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 Paris gourmet, delivering specialty foods and ingredients right to your restaurant, bakery and bar. Learn more at Paris gourmet.com.

Coming this May from Heritage Radio Network, the surprising stories of how artists activists and entrepreneurs collide in one special Brooklyn community that's changing faster by the day.

I am 20 years old. I live in Bushwick, Brooklyn, when I moved to Bushwick when I moved to Brooklyn, I chose Bushwick randomly we've recently opened up in Bushwick all over Bushwick Bushwick, Brooklyn.

This is Bushwick podcast, a series that takes you behind the scenes of how people in kitchens shops, and countless other community spaces Create New York City's most dynamic neighborhood. Each week, we step into the journeys that define Bushwick and break down the forces competing to shape its future. These are local stories like you've never heard before. Join us this may wherever you get your podcasts

Hello, this is Dave Arnold, your host your cookies coming to you live on the heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from whenever for rebirth we do. joined as usual Anastasia the hammer Lopez Hey, Joseph. Good. Got Matt in the booth. How you doing?

I'm doing great. Yeah,

calling all your questions to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. So what was this Bushwick show you were pushing out before our show, Matt.

It's like a, like a hyperlocal podcast about the neighborhood.

I asked you a question. So like the music was some sort of like Hill Street Blues? Like, like sad like definitely, definitely someone's getting over some sort of terrible traumatic loss and they're listening to some sort of like, not I can't quite be upbeat, upbeat, that kind of music is that the vibe? You're getting off the music? That was the vibe I was getting off the music? Is that the vibe of this neighborhood? That that that 2d noise is Mr. Garcia Lopez messing with her mic. I'm not gonna it's not gonna take

and we're there um, he tries to elicit the fields on the podcast. I guess that's what he's doing with the music too.

So you're saying that the feel of Bushwick is somehow like sad, but hoping it will be better in the future? Painting.

Maybe you should consult on the music with him. He might he might he might have he might have. I don't know. Yeah. Anyway, it could be him. thus far.

No, I mean, it's fine. It's well made. It's just like, you know, usually if you're trying to get someone to tune in either it's like, Dun dun dun dun dun dun or it's like, you know, you know, I don't know if something more, you know, kinda. Hey, you know, I'm saying,

yeah, no, I mean I edited out the ripping guitar solo that comes later and that was

your mistake. You gotta leave in the ripping guitar solo. My bad what's your favorite 1980s theme song? My favorite 1980s themes 70s 80s or 90s

Knight Rider came to my Oh, that seems wrong I would have to revisit

there's a there's a rap song it's samples night writer. I forget what it is. Is hip hop song samples night writer that I want to hear. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Like my classics. I think we've discussed this. I think Sanford and Son. Excellent. Excellent. Rockford Files. Excellent. Excellent. And you would like those stats, you know, words and then for me to talk about the stories.

my actual favorite is The X Files theme song, which is still like gives me chills to this day, I think. Yeah. That's because the content of the show, not the song.

Here's a here's Anastasia. I don't watch TV. I don't know what a theme song is. What's your favorite theme? So

the theme song is like a piece of music that plays early on in a television program. It sort of like marks the the program that you want. has started.

Yeah, what do you what do you what do you like?

I don't know. I don't know. I gotta think on it. Yeah.

Are you calling? I don't know. We have a caller.

They're going to answer they're going to ask one question.

Now you hear that? Caller, Anastasia is going to actually try to be the hammer today. Here's how it works by the way. Like I tell her to be the hammer and then whenever she is the hammer, I feel bad about it. Yeah, I'm like being nice and synthesise. He's like, you

can't have it both ways. You jerk. Oh, you should tell him about your new emoji.

We should not and call Are you on the air? No, their connection was really bad. I

hadn't called back Hold on.

Yeah, so you can talk about the new so every once in a while.

