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,

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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.

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This week on main three, we're looking at things that have changed and things that are still in flux for mothers balancing new lifestyles to the social stigmas surrounding pumpkin spice. You got rid of the star rating system and talked about like, I'm not going to use the word ethnic when I talk about

food. They recognize that safety was our motivation and they were very receptive to the changes understanding what we're trying to accomplish.

A cupcake or a piece of bacon or a glass of Rosae is not inherently gendered.

Tune in to meet and three hrs weekly food news roundup wherever you listen to podcasts

Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues going to do a live America's Radio Network every Tuesday from whenever to whenever we're pretty close today. I'm coming to you live from the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We got the Stasi the hammer Lopes out there in undisclosed lower Southern California location How you doing?

Good fine, telling Rebecca to stop texting.

He actually knows we're in the show, by the way is the boggler. Our our intrepid what's it called? PR brand person we got? John is coming to you for the last time prior to Thanksgiving in New York City. He's going to be he's going to be quarantining himself up in Connecticut for the for the holiday. How're you doing, John? Well, they've got Matt in the hidey hole booth, right.

Yep, yep. You know, accidentally muted myself all the good

speaking of this, you're in Rhode Island. Rhode Island right now is like the like the it's like the littlest state with the biggest hotspot right?

Yeah, I mean, I haven't been paying attention to the relative numbers, but it's worse here than it's ever been before. You guys doing right? Yeah, I mean, we've we've been hunkered down. Yeah, hungry.

Hungry. Yeah. My, the album of my second college band was called hanker for a hunk of sleaze. And that was a take on hanker for a hunk of cheese, the PSA that they used to have about trying to get you to eat more cheese. And it was like a ball almost like a flim shaped like a like a like a like a booger shaped man with a cowboy hat on and like a long pointy nose and stick legs and he was trying to teach you that you should be eating more cheese you ever heard this song? Ever seen his PSA hanker for a hunk of cheese? Oh, no one I'm the only one hanker for a Hunka, a slab a slice a chunker a hanker for a hunk of cheese.

If I can find it, I'll put it in a wagon wheel

like they want you to. Yes, it's classic, classic PSA. It's up there with all of the Mormon, the Mormon commercials about not lying. Are you familiar with those? I think we've discussed this on the air before

chef Joanna enthusiastically chimes in with a slab or a slice, or a chunk of that is

correct. I hanker for a Hunka slab a slice of chunka anchor for a Hunka cheese. That's how it goes pretty much anywhere. And it's basically saying that the guy is saying that if you feel kind of like down and out, and you don't have any energy, that like you should eat cheese, like if you're literally it's like if you're weak in the knees, a chunk of cheese. And I don't know anyone who's like, you know what I need? I need fast energy. So I'm going to eat cheese. Would you eat cheese for fast energy? Anastasia? Yeah, sometimes I do. Really, you wouldn't go for like the nuts or like some something sugary to hit you real fast. And the cheese? I feel like it's more of a sustaining thing. Plus, it's going to make you real thirsty, you know? Yeah. Do you get headaches, or let me introduce who we have with us. And we can talk about I want to, I want to talk about eating too much cheese in the evening. And its relationship to headaches the next morning with or without red wine. But before I do that, let us introduce we have two guests, one just coming on for a little bit and one is going to be with us for the rest of the show. So why don't I just to introduce the first one we have Ben Simon from Ben to table he's on and he's talking about a new collab that Booker and DAX is doing with with vendor table for the Thanksgiving. And we also have with us and by the way, like I checked beforehand, we're doing the jersey style pronunciation. James were shown who's here with his new book flavor for all. James Michonne and your wife, Parkhurst come out with a new book. When did it come out? James? October 27. Brand new. Alright, so yeah, we're only we're only a couple of weeks into this. And you might remember him from last time he was on with the flavor matrix. So we'll talk let's let's do let's let's talk about this collab first, and then we'll get into flavor for all So Ben, you want to you want to say something about what's going on?

