Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 331 - Noah Galuten

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

This week we welcome Chef Noah Galuten to the table! He and Tom talk food, fun, and laughter. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Welcome, everybody. Welcome to the big show. Today, we have Noah Galuton coming back to the program. Noah is a chef, a cookbook writer, a good friend of the program. He was here back in the early days when he was talking about the, I think it was the Blood So's barbecue cookbook, his last time he came through. He's a great guy, super talented, super passionate about food and cooking and all these different aspects. He is married to our good friend Eliza Schlesinger, great comedian who was just on this program not too long ago. Great couple, super good people, super motivated and talented. And I'm really excited to welcome Noah back. We get a great conversation going about all things grilling.

I grill a lot and make a lot of mistakes. I have this vague idea of not knowing exactly what I am doing. And in this conversation, we get into how to make the greatest burgers, great things to do with shellfish, other seafood, the greatest burger, a sausage versus hot dog debate. There wasn't one thing I threw at him that he didn't have great answers for, and I'm walking away from this conversation with a lot more knowledge. And literally, I'm excited, but also my head has calmed down. this is all to talk about his cookbook that is just coming out on May 26 called Grill Time. And he is, he really, as we were in the conversation, I was flipping through the book as we were talking, it brought up so many questions of every aspect of how I try and grill.

And he just solved all of them and also inspired me in a lot of different ways. And he's just a great hang, a great conversationalist. He's going to be out on tour, 21 different cities, so you can catch him wherever you are. He's going to be doing book signings, and this is pretty brilliant, do book signings with chef events. So he's going to team up with different chefs in different cities. They're going to be serving food, signing books. So make sure you try and catch him out on his tour. We will post all of his socials and stuff so you can get him.

It's Noah Galuton, a great conversation. And, you know, the one thing about when he left was he just took the bread like it was nothing. It's like, yeah, I get great bread. You know what I mean? Yeah. Interesting. Noah, thank you for being here. Everybody, enjoy this conversation.

It's breaking bread. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. We are very excited to be holding the very first copy of grill time. Everyone loves grill time. What number cookbook is this? Second solo cookbook, but with other chefs I've gotten to write with, God, it's got to be five, six, something like that.

Yeah, I've worked with some amazing people. And then I steal from them, and it's great, because then all you have to do is mention it in the hit note that you stole a technique from somebody, and it's not stealing. It's... I want... This is my first question. This is literally

is my first question because my... I want... We're going to do a... You and I... Yeah. Great. ...are going to do a bread book together.

Fantastic. And I know you don't know that until now. But that's what's going to happen because I, you know... Just giving my agent an amazing leverage. I baked you this bread. As you know, I bake like crazy. And everybody keeps asking for the book.

When's the book? Where's the book? Where's the book? And I want to do a book. and you're great. And you know this whole world. And my first question was, What's my fee?

No, you're doing it for free. I'm plugging your grill time book right now. This is what you're, yeah, this is your advance. No, my question was, my wife was asking, so you have this recipe, but other people have baked bread. So you're going to put your Tompapa bread recipe. what's the parameter? Do you just have to change it a little?

Do you have to say like... Are you going to be like, I verbatim stole this from somebody else? Or is it? Because you've assumed that you've evolved it to your own taste and your own palate. You know, the way I think about cookbooks is kind of the way I feel about pornography,

which is that you'd think by now we'd have enough, but we keep making more. And the reason is because people want to fall in love. They want to find a person. They trust. They want to have a huge. human connection. I think context affects flavor. Right. They want to know how you make your bread, why it matters to you, how you think about it. And if that gets people to actually make bread at home,

then that's a successful cookbook. Right. You know, I'm down with all that. But if I put in a recipe for my country loaf and it's not that far from other people's country loaf, could people say, hey, you stole my country loaf? Not if you say, who you were inspired by. So in the beginning, we just have to say I was inspired by this bakery and those bread people. I mean, if you're not literally just taking like the tartine bread book and making that every week. You know my plan. But also, I mean, I'm writing a cookbook right now with an amazing baker named Sarah Minnick,

who is self-taught, has this pizzerie in Portland, Oregon called Lovelies 50-50. it's like a super high whole wheat percentage, high 100% natural starter, and all these inventive, you know, hyper-seasonal vegetables and stuff on her cookbook. But her dough recipe is basically inspired by her just trying to figure how to make better pizza and just started using the tartine bread book. He said pizza dough is kind of like bread, really. And I wanted to develop my own style. And so you start to learn from all these people.

I mean, you know, Nancy Silverton did. invent bread. Yeah, or Pomodoro for that matter. Right, right. And so, you know, when she serves her Faccia Direcco, that you want to know because she was traveling through Italy, found the exact version she likes, and now she sells it to you for more money than it costs her to have it. Right. All right, good. So they... So yeah, you'll be okay. So we can steal from everyone and they'll never catch us.

Yeah, yeah. All right, good. You know. Who'd you steal from for this? Everybody. I mean, so the truth is, I've been, you know, grilling, you know, a good amount of my life. have a barbecue background, so I've worked with, like, Kevin Bloodso. So that's the last time you were on the podcast. Yeah, I think so. We were talking with Bledsow. Yeah, with Kevin Bloodso. Barbecue, yeah.

Man, that stuff's good. He's the best. But we also, he grills and stuff too. So he taught me the first time I ever learned how to smoke something on a grill, where you kind of move all the charcoal to one side of the grill, put wood chunks on top. You almost make like a two zone fire, and you can throw a rack of ribs on the cold side, and it's like, I call it smoke grilling in the books. You get that smoke flavor, but also like a crisper edge and a char.

Actually, maybe because I've cooked four million smoked ribs in my life from working in restaurants, but now I love this kind of grilled rib, Matthew, where you get the smoke flavor, you get more texture, and it cooks in about half of the time. So that's like techniques I learned from him. Then you start to incorporate your own taste and modifications. I learned a lot about vegetables from writing a book with Jeremy Fox and thinking about, you know, the way to cook vegetables, things like that. I mean, Sera Minnic, I think about with like dough and bread and, you know, that's not in this book so much.

Yeah. And then Ari Collander, who's an amazing chef out here. He's from Charleston originally, but has restaurants like Queens, raw bar and grill and found oyster here in L.A. And he learned this from a guy in coming up in restaurants, which I use in the book is if you want to grill a piece of fish, the greatest trick for it. Because fish is notoriously, you know, kind of tender and can fall apart on a grill. Yeah. The thinnest veil of mayonnaise painted onto a piece of fish because it's this super emulsified fat.

It also, so it works as being a non-stick, essentially, for your fish. And also, you seasoning adheres to it. So if you want to do like a blackened, you know, mahi-mahi or something, just the small sign of mayonnaise, you would never taste it. And it just makes this perfect browning non-stick factor to it. And it's great. And some people are weird about mayonnaise and they probably get weird about it, but I guess just don't tell them.

