The Power of Eating with Loved Ones + Plus Taste Testing 2 Costco Desserts

Humans have gathered together for millennia to break bread and share meals with loved ones. It wasn't just a time to eat but to celebrate, bond, and wind down after a long day. And in today's age of 24/7 access to technology, coming to the table with family and loved ones is more important than ever. Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/ilGMaILNmtY In our home, we've always placed a huge value on dinner time. It's a time for us to regroup at the end of the day, sans technology, and bond over a shared meal. We always knew it was important, but it wasn't until recently that we learned just how important it is, and that we as humans are hardwired to do this. After listening to a recent episode of Chris Williamson's Modern Wisdom podcast and hearing his guest, Shawn Stevenson, talk about the physiological benefits of eating with family, we realized just how powerful eating with loved ones could be. In this episode we discuss some of the details from Shawn Stevenson's book, Eat Smarter, and talk about our own personal history and relationship to the family table. Taste Test: Costco's French Pastries In our latest taste test, we're trying two of Costco's packaged French pastries, pains au chocolat, and mini almond cakes, or financiers. Listen to find out which one we liked best! One was far better than the other. Resources Beef Bourguignon Recipe Classic Chili Recipe Italian Almond Cookies Recipe Lasagna Recipe Pesto alla Genovese Recipe Potato Gnocchi Recipe The Model Health Show - Shawn Stevenson's website If you enjoyed The Power of Eating with Loved Ones Episode, leave us a comment below and let us know!   We love your questions.  Please send them to [e-mail] (remove the 11111 for our contact).  There’s no question not worth asking. If you enjoy our weekly podcast, support us on Patreon and you will get 2 more bonus episodes each month! Thanks for listening! For a complete list of all podcast episodes, visit our podcast episode page.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
- Welcome back tothe Sip and Feast podcast,
episode number 45, the Power of Eating
with Loved Ones.
This is such a great idea, Tara.
Who would think that weshould eat with loved ones?
Well, we should eat with people.
We should eat with our enemies. .
- That's a good idea.

(00:20):
Well, it's something that weas humans have been doing for
millennia, right?
And it's something I, Iwanna be more specific here.
It's, it's really thepower of eating dinner
with loved ones, eating with our family,
eating with your spouse.
If you're living alone, you can FaceTime

(00:44):
a family member if youwant to, if you can.
So this isn't just for people
who are in a family of four like we are.
There are ways, um, that you can do that.
But I'm gonna get into like some
of the sciency aspects of it.
And this is all from, um, a podcast

(01:04):
that I had listened to that kind
of sparked this, this whole thing.
It was the Chris WilliamsonModern Wisdom podcast
where he had interviewed Sean Stevenson,
who recently came out witha book called Eat Smarter.
But before I get intosome of those details
and the notes that I tookfrom that podcast, I wanted
to talk about what we do in our home.

(01:26):
Yeah. When it comes to dinnerdinner's, really the one
meal each day that we have to sit together
to kind of reconnect, to talk about
how our day went, things like that.
Um, and I wanna talkabout what it means to us
and why it's reallysomething that we've chosen

(01:48):
to make a priority in our lives.
- Yeah. It's definitelya priority in our lives.
It's, we're gonna make the argument here,
Taras probably will do it better than me,
that you should be trying to do this too.
And maybe if you can't doit every day, maybe at least
some days, it's that important.

(02:09):
I believe. Uh, before weget into it, two things.
Chris Williamson's podcast,in case you don't know him,
he's like one of the mostpopular podcasters in the world,
but there is a chance you don't know him
if you're a little bit older.
I would say his audience ispredominantly probably like
30-year-old males, Tararight around there, probably.
- Although I'm a 45-year-oldwoman, and I enjoy his podcast.

(02:31):
That's true. His, his podcastis the one that I listen
to pretty much weekly.
His podcasts are very long.
Sometimes they're three hours. Don't
- Always, they're 3, 4, 3 or four hours.
- Yeah. I only listen tothem when I'm in the car, but
whenever I listen to them, I'm
always learning something new. Yeah.
- I've, I've been listeningto him for a long time.
He, uh, I remember whenhe was a smaller channel,

(02:53):
and now he's like one
of the biggest podcastersin the world, no doubt.
Making millions of dollars a year.
And, you know, he deserves it.
He's put in so much effort into it.
I, his, the research he brings to him,
and, uh, he, his, I love his British,
like calm British demeanor.

(03:13):
And he lets the people talk and Yeah.
- He's a really good listener. Yes.
So he listens really well, which
- Is really- Hard.
And based on that asksreally good questions.
- It's so hard I doingsomething like that.
You, it's a skill that you have to build.
- Definitely.- I mean,
that's honestly why JoeRogan is the most listened
to podcast on the planet.

(03:34):
You know, whether you like him
or not, the guy knows how
to just let the guestdo the talking. Yeah.
- That's why he's got them on,because they're the experts.
Yeah. Right.
- So - Before we do that,do you wanna talk about
what we're gonna end with? Yes.
- I have to talk about whatwe're going to end with.
That's my way of keeping you listening.
It is those two beauties right there.

(03:57):
So the one in back of Tara is
Pan O chocolate .
Okay. You say it better, Tara,
- You're, I can't, I didn't take
French in high school. You did.
- Well say it better. Iknow you want, you think.
No, it's fine. .
So it's, so anyway, these arepano, shuck aot from Costco.
They're a product of Francethey look to die for.

(04:20):
And then the second onealso from Costco is called,
- Well, they're le financier finance,
I would just say financier.
- Yeah. They're mini,in other words, they're,
they also give you the English, they're
mini almond cakes. Yeah.
- How would you say? Er,- Yeah, I guess.
- Okay. Lip petite. And what do

(04:41):
- They Mason? What's the brand?
- Mason. Mason Jacques Mart.
- So anyway, these two Frenchbeauties are from Costco.
So that is, it's a Frenchtheme taste test today.
And, you know, I'm not
that knowledgeable aboutthe snacks in Costco.
For all I know, thesecould have been there
for five years, 10 years.

(05:02):
They could be a bestseller, or they could be
a test by Costco.
Costco does that a lot. They test items,
and then if they don't do well yeah.
Then they get rid of 'em.
- We don't usually buysnacks from Costco. Yeah.
So for us doing these tastetests, we were kind of like
kids in a candy store. It's
- So much fun looking,- Looking
for stuff that we've never tried.

(05:23):
- And we have 'em all sittingdownstairs in our, on a shelf
just for this podcast.
So the kids have been berated
to not open any of these becausethey can't have 'em until
after we do the taste test.
Yeah, that's right. So it'salmost like we're getting the
good stuff, not for them, butfor, for these taste tests.

