Hello and welcome to the Dave are on your host of cooking issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan the Rockefeller Center at newsstands studios joined behind me with John how you doing John?

Doing great thanks yeah.

Oh good. Oh got Joe Hasan rocking the panels. What's up? Hey man, great to see you. Nice to see you as well. We got a full crew down in California we have the Stasi to hammer Lopez and Jackie molecules. Name's Lee. What's up? Hey, hey, hey, I've made a mistake. I've picked up a super crunchy mini Schneider's gluten free pretzel that Joe brought it but now because we're you have like what you touch you take kind of a family but I don't want to put in my mouth because it's so freakin crunchy. Someone's gonna have to hold it for the rest of the show. Maybe? Yeah. In on Vancouver Island and a MIMO we got Quinn how're you doing Quinn?

I'm good. Yeah.

Okay, and in the studio today, our special guests. We're super psyched to have Katie parla here for her new book. Food of the Italian islands right. Now listen, in the show at the beginning we just go around set us for say hello. So then on that line, Joe. So we go around and we just say kind of any kind of random bullcrap it's happened to us over the last week before we kind of get into so well what do you guys got you guys got anything other than these hyper crunchy pretzel Lloyd's pretzel Lloyd's job because they're not twisted. Everyone in my family? I say what is the pretzel they say twisted. I'm like what? Twisted what twisted and they tried to bring rods in. Rod is the worst of all the fake pretzel shapes.

Unacceptable

shape, not a good shape.

It's great for pasta.

Great for pastors out of my breasts. Oh, by the way, by the way, you Anastasia need to eventually have see you have a much more measured opinion about pasta. Then do I? II? Oh, yeah. Then so Anastasia. And if you notice the Stasi, I used to have a pastor business with Mark Ladner and writes Am I making this flyer? Foster flyer right? Yeah. And so she you guys know each other by the way? Do you guys know each other

already? Kind of do? We kind of Yeah,

you do. But you don't. You did what you want. Yeah. Anyway, so like, you know, she used to get her stuff. Like specially tweaked out in she was not allowed to talk about she not to talk about it. Idli anyway, so she must ask is basic feeling Why don't you just say what your basic feeling is rather than me paraphrasing it since you're right here.

It's a huge category.

Well know her. She's like, anyone that tries to make pasta. She's like, given the given the under the under the chin.

People who try to like extrude it and dry it at home.

Well, yeah, yeah. But you also you don't like fresh pasta either. Right? Mostly. mostly.

Mostly. Unless it's, you know, that a chant like there's there's things but yeah, when people try to make dried pasta at home, it angers me because there's so much rate dried pasta, like commercially made, like, why are you doing that? You

know, it's pointless. And also, when restaurants do it, it's often terrible. And there's no boy into it. So stop. Stop doing that. Wow, we're on the same page here.

Well, except for like, Well, okay, so let's go to your book, your new book, food of the Italian islands where you're like you have a whole like beautiful by the way. If you if you hate good photography, don't get the book. Yeah, for sure. Steer clear. Yeah, if you don't like people, like looking kind of like sweaty and amazing at the same time like that guy in the front like oh

my god, the guy grilling horror. Yes. Yeah, and 100 degree temperature. Yeah, and katanya go glistening.

The guy looks like like an overweight Greek wrestler. Like he looks amazing. Like, you know what I mean? Like, glistening. Perfect. Amazing. I definitely want to eat that dude's whatever. It was grilled horse. Yeah, yeah. Eat that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, I have only seen the PDF copy of this book. Right. Where's the the front page the front cover isn't what I have in the in the PDF. It's this like giant just like full page like octave squish. Totally okay, at the front page. Don't just write this piece or whatever.

That's like the end papers. And I'm so sorry. I don't have a physical copy. i The book came out today and I do not have a book. Thanks ups. Yeah, that's great. I appreciate you for ruining this for me. I wanted to present all of you with books, but it'll have to wait UPS

is the company that like a couple things I'll say about UPS one. Like, if they say when they get it to you on time, they UPS never bring stuff early. Not ever, not once. If they say it's going to be in five days. That crap can go all the way from California to New York and it's going to sit in the UPS warehouse until day five and then is going to show up. But then but maybe but then if you absolutely positively to use FedEx as old thing need it? There's not going to get it. Yeah.

