Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 141 - Noah Galuten Returns

Episode Date: February 7, 2023

Let's rummage through the pantry with Noah Galuten and his amazing new cookbook.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus It's time for Breaking Red with Papa Hey! Don't you know? Hey, it's how we go. Hey, it's time for Breaking Bread with Papa. Hey, don't you know? Hey, it's also a show. Hey!

Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Breaking Bread with Tom Papa. I am Tom Papa. Thank you for joining us. We have a great show for you today. We have Noah Galuton on the program. A really talented chef. He has a new cookbook. It's called The Dope Panic Pantry.

cookbook. Do you feel like the Don't Panic Pantry may sound familiar? Yeah, because he has a very popular YouTube show that he did with his wife, our good friend, Eliza Schlesinger. And they started up this series of teaching people how to cook and not freak out during the pandemic. And here we are today. Finally, we've been talking about it for a while. Finally, his new cookbook is out and it's great and we're going to spend some time with him and he's great. I've had him on before you're going to really enjoy. A big thank you to our good friends at Helix Sleep for sponsoring today's program. Is there anything worse than laying on a bad mattress? Yeah, I would say the only thing worse is going to shop for a mattress. Helix makes it very easy. You can order a Helix mattress online

and receive easy, no contact delivery. Helix is offering up to $350 off all mattress orders. That's right. Helix, $350 off all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners. Go to helixleep.com slash Papa, P-A-P-A, and they'll hook you up. This is their best offer yet. Yeah, you'll know from listening to this podcast. This offer got sweeter.

This is the best offer yet, and it won't last long with Helix. Better sleep starts now. Very excited. We are coming into a good time of year. We've got a good Super Bowl playoff football vibes going. I've been eating a lot of garbage. I've been back on the road. My tour is rocking along.

uh go to tompapa.com that's our other sponsor of this program we had great shows this past week we did the uh we sold out the kennedy center brag uh richmond we were at uh at not at the national and then we were in charlottesville at the paramount thank you all for coming out it's really great to see i think we've got a nice bump from the new netflix special what a day and it's just been building momentum and we're heading off to Wisconsin and we've got Dayton and Scranton and New York and the Borgata and Atlantic City. A whole bunch of dates coming up. So I've been going hard on the road and thank you for coming out. Also, let me mention while we're plugging shamelessly and weaving in other things, my new book, my new book, we're all in this together. So Make Some Room is available.

for pre-order right now. It doesn't come out until June, June 6th, I believe, is the date. Very proud of it, very excited. One of the favorite parts of touring is signing books at the end of my show and getting to meet everybody. And it's, I really, one of the, even the better things when people, other than coming up and getting a book, is when they come and they have a copy of one of the, either your dad stole my rake or you're doing great and other reasons to stay alive. When they come and they have their copy, they don't want to get signed, and it's mauled and abused.

And you can tell they've been holding this and reading this forever. And it's very meaningful, and I really enjoy it. So I'm very excited that the next book is coming out. Again, we're all in this together. So make some room. And it's available for pre-order right now.

So as I'm out on tour and running around, I've been backloading bread for my family. I made four loaves of bread because I'm getting complaints when I'm on the road that there's no bread in the house. So I decided let's just make it, freeze it, and all you have to do is pull it out, spray a little water on it, put it in the oven 200 degrees for about 15 minutes. A new loaf of bread without your father being in the house. I don't know if it's a good thing. thing or not. But I have not been there to eat it, so I have just been going on a buffalo wing tour. Anywhere I go, I tell myself I'm not going to order wings, but there's a football

playoff game on, also now going into college basketball, and there's wings everywhere. It turns out everywhere you travel, they're waiting to give you buffalo wings. So I'm just a man. I'm out there alone. I don't have to impress anybody. I don't need that much of a good night's sleep. So I've been abusing buffalo wings for the entire month and now there's no stopping it. So we've got a week or so before the Super Bowl. I'm just going to go all in and just keep going until my, the thing is it's not even a craving that is satisfied. I just keep eating them, and I'm going to continue. And the baking, you know, we're kind of in a, in between stage. So bread and wings. That's all I got for you, kids. The Don't Panic Pantry Cookbook.

Noah is a very interesting guy. He's very talented and he's really good at putting together these cookbooks with different cooks. He did Blood So's Barbecue was the last time he was on the program and very passionate, very passionate, not snobby. The greatest thing about this book is it's about getting your pantry right, getting all the good stuff in there. So when you are ready to go and you're ready to, you come off the road and you want to make a good pasta rather than order something from postmates, which we're all sick of at this point. And you just want to make something good, simple dishes. This is the book.

This is the book. Very talented. Ooh, I'm just looking right now at some rigatoni with some cheese on it. It's like, yeah, come on, let's go. He compiled all of these recipes on his own from their show, also from his life growing up. He's from his family recipes. It really looks beautiful.

It's a practical, fun cookbook that you should have. It's called The Don't Panic Pantry Cookbook. Noah Galuton, he's very fun to talk to, as you are about to see right now. Well, this is very exciting because we talked about you coming on here for quite some time. Yeah. And I was very psyched to get the book, like, actually in my hands. It's very cool. Yeah.

You must be very proud. I'm very proud. I'm very excited. The parts that I'm proud about, because it's hard to be proud before it's successful, you're, like, proud of the work you did. But, like, I'm proud that, like, my mom is very excited. She gets very emotional about it. Because she's, like, her food is featured in the book from my childhood a lot.

And she's pictures of her in the book. Right. So, like, that gets her very. So, like, I'm proud of that part. Yeah. But it's, like, to say you're proud and then I like, tanks. You're just like, well, I guess. Well, yeah.

But, yeah, that's the whole puzzle, you know. That's like the, that's the Zen life thing. It's like, you should just do it for you and you should be proud. And then it's does, now will the, you, now will, now will, now will the culture allow me to stay proud. Yeah. Or are you going to beat it out of me? Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

No, but the last time we talked was over Zoom. Was over Zoom, right. Well, I guess we talked in person, like, like, casually aside at the comedy store. Yeah, yeah. But with Kevin for his book. Yeah, the Blood So Barbecue. Kevin's great because, like, uh, I, like, uh, I've heard all his stories a million times, so I just get to tee him up for things.

Right. Yeah. I'm like his hype man on interviews. Yeah. It was very cool. It was a really, it works. Like, it was a good balance. He's the best.

Yeah. It was really like a good balance because he could just go. And he also, you could tell that you guys are friends because he loved shitting on you. Yes. Yeah. We always say, if Cameron's not making fun of you, you know you're in trouble. Right. That means he's really upset.

You're probably just going to never hear from him again. He doesn't really love me anymore. Yeah. Yeah. But that is. all barbecue that's as fat and greasy as we can get and it's delicious actually i meant to tell you i had a i had a emergency on uh Halloween okay since my kids were it's little sprites we've always had a Halloween party and we always get uh this big fried chicken from um uncle andres you know

Andre's barbecue in Studio City. A little hole in the wall. Really legit, good guy. Just crank stuff out. And we get the giant cornbread and we get the chicken and this giant mac and cheese and collard greens. Every, I mean, we're 18 years in a row like of doing this. You got to build a fried chicken base coat before you eat a bunch of bigger fries.

Right, exactly. Before you break into your Kit Katz. this Halloween fell on a Sunday or a Monday or whatever and he was closed messed everything up first time in our history so I called into Blood Soes and just did it all through there and holy cow they know what they're doing over there so good so like it was one of those like because you know all the other parents come and we're all used to it and it's all great and it's all really good And everybody was just like, wait. And then we threw a couple other things in.

And everyone was just like, where is this? It's so funny because Kevin and I talk about this all the time. Like, we have cooked that food so much. Yeah. We can't ever really eat it. Right. We'll eat other people's barbecue. Yeah.

