Hello and welcome to cooking issues this is Dave Arnold cooking issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan the Rockefeller Center newsstand studios joined as usual with John behind me how you doing doing great thanks les now you told me before the

UK yeah I mean life has been tiring leaks at the restaurants and parties and working extra days tired but you know things are good.

Okay. Okay. Somewhere undisclosed in Westchester the land of my Westchester is a just north of New York City for those you that don't know the New York New Jersey, Connecticut major metropolitan area is Anastasia Lopez how're you doing stars. Good, how are you? Okay, that sounds very tentative, but I'll take it I'll take it and of course rocking the panels here we got Joe Hasan Hey, how are you? Welcome. Yeah, doing all right. We don't have Jackie molecules right now. We don't know what's up because we're doing on special day if you're listening to this later, we're doing on special day on Monday because it's the only day we could schedule it. And you know, sometimes sometimes Mr. Molecules, you know, when the day is different things happen, you know, but we do have our West Coast customer service team Quinn on the line Hey doing Quinn Hey, I'm doing good. Yeah. And and in the fashion that we now do, we will introduce our guest today. Today we are very pleased to have Abra barons and makes me nervous even saying it because beforehand. She said well welcome. chef and author of course. Is it just come out or is it just about to come out just about to come out. So when is the fourth April 4 Nice. You don't want to come out on April Fool's Day.

Right? Well, we thought about that, but you know, not a Tuesday.

Is is your book pulp which is the third in in the series. It's because of trilogy of books. We start with amazing title, roughage. roughage, I think goes to Grist. Right, which is a fine title, but it's no roughage. And then we're here we are at pulp now, pulp of course, anytime someone says pulp, I think, pulp the band, do you not think pop the band? Do you not listen to English kind of music?

I don't think of that we get a lot of Pulp Fiction, like how is it going to be like super McCobb inside? Or is it just going to be all fleshy bits? Which I guess,

which is which some of it is I mean, fruit is disturbing looking sometimes, you know. So I don't know if you could tell from the titles. But this is a one that's, you know, built around fruit grist built around, although it's stretch, right, because it's grains and beans and stuff. Yeah. I mean, you know, and then roughage is, you know, roughage but I was thinking on the way over that. If pumpkins pops a band, I like Paul, Joe, you Pope the Pope. Yeah, he's given me the giving me the thumbs up. I don't know. It's Miss Garcia. You hate that kind of stuff. Right? You hate that kind of English rock stuff. I never hear you listen to it, do you? I'm not really in to them. But I think roughage should also be an English band. Like I think roughage like, you know, like like, oh, you listen to like garbage when you were a kid. I love garbage the band, right? And then you move from garbage to roughage and then to pulp.

Yeah, it sounds like they'd be from like, Manchester or something. Something

like that. Yeah, some kind of in between or thing, you know, like, yeah, yeah. And now, well, so going back to songs, like, as soon as the book showed up, and kind of every time I pick it up, I get the common people song going through my head. But then you said, when you introduce yourself, you're like, abra, like abracadabra, right? Because a lot of people mutilate your name, you have a name that is often mutilated, and but now, I can't get that freaking Steve Miller song out of my head. And then you told me a story that, you know, when you were because you started your career at Zingerman's. Right, famous or Well, early in your career?

No, that's where it started. I mean, I had worked in restaurants when I was 16. But that's where I really like to cold. And for those of you who don't know, Zingerman's Deli is in Arbor, Michigan. It's been it actually opened two days before I was born. And so it's been around for a while, and it's in an old building. So when I was prepping in the basement as any good cook does, at some point in their career, there were lots of dark corners and the person Andrew Wilhelm, who trained me would heat it that song, and so he would just sing it and the way the sound travel that sounded so menacing, it would like come I'd be like in a corner, prepping something and think nobody else was around and then all sudden, I would hear it. So yeah, it's a very dramatic song.

Well, I love the idea of someone singing it, who hates it, and I have to say, That's why everyone hates the song because it's the worst of the famous Even Miller songs, like easily, but easily, right. But then it's also the hook is so damned catchy. You know what I mean? And so it pisses anybody who likes anything. It gets pissed off by going Yeah. So you have to like, you know, I always mangle those lyrics to like Abracadabra. I'm going to reach out and stab Yeah, like all of it. Like all of the can't Yeah, it's an intolerable. It's an intolerable. Yeah, although it's dancing. I got mad because there's a song that I mean, like, I think you got mad or maybe you're just humoring me, Anastasia, because we liked a song that apparently I didn't know that universally reviled. Is Phil Collins studio, apparently universally hated. But Miss Dawson. I have a soft Yeah, yeah.

