Hello, everybody, and welcome to a brand new series on heritage radio network called the culinary call sheet where we give a peek into the back kitchen of culinary media. I'm your host, April Jones,

and I'm your co host, Darren bresnitz. Part of why we started the show was to offer an unofficial mentorship for anyone who's interested in learning about all aspects of food and video, whether that's TV, social media online, or just something you want to do for fun.

Absolutely what was once niche or a little silly, as I'm sure you remember, Darren, when we started out, this man has now become such a massive playing field for so many creatives using food as the medium.

It's something that has driven us professionally and personally, for so many years. What excites me the most about this show is that we're going to sit down with some of the industry leaders to hear how they made it and what drew them into this industry.

With 20 years in the culinary production game ourselves. We're hoping we can give through these conversations an insider's view into personal stories from the field, as well as an in depth behind the scenes look into some of the most popular food programming. In today's evolving culinary media landscape.

We'll be covering everything from how to style your food, to how to license IP, to developing your own ideas, and some tips from the masters of how to host your own show.

Yeah, it's a little bit of conversation, how to and how do you do the things that you do in color media, which I'm so excited about? I love so many of the guests that are coming on this season. We have talent from Food Network from Vice media eater refinery 29,

we've met some of the best people in the world both in front of and behind the camera. And we're bringing them all together to share their stories, their delicious adventure and their unique journey into this crazy world.

So to be the first to hear our episodes when they launched this fall, go to wherever podcasts are streaming, and hit subscribe and make sure to give us a follow at the Culinary call sheet on Instagram.

This episode is brought to you by Ben to table a monthly food subscription service for avid home cooks focused on delicious and sustainable pantry items. Learn more at Ben to table.com that's bntotable.com and when you use code Hrn for new subscription, you get $20 off and Hrn gets $10

the Stasi you do it,

then then then then

Anastasia from that moment on normally has stopped listening. Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking you just coming to you live somewhere from my house. The Lower East Side. The Stasi. Where are you? Are you? Where are you? Are you in you in Connecticut? You in New York?

I'm in Hell's Kitchen.

You're in Hell's Kitchen, and we got we got Matt What are you? Uh, you're in like something like Park Slope? We're

still still in Rhode Island.

Oh, Rhode Island, Rhode Island. Rhode Island, and Providence Plantations. What's the full name of your state there?

It's not my state. So I just know that it has a very long name. I do not remember the long what you just said.

It's the smallest state with the largest or the longest name. It's like one of those. Whereas Delaware, I like to refer to it as the not even state because it's not even the smallest. It's not even Rhode Island. It's just like, Hi, we're there for you. We're the 49th state by size. They have no tax so they have that bishop

clearly Misha cleave off a portion of it to get ahead of us.

What to Delaware. Do you think Delaware should get rid of some? Yeah,

I should get rid of somehow there's gotta be some pieces of Delaware that don't matter. Cut them off. get smaller.

Do you know I've never spent an evening in Delaware. I've never spent the Stasi. Have you ever spent an evening in Delaware? No, no, I haven't. Math Matthew who spent in a

I don't think so. I've entered the Dogfish Head brewery in Delaware while driving through but it's kind of a drive thru state you know.

I mean, I'm sure it's nice, don't it? Doesn't it border the Chesapeake there? Isn't there like nice river stuff there. Isn't there nice? Like?

What? Yeah, I just remembered I spent three days on a golf course in Delaware because that's where somebody chose to do their wedding.

And yeah, how was that? Don't

recommend that? Yeah,

don't do that. No, you're not you're not a golfer.

Well, driving the golf carts was great. I was all about that. And they're the only mode the main mode of transportation but

I do like golf carts. So my sister in law Miley carpenter who runs the Food Network magazine, she launched and runs who'd never magazine long illustrious career in food journalism prior to that, and you know my brother in law Wiley do Frane well known chefs and now currently donut magnate, they're a they're a firm believer in the golf cart. They love a golf cart.

Yeah, I mean, it was it was especially a novelty for Kate because she my wife does not know how to drive it's not licensed to drive so she got to just tour around.

Did you just do the tedious do the bore at my wife? You did you did the boy wife.

I was raised on that. I don't I don't even know how to say my wife without without boarding it.

