Which High-End Kitchen Gear Is Not Worth It + Bonus Taste Test

When it comes to spending money on kitchen gear, the sky is the limit, but is it really worth it to spend your hard-earned money on some of these high-ticket items? Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/M-m3Rx9nfO8 Dollars and sense We try always to keep value in mind when talking to our audience. Whether discussing budget-friendly food or ways to save at Costco, value and saving money is an overarching theme of the Sip and Feast podcast. Fancy coolers in bright colors, high-end ranges, high-carbon steel knives, outdoor pizza ovens, stand mixers, and more are up for discussion in this episode. For example, high-carbon Japanese steel knives can come with a high price and while they have their benefits, if their owner isn't prepared to maintain them and properly care for them, they're simply not worth it. And is the "pretty" trendy cooler really better than the one you can buy at Costco for half the price? Join us as we have a lively chat about which high-end kitchen gear is simply not worth it. Taste testing more snacks We received great feedback on the taste test segment, so we're back at it again this week! Tara and I are trying 4 different flavors of Loacker brand quadratini. We're been enjoying these cube-shaped wafer snacks in our home for years and wanted to determine which flavors we like best. Resources Pizza Steel DIY New York Pizza Dough Chicken Valdostana Zeppole di San Giuseppe If you enjoyed the High-End Kitchen Gear 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 41 with Tara and Jim.
I am Jim, what?
High end kitchen gear is not worth it.
Tara, good title. You came up with it.
Did I come up with itor did we steal it from
some? I think you
- Came up with it,
but you know, like most things,

(00:21):
it's probably already been done.
- It's already taken.I'm sure it already is.
Um, it's a, it's a fairly common question.
I think that maybe you'rein your own first place, uh,
that you are thinking aboutspending some money on kitchen
gear, kitchen appliances,
and maybe a lot
of people are steering youin the wrong direction.
Yeah. So we're gonnasteer you straight today.

(00:43):
That's what we're gonna do.
- I think one thing to note is if
buying high priced items as
like a status symbol
or something that you can, you know,
tell your friends about, that's not
what we're really talking about here.

(01:03):
Um, we're talking about are these items
actually worth it when itcomes to cooking? Yeah,
- We're talking, that's right.
And a lot of these items that you might,
you might recognize these, a lot
of these are pushed allthe time on Instagram.
I would say, uh, specificallyInstagram is a buying
platform, more so than YouTube.
Uh, TikTok also, TikTok has their shop now

(01:25):
that they've pushing so aggressively.
And, uh, basically this is all about
monetizing your attention.
That, so if creators,influencers engage in, like,
selling a lot of stuff, likesaying, Hey, I use this,
I approve of this, you should buy it too.
Um, one, you should questionwhether they're telling the

(01:46):
truth and they actually use it.
But two, you should knowthat they're making a lot
of money off of you buying that product.
So we're not gonna get intospecific, like, creators
or anybody who engages inthis because it's so rampant.
It's just crazy. We'reactually, we don't do it.
Uh, you know, we do have anAmazon shop of stuff that we

(02:06):
recommend, but we, we're not in,
we're not in the influencer game.
I, I hate the word. So, I, I, you know,
this is really more abouttalking maybe about some
of those products and whichones we think are good deals
and which ones that we think you should
definitely not consider.
So yeah. Right. Beforewe get into that, I want
to let you know that

(02:28):
last week was the firsttaste test that we did.
And we are still gatheringfeedback from you
if you love these.
And I do love doing them.I like doing them here.
More so than in the kitchen,how we did the YouTube videos.
Mm-Hmm. . Remember we did the
sauce one with James?

(02:48):
Yeah. And the pizza one. Mm-Hmm.
, if you'veseen it, I like 'em here.
I think it's really laidback. The stakes are low.
You know, it's not, it's nota lot of high stakes here.
Uh, we're always gonnaput them towards the
end of the podcast.
We don't know if this ispermanent though, yet.
It really depends on what you think.
We wanna make this foryou. So you let us know.
Again, you can see right herein back of me is what we are,

(03:11):
these are the things thatwe are going to taste today.
So they are to
be told to you later.
Unless you can see right now,
which you probably can, you know.
- Well, you're not gonnasay what they are. Okay.
- Alright. We'll tease 'em up. It's
- Not fair to let the Okay. Video viewers
- .
You know what? See, we're really, uh,
we're really trying to find our feet here.

(03:32):
, you know, um,okay. Tyra, what are they?
- Quadri- Dini by Loker,
which is a weird name foran Italian food company.
- I think it might beSwiss actually. But, um,
- It's that border of, uh,it's always Italy. They're
- Always, actually, let me, let me see.
Right now. They're always soldin Italian specialty stores.

(03:53):
Um, no, they, no, it isa product of Italy. Yeah.
And I'm showing my age
because I have
to hold it really far away frommy face in order to read it.
Um, yeah, it is a product of Italy.
Yeah, I always thought that.Actually, no, wait, hold on.
Okay, hold on. Okay.
The back says South Ty Italy,and then that's Northern

(04:14):
- Italy. The
- Side, the side saysproduct of Austria. Okay.
- Well, anyway, it's that, it's
that the Dolomites arealike that, that's the area.
- So I was wrong when I saidSwiss. It's Austrian. Yeah.
- Anyway, these are a very popular product
and I don't wanna spoil it.
We're gonna taste test them later.
And, uh, hopefully you like it.

(04:35):
But before we do that,let's get into the meat
of this episode tower.Mm-Hmm. .
- So Jim, I have here a listof some what I would consider
to be high-end kitchen gear items.
And I'm just gonna ask you if you think
it's worth it or not. Let's
- Go.
I'm excited. I don't thinkI know all these. Okay.

(04:58):
- The first one is a cast iron pan,
but not like the one that we have.
It's a higher end one.
I'm not gonna say the brand name,
but it's shaped like an octagon
or hexagon or, or one of those.
And it's around 400. Yeah. Dollars.

(05:18):
US dollars worth it. Not worth it.
- Not worth it at all.
Um, the pan, the pan she'sreferring to is nice.
They're really, they're beautiful pans,
but cast iron is cast iron.
That's why you probably havecast iron in your family
that your grandmother used,or your great-grandmother,
or maybe yourgreat-great-great grandmother

(05:39):
because it lasts forever.
Can you destroy it completely?
Can it rust till itmakes a hole through it?
Yeah, that's possible.But, uh, for the most part,
you can get any type of old cast iron pan
and you can rejuvenateit to brand new again.
What are you getting for $400in this octagon cast iron pan?
Well, you're getting a panThat's not round number one.

(06:01):
So that is, uh, that might beworth something to someone.
Mm-Hmm. .It's very unique. Mm-Hmm.
, I think you're probably,
and I don't have, I don't have one of 'em.
You're probably getting anextremely smooth surface on the
pan, which people, if you buya large one, which larger kind
of like the workhorse, like they're,
they're in every man cast iron.

(06:21):
They're, they're relatively inexpensive.
Those ones are a little bit rougher.
So, you know, somepeople will go as far as,
and you know, people arenuts about their cast iron.
They're truly nuts.
I mean, there's likecommunities all devoted to this,
but they'll go create,they'll, uh, they'll sand it
to like a baby's butt,you know, super smooth.
And they'll season it likewith like 19 coats of flax oil

(06:45):
or whatever, or whatever.
They're using vegetable oil.
And they will, uh, be able tocook an egg in that cast iron
with it out sticking.
Yeah. So almost they'regetting their cast iron perfect
to almost like non-stick standards, or,
or so they say Mm-Hmm.
. But you can do that
with any type of cast iron pan.
It doesn't have to be this octagon one.
So octagon one is really a status symbol.

