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.

I'm Lisa held a food journalist and podcast host presenting behind the label with American Humane produced by Heritage radio network for Springer Mountain farms. This podcast series dives into what the American Humane Certified label really means. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

This week on main three, we look at how delivery went from convenience to crucial

in a pre COVID universe. The Commission's from these third party delivery service providers were really high and you were seeing oftentimes they were as high as 30%. Right?

I mean all food is about basically the history of money and the history of technological change but takeout in particular.

I'll go ring the doorbell and watch somebody come outside and wipe down their door and their doorbell after I leave. It's kind of creepy kind of weird, but that's the state of where we are.

Tune in to meet in three HR NS weekly food news roundup wherever you listen to podcasts.

Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live from the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We got the Stasi the hammer Lopez, who's currently in the stem of Ford on the sound Stanford on the sound. How you doing says

Yeah, I'm good. Yeah.

Yeah, you got power again. You have internet again. Yep. Let me get to get this straight. The poll that got knocked over they just put the pole directly on top of your old internet. That's what happened and just cut it right off. Yes. And then you went out there and splice the whole splice the whole mcgillis together. Yeah, it sounds that checks out. Yeah, that checks out. And I get this straight. Let me get this straight. Your dad is a telecoms professional. Right. Right. And yet because he was working in California on other people's telecoms, he would not get on the horn to help you walk through your telecoms issues.

He doesn't have FaceTime on his phone because his company at&t for his,

the Stasi, Lopez, your dad has worked for 18 T for a million a million years. The millionaires and and yet, at&t throttles your cell count. Is that true? Yeah. I

need to switch. I'm going to switch.

Did you ever talk to him about and we can put this out to the to the listeners as well because I'm super curious about have you spoken him about the telephone pioneers of America?

Yeah, he said my mom was part of it, but But she did not renew or something. And he has no interest in being part of it. And I said, okay,

but did they have any of the cookbooks? They know about? No. He said, Yeah, I know.

There's some cookbooks, we don't have any.

All right. So for those of you that I'm curious whether anyone knows about this, because there's so many of them, I don't know what to get. But way back in the day, like when Alexander Graham Bell was still alive, after the after, you know, the bell company had been around for, I don't know, like 2030 years, that at that time, the old timers were like, we want to start like a fraternal organization, like the Masons or something. But just for telephone people, so they had the telephone pioneers of America. And at the time, you needed to have been working in telecom, which at that time, was just Bell, right for like 20 something years to be a member. And so it was kind of like this fraternal organization for telephone company people. And you know, it's morphed, but it's still you have to work in telecom to be to be in it. But in the, I guess, 70s, and 80s, maybe even starting earlier, and maybe even going a little bit later, like all of these telephone pioneers of America had cookbooks for all their different chapters, like, you know, Kansas City and whatnot. And they're all some of them are somewhat collectible, but I have no idea whether they're any good. So if any readers have any knowledge on the telephone pioneers, or the pioneers of America cookbook series, let us know because I'm curious. I don't want to go on an internet buying spree. But I'm a freaking sucker for a series of books. Are you guys familiar with the Rivers of America book series? No. So again, sometime like after I think the war, they hired a bunch of like, famous authors to just write books about particular rivers. And because they're all done by different kind of well known authors, they all have a different kind of spirit and flavor to them. So I ordered a couple I think I ordered the Connecticut and and one other, but there's so many that I wasn't going to get into it. And also when I was reading it, I was like, No, that's not what I was not, you know, I don't have time to read stuff. That's not it, either a technical manual about food, or technical manual about food. Like that's basically all have time to read. You know, stat Anastasia. On the other hand, your favorite thing to read is memoirs from rockstars. Right?

Yes, they are my favorite. Which is what's the best memoir from a rock star? Anthony akitas is really good. Really good. Yeah.

Can you said the Anthony akitas admits that he's not a good ballad singer.

Right. Yeah.

