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

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

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

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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.

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Hardcore is a new series from Heritage Radio Network. Over six episodes, we're taking a close look at the rebirth of American cider.

Really, it wasn't until about 10 years ago, that cider started to be revitalized in the United States

from the science of fermentation. So yeast, it's a fungus. It's a unicellular fungus. To the magic of terroir.

What really excites us is thinking about communicating that very sort of spiritual aspects of knowing a piece of land,

we're setting aside our cider donuts to gain a deeper understanding of this singular beverage.

I love a cider donut. You don't have to have a cider doughnut with your cider and I will die on that point.

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Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave coming to you live on Heringer new network every Tuesday from Wales pretty much on time today. We were we're waiting for our theoretical special guest film but he's late only Phil there's Phil Bravo he's staring around like he doesn't know what a studio looks like the man teaches recorder and triangle to children and doesn't know where a sound booth is. Makes no sense he'll be in here in a minute joined as usual witness dasya the hammer Lopez how're you doing? Good yeah getting ready for the Thanksgiving

we should talk about our sales

we will we got Matt back in the booth How you doing? I'm great. Yeah, yeah, where were you last week we hadn't fun or not having

fun. Oh, I was at jury duty I was having fun.

Oh jury duty so jury duty they sent me a notice to my wrong address and then said they're gonna throw me in jail. But here's the hilarious thing. I just got it. It was like super late. Here's the hilarious thing. They're supposed to get their jury stuff from voter records, right? Yeah, well, my voter records are at my current address. So you know, one asked doesn't know what the other elbows doing?

Well, with me they actually managed to do it the other way they somehow found me even though I had not yet updated my voter registration. found me and sent me a thing so you know, sometimes they get it right.

Where are you chosen?

I was not chosen nothing interesting happened. It was like my own private library. It was a great day I just work yeah, I

don't know there's something about something about it just like I was on a jury once but sitting in that waiting room is just I don't know, man.

I mean, I want I want to be selected for like a very limited run trial. I don't want to be there for weeks, obviously. Yeah,

well, I was once selected for one that they tell you when you go to jury duty that you need to schedule I forget X number of weeks, like two or three weeks. That's basically like the thing. And so then if you can't do that, they're like, Well, then don't even come to jury duty get it postponed. So I went and the judge was like, once the tread does, like, this trial is gonna last for three weeks. It's like, oh, you said to us head to and the third week I'll be in China. This was years ago. And they were like, get out, you jerk. You can smoke. But Lord, get out of here. I mean, so I'm paraphrasing slightly.

And then how long did they let you They promised me I would not get called until eight years from now.

Well, it's a funny thing. I gotta look back the last time I served on a jury that we you know, went to verdict. I was the foreman. In fact, that

was so important,

is alphabetical order. And they didn't let us choose. And there was no a mold since there that could beat me out on the on the Arnold. So, yeah, you will always be the foreman. Well, until you know, Barney a mold since then. Then I'm host. I say being Foreman has its privileges, you know. Anyway. So now we are joined in the studio by Phil Bravo.

I'm doing all right. How you doing? Ah,

boy. All right. Listen, I need you to use that sweet, sweet voice field to tell people about the Booker and DAX Black Friday holiday sale.

has spilled go.

Have you heard about the Booker and DAX Black Friday sale? Dave Is it crazy?

It is bananas fail?

Be a Na Na s bananas Dave?

Like what was it? How does the Grinch say it?

Oh, with with a greasy black peel with a greasy black with a greasy black P

Yeah. So you were late. So we made fun of you teaching recorder and triangle to small children.

That was what I was very busy doing. I was on the train just giving out recorders to people to brighten up. Everyone's confused brought

out the recorder and then the two year old at the party was just blowing it all over.

The recorder is a terrible note as you expected.

Oh, oh, family.

Oh, yeah. Also, we can't curse.

The recorder. The recorder is possibly the worst instrument of all time.

