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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.

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Hello unlimited billing issues. This is Dave Arnold, you're also giving us just coming to you live from Lower Manhattan. Well, Matt's in Rhode Island and Johnson, Murray Hill and Jackson Brooklyn and we have a special guest Angela who get to is in Lincoln, Nebraska. Not Roberta's pizzeria. Because none of us are open and no one's in Bushwick, Brooklyn, welcome. Welcome to the show. Oh, the Blue Angels, I guess are outside. So there's some fighter jets going over my going over my house. Burning. You know, burning, burning that flying

over out of dependent respects for your work on cooking issues. Dave?

That's right. That's right. That's right. This is because there's nothing I want more than to be trapped inside and to hear thunderous jets overhead, and not actually get to see them. You know what I mean? You're welcome. Yeah, I got I got once buzzed by a was it was at a hornet like an F 18 or something in the Panamint mountains, on my way to Death Valley, because there was no one else in the entire valley where we were. And this jet was like, There's something moving our budget. It was like, right over the car. And I was like, dang, that's impressive. Like, you know, fighter jets is impressive. Oh, yeah, they

are. Yeah.

So we are stars list today we have no Anastasia Lopez because she's working with you know, one of those Jose Andres. You know, COVID related charities today doing coordination or something like that helping helping people help each other. So whatever, we'll give her a pass. I won't even ribber about it because she's doing the right thing. But in the place of Nastasia we have wacky Jackie Schramm head bartender of the currently closed but you know hopefully soon to reopen existing condition how're you doing? I'm doing all right. How are you doing well doing well. And of course we got you know new new regular on the show John from from Booker and DAX the new spins all and Sears all customer service guru. Hey Don, and special special, special guest today and We have her for the whole time. Long time, you know, friend of mine from back all the way back to my French Culinary Institute days. And I've never pronounced her last name twice the same way. So we'll do it. And I'll have her pronounced I think, Well, I'll tell you, I'll try to do it the way I think she pronounces it and then we'll say, Angela garb aesthetic. Is that the way you pronounce it? That's actually perfect. Yeah, yeah. Because we, because we used to just call her like G botch garbage, anything, anything other than her actual name. But Angela just wrote She's the owner, founder of goldenrod. pastries in Lincoln, Nebraska. Correct? Correct. Yes. Yeah. And one of my super favorite people. And we can get into the kind of the story of the you've been on their show before, right? Yep, I have. Yeah. But she just came out with her very first book called perfectly golden. Now. You want me to give the 32nd spiel on how we got to where we are? You want it? Okay. Yeah. All right. All right. So I first went, what year did you go to the FCA? 2008? Okay, so I first met you in 2008, you came to do pastry. So I used to have this intern program at at the French Culinary Institute. And anyone who was coming in either in the pastry or the culinary programs in the six weeks, or six months professional program, they could come and we would work on kind of fun, new techniques and technologies. And right away, you know, Angela came, and I guess you were taking a break from from college, or have you finished, you took a break, right?

Um, I did a culinary science program. And so we had to go, we had to get X number of culinary school credits. And so that was kind of, I really didn't want to go to college. And I wanted to go to pastry school. And this was kind of my in to do both. And I had actually, I don't know if you remember this, but I couldn't choose a pastry school. And then a friend of mine showed me an article featuring new and popular science in the fall of 2007. And I was like, Oh, my God, this, this guy is so cool. This guy is doing such cool stuff. And he's a little did I know. And so I went and did a tour at FCI. And I think you, I was like, This guy's or, you know, you are also one of my super favorite people. And I remember the first time that we met you were in the amphitheater, doing an interview with New York Times. And I was doing my tour. I think Jacque was taking me around. And he's like, Oh, and this is Dave, I know you wanted to do that internship. And you like, totally halted your interview with The New York Times and you're like, Hey, what's up? What are you doing? Who are you? What do you want to do? And I was like, Oh, my gosh, this guy's cool. He just shut down the New York Times.

Well, you know, look, honestly, like, say what you want. People can say what they want about, like, you know, educated culinary school education. But I know I was and I think the entire school, especially back then I haven't been back in a little while. Like, we were pretty student focused. We wanted people to feel, you know, well, we actually did care. I thought we cared. I felt like yeah, for

sure. And it really felt that way. So yeah, I ended up going to French culinary, Culinary Institute just because of the internship with you and that's how I met some of my best buds actually.