You know what, I like someone with some self awareness. But yet, how many millions of dollars has he made singing ballads? So yeah, define define good. Seems to be doing all right. Well, what I'm saying is he doesn't respect himself as a ballad singer.

Yeah. Keeps accepting the checks, though.

I mean, wouldn't you? I mean, I totally would, you know, I mean, I don't know it all started going south with that. I'm not going to get into it again. Remember, like I was, they were one of my top three favorite bands, right? At one point in my life. But I have not purchased an album that came out after blood sugar sex. Magik if it gives you an idea of what era I was listening to, yeah, I was more of a Am I allowed to say socks on Cox? Because that was their thing back in the day.

No, all of our little children know they can't know that the the chili peppers

used to be famous for playing naked except for they would have gym socks pulled over their junk, like a full junk hold. So it was like nothing else. Like, I don't know whether they secretly used tape to make sure they didn't come off or whatnot. But they were that was their their thing. But they stopped doing that. Right around mother's milk. Which is when I started seeing them live in concert was on the mother's milk tour. And when I saw them, they were wearing pants. Like both times I saw them live. They were wearing pants and Nastasia did they ever go back to that after that era? And I just missed it?

They did. Yeah, when they did Woodstock. 98. Take care. Remember what your they did with sec?

Well, I hope they weren't shape. It takes a certain kind of being mean like they were like, completely like sin high on drugs freak shows when I did it earlier. I wonder what they were like in the mid 90s. They're probably still. It's still kind of the same. All right, all of that still. Oh, that's still. Yeah. So for those of you that have ever lived in or spent time in New York or lower Manhattan, we have a we have a fairly large Jehovah's Witness kind of community around here, right? Because you have the Watchtower stuff like over and over in Brooklyn right over the bridge where from where I live, you guys know Talking about? Nope. No, you guys live here. Are you familiar with Jehovah's Witness? Yes. Okay, so they hand out these pamphlets, right? I'm not going to get into religion because obviously we don't do we don't want to, but like the handout, these pamphlets, and they have for many years, right. And so, you know, one of one of the ones that, you know, kind of I always would see is called, like God's peaceful new world, right, and you can Google this, you can see the pictures I'm talking about, like, God's peaceful New World, you can live there, and there's various over the years, they've had different ones. But the one that I remember is like a picture. And there's like, like, like a little white girl, a little black boy, like some adults, everyone's holding hands and drawing and hanging out in nature. And then sounds okay, so far, right? There's a dog, right, and then there's a lamb. And here's where it gets weird. There's like a polar bear. And there's like a cheetah, and like, and there's like a goat and a lion. And like, you know, one of the little boys is petting a lion, and there's a bowl and a to Ken, and they're all hanging out in like, what looks to be a New England kind of fall landscape. Right. So it's like, this is like the ultimate idea of paradise that they have. And it's always struck me this kind of weird image of these animals that would never live together just on a geographic basis, much less the fact that they would rip each other to shreds. But here they are living you know, all together, you know, everything like it fantastic picture to look at and just be like, okay, and they would hand these out on the streets down here where I live anyway, you guys ever seen this picture? Right? So I saw the New York real life equivalent of this yesterday when I was walking home. It was amazing. So there was a, there was a knock down. Building, right? And I looked into the rubble of where the knockdown building used to be. And all of a sudden, I see it's full of animals. So usually when you see that it's like sparrows and pigeons, right? Because that's what it's like here. But this one was like, it was like God's peaceful New World. It was rats with the pigeons with the sparrows, like a feral cat all just kind of hanging out together. Like no one was fighting. It was amazing. was real New York mob peaceful world. Amazing. I've never seen that many rats in the daytime in the open, like, there must have been something so incredibly delicious there that the rats would like to hell with it. Or maybe the rats are smart enough to know that there's a fence and I can't like run over that we're not going to get into stasis boy. Oh my god. Well, he's named our friend he doesn't name is one of my head rat kicker. Oh, Robert poor. Yeah, if Robert bore had been there, it would have been like a video game like like, like duck hunt like Robert bores duck hunt for rats if he was wearing his good rat kicking shoes. He likes to kick rats with wingtips, right? Yes,

Claire, mute yourself if you're not talking because we hear feedback player.