But like Kevin's barbecue, we can taste it to make sure it's correct. Yeah. And then we'll go eat something else somewhere else. I mean, I've probably, for a person writing a cookbook that's mostly vegetarian, I've probably cooked more brisketes than 99% of the human population. That was going to be my first question. So we go through all of that fat and we go through all of that great, greasy barbecue thing. And the book is The Don't Panic Pantry Cookbook,

mostly vegetarian comfort food that happens to be pretty good for you. That's one of those really short, pithy title that you wouldn't be able to forget. Yeah, but you know what? It really is so on point. It really is. because my daughter is, I thought it was a phase. I thought she was going through a vegan phase and it's sticking. Yeah.

It's sticking. Yeah. And she'll like venture off. Like once in a while she'll throw in, you know, pancakes or eggs or whatever. And then, but she kind of mainly kind of hangs there. And, you know, it's a good way to eat. It is a good way to eat. Yes.

For a lot of reasons. And the thing that always hangs me up is, growing up as a Italian cook. Yes. And there's nothing comforting when I think vegan food. Yeah. I don't like, and this is purely, this is like not knowing a different culture's food. You can throw an uglia oleo in there.

That's vegan. Yeah. Right. Exactly. I mean, you're sending your poor kid to school just covered in garlic and oil. Yeah. There are worse faiths. But there was a, I mean, when I was vegan for a little bit.

when I first met my wife and she's vegetarian and she always says I, I wooed her under false pretenses. You vegan catfisher? Exactly. Once I had her, I started eating hot dogs at Yankee Stadium and it was over. Yeah. And this is kind of a funniest side story. So we meet, I'm vegan.

She's ecstatic. She met this pretty cool guy who actually eats like her. It's all good. And we go home to meet my parents. and they reveal that my nickname in school was Tommy Salami because I ate two salami sandwiches every day from kindergarten until I graduated. Hey, it's a good sandwich. I support it. It's a great sandwich, just salami and mustard.

But when we were going back and forth, and this was, you know, this is a while ago, it wasn't as hip, there wasn't in many places. and I always, the problem I always had was, is it satisfying? It's because you don't grow up with it. Can it still be as satisfying and provide your comfort? Yeah. And also, the places that serve it up were never cool. They would make it seem like you were doing penance for eating that way.

Like it was just be like a bleak thing. That's very Catholic. You know what I mean? It was very like you were, I'm like, we just make it look like a steakhouse. Yeah. Like have the cool lights and the glasses and put it on. on some music. Why do we have to suffer if we're not eating a rib eye? Yeah. And, you know, and I think, you know, one of the things I think about a lot is that, you know, I think people with

their diets, I mean, people's diets are so personal. Yeah. Their relationship with food is really personal. It's so tied into like how you feel what you crave, your shame, your relationship with your mom, like all these things are all tied together with it. And I think what ends up happening so often is there's this like food narratives that get pushed down your throat. various angles. And I think people who kind of don't have this strong sense of what to do and don't have this like driven passion toward one thing, they're trying to trying, which is what most people are, I think, are trying to grapple all these different kind of senses of self with the environment and sustainability and, you know, morality and pleasure and all this

stuff. And so you end up kind of trying to balance it all together and you end up getting overwhelmed. So I think what happens a lot of people go, all right, that's it. I'm going to get healthy for the environment. I'm going to hire a trainer. I'm going to go full vegan. I'm going to go no carbs and you do it for about two weeks. And then you go back to being the same person you were before. And so I like to kind of, I like this idea of a rational middle ground, which is I think what a lot of people like and want, but no one knows how to sell it. Yeah.

Yeah. How do you package it? It's like the anti-Tick-Tacacac idea, which I guess I'm trying to do with this book of, you know, that I can believe all these things about the environment. And I believe in doing sort of less and better when it comes to meat. When I buy meat, I buy it from the farmer's market from a local farm. It's prohibitively expensive, so I don't buy it that much. Yeah.

And also using meat as an accent versus the main dish. And also I kind of generally eat vegetarian at home, but I do, like, I'll buy a really good rabi and cooking for dinner once every few weeks. Yeah. And it's amazing. Yeah. But it doesn't have to be your entire life. And so I kind of try to have this idea in the book that, like, that trying matters and that better is enough. And that, I think for a lot of people, they get so overwhelmed that, like, you ever seen that thing where you, like, you go to the gym and you go, I'm going to hire a trainer for a little while.

And the first thing I want you to do is change your entire diet. And I'm like, I'm already working out and I wasn't before. Like improvement count for something. I know. And so that is a culture. Kind of want to do with this book is like, yeah, I want to eat a lot of beans. I have a really like big point in this book that I, from research did about the importance of fiber in our diets.

Yeah. Actually like it will massively improve your overall chance of staying alive. Right. To like a pretty staggering degree. But also like if I'm at like Adair's Saloon in Dallas, Texas at a honky tonk bar, Like, I'm eating a greasy cheeseburger with a whiskey and a beer. Yeah. That's going to happen.

Right. And that both selves can exist simultaneously. Yeah. And right. And there's no like, you, in my mind, I always think there's going to be some SWAT team that's going to come in and catch me from veering off. And so that's why I try to have like guidelines rather than rules, like things that I kind of believe to be true.

My general, like philosophy for my own diet, which is, I mean, diet in the literal sense, not unlike the, yeah, my diet. Yeah, in what you eat, your nutrition. It's basically, and I tend to think more about, like, nutrition than weight, but, which, you know, is, I guess, a luxurious position to be in. But my kind of rule is either want the food that I eat to be something I'm really excited about or is really good for me. And if it's not one of those two things, it's a waste of my time.

Like, eating unhealthy food that you don't enjoy that much, like, what are we doing this for? Yeah, right, exactly. So, like, if I'm ever at, like, a restaurant and I can't decide what to get and nothing sounds good, I just pick the healthiest thing in the menu. I go, well, now at least if it sucks, I'm not like eating trash and feeling bad about it. Yeah, like you're eating garbage. Go back to beans. Go back to beans and fiber.

So fiber, so I was very fortunate that I have a friend of mine who used to head up the UCLA Institute of the Environment Sustainability, who now runs the aquarium of the Pacific down in Long Beach. It's a beautiful aquarium down there. Oh, yeah. Sustainability work, and they do cool events and all this stuff. And we were kind of trying to find different ways to like look at all this academic research and metadata studies that have so much great information. But usually the people who have that information are really, really bad at explaining it to people. And so one of the things that we found in these studies, and he was sending me in, this is like metadata.

So studies of multiple studies. So like thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of like actual human hours of studies. Yeah. Is that basically everyone is pretty much getting enough protein. We're all obsessed with protein and we're all pretty much fine. The amount that we think we need is actually less than we really need. But we are a massively fiber deficient country. And that fiber is the thing that they said that if you eat the right amount of fiber,

which is usually about twice as much as those people are eating, something like that, is it decreases what they call the, quote, all cause death by 30%. All cause death by 30%. Which seems useful. That's a lot. And the problem is, too, like a lot of the stuff that happens

and this is where it kind of gets into the book is like one of the goals too is like just getting yourself to cook yourself dinner matters a ton because the less heavily processed food you're eating, the more control you're over stuff, the more you're kind of not having all these weird biohack food scientists things like that are that are screwing up your body's natural ability to know like humans have never eaten too much salt in history of the world until like 50 years ago. Right.

Because your sense of salt is your body telling you much salt you need. Yeah, right. If you eat a Dorito, it's like, I have no idea what's happening. Right, but I need more of it. Have you heard the term, I'm all over the place? Have you heard of the term vanishing caloric density? No. That's like a food science term that they use for like Doritos and it's the phenomenon that food scientists have figured out that it, uh, you eat something and it tricks your brain into thinking it didn't ingest calories. Whoa. And so that's like what a Dorito does. That's what like, Benchikini just won is like because we've biohacked.

to not know what the hell's going on. So it just keeps eating. Yeah, and it's just, it's gone. I didn't even have anything. We'll have more. That's amazing. And so. Oh, they're so clever.