Yeah, yeah. You know, like, Bora. I don't want to offend anyone out there. I hate that movie. I think that I think that look Sacha Baron Cohen. I think he's like extremely talented. And Modaks my son DAX just ran into the room saying that I'm a bad person because he you can see they can hear you. You can hear them. You think boy, that's the greatest movie ever made? Yeah, right. Your dad's probably come over here so they can hear you. You think that borax the greatest movie ever? Right?

I mean, it's funny. We have some messed up stuff.

So it's mean spirited. See, I think someone your age slike you know, a teenager doesn't understand the mean spirited nature of that program. It the humors entirely mean spirited. That's why I don't like it like it. He's mean spirited towards other people if he was just being mean spirited towards himself and his friends. I mean, that's one thing. You know what I mean? You know, that's just my that's just my take on it. And what do you think stuff like that stuff?

I don't really remember that. Well. I thought it was okay. So maybe left a lot.

That was like it was mean spirited, but made me laugh a lot. Like that's a good. Anyway, I've

never I've definitely never seen the actual movie I've seen. What was it? The allergy show? That was where the character came up, right?

Well, yeah, he just says, you know, I whatever, whatever. Like I say, I think he's very talented. I think that's just mean spirited. Whatever. It is what it is. So you want to start here. You should get yourself a golf cart. You can get them real cheap.

I'm not really spending money right now. So

Lambo no one has we're alive. We're locked in rooms. We don't have any stuff. But I'm saying you can go like this. This seems like the kind of thing you would go you own a car to trade it for a golf cart. Imagine if you drove a golf cart on i 95. Listen, you'd get there quicker. You'd get if you drove from your house on now it's not legal, but you definitely get there quicker you go right along the right along the shoulder. For those of you that don't know, the corridor between where Anastasia is places in Connecticut, and New York City is just I mean, the Stasi comes from LA so she's used to bad traffic but like that is like the worst chunk of road in in 100 mile radius from here probably i 95. Right. I mean, it's just garbage all the time garbage.

Yeah, but now it only takes me 42 minutes door to door because there's nobody on the road.

And everyone just staying home. Yeah, speaking of this is the

two hours and 58 minutes from Newport to my apartment in Brooklyn the other day that's a land speed record.

Yeah, do you like not worry about speeding or the cops out getting I have not left my house other than to walk my dogs in a week? I'm on the second starting my second week of self quarantine because I've felt sick so I just haven't gone out haven't gone shopping haven't done any of that stuff. So I'm totally you know, I'm totally disconnect started to like disconnect myself from reality here at this point. So that that's me. By the way, speaking of this, let's talk let's talk Corona for a second. Thanks, everyone who's supported the the GoFundMe for the staff at existing conditions by the way, once that's done, that's going to be split equally among all of the people that we had to unfortunately lay off speaking of this Stasi Have you heard that Jose Andres is continuing to pay staff in DC even though the restaurant shut down? That's awesome. I wish we could I wish we could afford to do that. That's you know fantastic I you know, we're going to definitely need some help going forward. But I mean, we as an industry, here's something I thought of next time this happens, I'm going to be so much better prepared in terms of my kind of disaster preparedness food situation. Like back after 911 We started having what we call like tear supplies at home. And then but with something like this you never know when you're going to just have to be locked into your house for a couple of weeks at a time. I would have planned much better. Do you note Anastasia you have a lot of pasta. Yeah. So you're set for one thing

that I've stopped eating is

is what is meat?

I stopped eating meat and chicken Yeah. Why? Yeah,

because you don't have it. I just I

found it really gross, like, just really gross after like five days

when you sit,

and then just having like this raw animal, like I was just like this gross. So, yeah, just not eating it.

Oh, I'm trying to I'm trying to try and put my head around this. So it's like that you're saying that the raw product is staying in your fridge too long. And so you're looking at it and you're like, That's gross, you should freeze it.