I mean, exactly. Which is why I go around giving it to children. Just you know, spreading music.

Yeah, you're like, you're like, I got some good news. And I got some bad news. It makes a terrible sound. But it can only make one sound at a time. That's the good news.

The thing is polyphony, the two year old was able to make quite a good sound by like he had like half of it entirely. just swallowed at that moment. And still, you know, it's like covering some of the holes like Exactly, yeah, so you just like just how

do you make no noise when the whistle part is covered? Wherever that's called, you know, Life finds a way. Yeah, what's that called? In technical jargon that little whistle Lee cut out in the front. Alright,

whistling cut out. Listen, have you ever

ever made a Do you know that you can take young moose wood saplings, which is a strike maple in spring, cut them, hit them with the back of your camping knife to free the to free the bark, then push the wood out of the bark leaving the bark as a straight tube, then cut a notch into it and pull it back and make a slide whistle out of it. It's a thing.

It's a thing.

It's well, well, in the northeast, in the 30s and 40s it was a thing and might have been a thing all the way up into the 50s. But if you are a connoisseur of 19 Let's say let's say like 1890 The like 1950 American tree and forestry stuff, then you just happen to be Yeah. Or you know if you read all of the works of Harlow, for instance of which there are probably only like five so it's easy to get them all like they're your multiple instructions on how to build you a slide whistle out of out of a moose Woods doesn't only

do one thing. Can you play it though?

It's like a sad trombone all the time. Well,

it's like a happy on crack Trump.

It is true. And also if you have do you know that if you have a drill, and a parsnip, you can also have your own record.

I would like to hear about this. This is

related to food relationally final Yes. Give me so. I mean, that's pretty much it. You just need a long drill bit you go right down the middle. You can do make your own little whistle a bit in the in the top. If you use the top joint of a recorder it's cheating a little bit. That's cheating alarm. Yeah.

Why not like carrot? Well, I'm using parsnip software. You have to soak it in water first.

Literally you could do a character a parsnip. I just think parsnip has a little bit more character. What the tone exactly it's a little bit of a woodier toe Oh, I said with no no data to back.

So like it wouldn't work on something. It's entirely water without a lot of structure like not a Daikon

I think it Daikon would be you'd like as soft as you'd go. I think even a potato would fall apart pretty quick. Yeah. Also,

like there is more kind of lignified crap on the inside of a carrot or a parsnip, which is let's face it, a non orange fakie carrot.

It's true. Yeah. So I don't know what about the difference between a part of parsnip and a carrot? I mean are

different, but I mean, like if someone was like, hey, what

parsnips are much they're sweet. Yes, me but parsnips so like a roasted parsnip?

I like a roasted parsnip, but I'm saying we're just kind of like a bunk carrot.

i That's nonsense. This is nonsense. I mean, I

like parsnips a lot I cook parsnips. You know, my ice is not related at all. But you know what I like a lot, but I don't like as leftovers.

All of the stock of the amazing Black Friday sale. Bringing it back so no leftovers for you. rutabagas rutabagas All right,

I love rutabagas

I don't think I could pick a root of big out of a lineup.

They're kind of looked like waxy Charlie Brown heads with a little bit of

waxy A Charlie Brown heads.

Yay. The supermarket and you see a waxy Charlie Brown head. iser, that's a rutabaga. Or if you're an English person, a Swede. For some reason, the English call or we'd we'd call them sweet. Sweet. Sweet, sweet. Yeah, sweet, but they're real waxy on the outside. So you cut off the wax and they're great steamed, but like the next day, I never liked them as much. I mean, like maybe if you mash them and put them in a soup, they're fine the next day, but if you just have like, like, let's say you're doing a prep where you I don't know if you know this, for those of you that like only cook at home but you know in general like you you'll prefer your part cook or fully cook your veg and then reassemble and finish at the fire. Right. So like I don't like like par cooked steamed freegan rutabaga the next day who does Dave? I mean, I don't know maybe many people Swedes perhaps Perhaps a sweet I don't know. But I think that the rutabaga is a more people should cook with rutabagas they are delicious. And I liked the

word brought to you by the rutabaga Council who did

say rutabaga was a serious voiceless and rutabaga. Oh, I see that stars don't you want to eat that?