Claire's on secret Claire. There's a secret Claire in the room What's up secret Claire? Secret Claire giving herself away with her background noise Yeah, if she had just muted yourself immediately I want to know is friend of the friend of the show clear. How're you doing? Where are you?

Oh my gosh, I'm good. How's it going with you guys?

Oh, fantastic. I closed my bar permanently last week. So there's that's awesome. Happy Taiwan.

saw that on Instagram. I'm sorry.

Yeah, it sucks. Yeah, it sucks. So what's what's going on with you? Where are you?

Well, now I'm back in Mexico City. I did go back to Tulum to work on the honey bee business.

Oh, did you find anything good. Did you like the honey?

I love the honey. It's I'm letting it I'm letting it percolate and putting some feelers out some bee feelers out.

For those of you that don't know Claire was on I realized she was in bloom and I told her that this is the world capital the only place really where you can get this melipona honey which is a slightly lower brakes honey made by a relatively endangered stingless honey bee from this area of Mexico. Alright, so go ahead. So tell us your tell us your

well, so I actually have a question. Okay. Well, I'm gonna It's a as always, it's a story with a question. So, status are you there?

I'm here.

So, it was my birthday two weeks ago, as some of you may know, I had a goddess themed birthday party. It was super magical.

Oh my god. Goddess Did you did you do? Are you invited? Are you familiar with the 1980s band Soho, whose best album was goddess and whose hit single was hippie chick?

No. Maybe I should Look into the shoot. Listen, you

know your theme song should have been got to be a goddess. Got to be a goddess.

I don't know if that was the vibe, but I'll look into it.

You weren't happy about being us. I'm gonna be a goddess. So many people asking for favors. So many people that turn into spiders. That was more of a vibe. No,

it was more just like relaxed. Yeah, you

don't get to be I guess I mean people think it's probably relaxing being a goddess but her ask her question. No, it's a story.

It's a story with a Russian. Okay, so anyway, Stoss and I you know had been friends for like, over

a decade. So where were you guys Switzerland? People's

Yeah, we met in Switzerland teaching and then we cooked for a bunch of kids and camp. Oh, Pat Posies here. Oh my gosh, this is so fun. Hey, Pat. You can stay on mute because I'm doing my story. Whoa.

I like it. Oh, Claire comes on our show and tell someone else to go on mute. Well, a goddess goddess level control goddess level control. Alright, go ahead.

Ask me they're like do you want to put a password on this meeting?

If you guys want to come on and flash your chonies remember, there's no video here so doesn't worry about regrets.

Okay, anyway, so it's Dawson. I have been friends for a really long time. And we use usually used to be to get well in Switzerland. I always celebrated my birthday was stopped. And now you know, since I live in Mexico, we haven't been together for the last couple of years. And so you know, I'm having my goddess themed birthday. And I'm like, so happy and like, all my friends are here. And it's like this whole thing. And then my friend is like Claire, there's something for you outside and I knew that my friends were gonna get me a mariachi band. And so I was like, oh my god, it's the mariachi band. But no, it was another friend holding a cake and they're like Miss dasya sent this to you. And I was like, Oh my God, because some of you may remember three birthdays ago, Stoss flew from New York to Barcelona and surprise me with my favorite Milk Bar birthday cake and a frozen turkey sandwich with a side of Russian dressing and a bag of salt and vinegar chips which is my favorite New York City meal

with a frozen turkey sandwich sandwich

that I love the bodega sandwich I get Turkey sauce is rolling her eyes right now. I get Turkey cheddar cheese lettuce, lettuce, mustard mayonnaise, side of Russian dressing, salt and vinegar chips on a roll and it's like literally my favorite meal in the world only rivaled by

Manny's Yeah Did

I not say Manny's

I don't remember but as making sure because there would have been some real problems

now of course ya know,

frozen just because you missed as he was preserving it for shipment if you don't typically eat it frozen this year.