(07:06):
And I don't know if the companyengages in using influencers
to sell it or whatnot.
I have a feeling they do, you know,
but not, can't say for sure.
- All right. The next one, andI'm, I'm saying this one yet.
I want one of these, even though I know
- Well, they, yeah.
And people might really wantthat octagon cast iron pan.
- Yeah. So this item, I wantone because it looks nice.

(07:31):
Two, because it comes in somereally pretty colors.
- Pretty colors right here.
- No comment.- You bought me this shirt.
- Yeah, but I wouldn't wanta cooler that looked like
that. That's ridiculous.
- Oh, I know what you're talking about.
All right. Yeah. Go on.
- Yeti coolers.- Yeti. Okay.
- So they're so expensive. Yeah.
And last summer before we were going, uh,

(07:52):
on our Airbnb trip, I had to get a big,
a big ass cooler
because we had to keep allthe food that we, we were,
we were going to like an Airbnbin an area where there was
- Remote area,- Not much food.
- Lots of bear. So we- Brought, no, there wasn't, no,

(08:12):
they thought the owner told me
there was no bears in that area.
But anyway, we were going toan area where there's not a lot
of restaurants,
or there was one small grocerystore, so we stocked up ahead
of time, bought a bunch ofstuff to bring with us and make
- Yeah.
- In their kitchen there. Andso I needed a large cooler
to transport all of that.

(08:33):
So I went and I priced,
and I really, reallywanted like, one of those
Yeti coolers again, pretty color.
Yeah. But wound up going witha much more economical one,
which shockingly we found at Costco.
- Costco, yeah.- Um, I Which brand is it? Igloo. Igloo.
Thank you. So Igloo is, you know, like,
it's not like, it's not sexy.

(08:55):
Yeah. But the, the Yeti cooler is sexy
- Though.
I think the, I do like theway the Igloo one looks.
- Yeah. But I don't know, like,
I, I get what you're saying, honestly.
Like, if I was like gonna goto like a Jones Beach concert
with my friends and liketailgate beforehand,
I would wanna roll up withone of those Yeti coolers.
Yeah, they are. And really cool.
- They are cool.- But is it worth it? No.

(09:17):
- No. Not at all. Imean, look, I, I'm not,
I didn't even know, I, I, Idon't even wanna look at this.
I didn't even wanna know whatthe, what the other ones are.
Uh, so I don't know.So what are they using?
Are they using thickerinsulation? Possibly. Okay.
Is now, if they're notusing thicker insulation
and it's the same thickness as igloo,

(09:38):
then they must be having some better
tech in that insulation.
Like, that insulation has abetter r value, which is what,
you know, the rating ofinsulation, um, then the igloo.
I suspect the answer is no.I suspect it's all marketing.
And the colors are a reallyimportant part of the marketing,
which is what wasappealing to, to you, Tara.

(09:59):
- Yes. I'm a victim. You're weak.
I'm a victim of marketing. You're
- Weak.
Well, we all, we all areweak. . No. Okay.
- I'm not weak. If I was weak, I would've,
I would've bought the Yeti cooler,
or I would've asked for itfor a gift for a holiday.
- I know you didn't. The reason
that's not really the truth here.
The truth that she didn'tbuy a Yeti cooler is
- 'cause I was afraid of you.
- Yes. That's, that's probably it.
, I'm, I'm notkidding. She knows that.

(10:19):
I would be like, oh, what?
You know, what are you doing? And yeah,
- That's a good point. Well, a
- Lot of it's a principle thing.
So we, we discussed this in,in last episode about the price
of restaurant food and justhow it's outta control.
There's plenty of people thatcan afford to spend three,
four, $500 to go out to eat all the time,

(10:39):
but they're eventually gonnasay, you know, no more.
Like, I've had enough. Soit's the same thing with this.
There are plenty of peoplethat can afford the Yeti.
Uh, uh, unfortunately.
And, you know, I'm not,
probably not telling youanything you don't know.
The people that can leastafford these things are probably
the ones that are buyingthem the most, those coolers.
So again, unless it'sspace age, insulation,

(11:02):
like it's NASA insulation
and something else unique aboutit, it's probably the same
relative insulation value as an igloo.
Which means that it probably,if you put a whole thing
of ice in it and you putyour beach food in there,
you're probably gonna have,I mean, God, that Igloo one,
we had ice in there for seven days.
- I was gonna say that. How much,
- What is the Yeti gonna do?

(11:23):
What is the Yeti gonna do?
Give me, keep the ice goingfor a month. Know ,
- I was very impressed withthe performance Yeah. Of
- The aloo.
It, it had all the icein there when we left
after the end of the vacation.
- Yeah. Yep.- So
- Impressive.
- You know, I don't know how much better
you're gonna get to that.
Then there's also like hydroflasks that used to be popular
- With kids.
That's on my list. Oh, it's on your list.
That's actually the nextone. Okay. Hydro flask.

(11:45):
And Hydro flask seems tohave been somewhat replaced
with the ginormousStanley. Tumblers. Stanley
- Got lucky.
They said it was, it was like a fire
and the how car went on fire
and the Stanley Cupwas the only thing that
- Survived.
Yeah. Something like that. Yeah.
So are those worth itcompared to the other types
of insulated water bottlesyou can get for much cheaper?

(12:06):
- Stanley has always beenan economic, like, you know,
a value brand.
Like I had the Stanley Thermos Mm-Hmm.
for, for work. Yeah.
When I would eat my foodout of it. That's right.
And that would keep itwarm for a very long time.
I had another Stanley one,
but yeah, Stanley wasnever considered high end.
But I think a lot of that has changed now.

(12:27):
So, I mean, it's a bigwindfall for the company.
- Again, I think it has a lotto do with the, the colors.
The colors, yeah.They're like these really
cool looking colors.
Some of them are more obscure than others.
You might wind up spendinglike a hundred dollars for,
which should have been $40.
But the hydro flasks also were,
were very popular, but Idon't know if they are.
I, I don't hear as much about them

(12:48):
as I am about the Stanley Cups.
I, but I did kind of bucket them together.
- I agree on that. I think they,
hydro flasks went outta styleabout five years ago. Mm.
- Really? No, maybe before.
I feel like it was just likelast year. Oh, I don't know.
- I don't, don't know what I'm wearing.
I'm wearing this colorshirt. What do I know
- Go by?
I go by what the kids want.

(13:09):
And I think it was in
20, 20 19.
God, that was four yearsago, so maybe you are right.
- Yeah. I think it's about four or five
- Years ago.
I'm like, I I'm in a time warp. Me too.
So 2019 was when Sammy was like, I need
to get a hydro flask.
All the girls in school have one. Exactly.

(13:29):
So maybe you're right.Maybe it was four years,
but I feel like it kind oflasted beyond 2019. Yeah.
- I mean, things don't gofrom like, being super popular
to nobody buying it.
There's a gradual decline.Mm-Hmm. .
And the brand tries to then
re you know, remarket reinventitself. Reinvent itself.

(13:49):
- Yeah. All right. So thenext one on our list of
what high end kitchengear is not worth it.
A KitchenAid. I'll preface this by saying,
I know we've talkedabout KitchenAid before.
We have a KitchenAid Yeah.That we use frequently.
Yeah. But if you're not abaker, you don't really,

(14:11):
you make bread or you're notreally into it, is it worth it?
It takes up a lot ofspace on your counter.
So what do you have to say?
- I don't think it's worth it,- Really.
- I do not think it's worth it.
So that might be, you know,hearsay to you. Uh, heresy.
Heresy. Um, that might besomething controversial.

(14:33):
You do not need a KitchenAid.
And I'm gonna tell you,like, unless you're
consider yourself a bread maker,
you know, I can't imagineyou're gonna be making enough
desserts to justify the thing
unless you have a dessert food block.
- What would be the breakpoint for you? A break

(14:53):
- Point? How many times per
- Year?
How many times would you haveto use it? Because for me,
I would say that it, I wouldsay for me it's worth it.
But we use it a lot.
- Okay. It's not abouthow many times per year.
It's about how much you're going to make.
So this is the thing for pizza dough.
And I'll, and I, let me tell you,
I'm not te I'm not sayinganything profound here.

