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.

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This episode is brought to you by fair kitchens, learn about the fair kitchens code and join the movement at fair kitchens.com.

Welcome to processing a show about the intersection between food and grief with your host sarjan Guerra

and Bobby conforto.

On this show, we're gonna really explore or grief and food intersect out they go hand in hand different people's experiences with their specific traumas and how food played a part from the beginning to the end of that experience

and how as individuals we uniquely process life's traumas and losses. through either the longing for the creating of the avoiding of the obsessing over, and the eating of

food. I remember right after Michael died, I still miss him. But I missed him so badly that night that I stopped at the convenience store on the corner. And I bought a container of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia. It's too sweet, you know, it's too everything. And I went home with it. And I took it to bed. And I thought to myself, gee, so this is my first Manassa trois, after Michael's death. Me been a Jerry

What do you think your relationship to food was during times of crisis?

I think that my sister and I use food to reward ourselves

which is something more interesting to save it definitely like spaghetti and meatballs and chocolate cake.

My mom still can't eat rugelach makes her too sad.

I've also experienced a lot of loss, as has Bobby and I think we really wanted to find a way where we like work together. There's something that feels very compelling about doing a project with your mom as just kind of a missing piece in life and just something we've always wanted to do but not known quite how I think if anything better

myself I think that I mean any conversation about grief I think prepares everyone for grief because there are so few conversations about grief it's why I think what you guys are doing is so important

this is Dave Arnold your host coming to you live on the edge radio network from you know whenever to whenever first join as usual Anastasia hammer, Lopez, how you doing good. You're good. Yeah, you're still dressed in your parka. It's cold. I feel that you have a special past to wear your Christmas hat. I feel you should have your Christmas hat on. Now. Like maybe it's just like a tree hat with decorations like maybe it's like timeless from Nope. No No. Man in the booth as usual How you doing, man?

I'm doing good. But I've I had the door open to the studio while you did that. It's just downright frightening. Yeah, yeah, I've never I've never had the door open before.

Yeah, well, so you're like, not enjoyable. I get it. I

get it from all sides too, because it's coming out the speakers coming out that way. I can't, man. I'm out again.

Now. Sorry for you. Sorry for you. So I once had to do it on the street. For some here's the worst. Like, I don't do it anymore. Because stars and I decided that in general, we don't like to do it. But I've done it in a hotel room when I'm by myself. Because I had to call him you know, because I used to call him like, when I was in Germany. I did it once. on a street corner. In some other country. I forget where I was. And it's just like, it just feels really weird. Not doing it in the context of the booth. You know what I mean? Like in a hotel, like, two rooms down. someone's like, can you just have sex like a normal person in the room? And by the way, you do it? Not right. Imagine. It's horrifying. It's horrifying. So anything good happen in your world of food and drink this past week? Now, why didn't you bring me some nice food and drink from like they

gave you Meyer lemons and grapefruits from my parents backyard.

Nice. And what kind of great food really? I don't know. What color are they? White? How long ago were they on the tree? Five days ago. So Jason, nice to have you keep in your fridge? Nope. All right. Like Miss Darcy grew up with a Meyer lemon tree so she has a special love for them. I've never developed this low so she's bringing me her childhood Meyer lemons in the hopes that I can develop a similar love now. I hope you guys know that for her to actually like something from her childhood is like, like a crazy thing. I'm like, Miss dassia Why do you hate lemongrass? She's like, because I grew up with it. That I grew up with it. So I don't like it anymore. And like all the stuff from your childhood you don't like except for Myra limits? Yeah, yeah. How's come how come that someone

Oh, they're good. They're not as waxy as what you're used to. I don't think are you like the Waxiness is

a Waxiness mean of the peel? Yeah. I mean, they smell good. Yeah. fragrant. Oh, and this is from we're not exchanging gifts. This is from our friend bitterest girl gives me the Mrs. And comes to the heritage radio network and Nancy's glassware for you. Oh, she thought you were

so she's unwrapping it now. That's what's

happening. She's unreduced not

a tree. Like a tree trunk?

