean? So it temperatures better Yeah. Yeah. nicer. Nicer Yeah. Anyway, so the subway like a lot of what you know for lack of a better word called the normals haven't gone back to the subway yet. And so the the relative proportions of the people like you know, dissolving into themselves in the seats without a mask and screaming at nothing is higher. Yeah, that's honest. Say. Yeah. Anyway, before we get cooking issue far

from the combat style cuisine, the second Josh Bauer would like to ask you how do you feel about Florida lobster? Why are they asking about Florida lobster

up because it's not a lobster. Oh, it's a different species anyway, you're talking about like, like rock lobsters and things like that. Now you have that freaking song going through my head. Oh my God, that's a gift. It no but it's going through my head and the descending Rock Lobster is going through my head. And now I can see a bunch of people in like 1990 Like getting lower and lower on the dance floor during the Rock Lobster part. The B 50 twos. So those of you that don't know, like, we're a band for a while came back with basically two hits love shack and Rock Lobster. Right. And they were played nonstop on dance floors in like, you know, my college era. Right non stop. And so yeah, bring it brings that back though. They were good tunes, though. What? Like, does anyone still listen to that? Did you ever do they play that on their floors and colleges when you were around Anastasia?

Not that but you know, you might favorite Long Island radio station. The lead singer of the B 50 Excuse always calls in and makes requests because I guess he lives somewhere out there. It's really really, really weird.

Does he like is he like asked for love shack play?

Yes. For really random random shit. Like,

and can you identify him just by that voice?

Yeah. Are you guys why? Oh?

Wait a minute. Is this what's his name is this? I can't remember his name from the B 50. twos. And he's like, yeah. And then they had him on like DJing one night? Yeah,

I would. Let's say that. You guys got a Chrysler seats. 20 seats.

20. Here. You disparaged my station for years.

I did not disparage your station. It's very few listening to it. You couldn't even go to the basement and pick up your cannolis the Stasi listens to a radio station. It's so local. We're literally like, it's like when we talking about garbage. And no one knows what's going on. It's like imagine that but like they're broadcasting it in the air, not on the internet. You know what I mean? They're like, Oh, just as us know. Nancy spoiled the cannoli. So don't go. There's no cannolis in the church basement this weekend. You got to wait. She's going to try to get them for Wednesday. All right. So don't pick up your cannolis that's what we have a radio station that Anastasia listens to. It's awesome. Come down to the carwash support the hockey team. You know what I mean? Just like that, like that's the radio she listens to which is fine. But it's not her hockey team because there's a body of water between No

way. You know, I listen to it, though, because they the DJs actually play music that that they want to play and they take requests. And when I was in LA there was like all the radio stations are like, you know, the same same in New York. Like, I didn't realize that DJs pre program all of their songs and it makes me really sad. You didn't really know this one DJ was like so I got an email from this woman yesterday her mother died she was driving home from the funeral and she wanted me to play this song but you know, we pre programmed here every day so I'm playing it today. Hope that's okay. And I was like oh my god this song was driving home wanted to request they couldn't fit it in because that's how pre programmed it is like being a DJ on a radio is an art right or last long lost art.

No one's been a live DJ and like a billion. Here's why. They do it. Who does? FMU

nine? Yeah, I got one two out here in the car. Yeah, yeah, that's great.

Haven't you seen the movie Airheads or any of the movies? Or like any of like, the cartoons about or like the regular show episodes where like they make fun of the fact that the radio shows are all just big computers now with pre programmed play. I didn't know

that. I think it's terrible. And then you know, like the classic rock stations will play like Bon Jovi at five o'clock because they know all the guys are leaving the garage like Oh,

well. Listen, I like Bon Jovi. I'm not gonna lie to you and say that I don't like Bon Jovi. I mean, that would be a lie. I would lie to you. I'd be lying to you if I said that. But I never used to call those things classic. I use this column like same rock 103 Because always crack. Yeah. Like all those stations play the same, like five songs over over that stop believing. Yeah. I mean, why would you ever stop believing?

Paul Hill had the audacity to put a cooking question in the chat and let's hear it. Two parts. Dave, did you ever figure out a way to keep your bagel seasonings from burning in the oven? I've been using Stella Parks's recipe on and off for two years, which is a 20 Minute big after the boil but the dried onions slash garlic burns every time.

