Judge John Hodgman - Hot Bread

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

It's time to clear the docket! This week, Friend of the Court J. Kenji López-Alt joins us to talk about his new book, The Wok, and to help with cooking and food disputes! Citrus squeezers, grilled cheese, scrambled eggs, soup cooling, bread baking, and much more. Plus, Judge John Hodgman and Bailiff Jesse Thorn finally try listener Dave's recommended Grape Nuts and poached egg (aka Gregg Nuts). Kenji's book, The Wok, is out NOW wherever books are sold. His article on expiration dates can be found here, and his article on no knead bread baking can be found here. 

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm Bill of Jesse Thorne. We're in chambers this week, clearing the docket. And with me, as always, is legendary celebrity eater and former food and wine columnist. Was that what you were called i was a food and non-wine alcohol columnist men's journal magazine from about 2000 until about 2005 or so maybe 2004 i bailed on a on an article about texas barbecue do you know that you bailed on it i bailed on it because my editor was let go i don't know and uh and we had a new editor in chief and I was like, and I was writing for another magazine. I'm like, I already been down there. I already ate the barbecue.

You can't take it out of my system. Not proud of it. But I was like, I don't feel like writing this anymore, but I did refuse to write about wine because writing about wine would test even the limits of my fraudulency. Who's that delightful other laugh for Jesse Thorne. because writing about wine would test even the limits of my fraudulency. That was not something I was going to do. Who's that delightful other laugher, Jesse Thorne?

There's someone else here. We have a guest this week, chef, food writer, friend of our program, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. You might know his work from Serious Eats or from his first cookbook, The Food Lab. He has a brand new cookbook out now called The Walk. It's available wherever you get your books, including Costco. That's when you know you've made it. When your book is available at Costco. Kenji, welcome to Judge John Hodgman. It's nice to talk to you again. Well, that's when you know you have a good publicist. Yeah. Your books are on pallets. Your books are on pallets. Your books are on pallets.

Yeah. Wow. That's the dream. Airports and pallets. That's when you know you've got a successful book. Yeah. And appropriately so, because Kenji, I have my copy of The Walk. It's so great.

Oh, thank you. It's so unsurprisingly definitive, but it is also so unsurprisingly genial and helpful and inspirational. Well, thank you. Those are all things I was going for. I really like it. I got my walk out of the closet the other day just to play around because it's been a while. It's been a while just to saute some of those peel and eat shrimps. Well, I hope everything works for you.

Stir fry. Stir fry is what I'm saying. Yeah, everything works for me. As you point out, it's hard not to work because the walk is such a perfect piece of equipment. Why is that? Well, is this a pitch for my book? I mean, I'm setting you up. That's what this whole episode is, Kenji. You understand what doing publicity for a book is, right? You know, it's in its versatility. So, you know, there's a wide range of techniques you can use in a walk. I don't have to go into every single one of them, but, you know, stir frying, steaming, deep frying, pan frying, all kinds of things you can do in a walk. And it's inexpensive. If you get the right one, it's pretty indestructible.

And, you know, more than anything, it's really really i think the where it shines best is when you're trying to feed a group of people whether it's you know friends or or your family um quickly uh that's where it really shines best you know most of the recipes in the book it's a single piece of equipment that you have on the stovetop i think the book only calls for uh preheating the oven once uh in one recipe um everything else is completely on the stovetop with one pan. And most of the recipes are, you know, 30 minutes or less. It's for like a weeknight meals, but they're also flashy and also not too hot. That was something that I didn't even think of until I read the introduction to your book. Like the walk,

you're in there, you're out, you heat up the kitchen only so much and you're done. And when you're coming into spring or summertime, that's really valuable. Yeah, absolutely. Kenji's, the map of Kenji's career involves growing acclaim over the beginning of the career as he creates definitive and often very complicated versions of classic recipes, figuring out exactly the best ways to make particular things. His famous- Using science. Using science.

Using science, exactly. And great taste. Then I think his fame has exploded recently as he has become a YouTube celebrity for strapping a GoPro to his head at one o'clock in the morning while he's making like a grilled cheese sandwich. So I think the nice thing about the walk is it really marries those two streams. You can make something that gives you a little bit of a nice fancy feeling, but you can also do it on a weeknight for your family without too much hassle. Yeah, when you see the inside of Kenji's kitchen, you're like, oh, it's just a guy.

Like, that's all the science. You're worried that he's living in a lab somewhere in space. Yeah, I think a lot of people thought he worked in a sort of beaker type environment from the Muppets. I work in a home kitchen with a six-month-old and a five-year-old running around. No, I mean, I think the point of the science and the technique, understanding it, there's really long recipes. I never make my food that way. The point is really, of those recipes, the really long ones are just to sort of illustrate all the different principles. Because once you understand those things and sort of have them under your belt, that for me, I think the idea is to try and empower people

to feel that they have the confidence to stray from recipes in the kitchen and to cook with what they have, to cook within the constraints they have. Because, you know, understanding, if you're bound to a recipe, you can only do it that one way. But if you understand the technique,

then you can stray from there. And if you make mistakes, you can recover. There's all sort of. Well, I think it empowers you and allows you to cook in a more free way, which, you know, ironically is improvisational even once. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Which is, you know, people think my first book was very prescriptive because it was so complicated, which is which is ironic to me because I meant it to be sort of the opposite. I meant it more to be something where, yeah, you understand these things and then you can decide which ones you want to follow. Kenji, what's an example of a technique that is a building block that you help people work

through in the wok? Well, I'd say the most, you know, the most important thing with wok cooking, particularly when you're stir frying is, is prep organization, you know, and you don't really think of that as technique, because it's not like, you know, it doesn't involve heat, it doesn't involve whatever, it just involves proper organization and thinking through what you're going to do before you start doing it. And so, you know, the way I try and illustrate that in the book is there's, well, there's a lot of photos of bowls that you should have ready before you start cooking. And in virtually every sort of stir fry recipe where you're going to be working quickly, in one of the steps, it tells you how to prep all the ingredients. And then it says,

here are the bowls you should have ready. Like you should have the garlic and ginger together in this one little bowl. You should have the scallion pieces and the peanuts together in this second bowl. You should have an empty tray here to put, to transfer the stuff to when you're done cooking it that way. You know, once you start cooking, you're able to add things in quick succession. You don't have to worry about running back to your cutting board. And I think that's where a lot of people end up tripping up in stir fries. They end up leaving the food in there for too long where it ends up sort of stewing in its own juices because they're not properly prepared. So I'd say, yeah, for wok cooking, preparation is the key step. I think that we've been done a

grave disservice in the world of home cooking by watching movies. Because in the movies, people are always, they'll have a montage of a person cooking. And it's always like, I've got the pan going, and now I'm just going to chop this up and throw it in at the last second and then do a twirl or whatever it is. When in fact, all that stuff should have been done before you even turn on the heat in the pan. Mise en place. Yeah. Preparation that makes the cooking calm as opposed to, I mean, it's never, when you do that in real life, it's not romantic or fun or a little dance. It's like, Oh my God, or whatever. Why didn't I cut up these scallions? Right. Right. Uh, you know, and that, and that multiplies when you have, when you have kids in