It's, I mean, when you look at, when you look at, uh, all of the big tobacco that got into the food business, right? They, they bought all of those. Like craft and all that stuff. Yeah. Do they still own it? I don't even know.

I don't know. It was like Philip Morris was everything. Yeah. And they like bought like all of these food companies and using the same science. Yeah. To mess with your head. to get you addicted to keep you eating that stuff. Yeah, I mean, it all comes back to, like, you know,

if you look like evolutionarily why we have all the tastes we have, there's like the reason, or one of the reasons at least that I've read about, of like why we crave sugar is because evolutionarily, that's how we identified vitamin C. Like an orange is sweet that has vitamin C. Yeah. We're not like, you know,

how do we make a syrup out of this corn? Right. And so, you know, all these things are kind of tied into that stuff. And so, you know, for me, One of the things I like to do is try to help people just like build your pantry so that making dinner is more convenient than ordering out. Yeah. So like you get home from the road and it's seven o'clock. You haven't been shopping in a long time.

And like you can either go on your phone and do the hour and 20 minute wait for like a sweaty postmates that you're not that thrilled with. In a cardboard box. Yeah. And you're just like and one of the orders is wrong. Yep. Or like you can, I mean, you know, you're yeah. The healthier option is to crack up. put a can of tomatoes, make tomato sauce and boil some spaghetti.

Right. That's actually going to be better for you than like, you know, ordering whatever the hell a burrito bowl is. I like, uh, I like the pictures that you have in it of the pantry because it looks like my pantry. Oh, that's so great. Yeah, it's really pretty cool. And I was wondering, is it because we're both on the same coast that we have some of the same stuff? I'll bet. And I think, you know, and I have my mom's side is all Italian or my grandmother was Italian.

So I kind of grew up with that like, you know, know upstate New York meets Italian California kind of filtered through. So, yeah, like the basis of a lot of my cooking kind of all started with like olive oil and garlic and we'll take it from there. And as I've lived in California and Los Angeles now, I mean, my whole life, but growing as a person and learning that there's food east of the 405 when you grow up in Santa Monica is you start to like discover all these other cuisines and other cultures and I start obsessing over their food. So now my pantry has like all these incredible ingredients that kind of tend to.

But it's going to each other and it's how you find out things like that butter and soy sauce sauteed together is the greatest drunken pasta pasta condiment in the world. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. It's in the book. Butter and soy sauce. In general, those two things together. Like, if you saute like mushrooms in butter and soy sauce, like it's just one of the great things. Insane.

But yeah, that's my, for when I would, it happens less and less these days now that I'm a father. But every once in a while, if I'm coming home from a bar, like Ubering home and there isn't a good taco truck on the way, Then the drunken late night pantry pasta, you like mix basically butter and soy sauce, toss pasta, and it throw some spices in there and eat it standing up out of the pot. And then you... Until your wife comes in and staring at you. No, she's out of town when that happens. Oh, she's... Yeah.

I mean, it's... Yeah, the fish, the canned fish up here. The, uh, and a lot of people wouldn't even catch that this is Bianco's tomatoes. DiNopoly, the great Chris Bianco. I have that painting in my, in my... That's his dad who painted it, right? Oh, that's so cool. Which, by the way, you just reminded me of something.

There's another painting that he has copies of that his father, this is Chris Bianco from Bianco's Pizzeria. I went to the opening of his, for my radio show, I covered the opening of his downtown pizza place. And he took me aside and was like, I'm getting you. I'm getting you. My father, he also did that painting, and I'm going to get a copy and brought the guy over.

get his information, we're going to get them there. And just realizing it, looking at this candy, never sent it. Oh, well, that's... Now, what's the move there socially? Do you go and say, you said you were sending me a gift and you didn't? The good news, I think Chris is the kind of guy who has a sense of humor about stuff like that. He is like one of the nicest people I've ever met in the industry. He's in life.

To the point that like I actually, I've met him, I'd met him many times. And every time I meet him, I would meet him again. I would have to be like, I'm this guy from this and this and this. He treats everyone like they've been friends for 10 years. And finally, he was like, Noah, I know who you are. You don't have to keep. I was like, I don't know.

I know. No, it's legit. He really does. He's so great. He's a truly wonderful person. Yeah, which is kind of weird that he screwed me out of a painting. Yeah, it's not great. What was the painting up?

Do you even know? It was a bowl of fruit, something like that? No, I forget even. I forget what it was. Meanwhile, we talked a while ago about you trying to figure out your pizza situation. Have you figured it out yet? No, I haven't spent much time on it. I really haven't.

Tell you, sheet pan. That's going to be your gateway bread, pizza. Yeah. The New York style of grandma pies. That'll be your gateway. That's a big Philly thing. Oh, is it? Yeah, just like tomato bread.

It's basically like facacia with tomato sauce thrown on it. Yeah. But there's some cheese on there. So good. So good. Yeah. I just, yeah, I don't know why we haven't really. You know what it is? And this is another thing that was on my mind. My daughter's vegan. My wife is pescatarian. Okay. Really vegetarian and reluctantly eats fish once in a while. Sure. My other daughter's at school. And I am a garbage can. So it's just be you making a whole pizza for yourself. Yeah. A lot of times. It's the pescatarian you can eat.

She'll eat cheese. She'll eat cheese. But then your daughter's left out. I'm going through this really kind of... How does Eliza eat? Eliza is... I mean, it has evolved since I met her. But before I met her, it was like eating a bag of turkey over the trash can,

racing out to do a set. Right. And then eating something after. And then when we first started dating, it was a lot of like, you know, having a fun late night dinner after her. shows. And now it's like a healthy dinner. Before the show, she goes, I stay home, and then she comes back and we go to bed at like 10.30. Right. But, uh, you got a baby. It's funny. Eliza, and she actually, you know, a lot of the things I think about this book are kind of inspired sort of by the way she thinks

about food, but also the way her fans think about food, who I, we did this live stream cooking show and I got this direct feedback from all this, you know, fan base of a lot of like women in the 20s and 30s who suddenly had to start cooking for themselves and didn't know what to do and are very intimidated by stuff. And so, like, Eliza, I think she philosophically wants to be vegetarian. Right. But really wants to eat chicken all. Yeah.

Like, her body craves it. Like, as a person who expends a lot of mental and physical energy. Yeah. She, yeah, it's like she wants that energy. Yeah, her body's telling her to go get it. Yeah. But she, you know, like, yeah, she'll enjoy a steak and a nice sushi dinner. But we'll also eat mostly, almost entirely vegetarian at home.

Yeah. Lots of like rice bowls and I do a lot of like that kind of stuff. Right, right. And yeah, she's not as big of a pasta person as I am. So you're synced up. So like you can, when you're making something, you don't have to make three different dinners. No, I do make different things that I really want when she's not home.

I know she won't care that much about. Uh-huh. But yeah, we're not doing the three different dinners thing. But it's, uh, the one tough thing with Eliza is it could not possibly occur to her that if she's not hungry now, that she would ever be hungry again. It's always a surprise every time. It's a surprise in an emergency.

So if I'm going to the grocery store and I'm like, what do you think you'll want for dinner tonight? I don't even ask anymore. So I kind of just have to like, it's like playing roulette a little bit. My wife is the same way. Like I truly, one of my,

one of the joys of life is going to the supermarket. I love going anywhere. Especially in foreign countries? Oh my God. Where to shop for food. I love it. I'll do it. I don't even consider it like, oh, I do that chore.