We are in a quarterly boondoggle right now. Yeah,

yeah. Yeah, a serious one. Like so. I don't know if you can still buy tickets to this. I won't mention names. But we have to do this event next week. Where I said in advance the Stasi, what did I say in advance? It's gonna be a chordal. Yeah, yeah. Cortelyou is is is a, you know, Booker speak for cluster F. And, and lo and behold, it is going to be an it's going to be

a real like, what was your text? And it was Rebecca's text. They didn't order us anything.

Yeah. months ago. They're like, it's absolutely critical. This by the way, people who do I have

to be on the phone with them. And they're the reason I had to crawl through the trunk of my car because because

by her car, she means the Zip Car. But listen, like she accidentally she left the trunk open but it already locked the keys in the cars that would happen. Conference call you climbed into the trunk rip the back seat off went back into the car anyway. So here's what happens. For those of you that actually like you know, work for a living, like make food or drink. And someone asked you to be an event at an event. If they say to you, they're gonna here's what's gonna happen you're trying to work right? Because that's what you do for living work. And then they're like, we have an event we know it's like four months from now, but we need we need the menu right now. We need to know everything that you're gonna buy. We need it right now. So you fight figure out like you stop what you're doing. You stop the fact everything's on fire services a nightmare. Like five people just quit but you drop all of that. Right? I as I like to say you have the baby in your hands and you drop it into that burning trash can to take care of their stupid problem that's four months in his nature and then you they need the ingredient. Oh my god, they needed so and, and oh my god, it's gonna be so hard to get Okay. One, you know, they're gonna order the wrong stuff. You know, they're gonna order the wrong stuff, but they won't let you order your own stuff and then just reimburse you for it. As soon as they won't let you do that people walk away, walk a way because here's what happens when they ask you for months in advance. I guarantee you that little football is being handed off to at least 12 different people and one of them one of them is going to drop it. So we went through all this nightmare trying to figure out our freaking list of stuff we were going to make for this event. Three days. We're figuring out all this stuff, right? Three days three day event. Don't even get me started. Don't even get me started. So we're making this stuff. And I'm like, oh my god, I waste all of this time that I could have been doing anything else beating my head against the wall shoving like slivers of bamboo underneath my fingernails anything would have been more pleasurable than dealing with them at that moment. And then we got on a conference call yesterday. It's coming up Monday. What do they say Anastasia? They

don't know what you're doing.

Yeah. What why you didn't order the product. What? What event are you in order to they ordered nothing. They were nothing, nothing. Nothing. And I was like,

Okay, this spins off your machine.

Yeah, there's your machines, your machines. So like, I'm like, I need to clean. I need this is also happens. You're asking me to show up and demonstrate a piece of equipment that makes food. Do you have access to running water? Yeah, the bathroom. Yeah. Unlike I'm not walking into a bathroom and rinsing out, spins all rotors, while people are washing the poop off their hands. That's a no fly. And it's not going to happen, right? And four months ago, they were so adamant. We could not buy anything if they had to order everything, right. So it turned into such a nightmare that I was like, listen, listen,

this is gonna be great content for your Instagram.

I was like, listen, listen. Is anyone going to search? Me? Am I going to have some sort of full body cavity search when I'm entering and leaving the venue? They're like, Hmm, I'm like, Well, what if? What if right? Stuff just magically appears that I've made at my real honest to god bar where we know how to work for a living, right? And then I just take the raw product that you haven't yet ordered and it's not going to be right and bring it back to the bar my backpack? You're like,

