November 28, 2023 • 51 mins
Host Bryan Ford is joined by Dan Pashman, host of The Sporkful podcast, and inventor of the pasta shape cascatelli. Dan is the creator of The Sporkful, which is a James Beard and Webby Award-winning podcast. The series and his pasta shape, cascatelli, were featured by the NY Times, NPR, CBS This Morning, People Magazine, Access Hollywood, and more. He’s also the creator and host of Cooking Channel's You're Eating It Wrong and a contributor to NPR and Milk Street Radio. Dan and his work have been featured on The Today Show, Radiolab, Guy's Grocery Games, NPR's Morning Edition, WTF with Marc Maron, Planet Money, Beat Bobby Flay, Freakonomics Radio, and more.
Today he joins Bryan for his favorite holiday meal: latkes with cream and apple sauce.
Watch Bryan make his version and Subscribe: Youtube
Recipe from today's episode can be found at Shondaland.com
Join The Flaky Biscuit Community: Discord
Dan Pashman IG: @thesporkful
Bryan Ford IG: @artisanbryan
Don’t forget to check out the Suffolk YJCC at syjcc.org
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
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 to Flaky Biscuit Podcasts. Each episode, we're
cooking up delicious morsels and nostalgia meals and recipes that
have comforted and guided our guests to a tremendous amount
of success. And I hope my guests understand I really
(00:22):
mean it. Like when you bite into this, I don't
want you to just say, oh, Brian, this tastes great.
I really want you to dig deep and say, maamn,
this really brought me back pants art today. There's no
way hell I could do it. I'm Brian Ford. I
write cookbooks, I've had some TV shows. I host a
Flaky Biscuit podcast. I have a bakery in New York
(00:43):
City now like a I don't want to say crazy person,
like a person who just decided to add more chaos
to their life. But most importantly, I have to cook
and bake for people. And I have someone extremely special
in my kitchen today, someone that anyone in my position
has to be a spy iring to be like because
there's game changing energy in here. You know what I'm saying.
(01:05):
Our guest today is a James Beard sever Webby Award winner,
an inventor, an inventor y'all of pasta shapes. Come on, man,
this is crazy. The inventor of the pasta shape Cascatelli
and the one and only creator and host of the
(01:25):
sporkfle podcast. Yeah, this is Royalty in the crypt today.
Please welcome the extremely talented Dan Passiman.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Hey, Brian, it's great to be here. Oh man.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
We was already shooting it a little bit, talking a
little bit before. And one thing that's in my notes,
it just says he loves MSG.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
That's the only thing about me anyone needs to know
I do.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, And I just stood out to me just now,
and I kind of want, you know what, to my
listeners out there. We're just about to talk about MSG
real quick. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I mean, look, we did an episode of The spork
Ful a few years ago, kind of early on in
what's become an increasing conversation around the fact that like
a lot of the hang ups about MSG were tied
up in some racist tropes and in some sort of
pseudoscience bullshit. To me like it's a great flavor enhancer.
I keep it in my pantry. I add it to
soups and stews and sauces all the time. Not a lot,
(02:17):
just a little sprinkle. But like, look, glutamate occurs naturally
in all I'm sure you know. It's in tomatoes, it's
in parmesan. She's just in your brain right now, this
it should be or you're in trouble.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
My brain got a problem.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So all you do is you're just taking this thing
that occurs in nature and binding it to sodium to
make it a powder that you can keep on a
countertop and sprinkle into food. It's not a big deal
and there's no evidence that it presents any kind of
widespread health concern. The science says that most people who
think they have a sensitivity to MSG, in fact do not.
There probably are some people who do have a legitimate
(02:54):
sensitivity to it, but it's a it's a sensitivity like
the same like my sister in law candy onions or
she gets an upset stomach. Like you don't need to
put a big side on a label, turn and run away.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah. No, A lot of things can cause sensitivity and
it's not dangerous at all. I think it flows through
my veins. I think Hispanic people we don't get enough
credit for our love affair with MSG because one of
the top sasons that we use seasonings the sasson you know,
orange packets. Yeah, you know what the first ingredient, isn't that? Right?
(03:28):
And right I'm gonna tell you something right now. I
remember I had to do a food challenge once where
I had to use MSG to season like vegetables or
something like that, and I took sasson, I took like
an orange packet, put it in a spray bottle, and
I just like misted these vegetables smart and it was
I mean, it was just like it was one of
the most addicting things. And it wasn't the vegetables right right, right,
(03:49):
it was quite phenomenal. So yeah, I mean I think, like,
you know, we make with that, we may you know,
mix so fritos with that, we make our chicken with that.
It's absolutely delicious. If you want delicious food, you should
eat some. Absolutely exactly the way to go.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Damn. I'm so excited to get to know you, to
get to know your story. Why don't you let our
listeners know what is the nostalgic meal that I have
prepared for you today, which.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Just by looking at the ingredients that I see before me,
I'm pretty sure that it's potato lotkas.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
What do you see before you?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Well, the first thing I saw as soon as I
walked in the door with sour cream and apple sauce,
which are the classic condiments.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
So I clearly have spent a few minutes, you know,
doing a little research. I'm glad you're seeing the signs
of the deliciousness you graz.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I see the eggs, I see flour.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I see what about this?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
I think that is that schmaltz. Yes, rendered chicken fat.
That's hardcore.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
So schmaltz. Like I've rendered fat before, usually duck fat
or something like that. I mean, sure I've rendered chicken
fat at some point, but I didn't know it was
called schmaltz. Tell me what's up with Like how important
is this to have? Did you grow up? You know?
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I grew up more culturally Jewish than religious Jewish, Like
we went to temple, but like not super religious, Like
we didn't have a kosher home, but for like the
traditional Eastern European Jews, if you keep kosher, we just
my family didn't. But if you keep kosher, of course,
most people know like no pork, no shellfish. But the
other thing that's less well known is that you're not
supposed to mix meat and dairy, even if it's a
(05:20):
kosher meat. Even if you were to take kosher chicken,
you still couldn't put butter on it in a proper
kosher home. So as a result, Jewish people needed cooking
fat that wasn't butter exactly or exactly, and so it
couldn't be pig fat and it couldn't be buttered. And
this was back, you know, generations ago before you could
just go to the store and buy a leader of
(05:42):
vegetable oil. Right, so you need cooking fat, you would
render the fat from a chicken. And that was like
the most common cooking fat that Jews would use.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
I'll tell you what, it's a brilliant idea. I love chicken,
and I love krispy chicken. Then you also get these
crispy chicken bits on it.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
The skin that's called gribbinus in Yiddish lingo. So it's
like little bits of crispy fried chicken skin gribbinus.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, gribbonus. I'm gonna keep some gribbinus all up in
the Yeah, no, yes, that's exactly what I'm making. I'm
making latkas. And the disclaimer I have which I think
this is gonna be fun. We're doing this in a
style that has actually not been done. I've definitely live
cooked during an interview, but I typically would get up
and go to the stove, right. I decided to bust
(06:30):
out the induction burner today.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
I decided that I want to actually be able to
still speak with you while I try to figure this out.
And it is the first time I've ever made this before.
I've never made it. I've never attempted to make it before.
I don't really know how this is gonna go, but
I see that you're here for it.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I'm totally here for it. And also, like, I mean,
you know your way around a kitchen. I have confidence
in you, Brian.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I appreciate that. So when was the first time you
had this dish? Is that you can access?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I mean, it's it's one of those things. It feels
like it was always there. So the most common time
that you'd eat potato lokas would be around Hankah Because
so the story of hanka long story short, they had
this oil burning lamp and they thought they only had
enough oil left for the lamp to light the temple
for one more night, and the oil lasted eight nights
and it was a miracle, and so the eight nights
(07:23):
of Hankkah. And as a result, the common foods that
you eat around Hannaka are foods cooked and oil.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Best food.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah. It's interesting actually because so like Eastern European Jews
in America, which is like my family's lineage, potato lokas
potato pancakes is the most common thing potatoes fried and oil.
In Israel, it's actually jelly donuts.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Oh like fried Yes, jelly donuts, that's.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Right, are huge in Israel. That's the most popular honka
of food.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, let me tell you.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Later in life, I had an idea to combine the
donut concept with the laka concept. Not a jelly done,
but take a regular yeasted glazed donut and slice it
open and use it as a sandwich bread and then
put the potato loatka, apple sauce and sour cream inside.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Use that as like the vessel for the latka.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, but it's also one of those things that, like,
these things are kind of a pain in the ass
to cook because it's always like for a large gathering,
it's time consuming to make a lot of them. You know,
when you're frying anything anything, you're frying a lot of
food for a big gathering.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Commit to frying food for a lot of people like you,
you fucked up.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
So usually it's like one night of Hanakah, there's one
person in the family who's the latka person, and they
make it and the whole house just disconnect the smoke alarms.
Right now, there's gonna be like a thin haze throughout
the entire house, right all your clothes. You're gonna smell
like oil cut when at the end of the night
you're gonna walk in the door and be confronted with
like these plumes of smoke coming out of the kitchen.
(08:54):
But like that smell and that like the air is
an immersive experience.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Up on high right now, put the burner on high
and get.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
To smoke ourselves out.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
It's like, get a little hazy going. But it sounds
like you're describing a pretty distinct memory though, even if
you're not pulling from one specific occasion, it sounds like
you're pulling from what it what it means.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, and the locka is a sort of like coming
off the griddle, you know, out of the pan on
it at a steady stream, and they're going onto the
serving platter and you're eating them as they're coming off,
you know, the kids you're running around, you're playing, you're
coming and grabbing on a loatka. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
So that actually played into why I decided this sounds
like it should be eating as soon as it's cooked. Yeah,
And I was like, there's no way I'm gonna make
some of these lokas, have them sit around and then
try to like reheat them. So I was like, Okay,
let me just cook it right in front of his face,
just like we could just like still talk while it's happening.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah. Yeah, I admire your commitment.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Well, we'll see about that. So, like, what are some
of the flavors, textures, any kind of like there's traditional ones.
Are there any differential type lakas that you've had, Like
what's your desired mouthful? When you think about a lotka?
Speaker 2 (10:03):
I In some ways, it's kind of similar to like
my ideal cookie in that you want like a crispy perimeter.
The inside is more like potato eat. It's a little
bit more dense, and then the outside has like those
crags and the little bits of shredded potato that are
kind of turning crispy crunchy. So you have multiple textures
in a bite.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
You're just setting me up for failure.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
That's no, it'd be great. But like sometimes you'll see
a lotka that's more like frittata, almost like eggy cakey,
you know, and it's kind of.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Like bready, and that's bad.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I mean, it's it's not my taste. It's not what
I grew up with. Some people, I'm sure love that.
I don't think there's like a wrong latka or like
this is just a subjective you know. But to me,
I like the crispy edges.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Okay, to the listeners, I'm sure Dan just said there's
not a wrong laka because he's gonna feel bad. Yeah,
you're don't feel bad when I make mine. He's gonna say, no, Brian,
don't you remember what I said? There's no wrong one.
So we know you're a nostalgic meal. We've got a
little bit of in site in terms of the memory
surrounding it sounds like it's just been a part of
(11:04):
your existence for as long as you can remember, I
think it's probably time.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
It's probably time. And what I'm gonna do right now,
before I actually start the cooking process, I will talk
through it. I'm gonna explain to you what I'm gonna do.