It's upsetting How is that a business that doesn't prove

they want basically put I was in a handbag, a leather handbag business with my wife where we actually went to the we went to Italy's like kind of like leather district to tie a deal with them because they were the kind of one of the last bastions of molded leather. And they didn't want to deal with us because we were, you know, like, we had an in like, actually, what's it called? One of the partners that Kate Spade like, hooked us up with their leather person over there and she was still like, no, like, she's like, I'll pick you up with the I'll pick you up at the bus station. I'll tour the factory and then you gotta get out. Oh my God back to Florida. It's you know what I mean? So like anyway, so yeah, so ups we had like all of these like leathers, like full cow hides coming like big, thick veg, canned stuff that we were going to, and just didn't show up. We had all these orders we had to make didn't show up. We're like, that's our goal. That's our whole That's it. That's our whole business.

No, same. I'm like I did this book and then no one can receive it. That's not ideal.

All right. All right. So listen, well, we're gonna get we're gonna get back anything else from the week anything? John, you got anything in the land of restaurants? Ah,

I did, but I can't remember.

So John has a ridiculous and see whether you can weigh in on this. For every for every three quarters of a pound of dried pasta for his carbon arm 10 egg yolks. 10 egg yolks. What do you think about this?

When it comes to carbon? You can do what you feel in the egg department. You can even use egg whites. Go nuts.

I don't know. All I'm gonna say is I made it again last night for the family because they enjoy John's carbonara recipe. Yeah, and my mom got me some of that grano arso flour. When we're gonna do with it though. So like she thought I was gonna make bread with it. I'm like, I'm not going to want what? So like, I tried to make earmuffs I made some pasta. Just shoot it I just shoot it and cut it. You know what I mean? until like, you know badly you know, cut noodles cutting care right? And early. It's so many freakin egg yolks to make his thing. So I was thinking in my head. Every time someone makes your sauce, an angel food cake gets its wings because like you have to make a rainbow cakes. What am I gonna do with all

these damn whites? Marang nobody was that much boring.

Nobody wants that much more. No, you go to a pastry shop anywhere in you know, wherever where they do Merengues like, you know, your you know, anywhere and like, beautiful window full of freaking Merengues and then they hand you one that's like, you know, like big. It's like big. And you take one bite and you're like, I'm done. I'm done. So much. Why do I want aerated sugar? That's true. Although, I was at my nephew's birthday party. Get the name of this place. Ready? Okay. Pequots. EPIs. Lots of it a quiet surplus. It's a nature reserve Pequots. EPIs. Pequots at this. And so Wiley, who's opening his new pizza restaurant in in a week here, stretch pizza in New York City. We'll talk about it because you you wrote a pizza book called The Joy of pizza. Back in the day, we could talk about it being new. I told you before it was Radio Star. He's doing New York style. And you were like, good. Not trying to imitate somebody else's style doing New York style. Right. Is that so that's why I got off you.

I think that's cool. I think New York style, sometimes struggles and when people were pushing to improve it, that's great.

Hey, I'm going to trigger Anastasia again. So you went to college in New Haven?

See? Such an annoying way to always. Oh, I went to school in New York. I lived in New Haven for four years. At orientation, they tell you have to be that obnoxious forever.

Yeah. So as Ashley hates it, her sister went to anyway. So yeah, we're talking about yell anyway. So So point being that you literally before the show was like, oh, New Haven. I like the New Haven pizza because you can't get a clam pizza in Italy.

Not a one. Yeah. It's infuriating. And no one ever feels bad for me when I tell this story, but yeah. But there's this fruity Marie pizza that they do everywhere, where it's basically like frozen mixed mussels and shrimp and all sorts of junk. That's just on the pizza. It makes it super damp and gross. And I'm like, why don't you guys just do a good one with clams. And they will hear it.

They're like, No, no, we'd absolutely not. Do they make that for Italians. Or do they make that for?

For Italians for it? Absolutely. Okay, look, the hot dog and French fried pizza isn't for tourists. It's for Italians.

Wow. What so? What a hot dog and French fried pizza. It's

called versatile. But you know what it is? Yeah. Is it good? That's fine. Yeah. Okay, yeah.