(05:44):
- It's fun. Yeah. It's
- Fun.
So that'll be at the end of the episode.
And, uh, you know, just a little recap.
Last week's episode was,uh, Tiara Masu from Costco.
One was from Costco, the other one
was from Uncle Giuseppe's.
And Wow. Those, thoseresults were not what,
what I was expecting, Tara. Me
- Neither. Yeah.
- I thought the one from Costcothat was in these glass jars

(06:04):
and looked beautiful.
And the packaging was great,man. They were not good.
- Very disappointing. I hopeCostco does not let us down
today with these French pastries.
So more to come. Yeah.
So Jim, why don't you tell our listeners
what dinner means to you personally,

(06:25):
and share a little bit about what we do
in our home at dinnertime. Yeah.
- Dinner has always beensuper important to me.
I, before , way
before I decided to do anyof this stuff for a living,
we always wanted to have good dinners.
And even
before our kids were around,

(06:45):
we would make good dinnersjust, just for the two of us.
So, yeah, we right away, I don't want
to make it like this has tobe like, you have to have kids
to do this, though.
I do think it's probably something
that is more important if youdo have kids to, uh, families.
It's, uh, you know, if you'rea single individual, you're,
you're gonna have to do those Zoom calls,

(07:05):
maybe like Tyra was saying.
Yeah. Or you meet up with friends, meet up
with some friends.
Even even meeting up withfriends at a bar, like
to have a burger is, is great.
- There's something about connecting
with people you care about over food.
- Yeah. Yeah. So what,what does it mean to me?
It means, it's like one of themost important things to me.
I would always make food,really try to do like the best,

(07:28):
the best, uh, job ever.
And then test it on you tower.
You know, this again, this isbefore the kids were around,
and honestly, when thekids were really young,
they would just be like,it's good or it's bad.
Or I James like, I don't like that.
You know, that would be the extent of it. Yeah.
Now, I truly love eatingthe four of us, uh, the four

(07:50):
of us eating together,because there is, uh,
a lot of back and forth.
Like, they'll gimmereally good criticism, uh,
which really improves my dishes.
But more so than that, we getto talk, we get to have a time
that's kind of devoid of tech.
You know, we take that away.
And, uh, a lot of thesethings Tara has tried to

(08:13):
improve on like the saying of Grace.
- Well, it's more, it's not just grace.
It's really us each taking aturn talking about the things
that we are grateful for thathappened during that day,
or things that we're gratefulfor that are to come. Yeah.
- Yeah. So I- Enjoy that.
And that's definitely part of our,
part of our dinner routine.

(08:35):
- It's still tough for us though.
I mean, realistically, it's not perfect.
So sometimes the kids will fight.
That's always tough to dealwith. Mm-Hmm. .
It's tough when you make a good meal
and then your, then the,then your family fights.
That's like, that's the reality that, that
that happens for everybody.
Um, sometimes you make the perfect dish

(08:55):
and they're doing something else.
They're playing a video game,
they're talking on thephone with their friends.
They're, uh, making dealswith, uh, selling their,
they're candy sellingbusiness, you know, in school.
Um, they're, you know. Yeah.
- But even if they're doingthat, they are expected
to come down and sit at the table.
Yeah. And, and that is their priority.

(09:15):
- We don't have a firm time.
So that kind of makesit That's, that's right.
That makes it a little tougher for us.
And I, I think that's morereflective of the year 2024,
that we are so overworked.
It's not just comparedto when we were young.
- I don't even think it'sjust being overworked.
I think it's, a lot oftimes we are beholden
to the kids' schedules.

(09:36):
So for example, youknow, James for a while
was doing basketball liketwo or three nights a week,
and it was from six toeight o'clock at night.
So it was harder for us to eat
altogether, but we still did it.
Yep. We would just eatat like eight 30 Yeah.
When we got home. I wanna back up. Yeah.
And I wanna talk about myown personal experience

(09:58):
and what dinner means to me.
And I think why it'ssomething that I've chosen
to prioritize above so many other things.
Um, first of all, when I wasa kid, a lot of times my,
my dad, I think he wouldwork a little bit later.
He worked in the sametown that we lived in,
but he was often at theoffice till like six, seven,

(10:21):
maybe even seven o'clockat night sometimes.
So my mom, um, would let us, my sister
and I eat dinner, um, with trays.
Do you remember those,like trays on stands?
I feel like that waslike a 1980s kids thing.
- Well, I had, I had like a,it was like a table almost
that would like, I can movetowards the couch. Yeah.
- We didn't have that. We hadT tray. So we would sit on the

(10:42):
floor and my sister and Iwould watch Nickelodeon.
Like we would watch TheMonkeys. Do you remember that?
Show The Monkeys? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
- Hey,- Hey, we're the monkeys. Definitely.
- Okay. I used to watchthat all the time too.
- So we would watch that andlike maybe a few other shows
while we would eat dinner.
And it wouldn't reallybe her and I talking,
but we would still be bonding in a way.
Yeah. 'cause we wouldbe, and then, you know,

(11:02):
fast forward a little bitlater, my parents separated
and I can't really remember
after that happening ever sitting down
and having a family dinner
or like, I remember just kind of
eating more as individuals.
Yeah. And I knew

(11:23):
that something was lacking in my life.
I just didn't really know what it was.
And I think it wasn't until Jim
and I started a family thatI became obsessed almost
with the idea of us alleating dinner together.
So I would, when I wasworking in the city,

(11:44):
I would often not get home until
seven 15 is really when Iwould walk through the door
and you would always have dinner ready.
Or if we were like, ordering out
or whatever, the foodwould definitely be there.
By the time I walked inthe door, I would walk in,
wash my hands, sit down,

(12:04):
and we would eat, evenwhen the kids were little,
and they probably should have been
like getting ready for bed.
I said, no, this is a priority that,
that we are eating together.
So that's what we did, andthat is what we continue to do.
Yeah. Now I see it as a time for us to
really connect with each other.

(12:25):
Um, like you said, wekind of have a rule where
the phone is not at the table.
- We, and I have to enforcethat rule for myself.
- You do. Often you're guilty of it.
- That's what I'm saying. I- Have to put it away.
And a lot of times youdo take out the phone
and you record what we'reeating. And sometimes
- That's the thing too.
I hate, I hate that I have to do that.

(12:46):
And I do it for Instagram.
Instagram is the stupidestplatform ever. It really is.
I mean, look, you knowhow I feel about TikTok.
Well, here I go on Instagram.
Well, we gotta, I gotta showa story all the time when I'm
eating, like, you know,in Oh, you don't have to.
I know. I don't have to. Yeah,
you're right. I don't have to. Yeah.
- But I think, I think earlier on,

(13:07):
like when you first started Sip
and Feast, it was a littlebit more of a novelty.
And we, we didn't mind it.
I think now that we are where we are,
I think delaying us eating by taking time
to like maybe video is,is maybe getting, uh,

(13:28):
ruffling some feathers.
- . I think you're right. I mean,
and look, I've, I've tried
to establish betterboundaries with what I do.
It's, it's, the simple realitythough is that, you know,
it's really tough to not, like,
you kind of have to put yourselfout there on social media.
Can you just put outone YouTube video a week

(13:50):
and have your blog, youknow, your recipe blog and,
and do Okay.
Maybe it's, it's tough. Now.
There's a lot of competition for eyeballs,
and a lot of those eyeballslive on Instagram and TikTok
and they wanna see whatyou're doing all the time.
Yeah. You know, they're like, oh,
you haven't put up a story in three days.
What happened to you? Did you die? Yeah.
It's like, no, I just didn't put up

(14:11):
a story, you know? Yeah. I just
- Like, I know.
- Sorry. You know, sometimes I'm not,
I'm not that interesting.
You know, there's nothing, nothing.
I didn't have anything toput up. Like, honestly,
yesterday's one, I, um, we had, uh,
we did, uh, corn beef hash.
So I had, it was leftover cornbeef from St. Patty's Day.
And I was, you know, corn beef,

(14:33):
half hash is not the bestlooking thing in the world.
You know, it looks goodif you got like, piled up
and you get some poached eggs on there,
but just regular corn beef hash.
And I filmed the story
and I was just like, this isthe most uninspiring story
that I've ever .
Like, I was like, Hey guys,it's, I got corn beef hash,
I had leftover corn beef, like I made,
here's my corn beef hash.
Like, I was, I was likeall set to post it.