But then I have to thaw it. And then All right, let's

let's talk about this. This is a good point. This is a good point. This is a good point, Anastasia brings up a good point here, that the trick of this and what I'm going to do the next time around, or before the next time around, here's the issue. Let's say you go out, let's say you're gonna go full prepper. Right, let's say you're gonna go full Mormon prepper. And let's say you have a basement because of course you do. And you have like a year's worth of food and 55 gallon drums like nuclear Armageddon style in your basement. The issue with this is everything has a finite lifespan, right. So the what people do is you look on your like what canned goods can last for X number of years, blah, blah, blah. And then you end up with a bunch of canned and dry goods that are steadily turning to garbage in your pantry, right or in your fridge or you have a whole bunch of chicken. And since everyone else in your family got vaporized in the Armageddon, or if you're like the Stasi, you're just cooking for yourself anyway, then you you know you have all of this stuff, and you don't want you can't thaw out entire big block of it. If it's only you're only eating that one piece of chicken that night, right. So what to do, first of all, invest in freezing individual portion controls. So as soon as you get the products that you get take them down into individual portions, I know it's a little seems a little bit wasteful, but you're going to be saving in the long run, put them into quart size or smaller quart size. Ziploc bags exclude the air using the water technique, which you can see on the Cooking issues blog. If it still exists somewhere on how to package it also everyone else has it now you put it you get the air out of it. And then you freeze the individual packs, those individual packs can be thought in running water in your sink in under 25 minutes. They're good to go. And some of it can even be cooked from frozen and have it be passable. So. So that's step, step one right there with your frozen stuff. So you're not staring as Anastasia had at a bunch of stuff. And then when you have that stuff there, you think you're going to use it you think people are going to come over, they're not going to come over because either you're quarantined, or they've been, you know, already vaporized in different kinds of Armageddon. So anyway, so you have that. The second thing is, and this is what I'm going to do the next time around, is I'm going to buy my supply of food. And then every year I'm going to make sure everything is good for two years minimum. And then every year I'm going to donate all of it to a food pantry and buy it fresh this way. I always have a year of shelf life left on my stuff. I'm not donating expired food to people and yet I don't have to live off of my terror supplies on a normal basis. That's going to be my plan going forward. My terror slash pandemic supplies. So what I've run out of is because I live in New York City apartment and I have extremely limited freezer space is I've run out of vegetables. That's the main thing I've run out of is veg. But what whatever.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah. All right. Should we do some questions?

Yeah. And elephant. There are actually a couple in the chat that I didn't see until now. Elvin had a small logistics question about existing conditions, in addition to the GoFundMe, are there any other good ways to directly help the bar and staff? He tried to find some kind of gift card page, but wasn't able to find one. Any thoughts?

Dan Lee is working on that. On the gift card aspect, so for right now, you know, the GoFundMe, which is going to go directly to the staff. It's laid off and it's we're we're dividing it. I'm pretty sure we're just dividing it on an equal basis. So we're not trying to, you know, play favorites with that or anything like that. It's just going to be divided up and handed to the staff that was laid off. And, you know, as for anything else, we haven't started delivery yet because we're still setting up the seamless stuff. I won't be able to personally help with delivery until minimum Monday. Because I shouldn't be handing people food. Right? Because I'm on self quarantine. So other than that, yeah, other than that, I don't know Oh, but stay tuned to the existing conditions. Stay tuned to the existing conditions, Instagram and you know, anything that we're doing is gonna go up on that. What else you got in the chat room there, Matt?

Ah, let's see. So, bread baking physics question from Wally. Please explain to me again how a pot of water at 99 see on the bottom shelf in the pre heated convection oven is different than injecting steam at the beginning of my Bake. I'm planning to run a silicone tube from my pressure cooker vent to the oven for why would that be a good idea or not? Thanks.