And honestly, I think I took a bike but I felt a little bit weird because I was like, Is it normal to eat frozen processed meat? No, it's just traveled cross content zone

so good. Didn't Stasi ascend a cake mama Lopez style wrapped in wet newspaper?

No, I haven't delivered it. I haven't delivered it to Spain.

Literally brought take this time the cake this

cake this time was from Mexico. It was from Mexico.

It was from Nieto and Mexico City which we love. So good. Anyway, so I made the rash decision to go I was like I need to go back to to loom because of the big business and some other business affairs I had to take care of

Willie like right then you see the cake. You're like eff this party, I'm out, drove to Tulum, right right away, like

the next morning. And so I'm like, I gotta go back to to live. And so I leave my cake and I'm like, so bummed because I was like, Oh my God, it was so good. And my roommate was kind enough to save it for me. And so I ended up only staying in Tulum for like, seven days. And so I come back and there's my cake and she had like, sliced it in Tupperware, and so it's like, slice there was like half of it left.

And we'll good Roommate ate half your cake. Nice.

I don't know where the other half went. But I'm not worried. So my question is, well, it's actually too late because I already did it. But I ate the rest of my cake this weekend. Is that gross? Well,

I mean, it's gross in the fact that I can guarantee you, I can guarantee you from a distance of however many 1000 miles we are from each other that it was stale, stale, stale. Oh,

no, because Dave it was it was better. It was so moist. And that's what I loved about the milkbar Cakes is they're so moist. This was from Mexico City. It was but I'm just saying milkbar birthday cake is my favorite cake in the world. It's like my barometer of moist Ness. Now higher

fat cake is, the better it will resist the stealing. Also, depending on what flour makes they use, it will resist it ain't ever going to kill you. You could dig up a cake from the pyramids and eat it, you know what I mean? As long as it doesn't have mold on it, but what about it's cooked, you do not need to sweat it. Like it is, like from a from a safety standpoint, cake is a you know, zero, roughly 0% Not revenue, it's like low water activity ain't nothing bad's gonna happen, like certain cakes can develop molds if they're, like, very moist. But, you know, aside from that, it's like, you know, if you keep if you keep like bread in a, like sliced bread in, in ziplocks, they'll like stay kind of soft, because the liquid doesn't leave, but they'll but the mold. Whereas if you leave them out, like the liquid can get away and they won't mold and they just turned into breadcrumbs. So if it was still moist because it was sealed in Tupperware, I mean, it was probably still technically staling, right? Because, like the stillness mimics drying out in some ways, but a lot of it's just about what's happening to what's happening to the starch in terms of re crystallizing. So some of that is sucking water back in. But also it's just a structural change to the starch. And so typically, you know, cake when you leave it out. And this is why the best thing to do is to freeze it.

Like a wedding cake.