the house that, that are going to interfere at inopportune moments, kids, kids and pets. Yeah. In the, in the parlance of the video games, those are chaos multipliers. Yes. Kenji is America's number one advocate for little stainless steel prep bowls. Yes. Like on TV, the other thing that you see on TV is these like real pretty glass bowls. And I know that if I bought even one of those little pretty bowls, I would have glass shards across my kitchen within. Oh, yeah. I mean, I can tell you from having worked a number of years at America's Test Kitchen that when we shot those TV series and we had those glass prep bowls, that finding bowls in the prep kitchen that didn't have cracks on them so that we could put them on TV was a challenge. Well, that's because in a commercial kitchen, you have your prep bowl, you have your mise en place,

you have all your little ingredients portioned down to those little bowls, which for a tidy weird like me is very satisfying. But then traditionally, as soon as you put the ingredient into the wok or whatever it is, you throw that bowl on the floor as hard as you can, right? I mean, that's what I do at home. I do. I mean, I like the little metal prep bowls because they stack and they don't take up a lot of space and they're light and you can do whatever you, they're indestructible. Yeah. In the commercial kitchen, you would have what are called like half hotel pans or half pans, ninth pans, little, little rectangular things that, that fit into inserts in your refrigerator. You wouldn't necessarily have an array of bowls for every dish, but if I'm making the same dish over and over and

every dish calls for sliced scallions, I would have a little ninth pan full of sliced scallions that I can then reach into each time I need them for a recipe. Kenji, I have a very important question with regard to the wok. I was looking in the book. I could not see either a recipe or a technique for making grape nuts with poached eggs in the walk. Is it possible? This is a challenge. Well, I've never had grape nuts with poached eggs. Let me give you some context. First of all, when I say grape nuts and poached eggs, what is your initial reaction? If you could put a word to it. My initial reaction is actually that that sounds interestingly delicious sounding um right i i

can see how i can see that working very well we got a listener named dave out there who's been pushing grape nuts and poached eggs on both of us but to agree jesse and i hope you're not insulted on me personally yeah there's a little bit of a grape nut a a greg nut that's what i've ended up calling them a greg nut beef between me and. That's what I've ended up calling them. A Greg nut beef between me and listener Dave. He really wants me to try them. His family thinks they're gross. I was inclined to agree with them.

Jesse thinks they sound intriguing. We're going to try them on this program as promised sometime during this program. That's a tease. But I don't think either of us have ever poached an egg in our life. Kenji, do you have any tips for poaching an egg? Well, first of all, I think the wok is the best vessel for poaching an egg for the same reason that it's the best vessel for deep frying, which is that the flared sides allows you to get to the bottom of it with a spider or a strainer without having to kind of dig deep down. So it gives you a much better angle for maneuvering

foods and picking things up gently. But my main, my main tip for poached eggs. So first of all, you do want to use very fresh eggs because as eggs age, the membrane that holds the white together, the interior membrane will start to break down. And that's going to cause sort of like that ghosting of, you know, the white, the wispy whites that flow away from the egg yolk. The other thing I recommend is straining your eggs. By the way, wispy whites was the alternate name for this podcast. Also, I recommend straining the eggs so you can do it in a fine mesh strainer or you can do it in a in a colander. fine mesh strainer, or you can do it in a, in a colander. But yeah, you, you, you break the eggs into a bowl and then transfer them into a strainer and just kind of swirl them around a little bit

so that all of the really watery excess whites that are outside of that tighter membrane get drained away. And then you transfer it back into a bowl and then put it into your, your water and your water should be just at a bare sub simmer. So, you know, a couple of bubbles here and there. Any vinegar in there? I know that sometimes. I don't do vinegar. So you can do vinegar if you like the texture, the flavor that it gives. I tend to find that it makes the eggs a little bit sort of chalkier, the texture. So I don't do vinegar, but I know some people like it. You can put salt in it, but you know, just to season the egg, but you can also just put salt on at the end. So I usually

just use plain water. And if, you know, once you get, you can just sort of pour your egg gently into a pot of subservient water or a wok full of subservient water. And then once it starts to set, you kind of gently move it around to make sure that it's not sticking to the bottom. Once you sort of move on, Pat, once you want to get to like sort of expert mode, you can swirl a little vortex into the water and then pour the egg sort of towards the center. And then what happens is it, it kind of takes on like a little sort of a comet shape, you know, the, the white trail behind it. So you get more of that even shape as opposed to having one side flat.

It's like what I see on those Instagram accounts. I follow. Yeah. Yeah. I get channels and stuff. Right. Look, if we can just get this thing to work at all, I'll be happy. But we're going to come back to poached eggs.

Greg nuts, I should say. But meanwhile, Jesse Thorne, I believe we've got quite a few food disputes to settle. Here's a case from Chelsea. My friends Danielle and Riley and I are the cooking crew. The cooking crew. The crew began when Danielle taught us to cook one of her family favorites, Bonsio. We now meet monthly trying our hands at cuisines from around the world. Here's our dispute.

When juicing a lemon or any citrus, Riley lives and dies by an implement I call the yellow squeezy boy. Okay. I'm familiar with it. Yeah. I think we all know the squeezy boy. Danielle, however, is a proponent of the squeeze-by-hand method and scoffs when Riley looks for that YSB. I also own a wooden reamer, but I don't want to even introduce that to the conversation. Please ask Mr. Lopez-Alt for his effective citrus juice extraction power rankings. And so we have a photo here, Kenji, from Chelsea of the yellow squeezy boy, which is, of course, a pretty common yellow citrus squeezer. Yeah.

A class two lever, I think. Yeah. Right. I'm sure everyone's seen it. Or is it class three? I don't know. Some class of lever. It's a pretty high class lever, I would definitely say.

It's a classy lever. If you don't know what it looks like, go to the show page at MaximumFun.org or check out our Instagram account at JudgeJohnHodgman. Compared to a wooden reamer, which you shove right into it. With some old stains on it. Yeah, that's a good eye. And then, of course, you have, I presume, Chelsea's Hand, which is not available in stores,

but many of us come equipped with one of our own. What do you think is the most juicy of methods? So the most juicy is the wooden reamer. And, you know, so I worked in one of the restaurants I worked at, one of the jobs of the youngest, the newest cook, which I was for about six months, was to juice citrus every morning for the entire line. So I would go through like a case of lemons, a case of limes, and a case of oranges every day, juicing them. So I have a lot of experience with juicing. And in that effort, I also tested this exact thing to see which one produced the most juice and which one produced the best flavor.

