Hello and welcome to cooking. From the heart of Manhattan the Rockefeller Center newsstand studios, joined in the studio today with Joe Hazen rocking the panels how're you doing? I'm doing great, man. It's a kind of a solo show. Just you and I. Well here here in New York City, yeah, we're, we're, you know, inter intra continuity cross Continental. What does it when you're only across the continent, what does that trans trans Continental? Okay, sure. Okay, well up there in the upper west of this area. We have Quinn chillin in Vancouver Island Hi doing Quinn

Hey, I'm doing right Good. Good.

And then we have actually we have a a surprise special guests on the telephone with Anastasia Lopez. How you doing the hammer? Good. Good. We got Catherine greasy Nick Coleman. He loves us like that. He likes he likes Mr. Oily better. Mr. oily. He's a he's like olive oil. Not grease. Olive oil is not grease my friend. Oh my god. You bought some sort of instrument? Oh my goodness. The flute

but it's not like a normal flute. Is it some sort of weird? Like tantric.

Indian concert? Three flute.

Indian concert was the last word.

Bansuri flute.

Right Bansuri that's what it is. Bansuri and yeah, it's wooden correct.

It is made of wood.

So like, how much does it change with with humidity and all that?

Very little, it's the cheaper ones would but this is made by this famous band stream maker named Sue posh. Su b h a s h if anyone else out there is looking. And you can get them online. Famous spam stirring maker in India.

What kind of wood? Do they make it?

I think it's bamboo. Really?

Hmm. Then that's like the best. I mean, obviously it's the best tone wood if that's what they use. That's what the is the best fed instrument. I did not know that. I did not know that. Really, really peaceful. Yeah. And we got we got that Jackie molecules.

Hey, what's going on?

Nothing. So. So since this is we're all together. Now. We don't have John here in the studio. He's busy doing I don't know, temperance. winebar stuff. I think someone called out you guys know how it is these days. People call out and then everyone has to shuffle around. It's like the old days, which is I think good. What do you guys think about that? Like, the more I mean, whatever, I'm not even gonna get into it because it's too thorny to get into anyway, if you're listening live on the Patreon call and your questions. 2917410 1507. That's 917-410-1507 And I don't even go to go to patreon.com forward slash cooking issues. Is that correct? Anastasia? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Enjoy it. All right, and join in if you want, you know, whatever. Anyway, so we're gonna do a no tangent Wednesday, because we weren't here on Tuesday. We're gonna do no tangent Wednesday. But you guys got anything interesting. You've done anyone done anything interesting food or otherwise over the last week, anything?

We my family did a lamb to Jean on Sunday. That was pretty good.

Yeah. Do you have a Do you have a touchscreen?

Yeah, we found one for 10 bucks in Facebook marketplace?

No, I actually I liked the Facebook marketplace, because it's the last bastion of people who haven't figured out how to like make a lot of money off of eBay. And it's like, slightly less creepy than Craigslist. So I bought some cool stuff off of Facebook marketplace. You know what I mean?

Oh, yeah, that's great. Yeah.

I almost bought I don't want to touch in at this point. I almost bought you like that stuff. Right, Joe, you're a touchy and fan, aren't you? A lot of Yeah, I almost bought one at so if for any of you who are in New York City, they might still have this. So Colossians closings eventually is going to take over that whole block. It just keeps growing Colossians but they have in the section where they have the cookware. There, they have a whole bunch of tajines beautiful tajines that are almost free like big ones. Like once you could feed like a family of like four or five with like big ones. Almost free because they got to lead them a little bit of lead, like a little bit like a little bit of lead. So like they were supposed to be lead free. And they came into the country and someone tested them and was like lead free, free. No. So they had to put a big sticker on it says this is a decoration. Now, you know I don't know what kind of you know, whatever. I don't have room for a giant ceramic tajines shaped decoration in my apartment. I don't know who does in New York, you know what I mean? But whatever. I assume yours did not have led in it Quinn that you know of. Oh, yeah. So how was it? How was your How was the you said lamb right? You did lamb. Yeah, we did learn. You want to perpetually upset about that? I can't get mutton here. I've tried several times. I've just missed it a couple of times. But I've always wanted to get like old school mutton. I want the Keynes people I don't want to hear go to Keynes get the mutton chop. The mantra bikinis is delicious. But as far as I'm concerned, it tastes like maybe it's like two days older than lamb. It's like, you know, like yesterday was a lamb. And today it's mutton and they killed it today. That's what it's like. It's not like, I wasn't like, Oh my god. This is super matinee. And the other thing I think I've said this on here before I really want to try is that giant fatty lamb tail that like North African, I think it's known as African fatty lamb tail. someday, someday it will have the fatty lamb tail. He imagined growing a sheep. Just so that has a giant fat tail. And then like eaten that giant fat tail. I mean, that's so awesome. That conceptually, I know where you guys down for the fatty landfill? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What about about I'm sure I'm sure Nick is down for a fatty lamb tail. I mean, he'll move away from olive oil for fatty lamb tail, right.