Sure. Hi, and welcome, or welcome to me. Glad to be back on. Sorry. So we are working together on a fun series all box. So for all you torch heads, we're doing four of my favorite things that I think will go really well with warm weather cold weather cooking, so warming cooking, some beans from Rancho Gordo, some grits from Geechie boy mill, a Italian culinary herb powder from compania. So hand picked hand ground, a mix of thyme, sage, rosemary, bayleaf and oregano.

We're talking is basically like Italian poetry seasoning, right? It's like a graded 1970s smell, which I love. It's exactly that with love.

Yeah, like I imagine, it's like literally the perfect thing for stuffing is the idea here. And then Villa Dorado has her ERISA, which is one of my very favorite things to put on, especially bread stuffs. But it's a wonderful sort of the best version of ERISA I've yet found anywhere that use preserved Lenin as well as really tasty Moroccan olive oil. So great for putting on toast with an egg great for you know, dipping a piece of meat into. So really nice for for winter cooking. And so those will come with a bunch of book or index stuff. Do you or Anastasia you want to want to talk about that?

Go ahead. No Name. Oh, all right. Well, I think so. So you it's your turn.

Oh, you did? This dasya made me sign. Well, yeah. 400 postcards. It took me hours and hours and hours to sign because she made me put my little elf on every postcard. Hey,

listen, the Thoth he has been setting up websites newsletters. She's been she's been pulling her weight. So

I'm not saying she hasn't been but she just said that she's doing everything. Not fair mean with this? Yes. With the vast majority. There we go. All right. But I have to say like, you know, it's not like I haven't been working on designing new products for us. That's true. Yeah. Okay. So um, or testing them, whatever I'm just saying. So a lot of you out there. Some of you have sizzles already, but maybe your screen is getting a little long in the tooth burning out. So we decided since nobody likes to buy the screens because they're super expensive. They're expensive because they cost a lot to make because they're coated in palladium. They might as well be a piece of jewelry for you know for the amount of palladium that we have to put on those suckers, but we figured no one likes to buy that. So what if we made a package with you know, Ben's curated stuff for the season, and then you could get a set of screens to like refurbish your your series all for that for the holiday seasons. In case you need to give your bird a little touch up a little touch up right or whatever you cook for, you know, your Thanksgiving, your Christmas, you need a little touch up on it, you know, your screens right there. And you don't have to feel like a jerk shelling out a bunch of money just for the screens, right stars. And then we figured well, some people might not have a Sears all at all, and they might want one and they might want some cool holiday kind of food to go with it. So we also have a Sears all only package which by the way makes a great gift for people who don't already own 1am I right. Am I right says yeah, yeah. And so that was the basic idea. No, and it in the Stasiuk created so like, we used to do this thing called the Franken what are we what we call Franken turkey. What do we call it? Bionic Turkey bionic Turkey. And where we would rip the bones out of a turkey from the inside out leaving it whole like some sort of alien creature. recreate a skeleton out of aluminum. Put the skeleton into the bird pipe hot oil and butter into the skeleton to cook it from the inside out, drop it into a big bath, pull it out and then like chill it remove all the skeleton so it's just bird now a like a big shell of bird without any bones and then deep fry that sucker and then pull it out and then give it a touch up wherever it's not fully brown with it with a series also, we haven't talked about it in a long time. So Anastasia made a quote unquote how to write although it's not a full How To Write Anastasia because if you don't know. Yeah, probably shouldn't attempt right. If you can't if you can't figure out based on the stasis drawings how to do it. You probably should not attempt it. Right, right, right. Yep. But in each one of these packages, you'll get a postcard that Anastasia drew of of a turkey getting a nice tan from the from a sizzle. And then a her drawings of a how to of how to make the bionic Turkey along with what Ben just told you in the box PS you never know which one of the Geechie the which one of the grits you're gonna get it could be could be the blue. It could be the Jimmy read. You never know Same with the rancho Gordo beans. It's kind of like a Puppy Surprise for those of you that remember the Puppy Surprise Toys. You guys remember the Puppy Surprise? How many puppies are there inside? Remember that? There could be three. We've talked about this before, so I won't go into it. Yeah, that's that right. Where do they get this?