Yeah. Or waxy Charlie Brown head.

So what is this in this bag here? We're going to split Well, let's wait. Let's finish our Black Friday crap. Okay, so Nastasia Lopez and I went to China a couple of weeks ago, she Aina and we had some good where we visited the factory that makes the spindles and we have a new agent right over there. And which the new agents not related. We visited the factory. Anastasia has never been to China before. So I was there. I was like listen, just you know, I'm gonna turn this lady loose on you and the star she's like, poof, poof and, and they were like okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Okay, well lower the prices on future on future spindles. So we were able to bring the price of the spindle down based on our future and assuming of course that the tariffs gets lifted which you know, who knows? But like bring the cost of future stuff down so that we're all able to now offer this bins all for the low low price fail?

He doesn't know I don't think

I think oh, I didn't know for 99

That's right. Yes. Was if you have we have a youtube so Anastasia we're like we're gonna do a YouTube video about it about the sale we also did some infomercials I haven't cut them together yet. Yes, but

this video was my idea.

What the whole thing what crazy so she not being from New York so she has no idea what she's talking about. Right? And don't Don't shake your head Miami man. Like she

I watched enough Seinfeld to know

so right crazy Eddie you grew up as crazy Eddie because it because we were doing a bunch of Billy Mays style stuff which we haven't done yet but this is like crazy it was a guy he went to jail for some kind of a fraud but he used to put on like the goofy sweater and start screaming at his prices were insane and throwing stuff around it was like a it was like a kind of a local PC Richards

which then on Seinfeld became I'm the wounds of the Wiz is an actual thing to The Wiz is also a thing. The Wiz is a thing. All right, I'm from Florida. Yeah.

Yeah, but The Wiz was out New York The Wiz The Wiz discount store also like kind of a local PC Richard I never went to it was didn't have a had a like an over the top kind of voiceover stage but not like a face like not a singular crazy Edward in the way that crazy Eddie was a guy or in the way that for instance, that this is more was the guy on the New York City subways for those of you that you know I told you doctors is more his daughter became a food writer blog just at least for a while and she came to interview with her like she said about her last name is is more and we're like will will will will will will will go over what? She's like. Yeah, I was like, these is more. Dr. Z. She's like, Yeah, I was like, Oh yeah, everyone who is alive during that time period, which lasted up until like, probably 2014

Yeah, I was. I was in New York for that. Yeah.

i He must have retired or something. I don't know. I don't know. But the man had impeccable skin. So he like there. He also had all these commercials were like, they'd have these random and it's like, only in New York. Do you get this kind of person like the person is like, kinda doesn't want to be on camera. I was kind of looking around. I was like, thank you that this is more like, my skin was completely messed up. Thank you Doctor says Ma. You want me to like that kind of a thing? That's like a very New York. Kind of commercial system onto

the camera. Yes. Push them

onto the camera. Give me some more free fruit peel. Anyway, I just came out there and my hex I know nothing about

the second time in a week that says Morris.

Oh, we talked about it last night.

On the show you mean in the stasis? Stasis life?

So I mean, like very specifically, you know, there's

there's a, you know, for those of us that ride the subways, those kinds of like long term, like Subway ads have, like they're become become part of your life in a way that I think a non New Yorker wouldn't kind of understand. You know, because you're, you're smashed. It used to be by the way, it's a lot different now on the subway than it was let's say 40 years ago, 3040 years ago, like when I was a little kid, I was very, very much instructed. Don't look at anyone. Don't look, don't look at anyone. stare at the ceiling, stare at the ground. Do not make eye contact with anyone. Now, you know, now that we you know, you know live in the New York of nowadays, I feel that I can just like stare a hole through someone's forehead and odds are they won't do anything. You know what I mean?