It's not a chore. That doesn't get checked off in my box of doing shit around the house. Yeah. I love going. I love seeing it. Even grocery store scenes and movies are always great. Yeah. It's the best.

Well, my wife is just like, she does not, not interested. Yeah. But then she has to eat again and it comes up again. And then like, she'll be like, I don't know why I've been doing like a press all day. And I'm in a bad mood. It's like, because you didn't. eat food. She's like, I ate an orange at 7 o'clock in the morning. I don't know why at 4.30 something could possibly go and Liza does seem, she's such a machine. She really is. She seems

like she can get by on like a handful of almonds. She can if she has to, but like, yeah, she can also like go blind. And so like if she and like just all of a sudden just start horking stuff down. So I do have to like, I sometimes have to like force her to like, she's like, I'm not hungry. It's like, yes, but you're about to be doing. something before, like, eat this banana or eat this, you know, something. And then you won't, like, have to eat, you know, a bowl of, uh, of, uh, of like ice cream the moment you walk upstate, whatever the nearest thing that happens to be there. Yeah. My friend, uh, my friend Ryan is a, uh, a personal chef. And he's really good. He like, he's really good at a lot of things.

But the most impressive thing when I would hang with him, like with the family he was working for or whatever, uh, or would we'd be traveling was his sense. of when people are going to melt down. Like he always was ahead of the game of, okay, we've got to start talking about this because we've got to get food in these people where the kids are going to lose their shit and everyone's going to be cranky. A massive skill. Always all through the day making sure all the birds were fed.

That was really, I was like, that's how you do it. You don't wait until everyone's falling over and then say, where are we going to order from? Yeah, the tough one, because. I can figure out, like, I can always make food in a pinch. The tough one is like going out to dinner and making plans. Yeah. Because that you, especially now, it feels like it's even harder to make reservations than it ever was before.

Yeah, why is that? I don't know. It got weird. Everyone all of a sudden came back and they... I guess. And now they're just, yeah, it's like if, and if you look online, they have reservations, like, well, that place can't be that good. I always jump through the online thing and call.

It's usually better. A lot of them, it'll go that way. But a lot of times when I think of it, they're not open. It's like, it's seven in the morning. I'm, like, working out, and I'm going to forget later. But, yeah. So, like, all just like, I'll be like, all right, I've wanted to go to Anajok for a while. I'm going to book this for two months from now on a Monday.

I'll look at Eliz's tour schedule. It looks like she's in town. And then fingers crossed, we don't cancel last minute. He doesn't want to go. That's really smart. It's a hit or miss. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

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If you're not sleeping, this is your solution. Thank you to our good friends at Helix Sleep. So your mom, was your mom the cook when you were in one? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my parents were divorced since I was like two. Okay. But, uh, and my both sides of my family cooked, my mom.

Did you live with both of them? I did. Yeah, did the full split custody thing. You did? Yeah, which as long as you, I think, don't notice, aren't aware when they break up, don't know what? It's pretty smooth. By the time I became, you know, self-aware at all, I just, you know, you go here and you go here.

You're like, oh. But yeah, my mom, she, like, instilled the love of cooking. She was like, you know, my dad was always more of like a cook breakfast kind of guy, like most dads, I guess. And so, yeah, it was like, you know, like having. dinner at the table was a big thing. Yeah. No matter what we always did it. She'd make real food from scratch.

She'd make like filet of soul. She kind of had this like, it was like that, you know, 80s, 90s, California. Like how do we make it healthier? So it's like a lot of turkey. So like turkey meatballs are better for you than meatballs, which I don't know if that's true. Yeah. It was for a while. But I love turkey meatballs now and I have them in the book.

And the trick to a turkey meatball, by the way, is you replace the missing fat with cheese. Just to put a lot of Parmesan cheese in it, which is not better for you. No. But is delicious. Yeah, right. Exactly. A lot of fresh herbs, a lot of that stuff. And they, yeah. And so that, yeah, like a turkey bolognais, like a turkey meat sauce, which is in the book too. And I've grown to like love it. I have this so I've gotten to kind of perfect that stuff as best I could. Right. It was kind of fun like taking, you know, there's obviously a lot of other stuff in the book too, but like my mom's family recipes and kind of deciding on the definitive version of them, like that will now live on bookshelps, hopefully, for a long time.

Like, by the publisher who, like, made the cookbooks that I grew up on. Right. Like, it's kind of, they did, like, you know, uh, Julia Child and El, Marcella Hazan, and they do Nancy Silverton's books now. Whoa. And it was like this kind of very cool, Edna Lewis, like people like that. Wow. And so to be like, they put out not a ton of cookbooks every year and they kind of care about

them like being around for a while. Wow. The Hazan. Oh my God. She's like, sometimes I read a, cookbook and I'm like, why are we still making these? Didn't we, I feel like we nailed it. Right, exactly. At least in terms of like,

like, like white culture cookbooks. Right, yeah. Like we have like maybe two. We had like, we had like three decades of like two Indian cookbook authors until finally now that's changing. Right. But in terms of like Italian and like breakfast books, like Marian Kenningham wrote like the greatest cookbook of all the time. Her breakfast book. Oh yeah. It's amazing. It came out in like probably 1912. I have no idea.

And it's incredible. But we still keep. making the people keep buying them. Yeah. And it's kind of, I feel like it's like pornography is that way too. Like we probably have enough. Yeah, right. But someone's new showing up and they want to,

they want to find your person that you kind of connect with and fall in love with or whatever. There is an interesting thing. I was talking about this with my wife. She has, when she was a kid, her mom would make this really a Swedish tea cake, which is like a,

it's really a, a cinnamon roll. You know how you make cinnamon rolls? Yeah. And you don't cut it. You fold it. You make it into a reef. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. And then you kind of slice it and kind of like without going all the way through. It's like a round you a log. Yeah, kind of. And you just kind of like push them over on the side. So you're kind of exposing the cinnamon. So anyway, she has the recipe that her mom, the from the cookbook that her mom used, which was like a Betty Crocker or something like that. The most confusing. that is one thing that we've done. Like it's so much easier to read and the layout and like, like, they just skip whole measurements

and then they just kind of like just assume that you know what they're talking about. Like that you've all cooked your whole life. Yeah, like the first step, it's like, it's like skin the cow. You're like, okay? Yeah. And it's, that is, but it is kind of a cool thing. Yeah. To get old cookbooks just for that reason.

Oh my God, I love them. They're the best. I love cookbooks that don't have pictures in them. Yeah. They just have like weird doodles. Yeah. That kind of stuff I love. It's so great.

They're amazing. Like one of my favorite cookbooks ever is from 1980. It's called Japanese cooking a simple art by this guy, Shizu Outsuji. And it was like the first, it was almost like the textbook of Japanese cooking for America. And he had a version of it in Japanese too. And it's like where I got my base learning of all Japanese cooking was from that book. And I would just, before I was professional anyway. in this business, I would just obsess over books like that and just make like 20 things out of the book.

Really? To get this like kind of a little bit of an understanding of it from a base level. Yeah. And I remember even in that book, he was talking about like, this may sound barbaric to you, but in Japan we eat a lot of raw fish. And it was 1980. Oh, wow. So it hadn't like taken off yet. Yeah.

That guy's going to have a rude awakening if he sees what happens in the early 90s. I remember that. I remember it must have been like it like. early 80s. Yeah. My father taking me to a sushi place and it was all you could eat sushi. We had no idea. Like we were just shoving.

We couldn't believe that we could eat all this. But it was like there was the one place. Even in like in Northeast, like right outside of New York. I have a running bit with my mother-in-law with Eliza's mom who's like you're a classic like New York Jewish mother-in-law. Amazing woman. Lovely. but I always wanted her to open an all you should eat restaurant. I'll have the chili dog.