They can go on Booker and dax.com/pdx holiday 2020. Or they can go on bended table, then what's your site,

Ben to table.com. And I'll have it in, it'll be a gifts section. If you scroll down a smidge. And it'll be right there. Put it up on the socials.

Then we also have our newsletter, which just came out today. So it's if you signed up for it, which you can go into Dave Instagram stories. It's there and you can sign up for future ones. But we talked about this gift set. We talked about the auction to come on the show in LA, we talk about what Dave's reading what I'm reading. What you hate what you love, Dave,

what next time No, it's got to have yours. And Rebecca's and John's loves and hates as well though can't just be mindless

ops about what he's reading. Rebecca gives her own little corner and we have a poetry section.

You want to read the poem says,

gamble it up right now. But no, let it be a surprise for people because it's a good one. So

people who people who listen to the show, you know the poem. It's just it never gets old. Right? That's

never never. So yeah, so that's, that's gonna be coming on a maybe bimonthly or monthly basis. But yeah,

and if you have a poem that you think can unseat our favorite poem, you can try but good luck. Now have you know, people that Nastasia Lopez is a Stanford educated poetry Maven. So you're not going to slip some BS past her. And have it be some sort of like garb garb? Poetry, she will know

Yeah, you have to dethrone this Pelham. So try. Yeah,

try but good luck. Good luck with it. I'm thinking I still want to put that poem in, in in my next book. Should it ever get finished?

Yeah. So yeah, what do you

Natasha Oh, you know what, James, I'll talk to you about it. You don't do the poem at the beat. We this is not really chapters in the same way. What do you think about what do you think about poems that are not like quotes at the beginning of every chapter? What's your feeling on that? I noticed you did not do it. I didn't do it in my first book. What do you think about As a thing,

I mean, you know, if it makes sense, it can work. I think, you know, I often found and I'm sure you probably the same thing in writing books, like you get an idea like that you're like, Yeah, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do, you know, put a quote here and then you get halfway through and then you're just forcing them, you know?

Yeah. The first half. Do you write your books in order? Or is it like me where like, the last chapter is the first chapter I wrote?

Oh, yeah, no, I'm all over the place. It's like, you know, I'm doing chicken a couple chicken recipes this day. And then we're bouncing the fish and then into desserts. And yeah, I don't I can't do that. I can't just like plow through one section at a time I get to scattered.

So let's for those that don't know let's let's go through like the like the the basic in a nutshell. So the last time we spoke to you, you were just

what Ben for coming on the show. He's gonna He's gonna He's gonna leave.

Alright, Ben, if you're leaving, thanks for coming on. Go to bender. table.com. Are you like, you know, we've worked with you before. Those of you that don't know, the whole Megilla is Ben's chillin up in New Haven. And he finds products that you might not have at your local grocery mart that are curated and then packaged together with a theme and he sends them to you on the regular should you ask for that to happen. And they're all high quality pantry style goods that aren't gonna like go bad on you. And you can use them when you want but they're easy to integrate in and they're always top notch. Top notch products. Is this an accurate statement? Ben?

That is an accurate statement.

All righty. Well, everyone's got the best. Yeah, sign up, get the gifts in time for the holidays and sign up for our newsletter, etc. Well, there thanks. Thanks. Alright, so James, when last we met you were had just had you just left ice or were you about to something like still?

Yeah, it was getting ready to I think I think all the all the things all the plans were in motion. Moving down back to my hometown. Pensacola, Florida to open a restaurant was leaving my position at ICE. And I just just come out with labor matrix.

Yeah, so ice is the Institute for Culinary Education, formerly Peter comp. And now as the evil empire overlords that you are took over my former place, the French culinary, which later changed their name to the International Culinary Center. And if you could keep track of that you're a better person than I am. So when you were at ISE, right? You were part of a project with IBM Watson, which is not just the name of my small dog, but also the name of their fancy computer program. Where they were analyzing flavors and recipes, right?