(14:54):
Then I'm like, I'mlike, this is the worst.
And I just hit delete .
I just shouldn't be puttingup stuff just to put it up.
Yeah. Is what I'm trying to say.
- I agree. Um, so goingback to, to this, you know,
sometimes technology does enter
the dining room tableor the kitchen table,
or wherever it is, butit's best if it's kind

(15:14):
of left out, in my opinion.
- I think it's, I thinkyou gotta leave it out.
And honestly, I think asschools now, school systems are,
the school, uh, systems indifferent states are starting
to implement these rules.
I believe Florida did something,
but I also believe Britainhas made it like they've
banned phones in the schools. Yeah.

(15:34):
- They said something for,
in our school districtabout like taking the,
not allowing phones during, during lunch
or something like that.
But, you know, thinking ofschools in general too, like, I,
I, I often wonder since the fact
that being able to breakbread, eat with other people

(15:55):
is something that's so importantto creating social bonds.
I really wonder how, whathappened, you know, in 2020
with the not letting kidseat with one another.
- Oh, yeah. How that
- Impacts their social bonds.
But I mean, I that's,
- That's, that was the worst. That's
- A topic for- .
The, the worst. Okay.

(16:15):
- That's a, that's a topic for a
- Different, now you knowhow I feel. All right, there
- You go.
Like, that's a topic for a different topic
- They made.
And, and let me tell you, there was huge
backlash in the schooldistrict that we were in,
and I think a lot of districts,
but they, uh, essentiallythese kids like missed like a
couple, what was it, two yearswhere they weren't allowed,
you know, they were sitting at a desk

(16:35):
- Yeah.
Eating lunch alone.
And that's the time that they're supposed
to be fostering these,these relationships.
Yeah. So I'm, I'm curious tosee how that plays out with,
with the generations that weremost heavily impacted. They
- Believe the long-termeffect on those kids is
yet to be determined.
Yeah. And they think it'sgoing to be fairly bad.
And again, you know, the, you know, was,

(16:57):
did the ends justified ameans, you know, going back to,
to just to tech in general.
I, I think that tech free zones,
and I say this as someonewho just, we make all of our,
our whole entire livingis derived from tech,
from the videos we postto, uh, these podcasts
where we record and to the, uh,

(17:17):
photos we put on our website.
Uh, I still believethough, that there's tech,
tech in general is gonnahave a massive decline.
I mean, they're talkingabout banning TikTok now,
and this time it's for real.
It's probably going to happen.
Congress, like, I thinkit was like only 50
members that didn't vote for it.
So it was bipartisan, whichis unheard of these days.
Now it's in the senate's hands.
And the president saidhe is gonna sign it.

(17:39):
It's not gonna do anything.
People will just move onto move back to Instagram
or whatever other platform.
But I do think that in thenot too distant future,
we're gonna have tech freezones, like almost c communities,
I believe, or communes, I guess,
where people are gonna like,opt into these to live a less

(18:00):
of a tech, tech oriented life.
And Yeah. I mean, again, I,I use this stuff to make,
to make, uh, to make a living.
But, um, you know, I, I don't know.
It's almost like I feel like it
was better without this stuff.
And it's such a distractionnow all the time. Mm-Hmm.
, you're constantlyat a, on a, at a state of

(18:21):
distraction, you're not in harmony.
You're in a state of disharmony.Mm-Hmm. .
It's not just, it's not thepeople creating the content.
It's, most of the time it'smore the consumers. Yeah.
Because they know. That'swhy they're swiping
through TikTok so fast.
They're just trying toland on that perfect
15 second of bliss fix.
It's it. Yeah. And it's,and it's a forever thing.

(18:42):
Then they look at the phone
and they've been on itfor four hours. Yeah.
- Oh, yeah.- Yeah. So this is like parents
battle all of our battles.
It's, but forget aboutit. Even if you don't have
kids, it's your own battle.
Like, how long are yougonna stay on it? Yeah.
Take a look at your phone, see
how long you've been on these apps
for the whole entire week. Well,
- You can set screen time limits
for yourself, not just for your kids.
If you have an Apple phone, I

(19:02):
don't know about an Android device,
- But you still gotta imposethat on yourself. Yeah.
- Well, you can, yeah. Obviouslyyou can override it, but,
- You know, all these tech CEOs,
they don't let their kids use,
use the products that they create.
Yeah. It, it's, they know.Yeah. They know how bad it is.
- So I think saying all thatwhat we are about to talk
builds the case that maybe eating together

(19:24):
as a family is even moreimportant than it has been in
- The past.
Yeah. It's the only timeyou get in that tech free
- Zone.
It, it's the time. Let's kindof get into the topic here.
Um, I am gonna, I have my notes here.
I'm gonna refer to them. I donot have this stuff completely
memorized, although I havethe general gist of it.
But I did want to be able to talk, um,

(19:48):
and relay some of the information that
Sean Stevenson shared in this podcast.
And even in his book, I did buyhis book called Eat Smarter,
and I looked through it.
Um, he ha he starts out with some
of like the sy building the case, um,
talks about different foods that are good
for helping you wind downat the end of the day,

(20:09):
helping you get ready for dinner, uh,
helping you get ready for sleep.
And then he follows it up with a bunch
of recipes in the book too. Oh.
- So he has recipes on,
- He has recipes too.Interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
- What a great idea.
- It, it is really, really good.
Again, the topic of the podcast was how
to get a good night's sleepor, or something like that.

(20:30):
It was titled, so he talks about the role
that food plays in that.
Um, and a lot of what hesaid really, really resonated
with me, especially when hetalked about the fact that
who we eat with has an impacton our diet and our health.
Okay. Oh, oh. So he, he wordedit that the evening routine,

(20:53):
so coming together at the dinner table
is potentially the most powerful,
powerful down regulator of the fight
or flight system, which is thesympathetic nervous system.
Um, he said that a determining factor
in how long we'll actually live.

(21:14):
So our own personal lifeexpectancy has to do with
creating relationships andhaving healthy social bonds.
And that the healthier oursocial bonds are, that can lead
to a reduction in mortality.
Okay. And the dinner table,the way he describes it,
functions as the unifierthat brings people together.

(21:36):
It's essentially somethingthat humans have been doing
for millennia.
And it's something that'singrained in our DNA.
It's something that down
to like the cellular levelin our body, it's something
that we expect to happen.
- It's so important. It'salways makes me wonder why those
people who don't want toaren't interested in food.