No, you won't. You're having the salad. Yeah, I'm like, you're not going to, you're not choosing. Take another bowl of soup? No, you're done. So how did you, so where, so you, your folks are cooking? Yeah, so my mom is like, it's connected in New York, like, grandmother's like off the boat Italian, And married and Irishman because all the Italian chenew were in the mafia.

And then my dad's like Westchester Jew. And they ended up meeting in Miami, of all places, where my mom was waitressing at a vegan or vegetarian restaurant called Here Comes the Sun in Miami. Wow. Because they were like hippies back then. Yeah, yeah. And my dad was a – but back then a music producer, and he was like doing a lot of music producing, working with like the BeeGs and cool stuff like that. Oh, yeah? Yeah.

No, my dad's career is crazy. Really? Yeah, and then they... He was a producer? Yeah, yeah, he produced like Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and... What? Yeah, like Allen's in the stream. What?

Yeah, no, my dad's career. My dad is, in fact, he basically is credited with inventing the drum loop. Holy cow. That's insane. Yeah. That's insane. Wait a minute. I think I've seen...

Did you see the BG's documentary? Yeah, I was just going to say in the documentary. Yeah, that's my dad. No way. I guess there are arguments that other people made have also come up with that at some point, but no one had done it like commercial. He described to me always as he's like how multiple different species can evolve to have eyesight, but, you know, they were all, it was going to happen whether he did it first or not, right, right. He happened to do. But how, that's so cool because one of the real memorable parts of that documentary is when they're all like living in Miami and bringing their family over and they're showing all those shots. It's so funny to think that's when your folks meet.

Yeah. And then actually there's a, there's some recipes in the book that are inspired from that time when my dad was working on, uh, 461 Ocean Boulevard, that old Eric Clapton record. Everyone used to stay at that house, and there was this woman there whose name was Fannie, and she would kind of take care of the house, and she kind of introduced everyone to like soul food cooking in my family. But they were hippie vegetarians back then, so it was like this vegetarian kind of New Year's tradition in our family, and of course I've done Kevin Bloodso's versions, which are not vegetarian and are incredible.

Yeah. But the one that we have in our house, it's like, it's in the book. There's like a black-eyed pee with like, it's very Italian California with like balsamic vinegar and and you can sauteed greens and a cornbread. And it's like a, and that woman Fanny is, as who when the BG's heard her name had never heard someone's name could be Fanny and they thought that was very funny. And it's where this song Fannie B. Tender came from. Holy cow.

That's amazing. So yeah. Man, oh man. Did you meet the BG's when you were a kid? Supposedly, but I don't remember. You don't remember. You don't remember. You were too young.

My mom said they used to give like really absurd like birthday gifts. Like, oh, it's, it's Noah's first birthday. Here's a six foot long baby bottle. It's like, okay. Thanks, Barry. Yeah, ha ha. Yeah, I guess we'll hang on to this. Yeah, so a lot of that kind of stuff.

Right. Yeah, and so I just kind of grew up loving cooking and was kind of really into it. Right. And then we talked about it, I think, a little bit last time, but basically was waiting tables and bartending, um, obsessing over various food things, but was a writer for the most part, writing newspapers and magazines and things like that. And then there was just barbecue place in Compton. That was just the best barbecue had ever had in my life. And, uh, went down there, flipped out and interviewing Kevin for LA Weekly. We ended up, uh, becoming business partners. I started

training on the pits in Compton to be the general manager of a new location and I can hear the story. I know we mentioned that. Yeah. But I could, like, I get to like race through. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Because I could hear that story over and over again. It's such a cool. Yeah. I mean, when else do you like, I mean, Kevin and I talk about this a lot and we always try to find new ways to work together. But like we're born and raised 10 miles apart, but like worlds away. Yeah. Yeah. And we're just like to be such close friends and basically family with somebody who we are, couldn't be more different in so many ways. Like I mean, his his cookbook, I don't think has almost anything in it that's vegetarian. decide to go with barbecue.

Yeah. Even the vegetables are like with bacon fat. Oh, God. I mean, you have to, you cook a ham hawk for two hours before you put collard greens in it. Right. Or an hour. Yeah. But yeah. And I, so for me, it's, you know, but I also like, I feel good when I eat a lot of vegetables and eat a lot of grains. And so anyway, so it's this kind of whole weird story that led me into this restaurant world, but also writing cookbooks at the same time. Yeah. And I've gotten to this, have this unbelievable kind of like food nerd fantasy camp lifestyle where I get some. to work with people like Frank Pinello and Best Pizza Williamsburg to learn pizza from him

to open prime pizza out here. I worked with Jeremy Fox to write on vegetables who's like this legend of, you know, farmers market cooking and just cooking in general in California. And Jeremy Fox, I'm sorry, I just had his name, Kevin Bloodsoe and learning from him. And now I'm writing books with Ari Kohlender, who has found oyster here to write like the definitive American seafood cookbooks. I get to learn. Really? You're working with them on that? Yeah. We're writing that book together. So I get to like write about and learn. I mean, I'm not like a seafood expert, and now I get to learn everything about seafood from one of the great seafood chefs in America.

So great. Yeah, Naisha Arrington and I are working on a book together. She's incredible. She would love her. You got to have her on the show. And Nancy Silverton's on the back cover. Yeah, got the Nancy Blurb. That's cool.

Which is pretty incredible. Yeah, and it's just, and so this was kind of, you know, my one shot so far to really do, like, I had this unbelievable good fortune to when a lot. Liza was shooting her sketch show in New York. She was wrapping it up, and I flew out to meet her, and my agent said, you should just meet with a bunch of New York editors, because they don't have a name to the face, and most of the editors are out there. So I met with a bunch of, like, the top cookbook editors in New York,

and one of them was Lexi Bloom, who is amazing. And she also, like, edits, like, Murakami translations for Knappo. She's just an incredible editor and an amazing person. And we ended up chatting for, like, an hour. And she said to me, if you could write any cookbook, what would it be? And I said, well, no one had asked me that. but I kind of had my idea in my head and I kind of pitched her on what it was. And she said, great, write the proposal and send it to me.

And I wrote the proposal, sent it to her. And they were very excited about it right before the holidays were like, great. This sounds like it's going to go. They're like asking me for a little more of like my like, you know, my social media stats. Like they're kind of like, there's something happening. It feels good. Yeah, there's like they didn't just like, you know, dismiss it out of hand. And it sounded like it was maybe coming along.

Yeah. And then the holidays hit and then it was radio silence. And then it turned out. that their editor-in-chief died over that holiday weekend. Whoa. Over those holidays. And so everything got put on pause. And then we kind of started to pick back out,

but they're starting to get ready to hire somebody. We're feeling like maybe we'll figure this out. And then the pandemic hit. And then, so Eliza and I started doing this live stream cooking show. This Don't Panic Pantry version of it. And we're kind of, it's going well.

We're going. And I start to talk to them. Again, I go, look, I know your money is all tied up in, you know, basically a bunch of books that can, warehouses. We want to do this book. Backload my deal. Pay me in a year. I'm just home. Let me write the book. Right. And then their director of contracts died. Oh my God. And then we kind of kept going and kept going and the show was kind of going.

We ended up like going on the Today Show and things like that. And then finally they called back and and they said we'd want to do the book. But why waste the branding? Can we name it after the live stream show and Will Eliza write the forward? And so and it kind of came out of that. But then the book ended up evolving because of just this like constant communication with people who were struggling with how to cook. Right. And trying to figure out what to do and figure out what they really wanted, what they were afraid of, and all these things.

And it all kind of came together to create this book. Perfect. That's kind of this combination of all those things mixed with the food of my childhood. This is like the food that I actually cook at home and the food that I love. And it's just a pretty special thing to get it all kind of having to come together in this way at this time. How did you feel about the cooking? show when it started kind of catching.