(15:14):
This is what a ton ofpizza people will tell you.
People who are big pizzaenthusiasts at home,
they will often stillnot use the KitchenAid
because it's pain the butt
to clean that bowl.
Number one, by the timeyou get everything out,
you get your KitchenAidout and everything.
You could have wi mixedup your batch for two,

(15:37):
three dull balls in a second,
and your hand needed five,eight minutes hand needing,
and then you ball it and you're done.
Uh, I'm serious. So now, if you
think you're gonna bemaking a ton of pizza
and say you wanna make like16 dough balls at one time,
then you absolutely will want KitchenAid

(15:58):
because you, you know, yourarms are gonna fall off trying
to knead that much dough. Yeah.
- Well, if you're gonnabe making that much
and you have like an industrial size.
- Yeah. Uh, well, I mean, we have the mix.
We have the biggest, uh,kind of like home one mm-Hmm.
, even thoughit's called the pro model,
it's probably a six, I thinkit's a six quart bowl or 6.5.
I think, you know,KitchenAid continues to try

(16:19):
to like innovate in a home, the home part
of their business line.
So I think they have an eight quart now,
or maybe even a 10 quart bowl.
But that's tiny compared to
what these commercial places use.
I used, I worked in abakery when I was young,
and I wasn't like, I wasn't a baker.
I, but I would go back thereall the time to bring back like

(16:41):
five gallon containers of soup and stuff
and go into the walk-in
to take out other food that we needed.
And the size
of the mixers they had werethe size of this table.
Mm-Hmm. took two people to,
to lift a dough onto the counter.
But that place did, theydid so much bread making.
So yeah, if you're, if you thinkyou're gonna be doing a ton
of bread, a ton of pizza,then I would use it.

(17:03):
But if you think you, I mean,look, every pizza recipe
that I've made a video for,which is about 20 of them,
every single one has been mixed by hand.
Every one. And I did thatpurposely to show you
that you can do it, but I'm telling you,
just pra in pra practical sense,
it's kind of a pain to whip that.
Unless you have a really,you know, if you're loaded

(17:23):
and you got, you could keepyour KitchenAid on the counter
at all times, then, then,
but if, you know, if yougotta go move that thing
and it's really heavy and it'sjust, I don't know. I mean,
- I'm gonna disagree with you
because I, if I'm gonnabake at other times
during the year, I willoften use a hand mixer.

(17:44):
Right. But around Christmas,
when we're making a lot of cookies,
I will use the KitchenAid for that.
And I think if you're only gonna ,
if you're gonna use it once a year,
and if it's gonna be to makea large amount of cookies,
I could see that then it is worth it.
- I could see that. Imean, really the big,

(18:06):
the big advantage of it isthat it can develop the,
you know, gluten faster.
The, it can knead faster than anybody
can unless you're the Hulk.
Mm-Hmm. ,that's the thing. But a lot
of the baked stuff you'retalking about isn't even really
contingent on a lot of kneading
that you're just using it to mix.
Mm-Hmm. you're using the mix
function of it. Mm-Hmm. Exactly.
- Yeah. Which,- I mean,
you can have an electrichand mixer for that.

(18:27):
Um, I'm trying to think of
- Like, I'm using the,uh, when I make cookies,
I'm using the paddle attachment.
When you make bread, you'reusing the dough hook.
- I, I'll give you likean interesting example.
So when, in episode number 40
where we taste tested the St.
Joseph's stay pastry, that'sthe one that I made recently
and put up on the site.
So that is, you're making a p

(18:48):
of shoe dough in the beginning.
And if you look online,almost all recipes for St.
Joseph's Day pastrywill do it how I did it,
which is making the doughby hand in, you know,
you do it in a pan, you mix your flour in,
you just cook it for a minute.
It's really simple. But,
and I'm not, I'm not trying
to talk negatively aboutSally's baking addiction

(19:10):
because she's, her site'samazing and everything,
but she's got a recipe forcream puffs, which again,
you're using the powder shoot dough.
And she's, you know, showing people how
to make it with a mixer.
It's just, it's, it's,to me, in my opinion,
it's completely, it is not needed.
It's you're, you're gonna haveto dirty that thing when it's
so simple just to do itin the pan how I did it.

(19:32):
- Yeah. I mean, there arecertain things, like for me,
I would never use a KitchenAid to make,
or even a hand mixer to make muffins
or banana bread or anything like that.
That stuff is bare supposedto be barely mixed.
- Oh, yeah, yeah. You're not using a mixer
- For that stuff and you're just using
Yeah, no, but like, so
- It's very particularwhat you need a mixer for

(19:54):
- Whatever, it's, whatever ise like, what I need a mixer
for is when I want acream butter and sugar.
Yeah. That's when you wanna mixer. Yeah.
If or if you're making a cake.
So now, and you need it to be mixed
for a certain amount of time. So
- Admittedly now, now we'rekind of getting a little bit out
of my element here becauseshe's Tara's talking about
desserts, and I don'tmake a lot of desserts.
So that's kind of why, youknow, you might be saying, Jim,

(20:16):
you're, you're really wrong about this.
And there, there's agood chance that I am.
It's, I'm, I'm just givingyou kind of, kind of my,
my lay of the land here.
What I think you, I honestly, a lot
of times these aren'tthe same tools at all.
They're very different, buta lot of people will be faced
with decisions, should I get a KitchenAid
or should I get, um, a food processor?

(20:37):
You're better off with a food processor
because a food processorcan make your dough.
You can, you can make pizzadough in it, uh, bread dough,
but it can chop everything.
So, and that, you know,especially if you're getting older
and like you have a littlearthritic hands, that,
that could be much more useful.
Mm-Hmm. , I, I feel the
KitchenAid is kind of a luxury item.
It's, it's expensive.

(20:59):
It takes up a lot of room,which means, again, you have
to have, you gotta have space to hold it.
Yeah. And often, you know, the people
who have the most money
and have the biggest kitchenare cooking the least.
So it's like, it's kind of like,almost like a status thing.
Mm-Hmm. ,it's not used. Yeah.
I could see that. Yeah. Theyalways say, like, you go into,
you know, you go in thekitchens, there's, it's spotless.
They've never been used before. So, yeah.

(21:19):
Again, I'm trying to giveyou my perspective on it.
Every single dough recipethat I have on the site,
whether it's pizza or bread
or anything, I always try toapproach it from the person
who doesn't have enough moneyto afford any of these tools.
Mm-Hmm. . Thereare a couple recipes though
that I do have the KitchenAid in there.
Yeah. You know, what's
another one that it's really good for?

(21:40):
If you fancy yourself someonewho's gonna wanna make
homemade pasta, that's good too,
because then you get the pasta attachments
and you can add 'em on there.
But again, nobody's goingto really make a lot
of homemade pasta.
It's not a thing that's done.
And by the way, it's not a thing
that's done in Italy, Italy either.
It's romanticized.
But, uh, it's, it's, it'snot, it's just not, you know,

(22:02):
it's, it's not something,it, it's, it's, it's odd
that people have developedthis thing thinking
that homemade pastas better.
Also, it's, most of the time it's not,
it's not meant for a lot of sauces.
Mm-Hmm. . So, butagain, if you wanna do that
and you wanna make like raviolitortellini, uh, you get it,
you put your sheet attachment on there
and you can just get pastasheets really easily.

(22:24):
Yeah. All right. That's a lot.That was a lot, a lot there.
I'm sorry. But like, I did feel
a little strongly about that one. Yeah.
- Well, that's good. We agree
- To to, I mean, to disagree.
I mean, we have one. Okay.Yeah. And we do use it. Yeah.
- All right. What about, you'vespoken about this before.
What do you think about expensive
carbon steel Japanese knives?