Oh, yeah. So what's the what? How bad are American hamburgers in Italy? The worst? Really worse. Worse than the Germans.

Oh, worse. Yeah, because they use really nice beef but it's super lean cuts. It's 0% fat. There's no heat applied to it at all. It's basically a tar tar on a bus and then the like oh there's like pinch atta and like provolone. So it's an Italian burger. I'm like stop doing this or someone go to America. You eat a burger and figure it out. They won't

Because like even an average American burger unless they've, unless it's the one style of burger I can't tolerate is the super thick hammered burger, the one where they take a super thick burger and then then just hammer the hell out of it. That's the only kind of burger I can't tolerate. I can I like a thin overcooked burger. You know, anyway,

I mean, I'll eat a boardwalk burger. I don't care. Now, as long as it's not Italian made, and I'm not interested.

My experience in a lot of Europe is like, if any American went there and opened up a burger joint, they would just kill it because everything else is so bad in comparison.

But the Italian Palate will accept fat in certain forms, just not in Patty form. When it comes to a burger like sausage patty, they're all about it. Okay, but burgers are just so lean and not properly cooked. I'm sad.

Also, you have a whole section in your well in your book. Well, I was gonna say about the dry pasta before I went off on the tangent that you you're basically like, Listen, this whole like dried pasta, like everywhere thing is really like a mid 20th century McGillicutty anyway, and that they didn't really figure it out all this drying until real machine made stuff until late 1800s Anywho. Ha. So you know this whole like feeling that like everyone's always eatin dried pasta forever. And that's the way you should do. It isn't really the case. And people used to make fresh pasta, but it was more of a you know, more of like a you had to know how to do it situation. So I read into that apparently, incorrectly that you're like, oh, there's a place for everything.

So you're right, pasta wasn't really something that was in the Italian diet until the 20th century, in terms of like, full all the regions. But some of the islands in the book like pollens and prosciutto had a really strong Neapolitan influence when you go there. There's dried pasta, and it's freaking amazing. And spaghetti, Etonian, spaghetti and deep tea and all of these things are perfectly cooked. Kyodo, so less cooked than all Denta which is tastes really good. And it's more digestible and you know, brings all these things to the table.

I read that section and ups that well more digest well. What does that even mean? There's another thing to Stasio also, you guys could talk for the whole show about Italians and how they only talk about like their poops and like and what they eat and constipated Culture.

We want to share. I feel attacked.

I feel attacked.

But it's always so nice when you cook for someone and then the next day they call you up and they let you know how efficiently they've digested it. Yeah, it's so nice. You

don't know how the meal went until tomorrow?

Yeah, no one's like, that was amazing. They're like, I will tell you tomorrow what I think about this meal.

Wow. Yeah. But they don't have the German style shelf toilets where you get to inspect after you go right.

Oh my god that Dutch they've mastered that but that hasn't made it down to southern Europe worst.

It's the worst. I love it. And that's cool. Okay, can we just go I know this is a food show. But if we can just for a second like, the problem is Americans buying a shelf like toilet but not okay. Anyone who listened to him out there. If you're one of those people that hasn't figured out that the the cleaning brush needs to be right next to the right next to the toilet. Don't hide the cleaning brush. Get a cleaning brush that like is if you have one of those shelf toilets without a cleaning brush. You're the worst person in the world. You're the worst human that's ever walked on the planet. You know what I'm saying? I agree.

And I can tell you're passionate about this. Yeah.

Well, I hate it because I've been to people's houses. And you know that if I'm using it in somebody else's house, other than for liquids, there's an issue I need to go there. You know what I mean?

Absolutely. Also, can we get the day up in here, America? Well,

you know, I've said many times on the air. The first time I visited or the only time I visited Japan I was like that's it we're the worst we're stupid. And I bought a toto washlet Oh yeah. Is it dividend to do that in Italy right?

No, no, I mean, it makes sense. It would save space in the restroom but people are very touched their bodies it's a ritual people treasure was supposedly the days were sold like crazy during COVID Really? Yeah. Because of the lack of toilet paper. I did not know that

yes huge influx of purchasing days now you're now you're triggering me both both los dos you need both paper and water. You know Look you don't need need you can you can use a hole in the ground but you don't I'm saying what like you know, I'm saying seems desirable. Definitely desirable. Definitely. Well, how do we get to talking about this? What did I Oh digestion. Fresh pasta. Okay. I don't know where we were. I don't know where we're going. So the new book. Anyone else have anything from the week when you like to share a weekly cooking story? You got anything?