Yeah, but you freeze it at like, if, like what we do is we'll when we freeze things here, cuz I remember, you know, the classic mistake someone makes when they're freezing something like let's say you make a passel of banana bread, right, and which I do here on occasion. And then you want to freeze it, like you want to slice it, but put a single sheet of freezer paper in between each slice, then put the whole thing into a Zippy and like, get rid of most of the air, so you don't get a lot of like recrystallization on the outside don't like such a huge thing, because you don't want to like squish the bread too much. And then you freeze it like that, because otherwise the moist edges of the things will freeze each other together. And it's especially true with cake. So with some cakes are soft enough, right? So it depends on the cake. Some cakes are soft enough to slice frozen, so as long as you cut it like in half, you can just slice pieces off with like a real hard push of a chef's knife down. You'll get some smearing on the edge where you Crusher wins frozen, but it's good. And I actually like to eat. I eat frozen cake. I like frozen cookies. There's a story that Jen when you know, Miley, my sister in law, Miley is the chief editor of the Food Network magazine editor in chief she launched it. And before that was with at Rachael Ray before that was you know, timeout and a bunch of other stuff anyway. So when she first moved to New York in the 90s She stayed with us for you know, a couple of weeks before she found her apartment. And my wife Jen was worried because, you know, I don't know, I guess I was packing on some pounds or whatever. And Miley kept baking chocolate chip cookies. So like ketchup, everyday trumpeter cookies, Miley's special skill in life is that she can make muffins out of anything so like, if there's nothing in the house should go upside outside and scoop some gravel out of the driveway and somehow make a delicious muffin out of it. It's like her, she can MacGyver any muffin anyway. So my wife told Miley yo throw throw those chocolate throw those cookies in the freezer. So Dave doesn't just pound them all when he gets home at like 3am from the from the studio because I was in grad school that time for fine arts. And so Miley does that. And then in the morning, like they caught me I came in I'm eating them frozen out of the freezer and I go them's good frozen. And so my family now them's good. Frozen is a phrase we use, like 100% of the time. Them's good frozen because I just pull them out of the freezer and eat them anyway. So you can eat cake frozen and do it that way. So if it stayed moist, because it was in the Tupperware it God bless from from a textural standpoint, from an org organoleptic and textural standpoint, if you're not going to eat cake within a day or two I would freeze it but not from a safety standpoint.

Amazing. Thank you so much. Really appreciate your insight.

What are you going to get when are you going to taste this freaking honey? Have you already tasted it? You just haven't researched it enough? Or have you not tasted it yet?

I'm trying to find a vendor I'm trying to find a

there's a honey store I

don't know if now we want to go to the source and make our own David there's exquisite honey.

It listen. I mean, I'm happy to have clear but like you understand like these people who make it like that is like one of their that's like, like that's that that's there. Now the third thing Yeah. Now we're gonna partner with

a family. Okay,

I know you can short a publicly traded company but how do I revert invest in shares

well that's an interesting way

it's really hurtful. Why would you say that?

That's an interesting question and I just learned it from an episode of billions that I saw recently. You have to find the main competitor right of whoever it is you're trying to short it's not public, invest in them and then tank the non publicly traded place so that the one that you can invest in goes up

something tells me that none of these are public.

Now these are like families who are raised in like in like hollow logs, and like you know, the community is raised in a hollow law which by the way, all you guys familiar with Richard skerries I'm a bunny and I live in a hollow tree

No,

I don't even know such a cute freaking kids book. I'm a bunny and I live in a hollow tree look it up Richard scary so Richard scary you think of Richard scary as like you know the guy that like like books with like helicopters and planes and boats and like cats with Captain hats on you know, I'm talking about but I'm a bunny. extremely sweet book.

All right. Thank you, Claire.

Okay, love you guys. soon have a good Tuesday.

Oh, yeah, it's gonna be fantastic. And I hear we also have it

Yes. be fantastic. That's up to you.

Oh, it is I get to choose whether the day is fantastic or not. Oh, Lord.

Okay, bye.

I'm Lisa help, a food journalist and podcast host presenting behind the label with American Humane produced by Heritage radio network for Springer Mountain farms. This podcast series dives into what the American Humane Certified label really means. We're looking inside the farm certification process. Beginning with the moment a farmer expresses interest in becoming American Humane Certified, all the way to a consumer seeing the seal on store shelves.

And American Humane is our country's first national humane organization founded way back in 1877. Now we certify nearly 1 billion farm animals each and every year. Despite that growth. roughly 90% of us farm animals are still raised without the benefit of independently verified science based standards.

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and I hear that we also have friend of the show and friend of Anastasia and chief saxophone didgeridoo and he wouldn't What else does he do? Does he do oboe doesn't do recorder? Correct? Because he wouldn't touch that damn instrument. No, no,

that's does territory.

Yeah, I stay away from it. You do? Do you also do oboe, can you do an oboe?

I do? Yeah, I actually I found an oboe last year that has a fingering system that is based on a saxophone fingering system so I can play it.

But it isn't an oboe like a fundamentally different technology though.