Well, if a trail the same for tree was an octagon, I don't know. They're yours. I didn't open it. Anyway, cool. Thank you. Now, you said nothing good in food and drink happened here at all. See, what did I do? I had to do so already. The parties had no good food and drink. No. Did you throw any parties? No, he's going to other people's party. I had to throw the Booker's yearly sushi party. So my son Booker, who you know is a lover of only candy and sushi and cure New Zealand King Salman. Which by the way, turns out our guests from New Zealand King Salman has seen him at the bar a couple of times, Michael, he he used to be working with our classics in the field from two weeks ago, Paul Bertolli at from ani his sausage thinks he knows so it's like all of the cooking issue stuff is coming together. Isn't that weird? Anyways, so Booker, of course, had to eat his half kilo of ikura. But then every year I do the like, you know, they all want to make, you know, sushi rolls like American style sushi rolls like California and salmon, all stuff. So I have to make all the stuff and so every year I have to, you know, Morimoto style like rotary cut veg and then into sheets and then hack those sheets in the sticks so that they can be placed inside of the sushi roll, you know, you know how you do. So I typically I'll do you know, cucumber, carrot, Daikon, and pickled daikon. I think that's an scallions and that's it anyway, for veg. Avocado, but I don't do the same thing. You can't rotary cut an avocado. What do you weirdo rotary cutting. Do you know what the old English D bag name for avocado is? Are you familiar with this mat? No, it does not make sense until you've tasted other kinds of avocados. Okay, wrap your mind around this alligator pear. Oh, alligator pear. Now, for those of us that grew up having The image of the avocado in your mind be the Hass avocado, right? Or like, you know, weirdos in grocery stores call it Mexican avocados, right? Haha. So because in Mexico they have so many more varieties of avocado than Hass, right? But anyway, the Hass avocado is kind of that bumpy, bumpy, one that is delicious and soft and high in oil, right? So you can get the alligator part out of that, because it's all looks like an alligator. That makes sense. And I guess it's kind of pear shaped to maybe that's why they call it an alligator pear. But the texture is nothing like a pear. But if you have some of the other non oily varieties of avocado like Colombian avocados, then I can see more closely how they're like oh, I gay kids kind of like maybe because it's not just like a vehicle for like oil and creaminess and anxiousness. It's like something that you might eat not like bite it like a pair, but it makes more sense other than just the shape and the skin alligator pear. You know what they call asian pears in stupid old apple? No, no. Sand pears, which is not a nice thing to call it. And they're not pears. Neither are they apples, but I do like Asian pears. No. Why? No, no.

What is it about all of it texture flavor?

You don't like the texture? Huh? Huh? What about you, Matt?

I feel like No, I haven't had one in a long time. I should try. I should try it again.

Yeah, you should. There are many, many varieties of Asian pear, right? But, but I think maybe in the stasis and tell me if this is your gripe on them. They're mainly about the kind of crunch and the water explosion texture with like kind of a mild floridly and sweet taste but they're not kind of rich or complicated that

way in general, same category as water chestnuts which I don't like

oh my god. I told you my wife hates water chestnuts. Jen hates water chestnuts and she also by the way, sorry hates me talking about it. Because she thinks she's like, why you got to bring up like the the one thing I don't like, you know what I'm saying? She's like, You're a jerk. You make me look like a bad guy. It's the one thing I don't like but it's like, you know, I feel that there's like a community of people out there who hate water chestnuts out all out of proportion. And for me, I don't understand the hatred. Now remember people I don't like melon other than watermelon. So we all have our issues in life cooking issues specifically, but water chestnuts to me it's just like some sort of like it's like crunchy water like what is that? Is it that? That weird? It's not fibrous, but that weird, like mealy crunchy that you don't like? Yeah, I guess so. Where are you on water chestnuts? Matt.

I have not had a water just not well, a little

what? What year? Were you born?

86.

Yeah, man. Maybe it's like a generational thing. What year were you born? So like, wait somewhere between 82 and 86?

It disappeared

a lot of Chinese food growing up. Yeah, but I feel like even like you saying Matt hasn't had to

wait. Okay. Yeah, hold on. Well, okay. Have a look at the internet for say the water sensors. The ones that what is the thing that sort of has like a bunch of circles almost looks like you're eating the plastic that SOTA six pack would come.