(22:46):
- So the average rockon the Rockwell scale,
Rockwell scale measuresthe hardness of the knife.
And Japanese knives are typically a,
a lot higher than western knives.
So this says right here, thetypical Japanese knife will be,
uh, Rockwell 60 to 62.
But you know, you'll see alot of ones that'll be 63
or i, I think even 64, um,that makes them very brittle.

(23:09):
But they can get a sharper edge.
Carbon steel supposedlycan get a sharper edge
and stainless steel.
It actually, there's science behind it
of basically when you sharpen it, it's,
I don't know if the piecesthemselves, the metal
that sharpened are smaller.
It can, it, it can, Imean, metal metallurgists
and just machinists.

(23:31):
I hear it all the time. Idon't know if they're putting
science out about it or whatnot.
But, but, so you get a sharper knife
with one of these Japanese knives.
They're thinner also.
They are typically carbon steel.
So carbon steel will rust,they're high, high carbon knives.
It'll rust fairly quickly,like you put water on it,

(23:53):
you know, and you leaveit on your drain board,
which is what most people do.
Uh, it will start rustingin a couple minutes. Really?
So it's just surface rustthat you can wipe off again.
But really what you're supposed to do is,
as you're using it, you aredrying it the whole time after.
So you cut through a vegetable,you're drying it, okay,
you do meat, you're washingit, then you're drying it.

(24:15):
And then at the end of the day,
after all that process, you oil it.
Okay. You see Japanesechefs do this all the time.
If you go sit at the sushi bar, look over
what they're doing, and you'll see their,
you'll see their habits dry, you know?
Yeah. They're constantly,constantly going back
and forth for it, becausethat's theirs, the tools.
And they have all different types
of Japanese knives that they use.

(24:35):
- So it sounds like you, if you want
to invest in these knives,you should be prepared to
maintain them, becausethey do need quite a bit
of babying, it sounds like.
Yeah. So to answer the question,
are these expensive carbonsteel knives worth it?
- In my opinion, I think

(24:55):
that if somebody's areal kitchen connoisseur,
I'm gonna give, this is notreally given a good answer.
I think you should get one.
I think if you are reallygood with maintenance and,
and then you're like,oh, wow, I love this.
I'm not going back.Then you keep using it.
Now, I didn't even getinto the sharpening aspect.
It's very, very hard tosharpen an R 62 knife.
It's hard. Like you, youknow, you need wet stones.

(25:17):
And if you have wet stones,you need a diamond plate
because you gotta flatten asyou sharpen with a wet stone,
you're gonna remo, you're gonnamake a divot in the stone.
So then that stone itself needs
to be sharpened with the diamond plate.
You could also just sharpen 'emstraight on a diamond plate,
but it's so much easier justto sharpen a western knife.
That's an R 55, R 54, sharpen it in.

(25:37):
I can sharpen it in a couple minutes.
And, um, it's, it's,it's a lot more useful
for, I think for a home person.
I mean, typically, I think ahome person might not even get
into sharpening too much.
Mm-Hmm. . But I don't know.
Uh, the Japanese knivesare also very brittle.
If you drop a Japanese knife on the floor,
it can crack in half.
I've seen pictures of that.

(25:57):
You drop, um, a henkel, you know, wav,
they're not gonna crack that.
You might break the, you'll break the tip.
You know, you could, that'sfairly easy to do. All right.
One more thing. You know, I, I gave,
I don't know if it was one, Iforget which episode it was.
Nobody corrected me, but I was
referring to the back of the knife.
The bolster. That's not a bolster is
what joins the knife to the handle.
What I meant was the heel.

(26:17):
So what you'll have oftenon the one that we have,
it has the heel there,like the safety guard.
Mm-Hmm. on the heel. So
I was kept calling it bolster.
Bolster is actually wherethe knife, uh, you know, goes
through and then they put the handle on.
Then you'll have like afull one or a half one,
and you'll see like,rivets through the handle.
Okay. That's holding themetal to, to it. Okay.

(26:38):
- So I'm not up on the,uh, anatomy of a knife.
So yeah, I didn't catch it.
- Yeah, no, nobody did. But Ihad to correct myself. Anyway.
- It's good. You should dothat more often. .
All right. On to the next one.
Now, talked about the place
where we went to the Airbnb.
They had a super expensivefancy range stove.

(27:02):
- Yeah. Blue star.- Yeah.
It had like separate like adrawer for heat. I don't know.
Insane for warming. Insane.It was really incredible.
But I mean, how much arethose things gonna cost
- You that?
That's like 15. That was 15.That was a six burner, right?
Yeah.
- Um, I think, yeah.- Yes.

(27:23):
- That- Was, it was incredible.
- Yeah. So if you're,
- I felt, I felt like, uh,ah, I was like, just like,
I was like, yes, I made it.
And then, then I, uh, hadto go home with my igloo
and .
No, it was, it was, it wasfun cooking on that. It was.

(27:44):
- So is it worth it to invest?
- I think if you have the money
- In a stove or a range like that,
- You know, listen, you,you got, if you got money,
you spend, you gotta spend you money on
what gives you the most enjoyment.
So, you know, if you're, like, you could
- Say that about anything in here.
You could say that I couldget my Yeti cooler then,
- Okay, so utilityspeaking, it's not worth it,

(28:04):
then it's not, because you'renot gonna get a better look.
I cook everything on a $45portable burner, you know,
and like, you know, you can't tell the,
i I can make beef Bergenyawn on my burner,
and then you can makeBeef Bergen yawn on your
$19,000 stove top.
We're not gonna notice anydifference in it. That,
- See, I think that's areally, yeah, good point.

(28:26):
That's a good way to measureit. That's a good benchmark.
- Yeah. You're not now something,
I don't know, like what you have there.
Did you put, uh, vent rangehoods or anything in there?
- I actually do have that. That's okay.
- Uh, - You wanna talk? We'redown. It's lower on the list.
Okay. But let's jump tothat event hood. Yeah.
- I think vent hoodsare very much worth it.
And ours is horrible

(28:47):
because it's not, it'snot an industrial one.
I think you're betteroff having a regular just
ge stove and oven set up combination
or Samsung or lg, whatever,uh, Frigidaire, you know,
something that's likea thousand to $2,000.
And then I think you'rebetter off spending a thousand

(29:09):
dollars or more on your range hood,
because cooking, onions, cooking anything,
if you could pull the exhaustout, it will just, uh,
- That's a good point.
- It's, I, I, I think that'sreally worth it. I do.
And we don't have that.
We have one, ours is ventedoutside, but it's such a low,
and it goes by CFM, so, um, howmuch air the thing can move.

(29:30):
So basically the onesthat are really powerful,
they can move the air of like,
your whole entire house inlike a half an hour or an hour.
- I really wish we had one of those,
because the amount of foodthat gets cooked in this house,
I feel like I'm always,I always smell like food.
- I know wherever- I go,
- , I know.
Yeah. That is one thatI think you are, you,

(29:50):
you probably should spend evenmore money on the rangehood
than the oven, becauseagain, the ovens are,
as long as it's accurate.
If, if I'm cooking at 300degrees, it's the same thing
as you cooking at 300 degrees
with your $26,000 stove.You know, the stove
- Went from 15,000 to 19,000.
- I'm gonna be at 98, 26, I'm gonna be at
$98,000 in 10 minutes.
Oh, geez. Yeah. When I discussthis about my mother's habit,

(30:13):
it's probably the habitof so many other people.
She put a microwave over her, uh,
oven when, you know, inour, the house I grew up in,
and the person who did, you know,
it was like inexpensivekitchen and everything.
It has, like, those microwaveshave a built-in, uh, exhaust.
But those exhausts are invented.

