What is the Best Way to Learn to Cook? + Trader Joe’s Taste Test

Whether you're helping your child learn to cook, just getting started yourself, or have been cooking for years, there are a few best practices every home cook can benefit from knowing! Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/rxQnSkJleBg The Culinary Classroom Throughout my life I've viewed the kitchen as the heart of the home, but also the room in which 95% of learning takes place. Whether you're a novice cook who's just getting started, or a seasoned home cook, there is always more to learn when it comes to cooking and I learn something new on an almost daily basis! As with any new skill, learning to cook can come with challenges, but we've come up with a few ways to cultivate a fun and fearless learning environment. For example, start out by making dishes you actually love and feel passionately about, and don't get discouraged if you make mistakes; cooking is all about trial and error! In this episode we explore our top dos and don'ts when it comes to learning to cook with the hope of helping you overcome any qualms you may have about cooking! Trader Joe's Taste Test We picked up a few spreads from Trader Joe's and are giving them a whirl! Have you tried any of these before, and if so, which are your favorites? Resources Spaghetti carbonara Cottage pie Baked chicken and potatoes recipe Chicken scarpariello recipe Chicken Vesuvio recipe Marinara sauce recipe Salmon oreganata recipe Pasta alla Norcina recipe Brasato al Barolo recipe Jarred sauce taste test YouTube video If you enjoyed the Learning to Cook 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 to the Sip
and Feast podcast, episode number 42.
What is the best way to learn to cook
the eternal question,
would you say That is theeternal question, Tara?
- One of the eternal questions,
and I think the short answeris to just start cooking,

(00:20):
but there's a much longer answer,of course, with everything
that that we do.
Um, so I think we'llspend the next 30 minutes
or so, kind of hashing that out.
- Yeah, we're gonna hash itout. We're gonna try our best.
Um, before we get into it, Iwould just say that, you know,
there's two ways to look at this.
Either you're a recipe follower,

(00:41):
a religious recipe follower,
and you don't wanna ever do a deviation.
And I think if you couldfollow directions from good
recipes, you're probably will be okay.
Your, you, you know, your wholelife, you'll make okay food.
Um, but we want you to makegreat food. That's what we want.
We want you to like, feel empowered.
We want to eventually foryou to stop using recipes.

(01:03):
Even dare I say our own recipes,
- Tara.
Yeah. I mean, that's our goal.
Our goal is to help you feelso confident in the kitchen
that you don't ever have togo to our website ever again.
Yeah. Sadly, we don't.
Sadly we don't, we don'twant you to, to leave,
- But I try to teach techniquesin the videos instead

(01:23):
of just blindly following the recipe.
Uh, I think that's thebest way to go about it,
but we'll really hash itout in a minute or two.
I just wanna tell you thatright here, right in back of me
are some nice spreads, right.
Tara? Trader Joe's stuff.
- Yeah. These are someTrader Joe's items Yeah.

(01:43):
That I picked up for us to taste test.
- And we're gonna do that atthe end of the episode for all
of you listeners, you will notbe disenfranchised one iota,
Tara and I will give theabsolute best description
you've ever heard in your life.
, we're gonna try our best. Okay?
No, seriously, we are gonna try our best.

(02:03):
We don't, we realize thatmany of you do just listen
and, you know, maybe you'regoing to work or whatnot.
And that's, that's how, that'show you consume this content.
We don't want to make itwhere it's not as good
for you though.
You know, if you wanna hoponto the hop onto the video,
you will be able to see it
and you will be more easilybe able to leave comments too.
Mm-Hmm. , wouldn't you say?

(02:24):
- Yeah. It's definitely much easier
to comment on Yeah. On YouTube. Yeah.
- Yeah. It's discussion.Forster's discussion.
- Exactly.- But enough of that right now.
That will be towards the end of the video.
Let's get into the meat of
the best way to learn to cook.
- So the reason
that we started talking aboutthis topic in the first place

(02:46):
is that our son, James,AKA, the taste tester,
has been showing a little bit more
of an interest in cooking.
He's had an interest in eating ,
as you all know, for a very long time.
But he's just recently becomemore interested in the process
of, of preparing the food.

(03:06):
It started with his obsessionwith ramen. Yeah, definitely.
He has an obsession with ramen noodles
and he likes to add a little bit more
to the ramen rather thanjust like the packets that,
that he's given in the, what is it?
A package of, of ramen noodles.
And then they give likea seasoning packet.
Seasoning packet. So he likes

(03:27):
to add a little bit more to that.
So he'll add a little bit of,
maybe he'll add like sesame oil sometimes.
Sometimes he'll add sriracha
or some other types ofingredients, kimchi,
all this different stuff.
And he likes to experiment with it.
And as of, I think three weeks ago
or so, he started takinghome ec in seventh grade.

(03:50):
So I think that's also sparking this kind
of interest in cooking.
Forget the fact that his parents
run a food recipe websiteand YouTube channel.
I mean, that had nothing to dowith his interest in cooking.
It didn't clearly 'cause .
He's only interested in it now.
- Well, yeah, he didn't, yeah, he's,
and he is only interestedreally in the ramen, which
- Yeah.

(04:11):
But what did he say? He saidthat this weekend coming up,
he wants to have a cookingchallenge with all of us.
Yeah. And he wants to be the head chef.
And actually he decidedwhat he's gonna make.
You don't even know what he's gonna make
- Alfredo. I think he said
- No, he changed his mind last night.
Okay. Because he watched Guga Foods. Okay.
Make chicken tika masala.
- He's gonna make chicken ika masala.

(04:32):
- So he wants, yes. Sothat's what he wants to make.
I said, that's great. Go for it.
So he's gonna try hishand at that this weekend.
And I think he wants usto, to judge him on it.
And I think Sammy's probablygonna make a dessert.
- Yeah.- And you and I will.
- Yeah. I'll do something else. Assist
- In some way, shape or form. Yeah.
- Yeah. So he doesn't, so he doesn't, uh,
you know, blow up the kitchen.

(04:53):
- The other reason why we alsostarted talking about this
topic is that a lot of timeswe get questions on the website
about people asking, you know, you're,
you're using chicken stock, canI use chicken broth instead?
Or you're using oil curedolives. Can I use ka olives
- Instead?

(05:13):
Yes. Asking for permission often.
- So it's, yeah. And,
and that's fine that youask, you know, we're happy
to answer those questions,
but we want you to feel empowered.
We don't want you to haveto ask our permission,
not permission, but wedon't, we don't want you
to feel like you have toask if something's okay.
We want you to know Yeah.That you can do this.

(05:36):
And making a substitution like that,
everything's gonna be okay.
Granted, I know there are somemore complicated questions
that we get asked, you know,like, especially with regards
to the pizza making recipes.
Yes. So those are fine.
And, and all questionsand comments are fine.
We don't want you to feelafraid. That's what it is.

(05:57):
We want you to be a fearlesscook in the kitchen. Yeah.
- Fearless cook. That's agreat way to describe it.
So I'm not picking onany particular person.
I know friend, family, whatever,
but most of the cooksI know are like this.
They are recipe followers
and they get very scared ifthey have to deviate from
that recipe at all.

(06:18):
Mm-Hmm. ,we want you to be able
to deviate from the recipe.
Yeah. Of course. You couldkeep coming by, coming by,
checking out the newstuff we're putting out.
But really use it as kind of like a guide.
And the only way to reallyget there is to actually start
doing different things,making it on your own.
Make it your own, andmaking mistakes on your own.

(06:41):
Because in the beginning,when you start this process,
this is where the real learning happens.
You will make plenty of mistakes.
Tarot always loves to letme know about my blue cheese
dressing mistake.
- Yeah. I don't rememberwhat the mistake was,
but one of the first thingsthat you made when I met you,
you made a blue cheese dressingthat didn't come out good.

(07:04):
I don't, I don't rememberwhy. Um, so yeah.
I don't, I don't taunt youwith it. Yeah. I just, yeah.
Sometimes when you bother me, I'll mention that.
- Yeah. No, she likes tolike, hold that over me.
Yeah, no, I get it. And no,
but that's in a nutshell,
that's really what we want you to do.
We want you to get tothat point of where that's
where the real learning happens.

(07:25):
I didn't really start tolearn how to cook until I kind
of just stopped following recipe books
and recipe instructions in general.
Now you can't do this in the beginning.
You, you actually, in the beginning,
you're better off followinga recipe to a tee.
Mm-Hmm. gettinga little bit of confidence.
And really, we're gonna talk about things

(07:47):
that I think are reallyworth doing right now.
They're gonna help you immensely right
away. Let's get into those.
- Yeah. So the firstthing on our list of ways
to learn how to cook is tostart with making dishes
that you actually love to eat.