I was born for a fatty lamb. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. What do I you start you down with the fatty lamb tail? Yeah, sure. We should try that. Hey, Nick, I had an idea. See what you think. A couple of weeks ago, somebody asked a question about OLIO jubilation, and I know you like anything with the word OLIO in it. So you know, they were talking about, you know, various ways to thicken oils, most of which, you know, don't taste very good, right. But it led me to read like the most recent comprehensive review on on, you know, gelling oils. And there's a variety of different ways to gel oils. Now you and I were talking about mixing olive oil, I think I talked about it on air a little bit. Olive oil with coconut fat to create kind of butter analog, so I can make like olive oil biscuits, and I've made them and they're delicious, right? You know, like, like, with, I forget what numbers I quoted you, Nick. But I can get a fairly high percentage of olive oil in there and still make like a traditional biscuit with it as long as you pre freeze the oil mixes. Right? But I think so one of one of the prime ways of making like solid oils, right, is to add a relatively small percent, like on the order of 3%, three or four or five, or six, depending on with us. Edible wax. Have you ever tried making like a beeswax oil thing? You could use carnuba, which would be more neutral, but I thought you would prefer bees. Why do you think you ever try it?

I I have not. But I know of an oil producer that is now making an edible candle that is exactly that, like olive oil and some kind of wax of some sort. And then they can shape it and make these beautiful vertical like well shaped candles that you can put on a plate in the center of a table. And as the candle burns and melts, the liquid that forms you can then dip bread

like that. But so that's really article and if you want to we can experiment with it or something at some point, but a lot of the texture of it right because it's all about how the crystals form as its cooling, right. So a lot of it has to do with cooling it and stirring it to like at a very specific temperature and then allowing it to set right so if you just let it set solid, you know, if you just heat it up, let it cool. It's got a very different texture than if you stir it until crystals just start to form and then let it go solid in the same way that like sugar crystals depend like on a fondant exactly how its manipulated as its cooling. So like it seems to me that you could probably get almost any texture you wanted right within reason by manipulating the variables and others the quantity you use and then the stirring and chilling regime, but I think it'd be kind of fun to make like an olive oil butter. You know what I mean? If you wanted to be 100% vegan, I guess you couldn't use beeswax you'd have to use carnuba I just don't have a ready source of carnuba wax sitting around. I always used to love reading

for butter also works.

Butter is a fat so Cocoa butter is good for like doing that but like not I'm trying to do waxes right so I've done cocoa butter, olive oil, and it and it works great, right? I'm just trying to figure out like the wax base. I'm trying to figure out a wax based one because you can use them much smaller percentage with cocoa butter, you need to use like almost 5050 or, or there abouts cocoa butter to olive oil to get it to set to the texture of a butter. And it works. I've done it many times, but with a wax, you can have it be almost all olive oil. You see what I'm saying? So like you can, yeah, and so like carnuba I have a soft feeling in my heart for carnuba wax, because when you grow up and you buy Nerds candy or any other candy, and you read on the back of it, and it says carnuba wax and then if you grew up in my house, my dad would look at me and be like, that's what they use to wax cars. Exactly. Yeah. So if it's good for my car, it's good for my candy. Maybe it's good for my olive oil, too. You know what I mean? Was that like a Willy Wonka trick? You know, the Wonka Corporation? Yes. Did you use carnuba wax on their Gobstoppers? For sure. I remember that specifically. But you know what I hate, like a lot. I hate when, when. So a lot of people write that and write this book. This book is every every like three years. This is like someone writes this book, where they're like, they take an ingredient, it's in food. And then they're like, they use that to make explosives. You know what I mean? Ever, ever read that they're like, titanium dioxide is used to paint and yet they're using it in your food. I just hate that. I hate those arguments so much. Just because the product is used in some industrial way doesn't mean that it's not also wholesome are fine to put in your food. You know, I mean, I'm sure it's an Anarchist Cookbook somewhere, right? I don't know. It's no it's always these people trying to like freak you out. It's always it's it's everyone's always trying to freak you out. You know what I mean? And then the classic responses people like well water is used and exposes till water is you know, and you're like, yeah, yeah, whatever. I don't know. The whole argument irritates me and then it's going to come up in a question later but anyway, Nick, you want to play around with this? You're interested if I if I get some wax and want some experiments you want to talk to me about them?