That's great. because I am going to grill fish tonight. That's the best. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. And you always say clean your grill, you know, oil the grill, all that good stuff. Yeah. And then you don't deal with the, you know, the, you know, people always like to say that fish smells up a house.

Right. So cook it outside. I know, exactly. Man, halibut. My wife was a vegetarian. And then during one of her pregnancy, she started eating fish. She just needed, her body was telling her, we need protein. And her favorite is halibut.

Allibate. Yeah. And it's a great fish, a nice white, flaky fish, but not like thin. It's like it's a substantial fish. Yeah, it's like flaky, but also like kind of steaky. So you can, took it on a grill. You can, it kind of works in a lot of different applications. Really good.

And so I've gotten really good at grilling it. And, uh, but holy cow that, the price of halibut went through the roof. Yeah. I don't know if it's a COVID thing or what a thing. but it never came back. It's literally like $50 a pound. Yeah, it gets crazy. It's insane.

I actually bought some at the farmer's market this morning. It was only 35 a pound caught off the coast of Santa Barbara. Oh, really? And love this. Markets market. Yeah. Yeah. Man, the prices.

It's insane. Yeah. All across the board. I mean, everything. I mean, I went to the... Everything. I'm just talking about farmers markets. But I went this morning and I was like, I'm waiting in so many lines to buy, you know,

thing. Every place, the cherries now have a long line. Everyone knows this guy makes the guy has the best cherries right now. The parking lot to leave Santa Monica was a nightmare. It's like you're putting all these extra levels in front of you. The produce costs more in the grocery store. And you have to wait forever to be able to buy anything. It costs more money. This is all just because of how much we don't like the fruit at the grocery store that we're going to wait this long in line and extra money just to do it. And it's, uh... What are these things that you brought me? These are...

One of the only people that has brought up something to eat. Who the hell else brought you something? These are Pakistani mulberries. And they are from a beautiful farm here in California. A woman named Laura, who has a place called JJ's Lone Daughter Ranch. And she grows, like, unbelievable citruses and avocados. And she just kind of has this stuff. And if she brings it, you kind of know it's great.

And they don't last long. A lot of little micro seasons and, yeah, her stuff's incredible. So great. The first couple I was taking the little stem off. Now I'm just eating it. Yeah, yeah. This is. I'm going to eat the stem.

Yeah. It's so good. They're a blast, right? That is such a weird thing, though. You know, there's no seasons when you walk into a supermarket. Yeah. There's tomatoes year round. There's watermelon year round.

Yeah. Like, there was no, like as a kid, you had to wait for the good tomatoes in August. Yeah. You know, or to get like fruit that was in season. It's, yeah, and part of it is like this kind of American, I guess it's now a global idea of like, oh, you like something? We'll find a way to get it to you. Just don't ask how. If you have money, we're going to get it to you.

But also when you kind of go to, you know, talk to farmers and go to farmers markets around the country, you start to realize, you know, how many different varietals of things are out there. And the reason that we don't see them in grocery stores is because, you know, we don't. Some of them don't pack well. They don't, you can't pick them under ripe and put them on a truck or in a, or in a refrigerator for two weeks. It's also why sometimes you get stuff home from the grocery store and it goes bad in three days and stuff you get from a farmer's market will last you two weeks. So that kind of stuff.

So it's when you have the chance, and obviously we're incredibly spoiled here in California, you get the opportunity to have so many incredible little like, you know, whenever my in-laws visit, they're like, who knew there with this many kinds of strawberries? Yeah. like that. Right. It's just different, yeah, different types of New York Jews who now live in different parts of the country, marveling at, you know, a color of broccoli they've never seen before. Right. Exactly. I mean, there is that thing, though, like, is there still, should you still be conscious of the seasons, though? Because, like, you'll get something that looks like an amazing pair.

Yeah. But there's no taste to it until a certain time. It was in Ecuador, like, three days ago. Right. And so, yeah, I think that, you know, I know some people who are kind of environmental experts and stand old people will sort of say this too, like how far your food has traveled kind of matters more than whether it's organic and things like that. And so, you know, also you want to support the people in the community that you live in. Yeah.

And so that part of it's amazing. And also, you know, it's nice to have seasons and change. and do things to look forward to. Yeah. And although the other day my daughter asked you could have chocolate and I said no. And she goes, oh, because it's out of season. And I went, yeah, that's why. That's precisely it.

How did you know? Great job. Yeah. I heard an upsetting thing about peanut butter that the price of peanut butter is going to go through the roof. Why? Of your mouth. Because there was a drought. Oh.

And yeah, it's becoming. I mean, if peanuts are going through the roof, then almonds are going to be worse. right? Well, don't almonds require more water than peanuts? Yeah, but they're in L.A. Where we always have water in Central California. And peanuts come from Georgia. Oh, right.

Right. Well. Yeah, it'll be all right. I mean, it is weird, though. Like, whenever you see, like, a thing that you really love, like, for me, coffee and chocolate. And they're like, oh, boy, climate change is really going to mess with chocolate. That's when it becomes, that's when I recycle. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's when your performative ethics come out. Exactly. That's when I'll write exactly. I'll show up. Let me ask you this. Sure. When I am grilling my fish, I have, which is not in the picture here.

Well, no, is that propane? I use both. You use a little gas grill? I have a gas grill. Yeah. A propane built-in gas grill. I'm not here to use to gas. I'm always jealous of.

Is this your yard? Yeah. So you have a pizza oven? The house that we moved into does have a pizza oven. It is a criminally bad pizza oven. Yeah, it looks like an Oonie. It's like the previous owner, I guess, said that he just used it to heat up parcoct pizzas and make it look like he was throwing pizza parties.

And I tried to use it. And I've got some pizza background. And I would preheat the oven for like four hours to get the stones hot. Make one pizza and the deck temperature would drop. and not have to wait like 40 minutes to get to the pizza. Turns out regular ovens in your house work really well. Work better than that. Yeah, a regular oven with a pizza stone, I can make very good pizza.

Right. I still have a mastered pizza, frankly. I think we talked about it last time we were here. And I was saying sheet pan pizza like is going to be your friend. It's more of a bread, similar bread thing. You don't have to worry about like landing it on a stone. It rips. It's contained.

Lloyd pan. are great pizza pans. Lloyd pans. If you can buy those online. Oh, yeah? Yeah, they're just perfect little, little... I bet you could make a really good, like, Detroit-style pizza if you gave it, like, a weekend.

Yeah? Yeah. All right. I'll do it. Yeah, this one looks shitty. But... I'm glad you're focusing on the really important parts of this really good book. I don't know.

His pizza oven looks like shit, so I don't know. Maybe, maybe don't try the buffalo wings. Well, you do feature this pizza oven in a lot of photos. It's on my phone. It's next to the grill. Yeah. But I'm always jealous of, you know, we live in an era now where people have these great smokers and there's like, and the charcoal grills, everybody breaks out their old-timey charcoal grills to grill stuff. And I always feel like me doing it in my big gas grill, I'm going to lose something.

