July 25, 2023 • 53 mins
Host Bryan Ford is joined by three-time James Beard Award finalist, Natasha PIckowicz. Her pastry work intersects with community organizing at her wildly popular pop-up Never Ending Taste. which explores the relationship between baking and social justice, and raises funds for causes such as women’s reproductive health rights. Her recipes and writing have been published in every food publication you could think of, including Vanity Fair, Bon Appetit, Food and Wine, and The New York Times. As a sophisticated pastry chef, naturally, Natasha asked Bryan to make her a homemade version of a classic delicacy— Entenmann’s Chocolate Donuts.
Watch Bryan make his version and Subscribe: Youtube
Recipe from today's episode can be found at Shondaland.com
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Natasha Pickowicz IG: @natashapickowicz
Bryan Ford IG: @artisanbryan
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Flaky Biscuit is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, fam to the Flaky Biscuit Podcast.
Thank you so much for coming back to listen to
me talk about how I'm cooking up delicious morsels of nostalgia.
You already know. In each episode, I'm making a meal,
(00:23):
whether it's baked or cooked or whatever, recipes that have
comforted and guided our guests to success. Faun I'm talking
about I'm making something from scratch, and it could be
something out of vending machine. It could be your grandma meatballs,
you heard me. It could be some dumplings, it could
be whatever. I'm making it from scratch, trying to recreate
that proost effect for my guests, to make them feel
(00:44):
warm and love like they used to back in the day. Y'all,
just tune it in if you don't know who I
am for some random reason, because I do believe that
all seven billion people on earth know who Brian Ford is.
I am Brian Ford. I write cookbooks, do some TV stuff.
I'm a baker and I just love to make people smile,
including the wonderful guest that we have today here in
(01:05):
the kitchen. An absolutely phenomenal person all right, New York
City based chef and writer. Three time James Beard Foundation
Award finalists, she is named in Time one Hundred's Next.
Found that one hundred people, Who's next? One of them's
right here. Much of our Patriotork explores a relationship with
baking and social justice, and her debut cookbook, More Than Cake,
(01:29):
which weaves unique baking recipes with stories of her family
and social justice and food history. Wherever you're going, whatever
you're doing, go buy this book and make some cakes
and all this beautiful stuff. Welcome, Natasha, Pickleliz, what's up?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Wow? Thank you, Brian. So awesome to be here. That's
like the best introduction ever. Can you just like always
be my hyper Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
You should. Will give you the raw file and you can.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Like, I'll just play it every time room.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
You got to play it on loop anytime you go
somewhere and meet people. Oh, you don't know who I am.
I'm sorry, holand you got headphones, So thank you for that.
One hundred percent. So I'm very thrilled to have you
on here, especially during this pivotal moment in your cookbook career. Man,
it's going to be super exciting.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I'm really really thrilled. And so speaking of recipes, this
is a Flaky Biscuit podcast. So you already know what
we do. I want you to tell the listeners what
is your nostalgic meal? What did you have me make
and why? Before I explain what I did and you
taste my version of it, tell us what it is.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
You know when you shared this prompt with me, I
think I didn't want to overthink it a ton, and
I just wanted to go with like a gut thing
that I missed, or like a feeling or a moment.
I'm a baker, I'm a pastry chef. The way that
I eat baked goods now is I want the best
and the most from scratch with the best ingredients. There's
not a lot of my diet where I'm like eating
(02:45):
things that our mass produce has been sitting on a shelf.
But when you're little, at least for me, like those
were the things I like, fantasized, lusted after, and it
wasn't allowed to have like it was taboo accepts. So
I grew up in Lahoya, which is like this tiny
village part of San Diego that's like on the beach.
(03:05):
And so every single weekend when I was growing up,
my parents and I would go down to the Lahoya
Shores and we would spend every Sunday morning there. It
was like a tradition. If you've grown up in southern California,
like on the beach, you know that the beach isn't
just for like tanning on. People are going out in
December January in hoodies and jackets and like you're bundled up.
(03:30):
It's just about being outside. And so I have these
like super powerful memories of going to the beach with
my parents on the weekend in the morning and going
to this convenience store that was right by the beach,
and this was really special. I look forward to it
all week because that was when I could pick out
(03:50):
one thing and it could be anything I wanted, and
that would be like my breakfast. And my parents would
do the same thing too. My mom would always get
the palmiers, you know, the big elephant ears of the
like kind of flaky puff pastry sugary thing, and Dad
would get like the newspaper. They'd get coffee. We'd set
up the chairs and so I would like agonize over
(04:12):
what this thing was gonna be, Like what is the
tree going to be? You know? Sometimes I go savory,
like sometimes I would eat an entire bag of goldfish
for breakfast. But most of the time, the thing that
I would get were these donuts from Entimens, which is
(04:33):
this sort of kind of like a cult chain bake
good thing. They make so many different things, but my
favorite thing that they made were these cake donuts that
were enrolled in this thin layer of chocolate ganache. But
it was kind of crisp, like the ganash is kind
of cracked in your mouth, and then like the donut
(04:54):
is really sweet. He's like vanilla cakey crumbly. Anyway, so
I get like a whole and I would just eat
all of them, read the cartoons, and then run around
on the beach and like collect shells or whatever. Fast
out Wow. So anyway, that was what I wanted to
see you to do, because I know you're like masterful baker.
(05:15):
You know, I'm not gonna have you make my mom's
fried rice. You know, it's just like.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Ooh shots fire, like you know, Brian Fordy making it
as good as your mom. So why are we you
eve gonna play that game? That's what you said.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I mean, I think it's always really interesting when you're
like when bakers are like we're making Housemaid like think
Dong or whatever, or like we're making our version of
the breadsticks from Olive Garden. It's always really interesting to
see how that kind of thing translates when you actually
have a person making something in like a smaller quantity,
not with you know, palm oil or whatever. So yeah,
(05:48):
I'm like very curious.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
First of all, I just have to say, I think
the listeners, like if I was listening to that, I mean,
you was building it up. You was building up the
hype this one item that I got. Sometimes I went sweets.
Sometimes I want to say, I mean you had a
different options and things. It wasn't you told us what
your parents got to damn.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
So what happened in the nineties It was kind of
like an Intimate's era, the weird low fat baked goods
in a box trend right right right, all of these
diet baked goods. But then Intimates was sort of they
had the carrot cake with like the icing raked across
and the you know, walnut sprinkled on top. They had
this like Devil's food cake with marshmallow frosting.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
So you're a intemen's connoisseur.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
As I'm saying it, I'm realizing that I was okay.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Good, because we're going put that to the test later. Yeah,
we're putting that to the test in our flaky game.
You're talking it up, real quod talent is really it
has evolved since then. Ah, come on, let me tell
you something right now. When I made this recipe, I
didn't grow up eating Intimates. I don't even think they
got that in the stuth. Actually, in fact, they probably
don't because a couple of fun facts. This is a
New York based Intimates is a New York based company,
(06:54):
and it started in the city, but they I think
they moved it out into Long Island. What was going down.
William Ntiman was like, sick, there's out there, there's aim.
He was sick, and his doctor was like, yo, you
need to get out the city, and he was trying
to bake this stuff. So they moved it out to
Long Island and then they shut down the bread production
of it, and they focus specifically on the cakes and
(07:15):
the little things. The pies and the sweet treats types
of things. So they don't make bread no more out
though I'd be curious to try Intimin's bread French. I
bet it would be far baked, Like there's like super pale,
heavy ones that apparently you just toast for five minutes
and then it comes out like an authentic Parisian baguette. Damn,
my bad Intimates. Maybe I'll make better brand than that.
(07:36):
This was a little harsh for the Intimate's reps that
were listening here to give me a Natasha sponsorship. We apologize,
We're still down to receive your your money. No, but
I mean it's it's got It's got a crazy history.
You know, Frank Sinatra used to order it. They sell
scentic candles. I think they started making wine or something
like that. Whoa all kind of all kind of celebrities
like Yogi Berra, Whoopi Goldberg and all kinds of people
(07:58):
were in commercials for Intimin's, so people taste people people
would taste. But to that point in the South, what
I had actually was bimbo, you.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Know, bimbo like honey buns bimbo.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, and the powdered donuts. With the it because in Honduras,
in Latin America, we play with bimbo hard like, and
I think Bimbo ownsimens now. Oh yeah, I think there
was some kind of transaction that occurs now. So maybe
there's entemens in New Orleans now, But when I grew up,
I never saw it. I used to eat bimbos lit donuts.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
To this day, I prefer cake donuts to YaST it donuts.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
How are you gonna just I was about to make
my transition line to talk about the recipe, and you
just drop that bomb on me.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I just like I love fried though obviously I made
Bomboaloni at an Italian restaurant for years. Like I love
a yeast it donut, but I think a cake donut
scratches a specific itch where it's it's more deserty, so
it just feels like a little bit more of a tree.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Uh huh. But is a cake donut a donut if
there's no dough, well, there's no dough is better?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
It's batter?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Oh well is it a donut? I mean this is controversial.
I'm about to get messed over by everybody because they
people love cake donuts. But I don't even think that.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
I think it's fried.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Cake donuts are fried.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Cake donuts are fried.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, they're not baked.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I mean, if you want that delicious fried, I mean
there are some that are baked, but I don't think any.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Baked is frying the things or putting them in a
convection of it.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Definitely you think they're frying them, definitely.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Shoot, I mean I don't know. We don't have to
call them up. Yeah, somebody on the line.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Because part of it is like the intensity of the
crumb when it is deep fried. There's a richness to it.
It's not just it's not dry, you know, real moist.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
So as you can tell, I did not fry what
I made for you today, I clearly baked. Well I
didn't listen. I can't believe you. Let cake don'ts better
and you have to go back to it because you
said donuts for me, man, there's nothing more luscious a
fresh glazed donut. There's a place called Mary Lee's Donuts
and baton Aruge Louisiana's. Let me tell you, man, they
(10:09):
melt in your mouth. I mean like when you get
a proper glazed donut, you sid donut and you inhale
it and it just goes, it goes right down your throat.
That's for me. It's hard to beat.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
But I get also why make binaries out of everything? Like?
It doesn't there's nothing like this is better than that.
I'm like, I like the best version of everything.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Oh wow, that you're taking it to a different level.
You are right, I do like My favorite cake donut
are blueberry cake donuts.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Oh have you had the one at Pewter Pan.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yes, it's really good, it's really really really I.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Think it's like they must add it in like freeze
dried blueberries or something because it's.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Got that pot Let me actually walk you through my
process here, all right, so we can get to the
meat and potatoes. That is. Here's what I did, as
someone who doesn't eat entimens very often, of course, I
went and bought some Intimon's chocolate donuts.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
What did you think, yo?