(08:07):
- Man, that is like, so obvious,
yet not that obvious.
And, or it's, you're not going
to do well if you're a vegan,you're not going to make good
steak and meat dishes for someone.
How the heck could you taste it?

(08:28):
You're not even gonna be ableto taste the food. It, yeah.
So probably if you are vegan,
you probably have an ethicalreason for being that way.
It's probably not for health reasons.
So you're gonna be very madwhen you're making it for say,
your husband or yourwife or, or your kids.
And it's just reallyhard for it to work in
that, in those conditions.

(08:49):
You know, this might be a crazy,you know, outlandish thing,
but a chef, you know, achef, chef, you know, you,
you gotta be, you, you can't be a chef.
And then making, making stufffor people that you refuse
to taste or you don't like.
It's just, it doesn't, it won'twork. It just will not work.
So make the stuff in thebeginning that you just

(09:12):
absolutely love, because youwill know if you absolutely
love it, you will knowthe best versions of it.
You'll probably havefound them at restaurants,
and you're probably going tobe trying to imitate that one
and make it exactly like it.
Mm-Hmm. , that's what I
did when I started cooking. Tara,
- Same here.
- One of the ones that Iwas so intent on duplicating

(09:35):
was that typical NewYork, New Jersey style
garlicy, quick flash sauce marinara.
- Yeah, that's right. This is
- Elusive to many cooks.
Mm-Hmm. because often a lot
of the dogma online from guys
and gals with three stars nextto their name will tell you
to, uh, put no color on thegarlic or to just use a tiny bit

(10:00):
and do it minced.
And doing all that will ensure
that you'll never get your foodto taste like the New York,
New Jersey, Italian food,
Italian American food, whatever you wanna
- Call it.
Especially those familystyle restaurants. Yeah.
'cause that's, I thinkwhat I've experienced,
those like big chunks of
brown al almost caramelized. Yeah.
- Very close garlic. Veryclose to burnt, but like, yeah.

(10:22):
Yeah. Very, very golden. Yeah.
I always try to threadthe line in the videos,
but I, I really do.
I, and often the reasonI'm threading the line is
'cause I just get the moronsin the comments saying like,
you, you burned the garlic, you know?
Mm-Hmm. . Andit's just like, you don't know.
You just, you don't knowbecause you don't know.
You know, you're not,you know, you don't know
what I'm trying to do, do here.
But then you'll see, you'llsee actually the other comments

(10:43):
from the people who live here.
And they're like, you, likeyou nailed that. You know?
That's exactly how you doit. Mm-Hmm. .
And that's the thing.
So in order to get to thatpoint, that took a long time
because I was reading,
and I think I've spoken aboutthis in a previous episode,
but I was like reading, youknow, cookbooks from again,
from supposedly really goodchefs and watching them,

(11:04):
and I was being led astray constantly
until I finally just, youknow, took it, made it my own.
And I remember when it happened,
it was like my first apartment.
- Yeah. In- In the city. The city, yeah.
And it was like, it wasa magical moment. Yeah.
Now, I don't know if youexperienced the magic as much
as I did, but was No, Imean, I, I was so happy about

(11:25):
- It.
I remember enjoying it.
I think you felt you, it'smore memorable for you
because it was an accomplishment.
- It was such a, for you.And it's such a simple thing.
Mm-Hmm. .But, but you say that.
And how many peop howmany places screw up,
screw up this type of food?
I mean, God, we lived in another state.
Did you ever get anyfood in that other state

(11:47):
that tasted remotely?
Like anything from here? No.
And and part of the reason was
there's just no referencepoint for the cooks there.
They didn't know what to tryto imitate and duplicate.
That's true. So, again,make what you really like.
That's what you gottause as a litmus test.
And if you have a family member or two
and you, you guys go tothis restaurant, that's
what you're gonna put it up against.

(12:08):
Mm-Hmm. you are gonna be like,
is this, is this like this?
And they'll, they'll, they'll say to you,
nah, nah, it's nothing like it.
You know, you, it's not, not yet. You
- Know?
Yeah. So, I wonder ifJames will experience
that when he makes thechicken tecan masala
for us. I'm looking forward to it.
- I don't think we orderchicken tecan masala
when we go out, do we? Um,
- We have, yeah. That's not,

(12:30):
- It's not one of my favorites.
- It's not. Yeah. Yeah.I, I really like it.
- It's a very popular dish.
It, it's one of the, probably one
of the most popular of all Indian dishes.
- We're usually orderingthe butter chicken,
which I think is really, really similar.
- Quite similar. That's probably why we
- Don't chicken masala. It's
- Probably why we don't order it.
Yeah. Maybe it is the same thing.
I thought chicken McConney
is the same thing as chicken butter.
- Chicken. Chicken. Aniis butter chicken. Okay.

(12:51):
At least in the Indianrestaurant that we go
to, it's one and the same. If
- You notice, we do talkabout a lot of Indian food
because we do enjoy it.
It's, uh, ultra flavorful food.
And I, I've experimented alittle bit with it in my life,
but not, I've experimentedfar more with Thai food.
But we'll probably, uh, startbringing some of those dishes

(13:12):
to, uh, making some videos.
And I kind of like, Ilike doing those videos
and the recipes.
'cause I love to start the video with,
Hey, I'm not an expert here.
Mm-Hmm. .It's almost like I'm like,
I get a free pass on it.
Like, you know, you canlay into me if you want.
I'm making Hungarianfood today. Like, whoa.
I, I'm not Hungarian. You know?
So like, I know I'm screwingit up, doing the best I can,

(13:35):
researching, trying to getthe authentic way to do it.
But it'll, it'll be the same problems when
we do the Indian food too.Mm-Hmm. . Yep.
- So one of the next items wehave on our list of best ways
to learn how to cook is tomake dishes that are quick
and only have a few ingredients.
Because less can gowrong when you do that.

(13:57):
- Absolutely. That issuch a good one. So what
- Are some examples of,of meals that you can make
- An omelet?
Okay. Mm-Hmm. .
Like you could do a classic French one.
You could watch JacquePepin. He does that.
I mean, it's like his,it's his demonstration.
He does it all. Cooking schools.
He shows, you know, kids,kids who are learning to cook.
Um, you can do, learn how

(14:21):
to just do a proper friedegg in, in a non-stick pan.
You should be using obviously, uh,
how to season it properly.
A lot of people just screw up eggs.
- What about carbonara?
- Yeah, so carbonara isa, is a great one to do.
And you're probably notgonna get a good authentic
carbonara in a lot of places.
There is, there is a place near us

(14:41):
that we go to fairly often.
It's um, called the Troia.
I know it's like, not a very unique name,
but he, um, he makes a lotof really good, uh, food
that's closer to how it is in Italy.
Not how, not really theItalian American though.
He uses a lot of garlic andstuff. Mm-Hmm. .
The food's good. It's,it's a tiny little place.

(15:01):
It's in, uh, St. James Long Island.
And he, uh, he's one of thefirst people that probably
was making carbonara like the right way.
You know, he's doing it 15 years.
He's been using Ali for it.
I would say maybe sometimeshe's using Panchetta,
which doesn't make a difference.
By the way, in, in Italythey use, they do it

(15:22):
with Panchetta, but he wouldalways do it the right way.
Um, get the emulsification no cream.
Because if you put cream incarbonara, which is where a ton
of places do, even here in New York
and New Jersey, it's kind ofjust, it's kind of like, it's,
it's not, it's not howthe dish's supposed to be.
It's, it's, it's good. It's good.
But it's, you know, and you'll see like
peas in it and parsley.

(15:43):
Those things don't supposedto be in there either.
So what is real carbonaratower? What, what is it?
- It's Pecorino Romano. It's eggs.
It's gu and pasta and pasta water.
- That's right. That's it.Pepper, you put pepper in it.
Pepper, black pepper,black pepper. Yeah. Yeah.
Nice correspond pepper.That's it. Right? That's it.

(16:03):
That now people, a lotof people screw it up.
You, you know, you could go on Reddit
or you could go on Facebook or whatever,
and you can see peopleputting up their pictures
of carbonara and it'sjust absolutely destroyed.
Like, it'll be scrambled eggs
or it'll just be, uh, thenit'll be the other way.
There'll be a ton ofcream and peas and stuff.
But it's just, uh, it's, it's so easy.