(30:34):
So they just like,they're just recirculating
your onions back into your house again.
Like they go through the bottom of the
microwave and it goes out the top.
So that's fine. You know, likeit, you know, price, budget,
everything was reallytight when I was young.
Um, you know, my parentsdidn't have a lot of money.
I mean, I, I, I'm just being honest here.
Like, like, they werejust, you know, I, I,
I've spoken about this in the past.

(30:55):
Um, they have more moneynow, and she redid a kitchen,
and I kept telling her, I was like, mom
put a range hood there.
But because she really had tohave the microwave above her,
she committed the same, you know,
sin made the same issue again,
and she could haverectified it at that point.

(31:16):
What they typically do now with kitchens
that aren't the largest, butthey're doing a new design,
they put the microwave low.
Yeah. Put 'em like in the island.
'cause a microwave, youknow, this is, again,
this is an age thing becausepeople under 40 years old,
like, don't use a microwave.
And people over 70 use itlike 10 times a day. .
So it's like .
My parents love the microwave,

(31:37):
but, um, I, I guess a microwaveis used less by, uh, gen Z
or millennial people.
- That makes sense.- But yeah, if you have the opportunity
and you're redoing yourkitchen, get the range hood,
forget about themicrowave, you know? Yeah,
- I would agree.
- Right? Yeah.- I mean, if I could get rid
of the food smell on allmy clothes all the time,
- And the microwave is just,

(31:59):
sometimes it's like, youknow, you think it's easier.
We were like reheating,reheating soup up the other night
for like 27 minutes
because each person hadto have a bowl of soup.
And, you know, the microwaveonly heats the top,
and then it's, then youhave to like mix it. And
- I don't like the mic.
I, I, it's like a necessaryevil, but I don't like it.
I mean, yeah. I don't know.
I'd rather heat up thesoup in a pot on the stove.

(32:20):
Let's move on. Expensivecharcoal grills are
expensive. Charcoal grills worth it?
- No, no, no, no, no.
They're not, they're not.I mean, they're really not.
It's charcoal. Okay.
You could take charcoaland put it on a wire.
You could just have the, the,the wire insert of your Weber.

(32:41):
You don't even need the grill part.
And you can put coals, light'em, put 'em on sand and, and,
and, and make a gr and grill.
No, I mean, in, thereare certain advantages
to like a Komodo style grill,which is charcoal based.
Um, they have, they're very,th they're thickly insulated,
again, just kind of likea Yeti cooler, you know?

(33:02):
And what they'll do isthey can keep your coal hot
for a longer period of time,
because the problemwith charcoal is always
like, you, you know, you light it up.
Yeah. And then you're Weber,the web standard Weber grill,
which is what we have, is very thin steel,
and it will, it can't retain the heat.
So it's like you get like your30 minutes with your coal,

(33:23):
35 minutes, and then it'slike, you're not gonna be able
to see a steak after a certain point.
And then you're, thenyou're tasked with, oh,
I gotta relight coal again.
Those other ones, the Komodostyle ones, you can, uh,
you know, get a lot more, uh, time in it.
But I don't know if it's worth, you know,
they're like a thousand dollars plus.
I mean, the big ones, likethe big green egg can go up
to like, over 2000.

(33:44):
They have like five different sizes.
Um, so just, I think it depends what,
what your budget is, you know?
Yeah. What do you think?
- I let you do the grilling? Idid just have an idea though.
What, and it has nothingto do with the grill.
It has to do with thechimney starter. Oh, yeah.
And it's totally off topic.

(34:04):
So if you don't wanna, if wedon't wanna include this. Yeah.
This is just my mental note.
You should do a little how to video on how
to use a chimney starter.
- Oh, yeah. I mean, and
that's another thing youcan actually cook on top.
Like put something on top
of the chimney starter and just use that.
Um, yeah, I should, you'reright. I should. Yeah.
- Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. We don't have

(34:25):
to include that . Oh, you, you can
- Include it. Whatever.
- I do. You wanna move on?Yeah, move on. All right.
I have what next on the listmortar and pestle. Yeah.
Because you can get them for very cheap,
but I think according tosome purists, Italians Yeah.
Specifically, you need a very specific

(34:46):
type of mar mortar marble.
Right. It smooth. Itneeds to be marble that's
- Smooth.
Uh, rough marble. Yeah.
- Yeah. And these are, I was looking,
they're like $400, $500.
Yeah. Yeah. For a mortar andpestle to make pesto. Yep.
Or to make other thingsthat you wanna pound. Yeah.
Um, what do you think?
- I would say no. Mm-Hmm. .

(35:07):
I, I mean, again, if money's no object,
then you wanna have a really nice one.
It's like, kind of likea chess board, you know,
you can get little cheap pieces
or you can get marble, marblepieces of everything. But
- So do you think the pesto
that you make in a foodprocessor is gonna taste as good
as pesto made in a
super expensive propermortar and pestle? Yeah,

(35:29):
- I do.
And I know that's controversial
and there's like sites thatwill say, will show you they'll,
because there's likethree ways to make it.
You can do a food processor,you can do a super sharp knife,
a Japanese knife, and you cando, uh, a mortar and pestle.
And they say that the mortar
and pestle gives a different texture.
Mm-Hmm. versus the knives.

(35:50):
But I think the oldest wayin Italy is with a knife.
You know, the supersharp knife. Sharp knife.
But you gotta be careful, ifyour knife isn't sharp enough,
you'll bruise the leavesand they'll turn black.
- I don't know if that's true. Okay.
I we can fact check this. Yeah.
But I am going based onwhat I know of from the word

(36:10):
pesto, which is derivedfrom the Italian verb
pere, which I believemeans pound right to pound.
And it's the same rootfor the word pestle.
Yeah, that's true.
So I would think that pesto,when it was first made,
was made by pounding it. Yeah.
- No, you're probably right.I mean, I read that in, I read

(36:30):
that in an article that was showing
the difference of the types.
- We need a food historian, like on staff.
- Yeah. Well, guess what?
Maybe we, maybe we'll behiring a food historian soon.
Send your resume .
No, I mean, look, look it,it, does it make a difference?
I mean, you got $500 there.
I would, I would save for yourrange hood with that money.
Yeah. That's what I would do.

(36:52):
- Good point. The next one.
I already know youranswer to this. Oh, okay.
But I have to ask this questionfor our, for our listeners.
Jim is a fancy
pizza stone. Mm-Hmm. Worth it.
- So fancy Tyra knows my answer. Yeah.
A fancy pizza stone is not worth it.
You're better off having asteal, uh, a pizza steal.

(37:13):
You can buy ones that arealready seasoned and ready to go.
Or you can watch the video
that I showed you how to season it.
And those pizza steels that I, these,
these are going on years now.
I have two of 'em. Theyare perfect. Perfect.
You know, they get a littlecheese when you, uh, you know,
when your cow's own opens upor whatnot, but, or, you know,
or your pizza overflows,but you just scrape it off.

(37:35):
It's, it's so simple.
And, you know, God forbid ifyou have to re season it again,
it's, it's not that hard to do.
Stones, pizza stones can break.
And there are dozens of, notdozens, there are thousands
of complaints online aboutpeople doing exactly that.
Breaking their stone. Whetherit's breaking it when they
dropped it before getting it to the oven,

(37:57):
or the change in temperature.
I think if you blast the heattoo high, it can break it.
Maybe if you have a gas oven,
the gas from the bottom, I don't know.
'cause I don't have one.I have a, I have a steel,
and a steel can get hotter than,
a steel can get hotter than your oven.
Okay. So your oven itself, if it's five 50

(38:20):
and you heat up that steel foran hour, that steel can get
to six 50.
How is that possible?
How can you get something hotter than the
temperature of the oven tower?
- I don't know. Maybewe need to call up Mr.
Wizard and ask him. Yeah.
- I don't even understand it either.
Like, it's some, like something about thermodynamics,
but Yeah, no, you take,you take a heat gun,
put it on there, and thatsurface temp is like 6 20, 6 30.