Speaker 1 (10:59):
They're their fire and honestly, texturally and from a flavor
profile perspective, the Entimate's chocolate lazed donut. It's something that
I might unfortunately start buying. My doctor gonna tell me
to stop. Type thing like I'm about to have them
on deck and it's so.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Interesting, like when you scale them up and down, because
I think the bigger ones are actually better. Because it's
sort of like, do you like the regular sized Reese's
peanut butter cup or the little minis? Ooh, because there's
only one answer here.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Well, I like the mini ones. Oh what why can't
I like the mini ones?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Because the bigger ones have a thinner shell of chocolate,
so you get more of the peanut butter. Oh. And
so for me, it's like the bigger donut. There's less
of the chocolate shell and you get more, just like
the ratios.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Interesting, I was thinking more of like I can just
pop the small ones in my mouth and eat the
whole thing. I mean, what's more gangster than that? I
understand that from a balance perspective, you're probably right. Experience,
I like, yeah, I like to just open up the
Lirisi's and then just pop them right in.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I had to like nibble the cup and then get
mostly the salty peanut butter greeny like paste.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Like I'm not saying I wouldn't want to do that,
all right, I'm just saying, like, well, anyway, so there's yeah,
so sour cream I use as the base here in
this donut mix that I made, some vanilla extract, all
purpose flour, some baking soda, a decent amount an egg,
melted butter. Right, melted butter is going to help things
(12:28):
be a little bit more enriched and moist inside than
a soft in butter. Some sugar. I went for white granulated,
And so what I did was I whisked together the
sour cream, the butter and the sugar, the vanilla and
the egg until it came into a nice cream. And
then I folded in the salt, flour and baking soda,
(12:48):
and it came out to be a nice like I said, battery.
You know, where's my bacon pan? I don't have because
I was baking them. I don't have a donut baking pan.
I just have a muffin tins, the muffin ones, so
you kind of I put aluminum foil. I bawled up
a bunch of aluminium ooil put in the middle so
that when I put the battery in, it had the hole.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
That's so smart. I mean, I don't like single use
baking stuff anyway. I'm like, I don't need a donut pam, dude, I.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Do, Yes, Finally, something we agree on.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
I'm like, that's why I'm like, if I'm making donuts,
I'll just won't even cut out the center.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah, oh snap, cut all right. So I made that,
baked it, and then I made a ganage, and then
I coated them with the ganage after they cooled, and
then I stuck them in the freezer. So I am
about to present to you the homemade Entiman's chocolate donut.
And like, remember, I really want to know if you're
going back to the beach in California. This is not
(13:41):
the hey Pat Bryan on the back show. This is
the real, recognized real. I know I don't have the
yellow dye number six and certain special things they got
in these packaged products, but I did my best. So
here we go. I'm gonna I'm gonna turn around real
quick and grab these for you. Wow, here we are.
Hold on, there's a presentation.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So the chrome looks perfect?
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Oh snap? Perfect crumb okay, okay, a sniff test. How's
it smell?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I mean, what kind of chocolate?
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Did you semi sweet dark chocolate.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Just tempered or did you put anything else?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Oh, Mama Mia, if you want to know, honestly, I
bought the chocolate. I forgot what they're called, but you
can just microwave them with a little bit of cream
and then it melts. For the listeners at home, this
is not an encouraging sign. She looks perplexed.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Okay, okay, oh shit, hello, you asked me a specific question.
And again, I feel like this goes back to what
we were talking about, with a specific sensation or memory
or feeling of something that you had, and then even
when you have the thing that's better, you're like, it's
(14:48):
not we talked about.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Can you edit a tear drop going down my eyes?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I think the main thing is not in the caked
on it, which is delicious, but it's in the chocolate coating.
And here's why. Shit, this ganash is delicious, but it
feels almost like a little bit more fudgy to me.
It's like a little chewy. It also tastes like it's
better chocolate than what you would buy at entimens. This
tastes like maybe more of like a dark chocolate, which
(15:15):
is what I'm more into now. But my memory of it,
I wonder what they used because it almost was I
think it was mostly a textural thing where it had
a snap to it. And so you're kind of like
cracking through this chocolate shell and getting into the cake.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
It's so good though, so let's just confirm this for
myself and for the listeners. I unfortunately was not able
to bring you back to the beach, was I.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I mean, I can't remember the last time I had
a donut like this, and I think that something you
see a lot with like yeasted donuts.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Damn, the hate is real.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I'm just gonna play something else. Is that what you
see on like yeasted donuts? And also cake donuts are
more like glazes, yes, but you don't really see like
ganash coated donut. This is unique because it's not really
something that I see.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I don't ever see it.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, it almost takes it into a bonbond territory. And
I don't want to say like cake pop.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
We don't want to touch that word because obviously.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It's intact cake. It's not like cake crumbs that are
like held together with something else. It's almost like a
candy shell with cake. And I think that is really
fucking delicious. So to me, I'm like, I would rather
have something like this any day over what that was.
But also I'm curious to taste the old ones now again.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
All right, fine, I'll give you an old one. And
that's wow. Man, I did so poorly. She wanted to
taste the actual Hold.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Where's that again? I think the way that you did
the donut, you don't need to fry it because it's
so delicious like this, I'm.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Gonna taste one right now. I'm handing Natasha a piece
of an actual Intemen's cape.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
First of all, this crumb looks like bullshit. It's gummy
on the bottom, but it also looks dry like it looks,
so they're even butter in this donut.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Here's the thing, though, is delicious, interesting, interesting, It's really
damn good.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Still, oh my god, this is so much sweeter than
your donut. This is like gross to me and comparison.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, it's making my jaws quiver.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
It doesn't even taste like chocolate. No, it almost tastes
like oranges or something. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Or maybe you're like no, it literally it literally tastes
like citrus. But it also doesn't taste like anything that
will be baked in that like a house.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
No, it's totally Yeah, this is objectively tasty, but like
when you have them side by side when you want.
I'm gonna sound so corny when I say this, but
like a distinct expression of chocolate or vanilla or butter.
It's like all those things come through in your work.
But then when I taste this, sorry enemens, I just
say sugar. Yeah, wow, And it's not crunchy like I remember.
(17:47):
I wonder if the formula changed.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
I feel like mine had more crunch. Maybe not more,
but because when you were when you was hating on
my crunch, I was like I thought I had a
little crunch on that.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah, definitely. It's so interesting how my memory is like
misread that or something.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Well, no, I don't think your memory misread that. I
think that that this this proost effect, right, like this nostalgia,
It isn't necessarily rooted in culinary expertise or excellence. It's
more rooted in kind of like that comforting sensation.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
You cannot recreate this memory that I had because the
memory was tainted by these good feelings of being free
on the beach and like spending time with my parents
and like that's like why it tastes yummy to me
in my mind.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
So you think you think that this nostalgia that tastes
of nostalgia can't really be recreated.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
It's like the salty ocean air, and it's like being
bundled up, and it's like not wearing shoes, and it's
like newspaper smell, and those are the things that swirl
into the memory of this one piece of the puzzle. Wow,
should we go to San Diego?
Speaker 1 (18:46):
We should? We should go right now? Pack it up.
I mean, honestly, the way that you just explained that
was phenomenal, and I think that's one of the core
important factors of this podcast is acknowledging that food and
nostalgia go hand in hand for everyone. I mean, I
don't know, maybe if you don't ever eat you won't
get this feeling. But I think if you've eaten anything
at any time, you're gonna have these strong memories attached
(19:10):
to it. And so tell me what you would do better.
Hit up that discord, tell me what you would do differently,
and also tell me if you grew up with intimens
and if it wasn't a chocolate donut, it's like maybe
it was something else. Tell me what your vibe was
and iftimens provided a nostalgic moment for y'all. You can
find all the links in the show notes. We're rolling
(19:30):
into commercials. Don't go anywhere. Enough of that. Back to
the interview, Oh man, let me tell you that things
(19:50):
got a little bit intense there. You know, we're talking
about Usidonus and all that kind of thing. But very
very very important note there about food nostalgia back then.
You talk about what you were going through back then.
For example, I mean it was not just the ocean
air in the newspapers, right, I mean your mom was
an immigrant. You know, what was your experience, you know,
as a Chinese American on the West Coast. How did
you allow food to kind of permeate your upbringing?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Air? Like?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
What was the deal?
Speaker 2 (20:14):
You know, it's really interesting because and I think it's
the kind of stuff that in retrospect I can kind
of reflect on it more and sort of understand what
mine was, especially through the lens of food. And my
mom immigrated to California when she's twenty seven, and then
she had me the following year and when she moved
to the US. So my mom is an artist. My
(20:35):
dad is a historian, a Chinese historian of like Chinese film,
and so They met when they were in Beijing when
he was there for post doctoral research.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
They met through his host family. She was in film
school at the time. They got married in China, which
in the early eighties precultural Revolution was like extremely hard
to do if you were a US citizen, and then
they went back to California together where my dad was
teaching at UC Sandy, where they both are still now.
So I think, and this is something that I feel
(21:05):
like I have more empathy for as I get older,
and I think what every child of an immigrant kind
of goes through to some degree. But in southern California
was my experience, which is you sort of want to
fit in, but I'm also like biracial, so there's the
sense of never being wide enough, or like never really
being Chinese enough. My mom was somebody who also like
(21:28):
didn't speak any English when she moved here, needed to
learn the language needed to assimilate. Had grown up in
malzudung Era, China, so basically, you know, no exposure to
pop culture, to food outside of the food that she
ate every day living in poverty. So I think that
there was an expectation or pressure for her to assimilate,
(21:50):
and also understand and not just necessarily lean on her
Chineseness as an identity. And so what that meant for me,
it was she spoke English to me as a way
of learning English instead of perhaps just speaking in Chinese
to me, because that was what she was most comfortable with.
So she was somebody who's always pushing herself outside of
(22:11):
her comfort zone. But then, you know, I sort of
saw my mom fall in love with very uniquely American things,
like the tradition of Costco. I grew up in San Diego,
and my mom had a Costco membership, and there would
become these like little treats that she had never had
her whole life and suddenly became obsessed with to the
(22:34):
point of squirreling them away and hiding them from me
and my dad. So she would buy like Costco sized
packs of peanut Eminem's, or she went through a Twinkies phase.
She's going to hear this and she's going to be like,
don't don't be boy toy keys, because she's like mad
healthy now. But back then, I think, wow, Yeah, we
went to Jack in the Box and the McDonald's on
(22:56):
the weekends, Like we were doing things that felt like
very American like getting the junk food, but it was
always as like a treat because at night we would
have dinner together and my mom would cook, and she
would make the food she knew how to make, which
is like exceptional, super tasty Chinese food, noodle soups, you know,
stewed braises and fried rice and whole steamed fish and
(23:19):
like incredible food.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
You know, cooking that for you because like that straight up.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
So I feel like I kind of had like this
experience of sort of both sides of things and also
wanting to be a kid and sort of have the
sugary cereals at home that I wasn't allowed to have
but other kids had because my mom would buy things
and then like hide them from everyone so we wouldn't
have them. But you know, it's at this point now
my mom has lived in the US longer than she's
(23:46):
lived in China, and my parents are live this extremely healthy,
like California lifestyle. When I have her cooking, I feel
like it is now this super contant trade an incredible
expression of the kind of food she used to make,
but now it's so clean, it's more simple than ever.
It'll be like a whole sea bass steamed with black
(24:11):
bean sauce and scallions and like that's it. But it's
really brothy and it's really yummy, and it's like, now
I can appreciate that. I'm not just like I want
spaghetti with the craft on top, right.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Right, right, right, right. Oh man, you just hit so
many crazy notes in my brain. I mean, I think
one thing that caught my ear specifically was your mom
speaking to you in English. I kind of relate to
that because my English is great, It's why I have
a podcast. But my Spanish, even though I understand it
when I speak it, it's not perfect. It's by no
(24:44):
means even close to being perfect. And it's one of
those things in my brain, I'm like, what was going on? So, like,
why would my parents they would talk to us in
Spanish and we would respond in English. And it was
first of all, my parents was working so hard that
it's hard to have children and try to preserve your
culture in America, especially in racist America of Louisiana. So
(25:05):
I think my parents was like, well, let's head to
our bets here. Let's just make sure they speak perfect English, right,
as long as y'all speak perfect English, Like we're cool. Yeah,
because we know when you go out in the world,
you'll be able to communicate without people making fun of
you like they make fun of us. Yeah, that and that,
like going back to those memories, Like it's difficult.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Sometimes it's such a funny thing. Like my parents would
sometimes speak in Chinese as a way of like exchanging
secret talking between them because they didn't want me to hear.