(16:24):
There's only really onetrick you gotta follow.
And by the way, you know, you can,
you can experiment with some yolks.
Some recipes will do like twoyolks and then two whole eggs.
And you can experiment there.
It's, it's not gonna,it's not gonna ultimately
change too much of the texture.
But the real key to justdoing it properly is
after you do your
or bacon, you removeit, you can put it aside

(16:47):
and then you wanna removemost of the fat from your pan.
You don't wanna use too much of the fat
'cause it'll just kind of overpower it.
And then you're just taking your eggs
and your cheese, mixingthem off to the side.
Then you put your pasta.
I like to just pull straight from the pot
because I get a little bitof, uh, pasta water in there.
'cause you do need a littlebit of water here. Mm-Hmm.

(17:07):
for youremulsification. Put that in the pan
with the hot bacon fat, you know,
whatever the guanciale, pancha fat.
Give it a little toss,take it off to heat.
Wait about 45 seconds.
If you right away put your eggs in
and your cheese, it's gonna start clumping
and the eggs are gonna start scrambling.
Mm-Hmm. . Soit's such a simple thing.

(17:29):
But you will see, lots oftimes people will screw it up.
Mm-Hmm. , I think the fear is
that you're thinking like theeggs aren't gonna be cooked.
- The eggs get cooked enough
- From the heat of the pasta they get.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The hot, thehot heat. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
That's it. You know, thenyou toss, if it's too thick,
start putting in couple teaspoonsof pasta water at a time.

(17:51):
Just do it, toss again.Boom, boom, boom. Mm-Hmm.
. It's not, it'snot, it's not wet enough.
Do it again. A couple more teaspoons
until you get it exactly right.
Call the family down,do a little, you know,
your little twirl, your little pasta nest.
Put it on the table and eat it right away.
Because if you don'teat it right away, five,
10 minutes gonna be dry again.
That's right. You know, but it's as simple
as dish to make it is.

(18:11):
- And it's a good one to practice with
because eggs, cheese,
pasta relativelyexpensive. Yeah. They could
- Practice with bacon too.
- Yeah. It's not, yeah. Youcan practice with bacon.
You don't have to get theguanciale or tta to practice with.
So, you know, it's, it's something

(18:31):
that can be made quickly in under 30,
way under 30 minutes. Yeah.
- About, I mean, and one sticking point
where I've seen Italian chefsin Italy, like good places,
they will often leave theguanciale in the whole time.
So it kind of softens up a little bit
after, you know, the eggs and cheese go in
or sometimes they'll removehalf of it, or even all of it.

(18:55):
I like to remove it. I like
to sprinkle the crispy ones on at the end.
Yeah. Mm-Hmm. .I, I mean, other than that,
I know we're going on a carbonarakind of like tangent here.
Yeah. You can get guanciale
and panchetta in a lot of places now.
A lot cheaper right here in Long Island.
Meat Farms is selling it.Uh, I forget the brand.
I think it's like Lucia maybeor something very inexpensive.

(19:17):
Mm-Hmm. , youget big chunk of either one.
It's prepackaged wrapped.
So it's like in like thecheese section. Yeah.
Really inexpensive.
Or you could go to Uncle Giuseppe's
and spend $50 a pound for it, you know?
So, uh, you don't haveto do that though. Yep.
Alright, let's go to the next Jew.
- All right. What do youthink of watching

(19:37):
YouTubers to learn how to cook?
- Wow.- That's kind of like a tongue
and cheek. Okay. Kind of
- .
So I'm not allowed to,like, I'm not allowed
to say that I'm the best.
Right. Okay. No, though I think I am,
or I think I'm one of 'em.
the best would never,
- How do you really feel- The best YouTube instructions
will never get the most views.
Okay. So you cannot judge someone by that.

(20:00):
In fact, I will probably tell you,
there's probably people outthere with very small channels,
probably under a hundred thousand subs
that are probably makingamazing instructional videos.
What happens is, YouTubersin general, it doesn't matter
who it is, they all eventually just go
for the views they put,

(20:20):
put in their stupid faceon the thumbnail, you know,
shoving food in their mouth,you know, um, they'll be,
it'll be a flamboyant title.
We we're, we're guilty of ittoo. We've, we've done it.
We've used the titles,especially, we've kind
of have stopped it recently.
Mm-Hmm. .But they're doing that
and then they're tryingto make their videos
as quickly edited as possible.

(20:40):
They're leaving out alot of the instructions
and they're trying to make something
where it's kind of the Mr.
Beast style video, where it'scalled retention editing,
where you can't leave the video,
but you're not learninganything either, though.
So the ones that are moreinstructive will be longer videos

(21:02):
and you'll learn howto do the whole thing.
You, you know, alongthat, along these lines,
I know I sound like a broken record.
You will not learn a thingabout cooking on TikTok.
You just won't. Now I knowTikTok allows longer videos now,
but I'm saying if it's atwo minute video on TikTok,
you're not gonna learn how to do anything.
- I think TikTok, I'm gonna take the,
the opposite point here, orthe opposite view, actually.

(21:25):
It's not even the opposite view.
It's what I think TikTok is good for.
If you are already a cook,
you already know whatto do in the kitchen.
There are some tiktoks whoyou can get some ideas from
for like unique combinations of things.
I haven't watched TikTok in,I don't know, six months now,

(21:46):
but there was one girlthat I was following,
she was like a private chef for
a fashion designer in the Hamptons.
So she would always put up the
different things that she was making.
So I would, I would getideas, like she made some type
of like grilled peach avocado thing
that looked really good.
And you know, I, I triedit and I made it and,

(22:07):
and I liked it, but shedidn't really tell you what
to do or how to do it.
She just showed that she made it.
So you kind of have tohave like that foundation
of knowledge and then youcan use TikTok to kind
of supplement for ideas.
Yeah. But I think you're right.
You're not gonna, you'renot gonna learn like how

(22:28):
to heat up your pan or how to do this or,
- Because that doesn't,
people will leave thevideo then if I, if I,
if you do, okay.
To heat up a pan, you gottaturn your heat to medium. Okay.
Not higher than that. Okay.You gotta wait three minutes.
Please don't put any fat down right now.
This is a stainless steel pan.
All that instruction, evenif it's only 10 seconds
of instruction, that'sa eternity on TikTok.

(22:51):
- Yeah. That would be, that in
and of itself would be one TikTok video.
Like how to heat your pan. Yeah.
So I do think that thereis some good, like I said,
if you already know whatyou're doing in the kitchen
and you wanna get someideas for new combinations
of things, then look at TikTok.
Yeah. I I But to learnhow to cook, I don't think
that's the platform.
I do think YouTube is a good one.

(23:13):
I know I'm biased because we have no
- YouTube- Channel.
- Look, it's not about, butit's not about our videos.
It's when I wanna learnMm-Hmm. How to do anything.
When I wanna learn how to like,
replace a specific part ina toilet bowl, uh, like a,
like an obscure toilet bowl.
I'm going to YouTube. I'mnot going to TikTok for
that when I'm trying to learn,okay, how do I, you know, uh,

(23:35):
lemme try to think of something.
How do I cope? Crown molding.
I'm gonna watch a 15 minutevideo from this guy named DFW
carpentry awesome channel by the way.
Okay. His tiktoks, I don'teven know if he has tiktoks.
They're gonna just be, they'regonna miss so much of it.
What I notice on cookingvideos a lot is they will just
gloss over a lot of times to hard parts.

(23:57):
Like the sear is an important part.
Showing people how to do asear how to do a proper sear.
Okay, I'm gonna dry offmy chicken ultra well
with paper towels.
I'm gonna heat up my pan properly.
I'm not gonna put on mysalt and pepper until right
before I'm going to put mychicken down for a sear.
Because if I put my saltdown a little too early,
it's gonna start rip wickingwater again for my chicken.

(24:18):
Mm-Hmm. . Whichis gonna hurt my sear when I do
do my sear, when I put my chickendown in my properly heated
pan, I gotta wait three,four minutes per side
and the chicken will naturally release.
These are things that are like,you'll just have a jump cut.
It'll go from my chickengoes in the pan. Yeah.
To it's perfectly seared.
People aren't, they don'tlearn how to do it. Yeah.
And then they go, they go, oh,

(24:40):
well this person on TikTok just,he gets his awesome sphere,
but I don't Mm-Hmm, .
Well, because they didn'tshow you how to do it.
That whole process takesover a minute to show
and let look, I'm being,
I'm being ju I'm being judicious here.
We get a lot of people,even on our 15 minute videos
that say what Tara
- Video's too long. No, stop talking.
- No, the opposite. Oh. They'llsay you went too fast. Okay.