Yeah, do listen. Like I don't know the answer to that, by the way still is great. I'm not like I wanna I'd like to have her on the show sometime. Maybe she'll come on John. See whether we can make that happen. That's you know, brave tart anyway, so So the here's the thing, so I had a nightmare experience last week so as you listeners know, and I'm gonna give you the recipe for it if I if I can find it real quick but we've been carrying salmon a lot in the house just because I just can't afford to buy cured salmon anymore for Booker because he has gone from being a fool where he would eat basically the three things he would eat were pizzas, hamburgers, and like and fish products right so he's gotten rid of most pizza he only likes garbage can pizza and and hamburgers and bake it so he basically only eats fish and waffles right when you eat pancakes anymore sweets, he eats fish, specifically tuna but I don't want him to get all pivot out and get all Mercury poison. So we're trying to limit his tuna fish intake and salmon so he like literally before the show. I taught him how to do a low temperature salmon so I do I do pre salt so that the protein doesn't come out doesn't get that white disgusting stuff. I do pre salt with a little bit of sugar 52 Celsius till it's warm through pull out flour on the skin side butter pan sear off eat right that's I taught him how to do that. So now like at random times and he'll do it for breakfast to do it for lunch. I'll hear the Innova kick on and he's throwing salmon. Like we buy him just a boat ton of salmon filet frozen salmon filets. I know people I know, frozen. But anyway, it's easy for him. So anyway, so but he then he also on top of that eats an unconscionable amount of locks. So we've been carrying a side of salmon every week, pretty much. And just so you know,

I just want to say like, my parents did not give an F about what I wanted to eat. Okay,

are your household are you autistic? Oh, are you? Are you autistic Jerry sound like it. Yet? It's like, he didn't know what to do it for DAX to I don't know taxis. What we there's no, I'm sorry. No taxis. What we please. I mean, like, you know, just come back and talk to me when you know what you're talking about on that one. But

the dogs have to as to hit some other nutritional requirements, though, right? Like sailors would get like berry berry if they just ate.