First of all, anytime anyone says tube and I'm on earphones like this, I can only think of Senator was his name Stevens from Alaska talking about the internet being a series of it's a series of tubes, those tubes series of tubes over which we're now we're now talking. So here's the difference. When you put a pan of water in the oven, you are taking a big chunk of the thermal load. So if you were to measure, well, I've only measured in a toaster oven, because it's the only thing I can adequately measure the heat the energy input on but the energy input into my Breville toaster oven, with a full pan of water in it versus not is a lot lot higher. So you're dumping a lot of the thermal energy in so and that's not necessarily that you wouldn't think alone is going to necessarily change, you know the dynamics of what's going on in the oven. But if you're expecting there to be a big heat wallop other than the steam available to you to do something like let's say heat a pizza stone or whatnot, you'd be mistaken, because in fact, you're heating up that water, and that water then is probably keeping that pizza stone at a lower overall temperature than it would be. Otherwise, it's my guess now. Whereas if you make the steam in a separate thing, and then inject it, right, you're only injecting the steam, you're not really affecting the temperature of the or the I should say, the dynamics of the oven that much. And even if you were to do what a lot of people do do, which is drip water in and vaporize it in the oven, that extra heat load is only there for the time where you're vaporizing it as opposed to being in there on a constant basis, right? So you're spending all of this energy keeping this like big pot of water, hot and vaporizing a lot of water, right? As opposed to just injecting the steam when you want it and then having the steam take away. So I guess that would be the difference. That's just my guess.

That makes sense. How are people I'm having a hard time visualizing as though how is he going to be injecting steam from the pressure cooker like on a consistent basis into his functioning of him?

Well, what I've always wanted to do is run a water line like along the bottom of the oven, let's say and then you just turn the water on from an outside reservoir when you want it and that would vaporize the steam. Now you'd be using the oven energy like I said before, but typically like especially a gas oven has excess energy. So you'd heat up the you'd heat up the stone or whatever else you're using the steel piece, then you'd inject water into a part of the oven. That doesn't matter as much the bottom, let's say and then that you'd use the excess energy from that to vaporize the steam the steam would go and then you'd have your your your thing so I mean I assume that'll be slightly different. Who is enjoying a delicious crunchy snack during the radio show?

Oh my god, you can hear that. I was trying to chew I thought I thought there was no way All right fine.

Yeah, all right. I have to say stuff. I thought it was gonna be you thought it was gonna be you.

It was closed mouth I'm two feet from the friggin computer. I'm I'm amazed it's fine.

So listen, listen.

This this system is better than than the setup in Bushwick. So

listen, if people haven't told me Listen, listen, listen. So I have been told so I took the 23andme Anastasia took the 23andme they paid by the way they gave you the ability to look at your at the at the updated records right says Anyway, whatever. Yeah, so like Anastasia was an extremely early adopter giving her genetic information to the 23andme Corporation. I was a late adopter only after it became apparent that they were stealing my genetic data and using it for nefarious purposes. Did I give it to them because that's when it became interesting to me. But the so anyway, so apparently, like some of us are more genetically disposed to hating the sound of crunching people brunching people in my family sit and eat and crunch things constant li constantly. I can't stand it. It's like, it's like I want to soak every crunchy snack in this house in water for like a year or so that it turns to just a sopping wet thing. So I don't have to hear it. It's like the Stasi. I know you're with me on this. Like, yeah. Is there anything worse, let's say Miss Dawson, let's dasya let's say, let's go back a month and pretend that you're at one of the gala gatherings that you usually cook for when we're not in Corona times. Right? So you're back there. And you're sitting there and you're cooking, right? And someone walks up behind you. You hear the rustle of the frickin pack. Plastic, crunchy pack. Nobody would do that. Open up and then they're eating a chip or something behind your dang head when you're cooking. You'd punch them.

That's why the cheese played out so that they're not near you. Ever. Right? Also hearing somebody to lead silence?

Oh, yeah. You get now there's like, right? That's a complete silence. You have to like, yeah, the Stasi is gonna like hi, like Nastasia will pay you to ramble on live in the background, so that she doesn't have to deal with

her when I was waiting for this show to happen. And you were like, upset.

We could all hear you. We're waiting. We were also waiting for the show to happen. But in order for the show to happen, you have to stop listening to your stuff

was a confusing technical situation. It's fine. Don't worry. I'm so I'm soaking my chips. All right. I'm so good. Everything's great.

So I have been told that among the other things that I'm a bad person for is extreme how extremely intolerant I am of crunching but I especially hate crunching when I'm not eating. If I'm not eating. Right. And other people are crunching What's worse than that, Anastasia.

Well, but again, Dave, you you have people over you put the cheese plate out you expect to not eat because you're cooking and they're eating and you live free.