Yeah, but what do I wait for when we take the subway together?

So for those of you that have written one of them, so in New York City, most subway stops are about two minutes apart, like, give or take. They're all about two minutes, except there are a few long hauls. So one of the long hauls is between 59th and 120/5 on the blue in the orange lines. But another fairly long haul is the tunnel under the water that the L train takes as it travels from Brooklyn, thankfully back to Manhattan to take me back home.

Thank you for explaining why it was late. Yeah.

So anyway, so if you happen to go on the L train, mid day, and you're in one of the more center center cars, there are groups of people that come on Showtime and they say it's showtime and then tourists they're tourists and then there's also friend of the show Paul Adams who also like obstinately would not move out of the way just like he went into like full cow mode where he was just kind of standing there and like not being moved by the guys like Showtime Showtime Showtime Paul's pretending like he doesn't know what Showtime means. Anyone who has written New York City subways knows what well was written a lot knows that the Showtime is they put on crappy beatbox music there is always there's always at least two sometimes three people and one plays the hype man while the other one does their kind of routine, which generally involves some form of pole dancing parkour, kind of a situation and the worst of all is the hat catching. Please show time people getting rid of the hat catching not interesting maybe the first person that flipped a baseball cap and caught it on their head. Maybe that was cool. But now it's almost as bad as bottle flipping for those of you that remember the bottle flipping trend of a couple of years ago that I was tortured with by my children. Listen, the Stasi Lopez his only goal in life is to get me kicked in the face by a Showtime person. Now I have never seen anyone get kicked in the face by a Showtime person but the Stasi is convinced convinced that they're gonna get on one of these polls and spin around and one of their like, you know, sneakers is gonna hit me square in the face. And she can't wait.

She's like, well, if you're gonna get angry or if you're just gonna sit there and stew just take it. Yeah, I'm not sure which one's gonna happen. What's better? I don't know. Just stand

there. Like like coldly staring with blood right?

Now you'll be excited because the thing has finally happened.

What thing Well, Stasi will be excited. I will be bleeding Are

you sure you won't look at her and you'd be like Anastasia it happened

to people the thing is, is the Stasi makes me like every week makes me get on the most crowded dumbest car. That's nowhere near where I need to go. Another thing that you might not know is hopefully we'll do some more food now. But the other thing you might not know is that everybody who rides the subway every day knows exactly what car to be in for where they get off. Okay, so Anastasia it makes me go in not that car. Right? Just for the just for this When my hope that you know what's gonna happen one day, and I'm gonna I'm not gonna spoil baby one day she's gonna push me into the guy's foot.

Yeah, me. No, I wouldn't do it. You'd be so mad you punch me. Yeah, it's

about the anticipation. I would not punch you. Never happens. You'd be so sad. No, you'd have nothing left to live.

Oh, she didn't find something else. Yeah, yeah. So what's

in this whole foods from Capri Sun?

Capri Sun the beverage Manufacturing Corporation. Oh, can we? Yeah, we had I was like good because I've made my like, you know, I've made plenty of fun of Caprice on the beverage to my children, but not but that's not on here. Oh, speaking of making fun, you know who's supposed to be on here today. That's an A two weeks or a King Salman was supposed to be now or King Salman. Instead of this random conversation we're having about New York City subways, you could have been hearing about aquaculture fish anaesthesia, importing fish from New Zealand. The tastes of salmon with different slaughtering techniques, and my son Booker's favorite cured salmon at Russ and daughters, which happens to be New Zealand king salmon. But what happened was this it was a bunch of peep this is as the Stasi tells it to me. There's a bunch of New Zealanders. They they like we're hanging out with an American friend and they're like, I'm not going to do in New Zealand accent because I don't really know what it is. They're like, tell me about this Thanksgiving thing. And they're like, Oh yeah, no one's doing any work from now until the end of the year. They're like oh crap on that. I'm not going on that show. No,

there'll be your in two weeks Okay. Okay. Oh, by the

way, they also said this. They were like Do you want a list of questions for No they weren't on the list. They want to listen questions and styles he was like No, we don't do that.

