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 continue our series on global food trade. We've covered sugar and spice. Next up bytes

the Iran has been subjected to the far and away the most severe, stringent painful sanctions regime that has been inflicted on a country in peacetime ever.

servers would come around with little carts or trays carrying these things they would cry out what they were providing hog else to my smite young son when he was three or four years old referred to deem some places a screaming places

tune in to meet in three available wherever you get your podcasts

This is Dave We're on your radio network every Tuesday from you know actually, you know, to COVID day we're usually pretty close to noon. Right and we are we got the Stasi to hammer Lopez back on the sunny shores of Connecticut. How you doin? Good. Great. Yeah, yeah. They've repaired your your window that got blasted out by the last storm. However they replaced it with milky Plexiglas. Yes. Yeah. Well,

it was at least previously clear window, I assume.

Yeah. It was made out of glass. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Well, Mr. Garcia, on the plus side, at least, it's not like a view of the water. It's not an important window. Right? Yes. People it is, in fact, a view of the water. It's and it's the only reason. So basically, Nastasia has like a New York sized apartment in Connecticut. However, it is right on the water. But but without the window.

You wouldn't know. You wouldn't

know. Now.

He just wouldn't know. You wouldn't know. That's the problem. You wouldn't know. We got Matt. You're back in the island of road and all of that.

He'll be there forever. Forever.

It's a mighty small state to say you're going to be in it forever.

Man. Yeah, not only that, but I've actually like, I mean, I'm going to be on this island. I'm on a quit neck island within Rhode Island. So I'm like it's even smaller than you think.

Explain. Neck to me sounds like a clam variety. A delicious clam but maybe a big a big one that you would use for stuffies or chowder. What's a quick neck?

I have just gotten so used to every single word that sounds like that being a Native American tribe that I didn't even think to ask that question. I assume it was the local tribe.

You know, my favorite. Rhode Island name is muskwa kit. That's a good one. Misko Womack, it. So yeah, by the way out there, Hope everyone's doing okay. Like we're right now are like, strangely, our weather is fine. The rest of the country is hosed. So I hope you know anyone that is losing power gets their power back and everything goes alright. I hope you know if you're growing citrus in Texas, for instance, that your crop isn't completely ruined because they're harvesting like all the grape roots are being harvested right now. They're only like halfway through the harvest. And I think the storm hits so hard and like so fat, they just weren't used to like this level of stuff. And so I don't even think they could go out and do their frost mitigation stuff for like the grapefruits and the Valencia's that they have growing down there in Texas. So you know, people first I hope that people are okay. And then after that, I hope people's you know, agricultural livelihood isn't getting destroyed, but it doesn't look great for some people. So anyway. Yeah. Anything else going on with you guys? Anything? Anything good? Anything? Let's just dive right into questions.

Now just dive. Deep Dive.