But then I could always kind of understand, and I
would be like, wait, what do you mean we're not
And they.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Would be like, wait, what.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
A big thing in southern California where there are like
huge Chinese populations is Chinese school. It's like, I'm very
much the thing where you would send Chinese American kids
to weekend school. I just call it Chinese school, and
you would basically like take these language classes as like
an elementary, middle school, high school student. And my parents
made me go, and I remember going and being like
(26:01):
the only half Chinese person that I could see in
the whole school, and like everybody was basically already fluent
in Mandarin, and it was so horrible. I just would
go home every day crying, begging my parents to take
me out. I would just be like this is not
No one is at the level I'm at. Everybody already
(26:21):
can speak Chinese, Like, this is not the right place
for me, And I think they felt really bad for
me and took me up. But then I took Chinese
in college. You go okay, right, kind of a happy ending,
and it was like one of the hardest things I've done,
but it was absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
So is that your way of like embracing your culture
in a way, like, because you know in college, like
you chose to do that.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Definitely, And I think now also as a chef, like
I've just been doing that more and more and more
and more. I'll be doing pop ups or working on
recipes for my book, or thinking about what my culinary
identity is, like what's in my toolbox, what's in my pantry,
and having so much fun around with ingredients that I
grew up with, but like thinking about them in different ways.
(27:04):
So like I just did this pop up at Golden Diner,
which is this incredible diner in Chinatown on Madison Street. Wow,
you know, I really wanted to do stuff inspired by Chinatown.
I did all my shopping at like Hong Kong Grocery
on Hester you know, we just had Thanksgiving. I wanted
to make my version of a punkin pie, but I
used candid zookie beans because I was thinking about like
the red beans stuffed pastries I grew up eating and loved,
(27:28):
and so I think now I'm like trying to draw
those memories and feelings and ingredients and stories back into
the pastry that I know how to make weird looking
layer cakes and like big cookies and like plated desserts
and things like that.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Wow. So in college you learn the language that you
grew up with, and now you're taking it a step
further and you're implementing into your bag goods.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I mean I'm trying. People pull up and they just
want like some brownies and some quote unquote familiar bake goods.
Right to the American mind is pies and brownies and
just like simply you know, question or whatever. Like right,
So congrats, my hats off because you're finding tremendous success
now embracing these different flavor profiles and people are like, oh, snap,
(28:15):
that's that's the vibe.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Yeah. And also like being in New York City is
such an incredible thing where any day I can find
Japanese black sesame paste or like Vietnamese rice flour, or
you can find like the tapioca stars that I like,
Like all these ingredients that are just like super inspiring
to me, and I see them and I want to
like play around with stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
So outside of your culture, what about your love for
like art and music? Does that influence how you bake
as well?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I think it influences me on more of a symbolic
or like conceptual level, where I have a big background
programming producing concerts of like weird avant garde music, weird
experimental stuff, because everything for me, it's all about bringing
people together and like getting people into a room, celebrating
over something special, creating that moment of joy through this
(29:06):
like experience that is shared, whether it's like sharing a
big layer cake or going to an art opening or
something like that. So I think for me, like I
am super into food expressions that tie in other disciplines
that address history or like art making or music, because
these are all like creative things that also exist through structure,
(29:30):
discipline and often collaborative, and so I think like for me,
these just all relate things that I'm interested in.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Wow, this is like poetry here and you talk about
the way that music and art and food can be intertwined.
But you don't just talk to talk. I mean you
you would pursue you moved to Montreal a right, like
you pursued a PhD.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
No, Oh my god, no, but I love that you
think that. Actually the opposite happened where I had originally
moved to Montreal in like twenty ten for a guy
that I was seeing and he was from Montreal, and
I moved there for love and needed to find a
job while I was there, and it's like, where does
somebody who's living illegally in a country find work. It's
(30:14):
like in restaurants, and I needed to make money while
I was applying for PhD programs in ethnic musicology. And
my parents at the time were living in Singapore and
I had just visited them and had this incredible visit
and I was convinced. I was super into records that
were sort of archiving and finding rare music from the
(30:35):
past and like putting them out and I was like
really into this idea of doing that, but with the
girl groups of the sixties in Singapore and like this
go go music, and so I applied for my PhD
to get funded to do that research, and did not
get into a single place. Was just rejected across the board. Obviously,
(30:56):
Now in hindsight, I'm like all I had was like
a bachelor's in English lits, so not even in the
music department. I had literally like no credentials or anything
to back up my idea. I was like twenty four,
so stupid, and I was applying a PhD program. So
they let in like two three new candidates a year,
you know, and I'm like, oh, like Yale and accept me.
(31:18):
It's like, of course, of course. And now I'm like,
this is the best thing that could have happened to me,
because I got a job in a restaurant paid in cash.
Working to the table completely changed my life. And when
I was working there, I wasn't just like baking and
making food. They had never had workshops there. I was
booking workshops people making sausages from scratch with like hand
(31:40):
cranked filling them, and like people were like doing canning
jam making classes. I was like booking concerts in the
restaurant in front of the like reaching fridge, and I
was getting like radio stations to come in and broadcast
from the backyard, and I was like, Wow, food is
the ultimate way to bring people together other over all
(32:00):
this other stuff too, and this is how you can
create community. And also on top of that, I was
deeply obsessed with the skill and technique of making pastry,
following recipes, doing high production of things, working service like
meeting people, like kitchen culture, like everything about it. I
was like, Oh, this is the best thing of every Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yeah, So obviously I understand now how you got started
in restaurants. When I met you or when I became
to know of you, you seem to be well in
your comfort zone of doing your own thing here in
New York City. So what was the in between? What
was your restaurant experience and how did you transition into
doing these impactful bake sales.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
So I moved to New York in twenty thirteen, and
I was being a pastry cook, making like eleven dollars
an hour, getting up super early, and there, you know,
doing all that. I did that for years, and then
the turning point of my career was I became like
the executive pastry chef for this restaurant group in Manhattan
and started running programs in multiple locations, and so I
(33:02):
over time had like made this big jump from maybe
only managing a few people or being someone else's employee
to suddenly like expanding programs, being reviewed by Pete Wells
ordering the best ingredients in the world, the kind of
pressure cooker situation that comes with being in places like that.
(33:22):
There was stuff about it that I was naturally drawn to,
and other stuff about it that I knew was unsustainable
or like dysfunctional or toxic or whatever. But this is
not specific to that group. I feel like that's just
systemic within the industry, especially in New York, where you know,
people work so long for like low money and like
no benefits. And I think that for me also to
(33:45):
go back to this like existential idea of why pastry
or why baking, I started feeling like my friends can't
afford to come to the restaurants that I work at,
you know, I can't really afford to eat at the
restaurants I work out with, how my staff discount the
charity events that we are doing are for like Gallas,
where tables are ten thousand dollars. To me, I just
(34:07):
felt like there was this great distance between like the
people that I was surrounded by while working and like
who we were serving, and I was just trying to
think of ways to like close that gap a little bit.
And in twenty sixteen was when I came up with
the idea. Because Trump had just been elected, a lot
(34:27):
of people that I knew were sort of having nervous
breakdowns around this reality. And my experience was immediately it
felt like reproductive health rights and access were suddenly being
called into question. He wanted to take them away, he
wanted to monitor it, limited all this stuff. And so
(34:48):
I had this idea of having a bake sale as
a way to achieve two things for me. One brought
together people in the pastry community historically have like maybe
not been as recognized or celebrated as the savory chef
counterparts in major cities. I don't know if you find
that to be true. The rock stars of dining are
not the pastry chefs of those restaurants. It's like often
(35:10):
the savory side person who's like has the big steak
or is like got the fancy.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Nice but bakers don't. I think there's like a hierarchy
of like credibility. It's like chef. I do think pastry
chefs are in the middle. But like baker's bro, you
know how you give a damn about a baker? Well
you make bread?
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Cool?
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Yeah, I put that shit on the table for free.
You know, you spend you spend twenty four hours making
a piece of bread. I put that shit on the
table free. But no, but I do agree with you.
I think being a patry chef, I used to be
a cook, right, and I do remember there being like
that sideways mentality about the pastry person. It's also like
the person that works like the salad station too. It's like, yeah, so, yeah,
(35:50):
one hundred percent here what you're saying. And you know,
again like sorry you had to go through that.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Yeah, well, I mean like I learned so much. And
I think also the unique thing about restaurants is they
offer resources. And when you work in a restaurant that
is willing to share their resources, whether it's like the
venue of the building, the kitchen and the ingredients, the staff,
you know. And all of a sudden, I was like, Okay,
everyone here is supporting me in producing this event to
(36:19):
bring together pastry chefs in New York City to come
to the restaurant and have their pastries and also like
the other really profound thing about this first big sale
was everything was five dollars. There was no ticket entry
to come in. Anybody could come in. We had pastry
chefs from Labernadine, Gramercy Tavern, the Cuckoo high end places,
(36:40):
and I was like, can you develop something that we
can sell for five dollars? And so we had people
coming in being like I've never been to Labertada in
but like, here's a way I can engage with the
work that they do and support something in a way
that I couldn't normally do. To me, I was like, yes,
this feels inclusive, Like it feels like everybody can come
here and get a little taste. Over the years, the
(37:01):
baked sales for me have really evolved to not just
include chefs from fine dining restaurants, but also cookbook authors,
recipe developers, you know, bakers, micro bakers who work from home.
So that's more interesting to me. Now is a greater
expression of the baking world and like who is participating?
(37:23):
But I felt so full after that first bake sale.
The vibes are so good. I think back then in
spring twenty seventeen, it wasn't common for a major restaurant
to post on social media. We stand with planned parenthood,
we believe in abortion access, and I think that with
some diners there's this sense of please keep your politics
(37:47):
out of my food, Like can you just go back
to posting possible?
Speaker 1 (37:50):
They forget that food, They forget that, I forget that.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
The whole.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Realize, Yeah, you don't even realize what's going on in
them kitchens and was going on with you know what
I mean, like.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Exactly, And so now it's they've really changed and grown
a lot, especially as I've gone from working full time
in restaurants to now, as you mentioned earlier, like trying
to be a freelancer full time and like that hustle
without those resources of like a venue and everything. How
(38:22):
can I pull off this kind of event almost like
a new set of challenges?
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Crazy events?
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Bro, You guys have been to a bunch of liney Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I what I appreciate about your work is, you know
obviously what you're saying of like, look, it's one thing
to work in fancy kitchens, but it's another thing to
understand what baking means as a whole from like a
global human perspective, hungry for more Flaky Biscuit. Stay tuned,
(39:07):
Welcome back to Flaky Biscuit. I went to your bake sale.