How do you feel Petey?

I like competi Do you know that Miss Dawson I also enjoy talking about who was kind of sound appropriate. But like, like who is the? Because they're all dead now? Right? No, no, Billy Joel still around. Yeah, who are the who were the three stars that you always go for? I think it was just between Billy Joel and Tom Petty. Yeah, you never even like Ric ric ocasek wasn't important enough to get into your no into your pantheon. It wasn't my thing. It was an MTV thing. Yeah, cuz it stasis started early at MTV. And so like the behind the scenes are like so. And like, what was the answer? The answer was always be Petty's. Awesome No, you got it very very it really was ugly or Tom Petty are so rough dude. That's so rough. It's like not right. All right, whatever. I'll take it I'll take I like petty though. No, no petty it's like

the one it's a one hot take that I feel like I have is I'm just not a Tom Petty person. I like some of the like super early stuff but when it gets to the point where it's like in the end and arrows on the end and tonight's

like so weird that he's like running down the dream and all that like Full Moon Fever stuff.

I you know, I just sort of wrote it off as a whole so I should probably do some revisiting what

about Tom Petty in Waterworld? The movie, which I've never seen, because I'm not going to watch that.

That was gonna be my answer. So glad you're fielding that for it. Yeah,

I don't know. What Okay. Enough is foolishness. We need to get to the point where we shoot the breeze for a little bit on collectively anything we have done interesting with food recently, like the past week, anyone got anything.

I've put Philosophica on the menu, the Belgian steak tartare, which I'm very happy. Yeah.

So describe how this is different from other people's steak tartare.

So it's Mayo bass, you add extra egg yolk, you add some chopped piccalilli, capers, shallots, parsley, and the meat is ground, not diced or cubed up. So then you just put that on some bread and it's absolutely delicious.

How much more do you worry about a tar tar when it has to go through a grinder? As opposed to when you're like hand slicing it just I know that you ultimately you have control but it feels like you have so much more control and you're like, scrubbed the hell out of my station. I got my knife. I got my gloves. I'm gonna shoot shoot like how do you how do you

metal you know, grinder that we keep in the freezer right up until he's it's everything stays cold. I mean, I'm only grinding like, to a pound of steak him trying to do it every day. So

when you're doing like a portrait style, do the stainless one. Yeah, yeah. So

I don't know. I have to say like, keep everything nice. The

expensive. The expensive ones of those are nice. But like all the castings have all these weird little like, unless you have a lot of money. The castings on meat grinders are like real, like little little pockets of like, like filth holding Park and it made me nervous. I'm sure yours is perfect, John, because you are a scrupulous individual. You know,

I'm trying to keep everything

I have to say. I mean, it is unpleasant when you have a sliced like, like a hand chopped and someone leaves a little bit of like, garbage in it. Yeah. You know,

it's stuck in your teeth. Unpleasant. Yeah.

I always shy away a little bit from the tar tar because like I love it when it's good, but if it's not gonna be good, oh, yeah, that's really sad and disappointing. Yeah, I were what do you think you talk to our person? Do you eat that? That kind of right, do

you it's actually funny. I grew up in a small town in Michigan, but my parents big food people. My mom was an incredible cook and I after working in food, I went back to my dad and I said, Am I remembering correctly that we used to eat as kids like raw hamburger and raw egg on toast and he was like, Yeah, you idiot. Was it hamburger your mom like, went to the you know, butcher and had fillet ground so she also was a ground type person, but in my like, eight year old brain it was just I arrived hamburger

company didn't cook the hamburger. And you know, plus you have a nice ceiling leak. That's enjoyable. That's super,

super fun love shutting down service. on a Saturday night. It was great. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know, I was joking that you were trying to you know, live the live the bear. Right? Yeah, yes, exactly. Although, like, I know, you don't strike me as anchoring your way through a service in the same car? No, not

really. Yeah, I get angry inside, but it doesn't radiate out.