Oh, man. Well, it well, I was I was super glad that you did we were you know, anytime it was super rare for us to have someone in with any sort of any sort of kind of science background or any even kind of affinity for it. I mean, it's it's a it's a funny thing, like cooking schools are funny because they are an incredible cross section of people and they they only really mostly share we had some people in who you know, the whatever their parents were paying, and they just wanted to be shoemakers, whatever, fine, but which is I don't really understand why why install Shoemaker is not an easy thing to make. Well, shoes not an easy thing to make. Well, why do we insult shoe makers? What is that?

Who is We Who is insulting shoemakers? Chefs

chefs in salt sushi? It was like a Is this guy a good cook? They're a shoemaker. You know what I mean?

I would rather I would rather learn how to make food than make shoes. That sounds really hard.

I think the implication is that they're turning food into shoes like overcooking a steak. No, no, they're insulting a shoemaker.

No, no, no, the insult was that they were merely a crafts person and not an artiste. So like a shoemaker was someone who like showed up at work, and like just did what they were going to do. And they did a good you know, you know, work work work, you know, person's like job at it. They were okay at it. You know what I mean? But there was no inspiration. You know what I mean? There was nothing like

they're the lifeblood of the entire industry, the people who show up and do the work well, every day.

Yeah, yeah. But when you love that person, you they're like, they're a monster. They're a crank, they're sick. And then but, but when they're just kind of like when you want them to be a leader, and all they're doing is add stuff, you're like, man, a shoe maker, you know what I mean? But again, I think it's a false because making shoes, not easy making good shoes, not easy in the same way that making good foods not easy. Anyway, so I don't even know how I got on that. So anyway, so. So you come in, you do the internship, we had an amazing group of people at the time. And then you go, and by the way, you worked at like some amazing kitchens here in in New York while you were here. I mean, and like work like a dog. You work like a dog, you went directly you went from either in class to like the internship and then off to work. I mean, did you sleep ever? What was your deal?

So that Yeah, it's funny that you ask, it was a wild time. I mean, I was there and I knew that like I wouldn't be able to afford to stay after so I was like, I just, I'll just do everything I can right now. So we were at school really late doing the internship and I started doing a bread internship for a short time before I started class in the morning. So I was doing either your internship or at John George until like, you know, usually John George was later till like midnight, or one and then I'd show up for the bread at like six and then do a day a class and do the internship. It was like five days a week. And then I worked at John George on Saturday. So I, by the way, go home. If you're new, this might the only thing I had to eat my apartment. Because eating everywhere else was kielbasa from a great Ukrainian butcher in the Lower East Side. And I had beer and so I would go home every night and have open a beer and boil one sausage while I got ready for bed. And I would lay in bed and half a sausage while I passed out.

That's how I double I liked that. Which, which,

which butcher?

I can't remember the name. It was like you are dz is what it started with,

though is that the one was on second of the street. That's a

Second Avenue. Yeah. Yeah. The East Village Market. Yeah, that's a good Yeah, yeah. Is that still there? Jack? Yeah,

I used i The kielbasa is excellent. It's the best wasa. It's so good. Especially. Um, well, thank you. How are you?

Good. You know, today's with a book launch. I was supposed to be in New York, and I was actually going to have a party at existing conditions tonight. Wow. That was like my dream. That was the plan. And it's nice that we can kind of still catch up together somehow.

So let me let me just let me let me finish this though. The best kielbasa Angela is the one you have at two in the morning. In your house. Yeah. That's always the best Kalasa Yeah, we have the kielbasa you love, Angela. Love the kielbasa you're with? Although I hate the hate the actually I hate the premise of that song. I really hate the premise of that song. Don't you hate the premise of that song? If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with? Yeah, there's all just weakest. Yeah. It's fine PD TT TT TT pill. It doesn't make any sense to me. So anyway, so then you go back and then you develop now, by the way, for those of you that have never met Angela, like, what, you know, not, not a picky bone in Angelo's body. No pickiness? No, no nothing, right. So when I learned that she had just like developed an allergy to dairy first, I thought she was kidding. I thought she was kidding me. You know what I mean? And then she's like, No, I really have to change my life around and kind of put you on this road that brought you where you are. Now you want to talk about that at all?