It was, I mean, I kind of look at it as, you know, I think it kept me from going insane a little bit. It's like something to do every day. Yeah, every day. You had to like, you were in production. Yeah. It's like it had a thing. Okay, we got to do this.

And then you get up and you do it. And we had COVID at the very beginning of it. So like if you were watching the early days, you got to like see Eliza like lose her taste on camera. But like back then, it was like you were kind of getting shamed for thinking you had COVID back then. So you didn't want to say it. Oh, really?

Those early days were so weird. Those early days were so bizarre. And it's like, if you go to a hospital, you're a jerk. And so we were just like home like. Yeah. Or if you're enjoying yourself during the pandemic. Yeah. And so, but that was, that was kind of a beautiful, cool thing.

Eventually, I mean, we did 250 episodes. Wow. It eventually got, it was supposed to be two weeks, I think, we all thought at the beginning. Jeez. But now. 250. Yeah. Yeah.

Eventually we stopped doing it every day. We do it like once a week or whatever. Right. But now, and now it's a, it's a YouTube show. So now there's actually editing, which is exciting. Oh, so you're still doing it. You're still making it. Yeah, this is like a different verse week. As of, you know, a few months ago. I just kind of wanted to find I really like teaching people how to cook. And I like that format of like, again, like trying to market a rational middle ground is proving hard. Like trying to write like SEO for for YouTube titles. Like, you know, this spaghetti meatballs is so good. You'll achieve Buddhahood. It's a life hack or whatever you're supposed to say.

And so it's, you know, we're building this channel up from scratch. And it's, it's a fun thing. And it's, yeah, it's cool. New episodes every Monday. Do you have like a studio or you do? I just have a friend of mine who's a filmmaker who's, he was excited about it. And we just basically, we batch shoot it. So like every three months, we hunker down for one week at my house.

Nice. We cook like, you know, 15 things over three days or whatever it ends up being or, or, yeah, 15 over five days. That makes sense. Yeah. And we just shoot a bunch of stuff and make it. And it's super fun and loose. And he's an old friend of mine. And he's really.

graded his job. Nice. And when Eliza is in town, she pops in. It almost kind of feels like a like a workplace comedy. Yeah. It's just like, we're just kind of cooking and going and she pops in and tries it and other people are around sometimes. And I'm just kind of trying to, you know, again, encourage people to, my goal is like for

people to learn how to make food they're willing to eat. Right. And that's kind of it. And then you can kind of Trojan horse in my sort of beliefs about, you know, sustainability and nutrition and all this stuff too. But at the end of the day, like kind of just getting that certain. first base level going off of it. And I think there's hopefully recipes in here, too,

that people who aren't like, you know, this isn't a book that you have to be a novice to be able to appreciate. Right, right. I also think, you know, I've got pretty good tomato sauce in there. I've got some good pastas and really good soups and stuff that's really great,

but it's not fussy. It's not, you know, my goal with books like this, and in general with cookbooks is like, I think this era of like the restaurant chef, like big deal, famous, like high-end restaurant books.

Yeah. Well, like celebrities are great, but like it needs to be cookable at home. Like I think the some of those like coffee table books don't really people don't want that as much. And so if I can find a way to make the food 90% as good for half as much work. Yeah. Like that is yeah. That's how we all actually.

So many times when you open up one of those and they look gorgeous and you know the name and you know the place and you're like, oh, this is going to be great. And you're like tonight and tonight I'm doing it. And then it says bribery chicken for three days. Yes. Exactly. The first thing knocks you out. either an ingredient or a process is like, well, I'm out. I can't do that.

Yeah. Yeah. Because like the truth is most of the time, like, yes, it's nice to have your weekend projects where you can get up. Yeah, when you have a long thing. Make a Sunday supper for everybody comes over. Sure. But for the most part, like you're jumping between calls and you're trying to make yourself

a salad you're going to eat standing up out of the bowl. And if you know how to make a good salad dressing versus like, you know, I love Paul Newman, but yeah, you know, I don't need his help to eat salad dressing. No, exactly. Just give you some good olive oil for crying out loud And a lemon Yeah, exactly Actually, one of my secret little things

That secret, I don't know why I called it a secret It's literally in the book But it's my kind of not salad dressing What I actually do all the time It's one of my favorite little like quick The squeeze it over a salad is olive oil lemon juice And a splash of tamari Slow down, what is it?

Olive oil? Olive oil lemon juice And a splash of tamari Just that little like Umami gluten-free little like Little roasty It's just like you don't even notice it It's like when you put anchovies and like a broccoli pasta, people go like, why does this taste so good?

And you go, don't worry about it. Oh, God, that one, that's a real sore spot. Oh. I would put anchovies in everything. And every great Italian cookbook is on. Yeah. Just anchovies are showing up everywhere. They're sustainable, really good for you.

Low mercury, high omega threes, fish oils. And my, and they enrage the people I live with. Can they tell when you do it? Well, that's the ethical thing. That's the ethical question. It's, it's, do you just put it in and not tell them? It depends on who it is, I guess. If it, yeah, like, yeah.

Like, Eliza loves Caesar dressing. Once they hear, this is the thing. They could say, it's delicious. Take the vegan aside. Sure. They could say it's delicious. And if they hear there's an, it's an anchovy in there, they're going to turn on the dish. Right.

Yeah, it's, uh, oh, but I, I would put them in everything. Yeah, it's like the placebo. but the other way around. Right, exactly. Yeah, I mean, like, Eliza loves Caesar salad dressing. Yeah. But she doesn't want it to have anchovy in it. And I'm like, but you like it and it has it.

So like if you, but so as long as they don't put the filet on the salad also. Right, right. Oh, but man. But it's the best. The best is when you get those really fresh fillets thrown on top. The white anchovies? Yes. Oh, God.

We, uh, we're working on a recipe with Ari for his Caesar salad. And he made it first, and it was just, there's so many anchovies in the dressing, and then there's just like a blanket of anchovies on top. And we're sitting with his wife, and she's like, babe, you can't. You can't do this. It looks like you've lost your mind.

I'm like, it does look unhinged. And he's like, but this is the best way to do it. And I realized, like, what if we call it a 40 anchovy Caesar? Now it's not a bug. It's a feature. Yeah. Now you're marketing it as such. And now, like, things like that I was crap.

We have like Evan Funky, the great chef of Felix and restaurants like that. Yeah. I remember I went to one of his early restaurants and I remember he had a dish and it was some kind of a pasta with a hen ragu. And I was like, that sounds so much better than chicken meat sauce. Like hen ragu sounds classy. Like the little tweaks of phrase that can make a dish sound better. Yeah. But going through the filter, everything goes through the vegetarian filter in my mind because of everyone I live with.

Yeah. And like that it's hen, that there's a hen. hand involved with a bow and just a loving grandmother hen that the other one that really bothers my wife whenever because they'll come over in the restaurant and give you the specials and we'll just let it ride we don't say like oh she doesn't and uh whenever they get to pulled pork oh yeah the pulling the pork off of the bone she's like or eliza what gets her a suckling pig like they were having breakfast you pulled them away i don't think they have to kill them right Yeah, right off the teat.

But yeah, the hen thing, not to get too into weird territories, but I have a, um, sometimes I think there's like certain things in our food ways that are like hiding in plain sight. Uh-huh. And one of the ones I realized recently was you think about it and all the chickens we eat are female. Right. And all the eggs we eat are from females. And this isn't like a, like an all right like men or like what's happening thing.