(25:03):
- Oh, well, yeah. Imean, we get both sides.
- The ones who say to stop talking
and it's too long are the TikTok people.
Yeah. No, I know. They don'tknow anything to begin with.
Yeah. Okay. But the other group of people,
and there's a lot of them too,
they say, you just went too fast.
You're talking way too fast.
- Yeah. We, we get both sides.
So who are some YouTube chefs
or cooks that you wouldwatch to learn how to cook?

(25:27):
- See, I don't know a lot of them.
'cause I don't watch alot of cooking videos.
I will say that one of the tried
and true ones that people alwaysseem to like is Chef John.
Okay. He's like the original YouTuber.
He has over 2000 cooking videos.
So his recipes, he, he wasconnected to all recipes.
I believe we spoke abouthim in the past. Okay.

(25:49):
I can't really speak ofthat many other people.
I, I know that like , you know,
I like, I'll give you an example here.
Okay. Old Joshua Weissmanvideos were instructional new
Joshua Weissman videos, meaninganything in the last three
years are not instructional.
That's, that's the thing.And you can see now he's,
- They're instructional for how,
if you wanna spank yourself,
- If you wanna spank your butt.
Yeah. If you wanna, like, Imean, if you wanna learn how

(26:11):
to put your camera in thefridge, um, I'll,
I don't know who else to say.
And, and listen, he'skilling it. He's killing it.
You know, he's, he's got,he's built an empire.
Uh, I would say most of hisaudience. What about Brian?
Audience is not reallycooking the recipes.
- What about Brian Lagerstrom? Brian
- Lagerstrom?
Um, I think his videos are good.
I think he is very fast too though.

(26:32):
I think he is definitely quick.
I mean, he'll put, he'll do three
full recipes in 10 minutes.
So again though, he puts,
he puts I think the writtenrecipe in, in the card.
Yeah. So, you know what?
I can't really say for sure
because I don't, when waslike, do you watch his videos?
I mean, I don't know. I don't
really watch any of these guys.

(26:53):
So that's, that's the thing. Yeah.
- Sometimes I'll watch his videos.
Um, I watched his sheetpan fajita video. Yeah.
And he is fast. But I do thinkhe gives good instructions.
Like I think, I think ifyou're, if you wanna sit there
and you, you wanna pause it
and maybe like digest what he's saying

(27:14):
because it is fast, um,I think you can still get
valuable information and learnhow to make what, oh, I mean,
- He's got thinking, Imean obviously he's got
very valuable information.
Um, there's a whole bunch of other people,
everybody's got valuable information.
I think it comes down to, I think you need
to make a decision when you do this.
What is your goal here?
So I'm just being honest withyou, we've made a decision

(27:36):
to not try to get, like,
we know we're not gonnabecome a 10 million view
or 20 million view channela month doing what we do.
That's impossible.
You have to go down to the lowest common
denominator to get there.
Which means much quickervideos, more entertainment,
just completely notreally what we're about.

(27:58):
I now look, that beingsaid, if I was 30 years old,
I might be, I might do it.
Mm-Hmm. . But from now
where I am in my life being, you know, 45
and having our instructional stuff going
with our instructionalcontent on our website,
I just don't think it wouldreally mesh if I was doing these
like, you know, we outlandish videos

(28:20):
and then it, it, it, I maybe,
do you wanna do crazy videos?
Is that what you're saying? No. You
wanna move into the crazy videos?
- ? No, I don't like the, I don't,
I wouldn't, I don't, I
- Wouldn, you know, doesn't, wouldn't
- Part of the, the crazy video thing.
I, I do like the moreinstructional type of video
for me to be part of.
That's not to say I don'tlike some of watching some

(28:42):
of the more entertaining ones,
but I don't, I don't see myself
as being an entertainer. I, I mean,
- Look, I would just say simply,
and if you're, if you do watch the videos,
you do know we do try to beentertaining a little bit.
Like we do have the taste test at the end.
So if we wanted to likebe pure instruction,
we could easily eliminate that last two

(29:03):
or three minutes with James.
Mm-Hmm. . But we don't,
and am, am I, do I kind ofsometimes do stuff in the videos
that isn't that like required?
Do I need to walk throughmy fake door at every the,
at the beginning of every video?
No. You know, I don'tneed to do that. Do I?
Do I even need to do a monologuegoing over the ingredients?
No. I could just start, no,

(29:24):
I cheating my pan rightfrom the beginning.
- I don't, but I don't thinkthe monologue is entertaining.
I think the monologue isinstructional and helpful. Yeah.
Jim, next on my list ofthe best ways to learn how
to cook trial and error, what not
to do is more importantthan what to do. Yeah,
- For sure.
If you do a bunch of thingswrongly, you can eliminate them

(29:46):
and then you will eventuallycome out to being kind
of like left with the ultimate solution.
I mean, that's how I, that's
how I learned to edit these videos.
Mm-Hmm. , Ikept screwing up everything.
I like watched a whole entire, um,
like it took like this big course
and it was so overwhelming.
And I was like, what is all this?

(30:07):
I have no idea about the terminology.
I had no idea about therelationship of things.
And the reason was, isbecause I wasn't doing,
I was in theory, I wasn'tin doing so for cooking,
you just wanna be doing,
and then you go, wow, I reallyshouldn't heat my pan up
to high ever again.
Mm-Hmm. . Andthat's like, that's an epiphany.

(30:27):
You'll see that. Like, you'llbe like, wow, I, I heated
that non-stick pan up to high.
I destroyed it, you know? Mm-Hmm.
or I, um, youknow, this website told me
to get my pants screaming hot,
and all it did was set off my smoke alarms
and the fire department came to my house.
You know, you, you willlearn what not to do

(30:48):
by doing the wrong things, by
- Doing the wrong thing.
That's true. For, foreverything. So that's a good one.
So the next one I have on mylist is, if you're a novice,
you should read the recipe completely
and follow the recipe as best you can.
And then once you start feelingconfident with that recipe,
that's when you can start changing it up.
- Yeah. We often struggle with this.

(31:09):
Like, we're wondering if wewere ever gonna offer, say
more detailed instruction,
should we offer those detailedinstructions for a novice?
Or should we be offering the opposite way
more advanced stuff?
Because a lot of the criticisms we get is
that our recipes are too simple
and that they're not, there'snot enough going on there.

(31:32):
Like, I'm not showing you how
to do black garlic inyour garage for a month.
You know, and then touse it to make, you know,
to make one dish, stuff like that.
So it really comes down to, I think
if you're a super novice,you probably want to just,
I don't even know, are we,are, are, are we too hard?

(31:53):
Are we too far ahead of novices?
That, that's kind ofwhat I'm, do we assume
that people know too much?
Maybe in our videos we dothe, the website content,
I would say I
- Don't think so,- Is a little bit
more toned down even more. I
- Don't think we assumethat people know too much.
I think we try
and approach it as if theperson reading it is a novice,

(32:17):
and then if they don't need our top tips
or some of the other information
that we include in the recipe,then they can just skip
to the recipe card and,and just print that out
and go for it.
- Yeah. I guess that'swhat it is. It's tough.
I mean, you know, who are you writing for?
And you, you will seesome websites, some blogs

(32:37):
that really write for avery educated audience.
Mm-Hmm. . That's not us.
We do definitely try to write, I think
for more novices, but Terry is right.
If you, you know, if you're a novice, do
that recipe exactly how it's said.
Then if you had a problem,go and criticize it.
Or maybe just think to yourself,oh, I didn't do it right.
I'll, I'll try it again.Mm-Hmm. . Yeah.

(32:59):
- Yeah. Next on the list.
Don't worry so much aboutbeing excellent with a knife.
- Yeah. That, that, okay.So this is a good one.
This is a really good one.So I've said this before.
I've worked in a coupleplaces when I was young.
Now these weren't restaurants,
but they were, you know,they were food establishments

(33:19):
and one of them did a ton of food.
Okay? All food, catering, everything.
I, I believe this wasprobably an early episode.
I told, I, I said the story.
The guy who was the best with the knife in
the place was not the cook.
Okay. He wasn't even like, honestly,
the cook didn't even use a knife.
The cook was cooking. Right.
And this is how a lot of restaurants are.