Yeah, so I started a blog that I call Goldenrod pastries in like, 2013 2014. Because, you know, I went to the French Culinary Institute, I've been baking for myself, my whole life. Everything was with butter, milk, cream, whatever. And like I love to eat and I love cake. I love having dessert with every meal. It's how I was raised, believe it or not. And so I just realized that I had to start developing recipes that I could eat that didn't make me sick. So I started my blog, and I started posting these recipes, posting pictures, and pretty soon people started reaching out to me and saying, like, oh my gosh, well, I can't have dairy. either. I can't have eggs or I'm gluten free. I'm 35 years old. I haven't had a doughnut since I was six years old. I was like, Oh my God, there's all these people who are totally being left out of like the food conversation. And as a chef, like first and foremost, like, I want to feed people and so I started developing recipes and they started asking for birthday cakes and doughnuts and all these things that I had no idea how to make with their dietary restrictions, but I It just kind of started going and trying to figure it out. Because when you love to feed people, there's nothing worse than not being able to feed them. And so I just kind of started. And within a year of launching the blog, I opened my first storefront and in May of 2015, and we are I would say, 95%, dairy free, gluten free or vegan, gluten free. And I think what's really, really cool about that is that most of our customers do not need or choose to eat that way. So we're making food that I think and I hope is really, really good just because it's good. Like we use sorghum flour for our cookies. And I think that makes like, to me a better cookie than I was eating with all purpose flour, or like we use a rice flour blend in our pancakes. And I think that makes us super tender pancake. And you know, the itis found that there's a way to make food actually taste as good if not better, and still be able to feed more people.

No matter who's Bob's Red Mill is still a sponsor of the No Not our program. But are they still on the on the on the heritage at all? No, no, not great. They should pay Angela money because people don't know how to read stuff like sorghum flour properly. You know, why is why I love Angela so much because right she's got a mission to use it like or to not use or to be able to not use a certain subset of ingredients, but she always comes from a point of what's going to make this thing more delicious. It's never it's never like some sort of goofy, like BS like pseudo health mumbo jumbo. It's just like, here are the givens of what I can work with. How can I make the best possible most delicious product? Not, you know, like in that like to have someone who's guiding principle is the delicious, but then also a kind of take on like this subset of ingredients or take on certain constraints, I think is a really great attitude for today. And someone like Bob's Red Mill, who you bring up in your book should pay you some money. That's why I'm so we're,

we're working on that. But I think like what's really interesting in like, the interviews that I've been having about the book with different people is they're like, oh, so why did you choose like this health focus, and it was like, It's not about health. Like, if you look through this book, and you eat our food, it has like a lot of fat and a lot of sugar in it. And as like a dairy free fat. I really like shortening for a lot of different things and a lot of different reasons. It doesn't have off flavors, like a lot of vegan butters do. And a lot of people just when they're making food for dietary restrictions or dietary preferences, they leave out the fat and sugar and like that is when it starts getting a bad reputation.

Yeah, that sounds terrible. Right? Everyone, everyone's everyone's always known that shortening makes very good textures on things like biscuits and pie crust. But I guess the gripe, there's two gripes, right. There's the health gripe, which I don't care. I mean, whatever you want. I mean, you know me. Yeah. And then there is the neutrality argument. Whereas like, if you can have the flavor of butter, I would choose the flavor of butter over the Some argue superior texture of shortening and some of those things were what do you think?

Yeah, I mean, I think that butter has a better flavors in shortening. But if you take butter out of the equation, what you're left with is either shortening or butter alternatives like vegan butter alternatives, and I personally haven't found any that don't create like a really intense off labor. And like when I started baking, dairy free and vegan, it was just awful. All I could taste was just like plastic.

Well, I used specifically say don't use fake butters baits. Like don't use spray that has fake butter flavor. Yeah, because it's terrible. That's the reason why not to use. It's

terrible. And sometimes it has dairy products in it. But another nonstick grays. But yeah, like those vegan butters. For me, I just haven't found one that's like, I mean, both you're looking at also like cost effectiveness and accessibility. And that's another thing with this book that I really think is important, which is like so relevant right now is like, financial accessibility for people. We have to get more people in the kitchen. And like, I think that we have so many people in the kitchen right now. And if we give them financially accessible, and and technique, accessible recipes, that's like so great. Why are we trying to create recipes that lead people out of the conversation, as far as baking, like getting the kitchen, everybody wants to bake, make recipes, develop recipes that people can make with what they have, and with, you know, hopefully, an economic situation that, you know, it doesn't require the most money

for saying that. That's incredible. It's an epidemic in the cocktail world right now with people posting these recipes that are like, oh, you know, fat washed this, like all of these techniques that no home bartenders are ever going To us, it's like just give people simple drinks right now.