Yeah, today was actually pretty chill. I made some other vacuum packed ferments. But in the future. What do I do when I need to talk about all the pasta that I'm making and drawing with my extruder

you can't you can't talk about it. You have an arcobaleno which one you have? The little one Yeah, listen, just Dino like there's some things that you can't just, you know, nostos he's just gonna, you know, to add respect from stasis can't talk about it, you know? I mean,

although we clean your mate, you're making dry pasta.

I mean, I've done a few batches. I have a good way to dry it

silence

Yeah, I'm just gonna let that sit normally normally. Katie, you'll notice and normally I don't allow any dead air. Like, I'll just feel any dead air with with talk. But I'm just gonna allow a little bit of dead air there for this dasya to absorb. Like, now? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right. Okay. What about What about you, Jackie, like you always have some store? Did you go to someone's house and they poisoned you this week? Or what?

No, I made a Japanese curry and the spice blend called for dehydrated orange peel. And for whatever I was going to ask. I mean, the conversation we're having is way more interesting. I was gonna ask about the best way to dehydrate orange peels that doesn't involve waiting. What seemed like forever on low temp in

the oven. Why does it require dehydrated?

Despite blender but they wanted it like ground up with all the spices

is the space into a paste or liquid?

The spice is mixed with the Roo. Weirdly.

Yeah, that's fine. Ginger look either, like order the stuff online and eat because you're in California. I don't know what LA is. Colossians is but like, you know, I'm sure you have some sort of weird little shop catering to weirdos that sells all the dried stuff or some sort of faux medicinal reason. No offense, LA. And then you can get some like, you know, dried orange peel there, you know, and then just blend it. Or just you know, I mean zest isn't going to taste the same but it's going to give you some some stuff. You know what I mean? If you take this and go check Chaka Chaka and then hit it in the the one issue you're not going to get when you put it into a roux is you're not going to get that slightly brown flavor that you get from dried orange peel when it's been like out in the sun or in a dehydrator. You know, so what you're in. Alright, so back to the book, the new book, which UPS did not ship to you here and they shorted kitchen Arts and Letters.

Yes. I was over there the other day with our buddy Matt. Seven Bucks. Yeah.

Yeah. So is called a food of the Italian islands. That's right. And what's the name of the photography work with Ed Anderson. Gorgeous trickle gorgeous shots. Now, he has a couple of a couple of questions just about books, cuz I'm sure someone's listening who's interested in let's do X. All right. So a lot of the other books that you have done, you've done with Simon and Schuster, right? Like you're on there, Mr. Simon Shuster, you're on their author, page,

Chronicle. Clarkson Potter, all of them then voracious? Yeah, this is my seventh cookbook, right. But it's the first from parla publishing? Well, that's what

I was gonna say. So most people who are self publishing, I got to ask you about why you're self publishing, because there are people who self publish, because they don't already have a relationship, you have many, right? You've done many things, you know, like, you could walk into any publisher, tomorrow and be like, Yo, I want to write a book. And they'd be like, let's do that. You know what I mean? That's right. So it's, I think it's relatively unusual for someone with your publishing experience in history to do self publishing. So why? Well,

creative control is important to me. But even more importantly, is being properly compensated for my work. And I researched my books for five years, which is a huge investment. And then, as you know, from your projects, when you get your advance, even if it's like 100,000, which is, you know, pretty good. But relatively average, we're producing a cookbook, 15% goes to your agent, right? And then you're only getting the quarter up front, and you've got to pay for all your travel, half the photography, testing and development. So when I receive advances like that, I'm already 10 or 20,000 in the hole, before I get the second round, which doesn't come until several rounds of editing, and then using that money to pay off the expenses from the previous steps, and then the photography and then you've got to promote the book. And then you have to

the A lot of people don't know that author pays for photos.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I think some, some publishers still do cover photography, but it's few that's dwindling. But, you know, I kind of for the first time after a decade of this and 20 and publishing overall a decade of cookbooks, I looked at how much money I was losing. And I was like, Okay, let's do some simple math. If a cookbook costs $35 cover price. How many do I need to sell to break even And if I invest 100,000 on it? And the answer is like, around 2800 books, so I thought I can sell that. Maybe I can even spend a little more money, and through pre sales, generate capital to cover the production expenses, and then start earning money pretty soon after publication,

right, but you're in the hole for the whole production costs. Not really,

because the printer doesn't want everything up front. They're fine paying you in

Wyoming. I mean, going around the country, Italy, man not been cheap.