I were like,

What do you say we were anyway? Nightmares. Nightmares. Anytime someone asks you that far in advance. Pay attention because they aren't. Yeah. Caller caller you're on the air. One question. Yeah. Hey, Quinn, from Canada. How you doing? I'm good. I was wondering if you have any suggestions, or ways to look into any difference for roasting cocoa nibs versus the whole beans? Because most of just online is about roasting the whole beans. Yeah, cheese. I don't know. I mean, the main thing was roasting beans is obviously getting an even you know, well, I guess if you don't want it even you don't want it even but getting an even profile throughout. I don't know anyone that roasts, the nibs and 99.9%. Aren't they already? Are you buying raw? I thought they already roasted and then crack them into nibs? No, you can get rolling in. I mean, I don't want to offend anyone but 99.9 I would just order the I would go to like I forget the name of the place. It's like chocolate alchemy or something like this. You can find it that way. They will sell whole raw cacao beans, I would do that 99.9% of nibs are a no offense chocolate people straight garbage. The like garbage. Like the stuff that they're not willing to put into their chocolate is like what they're selling as nibs 99%. And it's true. Maybe I've only tasted me like you know 15 different brands of nibs. But with the exception of Val Rona, which sells a high quality nib, I'm not going to say it is as good as the stuff that they put into their fantastic chocolate. I like it. I think for a larger chocolate manufacturer. I think Valbona does an excellent job. If you disagree, come fight me. But like the but their nibs are good enough for me to use at least in with infusions, where most of them are just kind of like wretched, like burnt, bitter tasting things now. I would go it's been years like on the order of five or six years since I've dealt with it, but I believe it's called choc chocolate alchemy and there's a couple other websites now where they'll supply whole beans. And the good thing about that is that they I think they have a tighter control over the quality than if you're just buying unspecified nibs from bulk nib supplier dotnet okay. But no, I don't know anything about roasting the nibs if they if they come raw. Neil wrote in from Los Angeles where by the way, Anastasia and I are going to Los Angeles when what you tell them what we're doing when you face into the mic instead of doing your Zappos.

She has been very on mic today so far.

Well, yeah, except for She's literally sitting there while I'm talking asking her questions looking at she's the rudest, rudest, rudest co host in the world, like 45 minutes, you need to focus on what we're doing. She can't do it.

She would do it. If you could be interesting for 45 minutes. Oh,

we're going to LA. I told them that. What are we doing in

LA 27th through the 31st

And what are we doing while we are there?

Staying in that house.

Oh my god, that house has a lot of referee. Okay, this is how this works. You listen to what we're doing and you tell them what we're going to we're going to Harvard in stone. We're making apple heads. And we're making cocktails, one of which will include personally handmade by Anastasia Applehead doll garnish is as featured on her Instagram Stories a couple of weeks ago in yours. Was it also featured on my stores. Okay. And if you're very nice Miss dasya if you say something nice about Applehead she might take her dead to me look off of her face for five seconds. And then what are we doing? Jack Schramm is also going, we were going to throw a party at that. I'm not allowed to say where he's going to know we're not going to throw that party. And then I don't know what we're doing. We're going to do a cooking issues from Los Angeles.

And maybe the case in the last two years, will get to see it live.

Is that true? Yeah. You do a lot of stuff. Anyway, stay tuned. Stay tuned for that. Also, at the end of the show, and we're also doing a dinner party at the house. No, we're not. Who said we were doing a dinner party at the house. Yeah, this is the first time hearing of it. But last time, the last time I did a state party at at a house in the Hollywood Hills that Anastasia rented with, you know, you're staying there again, right? Yeah. So she rented this house in the in the Hollywood Hills, like literally the last house before the Hollywood sign. It has a tent where I can throw a baseball and maybe well now I'm not that strong, but I could throw a baseball and hit the Hollywood sign from it. And this is the one where she set an immersion circulator on 55 Fahrenheit, threw a bunch of steak in it for like six hours and use it as a freaking doorstop and never bothered to stick her finger into the water. Like any normal human. Listen. It doesn't take Sherlock freaking homes. You know what I mean? Or, you know, Angela Lansbury to look over and covered with saran wrap. Now you didn't know you didn't

had any heat generated that would have insulated it really well. Yeah. Dang.

Dang. Dang. Yeah. Right. But obviously, no vapor coming off of it at all. never bothers to touch it. See what's going on the one class she sends someone who shall remain nameless her nicknames the boondoggle or send someone over to increase the to decrease the temperature of the bath. A 55 Fahrenheit below room temperature bad by the way, by two degrees. has to somehow touch the equipment and not realize that this thing has been sitting in room temp water.

This is well outside of the danger zone.

No, no, no, no. Oh, no. No room temperature. No.