Well, that's the other thing. That's what we do for a living jack. So then we have two livings. But yes, yeah.

You know, at the bakery, there's some stuff that we do that like, technique wise, or economically, it makes a lot more sense to do in a commercial setting. And yeah, while I was writing this book and talking to my editor, and just thinking about like, actually, would I feel comfortable as Angela Gurvitz, giving these recipes to somebody and saying, oh, yeah, go ahead and figure that out. But you have to go ahead, like, yes, you do have to, like go out of your way to get some of these gluten free ingredients. But I actually recommend to people commercially available GF flower mixes as opposed to buying like a ton of different ingredients, because it is financially so inaccessible for a lot of people. So I think you have to like when you're giving the general public information about your, your skill and your art, like what what can we do to to make more people part of the conversation and make them comfortable and like we can use those really cool techniques and the really expensive products at home for ourselves?

Well, so I I noticed on your things, and I was making a note of it to myself, that you know, you say that you've made all these recipes with commercial mixes. And so just you know, like your your go twos that you do you use more than one than the other one of Bob's Red Mill's flowers, and see new life Pamela's, and for a few things, King Arthur, but what I love about your book here is that you're you say exactly why you use a particular flower for a particular application. And then you give the main ingredients in case somebody wants to do a knock off or figure out kind of what is in those flowers to use them, which I thought it was a great, great, you know, thing in the book. But I was curious, can you see you actually use them at the, at the shop? And are those things still cost effective when you're doing it professionally? More so than just like trying to walk that stuff yourself? Or is it that you like the consistency of the mixes or what,

um, for the most part, it is more cost effective right now. We're starting at the end of February. And definitely going into March, we actually started making our own mixes because it became so much more expensive to buy these blends. So we did have to start making our own but for the most part, like buying in the ingredients, and you know, we have a super small space, which I know you guys can relate to. And it actually was like, cost effective for us to just buy these already made. But as things change as supply chains change, like, we're definitely going to have to look at that a little differently.

I know places like King Arthur do 50 pound sacks, but I didn't know Bob's Red Mill did 50 pounds X.

Yeah, we get 25 pounds from Bob's Red Mill. And yeah, it's great. We go through so much of it. But um, also Yeah, like the main ingredient list, I think is really important. Because if you're looking at your local Co Op, like I know, my local Co Op has like some brands like I can't find elsewhere. But if I'm somebody looking at this book, and I see this, this blend at my co op, I can look back in the book and say, Okay, well, it's primarily has this in it. And now I know that if xanthan gum is third on the list of ingredients, then that's going to be like a pretty gummy flower. So maybe I should find something else. So I hope that it can be like a good guide for people and like teach them how to use what's available to them as well.

Yeah. And so I like all of your recipes you write down kind of which one of the flowers you use. And you know, I just would tell people, I think it's a very good way to do things is to like let people know why you're using a particular kind of flower at those nice, nice touch. One thing I have a question about is you right, and I've never used it before Pamela's gluten free all purpose baking flour, and you write in it that it's the hardest one of the ones to use that it can actually over mix and then I looked at the ingredient list over mix, meaning you can overwork that because one of the advantages of gluten free that you point out is that you know, there's no gluten to either over or under work. So you know in a way, you know it kind of frees you up and for some recipes in terms of worrying about it. toughening something like a cake or etc but you're right that this particular flour can be overwhelmed and I've looked at the ingredients brown rice flour, tapioca starch, white rice flour, potato starch, sorghum guar gum and guar gum. So what is it that overworks in that like I'm wondering what it is about that particular mix the gum the guar it's the

gum that I don't know if it's how the gums take up the liquid and if they like I assume they just keep absorbing more liquid, but it just becomes a completely gummy mass. So we use Pamela's mostly for like cake batters it makes really nice like, layer cakes, but if you you know you're trying to work out the the clumps in your batter for example. If you don't like add your your dry in wet and dry and wet. Like just write with Pamela's. That guar gum is going to just like really kind of seize up