I mean, if you would like I can talk at length about salmon slaughtering techniques.

We will not show you is it accurate? No. Not challenged. Radish kimchi. You are then head spike caught 1121 Is it frozen black sea bass,

toffee, Black White Black, Fischer black

black sea bass or black sea bass Falaise and then he made

nothing they can present yet to get a name that is less like a crappy but he won't

give us his real name. Homie nothing fancy carrot cake and pumpkin pie. That's from that new cookbook.

But new cookbook. Nothing fancy.

Pretend you know what I'm talking about.

Assassin mean to me at all times dried lover. What's a dry lover? They don't speak of dried lover. I finally purchased in America. Oh. Lavender lavender seaweed. Please pretend like

lover. Oh, here's the

UI. Is that a costume guy? Does it have a dumb saying on it? I love I love a dumb coffee guy saying this is the care it doesn't have it just says it makes. Okay. So listen back to China for a minute. So Anastasia and I are in China. And we go to and that's why we lowered the price on the spins all the Sears all get this people now we're hoping this works.

Yeah, you gotta use the phrase.

Hey, okay. So like, so people are like, yo, yo, can you send me a sizzle? And the answer is no, we can't because the Stasi and I strangely don't own any. And Amazon buys them from us and takes possession of them in China. Now we're also taking possession of them a couple of them now for this Black Friday thing. Because here's what we're going to do. Here's what we're going to do. So please, if you know someone that's going to buy it, please make our scam work. We're putting, we're putting a small number a relatively small number of sizzles available. And it's a big freakin thing, believe it or not, because we haven't, I don't even want to get into it. Like how nasty Amazon is with whatever, I don't want you to do it. But like we're putting we're putting a block of them in and we're going to lower our price on like our prime stuff there. And then Amazon will match it. So what we want you to do is buy Amazon's sizzles that they've already paid us for. Technically, yeah, they don't pay us for like No, like five months. If they pay us at all. Well, it's too much to get into. So anyway, if you're gonna buy it, just please click the Amazon one because that'll let us keep the sale going longer. What are we what are we trying to do to Amazon? Give them the door, as my stepfather would say, sounds he's like, what's the shutdown? Gorp I'm like, you can picture it. Here's the fist cut on Gorp you know what I mean? As my stepfather Gerard says it's another one of the great Girard isms like if it's used the S word but if craft himself you're like You're like if this if that if this if this if crapped himself but he said, you know if pooped his pants basically and then once said it's on air before right so then and he says it also was should I was like you should have done this. You should have done that. Oh, yeah. Should craft himself But he says, you know, the S word and so and then one day I was like, Well, it's because you know, he he keeps on saying should have should have should have and he never makes it to the bathroom and he poops in his pants he goes, You're too literal Dave That's not what it means. Like, that's exactly what the hell else could it means. He's like, it's a figure of speech, like, what the hell else can it mean? He's like, it means if you himself, you know what I mean? I'm like, It's Alliterative. Another one is good. And God gave it to him. You have to, if you're gonna give someone that's good and good people, you what you have to do is you have to put your we don't know if it's gonna work, you have to put your your elbow like you have to lift your arm up to kind of a level position at chest height, with your, your dominant hand with your palm flat to the ground and your fingers spread. Then what you do is you go, you bring your elbow down into a gouging kind of upper cut motion, and then you make the fist. You make the fist. As soon as the hand gets flipped under as you go down into you flip your hand over and you make the fist, snap your fist and then up into the sugar turn Gorp

we don't even know what's Dave just demonstrated really quality french horn stop technique. That was he started with a lovely web and then move directly into stop torn it was beautiful. Yeah, nice, perfect shape to their

horns. It's how they do that. Yep. Oh, nice. See, learn something

new every day. So hopefully our plan works.