I guess I'm gonna give you a little bit of insight. Yeah, obviously, Yes,
some of the research indicates that sour cream and apple
sauce are the talk to me about that the apple sauce, Like,
what's where is that worn out of it?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Is that sure? Where that comes from?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Me? Do you prefer? I didn't know which one of
you might prefer, so I have them both.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Like growing up, I was more apple sauce as a kid.
I don't have a taste for sour cream. Nowadays, I
kind of like the combo, you know, because I love
like a sour cream apple pie. Oh you know, you know,
like like to me, sour cream in.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Desserts is really like underrated, Yeah, yeah, you know, because
it adds so much texturally, so does like for example,
like coconut cream coconut.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, or even it gets like a little bit of tang,
like the way like buttermilk can and some dishes you know,
it's like makes it like a little more complex, like
it's a little more taste than you know. So I
like that combo.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Wow, I'm gonna tell you something, right, I wish I
had some huna and krema in the fridge and we
could eat it with some krama. Central American. You ever
got eating with grandma?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
No, but I got some crema in my in your car,
in my fridge, right, No, it's.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Amazing. Yeah, pulled up with Grandma in his bag. I
got some cram all right. I would just shut this
off and like you.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
The man, you one, I'm not that good. Sorry, I
so I asked it in my fridge at home, which
is too far away from me to go to right now.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
It is but one day.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
But that is a brilliant idea, and I think that
would be so delicious.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Right now, should we have already get some Grandma.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I think the crama would be better than the sour cream,
because the sour cream can be a little bit gloopy
and this sort of the ooziness of the krama mixing
with the apple sauce.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, you know, hold on, hold on, hold, I got
I message right here. No, no, no, no, no, We're gonna
get some crama delivered one my sister and you please,
I'll buy you dinner and happy our drink wow, and
pay for you to get your nails done.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
But she's like already out the door with this message.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Okay, okay, So to the listeners, look, I'm just at
my crib man with my family man. We're trying to
just get this done from all right, So we got
this cast iron ripping hot. It's starting to smoke. I
want to create that haze. Now, I got the Schmaltz.
So we talked a little bit about the schmaltz, about
the history behind you know why is rendered chicken fat
part of this particular cuisine. All right, so I got
the schmaltz in there. Things are moving kind of fast.
(13:37):
I wasn't even prepared. Now that oil is going to
get hot. I have to start activating right now. Okay,
all right, so.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
He has to go down because those induction things get
high fast.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
We don't really want to create a haze. That was
more of a joke, right, Yeah, four is where I
live usually with these right, I'm going headphones list the
mic still picking me up. I gotta get something from
the fridge real quick.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
All right, you know in these locas, you know, traditionally
at a Honka party, you do it like you say,
apple sauce, sour cream. Maybe we'll try some crama, but
I'm not Obviously this isn't the most creative idea. I'll
pop a thought of this. But you know the next morning, Yes,
you can have left over lock because you throw them
in the toast ven or you broil them in a
sheet pan and then you put some like you know,
sunny side up eggs. Think about like a hash brown
(14:18):
cracked open.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Some cold beers, important cheers. Right now, I'm gonna try
to do this from the dome. From the dome, meaning
from the top of the head.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I love it. You were like, oh shit, it's getting
really hot. We better hurry up and start cooking. The
five minutes later you came back with beer.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
From the fruit.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yeah, it's gonna come back with a lacka batter.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So here are some things like talk to me right,
I read do not make this batter in advance. First
of all, I also read don't shred the potatoes in advance,
which I did, so I don't know if, like I.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Those things sound to me like sort of you.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Know, like someone trying to make up some articles.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Well that's like old old wives tales, and it's kind
of it. Also it's also personal preference, you know. I
waso like, I know you you know more about the
science of cooking than I do. Maybe I guess if
you shed them they release water.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Is that bad?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I don't know. Just color.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
It seems to always be about like gray gray. You
ever had a gray laka?
Speaker 2 (15:11):
I mean the golden brown to me? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
All right, so I have onion potato perfect redded. This
looks good in the bowl? Was flour, crack black pepper,
the hazes just the haze is starting, cracked black pepper. Oh,
a pinch, and I mean the tiniest sprinkle of baking powder.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, I've heard that that's a thing.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Shit, he heard it's a thing, which means it's not
a thing, because he had to hear.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
No, no, no, I've only made scratch it myself once or
twice in my life. It's never been my job in
the family. God, I managed to avoid letting it become
my job.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
A lot of what I read was about Matso and
called some of my Jewish friends. Okay, so this is
for Hanukkah, it's okay to use flour, right, but for
passovers when motso is really more consumed.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
So I almost went on this goose chase to find
matso matzo meal, right because I've heard that you can
make this with matso meal.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Which is sort of like bread crumbs made of matsa exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
But my friend shout out Sarah Hoffman. She was like,
Brian just used fly. Yeah, fine, so flower.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I'm feeling good about this, Brian, And I'll tell you why,
because I like that you shredded the potatoes into big shreds.
You know, you don't want the potatoes to be like parade.
You don't want you don't want them to be finally grated.
That's when they fuse with the egg and the flour
and just a bread bread exactly, and you have a
single consistency. You don't want a bread, you want textra variation.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
So I have a couple of eggs here, I'm going
to mix the egg in. I don't know why. I
feel like it should be a little bit thicker.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
No, that looks that's looking good because, like I said,
you know, you're not trying to turn this into bread
all right. You know so.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
The way you said that was like it sounds like
you had some like fucked up bread in it, like
some real bready.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Lock the us to me are the ones you get
like sid as they got a Jewish deli where they're
made the day before and they're sitting in a glass case. Yeah,
and they're just not and so to me, like they
should be a little bit loose and they should be
kind of craggy, and each one should look a little
bit different. You're not looking for perfect circles.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
No, no, no, you're not, And I want it to
be craggy. I'm ready to cook these, but I want
to see if we're gonna get Grandma bring a little
bit of my you know what I'm saying, heritage. Yes, yes,
I'm gonna see what happens. But on that note, so
you've never allowed yourself to be the designated laka mak.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I've consciously avoided it. You end up spending the whole
party standing over the stove. Your eyes will burn from
all the onions and all the smoke in your face,
and you're gonna you're gonna smell like oil. And it's
a little bit of a thankless job. It's like, yeah,
you made the luckus, thank you, right, and all the
kids come running up, they take the lockers and they
run away. Yeah exactly. So you need to stand here
(17:55):
and tell me how great I is.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
All right, Grandma's on the way. I'm gonna go ahead
and drop these. But I do want to know what's
your from fry to mouth desired time frame? Like would
you let it sit them in it?
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Or do you eat them? You're gonna burn your tongue
if you.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Before that turns great?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Or like a soup spoon, like yeah, big spoon, Yeah good.
It should be a couple of it should be like
three inches in diameter.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Oh see, guys, this is why this is the cheat
code episode, because I just got the whole diameter before
I even prepared it. I'm like, oh, alright, so we
got one drop, got a lot of better here. We
got the flames, they came up a little bit. Did
you sign the death waiver?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I can tell you that my mic. I have to
replace the foam guards on my mic every few mis,
every few months because they always got crumbs and oil
and splatters all kinds of shit on them. We got
special delivery.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Special delivery. Wait, I see a red bull. But do
I see Grandma? Oh yeah, grandma, Let me see Grandma.
It's hun during Krandma baby, and Grandma is going down. Thanks, young,
(19:10):
So lacka number one.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
It's like pancakes and French toast of the first the best.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
The first one is always like weak.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Oh wow, that looks actually kind of good.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
No, I mean that's looking very good.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
That looks good. All right, so we're gonna drop number two.
We're gonna try to get the sizzle.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I'm coming in for the sizzle.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Okay, all right, here we go. I'm gonna go in
for the third. Oh that was actually that was a
nice one. I'm flattening it with a spoon a little bit,
you know. So this is a pancake.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, I mean some people call them potato pancakes.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
This smells delicious, This looks phenomenon, and I would I
might start just making these. I mean, look, keeping these
in the house.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Fried potatoes like it's fried potatoes are kind of a
universal language.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
All right. So to the listeners out there, I'm almost done.
Watch yourself watching this one. I'm gonna flip it towards me. Boom, Okay,
flaky first, looking right here on.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
The table, smells so good, right now, Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
It's smelling good. That's a good thing. We're drinking beer,
the dogs are barking, and the latkas are sizzling.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
So I can't wait to try this with the krama.
I think.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Okay, that one looks Chris and all right, I think
I'm pulling them. What do you think about my exit
plan here? Do you think I'm at the right point? Yeah,
so I'm at the right point with the exits.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
You know how to fry potatoes. Yes, there's a haze,
and there has to be. You're not You're not doing
it the right way. If there's not a haze.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
We'll be back after these messages from our sponsors. All right,
all right, let's just jump back in. You're supposed to
eat them hot, so I don't want to hold you up.
(21:08):
Did you get a fork? You did, Yeah, let's dig in.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Do it.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Dealer's choice for you. You take yours, and as you eat it,
just let us know what your taste and what you're feeling.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I'm gonna take this one on the far sides. It's
got the crispiest edges.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, oh yeah, Okay, Okay, he got the crags.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
It's still hot. It's still hot.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
It's still pretty hot.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Got to give a stick.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I'm gonna take a sick of beer real quick. Yeah,
talk to me about what you see when you talk
about those crispy edges you seem to that seems to
be really important to you.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
I'm a huge texture eater in general. I love crispy crunchy.
I like to sink my teeth into the foods that
I'm eating. I'm really obsessed with this concept the sensory
scientist called dynamic contrast, which is different textures together in
the same bite. Oh yeah, So you make a loaf
of bread, you get that crusty exterior and the bite
gives way into the airy interior. You know, like that
(21:56):
contrast between textures is a big part of what makes
that bite so good.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Okay, that's exactly what makes it so good, exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
You know, like there's no accident, like all the best
candy bars combined, like crispy and crunchy and chewy and gooey.
You pierce the chocolate shell and then you hit some caramel,
and then you hit nugat, and then you hit a
peanut or whatever. It is or you hit or a
wayfer to me. I want that in all my foods.
I want a variety of textures. So like for this,
what I love about these ones that you've made why
(22:24):
I picked this one, is that you have a few
strands of shredded potato that are kind of jutting out
in all directions from the perimeter. Because they're kind of
sticking out, they fry a little harder, so those get
extra crispy crunchy, and they have a lot of exterior surface.
And so you have this is gonna have a very
crispy perimeter on this pancake, and then you get into
the center it's gonna be still kind of soft and potato,
(22:45):
which I like. That's what I want, is that contrast
between crispy perimeter and then slightly doughey or more potato inside.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Oh man, that was just like a poetry.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I feel like that was I think a lot about texture.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
That was like road. So I'm getting in, I'm gonna
go I'm gonna put some sour cream on the edge,
and I'm just gonna like I'm gonna take a bike.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
M oh, I'm gonna go apple sauce on my first
bite because that's the most nostalgic for me. That's how
I had out.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
As a kid.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Mmmm, it's so good. You like that, then it's so good?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Oh wow. The apple's also a different game.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
It's not too salty with the apple sauce.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Could you get that sweet and salty together?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Oh man, I'm just like I just did my third
apple sauce.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
I love that you can really taste the onion in here.
It must be that like when I was growing up
we made the lockers with the onion, Because that's like
really bringing me back, and I feel like the lockers
I've had more recently in my life, haven't you know?