(33:40):
I mean, you got multiple people.
So the chef was, thechef was chefing. Right?
He wasn't, he, he wasbarely using the knife.
I mean, obviously the guyknew what he was doing,
but there's no way that he wasas skilled as the prep guy.
The prep guy was preppingfor six hours a day.
The guy was lightning with aknife. Mm-Hmm. .

(34:00):
So knife skills does not meanyou're gonna be a great cook.
You know, butchers haveexcellent knife skills.
A lot of butchers are not cooks or chefs.
They're definitely notchefs. So take the knife, uh,
don't you never need to becomeas good as say some YouTuber
or some demonstration.

(34:22):
Why would you need that? Well,what do you, you're you're,
you're chopping one onion.
Yeah. You're not chopping 500 of 'em.
What do you think your wife's gonna like?
She's gonna go nuts becauseyou did a chopped an onion in
like four and a half seconds.
- You never know. Some peoplemight be into, into that.
- They might be really into that.
You know, like honey chopped that onion.
- Girls want guards with skills.

(34:43):
- , - Numb chalk skills.Bow hunting skills. Yeah.
Onion skills. That's my Napoleon dynamite
impersonation for you.
Um, okay, another thing,experiment at the end.
So for example, if you'remaking a soup, let's say,
and you wanna try throwingsome different seasonings in

(35:05):
there, maybe some lemon juice
or some other type of ingredient,
but you don't want to chance the whole pot
take scoops them out at the end.
Put it in a little bowland there you can add
whatever additional seed.
Yeah. Like if you wannatry curry lentil soup,
but you don't know how much curry to use,
you make regular lentil soup

(35:26):
and then put some in a separate bowl,
add a little curry powder,
or this is some other type of seasoning
and experiment that way with
- A little bit.
This might be the best one. Okay.
Who came up with this one? You
- Did. Ha
- Yes I did.
Okay. So let, let me tell you why
as Tara's saying you dothe whole bowl of soup, it,
you can't, you know,you're at the end here.

(35:49):
If you, you're gonna know
for next time now, sodo what you need to do.
You'd be like, wow, that's dynamite.
Or you could just do it and then,
then add it all into the pot
and, and serve it to your family.
It's these little teststhat you weren't sure do.
Should I finish this with some butter
or should I finish thiswith some, some, uh, acid

(36:10):
or some more spices and stuff like that?
Some garlic, you know, fry up some garlic.
Pour it in at the end.Uh, meatballs. Okay.
So you're making your meatballs.
You can't taste your raw meat.
But what you can do isyou can take a little
bit of meat off to the side.
This is before you fry 'em or bake 'em
and then say, you know what?

(36:31):
I followed this recipe,
but I, I'm already lookingat it and I think it's wrong.
Mm-Hmm. . Ithink it needs more salt.
So put more salt first. Maybejust taste it initially.
And all you gotta do is tastethe meatball is just throw the
meat in the microwave so it's cooked.
So you, so you don't, youdon't get, get any food illness
and then say, oh, that's all right,
but it needs more cheese and salt.

(36:52):
Then put it in, microwave it again.
Then you'll know, you'llbe like, okay, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna make my adjustmentnow to my full batch.
Mm-Hmm. .Yeah. That's a good one.
- A few more. And let's, yeah,
let's kind of move through these quickly.
Another one is enlistfeedback from your loved ones.
Oh, yeah. Right. So,
and that feedback canbe spoken or unspoken.

(37:13):
So for example, if your kids are
gobbling up everything,asking for seconds,
you probably did a good job.
Yeah. Making it right. Yeah.
But you can definitelysolicit verbal feedback too.
Um, I know our kids,especially Sam, is very good.

(37:35):
In fact, a lot of times if you make a new
recipe, who do you ask?
- She's the best. Yeah. I wish
she would be in the videos. Yeah,
- You ask her.
Because you know, first of all, you know,
she's gonna be the most honest.
Not that James and I aren'thonest, but I think James
and I are a little, um, less discerning.
Yeah. I think we have good palettes,

(37:56):
but Sam's palette is heightened.
Yeah. She can often pickout flavors of things that
I don't even really taste.
- Yeah, no, she's good.- Like she can say, oh, this has
cardamon in it, or this has this in it.
Yeah. She's very good at that.
Um, so she's your feedback person. Yeah.

(38:20):
- Use, have a goodfeedback person like that.
And you'll be very, veryfar ahead of the game.
It people don't lie.
Well, there's one person inyour family that doesn't lie.
That's the person youwant to hear from. Yeah.
. It's the truth. Yeah,
- It is. Okay.
- I I I think James just likeseverything I make, so, well,
well, sometimes he doesn't,
- He doesn't like some of the things.
Yeah. He doesn't like thebutternut squash soup. Yeah.

(38:43):
Right. And he's not afan of stuff with Well,
he liked the blue cheese dressing,
but he's not a fan of like
gorgon's Oola and stuff like that.
Yeah. All right. Startwith foundational foods.
So you already mentionedeggs. Yeah. Right.
You also mentioned sauce. Yes. Right.
Sauce mar narrow sauce to Sunday sauce.
There's all types of different ones,
but those are actually prettyeasy recipes to start with.

(39:08):
Um, I also have here soups.
I think soups are a great recipeto learn how to cook with.
Yeah. Because they'rekind of forgiving. Yeah.
- Soups are, um, for sure.
- I've also got salmon
as being very forgivingif wanna cook fish.
Good one. Yeah. Because it's,it's so high in fat that
it's kind of hard to, to overco it

(39:30):
- Salmon.
Yeah. That's, you know, for, for
obviously not sockeye salmon,which is not, I don't,
I don't recommend using that one.
Um, salmon is great. It's inexpensive too.
Tara picked it up, uh,
picked up the other dayfrom Trader Joe's, which is
what we're case testing after.
But she picked up from TraderJoe's Salmon for I believe

(39:53):
what, $8 a pound? Right?
- It was 9 99 a pound. Nine. So 10.
It was, it wasn't the frozen,
it was the like vacuum sealed Yeah.
In the refrigeratedsection. And it was great.
It was just as good as the onefrom Whole Foods. Definitely.
- Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you don't need
to buy salmon from Whole Foods,
but I think the best place is Costco
to get salmon. Yeah. But

(40:14):
- Salmon's a good thingto, to experiment with
because if you're, if you'rebaking it in the oven,
you can experiment with different flavors.
Yeah. To top it with like,you can just do a simple
honey mustard combination
or if you wanna makeit a little bit spicy.
Yeah. Maybe you wanna add some sriracha,
maybe you wanna add some soy sauce to it.

(40:34):
It goes with a lot of different things.
- It's a great canvas.It's funny, I was actually,
I ha I have so many ideas for videos.
Like, I'm like almost a year ahead.
I mean, if you saw like my spreadsheets
and everything I have, but Ihave, um, for summer content, I
have make cedar plank salmon with James.

(40:54):
'cause I feel like thatwould be a really good one
to introduce him to.
How to use, how to dosomething on the grill. Mm-Hmm.
because cedarplank salmon, all you do is you
soak cedar plank, you know,for like 30 minutes in water.
You get your coals going.Ideally use charcoal for this.
It's gonna impart more flavor.
Put your plank on, on your grill,

(41:14):
put your salmon on top of it.
And then, uh, the cedarplank one that's really good
and easy is kind of like
what Tara was saying islike a mustard brown sugar.
Mm-Hmm. maplesyrup one. Yeah. Delicious. Yep.
- I also have chicken, roasted chicken
and potatoes as something thatis a good dish to start with.
I know it's a little bit more Mm-Hmm.

(41:34):
On, maybe on theintimidating or complex side,
but it really is simple when you get down
to instructions on how to make it, yeah.
- It's simple. It can bescrewed up fairly easily
and it doesn't mean your, you know,
your dish won't be edible, butit won't be nearly as good.
So this is a good one to actually,

(41:57):
if you can get perfect chicken
and potatoes, you're,you're a pretty good cook.
All right. Because there's a couple
of concepts that you need to understand.
You can do 'em both at the same time,
but it's good to do'em on separate sheets.
You need to really pay attention to
drying off your chicken, which

(42:17):
we really stress in our recipes.
Like you have to use a lotof paper towels for this.
Some places you can buy chickensthat are already dried out.
They'll be in the case likeopen, so like air chilled
and it'll just dry out.
You can dry brine your chickenahead of time for 24 hours.
Leave it uncovered, it'll dry it out.
This is an extremely poor step. Now.