Are you thinking of bamboo shoots? Are you thinking of loads of lotus root?

Probably lotus root?

It's got holes in it. It's a disc with holes. You know cream colored? That's a lotus root level lotus root Okay. Yep. Still no on the largest notes I think you don't you see it? I think I feel like in the 70s Like every pseudo Chinese restaurant. Sorry, every pseudo Chinese recipe that like why do you make whitington would make at home had water chestnuts what and baby corn? I do not like baby corn. I'm gonna go on record as saying baby corn is not good. You know, I'm saying that baby corn Matt.

I don't I mean, I'll eat it if someone puts it in a thing but it's not I would not by choice purchase it.

Do you know what's delicious? Corn? Corn is amazing. Oh my god corn tastes good. Oh my god is corn. Good you are you also have to do almost nothing to make it taste so Oh, corn tastes so good. Also, like, like sweet corn tastes good. corn meal is great. Like, almost every aspect of the corn

soy baby corn actually is sort of genius because it's much worse than corn but also much smaller. So you don't have as much of the bad food. Yeah,

but you took that corn. Well, okay. So they do grow smaller varieties, but really, it's immature corn and you're eating the cob. When was the last time you were eating corn and you were like, damn, I wish I could eat that cob. That happened to you know, so then they like cook it and like Kennett, it's not even usually interestingly pickled. It's in that kind of like, water in that baby corn water. You know, I'm talking about Anastasia, and he's just like, that was a 70s thing. I feel like people have tried to bring it back a bunch, but I'm like, Why? Why? Like, why? Like, I don't understand it. Something that I'm trying I've tried to love many times, is canned hearts of palm to now hearts of palm. I like kind of I've had good hearts of palm but like, I've tried to make myself love hearts of palm and I'm always like, what's to come? What's to love so much? We're about you, Anastasia don't

like it. You also don't like giant beets, red beets.

I like red beets. I just don't like this is a long discussion but I told you the best beats I've ever had were those dehydrate roasted beets anyway, here's the here's the flip for you. So like a vegetables that come in just kind of like flavor list like water. Right? You got your baby corn. Right? And then you got your canned artichoke hearts now canned artichoke hearts are a pale comparison to a actually well done nice. Like, you know artichoke heart whether you like braise it whether you you know fry it, I usually fry them not deep fried, but you know, like pan fry to get a crisp on the one side. But like that's a huge difference between the canned stuff but I haven't yet had that huge difference where like I'm like, I now understand hearts of palm because I've grown up on the water variety because when you look at a canned artichoke cart you're like me usually buy if you're gonna buy pre made you buy oil pack right? Yeah, yeah, but you've had the the Canned Water ones right. And you're like, man, right. And I don't you feel the hearts upon might be that way that there might be some sort of genius inside of a heart upon the way there is inside of artichoke with the way artichoke is

there is and why you've experimented. No, I just don't like hearts upon.

I don't what have you ever had anything other than the canned?

No? Okay. And you like it not canned?

I'm trying to say I've never had the experience I don't feel like I know enough. I don't know. I don't know I don't have enough experience with hearts that grow anywhere where they grow like it's the center like if you strip off the top of the palm it's the growing shoot in the middle of the palm yes you a small palms, but the thing is, is that they there's a couple of different varieties of a thing of palm like of air KC thing that they harvest the hearts of palm and some when you harvest it like they're dead. That's it You knock off the thing and then the palm tree is dead, dead dead. Weirdo finished over and then some you can re harvest a couple of times, but you're basically just harvesting that worst

meal would be baby corn, water chestnuts, cantaloupe, ambrosia salad.

I like ambrosia and giant red beet. You don't like ambrosia

we have a color

color. I didn't even finish the thing but we'll get to that sushi asked me about sushi party. Caller you're on the air. Hey,

this is Josh coming from Sarasota, Florida. Hey, looking good. How are you? Alright, looking for some some advice on doing like a long cook like a low temp cook on a chuck roast. Okay, like 24 to 48 hours, right? I did I did a 24 hour cook on one like a couple weeks ago it came out pretty good. The temperature the texture was is a little chewy still. And so I'm planning on doing a 48 Everyone this coming weekend for some friends but it didn't know if you had any input before I put myself out there with with friends. You know what I'm saying? What

temperature did you use?