I know there's onions in there.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
But you don't lose onion powder.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah. Here, I really taste the onion and I love that.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Okay, that's good, it's great. I love the flavor onion
as well. All right, what else are you getting? So
you went in for another apple sauce? Bike.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
It's also the thing that brings me back that makes
me feel like I associated with childhood is like it's
not just the texture of the laka, but then when
you put the apple sauce on top and you get
the cool apple sauce on the warm laka, and you're
biting through the apple sauce that's sort of like very
soft and kind of like oozy and fruity, and then
you like hit the loaka and it's firm and you
bite and crisp and it kind of like pours the
(24:17):
oil out of the loka into your mouth with the
apple sauce and it starts mixing them all together. It's
like considered simple food and yet yeah, and all have
only a few ingredients and like fried potatoes are not
rocket science, but still you just get it just right
and it just brings it all with.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
This tastes different though in my head, I'm like, it's
not just a fried potato. Though, at the end of
the day, and this is me making this, I can't
even imagine how someone in your family or a grandma
might make this. It's like if I make this and
I'm like, okay, this is this is hidden a little different,
and I've never done it before. I can't even imagine
what a grandma is making. Before we move on, we
(24:54):
do need to try with the grammar.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yes, apple sauce and crema are just.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Or apple sauce and gandma. I'm gonna actually drench this
bite with grema, okay, and then I'm gonna top it
with apple sauce.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Is it good?
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I can't wait.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
It's good. It's good, It's nice. The Kredma is nice.
I do like the grandma better than the sour cream,
just from a textra It's more smooth, it's more creamy grandma. Like.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I want to try a bite just straight krema straight
apple snap.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
He said. I'm gonna do it too. I'm gonna dig
into this second one.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yes, I can't speak for all the Jewish people, Brian,
but for me, I think this is better than sour cream.
I lock.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
The only combo you ever need, the Krema lacka damn pajman.
Brian Ford, you heard it here first. Actually, twenty twenty three, baby,
twenty twenty three, we up here with krema lacas. Has
it been done?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
It's been done now.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
I think I want to have you hand on a
salt in the mixture with the flower. But I think
our listeners want to know definitively did I bring you back?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Yes, one hundred percent. That crisp and the salty and
the onion and the apple sauce. The klemo was amazing
and I'm going to be incorporating this into my knaka
in the future. But in terms of my childhood, it's
the lata with the apple sauce.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Wow, this was such an honor to do for you, Dan.
It's whenever I have to make something with such significance,
I always get a little nervous because it's like if
someone cooked for me, like a baliada that my mom
will make or something that's very hunduran, I'd be like,
but I appreciate you allowing me to cook this for you,
(26:39):
and like, I sincerely appreciate sharing this meal with you
as well.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, no, I appreciate you doing it. It brought me
back for sure. And I love what you're doing on
this podcast. I just like that you're doing something that's
different and that yes requires a little more work than
some other podcast concepts out.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
There, or we're sipping beer.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
It's all good, but I think makes it a lot
more interesting.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Also, speaking of podcasts, I've talked to you about how
you know you're a legend da dada and all this
kind of thing, But what was it like when you
started as a podcast host, I mean your podcast before podcasts. Yeah,
I'm sure anyway, like I'm one of the ops. How
were you able to make the leap into this industry
(27:20):
and absolutely be consistent and dominant and I mean as
Dan Pashman as his leading voice.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
So, I mean I started in radio when I graduated college.
My dream was to host my own radio show. So
I always knew that's what I wanted to get into,
and I worked in radio for a number of years.
I worked at a progressive talk radio network called Air America.
I worked at NPR. That was all happening kind of
as the Internet and technology were taking off, and so
I was kind of getting into this field just as
it was starting to crumble, right, and so it was
(27:50):
a very uncertain time, and there were a lot you know,
I kept getting jobs on shows that I thought I'll
be here for twenty years, and then next year they
would lay off, cancel the show and lay everyone off.
And so around two thousand and nine I got laid
off again. I got laid off like six times in
eight years or something like that. And friends of mine
and radio were starting podcasts, and I figured, well, if
I have my own podcasts, at least no one can
(28:11):
cancel it but me, you know, so at least I
can control my own destiny and if it's good, I
can keep doing it. No one can take it away
from me. And so I was like, what should my
podcast be?
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Like?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Actually, most of my work at that time I've been
in news and politics talk radio stuff, but I kind
of didn't really feel like the world needed another guy
with opinions about politics or sports, which is also something
I'm into. But I thought, well, food, I have like
this very idiosyncratic, kind of quirky approach. Maybe that's something,
And so I started. But it was I launched in
twenty ten, and it was still in the very real
stone ages of podcasting. I mean, you couldn't make a
(28:43):
living doing it. There were no ads, nobody bought ads
on podcasts. So I did it for two years as
a side project while freelancing. I was able to get
a book deal out of it, and that was something.
And then it was four years in twenty fourteen when
the podcast boom kind of started. I got picked up
a WNYC New York Public Radio and that was kind
of like my first break. They gave me a producer
that allowed me to get more ambitious about the show.
(29:04):
You know, like the show was good for a guy
doing it, you know, out of his living room, but
like you know, to do more ambitious things, you need help.
You can't do it alone. Yeah, And so that allowed
me to kind of get bigger and better with the
show and just kind of keep continuing to grow it
from there and left it on my seat and came
to stitch Her a few years back and that's been
going great.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
So wow, you know, because as I'm entering this this realm,
I almost feel thankful for your work in a way,
breaking down barriers, creating space for others to talk about food.
And it seems as though being an entrepreneur in this way,
(29:41):
it was a path that you just kind of created yourself.
It wasn't necessarily like oh, like yeah, this makes sense
because like this guy did it and this person didn't
and she did it and they did it. It was like,
I'm just gonna go do this. I guess it's gonna work.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
I just wanted to be able to have a job
doing what I love, you know, And after getting laid
off six times and eight years, I was like, I
don't know if I'm going to be able to have
this career, and that makes you feel kind of desperate,
and desperation can be a great motivator when you go
into a project thinking like, if this doesn't work, I'm
not going to have the career I want. I'm gonna
have to start somewhere from scratch. You will work very hard,
(30:18):
you know.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
You know, I'm delivering to these coffee shops this morning.
Like wait, it's like, man, if I don't make his
work right, you know, I got to get up and
do it.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
It's a double edged sword because I think that you
can fall into the trap of like always being ont
of the next thing and always wanting to build it
to be more or bigger, and then you're kind of
never going to be happy or never even be content
or satisfied. So you don't want to be like that
because like, you know, those people may accomplish the most
and become incredibly successful, but I in my to my eye,
(30:50):
they're mostly miserable, yeah, because it's never enough. On the
other hand, I think that like if you don't have
that gene to some degree of like an ambition that
drives you to always push from more or move out
of the next exciting thing, that you're never going to
accomplish the first thing, you know, like you're never going
to get to square one. So to find that middle ground,
(31:10):
to like harness that ambition and build the thing you
want and to have the career you want without getting
so sucked into it that you're never happy, is, you know,
is a.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Balance to strike wise words in terms of that balance,
Like what's been your biggest takeaway in terms of what
it took for you to get to where you are
right and like if you step back at the beach
or the bar, when you think of, like, oh, man,
like that that moment was really huge for me.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Right, I don't know if there's one moment. I guess
that's my takeaway. You know. It's like, you know, like
everybody wants to they want to like what was the moment?
I don't really think that's the way most people grow
a thing. Maybe once in a while there's a moment, right,
you know, and you can say that was but like
mostly it's just it's a grind and it's a long
(31:59):
slot and you just kind of have to keep at it,
you know. Of course, there's weeks that you're more motivated
and weeks that you're less motivated, but like it helps
that I started. My mom teases me that I'm like
one of these people who like grew up in the
Great Depression, who like save breadcrumbs. Not that I'm so frugal,
but like, because I got laid off so many times
in the first like eight years of my career, because
(32:21):
I was kind of coming of age in these recessions
and all this tumultuousness of the Internet and technology and smartphones,
I got laid off so much that I just like
always expect that, like next year, I'm gonna get laid
off again. You Like, I always think, like this isn't
gonna last man. But that is like a good motivator.
I don't quite feel the same that to the same degree.
Now I feel like I'm on more stable footing. But
(32:42):
I enjoyed my job. I'm still ambitious. I still get
excited about new projects and new ideas and want to
grow things and move forward. But I also, like, I
don't like when people brag about how late they stayed
up editing their podcast. This is like a deep cut
podcast producer insider thing. But like some of these people
I follow on social media, they would share a picture
(33:03):
of their pro tools Session. Pro Tools is like the
audio editing software, and show me how many different tracks
they're running and how all the different cuts and the
different pieces of audio. I was up till three am,
but the show's ready, and look at all the different tracks,
and it's like that doesn't mean it's good. Yeah, all right,
Like you're a baker, okay, Like yes, you work long hours, okay,
(33:25):
but like.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
The break is still suck. Yes, right. People screenshot their
alarm really, that's.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
The baker equivalent. That's the baker equivalent of the pro
tool session.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Equivalent is screenshots of their alarm on their story and
it's like, oh, my alarm started at two am and
I was like, all right, I will go back ten am.
My what you was doing? My break kind of good though, exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
So maybe it's like also just like learning to pick,
to prioritize and focus on because you can't do everything.
And I personally believe like if you're gonna break through
and get attention on whatever it is you're doing, it's
better to be really good at a small number of things, yeah,
than to be like pretty good at a lot of
you get.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
At a bunch of stuff because nobody notices pretty good. Yeah,
I know, you got to be at a different level.
But when I received your box of pasta, we were
in New Orleans. When I first got that box of pasta,
I remember in twenty twenty one, I was like, this
dude makes pasta. So was that a light bulb moment
you had though? I mean, because obviously, I'm sure you've
(34:26):
loved pasta for a long time like most people have.
But I mean to creating a whole new shape, getting
it produced and distributed and having it successfully done. I mean,
it's you know, I'll go to Ki Foods and I'll
see you right there. Yeah, that's very fair, I'll go.
You know, So, like how did that idea take precedent
over others? Because I'm sure you had several ideas, but
like how how was like that the one that really?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
I mean, I was just really excited about it, you know,
Like that's honestly, that's a lot of times like what
are you most what are you excited to work on?
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Do that?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
You know, because it's probably going to be better. Yeah,
if you're really psyched do it. That's actually a fair point,
you know, like if you're gonna dread working on it,
then don't take on that project because it's probably going
to be bad in the end and you'll be miserable.
So it started with in the podcast Boom around twenty fifteen,
I don't know if you know the podcast. Around that time,
a lot of like Cereal came out, like a lot
of long form storytelling, these multi part stories. So I
(35:20):
was like, looking for something exciting, new creative direction for
my podcast. You know, I feel like I've been having
similar conversation for a long time. What could I do
would be new and different that I'd be excited about?
And I was like, well, what would my version of
one of these like long form stories be, like an
epic multipart story with cliffhangers and drama and suspense but food.
And I was like, what if I created my own food.
(35:42):
I'm sure things will go wrong and that will create drama,
intention it will be a great story, and if it sells,
that would be good too, you know, it'd be good
for business. So that all seem like a good idea,
and the pasta shape just felt like my criteria for
it where I wanted the food I invented to be
something that would be inexpensive and shelf stable so that
(36:05):
it could be shipped because I wanted my Sporkfull listeners
all around the country to be able to get it easily.