(42:39):
Even simple things like, okay,
I'm gonna roast it in the oven.
If you don't get enough oil on that,
or you didn't have yourchicken dry enough,
or your heat wasn't highenough, your chickens kind
of is gonna kind of just boil in the oven.
It's not gonna be nearly
as flavorful and as good as it could be.
So maybe you say, you know what I'm gonna,
I'm gonna pan sear at first.
So like, we do that in one ofour chicken potatoes dishes,

(43:02):
which is called chicken vesuvio.
So that kind of gives you a,a, an adv advantageous start
because you're starting withthis really crisp skin already.
But you could still screw that up there.
You know, you're heatingup your pan, maybe you salt
and peppered your chicken20 minutes in advance.
Now the chicken's wicking water again,
and when you put it in your hot pan,

(43:23):
it's still not getting a good sear.
So these are like testsof the, of, of your metal.
Like they're tests of do you,
do you really know what you're doing?
- So do you not recommend chicken
and potatoes as somethingfor first time or, I
- Think it's great.
Okay. Because you're onlygonna improve on it. Yeah.
You're just, you'reyou're not gonna hit it.
You're not gonna hit it outof the park on the first one.
Okay. You know, thatbeing said, our, on our,

(43:45):
we have standard Italianbaked chicken and potatoes
and we have chicken vesuvio.
A lot of times people will make this dish
and they will be so, I they'llbe so happy that they did it.
Mm-Hmm. because often this is a dish
that they're, you know, they're Nona made
and it ha holds very muchspecial significance to them.
The chicken and potatoesis popular in a lot,
you know, in a lot of cultures.

(44:07):
So they're, they'rehappy that they made it,
but there's ways to makeit immensely better.
Yeah. All right. So listen, you're like,
Jim, I know how to cook.
I'm an expert cook. I'm justhere for the taste tests.
And honestly, my stomachis here for the taste test.
. This was an eventfulepisode, right, Tara?
Tell them what happens. I

(44:28):
- Was, no, I was listeningto your stomach the
whole time. So
- It's the worst.
And I tell, I tell the, myeditor, I say, Billy, I'm sorry
that my stomach's growling,
but when it, when it growlsyou, that's why like,
we will re-say something.
It's, but I gotta stop eating.
I mean, I'm gonna, I'm gonnaturn into a house. All right.
Anyway. I'm gonna be eating right now.

(44:50):
So Tower W went to, actually,
I believe you boughtthese the day you got the
salmon at Trader Joe's, right?
I did, yeah. Yes. Alright, so let's,
let's start with thecrackers. What are these? So
- These are pita bite crackers.
They're made with sea salt. Yeah.
I just got these as a vehicle.
I mean, I don't think we're taste testing
these, I mean, we're taste
- Testing. Well, we can comment
- On them.

(45:11):
We can, we're taste testingthree different spreads.
So we've got a bruschetta topping,
we've got a red pepper spread,
which has eggplant and garlic in it.
Okay. And then do youwant to read that one?
- Yeah. And then this oneright here is another eggplant

(45:31):
garlic spread with sweet bread pepper.
So they're so .That's weird. But they're
- Different.
I didn't even realize that.I've had them both before.
- This one's like predo.- I've never had
the bruschetta. Yeah, that's,
- It's so funny.
Obviously they're similar.
They they have the same exact jar.
So it's made by the same company. Yeah.
So the company was probablylike, we're gonna make this one
with more pepper uhhuh andthis one with more eggplants.

(45:52):
Yeah. Yeah. But trustus, they are different.
And, uh, hopefully Good. Now
- You're gonna have to show your skills.
Ah, I got mine. Minepopped before yours did. It
- Did.
- I'm stronger than you.- Yeah.
- Hold on. I'm like the girl from the
Seinfeld episode withthe, with the lobster like

(46:15):
- .
Let's start with our, my left to right.
We're gonna start with theeggplant spread first. Yeah.
All right. So this eggplant spread smell
- It,- It smells really good.
It is Trader Joe's eggplantgarlic spread is based on a
traditional Bulgarian recipeof fresh harvested eggplant,
garlic, and sweet red peppers used

(46:35):
as a spread on sandwiches, toast
or crackers stirred into soups
and stews for flavorrefrigerate after opening.
This is, uh, a spread that I know
Trader Joe's has hadprobably for over 10 years.
I, I feel like Tyra's beenbuying this for a long time.
- Yeah. I don't buy itoften, but I have bought it

(46:56):
and it's good to put out if you have
guests coming over and kindof maybe like short notice
and you just wanna putsomething out, it's good
to have this in thepantry, like ready to go.
- Yeah. So I, I would, I would say similar
to Copana, but different. It does, it
- Smells like cap.
I can definitely smell theeggplant. Okay. Let's try it.

(47:21):
- I am gonna be honest herebecause I wanna be honest
with you guys about all these.
I've had this one numeroustimes in the past.
Um, I'm always kind ofunderwhelmed with it.
Tara, do you disagree withme? Mm-Hmm. .
- I really like it. Okay.
I think it's somethingthat's, like I said,
I think it's somethingthat's good to have on hand.

(47:42):
If you have someonecoming over unexpectedly
and you want to be ableto put something out
for them, that's perfect.
- How much does thiscost? Roughly? $3 I think.
- I think so.- It's a 12 ounce jar of it.
And Tara is correct thatthis would be perfect.
It would be enough for, like,you could do a little spread

(48:03):
for when people come over andyou could just take this outta
the jar, put it in a nice bowl
and open up a whole box of these crackers
and maybe with a couple other things.
And it would be fine.
It would be good and itwould be inexpensive.
- I think that wouldalso be good on pasta.
Me maybe with other things. To
- Me it tastes a little preservative.

(48:24):
- Preservative- Preservative. EI
- Don't know if that's even a word.
- Okay. But it does, it does taste like
it's heavy on preservatives.
- Well then that this is probably gonna
taste the same, but let's,
- Let's just see.
I wanna read what's inhere. Mm-Hmm. .
It has eggplant, sweet redpelt, sweet red peppers, water,
sunflower oil, tomatopaste, cane sugar, sea salt,

(48:44):
dried garlic, gluc, delta lactone,
which is in a acidifier.
And that's it. That's it.
So yeah, it's not, it'snot heavy on preservatives.
I'm actually gonna try,
um, actually I'm just gonna have a
spoon of it. Is that okay with you, Tara?
- That's good. Just don'tput it back on the jar.
- Hmm. It's better that way.Is it? Maybe it was a cracker.

(49:07):
You know, honestly, I think
after reading those ingredients,I like changed my tune.
Yeah. Do you did that? It does happen.
That, that does happen tome. I'm influenced. See, I
- Didn't, I didn't tastepreservatives in it,
so I think my pouch is betterthan yours. Mm-Hmm. It,
- It might be Mm-Hmm.
It mightbe. That's the only thing
that you're better than me at.
By the way, we are gettinga, we're getting a new,
we're gonna have a new studio soon.
We, uh, ordered chairs last night. So,

(49:28):
- Well, the stu yeah, the studio space is
the same. We're just gonna, yeah.
- Space is- The same. We're redesigning it.
- We're gonna paint this wall.
We're gonna do a whole bunch of stuff,
but, um, the chairs won'tbe here for about a month.
So it, you'll be seeingthis setup for a while.
So this is a red pepper spreadwith eggplant and garlic.
It is Trader Joe's red pepperspread is a zesty blend
of red peppers, eggplant and garlic.

(49:50):
Used as a dip for ate or asa sauce for grilled veggies.
Add a pasta sauces or usedas a spread on chicken breast
or Turkey sandwiches.
Mm. Top a burger or tossa bit into a stir fry.
I like how they give you ideas.
So this is like thething about Trader Joe's.
They like, they, they nailyou when you go in there.

(50:12):
You're just like, oh, I gotta buy this.
I'm gonna use it on my Turkey burgers
or I'm gonna put it in my pasta.
Yeah. Or, and then you justwanna keep buying. Mm-Hmm.
more and more
things. All right. Let's see how it's
- Okay.
Ooh, I can smell the red pepper.