I forgot what street it was on. It was the
one at the theater.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I think so the Chilane Theater.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
The line to get a ticket was it was like
an hour or something like it had to wait a minute,
but people waited and those proceeds went to Was it Planned.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Parenthood or well, it's the bridget Alliance.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
The Bridge Alliance, yes.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Which is sort of They actually work in tandem with
organizations like Planned Parenthood, where there they organized like the
travel and the logistics around people who need to travel
out of state to receive abortion care, and so they're
actually moving people from wherever they lived to the Planned
Parenthood in New York and elsewhere. Bridgein Alliance is not
(39:54):
as much of a household name as Planted Parenthood. So
it was important for us that we were like thinking
beyond the brand name nonprofits right right, right, the director
Bridge Alliance is a born and raised New Yorker, like,
she lives in Brooklyn, Like, it was really important that
those were the women that we were working with, right,
It was incredible.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Well, I listen, I do think it's very important that
mail bakers stand up and support these issues. I don't
see enough of it on social media, and quite frankly,
I have lost probably thousands of followers anytime I post
about abortion rights and stuff like that. So we're gonna
end with that part. We're gonna jump right back into
We're gonna we're gonna lighten the mood up here a
little bit. We're gonna play a little flaky game. On
(40:36):
each episode of Flaky Biscuit, we play a different game
with our guests. Today's game, I'm busting out a little
plate here, a little sampler. You look like very pensive. Here,
you look very past. So I have a sampler plate
of various intimates. Probably now here's a kicker. One of
(40:57):
these is not intimates, all right, that's kind of messed
up of a game, huh one of these? Now no, no,
don't get eager. So you already know what. You already
know what that one. So here's the way the game
will work, all right, And there's no cash prize here
is don't get too excited. I want you to tell
me a is what you're eating intimates and bonus points
(41:18):
for telling me exactly which one it is. Close your
eyes and I'm gonna place one of these in your hand. Okay,
I'm gonna place in your hand, and you're just gonna
take one bite of it? Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
So ready?
Speaker 1 (41:31):
All right?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
This is like a stick.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
See Natasha smart, She's she's feeling it up, touching it up,
trying to touch the top, trying to touch the crumb.
All right, he goes a little bite.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Oh m hmm. It's like a cake with like a
sweet Yeah, you only get one bite, by the way, one,
I think, Yeah, what do you taste? I think this
is so sweet? There's no way you made this.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Oh no, I didn't make any of these are all
they're all Intimates, but one of them is a different brand,
a competitor.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Maybe it's like a Danish. I think it's.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Entimates, soimates and a dain Danish? What kind of dangers?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Give me a little like a vanilla kind of Danish.
Doesn't mean it's not fruit.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Listen, I'll cheese. Yeah, yes, you're exactly right. It istimen's
cheese Danish. Next thing there you go, placing into it
feels dry, It feels really dry. But these pastry chefs
is brutal out here on flakey biscuit powdered sugar.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Actually, this one tastes very similar. Okay, I think it's
not just powdered sugar too, it's like corn starch. I
like this.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Yeah, and is it definitely Definitelytimen's powdered sugar donut. Absolutely
two for two. Natasha Pickowitz is on a roll here.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
I have to guess the other brand too to win.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
No, you just have to tell me if it's Intimen's
or not. Oh, you need water because that was so dry.
We might have to talk to I think we need
to go to Long Island together and meet with them
and just like a apologize and be maybe I don't know,
do a collab or something. Next up, we have placing
the item. She sniffs it, she feels it up.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Oh uh oh. I think this is a tasty cake
or like a coffee cake from like a gas station
or something.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
So is it entimates?
Speaker 2 (43:29):
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Wow. Natasha Pickowitz is three for three. Whoa unbelievable turn
of events here. It was a Hostess coffee cake. And
let me tell you if anything about your your palette
has been exposed as a patry chef, is the fact
that you just blind tasted two boxed products. You have
(43:53):
a kidding. Yeah, this ain't even fakes.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
This is not good.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Like gummy under Wow. Shout out to the local Long
Island artisanal bakers and Inimens for providing Natasha with those
high quality baked goods. Man, geez, wow, I'm very impressed.
I'm very very impressed. Three for three. I do have
one more item on the plate. You're obviously gonna know
it's Intimates, but I want you to taste it anyway,
(44:23):
because it came in a different looking box and it
seems he seemed like a little more high end. No,
it's like legit, hold on, let me get let me
prep you to your little feeling touch and smelling all
the thing. I'm gonna I'm gonna get the box to
see what it is. It's it was like it was
like on the top shelvel.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
It feels like a pebble.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Oh, it was on the top shelf of where the
Intimens are. I had to get like a ladder to
get it.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
I mean, what are you tasting?
Speaker 2 (44:52):
It's chocolate d but I think the cake is chocolate too, Okay,
like cocoa or something.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Okay, Okay, but.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
It's a very rich maybe it's a brownie bite.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
No, no, it's not a brownie bite.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
It frosting is Yeah. I might have guessed that this
wasn't Intimates either, just because I'm not familiar.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
You know, honestly, and I knew I could have gained
to you and messed you over. So but you know
what that you know, the Gaming Commission confirmed that my
actions were appropriate and it was no match fixing here,
so we're all good. You open your eyes. Now, this
is an Intimate's cake Truffle of the cookies and cream
variety of bridge and bridges. So she yeah, it just
(45:35):
came out this year, So inside scoop from the native
Long Island, New Yorker over here, this Intiman's Cake Truffle
is a new entity.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I mean, it's kind of the best thing on this
play in a way. It's in like a fancy or box.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
I'm telling you. It was literally on the top shelf.
So flaky game, Natasha pick which comes through in the clutch.
You sniffed out that hostes so quick.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Cinnamons sentimens isn't as a you know, liberal with their cinnamon.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Uh was that a shot fire? Like would you would
you like to see more.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Deeply sensitive to cinnamon in a bad way.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Too much cinnamon and it's like bro.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Let me apples and this pie anymore? Like I want
to taste apple.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
The apple first, and the cinnamon should be an ex exactly. Wow,
So flaky game on point, fam. If you're out there
again in the discord our social channels, tag us hit
up those show notes. We actually had a guest who
chose a tasty cakes product.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
So I see a trend happening in terms of very intelligent,
creative people and packaged preservative field it SERTs a junk food.
Before we let you go, I want to I want
to jump back into what we were talking about. We
love to end our episodes with talking about important topics
and organizations and concepts, and we were talking about reproductive rights,
(46:55):
abortion rights and bridget Alliance. You know what's next between
you know? Are you any more bake sales? How did
that one bake sale go? I was blown away?
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yeah. So for the Virgin Alliance, which is a nonprofit
based in New York City run by born and raised
New Yorkers, twenty twenty two was like a banner year
for them and Obviously it's kind of a double sided
sword or whatever, because it was a banner year for
them in that they had one thousand percent increase in
donations from people like us. But it is because it
(47:25):
is in response to the fact that, among other things,
Roe v. Wade was overturned this year. So all of
a sudden, there are many states in the US and
growing of people who cannot receive access to safe abortions
in the state where they live in and these rights
are essential, but also like very fragile, and so a
(47:49):
nonprofit like Bridgin Alliance in twenty twenty two they served
over one thousand people who are needing to travel out
of state to receive abortion care. And so we know
now that the expenses are not just of the procedure,
which already is a lot, but it's also the cost
(48:10):
of traveling out of state. If you already have children,
it's finding like childcare for the kids that you do have.
If you work a job, it's the money lost from
not working because you have to travel, fly sometimes out
of state. They're flying people out of state, they're getting
them on transportation, and they're bringing them to other organizations
like Planned Parenthood, and not just go through that process
in like a terrified way, like maybe they're a minor,
(48:32):
maybe they went through something traumatic in a way where
they feel safe, there's like dignity involved in the process.
They're taking care of every step of the way. So
I think that this is like a very holistic service
that they provide for people who often feel overwhelmed at
the financial and the emotional cost of doing something like this,
which has been made even harder. And so for me,
(48:54):
people are always like what can I do? What can
I do? And I'm like, what is in your toolbox?
That's like different for ever every And for me it
was big sales because I know how to bake, I
can make a lot of some things. I like to
organize parties and like events. So this was my toolbox.
For someone else, maybe their toolbox is like graphic design
and like computer work and like organizing files, or maybe
(49:15):
it's like making stuff like building furniture, whatever, maybe it's gardening.
Like who knows. Everyone has something in their toolbox, And
I think that helping other people is really about looking
inward and being like, what do I have that I
can like extend to others or be generous about? Right
as long as we're engaging with our community. That's like
(49:36):
what it's all about. So that's why I do this,
and we'll continue.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
To Wow, that really is what it's all about. And
I think you kind of you really embody that mission.
I've seen with my own eyes thousands of people supporting this. Yeah,
real tangible people supporting this with real tangible money that
goes and supports these travel costs and procedure costs we
trying to get reposted right now. We try to get
them money to get these people.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
And I think the best thing is that the money
that we raised, whether it was like twenty two thousand
dollars that day at the Cherry Lane Theater, when we
did the New York Times Food Festival bake sale for
City Harvest, that was like eleven thousand dollars. I've done
bake sales when we raise over one hundred thousand dollars.
All those things those bake sales have in common is
that they were made on increments of five to seven dollars,
(50:22):
And so you're seeing the multiplicity of many people throwing
in a little bit of what they can. It's not
like somebody rich being like here's a.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Grand here's a grand let me buy you out, Let
me buy one vendor out because you give tickets and
one ticket gets one item. Because I was like, oh,
it's like, it's like that, and I was scrambling get tickets.
I had to go find my tickets. Wow, Natasha, you're
such an inspiration. I can't thank you enough for taking
time out of your busy schedule to come and chat
with me and the Flaky fam and the Shannalaan fam
(50:53):
about your journey, your experience, your thoughts on my entimens
chocolate donut and all things taste and patience and everything
like that. You'll already know the book is hidden the shelves.
Thank you so much for coming, Natasha. This is an
absolute pleasure to talk to you and to get to
know more about your story.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Thanks Brian.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
All right, all right, all right, thank you once again
for listening today. If you want to make my version
of Entimen's chocolate donuts for yourself, find the recipe on
Shondaland dot com and I want to know how it goes.
This is a very fun, one, nice and easy recipe.
But hey, you gotta get that texture right, you gotta
get that chocolate blaze right. So tag me at artists
(51:35):
and Brian tag my homie, my friend Natasha at Natasha
Picklewitz tag Shondaland and post photos and videos of your process.
While you're making this recipe for us, get into the
discord and chat with us. You know what I'm saying,
Leave comments on Instagram, whatever, send us a message. It's
all good. You know, Natasha and I are both bakers,
so we really want to know how y'all did. And
(51:56):
the advice I can give you for this recipe is
to use the freeze. Don't be afraid to use a
freezer to help that chocolate coating set. Depending on how
you made that frosting and whatnot, what texture you're getting,
the freezer can kind of help get it nice and crunchy.
Don't forget to look up the Bridget Alliance at bridget
Alliance dot org. You can find their website and all
the links and handles I've mentioned in the show notes
(52:18):
for this episode. If you like flaky biscuit all right,
if you like flaky layers and delicious morsels of nostalgia,
then you know what to do. Leave us a beautiful rating, review, Share, subscribe,
tell the whole world, Scream it from the rooftops. If
you're driving to work and you want to hear something delicious,
(52:39):
put on Flaky Biscuit. Thank you so much for joining guys.