The wooden reamer is going to produce by far the most juice. You're going to be able to really get it into the cracks. You're going to be able to pull out the most juice from the, from the inside of the orange. Um, especially if it's a fresh wooden reamer, which this one doesn't, wooden reamers do, uh, wear out over time. And the, and the one in the photo looks like it has a very blunt tip. So it probably doesn't work as well. Um, so I would replace my wooden reamer. Um, you know, when I was doing that many, I would replace it every three months or so these days I replace it every few years um the lever is the easiest um to use of course because that that's the one you know i pull it out when i want my daughter to juice the lemons for me because she can do it um it's also the least messy you know the wooden reamer you need a separate

strainer because all the pulp is going to get in there juice is going to fly over the counter so the the lever is less messy one of the advantages of the lever style over the hand um aside from the sheer power of it is that um with the lever when you put the fruit in there the correct way which is with the cut side facing down um the opposite of the way that it looks like it's supposed to go when you put it with the cup side cut side facing down and you squeeze down on it it kind of inverts the rind and what it does is it actually squeezes out some of the essential oils from the rind as well. So you'll get a lot as opposed to just squeezing it by hand where you're really just

getting the juice and not much of the oils. The essential oils have a lot of the flavor that differentiates what, you know, what makes a lemon taste like a lemon and an orange tastes like an orange. So you'll get a lot more of that, that aroma using the lever versus the hand method. So of the three, I would say all of them work, especially if you have very powerful hands. But the reamer is the best but messiest. The yellow squeezy boy is a good compromise. And the hand, I would not recommend. How about that, Daniel? Take that. Daniel, I'm sure your family recipe for Bonseo is really good. I've never had Bonseo. Do you know anything about it, Daniel? Take that. Daniel, I'm sure your family recipe for banh xeo is really good.

I've never had banh xeo. Do you know anything about it, Kenji? Just from what I've had in restaurants and in Vietnam, from what I understand, it's sort of like a crispy crepe slash omelet that's typically stuffed with mung beans and shrimp. But I think it's made with a thin batter with eggs and rice flour, and it gets kind of these lacy, crispy I think it's made with a thin batter with eggs and rice flour, and it gets kind of these lacy, crispy edges to it. Well, I had a PS from Chelsea also mentioning that she is a graduate of Yale University

as I am, and that a friend of hers lived in the same house that I lived in at 16 Edgewood Avenue. So here's what I'm saying. Chelsea, I've not been in that house for a long time. I would like to go check out my basement room. Why don't you and the cooking crew figure out who's living there now? And I will meet you there for a cooking crew dinner, a Bonseo with some good, juicy, wooden reamed citrus as necessary.

So her lemon squeezing hands have touched the walls of a house that you lived in? Is that? Yes. And now if you touch your screen, we have an even closer connection. I'm not touching my screen. But cooking crew, up your game with that wooden reamer. You got to get a new one. Here's a question from Nathan in East Lansing, Michigan. What makes a grilled cheese? I like to add fun things into my grilled cheeses like prosciutto, brisket, pork, blueberry

jam, pineapple, honey mustard, maybe even a tomato or two. Not all in the same sandwich. Phew. This is in addition to using more creative cheeses like a goat cheese and brie. My partner insists that the only thing that belongs in a grilled

cheese is cheese, bread, and butter. Kenji, do you have an opinion on cheese is cheese, bread, and butter. Kenji, do you have an opinion on this? Yeah, well, this feels like a trap, first of all. But I'm also assuming that the partner... That's the theme of our program, Kenji. The partner reads Reddit, which is where the copypasta from the angry guy about how adding anything other than

cheese to your grilled cheese makes it a, makes it a melt. If you just search, if you search for like grilled cheese, melt, copy pasta, it'll, it'll pop up. It's a, it's an infamous rant that I think is completely wrong and has, and has ruined the discourse on grilled cheese online because every time you discuss grilled cheese online, this comes up, somebody thinks they're clever for reposting it. You're saying we got tricked. We got tricked like that time someone asked if a hot dog was a sandwich or that other time when those,

those two friends tricked me into saying, I blame Kyle over and over again. I'm sure that's something that I got tricked into. Here's my concern, John. My biggest concern, honestly, is that like that hot dog thing, we've accidentally stumbled into something that people care about. That's what I'm worried about here. About grilled cheese? Well, don't worry, Kenji. They don't have your email. They have my email. So you can say whatever you want. All right. So grilled cheese growing up was Wonder Bread and American cheese for me, cooked in butter. These days Uh, these days I'm S I still do that sometimes. Well, wonder bread doesn't exist anymore, but I, you know, I use supermarket bread not exist anymore. I don't think so.

It exists in my in-laws house. Thank you, Jennifer. All right. Maybe it disappeared for a while and came back. I don't know. Um, or maybe I'm just thinking of Twinkies. It's just, it's not as, it's not as prevalent in the American. I don't see it at the supermarket very frequently, at least. You know, these days I might mix up the cheese. I might add something. But at any time in grilled cheese history, I feel you could have gone, or in diner history,

you can go to a diner and get a grilled cheese and they will offer to put bacon in it or a tomato slice in it. And it's still a grilled cheese, right? So, you know, by that logic, if it's on a menu and if it's understood that it's a grilled cheese, I don't think it makes any sense to suggest that adding something to a grilled cheese makes it not a grilled cheese.

I would say that the cutoff comes when the ingredient inside is more prevalent than the cheese, you know? At that point, maybe it becomes a melt, you know, if you put a burger patty in there and it's thicker than the cheese. But if you put like a few crumbles of ground beef, it's still a grilled cheese with ground beef, you know, at that point, maybe it becomes a melt, you know, if you put a burger patty in there and it's thicker than the cheese, but if you put like a few crumbles of ground beef, it's still a grilled cheese with ground beef, you know, it's a grilled, it's a grilled cheese with crumbles. I think as long as the cheese is melted, you're griddling the bread in either

butter or mayo. Uh, and the, the other, uh, fillings don't overwhelm the cheese, it's still a grilled cheese. Let me ask you this, Kenji. My pal, pal of John's as well, Mario Reyes, used to work at Max Fun, still comes to Max Fun Con every year. Mario worked in a grilled cheese institution for some time that was very deeply committed to mayonnaise as the medium for grilling a grilled cheese sandwich rather than butter. That's a big grilled cheese internet hack that I have seen before. Go ahead. Yeah. If you haven't ever made grilled cheese with mayonnaise, it can seem somewhat insane, even if you're a mayonnaise enthusiast like my friend, John Hodgman. I've done it. It works great. Great.

What are the relative values of those two fats? So mayonnaise, I think the main advantage of mayonnaise is that it's immediately spreadable out of the fridge. So you don't have to, if you're not the kind of person who keeps butter at room temperature, which I'm not typically, you don't have to wait for your butter to melt. And so mayonnaise is very easy to spread. It's easy to get an even layer on there. So your bread toasts evenly and the egg, the protein content in there also helps it brown a little better.

That said, you know, I had a discussion with this, about this with the late Joshua Zersky, who had a lot of opinions on grilled cheese and hamburgers. But what he... And things in general. And things in general, yes. Our interaction, you know, our discussion of this ended with me making this point about how mayonnaise is more easily spreadable and how I never keep butter at room temperature. And his response was that softened butter is why God invented the microwave.