Oh, I suppose that's true. Yeah, yeah. No, no, she

was like, she was like, listen, I know this. I know this meet started out cold bacteria was having a tough time growing. So let me just as fast as possible, and we run a bunch of room temperature water over it. By the way, room temperature in LA so not like, you know room temperature and like the Arctic tundra like room temperature in LA. Right. Let me just get it up to that temperature to see whether I can really just ferment this mother for a while. I show I've said

Do I ask one thing of you do not yell at me in front of my parents.

You didn't care whether or yelled at you in front of your dad. That's true. And then and then. But she's like, listen, listen, listen, don't use need to be nice in front of my parents. And then I see that. I'm supposed to be putting our name Booker index. I'm supposed to be an expert in this stuff, right? Putting our name on this. The Stasi Lopez who sits in his freaking chair next to me and has for I don't know, what are we up to 8000 episodes now. And it certainly talks about low temperature cooking, I don't know a billion times, right? Writing a book on the frickin subject. Can't even set up the simplest circulator in the world. And she expects me to sit there and be like, Hi, Anastasia. Great job setting up the party when her parents happened to walk in behind me when I'm trying to figure out what the hell has happened in this kitchen. This is an unreasonable expectation. That's like saying that's I say, Dave, I know you're on fire. The one thing you can't do is stop. Drop and Roll. No, I'm sorry. I have to stop. Drop and Roll.

My mom was horrified. Well, she should have been.

I think I spoke to your dad about it. I think she was horrified at what a terrible job you did with that emergency regulators what she was horrified at. I know I would be oh my god. It's like I tell DAX every day do well or don't come home. I don't actually we do say that to each other as a joke, but obviously I don't mean it. Okay. Neil wrote in from Los Angeles. Hey Dave, Anastasia, and oh, you're now booth boy Matt How do you like that? Boy booth boy boy. All

right. Am I like bringing you drinks?

No, it's like boy boy. I don't know maybe it's like as like You're like a hype man.

Okay, okay. I'll bring my I'll get my giant watch from our clock from home for around my neck.

Do you have a Flavor Flav necklace?

I will once I get on Amazon sweet. They still

sell those? Of course they do. I mean, troubled individual right how a lot of issues great Heitman Flavor Flav.

Paris gourmet delivers the finest specialty imported and local foods directly to chefs. for over 35 years Paris gourmet has sourced specialty foods from around the world. There are metal lambs headquarters services the New York tri state area. Paris gourmet delivers Vermont butters, cook counter Well, chocolates, Robbie fruit purees zintec ingredients and bumper to ca Viennoiserie to your kitchen. Paris gourmet brings the world to your doorstep. They're close when professionals need the most. Learn more at Paris gourmet.com.

Okay, and any other guests in the studio I'm working on a draft we already deal with this draft spritz at the bar and some have some carbonation. Questions sounds.

Yeah, you've done the carbonation.

I know you've talked a lot about this in the past we already talked about this. I have some new information. Everyone I talked to this is meals that everyone meals spoke to says they need a carb stone. And I played around carbonating water with a carb stone and it works just fine. As long as they don't mind shaking a five gallon keg like a jerk is the carbs don't necessary. Psi had a good time at existing conditions. Okay, I have just recently used a carved stone I attempted to do a and people might find this interesting. A keg cocktail. Everyone knows that I'm anti kegged carbonated cocktails because they come out rather under carbonated because of the immense amount of foaming you get at the tap no matter kind of how good a job you did. Now, I was using a carbonating stone and I was testing carbonation levels. And I was able using it what I did was I circulated the carbonation stone that you use with one of the these things you have a pump, the pump circulates the liquid through the keg through the carbonating stone and carbonates it that way. I had a good good result carbonating it what I did was is I circulated the product with the pump through a cold plate so that the product was continuously kept cold while I was doing it and it was done very quickly the temperature dropped down to pretty close to zero in, I would say five to 10 minutes. I also before I hooked up the carbonate or stone, I put the batch into the keg applied the co2 to it to the tube side to that so that I was pushing from the bottom and vented all the air out. But I also tried to keep it circulating because my theory one of my theories was one of the reasons you get a lot of foaming especially at the beginning when you're using water is that static stuff in the line has air you know bubbles in it. And when you depress it, those bubbles foam up so I was trying to keep it circulating and cold and dispense it that way. Constantly circulating from a really nice tap still didn't work I still had under carbonated cocktail. So I still do not recommend it. But you know, your results may vary. And by that your standards may vary oh is that she's like don't care. Don't care. She doesn't care. Mood therapist from Vietnam asks, Do I need to suggest that you buy another machete? No. So when candidemia the Jedi when I was in Chicago oh, by the way, I was in Chicago last week.