I love to experiment with this because I want to like I said these these custom formed candles that melt and then are edible at the table that are made mainly out of good olive oil. very appealing.

Have you have you used one?

No, I've seen one I just learned about it just in the past year. This oil producer in Liguria in northwest Italy is experiment them he was the one who showed it to me.

Okay, Miss Darcy, I have a feeling you either love or hate the word Liguria. I kind of like it because it's it's it's kind of fun to say what do you think does? Yeah, I don't have a problem with it. Obviously the question is, is what is the heat due to the oil right so Casey, who works at a museum and has a great Instagram account where she does things made that kind of that Manet's that Manet's candle that people were making during the holidays like cranberry Manet's candle. Remember this and she you set it solid and then you put a wick in it and then you light it on fire and it's like this cranberry Manet's candle that burns and she said the smell was a crush us like real bad. Like, like no good. So I like but you know, I mean olive oil people use it in Lamson. It must smell good, but I've never burned an olive oil lamp What does an olive oil lamp smell like? No

it's not that aromatic it's pretty neutral.

Red bass. You're not like Lee not like leaving the room in pain like she was with the cranberry mayonnaise candle.

Oh, no, like olive oil lamp is really burns very.

Yeah, I bet you the smell is from the eggs. Don't you think burning those eggs? I think that's what the smell is. I think cranberry burning is fine. I think it's the eggs in the mayonnaise burning that it because no one likes the smell of burnt eggs. I don't think I think it's unpleasant. Because there's sulfur in it, too.

Was really nauseating. Yeah,

yeah, I think that's what it was. It was killing it with the with the man is you ever gone swimming in the sulfur screaming for? I haven't gone swimming in a sulfurous but I've been next to a sulphur spring. I don't know that I've gone swimming in one yet. Where do you go swimming in a sulphur spring in Florida. This is Sulphur Springs. Isn't that all of Florida? One big sulfur hole isn't it? Because it's it's hell right? No offense, Florida. No fence. It's it's quite nice. Whenever I used to visit my grandparents and had to drink the water. Oh my god. That That smell that Florida Water smell right from the Everglades. Does anyone have really really awesome municipal water in Florida? Like, is anyone like I love my water in Gainesville? There's uh, it's all fit all the waters from springs. Oh, all right. That's probably fine now. Yeah. All right. Limestone. Yeah. All right. Yeah. All right. What else you guys gotta get anyway, anyone else got anything fun? Well, bye You molecules anything good?

I guess. Well, I got some fun. I got some fun I was judge at the Los Angeles International volleyball competition this past week in Pomona, California. This

is Nick, by the way. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

We tasted hundreds of olive oils from both hemispheres. And we do double blind tastings where they come out with a number and a blue glass and we just analyze the smell and taste and decide if it's defect if there's any defects that gets eliminated from the competition. And then we rate them basically bronze, silver or gold or best in class. And then at the end, all the ones that are best in class we taste back to back to Turkey to determine which is truly like, the cleanest, most transparent, dynamic, vibrant oil

did you do an old school Iron Chef where you bid into a bell pepper and you asked which olive oil rig it will be supreme? That's the best right when he bites into that bell pepper for no reason. Remember that. I did not do that. The next time next time. He needs to say whose cuisine will reign supreme and then you bite into an apple. You never did that.

That's the best. We do use apples and plain Greek yogurt as palate cleansers before we then SIP sparkling water which scrubs the tongue. I didn't move on. I didn't

mean to say apple. He does it too, I believe a green bell pepper. But let me ask you this. So no one who what's the name of that fancy pro fusty oil they were they purpose frosted? What's that? What's that oil called?