So he does have a point there. You know, there is a little bit the microwave. Um, so he does have a point there. Um, you know, there, there is a little bit of a flavor difference, obviously, you know, the mayonnaise does have a slight bit of a tang to it, but I think you'd be hard pressed to really taste that. Um, uh, unless you're really going side by side, it's not something that immediately jumps out when you're eating it. Um, the one thing I would say is I've tried doing this with Kewpie mayonnaise, um, and I would not recommend that there's something in the Kewpie mayonnaise that gets a really funky flavor, uh, when you heat it up. Well, because Kewpie is a sort of iconic Japanese brand of mayonnaise that is sort of a cult mayonnaise among us mayo heads. Right, right, right. And there's the American Kewpie

and then there's the authentic Japanese Kewpie. And I believe the authentic Japanese Kewpie has MSG in it. Yeah, I don't think it's the MSG that does it, though. I think I think it also I haven't looked at the street. Yeah, it is a little sweeter. It's a little sort of tangier. I think it also has a modified food starch in it, something that thickens it a little bit. And it might be that, but I'm really not sure exactly what it is, but, but it gets a weird, weird, weird flavor. I mean, I actually, I suggest you do try it just so you can experience this weird flavor for yourself. I'm already doing the Greg nuts today, you know, maybe tomorrow I'll do a Kewpie cheese.

I think people get so worked up about this online and off because this is something that a lot of people uh in this country have grown up with you know and if you grew up eating in a certain way it feels like they're insulting your your uh upbringing to suggest um no you're eating you're eating grilled cheese the wrong way nobody talks mess about my nana yeah exactly i'll say if you put a brisket on your grilled cheese, though, you were raised wrong. Sorry, friend. No, it's fine.

Sounds great to me. Honestly, I've just been thinking about that thing. But I would call that a brisket melt at that point. Yeah, that's fair. I've been thinking about those ground beef crumbles. That sounds great to me, too. Judge Hodgman, we have to poach some eggs. So do you want to take a quick break so we can do that? When we come back, we'll eat those. What's it called? Greg nuts. Greg nuts. Poached eggs with grape nuts invented by Dave. Greg had nothing to do with it. Let's go hear from our partners.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast always brought to you by you, the members of MaximumFun.org. Thanks to everybody who's gone to MaximumFun.org slash join. And you can join them by going to MaximumFun.org slash join. Join them by going to MaximumFun.org slash join. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by the folks over there at Babbel. Did you know that learning, the experience of learning, causes a sound to happen? Let's hear the sound.

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Now, I've just finished making my poached egg, and I have put it on a half serving of grape nuts because I have only one egg, and I've added Cholula hot sauce. By the way, Kenji, while we wait for Jesse to finish, your poached egg advice was spectacular. Oh, good. I'm glad it worked. I did not have a mesh strainer. First of all, it's the only successful poached egg I've ever made. Is it the only poached egg you've ever made? No, I've tried many times before. Okay, good. And I've used like silicone cups and other gadgets and gizmos. Not necessary. This is a perfect poached egg. Great. And what kind of vessel did you poach it in?

So first of all, I want to say that I did not have a mesh strainer. Right. But I was smart enough to bring over a cocktail julep strainer. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. And I cracked the egg over that. I put that over a little mug. I cracked the egg over that. And there must have been two teaspoons of liquid that just went, drained out. That you then beat with a butter knife.

That I then beat with a butter knife and drank raw, of course. No, but I mean, the egg was much firmer and as a result, it happened to be a very fresh egg. And I did not have a wok here at my office. That's at my house so instead i used a deep skillet pan um so that i could get around the egg more easily it worked out very well nice and this yolk is perfect at just just four minutes not runny but still liquid It's the best poached egg I've ever made. I bet it's going to be great to eat.

I've added some chalula. Yeah, well, the grape nuts, that's the mystery thing. I do love grape nuts. Yeah, I feel like, yeah, poached egg with grape nuts and a dash of soy sauce and chili oil would be good. That's what I would go with. All right. Bailiff Jesse is still poaching his egg,

but I am going to try these Greg nuts now. Jennifer Marmer. Yes. I am warning you and all the listeners. I'm about to take a bite of food on Mike. Thank you. Content warning has been provided. One, two, three.

Block yours. Hmm. Good. content warning for listeners. I'm having another bite now. I feel like this is a comment on my YouTube videos where I, where I frequently get comments from people who have meat misophonia. I think that's what it's called. Yes. Because I always take bites of my food without warning at the end of my videos. Oh, no. It apparently grosses some people out.

We've learned misophonia is a real thing. People don't care for it. I will withhold my judgment until Jesse is ready. Okay. So I don't remember the last time I had grape nuts. I think the last time I had it was probably at the serious eats office when I had a friend who's seriously into grape nut ice cream. You have an ice cream with grape nuts.

And I can't remember, are grape nuts themselves slightly sweet or not? Are they sweet in the way that like, you know, like wheat is sweet, a little bit sweet. They're a sweet wheat treat. Right. They're not grapes and they're not nuts. They're not grapes and they're not nuts. And here is Jesse Thorne. Jesse, I have poached my egg.

I have complimented Kenji for his poached egg techniques, which served me extremely well. For the first time, I was able to poach an egg. Right now, on the spot, on live podcasting. I put the egg on an appropriate amount

of grape nuts. I added Cholula. I had not one one but two bites on microphone having given the listeners the content warning and all the misophonics could turn down their pod catchers i have my opinion now jesse are you about to take your bite okay content warning jesse thorne is taking a bite. Not the best. Oh, no. I mean, I'm not saying it's not horrible.

I think my greatest concern was that the kind of sweet wheat bread flavor of the grape nuts would be a little much with the egg. I think if I put a bunch of Cholula on it, I'd probably be happier because I like Cholula. I like the texture combination, but I'm not, despite liking Grape Nuts a lot, it tasted a little bit too much like a sweet brown bread for me with the egg. I would have preferred a less malty brown flavor with my egg. So tell me this, my, my wife, um, Adriana, she likes cinnamon raisin bagels with scallion cream cheese on them. So weird. Would she, would she like a poached egg with grape nuts? She might very well. Yeah.

She might very well. I mean, like, I don't like sweet bread in general, but like I said, I do like, like I eat grape nuts most mornings. We have a breakfast cereal sponsor at Maximum Fun and I eat their cereal sometimes as well. But most mornings I'm a grape nuts guy, have been for a long time. A little grape nuts goes a long way and straight through your intestines and so forth. And yeah, I do think, I mean, it might be my personal taste. I would say this, though. I definitely wouldn't characterize it as gross. Dave, this is a heartbreaker.

And I'm speaking to the listener, Dave, because Jesse Thorne was the one who seemed most enthused about trying this concoction. I was hoping he was going to love it because Kenji, I'm going to weigh in. I didn't care for it. All right. Myself, I didn't care for it either. I got to say, I love grape nuts and I love eggs. These are two great tastes that to me did not go great together. It made me wish there was corn flakes that were as crunchy as grape nuts.

And how are we sure that you're not just saying this because you are grape nuts fans and there is currently supply chain issues with grape nuts and you're trying not to cause a run on them? Oh, you think I don't have sources for my grape nuts, Kenji? You think I don't have schemes and plans to acquire grape nuts? Jesse's got pallets, pallets and pallets of Grape Nuts. Dave, the ruling is in. Not for me, not for Jesse, but you like what you like. Go ahead and enjoy it.

Don't gross your kids out, though. Don't gross your kids out. If they're grossed out by it, go take it in another room. Because it is, it is a little out there. All right. On the subject of eggs, now that that matter is settled, Chris writes from Winchester, Massachusetts. My wife makes scrambled eggs by cracking them into a coffee mug and mixing them with a butter knife. She says it's more efficient than whisking them in a bowl as it produces a lower volume of dirty dishes.