Yeah, yep, exactly. Trying to. So they've kind of gone through the process, you know, Watson on Jeopardy, they knew they knew, you know, their native language systems that could interpret an answer any question that was out there, but they wanted to see if Watson could make people more creative. So they decided to take all of that incredible computing technology, apply it to cooking, and see what the results were going to be.

Now, were you interested now, now, you had been working on this, and then when you came out with when you came out with flavor matrix, right, you were using a lot of the stuff that you had kind of gleaned from that project on, specifically on pairing and like, why things kind of go together? But were you interested in that prior to the Watson or is that really what got you into that?

That, you know, it was that was really was what got me into it. I mean, I you know, the so a component of what Watson was doing was was using the flavor pairing theory, which really was something Heston Blumenthal created just 1999, they were doing just experiments in their, in their test kitchen at a Fat Duck and stumbled upon the combination of caviar and white chocolate, like the whole crew was blown away by it. And they couldn't figure they wanted to understand why that was such a great combination. They took it to some flavor scientists and ran some analysis and saw, you know, some of these pairing matches on the compounds in those in those two ingredients. And so it all kind of you know, started from there. So it's all very new. And I'd really never heard of it until, you know, until I was reading some of the background research on on the Watson project. It was just totally fascinated by it and wanted to wanting to kind of dive in and learn more. And the whole idea with the flavor matrix was that, you know, for everyone else in the world, it doesn't have access to the Watson mainframe. Like how do you how can you get a hold of that information for yourself?

Now, so I was happy to do this, because you triggered me with white chocolate. Like, do you like white chocolate? Does anyone like white chocolate?

I mean, do you like sugar? Do you like milk? I mean,

ish. Yeah, but me cuz, like, in other words, like you say the word chocolate and like my mouth starts to water and then like you prepend white to it. I'm like, oh, man, did you

know I think, you know, it's really, I mean, it's really interesting that that was the combination that triggered it because I mean truly, white chocolate is just milk and I mean, it's the flavors are milk is is really what you're getting cocoa butter, like when it properly done should be completely odorless. So it should be you know, absolutely flavor LIS so you're getting like a little bit of vanilla. I really think it was just the salty and sweet like the intense sweetness with the salty caviar was really what that combination wound up being about. And then they just kind of by accident realize these

other things. Right now that brings me to a point and to my whole kind of, and we had this argument the last time you were on. So before we get into this argument, the argument is going to be about flavor pairing based on on chemical compounds. That's the argument. That's what the arguments gonna be. But before we get into that argument, why don't you let us know what happened since that came out? So you went to Pensacola? You started a restaurant with your wife, who was also a co author on the on the first book, right? Yep. And so what we want to talk about this restaurant, how you guys do and during that, like how it has Florida working during the pandemic for restaurants?

Yeah, I don't know if you've heard. It's, it's been a little bit rough down here. Yeah, not going well. And I mean, Florida as a state not doing great. But we're kind of way here at the very end of the panhandle, almost like almost Alabama border, right on the Gulf Coast. So we made it through the first of the restaurant, tying restaurant. Beautiful, fantastic, you know, we do handmade pastas, wood fired up. And, you know, that whole deal of like real, real Italian, something kind of new and different for the area, which which I'm very proud of. And I think, you know, the community has really taken to so that is, that's all great. Yeah, we just made it through COVID. Basically, we had about a six week shutdown, where we were, you know, takeout only kind of gone back through that. And then we just had two hurricanes come through here, which also sucked

in the panhandle area. Yeah, Sally,

in particular, was pretty much a direct hit on us. Put close the restaurant for about a week because of it. You know, last last the entire year, we were out of power for five days. So we lost the entire walk in cooler. You know, and had to kind of build back again after that. So it's just been Yeah. I mean, not not unique perspective here. But it's been a hell of a year.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, this year has taught all of us that, like, you know, just when you think you got knocked down, you get knocked down again.