I did something fun. You want to hear it? Yeah. All right. So oh, you know, for Valentine's Day. I did baked potato and the a five wagyu. That was delicious. I did my standard but don't even ask me anymore how to do steak the answer for ribeye. And I want to talk them ribeye. Now, the answer for a ribeye is about 45 degrees, sorry, 54 degrees Celsius, Intel, just until the senator gets up to 54. At which point, I immediately dropped that sucker down to 52. And then let it ride and then just let it ride, you know, like, hours, couple hours more. And then, you know, you'd got to drop it down far enough for the sear. So that because the a five cost so much, it wasn't so thick. I dropped it all the way down to about 40. Yeah, I just pulled it out and let it come down, like almost a 40 Celsius before I did the syrup. But it's a good technique for steak. I recommend you use it. But that's not what's fun that I did. So this is not about the bread baking. Okay, that is but you know, everyone knows I've been doing the bread as a lot of us have done COVID I know it bothers Anastasia, but it's not about that. So I had to have the bread. Right. But like, you know how we know how when you like get fresh bread. You have to wait for it to slice it right? Because too hot, you know I'm talking about? Yeah, so if you slice it too soon, like it, it gets all gummy and nasty. It's like all huge problems. Like you got to let the starch set up and like, eat like for Holi for right, you got to let it set for like for like hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. But anyway, so the breads about to come out of the oven, and I realize it's late, and everyone's gonna want to eat. I'm cranky, because as you know, Anastasia, as you know, I've been I'd be bludgeoned. So as a blusher, like I'm getting like rancid, more rancid than normal around dinnertime, you know what I mean? This is Valentine's Day, or this is last night? No, no, this is like, this is like a couple nights ago was like, like Saturday or something like that. So anyways, so like it's a, it's getting times game time. And then I remember reading that, you know, people use a vacuum to cool off bread more quickly, right? So I'm like, I'm going to use a I'm going to use a vacuum to cool off. But another theory, folks, is that, you know, as you as you suck a vacuum, you're lowering the temperature at which water boils. But as the water boils, right, you're boiling off water, but that boiling takes a lot of heat to accomplish not temperature heat. So what's happening is heat is leaving the bread rapidly, like really rapidly and cooling it down. And I was like hey, I'll give it a try. Because I've read about it and you know, whatever it might hurt the keeping qualities whatever. So now remember, this is a crusty style whole wheat bread. So here's the first mistake and I'll never do this again. I just took I have a small commercial vacuum machine at my house. Which is why by the way, I've never tested out any of these non commercial vacuum machines because until someone sends me one to test I have no reason to go buy one because I have a small commercial machine at home anyways. So I take all of the plate commercial vacuum machines are like big chambers. Mine is small but you know chamber and it's full of these plastic plates to take up extra room right? So I pulled all the plates out. I opened the oven door literally open the oven door took the bread directly out of the oven And blap, put it right into the vacuum machine and close the lid. When the oil starts, you know, the oil pump comes on. And then all of a sudden, everything falls over. So all of a sudden I start seeing all of the specs and dots. I'm like what's going on? Like something awful is happening on those horror movies, when they're inside that room and the fog sprays all over everything. And then you'd kind of just see the handprint hit the window and wipe down and you know something terrible is going on. Yeah, it was like that on the inside of my vacuum machine. When I finally stopped it. I let it run for like a minute. I finally I opened it the entire fly. Well, here's the thing. Well, yeah, I wish to have an amazing. No. So the good news is, well, the bad news is like my oil was completely contaminated. The inside of my machine was completely coated in a fine moist powder of sesame seeds and wheat bran. And part it was it was a complete and utter vacuum machine disaster. So if I'm going to do this again, I need to figure out a way to have that not happened in my vacuum machine. It took hours to clean it anyways, but the bread, I want you to know people that like this radical kind of vacuum chilling, it did shatter the inside of the crust a little bit because I hit it real hard real fast. And but I could literally directly from the 450 degree oven into this thing. And within a minute, I could pick up the bread it was cold enough to pick up in my hands. And then crust was the most shattering crust the most like crunchy shattering crust, but I hadn't evaporated that much stuff out of the crumbs. So the crumb was still soft and moist, but it was the sickest the best whole wheat bread crust I've ever produced is nuts. So I'm gonna experiment some more. Yeah, yeah. So that's my vacuum machine trick trick of the Weekend Review. For those of you that don't know it, because it does evaporate some moisture, it may affect keeping qualities there's some studies on the internet's that say that it may also affect scaling, it might steal faster, but when you're going to bake a loaf, and you want to eat it right now right away if you can figure out a way to have it not ruin your machine, you know, maybe good idea.

Are you saying that it was just like extraneous things that you would put on the exterior that caused the ruining of the machine like if you had to put any seeds over any kind or anything it would have been fine.

Well, I think it was violent enough that it like atomized is the wrong word but the crust got so crunchy that I think like like the rapid evaporation like literally popped little tiny

yeah like it's come off Have there been nothing else yeah,

I mean I could test this but I mean like you know, my standard breadmaking technique is I do a relatively high hydration like a like around 80% Hydration on a whole wheat dough right and then I do I do my my forming it into a round and then I just take a giant I take a stainless steel bowl and I fill it not fill it but I fill it with sesame seeds and then I just drop the just formed so you know I mold the mold the bread on a wet board right so that it doesn't stick and then I just take this like tacky wet ish thing and then I drop it into the into the sesame seeds flip it so I have a ball that looks like a sesame seed can't giant sesame seed candy. It's just all sesame and then I throw brand into my into my you know baskets, my raising baskets and throwing it so my breads always has on the outside brand and sesame so I could run a test where I don't do that. But you know I'm saying if you if you have anything on the outside whether it's rice flour or anything that sucker is going to spray all over your vacuum machine and the most but I'm wondering if I just stick it like if I stick it inside of like a bag. You know what I mean? Like some maybe even a paper bag one that can take the heat you know what I mean? And then throw it in there maybe the paper bag can take most of the hit you know? We'll find out we'll find out I will test again I will let you know

we got we got a question in chat. Can we just let him jump to the front?