(21:57):
- It's not just the food,- It's
the are they going against their biology?
- They might be, but it's reallythe act of eating together.
Or they may have had trauma Yeah.
Or other things that have maybe
given them a negativeassociation with dinner.
Yeah. Or a negative association with
- People coming together, ormaybe they were over overweight
and they have like aneating problem. So now
- They like Yeah.
It could be a whole, a wholeslew of different things Yeah.
For those individuals. But you know,

(22:18):
what I found most interesting is
that when he talks aboutwhen we eat with the people
that we care about, right?
This is where it comes in, like the power
of eating with, with loved ones.
When we eat with peoplethat we care about,
we switch over from thesympathetic nervous system
to the parasympathetic nervous system.
Doing that, that's switch helps our bodies

(22:39):
to produce more oxytocin.
Oxytocin is like the love hormone.
Like if you, if you've everhugged someone that you love
and it just feels so good, it's
'cause your body's creating oxytocin.
Oxytocin is also a veryimportant hormone when it comes
to childbirth.
Yeah. Breastfeeding sex.
- Yeah.- You know, it's a family show. But I
- Always think of s oxy, oxytocin,

(22:59):
and I always think ofPitocin. That's is that, uh,
- Pitocin is the, uh,synthetic pharmaceutical form
of synthetic oxytocin synthetic
that's used in, uh, labor induction. Yeah.
- That's why I remember that.- Yeah.
But oxytocin is the,the natural form of it.
And it's something that we experience when
we were with people that we love.
And oxytocin is actuallyfound to neutralize cortisol,
which is the stress hormone.

(23:21):
And oxytocin helps usto like experience that.
What he keeps calling it likea downregulation. Yeah. Okay.
And I'm gonna read you, this is a
direct quote from his book.
He says, for thousandsof years, food centered
around more than just the act of eating
food was about family, aboutsharing and cooperation.

(23:42):
Food was about celebration and community.
We've quickly shifted froma species that prepared
and ate food together tofrequently eating in isolation
with processed foodsand mind numbing media.
What is the real impactof this shift in behavior?
Did eating together help protecthuman health in some way?

(24:03):
So he goes on to cite aHarvard study that showed
that people who eat dinner
with their families consumemore fruits and vegetables
and less soda, unprocessed foods,
and eating together as afamily, increased consumption
of fiber, calcium, folate, iron, BC
and e vitamins, lower the glycemic load
and lowered intake to trans fats.
Um, he talks about the benefitsof that eating together

(24:26):
as a family has on children.
He says eating three mealsper week as the minimum
with children leads to reduced incidents
of eating disorders and obesity.
And he also talked abouta study that was done on
tech workers at IBM.
They were tracked andfound that regardless

(24:48):
of their stress level atwork, if they were able
to make it home for dinner consistently,
their stress level atwork remained manageable
and work productivity was high.
But when something interferedwith their ability to get home
and eat dinner with their family,
their stress levels went up and the morale

(25:08):
and productivity went down.
- It makes complete sense to me.
I think when you miss thosebreaking bread moments,
and I mean, sometimes that happens to me.
You don't, it, it's hard for you
to even pinpoint why you feel depressed
and you're not, you know,you're in a state of disharmony.

(25:28):
But that's what it is.
Just the act of doing that,
even though it might be stressful for you,
maybe you do have a workassignment due or, or something and
or your kid has a latesports sporting event,
but getting everybody together.
Yeah, that definitely, I I Ifeel it's hugely important.
Yeah. But like, I neverarticulate it really.

(25:49):
I just, but yeah. You know,when something's wrong. Yeah.
- It's, I think it's hardwhen I used to like travel
for work, I used to find it so difficult
if I ordered room servicein my room to sit there
and eat by myself.
Oh yeah. I definitely felt like something

(26:10):
was off, something was not.
Right. There is definitelysomething so powerful
about eating with people that you love.
At the end of the dayspecifically, I think, you know,
during the day I'm guilty.
I, the kids are at school.
You say you practice intermittent fasting,
but we all know that that's sometimes stop

(26:32):
- Working.
- that sometimes that doesn't
- Happen.
It definitely is not working.
- But like, you know,during, like, I'm good
to go downstairs andeat something on my own,
or if I'm in the car andlike, I eat something
- , you're always grazing.
I notice like, you, you're,
she's like, I got some nuts here.
Oh, I got some of this snack.
I got some of that, a
little bit of this, a little bit of that.

(26:53):
Like the other day, I believeit was the day we filmed
the leg of lamb. Oh yeah.
- I, I kept, I couldn't stop eating that
- Day.
She told me abouteverything she ate that day.
And, and I, I get it. I'mlike filming the video.
She's probably bored as heck,you know, being, you know,
Tara sits behind the camera
and she ha we have a mic onher so she can, you know, talk
to me when I'm, when I'm cooking.

(27:14):
And it's only occasionallyyou'll hear her,
but she was probablylike, ah, he's so boring.
I'm just going to eat thisand I'm gonna eat that.
And some more of this. Yeah. I
- Definitely, I don'tknow why I was more like
snacky than, than usual.
Um, but so I, for me, Ithink like during the day,
if I eat alone, it's fine.
But if I have to eat dinner alone,

(27:36):
something is not right.
Yeah. I have a hard time moving past that.
- I believe it's more important to you
because you lacked that fora number of years, you know?
Mm-Hmm. After,after your parents separated.
Uh, I always had it.
Um, and it was, I guess it wasvery important to my parents,

(27:56):
but when you're young,
when you're a kid, you don't realize it.
You also, you also don'treally realize how some
of your friends mightnot be engaging in that.
Yeah. Like, you don't really think about
those kids that much.
You, you tend to think, oh,I'm here with my parents.
Well, everybody elsehas the same experience
that I do, and they don't.
Yeah. And I guess a lot ofthose people that didn't have

(28:16):
that experience, they don't even know, um,
what they're missing now because they're,
maybe they're practicing thesame thing with in their,
in their new marriage and stuff. I
- Think oftentimes the showsthat we used to watch as kids,
like the, you know, growing pains
or what, whatever those showswere, they always depicted

(28:38):
kind of like a family meal.
So maybe that's why like,I always, like, I would see
that well and be like, oh, someday I,
I'm gonna want that for my family. That's,
- There's, there's a lot.
There's a, that's a huge part of it,
and it doesn't, it didn't really matter
what you were watching back then.
What, whatever type of family it was,
it was always pictured that way.
Now you have a lot of like,

(28:59):
I don't know if youcall it counterculture,
but it's almost like the normis trying to be depicted as
that doesn't happen anymore.
So it, that has an effect on people.
You know, you, you can, you,it's a chicken and the egg.
Mm-Hmm. .Are people making the,
are is people's habitsmaking more of these shows?
Or are these shows influencingmore how people act?
But yeah, I don't know. I willsay, like, I could definitely

(29:22):
see like, you know, youprobably read an article
by some writer in a Huffington Post
or in, you know, buzzfeedor, or Vice or whatever.
Just saying how it's soantiquated to sit at a table, uh,
for people and, and to eat,eat dinner as a family unit.
You know, it's almost likeit's kind of maybe made fun
of a little bit, youknow, it's definitely,

(29:45):
most shows are not depictingit like that anymore.
Yeah. But you know, Mr.Stevenson thinks it's a good idea
and so does Mr.
Jim and Mr. Mrs. Tower. Yeah,
- I do.
And you know, I'm not saying you have to,
every single night you haveto cook a perfect meal.
No, I mean this No, not at all.
This applies to if you evenget takeout, like Yeah.