(38:44):
It's, uh, it's impressive.
And that will make yourpizza done perfectly.
Done in six minutes, six,seven minutes. Mm-Hmm.
- . Andyou don't need a fancy
oven to make that in either.
Nope. Because when you, well,we still have that oven.
When you first made it, whenyou first filmed that video,
I think the title ofthe video is How to Make
New York Pizza in a Crappy Home Oven.

(39:06):
- I did, that's how I titled it.
I think I changed itsince then. I'm not sure.
Still have the same oven though. You know,
- It's actually not a bad oven.
I like that. I know it's a crappy oven.
- Okay, let me tell you something.
- But it actually does a good job.
- Let me tell you something.Yeah. That oven is better than
the other, the newer oven.
Yeah. We have the newer ovenis a Frigidaire. It stinks.
Okay. Yeah. It's justthis nice way of saying
that it's garbage because that's

(39:27):
- In the filming kitchen. It's,
- It, that oven is so annoying.
It makes the fan comes onnonstop when I'm trying to film.
So often, you know, youmight even see in videos,
you're like, you'll see mewalking food in from the other,
from the wrong direction.
Like when I do a braise or whatnot.
Like I, people have commented,they're like, we like, like
what your, where you, your oven's in the,

(39:49):
in the living room, you know?
But that other oven that'snext to me, it's too loud.
And another thing is it takes20 minutes for that thing
to get up to 400 degreesversus the GE one takes
like five minutes.
- Yeah. And well, I do like
why I think that the oven is good.
The stove top is not good.
And that's 'cause it's electric. That's,
- That's it.
Both, both of them are electric.

(40:09):
That's all I have to say about that.
And they're, they're not good.
- Yeah. All right. Let's move on.
I wanna stay in the same topic.
'cause we're talking aboutpizza, outdoor pizza ovens.
- Okay. So outdoor pizza ovens, we have,
uh, pavers in our backyard.
We had a company do it.
The guy, uh, because Iasked him, I was like, well,
what do you think aboutthese outdoor pizza ovens?
He's like, they're reallyexpensive and nobody uses 'em.

(40:30):
He goes, I put 'em in for people.
And then they're, you know, they,
they use it like once in like two years.
I think I would use it if I had it,
but they're awfully expensive.
Now. Those are like the built-in ones.
If we're talking about the portable ones,
even the portable ones fromItaly can be five, six, $10,000.
Mm-Hmm. . Thenthere are the much less

(40:53):
expensive, very portableones from like uni
and Rocka box.
And I think Cuisinart makes one now.
And basically all the appliance
manufacturers are getting into 'em.
And those are hooked upprimarily to a propane tank.
And those can get pizza.
You know, you could up to eight
or 900 degrees, which willallow you to do the wood-fired,

(41:15):
uh, type of pizza though.
You're doing it withgas. And, uh, honestly,
I think if you really, if youhave any interest in going for
the permanent setup
or one of those really expensiveItalian ones, I would go
with an uni first.
You might be like, I don't like this.
I don't ever wanna doit. You're only out $500
and you could probably sell it for,

(41:37):
and make recoup the majority
of your money on Facebook marketplace,
because everybody likes going,
standing in a parking lotwaiting for someone to, uh,
buy an uni pizzeria from you Right on
from Facebook marketplace. You know,
- I've actually never sold anything
through the Facebook marketplace.
- I used to sell through Craigslist,
and I never met anybody,anybody who gave me a problem.

(41:58):
But I honestly, it's sucha, it's like I, I only,
I feel like it's onlyworth en engaging in those
transactions if it's enough money.
Mm-Hmm. , youknow, anybody who's like you,
if you try to sell something for like $15
and they, they're like, yeah, I'm in.
I'm an hour and a halfaway. I'll be there soon.
Like, yeah, this guy's driving an hour
and a half to buy a $15 item.

(42:19):
Like he's spending more money on gas.
Like, it's like you just knowsomething's off, something's
- Not right. Yeah.
- But I think the uniprobably could sell that way.
Well, you could just probably sell it
to your neighbor if you don't like it.
Yeah. Or give it to your neighbor.
- This is the last one I have on the list.
Vitamix Splendors.
- Oh, Vitamix blenders.
Um, so we don't have one,

(42:41):
so I really can't tell youfrom personal experience
everything I've read about them.
People say that they'recompletely worth it.
But again, I think it comesdown to are you gonna use it?
- I've heard from people whohave it and they love it,
and they do say it's worth it.
Yeah. But they, it seemslike those people use
it multiple times a week.

(43:03):
I think if you're just like,want a Vitamix splendor
to make margaritas once ina while, I would say no.
But if you're gonna makelike a smoothie every single
day, do it.
- Yeah. I remember when Iused to go to, uh, the gym,
they had a bunch of those
and they would make thebest shakes from them.
- Yeah. I remember that. Itwas a, a peanut butter peel.
Oh, was love that, that thing was so good.

(43:25):
- That was from B B'sremember? b's I think.
I don't think that gym'saround anymore now.
- They, they were boughtby Crunch Fitness. Okay.
Yeah. But they made the best
- Good.
The banana peel one, and then the
strawberry one was good too.
Yeah. It's so funny. Youwould get this shake.
You, the guy would put inlike, like 3000 calories
of strawberry preservesin there and like a banana
and some protein powder.
And you, you know, you drink one of

(43:45):
those, you're like, I'm doing great.
.
- Yeah. Uh, maybe
that's why I wasn't losingany weight when I was gonna
- The gym. Yeah. It was so good though.
- A peanut butter peel all the time. All right.
So we talked about whether ornot these things are worth it.
What are, what if peopledo wanna get them?
Do you have any solutions,like solutions I guess,

(44:08):
or tips for maybe saving money on buying
some of these more expensive items?
- Yeah, I think you definitely,
I I would avoid the reallyexpensive ovens and stove tops
unless like, you know,
if you have a really expensive kitchen,
if you have like ahundred thousand dollars
kitchen, it looks weird.

(44:28):
If you put in like a ge
- A GE Spectra.
- Sorry. It does, it'sthat, that's, that's kind
of the thing where theyget you, like you have
the super high-End kitchen.
You can't really putone of those in there.
But I, I mean, you could.
So I would really just, again,I would get the Range Hood
and which, which we don't have.

(44:50):
And I desperately in needed one of those.
- So you can't find a range hood
or like some of these moreexpensive items at like a Home
Goods or a Home Sense,
or Marshalls, like any of those stores.
But what I will say is thosestores, if you want like
a more expensive pan, likemaybe you want a que uh,

(45:11):
all clad, all clad, it's all clad.
That's more like more high end.
If you want something like that, go look
and see if you can find something at,
at Home Goods or Home Sense.
Yeah. And then if youdid want a KitchenAid,
or if you did want aVitamix, a lot of times,
especially when it getsclose to Christmas,
Costco will have like $150off one of those items.

(45:33):
- Yeah. They will. Um,
Costco doesn't normally have Vitamixes,
right? Mm-Hmm. It's always like,
- No, they do.
- Oh, they do. Okay.- They do, they have that,
they have the Ninja, theNinja's, the one that we have.
I'm not a huge fan of theNinja. Yeah. To be honest. Yeah.
Um, I used to like it more.I, I just, I don't know.
I don't like the blade either. The
- Blade. It's hard to clean. Yeah.

(45:53):
- I've cut myself on it. Yeah.
Like, I just, that's my own fault,
but I'm just not a fan. Yeah.
- That, that is a hard blade to clean.
I don't use a blender that much.
Um, but yeah, I do lovethe idea of Home Goods.
Home Goods is I've, we gota really nice all clad, um,
kinda like roasting pan that Mm-Hmm.
that you'll,you'll see in some of the videos

(46:15):
really, really nice.
Uh, that would've been expensive from
all re all clads regular, like online
or Macy's or wherever it's sold.
Um, I've gotten othergood stuff there too.
They have occasionally HomeGoods will have like crusade,
but they're not that marked down, I find.