guar is guar is an awesome word by the way are. This episode brought to you by vendor table a monthly food subscription service for avid home cooks focused on delicious and sustainable pantry items. I recently received the essentials box and one of my favorite items in that box was the Jimmy read grits from Geechee boy mill. And these Jimmy read grits are first of all, it will be hard to overstate how delicious these grits are, especially me a lot of you out there might never have even made grits in your life. You know, if you come from somewhere that's not a great place. And and if you have, you're probably used to just kind of buying grits in those kind of round paper sleeves in the supermarket. And this is really not a comparable product, just the kind of punch corn flavor you're going to get out of these grits is kind of out of this world. And I did these in a rice cooker. I did it with milk. And then after they cooked out I fold it in a little bit of grated cheese, some shrimp that I had cooked with, with bacon. So crisp up the bacon took it aside, cook the shrimp up in the bacon grease, then took that folded in with some cheese and a little bit of garlic and good to go. That was my kind of lighter version of shrimp shrimp and grits made with Jimmy red grits delicious. Go to bend to table.com to start your own monthly subscription use the discount code Hrn to get $20 off a new subscription and bend to table will donate $10 to support cooking issues and all of hrs programming. So one thing that will go back, we'll go back a little bit because we got into the weeds on flower, we didn't even get to talk about the kind of the basics of the book or this stuff beforehand. But in the very introduction, I think you have the kind of pull out quote the very beginning to kind of shows your attitude, which is the same attitude actually that we have existing conditions I hope is that I want and this is your quote, I want you to have a seat at our table. In other words, you want everyone to be able to come in to golden rod and enjoy what you're doing kind of no matter what inclusive baking, which is, I guess did you come up with that term?

Um, I didn't hear it before me. But maybe, yeah, I think I did.

So and I love that because that's kind of the same mentality that, you know, we have at least this go around we know now ex con with terms of non alcoholic drinks is just why would you? Why would you not want someone to feel welcome, right?

For sure. It's like, you know, there's always going to be some allergy or some restriction or preference that like you can't meet, which is so frustrating. But for the most part, it's like, you don't want to turn people away and like the joy that somebody feels, and that you can see when they're like, Oh man, you have something that non alcoholic and like, who cares what their reasons are for not drinking alcohol. And it's like the same thing with dietary stuff. I always hear people say, Oh, well, you know, they're probably just faking it or making it up. And it's like, I don't really care. Like, that's a person's choice. Like if they choose not to drink alcohol, if they choose not to eat gluten or dairy or whatever. That's like, totally cool. That's none of my business. And my only goal is to make food pastries more inclusive for people, and I don't care what your reasons are, of why you don't eat these things. And that's your choice. And I want I don't want food to feel so exclusive. I want it to be more welcoming. Yeah,

I think that is everyone should feel that way.

That's wonderful.

So and then another thing is, uh, you know, I think it's kind of cool is that the you write predominantly, but it's like you, you have a woman powered baking, right. And like most of the staff were, I don't know, maybe at this point, all of your staff I know. At one point, I think all your staff was was women. You want to talk about that kind of that? Yeah, that kind of business. My wife is the same way with our architecture business. She actually runs an all women's architecture business, and she loves it.

Yeah, so we were all all women until about a year ago. And now we have a couple of guys working for us, which is super awesome. I actually doubled my staff at the beginning of March right before I opened my second location this year, a great month to open a second location. And like the woman power thing, I just woke up one day and realize that, you know, I was in a kitchen setting and I was in a life setting where I was surrounded by all women. And not only did I feel comfortable, but I felt empowered. And I felt like these women were there to support me and not, you know, as women talking to a group of guys here, but like as women I think that you know, for a long time the idea was there was only room at the table for you know, one woman in each field to be doing well. And I think that conversation is changing and it's a real really damaging and hurtful sort of commentary. But I think that, you know, for me feeling empowered by this group of women I was working with really allowed me to, like, be more creative and be more ambitious with what I was doing with my business. And so I tried to talk about that in the book, because I hope that, you know, some people who read this, I'm young women who feel, you know, a little bit lost or, you know, hurt by other people in their lives, or for whatever reason, are looking for a little bit of inspiration and hope. They can sit down with perfectly Golden, and it can be something that really inspires them to not only invest in other women, but also feel like they deserve that as well. But yeah, that's, that's something that's pretty important.

Yeah. I mean, I should, I mean, I know she's not in the food industry is why she hasn't come on, But Jen, my wife has, like, you know, voiced a lot of the same thing. It's just kind of a different, what she says it's like a different feel to the, to the business. And, you know, it's something that she thinks is super valuable. And I, you know, so I have to agree with her, because she's right, about 99.9% of the things I think JC

said, I think that I pretty much write about it all.