Okay. mean things to say about that but they're here they want to know that's good, right?

So yeah. Alfa Romeo and Juliet, who I think is a new first first time caller. Any tips for crispy sweet potato fries? I've tried pecks dinette, pectin X, SPL and breading and I'm looking for other ideas.

Yeah, the pack the next trick isn't going to so the peck next trick, any one of the all of the tricks like pre boiling, drying the pectin X, modernist cuisines ultrasonic McGillicutty that they do to it. So these are all techniques to kind of mess with the surface of the of the fries to make it so that they give up their moisture and get crunchy before the inside of the fry gets dry and hollow, right? That's what that's all about problem on a sweet potato fry because of all of the sugar, right? You can't it doesn't work, right? It just doesn't work. So you can't really treat the surface of a sweet potato fry to make it. Good, let's say. So the solution has to be some sort of coating on the outside. So breading might be a little bit intense. But there are people who do starch coatings and the idea with I think with it and so you like no, you don't like french fries, you don't like sweet potato fries. What about you met?

Sweet potato fries, I always say potato fries, although I go for regular french fries or sweet potato fries most of the time,

right? But if you wanted to make a good sweet potato fry, I think the answer is going to be and you want it to look as not breaded as possible. It's all going to be about the proper starch coating. And there really is no other way to there really is no other way to do it. I mean, I guess you could literally dehydrate the outside. But it's still you have an issue. You could do it no one can. I mean, I don't even know why I'm telling you this unless you're unless you have a the equipment already. It's not like you can go do vacuum frying vacuum frying might be another option, because then you can turn the temperature down such that you're not scorching the sugar. But even so it's hard work without a good starch coding. So I would say just tune your starch coding to be better. Alright, that makes sense, guys.

That makes sense. Yes.

All right. Brian leanza wrote in Hey, next week on the podcast, can you say whether there's an actual difference between using a sugar cube? And just using simple syrup? And cocktails? I guess other than the obvious solution, which can be adjusted? Thanks. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So like sugar cube, first of all. So if you're using a sugar cube, some people are doing a thing where in Stassi? Have you ever had this presentation before? Where they they take the sugar cube and they they hit it with like a dash of Angostura bitters, and they put it in the bottom of your flute, and then they pour that you liked it or dislike it?

I don't see the point.

Oh, all right. Well, it means it adds a little bit of sugar, but it's mainly a visual thing. It's mainly if you like it, it's mainly if it if it if it floats your boat, you know what I'm saying? And a lot of people, they like it, you know what I mean? Just from they liked the whole ritual of it, you know what I'm saying? But if you don't like the ritual of it, I don't really think there's a point. If you want your your champagne to be a little sweet, you'll add something sweet. I mean, I know you'll do what you like, which is good, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, so like that's a different application. So we're not talking about that. I'm assuming when you say sugar cube, you mean any form of granulated sugar that you can smash up in the bottom of, of a glass. So there's two reasons to do it. The people who like to do it, a lot of times they're mashing it into a citrus peel. And then they're doing kind of a rapid OLIO there where they're trying to, you know, smash the smash the citrus or whatever else, you know, could be an herb such that they're using the sugar as a grinding mechanism, right? And so there's that. And then typically, also, it doesn't dissolve all the way because it's very hard to dissolve sugar into high proof ethanol. So the sugar tends to not dissolve and so it will get kind of sweeter as you drink it. Some people like this. I don't, right. So the advantage I could theoretically say in a drink like an old fashioned, I could say this, I could say hey, listen, you when it is not very diluted yet, you don't need as much sugar and then as it gets more diluted, you will need more sugar to have the same level of sweetness. That's true. In practice, it doesn't work. You know, do it if you like it. Does that make sense? Is that enough? Do you need me to talk more on this?

I don't think you need to talk more on it. All right.