We take him to doctors all the time, because he won't listen to us on medical stuff to try to get him to increase. He also eats solid blocks of cheese, like liquor. Now that's going to plug them up. I what I tried to him was like if all you eat is cheese, right? That's the equivalent of sticking a cork in your butt from the front side. You know what I mean? I'm like, You need to eat like a variety of things. You don't I mean, anyways, so yeah, and we go to doctors to try to convince them that even you know, whatever he does, it's part of the thing. It's part of the complex things. So for those of you that want to cure salmon at home, the easiest way to do it, in my opinion, is to buy the side salmon when you're looking for a side of salmon tried to get one that doesn't have a lot of gaps in the Falaise. So when you're looking at a salmon fillet, you'll see like the the lines of the muscle striations, right? Look, especially in the in the top section near near the backbone near the head, that's the thickest part of the muscle. And so that's the most force when it goes into rigor mortis. And so that's where you're likely to first see signs of gaps in the in the fillet that mean that it's, it's already kind of a little soft, and for you want the firmest fillet as possible, because you're going to, you're going to cure them and slice them into like NOVA, right. And so you want to start with a firmer filet and not with a softer filet, and the harder rigor that the salmon has gone through, the kind of softer the filet is going to be. And you know, it can get to the point where when you pick it up, and I'm sure you know, John, if you've done this a lot, when you pick it up, you know how like your thumb can go through some really soft salmon. Yeah. So that's when it's kind of, once we if you're starting with that kind of material, you're just not going to get the kind of results that you want. Now, here's where I'm going to differ because from anyone who does this professionally, I think it's hard for most people to slice salmon nicely and also if they're kind of big, right? So no one would do this. But if you've ever bought Scottish loin, cured salmon, right, you'll look and it's just the top section, not not the belly, and that gave me the idea that I'm going to cure them without the skin on so I take the skin off and so to take the skin off of a side of Santa and you put the tail section down, you make a little cut between the skin and the and the tail meat right on a flat board. Make sure you know that things laying out flat and then hold the knife at a little bit of an angle towards the board and just slice back and forth as you push through the meat. Try not to have it go up so you'll lose too much salmon and try not to have it go down So you cut through the skin, it's not the end of the world because of skin. And then you have the whole salmon skin, right. So you have the whole salmon skin. Now salt, pepper, a little bit of sugar, both sides, put it in an oven at 375 Fahrenheit on a piece of parchment until it gets crispy like a cracker. You're welcome. That is delicious. Never throw that skin away. Then I cut I use the dividing line between the loin the top and the belly. And I cut the salmon all the way down the belly line along that white line going down the center, make sure there's no bones because nothing is going to kill your slicing of your Nova more than a pinball and left in there. My right. All right. So you cut that sucker down the middle, then flip it over to its and I would do this after you do it. There's a bloodline of a different kind of meat that is left on when you're carrying the whole thing. But I think it's better if you take it off. Because it's it has a little bit of a metallic taste. And it's also the fat in that meat in that dark brown meat, it tends to go rancid faster. So carefully trim that off. So now you have two blocks along one from the loin and a long run from the belly way that then weigh out 2.5% of that weight. So let's say you had 1000 grams of salmon, which is roughly a side of salmon is going to be roughly 930 grams once it's trimmed. So let's call it 1000. So 2.5%, so that's 25 grams of salt, and then half of that of sugar. So I'm using a two one sugar. So that's 1.25%, or 12.5 grams of sugar, regular white sugar, you could use whatever you want. That's what I use. And then here's the miracle ready for the miracle people go buy you some hickory smoke powder, go by Hickory Smoke powder, if you can hear me and you don't have Hickory Smoke powder, go by Hickory Smoke powder. And I like this better because it's a dry application. So it's easy to mix it in with the spices, as opposed to a liquid smoke, which then needs to be distributed along with liquids. So you get the dry stuff, I find it easier to measure, it's easier to store, it's usually very high quality. The problem with it is is that when you start cooking with it on its own, if you add a little bit too much, it gets accurate the same way that like over smoking, something gets accurate. So you're going to use point two 5%. So that's 2.5 grams, for 1000 grams of Santa, you could probably go up to like point three 0.3%. So like three grams per kilo salmon, but keep it in there. And what you're doing there is now you don't need to worry about cold smoking. You are welcome, you are welcome. It is delicious. Now you can buy different kinds of smoke powder if you don't like hickory, right. But it is just the easiest way to not worry about having to smoke the salmon and get a good result. So then what you do, you mix that dry mix up and you evenly distribute it over all of the pieces of salmon on both sides. I also I cut it from a long piece, I cut it in half also so that they all fit in a gallon ziplock bag. So then you coat it all make sure that they you know, use all of the mix, because unlike a recipe where I'm just pretending to know what's going on, I'm using the correct amount of salt and sugar and everything. Get it all massaged and without being be relatively gentle. Stick it into a bag, use the straw, suck the extra air out of the bag, close the ziplock bag, put it in the fridge for three days, and every two and a half to three days. And every day or so pick it up like you know, flip it over, move it around and make sure everything's getting distributed. Then when you're done after that two and a half, three days, I do three days, pull it out, rinse, rinse, put it on a sheet tray with a cooling rack in your fridge for about four hours, you could do two, I wouldn't go much over 4456 You're trying to like dry it out a little bit. And that last little drying bit is what's going to give you the nice sliceable texture. Then use a thin knife and slice away it's going to be harder to slice perfect sheets because it's no longer attached to the skin. But because you just cured it fresh and it's nice and firm. Thicker slices are going to be nicer than they would be if you bought them prepackaged in. So that's what I've been doing every week. And it's probably going to be in the moisture management book. So now you make that and then you have it with your bagels. Now we're back to your bagel question. So, poppy seeds on bagels, fine. The what's it called? Sesame seeds on bagels, fine. Pretzel salt, which is money in the bank. He asked me on bagels, fine pretzels, salt dough, pretzel salt, get that when you're getting your your smoke powder. Get you some pretzel salt. By the way smoke powder also really good if you're doing jerky while like DAX has been making a lot of jerky recently and we've been adding the smoke powder to our jerky recipes because I don't want to have to smoke in my apartment to be honest anyways. Where was it? Oh yeah, onion, dehydrated onion and dehydrated garlic. You put it on the bagels, it burns 100% of the time I Now tried it five times. I can't get it to not burn. I can't get it to not burn. I followed a piece of advice from Reinhardt. You know, the baker Reinhardt, who writes all of the, you know, bread baking books that people want. You know, he's one of the more famous bread baking authors was Peter right. Peter Reinhart? Yeah. And he was like, Well, what you do is, is you rehydrate the onion and the garlic in water before you use it. And I was like, Oh, that's really smart. Right. So I took 30, I took 15 grams of dehydrated garlic and 15 grams with dehydrate on you. And I added, like, I think 80 or 100 grams of warm water, and it's soaked up all the water. And I'm like, Oh, this is going to be fantastic. This is going to be great, because you know, it's going to be fantastic. So then it turned out that it clumped up with all of my other so it made putting the toppings on the bagels, a complete nightmare. For those of you that don't know, when you boil the bagel, you pull it out, you got it, they dry off pretty quick because you're pulling it out of boiling water, so you want to get your toppings on pretty quickly. And it was a huge nightmare made a huge mess with all this clumping wet, like garlic and onion. And then guess what, folks, it still burned. It still burned. So I don't know what they do. Although the stuff that was actually against the bagel didn't burn the stuff that was higher up. Because it was wet and clumpy it like there's kind of like two layers, so maybe was only the top pieces of onion and garlic to burn. It's kind of hard to know. But if any of you has a suggestion, like I'm waiting to hear it, I my guess is is that the people who do it for a living by a slightly less dehydrated onion and garlic than we do or they temper it in a way that's a lot better than what I did where it becomes like a soaking mess that then makes it impossible to distribute with poppy seed and sesame and so if I had just done onion and garlic, I probably could have gotten it to work. But I like to do everything right. I noticed Stasi doesn't enjoy an everything bagel. So for her this doesn't matter, but I like to do it. I'll give you one more bagel tip since you're not asking people out.