But I was kind of like, wait, so what are, how are they actually doing this? Like, is it a genetic modification? And I think that there are some things they're doing that are going in that direction to like pre-design their birth sex. Sure. But my understanding is that a large, large percentage of it is just the chick comes out, they check it. And then it either into the wood chipper and probably turns into big food or it goes on to the other way. And so this idea that like the sound effect made it so much worse. The idea that you could like that eating eggs is.

vegetarian, it's kind of hard to, it's hard to rationalize. Right. Because you're basically, you have to kill a bunch of baby male chicks to get, I guess, are males chicks. Once you go deep into it, you're going to, yeah, it's all going to be revealed. I just did this piece for eater that came out last week that I was a year and a half passion project of me obsessing over a boxed chicken broth that you buy at the grocery store.

Because I was writing up actually for this cookbook for the head note for the chicken stock recipe. I was like making it from scratch is better than buying it in the box. I know this to be true because it tastes better. My mom always did it that way. It is true because we make it this way and they make it probably some other way. And I was like, well, how do they make it? I looked it up and I couldn't find anything. And then I looked at the side of the box and on almost every single box of chicken broth, the first ingredient says chicken broth. And I was like, well, that doesn't seem like it helps anybody at all. And so I just, I emailed this amazing editor, Leslie Souter, who just like there's special products editor at Eater, who's an old friend.

And I was like, can I chase this down and see if it goes anywhere and say I'm writing for you? And she goes, yeah. And if it doesn't turn anything, we'll kill the story and you waste that much of your time. And I said, perfect. Sounds like right at my alley. And it led me down this year and a half like Odyssey reaching out to first the companies you've heard of and then eventually discovering that there's these like third party flavor and fragrance companies that you've never heard of that are like headquartered in Germany. and those places, these multi-billion dollar companies that are basically,

making the concentrates that gets shipped to all these companies. And so they're buying the same concentrate. And then they add their own ratio of carrot juice extract and salt and sugar to have it taste like kitchen basics or or Campbell's or whatever it is. And this idea of like brand loyalty is like so absurd. Right. And then, but then reading about these companies, their websites are fascinating because they are, they're not marketing to the consumer or the person.

Right. They're marketing to other corporations. that are making food products. And so they have lines like Simrise is like the largest manufacturer of broth concentrates that come to the U.S. And they have a, they send their website, the average person interacts with our products 30 to 40 times a day. Whoa. And they use phrases like turnkey broth solutions, kitchen like ingredients. And my favorite is a fully sustainable chicken stream.

What is that? I think it means that like we're not wasting everything. like we have the so it's like this but it gives me this image of like this Willy Wonka chocolate river but it's just like chicken parts floating off into various parts which is probably how the system works

because you know we you know big business does not like to waste things why would they if they can find a way to turn into something else and the things that we can't sell turn into dog food and whatever else yeah of course and so it's this kind of and so like my problem with it

is not the reality of it because the truth is if you're were selling real chicken stock made from scratch, it would be very expensive, it wouldn't be shelf stable. I get the need for it. Granted, I think it's not very good. I'd rather use water than box chicken stock. But the opacity of like the corporate Hocom is what drives me up the wall.

This like, we make it just like your grandmother did. And I go, do you use a concentrate. We refer you to our earlier statement. And I'm like, oh, it's proprietary. It's like, is it or are you just trying to not tell us what the hell is going on? Yeah. And so it turned. I mean, really think about that.

I mean, you're a reporter, you're a writer, you're investigating. And it took you that long to get to the bottom of it. Yeah. So just the average mom just walking through trying her best to figure out these labels. Which picture of a bowl of chicken soup looks like they make, they have the best concentrate from a Holsmond in Germany. Well, that kind of goes back to the thing of that's just been on my mind of, and it's not a new concept by any means and it kind of harkens to your book.

It's, you just want to eat things that aren't shitty for you. Yeah. Just eat real things. Yeah. Just eat, like, you hold up a carrot. You don't have to spend a year and a half figuring out. I mean, maybe now we do.

Maybe you have to find a genetically like where they come from. But yeah, right? Like, I mean, there's no, there's no conglomerate in Germany. Yeah. I mean, you know, depending on where you shop, a McDonald's cheeseburger is cheaper than an apple. Yeah, no kidding.

It seems like it shouldn't be that way. I know. And look, there is a part of it that's, you know, you think, I always think of the billions of people that are looking for lunch every day. And how are you going to feed eight billion people lunch every day? And they jam sugar into things. And a lot of it came out of necessity. They have these food deserts.

It's the reason that, like, you know, the most common flour we eat all the time, this gets into the bread stuff, is stripped of everything that could possibly, A, give you nutrition, but more importantly, go bad on a shelf. Yeah. And that's why we stripped everything away from it, and it can sit on a shelf in, you know, in, you know, Tuscaloosa for six months, and it won't go bad. Yeah. And that's kind of where that stuff comes from.

But, yeah, I mean, one of the things that was fascinating about this, too, was when I was researching all this stuff, was I talked to Michael Moss, who's a fascinating guy. He's a Pulitzer Prize winner. He got a Pulitzer for investigating the E. coli outbreak from a while ago with Cargill. And he's written a bunch of amazing books, like hooked and things like that. And he does like kind of really serious investigative research. And he kind of ended up going down the food path, but he was just kind of a brilliant guy.

And I was talking to him for this piece. And he was telling me that like the biggest ruse in the whole thing is the idea that the USDA and the FDA are here for our protection. That essentially the food labeling that they're doing was a negotiation between the, food companies who wanted to give the impression that they were being looked out for with the government to negotiate what they were going to have on their labels. And so when he was trying to find out where the tainted beef was coming from, which like Cargill plant, the government told them it was proprietary and they couldn't tell them, which means that their job is really also part of their job is to protect the money of the giant businesses in America. And it's

that kind of stuff. And so, you know, yeah. Anyway, cook beans. Yeah, right, exactly. Just get some beans. Get some spinach leaves. Get something that looks like a fish. And, you know, you try your best. Like, I'm a big believer in finding your local farmer's markets.

But, like, I'm lucky enough to live in California. Yeah, much easier. We have amazing things here. And so I wanted this book to, you be able to, like, go to a Kroger in Madison, Wisconsin, be able to buy stuff and cook things in this book. And at the end of the day, if you're doing that, you're getting most of the way there. It's all, like, the heavily processed stuff. stuff where it's just like, like, you know, the one that kills me is the term evaporated cane juice.

Yeah. I'm like, how do you make sugar? You evaporate cane juice. Just call it sugar. But the fact that we're able to like go, no, no, no, it's a kind. It sounds nice. It sounds like candy canes. The bar is kind.

And the cane juice is evaporated. Yeah. It's almost like it's not there. Yeah. Don't read the, but it's the first ingredient in the thing. What in your mind? what is the thing you use the most in your pantry? Let's go, let's go.

It's probably olive oil. Yeah. I just, like, that's, that's my base start for so much of my cooking. Soups and then salad dressing, soups, all this. I go through it a terrifying amount of olive oil. Yeah. Favorite hot sauce? It depends on the application.

Like, I'm a, like a cholula with my, with my, like eggs, like eggs kind of guy, but also I think crystals is just a great hot sauce. That's like that classic kind of tangy, vinegary, southern hot sauce. That on like some, some like fried chicken is a, or like even just like some like some seafood with like crystals and lemon juice. Perfect. That stuff like, it's great. Yeah. You like anchovies?

Do you like sardines? I do. I like good versions of everything for the most part. But yeah, great sardines are amazing. Amazing. A fresh grilled sardine is incredible. But like pantry-wise, like canned clams can have a really great purpose. I intentionally try to figure out a way to make.

So I'm like a big believer in like I make a really good vongolet. You make it from scratch. You have really good fresh clams. Yeah. Clam juice is extracted and it tastes of the ocean. It's amazing. Right. But I was like, how do you make a great canned clam pasta?