Yeah, yeah, we can actually get knocked down further. So

yeah, as long as you're still breathing, you can get knocked down again. You know what I mean? Anyway, all right. But so well, how long were you open before that happened? How much of the normal times did you have? Yeah, so

that was the thing like, so we opened in July of last year. So we were I think what, you know, when we hit the COVID, shut down, I think we'd been open for bout eight months. There's all which is, you know, tough, a tough time for that to happen.

Yeah, for those of you that, like aren't in the business, like your first like year or so you're really trying to, even if everything that the guest sees is like on firm footing, you're still trying to like, figure out how you're going to make back your opening costs, you're still getting your systems in order, you're getting the flow, right. It's like a hard time. And you're also working like a freaking demon, for, you know, if it's your only restaurant at least a year, and like, even if it's like your second or there's like, six, eight months. So it's like, it's a tough time, Mike James, back me up on this, right. It's a tough,

brutal and getting, you know, and getting the staff, you know, in order and getting them, you know, right and used to kind of the systems that you want in place and the ways you know, that you want things done. I mean, you know, it's you just, it's impossible to have, you know, that luxury of spending a couple of weeks of training, typically, you know, once you kind of pull that stuff together, it's just really go time. And now it's Yeah, I mean, absolutely. It's finding your footing, it's, you know, you open up with the menu that you think is, you know, amazing and perfect. And then you know, you in three weeks, you're like, Okay, we need to pivot on this, this, this and this, because, you know, this is what people are responding to are people have no interest in this and they're, you know, all they ask for every day is is you know, this dish, whatever.

Now, what was that dish? Was it something you liked or something you hated?

Oh, yeah. Hated. Yeah. I mean, I totally. It's, well, you know, which I still have never done and we'll never do is we'll never have an alfredo pasta dish on our menu.

You have a ball. gloppy pastas are just that one because people are asking for it

that one in particular also because it's just not I mean what people want is that garlicky white wine Parmesan cream sauce they don't even want like, you know Cafe Alfredo Boudreau. upamecano They just want that cream cheese sauce and I'm never going to do that.

Natasha you had a good Alfredo sauce over there. Did people order that one a lot? Are we like or is it not a New York thing? The Alfredo?

Yeah, it was our best selling sauce because people like that. And we give people

they had a good design though. Like you would have actually appreciated James they you know I'm not allowed to divulge any of their IP and whatnot but they had a they had a good they had a good way of because their QSR was like crazy on point right stars you like you design that crap so that it like it. It served out really served out real quick and nice, right? Yeah, but you guys wouldn't budge on the policy itself. So unlike you know, kind of what you know, James, what you're saying were like the average person or in the Alfredo, which might have been true even at pasta flour, but they don't care about the pasta. They just want to creamy sauce. I mean, you know, obviously, the stats, you never lost sight of the pasta, right? Yeah. Anyway,

yeah, I missed this last, I used to live right down the street from past the floor.

Now. Yeah, good times back when New York was a place that people went, yeah. All right, so let's, so then you come out with this book, which is an extension flavor for all is an extension of the ideas from the flavor matrix, but more of more arranged in like a kind of, I would say normal cookbook, fashion in that like, here's some here's some sweets, here's some veg, here's some meat, right. I mean, that was kind of like the stick taking it more into kind of like an everyday cooking thing and less of a I'm gonna go in a flavor matrix kind of way. Right? Was that the kind of gist of it?

Yeah, exactly. It's, you know, this so flavor for all and, you know, one of the things, one of the questions that we got the most with after flavor, matrixes, you know, people were super into it, and you know, love using it to build their own dishes and create their own dishes. But, you know, people would always ask us, like, what do you cook? Like, what do you make at home, you know, when you're making dinner for the kids and all of that. And because I think we did some, some good recipes, some really great recipes in the flavor matrix, but they're, you know, they're meant to be kind of like, push the envelope as far as like, you know, the combinations and some of the techniques and all of that, and, you know, they're not their project recipes, they're not necessarily everyday recipes. So, you know, we wanted to take some of those, and just also just kind of show that application of the flavor matrix about how, you know, it's not not, you know, not everything is, you know, needs to be an 11 Madison style dish, it's, it's, you know, a subtle twist on on the things that you make all the time that can make it, you know, a little more interesting, a little more exciting.