She also claims eggs don't need any salt and I shouldn't include it when I make eggs for the family. I disagree. All right. So we have two issues here, Kenji, that are important to me personally. to me personally. One is I sympathize with Chris's wife because when he says it produces a lower volume of dirty dishes, what I'm thinking he means here is that, or what she means rather, is that if you beat your eggs in a coffee cup, you can just throw that into a dishwasher. It doesn't take up much space. Whereas as soon as you bring out a bowl and a whisk, bowls, especially mixing bowls are notorious space hogs in automatic dishwashers.

In my family, that's immediate hand-washing material. There's no way that's going to fit in the dishwasher. There's no way that's going to go into the dishwasher. It's either two dishwasher runs that day or you're hand-washing the bowls. I sometimes use the bowls inverted to keep the baby bottles upside down from flip, you know, the light plastic baby bottles from flipping.

Oh, dishwasher hack. I like that. So yeah, we have some, yeah. Okay. That's great. So in that case, that's a double duty. The bowls are keeping the bottles down before we get to the salt. What do you think about beating an egg in a coffee cup with a butter knife? Well, so I would, I would suggest, first of all, swapping out the butter knife for a pair of chopsticks. I think that'll get you more effective beating. You know, if, if, if you don't have chopsticks at home, then whatever butter knife, I guess is okay. I don't know why you wouldn't use a fork. But, you know, but,

but it really depends on your goal, you know, with, with, with beating the eggs, like, you know, for a fluffy American style scrambled eggs, you know, where they kind of come goal, you know, with, with, with beating the eggs, like, you know, for a fluffy American style scrambled eggs, you know, where they kind of come out, you know, fluffy and relatively dry as opposed to sort of custardy and dense. One of the, one of the keys to getting to that goal is, well, using relatively high heat in your pan so that the eggs puff up as they hit, but also trying to incorporate air into them as you're beating them. So, you know, if that's your goal, then using a bowl and a whisk is going to get more air or a bowl and a fork is going to get more air into the eggs. If you don't really care for that, then sure, beat them in whatever you want. You know, sometimes I like to just pour my,

dump my eggs into the pan and, you know, stir them around in the pan a little bit. So they're kind of half scrambled and, you know, it just depends what you want. Then you don't have to wash the, the, the mug or the butter knife at all. Yeah. Because he didn't use them. Yeah. Or you just get,

you know, get a, get a McDonald's sandwich and you don't have to wash anything. I don't know much about Chris's wife because Chris, first of all, refuses to even name her in his letter. Second of all, second of all,

I think Chris's point of view is that she just wants to get this over with because there are there are kids involved i added this letter down but he's like please order my wife to stop serving our kids egg leather so i think i think her goal might be just get it over with as quickly as possible but well yeah i think you should also ask the kids their opinion on this that's true you should i mean the people who are eating the food off to have to weigh in i suppose but now kenji last year you uh you put a revolutionary scrambled egg method out on the internet and the internet shut down for several days it could handle the traffic it involved a potato starch slurry right um and it made very creamy eggs really creamy eggs like it was incredible

but i did notice then and i'll bring it up now that you salted the eggs before beating which i had always been told was a was a no and then another no what they call a no no right um because it would make the eggs watery or some or bad or something. But I've since seen recipes aside from yours that say, yeah, go ahead and do it. What's your opinion there? Well, it's not opinion. It's fact based on testing. What a relief. Salting your eggs before beating them is fine. I think the idea that they've turned watery comes from the fact that when you, when you salt them before beating them, the actual raw beaten eggs will be thinner. Especially if you let it sit like for, you know, overnight, they'll become very, very thin. You know, and the reason that happens is because there's proteins

that are denaturing from the salt. However, what that means is that when they actually cook, the protein matrix that forms and begins to tighten as the eggs get heated up and start to set, what can happen is that if you overcook the eggs a little bit, that protein matrix is going to tighten up really hard. And eventually it's going to start squeezing moisture out and the eggs are going to start weeping. it's going to start squeezing moisture out and the eggs are going to start weeping. And so that can lead to eggs that are either tougher than they should be or eggs that once you put them on a plate, water will kind of start to weep out of them. Salting them in advance will actually prevent that from happening. So if you do side-by-side eggs that are salted in advance versus eggs that are salted after cooking, on the plate, the eggs that are salted in advance will be more tender, uh, and also retain moisture, uh, better. Um, you know, that said, if you don't want salt in your eggs, you know, um, you know, I mean, don't invite me to breakfast, but also,

you know, that's, that's your decision. That's people have different salt tolerances. John, you know how I like to do my eggs? No. No fat, no heat, only salt. I just salt them down the hatch. You bake them in a salt crust. No, no heat. I just go ahead and open the old jaw, throw some salt in there and eat a whole egg. I eat the shell too. Do you like squish them around between your teeth with your cheek muscles to perform a slurry or do you just... Yeah, yeah, do a slurry. But it's important to have the shell in there because you've got to have roughage. That's what a doctor will tell you. So Chris's wife, who I know has a name and is a whole human

being in her own right, it sounds to me, and correct me if I'm wrong here kenji it should be our it should be the order of this court that you should go ahead and salt those eggs before you beat them and that you the butter knife is not a ideal implement for aerating those eggs especially if you're going to be compromising by using a coffee mug to begin with maybe if you get a one of your larger mugs and a fork or some chopsticks, that might lend to a better texture, ultimately. Yeah, like a large bowl-shaped mug made of metal.

A large bowl-shaped mug made of metal and ideally without a handle. All right, let's move on. Here's a case from Allah, or possibly Ayah. When I make a pot of soup, I let it cool on the counter overnight. My husband is convinced it should be put in the refrigerator immediately for fear of it growing bacteria. I come from a long line of hearty Eastern Europeans who left their soup out at room temperature without ever getting sick. Then again, we also ate raw garlic.

Kenji, can soup stay out overnight before refrigeration? I have multiple personal connections to this question. The first one being that I made some chicken stock last night, and it was late at night, and I didn't put it away before I went to bed. I made it in a Dutch oven. I heated it up. I put the top on the Dutch oven and I just let it sit on the counter until this morning. And it's at room temperature and I'm going to be serving it to my family later this week. So I think you can see what side I'm going to come down on already. So first of all, yeah, if you're making soup, especially if you put the lid on after it's been

heated and it's a heavy lid, there's, you know, the soup is simmering. It's going to be sterile in there. There's nothing that's going to fall into it. It's going to be fine sitting on the counter. There's another reason why you wouldn't want to put it in the fridge immediately after making it. And this is something that years ago when I was at Cooks Illustrated, I tested. I had a friend there, Will Gordon, who's a, who's a writer. I think he writes for Deadspin now. He's a very funny writer, but, but he had this joke that he was a copy editor at Cooks Illustrated. And he had a, he had a joke that all we ever did was test whether soup cools effectively or not. Because that was, that was a very common test in the kitchen. But the test that I did was specifically, I took various volumes of soup at various temperatures

and put them into various fridges around the test kitchen and then monitored the temperature of the soup and the temperature of the fridge. Going from boiling hot down to room temperature, putting soup in the fridge, especially if you're putting it in the pot that you cooked it in, actually doesn't take much longer at room temperature than it does in the fridge, especially if you're putting it in the pot that you cooked it in, is actually doesn't take much longer at room temperature than it does in the fridge.