(46:36):
Right. Yeah. They, those arestill relatively high. Mm-Hmm.
Home Goodsactually has All Clay has like a
cheaper line that is just for home goods.
The hard anodized pans. We have one. Okay.
That Pan works great.
I, I really do like it,
even though I guess it'stechnically non-stick.
Uh, we, we find a lot ofstuff in there though.
Sometimes you'll, you'll just,
you just gotta like, you gotta get lucky.

(46:57):
- That's true. It is alot about luck. Yeah.
Like when I found thatAll-Clad roasting pan,
that was like my lucky day.
Yeah. It was not the norm. Yeah.
- That one's good. The one I saw recently,
I was gonna buy it, but, butI didn't, it was a kind of a,
a shallow lake crusadepan, uh, that was enamored.
That was probably afour quart, maybe a 3.5.

(47:19):
And that would be nice for like doing like
chicken and rice or something.
Mm-Hmm. .So may maybe next time.
- Okay. Well, Jim,anything else you wanna,
any other items youwanna talk about whether
it's worth it or not?
No, because that was my list. I
- Know.
I think we're good. I reallywanna get to this taste test.
- I figured you did. I can hearyour stomach growling. Yes.
- Okay. So let's bring 'em in.

(47:44):
All right. Yes. I am excited. I am.
Now give a little, well,
let's give a littlebackstory on these, right?
Like, I mean, just talk,
do you wanna talk about what we're having?
There's the flavors. Yeah.
- Okay. So this is not thefirst time I've had Quadri Tini
or this brand of Quadri tini.
To be specific. I used to buy the

(48:06):
dark chocolate flavor allthe time when I worked in the
World Financial Center, whichis now Brookfield Place,
the store, I, I wouldcall it the school store,
but it's the, the store thatwas in the building, they used
to sell that size bag.
And I would buy them.And my friend Anthony
and I, we would, wewould share them

(48:27):
and I would eat them all the time.
I love them. So I am biased.
I've already tried these. Iknow that they're really good.
- Yeah. So Tara's right?
I mean, I didn't know
that there were a lot ofother brands at these.
These are the, this is thebrand, L-O-A-C-K-E-R, Loker
that I always think ofwhen I think of Quadri.
Tini, there are so many flavors Today.

(48:47):
We have dark chocolate, we have vanilla,
we have hazel, hazelnut, and lemon.
I mean, I feel like I've had a lot
of other flavors too, right?
Strawberry, yes. Raspberry.
- So I got the ones thatthey had at Uncle Giuseppe's.
I have had like a raspberry and cream one.
I've had strawberry. In fact,they have a matcha flavor,

(49:09):
but I can never find them in the store.
Um, they have a Tyra Masu flavor.
They have a coffee flavor, they have many.
But I figured these werea good starting point.
And again, it was reallywhat was available
to me at the time yesterday. Alright,
- Well, let's, let's go for it.
I mean, I wanna describe these Yeah.
To, to our listeners, youknow, not, you know, the people
who are watching theYouTube, they can see 'em.

(49:30):
But to the listeners, these are a wafer.
So, um, right now I have thechocolate one in my hand,
and it's like probably about five, right?
You'd say about five ppieces of the wafer. Right.
It looks like stackedon top of each other. Y
- Yes.
And then four layers ofthe cream. Yeah. So it's in
- Between, it's- Cross

(49:50):
- Hashed wafer that thenhas chocolate in between.
The whole entire thingis the, it's a square
that's about an inchby one inch by probably
three quarter inch high, maybefive eighths of an inch high.
Mm-Hmm. .So be 26 millimeters
by 26 millimeters by about18 millimeters high. It's a,

(50:12):
- It's a bite size. Yeah.
- Very much a bite size. You would not
- Bite this in half,you would just pop it in
- All.
So I'm gonna do chocolate first.
- All right. That's what I'm gonna do too.
- Cheers.- Cheers. Mm.
- Gotta clean your palate.
- I know. This is myfavorite, my favorite flavor.

(50:34):
- Oh, it is.- Yeah,
because I've had themall through the years.
I've had them all. And the dark
chocolate is one. I keep going back to
- Do the next one.
Vanilla.
- Hmm.- Hmm. Wow.

(50:56):
All right. Well, I,
- That's- Good too.
I think that's, I think that'sbetter than the chocolate.
If you've never had these before
and you're wonderinglike, what, what they are.
They are just so good that, that you, you,
these could be dangerous.
Like you could just Mm-Hmm.
I've had so many times
and Tara's been buyingthese since probably

(51:16):
before Sammy was born,you know, and she's 15.
And I would always just, they would be in
the qua, like the closet.
And I just couldn't stop.
I was just like, start, I wasjust like shoing into all my
mouth before she got downstairs.
All right. Let's try the next one.
- All right, the next one's Hazelnut.
- Hazelnut.- Mm

(51:36):
- Mm- That's really good.
- That's really good. Yep. That might
- Be, I'm a big fan of theNutella Be Ready bars. Yeah.
- That tastes very- Similar. Those are so good.
This, of course, it's the hazelnut.
Um, that's making me think of that.
But I think it's even betterthan the Be Ready Bars.

(51:57):
- I'm not as big of a fan ofthe Be Ready Bars as you are,
but we will, we'll, if youwant us to do that one,
we'll do a taste test with
that one too. And maybe something else
- We couldn't taste testa few Nutella products
because I, they have thesticks, they have the biscuits
and they have the Be Ready bars
and I have my favorite of those and all.
Uh, but I'll save that for another day.
- We should, do we? Yeah.Maybe we should do all
those, the Nutella products

(52:17):
- In one day you might wanna like, like
do a pallet cleanser.
'cause this is lemon. I did,
- I already- Did.
Okay. I gotta cleanse. Igotta cleanse my palate. Okay.
Hmm. I feel like,
like Jordan Peele, whenhe did the Continental,
- Oh God, I love that. He
- Is like, Hmm.

(52:38):
- Let me, let me tell youthat lemon's real good.
- This is so hard becausethey're all excellent.
- I'm gonna just gonna, I'mgonna rank mine from what?
From best to worst. Mm-Hmm. .
This is, this is gonna goagainst what you're saying.
I'm gonna go with lemonas my number one. I
- Think that's Sammy's number one. Yeah.

(52:59):
- I'm gonna go withhazelnut as my number two.
And then the chocolateand vanilla are the same.
That being said, they areall excellent. Mm-Hmm.
What, what say you? Well,
- My number one is the dark chocolate.
That's the one we tasted.
They do have a regular chocolateone, which we didn't try.
We can try it on another one.