So, how old are your kids?

11 And five,

picky or not picky?

Um, the little five year olds going through his little picky phase now. He used to be really great. And he's kind of, you know, being a pain in the butt now. The 11 year olds, great. She's always been.

Yeah, aren't you? Lucky? Nice. Alright, so now let's have this argument. And I'm starting never when when, you know, I don't know what you think about because you never weigh in on this. But you know, in Johnny Wan. So here's the thing. In my opinion, let's have this fight. In my opinion, like, I think that choosing flavors based on compounds that they share, right? is like an interesting thing to trigger an idea in your head. And I think you probably don't disagree with this.

Absolutely. So far. So far. I'm

with you. Yeah. But it's still based on your ability to once something is triggered in your head that you might not have thought of to be like, yeah, that works or yeah, that doesn't work. Right. Because like, you know, there could be a compound in eggs and poop that are the same, but I'm not going to put poop in my eggs. least not on purpose.

See, that's where I disagree. I think you should be putting poop in your eggs.

Like, you need to put that quote on the cover of your book.

Definitely. That's going in the show right up for sure.

For pooping your eggs and can What do you think? Oh, no,

no. So yeah, no, I'm actually so far. We're not unformed. Sorry. We're not arguing. I mean, I can try to take out the other side if you want but no, I'm with you. Right. So you know, you can it's it's a great starting point. I think it's really great for inspiration and kind of you know, to get get you moving in a direction. But it's not you know, it's not flawless. Like yeah, there's there's a way to make these two ingredients. It kind of shows you that there can be a way to make the ingredient, ingredients work, but just because like you, you know, mushrooms and strawberries, I think is a great one. Like, just because you chop up some mushrooms in strawberries and throw them in the same pot doesn't mean they're just automatically going to taste good. And one of the things people would often ask me, you know, with this or you know, talking about either the flavor matrix are unfamiliar for all they're like, oh, I don't like salmon. So can I use this to make something that's going to make me you know, to make a dish is gonna make me like salmon? No, if you don't like salmon, you're not gonna like salmon. I can't. We can't change the flavors of salmon. If you really like salmon and want to, you know, have kind of a new and exciting and unexpected dish thing that combined some flavors you had never had with him before. Yeah, we can do that. But no, we're not. You know, we're not changing structures and making things you know, just completely different.

Yeah, when I was a kid and my family, they still do this, my dad and I used to be, I'd be like, the argument goes like this. Eat it. You love salmon? I hate salmon. It doesn't taste like salmon. Right? So it's like you can't you know what I mean? It's like that's, the argument always goes.

This episode brought to you by appeal here at Hrn. We care about reducing waste across our food system from farms to home kitchens, we know that about half of the produce we grow ends up in the trash, we all want to enjoy produce at peak freshness and reduce the amount that gets thrown away. That's where appeal comes in. Appeal is a plant based protective layer that helps produce lasts up to twice as long it's edible, invisible and imitates how appeals naturally protect fruits and vegetables. Because here's the thing less waste doesn't just mean you were throwing less food away. It also means we throw away less water, energy and other resources that go into growing produce. Appeal works with nature to reduce waste across the food system from the farm to the kitchen appeal helps us to conserve our precious resources to ensure that we have fresh food to meet our growing needs. appeal. Food gone good learn more@appeal.com Alright, let's talk about one of them. This dossier can't remember whether you love avocado toast or hate avocado toast. You're not neutral though. I can't remember which one it is.

I think it's good. I just don't think it deserves all the I don't know that the new hype

that even though you're in the land of magical avocados right now.