No, it's definitely not cheap. But it's also included in that, like the 100k, hypothetical, nice round number covers the printing the binding, the editor, development editor, copy editor, proofreader, it covers all the travel, it covers publicity. And it also covers the logistics, moving a container of books to a warehouse, and then storing those books because it costs like, I don't know, three cents a month or something for each book to be in there. And then also the the costs that the the logistics company charges just for the honor of doing business with them. And so it might seem like you're putting out a lot of money right away, but you're not.

And so, so you your experience with it has been so far positive,

unbelievably positive, except for UPS. Yes, is the worst. I also am not a super fan of Shopify, the creation of this book, which I thought was going to be really complex and challenging, printing it, having it bound having moved across an ocean, that was all incredibly smooth. But getting it from a warehouse in New York, to mainly bookstores to retail, retail customers, it's been a dream. Everyone's got their book already. And it's just out today. So that's been great. But getting you know, cartons of books to now serving to even Matt lost a couple, a couple of cartons. So I now have to do all sorts of like customer service and troubleshooting, which is super annoying. Well, what

about the stuff that the normal normal publishing houses do? Like, you know the book, like getting them into like mom and pop shops like the McNally Jackson's and all of these things? Is that a hassle for you? Or no,

I simply write an email with a presentation of the book and a PDF and asked to be placed in the bookstore. And sometimes people say yes,

there's a nice bookstore and Mr. Configure the name of it, you should get in there. I know people have been recommending bookstore and mystic yeah, there's only one. So it's the same one, I forget the name of it. They didn't buy my book, but whatever. What else, what I still like. And I'm not like that I'm not have been deputized, vindictive, as people make me out to bait but you know, but it's

also been really nice to partner with independent book shops, kitchen Arts and Letters is this incredible place. And every time you go in there, you just want to walk out with the entire stock. So that's been really special to have Matt have the book in stock, I signed the books and people can preorder or now order, and then get a signed copy, which I think is really special. The same with omnivore now serving book Larter bold fork, all of these great small businesses are our partners that I always have been doing business with, sort of through larger publishers. So the direct contact has been really nice.

I noticed you didn't do the pre order stuff on Amazon, you're gonna sell normally with them, or No,

I am. But I wanted to prioritize independent bookstores, and then sales through my website, which has, of course, the highest margin first. And you know, like when you write for a big publisher, you get access to like the back end analytics. And so I know that my books sell very well on Amazon. But I also could justify not putting it on on Amazon right away. So I could sort of front load the sales in the smaller markets,

right? Make them make the most money from the people who want the book the most, and then put it out, right?

Yeah. And also just, you know, being being in contact with readers is super important and super special to me, and my books improve because of their feedback. And so knowing that anyone who has the book gets, you know, an email from me with the delivery information, they can write to me with questions, I think that that's a that's a special

now, when you're writing a book like this, which like, you know, as you say, in the introduction, like, you know, you could have spent just an infinity of time in any one of these like areas because the Italian island spans all the way from the extreme north, east down all the way to the extreme south west. So, when you're doing that, how do you like do you write the book and then go back and shoot it? Are you doing catches catch can like how do you organize your life around doing something that's over such a large space and over such a large period of time,

so I write the book first, and then I shoot it, and I will have a pretty good idea of what the features are, and manage the travel based on that. So like we did, at came to Italy, we traveled and we did Ischia. We went all over Sardinia and Sicily. We went to Venice. and kind of had to had to figure out how to encapsulate so many disparate areas during a 10 day shoot. I think he did a really special Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? Oh, yeah,

that book was shot in 10 days.

Yeah. Now the small publisher I'm I'm on a budget baby.