Let's just uh, let's take it to a different scenario. Let's say that there's a certain life coach, who most of the time lives in Mexico, and she's staying in your house, let's say right? And you're and you're reading something, you're trying to read something you're like reading. And already that already like if you're in New York, right? New York is so intensely irritating, like, like every second there'll be some freaking jackhammer outside to take you away, and you have to reread that sentence 85 times, and then a certain life coach sits down, and it can be on the other side of the room. And all you hear is first of all, you're hungry, but you're not eating right, you're hungry.

What she does, she does the finger flick. So she puts her hand and she eats the thing chips and then she flicks all five fingers with the salt and the fingers like Sorry, onto the floor or like onto the into the ether. You know that?

Oh my god. Oh, geez, geez, geez, geez, geez, listen, if you are with somebody else in the house, and it's quiet time, and it's quiet time. Right? Don't eat crunchy food, eat crunchy food on your own or in a non quiet environment. Put on some put on some music. I mean, so that that Yeah. Music helps the crunch. For sure. For sure. Music helps the crunch. This is why Anastasia doesn't go to movie theaters.

Right? Yes, that is true.

And I know for a fact, right that it here's the thing if you're going to sneak While there's no movies now, but if you're like when movie theaters open up again, and you go to a movie theater, like have the decency to bring stuff in non crinkly packaging. Right, right. If you're going to sneak food in I get it you're gonna sneak food in. Have some decency? No crackling rice does.

I've told me that you were like, crazy. And then you went to see the movie and you're like, wow.

Well, it's because I hadn't been to a movie and so long. You know that when I finally went to a movie. Anyway, did you have any more questions in the chatter che go to some of our preset questions?

We have we have one that just came in? Can I prepare in advance portions of chicken breast complete with spices and oil. sealed in a Zippy and frozen with the intention of going straight from the freezer to a low temp? waterbath?

Yeah, yeah. Yes. The answer to this is yes. However,

shortest answer of all time. Yeah.

I mean, depending on the salt level that you use, you're gonna get some textural changes, but usually those textural changes aren't hated in chicken. So, so there you have it. Hey, hey, Have either of you been to this? This takeout like Southern Chicken Salad Recipe chicken soup. Have a restaurant that's only open six days a week. Have you heard about I heard an NPR show on I wish I could remember the name of it that have you been to it? Haven't heard of it. Crazy story. Crazy story. Woman. Woman starts a woman starts a chicken salad like doesn't want to like she has her kids. She wants to do something with chicken salad. She starts this restaurant, which then becomes franchise she gets while she gets divorced finds another person who's interested in chicken salad, they get married, they have a franchise. This guy gets cancer die she starts a foundation to help people with cancer with the chicken salad. And still tso's chicken. I mean like it sounds like a crazy story but the reason I was interested is she uses a none of that. Who cares about that stuff right now she uses a a boiled chicken or she calls it boiled but I'm sure it's not boil boil boiled chicken versus a roast chicken for a chicken salad. And this is the way that Shaka pen makes his chicken salad which is also the way he was taught by famous actor but also conductor and food bone vivo, Danny Kaye so like Japan and a classics in the field I did a long time ago. His ad is cut off series has a chicken salad Allah Danny K recipe in it where the trick is you take the chicken you cut it up you I can't remember whether he makes like, like you start with water but I usually do it with chicken stock because why not, you know cheap chicken stock. You put the veg and the chicken into the pot, like a packet with chicken packet with chicken and just enough liquid around it like take up space and then you bring it up to the boil, put the lid on it and then let it ride the whole chicken cooks through without getting too overcooked. you reinforce the broth because you started with a broth it doesn't reduce the flavor of the chicken that much and that is how Danny Kaye slash Jack Papan makes his chicken salad sounds very similar to way this lady makes her chicken for chicken salad. So there you have it. I love a chicken salad and I know for a fact that the Stasi has a lot of raw chicken in her fridge right now.

All I have is tofu Satan. Vegetables,

you don't strike me as a Satan person what happened there you just decided to go Seta

I just decided to go non meat.

Why like you went from never buying that stuff? What would you what kind of tofu did you get?

I only I don't like silky I got hard or whatever. It's for

firm. What do you do with it? By like, how do you purchase it? You just getting it at the supermarket? Yeah, we didn't do it.

I've been putting it in oil and then putting in the oven. Fishing in the oven. There's like a lot of this marinate, so that was marinated. It's good.