And I found one that I'm really proud of. Yeah. Nice. Again, there's some soy sauce and butter in there. Yeah. You got to just crank up the flavor when you're using canned pasta. Can clams. But like can clams are great for like clam shatters and things like that.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. They're good to add when you have some fresh clams and then you just want to bulk it up. Yeah. It's good. It's why I think I realized why like, you know when you go to an Italian restaurant and you get like spaghetti and clams and it has all the clamshells in it and it looks really cool. Yeah.

But it's kind of a pain in the ass. Right. Like I'm like you almost finished the meal and then you left part of the part of the like the waste. And I think the reason they do it did it initially was to prove that it was real clams. Exactly. I know. So that's my theory on it. Yeah.

And then they just throw a couple extras on. Yeah. Exactly. Oh, they give you the one real clam and that's the rest of it's on there. Coffee? Yes. You're into it? I'm not like into it.

I like it and I drink it. I'm not that picky about it. Right. Like I'm... What's your home process? I was like a French press guy. But then like if anybody else comes over, it's a nightmare. Yeah.

Right. Exactly. Right. Anybody wait beside you. Yeah. So now we have like one of those like, you know, old school coffee pots. So you fill it up, you do it. So like when we actually, I bought it because we were shooting the cookbook.

And I had like three people in our house plus my wife and whoever else is around. And so I was like, I need to be able to make 12 cups of coffee every day. Like 12 like measuring cups. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so now we just do that. That's great.

Yeah. It is good. Yeah. What about you? I'm doing a pour over. I got a nice little kettle and heats up really hot and really fast. I'm the only one drinking it. Yeah, because it's just me.

That's a, that's a, that's a, just me. No one else. And even when my daughters are into having their coffee moments, they don't have the patience for it. So it's just like my own little thing. Yeah. But it's so much better.

You know what? It's so good. Not to go against your, your vegan daughter. But I bought my wife the Breville. milk foamer. Uh-huh. That thing, it's like the Cadillac of milk foamers.

Oh, really? You can, like, set the temperature and it, like, you've got two different, like, settings on it and it makes this just beautiful, foamy, luxurious foam. Because I'm not, like, making espressoes and stuff, but all, sometimes, we'll, we'll do the, we'll do the fancy, the fancy milk. Yeah, it's nice. Dahlop.

Yeah, it's good. It's good. Do you use any nut milks for that? Will you use an oat milk? I have in the past. I tend, I usually just. drink black coffee unless I want to have it like a luxurious thing like that. Yeah.

And truthfully, like if I have it's, I, yeah, I tend to just drink black coffee. Like I'll do a workout, black coffee and like that. I'm like a, I'm generally like more utilitarian when it comes to breakfast. I have a recipe in the book for, I call it health sludge. Yeah. Part of my reasoning for it is I wanted to undersell it. When you try it, it's like, I know, for health sludge. It's not that bad.

But it's basically a smoothie that contains everything nutritious. I could possibly jam in there. Liquid is water. Lately, it's like, just basically it's like some kind of greens with like flax seeds, chia seeds, oats, turmeric, ginger, all that kind of stuff, like frozen cranberries because those are like super antioxidant, but not that high in sugar. And then you just chug it down. And that's your in what?

You're blending it? Yeah, like a blender or like a bullet? Yeah, like one of those neutral bullets. Yeah, yeah. Just blitz it and then chug it down. And you've got, and it's just like it's not satisfying, but it does. I find that when I drink that every day, I actually feel better. You do?

Yeah. There's no sugar in it. No. So you're not crashing from it? No. I put a little bit of yogurt. And again, the liquid's water. Right.

A little bit of yogurt, which I guess this Ayuravitic guy who helped consult on one of the recipes in the book, he swears that that helps the turmeric to do its thing. I don't know if turmeric's real. I know it's real. I don't know if it doesn't even. Yeah. Someone just came out against turmeric. Oh, yeah?

Yeah. Last week there was some story about like, no, wait, slow your roll on turmeric. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, they say the black pepper. I'm sure it's good. But like, you know, but anyway, also the fiber is making the flax seeds, the cheese seeds.

And you just get a bunch of greens in there and you hork it down and then I don't have to think about it too much. Right. Sometimes I'll make. And there's some really fun breakfast in there. And trying to get like sugar out of the American breakfast is like one of my goals. I just think that this idea, this ruins your day. Start your day with like cinnamon. apple oatmeal.

I know. I know. No, it ruins your day. You're starving in an hour. After you crash and you're in a coma. You're starving and chasing it the rest of the day. Yeah. And so like I did a, there's like an oat buckwheat pancake in there. It's a gluten-free. And it's just you put it on a blender and blend it and pour it in.

That's a fun one. That's good. Yeah, just trying to, you know, like I think like you can eat oatmeal and have it taste good without having to like put a bunch of sugar in it. Yeah, no. I'm 100% with you. The don't panic pantry cookbook. This is very cool.

And I like that Eliza did the forward. The negotiations were intense with her agent, but we got it done. Well, she's got, she's a star. I don't care if you live with her. That's it. She's still, you got to get her beak wet on the, so you got some back end out of that.

Now, I want to apologize and not apologize because I was on the road until literally two minutes ago. Okay. So normally I would have baked you bread. So I'm going to owe you bread. So, because I got you bread. Whenever I'm in trouble, I go to, we get bread from lodge bread.

Do you know these guys? Yeah, they're great. They're the best. Amazing. And I got you two. Oh, wow. This is olive and this is their country loaf. Amazing.

Will you eat them? I will eat, yes, one of them, but probably not both. Okay. You can freeze them. That's true. Yeah, I'll do that. You can freeze it. I'll do that.

You can freeze bread. It's freezing. That's a big thing in the book too. Freezing. Why do people wait until things are about to go bad before they freeze them? Freeze it when it's good. And then like make a big batch of something. Freeze a bunch of it.

And then you can go shopping and you're free. It's my most like dad thing about me now is I have like a reach in freezer in the garage. Ooh, nice. But I do it. It's just filled with like chicken stock and minestrone soup and like you make a big batch. Siphon it off. And then one day you just go, I'm hungry. Oh wait.

I've got an amazing heirloom tomato sauce in the freezer. Oh, you're traveling. And will you're... My mom will be here. All right. We'll have a nanny helping take her. All right. And I'm going to slice it and freeze it too.

That's the other trick. All right. Live your life. I don't have to tell you how to eat it. I'm going to make a sourdough bread bowl for dinner tonight. I will make you bread at some point in the future. Great. I'll watch the lineup card and see when you're going to be there.

All right. Right. Exactly. I'll be sneaking into the comedy store. A lot of times I bake. so much. I usually just bring bread and just hand it out to like that. I saw you did what was it, was it like a garlic cheddar? What was the one you did recently? Uh, jalapeno cheddar. Yeah. That sounds great. Man, it's, that's one of those weird recipes where you literally can't add enough cheddar or

jalapeno. Yeah. It just all gets absorbed in the red and you're like. Some things are like that. Like potatoes just eat salt forever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Exactly. It just, yeah, same thing. Broccoli eats olive oil. Yeah. Well, then eventually it releases it back out and then you feel like... Yeah, when it's on the plate. Yeah. And everyone's upset with you. Well, thank you so much.

This was really great. I was really looking forward to this. Such a pleasure. Me too. I'm going to do the intro as well when you're not here and sell the shit out of this. I'd like to be here for it, actually. No, you got to go. It's embarrassing.

It's like you don't want to see it. It's ugly. Thanks, man. Thank you so much. We got it, Aaron. There you have it, kids. the Don't Panic Pantry Cookbook, go and get it. It's one that you should definitely have, especially if you're not looking for just these cookbooks where you want to go and make something

big and complicated. This is going to be like one of those things that you learn from, and it becomes part of your everyday shopping and your everyday creations. Thank you so much to Noah for being here. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.