Flaky Biscuit is executive produced by Sandy Bailey, alex Alja,
Lauren Homan, Tyler Klang, and Gabrielle Collins. Our creative producer
is Bridget Kenna, and our editor and producer is Nicholas Harder,
with music by Crucial. Recipes from Flaky Biscuit can be
(53:00):
found each week on Shondaland dot com. Subscribe to the
Shondaland YouTube channel for more Flaky Biscuit content. Flaky Biscuit
is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Flaky Biscuit is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, fam to the Flaky Biscuit Podcast.
Thank you so much for coming back to listen to
me talk about how I'm cooking up delicious morsels of nostalgia.
You already know. In each episode, I'm making a meal,
(00:23):
whether it's baked or cooked or whatever, recipes that have
comforted and guided our guests to success. Faun I'm talking
about I'm making something from scratch, and it could be
something out of vending machine. It could be your grandma meatballs,
you heard me. It could be some dumplings, it could
be whatever. I'm making it from scratch, trying to recreate
that proost effect for my guests, to make them feel
(00:44):
warm and love like they used to back in the day. Y'all,
just tune it in if you don't know who I
am for some random reason, because I do believe that
all seven billion people on earth know who Brian Ford is.
I am Brian Ford. I write cookbooks, do some TV stuff.
I'm a baker and I just love to make people smile,
including the wonderful guest that we have today here in
(01:05):
the kitchen. An absolutely phenomenal person all right, New York
City based chef and writer. Three time James Beard Foundation
Award finalists, she is named in Time one Hundred's Next.
Found that one hundred people, Who's next? One of them's
right here. Much of our Patriotork explores a relationship with
baking and social justice, and her debut cookbook, More Than Cake,
(01:29):
which weaves unique baking recipes with stories of her family
and social justice and food history. Wherever you're going, whatever
you're doing, go buy this book and make some cakes
and all this beautiful stuff. Welcome, Natasha, Pickleliz, what's up?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Wow? Thank you, Brian. So awesome to be here. That's
like the best introduction ever. Can you just like always
be my hyper Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
You should. Will give you the raw file and you can.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Like, I'll just play it every time room.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
You got to play it on loop anytime you go
somewhere and meet people. Oh, you don't know who I am.
I'm sorry, holand you got headphones, So thank you for that.
One hundred percent. So I'm very thrilled to have you
on here, especially during this pivotal moment in your cookbook career. Man,
it's going to be super exciting.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I'm really really thrilled. And so speaking of recipes, this
is a Flaky Biscuit podcast. So you already know what
we do. I want you to tell the listeners what
is your nostalgic meal? What did you have me make
and why? Before I explain what I did and you
taste my version of it, tell us what it is.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
You know when you shared this prompt with me, I
think I didn't want to overthink it a ton, and
I just wanted to go with like a gut thing
that I missed, or like a feeling or a moment.
I'm a baker, I'm a pastry chef. The way that
I eat baked goods now is I want the best
and the most from scratch with the best ingredients. There's
not a lot of my diet where I'm like eating
(02:45):
things that our mass produce has been sitting on a shelf.
But when you're little, at least for me, like those
were the things I like, fantasized, lusted after, and it
wasn't allowed to have like it was taboo accepts. So
I grew up in Lahoya, which is like this tiny
village part of San Diego that's like on the beach.
(03:05):
And so every single weekend when I was growing up,
my parents and I would go down to the Lahoya
Shores and we would spend every Sunday morning there. It
was like a tradition. If you've grown up in southern California,
like on the beach, you know that the beach isn't
just for like tanning on. People are going out in
December January in hoodies and jackets and like you're bundled up.
(03:30):
It's just about being outside. And so I have these
like super powerful memories of going to the beach with
my parents on the weekend in the morning and going
to this convenience store that was right by the beach,
and this was really special. I look forward to it
all week because that was when I could pick out
(03:50):
one thing and it could be anything I wanted, and
that would be like my breakfast. And my parents would
do the same thing too. My mom would always get
the palmiers, you know, the big elephant ears of the
like kind of flaky puff pastry sugary thing, and Dad
would get like the newspaper. They'd get coffee. We'd set
up the chairs and so I would like agonize over
(04:12):
what this thing was gonna be, Like what is the
tree going to be? You know? Sometimes I go savory,
like sometimes I would eat an entire bag of goldfish
for breakfast. But most of the time, the thing that
I would get were these donuts from Entimens, which is
(04:33):
this sort of kind of like a cult chain bake
good thing. They make so many different things, but my
favorite thing that they made were these cake donuts that
were enrolled in this thin layer of chocolate ganache. But
it was kind of crisp, like the ganash is kind
of cracked in your mouth, and then like the donut
(04:54):
is really sweet. He's like vanilla cakey crumbly. Anyway, so
I get like a whole and I would just eat
all of them, read the cartoons, and then run around
on the beach and like collect shells or whatever. Fast
out Wow. So anyway, that was what I wanted to
see you to do, because I know you're like masterful baker.
(05:15):
You know, I'm not gonna have you make my mom's
fried rice. You know, it's just like.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Ooh shots fire, like you know, Brian Fordy making it
as good as your mom. So why are we you
eve gonna play that game? That's what you said.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I mean, I think it's always really interesting when you're
like when bakers are like we're making Housemaid like think
Dong or whatever, or like we're making our version of
the breadsticks from Olive Garden. It's always really interesting to
see how that kind of thing translates when you actually
have a person making something in like a smaller quantity,
not with you know, palm oil or whatever. So yeah,
(05:48):
I'm like very curious.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
First of all, I just have to say, I think
the listeners, like if I was listening to that, I mean,
you was building it up. You was building up the
hype this one item that I got. Sometimes I went sweets.
Sometimes I want to say, I mean you had a
different options and things. It wasn't you told us what
your parents got to damn.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
So what happened in the nineties It was kind of
like an Intimate's era, the weird low fat baked goods
in a box trend right right right, all of these
diet baked goods. But then Intimates was sort of they
had the carrot cake with like the icing raked across
and the you know, walnut sprinkled on top. They had
this like Devil's food cake with marshmallow frosting.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
So you're a intemen's connoisseur.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
As I'm saying it, I'm realizing that I was okay.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Good, because we're going put that to the test later. Yeah,
we're putting that to the test in our flaky game.
You're talking it up, real quod talent is really it
has evolved since then. Ah, come on, let me tell
you something right now. When I made this recipe, I
didn't grow up eating Intimates. I don't even think they
got that in the stuth. Actually, in fact, they probably
don't because a couple of fun facts. This is a
New York based Intimates is a New York based company,
(06:54):
and it started in the city, but they I think
they moved it out into Long Island. What was going down.
William Ntiman was like, sick, there's out there, there's aim.
He was sick, and his doctor was like, yo, you
need to get out the city, and he was trying
to bake this stuff. So they moved it out to
Long Island and then they shut down the bread production
of it, and they focus specifically on the cakes and
(07:15):
the little things. The pies and the sweet treats types
of things. So they don't make bread no more out
though I'd be curious to try Intimin's bread French. I
bet it would be far baked, Like there's like super pale,
heavy ones that apparently you just toast for five minutes
and then it comes out like an authentic Parisian baguette. Damn,
my bad Intimates. Maybe I'll make better brand than that.
(07:36):
This was a little harsh for the Intimate's reps that
were listening here to give me a Natasha sponsorship. We apologize,
We're still down to receive your your money. No, but
I mean it's it's got It's got a crazy history.
You know, Frank Sinatra used to order it. They sell
scentic candles. I think they started making wine or something
like that. Whoa all kind of all kind of celebrities
like Yogi Berra, Whoopi Goldberg and all kinds of people
(07:58):
were in commercials for Intimin's, so people taste people people
would taste. But to that point in the South, what
I had actually was bimbo, you.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Know, bimbo like honey buns bimbo.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, and the powdered donuts. With the it because in Honduras,
in Latin America, we play with bimbo hard like, and
I think Bimbo ownsimens now. Oh yeah, I think there
was some kind of transaction that occurs now. So maybe
there's entemens in New Orleans now, But when I grew up,
I never saw it. I used to eat bimbos lit donuts.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
To this day, I prefer cake donuts to YaST it donuts.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
How are you gonna just I was about to make
my transition line to talk about the recipe, and you
just drop that bomb on me.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I just like I love fried though obviously I made
Bomboaloni at an Italian restaurant for years. Like I love
a yeast it donut, but I think a cake donut
scratches a specific itch where it's it's more deserty, so
it just feels like a little bit more of a tree.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Uh huh. But is a cake donut a donut if
there's no dough, well, there's no dough is better?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
It's batter?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Oh well is it a donut? I mean this is controversial.
I'm about to get messed over by everybody because they
people love cake donuts. But I don't even think that.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
I think it's fried.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Cake donuts are fried.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Cake donuts are fried.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, they're not baked.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I mean, if you want that delicious fried, I mean
there are some that are baked, but I don't think any.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Baked is frying the things or putting them in a
convection of it.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Definitely you think they're frying them, definitely.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Shoot, I mean I don't know. We don't have to
call them up. Yeah, somebody on the line.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Because part of it is like the intensity of the
crumb when it is deep fried. There's a richness to it.
It's not just it's not dry, you know, real moist.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
So as you can tell, I did not fry what
I made for you today, I clearly baked. Well I
didn't listen. I can't believe you. Let cake don'ts better
and you have to go back to it because you
said donuts for me, man, there's nothing more luscious a
fresh glazed donut. There's a place called Mary Lee's Donuts
and baton Aruge Louisiana's. Let me tell you, man, they
(10:09):
melt in your mouth. I mean like when you get
a proper glazed donut, you sid donut and you inhale
it and it just goes, it goes right down your throat.
That's for me. It's hard to beat.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
But I get also why make binaries out of everything? Like?
It doesn't there's nothing like this is better than that.
I'm like, I like the best version of everything.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Oh wow, that you're taking it to a different level.
You are right, I do like My favorite cake donut
are blueberry cake donuts.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Oh have you had the one at Pewter Pan.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yes, it's really good, it's really really really I.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Think it's like they must add it in like freeze
dried blueberries or something because it's.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Got that pot Let me actually walk you through my
process here, all right, so we can get to the
meat and potatoes. That is. Here's what I did, as
someone who doesn't eat entimens very often, of course, I
went and bought some Intimon's chocolate donuts.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
What did you think, yo?
Speaker 1 (10:59):
They're their fire and honestly, texturally and from a flavor
profile perspective, the Entimate's chocolate lazed donut. It's something that
I might unfortunately start buying. My doctor gonna tell me
to stop. Type thing like I'm about to have them
on deck and it's so.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Interesting, like when you scale them up and down, because
I think the bigger ones are actually better. Because it's
sort of like, do you like the regular sized Reese's
peanut butter cup or the little minis? Ooh, because there's
only one answer here.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Well, I like the mini ones. Oh what why can't
I like the mini ones?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Because the bigger ones have a thinner shell of chocolate,
so you get more of the peanut butter. Oh. And
so for me, it's like the bigger donut. There's less
of the chocolate shell and you get more, just like
the ratios.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Interesting, I was thinking more of like I can just
pop the small ones in my mouth and eat the
whole thing. I mean, what's more gangster than that? I
understand that from a balance perspective, you're probably right. Experience,
I like, yeah, I like to just open up the
Lirisi's and then just pop them right in.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I had to like nibble the cup and then get
mostly the salty peanut butter greeny like paste.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Like I'm not saying I wouldn't want to do that,
all right, I'm just saying, like, well, anyway, so there's yeah,
so sour cream I use as the base here in
this donut mix that I made, some vanilla extract, all
purpose flour, some baking soda, a decent amount an egg,
melted butter. Right, melted butter is going to help things
(12:28):
be a little bit more enriched and moist inside than
a soft in butter. Some sugar. I went for white granulated,
And so what I did was I whisked together the
sour cream, the butter and the sugar, the vanilla and
the egg until it came into a nice cream. And
then I folded in the salt, flour and baking soda,
(12:48):
and it came out to be a nice like I said, battery.