Now's a good time. If you're trapped at home if you have soy beans, and you already have some coagulant. making tofu is in fact a lot of fun. And not that hard. It's messy manga, I'd be lying to you if I said it wasn't messy. But it's not that hard. And the tofu you get when you make it yourself is just mean it's just to me, it's a different product from the stuff you get in the stores. Because it's never been. It's never been soaked in water. You know, it's just like, it's very kind of like tastes of itself and like has kind of a really cool texture to it. So I would recommend and if you are on Amazon, you can either get the classics in the field that we did a couple of weeks ago on the book of shirt leaves a book of soy, tofu and miso. Or you can get Andrea and wins Asian tofu book with it, which has perfectly good recipes on how to make tofu and go from never making tofu is definitely something to do if you have a lot of time on your hands. Speaking of DAX wants to learn how to make brioche that's what he wants to do. I'm like DAX Why don't you choose a bread that doesn't take so many eggs and so much butter you know because like that's the stuff I'm going to run out of we're gonna go through pounds and pounds and pounds of butter. Already every week I have to make leash waffles for the kid and then he's also going to eat the brioche on top of it I'm like I'll just give you a give you like a gallon of oil you can just chug a gallon of oil if you want

we should we should go to break and then we do have a very very we have a doozy of a question that I need to get to from the chat.

So then we'll come back though you want to do the classics in the field or not come right back in classics and

this episode is brought to you by Ben to table a monthly food subscription service for avid home cooks focused on delicious and sustainable pantry items. Level up your pantry Ben to table is kind of like Stitch Fix but for your pantry monthly upgrades that overtime transform the ingredients at home cooks does Boesel when a Stitch Fix You get clothing sent to your house. The three different subscriptions provide very different options. First box pantry essentials incredible dry staples each month the global delicacies box a way to explore the cuisine of a different country and culture. Then to table box includes both pantry essentials and global delicacies. By purchasing any subscription you'll help sustainable well produced ingredients and small producers. Hey, Anastasia, we're getting boxes. Start your monthly subscription at Ben to table.com that's b e n t o ta B le.com. Use the discount code Hrn to get $20 off a new subscription and Ben to table will donate $10 to sport cooking issues and all of hrs programming

starts here. You'd never consider making your own tofu, right? Not interested.

Not interested? Actually, I'm not I'm not even interested in cooking anymore. Like I just it's just like eating food right now.

You want to wait so you've you've like as a result of this, you've become one of those human cows that just sits there chewing on their cut and I carry I

barely eat like, I'm like, What? What ritual? You know, am I celebrating right now? Like, it's just me.

That is true. Like, that's the that's the worst aspect of it. I mean, other

people that are like, Oh my god, I'm so happy to be with, you know, wherever they live with and they're like, we're gonna try out like his grandmother's recipe for the patient. I'm like, Yeah, that's great.

I'm gonna eat a block of tofu. You're like, you're like, you're like, I'm just gonna I'm gonna soak it in neutral oil because I don't deserve flavor. I'm going to just maybe I'll salted maybe I won't. I guess I need electrolytes.

Yeah.

Wow, that's rough. That's rough. I don't even know if I you know what, man I don't know if I can do classics off of that because I'm just feeling so rough from the staff is suffering. So by the way, if you hear piano in the background that I guess it that means it's time for Booker's music class. He's in the in the in the other room. And he hasn't. So his violin broke, we handed it to Sam ash and then I wasn't able to go pick it up to get it fixed. And now he's playing quote unquote, piano in his room. So there that's what that's what that is. Alright, so I'll do some Wait, what was the doozy of a question you haven't even met? Because I have some questions.

Are you legit? We're not doing I can't,

I can't, I gotta do I gotta do it afterwards. I can't, I can't get all excited for a classic from the fields in

the field. That's about like mental health or self care, something.

I shower and wash my hair on like a lot of other people. And I've been like getting dressed and I make my bed. So like, that's not a problem. It's just

I have not yet done cooking issues in my 20s because I have to walk the dogs before they ship. So this is a

listeners, listeners. You can look forward to that someday. I'm sure you'll feel the difference.