I mean, yes, I mean, she's maybe a little conservative on what she wants me to do with my fists, physical human flesh sack, because she's worried I'm gonna break it. But you know, like,

I'm still upset. I'm still upset. She didn't let you deep fry herself.

I know it. Well. The thing is, if I hadn't lit myself on fire so badly with the St. George piece, I think she would have let me deep fry myself. But the fact that I so badly misjudged what it was going to be like to catch on fire. I think kind of, you know, poisoned the well, a little bit on trusting my quote, unquote, engineering skills when it came to the safety of, of my human form. I mean, I can see where she's coming from on that one. But,

I mean, I can't think of a more horrible demise than Yeah, the fire suit fryer suit failing, like, can you imagine now a leak spring and just having the vessel that you're inside of slowly Fill with boiling oil,

it would be real bad. So I mean, you know, Angela, you'll you'll sympathize with this. So I was using my I was using my superduper you know, like ridiculously expensive waffle iron. Also not a good time to have bought that waffle iron. But anyway, so like, in a leash waffle, there's always melted sugar and butter in the waffle iron and you just let it ride and so like, you know, last the waffle and waffle n minus one contributes its melted sugar to waffle and waffle n plus one along with extra butter that's leaking out of the double butter breaffy dough as you're making anyways. So So I was trying to get something out and I missed and dipped my pinky into the molten sugar well of the thing. Man, nothing's more fun than a molten sugar burn Am I right?

That is not a good burn that the first thing we always want to do with a sugar burn is like they told us in school I always remember this that for if you get a sugar burn on your finger, the first thing you want to do is like put it in your mouth and that's the last thing you want

it because your mouth is warm. You mean

like I don't know just weird reflex but you know

what I did? I cursed Yeah, I cursed myself. It was my fault. I should not have done it. You know, I

really think that honestly, you invested in that wire and at the perfect time because now you have liege waffles whenever you want. I think I ruined three just like Cuisinart Belgian waffle makers making Leo's waffles over the years. Because I just never wanted to like fork over the cash for a real one. Like that sugar is no joke.

You know what though? You like I would love for you to figure out the golden rod version of the leash waffle and get you one of them we as waffle irons. Because first of all, like the things that they sell in the US as Belgian waffle maker, it's an insult to the entire country of Belgium. Now Belgium does now John Mack kick John off the radio program today. So you know he can't sit here and defend his Belgian self. But like in the way that Canadian bacon that they serve here is an insult to Canadians and they're what they call bacon, like Belgian waffle as we make it as a freegan it's a friggin insult, man. Well, when you come back to New York, you know you can get the extra butter out of my iron and you can we'll we'll run through some stuff sounds great. Now, one bone to pick before I go further. You use cut measurements at the shop.

Oh yeah, that is a bone that a lot of people picked with me in the process of writing this book. Um it. Yeah, I don't know. So sue me. Good answer.

I mean, I don't want to sue you, but I mean, I mean, I'm gonna say I know you have at least one of the medium size Hobarts and you're showing up there with a cup measure and like leveling off like whipping your flower bucket up so that you can get the loft exactly the same way each time and doing the roof dupa scoop drop and leveling in the real life or do you have like a cut measure the size of my head? Well, we

have for sure converted some to just like, you know, we use like, some 25 Quart containers and so I know how many cups are in there or not 25 Quart 25 cup containers. But, you know, we're not doing a lot of leveling off. Um, we're just really, it's a wild west. Well, you

know what they say about Nebraska? It's the Wild West

possibilities. Yeah, the possibilities are endless,

endless. I wish you guys had kept that motto. The motto is so much better than your new model.

Here's a good Nebraska story. Dave connection and he actually went to school with the mayor of Lincoln, Nebraska.

That's true. Larian Mayor Larian Yeah, yeah. Yeah, how she doing over there. She's killing

it. She we have a really conservative state government who is really just going ahead and opening the state backup starting next week when our cases are like, I mean, just really out of their heads out of control. And so obviously not a good time to open up the state. But Larry is holding strong and really trying to like keep her control over our city at least and keep it as safe as possible.

Oh, she's she's good. People say howdy for me when you when you see one quick question on the same page where you say that you use cup measurements, I'm still picking that bone. You also say something about on your yeast dose that they should be impossibly fluffy before they go in the oven. And my question is on proofing. In general, when you're doing gluten free, do you prove differently from when you're doing a recipe with gluten or not in terms of how much loft you get before you put it in to the oven?