Pretend noir, it's a province all style of oil where they create a self induced defect to give the aroma and taste of Olive topping.

I like how you still have to call it a defect. But even though they're doing it on purpose, so but no one who does that kind of style would dare show their face like this because they'd be just immediately chucked right.

That's so interesting, you bring this up. So speaking to the president of the LA olive oil competition, and we were talking about the possibility next year, to create a sector within the competition of virgin olive oils, not extroversion, which would allow a certain amount of that to be graded and judge because there is a culinary applicability of these virgin olive oil.

Right. But would anyone be willing to judge it on its own merits, rather than on like a predetermined set of what's right and what's wrong? Like? Is there space in your in? Not you personally? Because I know there is you personally. But is there space in your world? For things that just happened to be delicious? Right? As long as things are done purposely?

It would have to because the extra virgin category has a very specific set of parameters, you would have to create a new category of virgin olive oils, and have that be a different category than the extra virgins.

So yeah, we'll be like the equivalent of like, super Tuscan wine, right? It doesn't fit into any of the categories, but people still like it and will pay for it.

Exactly. And I think there's not just for that pre K noir style. But even like, you know, for CO packing for packing fish or anchovies and stuff. A lot of people want a more affordable olive oil that's still has merit to it. And virgin virgin is a great place to go for that.

I have one more question. So any huge surprises? Any like anyone, anyone who like, you're like, Oh, that was so much better than I thought it would be? Or once it was unblinded or anyone where you're like, Oh my God, those guys. Like they make that garbage. Anything.

We're as judges like, we don't know. Yeah, and they haven't announced the winner. So I genuinely am tasteless, and double blind. I don't know, the country of origin. I don't know the olive cultivars. It's truly on the smell and the taste and the harmony of both the smell and taste.

Let me ask you another question. I'll say one more question. Before you go. So I've heard from this guy named Nick Coleman that the color makes no difference to the oil at all. So why bother blinding you just because you might know what the cultivar is based on the color. Why blue glass it? No.

You don't want the prejudice of color having a psychological impact of something.

So just judging themselves to not be prejudiced. I get that.

I get that I think we're inherently like, it's almost like the more you know, the more you see, you know, that looks really green psychologically in your mind. You might just gonna go this one's gonna be really grassy and herbaceous.

From a from a from an actual tasting standpoint makes perfect sense to remove all those variables. I'm just curious. You know, I'm just curious like what they you know, what the what the Read is? The other one, what percentage Would you say we're in words? Where you like, Oh, I'm pleasantly surprised that most of these are okay. Or were you like, Oh my God?

Oh, oh no. In most all competitions, like 30 to 50% of the submissions are defective. And it also depends on country like tolerable competition. After all competition. The country of Greece typically submits the most oils, and wins the least

awards.

Because people are prejudiced against Greek styles.

No, it's because the mills are old. And they're not necessarily they don't, they don't have the sanitary practices and say parts of Italy. And people develop what's known as the house collet, meaning there's so many islands there, they only eat their families oil for generations, and they genuinely believe it's great, but it has all sorts of defects in it, due to poor handling or fruit or transportation or poor milling. Or unfiltered because unfiltered is not ideal.

Right, but they like it that way. So like lambic beer is completely messed up, but people seem to like it. Right? That's my, I guess one of my core questions, right? If it's reproducibly, the same, quote unquote, poorly milled? And they know they like it that way. And it's not different from year to year, how is it not a valid style.

Um, you know, first of all, a, you can get used to anything.

Asking the Stasi about working with me.

Be, you know, they can like it all they want, and they can enjoy it, and they can make it but if I send it to a competition that has very strict sensory parameters that defines what it is to be a clean oil where the fruit wasn't damaged at any part of the process than that, you know, it's not the place to send that type of oil. It's like a corks bottle of wine. Some people may like it, but it's not produced accurately. And that doesn't help a consumer who's in a store, you know, trying to buy a real bottle of extra virgin olive oil. Because the problem is if you buy that and it doesn't taste good, then you end up using less of it, you end up kind of getting turned off to the olive oil sector. So you know, it's important when people buy something real, that it tastes great, because it will make them use more of it.

Let me ask you one more follow up on this and now that you've your your, your mellifluous response has erased a race to my mind. But But oh, wait, olive oil faults. Olive oil. It will come to me eventually. Anything else fun at the who was there? There was McGee there was Mickey one of the judges. No, he did he come down.