I didn't want this to be like something that would
only be like in boutique stores. And then I just
felt like I have a lot of opinions about pasta,
and I don't see new ideas out there. Plus, like,
it's just such a basic food. Everyone knows it, everyone
loves it, everyone has opinions about it. It's very easy
to get people to care about pasta. Yeah, but nobody
(36:28):
else thought it was a good idea. Like my podcast
Boss at the time, Chris Bannon told me it was
a bad idea. The people in the pasta industry I
talked to said it was a bad idea. Oh wow,
my wife said it was a terrible idea. I mean,
this is all on tape. It's in the Sporkfull podcast
series about the making of the Bossa. You can hear
her telling me it's.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
A bad idea.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
So it's become a running joke because she, you know,
doubted it and then came around.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
But so so I should make it like a biscuit
mix or something. Is that what you're trying to tell
me to do. Yeah, bar On that. When I got
your pasta, I was like, yeah, this looks phenomenal. The
sauce was all upon it, you know what I'm saying. Like,
I was like, all right, I could definitely get behind
that's also being on the pasta like that. I appreciate
you sharing kind of those intimate moments about the creation
(37:15):
of this product, which I'm assuming is not found on
the international isle in grocery source. I've heard that you
don't take too fondly of that, and neither do I not,
not a lot of people these days, but it still
exists quote unquote ethnic isle. What the hell is going
on in these grostries?
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Yeah, this is what we talked about on this portfoil.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I mean, like I think it's a holdover to an
earlier time. But you know, the term ethnic food, if
you stop and parse it, all food is ethnic food.
So when you say ethnic food in common conversation, what
are people thinking of, They're thinking of foods associated with
people of color. Yep, So like no one thinks of
Irish food as ethnic food.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, it's wild because you'll see the same things and
most like I've lived in several states, several cities, and
I've noticed the international that's the nicer version of it.
It always has the same pattern. It starts out with
some form of Chinese and Korean scenario happening, right, and
(38:18):
on the bottom there's a little bit of like a
Japanese situation perhaps, and then you get into you don't
even get into real Mexican food. You just get into
like straight up like taco bell shells.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
They didn't even bring me like some real like Wahakan
sauces or anything. They just like straight up put like
a box of shells. Then there's just like canned beans.
I mean, I don't even I don't even think they
fill it up all the right, right, you know. And
then in the next aisle over you'll have pasta.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Why isn't Italian food an international? Right? So the real
issue is, so you see the ways in which European
foods are assimilated into American food culture and are accepted
as American or at least not foreign. I mean, people
understand that pasta is Italian, but people it's more like
Italian American people don't think of Italian food as foreign food,
(39:02):
not America. No, but they still think of Chinese food
as foreign food. Even though Chinese immigrants have been in
America in large numbers since before Italian immigrants, we're here
in large numbers. Yet Chinese Americans are still in many
ways characterized as foreign and therefore not American. And one
of the ways in which you see that, in a
sort of a subtle way that some people might have
(39:22):
never even noticed, is with that the foods being being
ghetto eyes essentially into a separate section, and like these
are the foreign foods. The people we associate with these
foods aren't truly American. People of color aren't can't truly
be American.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Which is wild too. Like when you go to like Borderlands,
Texas area, if you're in any area with like really
good Mexican food, you'll see straight up like razes eating
at the Mexican spot. You know, Like but you're racist, bro,
Like why are you eating at this place? And then shit,
non Mexicans, Like it doesn't even make sense. The food's
that good. Having a good time, Stay Flaky, be right back.
(40:14):
Welcome back to Laky Biscuit Dan. We have a little
bit left here. What's next for you? New pasta shapes,
new books, new shows.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
The next big projects we're launching on the SPORKFLW spin
off podcast hosted by Sola and ham L Whaley. Yeah,
love them. Incredibly talented, incredibly talented and fun husband and
wife duo that well. So they're hosting this show called
Deep Dish. It's gonna running in the spork full feed,
so you just go to the sporkfol you'll find it
starting in January. Wonderful And that's a show where they're
(40:48):
going to like take a dish and kind of like
go on an adventure to learn about a story behind
the dish, whether it's the Jewish bagel baker's union battles
with the mafia in New York City, yeah, or.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Those bakers used to get paid too. Yeah, you remember
being a bagel baker back in the day before it
was like industrialized, was a very sought after skill set.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Or like another story we're going to do on that
show is it's about Delta Tomali's or Hot Tamali's, which
are Tamali's specific to the Mississippi Delta. There's sort of
a food with a Mexican origin, but that was taken
on by black folks in the area and they're a
different type of Tamali that's only in that region. And
we got a great story about with this cop was
called to a scene of a crime and found two
(41:33):
dead bodies and a trunk full of Tamali's boy and
the story goes on from there. So that's coming in January,
and then my cookbook, my first ever cookbook, comes out
in March. It's a whole bunch of new and different
and novel types of pasta sauces. There's no recipe for
marinara sauce or lasagna in here. It's all different kinds
(41:53):
of things with a range of different ingredients that I
love and cook with at home. So we're doing like
kim chiek harbonara. We're doing kachee with chili crisp. We're
doing cavatelli with artichokes and preserved lemon. I got a
pasta pizza in there. That's it's a pizza where the
crust is made of pasta fused together into a crust
turned golden brown and crispis you actually cut into slices
(42:14):
and pick it up and eat it. It's exciting.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yeah, kind I'm like, hold on a second, man. You
said it's a pizza, but pasta is the crust.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yes, they take a baking sheet and you like get
the fetichini and you bake it with some egg. You
cook it. You bake it with egg and the oil,
and then like the bottom crisps and turns golden brown,
and the whole thing holds together as a single like
a single sheet, and then you can top it like
a pizza.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
And that's in your new cookbook that comes out in March.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah, it's called Anything's Possible.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Any Anything is Possible.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Hit the pre order, take a pre order now wherever
books you're sold.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Yeah, please do it. Make sure you check Dan's socials
links pre you order that book, because I'm gonna say
you right now, I'm gonna have to make that what's
it called the pasta pizza. You have a couple more
things before we let you go. We like to play baking.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (43:11):
I want to test your knowledge about pasta shape. I
love it, real real knowledge.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Okay, let's see this.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Pasta shape was developed over three years to create a
shape that evoked an ideal combination of fork ability, sausibility,
and toothskin ability.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Tooth thinkability. This is my fasta shape. It's called all right, yes,
your own, that's right, which if you want it, you can.
It's at Whole Foods, it's at some Walmarts. You can
order it from Spolini dot com, s f O G
L I n I dot com.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
That silent g there you go. All right, What is
the name of the rare pasta dish that is made
only in Sardinia? Is it Okay, s Dolina? Is it
sue Fulendo or is it Salerno.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
I don't think it's Sealerno because.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
That's the city.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
That's a city in somewhere else. But I don't know.
I don't know the answer.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
This was a deep cut. I didn't know this either
until I researched it. But it is sue Fulendu is
a rare pasta dish that's only made and served in Saturday.
It consists of thin, thread like strands of pasta boiled
and brought in top with grated cheese. It's like super
super super super thin. Right, last one here? Where did
spaghetti go to dance? The mart? The baseball or the meatball?
(44:54):
That's why it's called a game.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Dan with your answer, it's got to be the meeting.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Yeah, Oh, but you hate spaghetti. Don't you sorry hate
for the flaky fam Dan does not hate anything. He
doesn't condone hate. You don't like spaghetti.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
It's not my favorite. I think it's overrated.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Talk to me about that real quick.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
So as you said, look my three metrics for judging
any pasta shape or forkability, sauce ability, and tooth sinkability.
And so spaghetti is hard to get on the fork.
It's very hard to get the right kind of bite
in the fork. It's either too much or too little,
or you have danglers that are going all over your face.
It doesn't hold sauce very well. It has very little
surface area in relation to volume. Eat spaghetti with meat sauce.
(45:34):
You finish the pasta, you get like a lake of sauce.
That's not a feature. That's a bug.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
And then spaghetti fas you got to watch out right now.
He said, that's not a feature. That's a bug.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
And then like of all the shapes that they're to
sink your teeth into him. In spaghetti, it can be
fine if it's cooked just right, but it's not great.
It's just not great. It's very primitive. It's one of
the earliest invented pasta shapes and like we can do
better now, like we have better techno.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
So like, I love how hard you're doing. What about
the spaghetti that's thick and it has a hole in
the middle.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Bukatini, that's very different. That's that is good.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
That's good. Not for the reason most people say. Most
people think Bucatini is good. They'll say, oh, it's like spaghetti,
but it's got a tube so it holds sauce. But
the tube's extremely narrow and sauce won't really go in there.
The reason why it's good is because the hollow tube
is springy. It creates a unique.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Texture, it does has a nice money. That's what makes singability, Yes.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Tooth singability. What Bucatini taught me is that because at
first I thought toobility was just about chewiness, right, But
what Bukacini taught me is that it can also be
about springiness. And you want either or both of those
in your pasta shapes. But you gotta have one if
it's gonna be good.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
I'm gonna tell you someth right now. I gotta eat
passive with you one day. Yeah, damn Pashman here at
the flake you best get podcasts. We love to talk
about something in your community that means a lot to you.
I mean, you know you're also working or at least
contributing or helping or knowledgeable about Stuffolk JCC. Tell us
why that's important to you, and tell us how we
can help those efforts.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Yeah, I'm the Suffolk Why JCC is the only Jewish
community center in the county where I live, in Stuffolk County,
which is kind of remote suburbs of New York City.
It's important to me because my wife works there part
time and she runs a few different, I think really
wonderful programs there. One called Names Not Numbers, which brings
together Holocaust survivors and high school students Wow, and they
get to spend time together, and they make the students
(47:26):
make a film telling the survivor's story. She's also starting
up a program for third generation people, which is like
my wife like, all four of her grandparents were Holocaust survivors,
but most Holocaust survivors, even the ones who survived, are
no longer with us, and so there's a movement to
get people of my wife's generation, the third generation, to
learn their grandparents' stories and to tell and to share
(47:49):
those stories, and so she's starting programs with them. So
I just think it's really like worthwhile work, and especially
because the area where we live. I mean, like there
are some areas around New York where there's a big
Jewish population, so they have very vibrant Jewish community centers
and ours is doing well, but it went through some
tough times and I think that thanks to the work
(48:10):
of my wife, Janey and others there who have come
in taken over the last year, they're kind of really
turning it around. And I think that's exciting to see
what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Yeah, the one thing that stood out to me right
there that you said is being in tune and in
touch with your history, with your heritage, with your lineage,
and understanding the reality and facts of things that have
occurred and have helped us get to where we are today.
So I think that's really amazing work to be able
to connect the dots between the past and the present.
(48:39):
How can we help, how you know we can their website.
Is there any volunteering or is it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
I mean, look, if you're anywhere around Suffolk County and
there's a big and diverse population in Suffolk County all
over the place, and the Jaycy is not only for
Jewish people. Like if you need daycare, if you want
a gym to go work out in, if you want
to google to go swim in, if you need summer camp,
the best deal in summer camp in Suffolk County. You
got kids who need to go to summer camp in
Suffoy jay Z. That's when my kids always go to
(49:05):
summer camp. They love it. It's phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
So I love the oh Man. Dan, thank you so
so much for coming here today, enjoying the gesses and
chatting with me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
Thanks so much, Brian, thank y'all for listening. This was
legendary having Dan Pashman here on Flaky Biscuit. Check out
the recipe for homemade latkas on Shondaland dot com. This
is just my interpretation of this process. I'm not trying
(49:43):
to reinvent the wheel. Check out the process that I use,
and I want to know how it goes. You already
know you got to tag me artist in Brian, tag
Dan at the sport full and post your photos, post
your videos. You know what I'm saying. Get into that
discord you dig I want to see what's popping with
the loc I want to see if y'all using the
crema and durea, using apple sauce, the sour cream, all three.