Oh, by the way, the Stasi I don't know if you've been hearing things I have been hearing people have been sending me and I think maybe also shared some with Anastasia their own stories of Maria Gorna. Shelley, and although most of them can't be shared on air, please send them to us because we enjoy them when you say that Anastasia? Yeah. Yeah, with that we thoroughly enjoy them. And yes, someday Anastasia and I will have a completely unexpurgated show. Well, these He can't just not share because they're not families. Because if some of the people are still alive, you know what I mean? Yeah,

but but language is a problem is what you're saying? Oh, well. I really

feel. I mean, look, Maria did curse. It's not that she didn't curse. But it's just like her like when she wanted to be rough on someone. She didn't need to use curse words to do it. Yeah, let's just just put it that that way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed that these stories that people are sending me and I think the Stasi does as well. So please continue to send them to me. Or to Anastasia we do it for as you know, we do talk to each other regularly. So you can just send it to one of them. Right?

I couldn't the revelation last week that you had called up to talk about the what was in a short query book. And like, gotten on the receiving end of that was, yeah, I just yeah, it made everything makes sense.

Like, in retrospect, maybe that's why I was so scared of her the whole time. You know what I mean? Yeah, sounds like it. I don't know, man. We could have gone on and on. It was a good group of people asking anyways. Yeah, it was great. And amazing to have Alex on the whole time. We didn't even miss Darcy. And I didn't even know if we were going to oh, by the way, John's not here. John is still with us people. I didn't. We're not excluding John from the podcast today. He is on Grand Jury Duty. That's why he's not here. He's on Grand

zoom. He's listening on one ear but and ignored is being presented.

PS could be an interesting case, or where the case is because my man is gonna go to the Southern District of New York. So

what you're Yeah, you're thinking like mob things. What do you got there? Oh, Southern just oh, they they've Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I like how like your Rhode Island mind goes directly to mob. But anyway, the Stasi and I miss Darcy. And I didn't think we were gonna get Alex on, like, at all. So to have her the whole time was kind of amazing. I thought, yeah,

she's great.

All right. So strange, bird strange bird nd wrote in about I think a strange bird is the one who wrote in about the eggs. Remember the eggs? And we all tested it? None of it works.

Yeah. The British thing? Yeah. The Tick

Tock thing. Yeah, yeah. Oh, just goes to show people. Just because somebody did it on tick tock does not mean that it's good. By the way. John sent me so like, every once in a while John sends me stuff. He's like, Hey, old man, this is what's trending on on the the idiot machine today. So I'm like, okay, so we spoken about this, that folded tortilla machine thing, not machine, the folded tortilla thing that people are doing know what they know. I don't really understand I saw it and I hated it so much that I completely erased it from my mind. But what people are doing now, to get their like 8 million views is they're they're doing like a folded wrap. Right? So it's not like they're cooking the tortilla properly flour tortilla, of course. But they're putting like the different flavors in between different pockets of the tortilla and folding it. So that like, you know, like this ingredient will be separated by this other ingredient by a fold of the tortilla. Right? And then it all ends up in some sort of vaguely cone shaped monstrosity. You with me mentally? Yes, yes. Yeah. So I want someone out there who can hear the sound of our voices to tell me why on God's earth you would ever want this to happen. Why would I want more crappy, gummy, improperly cooked improperly reheated tortilla in between every different ingredient that I want? Like, why would you ever want this to happen? Why would you watch somebody doing a video this? Why would you encourage them? That's all that's all I want to say about that. I just don't understand why anyone would want to do this. And then it's one of those situations where I saw it once. And I was like, these people are actively hurting food. And you should not encourage people who are actively hurting food. You shouldn't do it. I don't think All right, so back to actively hurting food did the other The Tick Tock the British tick tock. They weren't actively hurting food they were just lying about food you're showing you did? Did you know you can't trust everything you see on the internet. Even if there's a video, did you know that?

I don't think tic TOCs. Like the then like, I don't know YouTube? Or it's it's for really young people.

Well, like would you consider really young Mike Mike kids watching?

That's what I'm saying? Oh,

it's like Tina. Yes. Not like five year olds. It's not like it's not like, it's not like Teletubbies Right. Or boo. Bah. Do you remember Booba? Kind of Oh, remember that and they would like Boogaloo and then they fart. You remember this? All right. We had we had these these like it's one of these things it was invented for the toy I'm pretty sure like they're there. It's nonverbal. So like you know when when in between when Booker was born in DAX was born like they started having a lot of kids programming that was nonverbal Come on, where it's like this nonverbal learning stuff. And, and that the Booba thing was one of those. It was also I think, Flash animation stuff. So it's like you just have colors and things saying boo bah and like fart noises and I don't know the kids loved it anyway it's a human torture these noise toys are if if for any of you they're going to go to a baby shower anytime anytime from now till till till you're going to be dead the rest of your life and you don't like the parents give them noise totals if you're ever you know Nastasia when you're when you want to be a butthead and you're going to one of your buddies Hi have like kids or baby showers coming out? Yes noise toys Yes,