Mickey was hanging out in the queue for a few days.

Yeah, I remember when he first started doing those things. That's when he started calling us low quality individuals for liking the fustiness. He's like you can't like that date. He's like, You should not like that. If that stuff's garbage. That's trash. You.

Don't anyone tell you anything that you should or shouldn't like?

Okay. No, no. Okay. And I wish I could remember the question I had about olive oil for you. Oh, well. What about you, Jack? You got anything? Anything fun? Are you in Los Angeles? Now? Where are you?

So? Yeah, I'm in LA. And I was making kung pao chicken recipe, I realized I was out of peanuts and went to my local Erawan which is a very overpriced boutique grocery store. And the only thing they had was something called Jungle peanuts. Oh, my goodness. I was curious if you'd heard of these before. It was like not I don't know, like $16 for you know, a package of peanuts. And they claimed to be some kind of heirloom nut wildcrafted and some, some tribes in the Amazon in the Amazon said I had to spend so much on Yeah, I don't know. I've never had it's kind of like burnt. They're like they're dark.

How they taste?

Fine. Not not worth all the money I spent.

I've only ever once spent an exorbitant amount of money on a peanut and been happy about it. But they use the best strategy ever. And I think I've said this on the air when it first happened. Like I walked into a pharmacy in Katonah, which is an overpriced town in Westchester where everything's overpriced in Catan. Anyway, you know what I mean? And I walked into the pharmacy and it was some unconscionable amount of money for a can of peanuts, but they had a crapload of these cans of peanuts for crapload of Virginia peanuts and never had Virginia peanut before. Which by the way, you don't need to go on Virginia. It's a variety. They're big. And I said what are these so special with what will Why do these costs so much money? person looks me dead in the eye and goes, if you don't want to buy it, don't buy it. I'll say oh crap, I'm buying this. You know what I mean? Well Damn, if they're not selling it at all, they're like, don't buy it. I'm like, I'm gonna buy this that was like that was a genius sales technique and you know what? Best peanuts best amazing peanuts. Not you know? The Stasi knows cuz I talk about all the time like we would buy Virginia peanuts remember we used to buy 10s of Virginia peanuts for chefs and whatnot stuff. Yeah. Oh yeah. Hello Virginia Pina there Oh, speaking of good next week we have we she rescheduled I forget what happened something happened. Carolyn shift pastry chef Carolyn shift. So make get all your pastry related questions in quickly. I can't how much was this thing of peanuts you bought Jack and how much how big of a unit was it?

It was at least like $15. And it maybe maybe like eight ounces.

Oh my God.

And they were burnt? Or they burnt? Not burns. They're darker.

Meaning like all the nuance has been roasted out of them. They just tasted like roast.

Oh, no. Here it says it says beautiful to behold. They're long and lean with a deep chocolate colored stripe.

I mean, that sounds good. But it's not like it doesn't taste $18 It's just just you're saying $6 A pound from home to you're telling me it's $36 a pound? Yeah, think of what you can buy for $36 a pound. Right? You know what I mean? Like, you know that's I don't know. Jack Where are you in the in the in the peanut Pantheon if I'm gonna put in front of you. I mean, obviously you eat a salted nut. I'm not even gonna like I'm not even gonna lie. Yeah, please, right. But if I'm gonna put a dry roast not and not dry roast and like a regular like you know the smooth ones. Would you go for the dry roast or would you go for the smoothies?

Oh, go for the dry roast and really, really?