(50:07):
Just make sure it's crispy. That's my tip. Don't give
me no soggy, don't give me no pureaid potato, don't
make bread as Dan said, and don't forget to check
out why JCC in Suffolk County. You can find my
handle and all the links I mentioned in the show
notes for this episode. So if you like Flaky Biscuit,
(50:27):
you know what to do. Leave us a rating or review, share,
subscribe like all of that. 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 found each week on
(50:50):
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 to Flaky Biscuit Podcasts. Each episode, we're
cooking up delicious morsels and nostalgia meals and recipes that
have comforted and guided our guests to a tremendous amount
of success. And I hope my guests understand I really
(00:22):
mean it. Like when you bite into this, I don't
want you to just say, oh, Brian, this tastes great.
I really want you to dig deep and say, maamn,
this really brought me back pants art today. There's no
way hell I could do it. I'm Brian Ford. I
write cookbooks, I've had some TV shows. I host a
Flaky Biscuit podcast. I have a bakery in New York
(00:43):
City now like a I don't want to say crazy person,
like a person who just decided to add more chaos
to their life. But most importantly, I have to cook
and bake for people. And I have someone extremely special
in my kitchen today, someone that anyone in my position
has to be a spy iring to be like because
there's game changing energy in here. You know what I'm saying.
(01:05):
Our guest today is a James Beard sever Webby Award winner,
an inventor, an inventor y'all of pasta shapes. Come on, man,
this is crazy. The inventor of the pasta shape Cascatelli
and the one and only creator and host of the
(01:25):
sporkfle podcast. Yeah, this is Royalty in the crypt today.
Please welcome the extremely talented Dan Passiman.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Hey, Brian, it's great to be here. Oh man.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
We was already shooting it a little bit, talking a
little bit before. And one thing that's in my notes,
it just says he loves MSG.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
That's the only thing about me anyone needs to know
I do.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, And I just stood out to me just now,
and I kind of want, you know what, to my
listeners out there. We're just about to talk about MSG
real quick. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I mean, look, we did an episode of The spork
Ful a few years ago, kind of early on in
what's become an increasing conversation around the fact that like
a lot of the hang ups about MSG were tied
up in some racist tropes and in some sort of
pseudoscience bullshit. To me like it's a great flavor enhancer.
I keep it in my pantry. I add it to
soups and stews and sauces all the time. Not a lot,
(02:17):
just a little sprinkle. But like, look, glutamate occurs naturally
in all I'm sure you know. It's in tomatoes, it's
in parmesan. She's just in your brain right now, this
it should be or you're in trouble.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
My brain got a problem.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So all you do is you're just taking this thing
that occurs in nature and binding it to sodium to
make it a powder that you can keep on a
countertop and sprinkle into food. It's not a big deal
and there's no evidence that it presents any kind of
widespread health concern. The science says that most people who
think they have a sensitivity to MSG, in fact do not.
There probably are some people who do have a legitimate
(02:54):
sensitivity to it, but it's a it's a sensitivity like
the same like my sister in law candy onions or
she gets an upset stomach. Like you don't need to
put a big side on a label, turn and run away.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah. No, A lot of things can cause sensitivity and
it's not dangerous at all. I think it flows through
my veins. I think Hispanic people we don't get enough
credit for our love affair with MSG because one of
the top sasons that we use seasonings the sasson you know,
orange packets. Yeah, you know what the first ingredient, isn't that? Right?
(03:28):
And right I'm gonna tell you something right now. I
remember I had to do a food challenge once where
I had to use MSG to season like vegetables or
something like that, and I took sasson, I took like
an orange packet, put it in a spray bottle, and
I just like misted these vegetables smart and it was
I mean, it was just like it was one of
the most addicting things. And it wasn't the vegetables right right, right,
(03:49):
it was quite phenomenal. So yeah, I mean I think, like,
you know, we make with that, we may you know,
mix so fritos with that, we make our chicken with that.
It's absolutely delicious. If you want delicious food, you should
eat some. Absolutely exactly the way to go.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Damn. I'm so excited to get to know you, to
get to know your story. Why don't you let our
listeners know what is the nostalgic meal that I have
prepared for you today, which.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Just by looking at the ingredients that I see before me,
I'm pretty sure that it's potato lotkas.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
What do you see before you?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Well, the first thing I saw as soon as I
walked in the door with sour cream and apple sauce,
which are the classic condiments.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
So I clearly have spent a few minutes, you know,
doing a little research. I'm glad you're seeing the signs
of the deliciousness you graz.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I see the eggs, I see flour.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I see what about this?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
I think that is that schmaltz. Yes, rendered chicken fat.
That's hardcore.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
So schmaltz. Like I've rendered fat before, usually duck fat
or something like that. I mean, sure I've rendered chicken
fat at some point, but I didn't know it was
called schmaltz. Tell me what's up with Like how important
is this to have? Did you grow up? You know?
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I grew up more culturally Jewish than religious Jewish, Like
we went to temple, but like not super religious, Like
we didn't have a kosher home, but for like the
traditional Eastern European Jews, if you keep kosher, we just
my family didn't. But if you keep kosher, of course,
most people know like no pork, no shellfish. But the
other thing that's less well known is that you're not
supposed to mix meat and dairy, even if it's a
(05:20):
kosher meat. Even if you were to take kosher chicken,
you still couldn't put butter on it in a proper
kosher home. So as a result, Jewish people needed cooking
fat that wasn't butter exactly or exactly, and so it
couldn't be pig fat and it couldn't be buttered. And
this was back, you know, generations ago before you could
just go to the store and buy a leader of
(05:42):
vegetable oil. Right, so you need cooking fat, you would
render the fat from a chicken. And that was like
the most common cooking fat that Jews would use.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
I'll tell you what, it's a brilliant idea. I love chicken,
and I love krispy chicken. Then you also get these
crispy chicken bits on it.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
The skin that's called gribbinus in Yiddish lingo. So it's
like little bits of crispy fried chicken skin gribbinus.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, gribbonus. I'm gonna keep some gribbinus all up in
the Yeah, no, yes, that's exactly what I'm making. I'm
making latkas. And the disclaimer I have which I think
this is gonna be fun. We're doing this in a
style that has actually not been done. I've definitely live
cooked during an interview, but I typically would get up
and go to the stove, right. I decided to bust
(06:30):
out the induction burner today.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
I decided that I want to actually be able to
still speak with you while I try to figure this out.
And it is the first time I've ever made this before.
I've never made it. I've never attempted to make it before.
I don't really know how this is gonna go, but
I see that you're here for it.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I'm totally here for it. And also, like, I mean,
you know your way around a kitchen. I have confidence
in you, Brian.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I appreciate that. So when was the first time you
had this dish? Is that you can access?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I mean, it's it's one of those things. It feels
like it was always there. So the most common time
that you'd eat potato lokas would be around Hankah Because
so the story of hanka long story short, they had
this oil burning lamp and they thought they only had
enough oil left for the lamp to light the temple
for one more night, and the oil lasted eight nights
and it was a miracle, and so the eight nights
(07:23):
of Hankkah. And as a result, the common foods that
you eat around Hannaka are foods cooked and oil.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Best food.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah. It's interesting actually because so like Eastern European Jews
in America, which is like my family's lineage, potato lokas
potato pancakes is the most common thing potatoes fried and oil.
In Israel, it's actually jelly donuts.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Oh like fried Yes, jelly donuts, that's.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Right, are huge in Israel. That's the most popular honka
of food.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, let me tell you.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Later in life, I had an idea to combine the
donut concept with the laka concept. Not a jelly done,
but take a regular yeasted glazed donut and slice it
open and use it as a sandwich bread and then
put the potato loatka, apple sauce and sour cream inside.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Use that as like the vessel for the latka.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, but it's also one of those things that, like,
these things are kind of a pain in the ass
to cook because it's always like for a large gathering,
it's time consuming to make a lot of them. You know,
when you're frying anything anything, you're frying a lot of
food for a big gathering.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Commit to frying food for a lot of people like you,
you fucked up.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
So usually it's like one night of Hanakah, there's one
person in the family who's the latka person, and they
make it and the whole house just disconnect the smoke alarms.
Right now, there's gonna be like a thin haze throughout
the entire house, right all your clothes. You're gonna smell
like oil cut when at the end of the night
you're gonna walk in the door and be confronted with
like these plumes of smoke coming out of the kitchen.
(08:54):
But like that smell and that like the air is
an immersive experience.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Up on high right now, put the burner on high
and get.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
To smoke ourselves out.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
It's like, get a little hazy going. But it sounds
like you're describing a pretty distinct memory though, even if
you're not pulling from one specific occasion, it sounds like
you're pulling from what it what it means.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, and the locka is a sort of like coming
off the griddle, you know, out of the pan on
it at a steady stream, and they're going onto the
serving platter and you're eating them as they're coming off,
you know, the kids you're running around, you're playing, you're
coming and grabbing on a loatka. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
So that actually played into why I decided this sounds
like it should be eating as soon as it's cooked. Yeah,
And I was like, there's no way I'm gonna make
some of these lokas, have them sit around and then
try to like reheat them. So I was like, Okay,
let me just cook it right in front of his face,
just like we could just like still talk while it's happening.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah. Yeah, I admire your commitment.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Well, we'll see about that. So, like, what are some
of the flavors, textures, any kind of like there's traditional ones.
Are there any differential type lakas that you've had, Like
what's your desired mouthful? When you think about a lotka?
Speaker 2 (10:03):
I In some ways, it's kind of similar to like
my ideal cookie in that you want like a crispy perimeter.
The inside is more like potato eat. It's a little
bit more dense, and then the outside has like those
crags and the little bits of shredded potato that are
kind of turning crispy crunchy. So you have multiple textures
in a bite.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
You're just setting me up for failure.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
That's no, it'd be great. But like sometimes you'll see
a lotka that's more like frittata, almost like eggy cakey,
you know, and it's kind of.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Like bready, and that's bad.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I mean, it's it's not my taste. It's not what
I grew up with. Some people, I'm sure love that.
I don't think there's like a wrong latka or like
this is just a subjective you know. But to me,
I like the crispy edges.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Okay, to the listeners, I'm sure Dan just said there's
not a wrong laka because he's gonna feel bad. Yeah,
you're don't feel bad when I make mine. He's gonna say, no, Brian,
don't you remember what I said? There's no wrong one.
So we know you're a nostalgic meal. We've got a
little bit of in site in terms of the memory
surrounding it sounds like it's just been a part of
(11:04):
your existence for as long as you can remember, I
think it's probably time.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
It's probably time. And what I'm gonna do right now,
before I actually start the cooking process, I will talk
through it. I'm gonna explain to you what I'm gonna do.
I guess I'm gonna give you a little bit of insight. Yeah, obviously, Yes,
some of the research indicates that sour cream and apple
sauce are the talk to me about that the apple sauce, Like,
what's where is that worn out of it?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Is that sure? Where that comes from?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Me? Do you prefer? I didn't know which one of
you might prefer, so I have them both.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Like growing up, I was more apple sauce as a kid.