You know, it takes I think it was something like 10 percent longer at room temperature to come down to room temperature than it does in the fridge to come down to room temperature. The downside of putting it in the fridge is that it heats up everything else in your fridge. So if you put, you know, a few quarts of soup, hot soup into the fridge, the temperature of the fridge will go up above like 50, 55 degrees. And that's bad. Yeah. That's bad for everything else in your fridge. So what I recommend is leaving your soup out at room temperature until it comes down to room temperature and then transfer it to your fridge. You know, preferably in smaller containers, because I don't like putting large pots into the fridge. And overnight is not, is not going to. You know, I don't want to, I don't want to give advice.

I could get someone killed, but I do. I personally do it. You know, I leave the lid on. I make sure I put the lid on while it's still hot. And then I just leave it until I'm ready to put it away. Quick follow-up, Kenji. Ketchup in the refrigerator. Yes or no.

We have one listener named Amelia who says, yes, put it in the fridge. That's what it says on the label. Refrigerate after opening. Mark says that the acid, salt and sugar make it spoilage proof. Yeah. Well, it's not. It's not. Spoilage is not really the issue.

It comes down more to appearance is the, is the main thing that's going to change with ketchup out of the fridge. So, you know, I, the reason I know this is because I'm at my restaurant. That's not my restaurant anymore, but at Wurstall, you know, we were a, a sausage, a sausage house and we had ketchup in bottles. And early on, we would leave the ketchup out at room temperature, um, and found quickly that the, uh, the ketchup kind of changes color. It

gets dark. Um, uh, whereas if you refrigerate it, it stays, um, the color it's supposed to, but yeah, once it gets exposed to oxygen, all that diner ketchup is that dark Brown. Yes. It's exposure to oxygen, uh, and light that does that. So you want to, it's probably not, you know, it's not going to mold. It's not going to go bad there. You know, it is very low water activity because it's very high in sugar and salt and acid. But if you want your Heinz ketchup to look as bright and fresh as the day you open the bottle, then you should keep it in the fridge. One last question. I had some chorizo the other morning.

Dried chorizo. The Spanish kind. The Spanish kind. Like it was in a ring, but it was inside of a package. And it had been open, and I ate some of it. And then I put the package back in the fridge

where it had been, and it says, consume within 10 days after opening the package. And this had probably been a thousand days since I opened that. Am I a ghost now? You know, those, the labels that tell you expiration dates and best buy dates and all those things, those are all voluntarily placed on packaging by manufacturers. And they, they really are there only for quality. It's, it's, it has

nothing to do with how safe it is to eat because those are sort of unpredictable things. It all depends on how much bacteria you have in your kitchen, how someone stores it. Yeah. It really is much more to do with the manufacturer wanting to make sure that someone eats it while it's going to be looking and tasting its best. And, you know, so I actually wrote I wrote an article about this in The New York Times early on in the pandemic when people were wondering, how long is this, you know, is the toilet paper I hoarded going to last, which you can find online. But yeah, those expiration dates are are not defined by anything other than the manufacturer wanting to make sure you don't get mad at them because your ketchup changed color.

We received a lot of emails about this. And so everyone should go Google Kenji Lopez alt, New York Times expiration, best by date, and probably they'll find that article, right? Yeah. And they can educate themselves. Fantastic. You can even just Google Kenji. I mean, you know about my life hack, John, which is Googling Kenji taters.

Oh, those potatoes, those roast potatoes are so good. As long as it's not something that came up in the classical Japanese novel, The Tale of Genji, I think you'll probably be okay Googling Kenji and whatever the ingredient is. K-E-N-J-I and the ingredient. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, hot bread. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast,

The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace, because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-P-P-O-D-C-A-S-T-I. Hmm. Were you trying to put the name of the podcast there? Yeah, I'm trying to spell it, but it's tricky. Let me give it a try. Okay. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, call S-T-O-P-P-P-A-D-I.

It'll never fit. No, it will. Let me try. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-P-P-P-D-C-O-O. Ah, we are so close. Stop podcasting yourself. A podcast from MaximumFun.org. If you need a laugh and you're on the go.

Judge Hodgman, we're taking a quick break from clearing the docket. You have a television program on television on the FXX network. It's called Dicktown. Yes, Jesse. But for how much longer? Not much. For this week is it the end of Dicktown? Our final two mysteries of Dicktown season two air on FXX on Thursday night, March 31st, and then stream on Hulu the next day. Do John Huntsman

and David Purifoy ever team up to solve mysteries again? Why does Lance need a ramp for his snake? And what secret clue is hidden deep inside of John Huntsman's mind palace? Will there be a season three of Dicktown? The answers to two of these questions are revealed this week, so please tune or stream in. As for the unanswered questions, A, I don't know why Lance needs a snake ramp, but I do know that Griffin Newman, who plays Lance, is going to get an Emmy for his portrayal. Please check him out this week. And as for season three, I don't know. I have no idea.

But we do know that your support, especially you, the listeners of Judge John Hodgman, your support made the difference last time. So if you liked season two of Dictown, please continue to tell your friends online and off, write a review, make a tweet, share your fan art, let them know about our season finale on Thursday on FXX and by Friday, the 1st of April. April fools, the whole Dictown cycle, seasons one and two will finally be complete on Hulu at bit.ly slash Dicktown. Watching it after the fact really helps as well. And Jesse, with your okay, David and I will do an Ask Me Anything on the MaxFun subreddit on Friday afternoon at 3 p.m. Eastern.

That's not an April Fool. That's a promise. Is that okay with you, Jesse? Absolutely not. It's Dicktown, kids. Bit.ly slash Dicktown. 3 p.m. on Friday, April 1st. You can do it, John. It's okay. you, Jesse? Absolutely not. It's Dicktown, kids. Bit.ly slash Dicktown. 3 p.m. on Friday, April 1st. You can do it, John.

It's okay. Thanks, buddy. I mean, you're going to have to run it by KPlaysBase. It's one of the... One of the mods? One of the mods there. You can run it by KPlaysBase. We're going to do it anyway.

3 p.m. Eastern, April 1st. Maximum Fun subreddit. Ask me anything. Ask us anything. Me and David Reese. What do you have going on? Well, in my shop, the Put This On shop, which is online at putthisonshop.com, of course, last week we had our big launch of trading cards, including – I even – look, there's so many Dune trading cards.

There's Dinosaurs Attack trading cards. All kinds of packs of unopened trading cards from times of yore. I put this on shop.com. A little more sartorial though, only moderately more. I bought a huge lot of, you know, those brass belt buckles from the seventies. Of course. I love them. Yeah. They're great. I bought a huge lot of name belt buckles, happened to find one in there that said Jesse. So I've got a belt that says Jesse in it. But I have not only like literally, I think, a couple hundred name brass name belt buckles from the 70s, but also states and also an interesting variety. There's one that says 4x4. All kinds.