I kind of look at it as there's two kinds of grilling that I do. There's like weeknight grilling and there's weekend project grilling. And the weeknight grilling, we have a gas grill that's hooked up to like a hard gas line, which is like the most convenient thing in the world. Yeah. So, you know, I've never once in my life panseer to chicken breast for a salad. But I've thrown one on a gas grill 400 times. Yeah.

And so things like that, throwing asparagus on the grill real quick. Like, it's amazing for that. You don't need to like light a bunch of charcoal and preheat it for that long. You can get some going really easily that way. Yeah. Charcoal is better for certain things. Like if I'm cooking like kebabs and you want to get like a really high heat like Shish Tawuk like the like the Lebanese, you know, chicken breast thing to get that, you know, nice char and color on it that you like can't quite get on most gas grills.

Yeah. Or most importantly for me, it's if I want to do the smoke grilling thing. So I've got this grill that I use a ton. I got turned on to it. It's an old company called PK. And if you buy one of those that'll last you basically your entire life and probably your kids. too. Yeah. And again, it's like being able to do that two zone. You move all the charcoal to one side, put the wood chunks on top. And I can smoke like a piece of black cod that way. I can cook,

I can smoke like a, like a turkey breast and make cold cut meat out of. That's all in the book and things like that. And that kind of stuff's amazing. So those are like the ones that if you want that kind of unfakable smoky char flavor on something to do like a polloala brazza, like a Peruvian-style chicken, like that's what those are really for me. And that's like a, like a charcoal grill? Yeah, you could use a Weber kettle grill. Yeah. They have ones where they have these little baskets you can add in so it'll sit on one side.

And there's vents on the tops. You can actually control it that way. You know, if I was cooking, you know, a whole, I wouldn't do a whole brisket that way. I would use a real offset smoker for that. But stuff like ribs, chicken, rib tips, a pork belly. Yeah, yeah. That's all really, really great through that way. And then, you know, people also just like seeing fire and you can cook things faster and hotter.

It smells great. Yeah. But yeah, I use gas grill all the time. You do. I believe in both. I believe in it. And yeah. And, you know, once you get the grill going, throw some other stuff on there, even just like charing vegetables to then chop up and fold into rice dishes or lentils or things like that.

It's a very kind of, you know, you can't add char to things in your home kitchen as easily. Right. It's just a ton of flavor. Someone gave me, and by someone I mean Sam Sifton from the New York Times. He canceled on me. He canceled on me. He was going to, he was going to, I think I had a book coming out. He was going to be the mediator and, or the,

it's funny to name drop somebody and then be like, and then they backed out. Yeah. Yeah. So I just want to, yeah, I want to justify my name dropping by being it didn't really happen. But he, you know, he's great from the New York Times. You know, David Fincher, he passed on me for a book. Yeah.

Yeah. And he, as an apology for having to drop out last minute, it was at the 92nd Streetwide or something. And he sent me a big bag of pellets, like cedar, not cedar, I guess. Right. Grill pellets that you throw in your grill to give a smoky thing. Okay. But I have a gas grill. Yeah.

So I threw him away. Yeah. Take that, Sam Sifton. Yeah. Nice try, sifton. And look, there's. a million kind of grills and smokers and ways to do things out there. I'm a little bit of like a I sometimes think that those like pellet smokers are like a little kind of half measurey for me.

Like sometimes I I believe that when it comes to smoke and cooking with live fire and especially smoking that like the larger the pieces of wood, the more of a true hardwood taste you get. And so the pellets, I don't know, there's something rabbit foody to me about it. Yeah. And it looks like that. And it almost kind of has, or like people use those like, kind of like, those like smoking guns to like add smoke to a cocktail. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It kind of always tastes like can smoke to me. Right.

In a way that like, I don't know, if you have a log of post oak and you're like on the lake in Texas, it's a different thing. Yeah, like the pellets are like press board. Yeah. So like a real piece of wood. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And you don't have as much control over like, you know, there's less artistry to it.

Is there anything to modify in a gas grill or just go for it? are ways to do it, but I'm again kind of just like, I just make really good food on a gas grill. And if you really want to start taking that level of it seriously, just buy a real kind of side grill. Yeah, and those like, why bird cattle are pretty cheap. And if you want to like level up, I think these P.K. grills are awesome. And they will again last you like forever. Right.

And so. How big is a PK grill? Is that like, like those round ones? They're like, actually, that's the one in the book. It's like a, it's like. Next to the pizza oven? Yeah. It's like an oval.

Right. And so the big ones, that's it right there. You can sort of see it. Oh, yeah. So they're kind of oval shaped, which is great too because you have more space to kind of be able to have two zones in your fire. But like you can cook, you know, you can have a whole chicken on one side and have the other side empty for a smoking thing or can cook a lot of stuff at the same time. And they just retain heat well, like all the, I'm just doing an ad for P.K. Grills now. but all the, all of the, like the big national steak competitions,

the three finalists every year cook on their grills. Oh, really? So they're like, even for direct heat, like they heat up quick, they retain heat well. And they just, they just work really well. Yeah. I was going to talk vegetables, but let's hold off because you mentioned steak. I love vegetables too. Yeah.

The steak thing, cooking on a gas grill, cooking a steak. Yeah. Uh, is that, is it, is it, it seems like there's two camps. Like you either, you put it on a grill, do the thing, or you take a, uh, um, cast iron pan in the house. Sure. And do it that way. Yeah, I, uh, the cast iron pan on the grill, you really need a powerful grill because you're also having to like preheat a whole cast iron.

Yeah. So like it'll work. It's kind of like you're, I guess you're, you're not really grilling. You're just cooking outside. Is it better to just do the cast iron in the house? Or if you want to cook on a cast iron skillet outside, just get an induction burner and plug it in outside. Yeah.

I guess like the grill part of it feels like you're heating up a lot of things just to like preheat. But I guess put the cast iron in the oven and preheat it for a couple hours. And then run outside. A thousand degrees. And do it that way. Because to me part of it is like part of the great part of a grill too is how easy cleanup. is that you can cook four different things the same time and then just brush it and you're done.

And not having pots and pan and all this stuff. I know. There are great steaks to cook inside on a stove or outside an induction burn. I'll do that just for like air quality and smell and spatter. Yeah. But if I'm cooking on a grill, I'm just going to cook on a grill. I think, you know, there's a million ways to cook a steak. And I like to figure out the way that I like to do it in every format.

What is your favorite way? So there's like the smoke grill version, which is the best I've ever made in my life, which is in this book, which is you buy like a two inch thick bone in ribby, salt it overnight in the fridge so it dries out the surface area. Overnight. Yeah, with steak, if you salt it like a day in advance, works with chicken and stuff too,

is it seasons all the way through, first of all, which is great. It also dries out the surface of the product, so then it'll actually like crisp better, it'll get better color. Because when there's water on the outside, which happens when you, if you like salted it 30 minutes before you cooked it,

it would be like sweating water, and not browning. That's what I do. So I would say either salt it right as it goes on or like a day before. And the day before is great and especially with like a two inch thick and then I'll put it on the cold side of the grill,

do the wood and charcoal thing. So it's basically a reverse sear which is the method popularized by Kenji Lopez where you basically slow roast it in like a low heat oven to get it almost to the temperature you want it to be then finish it in a hot pan. So you get this.

like perfect crust and you have this perfectly cooked meat all the way through without like that gray band in between. So it's like a gentle getting it up to that temperature. And so this is that same premise except instead of just being in the oven, you're getting smoke flavor. So then you finish it on the hot side of the grill. I slather with this like delicious compound butter. And it's this smoky, medium rare charred, delicious steak.