I did succeed Celsius because I was doing from an endless who don't like things to be too rare. I was gonna go a little bit lower like 5859 Yeah. But sometimes my friends kind of get a little squeamish. If things are too. too rare, you know,

right. I mean, the okay. So like part of the problem with like, Chuck, tell me whether you had this happen. So at 24 hours at 60. Trying to think of trying to think of could have never done that exact temperature. I mean, it should have started to get we should have broken down quite a bit of the collagen by 24 hours at 60. Like,

yeah, definitely. It was definitely pretty good. But it was like a little two year than what I was looking for. So I don't know if you know,

by the way, before I go into this, are you on the Tampa side of Sarasota or the Venice side of Sarasota?

Well, I actually live in Bradenton, but I'm more the Yeah, the Tampa side.

So do they still find shark's teeth on the beaches down in Venice and McComas or no.

As far as I know, I haven't been on that way in a long time. But, but as far as I know,

it used to be a shelf off the coast there. And then whenever storms would come up, like in that shelf like is where all the prehistoric sharks were dead. And the storms would come up and just wash all these prehistoric sharks shark's teeth up on the beach. And so you'd wait for the waves to crash in. And then like before they rolled back out again. You yank them, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, I

was down there about 15 years ago when we did that and you know, there were so Washington but I don't know recently. If they are stealing, it still happens. Yeah.

Okay, so the mean, that's a fun thing for a kid. If you take a kid down kids like collecting shark's teeth. You know, I'm saying Oh, yeah, yeah, I mean, those little weird sand fleas you have down there not a giant fan of but the shark's teeth. Very pro very pro. Yeah. So do you think you could cook a sand flea? Could you capture enough? Or whatever they are, you know, those little things that jump around? Can you eat them? Did you know In Belgium, do you know in Belgium, they have like the seashore shrimp, where you used to have horses, and the horses would drag these like nets in the sand and pick up like zillions of these little grey shrimp. And then they would cook them and then sell them all over Belgium. In that a weird, and then a weird thing. Weird thing I'm gonna go experience. I'm going to Belgium for the first time in February. So for any of you with ideas of Belgium, let me know. Anyway, back to your problem. One of the issues with low temperature cooking in general versus high temperature cooking, and what I like to call multi muscle meats. So when you're dealing with truck, you're dealing with something where there's a lot of different muscles, right. And in any sort of like mass group of muscles more than certain muscles have more connective tissue and certain muscles have less connective tissue. So let me know if I'm on base here, even with something like pork belly, right? It's not one continuous muscle, there'll be different pieces of muscle that are go in and out. So what'll end up happening in general, is that one section of the meat will be kind of dull, you know, delicious, you know, good texture, and another one will be strangely dry doesn't respond well turns mushy, and it's could be construed as chewy slash mushy, at the same temperature just because the two muscles are very different, right. And so, in situations like that, right, especially if people are used to kind of more traditional cooking methods, where, let's say the gelatin renders out of every, like all the college interns to jello, because in low temperature cooking, the collagen does get converted into gelatin. But because the temperatures aren't so high, it doesn't really render out it stays almost like a single piece of meat where the gelatin is kind of the gel is kind of compacted in you can actually see the connective tissue doesn't kind of melt out, and you don't get those like stringy textures that you get in kind of a slow cooked brace, right. And so the problem with that is, is that that stuff then doesn't render out and moisten what would otherwise be over cooked non connective tissue muscles in the same sort of areas. That makes sense. So it can be problematic when doing these things, especially if you're going in the range of let's say, once you go over about 57, right, if a decent winter into 60, certain of the muscles are going to start tasting, like relatively toothy, right until they go mushy, because the proteins of them have been overcooked. And then you're not rendering out a lot of the gelatin into into the rest of the meat as you would with a traditional thing. So you're caught in kind of like a strange in between land right now in something that is like a braised short rib, where there's kind of connective tissue throughout, then when you you can cook at really almost any temperature you want. I don't really see much of a reason to go over about 62 when you're doing short ribs, but anything from like 55 for rare, which I don't really like but people it's kind of a thing people do, like all the way up to 62, what happens is the texture changes. And incidentally, the higher the temperature in that range, things get beefier and beefier tasting, right. So people tend to appreciate the beef Enos of it more. And this is another thing you have to realize is that slow cooked, Chuck like this is never going to have the intensely beefy flavor that a high temperature braised. One is because the high temperatures create some of that beefy flavor, right, but anything between about 60 to 63 and traditional braising temperatures in the 80s. Right, I don't really have much use for them, you know what I mean? I don't think that they're providing the best of either of the two worlds. So I tend to stay either in the lower range or higher. Now, if you're feeling from tasting it was that certain muscles tasted chewy because they were overcooked, right, then lower the temperature down to like a 57. But some of your friends not might not be happy if you're feeling that the connective tissue hadn't fully rendered yet, then go longer, but you have to be able to distinguish between the two different kinds of things which can almost masquerade for each other at certain times. You see what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. So I've got one going right now at home 59 It'll be tonight it'll be just shy of 48 hours I guess we'll see how that goes and try to distinguish the two and then and then go from there, but I'll probably try the 57 and see how that goes.