Also, the cocktail cube which we've never um, do a date, we did an infomercial on the cocktail cue. We've never pushed it with dropping the price to 999 and Sears all we're going to take down to 5999. But please buy Amazon.

Yeah. And we have Sears old shirts, but

we do. Yeah, but they're in my house. All right. So brandy wrote in last week about what

you didn't Sears all shirt. I had it RadioShack

he's wearing a Sears old shirt. He's wearing three Sears all shirts. It's like freaking and mascara, the plot si el Santo if I pull off one Sears all shirt, there's another underneath and another underneath and another underneath. He could never be on Sears all shirted. Oh, thank you. For those of you that ordered lipid is sprayed lipid asbestos shirts. Those are shipping and they'll be there by December 3.

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I have a quiz brandy, I have a question that I can't seem to find any actual information about and I'm hoping you can help occasionally I make yogurt or farmer's cheese. And as you can imagine, I end up with quite a bit of clay. I've read that you can use whey as a substitute for water and baking. But I can't seem to find any insight into how or why that's also true, then people were like you could use it. You're like but why would I use it I think it has a tenderizing effect. Not as much as milk but more than water. So like it's also not adding a bunch of other stuff. So you could probably use in place of water in your in your quickie breads and it'll probably give me it'll probably give it like some tender zation effect. Although I don't really I can't vouch for that 100% If you're using an acid base whey or one that's been kind of lacto fermented, then it'll probably kickstart any fermentation into the dough and it's going to acidify it so slightly so the more acid the dough is the slacker the gluten is going to be so you just got to be careful of that. But if you're doing something like a quickbread it'll make it more tender because the acidity will weaken the gluten structure in the same way that like perhaps a buttermilk would it'll also make it so that you would have to use less acid if you were going to add a basic is the acid way a basic thing like baking soda to Okay. I can't seem to find the Insight Haraway also I'm wondering about the implication of sweet way was you say from yogurt or acidic way from cheese? Well, I think maybe those are kind of reversed, right? So sweet way would be from rennet. If you're renovating cheese, right? So like there's, you know, there's many different ways you can make cheese. If you're using rennet, then there hasn't been a lot of kind of back cereal action or acidic action but with lemon juice river on the product, so you've curdled it with an enzyme that would make it completely sweet way a non acidic and the coolest application for that is to make traditional ricotta cheese. Now the problem everyone who makes ricotta cheese now makes it with whole milk. And that's like the standard ricotta cheese that we kind of get is whole milk ricotta that we make is whole whole milk ricotta. But you can take just way as long as it hasn't already been acidified, people still typically add a little bit of milk back to it to kind of increase the creaminess and probably the yield. And then you heat it up to almost boiling to like 195 Fahrenheit. And then as it's cooling, you add acid and you get the ricotta, you skim it off, but you're only going to get like, like two cups out of a gallon of whey. And I don't know, if you can freeze the way in batches. And then thought I don't know if you can freeze the way in batches and then thought and make the ricotta. But if you could, that would be kind of it. You save it for a while and zip ease and then you make a batch of it when it's done. But it won't, I don't think work on on way that's already been acidified, either through kind of lacto cultures or through the straight use of lemon juice or other acids in the curling process. Another thing a lot of people seem to use it as a Kickstarter for lacto fermentation. But again, I have no experience. As usual. I have no experience. All right, Carlos wrote in, you're gonna really think oh, you know, we didn't talk about before about China. This turn of Stasio we get it. We're on the plane. And so Anastasia shows up at the airport. And she's like, as time went on last night, I don't feel good. I'm like, fine, that's fine. Right? You said I'm hungover. So like we're in the airport. Anastasia is even though we're about to get on a plane with the food was terrible. But even though we're getting on a plane, this dasya is hoovering in Russia onion soup, like, at an airport. Okay, what could be more horrific anyway, so she's hoovering in this thing. And I'm like, What the hell are you doing that to me, she's like, as I'm hungover, I'm fine. So we get on the airplane. And then we're on the airplane. And she's sitting behind me, which is really a nightmare never sit in front of Anastasia, because she's like, she's like pushing. On the back of the chair. It's a touchscreen, not a punch screen. It's dasya. So she's pushing it into the thing of the whole flight. And then like, halfway through this 15 hour or 50 and a half hour flight, she starts tapping my head. And I'm bout to turn around about the call the the flight attendant on her and be like, there's a woman behind me who's lost her mind. She's like, I'm sick. I was sick. I was like, Oh, Jesus,