Okay, guys, guys. I don't know where you can go see a sample PDF. Is there a place they can see a sample PDF? No, but they can read them? No, like, don't you have like a sample? On

shop dot Katie parla.com. There are pages like when you especially if you're on mobile, see the cover and then you can look at the individual pages?

I would not have guessed. Attend a shoot. First of all, I need to know what kind of meth you were taking during that time to be able to get all of those shots in 10 days, Addy,

you know, I'm just joking. My mom's listening

like I'm just joking. Joking. Not joking. Joking. Not joke JK JK. Yeah. But wow, that's freaking impressive.

I mean, Ed is such a delightful human full stop. Like I would love working with him no matter what. But he's incredible at shooting people landscapes and food really fast. All but a couple of the dishes were shot inside to I didn't want to do any studio at all. And I'm always floored by his work but I was really like, the the photos are breathtaking and really transportive

that's bananas, one of my favorites near the beginning. And I can't pronounce I can't pronounce by the way. Here's what you need to do. Anytime, which is all the time that I butcher anything. Just Just tell me how it's pronounced it literally interrupt and what's the island? Ischia? You nailed it. So, okay, so this dude, this old dude is sitting on a bench and behind him is like a mosaic. That's like I heart Ischia. And he's sitting on this bench like, like staring off on the side and I was like, love it

framed like there was a whole thing is encrusted with seashells,

all beautiful, but the guy is like got this. He looks like

right out of central casting. It's crazy and Edie so good at like finding those moments. And the whole reason we ended up in Ischia is because we were supposed to go to Punta Lydia and we got to the the Naples airport at four in the morning and found that the flight had been canceled and not just the flight but like the whole airline. So you're like, Ah, I guess we'll go to Ischia and we ended up having incredible incredible shoot day.

Speaking of the former place which I always butcher the pronunciation of you have a whole page on capers see they convinced me that the caper berries a good product, I love capers, but why would lightly caper berries like a big watery is it? I don't know they're like watery, salty like what are what? Why would I want to take

the big boys right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know anything about that. I know the Pantelleria and Selena caper berries are really small like compact and they're they're dry they're not dry dry but they're not like watery. Right. And you saw pack like you do the campers Yeah. And not in brine or anything just literally layered with salt and the capers the caper berries and the caper leaves are all processed in Pantelleria, and they'll taste like a

caper leaves. That's interesting. I hadn't had that one. I've never had that when I saw that on the page. And like what do you what do you what do you do with those rehydrate and like like shifting those suckers that are tiny? Is that what you what do you normally do when you

sprinkle them on a salad or toss them with a little bit of olive oil put them next to a piece of fish

now compare if you will, like the really good salt pack ones they like come into like the little bags or the compare those with the Goya brand brined capers in the jar, like just like to compare.

I mean, the savoriness and intensity of the caper flavor in the salt packed ones from like Laniakea which is the place that I visited. It's like tasting the sea and the earth it's so powerful. There's there's a tea note that's lost in the Brian guys to write isn't there? I haven't had dilutes it dilutes the flavor. I haven't had a soul packed in a long time. And I mean, probably you know better than I there's some sort of like osmosis that happens when they're water cured, which is how they're usually cured in the like jarred ones.

Oh, really didn't know that. They were salted and then just stored in Brian. I thought they were made the same and it's stored and they're made differently. Yeah, I think so. How do you rehydrate the salt the salt pack was how do you use them? Because no, most people here haven't used the salt pack one. So what do you have to

rinse them and change the water several times like Bacala? Drew everyone's cooking back all the time and knows exactly what I'm talking about. I

mean, I do.

You just you taste it. You keep tasting it when it tastes not like overpoweringly salty. Then it's ready to use.

Yeah. You know what's disgusting, is spilling the soaking water all over the laundry room when you're a kid. It's not great. It's not ideal.

It's not certainly not ideal.