Oh, by the way, Claire's speech went well.

Oh, so for those of you that are listening to the episode where I was giving advice to someone doing a wedding officiant speech, it went well. But I heard that Anastasia had to take care of a lot of dotting the I's and crossing the t's to make sure that the wedding happened. For instance, your favorite officiant showed up 45 minutes late to the rehearsal because

she wanted to go buy wine for her as well know for herself. Yeah. Who the hell

buys wine for themselves? Because she didn't want to pay for the wine at the ranch. Wait, what? So she's like buying Capri Suns of wine so that she can like she has like a beer hat with two wines in it. And she's like sucking down daily daily. Sucking on like wine as he's like, What? Who would who buys wine for themselves?

I don't want to buy wine at this ranch. We're going to the store so I can get it for cheap.

What does she buy? Some kind

of Chardonnay? What sets that Kendall Jackson? Yeah, geez,

Louise. Jeez. Anyways, so I was in Chicago. The majority comment reminded me so boo therapist was calling about condensers and roto VABs Anastasia Lopez tells me that it's too deep to get into this conversation because only three of you will really care about the cooling power of condensers of chillers for condensers at various distillation rates. So the Stasi assures me that nobody cares. So just reach out to me individually and I'll answer it what? It's beyond Twitter, whatever you could be me we will deal with it. He's supposed to I thought we were gonna go to Vietnam and hang out phone number. It's not like I answer my phone anyway. So what are we talking about before that Chicago, Chicago. So if anyone out there is listening from Chicago land once again fronteira grill did us way way. Right. And we had you know, Rick Bayless and you tend to Allison got us a whole bunch of one of my favorite herbs to work with. Oh has Santa which is a very It's big. It's it's related to Black Pepper actually it's in the same genus different species. And also related to you know pine leaves which are used for beetle leaves which are used for chewing quids of beetle nut, you know over vast areas of Southeast Asia. But it's a really I think good spice. I don't know I herb rather I don't know why. Why do you think people don't use it in the US fresh? Is it because it's so big? I don't like it. Why do you know like, I

don't like the flavor.

What do you not like about describe the flavor that you don't like?

All of that flavors that you just talked about? I don't like which flavors. The beetle nut

beetle nut is it doesn't taste anything like beetle nut. It doesn't taste zero. In fact beetle nut is a beetle nut and the leaf that you chew with

it is a leaf finds me slash one peppers. It

has no relation to sexual peppers. It doesn't have it does not have any tingling at all. It is not a tingling herb. It has no tingle at all. There's no there's absolutely zero set one button flavor. I think you don't have an accurate memory of Oh, Santa. Are you thinking of Paragon

No, I know what you're talking about. What does it look like? It's a gigantic leaf.

The one that is the one that is from India has it tastes like burning transformers that one people the Mexican one does not they are a different species. I am not wrong. I have studied this quite thoroughly. And I am not wrong. Anyway. It's a great fresh herb if you can find it. I recommend it. Rick Bayless was as usual super kind able to get us because it's a little early in the season that he grows his I didn't see him. You know, they were closed the night we did the event so I didn't get to didn't get to see him. But anyway, thanks. Shout out to them. See, we have a question from Matt regarding dragons beard. So how many years ago do that dragons beard video? Nine. So dragons beard is like, you heard a hand pulled noodles. While dragons beard is like hand pulled cotton candy. And so you take sugar. And you cook it sugar. And you know, I think you did it officially so I used maltose but sugar. I think they add the maltose to it. I don't remember who's best

at the dragon's beard.