We menu less bear.

What do you have? Or what do you think? Do you think that that culture is dying? Hopefully the the extreme extreme anger service?

I mean, yeah, let's hope so. I I've, I made a pretty hard rule when I started in kitchens that I would never work anywhere that that was the culture. And so I've been really fortunate that I've never come up against that I worked. I'll actually tell you my one of my most inspiring kitchen stories. I worked for pulverulent in Chicago for a long time. And there was a Valentine's Day service, you know, which is notoriously god awful. And it was like an extra hard one. And so something had happened. And he threw something across the kitchen. And I had only worked there for a couple of months. And so I was like, well, that's great. I quit at the end of the day. And he hauled all of us out into the alley afterwards and was like, I want to apologize, that is not who I want to be I take responsibility for my actions. That said, it didn't happen then it started at 8am When I came in, and this was done wrong. And then it was at 930 when this was wrong, and then this was wrong. And then this was wrong. And so you all also have some responsibility for getting me to that point. But it is ultimately my responsibility to not tip that scale. And I was like, I'll work for you for the rest of my life. But so I don't know. I mean, I think it's it's all part and parcel. I mean, I think it depends on if the kitchen culture is bullying in order to secure control and authority. That's one thing if it's because people are overworked and strapped in a super thin margin. There's lots of different reasons. I think we have to address them all. Probably.

Yeah. Well, you say at some point, we're still shooting the breeze. I'm gonna say at some point in the book, you're like, I'm glad I don't do that kind of work anymore. You know what I mean? But you're like, you're like sometimes I missed it. But no,

yeah, it's I don't know if it's just maybe everybody feels this way as you age out of stuff. You know, so fun. I loved being line cook absolutely loved it. And I don't want to do it anymore. But at grainer farm where I work now, we have sort of taken the best parts of the restaurant world through experiential dining. And so we get to kind of issue some of the the harder parts, which is great. It's a it's a perfect balance for us anyway.

So did you I mean, you've been busy because you're like not even at home. You're like on a trip. And you're pushing a book that's about to come out. But what do you have? Do you have any interesting food experiences over the past week?

Yeah, you know what I made the other day I play on shrimp toast with white fish. So it was basically a mousseline and then seared it on some, just some toast that I had. And also a mayo kind of topper like a Remi Lodge. Little bit spicy lemon and garlic and I was just so good. I like forgotten mousseline so it's kind of gross me out. Why? What about it, just like, you know, egg white and fish and you grind it up and it just seems like this is never gonna be good. It's like a filter fish, you know, cream bind it to. I only do egg white. Yeah, and it just says nicely. It's great.

I grew up loving shrimp toast, like, like, I never seen any more, but like the takeouts in like New Jersey in the 70s and 80s like shrimp toast was like it was right there. Right we just Barris was the shrimp toast. And I can still see those tiny like like the triangles like the the little crustless bread with the thing and then cut into triangles and then the whole sucker fried and like brown with the grease and the shrimp. love shrimp toast. Yeah, I love it. So and the white fish was a positive.

It was I mean, yeah, we don't have I didn't have any shrimp. And so it was like Well, we've got this and it worked great.

But it was a fresh wife way is lake fish from Lake Michigan. I wonder what if you wonder if you did that. So if you've been over to Russ and daughters over here, the RPi Yeah, our our appetizing story. You know fish capital of New York City fit cured fish capital in New York City. They have something that I really enjoy called hot and cold smoked salmon salad have you had this? No I haven't Yeah, so it's like they take the scraps when scraps whatever but you know when they're done but yeah, yeah. From the probably from the Nova and the you know, the guy gas back and stuff they probably don't do it the belly right and so they they chop that up fine. And then they take hot smoked Sam Then and also chop that fine. And then they mix it into this and I think it is delicious.

What do you put it on? Anything

just? Well, yeah, because in reality, like when I eat a bagel, I'm always I want a bagel cut in half with plain cream cheese recipe ice cream cheese, which is, in my opinion, God's cream cheese. And then I want you know, smoked fish of my choice, and raw raw onion and tomato. And that's it. I don't want any other nothing. Then after I have my bagel, maybe I'll rip off a piece of a bagel and I'll dip or whatever, I'll just eat the stuff on the forum. But I'm I got a mental thing. I like certain things to stay constant in my life. Okay, you know, anyway. Yeah, so that's good. Now you got me thinking about what if you did like a 5050 that's what made me think about the salad if you did a 5050 either. 5050 Fresh and cured on the white fish or shrimp and white fish either way, we better what would take what would be a better idea what would taste better or would they both be good or neither?