You know, where's my bacon pan? I don't have because
I was baking them. I don't have a donut baking pan.
I just have a muffin tins, the muffin ones, so
you kind of I put aluminum foil. I bawled up
a bunch of aluminium ooil put in the middle so
that when I put the battery in, it had the hole.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
That's so smart. I mean, I don't like single use
baking stuff anyway. I'm like, I don't need a donut pam, dude, I.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Do, Yes, Finally, something we agree on.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
I'm like, that's why I'm like, if I'm making donuts,
I'll just won't even cut out the center.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah, oh snap, cut all right. So I made that,
baked it, and then I made a ganage, and then
I coated them with the ganage after they cooled, and
then I stuck them in the freezer. So I am
about to present to you the homemade Entiman's chocolate donut.
And like, remember, I really want to know if you're
going back to the beach in California. This is not
(13:41):
the hey Pat Bryan on the back show. This is
the real, recognized real. I know I don't have the
yellow dye number six and certain special things they got
in these packaged products, but I did my best. So
here we go. I'm gonna I'm gonna turn around real
quick and grab these for you. Wow, here we are.
Hold on, there's a presentation.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So the chrome looks perfect?
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Oh snap? Perfect crumb okay, okay, a sniff test. How's
it smell?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I mean, what kind of chocolate?
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Did you semi sweet dark chocolate.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Just tempered or did you put anything else?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Oh, Mama Mia, if you want to know, honestly, I
bought the chocolate. I forgot what they're called, but you
can just microwave them with a little bit of cream
and then it melts. For the listeners at home, this
is not an encouraging sign. She looks perplexed.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Okay, okay, oh shit, hello, you asked me a specific question.
And again, I feel like this goes back to what
we were talking about, with a specific sensation or memory
or feeling of something that you had, and then even
when you have the thing that's better, you're like, it's
(14:48):
not we talked about.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Can you edit a tear drop going down my eyes?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I think the main thing is not in the caked
on it, which is delicious, but it's in the chocolate coating.
And here's why. Shit, this ganash is delicious, but it
feels almost like a little bit more fudgy to me.
It's like a little chewy. It also tastes like it's
better chocolate than what you would buy at entimens. This
tastes like maybe more of like a dark chocolate, which
(15:15):
is what I'm more into now. But my memory of it,
I wonder what they used because it almost was I
think it was mostly a textural thing where it had
a snap to it. And so you're kind of like
cracking through this chocolate shell and getting into the cake.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
It's so good though, so let's just confirm this for
myself and for the listeners. I unfortunately was not able
to bring you back to the beach, was I.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I mean, I can't remember the last time I had
a donut like this, and I think that something you
see a lot with like yeasted donuts.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Damn, the hate is real.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I'm just gonna play something else. Is that what you
see on like yeasted donuts? And also cake donuts are
more like glazes, yes, but you don't really see like
ganash coated donut. This is unique because it's not really
something that I see.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I don't ever see it.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, it almost takes it into a bonbond territory. And
I don't want to say like cake pop.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
We don't want to touch that word because obviously.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It's intact cake. It's not like cake crumbs that are
like held together with something else. It's almost like a
candy shell with cake. And I think that is really
fucking delicious. So to me, I'm like, I would rather
have something like this any day over what that was.
But also I'm curious to taste the old ones now again.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
All right, fine, I'll give you an old one. And
that's wow. Man, I did so poorly. She wanted to
taste the actual Hold.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Where's that again? I think the way that you did
the donut, you don't need to fry it because it's
so delicious like this, I'm.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Gonna taste one right now. I'm handing Natasha a piece
of an actual Intemen's cape.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
First of all, this crumb looks like bullshit. It's gummy
on the bottom, but it also looks dry like it looks,
so they're even butter in this donut.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Here's the thing, though, is delicious, interesting, interesting, It's really
damn good.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Still, oh my god, this is so much sweeter than
your donut. This is like gross to me and comparison.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, it's making my jaws quiver.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
It doesn't even taste like chocolate. No, it almost tastes
like oranges or something. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Or maybe you're like no, it literally it literally tastes
like citrus. But it also doesn't taste like anything that
will be baked in that like a house.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
No, it's totally Yeah, this is objectively tasty, but like
when you have them side by side when you want.
I'm gonna sound so corny when I say this, but
like a distinct expression of chocolate or vanilla or butter.
It's like all those things come through in your work.
But then when I taste this, sorry enemens, I just
say sugar. Yeah, wow, And it's not crunchy like I remember.
(17:47):
I wonder if the formula changed.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
I feel like mine had more crunch. Maybe not more,
but because when you were when you was hating on
my crunch, I was like I thought I had a
little crunch on that.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah, definitely. It's so interesting how my memory is like
misread that or something.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Well, no, I don't think your memory misread that. I
think that that this this proost effect, right, like this nostalgia,
It isn't necessarily rooted in culinary expertise or excellence. It's
more rooted in kind of like that comforting sensation.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
You cannot recreate this memory that I had because the
memory was tainted by these good feelings of being free
on the beach and like spending time with my parents
and like that's like why it tastes yummy to me
in my mind.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
So you think you think that this nostalgia that tastes
of nostalgia can't really be recreated.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
It's like the salty ocean air, and it's like being
bundled up, and it's like not wearing shoes, and it's
like newspaper smell, and those are the things that swirl
into the memory of this one piece of the puzzle. Wow,
should we go to San Diego?
Speaker 1 (18:46):
We should? We should go right now? Pack it up.
I mean, honestly, the way that you just explained that
was phenomenal, and I think that's one of the core
important factors of this podcast is acknowledging that food and
nostalgia go hand in hand for everyone. I mean, I
don't know, maybe if you don't ever eat you won't
get this feeling. But I think if you've eaten anything
at any time, you're gonna have these strong memories attached
(19:10):
to it. And so tell me what you would do better.
Hit up that discord, tell me what you would do differently,
and also tell me if you grew up with intimens
and if it wasn't a chocolate donut, it's like maybe
it was something else. Tell me what your vibe was
and iftimens provided a nostalgic moment for y'all. You can
find all the links in the show notes. We're rolling
(19:30):
into commercials. Don't go anywhere. Enough of that. Back to
the interview, Oh man, let me tell you that things
(19:50):
got a little bit intense there. You know, we're talking
about Usidonus and all that kind of thing. But very
very very important note there about food nostalgia back then.
You talk about what you were going through back then.
For example, I mean it was not just the ocean
air in the newspapers, right, I mean your mom was
an immigrant. You know, what was your experience, you know,
as a Chinese American on the West Coast. How did
you allow food to kind of permeate your upbringing?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Air? Like?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
What was the deal?
Speaker 2 (20:14):
You know, it's really interesting because and I think it's
the kind of stuff that in retrospect I can kind
of reflect on it more and sort of understand what
mine was, especially through the lens of food. And my
mom immigrated to California when she's twenty seven, and then
she had me the following year and when she moved
to the US. So my mom is an artist. My
(20:35):
dad is a historian, a Chinese historian of like Chinese film,
and so They met when they were in Beijing when
he was there for post doctoral research.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
They met through his host family. She was in film
school at the time. They got married in China, which
in the early eighties precultural Revolution was like extremely hard
to do if you were a US citizen, and then
they went back to California together where my dad was
teaching at UC Sandy, where they both are still now.
So I think, and this is something that I feel
(21:05):
like I have more empathy for as I get older,
and I think what every child of an immigrant kind
of goes through to some degree. But in southern California
was my experience, which is you sort of want to
fit in, but I'm also like biracial, so there's the
sense of never being wide enough, or like never really
being Chinese enough. My mom was somebody who also like
(21:28):
didn't speak any English when she moved here, needed to
learn the language needed to assimilate. Had grown up in
malzudung Era, China, so basically, you know, no exposure to
pop culture, to food outside of the food that she
ate every day living in poverty. So I think that
there was an expectation or pressure for her to assimilate,
(21:50):
and also understand and not just necessarily lean on her
Chineseness as an identity. And so what that meant for me,
it was she spoke English to me as a way
of learning English instead of perhaps just speaking in Chinese
to me, because that was what she was most comfortable with.
So she was somebody who's always pushing herself outside of
(22:11):
her comfort zone. But then, you know, I sort of
saw my mom fall in love with very uniquely American things,
like the tradition of Costco. I grew up in San Diego,
and my mom had a Costco membership, and there would
become these like little treats that she had never had
her whole life and suddenly became obsessed with to the
(22:34):
point of squirreling them away and hiding them from me
and my dad. So she would buy like Costco sized
packs of peanut Eminem's, or she went through a Twinkies phase.
She's going to hear this and she's going to be like,
don't don't be boy toy keys, because she's like mad
healthy now. But back then, I think, wow, Yeah, we
went to Jack in the Box and the McDonald's on
(22:56):
the weekends, Like we were doing things that felt like
very American like getting the junk food, but it was
always as like a treat because at night we would
have dinner together and my mom would cook, and she
would make the food she knew how to make, which
is like exceptional, super tasty Chinese food, noodle soups, you know,
stewed braises and fried rice and whole steamed fish and
(23:19):
like incredible food.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
You know, cooking that for you because like that straight up.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
So I feel like I kind of had like this
experience of sort of both sides of things and also
wanting to be a kid and sort of have the
sugary cereals at home that I wasn't allowed to have
but other kids had because my mom would buy things
and then like hide them from everyone so we wouldn't
have them. But you know, it's at this point now
my mom has lived in the US longer than she's
(23:46):
lived in China, and my parents are live this extremely healthy,
like California lifestyle. When I have her cooking, I feel
like it is now this super contant trade an incredible
expression of the kind of food she used to make,
but now it's so clean, it's more simple than ever.
It'll be like a whole sea bass steamed with black
(24:11):
bean sauce and scallions and like that's it. But it's
really brothy and it's really yummy, and it's like, now
I can appreciate that. I'm not just like I want
spaghetti with the craft on top, right.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Right, right, right, right. Oh man, you just hit so
many crazy notes in my brain. I mean, I think
one thing that caught my ear specifically was your mom
speaking to you in English. I kind of relate to
that because my English is great, It's why I have
a podcast. But my Spanish, even though I understand it
when I speak it, it's not perfect. It's by no
(24:44):
means even close to being perfect. And it's one of
those things in my brain, I'm like, what was going on? So, like,
why would my parents they would talk to us in
Spanish and we would respond in English. And it was
first of all, my parents was working so hard that
it's hard to have children and try to preserve your
culture in America, especially in racist America of Louisiana. So
(25:05):
I think my parents was like, well, let's head to
our bets here. Let's just make sure they speak perfect English, right,
as long as y'all speak perfect English, Like we're cool. Yeah,
because we know when you go out in the world,
you'll be able to communicate without people making fun of
you like they make fun of us. Yeah, that and that,
like going back to those memories, Like it's difficult.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Sometimes it's such a funny thing. Like my parents would
sometimes speak in Chinese as a way of like exchanging
secret talking between them because they didn't want me to hear.