No, it's it's really the same technology. It's the the major difference is the read situation. A saxophone has a mouthpiece that has one piece of wood, one small shaped piece of wood attached to it and that piece of wood you blow through that mouthpiece and that piece of wood and that vibrates. And that's called a single read, which is also what a clarinet has. And then an oboe is called a double reed. So instead of a mouthpiece, it actually just has two little thin pieces of wood that are strapped together and you blow through that and that buzzes and that's what creates the noise.

Now is it is it an oboist or an oboist?

I would say oboist, generally but I would say oboist for comedic purposes.

There you go. Now you also play the ocarina.

I do play the ocarina. Yeah. What

was your professional opinion of the Smash Mouth? All Star melon ocarina situation.

Have not heard it. What I you know,

I do that.

I'm sorry that that was not included in my prep dossier for this phone call? Yeah.

A clarinet or No,

I do play clarinet. Yeah, I started.

Let me ask you a question. I have known saxophonist who like jazz style, saxophonist who detest jazz clarinet. How do you feel about it? Is that a thing or is it just two people I have known and do you? Do you have any insight into

um, you know, I would say that. In the early days of jazz and the mid early mid 20th century, a lot of players We're playing played all kinds of wind instruments. And a lot of times in big bands and things you're asked as a saxophonist to play clarinet and flute as well. And we have people like Benny Goodman, who was, you know, in the forefront of jazz of his time and was predominantly a clarinet player. I don't I actually, I prefer playing clarinet in jazz idiom, because you have a lot more latitude to squeak and play out of tune, which are, you know, signature styles, signatures of my style of clarinet playing.

And what are your theories when you have a saxophone, on like, the, you know, the people like they, they freak out, because that one little dent in the saxophone is what gives that particular instrument the sweet, sweet tone, if you found that to be the case for what you do?

Ah, you know, I try not to get too wrapped up in equipment, because it's a it's a dangerous wormhole to go down. You know, I have a mouthpiece that I've been playing on for 20 years at this point, and I don't feel like I want to change it until it breaks and you need it. And, you know, dents in the saxophonist saxophones are kind of in some ways, they're like, they're like tanks, you can you can beat the shit, the stuff out of them. And, and they'll still go, it's you know, but it's really it's the mechanical details of it. Because if you look at a saxophone up close, there's all kinds of little rods and, you know, holes that have to be covered by pads and things like that and springs and so the mechanism has to be in good shape and the body has to be has to be in such a shape that all of those things can happen as they are supposed to. And as long as that's happening, it's going to be fine.

Alright, now here's why Pat is

here. Pat,

I hear you've come on to talk about cooking alone and stuff.

Yeah, but first, I'm still a little riled from finding out that Claire got a cake because I've never gotten a cake.

Well, you don't deserve one pet.

Your birthday is in 12 days. Right? You'll get a cake.

Now he's gonna get the cake. Now also, wait a second. Are you familiar with? Yes. And Chris Squire. The bassist who played theoretically I've been told with a quarter.

I know of Yes. I don't know particularly about the bassist.

Yeah, he was known for playing with a quarter when I was playing bass. You know, when you're a kid, you're like, I'm going to do anything to sound like cool. And I tried to play with a quarter you know what it sounds like garbage. Yeah, first of all, I don't like playing bass with a pick at all. But like playing with a quarter was even worse than playing with a pick. Maybe he didn't play with a quarter because he's probably playing with some sort of British money or something because the milling on the edge of the quarter makes a real terrible cach, cach, cach, cach cach cach on the wasn't like a good sharp attack, I think it would have been better with a nickel because of the smooth edge it's the milling on the quarter that makes it so crappy to play with I think, right? Was

it also the heaviness? I mean, first of all, I've never heard of a basis playing with a pick. That seems like blasphemy, but you know, that's not really my realm. And secondly, I wonder about the the density the mass of the metal and how that might affect it because it seems to me that something lighter might be a little better but I agree with you definitely. You want to go cashless here you want to go credit card, it's a much better