it's good to know Yeah, boys

toys are especially it's even better because like the problem with the problem with doing it and baby showers, they can throw it away before the kids get old enough. It's even better when the person you're giving it to doesn't have the technical skill to open it and cut all the wires to all the speakers right or even better give them mechanical noise toy cars, you can't even defeat them right? But like the best is to go to someone's house to house like a five year old to like a seven year old and just give them the loudest most obnoxious and yet addictive toy that you can give it to them about 20 minutes before you leave so you can have the satisfaction of seeing the look on the parents face and then hightail out of that place before always drives me nuts.

This is this is your forever now by Yeah,

go by it because then like what are you gonna do? Was the parent going to throw it away? Make the kid may bend the kid like a pretzel but throwing it away? What are they gonna do? Yeah.

And I was thinking it was a good one for the first baby shower because it decreases the chance that you get invited to future baby showers if they have more kids, but you need you need the child there to make sure it stays in the house.

Yeah, I'll tell you it's another thing. When I was a boy, men didn't get invited to baby showers and we were lucky. You know what I mean? Because they are kind of a nightmare. Right? Says baby shower nightmare.

Yeah, I guess so.

Yeah, yeah.

What's the noise toy equivalent of a wedding for a wedding gift? Oh, if you don't like the bride and groom, what are you supposed to give them?

You give them nothing because you have a year and then you just let the year pass and then have it fester forever.

Yeah. Everyone, though, do?

That's not true. Yeah. You're just being mean. You're just being naive is being hurtful. Anastasia. Am I wrong? We've never been to a wedding together. When was the last time we were at a wedding together? I mean, I can count it on zero fingers.

We were almost gonna go to who's we're moving to go to we went to Ariel's wedding. Oh, yeah. But we were gonna go to one together. I can't remember. Oh, Andy Ricker.

Yeah, yeah, but we couldn't go to Thailand. I forget why. Right. I wish I've never been to Thailand.

You needed to get home.

I currently have a package in Thailand that has been sitting at customs for a month. What is it? It's yeah, it's it's it's an oil tester. It's free. It's a nightmare. It's a freaking nightmare. But like, it's a $500 thing. And I got it for $250 because someone was selling it in Thailand. Right? And the guy didn't have any reviews. Right? So I took a chance because PayPal is you know, PayPal guarantees that you're gonna get the thing. And we don't really have them here in the US very much. They're hard to get in the US as well testers, because in some other countries, you're legally obliged to test your oil to make sure that it doesn't have too many polymerize polar compounds in it. We're not and so we don't right, so they're hard to get here for a reasonable amount of money. But I don't know it's just been stuck in in Thai customs for freaking a month dude. And you keep swearing one

of our fans would love to pick it up for you now.

Why don't why picked up I want to in the United States saved through custom.

ain't sure the room strings who could smuggle it, you can smuggle it?

Well, the first time the person who sent it left the battery in it and the people at customs were like, yo, yo, this was the first three weeks yo, yo, yo, you can't you can't you can't ship battery. So then they took the battery out and they shipped it back. But that was like only like, a week before the new year. Right. So I was like, Ah, crap. If it doesn't make it through customs before Lunar New Year, I'm hosed. Right. And then I was like, Oh, well, maybe I looked it up. And you know, like Thailand, only just this year, officially made Lunar New Year, a national holiday like, right. So I figured, well, maybe I'm okay. They're only going to take maybe the Friday off. So then I sent an email like yesterday, because they definitely don't celebrate any Presidents Day. And I was like, hey, just asking I see that it's stuck again. And he's and the guy wrote me back like within 10 seconds. He's like a little thing called no Lunar New Year. I was like, oh, you know, and then Okay, over a month over a month don't get don't get us started on holiday on like having to do business across countries with different holiday patterns right Anastasia? Yes, because this is not a topic that we should start down the road a fish should not discuss it should not

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So back to strange bird Indy. Thanks for testing the myth and chatting about it. I knew it would be a myth. Although strange word. I think you should have tried it first and let us know you couldn't get it to work before we wasted three different aches. I wasted two sets four eggs wasted. Although they aren't cheap. I have another can I use vacuum evaporation to reduce a liquid or a juice into a syrup at room temperature? What gear would I need? Yes. Okay.

didn't cover what gear at a minimum?