But then I could always kind of understand, and I
would be like, wait, what do you mean we're not
And they.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Would be like, wait, what.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
A big thing in southern California where there are like
huge Chinese populations is Chinese school. It's like, I'm very
much the thing where you would send Chinese American kids
to weekend school. I just call it Chinese school, and
you would basically like take these language classes as like
an elementary, middle school, high school student. And my parents
made me go, and I remember going and being like
(26:01):
the only half Chinese person that I could see in
the whole school, and like everybody was basically already fluent
in Mandarin, and it was so horrible. I just would
go home every day crying, begging my parents to take
me out. I would just be like this is not
No one is at the level I'm at. Everybody already
(26:21):
can speak Chinese, Like, this is not the right place
for me, And I think they felt really bad for
me and took me up. But then I took Chinese
in college. You go okay, right, kind of a happy ending,
and it was like one of the hardest things I've done,
but it was absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
So is that your way of like embracing your culture
in a way, like, because you know in college, like
you chose to do that.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Definitely, And I think now also as a chef, like
I've just been doing that more and more and more
and more. I'll be doing pop ups or working on
recipes for my book, or thinking about what my culinary
identity is, like what's in my toolbox, what's in my pantry,
and having so much fun around with ingredients that I
grew up with, but like thinking about them in different ways.
(27:04):
So like I just did this pop up at Golden Diner,
which is this incredible diner in Chinatown on Madison Street. Wow,
you know, I really wanted to do stuff inspired by Chinatown.
I did all my shopping at like Hong Kong Grocery
on Hester you know, we just had Thanksgiving. I wanted
to make my version of a punkin pie, but I
used candid zookie beans because I was thinking about like
the red beans stuffed pastries I grew up eating and loved,
(27:28):
and so I think now I'm like trying to draw
those memories and feelings and ingredients and stories back into
the pastry that I know how to make weird looking
layer cakes and like big cookies and like plated desserts
and things like that.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Wow. So in college you learn the language that you
grew up with, and now you're taking it a step
further and you're implementing into your bag goods.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I mean I'm trying. People pull up and they just
want like some brownies and some quote unquote familiar bake goods.
Right to the American mind is pies and brownies and
just like simply you know, question or whatever. Like right,
So congrats, my hats off because you're finding tremendous success
now embracing these different flavor profiles and people are like, oh, snap,
(28:15):
that's that's the vibe.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Yeah. And also like being in New York City is
such an incredible thing where any day I can find
Japanese black sesame paste or like Vietnamese rice flour, or
you can find like the tapioca stars that I like,
Like all these ingredients that are just like super inspiring
to me, and I see them and I want to
like play around with stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
So outside of your culture, what about your love for
like art and music? Does that influence how you bake
as well?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I think it influences me on more of a symbolic
or like conceptual level, where I have a big background
programming producing concerts of like weird avant garde music, weird
experimental stuff, because everything for me, it's all about bringing
people together and like getting people into a room, celebrating
over something special, creating that moment of joy through this
(29:06):
like experience that is shared, whether it's like sharing a
big layer cake or going to an art opening or
something like that. So I think for me, like I
am super into food expressions that tie in other disciplines
that address history or like art making or music, because
these are all like creative things that also exist through structure,
(29:30):
discipline and often collaborative, and so I think like for me,
these just all relate things that I'm interested in.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Wow, this is like poetry here and you talk about
the way that music and art and food can be intertwined.
But you don't just talk to talk. I mean you
you would pursue you moved to Montreal a right, like
you pursued a PhD.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
No, Oh my god, no, but I love that you
think that. Actually the opposite happened where I had originally
moved to Montreal in like twenty ten for a guy
that I was seeing and he was from Montreal, and
I moved there for love and needed to find a
job while I was there, and it's like, where does
somebody who's living illegally in a country find work. It's
(30:14):
like in restaurants, and I needed to make money while
I was applying for PhD programs in ethnic musicology. And
my parents at the time were living in Singapore and
I had just visited them and had this incredible visit
and I was convinced. I was super into records that
were sort of archiving and finding rare music from the
(30:35):
past and like putting them out and I was like
really into this idea of doing that, but with the
girl groups of the sixties in Singapore and like this
go go music, and so I applied for my PhD
to get funded to do that research, and did not
get into a single place. Was just rejected across the board. Obviously,
(30:56):
Now in hindsight, I'm like all I had was like
a bachelor's in English lits, so not even in the
music department. I had literally like no credentials or anything
to back up my idea. I was like twenty four,
so stupid, and I was applying a PhD program. So
they let in like two three new candidates a year,
you know, and I'm like, oh, like Yale and accept me.
(31:18):
It's like, of course, of course. And now I'm like,
this is the best thing that could have happened to me,
because I got a job in a restaurant paid in cash.
Working to the table completely changed my life. And when
I was working there, I wasn't just like baking and
making food. They had never had workshops there. I was
booking workshops people making sausages from scratch with like hand
(31:40):
cranked filling them, and like people were like doing canning
jam making classes. I was like booking concerts in the
restaurant in front of the like reaching fridge, and I
was getting like radio stations to come in and broadcast
from the backyard, and I was like, Wow, food is
the ultimate way to bring people together other over all
(32:00):
this other stuff too, and this is how you can
create community. And also on top of that, I was
deeply obsessed with the skill and technique of making pastry,
following recipes, doing high production of things, working service like
meeting people, like kitchen culture, like everything about it. I
was like, Oh, this is the best thing of every Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yeah, So obviously I understand now how you got started
in restaurants. When I met you or when I became
to know of you, you seem to be well in
your comfort zone of doing your own thing here in
New York City. So what was the in between? What
was your restaurant experience and how did you transition into
doing these impactful bake sales.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
So I moved to New York in twenty thirteen, and
I was being a pastry cook, making like eleven dollars
an hour, getting up super early, and there, you know,
doing all that. I did that for years, and then
the turning point of my career was I became like
the executive pastry chef for this restaurant group in Manhattan
and started running programs in multiple locations, and so I
(33:02):
over time had like made this big jump from maybe
only managing a few people or being someone else's employee
to suddenly like expanding programs, being reviewed by Pete Wells
ordering the best ingredients in the world, the kind of
pressure cooker situation that comes with being in places like that.
(33:22):
There was stuff about it that I was naturally drawn to,
and other stuff about it that I knew was unsustainable
or like dysfunctional or toxic or whatever. But this is
not specific to that group. I feel like that's just
systemic within the industry, especially in New York, where you know,
people work so long for like low money and like
no benefits. And I think that for me also to
(33:45):
go back to this like existential idea of why pastry
or why baking, I started feeling like my friends can't
afford to come to the restaurants that I work at,
you know, I can't really afford to eat at the
restaurants I work out with, how my staff discount the
charity events that we are doing are for like Gallas,
where tables are ten thousand dollars. To me, I just
(34:07):
felt like there was this great distance between like the
people that I was surrounded by while working and like
who we were serving, and I was just trying to
think of ways to like close that gap a little bit.
And in twenty sixteen was when I came up with
the idea. Because Trump had just been elected, a lot
(34:27):
of people that I knew were sort of having nervous
breakdowns around this reality. And my experience was immediately it
felt like reproductive health rights and access were suddenly being
called into question. He wanted to take them away, he
wanted to monitor it, limited all this stuff. And so
(34:48):
I had this idea of having a bake sale as
a way to achieve two things for me. One brought
together people in the pastry community historically have like maybe
not been as recognized or celebrated as the savory chef
counterparts in major cities. I don't know if you find
that to be true. The rock stars of dining are
not the pastry chefs of those restaurants. It's like often
(35:10):
the savory side person who's like has the big steak
or is like got the fancy.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Nice but bakers don't. I think there's like a hierarchy
of like credibility. It's like chef. I do think pastry
chefs are in the middle. But like baker's bro, you
know how you give a damn about a baker? Well
you make bread?
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Cool?
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Yeah, I put that shit on the table for free.
You know, you spend you spend twenty four hours making
a piece of bread. I put that shit on the
table free. But no, but I do agree with you.
I think being a patry chef, I used to be
a cook, right, and I do remember there being like
that sideways mentality about the pastry person. It's also like
the person that works like the salad station too. It's like, yeah, so, yeah,
(35:50):
one hundred percent here what you're saying. And you know,
again like sorry you had to go through that.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Yeah, well, I mean like I learned so much. And
I think also the unique thing about restaurants is they
offer resources. And when you work in a restaurant that
is willing to share their resources, whether it's like the
venue of the building, the kitchen and the ingredients, the staff,
you know. And all of a sudden, I was like, Okay,
everyone here is supporting me in producing this event to
(36:19):
bring together pastry chefs in New York City to come
to the restaurant and have their pastries and also like
the other really profound thing about this first big sale
was everything was five dollars. There was no ticket entry
to come in. Anybody could come in. We had pastry
chefs from Labernadine, Gramercy Tavern, the Cuckoo high end places,
(36:40):
and I was like, can you develop something that we
can sell for five dollars? And so we had people
coming in being like I've never been to Labertada in
but like, here's a way I can engage with the
work that they do and support something in a way
that I couldn't normally do. To me, I was like, yes,
this feels inclusive, Like it feels like everybody can come
here and get a little taste. Over the years, the
(37:01):
baked sales for me have really evolved to not just
include chefs from fine dining restaurants, but also cookbook authors,
recipe developers, you know, bakers, micro bakers who work from home.
So that's more interesting to me. Now is a greater
expression of the baking world and like who is participating?
(37:23):
But I felt so full after that first bake sale.
The vibes are so good. I think back then in
spring twenty seventeen, it wasn't common for a major restaurant
to post on social media. We stand with planned parenthood,
we believe in abortion access, and I think that with
some diners there's this sense of please keep your politics
(37:47):
out of my food, Like can you just go back
to posting possible?
Speaker 1 (37:50):
They forget that food, They forget that, I forget that.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
The whole.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Realize, Yeah, you don't even realize what's going on in
them kitchens and was going on with you know what
I mean, like.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Exactly, And so now it's they've really changed and grown
a lot, especially as I've gone from working full time
in restaurants to now, as you mentioned earlier, like trying
to be a freelancer full time and like that hustle
without those resources of like a venue and everything. How
(38:22):
can I pull off this kind of event almost like
a new set of challenges?
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Crazy events?
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Bro, You guys have been to a bunch of liney Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I what I appreciate about your work is, you know
obviously what you're saying of like, look, it's one thing
to work in fancy kitchens, but it's another thing to
understand what baking means as a whole from like a
global human perspective, hungry for more Flaky Biscuit. Stay tuned,
(39:07):
Welcome back to Flaky Biscuit. I went to your bake sale.