So I like to dry roast I like it but like the problem is that when you pound so much of it, shred your mouth up yummy. Oh, that's true. Yes, yes, I do like a drive. So in a mix. Do you prefer a dry roast in a mix with other nuts which are almost always typically which are actual nuts? Obviously everyone knows peanuts legal not not you know I mean, but yeah, I mean, but so you like a dry roast in a mix? Where's everyone else on the dry roast? Not dry roast spectrum. I'm into jars, but I don't I like all nuts. Yeah, yeah, I put them on my hand. I got some nuts here actually for you. Really? I tried getting some of those gluten free peanut pretzels. I can find them anymore. Yeah. Anyway, so with pretzels shortage like the eggs just like eggs egg price has gone through the roof. Maybe pretzel bread? Yeah. Weird. So what nuts do you bring? cashews? I love a cashew. Yeah, bring them up. Let me tell you something about cashews. I feel bad for the people that have to get the nuts out because it's like caustic to their hands. They have to wear gloves. It's like pretty hardcore. I've actually never seen the cashew shells are pretty tough. Well you so you've ever seen the cashew fruit the cashew nut is like sticking out of the bottom of it looks really weird. And the cashew apple, which is the thing on top of it is also used as an ingredient. But it's like it's a cause of dermatitis. So the people who like have to de cashU it I think they have to wear gloves or get in your into it or not be reactive to it or expensive. Maybe one of the cashews are gone. Very expensive. I think they're expensive because they're delicious. They taste real good. I have to say you know what? I'm not a huge. I'm never like, you know what I need? I need a brazil nut. Oh, no, I love Brazil nuts. I don't hate or Brazil nuts. Yes. A crack. Yeah. Well, it looks like lava rocks. Do you know that every little I don't know. I don't know, it's still true. But every year people are killed by bristlenose killed falling out of the bush that the trees are insanely tall. And the nuts come a bunch of those big things to a pod. And so it's the things fall like 100 feet out of the sky. And like that's it. Gravity. I mean, it's like that guy in Jersey who was killed like six years back when a tape measure fell off of a construction site, which is why you need to always wear a hard hat in a construction zone. No, I mean, and tie with your waist. Yeah, well, I mean, I'm sure that whoever dropped the tape measure felt terrible but it's like wear a hard hat in a construction zone people you know what the thing is? Is that like it's like everything else. It's like you Booker Booker, right so oh my god you know how much we lose when you clean a box of squid because I had this old boxes you know how you how it's hard to buy squid cleaned nowadays. It used to be easy to find boxes a clean square that you could just cut into rings and tentacles and then you know, maybe you know and then fry him right you know, I buttermilk Brian. I'm Tim Make sure that they don't get hard because the acid breaks down the thing but ah, then you know bread fry. So Booker made me buy the unclean squid and they found a box a clean squid. So then I made that and then he had so he cleaned it so much loss out of that so much loss out of the squid. Do you clean the beak? Oh, yeah, the beak right? Yeah, come on. You got to take the pen out the beak out and you got to rip off of the skin you know, it's a hassle it's disgusting. And squid guts smell disc us in there discussed in called chum. Gross in your house. It's just gross. I don't even know. Why was it talking about squid? How do we get from nuts to squid? Brazil?

Like what? Does anyone like honey roasted peanuts.