I don't have a taste for sour cream. Nowadays, I
kind of like the combo, you know, because I love
like a sour cream apple pie. Oh you know, you know,
like like to me, sour cream in.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Desserts is really like underrated, Yeah, yeah, you know, because
it adds so much texturally, so does like for example,
like coconut cream coconut.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, or even it gets like a little bit of tang,
like the way like buttermilk can and some dishes you know,
it's like makes it like a little more complex, like
it's a little more taste than you know. So I
like that combo.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Wow, I'm gonna tell you something, right, I wish I
had some huna and krema in the fridge and we
could eat it with some krama. Central American. You ever
got eating with grandma?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
No, but I got some crema in my in your car,
in my fridge, right, No, it's.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Amazing. Yeah, pulled up with Grandma in his bag. I
got some cram all right. I would just shut this
off and like you.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
The man, you one, I'm not that good. Sorry, I
so I asked it in my fridge at home, which
is too far away from me to go to right now.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
It is but one day.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
But that is a brilliant idea, and I think that
would be so delicious.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Right now, should we have already get some Grandma.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I think the crama would be better than the sour cream,
because the sour cream can be a little bit gloopy
and this sort of the ooziness of the krama mixing
with the apple sauce.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, you know, hold on, hold on, hold, I got
I message right here. No, no, no, no, no, We're gonna
get some crama delivered one my sister and you please,
I'll buy you dinner and happy our drink wow, and
pay for you to get your nails done.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
But she's like already out the door with this message.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Okay, okay, So to the listeners, look, I'm just at
my crib man with my family man. We're trying to
just get this done from all right, So we got
this cast iron ripping hot. It's starting to smoke. I
want to create that haze. Now, I got the Schmaltz.
So we talked a little bit about the schmaltz, about
the history behind you know why is rendered chicken fat
part of this particular cuisine. All right, so I got
the schmaltz in there. Things are moving kind of fast.
(13:37):
I wasn't even prepared. Now that oil is going to
get hot. I have to start activating right now. Okay,
all right, so.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
He has to go down because those induction things get
high fast.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
We don't really want to create a haze. That was
more of a joke, right, Yeah, four is where I
live usually with these right, I'm going headphones list the
mic still picking me up. I gotta get something from
the fridge real quick.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
All right, you know in these locas, you know, traditionally
at a Honka party, you do it like you say,
apple sauce, sour cream. Maybe we'll try some crama, but
I'm not Obviously this isn't the most creative idea. I'll
pop a thought of this. But you know the next morning, Yes,
you can have left over lock because you throw them
in the toast ven or you broil them in a
sheet pan and then you put some like you know,
sunny side up eggs. Think about like a hash brown
(14:18):
cracked open.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Some cold beers, important cheers. Right now, I'm gonna try
to do this from the dome. From the dome, meaning
from the top of the head.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I love it. You were like, oh shit, it's getting
really hot. We better hurry up and start cooking. The
five minutes later you came back with beer.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
From the fruit.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yeah, it's gonna come back with a lacka batter.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So here are some things like talk to me right,
I read do not make this batter in advance. First
of all, I also read don't shred the potatoes in advance,
which I did, so I don't know if, like I.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Those things sound to me like sort of you.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Know, like someone trying to make up some articles.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Well that's like old old wives tales, and it's kind
of it. Also it's also personal preference, you know. I
waso like, I know you you know more about the
science of cooking than I do. Maybe I guess if
you shed them they release water.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Is that bad?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I don't know. Just color.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
It seems to always be about like gray gray. You
ever had a gray laka?
Speaker 2 (15:11):
I mean the golden brown to me? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
All right, so I have onion potato perfect redded. This
looks good in the bowl? Was flour, crack black pepper,
the hazes just the haze is starting, cracked black pepper. Oh,
a pinch, and I mean the tiniest sprinkle of baking powder.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, I've heard that that's a thing.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Shit, he heard it's a thing, which means it's not
a thing, because he had to hear.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
No, no, no, I've only made scratch it myself once or
twice in my life. It's never been my job in
the family. God, I managed to avoid letting it become
my job.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
A lot of what I read was about Matso and
called some of my Jewish friends. Okay, so this is
for Hanukkah, it's okay to use flour, right, but for
passovers when motso is really more consumed.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
So I almost went on this goose chase to find
matso matzo meal, right because I've heard that you can
make this with matso meal.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Which is sort of like bread crumbs made of matsa exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
But my friend shout out Sarah Hoffman. She was like,
Brian just used fly. Yeah, fine, so flower.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I'm feeling good about this, Brian, And I'll tell you why,
because I like that you shredded the potatoes into big shreds.
You know, you don't want the potatoes to be like parade.
You don't want you don't want them to be finally grated.
That's when they fuse with the egg and the flour
and just a bread bread exactly, and you have a
single consistency. You don't want a bread, you want textra variation.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
So I have a couple of eggs here, I'm going
to mix the egg in. I don't know why. I
feel like it should be a little bit thicker.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
No, that looks that's looking good because, like I said,
you know, you're not trying to turn this into bread
all right. You know so.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
The way you said that was like it sounds like
you had some like fucked up bread in it, like
some real bready.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Lock the us to me are the ones you get
like sid as they got a Jewish deli where they're
made the day before and they're sitting in a glass case. Yeah,
and they're just not and so to me, like they
should be a little bit loose and they should be
kind of craggy, and each one should look a little
bit different. You're not looking for perfect circles.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
No, no, no, you're not, And I want it to
be craggy. I'm ready to cook these, but I want
to see if we're gonna get Grandma bring a little
bit of my you know what I'm saying, heritage. Yes, yes,
I'm gonna see what happens. But on that note, so
you've never allowed yourself to be the designated laka mak.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I've consciously avoided it. You end up spending the whole
party standing over the stove. Your eyes will burn from
all the onions and all the smoke in your face,
and you're gonna you're gonna smell like oil. And it's
a little bit of a thankless job. It's like, yeah,
you made the luckus, thank you, right, and all the
kids come running up, they take the lockers and they
run away. Yeah exactly. So you need to stand here
(17:55):
and tell me how great I is.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
All right, Grandma's on the way. I'm gonna go ahead
and drop these. But I do want to know what's
your from fry to mouth desired time frame? Like would
you let it sit them in it?
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Or do you eat them? You're gonna burn your tongue
if you.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Before that turns great?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Or like a soup spoon, like yeah, big spoon, Yeah good.
It should be a couple of it should be like
three inches in diameter.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Oh see, guys, this is why this is the cheat
code episode, because I just got the whole diameter before
I even prepared it. I'm like, oh, alright, so we
got one drop, got a lot of better here. We
got the flames, they came up a little bit. Did
you sign the death waiver?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I can tell you that my mic. I have to
replace the foam guards on my mic every few mis,
every few months because they always got crumbs and oil
and splatters all kinds of shit on them. We got
special delivery.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Special delivery. Wait, I see a red bull. But do
I see Grandma? Oh yeah, grandma, Let me see Grandma.
It's hun during Krandma baby, and Grandma is going down. Thanks, young,
(19:10):
So lacka number one.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
It's like pancakes and French toast of the first the best.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
The first one is always like weak.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Oh wow, that looks actually kind of good.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
No, I mean that's looking very good.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
That looks good. All right, so we're gonna drop number two.
We're gonna try to get the sizzle.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I'm coming in for the sizzle.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Okay, all right, here we go. I'm gonna go in
for the third. Oh that was actually that was a
nice one. I'm flattening it with a spoon a little bit,
you know. So this is a pancake.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, I mean some people call them potato pancakes.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
This smells delicious, This looks phenomenon, and I would I
might start just making these. I mean, look, keeping these
in the house.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Fried potatoes like it's fried potatoes are kind of a
universal language.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
All right. So to the listeners out there, I'm almost done.
Watch yourself watching this one. I'm gonna flip it towards me. Boom, Okay,
flaky first, looking right here on.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
The table, smells so good, right now, Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
It's smelling good. That's a good thing. We're drinking beer,
the dogs are barking, and the latkas are sizzling.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
So I can't wait to try this with the krama.
I think.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Okay, that one looks Chris and all right, I think
I'm pulling them. What do you think about my exit
plan here? Do you think I'm at the right point? Yeah,
so I'm at the right point with the exits.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
You know how to fry potatoes. Yes, there's a haze,
and there has to be. You're not You're not doing
it the right way. If there's not a haze.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
We'll be back after these messages from our sponsors. All right,
all right, let's just jump back in. You're supposed to
eat them hot, so I don't want to hold you up.
(21:08):
Did you get a fork? You did, Yeah, let's dig in.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Do it.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Dealer's choice for you. You take yours, and as you eat it,
just let us know what your taste and what you're feeling.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I'm gonna take this one on the far sides. It's
got the crispiest edges.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, oh yeah, Okay, Okay, he got the crags.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
It's still hot. It's still hot.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
It's still pretty hot.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Got to give a stick.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I'm gonna take a sick of beer real quick. Yeah,
talk to me about what you see when you talk
about those crispy edges you seem to that seems to
be really important to you.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
I'm a huge texture eater in general. I love crispy crunchy.
I like to sink my teeth into the foods that
I'm eating. I'm really obsessed with this concept the sensory
scientist called dynamic contrast, which is different textures together in
the same bite. Oh yeah, So you make a loaf
of bread, you get that crusty exterior and the bite
gives way into the airy interior. You know, like that
(21:56):
contrast between textures is a big part of what makes
that bite so good.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Okay, that's exactly what makes it so good, exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
You know, like there's no accident, like all the best
candy bars combined, like crispy and crunchy and chewy and gooey.
You pierce the chocolate shell and then you hit some caramel,
and then you hit nugat, and then you hit a
peanut or whatever. It is or you hit or a
wayfer to me. I want that in all my foods.
I want a variety of textures. So like for this,
what I love about these ones that you've made why
(22:24):
I picked this one, is that you have a few
strands of shredded potato that are kind of jutting out
in all directions from the perimeter. Because they're kind of
sticking out, they fry a little harder, so those get
extra crispy crunchy, and they have a lot of exterior surface.
And so you have this is gonna have a very
crispy perimeter on this pancake, and then you get into
the center it's gonna be still kind of soft and potato,
(22:45):
which I like. That's what I want, is that contrast
between crispy perimeter and then slightly doughey or more potato inside.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Oh man, that was just like a poetry.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I feel like that was I think a lot about texture.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
That was like road. So I'm getting in, I'm gonna
go I'm gonna put some sour cream on the edge,
and I'm just gonna like I'm gonna take a bike.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
M oh, I'm gonna go apple sauce on my first
bite because that's the most nostalgic for me. That's how
I had out.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
As a kid.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Mmmm, it's so good. You like that, then it's so good?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Oh wow. The apple's also a different game.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
It's not too salty with the apple sauce.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Could you get that sweet and salty together?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Oh man, I'm just like I just did my third
apple sauce.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
I love that you can really taste the onion in here.
It must be that like when I was growing up
we made the lockers with the onion, Because that's like
really bringing me back, and I feel like the lockers
I've had more recently in my life, haven't you know?
I know there's onions in there.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
But you don't lose onion powder.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah. Here, I really taste the onion and I love that.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Okay, that's good, it's great. I love the flavor onion
as well. All right, what else are you getting? So
you went in for another apple sauce? Bike.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
It's also the thing that brings me back that makes
me feel like I associated with childhood is like it's
not just the texture of the laka, but then when
you put the apple sauce on top and you get
the cool apple sauce on the warm laka, and you're
biting through the apple sauce that's sort of like very
soft and kind of like oozy and fruity, and then
you like hit the loaka and it's firm and you
bite and crisp and it kind of like pours the
(24:17):
oil out of the loka into your mouth with the
apple sauce and it starts mixing them all together. It's
like considered simple food and yet yeah, and all have
only a few ingredients and like fried potatoes are not
rocket science, but still you just get it just right
and it just brings it all with.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
This tastes different though in my head, I'm like, it's
not just a fried potato. Though, at the end of
the day, and this is me making this, I can't
even imagine how someone in your family or a grandma
might make this. It's like if I make this and
I'm like, okay, this is this is hidden a little different,
and I've never done it before. I can't even imagine
what a grandma is making. Before we move on, we
(24:54):
do need to try with the grammar.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yes, apple sauce and crema are just.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Or apple sauce and gandma. I'm gonna actually drench this
bite with grema, okay, and then I'm gonna top it
with apple sauce.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Is it good?