I know my body. And I was sick. I don't get the flu, but I got the flu.

So she's like, I'm sick. So I'm like, Oh, my God, because I just have these images. Because we're, we're not only going to Hong Kong, we're going directly to China that night. And for those of you that ever flown or traveled into Hong Kong or China, you have to go by these people with head detectors, where they're taking thermal images of everyone as they go through. And as soon as you get off the plane, and if you have a fever, well, I don't know what happens, but you don't pass through and you don't have a ticket to go back. So like, I don't know, they just put you as a as Booker used to say that it's crumpled up and thrown in the garbage pretty much.

So I told Dave this on the plane and his reaction was, Are you effing kidding me? And then you got up, went into your backpack? Yeah, and threw some Tylenol and I was

like, take all of these Tylenol and get your fever down so that we can get into the dang country. So then the entire time it starts he was not her usual chip herself, but she was still game to to go out but she she stayed sick almost the entire trip. So like from culinary stamp highlight. So we spent most of our time in Shenzen. And Shenzen, for those of you that don't know, is a town that 40 years ago was a tiny fishing village. And then as soon as Hong Kong as soon as the UK Hong Kong handoff happened, China built up Shenzen into this mega like, like trading city and manufacturing hubs. So it's all only 40 years old. So they're very few locals. What that means is is that because everyone's come in they have actually even though it's not really like it's not an authentic city in the fact that it it didn't grow like a city does. It has some good food in it because people from all over China have lived there. So you know, because the Stasi was sick I was walking around doing a lot of you know street food kind of situation and the hotel we stayed pretty close for an hour days lives. So anyway, so like so well we'll get to it. So I you know you've had Phil you had John being before the Chinese crepe No, I had maybe the best one that I've had Add on the streets of Shen Zan because it's typically a street food. And so for those of you that don't know, you take don't make crinkly noises please. I just heard you over my earphones making a crinkly noise Why would you This is like she's like You're like the shaggy children you children and my children and Shaggy I didn't do that. It's like I'm watching you. I'm hearing you and watching you anyway. So this lady was using a crate maker which looked a lot like the French crepe makers and our upleg which is the French kind of crate maker do dad so she takes this mixture of mung bean and regular flour I think mung beans a good word. What do you think Phil? Can you say it?

Mung beans

us nice nice. This it was like before I didn't want mung beans but now I do. Now I do. So she takes out this kind of thing. Crate batter replicates it out real thin at first I was like yo, your crate game is weak because it didn't spread as well as like a traditional French Creole because a French crepe when it goes out onto the crate maker is a thing of beauty like that. This the swirl you seen it right and this doesn't. When they swirl that crate make that crepe on a good crate maker. There's no tears, there's no holes, there's no double swipe. They're just like, they ladle it in and hood and around it goes and there you go.