people you can play with, you've used a credit card as a pick. Yeah. I wonder whether I wonder whether bases who play with picks are more likely to be that basis who is actually a guitarist who just took the job as basis because guitarist was put Yeah 100% I hate that kind of bass playing people who don't come from bass but like come from Guitar land, or like

there's already too good guitarist. I

guess I'll take bass, you know what I mean? So don't me do it. I know I can hum a tune and I don't want to do chords anymore. It's fine. I'll do this. Yeah, but yeah, whatever, whatever. Alright, so talk to us. And the reason why yes came up is because we were talking about owner of a lonely heart much better than owner of a broken heart. Anastasia disagrees, and wants to reverse the song and says that the owner of a broken heart much better than the owner of a lonely heart. What do you think?

I'm sorry, was that addressed to me? Yes. You know, Broken Heart lonely in the heart. It's all it's all the same thing. I think when you get to such an advanced age, you know, you've you've lived a life you've experienced at all and all of that comes through and everything you do.

Now know Pat talked about jog about how excited you were at the beginning of quarantine when you were making bread and then how that sort of just went down as the months went?

Oh, what's your pot before you start? I want like we're talking quarantine stuff. We need to know your pod, like like your level of aloneness, like all this stuff. Just give us the deets and then go into the into the

ark. Yeah, well, I mean it's changed a lot for the first month or so of quarantine. I had taken a lover and and that

doesn't say like, I know that sounds very British but here that means they've been kidnapped.

Yeah. You know, it might be described that way. I'm not sure. I'm not sure how he's talking about it outside of this. But you know, we he came in he basically lived here for a month and it was great for Couple of weeks and then it was like okay for a week and then it was just terrible for two weeks. And during that time we were cooking a lot making extravagant meals, he got obsessed with the The Art of French Cooking and was cooking these huge meals out of that. And then as I was losing weight, he was gaining weight from all over the butter and but the situation was really good. And during that time of course, you didn't know what was happening. And so that's when the the food hoarding started, you know, you couldn't get things I paid at some point 25 $60 for a 25 bag of flour online because it was the only flour could get anywhere. I bought yeast from a guy on a bike in a parking lot down in Silverlake. That's creepy. It was shady. But you know you did what you had to do. Was it SAF read

the one pound bag? It was not

no it was like a little tiny was a tiny I think it was just about a four ounce thing of yeast.

So how much is a dime bag of yeast going for? During full Corona? I was like $10 It was pretty reasonable. It's not reasonable. All right, go ahead. Maybe for California prices.

So you know on the on the other side gas got really cheap around that time. So it all balanced out. But yeah, so I started cooking, I got a I got a starter, I got a sourdough starter from a neighbor. And, and started cooking. And then when my lover left, suddenly, I was left with all of this food and all of the food that I had was, was in quantity and designed for these big lavish meals, you know, and suddenly I was alone and I had a few friends but I had sort of not been hanging out with anybody, you know, you sort of poured it down in that in that first initial phase. So you weren't

potted with them. But would they would they hang with you are we doing distance hangs they would but

you know, in that first in that first, in the first month of me being alone, it was it was it was sort of rolling that out and I had like I didn't know what the etiquette was, you know, at that point, everybody else had started hanging out with other people during that first month a little bit and I had not really done that because I had been holed up at home with with the lover. So anyway, that was food and then so that first month of me being alone was kind of hell because I was you know having to go through these lavish three hour meal preparations and then enjoy them myself for the next four days. And and then things started to even out a bit then I started you know, going through different cycles of how to prepare food for myself as a single person. And and now I've arrived at a very good place. I'm I'm in a good place for that now.

You were at a really bad place with it, though. Were like even looking at the things in your fridge made you angry. Yeah. Thank

you for reminding me about that. And

that's why Anastasia I'm sure had you call in because she wants some of the anger. Visceral hatred.

I just had this text from him. July 19. I just Googled Mexican green beans because I have to eat these green beans but I also want to have tacos later. Yeah,

green bean taco would be. I'm trying to think about a green bean taco.