I forgot what street it was on. It was the
one at the theater.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I think so the Chilane Theater.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
The line to get a ticket was it was like
an hour or something like it had to wait a minute,
but people waited and those proceeds went to Was it Planned.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Parenthood or well, it's the bridget Alliance.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
The Bridge Alliance, yes.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Which is sort of They actually work in tandem with
organizations like Planned Parenthood, where there they organized like the
travel and the logistics around people who need to travel
out of state to receive abortion care, and so they're
actually moving people from wherever they lived to the Planned
Parenthood in New York and elsewhere. Bridgein Alliance is not
(39:54):
as much of a household name as Planted Parenthood. So
it was important for us that we were like thinking
beyond the brand name nonprofits right right, right, the director
Bridge Alliance is a born and raised New Yorker, like,
she lives in Brooklyn, Like, it was really important that
those were the women that we were working with, right,
It was incredible.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Well, I listen, I do think it's very important that
mail bakers stand up and support these issues. I don't
see enough of it on social media, and quite frankly,
I have lost probably thousands of followers anytime I post
about abortion rights and stuff like that. So we're gonna
end with that part. We're gonna jump right back into
We're gonna we're gonna lighten the mood up here a
little bit. We're gonna play a little flaky game. On
(40:36):
each episode of Flaky Biscuit, we play a different game
with our guests. Today's game, I'm busting out a little
plate here, a little sampler. You look like very pensive. Here,
you look very past. So I have a sampler plate
of various intimates. Probably now here's a kicker. One of
(40:57):
these is not intimates, all right, that's kind of messed
up of a game, huh one of these? Now no, no,
don't get eager. So you already know what. You already
know what that one. So here's the way the game
will work, all right, And there's no cash prize here
is don't get too excited. I want you to tell
me a is what you're eating intimates and bonus points
(41:18):
for telling me exactly which one it is. Close your
eyes and I'm gonna place one of these in your hand. Okay,
I'm gonna place in your hand, and you're just gonna
take one bite of it? Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
So ready?
Speaker 1 (41:31):
All right?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
This is like a stick.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
See Natasha smart, She's she's feeling it up, touching it up,
trying to touch the top, trying to touch the crumb.
All right, he goes a little bite.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Oh m hmm. It's like a cake with like a
sweet Yeah, you only get one bite, by the way, one,
I think, Yeah, what do you taste? I think this
is so sweet? There's no way you made this.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Oh no, I didn't make any of these are all
they're all Intimates, but one of them is a different brand,
a competitor.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Maybe it's like a Danish. I think it's.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Entimates, soimates and a dain Danish? What kind of dangers?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Give me a little like a vanilla kind of Danish.
Doesn't mean it's not fruit.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Listen, I'll cheese. Yeah, yes, you're exactly right. It istimen's
cheese Danish. Next thing there you go, placing into it
feels dry, It feels really dry. But these pastry chefs
is brutal out here on flakey biscuit powdered sugar.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Actually, this one tastes very similar. Okay, I think it's
not just powdered sugar too, it's like corn starch. I
like this.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Yeah, and is it definitely Definitelytimen's powdered sugar donut. Absolutely
two for two. Natasha Pickowitz is on a roll here.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
I have to guess the other brand too to win.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
No, you just have to tell me if it's Intimen's
or not. Oh, you need water because that was so dry.
We might have to talk to I think we need
to go to Long Island together and meet with them
and just like a apologize and be maybe I don't know,
do a collab or something. Next up, we have placing
the item. She sniffs it, she feels it up.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Oh uh oh. I think this is a tasty cake
or like a coffee cake from like a gas station
or something.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
So is it entimates?
Speaker 2 (43:29):
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Wow. Natasha Pickowitz is three for three. Whoa unbelievable turn
of events here. It was a Hostess coffee cake. And
let me tell you if anything about your your palette
has been exposed as a patry chef, is the fact
that you just blind tasted two boxed products. You have
(43:53):
a kidding. Yeah, this ain't even fakes.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
This is not good.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Like gummy under Wow. Shout out to the local Long
Island artisanal bakers and Inimens for providing Natasha with those
high quality baked goods. Man, geez, wow, I'm very impressed.
I'm very very impressed. Three for three. I do have
one more item on the plate. You're obviously gonna know
it's Intimates, but I want you to taste it anyway,
(44:23):
because it came in a different looking box and it
seems he seemed like a little more high end. No,
it's like legit, hold on, let me get let me
prep you to your little feeling touch and smelling all
the thing. I'm gonna I'm gonna get the box to
see what it is. It's it was like it was
like on the top shelvel.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
It feels like a pebble.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Oh, it was on the top shelf of where the
Intimens are. I had to get like a ladder to
get it.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
I mean, what are you tasting?
Speaker 2 (44:52):
It's chocolate d but I think the cake is chocolate too, Okay,
like cocoa or something.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Okay, Okay, but.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
It's a very rich maybe it's a brownie bite.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
No, no, it's not a brownie bite.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
It frosting is Yeah. I might have guessed that this
wasn't Intimates either, just because I'm not familiar.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
You know, honestly, and I knew I could have gained
to you and messed you over. So but you know
what that you know, the Gaming Commission confirmed that my
actions were appropriate and it was no match fixing here,
so we're all good. You open your eyes. Now, this
is an Intimate's cake Truffle of the cookies and cream
variety of bridge and bridges. So she yeah, it just
(45:35):
came out this year, So inside scoop from the native
Long Island, New Yorker over here, this Intiman's Cake Truffle
is a new entity.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I mean, it's kind of the best thing on this
play in a way. It's in like a fancy or box.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
I'm telling you. It was literally on the top shelf.
So flaky game, Natasha pick which comes through in the clutch.
You sniffed out that hostes so quick.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Cinnamons sentimens isn't as a you know, liberal with their cinnamon.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Uh was that a shot fire? Like would you would
you like to see more.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Deeply sensitive to cinnamon in a bad way.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Too much cinnamon and it's like bro.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Let me apples and this pie anymore? Like I want
to taste apple.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
The apple first, and the cinnamon should be an ex exactly. Wow,
So flaky game on point, fam. If you're out there
again in the discord our social channels, tag us hit
up those show notes. We actually had a guest who
chose a tasty cakes product.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
So I see a trend happening in terms of very intelligent,
creative people and packaged preservative field it SERTs a junk food.
Before we let you go, I want to I want
to jump back into what we were talking about. We
love to end our episodes with talking about important topics
and organizations and concepts, and we were talking about reproductive rights,
(46:55):
abortion rights and bridget Alliance. You know what's next between
you know? Are you any more bake sales? How did
that one bake sale go? I was blown away?
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yeah. So for the Virgin Alliance, which is a nonprofit
based in New York City run by born and raised
New Yorkers, twenty twenty two was like a banner year
for them and Obviously it's kind of a double sided
sword or whatever, because it was a banner year for
them in that they had one thousand percent increase in
donations from people like us. But it is because it
(47:25):
is in response to the fact that, among other things,
Roe v. Wade was overturned this year. So all of
a sudden, there are many states in the US and
growing of people who cannot receive access to safe abortions
in the state where they live in and these rights
are essential, but also like very fragile, and so a
(47:49):
nonprofit like Bridgin Alliance in twenty twenty two they served
over one thousand people who are needing to travel out
of state to receive abortion care. And so we know
now that the expenses are not just of the procedure,
which already is a lot, but it's also the cost
(48:10):
of traveling out of state. If you already have children,
it's finding like childcare for the kids that you do have.
If you work a job, it's the money lost from
not working because you have to travel, fly sometimes out
of state. They're flying people out of state, they're getting
them on transportation, and they're bringing them to other organizations
like Planned Parenthood, and not just go through that process
in like a terrified way, like maybe they're a minor,
(48:32):
maybe they went through something traumatic in a way where
they feel safe, there's like dignity involved in the process.
They're taking care of every step of the way. So
I think that this is like a very holistic service
that they provide for people who often feel overwhelmed at
the financial and the emotional cost of doing something like this,
which has been made even harder. And so for me,
(48:54):
people are always like what can I do? What can
I do? And I'm like, what is in your toolbox?
That's like different for ever every And for me it
was big sales because I know how to bake, I
can make a lot of some things. I like to
organize parties and like events. So this was my toolbox.
For someone else, maybe their toolbox is like graphic design
and like computer work and like organizing files, or maybe
(49:15):
it's like making stuff like building furniture, whatever, maybe it's gardening.
Like who knows. Everyone has something in their toolbox, And
I think that helping other people is really about looking
inward and being like, what do I have that I
can like extend to others or be generous about? Right
as long as we're engaging with our community. That's like
(49:36):
what it's all about. So that's why I do this,
and we'll continue.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
To Wow, that really is what it's all about. And
I think you kind of you really embody that mission.
I've seen with my own eyes thousands of people supporting this. Yeah,
real tangible people supporting this with real tangible money that
goes and supports these travel costs and procedure costs we
trying to get reposted right now. We try to get
them money to get these people.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
And I think the best thing is that the money
that we raised, whether it was like twenty two thousand
dollars that day at the Cherry Lane Theater, when we
did the New York Times Food Festival bake sale for
City Harvest, that was like eleven thousand dollars. I've done
bake sales when we raise over one hundred thousand dollars.
All those things those bake sales have in common is
that they were made on increments of five to seven dollars,
(50:22):
And so you're seeing the multiplicity of many people throwing
in a little bit of what they can. It's not
like somebody rich being like here's a.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Grand here's a grand let me buy you out, Let
me buy one vendor out because you give tickets and
one ticket gets one item. Because I was like, oh,
it's like, it's like that, and I was scrambling get tickets.
I had to go find my tickets. Wow, Natasha, you're
such an inspiration. I can't thank you enough for taking
time out of your busy schedule to come and chat
with me and the Flaky fam and the Shannalaan fam
(50:53):
about your journey, your experience, your thoughts on my entimens
chocolate donut and all things taste and patience and everything
like that. You'll already know the book is hidden the shelves.
Thank you so much for coming, Natasha. This is an
absolute pleasure to talk to you and to get to
know more about your story.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Thanks Brian.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
All right, all right, all right, thank you once again
for listening today. If you want to make my version
of Entimen's chocolate donuts for yourself, find the recipe on
Shondaland dot com and I want to know how it goes.
This is a very fun, one, nice and easy recipe.
But hey, you gotta get that texture right, you gotta
get that chocolate blaze right. So tag me at artists
(51:35):
and Brian tag my homie, my friend Natasha at Natasha
Picklewitz tag Shondaland and post photos and videos of your process.
While you're making this recipe for us, get into the
discord and chat with us. You know what I'm saying,
Leave comments on Instagram, whatever, send us a message. It's
all good. You know, Natasha and I are both bakers,
so we really want to know how y'all did. And
(51:56):
the advice I can give you for this recipe is
to use the freeze. Don't be afraid to use a
freezer to help that chocolate coating set. Depending on how
you made that frosting and whatnot, what texture you're getting,
the freezer can kind of help get it nice and crunchy.
Don't forget to look up the Bridget Alliance at bridget
Alliance dot org. You can find their website and all
the links and handles I've mentioned in the show notes
(52:18):
for this episode. If you like flaky biscuit all right,
if you like flaky layers and delicious morsels of nostalgia,
then you know what to do. Leave us a beautiful rating, review, Share, subscribe,
tell the whole world, Scream it from the rooftops. If
you're driving to work and you want to hear something delicious,
(52:39):
put on Flaky Biscuit. Thank you so much for joining guys.
Flaky Biscuit is executive produced by Sandy Bailey, alex Alja,
Lauren Homan, Tyler Klang, and Gabrielle Collins. Our creative producer
is Bridget Kenna, and our editor and producer is Nicholas Harder,
with music by Crucial. Recipes from Flaky Biscuit can be
(53:00):
found each week on Shondaland dot com. Subscribe to the
Shondaland YouTube channel for more Flaky Biscuit content. Flaky Biscuit
is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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