So in muscles that don't have a lot of connective tissue what you should notice for what I consider to be like they, what happens is is that you bite into it, the fibers will have started to break down and it will taste some Wat mushy Now, some people, this is my opinion mushy, some people actually love that flip that that texture they love it because they think of it as tender to me, in my mind there's a difference between tenderness, which is that there is a lack of or that connective tissue has been broken down and the actual what the fibers are like, are they mushy or not? And you sort of separate between those two kinds of concepts. And then once you separate between those two kinds of concepts, you can troubleshoot, like which way you want to go, do I want to drop the temperature or do I want to increase the time? Same? Yeah. But shoot me something on cooking issues on Twitter. Let me know. Let me know how it turned out after it comes out tonight. We'll do Thank you. Cool.

And you actually have one other one on the line as well.

All right, caller you're on the air.

Yeah. Hi, this is Patrick calling from Brooklyn. How you guys doing? How you doing? So I've got a question about deeming. But first, I have just a brief comment on your atomic blast conversations from a

couple of weeks. But Jose, you said steaming Correct. Yeah. Okay. Steaming Anastasia cheese. Louise. All right. All right. What

is that apparently, a lot of the blast calculations that the that the military really take do not take into effect the damage from incineration of buildings by the initial radiation, whatever the the flash, whatever the beginning things call that the effects are vastly understated in all the yield calculations out there. So basically, it'd be a lot worse than you think.

Well, conversely, it could be a lot out, let me give you this, right. So most of the like standard, highly flammable substance tests were like the live, you know, what we did in Japan, right. And it's true that a lot of the blast tests that were done in the US were done on militaries, they did like some house based stuff, right. But they also did military institution and concrete structures. And I don't know exactly which one of those things they relied on the most, right, but it is true. And I've read that things like fires are under calculated by their blast and the damage that's involved. But another thing that they did not test on was the effect of giant urban metropolis is so dense, if you look at all of their calculations, none of them were done in like massive, modern urban environments, which is kind of weird, because they existed at the time, you know what I mean? But I guess, you know, they weren't going to build like four city blocks, with skyscrapers on it. And then, you know, attempt and airblast and a ground blast, you know, next to it, it's just impractical. So, you know, I always thought that, like, it could be worse in some ways, like you say, but in other ways, it could be better because no one's expecting you to be in the shadow of the Empire State Building. You know what I mean?