Well, July July was rough. I'm not gonna lie show I was rough. Yeah, we still had it was weird. Zoot June, June Gloom lasted well into July here in Los Angeles. So it was let's say June gloom. June Gloom is a thing that happens in coastal California in the summer in Southern California in the summer, where it's like dark and gloomy for most of June.

That's when I should go there as Oh my God, I didn't know there was a season where I would like the weather in Los Angeles.

But it's gloomy out. It's gloomy. It's actually gloomy out right now. Yeah,

it's lovely. Oh, man. Oh, sweet.

Yeah, I just started wearing pants again this week for the first time in a month.

You don't wear you you wear shorts.

I wear shorts through all of August. I am

not into into like, I know that it's not cool, but I just don't wear shorts ever. Never. No one's ever seen my legs in public. I went swimming this weekend for the first time in I don't know yours because I was I was forced to. And I had to I wore a shirt in Don't worry. I wasn't like close to being naked out there. But I had to wear like my bathing suit out there. And I was like, the legs don't like it.

Well, so the green bean tacos were excellent.

Do you actually make green bean taco? No,

the tacos? No, I did not make green bean tacos. I had green beans and I needed to use them. And you know the thing is, is that I got into a cycle in July where most of what I was making was was protein I would say like before in early July in late June. The cycle that I was in was frozen stuff from Trader Joe's I'm and and then I got a grill, and then it turned into grilling protein every night, which was great. But it meant that then I just like I got in a few weeks in I started to my body started to tell me that I needed to eat more vegetables. And

now there's whole there's whole theories of thought on, you know, whole called diets based on eating only meat. But you found it wasn't pleasant for your body. Not a member of that cult it was

it was for a while and then and then it became not.

Yeah. So what is a Mexican green beans as opposed to the green beans that we get?

Ah, I'm not I'm not really sure I just did that. Because I was wondering if you know, I had these green beans. I wanted to make tacos. So I wanted to prepare the beans in a way that go along well with with tacos,

I understand. It's not a variety of green beans that I should be aware of. He wanted to green beans done as though it was going to provide him with like Southern California Mexican flavors. That's what we're

doing. I kind of just wanted to see what people do. And usually as I've said, as Anastasia knows, when I lived in New York, I never cooked and started cooking when I got out to California. And so usually when I cook, I I'll go on, you know, I'll google my idea. And then look at 10 recipes and then just go into the kitchen and see what I can find and start throwing it all together. So it was you know, it was basically like Cuban and Mexican oregano. And I'm sure it's fine. No, no Vegas. Good. And you know, my poop was a lot better after that. So.

Wow. All right. Nice. So I'm glad to hear it. You know, people I know people that used to keep poop diaries.

I've heard of them. Yeah. Nastasia and I keep an informal poop diary going?

Well, she did live in Italy for a while and you can't live in Italy without being obsessed with poop. True or False. Anastasia? Yeah. So let me ask you a question. You're familiar with wax beans. I've heard of them. heard of them. Oh my god. Well, you know yellow the the things that look like green beans, but they're yellow. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think that they are the superior being. Oh, I love wax beans. Love was that I think that when you cook them they maintain their squeak a little bit better. And I live I love like a fast sauteed like, like, like butter like butter. Bacon. Little little bit of sugar. Salt like fast. Sauteed squeaky bean. Love a squeaky bean. John, what are your thoughts on the on the wax versus the green?

Um, I don't know if I've given it too much thought. I think probably more green than wax. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I like the squeak as much love as

me but yeah, well, here's your like, I think that like it's like, it's like cheese curds. It's like if you if you're not thinking about the squeak squeak is just there. And it's like me or me mop. So you're not thinking about it much. Right? But if you're like, if you go into the whole thing, being like, I'm gonna get the squeak out of it. Favor then. Then you like to squeak. I like to squeak. And I know Pat does because he told me he does when he's playing his clarinet likes to squeak