I mean, me. Not he never made it. When did he make it? He came in and I handed it to him. He had the best he had the best racist picture of himself with it. And he made a picture of himself and said here's the best racist picture you will ever have. You remember now Now do you remember how it works? Anyways? Do you have any recommendations for how to make dragons beard candy at home? What cook tentpole temp etc. I tried yesterday to recreate it as best as I understood and just ended up with long fat snotty shaped strands, long fat snotty shaped strands. I definitely started stretching while the candy was too warm. But any recommendations, suggestions or tutorials, references would be appreciated. Oh, this is not from Matt, this is from Serena. PS. Anastasia, I missed the chance to go to pacifier. I'm kicking myself for it. Awaiting your next adventure. So Sarita, I have a video on this. I don't, I didn't get chance to go look at it again. But I have all of the information on the on the video, like all of the like the cook temperatures and all of that other stuff. The main thing is if you pull too early, you're definitely going to get that kind of ropey ropey thing, you should wait for it to be dead cold, then if it's too hard, you can just nuke it for a second in the microwave. But the whole trick about it is getting the cook time, very similar to the cook time that I used in the in the recipe, that's why you really shouldn't change the mound, the amount of the quantity of the recipe that I have. And the amount of vinegar I have, the problem wasn't when you're cooking sugar as you're trying to get a as you cook sugar, a lot of complex things happen to it. So cooking to a temperature is not doesn't really mean the same thing as cooking to a particular temperature at a particular in a particular amount of time with a particular amount of acid. So you're adding some acid to the sugar vinegar. In the case of the recipe I used, you're adding some acid to it. And what that's going to do is invert, invert some of the sugar split some of the sucrose into into glucose and fructose. And that is going to drastically affect the texture of the finished product. So the amount of time that you're boiling something in the presence of acid is going to affect the amount of temperature the amount of sugar and version that you get. So for a given temperature, and Harold McGee has proven this by putting sugar in Advair for very very, very long times at very constant temperatures. And you can see them kind of break down and change color has mentioned in pictures of it. So in general for a recipe where you're cooking sugar, you want to get the use the same batch size they do so that stuff's evaporating at roughly the same rate. and you want to hit roughly the same amount of time. So if you go back and you look at that recipe that I did, just try to hit those numbers exactly once it cools down, you should get the texture pretty much exactly like I did. If it's too hard, you can heat it, but just know that we're talking like five seconds in the microwave, you don't even want like sensible what I would call sensible heating, you want it to kind of you want it to just be good enough to make that doughnut by pushing your finger through the puck, you basically you make a puff of sugar, and then you put your finger through it form into a doughnut, make the doughnut relatively, you know wide around this you want to do very accurately, if you have lots of really thin spots in the donut that you're pulling on. That's when you know, they're going to only get worse and worse. Then you put it into your cornstarch and or cornstarch and flavor mixture. And then you start pulling, make sure that you're always you know, figuring putting together and pulling, make sure that you're always dredging and in between cornstarch, and hopefully you'll have a better result. If it's like I say too hot. It just doesn't work. And if the texture is too stiff, when it's cold, it will snap. So it's kind of hard to get it just right. But once you get the texture right, you will it will work 100% of the time and you will know based on touching it whether it is right or wrong. Anyway, Matthew Sanders wrote in about nope, the Stasi Lopez is sitting here reading emails and hitting the table with her foot. So Should my microphone keeps jangling up and down like I'm on a horse and buggy. Why she's doing this? I don't know. And I look at her give her the snap here this. That's me trying to get her to stop bouncing the table with her feet. Now I bounced my feet. So I'm not saying you can't bounce your feet. I mean, both Anastasia and I are inveterate visitors, right? Yeah. But do you need the bouncer table mustache? No.

Remember when Nick one came on the show and didn't say anything?

Yeah, piss me off. So what are you looking at on the internet right now? Nothing. There's no internet. But what emails are you reading? I saw a picture coming up. Was it interesting? Is it a picture of someone's baby? I know you hate seeing people's babies. So I doubt it's that true? You told me that every day. Good. I

ate every day.