And it's a blast. But then I also like if I'm just thrown together a quick steak for dinner, I do what I call like Greek tavernous style from my memory of eating it once an island in Greece, again, stealing from someone and giving them credit. That's right. We're all influencing each other. Yeah, nobody invented. Somebody grilled the first steak.

Yeah. No one knows who it is. And then basically with that one, I just do, it's like buy like a sirloin, nothing fancy, get the grill really hot, olive oil, like granulated garlic, salt and pepper, dried oregano, and then just blast it, super high heat, flipping constantly. because you want to have a lot of flipping to prevent having that kind of gray line between where you want the steak to be and the crust.

So you get as much crush as possible, get it cooked to your liking, and then take it off, squeeze some lemon juice over it. And it's like, I call it Greek tavernia style. And it adds a ton of flavor to like a simple sirloin steak and it's delicious. What again, it was garlic?

Garlic salt, page tuna. It's basically garlic, greenleted garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, oregano. Super high heat on the grill. So it's charred. In a brush and just brush it? Yeah, or just sprinkle it all on the thing. Yeah, sprinkle.

It's kind of like, drill some oil on it, kind of flip it on both sides, then just sprinkle all over, slam it on the grill, and then squeeze some fresh lemon juice over the end at the end. Oh, nice. It's like, it's awesome. Here's a thing that I'm always, I'm always struggling grill-wise, is that the olive oil, the, the, the, the, the oiling the grates, oiling the fish, putting butter on the fish.

Like all those little elements of like when to put it on. Yeah. You know, there's stuff if you marinate the day before or whatever, six hours before, whatever. But like literally, I mean with the vegetables, like, yeah, should I be using a brush and putting on? Should I squirt olive oil in a bottle? Yeah. Like that element of manipulating the oil and the butter while grilling, I'm always just kind of making it up in sometimes successfully and sometimes most of the times failing.

Yeah. So there's a few ways to look at it. And obviously, like, different desires have different outcomes or different paths to reach the outcome you want. Right. When it comes to oiling a grill, obviously, you get the heat up, you brush it. And then typically, like, you want to get some oil on it. Some people, you can buy those, like, spray cans of, like, Pam, wherever, grilling Pam.

But the truth is, you're kind of spraying a lot of not the grates. Yeah, and all getting burned off. So what I'll usually do is. honestly, there's kind of two tricks. One is you have like an old onion, you're not going to use. You dip the onion in oil and then grab it with tongs and rub their onion across. It's a good way to clean the grill. Also a paper towel.

You just kind of squeeze little oil on a paper towel, rub it that way. That works pretty well. And then typically you'll do that first, let it burn off and then do it again like one more time just to kind of let it kind of temper and kind of get going that right before you're about to grill. And it doesn't burn off to the point like it's doing something. Yeah, the same way. that like you're seasoning a cast iron skillet, you know what I mean? So you're kind of getting

something in there and it kind of helps it from kind of sticking things on there. And then when it comes to oiling ingredients too, sometimes the oiling is, if anything, there to help give the ingredient color. Sometimes also to help seasonings adhere to it. But then sometimes actually I love dry grilling certain vegetables if I'm going to be tossing it in something that I want it to absorb that flavor. So I'll take like, let's say, you know, ridiculous. which I'm not, I don't do in this book, but it's something I'll do on the side sometimes, is like do dry radicchio and grill it

in like quarters, you get, so like basically all the moisture gets sucked out of it. And it's all charred and nice. And then you toss it in a dressing and it just absorbs that dressing. It's like aching for liquid. Or it'll work with bok choy works really well that too.

Right. So it almost like dries that, gives you more char and it's like makes this like thirsty vegetable. And then when you talk it in something, it just like eats it and loves it. So not, you don't put anything on it. Just throw it. Again, sometimes.

In those cases, though, because if it's like, you know, if I do like a bachshund, have like a soy sauce, vinegrette, you want that salt to get in there. Right. But in some cases, if it's, you know, cabbage, I find that it doesn't taste as good if you don't oil and salt at first. So it's kind of case by case also. Yeah. What about peppers and asparagus?

Asparagus, sometimes oil, sometimes. Not typically oil kind of helps. Sparias can get a little bit too. and you want it to stay kind of tender. It's not going to absorb a ton of liquid after. So you want to kind of get a little bit of fat on there. What else did you say? Asparagus.

Oh, peppers. Peppers. Peppers usually not because a lot of times, too, I want to just get like some char on it. And then like I do a sausage and peppers pasta salad where I'll grill sausages and peppers and onions and things like that. And so even like an onion or a shallot, if you like quarter it through the stem and leave the root part attached, you can grill it. and get this beautiful char on three sides

and you have this delicious thing and you can grill it on the grill without it falling through or having to do like a big half so you get more kind of texture and things like that. With grilling vegetables, you know, and they do it with fish also.

Basket, no basket? Is basket kind of stupid? It seems to me kind of stupid. I mean, the problem is stuff starts falling through the grate sometimes. Yeah, yeah. So you like, you, I could see the advantage of like that or foil down, but-

There's an argument for some of that stuff and depends on what you're grilling. Like if you're grilling, like, if you really wanna grill, you know, cherry tomatoes, you know, like it helps to have, they have like grill baskets or grill like pans that have like, it's almost like a sheet pan with perforated holes in it.

Yeah. And you can basically, you know, make a stir fry that way. Right. And it's like, the guys in Spain, who have the little baskets and they'll, they'll like, you know, grill like fish eggs. and stuff like that.

Like, that's amazing. And it's great. If it's really delicate piece of fish, you know, like something that's going to like really fall apart, you that's helpful. Yeah. But I, you know. There are a lot.

I also like, again, part of the fun for me is throw it on the grill and brush the grill and you're done. Now I got to bring this outside pan into my kitchen. And it's got like all this stuff and grease and fat on it. So I tend to just like try to cook things that work well on the grill. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Don't put the, don't put a cherry tomato on the grill. turn the asparagus the wrong way. Right. Man, asparagus, thin asparagus

just loses so much. When I was in France, I had super thick asparagus, which I never really think of buying. I'm always trying to get like the more delicate when I'm home. And these things were like stocks. Yeah.