(30:07):
A lot of times whenJames was at basketball,
if you weren't cooking, Iwas gone that whole time.
We would pick up Chipotle
'cause that was kind of nearwhere his basketball was,
and we would eat the Chipotle together.
But it's just the act, it'sthe act of, of eating together.
I think that Chipotle,
- So my stomach started growling,
- Sorry, .

(30:28):
It's the, the act of eatingtogether that really helps
start to start that wind down process.
That makes complete sense.It helps you shift Yes.
From the sympathetic fight
or flight mode into that parasympathetic
nervous system where youstart to feel more relaxed.

(30:49):
Your heart rate startsto lower in some cases,
if there's fighting your heart rate.
No, I'm kidding. But
- No, we, there's definitely
some fighting in our house, like
- The kids.
Yeah. Well, I mean,they're, they're 15 and 12.
They're competing. They'rebrother and sister. They're,
- They're competing fortime at the dinner table.
Yeah. Like telling their stories. So
- That, that's anotherthing that they mentioned
that I didn't write down in my notes here.

(31:09):
But, um, the fact whenkids feel seen Yeah.
It helps with their self-confidence. Yeah.
So for, even for a kid whodoesn't feel that they get
that type of validationin school during the day,
which granted they're probably not
because everybody's on their phones.
If they're not gettingthat during the day,
at least they know that theyhave a place at dinner table

(31:30):
where they can be seen.
They can be heard. They canshare how their day went.
They can talk about thingsthat they are grateful for.
Um, and it can kind of reset them
and help them get back on the right track.
Yeah. So that they canhave a good night's sleep
and they can have abetter day the next day.
- So it's funny, like,as you're saying it,

(31:52):
I'm like shaking my head Yes, yes, yes.
It's all right. I mean, everythingTara is saying is right.
Can you make an argument against this?
Is there any reason not to try
to have more of these familydinners? I would say no.
- I would say no. I mean, again, un
unless you're in a situation

(32:13):
where you're in like an abusive
type of, oh, that's situation.
Yes. Like, maybe youdon't wanna have dinner
with the people you live with.
Um, but outside of that, I can't really,
I can't really see a case against it.
I mean, I think it'salways good to, to eat,
whether it's your family
or with your friends, justbeing able to break bread

(32:34):
with people and connectand, and talk about your day
and to feel excited about themeal that you're gonna eat.
Especially if you, especiallyif you cooked the meal
together, like you reallytook an active role in,
in procuring that meal.
I, I just, it's, it's a win-win.
- Yeah. I, I agree.

(32:54):
I mean, look, not everybody'sgot a perfect Brady Bunch
existence like we do.
You know, and it's a, it'sa joke. It's a joke. Um,
- I wish we had Alice- .
I know. I, I guess it'sa little hard if you,
you haven't been doing it for a while.
It's hard to get everybody on board.
You know, it's hard toget the kids, it's hard
to get the husband, the wife Yeah.
To do it. So maybe babysteps, like try to get one,

(33:18):
one day a week, then two, then, you know,
and then maybe people start liking it
and then you're doing it every day. Yeah.
- In fact, we recentlyimplemented something
for our family, the family meeting.
Do you want me to talk about this? Yeah.
- Family meeting. Well, this is brand new.
So this is brand new.This is all tower's idea.
- So we don't know how this is gonna work,

(33:40):
but I felt that weneeded to have some sort
of a game plan for the week.
The schedules are getting busier.
There's more balls inthe air to keep track of.
So every Sunday, what we'regoing to be doing, we just had,
our first one is we're goingto have a family meeting.
And what we're gonna do inthat meeting is we are going

(34:01):
to talk about what ishappening in the week to come.
Who has what sports, who has what tutor,
what's happening on what night?
Uh, if, if Jimmy
and I are going out to dinner,which we will be going out
to dinner this Thursday, can't
- Wait.
It's gonna be the firsttime we do that for our
- Quarterly date night.
Yeah. Yeah. What are the,
what are the kids going to eat that night?
It's really just kind ofgetting a calendar in place

(34:22):
for the week to come.
And then everybody gets
to have a say in, in what's gonna happen.
And I find that that helps me specifically
as the person who's mostresponsible for running all
of the logistics of the household.
It helps me shop better. Right?
I can better prepare at the grocery store

(34:43):
for whatever it is that we're gonna eat.
Um, I'm often the one that's,
that's asked, what's for dinner?
What are we doing tonight?What's this? What's that?
Guess what that family meetingwe just had, the agenda,
or the calendar or whatever you wanna call
it, is on the fridge.
So if anybody, if there's any ambiguity
or any questions aboutwhat we talked about
that we're gonna eat, it's right there.

(35:04):
Oh, daddy's gonna be making corn beef hash
and taking pictures of it for the website.
Corn beef hash is what'sfor dinner on Monday night.
It's helpful and ithelps people get involved
and they know what to expect.
Um, I think it's a good thing.
I hope it continues, but we'll see.
We'll let you know howour experiment goes.

(35:26):
- . I I think inorder for it to work better,
you gotta get all theother stuff off the fridge
because it gets buried in
with all the magnets and everything else.
- Of course, you would have something
to say like that. Yeah.
- Well, - Shall we move onto the taste test? I, I, you,
- You thought you'd never asked.
- You seem a little cranky.
You seem like you need a little snack.

(35:47):
- Okay. So you can see we have the two
of them right in front of us.
I'm just gonna read this one again.
The, these are mini almond cakes
and it's by Maison Giacomo Fonde
on 1989, made in Francela petite financier.
Oh, okay.

(36:07):
So thankfully is, again, webought these from Costco.
They come in individual packs.So do you want one each?
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. They'reonly 110 calories. Yeah.
- So we'll, we'll eat these
and then we'll, um, readthe ingredients after. Yeah.
- So, yeah. Yeah. We're gonna
start with this one first. This
- Is in a little individualpack. It's very tiny.
- So they're soft. They have, um,

(36:30):
- Oh, I can smell the- Almond.
They smell, they smell amazing. They
- Smell like almond.
- Now, if you don't like almond,
you're not gonna think they smell amazing.
No.
- Let's see. Oh. Oh,- Cheers. Yes.
- It's very good. It's alittle too sweet for me.
- I I think they're great.- Yeah, they are really good.

(36:51):
It's, um, it's like, thisis gonna sound weird.
It's like an, almost like an oxymoron,
but it's like, it's dense, butit's airy at the same time.
Does that make sense?
- They're like soaked.Mm-Hmm. .
So that's what it is.
- I could see this going really well
with an espresso or a cup of coffee.

(37:11):
- I think they're really good. All right.
So this is probably a NewYork thing in New York,
Costcos, but I might be wrong.
'cause it's imported by Virtuo Imports.
And that, that import is locatedin Garden City, New York,
which is in Nassau County,which about 30 miles from here.
But who knows, they mighthave these everywhere
across the United States.