Well, so hopefully, we don't get to the real real world. Yeah, yeah. But just throwing throwing that out there. Yeah. So my feeling question is that I've purchased and now the now defunct Cuisinart countertop, it's like a steam toaster oven. It's basically like a combi I think it consumer Combi

Yeah, I own well, then yeah, I don't want

so I guess about on a steam alone setting. Since the temp goes from I think 120 to 210. A fooling around with with steaming mostly mostly animal protein. If there's any, any guidance on on, you know, low temperature steaming or even where to start or use is our temps and time for assuming relevant. My only real experiences using bamboo steamer baskets, and I'm not even sure what temperature that's steaming in in the basket when you have it above a bubble walk. So I was just looking for some general guidance. And it seems to be that there's very little written about this as far as I can tell

about like steaming comp well in common, okay. Okay. So, when you're above a walk in a steamer basket, you're pretty much doing, you know, to 12 You're doing steam, right? The main issues when you're using steamer baskets, I think people don't think about a lot is that, you know, unless you're being extremely if you're extremely vigorous, you're getting massive amounts of condensation, which can be problematic although steamer baskets are pretty good at handling that. But if you're using multiple steamer baskets, you're not necessarily getting the same heat output into the top basket as you are on the bottom basket and so that kind of needs to be calculated for and again you need to make sure that you don't go so ballistic with your steam that everything gets like Steam log from like condensation coming hitting it from the top, you know I mean, and that stuff's all high temperature steaming, but kind of what's cool about the combi oven. And what is cool, you know, theoretically about the quiz and art unit. And my friend, John Aragon has one, and he loves it is the idea of lower temperature steam. Now, when you're creating the steam, it's being created at the high temperature, right. But it's being injected into the oven in such a way that you're not raising the oven temperature all the way up to the temperature of steam, right. And so the reason to do that in a low temperature thing is that one of the reasons why ovens are so terrible at doing low temperature cooking, is that there's massive amounts of evaporation off of your product as it's cooking. So you can never really regulate the temperature, once something becomes 100% humidity inside of the box. And this is the theory of the SI Vapp oven, where there's a bain marie in it, and you're heating the bain marie up until the water is the same temperature that you want the oven to be is that once you're in 100% humidity environment, even if it's not, quote unquote, Steam, right, then you're getting actual temperature on the surface of the meat because you've gotten rid of evaporative cooling. And you've also increased the heat transfer rate of the medium by saturating it with moisture, right. So you got this double thing where you can be more accurate, you're not having a evaporation off of your off your product. And you know all this, but you don't have to put it in the bag. And that's the theory of like a CPAP oven, or of low temperature Combi is that I'm still getting decent heat transfer not as much as you would in a bag necessarily. And I'm getting decent accuracy, because I've mitigated the effects of evaporative cooling. And that's what you're looking to do. Now, whether or not the Cuisinart art is able to do that I have never run any tests. But it may be now here's my problem. So and the bigger a piece of meat is the less accurate it needs to be. Now I've measured my Breville toaster oven on temperature accuracy over time. And also power output over time. I don't remember off the top of my head what the answers were. But I've measured it like with equipment. I have not measured the the Cuisinart. But you know people who like back when Chris Young was doing Modernist Cuisine with you know Myhrvold and grant and Maxime, you know, they were measuring combi ovens and they noticed that there was like a lot of porpoising up and down of the temperature that it averaged the right temperature and that the average was good, but that it went up and down by several degrees over the course of a couple of minutes. And so they use that as a knock against the these ovens. And my point was always well, it depends on how long the cycle is because as long as your average is 100%, you're all accurate. You're only ever over under cooking, right? The amount of meat that is affected during the time at which it goes excursion above the excursion of temperature is above your setpoint Does that make sense? So the question is

critically, if you've been to you're doing a high temperature finish that same meat affected by that could, it could be the same as down to the meat that's gonna get in the high temperature finish at the end anyway,

right and go so it doesn't really matter whether you overcook the outer layer of the meat now on a thinner product where the temperature excursions enough to like cause and effect all the way through the meat. Well then your host right. So it all depends on how good the average is and then how thick your piece of meat is that you whether you can withstand whether whether you're going to overcook with your finish the outside anyway in it, it doesn't matter. So it's just something that has to be tested. I haven't tested it with that oven. Now, I will say this. My problem with that oven was twofold. One, the freaking rack that they give you is garbage. It's so garbage the cooking rack is such a POS oh my god, I hate it. That the wire they make it out of is so thin, that it like cuts into things and then the wires themselves are so far separate from each other that like you know, unless your bread is stiff as hell before it goes in. It flops down around the thing or like heaven forbid you tried to reheat a frickin pancake. Steam is great for like reheating it. Let's say you make pancakes and you you make extra ones, right? What are you supposed to do with those, you're supposed to freeze them and then you can reheat them later right or you know if you're gonna throw them away. But the best way to reheat something like that is with steam because you're not drying it out as you're reheating it. And it meant to be cooked to a high temperature anyway. So a little bit of a steam hit within with a little bit of toasting effect to do it out. Great. But the problem is is that those things curl around the freaking edges of that stupid grit great that they give you. The Great is the worst piece of great technology I've ever used in my whole life. I hate it. There's nothing