The best asparagus I ever had in my life. That's, I mean, yeah. And part of it is, you know, our food systems sometimes are not geared toward the best way to do it. I was actually just talking to someone today who's explaining to me the, like, what makes certain asparagus better than others. And it's knowing how short the season is,

letting it overgrow when the season's over, and then letting it kind of get mulched back into the whole thing. And so, like, a lot of asparagus plants will last like five years. They have these multiple seasons, but if you, if you don't treat them the right way, you try to overproduce out of them, you get lots of woody, kind of miserable asparagus versus just letting the energy go back into growing like just sort of one short season of really good asparagus. Man, if you want to make a child unhappy, give them asparagus. How old is you? Two and four by two kids.

Two and four. Yeah. Yeah. They're just coming into the age where you can really torture them. I mean, it's tough. Like, I have a substack. I write about feeding my kids and kind of this whole process and weekly family friendly friendly, friendly recipes. It's called I'm legally required to feed.

and it's me writing about kind of, you know, this process of like realizing that like as soon as you think you have a handle on your kids, they change. Yeah. And also, uh... Pepper. Well, like my whole... There's a piece of pepper on this. So we give her plain pasta.

And if she saw one minuscule little black speck. Yeah. There's pepper on this. And then you talk to people from other countries and they're like, what do you mean? We just make dinner and the kids eat. Yeah. I know. We don't ask them.

Like kid food doesn't exist. I know, right, exactly, the custom menus for your children. But it's a crazy thing too, especially like I spent my whole career as built off of me being able to make food that people like someone that they pay me to make it for them, whether it's a cookbook or a restaurant, and then to have your kids. And also like, so often of my value as a human being is based around like seeking like a valuation from giving other people pleasure. I guess you're probably in a similar boat.

And then to have your kids reject you, it turns out you can't yell, but I have a James Beard award at your kids and it makes them want to eat it. But like, as I wrote about the thing, it's like it turns out it's easier to fix the tomato sauce than myself. And so it turns out if I blend the cherry tomatoes, they'll eat the fucking spaghetti. So I don't have to improve myself worth issues. Yeah. Oh, they're the toughest audience. They're so tough. And And then once, and you know, here's the thing with my daughters when she was like four, when she was probably four, and she would be like, this tastes weird. And I would get so mad. I'm like, I made all this food for you. I'm special things because everyone ate something different. You know, just eat it. Nine times out of ten, I would taste it. And she was right. something was a little off the cheese was a little funky or something was something was wrong and I was like you know what the kid's not wrong

is she giving you tags yet it's like this is why you're you're sad at the at the laugh factory didn't hit so well yeah they've given me so much material like you know they they get a free pass with everything else yeah it's the best if you're not a member of the patreon yet you really should join it's a great way to support And we get extra bonus material. A lot of it's silly. A lot of it's fun. And we were really starting to grow that. We're interacting with the fans a lot more.

So if you get a chance, go over to patreon.com. Look up our podcast, Breaking Bread with Tom Papa, of course. And join up. It's a great way to support us and expand the community and have some fun. And that's it. Yeah. I'm just going to do the podcast now. Let's talk.

Let's talk that food is in your grill time. Yeah. I'm seeing some great looking sandwiches and stuff. The photography, Kristen Teague, we shot this book, did such a wonderful job. The whole team is great. And every recipe in the book has a photo, which was something I wanted to do this time. Because nobody cooks the ones they don't see. No, exactly.

You do need to see it. And it's just gorgeous, gorgeous stuff. Whoa, wait a minute. Oh, yeah, grilled clams. Yeah, grilled clams. That's such a fun. I completely ripped off from a restaurant in Connecticut. And oysters?

Yeah. I never thought about grilling these. Oh yeah, it's great. Really? And they just sit, you get a decent size order, you just sit it right on the grill. You don't even have to, they don't need any special equipment or nothing.

Oh, man, that's really great. Versus like you do it. How do you know clams done on the grill? So the way I do the clams on the grill is kind of a fun one. So you take a whole clam, throw it on the grill, just whole, nothing going on yet. When it starts to open from the heat,

you take it off, pry off that top shell, and then I take a little bit of cocktail sauce on one side, a little bit of drawn butter on the other side, put it back on the grill, and now it like bubbles and chares around the edges. Wow. And it's ready to rock, basically, once it gets any color on it. Wait a minute, two questions. Yeah.

You throw them on a hole, you take them off, you take that top piece off. Gloves? How do you get in that? Isn't it hot? Tongs, take them off and just let it sit for a second. Slits, let it cool off and then go at it. And then you're going to basically, it's like your prep is that. Then when everyone's ready, you just throw them back.

on the grill and then just tongs, take them off, serve them with like some, a little lemon wedge on the side. Okay, wait, second question. Cocktail sauce and butter on each side, so you put it, cocktail sauce, flip it over? No, no, no, like on half of that open side and then half of the oven. So it's like, it's like a half and half, because they're open, sitting open. Right. So you just put like a little dollop of cocktail sauce on one side,

pour some drawn butter on the other side, put them on the grill. That's, it looks like a fake shot. That fire is me like pouring some more of the butter on top just for fun and it like catches fire and makes a fun thing. Oh, I see, I see. And this is a place called The Place in Guilford, Connecticut that's like an incredible little outdoor place. This is like one of their signature things that's just like...

Man, that looks good. Just too good of an idea to not spread the word on. I just did an interview about being down at the beach at a beach house and I was just talking all about like the food we eat and stuff and I really thought I knew everything about. It was called, This Old House. You know this old house? No.

They do, the PBS show? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, it's an NPR radio version of it. So they take you through like one of your favorite homes. Oh, that's great. And you just reminisce about, you know, why this home is so great. And I was talking about my family's like Jersey Shore house and talk about it. All the food we would eat.

But it was always steaming. It was always, like for the seafood. Yeah. We would grill fish, but we would like for any shore. shellfish, yeah, clas, clams,

all that kind of stuff. Always inside steaming and big lobster pots. Yeah. The idea

of throwing it on the grills made me so excited. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. How do you do the oysters? These ones, so I just basically

make a compound butter. And so this is essentially like a kind of a fun little just like, you know, grow up in L.A., just pull from every

part of your pantry. Like, you know, so it's a miso, ginger, Calabrian chili butter. And, just take butter

and throw all that stuff in it? Basically, yeah, pretty much. Oh, man. And then it goes on the grill and you put that it's just, it's a blast. It's a great time. Yeah, and so it's one of the fun things with my book tour is I get to go kind of do grilling events around the country at different parts of the country. So I'm going to be in like Cape Cod doing a thing with them and they've got amazing oysters out there.

Yeah. And then I'll do another version in Seattle and then I'll be in Texas and doing stuff with like local sausages. And so it's like kind of a fun way to go and, you know, I'm not in restaurants day to day anymore. So it's nice to get out there and do an event like that again. Do you miss that? Do you miss the restaurant stuff? Or that life was, I remember last time we talked about how just insane it is. It's rough.

Yeah. I mean, there's a world where I would do a version of it again, not in the same way that I have in the past. Just, you know, Eliza tours. We've got two kids to be in a restaurant, you know, 120 hours a week for like six months to get the place open. Yeah. Would be tough to wrap my brain around.