Yeah. Okay, so listen, as I was saying before, when you apply a vacuum on something, you lower the temperature at which it boils. And a good like oil based refrigeration vacuum pump, or a commercial vacuum machine, or even a roto Vapp, a rotary evaporator vacuum pump, it can very easily get a pressure low enough to boil liquid at room temperature. The problems that you're gonna have doing this is depends on as you concentrate it as it gets higher and higher sugar, it's going to be harder and harder to get the stuff out, you're gonna need to be able to suck more and more of a vacuum. But even more importantly is you need to re condense all the liquid because none of these vacuum machines are designed to are to suck all that moisture out. So you're going to need some form of cold trap in between. So you're going to need some form of stirring, you're going to need some form of heating because as you boil it with a vacuum, you're going to be lowering the temperature to the point where you can even freeze it if you if you went long enough so you're going to need to heat it just to keep it at room temperature. Basically, you're gonna need to build your own rotary evaporator The answer is you're going to need to build your own rotary evaporator right. And I've done it for cheap, but it's a real pain in the butt. You can do it with a stir plate, an Erlenmeyer flask, a cold trap, and a vacuum pump. But you know, it's more of like a Yay, I did it not like I'm gonna use this to make breakfast. You know what I mean? Yes, yeah. Oh, and even though John's not here, Brian shooter wrote in about John's John may not be able for scheduling reasons to do his maple syrup this year. But one of one of our old one of my old interns, friends from French Culinary Institute, moved back to Minnesota Peter Schweigert. And apparently, and he was at Marvel bar which I just heard from this contact unfortunately closed before I can get to go to it because I haven't been to Minnesota in many many years. Here we go to Minnesota guys know

my wife in Minnesota.

Really? Is she from Minnesota?

She was living there at the time but ya know, marble bar for me just the what was that? The Eagles club is where we went for our first day real good cocktails at the Eagles club.

You really are you they were quite cheap. And what foodstuffs Do you remember from from Minnesota? Oh, don't say wild rice do not say wild rice do not say Well rest.

I won't I was staying at my brother's house so I don't remember for what? Pasta up. Nor do we didn't I'm sure I just ate whatever the hell he had around.

My one of my Mom's best friend's dad used to be the doctor for the Minnesota Vikings. So we went to Minnesota when I was a kid. And apparently it was a great time. But I was too young to remember we did catch a boat ton of cat fish that nobody wanted to eat. So we bury them in the garden as fertilizer. They're endeth my memories of Minnesota. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so Peter Schweigert goes to like Upper Minnesota and does maple syrup every year. So maybe we'll try to contact him. We'll get Mindy has his contact. So we'll, we'll hook it up. And if we can, if we can get his advice in time for John, if we can get the scheduling to work. We'll we'll have some cooking issues. Maple syrup. Although you think John's gonna share any with us and styles here? Is he going to keep it off himself?

I think he'll share.

Thank you. If you share the techniques that help him to increase both the quantity and quality of his maple syrup he'll share with you

can't have both.

He might keep it to himself, Ben. Real good. Yeah.

So let me ask you people a question. I'm not going to say anything about this. I'm just going to ask you a question. Matt asked you, Matt. You're standing in for everyone now. And by the way, people I want you to know this is not the standard Dave, or Anastasia versus Dave or Dave versus Anastasia. Anastasia and I are on the same side of this argument. We have other people we know who are not. All right. All right. I'm just letting you know that. So when you're choosing sides, don't try to choose me or Anastasia because you have to be like we're in complete alignment on this. I

don't even know your thing.

You're sending it. Remember, it's COVID time right so a lot of people are sending care packages and it's hard right? Oh god wait somebody senses? Well, I'm gonna say what's in it. Someone sends a package. So when sends a package, Matt to you, right? For somebody else. Okay, you open it.

They sent?

No. Okay, like, let's say there's a bunch of weed and mushrooms and you know that they're in there.

I wasn't going to go there. But wow, there's a bunch of weed and mushrooms in there. And you know they're in there. Do you take some as attacks? Oh, yeah, maybe.