All kinds of brass belt buckles and a fair number of beautiful silver belt buckles for those of you who are a little classier rather than brassier. And if you've never had a brass belt buckle or if you've never bought just a buckle on its own, they're so great. They're so cool.

And it is so easy to go onto an online retailer and just get a belt. Yeah. Simple as can be shipped to your home. Uh, doesn't even have to be the online retail you're thinking of. And you just, and there's no, you just, they have snaps, you snap the thing in and all of a sudden you're wearing your name on your beneath your navel. I bought mine from an online retailer that specializes in vintage and handmade goods. I found a belt maker there. I think it cost me $25 or something like that for a really high quality belt.

So putthishonshop.com is the place to shop. And look, it's not just belt buckles and trading cards. We have all kinds of beautiful things there. The perfect thing for your next gifting occasion, Father's Day, coming down the pike, maybe somebody's birthday. Put this on shop.com. Let's get back to the docket. it from your local bookstore, online, or even from your local warehouse retailer right now. And in fact, if you go to the warehouse retailer, John, this is my recommendation. Yeah.

Just buy a pallet and pass them out to your friends. Buy a pallet of the walks? Yeah. Buy a pallet of the walk, pass it out to your friends. You got holidays coming up. People have birthdays. People might need to even out a table. All these reasons are great reasons to buy a full palette. At the end of the day, you've got a bonus palette for your own use.

Exactly. Oh man. Just think about how much easier it's going to be to move stuff around with your forklift. You could repurpose it into a, you could build one of those palette couches to sit and read your collection of books. Yeah. Kenji, as you know, the past couple of years, we've seen a surge of people learning to bake bread for the first time. This huge influx of sourdough mother lovers. This is wonderful, of course, but no one is counting the human cost. We have two cases for you of families torn apart by bread. A quick one and a more lengthy one. So here's the quick one.

Jesse will read the more lengthy one. Question. Does rye bread after baking need to be cooled for 12 or more hours before consumption? Baker Brian says that his research on the internet says yes, cool that bread, that rye bread. But his partner, Allison, says he's denying her and their children that hot, that rye bread. But his partner, Alison says he's denying her and their children that hot, hot bread they crave. Do you have to cool rye bread? Is something special about

rye bread? You need to cool it for 12 hours? Well, I'm not specifically rye bread, but in general, most bakers will tell you to let your bread cool before cutting it open before selling it before serving it um the reason being it's not just about cooling um it's it's really about um the process it's sort of like a controlled staling process um so when people think of staling they think of um you know bread drying out but really there's more to it than that there's what's actually going on is the recrystallization of starch molecules so starch starch, when you mix it with water, it gelatinizes and it forms this kind of soft, you know, a very sort of soft, sludgy mixture. And when you bake it, that sets up, you know,

the air expands and that sets up into the gluten and the, you know, the strands and the bread that give it its structure. Bread fresh out of the oven, if you cut into it, it has a sort of gummy texture because the gelatinized starch molecules have not had a chance to recrystallize and form a more solid form yet. And so when you slice bread out of the oven, it's difficult to get a gauge of its sort of crumb structure and how well you let it, you know, how well you let it proof, how well you

develop its gluten, all those things that bakers really care about. And so a baker wants to, you know, they put in this work to get the crumb structure exactly right. And they want to be able to see and appreciate that. And they want to see their own work. Exactly. And they want other people to see and appreciate it. They don't care if their children are hungry for bread. They want to see that crystallized crumb structure. Exactly.

And that's why you, you know, bakers will typically allow their bread to cool before serving it. You know, what I typically do when I, you know, I also will typically allow their bread to cool before serving it. You know, what I typically do when I, you know, I also started baking during the, during the pandemic. And I actually did this big piece for the New York Times where I, you know, I did this update of the, the old no-knead bread article, no-knead bread recipe, Jim Leahy's no-knead bread recipe, and interviewed a ton of bread bakers about this, all of whom saw a huge uptick in their book sales during the pandemic. But I baked a lot of bread, and my general solution to this was- You're saying you're owed a piece.

You're saying you're owed a piece. What I do is I take the bread out of the oven. It'd be terrible if something happened to this fresh bread of yours. I cut off a big chunk. I tear it and eat it, and then I leave the rest to cool. And, you know, the part where you, the part right where you cut it kind of dries out a little bit and gets that sort of smeared look where you can't really exactly see the crumb structure. But you're left with enough bread that you can then. On the other side of the bread, you can see, you can admire your work.

Exactly. I got to tell you this, John. Yeah. In the early days of the pandemic, as you know, Jen knows, it was a very, very difficult time for my family. And I've moved since those times. And one of the things that I miss most is I had these two neighbors, Chris and Stephanie. They happen to be Judge John Hodgman listeners. They figured it out later. John Hodgman listeners. They figured it out later. But Chris is a microbiologist, I think. And he got really into bread baking and sourdough because of his particular nerdery. And they started making really nice sourdough bread and bringing it to us when we were like, you know, could barely move from our life circumstances. And yeah, I guess I'm just saying thanks to them because they listened to this.

And, you know, feel free to come down the hill and bring us bread at our new house. So it's those two things, I guess. Yeah, I mean, baking bread, as with all cooking, it's an act of generosity to it. And, you know, that actually plays into our next case. Why don't you read it, Jesse? Here's a case from Laura. Like many during the pandemic, my father, Wayne, learned to bake sourdough bread. He's very good at it, and we love eating it.

But I have come to resent the process, especially when I come to visit for the weekend. The day before baking, the dough must be folded at regular intervals. He says he can't leave the house that day or the bread will be ruined. On baking days, he must bake the bread before we can do anything as a family. Scheduling our lives around the bread is hard and leads to charged arguments in which he threatens to throw the bread in the trash. He also won't let us cut the bread when it's slightly warm

because it's, quote, not ready yet. Aha, this again. Even his four- four year old grandchild begging for bread has not swayed him. Kenji, shouldn't we be allowed to eat the bread when it's slightly warm? And is there a way to make a good bread that is less onerous? Well, listen,

I think, you know, I think the person making the bread should be the one that gets to decide when the bread is eaten. That said, I do think he should probably give in a little bit because I mean, I think it's I think it's cruel to to not be allowed to to break into a warm loaf of bread, to see the steam coming out and to think to yourself, oh, how is the butter going to melt into that hole there? And then watch as the butter does, you know, because you can't do that with a fully cooled, you know, what a baker would call a proper loaf of bread. So Wayne the baker is not wrong that it is not ready yet.

Once it, when it just comes out of the oven, it is not at its peak perfection. As you mentioned earlier, the bread is not crystallized and the crumb is not set. Right. By a baker's, from a baker's perspective, it's not at peak readiness yet. Is there a way that Wayne can give his four-year-old grandchild what he wants, that soft, hot, warm bread that butter just sinks into, while also measuring the crumb structure? Does he need to make two loaves, one for the trash people in his house and one for him, or what? What I would suggest to him is to start the bread making process before the family comes to visit for the weekend. Start it a day ahead so that you can, by yourself, be at home doing all this stuff.