I was gonna go into the show. Do you like a flavored nut? Do you like a hot nut? Or a honey roasted nut? And what about? Yeah. Okay, you know what a delicious honey roast is great. A delicious candy is a French burnt peanut. It's got that weird coating on the outside. Yeah, it's better than the last one which are always stale. But those those French burnt peanuts. I think put peanut m&ms to shame. No offense, peanut m&m. A French burn peanut. I love those things. You know what I like at weddings. I like Jordan almonds. Oh, I love Jordan. All day long. Yeah, those things are the man you brought me. The peanut Buster parfait from Dairy Queen. I never had that. Oh, I never had the local dairy queen when I was a kid and Englewood got into a fight with the Dairy Queen Corporation and had to take the word Dairy Queen off and I forget what they changed their name to like beer Ecolab or something like that. They changed it to some crazy name because they couldn't call themselves Dairy Queen anymore. Anyway, all right, let's get some questions because we have a whole bunch of them. Lionel Hutz. I was recently says I was recently gifted a magnalite, eight quart aluminum roaster. magnalite was the one that came up on the last show. By the way, I couldn't remember the name of the cage and cookware. magnalite is the one eight quart aluminum roaster, which is relatively small magnets can get uhj right? For frying and whatnot. I think I've heard you talk about them on the show before I bake bread at home and was thinking it might be worth a shot to try to use the magnalite. To bake a loaf of bread instead of the heavy dutch oven that I normally use. Any idea of this might be possible. And if so how to approach it, I assume my normal strategy would need to be different based on using aluminum versus cast iron, but I'm not sure where to start. Here's the problem. Lionel magnalite is has a very low emissivity. And what what that means is, is that almost all of the radiant energy from the oven is going to be reflected off of the magnalite. And so it's going to be very hard to brown inside of the magnet because you're only getting conduction, and it's difficult to load heat into the magnet light as quickly. Even though aluminum is great at conducting heat. If you had an aluminum with a black coating on it, if you were to spray paint, right, the bottom of the mag which don't do this, but if you were to spray paint the bottom of the magnalite black and then spray paint while spray paint the whole outside of the magnalite black and then spray paint. Don't do the lid, I'll tell you why in a second, and spray paint the inside walls black, right so that they radiated towards your thing, I'm sure you could do a great job it would work better than a Dutch oven. In fact, maybe it'd be too good might transmit too much energy to the bread. I bake. I do a lot of baking, where I'll use something that is a very high emissivity like that absorbs a lot of radiation underneath the leaf. And then I'll cover it with something that is very low emissivity and I'll get an initial rise without setting the crust too much. And then I'll pull that off. So I'll use like stainless steel aluminum. Sorry, stainless steel salad bowls, I'll put them over the bread on top of a baking stone are baking steel, and for 15 minutes, and that's how I'll do my initial oven spring and you can get really good oven spring out of it. The downside is is that because there's not that much heat transmission through the low emissivity thing, your crust tends to not be as thick are crispy, so you have to sometimes put it in the oven again after it comes out because the crust isn't as thick and it won't be as hard. So anytime you're using low emissive emissivity, you're probably going to get less evaporation off the crust. You'll still get the steam trapped in there, but I would say maybe use it upside down on top of a steel right and then pull it off and see how see how that works. But I think you're gonna have some troubles getting it properly brown all the way around, which is the problem most people have people used to do rose turkeys in those things. And they're always a little one a little sallow on the outside because of that. Anyway, was that a decent answer, folks? Was that all right? All right. All right. They'll see right soon. I think it's LC maybe it's else ELC II What do you think else or LC LC LC else? I don't know. I'm working on an art project with some friends and have the slightly harebrained notion to try to create a large cubic souffle for an event on 18th of February. When is that that soon? Is this physically possible doesn't need to be a perfect cube and have the have the skills? Blah, blah to fabricate a pan dition, which can be cooked? Ideally, we're thinking somewhere around 50 centimeters cube that's 20 inches for you English unit folks, which is called American units English don't use those units anymore. I mean, Moroccan Moroccan units, it's about 20 inches people. Is there any way that eggs alone could support this scale? If not, is there a product that can be added to support the structure? Or could this structure be supported internally to rise around ie some cylindrical metal pillars could also be used to help distribute heat to the center and cook internally. Thanks for your thoughts. Well, the second part, I think you should be able to get people regularly make them that are like 12, you're talking like 20, which is over twice. And I think the main issue and what I don't know, and you might have to run some experiments, it's all going to have to do with whether souffles are a closed cell foam or an open cell foam in bread, right? It doesn't take that normally, if you take a solid thing like meat, right, and you double the amount of linear area a linear distance that the heat has to penetrate, you're multiplying the cooking time by a factor of four, right? And so when you're doing right, so that's how it should work. Anytime that you're doubling the length the heat is traveling through, you're multiplying by four, notice bread doesn't work that way. Because what happens with bread is after the initial expansion, the cells start popping. And then it's fundamentally an open channel where steam can very quickly equilibrate. That's why you can cook a really large loaf of bread in under an hour, right? Well, you're well under an hour, like you know, if you want to, right, sometimes you want to cook it longer to get the crust, whereas banana bread, which has a closed cell foam, right, that takes like 55 to 60 minutes to cook, right, because it takes a long time for the heat to travel through because it's not as opened, sell. So I don't know how to look at a popover a popover can cook almost, you know, very, very quickly, because it's got one giant bubble, and then the steam can go through it all around it and cook it right. So I think the problem you're going to have is you have to figure out whether a souffle, and I wasn't able to figure it out on a very quick Google search, whether it's an open cell or a closed cell phone, if it's a closed cell foam or act like a closed cell phone, it's going to take too long for the center to cook or get enough structure that you're gonna be able to get it out. In which case, as you say, I'm pretty sure that you could take a cube and then make a small, you know, make a hole in the middle as long as Eric can get to it and you know, up from underneath, almost like a like a bundt pan like a square bundt pan, right. And then I think you shouldn't have any issues, it should be fine. The product itself, I don't think you're gonna get that much extra actual physical pressure from that height. You might want to stabilize the egg whites a little bit, but you know, it should work. But please run a test never have the first time you do something like this be when you need to do it. I cannot stress this enough. You know how you watch TV shows. And like, you know, they it's like, I don't know, some some some sort of version of a chef contest show. And the producers like you need to use some crazy technique that looks good on TV. And then the poor Cook, who I'm sure is a great cook, when they're cooking. The stuff that they know how to cook is like I'm gonna use this wacky technique that I've never used before. And then they're like, lo and behold, it doesn't work. Oh, you know what I mean? And that's always the way it is. So if you if you don't do something like this, like, cold wants, like, you know, do the do some tests. Does that make sense? I looked at a couple square souffles by the way, smaller ones, be aware that you're not gonna get like super flat square coming up, you're gonna get some domain on the square. Be aware of that. Just you know, be aware. That makes sense, guys. Is that enough of a decent answer? No. I have no idea. All right, fine. All right. Alexander Cammarata says, I'm going on a bike packing trip next week, and I have access to a freeze dryer, presumably not on the bike. Any recommendations on what I should prepare? Well, okay, I've never done a lot of tests of Amina, you know, who knows about this is Jackie molecules. Jackie molecules knows about freeze dried products to take on camping trips, but I have only ever done freeze dried stuff to try to determine whether it would be good on its own, not whether it is good to rehydrate. I would assume that most people who are taking things on backpacking BiPAC bikepacking By being whatever camping, whatever you wanna call it, are willing to rehydrate the product and not having to eat it as is and I have a lot less experience. With that, when you want to eat something directly from freeze dried, remember those tests? We ran a Stasi, how gross some of those things were freeze dried if you just eat them as is. Yes. Yeah, my my least favorite thing I think maybe ever. I freeze dried some oysters. And you oysters don't have a lot of fat, right? So if you're going to freeze dry something and you're going to eat it without rehydrating it. It either needs to have something that melts in your mouth like sugar, which is why fruits work well, right. Or it needs to have something that has some lubricity to it, right? It needs to have some fat in it. Because if you just take an oyster it's like, it's like