I like the idea of doing the hot and cold side by side. You know that play with that temperature a little bit. But between the white fish to the shrimp, I mean, the texture of the fish is definitely softer, you know, so I think you're getting to textural differences. I'm not going to call them

get this. What about this? I just had another idea. So John behind me here is you know Mr. Belgique, and grew up like harvesting these tiny freakin shrimp. So like what do they call like a grievous grievous credit? Greece? Yeah, yeah. Anyway, shrimp. Yeah. And, Tony, you have no right. Or they're tasty shrimp? Because they're they're saltwater. They're not like raised in concrete pools? You know, I mean, and what, what about a shrimp toast made with those suckers?

Probably be delicious. Now. Yeah, I mean, tastes better than just toss them in Mayo and then

put them on a substandard tomato, you put them on a substandard tomato.

Exactly. Exactly. Would you stuffed in the tomato?

Do you want the substandard tomato.

That's fine. I've never had a good tomato. You know, it's just always served in a substandard tomato to be interesting to taste in a really good tomato.

There are applications I have to say where the good tomato is not what you want. Right, in the same way, and then we'll talk about pairs where we will get into pairs being the argument that you know you've had with pairs, which I don't know, I don't know, we'll we'll get into an intimate I had an interesting thing. So yeah, family dinner, I cook family dinner most Sundays. I have for the past, I don't know. 30 years or scientists right? 2025 30 years. And it's fun, because, you know, it's an opportunity, especially now that pretty soon I'm gonna be down to just cooking for two people again, which is kind of weird. It's, you know, fun, it's fun. Anyway, so I got a request to do tortoise, you know, the Mexican tortoise, which for some reason I've never done before. And so I was like, fine, so I made the telera rolls, which are not they're not complicated. They're easy. They're just like a marginally enriched you know, marginally not like you know, not even as enriched as I do like hamburger bonds marginally enriched. And you push the you push a two lines into them so they get those two lines. And you know, I did carnitas and he was good. You know, nothing really to report there. Everyone knows how to make carnitas but the one thing you know, it's one thing I've never done I'm super embarrassed about I have never made refried beans on purpose from scratch. I've never done it. I've I've made I've had beans that I've made on my land the humble mash these beans, you know, I mean, but I've never made refried beans from scratch and I have to say they actually are much better I was in I'm embarrassed for all the times that I have not done it and based on learning and everything. Well, I have I have a good chunk of people come are vegetarians. Gotcha. So what I did was I also like you know, for the past year, I've been working on D D tuning beans, you know what I mean? Like so my current one i d two to these and I didn't have any bad reaction to them, You know what I mean? So it's good and I'm relatively sensitive to these two FODMAPs as they say. And I also didn't make them with a standard being because I have almost exclusively in my house all of these beans from Maine like Jacob's cattle bean and yellow eyes and you know soldier beans cuz I like Maine beat whatever ever you can like whatever being you like I like to buy beans from Maine and Vermont and you know um, anyway so I've been with Jacobs Cobian forever but you know, I cooked him with the equipment excess water for a long time I added some what did I use that I use? I use I think by car guajillo just a couple in there and some you know, onion and crap ton of garlic. It just cooked it till it's done was so hot and warm to spicy and then drain them. They actually they've been stored a little too hot in my kitchen. You know how have you store beat? Well, I'm sure if you wrote a book on it so like we store beans too hot then they take forever to frickin cook them. So like midway through the cook, I had to put a little bit of baking soda in. And then you ever done that put baking soda in the middle of the cook instead of at the beginning. No, I've

only ever done at the beginning. Okay.