(37:31):
That's the thing with Costco.
In case you didn't know, our Costco
will look different than your Costco.
Like there's a lot more, um,uh, Italian ingredients here.
Like we lived in Minnesota for three years
and they didn't have as much, uh,
- We have a lot of Asian ingredients.
- And then Minnesota had more Asian. Yeah.
Had more Asian ingredients. No,

(37:52):
- But here we're starting to
because of Stony Brook University. Oh,
- Yeah.
So Stony, uh, now Costco'shere have more Asian,
but I, I actually remember in Minnesota,
they had some differentstuff that they didn't
- Even have in Long Island.
They, for the, the Hmongpopulation was a large,
there was like a large Hmong enclave in
Minneapolis or St. Paul.
- St. Paul, I believe. Okay. Okay.
So I'm just gonna read this.There are typical French pastry

(38:15):
found its origin at theend of the 19th century.
At that time, the pastrychef Lana brought up
to date small oval almondalmond cakes called Vis Visit
Visine, whose recipe was based on almonds,
flour, sugar, and butter.
As this pastry shop islocated near the power
of stock exchange, the pastrychef's main customers are
financiers faced with thegreat success of his sweets.

(38:39):
The pastry chef then decidedto change the oval shape
of the cake to a rectangularshape, giving it the appearance
of a gold ingot in a nod to the customers,
thus was born the fin.
So this is probably like afamous type of French pastry.
- Yeah. You know what,there was actually, um,
when I worked in World Financial Center,

(39:00):
which is now Brookfield's place, in
on the second floor of that building,
there was a French pastry shopcalled the financier, stored
- Room temperature,stay away from moisture.
Okay. Um, ingredients,ingredients, keen sugar, egg,
white butter, ground almonds, wheat flour.

(39:21):
So yeah, ground almonds.
When you do ground almonds together,
you're getting like analmond paste almost.
That's kind of this. Theseare good. These are good. I
- Knew sugar was, was up there though.
That's So Sugar's the first ingredient.
- That's pretty much thefirst ingredient for anything
- Like this.
Yeah, it's, that's why I said it's very,
it's it is very sweet.
I would almost like ita little less sweet.
- You wanna give a rating to that one?
- Why don't we rate it at the end? We'll

(39:42):
- Rate both of them atthe end. Yeah. Okay.
- This one, do you wanna read it? Yeah.
Since you're the French, uh, expert.
- Pan o Chala right here. Yep.
- And it's by Laou Lingerie
is the company Laou lingerie.

(40:03):
B Lingerie is a
bakery in French. Is that correct?
- Yes, it is. I actually,I took French, I can tell.
Oh, let me, let me weavethis over here. Yeah.
Okay. Can you, you wanna open it?
- Oh, so it's like,like, it's like a Russian
nesting doll. There's
- Still good,- It's still, there's multiple.

(40:23):
- This is what's good about Costco.
There's still individually wrapped.
- Yeah. - So I think weshould just split one here.
I don't, I don't think I need to be.
- Okay. Yeah. Split- One. I'm gonna, you know, open it up.
They're 180 calories each.
- Yeah. And these are a little bit bigger.
So these look strangely similar to the
- Corno- Corno.

(40:44):
- I'm gonna go on, on a limband say these are better.
- I really hope so. Okay.So I'm breaking it in half.
It actually feels a lot like a brioche
- And it says enjoy your way.
So you can probably heatthese up in the oven,
which is probably gonna make them better.
- It feels like brioche.
It's kind of like, has that squishy,

(41:07):
well, I'll tell you right off the bat,
I'm wishing there was more chocolate.
It's kind of light on the chocolate.
- Not a big fan. Sorry to say.
I was expecting a lot morebased on this packaging.
So this is by lab made
with non GMO ingredients.

(41:27):
This mouthwatering puffpastry is delicately crafted
with high quality ingredients,including real eggs,
chocolate resulting in an incomparable
flaky texture and rich taste.
Once you have one, it'll be hard to stop.
I still feel that theseprobably should be baked,
even though it doesn't say on here. Yeah.
- What does it say under Enjoy Your
Way? What does it say there?
- It all, it says, for enjoy your way,
your new favorite pastryis individually wrapped

(41:49):
for on-The-Go convenience.
No matter where you are,
you're always just amoment away from enjoying
a delicious pano shock.
Alot from France. It
doesn't tell you to put it in the oven. So
- It's almost telling you that it's meant
to be eaten on the go.
Yeah. Like wherever you are.
So it's not really saying youshould warm it up. I wonder
- If this is like a, a problem with us
because we didn't like those CoreOS either

(42:09):
that were very similar to this.
- Maybe, maybe we're the problem.
- What did you think?What did you think of it?
- I thought it was better thanthe Corno, but I don't know.
I could see it being like, like I could,
I I would pack it in like one
of the kids' lunchboxes. Yeah.
- I guess maybe if you wannagive your kids something
that's not as bad as maybe the stuff
that's made in the United States.

(42:29):
Like a s Twinky. There'sa lot of ingredients here,
but, you know, it says no GMO.
No artificial colors.
No artificial flavors, no highfructose corn syrup. Okay.
Um, let's rate 'em. Okay,let's rate this one first.
'cause we just had thisone. Uh, zero to 10.
What, what does it get, Tara? I'm
- Gonna give it a sixbecause it wasn't bad.

(42:52):
Yeah. It really wasn't.
I just, I wish it, I wish there was more
of the chocolate filling.
I didn't really get a wholelot of chocolate flavor
and I would feel probably Okay.
About, about giving it to the kids.
- Yeah. I agree withTara Tara's sentiment.

(43:12):
Um, I'll give it a five.
It's better than the corno,uh, packaged that, that we had
a few weeks ago, but nowhere near as good
as this almond cake.
So let's talk about the almond ones.
What, what does that get? Tara?
- I'm gonna give the almond cake an eight.
I thought it was really good.

(43:34):
I thought it would beeven better if I had it
with an espresso.
I thought the texture was good.
I just f for me, I foundit a little too sweet.
- I really liked it. I don't think they're
overly sweet though.
They are sweet. I think almond flour in
general, like, is sweet. Uh,
- Well, almond flour isjust ground almonds. Well,
- But almond flour,you're mixing it normally.

(43:54):
Like, not almond flour.
I'm sorry, like an almonddessert like that. Yeah.
You're only mixing it witha lot of sugar. Mm-Hmm.
. Um, wejust made almond cookies.
- Yeah, that's kind ofwhat it taste like. What,
- That's what it reminded me of.
Yeah. Uh, I made a Sicilianalmond cookie a few months ago.
I, I forget the name of it.
Maybe they're just called Sicilian Mond
- Mond Cookies. I think they're
- Just, yeah.
Yeah. I'm gonna give this onean eight as well. I liked it.

(44:15):
Um, the, I thought, Ithought they're good.
They're really good. That being said,
these ones aren't, these aren't bad.
I just, um, I guess I'm alittle disappointed now.
We have 15 more of these things here
and gotta figure outsomething to do with 'em.
. But those, thosewill go, these are gonna go.
- Yeah, those are really those,those are really good. Yeah.

(44:36):
- Okay. So I do enjoy those taste tests
and I hope you do as well.
If you want different ones.
Maybe completely different direction.
I prefer not to do desserts every week
because I will become 300 pounds.
Um, I would, I have no problemdoing a lot of savory stuff.
And I actually like the idea
of the hot peppers andstuff like that too.

(44:57):
We just went to Uncle Giuseppe'srecently, um, maybe, maybe,
maybe a month ago actually.
And we were, we picked up those sodas.
We got the Manhattan Special. Yep.
And when we were down that aisle,
it's like the best aisle in the store.
It has just all of thejarred stuff from Italy,
mostly from Italy, Manhattanspecials from New York.
But I mean, I could do tastetests from there for eternity.