in between this and a commercial TV. Right

now Dave Dave from chat chimed in to say that you should know that I know. versus producing a consumer combi oven. It says it will be out in 2020. Oh, nice.

Now, the other problem I have with the Cuisinart is that particular Cuisinart is that I don't like to control system at all. Like I wish they would just give you like a different way to control it. There's a dial spinning and the different things that they have. I find it I find the control scheme unpleasant.

That part not fun. So two quick things to wrap it up. And is it for like a traditional like, like, city ham, time and text time, temperature and time? What would you suggest? Starting? Starting with on that because I have so many different suggestions. I'm curious what you think of where you would at least start on you know, just based off the size of pork that can fit in that. That thing?

I remember a city hands already cooked. Right. So what

you're here to hear and then do the first cook.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, like, it's like, it depends on on what you like, I don't know actually what temperature I used to know what temperature they take them up to. But I would probably end up going somewhere in for a traditional kind of texture on a city ham, somewhere like north of 60 and south and 65 Probably like in that range. Just to get that same kind of texture. Anything over you're going to be killing it anything under 60. And you're going to not necessarily have the texture that people associate with it. You know what I mean?

It really recruits off well,

people don't want rare ish ham. You know what I mean? Unless it's like country ham like a raw you know what I mean? Ain't nobody eating a city ham raw? You know, I'm saying yeah, yeah. And they're they're obviously they're, you know, people love a rosy rare porkchop but here's what they I don't think they like people. I think some people hate a rosy reared pork chop by the way, but you know, they become more in fashion. You know, sent when I was a kid, when you ordered a pork chop a they were thin and be you could be ever loving snot out of those things until they were like pieces of shoe leather because that's what everyone was told to do. And no one wanted anything other than like a shoe leather pork chop. And I grew up in the exact worst time for pork chops because this renaissance of like the not as cooked pork chop or the like the rosy in the middle pork chop had not yet happened yet. But they had bred all of the fat out of pigs by the time that I was kind of a kid and so the thin pork chop of the 80s was also dry which is a nightmare you grew up with dry pork chops and says yeah, that pork chop of the 80s was a dry like a dry sad pork chop right the pork chop of our grandparents era was breezy anyway

on the counter what and then forget about it sort of had that texture entirely yeah just ended the two different really wrap it up and just curious was like duck or poultry like that helps you it helps to have some sort of initial token before the road with at least with the fat and the skin. Is the steam needed dehydration step after that initial cook to dry it out or can you go straight from a steam into the oven or is there really a good model for like a Decker to

love people love cooking that stuff in comedies, I don't have that they love it, they love it, I don't have that much experience, you're typically any D high you do you do before your RO step and then your injection would be done. Your steam injection would be done at the outset to kind of like jumpstart it because it's not actually making the surface moist. It's just increasing your heat transfer. You see what I'm saying? And stopping a certain amount of evaporation off and just jacking your heat transfer up. So I would say you probably continued doing it the traditional way and then with the steam injection but I personally don't have like when I used copies I you know most of my Combi work was kind of special effect Combi work like I was never like on a line just like throwing you know a bunch of chickens or a bunch of ducks into a combi and letting a rip so I don't I don't personally have that much experience with it. But I know people love cooking duck in a combi.

Okay, cool. Well, I'll let you know how it goes look forward to the better model that works.

Yeah, cool. Yeah, I've been looking out for as well.

And we actually have an up yet another call.

Caller you're on the air. What's up?