I thought I destroyed everything. It's because I also I always had to use your terminology gloves and oil into the beans when I'm going to cook them. This is a technical term people from the book pope is glug In fact, it's literally in the glossary at the beginning is glug anyway. A little more than that. Anyway. Anyway, so they're cooking and I'm like, oh my god, it's been I didn't pre soak because who cares and smash them? Right? But they'd already been cooking for like an hour and a half. And they were still super, like, you know, like, yeah. So like took some some soda for like a half teaspoon or something into a pound or beans. Boom. And instantly, it smelled like soap and I was like, like that weird detergent soap smell. And I was like, Oh, I'm ruined all of these things and then went away. Hmm. Interesting went away. So after was fully cooked and I drained the beans and I let them I let the the beans dry out hot so that the skins would split and they would get real dry and I saved the liquid. Then I fried those in batches on a hot skillet. And then add them back to the thing mash them added. And then as soon as the temperature went below about, you know, 110 Fahrenheit, don't put a bunch of Urbino into it, folded it together, then like let it cool, chilled it down and reheat it the next day in a steam oven. And that was maybe a little bit of a pain in the butt. But it's not that hard. That's the thing like recipes, it seemed complicated. Maybe you'll maybe you know, people will back me up here. I don't know. But recipes, it seemed complicated once they're part of just like the way you think they're not complicated anymore. Yeah. And it's hard to get people to understand it's something that sounds like it's got a lot of steps. It's like, well, this is you know, you don't you're not like oh my god, it's so complicated. I gotta I gotta brush my teeth, and then comb my hair. And it's like, it's just, you know, stuff that you do you know what I mean?

Right? I don't know. I mean, that's the whole point of these books, not to jump straight into it, but is to give flexibility so that it's not like go to the store and buy a pair that is exactly this weight to be able to do it. It's like you're trying to teach people how to cook, but in a way that is a little supported, if they don't inherently know how to cook or don't feel confident after years of being told that they're not good enough at it, you know?

Yeah, well, right. So in the intro, you know, your hope is to get people more comfortable to want to enjoy cooking, presumably people who buy the book, or maybe people are given the book, in which case, it's interesting. You're eight. So they they're interested in cooking, somewhat, but there are a lot of people who also don't want to cook. And I feel like they're made to feel guilty. Yeah, which is stupid, right? But what do you have to say to those people? Because they do feel guilty? They should get

takeout? Yeah, if they I mean, or find the things that like you can do with the most moderate amount of effort, you know, things that they're going to be able to work in, you know, so is that making a frittata one day, a week and then eating it. You know, that's great. And that's the thing. I just feel like there's all of these presumptions and especially around food stuff, it's so tricky. Because you don't know where people are coming from if they're, like, always very weighty issues that come up for people with food. So just whatever makes you feel good. And the thing that always gets me as a, as a cookbook writer, is I, you know, I often write these recipes in the drafting stage, like from my couch. And then I'm like, Yeah, that should work. And then I'll test it, whatever. And with this book, in particular, I sent it around to testers, before I had done those steps, because of the timeline of the production calendar, and so many people got back and they were like, Yeah, I don't know, it didn't work. I must have done something wrong. And I was like, No, it was probably me. Yeah, it probably should have worked wasn't quite good enough. But it seemed really interesting to me that that was most people's default. And so I feel like people think that it's supposed to be this picture, like supposed to end up like that, you know, and it doesn't always. So yeah, it's a bummer.

Yeah. Speaking of your process, you well, to go to the book a little bit like this book is built around fruit, right? So you start with an introduction into it, like a bunch of techniques that you're just going to use throughout the book, you know, this is a pie, this is a blob, you know, whatever. And then, like, alphabetically by fruit or fruit type, you go through it and then within that, it's like, cooking technique. And then savory and sweet. So it's like it's it It's like regimented in that way, so you can find an application that you like within that. But then with like, in one of them, it was the chicken over cornbread recipe you've taught in you mentioned, because the interesting thing is, is that even though it is very, in that way, regimented, you know what you're going to get, like, I'm going alphabetically I'm going by technique, I'm gonna go savory, I'm gonna go sweet, alright. But even within that, though, you do your introductions into recipes. And your introductions in the sections all have a different kind of hook that you're hanging them on, in the sense of like, okay, this recipe about chicken, I'm going to talk a little bit about how I do recipe development. And, you know, in the section on melons, I'm going to talk about, so sometimes it's like recipe specific, it's another section specific and melons, you know, you tell the story about working in a kitchen, primarily women and how you could like joke about melons, and how that felt really good. And, and talking a lot about deep kind of deep, heavy stuff in that in that section. So is that, like, how did you come to that kind of structure, because it's kind of like it, it's good.