But I do miss it. But I'll do an event with somebody or a pop-up, and I'll do it one night, and I'll be like, that was great. I'm glad I'm not doing this tomorrow. Yeah. My back, you know, we're getting older. I know. Yeah, it's hard to stand.

But yeah, but if it's signing books while somebody else cooks the food that I put in a cookbook, that sounds great. That's fantastic. Man, this book is really, just flipping through it is so exciting. Oh, thank you. Really, I'm not blowing smoke. It is, you know, just. You can't.

You have a gas grill. I was just the seafood section And now I'm in this little taco area And it's like, oh shit, yeah Why not grill all the stuff that you're going to put in the taco? Yeah, that's that's that's It looks like you actually grill the taco Like the tortilla

So the trick with that one is Is again, this is one of the two zone smoke things I so when I opened a place in LA called Kofax Which is a coffee shop And we got famous for these burritos That I would make these smoked potato kind of hash for for vegetarians, and they would flip out because we'd use the blood-soed smoker,

so it tastes kind of meaty and carnal in a way that vegetarians were missing, and you smoke potatoes and tomatios. And so I was like, I want to do that in a taco form for the book. So again, you're just kind of putting potatoes on the cold side of the grill, have the smoke going through.

Basically roasting potatoes at, you know, 300 with smoke on it and tomatios, and then you chop them up, you fry them up into a hash with some peplano chilies and put them into these, like, vegetarian tacos, and they're just like...

Man, I'm real. Yeah, you can throw tortillas on the grill. Yeah. And just kind of, you know, I'm a big believer in like make things that taste great, but also like convenience matters. Like there's, you know, a lot of, like, amazing chefs. Like, they, it's really hard for them to write an at-home cookbook.

Yeah. Because there's certain stuff that's like ingrained in their brain that like, no, you can't cook pasta in the same water you blanched broccoli in. Right. Like, it's going to have the broccoli back in the pasta. Like, I'm not making a second dish of this. Yeah, I know. I was going to make this fish dish from the New York Times app yesterday.

And the list of ingredients was so, I would have to go, first of all, spend $50 in different spices. Yeah. And then, you know, slight, it was the labor for this one little fish dish was just, no. Yeah. I'm not doing it. And like, you know, it was hard for me not to have half the book. just be like, and then just put olive oil and lemon juice on top after. I know.

Because the truth is like that's... That is it with grilled vegetables. That's the thing. So often it's great. But there's little riffs on that. Like there's, uh, you ever buy like preserved lemons? Those just like,

they're just, you can buy them at the grocery store now and they're just basically salt preserve lemons in their own kind of brines. They have this really beautiful briny kind of flavor to them. Yeah. And just chopping that up and with olive oil, they're salty and just tossing that with like grilled broccoli. Yeah.

Um, you know, grill some asparagus. I guess I'll just like shave some like aged white cheddar over the top. That's great. Nice. Yeah. I mean, you could just, most of the time when I do grow vegetables, I just grill them, maybe a little olive

oil on it. And then just grill them, bring them in the house. And then just olive oil, lemon, salt, pepper. Absolutely. That's great. Yeah. And I think also there's like people have, maybe it's like restaurant culture. People have grown this like American aversion to room temperature food.

and some food actually wants to be room temperature. Have you ever like grill like zucchini and then take it off and then put it with like some olive oil and salt and pepper and like whatever else you're going to put onto it and let it sit for like 30 minutes? You go around in Italy like all these amazing cooked vegetables are just sitting in like oil with like a toothpick in it and it's just out all day and the flavors like come together better

and it's not like burning hot or ice cold and it's just that there's this, there's a quality to room temperature food that I think with certain things is amazing. I mean, a steak, if you cook a steak and rest it, it's room temperature. Yeah. And it's great. Oh, that's brilliant.

Let me ask you this. Back to the Carney's thing before I got distracted by your clams. No, I've no idea. Let's talk burgers on the grill. Yeah. Do you make a kick-ass burger? I do. Is there one in the book?

There is. It's in the first section, it's kind of the sandwiches and all that. stuff. Right. It's kind of my, like, my favorite version. There's a lot of things in this book that I think are my favorite version of it in the world, because really it's, what's a cookbook except designing it around your own personal taste. And so it's like a very classic backyard burger, 80-20, you know, like fat to lean, or lean to fat. Yeah. It almost got really good. Yeah. And obviously, like, you know, the better the meat you can find, the more freshly ground

you can find it, the better. And you pack it loosely. And then one of the tricks to me on the grill that people don't think about enough is, especially on a gas grill, you might not get enough heat where if you try to get char on both sides, you're going to overcook it.

So it's more important to get char on that first side and then flip it for five seconds or whatever you have to do just to get it finished cooking through where you want it to be. But you want some of that char and crust on it. And if you get it on one side, it's better than overcooked or neither.

Because if you flip it and keep going, gonna overcook. Yeah. Right. Is it literally like five seconds after the flip? Or you know, depending on, like 20 seconds, whatever. Yeah, 15, 20 seconds. And so usually it's like you get that first side really going, getting a nice crust on it. And then the top is rear. Flip it, throw the slice. I like to do like a slice of like a like smoke cheddar. So you get some of that smoke flavor on there. And then you make like your classic kind of like special sauce, which is, you know, mayonnaise, ketchup, relish, mustard, hot sauce, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And slather that on to some good potato rolls. I do like paper thin sliced onion, just a little bit of that kick to it, but not like

a bite of onion. Yeah. And then iceberg lettuce and then out a slice of bacon on there. And like, and it's just like a soft little crusher, like a, you know, four and a half to six ounce patty, you know? Yeah, yeah. And or three and a half to, you know, four or five, you know, depending on, I always say depending on the heat of your grill, you might, if your grill's not that hot, you might need to go with a thicker paddies. You can get some texture and crust on it. But I'll if you use like a charcoal grill, like a ripping hot, you can basically cook it like, you know, 30 seconds on each side, get beautiful char and get, I love, I like kind of a slightly rare burger. Yeah, that was my next question.

Like how, what is your preferred? I understand the argument that people are against it because it's like, it doesn't have, the fat's not fully rendered. But I love like char on the outside, a little bit rare in the middle and kind of that like medium rare rare on a burger. Oh man, you're bringing me back. With the crispy, you know, bacon and the iceberg lettuce and the crunch. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's the best. You're bringing me back to last summer when I made burgers for my kids' friends. They're in their 20s now, early 20s. And their kids were complaining that they were too rare. And they, F them, they were perfect. They were all like, no, it's not cut for zero. I'm like, I've been down there for six hours, making burgers for people. People.