What is it? They do this? Okay,

yeah, anyway, so it's like, you know, there it is. So, this lady though I completely misjudged her skills, her skills were super on point. So she does that. It takes her like two swipe rounds to get the mung bean crepe all the way out. Then, instead, here's the fun part for those who've never had one. Here's the fun part of the whole kind of McGillicuddy is it but I've only seen people do it with kind of pre beaten egg mixtures. She takes the egg out goes crack cracks the whole egg onto the top of the crepe onto the onto the raw side of the crib right after it sets a little bit. Then she wipes just the white around the entire crib leaving the yolk intact takes the replant breaks the yolk waves the yolk as a separate layer over the top of the entire thing then goes chalky, chalky chalky with sesame seeds over it flips the crepe. Then puts on the sauce and the crumpled up. Crunchy cracker and the crunchy crunchy crunchy cracker, cilantro lettuce and some sort of mayonnaise, the sour cream whatever man easy thing on top of that, and folds it all in. But it's the combination of the crunchy on the inside of the soft. That makes it the big money move. It's the big money moves. She's like, do you want fillings? I was like no, I want to just like that. Later I'll get the fillings. But there was no later but anyway, but there was there was no later then we had it again at the hotel and the hotel guy was trying to be all game about a buzz like you're gonna be better when you become a 70 year old woman. And you're doing this on the street every day, right? Yes, that's fine. But so that's the one that really has me thinking the most about stuff that I could do because I own a crate maker. I now have three sacks of mung bean flour in my house, but I'll let you I'll let you know if I guys if I if I do anything with it. But then when it starts when I get back to Hong Kong, and by the way, hellish, right? Oh yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible. Like China just shut the border down. They're like only shins and people can get through now because we were in Dongguan that day which is outside of shins and they're like crap on Dongguan people. And so the guy's like, okay, crap on me turns off the car and we just sit there like we're dead for an hour and a half on the side of the road on the side of the road, like jerks until they're like okay, non shins and people can go again. And then we went through the border. And we made it in real late we went to a hotel. Hong Kong people because of the protests is dead. Like we were at a bunch of bars and like they f&b is down like 50% hotels are like at like, like very low occupancy, like, you know, they're at least 50% below where they normally are. But the thing is, I feel bad about it. Because as a tourist, you know, even a business tourists like us, did you feel unsafe at all? No, I didn't feel unsafe at all. I mean, the the the only thing is that, you know, you might not be able to go to a particular neighborhood and like once or twice there have been protests at the airport. So some flights were canceled, but I was not ever in any danger. So like, you know, I feel like in the wild I'm not gonna get into it but I feel like in the media like this kind of like the violence has been overblown and so people are afraid to go so someone wrote an article where they're like, this is so ridiculous because you know, there's this whole it's it's a big thing over there but they're like I went to Hong Kong Disneyland and there was no one at the riots like that's what you got out of it. Like this islands in turmoil and what you get out of it is I get to go to Space Mountain without a wait. I was like, you know, that Wait, wait, wait a feel for people brother. You know what I mean? Like, but I you know, I will say that don't be worried. by traveling to Hong Kong and go if you're there, go to restaurants and go to hotels. So the Stasi, we're about to go to the night market because but the night market was going to close in, what? 25 minutes? No, like an hour, but we were half hour away. And it started he's like, I don't feel well and I want to go. So I was like, well, there's a three Michelin star restaurant in the lobby of our of our hotel. It's the only three Michelin star Cantonese restaurant. So Anastasia is like, I'm wearing what do you like I'm wearing a hoodie. I'm like, who cares? So like we show up. And because of the fact that everything's down, there was only like two two people in the entire restaurant. So we did the we did the whole tasting. And I'm here to say that even when it's three Michelin stars, the people who do the full on Cantonese food, don't like salt. It was the least salt. It takes me people I've said this before in the air. It takes me at least a week to get used to the low salt level if I'm eating like mainly Cantonese stuff. You don't I mean, stuff that if you serve me in the United States, I would just drenched in soy so that I could get some salt into it. But like what do you think about the salt level stuff? And it was not that it was? Yeah, it was good. But it was low, low salt. You wish there's more salt, right? Yes. Because you're a salty individual.