Either avocado every morning. Yes. Yeah,

but not in toast format.

I have it with a piece of bread but it's not together.

Now what are your Do you have any thoughts on avocados grown in Florida versus California? No. All right. Now James do you eat like Florida? Avocados like hostile? Are you having more like the Dominican style down there? Like the smooth skin big like less oily ones? Are you going straight Haas on this? I don't mean like, like what's more in your market? So they they're

hos that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those mostly just in South Florida. Yeah. So we're having we actually have more of a California

more of a California style avocado, by the way in Pensacola. Isn't that where Joe Scarborough was from your personal friends with him?

Actually, my partner our partners in the restaurant very good friends, whichever. Yeah,

yeah. So your your avocado toast right now what you do that's a typical is it's now you put apple in it, that's a typical, then you put fennel, which is a good match with Apple, obviously, right? Coco ancho. Chili. And that, you know that that's the flavor combo. So which ones here are the are the chemical matchups? And like, how does that how does that work there?

So it's actually a fennel and apple. So it's actually kind of two phases. On that one, first is the fennel and apple and those are tying in like actually, you know, in that recipe, the one the compound that we highlight that that is the common thread through all of those is linalyl which is you know, sort of that citrusy, bergamot, you know, sort of aroma. So, that's, that's present in in all of in all of us are avocado, fennel, and Apple. And you know, a lot of that actually also comes from the, the botanical class like they're all those are, they're all sort of tied together. They're in the Laurel or with roots in the Laurel family. Um, but also the other thing there is with you know, the oxidation of of the fats, avocado pears really, really well with with big, like, toasted and roasted aromas, which is where the cocoa and ancho chili comes in. You know, obviously, you know, I don't I don't know have some people feel about it. I don't like cooking avocados. You know, like grilled avocado was a thing for a little bit, but I'm like, Yeah, remember that? Yeah, I don't like the texture when avocado gets hot so you know if you want to try to kind of imprint some of those you know roasted aromas into it you know, cocoa powder, sprinkling a little cocoa powder or something is a great way to do that. Or, you know, some toasted sesame seeds which is which is something you probably see a lot with with avocado toast as well.

How much do you hate a burnt sesame seed?

A burnt sesame seed a lot?

Yeah, how much do you hate when people tow sesame seeds and they burn they burn the snot out of them? How many times we've seen that in your life

a lot a lot. And the same when you know and you know moving up that chain of almonds and everything. When are pine nuts when people toast them in a saute pan over and they just get like a black.in the center of them

and it cost so much and so you add them anyway because you just wasted all that money. But now the entire not only have you wasted all the money on the pine nuts, but now the entire dish tastes like poison. Yeah. The worst I hate it when I was at the FCI whenever the students would invariably the Stasi and I would wait whenever they were doing that, especially in the Italian kitchen. We would wait to see how many of the students scorch their nuts remember that stuff?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Even with all

the hoods, man, and of course they would invariably add it to the dish and ruin ruin on top of ruin. Remember, when you're cooking, or you're doing anything, right, you have this internal thing that wants everything to be all right, like when Homer Simpson when Lisa goes vegetarian, and she knocks the pig out of the grill, and the pig goes kind of flying through the air and in a stream and off a cliff and homers running after saying it's still good. It's still good. It's still good, right? We all have that inkling of doing that, especially when we spent money and time on something. Don't do it. Don't add the burnt nuts. They'll do it. Anyway, that's my feeling. What are your thoughts on also with chilies? I think people when they're toasting their chilies have a tendency to burn the chili. And because it's a dried chili, they don't know that they've burned it until it's too late. And I hate that flavor of over toasted chili. I would rather have no toast at all on my dried chili. Right? I think people when they cook fresh peppers, they're like, Oh, I could scorch the skin and it's fine. It tastes good. And they're right, right? So they put that same mentality into when they're toasting dry chilies, but an over toasted dry chili is a freaking nightmare to me. Nightmare. I don't know. That's just me. What do you guys think about this?