Hey, I got an easy question for you guys. So I just started cooking like three or four months ago and I started listening to you guys's podcast and I've been making and fresh noodles, which is way better than any noodles that I've ever tasted. But the problem I'm having is they keep clumping up together. How do I? Sometimes it's clumping up sometimes not and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong to cause it to clump up.

So you're doing like Italian style noodles.

Yeah, just Italian style noodles, spaghetti noodles, angel hair, stuff like that.

And you have an an atlas style pasta roller. Yep, exactly. Okay. So this is a common problem. What are you using to mix the to mix the pasta? A fork. Oh, so you're not using like a Kitchenaid or anything like that? No,

I don't have I don't have anything like that.

Okay, so your problem is one of hydration. Right? So pasta dough is like Italian? Are you doing egg or not? Egg? Egg. So, pasta dough is one of those things where, you know, it's almost like you want you almost want it to be such low hydration that you're like, This is never going to be a dough. Do you understand? You know, saying stars? So it's like she's just she's mouthing words but not speaking them. Anyway. Well, fresh pasta is different from dry pasta. They're different products. You don't like it at all

at all. Ravioli? Yes. cavatelli? No,

you don't like cavatelli cavatelli. You don't like it? Not really a fresh pasta but yolk you don't like

potato gnocchi is where it's purely made out of potatoes.

And there's no such thing as pure. With no flour in it like a

little bit, but not the majority. The majority is potato. Who makes who makes like real games? Real? Quick, real Italian. Did you ever live in Italy by yourself? No. Why are you questioning me?

Because while you're saying all real time,

when you talk about you know, stay

family show. First of all, and you made it with your family you were living with? Yes. And how much flour did they use? I

don't remember. Okay. Well,

I'm not saying that should be all flour. But like you're saying like, it's like no one makes it with all potatoes and a teaspoon of flour.

It's mostly potato. Anyway, it doesn't matter. What doesn't matter. Do you don't believe me go on with this question.

I just want a recipe. Otherwise, it's mashed potatoes and egg. Need some flour? Yeah. Geez, Lee's. And I don't appreciate the hatred of fresh pasta, I understand you're, you're in the al dente a pasta business where you like you want it dried, you need that hard center. But when you're making a pasta, whether you're making it, whether you're going to dry it or not later, like you need to have a very low hydration dough. And so the problem you're having is there's just too much water in the dough. And that's why it's clumping together. So there's a couple of things you can do to rectify that, you can either try to get like a harder like a heavier mixing environment to like mix it. So you can mix a lower hydration dough, it might also be the flour that you're using. But another thing you could do is do what I used to do, which is cheat. And the way that you cheat, okay, is is that you make the dough as kind of stiff as you can. And then you know how you so when you're rolling it through the rollers, you you take the piece that you're going to do you roll it through like once, twice, three, and then starts to kind of look like dough before you start rolling it and then reducing the size of it, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, okay. So flour it in between the rolls. And then as you're rolling it, the flower will get get get kind of into it and will stiffen it somewhat. So especially like, I don't think anyone ever uses number seven on those rollers. It's like your, whatever it is the highest number of set, whatever, I only ever really go to the second highest one. The other ones like so thin. It's crazy, right. But the thinner you go, the less apt it is to clump. And if you're dusting with flour in between, another thing you can do is pause. So like once you get it down to your final place, you can put a light dusting of flour on it, let it sit and let it air out a little bit and then when you cut it, it won't clump nearly as much. Now one of the problems is is that most of the rollers on the pasta things the the two cutting, like thingamajigs kind of don't really intersect that much they barely touch. And so sometimes if you have very thin or very dry doze, they tend not to like even necessarily get cut but that's a machine to machine because the tolerances on the machines aren't that high, if that makes sense to you. So I don't know whether if your machines always cutting like a dream. Realize also with a dryer dough, you're gonna have to like feed in a little harder to get it to grip but that's actually good because it's going to clump less as it comes out and then Like lay them out in strips or over. You know, I remember I used to jam wooden spoons into things and then like drape the stuff over the wooden spoon and get them to go in. But it's mainly just a hydration problem and a little bit of cheating. You know, a little bit of cheating with flour dusting in between your roller steps I think is going to help you out tremendously. Yeah, super