And so that the bread is ready to bake the next day while you are out, you know, you go out with your family, you come home, you bake the bread and make a little bit of extra, you know, you're from the recipe that he attached. It looks like he's working with baker's percentages, which means that it's very easy to scale, you know, scale the whole recipe up by 50%, take that extra 50% and turn it into a small, you know, dinner rolls, something like that, that you can bake alongside the other one or bake after the other one that you can feed to your family warm. And then the next day you can serve them the, you know, the big loaf that you've made to your particular specifications. I think it's a little bit of extra work, but you know, I think the, um,

the family harmony, uh, and pleasing your four-year-old, uh, grandchild is probably worth it. And your daughter presumably as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned the recipe, Laura did send in a picture of this recipe, um, the bread plan for February the 4th, 2022. I wonder if Wayne, her father, knows she took this picture. As well as pictures of the two loaves, which they look pretty good to me. Did you see those photos of these two loaves of bread? I did, yes. Yeah, they do look pretty good.

They look like pretty good loaves. Like, I want to eat them out of that oven right now. The level of specificity in this bread plan is incredible to me. Like, either Wayne was some kind of project manager before he took up bread making, apparently full time, or possibly this is how he learned to make sourdough in the Navy or something. I think it's a new thing. I think he learned during the pandemic i mean he's got the url for the recipe right here from food52.com table loaf but yeah this is this recipe is intense i didn't mean to cut you off there jesse was there something else

you want to say i just 93 degree water he's got he's got his he's got his folds timed out in military time yeah i mean this this is not uncommon this is not uncommon for um for bread recipes 14 30 fifth fold and you know laura pointed out that that he has a system of awarding certain lines of the recipe, little trophy emojis. So the whole bread plan gets one to five trophies. Proofing an oven with light on temperature was between 75 and 78, three trophies. This is obviously a love language to himself. I do like the also the I am very happy, followed by a smiley face emoji. I'm so glad you caught that. I mean, just in case you didn't know what a happy person looks like.

To me, you know, we try to find the crux of the case here. Whenever someone has a dispute with their loved one, their partner, their roommate or whatever, there's usually the surface of the dispute. And then there's the crux, the underneath stuff that is being dealt with here. The crumb. The crumb, if you will i don't think wayne is a crumb but i think he's being a little bit of a crumb bum to his family no offense wayne but i understand you because this one line was so excellent pre-shape with good tension lots of bubbles i am very happy it was just a little

poem to himself because i i presume, and from context, that if you're visiting your dad and he is a grandfather, that you are visiting your dad, Laura, as an adult. So that suggests, and this is a new thing for him, and that suggests that this bread baking is a weird older dad hobby. And in a sense, this isn't about making bread for his family. I mean, he might as well be in the basement all weekend, tending to his model railroad or organizing his beta max video cassette collection, old car races or whatever, you know? And the reason that he's doing this, I think is the reason that all of us now, Kenji,

your kids are little, right? I have a five-year-old and a six-month-old. Yeah. Enjoy your babies. Jesse Thorne, enjoy your baby. Jennifer-old yeah enjoy your babies jesse thorn enjoy your baby jennifer marmer enjoy your babies i don't got babies anymore i got one i got one out of the house i have one getting ready to go you know you know i'm going to be organizing my betamax cassettes pretty soon this is what dads do i got nothing to raise anymore neither is wayne he's got nothing to father anymore but the mother the. He's got nothing to father anymore, but the mother, the sourdough starter. And he's distracting himself from the loss in his life and consoling himself. And all the fear and solitude of the ongoing pandemic only makes this more acute.

So, Wayne, I get your pain and confusion. But the difference between organizing your Betamax sets and baking bread is cooking is supposed to be about generosity. Yes, it is a hobby, much like painting a D and D miniature. It is a, is a solitary art of self-perfection, but it is also,

you are feeding your family. And I agree with you, Kenji, like organize your bread baking around your family. Don't make your family organize themselves around your bread baking. And honestly, Laura, I would be plain with him about this. Like I would say, uh, I'm not visiting. And, and I believe this grandchild is not Laura's child, but Laura's, uh,

niece or nephew. It's like, you know, you're hurting us when you, when you yell at us and say, you're going to throw the bread in the garbage. I mean, that's no fun for anybody. That's not good. Wayne, I appreciate that you're managing your transition from vitality and relevance to being a weird older dad, but you need to be generous with your bread, not stingy. Kenji, so grateful to you for taking all this time to be on the show. Yeah, thank you for having me again. How great it is to get to talk to you every single time.

Kenji's books are solid gold. The Walk is the new one. The Food Lab is the classic. Both of those are available for your food and eating needs don't forget every night is pizza night yeah every night is pizza night his children's book a wonderful children's book a best selling children's book

you can find all of those in bookstores you can also find Kenji writing the occasional column in the New York Times you can find him gallivanting about the Seattle area on Instagram, uh, flipping people's wigs, uh, when he comes to there. This is like the new, you know, in Los Angeles for many years, John, we had Jonathan Gold driving around in his weird pickup truck, uh, going into, going into restaurants and, and asking them what they, what they ate in their home village and if they can cook that for him.

Um, and, uh, Kenji is doing that only it's for that one kind of, uh, that one kind of hamburgers that people in Seattle like so much. What's that called? Dicks. Yeah. Dicks. Um, yeah. So, uh, check out all of those Kenji things.

Uh, you can also, he's got a huge archive of classics over at Serious Eats. And some new stuff coming up actually on Serious Eats. Ooh la la. I love it. Thank you, Kenji. Thanks for all your great work. J. Kenji Lopez Alt. I noticed that J. Kenji Lopez Alt because as you know, John Hodgman, Jesse Thorne, Jennifer Marmer, we're the J-Squad. Our main man in Maine, Joel Mann, along with Jean Grey, guest bailiff Jean Grey, and summertime fun time guest bailiff Jaunty Monty Belmonte, the J-Squad, you're always welcome here, with or without your first initial.

Thank you very much, Kenji. Thank you. The docket is clear. That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman. Our huge thanks to our friend J. Kenji Lopez-Alt for joining us today. Our producer is Jennifer Marmer. Our editor is Valerie Moffitt. You can follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman. We're on Instagram at Judge John Hodgman. Make sure to hashtag your Judge, John Hodgman, tweets hashtag JJHO, and check out the Maximum Fun subreddit at MaximumFun.reddit.com.

You know what Reddit I've been looking at lately, John? Submechanophobia? No, dogs on roofs. Pretty good. That's a whole subreddit for roof dogs. We're looking for your springtime related cases. Spring has arguably sprung disputes we're looking for involve gardens or flowers or seasonal allergies or anything had to do with some

of the great spring holidays passover easter eid alfitter and other spring holidays what about irish spring soap clean as a whistle spring Spring water. Spring-heeled jack. The jumping demon of English folklore. Oh, what if you're the guy who rented my wife a house when she was teaching in Springs, New York 25 years ago, and you now want to seek compensation for the sofa that her cat destroyed? Good luck, buddy. You're not getting it. Any cases related to spring in any way, be creative. Let us know at MaximumFun.org slash JJHO.

That's MaximumFun.org slash JJHO. And look, we'll hear any dispute. We're looking especially for spring disputes right now, but no case is too big or too small. Submit your cases at MaximumFun.org slash JJHO. You are the lifeblood of our program. We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.