Shut up and eat it. Yeah. Look, people will, you know, people will tell you what they want. I was just saying in the restaurant business, the restaurant business would be amazing except for if it weren't for customers and employees. It's funny. There's a seafood place down there

that has been around for 30 years and it was called Pinkies. And it just closed. And I was down there off-season and I told the family, you're not going to believe it, Pinkies is closed. And everybody was just on the group chat.

was just like, no, what are we going to do? And it was a great place, and it was just really good, you know, place to just order seafood, go pick up. Anyway, his final message on the website was saying goodbye to everybody. Yeah. You know, thank you all for 30 years. We had a wonderful time, you know, feeding you all for all that time. And we just want to say that we love you.

to all the customers who came by, we love you all. Well, most of you. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's just like what you have to deal with. I was listening on the way into your Bobby Moynihan episode. And he was telling some old like restaurant job stories. Yeah.

I love restaurant job stories because like, you know, I've obviously worked in a ton of restaurants. Yeah. Anytime you get a complaint you've never heard before, I'm always like, stunned. Like, I've never, no one's ever thought that or said that to us before. That's incredible. Yeah, brand, a new complaint. Yeah, there was a, we used to have a burger place called the, the Golden State on Fairfax, and this young kid comes in and he orders and he goes, I'll take a burger. And I go, how do you want to cook? And he goes, medium rare. And I go, great, it comes to the choice of any side. He goes, any side. And I go, yeah. And he goes, oh, man, mashed potatoes. And I go, well, no, any of our

size. Jelly beans. He could have anything in the world and he's like mashed potatoes. It's just so sweet. It's so great. We had somebody who wants it. Bloods.

It's like a sports bar vibe. Yeah. The guy's ordering his food and he goes, oh wow, you have pizza? I'll take a pepperoni pizza. And she looks up and goes, sir, that's a commercial for dominoes. We also don't sell jeeps.

That kind of stuff kills me. Yeah. Do you invest in restaurants? No, I mean, I basically, I mean, if I'm a partner in it and we're getting off the ground, then yeah, that's like, but it's. But you don't, you don't have, like, support people out there just trying to do it and you invest a little. I mean, I, because you have a good knowledge of what will work. Yeah, I always joke that I have a restaurant consulting company and give me 20 grand, then I'll save you a million dollars and tell you not to open a restaurant. Right.

Yeah. Just don't do it. Yeah. And so, you know, and I'm, you know, there's, I've got some very dear friends that we're trying to, we're always working on maybe trying to do something new together. And, you know, it's, you know, places close frequently. And the truth is like, for me to invest in somebody's restaurant, I would have to have really intimate knowledge of their ability to actually run a restaurant and operate a business properly. I don't care that you know how to make a good burger or whatever the food is. Because I know a lot of incredibly talented chefs who have had restaurants fail. And, you know. Yeah. If it was, you know, I guess if I sat down with it and I went over the lease, but if I'm doing all that, I'll just do it. Just do it, right? I'll open it. Give me that. Yeah.

Let me add it. But yeah, I mean, real estate is a huge, huge part of it, especially out here in Los Angeles. And so, you know, being patient and waiting to make sure you're finding the right space at the right rent and the right location. Yeah. And that is a right fit for the neighborhood and the concept and all this stuff. People talk about like cursed spaces. And I go, show me the lease. Is it a curse?

space or is a landlord who's not in touch with reality. Oh, interesting. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Give me a curse space at half the rent and I'll bet I'll make it work. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

It's so simple. I'm always thinking ghost. I'm like that place over there. Nobody can make it work. Nobody can make it work. Yeah, unless the ghost is just, yeah, is your landlord. It's just a mean landlord. Just charging you more each time.

Yeah. All right. Hot dog or sausage? What's your fave? I mean, I love them both. I have them both in the book. I love a hot dog, but I like maybe eat two a year. I know.

I'll eat more sausages than hot dogs. Right. And also, they're more versatile. A hot dog, like, you know, there's only so much like college casserole you're going to go through. Like, a hot dog, you have a hot dog. Actually, I have a hot dog in this book. I think I've traveled the world, a fair amount. I've eaten hot dogs in a lot of places.

I think a Chicago dog is the best hot dog in the world. Yeah. And it's like, and we read this book, I actually have a buddy from Chicago. We spent a whole day like going over the Chicago dog to nail it, including the best way to do a char dog. Because to me, what makes the Chicago dog so great is just the contrast of like heavily charred, like, you know, blackening on certain parts of a hot duck. And then that whole like drag through the garden element and the pickled peppers and celery salt. So it's like these contrast of elements going on, a steamed bun. So you get all this textural variation and char.

mixed with tomato. If you boil a hot dog and do a sugar dog that way, it's not quite the same to me. No, right, exactly. I always liked when I was a kid, which I don't see that often when people would do the little X on the ends and kind of flour.

Yeah. You know what I mean? I haven't seen that in a long time. Yeah. There's a Thai chef, I know, who will do that with, he'll do that and do it for like a stir fry, like a pad, like a pad C.U. Oh, really?

It's like a goofy little hot dog. in there. Yeah. But yeah, I, you know. But a sausage is more... I can use it in more things. Like, I'm not going to make, like, you know, Umbrian lentils with a hot dog on top. You know, a hot dog and peppers pasta salad does not sound as good to me.

You know, but, yeah, and like my favorite, like, there's an amazing sausage that, have you ever go to Vienna? Never. And they have these versatile stands. Like, they're built in sausage stands on the corners of the street. And they're just like, you just walk up and they char a sausage for you, slice it, all great fresh horse rash rash on top and drink like a glass of wine or I have a beer on a street corner and eat a sausage and then go like all the buildings.

Eliza who's joke looked like wedding cakes. Right. And there's just like beautiful like symphonies going on everywhere. And you eat a beautiful sausage on the side of the street. I want to go. Who's your agent? Yeah, I know. Book me over there for crying out loud.

I know you don't make money. You just go to your tour for food. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's always terrible. Well, you know, you're laying groundwork for a new market. Yeah, that's what they always say. By the time you go back, the market's all gone. It's a different country by the time you come back.

Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And all the people are retired. Yeah, yeah. Is Eliza touring now? No, she's home for now and she's kind of taken a little break for the summer. Oh, that's good. But she has been liking to do anyway lately, but especially now with my book tour and all this stuff.

So it's going to be interesting. You know, it's just still, you know, the odd. Like, I'm taking a break. And then you get a call. Like, how about a casino in Tulsa? Yeah. You're like, oh, damn it. I'm just going to do it.

You're like, yeah. Yeah. The 14th. Do we have anything? Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, that stuff's great. Yeah.

What a switch, though, for you to go out on tour. Yeah. It's going to be, yeah. It's going to be a blast. I'm very excited about it. And also, like, you know, part of it for me also is over the years, you know, especially before we had kids,

I've gotten the tag along with Eliza on the road a lot. And so I'll go figure out amazing restaurants and food things. And then it's like the only good thing about Instagram is then you like tag a place you liked. They write you back. You communicate. You become friends. And now, because of that,

I have a 21 city tour with some of the best chefs and restaurants in the country. Oh, all from that touring previously with her. Some of it's that stuff. But you get to travel in a way that, you know, chefs don't get to travel that much. And I get to tag along. And even now sometimes, like, we do U.S. O tours together. And they have me cook for the troops and do cooking demos and she'll do stuff.