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I can't wait.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
It's good. It's good, It's nice. The Kredma is nice.
I do like the grandma better than the sour cream,
just from a textra It's more smooth, it's more creamy grandma. Like.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I want to try a bite just straight krema straight
apple snap.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
He said. I'm gonna do it too. I'm gonna dig
into this second one.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yes, I can't speak for all the Jewish people, Brian,
but for me, I think this is better than sour cream.
I lock.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
The only combo you ever need, the Krema lacka damn pajman.
Brian Ford, you heard it here first. Actually, twenty twenty three, baby,
twenty twenty three, we up here with krema lacas. Has
it been done?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
It's been done now.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
I think I want to have you hand on a
salt in the mixture with the flower. But I think
our listeners want to know definitively did I bring you back?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Yes, one hundred percent. That crisp and the salty and
the onion and the apple sauce. The klemo was amazing
and I'm going to be incorporating this into my knaka
in the future. But in terms of my childhood, it's
the lata with the apple sauce.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Wow, this was such an honor to do for you, Dan.
It's whenever I have to make something with such significance,
I always get a little nervous because it's like if
someone cooked for me, like a baliada that my mom
will make or something that's very hunduran, I'd be like,
but I appreciate you allowing me to cook this for you,
(26:39):
and like, I sincerely appreciate sharing this meal with you
as well.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, no, I appreciate you doing it. It brought me
back for sure. And I love what you're doing on
this podcast. I just like that you're doing something that's
different and that yes requires a little more work than
some other podcast concepts out.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
There, or we're sipping beer.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
It's all good, but I think makes it a lot
more interesting.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Also, speaking of podcasts, I've talked to you about how
you know you're a legend da dada and all this
kind of thing, But what was it like when you
started as a podcast host, I mean your podcast before podcasts. Yeah,
I'm sure anyway, like I'm one of the ops. How
were you able to make the leap into this industry
(27:20):
and absolutely be consistent and dominant and I mean as
Dan Pashman as his leading voice.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
So, I mean I started in radio when I graduated college.
My dream was to host my own radio show. So
I always knew that's what I wanted to get into,
and I worked in radio for a number of years.
I worked at a progressive talk radio network called Air America.
I worked at NPR. That was all happening kind of
as the Internet and technology were taking off, and so
I was kind of getting into this field just as
it was starting to crumble, right, and so it was
(27:50):
a very uncertain time, and there were a lot you know,
I kept getting jobs on shows that I thought I'll
be here for twenty years, and then next year they
would lay off, cancel the show and lay everyone off.
And so around two thousand and nine I got laid
off again. I got laid off like six times in
eight years or something like that. And friends of mine
and radio were starting podcasts, and I figured, well, if
I have my own podcasts, at least no one can
(28:11):
cancel it but me, you know, so at least I
can control my own destiny and if it's good, I
can keep doing it. No one can take it away
from me. And so I was like, what should my
podcast be?
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Like?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Actually, most of my work at that time I've been
in news and politics talk radio stuff, but I kind
of didn't really feel like the world needed another guy
with opinions about politics or sports, which is also something
I'm into. But I thought, well, food, I have like
this very idiosyncratic, kind of quirky approach. Maybe that's something,
And so I started. But it was I launched in
twenty ten, and it was still in the very real
stone ages of podcasting. I mean, you couldn't make a
(28:43):
living doing it. There were no ads, nobody bought ads
on podcasts. So I did it for two years as
a side project while freelancing. I was able to get
a book deal out of it, and that was something.
And then it was four years in twenty fourteen when
the podcast boom kind of started. I got picked up
a WNYC New York Public Radio and that was kind
of like my first break. They gave me a producer
that allowed me to get more ambitious about the show.
(29:04):
You know, like the show was good for a guy
doing it, you know, out of his living room, but
like you know, to do more ambitious things, you need help.
You can't do it alone. Yeah, And so that allowed
me to kind of get bigger and better with the
show and just kind of keep continuing to grow it
from there and left it on my seat and came
to stitch Her a few years back and that's been
going great.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
So wow, you know, because as I'm entering this this realm,
I almost feel thankful for your work in a way,
breaking down barriers, creating space for others to talk about food.
And it seems as though being an entrepreneur in this way,
(29:41):
it was a path that you just kind of created yourself.
It wasn't necessarily like oh, like yeah, this makes sense
because like this guy did it and this person didn't
and she did it and they did it. It was like,
I'm just gonna go do this. I guess it's gonna work.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
I just wanted to be able to have a job
doing what I love, you know, And after getting laid
off six times and eight years, I was like, I
don't know if I'm going to be able to have
this career, and that makes you feel kind of desperate,
and desperation can be a great motivator when you go
into a project thinking like, if this doesn't work, I'm
not going to have the career I want. I'm gonna
have to start somewhere from scratch. You will work very hard,
(30:18):
you know.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
You know, I'm delivering to these coffee shops this morning.
Like wait, it's like, man, if I don't make his
work right, you know, I got to get up and
do it.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
It's a double edged sword because I think that you
can fall into the trap of like always being ont
of the next thing and always wanting to build it
to be more or bigger, and then you're kind of
never going to be happy or never even be content
or satisfied. So you don't want to be like that
because like, you know, those people may accomplish the most
and become incredibly successful, but I in my to my eye,
(30:50):
they're mostly miserable, yeah, because it's never enough. On the
other hand, I think that like if you don't have
that gene to some degree of like an ambition that
drives you to always push from more or move out
of the next exciting thing, that you're never going to
accomplish the first thing, you know, like you're never going
to get to square one. So to find that middle ground,
(31:10):
to like harness that ambition and build the thing you
want and to have the career you want without getting
so sucked into it that you're never happy, is, you know,
is a.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Balance to strike wise words in terms of that balance,
Like what's been your biggest takeaway in terms of what
it took for you to get to where you are
right and like if you step back at the beach
or the bar, when you think of, like, oh, man,
like that that moment was really huge for me.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Right, I don't know if there's one moment. I guess
that's my takeaway. You know. It's like, you know, like
everybody wants to they want to like what was the moment?
I don't really think that's the way most people grow
a thing. Maybe once in a while there's a moment, right,
you know, and you can say that was but like
mostly it's just it's a grind and it's a long
(31:59):
slot and you just kind of have to keep at it,
you know. Of course, there's weeks that you're more motivated
and weeks that you're less motivated, but like it helps
that I started. My mom teases me that I'm like
one of these people who like grew up in the
Great Depression, who like save breadcrumbs. Not that I'm so frugal,
but like, because I got laid off so many times
in the first like eight years of my career, because
(32:21):
I was kind of coming of age in these recessions
and all this tumultuousness of the Internet and technology and smartphones,
I got laid off so much that I just like
always expect that, like next year, I'm gonna get laid
off again. You Like, I always think, like this isn't
gonna last man. But that is like a good motivator.
I don't quite feel the same that to the same degree.
Now I feel like I'm on more stable footing. But
(32:42):
I enjoyed my job. I'm still ambitious. I still get
excited about new projects and new ideas and want to
grow things and move forward. But I also, like, I
don't like when people brag about how late they stayed
up editing their podcast. This is like a deep cut
podcast producer insider thing. But like some of these people
I follow on social media, they would share a picture
(33:03):
of their pro tools Session. Pro Tools is like the
audio editing software, and show me how many different tracks
they're running and how all the different cuts and the
different pieces of audio. I was up till three am,
but the show's ready, and look at all the different tracks,
and it's like that doesn't mean it's good. Yeah, all right,
Like you're a baker, okay, Like yes, you work long hours, okay,
(33:25):
but like.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
The break is still suck. Yes, right. People screenshot their
alarm really, that's.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
The baker equivalent. That's the baker equivalent of the pro
tool session.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Equivalent is screenshots of their alarm on their story and
it's like, oh, my alarm started at two am and
I was like, all right, I will go back ten am.
My what you was doing? My break kind of good though, exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
So maybe it's like also just like learning to pick,
to prioritize and focus on because you can't do everything.
And I personally believe like if you're gonna break through
and get attention on whatever it is you're doing, it's
better to be really good at a small number of things, yeah,
than to be like pretty good at a lot of
you get.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
At a bunch of stuff because nobody notices pretty good. Yeah,
I know, you got to be at a different level.
But when I received your box of pasta, we were
in New Orleans. When I first got that box of pasta,
I remember in twenty twenty one, I was like, this
dude makes pasta. So was that a light bulb moment
you had though? I mean, because obviously, I'm sure you've
(34:26):
loved pasta for a long time like most people have.
But I mean to creating a whole new shape, getting
it produced and distributed and having it successfully done. I mean,
it's you know, I'll go to Ki Foods and I'll
see you right there. Yeah, that's very fair, I'll go.
You know, So, like how did that idea take precedent
over others? Because I'm sure you had several ideas, but
like how how was like that the one that really?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
I mean, I was just really excited about it, you know,
Like that's honestly, that's a lot of times like what
are you most what are you excited to work on?
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Do that?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
You know, because it's probably going to be better. Yeah,
if you're really psyched do it. That's actually a fair point,
you know, like if you're gonna dread working on it,
then don't take on that project because it's probably going
to be bad in the end and you'll be miserable.
So it started with in the podcast Boom around twenty fifteen,
I don't know if you know the podcast. Around that time,
a lot of like Cereal came out, like a lot
of long form storytelling, these multi part stories. So I
(35:20):
was like, looking for something exciting, new creative direction for
my podcast. You know, I feel like I've been having
similar conversation for a long time. What could I do
would be new and different that I'd be excited about?
And I was like, well, what would my version of
one of these like long form stories be, like an
epic multipart story with cliffhangers and drama and suspense but food.
And I was like, what if I created my own food.
(35:42):
I'm sure things will go wrong and that will create drama,
intention it will be a great story, and if it sells,
that would be good too, you know, it'd be good
for business. So that all seem like a good idea,
and the pasta shape just felt like my criteria for
it where I wanted the food I invented to be
something that would be inexpensive and shelf stable so that
(36:05):
it could be shipped because I wanted my Sporkfull listeners
all around the country to be able to get it easily.
I didn't want this to be like something that would
only be like in boutique stores. And then I just
felt like I have a lot of opinions about pasta,
and I don't see new ideas out there. Plus, like,
it's just such a basic food. Everyone knows it, everyone
loves it, everyone has opinions about it. It's very easy
to get people to care about pasta. Yeah, but nobody
(36:28):
else thought it was a good idea. Like my podcast
Boss at the time, Chris Bannon told me it was
a bad idea. The people in the pasta industry I
talked to said it was a bad idea. Oh wow,
my wife said it was a terrible idea. I mean,
this is all on tape. It's in the Sporkfull podcast
series about the making of the Bossa. You can hear
her telling me it's.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
A bad idea.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
So it's become a running joke because she, you know,
doubted it and then came around.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
But so so I should make it like a biscuit
mix or something. Is that what you're trying to tell
me to do. Yeah, bar On that. When I got
your pasta, I was like, yeah, this looks phenomenal. The
sauce was all upon it, you know what I'm saying. Like,
I was like, all right, I could definitely get behind
that's also being on the pasta like that. I appreciate
you sharing kind of those intimate moments about the creation
(37:15):
of this product, which I'm assuming is not found on
the international isle in grocery source. I've heard that you
don't take too fondly of that, and neither do I not,
not a lot of people these days, but it still
exists quote unquote ethnic isle. What the hell is going
on in these grostries?