I don't eat baby. Cheese babies. I don't eat babies. I find them annoying.

Did you guys get this question about existing conditions? Name? No. Okay. Can I give you this one?

Yes. What's the name about?

Yeah, that's the that's the quick way. I'll read you the whole message. Just wondering how you guys came up with the existing conditions name for your bar, I work in architecture and interior design. And we use the term quite a bit. Did your wife being an architect have something to do with the name?

Yeah, Don, and I were like, Jen, my wife was talking to us about the existing conditions at various places that we were looking to take over. And we done and I, you know, we're told you need a name, you need a concept. And we're like, I thought the concept was we were going to make drinks, you know what I mean? And but apparently, these days, that's not enough. If if you don't have some sort of like, you know, high concept, it just doesn't work. And so she just kept talking about the existing conditions. And Don, and I, at the same time, like, Hey, that's a great, that's a great name. And also to kind of abuse the architectural concept a little bit, we're like, well, we're going to focus on using the existing conditions at the space, doing as little kind of intervention as possible. And have that be the goal, because the goal is to is to focus on the staff and the drinks and the hospitality and not so much on in trying to impose our will on a bunch of already existing conditions in the space because that gets really pricey people. People spend, you know, people you could you could drop a million dollars on a space and you can hardly even know that you did it. You know, it's certainly crazy where the money goes and Stasi, especially if you do things legally. I mean, I'm not saying that they do things illegally here at Roberta's mat, but But it means like they have greens on pizzas, and they they will not have greens on our pizzas and the Stasi, like so like anything you do by the book cost 30 times as much as anything that you don't do by the book, but Anastasia Lopez and I, for how many years we've been doing this. So many have been asking for greens. Yeah. And we're like, we'll pay. I won't even make the radio pay we would pay and if you know how cheap Anastasia and I are, we would pay out of our own pocket. Yeah, to have greens on our pizza looks delicious. And then I'm looking out at this dude, and he has greens on his beat now. In his defense, I'm sure he asked for what does that arugula I can't see. They gave him like three leaves. No, actually, I

think it's Oh no, I think it's lunch.

Let's also Lotro look look at some sir anyway, they gave the poor guy like three greens.

turn the tables on them tap on the window. See if you can get their attention. Hey,

yo, yo, y'all can see the rest of your pizza. Yo. Anyway, so Anastasia and I are gonna go there and we're going to ask them for greens on their pizza and what are they gonna say? No,

no, no. And the garden this is this is a garden. It's crazy.

No, this is a container. Yeah, we're under a garden. render a garden. Yeah, not our garden.

They had a second question. Completely unrelated. All right. They say I'm looking for a chocolate melter, not a tempering machine per se. As I would like to temper couverture chocolate by hand and keep it at the proper temperature in the melter. Do you have any recommendation on a particular brand or any features I should consider I'm based it's basically for hobby work something in the 3k G range

three kilogram Yes, yeah, no, I don't it's been it's been a long time since I've worked at the French culinary I used to know all the name brands of the melters they use it the French culinary but you know I don't especially if you don't want one that tempers I mean, I would see whatever JG J JB princes has now they usually carry stuff that works pretty well. But yeah, I don't have any I don't off the top of my head. I could take a look but I don't off the top my head have any good recommendations for it. Okay, Matthew Sanders writes in about no palace. Now. Is this another one of those things that you don't like Anastasia as characters?

Yeah. I don't know what that will really be. You grew

up in Southern California. We didn't need that. What was your dad Mexican? What? You didn't eat at all? What about prickly pears?

No, no, none of it? No. Okay.