Just so you can picture it. You are listening to a Anastasia has showered she has clean hair I cannot know about you met. But as far as I'm aware, you are listening to a fully clothed production of cooking. We everyone knows I'm always fully clothed. But yeah, anyway.

Anyway, all right, Blair Gillespie Smith, says Hi, and hello from Poland. I'm putting some work into an espresso concentrate to be stored in individual.

So can we do this? Can we do this last week? Oh,

wait, oh, oh, that's the same espresso. Okay. Of course. It's the same espresso thing. Yeah. All right. Sure. My bad. All right. Well, wait, why it only came in three days ago?

I don't know. Maybe they haven't listened to the one from last week.

It was about trying to prevent the over extraction of residual solids and oxidation.

Yeah. But I said I didn't think it was the residual solids. It's it's other issues.

Okay, this person must have just submitted the same question afterwards. All right, great. Hey, Blair, listen to last week's episode. Yeah, also very on a nicer note. They thank you for quite literally changing the course of their life through this podcast a few years ago. There you go.

So what happened is I went and just tried to push the computer over but the crappy design on my laptop is that right at the corner is the sleep button. So if you go to just push the computer like even like like a micro inch over, it just goes Oh, you want to lead a turn off? Okay. And then it turns off all right. Tom J. Wilde wrote in on the Twitter Hey, Cookie issues given us some downtime. I want to make Moss Out of corn rather than the whole wheat that I currently use. By the way, we real mess if anyone ever doesn't matter. The issue is I cannot get non chicken slash fish feed dried field corn here in the UK. Should I use this hope you and your family are safe. Thanks, Tom. Yes, we are safe but bored out of our skulls. And you here's the issue. So first of all, you can make Macia out of popcorn. The issue with popcorn is is that popcorn varieties that they sell on the store are designed to have a very, very tough time. seed coat. And you know, so you get better explosions. And so they are consequently harder even after you make masa but they can't you can make mice out of popcorn. If you can only get a hold of popcorn, it's I've done it. It's, you know, not ideal, but it's possible. As for feed corn, there's a couple issues with the first of all, like the corn doesn't care what it was intended for, you know, the corn itself, right. And since, you know, I don't really care about whether or not it was GMO, etc, etc. Like, just take that where it is the main issue with feed corn versus human corn is one, it's going to be a lot filthier. So you're going to have, you know, a lot, I would guess that it would be a lot filthier in terms of like a more rat poop, you know, slightly more rat poop, slightly more, slightly more hair slightly more, slightly more raccoon teeth in it, then you would get in, you know, let's say one that was destined for human consumption. Because you know, if your chicken eats, you know, one more rat dropping, or one more rat, Raccoon tooth, what does it really matter? Right, one more pigeon feather. So there's that. So you're gonna have to clean that clean the heck out of it. You know, and maybe do better sorting than you otherwise would. The other issue is, is that I'm pretty sure if I looked this up a little bit, but I didn't have a lot of time. If you look up in the US, right there. The question is, is how much mold can grow on the corn? Soy? And we have a question about this in a second. So if you if you there are limits for corn that humans are going to eat on fungal contamination, and the reason is you don't want to have aflatoxins, which are mold based toxins on the corn, and are hard to see, right. So you wouldn't necessarily know now the good news is, if you're gonna have that corn, and it was designed to be fed to animals that people were going to eat, then it also has limits on on the fungus that can be in and the mycotoxins that can be in it. If however, it's corn that is being destined for feeding to deer or to wildlife that you're that aren't going to be consumed later by people, then I don't think there are a lot of limits. So you might have had corn that had been gotten wet and then moldy or you know, any one of a number of things. So if it was feed corn that was designed to feed to animals that people were then later going to eat or eat their products, then I'd say you're fine. As long as you give it a thorough wash down. It doesn't matter if it gets wet, because you're not grinding it into cornmeal, you're making it into masa, and I would just sort through it to get rid of any additional animal droppings or whatnot. Now, Neil, on a similar question from Los Angeles wrote in

that's, um, that when you remember that moment that did my hair when we were prepping for an event? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. We met both of them. Yeah. Yeah. So we went to we went to night market in a we were doing an event at night market at a staff training, and actually a pop up afterwards. And if so, Jack, and I were doing this staff training and the Stasio like, it was like, to hell with this. What the hell is this? So she goes next door to get her hair did and Lady recognize your voice? Right? Yeah. Yeah. Lady lady recognize? Yeah, Lady recognizes and stasis voice. Well, you tell the story.