Boy, you're clearly transmitting to a friend or something. And

like, Yeah, boy, yeah. This since I didn't think we're gonna go there. I thought we're gonna keep because David

changes the story. Every time when you tell a man of a certain age. What is in the package?

Wait, what do you mean certain age people, young people, old people who who likes it? When a kid likes it.

Tick tock is the new wave for the kids.

Yeah, any any man between the age of 18 and 50? I'd say that's

not a certain age. That's almost

certainly age.

Certain Age. Over half their lead. Yeah. If they're living Probably. Anyway, so my point is, is that okay, I think this changes that a little bit. It's being sent to a state where it's legal. So you're not you're not being forced to become a felon for it or you're not being forced to break local laws to receive the package. So you don't get a smugglers matter slice?

No, it's true that that did it cross my mind for sure. I mean, the minute you said what was in it, and now all of a sudden, I had a very clear picture of like, Oh, I'm delivering this package to basically like my college roommate and like, what I take a little bit off the top from his baggage. Absolutely. I would. He owes me

what you ask. No, tell him. Holy crap. Yeah. Listen, when you find when you find somebody's wallet, do you take a fiver out of it before you hand it back to them?

Well, this is why the Stiles is spot on because I think like if you change the contents of the package to literally anything else, I don't think that that

would be my end. No,

I mean, you wouldn't take a Twizzler but you would

save when it's when it is. Drugs it's a it's a different

Yes. Don't understand it. I just I'm honest rules. The

rules are clear. Also. Wait, I thought you said that you guys are on the same side.

We are We will

touch okay. Okay. Okay, but Anastasia is just like understands that. Yeah. I got Yeah, yeah.

And she's also I wish I didn't know making the further claim that it's a dude thing

is this 50 year old dude thing? Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know about that. But we're on the same site and I literally can't. I literally can't understand any. Any other way to look at it other than it's not mine. I don't take any I literally just can't understand any other thing. Yeah.

Because yeah. Because because when you're in that if you're if you're already descending into that part of the culture. Well, yeah, yeah. That's new to me, though. I don't I you know, new fangled

guy, he sent all these white truffles to me. So I pulled out my shaver and I was like, check, check, check. Oh, those eggs were good. Here's the rest of your use truffle. No. Yeah. I told you, Dave. The Stasi used to get the fancy truffles off.

We did a pasta fire. Yeah. You liked those things? The white ones? Yeah.

Do you think they're worth it? Are you just like them? If they're there,

they're they're good. It's not like do you ever crave them? No.

One asked you a question. Separate question, how much money first of all, like, let's say you had non finite funds with like, when they start shaving and they look at you for so I don't play that game. So like when I got the A five at the at the at the Japanese prime beef here in New York, I had to cross out the price tag, because I didn't want the only thing that Jen saw when I got it home to be how much we had spent on the steak. I wanted her to enjoy the taste of it. Not the money that was flowing out of our pocket books. Right. But it's like, I think a lot of people who are doing the truffle thing, like they get extra truffle just so they can spend a lot of money true or false?

Yeah, probably. That's what that looks

about. When you're shaving truffle for someone? Do you have to give them a look? You know what I'm talking

about? Yeah, no, I

know. I know. They were like, oh, you can't handle it look, right, that, that look, and then when they give you the when they give you the two finger wave when they when they give you that you know what I mean? They they wave towards themselves a little bit with those two fingers, then then then the slicer gives the nod and the oh look right. Oh, and then they keep slicing. And then the person and here's probably almost always a dude gets embarrassed and they let them over slice. Right? Anyway. But if you had a non finite amount, like when would you stop the slicing? Like so? Here's your pile of pasta right here I am with my slicer

two layers over all the pasta.

Oh, that's a hefty amount. Yeah, all right. So you like a good amount of truffle?

Yeah, if you're gonna Yeah, wait.

Okay, how much money would you need to have it be like worthwhile for you in other words that you would pay with your own money and not feel bad about it? I wouldn't I if you had non finite money. Guys support them truffle farm and not farmers, whatever. Finders wild crafters. Okay. Where are we talking about? How do we get on that?

I have a question. I have a question about sourcing trouble. So I have heard that there is some amount of like, fraudulent truffle purveying? Is that correct? Like the Stasi, we were trying to source them for pod wire? Is that like a thing you had to worry about? Like the now

because Mark had his super high end contacts. And that was like, verified and all that stuff. So I don't I can't speak to fraudulent truffles. Can you do that? Well,