(50:32):
Hmm.
- So it's funny, even thoughit's like similar wording,
this tastes completely different. You
- Get hit right away.
Yeah. With the roasted redpepper flavor. That's it.
Tastes like a roasted redpepper, but mashed up.
- All right. So I'm gonna readthe ingredients for this one.
It has sweet red peppers,eggplant cane sugar,

(50:54):
sunflower oil, sea salt,dried garlic, citric acid.
And then for freshness they have caps
and thine, um, oli and paprika.
Similar ingredients.
A completely different taste though,
because the main ingredient in this one
is the red bell pepper.
While the main ingredient inthis one is the eggplants. You

(51:17):
- Know what I would put that on.
What? One of James's favoritesandwiches is prosciutto
with fresh mozzarellaand roasted red peppers
and then a balsamic glaze drizzle.
In fact, I was making thatfor him for a while, for lunch
until he got tired of it.
Yeah. I, instead of theroasted red peppers like whole,

(51:38):
I would put that on it.
- I don't think it's nearly as good
as the whole roasted red peppers though.
The same problem I'm havingwith this one right now is
what I have with, when youbuy the jarred red roasted
peppers, they're not nearly as sweet
as when you do 'em yourself.
Oh, you get a little bit, I mean,
- You get a little jar.
- Bitterness. Bitternessin 'em. Yeah. There is.
That's why there's addedsugar in here. Mm-Hmm.

(52:00):
- . I'mgonna have just a little
- Bit more.
That being said, I mean these are,
these are both, these are both good.
I mean, they're fine. Iwould say they're fine.
That's kind of my rating on it.
I hold out hope for this one right here.
- I'm not optimistic on this one. Really?
- Yeah.- 'cause I've had packaged bruschetta

(52:20):
and I'm just like, never a fan.
- All right. Well it's not,bruschetta is not a thing.
Bruschetta is the toastthat you put. Okay. Yes.
So this is just a spread for bruschetta,
- Bruschetta topping. But
- Obviously when you're in America,
everybody thinks bruschetta
or bruschetta, you knowhow people say it here.
It, they think that iswhat it is. Exactly.
Let me, um, I'll put this down

(52:40):
and then I'm gonna read this one too.
Mm-Hmm. . It'scalled bruschetta topping.
And it has diced tomatoes.
Tomatoes, tomato juice,citric acid, uh, acidifier,
calcium chloride, canolaoil, garlic, onion,
distilled white vinegar, salt,basil, oregano, citric acid.
Okay. Based on these ingredients,

(53:01):
I'm thinking this is not going to be good.
I, I might be surprised,
but based on the factthat it has juice in here,
um, lemme just make sure.
Yeah. Tomato juice being one
of the high up ingredients,that's normally a bad sign.
If you recall, when we didthe jarred sauce taste tests,
all the ones that had these ingredients in
them did really bad.
Now I might, I might bewrong though, so we'll see.

(53:22):
- You should have tasted itbefore you read the ingredients.
- I should have. I messed up.- Yeah.
You're, 'cause you're going into this in a
biased way. We'll,
- We'll get better at this.
You know, we're up here.
We're, we're out ofour, you know, we're out
of the, the kitchen.
- Let's give it a try. Thisone's like a little leak.
There's some leaky leakagehappening over here.

(53:45):
- I don't want to influenceher. Tara, what do you think?
- It actually tastes likea jarred pizza sauce.
It doesn't taste like what,I guess what we refer to
as a bruschetta topping,which is the chopped
onion, chopped tomato.
Yeah. It doesn't taste like that at all.
It tastes like pizza sauce to me.

(54:06):
Like a jarred pizza sauce. Not,
- It tastes like, not pizza sauce.
To me, it tastes like a badjarred pizza sauce. Yeah.
This is not somethingthat I would get again.
Um, it, as Tara said, it has nothing to do
with a typical bruschettatopping, which, if you're looking
for your typical bruschettatopping, it would simply just be
chopped tomatoes, little bitof basil, maybe, uh, oil,

(54:31):
you know, a good extravirgin olive oil salt.
Uh, you can mix some otherstuff in there if you want,
but it's very, very simple.
You put a tiny bit of redonion in there and then
- What?
That's what Costco has, um, cost.
- The has a better, the- Refrigerated sections
- Cost better. They have a better one.
- It's, it's better. But- E
but that being said, I still wouldn't, I,
I still wouldn't use that either.
You know, when you get, andwhen you do your toast for,

(54:51):
you know, your cristini or whatever,
or your bruschetta, you wanna, uh,
rub garlic on the hot bread
and then you wanna putthat tomato on there.
Mm-Hmm. . Thisis not anything like that.
- No. No. So I honestly, I wouldn't,
I wouldn't buy this one again,
but these two i, i havebought in the past.
Yeah. And I will continue to buy

(55:13):
because I like having them in my pantry
in the event that Yeah.
Somebody stops by and I'm like, oh,
let me put something out quickly.
- I agree with tower.Tower. Let's rate them.
What's your rating for thisone? For the Bruce Gato? Like,
- Do you want me to rank them?
Like 1, 2, 3, or Rate,
- Rate.
The Bruce Gato from zero to 10. This

(55:34):
- One gets a two.
- This is the roasted red pepper
- One.
I, I'm sorry, the, the Brittatopping gets a two. Yeah.
From me. The roasted
- That gets i'll, I'll domy rating for that one too.
Okay. That gets a two from me as well.
Okay. And that's being generous.
- The roasted red pepper topping.
I'm gonna give that one a seven.

(55:56):
- Okay. I'm going to givethat one a seven. Also.
I would that, I already had it in my head.
I already know what I'm gonna give you.
Want me to tell you whatthis one's gonna be?
- No, 'cause I'm okay.Okay. Yeah, go ahead.
- Okay, for the final one.
Now remember that second one sevens
that we both did sevens wasfor the red roasted pepper
spread from Trader Joe's.
This last one, which is calledthe eggplant garlic spread,
I am going to give this a seven as well.

(56:19):
- I am going to give thatone a nine. Oh A nine.
Now I'm not, I'm not ranking,I'm not giving it a nine.
And comparing it with homemadeka, that's not what it is.
I'm, I'm ranking itbased on a jarred spread.
And I do think that one gets a nine
because it is really good.
I love the eggplant flavor
and like I said, I continue to buy it.

(56:41):
It's one of those thingsI like to have on hand
and I have no qualms aboutgiving it to somebody
who shows up at my house as a guest.
- Okay. Well said.
So we have questions, sothat means we will do 'em.
And maybe I can eat a couple more
of these crackers while Ianswer the questions. Okay.
- Jim, the first questioncomes from Christine.
I'm looking forward to experimenting
with different foods onthe barbecue this summer.

(57:03):
And we just got a smoker.
Do you have any plans forsome grilling recipes?
And it's funny because youjust talked about the salmon
thing earlier, which I didn't even
know you were gonna talk about that.
- Well, Christine,- Serendipity. Christine
- Having a smoker is awesome.
I've had a few smokersin my life right now
where we current, theone we currently have
outside is called the pit barrel smoker.

(57:23):
But I've had, uh, theoff off, uh, like with a,
you put all your fire, uh,your, your wood, your smoke,
your smoking stuff.
I'm like completely like off.
It's a, I basically, Ihad an offset smoker.
It was Achar Royal onethat rusted the heck
and I had to throw it out.
Uh, I've also just done smokingon a standard Weber kettle
grill, which works wellwith a water, water pan.

(57:45):
Um, I've been smoking for a long time,
probably over, probably over 20 years.
I never put 'em on the site.'cause I feel like I'm gonna
get all the, you know, the people
that say they're a professional smoker
and telling me what that Idon't know what I'm doing.
So, you know, it's like the,
it's like the gatekeepersociety of, of smokers.
That's the main reason whyI haven't put 'em on the
site would.

(58:06):
Right. Tara, you say that's it. Yeah.
- But do you have plans to put some up
- Maybe?
Um, I, I can't say for sure.
I, I did think, like, as I said
before, I think the, theone with James doing the,
it's not really smoking, but the, uh,
cedar pan plank salmon would be good.
I don't know, Christine,maybe I'll do the,
uh, do some ribs.

(58:28):
I don't, uh, I don't takesmoking barbecue smoking that.
Seriously. I'm gonna,
this is gonna sound likemaybe a little condescending.
I don't think the bestbarbecue in the world in Texas
or Carolina or wherever you think it is.
I don't think it's much better than some
of the worst barbecuein Texas and Carolina.

(58:49):
That's my opinion there. Uh,you know, I'm, I'm sorry.
They all do the same thing.
They like put a mustardrub, they put a bunch
of spices on it, they smokeit, they get a smoke ring.
They put their, they put their sauces out
and the story, I mean,
ultimately what's reallygonna determine what's better
or worse is gonna be whatthe cut of meat, the quality

(59:11):
of you're dealing with.
Because they're all putting the same
exact rubs and everything on there.
I know they say they havetheir proprietary rub.
I mean, maybe I'm like sayingsomething controversial here,
but, but I mean, barbecueto me is kind of barbecue. I
- Know what you're saying.
I, I think for the wayI feel about barbecue is
that even if it's, I'venever had bad barbecue,
but even it's like pizza.