Thanks, I, it's always fascinating to me to hear how it resonates with other people, because this is what occurs to me to do. And so the way that I got to this style is that I started food writing food column up for when I was living in Traverse City area for the local paper up there. And so that was the format it was, you know, column and then recipes. And for that column, I was taking something I was a vegetable farmer at the time. And so I was taking a vegetable that we were growing and trying to show people, you can either play with the technique, so how is poached asparagus different than roasted asparagus. So keep the flavor combination similar and the type the technique different, or keep the technique the same, and then change the flavor combinations to try to get people. You know, I was really inspired by the flavor Bible and mind of a chef or think like a chef. Okay, remember, click Use book was. And I found that when I, I really loved and engage with those books a lot. And when I would give them to people who did not spend their waking hours thinking and talking about food, they would either get really frustrated if they weren't competent cooks, or they would like instantly understand them. And so I was trying to create kind of a middle ground between sort of the more esoteric, but kind of, I guess, kind of esoteric books. And then like a straight ahead recipe cookbook. And so trying to give people a little bit of that, like you said, you know, I have to get up to brush my hair and brush my teeth, I think it's the same thing. It's like if you have an intuitive sense of what it means to cook something or where you want to get and the tools in your toolbox to do that you do it intuitively without having to memorize the steps. And I don't think a lot of people have that. And then as far as the sort of weighed your things with it. I think that one of the issues in our food world is that food consumption is often very divorced from food system issues. And so sort of my way to say this is what I think people should be thinking about while they're doing this, you know, so the melon chapter in specific, I wrote it at a time it was December of let's see, must have been 2020 20. Somewhere in there. And there was a statistic that came out that of the job losses, they were 100% female jobs. And I was like that can't possibly be right, like 100%. And then I like did the reading on it. And yeah, and it was all, you know, just like what does it mean, it's really hard to have a career in, in food or in agriculture and hospitality. And especially if you know for for that one, it's like, I have a job description when I post for a job. And you know, some of the requirements are, stand for a minimum of eight hours be able to move up to 50 pounds. Well, as soon as a woman gets pregnant, she's not supposed to do those things. And it's not through any fault of her own. And so how do we create a system that keeps women in the workforce? I don't have the answers, but I think it's worth people recognizing that that's a hurdle. Do you think you tie that with a joke about melons?

I mean, like for you know, I honestly don't even know. I mean, I hope things are changing more radically as more quickly as a result of all the things that have been happening both bad and good, but I mean, it's not even just the actual limitations, but like, I know for a fact that you know, a lot of business owners are just rancid, rancid people when it comes to pregnancy, just real buttheads real, just terrible people. You don't I mean, even people that would surprise you, people you think wouldn't be you know what I mean?

Yeah, which is weird because they We're all born in utero at some point. Yeah.

I mean, we all got born, you know,

and it gives me better. But, but it's hard to I mean, it's hard when you say, like paid parental leave. You're in a super tight margin industry, how do you justify, you know, paying someone for eight weeks, you know, six weeks, I think you have to believe that it's, it's in, it's necessary or it's of interest, you know? Or that it's going to keep talent in the space, which I think is actually where it'll change, you know? Yeah.

On the less heavy side on the recipe, recipe development side now I don't, I don't remember whether you actually mentioned the couch in the book, or whether it's just you just said it to me on the couch. So in the chicken recipe, and this is, you know, I work. I think everyone kind of works the same way. But no one really wants to talk about how things happen. You're like, I'm like, I like chicken roasted over bread. Which, by the way, something you know, totally because but you know, but that's, that's, uh, that's something I've never done roasting a chicken over bread. Oh, really? No, really? Yeah. Is that like a thing? I didn't even know there was a thing,

I guess. I mean, maybe I took it. I mean, the Zuni chicken recipe has is like the with the bread salad. So it's probably just an extrapolation from that. That it makes sense to me. But yeah, I often do it. You know, how you like roasted chicken over vegetables? And that's my standard. Yeah, throw in some cubes of old bread, and then a little bit of stock and white wine or cherry tomatoes, things like that. So I'm gonna give a little bit of acidity.