No, I was I would. I think we're having the same you're having your FCI flashbacks. I'm having my eyes flashbacks to watching all of our culinary students do these exact things.

Yeah. Yeah. The other thing what are the stars? What is it the students? Did the students do anything that like triggered you in general or you couldn't even be bothered paying attention to him

with food? I can't even remember back then.

Yeah, you just liked it. We had to work in a in a garbage closet. Literal garbage closet. Yeah, that was my favorite. That was your favorite. Yeah. The other one I hated is when they wouldn't, they wouldn't see they wouldn't season at the right time. And they wouldn't solve correct properly throughout that used to drive me bananas. Bananas. All right. All right. So you so the avocado toast. We finished talking about it? I feel like I just got triggered by that by the burnt by the burnt nuts.

Um, I don't know. I think we Yeah, I think we kind of, you know, now that so and I think, you know, it gets down to writes like fennel and Apple, really, really great in combination with avocado, but it's there because of the shared compounds but they're not things you like you're gonna you're not gonna get Apple notes when you bite into an avocado, you know, they're there. They're kind of hidden, I think, you know, a little bit in there, which is what you know, we're kind of working through sort of, you know, a lot of the data of you know, I mean for people who are sports fans, I was you know, liken this to you know, handle this like the analytics of flavors, you know, you're kind of going beyond just the surface numbers are the surface taste when you when you bite into something and you know, seeing the things that that lead to connections that you wouldn't necessarily maybe not necessarily stumble on on your own

Yep, the you know what the you know what the dumb the dumb like English person who's never been to never been here with their word for avocados is like I'm not talking like English people now. I mean, like English people like 200 years ago. You know what it is? Oh,

yeah. Yes,

I do. And I like this. Alligator pear. Yeah. Right. I

like this as a game just like making up making up these names for like to pretend like you don't know what an orange is, you know, what do you call it? Yeah,

yeah, well, alligator parent nobody out like so it was called an alligator pear. But what's interesting is that, like they must have been having like I was saying like some of these varieties like a Dominican variety or like a Colombian variety, very low oil, firmer variety of avocado because you much more get the fruit notes in an avocado when you have a low oil, avocado, but all of us have been spoiled by very high oil varieties, like Hass, and bacon and whatnot. And so like you say, it becomes hard for us to even think about the fruit component of an avocado. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, but back to its old name. For people who didn't grow up with them. Alligator pear, right. You can think, Oh, I get it. Like, you know, they were probably eating what we would call a garbage avocado. And I've always used it as an excuse or not excuse but as like a teaching moment for myself that not every avocado has to be this like super rich, oily, buttery, like Hass to be good. It needs to be that to be a good Hass avocado, but it doesn't there is there is a use for these other avocado styles, you know?

Yeah. Wow. And you're gonna you're actually going a lot deeper there. Then Then when I heard that and thought of it, I thought we were just I thought they were just going pair because of the shape.

Oh, well, you might be right to. That's also probably true. And what you're saying is probably accurate. And but what I'm saying is like maybe I'm giving them more credit than they deserve. I probably am but you know, because right a house does look like a pair. But to me everything's pear shaped right, Anastasia? Yeah, yeah. All right. I'm gonna like run through some questions we want you to pick what's your what's your favorite recipe to highlight the the process it's in the book that what's your favorite one to highlight the process?

Um, I think you know, one I think that hits really well because it delivers you some of kind of the classic stuff that you know, it's a it's a just a pan seared pork medallions with roasted apples. So pork and Apple like nothing, nothing new and earth shattering there. But what I really like about this one is kind of building in the process because you know, pork tenderloin I'm sure you'll agree not the best piece of the pig to be eating now I'm

crying inside thinking about how many people buy it on purpose

because flavor wise because it's not it's not much it's a good it's a good lean protein and like for a quick meal to take that slice it into medallions you can have you know you can have those medallions cooked in like three or four minutes apiece if you if you slice them the right size.