Yeah. Why didn't we do it outside because, you know, we have a fear of a fear of I know everything's spoiling. So, you know, I guess Oh, did my mom put it in the fridge and then I took it out to change it and I dumped it all over the laundry room. Oh no,

it was just let's get a sink is things

but most of the time when I cook with salt fish salt cod now I use the thin stuff and it can be soaked really quickly. It's only like Christmas Eve time that I get the thick stuff that takes days and days to reconstitute. Yeah, you like that stuff on Christmas Eve? I do. Alright, let's get to some of the Patriot by the way, John how do they if they if they have question for K Do you want to call in live at 917-410-1507 That's 917-410-1507 Tell them how they can become a patreon member and Listen Live

patreon.com/cooking issues get to listen live at the column number you get prioritized your questions answered We got cool guests coming we work with awesome people like Matt Sowell to get you discounts on awesome book like Katie's book. And we've just got a bunch of fantastic guests coming on. So sign up and you know, join what all the cool kids are doing.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, do that. Alright, so let's I have because I have I have a list of things from the book that that I could do, but I have to get to the Patreon questions. But before I do that little swipe at the Venetians you say the Venetians like and overcooked pasta, what's that all about?

They don't like it, they love it. Like how overcooked like beyond, like, cooked perfectly and then 10 more minutes. So Venice is I love Venice Venetians out there. Love ya can't get enough, but it's a rice, but mostly a polenta city. And pasta is present in the culture in the form of beegley which appear on the cover, which you will eventually see. And so the the way that people cook pasta in Italy really does change from place to place and the closer you are to Naples, the more Kyoto you'll find it which is almost crunchy at times. Whereas when you head up north, it's not just the Venetians that overcook pasta. It's northern people in general,

who like to swipe at the northern pole, the north because usually right? The the swipes at the North aren't cultural swipes where this is a hardcore cultural swipe at the North. I appreciate that.

Yeah, they're rejecting Italian identity by overcooking pasta. Wow,

you're like they're trying to turn it back to polenta sound. Exactly.

They're like, Can I Can I just make this into a big stew or something? Wow, gross.

Yeah. Wow. So I like this. I like this is the kind of thing that I that I like, you know, I mean, or like, you get lots of choice. Like anecdotes in the book, like the lady not letting you open the window on the train. I almost died that night. He's like you said is like 100 degrees in this train. It was the

hottest day of the year in the year 2000. And then I took a train from Rome to Palermo, which takes like 15 hours. But everyone on the train was afraid of a draft and so I had to be like hot boxed in this sleeper car with these four women without without any air. And they were fine. They were cool with it. But I wasn't accustomed to that yet. So I thought it was I thought it was dying.

And what was the phrase is like, the draft is going to make my neck break or something like this. It was something like it was some like crazy phrase. And then I

gotta try to recall, which means like, the draft is going to cause like trauma to my cervical vertebrae. I don't know how that's diagnosed on a train. But

anyway, that's a good business.

I have a question. Have you ever have you done the train that goes on the boat?

Oh, have it. So listen, I was on this train. I was 20 years old. And I thought obviously the train from Rome to Palermo will cross the Strait of Messina on a bridge. At five in the morning. I am hallucinating from being so hot in this car. And I hear clinking around me. And all the women get off, get out of the car. And I'm like, we're drift. Like I'm drowning. Like clearly we're in the sea. And they had gone up to the top of the boat to watch the Strait of Messina crossing meanwhile, I have no idea we're on a boat. But the train got on a boat next to another train. And then we like went the two miles across the sea. And I was like, I'm going to die here. I'm out of my depth. It was crazy. Have you done that? Yeah, I

was like, What Italian was like yeah, we're gonna put the train on a boat. Like it's crazy. It's crazy.

Crazy bananas. I mean, I kind of love it but it scared me to death the first time. Yeah, yeah.

So you did it again though.

I did it again. Yeah, but I was aware of what was going on. I see it says better. Yeah, also like these women in the car when we get on the car right? They're like, I don't know Italian at the time. So like we need to explain to this dummy that it's so dangerous on the train someone could gas us and then steal all of our luggage. That's why we're going to barricade the door to the sleeper car and they did the pulling the under the eyelid down be like Be careful like we're gonna get robbed. And then they still all got out of the car to go watch the Strait of Messina crossing and I think I'm there drowning but also protecting all the luggage. But it was very lengthy American

to drown, right? Like piece

by Love it.

Love it. Alright, I'm gonna get to these questions otherwise I'll forget and then oh my god oh my god one more though. Let's do it. So you also have had some bad situations that you also don't enjoy TSA people very much whatever the Italian equivalent of TSA is,

though it's I'm fine with it with the Italian analog because they Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about back you you know what sometimes those people treat pistachio paste like liquids when you try to check, check into a plane and it's not. It's a paste.