(59:32):
Like even if it's bad,it's still pretty good.
Like it's, it's still tastes good.
Um, I've had barbecue in Memphis, which
I would say was probably the
best barbecue I've had, but you're right.
Like it wasn't, it wasn'tthat much different from
barbecue that I've had in other places.

(59:54):
- I, I mean, I'm gonna go,this is gonna sound like, like,
um, it's gonna sound crazy to you,
but like, when I've done briskets
and I've done a lot ofthem, they taste just
as good as any place.
I've like the best placesI've had 'em. Mm-Hmm.
. Now look, I haven't been to
that special place inTexas that was, uh, um,
in the movie chef, but knowultimately it's that quality

(01:00:17):
of brisket you're starting with.
If you're starting with a poorpiece of meat, I don't care
what you do to it, it's not gonna be good.
And if you're starting with asuperior piece of meat, kind
of like, not even season it that well,
because, well, I'll give you an example.
I just, the other day, it'scoming out this week actually,
actually it will be appleby the time you hear this,
this, this will already be out.

(01:00:38):
So I did cottage pie
and I wanted to make it verydifferent than the shepherd's
pie that we already have on the site.
So I used boneless short ribs for this
and I wanted to braise them ahead of time.
So you could do this the day before
if you want to speed up the recipe.
I took, I seared the short ribs
for like a minute per sidejust to get some color.
I didn't put wine, I didn't put stock.

(01:00:58):
I put water in the pot. I justremoved the brown bits. Okay.
Or as you say, fond.
And I put the ribs backin, I put the cover on,
I put it in the oven at300, cooked it for two
and a half hours until they got tender.
That beef, when I took itoutta the oven, I could have,
I didn't even need to makecottage pie out of it.
I could have just ate thebeef like that. And it

(01:01:19):
- Was just cooked in water- And it was cooked in
water with salt and pepper.
It's, it's, the beef was so good already.
It's just, you know, like whenyou have like a really good,
that's why beef, you know,it's always, it's just salt.
You know, you do a goodsteak salt. That's why I
- Like, it's salt.
My, my ideal way to have a steak.
I don't put steak sauce on it.
I would just want it withsalt and pepper. Yeah.
And that's it. Yeah. A littlebit of salt and pepper.

(01:01:40):
Maybe not even the pepper.
Let's move into the nextquestion. This is from Carlota.
I know you are very influencedby Southern Italian cuisine,
but could you do some northernItalian things like canna,
deley, banya, kada pizza, Carella,
Lina, I don't know.

(01:02:02):
Some of these Pan veta,I think that's egg bread.
I, I, I don't know. Welive in the Verona area
and sometimes the kitchen is a bit funky
with horse meat, donkey meat.
But a lot of it can be donewith beef and pork as well.
Like n con sata de caval can be done
with donkey or beef.
I think Caval is horse, is that right?

(01:02:22):
It is Pastis de Caval.
Um, so what do you think
of doing some northern Italian food? Jim?
- I'm looking up- To answer Carlotta's question. Carlotta,
- I'm looking up.
So she lives in Italy.Mm-Hmm. .
- Yeah. Verona.- I can't believe you're listening to me.
Carla, I really appreciate you
- Listening. Carlotta.
- Carlotta, I appreciate you listening.
I, I normally, I feel likeeverybody in Italy's like,

(01:02:44):
like I'm gonna kill this guy, you know?
Um, I'm looking up whatbag? What bag? Nacu
- Bon Bonia.
Kada. Okay. I think it's garlic.
It's, I think it's hot garlic.It's B-A-G-N-A-C-A-U-D-A.
- Yeah. It's a traditionalP me Vietnamese dish.
- Um, Piedmontese.
- Piedmontese. I'm sobad. I'm sorry. .

(01:03:07):
God, I'm just, I wanna, mystupid phone's not working. Take
- Your, take your, takeyour time. Alright.
- It's made from garlic, anchovies.
It originates in France actually.
Provence, France popular in PE
and it's popular in Piedmont,Italy since the 16th century.
The dishes served andconsumed in a matter similar
to fondue sometimes,sometimes as an appetizer

(01:03:29):
with roar or cooked vegetables.
Yeah. Roar of cooked vegetables.I knew, I knew this one.
It sounds delicious. Uh, Idefinitely should make it.
We have done some northern dishes.
We we did poso, which I know obviously
to you is not .
It's not something thatyou don't, that that,
that's obscure and it's really simple.

(01:03:49):
Um, the other ones yousaid were, what's the one
with a CI think that's likealmost kind of like gnocchi
- Kind of dairy.
- Yeah, they're like bread dumplings
that they almost look like meatballs.
Um, I've seen people do thesewith like spinach and stuff.
I feel like another oneis, uh, Nudie. Right.
And G-N-U-D-I. That'sanother one. Yeah. Yeah.

(01:04:12):
Carlotta, every time I wannado these, I'm just like, I,
I don't think anybody'sgonna watch 'em, you know?
And I, I will say thatsimply the people here in,
in New York, New Jersey,that's all they do.
That's all they eat isSouthern Italian food
because they're obviously thepeople that, that came here.
- The other dish that Carlottamentioned, the pizza de

(01:04:34):
ena is fresh pasta, potatoes,cheese, and savoy cabbage.
Hmm. Now do you remember we went
to a northern Italian restaurant?
Yes. On Long Island. I can'tremember what town it was in,
but we had New
- Hyde Park. Um,
- It was in that area.
We had rigatoni cabbage,
and that was one of the mostmemorable pastas I've had.

(01:04:56):
It was, it was unlikeanything that I've had.
And it was so good. And I remember
after that I tried tofind a recipe for it.
I mean, this was like20, 20 years ago or so.
- It was in Flora Park,new Hyde Park area.
- We went with your Yeah, we,our friend. Your friend. Yeah.
So that, that was good dish. I know.
That was, that was really good.So I don't know if that's,
I mean, this dish thatCarlotta mentioned has Yeah.

(01:05:19):
Cabbage in it. So I don'tknow if it's similar that
- I always wanna do stuffed cabbage too.
That's another one. Mm-Hmm.That I, I've wanted to do.
I, I really do need to expand and,
and start doing someof these other dishes.
I did, uh, brasato, which isanother, uh, Piedmont Dish.
Brasato Al Barolo. Al Barolo.
But I did not do, I didnot use Barolo in it.

(01:05:40):
- Yeah. You used a less expensive Piedmont
cheese wine. Yeah.
- I used, but I used a dry wine
and I shouldn't have,I should have, I mean,
they're all dry, but theone I used was too dry.
It was, I think a Bara. That's
- Right.
- And I should have used itstarts with a n um, it's what,
it's what Barolo is made from. Ne
- Ne Nelo. Yeah.
- Yeah. That's the wineI should have used.

(01:06:01):
So if you do decide tomake that, that's the grape
that I would, I would use foranybody who wants to try tho
that dish, because Barolois like $60 plus a bottle.
Mm-Hmm. Easily. And I just, I had a thing,
I'm like, I cannot do this.
I cannot put a bottle ofwine at expensive in there.
It just, it's really not, not
what we wanna do on, on, on the channel.

(01:06:21):
Yeah. So what else, Tara? Is that it?
- Those are the questions. Yeah.
So yeah, I mean at some pointwe, we will probably continue
to, we're gonna add so NorthernItalian dishes and we've
- Been adding Frenchdishes too to the list.
- Yeah. Yeah. - Often a lotof our, the problem is we have
to like, do ones thatpeople are searching for.
And it's a tough, it's tough
because, you know, a lot ofthese obscure, more obscure ones

(01:06:44):
and they're not obscure to you.
They're obscure to the peoplehere. Mm-Hmm. .
It's just people aren't gonna look at it.
So, you know, we put abig time investment into
it and then we're like, okay.
So that's it for this episode today.
Leave your questions [e-mail].
We love your questions.We love hearing from you.
Uh, Tara, you got anythingelse to, uh, say? Let us

(01:07:05):
- Know what other tastetests. Yeah, we wanna see.
- Listen, I hope youguys are enjoying these
because I really am.
I mean, the next one episode
after this is gonna becompletely different.
So it's gonna be drinksjust teeing that one up.
And some of you mightreally recognize them
and some of you might belike, I've never seen that

(01:07:26):
before in my life.
Mm-Hmm. Until next time.