Yeah, so it's funny you pick out that term, specifically because that was actually coined by Mindy Laval herself one of the people who worked for Dave and was in the internship program when I was there. She coined the impossibly fluffy term. So gluten free for sure has a little bit in the recipes in the book they had, we don't do like a first proof like you make the dough. For example, if you're making cinnamon rolls, you make the dough and then you just immediately start portioning it out and start rolling it out for buns. So like there's no first proof. And then like what we do at the bakery is we put them in the freezer, and we take them out and proof them as we as we need them before we bake them. So it's definitely a similar process in the sense that you know, we want to get some good rise, if you don't get good rise from your yeast products that are gluten free before they go in the oven. That's when you're going to end up with like a hockey puck. And so I ended up using a little bit more yeast than a lot of gluten free yeast funds that I have recipes that I've looked at, because you really have to make sure that you get that rise and with a little bit of extra yeast in your gluten free products, you're gonna you're gonna see that so we still do the the rise before it bakes. But there's not a first proof.

One other question on ingredients before we go on to main main sections of the book and whatnot. Wet because one of the nice things about the book is that there's a little checkoff thing calling you what's called u du u where you say you can either you can make this recipe completely traditionally, and some you can't some only, you know, don't work traditionally. And you can say like kind of which which ones you can do. So it's like a pick, pick your own on the whole thing. But in your ingredient section, you say that when you're going to put dairy milk back into a recipe that was formulated for either almond milk, which is your typical one, or a coconut, depending that you use one to 2% instead of regular whole? Is that because even though you know I find them extra credible, is that because they more closely match the recipes that have been tested with the non dairy milk?

Yeah, that is exactly it. So like a whole milk is going to is not going to have the same consistency as like an almond milk or an oat milk or

a coconut milk.

Oh, and by the way, you know how I know we're exactly the same about a lot of things. I read one section. I gotta gotta find the exact quote. But oh, here it is. You right. You'll know you'll know when it's done. Just please speak about when employers first come and start working for you. And they're like, how long is this? How long is this guy a cook or how might you say they saw recipes at Goldenrod as they saw recipes that read simply salt or vanilla or even and spices with no measurements listed, they asked where to find working oven timers, as the one in our convection oven had recently stopped working as they all do. You'll know when it's done is what you told them, which at first they didn't believe and looked at me stunned. And so it's like, I think people don't understand, especially in in baking, or I know people always get on me about get on me about like, because like, you know, my job theoretically is to be precise and scientific about everything. But like, my standard amount is how much how much read the right amount, you idiot. The correct amount, exactly how long am I supposed to bake it until it's done?

And like, it's, that's what makes it so hard. Like, I mean, what? When you're writing a book, a baking book, for me, what's really challenging is like actually giving those precise times specifically your temperatures, because Hi, do not have your oven. I do not have your kitchen. And so I think what's really important and what I really tried to do with this book was to give people the skills to understand what it looks like, when it's done, and what it feels like when it's done. Because it is impossible for me to tell you exactly at what moment at what minute at which minute, you should take it out of the oven. And that's why timers are irrelevant in the kitchen. So like if it breaks then it's like, the sooner the better. But yeah, my

especially Go ahead. Oh, and home kitchens when most humans don't have oven thermometers, and don't even know how hot the revenue is to begin with.

Yeah, in. In most home kitchens, you can almost bake by smell because the kitchen, the extraction, the hoods are so bad in kitchens that you can pretty much smell when something's done. You know what I mean?

And I always tell my like, my bakers, too. And, and this is a little, this is a little bit different in a home kitchen. But um, you should always kind of get in the mindset that something's in the oven. And I always kind of I tell my bakers, like, we're not using timers, because that's not really going to help you but just always be thinking like, oh, every five minutes every however often. Do I have anything in the oven? Is there anything that I should check. And when you're at home, it's like, once you start getting more comfortable, you'll get to that point where you're like, oh, yeah, I have something in the oven. And maybe that's just me, maybe I'm just kind of a freak, but you'll smell it. And you'll start to get familiar and like, it's a very sensory thing. Like, yes, you can use a timer. But when something is done, smell the air smell like, remember what it smells like. And that way when you're just like kicking it on your couch, you can smell and be like, oh, yeah, this is what it smells like when it's done.