Yeah. And there you said they were Bronte's right, so expensive. It wasn't

just Bronto it was Corrado a sense as coffee Siciliano, like basically green gold spread. And I've had more than more than a dozen tubs confiscated at the airport. And it's so upsetting. I'm still sad about it.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like, we can't argue with those. But you said that they're eating it. Basically. They're like, I'm sure

I'm sure. Yeah, it's not going in any incinerator.

Yeah, like my worst one with that was with a with a meddler paste in in England. And she's like, that's a liquid. I opened the jar, turned it upside down and nothing came out. I'm like, not a liquid. And she goes, Well, you could melt it and we'll be a liquid I go, you could melt me and I'd be like, she said, Yeah, but I have to let you on the plane. I was like, you can't get MEDLARS here.

That's crazy. Anyway, well, the islands are full of them. So come on over in the

sun. Really? Oh, yeah. They let them and make them into a jelly and all this crap or just eat

them? And yeah, we don't even really make any paste out of them. It's just like you eat it. No,

no. All right. Good to know, Oh, I gotta get to these. I gotta get to the questions that they have. Otherwise, you know, whatever. We'll be here forever. And I'm not allowed to Joe's gonna turn off the mic. It's gonna get. Alright. Wizard writes in. I'm heading to puya for about a week and a half in May. I'll be splitting my time between how do you pronounce monopoly over their monopoly on organists and inlaid shape. I noticed in a piece you wrote in 2017, that you were quite critical of the food scene of Cilento. And quite critical, critical generally of the area. Do you still feel the same way? Has it upped its game in the intervening years? Thank you.

So this is probably referring to the piece that I wrote for Australian gourmet traveller about Boulia

Australian gourmet travelers. I'm just kidding. Australia. Oh,

Killam the game. So I think what I it wasn't a criticism. In my opinion, it was acknowledging that multiple years, you don't go out to eat all the time. And so the restaurants are mainly geared towards tourists and also in 2017. That's after crises, and people are thinking about margins, cutting corners on ingredients. So I think I said something that's true for all Italian regional travel, which is you got to really plan where to go. And I've got a lot of resources, not just in that article, but also on the city guides page on my website that directs people to cooks doing really nice things. And I think a lot of visitors make the mistake of planning a lot of restaurant dining when it's actually a mix of restaurants and cafes, and cafeterias and bakeries. That will really give the full panorama and introduce you to help people in polio or wherever actually eat

man makes make some friends with some local before you go.

Never hurts. Yeah.

Rob Bell wants to wants to know, are there any noteworthy new examples of Pecorino Romano the the genuine article, which you say most of its made in Sardinia?

97%? Yeah. Are there any new pecorino producers in Latvia?

Well, that they can look for around Rome, or better yet in the USA to spare us from the monotony of industrial pecorino baycip Petrini but I have to say pick up the nose because I'm American. I can't Okay, I can't do it. And characteris parmigiano that we have available here.

Okay, so there are only a couple of producers like literally 1% of Pecorino Romano is made in Latvia. 2% in Tuscany, 97% in Sardinia, full V is a producer near Rome that is exported, and I have it here. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I literally got it at Whole Foods last night. So shout out to that small business. And so yeah, that's the one that that's the one that you're gonna be able to find that's going to have a flavor intensity that mirrors what Romans eat Romans also mostly eat Sardinian pecorino macaron. Roboto made in Sardinia, and you know, I think it's there's a little bit of tension there, right, because you might have producers that are very large, but most of the people that are giving the milk to these companies are really small farmers and they deserve like dignity and support and and a place to sell their milk

was like the apartment, John Oh, it's all the consortium, right? Like all the small folks give their stuff to the consort CEO and then totally becomes becomes like Mega cheese. Well that's that's pretty good though. Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah. Speaking of Italian cheese, so no small producer that you can recommend that Rob can look for no

small producer. I mean there are a lot of people making pecorino but not Pecorino Romano.

Right. Talk to me about this Italian craft American singles product that you said that they were using in your book. I'm trying to find the name of that. Oh Ani,