Yeah. As she's washing my hair. And then she's like, Do you have a podcast? And I was like, yeah, and then she's like, do you make the series all and I was like, yeah, and then my brother makes me listen to the podcast and use this here's all he's a huge fan and then they both ended up coming to the to the thing that night that we were doing the pop up.

Well, yeah, but she says she hated us.

She hated the show and she hated the Circe hates so.

Yeah, but what we converted her when she came to night market we converted her No,

no, I think she still hates us. Here's on the show.

Right now, Neil, thanks for staying.

Well, why isn't it good that I got my hair done.

And associate just because like something good happens from something doesn't mean that the original decision was a good

thing happened.

So here's the thing. I was making cultured butter when disaster struck after three days of fermentation at room temperature between 55 Fahrenheit and 70 Fahrenheit. The top layer of the cream fresh grew a little fuzzy gray mold and see the attached photos which of course you guys can't see because you're on the radio and we don't have the photos on the radio. I used crappy storebought cream and equally crappy yogurt as a starter. I scraped off all the mold and turn the butter. I haven't eaten it yet. Because I prefer not to go to the hospital over some butter. That being said I'd also not I'd like to not Waste the butter. Do you think it's safe to eat? Or would you feed it to your family? Thanks, Neil from LA All right, Neil, I would not, okay, look here, a couple of things. One, one, you're in LA. So I'm not, I'm not supporting it as a great product or not. But if you need cream that doesn't have carrageenan in it to make butter with, or it's not karagin anymore, it's gel. And I'm pretty sure the Trader Joe's, at least on the East Coast, their cream does not have a stabilizer gel and stabilizer in it. So that's one way to go. If you can, like, if you if you have access to, like the restaurant supply, like the ones we get from dairy land are also just regular pasteurized instead of ultra pasteurized, and you'll get a better result with the butter. But anyway, that's not what you were asking neither here nor there, I would not use yogurt as a starter, I would get some cultured buttermilk and use cultured buttermilk as the starter for it. And then the last mistake that you've made is that it does not require three days of fermentation at 70, I'd bring it up to room temp, let it get a little warmer than that. And like one day Max really like in general, like 24 hours is all you're going to need. You don't need three days to get the level of Tang. And if you do, your temperature is too low, and you should raise the temperature, I would not eat it when there's mold on top once you get gray mold on top of your stuff, especially in something that's a semi liquid, like just set clotted cream is the the actual mold goes much, much deeper into it. So anytime you get a growth like that on top of a liquid, you kind of have to discard it. So I would say I would I mean I would taste it because that's me. But I wouldn't necessarily feed it to your family, there's not going to be that kind of aflatoxin. If there is one which you never know, right? And it's impossible because there's so many different kinds of molds that grow. It's impossible really to identify a mold on something like that. But because you didn't inoculate it with a specific known kind of mold, and it's not, you know, unknown benign mold, you have to assume that it's not. And the other thing about it is free, I was gonna say, Yeah, I wouldn't eat it. I would taste it for myself. Oh, yeah. Because the effects of aflatoxin aren't immediate and acute. Usually they're kind of longer term. And so you never know whether or not that cancer that you get down the road is from, you know, you never know what it's from. But every little bit of aflatoxin, which is, you know, many aflatoxins are known kind of very potent carcinogens, like every little bit kind of, you know, pushes you closer towards that edge. So I would not, I would not use it and in the future, I would I would keep your times a lot shorter. What do you think that's right.

This seems like an incredibly good time to avoid completely optional trips to the hospital.

That is definitely true. That is definitely true. All right. So And speaking of also bread, right, we do we have a bread thing earlier. Scott writes in and says, shows read, I'll read the thing from Scott. So this is, by the way, I was going to ask him to come on, but I didn't have enough time when I read this, but we can get our friend Jim Lahey back on the on the show, the only person who was completely unable to not curse for like, the very short time that we're on the radio and people who know me in the real life know, I know how to curse Anastasia, when I'm not on the radio, how, how long a string of words, can you and I put together with that person? And you and