it was like the dry. It was both the driest. And like most ocean it's like sucking it was like imagine the ocean mixed with the desert in your mouth. And that's what it was like it was like somehow the driest and also like just off putting most off putting one of the more off put, I mean, I've made some terrible things when I've tested before but it was real bad. Whereas kielbasa freeze dried kielbasa that tastes good. Freeze Dried kielbasa is good. I never tried rehydrating, but freeze dried kielbasa. I could just eat that we were going to make a snack mix that existing conditions because we had a freeze dryer and so we were freeze drying all of this stuff. And yet to me the one that pops in my mind has been delicious was to kill Basa but I don't know what's good for rehydrating. Jackie got nega good freeze dried products that you liked to rehydrate on your on your camping.

I mean, yeah, like, you know, the stuff. The Mountain House adventure stuff was fine. And like I said, nothing really like blew me away, though. So I'm kind of still in search of this as well.

Now still in search. Yeah, I guess. I don't know what will be the best to bring. Because you don't have to freeze dry. I wonder what's worse, powdered eggs or freeze dried eggs. is jerky not freeze dried or that's just dry. It's just dried. So the the advantage of freeze drying is that it maintains its structure so it doesn't compress. And what that means is is that it can rehydrate very quickly. Right. So, you know, it absorbs water, you know and goes back to its natural shape. Once something is standard dried, it never reinflates to its original volume with certain exceptions. Mushrooms are very good at drying. Right? I like free shot ice cream. NASA. Yeah, NASA. You know, those astronauts, you know, whatever. That's the one thing they got, although, like when I was a kid, I was like, this sucks. It's not cold. But now I love it. Right when I was a kid, I was like ice cream used to be cold jerks. That's I mean, that's pretty much actually probably what I said. I mean, but I liked the Okay, so there's two kinds of freeze dried ice creams when I was a kid that they sell at the National Aerospace Museum. When I was a kid, all they had were the blocks of the Neapolitan I'm talking about. Yeah, now they do freeze dried. Yeah, that's classic. Now they do freeze dried ice cream sandwiches. And I have to say, I love an ice cream sandwich. But I've never tried to freeze dried ones. I love ice cream sandwiches. So have you tried adding moisture to it? Nobody would melt. I assume it will melt I hope unless they stabilize it with something. How could you read? They'll be interesting. How do you rehydrate freeze dried ice cream without melting and how do you like get the water back? And