I'm a sucker for the flavor of no Polish paddles, which are the no polish. Okay, we'll get into in a minute. And a friend who has a large I have a friend who has a large squad of cacti in his alleyway. I effectively have an unlimited supply to experiment with. The only published cocktails I've seen with Nepalis are in two families. The first track I've seen infuses the flavor into a simple syrup. Fresh nopales have a nice green pepper citrus vibe going on. And after you simmer them they just move into green beans asparagus peas territory, not terrible but and then not that that not not what you're looking for. The next track is blending it into a god awful Slurpee from hell. It's so thick and viscous and snotty that is not even worth it. Even though that tastes pretty good. Straining and stuff is incredibly difficult and the sludge does not want to separate. What should I be doing to these little friends for maximum clean flavor extraction while combating the pulpy slime Popo baseline. And for the ongoing cooking issue census I'm 36 Male married and my wife is down for whatever kitchen stuff I want as long as we have room for it. She's a fantastic home Baker and has plenty of her own kitchen gadgets desperately trying to carve out space for a spins off, it might get relegated to the garage. Well, why not? All of our stuff ends up getting relegated to the garage, right Anastasia trailing edge technology. So so no playlists are like, there's a bunch of different and you get a bunch of stuff from from nopales and apologists are the paddles, right and they come from a larger large, relatively large group of cactus or cacti called opuntia. Right. So the fruits the same cactus, it gives you the paddles, different different species of them. You can get the paddles you also get prickly pear cactus now prickly pear fruits in America in most places in America if you buy prickly pear in the supermarket they suck real hard they're they're almost flavor lists. You can get various varieties of them so like the one that you know that Rick Bayless again got us Chaka noseley which don't even start starts x Oh but it's pronounced Chaka knows les has a shotgun I don't know how you pronounce it, but that's the way he pronounces it or that's the way he had me pronounce it has a lot more acidity. So if you don't like pickled prickly pear fruit or a plenty of fruits now please do not judge them until you've tried a wide variety because the flavor is extremely different from species to species and plant to plant and whenever I'm within whether I'm in an area and I see them like on roadsides, I try them and they are incredibly different from different places, different plants, different species etc. And when you dry them you get the dried prickly pear which is more of a texture thing less with flavor thing but that is called tuna i guess anyway. The leaves the paddles have a like a hard core mucus in them that in I forget the Spanish word for it's like Bob BUSA or something like this, but it's very very snotty. So even when you're just cooking with it, people have a lot of ways they tried to ameliorate the slime. And the slime is is a hydrocolloid, I think I looked it up and has I think both proteins and hydrocodone voids in it that cause it to kind of snuck up on you. But the various ways that people do it is they will cut it salted by the way, be careful of the prickers. So I take a knife and shave the prickers off before I use it, some people then also flame it to get rid of some of the prickers. But if you if you slice it, salt it, right, the salt will cause water to come out. As the water comes out, the mucus will come out with it, you rinse off the mucus and the salt and stuff that's leftover is less mucousy. That's one thing people do. Another thing as you say people do is they will slice it, boil it and skim the scum off the top that gets rid of some of the mucus too, but it causes it to be cooked. The only way that I've ever seen cactus used in a cocktail that wasn't snotty was if you blend directly into liquor the if the liquor content is high enough and we had a cactus cocktail that Philippe used at our at our bar at Booker and DAX If you blend the cactus leaves directly into liquor. The hydrocolloid can't stay in solution in the liquor, and it will drop out. And you can have a mucus free, uncooked cocktail, cactus infusion, but you have to do it into the straight spirit. I was not able, even with pectin X Ultra SPL to knock out the mucus once the mucus is allowed to stay solubilized in a syrup. So anyway, there you have it. What? for that question. Oh, so I didn't get to Bob's stuff on wine finding and bentonite. A couple other things I need to get to but I guess we'll get to Oh, I know one thing before we go. Because I just looked at the clock and we have two minutes but it still seems like you're gonna stop me from reading my emails some more. So she literally people, I wish you can see this man, he took a picture, she pushes the mic away from her face, puts her feet up on the table, bounces a table and sifts through emails during the show,

trying to strongly signal that she's done with you. But it's like all the time. Like it's she's all the time done with you.

Like, I'm not supposed to work in this she gives me crap for being late while I'm literally busting my butt trying to find the answers to your questions people. And during the show. She isn't actually here. So she is late the entire time because she's never in the show. She's always doing something else.