Right, right. And so, like, I got to go to Okinawa last year. Really? Yeah. What was that like? It's wild. Okinawa, it's kind of like Japan's Hawaii in that they don't want us to be there either. And there's like this very kind of fraught U.S. military relationship

because it's, I think, like, a third of the land is like a U.S. military base, something crazy like that. And it's a blue zone. So it's, there's still people alive who remember World War II and how many Okinawa and civilians died during World War II. And so you have that going on. And then you add in like 19 year olds who've never left home until now and can drink in just like jacked basically college freshmen who were allowed to drink and also like not

to operate heavy artillery. And so these college towns, I mean, they're military towns, they have this kind of like very weird, like consumer relationship. And so it's like, it's, you know, I've spent some time in Japan. I've found it to be this like incredibly wonderful place to be white in. Because everyone is so polite to you. And there it was very like. Intagonistic?

Not antagonistic, but like nervous and a little bit more reserved. and like what's going on here. You were or they were? They were. They were like a little more like. Leary of you. Yeah. Yeah.

And understandably so, obviously. Right. And but also there's like signs for like bull rides and jello shots and stuff. Right. Weird. But then also you have cool, weird military fusion dishes like Okinawa taco rice. Oh really? Which is basically imagine like Lowry's taco seasoning sauteed into ground beef served over short grain Japanese rice with like salsa and iceberg lettuce on.

top. Oh man. And it's amazing. Wow, amazing. Yeah. For fish, for grilling fish, just because you're firing off all these things. I was like, what is a, what's your like solid, go-to, like, condiment or sauce that after you're grilling fish that you use like, that's versatile enough for different types of fish? Yeah. You know what I mean? So can I change the question slightly? Absolutely. One thing I want to talk about in terms of fish, is, you know, that's good? It is so good. I think people get too hung up on specific types of fish

versus trying to think about fish from like category standpoints. And so what ends up happening is people get so obsessed with a particular kind of fish. It has to be, you know, sea bath, or it has to be, how, whatever it is. Then you end up going to the grocery store and you're getting fish like flown in from God knows where.

And so if you kind of open up your mind to how much great fish there is that you can sort of buy slightly more locally that you'll, and you think about the techniques around it, I kind of like to break it down with my buddy Ari who I wrote the seafood book with called The Finest Things in the Sea. We kind of break down fish filets into three categories, that there's like steaky filets,

mild and flaky filets, and skin-on filets. And if you think about all the fish you'd cook as fitting into one of those three categories, it makes it really, really simple. And you go, because you can kind of cook them all the same way. Like a mild and flaky one, you can saute in a pan, you can flake it into rice. You know, in a steaky one, you can throw on the grill, you can pansear, you know,

and so, and then the skin on is more like you can get the skin crispy in a pan or on a grill. And so when it comes to that, and so it still seems to be true that the U.S. is the best country in the world at regulating its own seafood from a sustainability standpoint. And so we're not that great at regulating what we import. So if you go to the grocery store and you look at what they have to offer, usually it'll be like, okay, they've got shrimp from Thailand, Mexico, and the U.S. If you just buy the one from the U.S., if you care about sustainability, it's not a perfect system, but it's like way more accurate than like sitting around trying to Google which ones are better

than others. Right. And so that becomes a really helpful way to do it. Okay. And so then when it comes to universal seasonings for fish, there's kind of a couple of ways to do it. Obviously, again, like lemon juice and olive oil works great. There's a parsley pesto I do in the book that's a really simple like blender parsley pesto. That's no cheese in it or like that.

It's basically, you know, parsley olive oil. oil, lemon juice, that kind of stuff, and you use salt and you blend it. And it makes this really beautiful kind of like bright herbie condiment that just goes great on fish. You can also toss it with potatoes on the side. That kind of thing. Like treating, you know, like basil can get expensive and hard to get sometimes. Making a parsley pesto is just such a great condiment for stuff like that. What's the steak one? Isn't it chopped up parsley and like garlic and oil? Oh. Which one? Not tomatoio. So, uh, oh, uh, a chumitri.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Similar to that. Yeah, and that's kind of raw garlic, I can do that. But this one, you just kind of throw it in the blender. You don't have them to finally chop stuff. And if you get this kind of great, beautiful thing. And also you can toss it with pasta if you want to. There's a lot of great ways to do that stuff.

Yeah, yeah. So I'll do that a lot. There's a fun one I do for a pita where I take like machymok or something similar. And I'll do the mayonnaise brush and then kind of hammer it with Zatar, you know, that kind of Middle Eastern spice and tweet it like a blackened swordfish or a blackened, you know, like catfish, to deal with the Zatar, put it in a pita with like some olives and cucumbers and olive oil and stuff like that. And you get this like in lemon juice and it kind of tastes like this kind of very fast,

easy, delicious kind of Middle Eastern thing to it. Ooh, that's good. So that's a good one too. That's really good. Man, oh man, this is really great. I'm so excited. Yeah. Sorry you have to hold the pre-release prop version and you get the real one.

I know because, yeah, I have a PDF of it, but it's not as cool as just having the book. It's not as cool. Well, you'll, the real one's coming. All right, you'll get it to me. Well, this was really great catching up. This is such a blast. Yeah, you come back anytime. I would love to. And really, I am serious about, I feel like nobody's done a bread book with a sense of humor.

Yeah, that's probably true. You know, I can tell you from baking bread for 12 years, there's no other comedian slash bakers. Yeah. They just don't exist. Yeah. So I feel like. She seems serious. So not funny.

What's the, doesn't Tony Schrochie? Shalub, is just everybody from Big Night gets a CNN show? Yeah. Is that the deal? You mean Tony Shalub with his faking bread? Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah. So who's, who else is left from? We don't speak his name around here. What's his name? Who is it? Who else is in Big Night that doesn't have a CNN show yet? I think that's it. The entire cast of the show. Bouchemi, was he in it? I don't think so. Yeah. No, I think Shalub was come and gone. I think he felt our heat. That's it. And this show's still going strong. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's do it. Yeah. Phil's not baking bread. But yeah, no. None of these. Yeah. But I feel like we can put together a really funny, good cookbook.

I'm in. And then I think it'd just be fun doing it. Yeah. Be a bus. All do what jokes your own recipes? Is that you're thinking? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm in. Let's do it. All right. Cool. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having. Everybody.

Get grill time. and we'll tell you all about the live event that we're going to that you're not going to be able to go to. And by the time this comes up, all I've announced all the tour dates. We'll be in. Okay, cool. It will post them. Every other comedy podcast, just me naming people naming tour dates at the end. Right.

Welcome to it. Welcome to it. Yeah. Eliza must be just kicking back like, yeah. Not so fun, is it? Having a book updates. Yeah, have fun doing 21 cities that don't pay as well as one casino. Right.

Exactly. All right. All the best. Thank you so much. All right. We got it, kids.