Yeah, so you're like, Okay, so I love treating roasted red. And then you're like, cornbread, cornbread dries out. I need to add some liquid and add these blueberries. Blueberries don't have enough acid. I'm gonna add lemon. And then you're like, Okay, recipe is done in my head. Right? So like, like, okay, yeah, that's the way actually things work. You know what I mean? Man, it's fun. It's a like a fun thing to tell people how things work, especially now because everyone gets so freakin bent about like too much explanation in a recipe book not in a book in a book they're paying for, for explanation before a recipe. But online

with every like three weeks we have that that stupid story. Yeah, I don't know who starts it. Who's the like, you know, salt in the cloud on that story.

Like, so many trolls, just so many trolls, someone's giving you a recipe, just like if you don't want to read what they had to say sift through until you start seeing numbers and then you can deal with it and just be quiet about it. No, I

mean that scrolling fatigue is really our biggest problem in the world. I think speaking to some of the things that we have succeeded.

Scrolling. I'd say another thing that I think we agree on, but the rest of the world maybe doesn't is you have a story where you're talking about ground cherries, like you know, chuva plus cherries, right, which I like, although I have to say, Well, before we even talk about remind me to talk about that again. All right. Go Michigan. I've only ever been to Detroit and Stasi and I went to Detroit. I had a good time we went to you know, see Hitsville USA and the whole nine. I had a good time. You had a good time, right stars. Except for like me almost dying. That was the best part for you. Right? Yeah, me almost dying was your favorite part, though, right? Yeah, you know, okay. Anyways, so I really liked it. I would like to go back some time. But I have known for a long time that there's this mystical Fruit Belt in Michigan. And I've never been to it. And like when someone explained it to me the first time I was like, what, like, what so why don't you explain for the people that don't have never heard of it? I mean, I've never been to it. But at least I've heard of it. This what a Fruit Belt is how it works. Why you have this, like, weird, unique climate there.

Yeah. So Michigan is the second most agriculturally diverse state in the nation second to California. And it's primarily because of the fruit that we can grow. And so Michigan, you know, we're a mitten. And we've got lakes on all sides, and specifically Lake Michigan on the western side of the state. You know, as the weather fronts come across from the West, they the cold fronts will pick up a bunch of moisture as soon as it hits the lake, and then that air, you know it, it picks up all of that moisture, it hits the landmass and then drops it that's why we get lake effect snow, which I don't know if people are familiar with but it's that it's it's generally a bit warmer in on the west side of the state because of that moderated temperature, but we get a lot more precipitation. And that both keeps the fruit trees and vines and things like that from getting too cold in the winter. Whereas like, you know, Detroit will get easily get down into the single digits regularly because it doesn't have that same moderating effect that Far East. But on the west side, it's a little bit warmer, generally more rain. And then we also because of our glacial, the curvature after the glacial recession. We have all of these hills and valleys and so the airflow is great. And that is really prone for fruit production because the breeze coming off the lake combined with the different elevations prevents a lot of things like mold growth, or you know, things like brown rot, stuff like that, that makes it really hard to grow fruit in most places. It's similar this way, Washington State also grows a ton of fruit because they're getting the same thing but off the ocean, mostly.

Right. But you know, I guess like mentally, most people, even if they don't travel around in the states, like they kind of know that that whole coast over there somehow grows stuff. And then you wouldn't just looking at a map I guess this place it's that far north would have all of this like kind of cool stuff. And all the monitors furniture to write all the monitors furnitures made there.

The fact that the Yeah, Herman Miller is from outside, it's actually in Zeeland, Michigan, where my mom was a anesthesiologist says Zealand hospital. And we would like regularly like go and get pancakes. It's a very Dutch area. So we would get bobcat and then go to Herman Miller. And it was just like, that was normal. Yeah.