(45:21):
Mm-Hmm. like dodoing two or three in episode.
I mean there's like, there'slike 9,000 items in, in
that I know in those aisles. There's
- So much.
- I mean, I don't know howTara feels about doing anchovy
taste tests here and stuff like that, but
- I would do the anchovy taste test.
I think, um, uncle Bobsuggested we do a baby
clam taste test.
- It's so hard to tellwith the baby clams.

(45:42):
I just feel like they allkind of taste the same.
They're all like a littlerubbery and just like, yeah.
Not that much flavor in 'em.
It's more of a texturedthing, I think when you cook
with them versus cooking with fresh clams.
- I think doing a blindtaste test for the tuna,
like the tuna and oliveoil, that would be good.
Maybe doing like a higher end one

(46:04):
and trying to see whichone we like better.
That's not a bad idea. Someof them are very expensive.
- Very expensive. Yeah. Theycan get up to about $30.
- Yeah. So I think like if wetaste tested an expensive one,
a moderately priced one,
and maybe like the onethat they sell in Costco.
I think it's Genova orGenoa. One of, yeah.
Which, that one is not bad,

(46:24):
but I would be curious to seehow that stacks up against,
you know, one of themore expensive brands.
Yeah. Like I think Ortiz isone of the more expensive.
- Ortiz isn't really that expensive.
Ortiz is considered very high quality.
Ortiz is actually aSpanish. Spanish, yeah.
It's not, it's not an Italian brand,
but they have like,really good distribution.
So you'll see them in all, alldifferent specialty places.

(46:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they're,
they're considered high quality. Yeah.
- But maybe we should do that
and kind of counteract like all the sweets
we've been taste testing. Not,
- It's, it's not a bad idea. Jim,
- The first question comes from Hannah
or Hannah, depending on howyou pronounce it, or Hannah.
Which of your recipes freezethe best for freezer meals?

(47:09):
I typically do one big freezermeal cooking day every two
to three months and stockmy upright freezer with 20
to 30 freezer meals.
Usually five to six recipes used.
Which of your recipes do you recommend
for my next freezer mealCooking day, first of all,
that sounds like a great idea.
- It does.- That's like you do like a cooking frenzy

(47:32):
and then you just freeze it all.
- I wish I could be that organized.
I know it wouldn't, it would,
it wouldn't really work for us anyway with
how I gotta keep making content.
So thanks for your question, Hannah.
I, I think that anything
that tastes better whenit's over overnight.
So I mean, it know, itcould be beef perkin yawn,
it could be chili, it couldbe the short rib ragu.
Just don't cook the pasta, you know, just,

(47:52):
just freeze the ragu portion.
Uh, it could be anything like that.
Now you can also freezebaked pastas really easily.
You can just not bake it
and then just set it up, putit in, put it in the freezer.
I would use disposable metal,uh, trays, which I use often.
Uh, you can do lasagna that way too.
- Eggplant parm,- Eggplant parm will work.

(48:13):
There's a lot of differentthings you can do that,
uh, right, right there.
The few that I just saidwill give massive returns.
Also, all soups, all any type
of soup is better when it's frozen
than when it's made fresh.
They, uh, they just taste better.
So it's not just chili, it'sjust anything like that.

(48:33):
Poso is a stew.
Certain things that aren'tas good to do would be
where texture is an issue.
So I think though you canfreeze chicken marsala
and piccata and stuff likethat, it's better not to.
Yeah. But it's not horrible either.
I mean, a lot of places do. I
- Would say anything withcream too. Like you wouldn't

(48:54):
- Yeah. Cream or break
- Freeze like a cream sauce.
Although I think you couldfreeze, like you said, like, like
a baked pasta.
Like a macaroni andcheese. Yeah, that's fine.
Or things like that. That's fine. Yeah.
Like you wouldn't freezefettuccine Alfredo.
- No. Anything likethat can't be, uh, any,
and you'll notice thiswhen you go out to eat
and you get a cream sauceand then you bring it home
and then the next day when youreheat it in the microwave,

(49:16):
it's like liquidy.
It's because the emulsion broke.
So you can, at, at that point,it's kind of like silly.
I mean, unless you havelike a lot left over,
but you could put it in a pan.
You could put more butterin, you can emulsify it
and little cream, whatever.
It'll come back together. But I, I mean,
do you have anythingthat I missed there term?

(49:37):
- I would say a big potof sunda sauce. Yeah.
With meatballs. And youcan freeze the meatballs
separately into different portions.
Yeah. And you can useit for different things.
So you can use it forpasta with meatballs.
You could use it for a meatball hero.
Um, and then you canuse the sundae sauce for
whenever you're in themood for, for pasta. I

(49:59):
- Think Tara is a hundred percent right
about the Sunday sauce.
You can make so many meals with that.
So I would make a huge amount of it
and I would probably portion it.
So portion it in like maybe
two quart containers.Mm-Hmm. .
- Yeah. You know what else isa good thing to freeze? Pesto.
- Pesto.- So you can freeze it in an ice cube tray

(50:24):
and then you just pop outthe cubes as you need it
because you're really, you don'treally need a lot of pesto.
'cause you're gonna bemixing it with pasta water
- For a pound of pasta, dependingon how big the cubes are.
Maybe you need likethree cubes worth. Yeah.
You could also do othertypes of pesto too.
Walnut pesto, sun driedtomato artichoke, pesto.
Lots of different ones. Yeah.
I hope those, uh, gave yousome good ideas. Hannah,

(50:46):
- Other good things to freeze.
Not like meal related,
but you, if you wannamake like zucchini bread
or banana bread or things like that.
And you have space in your freezer. Yeah.
Make like a bunch of loaves.
- Any cakes. Any cakesor breads like that.
And then you got that freefreeze. Fine. Pizza dough too.
Pizza dough. I, I, I knowI've spoken about this in the
past, but if you wannamake a lot of pizza, so

(51:09):
do your balls, ball your dough,
put 'em on a sheet pan.
So say you have a half sheet,you could probably fit four
of 'em on there because what'sgonna happen is they're gonna
start to spread out a little bit,
but take them, put it into your freezer.
So you need enough roomin the freezer one.
Then after a few hours when they're hard,
take 'em out now take those balls

(51:31):
and then you could put 'em in plastic bags
and then label them.
And now, now they won'tchange shape anymore.
Now if you want like more ofthat cold fermented flavor,
just do your cold fermentone night overnight,
then you just put 'em,
same thing on the sheetpan, then freeze 'em.
And you could, people
who are really pizza addicts will do
like 50 of 'em this way.

(51:51):
Like say you got a pizza oven outside
and you're really intopizza during the summer.
You just have like a littlefridge out there just
filled with all your dough balls.
Like your dough balls,your sauce, your cheese.
That's all you need. Yeah.
- Sounds good. Right? I want pizza now.
- I want a pizza oven. I think
I'm gonna do the uni this year.
- That would be fun. I think
- It'll be good for a video too.
- I think so too. Yeah. All right.