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Yeah, this is what we talked about on this portfoil.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I mean, like I think it's a holdover to an
earlier time. But you know, the term ethnic food, if
you stop and parse it, all food is ethnic food.
So when you say ethnic food in common conversation, what
are people thinking of, They're thinking of foods associated with
people of color. Yep, So like no one thinks of
Irish food as ethnic food.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, it's wild because you'll see the same things and
most like I've lived in several states, several cities, and
I've noticed the international that's the nicer version of it.
It always has the same pattern. It starts out with
some form of Chinese and Korean scenario happening, right, and
(38:18):
on the bottom there's a little bit of like a
Japanese situation perhaps, and then you get into you don't
even get into real Mexican food. You just get into
like straight up like taco bell shells.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
They didn't even bring me like some real like Wahakan
sauces or anything. They just like straight up put like
a box of shells. Then there's just like canned beans.
I mean, I don't even I don't even think they
fill it up all the right, right, you know. And
then in the next aisle over you'll have pasta.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Why isn't Italian food an international? Right? So the real
issue is, so you see the ways in which European
foods are assimilated into American food culture and are accepted
as American or at least not foreign. I mean, people
understand that pasta is Italian, but people it's more like
Italian American people don't think of Italian food as foreign food,
(39:02):
not America. No, but they still think of Chinese food
as foreign food. Even though Chinese immigrants have been in
America in large numbers since before Italian immigrants, we're here
in large numbers. Yet Chinese Americans are still in many
ways characterized as foreign and therefore not American. And one
of the ways in which you see that, in a
sort of a subtle way that some people might have
(39:22):
never even noticed, is with that the foods being being
ghetto eyes essentially into a separate section, and like these
are the foreign foods. The people we associate with these
foods aren't truly American. People of color aren't can't truly
be American.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Which is wild too. Like when you go to like Borderlands,
Texas area, if you're in any area with like really
good Mexican food, you'll see straight up like razes eating
at the Mexican spot. You know, Like but you're racist, bro,
Like why are you eating at this place? And then shit,
non Mexicans, Like it doesn't even make sense. The food's
that good. Having a good time, Stay Flaky, be right back.
(40:14):
Welcome back to Laky Biscuit Dan. We have a little
bit left here. What's next for you? New pasta shapes,
new books, new shows.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
The next big projects we're launching on the SPORKFLW spin
off podcast hosted by Sola and ham L Whaley. Yeah,
love them. Incredibly talented, incredibly talented and fun husband and
wife duo that well. So they're hosting this show called
Deep Dish. It's gonna running in the spork full feed,
so you just go to the sporkfol you'll find it
starting in January. Wonderful And that's a show where they're
(40:48):
going to like take a dish and kind of like
go on an adventure to learn about a story behind
the dish, whether it's the Jewish bagel baker's union battles
with the mafia in New York City, yeah, or.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Those bakers used to get paid too. Yeah, you remember
being a bagel baker back in the day before it
was like industrialized, was a very sought after skill set.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Or like another story we're going to do on that
show is it's about Delta Tomali's or Hot Tamali's, which
are Tamali's specific to the Mississippi Delta. There's sort of
a food with a Mexican origin, but that was taken
on by black folks in the area and they're a
different type of Tamali that's only in that region. And
we got a great story about with this cop was
called to a scene of a crime and found two
(41:33):
dead bodies and a trunk full of Tamali's boy and
the story goes on from there. So that's coming in January,
and then my cookbook, my first ever cookbook, comes out
in March. It's a whole bunch of new and different
and novel types of pasta sauces. There's no recipe for
marinara sauce or lasagna in here. It's all different kinds
(41:53):
of things with a range of different ingredients that I
love and cook with at home. So we're doing like
kim chiek harbonara. We're doing kachee with chili crisp. We're
doing cavatelli with artichokes and preserved lemon. I got a
pasta pizza in there. That's it's a pizza where the
crust is made of pasta fused together into a crust
turned golden brown and crispis you actually cut into slices
(42:14):
and pick it up and eat it. It's exciting.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yeah, kind I'm like, hold on a second, man. You
said it's a pizza, but pasta is the crust.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yes, they take a baking sheet and you like get
the fetichini and you bake it with some egg. You
cook it. You bake it with egg and the oil,
and then like the bottom crisps and turns golden brown,
and the whole thing holds together as a single like
a single sheet, and then you can top it like
a pizza.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
And that's in your new cookbook that comes out in March.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah, it's called Anything's Possible.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Any Anything is Possible.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Hit the pre order, take a pre order now wherever
books you're sold.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Yeah, please do it. Make sure you check Dan's socials
links pre you order that book, because I'm gonna say
you right now, I'm gonna have to make that what's
it called the pasta pizza. You have a couple more
things before we let you go. We like to play baking.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (43:11):
I want to test your knowledge about pasta shape. I
love it, real real knowledge.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Okay, let's see this.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Pasta shape was developed over three years to create a
shape that evoked an ideal combination of fork ability, sausibility,
and toothskin ability.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Tooth thinkability. This is my fasta shape. It's called all right, yes,
your own, that's right, which if you want it, you can.
It's at Whole Foods, it's at some Walmarts. You can
order it from Spolini dot com, s f O G
L I n I dot com.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
That silent g there you go. All right, What is
the name of the rare pasta dish that is made
only in Sardinia? Is it Okay, s Dolina? Is it
sue Fulendo or is it Salerno.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
I don't think it's Sealerno because.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
That's the city.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
That's a city in somewhere else. But I don't know.
I don't know the answer.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
This was a deep cut. I didn't know this either
until I researched it. But it is sue Fulendu is
a rare pasta dish that's only made and served in Saturday.
It consists of thin, thread like strands of pasta boiled
and brought in top with grated cheese. It's like super
super super super thin. Right, last one here? Where did
spaghetti go to dance? The mart? The baseball or the meatball?
(44:54):
That's why it's called a game.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Dan with your answer, it's got to be the meeting.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Yeah, Oh, but you hate spaghetti. Don't you sorry hate
for the flaky fam Dan does not hate anything. He
doesn't condone hate. You don't like spaghetti.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
It's not my favorite. I think it's overrated.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Talk to me about that real quick.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
So as you said, look my three metrics for judging
any pasta shape or forkability, sauce ability, and tooth sinkability.
And so spaghetti is hard to get on the fork.
It's very hard to get the right kind of bite
in the fork. It's either too much or too little,
or you have danglers that are going all over your face.
It doesn't hold sauce very well. It has very little
surface area in relation to volume. Eat spaghetti with meat sauce.
(45:34):
You finish the pasta, you get like a lake of sauce.
That's not a feature. That's a bug.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
And then spaghetti fas you got to watch out right now.
He said, that's not a feature. That's a bug.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
And then like of all the shapes that they're to
sink your teeth into him. In spaghetti, it can be
fine if it's cooked just right, but it's not great.
It's just not great. It's very primitive. It's one of
the earliest invented pasta shapes and like we can do
better now, like we have better techno.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
So like, I love how hard you're doing. What about
the spaghetti that's thick and it has a hole in
the middle.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Bukatini, that's very different. That's that is good.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
That's good. Not for the reason most people say. Most
people think Bucatini is good. They'll say, oh, it's like spaghetti,
but it's got a tube so it holds sauce. But
the tube's extremely narrow and sauce won't really go in there.
The reason why it's good is because the hollow tube
is springy. It creates a unique.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Texture, it does has a nice money. That's what makes singability, Yes.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Tooth singability. What Bucatini taught me is that because at
first I thought toobility was just about chewiness, right, But
what Bukacini taught me is that it can also be
about springiness. And you want either or both of those
in your pasta shapes. But you gotta have one if
it's gonna be good.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
I'm gonna tell you someth right now. I gotta eat
passive with you one day. Yeah, damn Pashman here at
the flake you best get podcasts. We love to talk
about something in your community that means a lot to you.
I mean, you know you're also working or at least
contributing or helping or knowledgeable about Stuffolk JCC. Tell us
why that's important to you, and tell us how we
can help those efforts.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Yeah, I'm the Suffolk Why JCC is the only Jewish
community center in the county where I live, in Stuffolk County,
which is kind of remote suburbs of New York City.
It's important to me because my wife works there part
time and she runs a few different, I think really
wonderful programs there. One called Names Not Numbers, which brings
together Holocaust survivors and high school students Wow, and they
get to spend time together, and they make the students
(47:26):
make a film telling the survivor's story. She's also starting
up a program for third generation people, which is like
my wife like, all four of her grandparents were Holocaust survivors,
but most Holocaust survivors, even the ones who survived, are
no longer with us, and so there's a movement to
get people of my wife's generation, the third generation, to
learn their grandparents' stories and to tell and to share
(47:49):
those stories, and so she's starting programs with them. So
I just think it's really like worthwhile work, and especially
because the area where we live. I mean, like there
are some areas around New York where there's a big
Jewish population, so they have very vibrant Jewish community centers
and ours is doing well, but it went through some
tough times and I think that thanks to the work
(48:10):
of my wife, Janey and others there who have come
in taken over the last year, they're kind of really
turning it around. And I think that's exciting to see
what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Yeah, the one thing that stood out to me right
there that you said is being in tune and in
touch with your history, with your heritage, with your lineage,
and understanding the reality and facts of things that have
occurred and have helped us get to where we are today.
So I think that's really amazing work to be able
to connect the dots between the past and the present.
(48:39):
How can we help, how you know we can their website.
Is there any volunteering or is it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
I mean, look, if you're anywhere around Suffolk County and
there's a big and diverse population in Suffolk County all
over the place, and the Jaycy is not only for
Jewish people. Like if you need daycare, if you want
a gym to go work out in, if you want
to google to go swim in, if you need summer camp,
the best deal in summer camp in Suffolk County. You
got kids who need to go to summer camp in
Suffoy jay Z. That's when my kids always go to
(49:05):
summer camp. They love it. It's phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
So I love the oh Man. Dan, thank you so
so much for coming here today, enjoying the gesses and
chatting with me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
Thanks so much, Brian, thank y'all for listening. This was
legendary having Dan Pashman here on Flaky Biscuit. Check out
the recipe for homemade latkas on Shondaland dot com. This
is just my interpretation of this process. I'm not trying
(49:43):
to reinvent the wheel. Check out the process that I use,
and I want to know how it goes. You already
know you got to tag me artist in Brian, tag
Dan at the sport full and post your photos, post
your videos. You know what I'm saying. Get into that
discord you dig I want to see what's popping with
the loc I want to see if y'all using the
crema and durea, using apple sauce, the sour cream, all three.
(50:07):
Just make sure it's crispy. That's my tip. Don't give
me no soggy, don't give me no pureaid potato, don't
make bread as Dan said, and don't forget to check
out why JCC in Suffolk County. You can find my
handle and all the links I mentioned in the show
notes for this episode. So if you like Flaky Biscuit,
(50:27):
you know what to do. Leave us a rating or review, share,
subscribe like all of that. 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 found each week on
(50:50):
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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