So that whole area, even though I've never been has kind of a mat, like has this kind of magic vibe to me, but like, you know, whatever I've never been so who knows? You do. So, and also like, something that maybe I'm wrong, but my impression is, is that the lake effect snow that you get the large amount of snow is actually like super beneficial, because it actually moderates what's happening to the plants in the ground. Yeah, insulates it. Right. So and so, you know, and you've worked as a farmer. So like, one of the cool things is that you're not on not only a chef, but also you've worked as a farmer, you don't always think so you have kind of a much kind of a richer tie to how things are made all up the chain. And you know, you're a consumer as well, you eat things. So how worried are you you mentioned in the book, but how worried are you about something that is so kind of weird, and kind of unique, based on like, this set of very kind of tweaked out circumstances? Right, getting hosed with the climate change that's happening? And are you already seeing it over there? Yeah, we're

already seeing it. And in the book, in addition to the recipes on the the essays, there are several interviews with different people who work along the food system. And one of them is Dr. Nikki Rothwell, who's the, you know, foremost tree expert in the state of Michigan. And we were talking a bit about it, and also with Mike and Pete Lang, who manage Mabi vineyard up in Sutton's Bay, and they're a 50 year old winery in Michigan. And both of them are saying, Yeah, this is happening right now. And this is how we need to plan for it and change for it. But nobody really knows. So I think on one hand, how worried am i i, it will be a problem. So in that sense, I'm very worried about it. I'm also incredibly confident that the farming community will puzzle it out. I don't know that we can puzzle it out at the speed at which we need to because, you know, like Mike and Pete say in the book, if they're planting something they're thinking about 30 years down the road. If no one is planting, it takes seven years for a cherry tree to come to maturity. No one is planting, thinking like that seven years ahead. They're thinking, you know, again, that amount of time, but if they can't, if it if the speed of climate change outpaces the ability to grow that root stock, I don't I don't see that answer. But I'm not working in that industry either.

Right, especially though, like, you know, it's not a depressing book. I'm not saying

McCobb and, like, depressing. It's a real self.

Right? No, but I mean, but on the other hand, like, you have some hard numbers in there that are depressing. So like, it sounds like on average, no matter what you're going to plant, it's for trees. It's like 20 grand an acre, right? And then x number of years before they start, you know, yielding. And then, you know, you know, you mentioned cherries, you guys are like, you know, cherry universe, right? And they're saying to get in like the on the commodity. Please talk about the three different fruit fruit things, but only 25 cents a pound for SAP for tart cherries on a commodity market. That's bananas. I mean, like, obviously, we pay a lot more we're getting tertiary access. We're getting them from a farmer.

Right? So that's a really key point in the book, and I think is speaks to this idea of understanding some of the larger systemic issues. So it was put very precisely to me by Abby Schilling, who is a is a fruit grower. And she said there's basically three markets that a fruit grower can feed into fresh fruit direct to consumer so that's I grow this fruit I bring it to a farmers market. it and I sell it directly to you. That is the lowest volume of fruit that you can move but at the highest price point and so then the middle ground is fresh fruit to effectively a broker so it's going into grocery stores or you know someone is dealing that out. And then there's the commodity fruit which is none of that is fresh. That's all going into, you know for cherries. Jean McCarthy who's another interviewee is talking about cherry pie filling cherry tart cherry concentrate, dried cherries, like you know, name, your name, your

chair is not the same one who has the 1/10 of an acre of corn says yes,

it is. And so that's a pretty good example of it that so he is a legacy fruit grower up in North Park, Michigan, he's been doing it his whole life has you know, grandfather immigrated and her great grandfather immigrated and and started it. And I Jace are Justin Rasheed from American spoon had said, you know, we can't find quince anywhere. Will you grow them for us? And so Jean was like, Yeah, sure. So he's got you know, a little spot on his farm that he can put some trees so American spoon buys the trees plants on Jean Tenzin sells out liquids to American spoon that Quince is not any part of jeans like financial stability, because it's such a tiny amount, but it's a good relationship, things like that. And if he can sell the rest of his stuff to American spoon, that's a better price point than going to, you know, the the processing facility for it. So I think those are the decisions that people are making and when they're making it with such high overhead and such long term decisions. Jean I found fascinating. He was my neighbor. I went I was farming up in Northport and he was growing cherries organically at the time. And so I finally asked him when we were doing this interview, you know, what is it about organic? And he was like, Oh, the price was there? You know, so it's not, for some organic growers. It's dogmatic. It's you know, and I think all farmers, I think there's this idea that conventional farmers are just like, you know, dumping buckets of fertilizer into the waterways just for funsies. I've never been a farmer that feels that way. That stuff's expensive. They care about their waterways too. It's just how they're trying to make a living. And I and so Jean was saying, you know, the price point was there, I could make the transition pretty easily, we could do it. And so that's what they did. But he would pull out of it at any point, right?