(52:12):
Are you ready for thenext question? Yes, I am.
It's a video question.Nice. From Uncle Bob.
- Well, uncle Bob, thank youfor keep doing the videos.
I don't know if anybody elseis going to do a video one,
but Uncle Bob is a pro at it now.
- We love the video questions. Okay.
So let's play Uncle Bob's video question.
- Hi Jim. Hi Tara.
Um, after going through a bunchof your recipes on the sip

(52:37):
and feast.com website
and also your videos, Icouldn't find anywhere you make
or use any fresh pasta.
And I was wondering if it was,if there's a reason for that,
and, um, if you have made
and used fresh pasta,
do you think it's worth the extra effort
to make your own fresh pasta?

(52:59):
Thanks.
- I love Bob.- Yeah, it's a good question, Bob.
And we have receivedthis from a few people,
so there will be freshpasta recipes on the site.
It's a big, I I I, I'm, I'm being,
I'm being a hundred percent honest now.
I don't make a lot of fresh pasta though.
I've made fresh pastanumerous times in my life.

(53:19):
I don't think it's worth itto the average home cook.
Most sauces, especially if you're talking
Southern Italian food, whichis the food that I make,
and it's the food that prettymuch everybody eats here in
New York, they don't use a lot.
They don't make a lot of fresh pastas.
Like everybody who came here from Italy,
they call it macaroni,and it's always dried.

(53:39):
It's, they're not making,like my grandmother,
she never made fresh pasta.
Okay. She, maybe shemade it a couple times.
Um, and that's a, that'sa common ex, common common
experience for people like,like of that persuasion,
who, you know, were in the five
boroughs, they moved out to Long Island.
It's just how it is.

(54:00):
That's why all the restaurantsreflect, reflected that too.
Now you're starting to seerestaurants change a little bit
because they're bringing insome more Northern Italian
influences, which is moreheavy on the fresh pasta.
Okay, now am I gonna doit? The answer is yes.
Do I really wanna do a lotof it? The answer is no.

(54:21):
It will, it will take alot of effort on my part
and it won't get that many,uh, people looking at it
because most peopleare going to look at it
and go, oh, I don't wanna do all this.
You know, when I can justbuy a really, first of all,
you could buy good fresh pasta now.
So, but even say you wanna make,say you wanna make Papa De,

(54:41):
is it going to besubstantially better than one
of the 10 brands you couldbuy at your local Italian,
you know, mart, you know,pork store, whatever, pro?
Probably not. Now. If youwanna get into more, uh,
exquisite things, more intricatethings like tor tortellini,
ravioli, there, I think iswhere you're gonna get a lot

(55:03):
bigger improvement than anythingyou can buy pack package,
like the, this place Troiathat we always talk about.
He, um, he makes, hemade this a few times.
It was there when we wentthere, it was a short rib,
so he braised short ribsand probably like with wine
or whatever, took themeat off, shredded it all.
Then he put it in a fresh ravioli.

(55:24):
So to do ravioli properly,
really thin sheets you need do it.
And, and it was just, it was just superb.
You're not, you're not gonnabuy anything like that.
And not that I know of, uh, in a store.
- Yeah, I would say if you'regonna make homemade pasta,
I would do it for, like you say, ravioli.

(55:45):
Um, the one thing thatwe do have on the site
that I do think is worth it is homemade
gnocchi. Yeah. Because
- That's a big difference.
- I think there's amassive difference between
homemade and store bought.
The store bought is verydense and too heavy.
Whereas if you makehomemade gnocchi, it's,
they're very light andpillowy and just exquisite.

(56:09):
- And by the way, the whole,what I said about the po uh,
the pizza dough
before, that's the same wayyou would do, you would store,
uh, your gnocchi.
So you make, make a batch of it,
make like eight pounds, okay?
The whole day. Take thewhole day, take a table.
Like if you got a tablethis big, have have,
have people help, make 'em all spray,
put a little bit of, um, corn.
You can put cornmeal on,on, uh, parchment paper,

(56:31):
line sheets, or just evenflour, regular flour, the flour
that you're using to make your gnocchi.
And then just put 'em all on there.
Get 'em in the freezerfor an hour when they get,
when they're really hard hardened up,
then put 'em in your plastic bags.
Weigh those plastic bags. Sothen you can have eight pounds.
So each one's a pound, soready to go for meals again,

(56:52):
I don't wanna be like, I don'twanna be really crapping on,
uh, fresh pasta,
but it's just, I, I don't know.
I mean, people, they just,first of all, our audience who
is like, predominantlyin this New York area,
like based on all the trafficwe get on our website,

(57:14):
which is like 2 million, you know,
2 million page views amonth, there's like 15% of
that traffic is from New York,
New Jersey area, which is nuts.
And you know, those people,they're not really big consumer
of fresh pasta.
So anyway, that's kindof it on the fresh pasta.
I don't wanna discourage it
and I am going to make it, I actually

(57:36):
have considered bringingin a fresh pasta expert
and just having them makelike 15 recipes for us.
We'll put 'em on the site,they'll get the credit, like,
it'll be like, buy them.
Okay. I think that would be better,
because I think that they'regonna do a better job than I am
of showing the intricacies of it.
- So if you have someone in your family

(57:59):
who is like a, it's almostlike a bucket list item
where they're like, I've alwayswanted to make fresh pasta.
I would say that the freshpasta shouldn't be the end.
It should be the meansto the end, the end being
making some really good family memories
with someone who's maybealways wanted to do it.
So, or if you have kids who arelike, I wanna, I wanna learn

(58:22):
how to make fresh pasta.
It's, it's fun whileyou're doing it. Yeah.
Is the juice worth the squeeze? No.
If you're considering the,
there are a couple that are worth it.
Yeah. But if you'reconsidering the end goal
to be just the eating,the fresh pasta, no,
but if you're looking at itfrom, you know, like zooming out
and being like, all right, we'renot just making pasta here,
we're like making memories.

(58:45):
Then I say, go for it.
- Yeah. I mean,- And that ties into
what this whole episode is about. It's,
- It's a good point.
You know, that's, that's what it is.
I mean, I have all the tools.
I got the attachments for the KitchenAid.
I have the, uh,traditional hand crank, uh,
I have all the cutters, all of it.
I mean, I've, I've, I've doneit, you know, a decent amount.
Uh, one thing I don't havethat I've always wanted

(59:07):
to get was the Cavael maker.
So it's a machine that just makes C
or Capelli capelli.
Um, and that's a nice pasta that, that's
that pasta is obviously,it is a fresh pasta.
You don't buy dried, dried cap.
Um, one other one that's good,

(59:29):
but it's not, it's like amore, like a Selina is to make,
you can do this on a boardpiece of plywood, whatever.
Uh, you can make apasta board if you like,
and you can do, uh, or ti.
So that's another one todo. And that's very simple.
You know, you just twist in your thumb.
Or you could just use abutter knife, the edge
of a butter knife to do it.
So, uh, that's pretty much it for today.

(59:51):
Hope that it answered your question, Bob.
Everyone, if you wanna leave a question,
it's [e-mail].
Also, if you like these taste tests, which
it's very apparent thatthe two of us love them
and you have specificthings you want us to try,
leave it in the commentsor send us an email again

(01:00:12):
to [e-mail].
Tara, you have anything to add? I
- Don't think so.
Thank you for listening andkeep sending us your questions.
We enjoy them and sendus a video every now
and again. Yeah, I like the
- Videos.
Yep. You could do it on Instagramas well. Until next time.