(53:20):
So dark chocolate's number one for me.
Number two and numberthree I think are tied.
And that's the lemonand the hazelnut. Okay.
And the vanilla is my least favorite.
- I thought the vanilla wasreally good too. The vanilla,
- Um, they're old.
I'm not gonna kick any of them out.
The vanilla one was really good.
It was just out of these four.
It was the lowest on my list. So let

(53:41):
- Me ask you a question.
These remind me of, do you remember these?
Remember the long mm-Hmm.Stick wafers. Mm-Hmm.
Now those are an am.Those were like a Mm-Hmm.
American United Statesproduct, right? Mm-Hmm.
. What, what arethose that I'm thinking of?
- They, I, I can't remember
what they were called,but they were just wafers.
I re I remember. Okay. And theywere like bright like pink.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Those were good.
- Yeah. So these arelike a much smaller bite

(54:04):
and more dense bite than those were.
Those were a lot lighter.These are denser.
- Yeah.- Well, there you have it.
They're d they're delicious. Today's,
that's today's test tastetest will link the one,
all the ones that we, uh, tried.
Well, we did, we did a tastetest last week as well.
This, these destroy that other,the other one that we had,

(54:24):
what was the other thing we had?
- It was, um, supposed to be like a corno.
Yeah, like a chocolate filled croissant.
- That was a big letdown.
This this is a big, Imean, these are solid.
I knew these were gonna begood though, you know. Yeah.
What would you give? Yougotta give a rating. Like, I,
- I'm not gonna assign a rating to these.
I mean, they're all, they're all,
they're all a 10. They're all,
- They're all a 10.
They're, they're all amazing. Yeah. Okay.
- They're, they're- Great. Let's go to questions. Alright,

(54:47):
- Jim, this question comes from George.
So I have a question for you guys.
Some of the best prep
or make ahead dinnersfor those busy weeknights
doesn't have to be Italian,
- Make a head, George would be any soup.
I mean, soups are better the next day.
So that's something that you just have

(55:07):
to just plan it in advance.
Dishes that can truly be made in 30
minutes, it's always tough.
We did a whole episode on that,about 30 minute, like real,
the reality of 30 minute meals
and you really have to havea little bit of prep already.
That already took place. Iknow you want more, right?
- I'm grabbing another darkchocolate quadrat.

(55:32):
- But George, I mean, one
of the best ones is just,and you can do this quick.
You really can. It's a15 minute quick marinara.
So that one, just get your water boiling.
Get the pasta in, then youknow, do, do a quick slice
of the garlic mince, whatever.
Get in the pan with olive oil.
Nice can of palm tomatoesor crushed tomatoes.
Pasta goes in finish with basil.

(55:53):
That is a really quickdinner and it's delicious.
Um, Tara, do you haveany to add, add to this?
That can really be quick. I,I like the soup idea the most.
- I mean, he didn't say quick. Okay.
He said some of the best prep
or makea ahead dinners for busy
weeknights, I guess busy week nights.
- Busy week nights implies to me,
- Implies quick.
I mean, I know we talkabout them all the time,
but frittata Yeah.

(56:15):
Like, I know it's a breakfasty thing,
but you're putting a whole bunch of
like dinner type stuff in it.
Yeah. And that's one of myfavorite things to make.
It's easy, especiallyif you're using potatoes
that you already have left over Yeah.
From like another dinner that you had.
It's, it's pretty much ready to go. Yeah.

(56:38):
You just have to like throwthe eggs and the, and a saute
and onion and add the potatoes and Yeah.
- I mean, George, youknow what it is like,
and I, I've, I've said this a a lot.
It's just most recipes that tell you
that they're 30 minutes,they're doing that
because they think that
and not, they don't justthink they know that a lot
of people won't, won't do a recipe

(56:59):
or attempt to make a recipethat says it's 55 minutes.
We really try to beaccurate with our timings
and there just aren't toomany recipes on our website
that has, you know, over 400 of them.
There's just not too many of them
that are truly 30 minute meals.
Mm-Hmm. when I often,
I'll stretch it when I say 30,
it's maybe it's a 35, maybe it's a 40.
So, but, but I don't knowif that's what, you know,

(57:21):
you said busy weeknights.
You didn't say the time. Well,
- Best prep or make ahead dinners.
So like you said, soups,chilies, those are all good
to make ahead of time and
- They taste better the next day.
- They taste better,better far the next day.
They actually should beconsumed the next day instead
of eating it the same day.
I actually think one of likea really, really good solution
for having something in your fridge to,

(57:43):
to eat on a busy weeknight is to just,
if you're gonna makesomething on the weekend
that's a little bit moreelaborate, like a Sunday sauce type
of meal, just make enoughso that you can plan
to have leftovers and then
use the leftovers. Yeah. For during the
- Week.
Make a big pot. Andthat's, that's typical.
A lot of people do exactlythat. Mm-Hmm, .

(58:04):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good idea.
- Just back to that, as faras like prepping goes, if you,
you can always use chicken cutlets in
some way, shape, or form.
So let's say it's like a Saturday
and you're like, you knowwhat, I'm just gonna make like
eight pounds of chicken cutlets.
Yeah. And I'm gonna usethem during the week.
Then you can eat them

(58:25):
- Sandwiches.
- Yeah. You can eat them on a sandwich.
You can chop them up and putthem in like a Caesar salad.
Yeah. You can make chicken parm
with them one night during the week.
Like there's so much youcan do with chicken cutlets.
So I feel like that's a really good
- That's, that is, that's a great
- Type of thing to do. That's a
- Great idea.
- Same with grill. Like if youdon't wanna make cutlets like

(58:46):
breading and frying shallow frying them,
you can do grilled chicken cutlets
and do same, same thing.
Yeah. I mean they're not
gonna be as good with like a chicken.
Like I wouldn't make usea grilled chicken cutlet
for chicken par, but like it'sgood with like broccoli rob
or you know, cherrypeppers and mozzarella and
- Yeah.
You, that's, I think Taragot the best, the best.

(59:08):
She has the best one. Uh,chicken cutlets definitely.
- Next question Jim. This comesfrom Elizabeth and family.
We got a full eight inch wheel
of Swiss cheese as a Christmas gift.
Do you have a good recipeto highlight the cheese
and may help us use a goodportion of it before it goes bad?
- How big the wheel did they get?

(59:30):
- She said eight inch.- Oh, eight inch.
That doesn't sound toobig. What type of cheese?
- Swiss.- Oh Swiss eight inch Swiss. Oh, okay.
- Yes. So she said, uh, the,the second part of that says,
I know it must have cost him a great deal.
So she's hoping to invitehim over for dinner
and share in a dinnerthat focused on his gift.
So she's really looking forsomething that will highlight

(59:52):
- Swiss,- The
- Swiss chicken cord on blue.
Um, you can use Swiss for French onion.
You can use Swiss for even uh,
the Italian dish called chicken valana.
- That's usually fontina font,
- Right?
Yeah. Fontina Swiss can besubstituted for fontina. Yeah.
Those are all good.
I uh, I mean God wespoke about like things

(01:00:14):
that were not popular anymore,but Swiss is good for fondue.
- That's right.- You know, it is. Yeah.
I think those are all kind of good
- Ideas.
That's like the main, isn'tthat the main cheese that's used
for fondue is Swiss?
Yeah. What about um, a Mac and cheese?
- Yeah, mac and cheese.Good. That's a good one too.
- But you wouldn't, youwouldn't just be Swiss,

(01:00:35):
you'd add other cheeses in there.
- Yeah. I mean I know the type
of blo thing you're talking about.
It's probably similar size.
You know, like how you get abig chunk of the yas in Costco.
Yeah. So it's probably camefrom like a, a wheel like that.
'cause they cut you likethe big chunk. Mm-Hmm.
. She probablyhas eight of those,
you know, because it's eight.
She probably has like aneight pound or a 10 pound.

(01:00:55):
But it could be a lot larger
than that. Yeah. I'm not sure the,
- The exact size.
I don't know. I mean,she's saying it cost, it
must have cost him a great deal.
- You can wrap reallytightly and in plastic
and it will last for a verylong time in your fridge.
It, you know, I know I'mnot technically supposed
to say this, but if you geta little surface mold on it,
you can take it off andit'll still be all right.
- The other thing I, Iwould say if you wanna

(01:01:18):
serve this ahead of themeal that you're gonna make,
do a charcuterie board.
Yeah. And, and eat the cheesejust Yeah. In its own state.
Like maybe pair itwith, I don't know, some
what does Swiss cheesego really well with?
Like be beer. Would beer bea good compliment? Swiss.

(01:01:38):
- Yeah, Swiss. I mean it goesgood with mushrooms, you know,
like how you do like aSwiss and mushroom burger.
Yeah. You know. Ooh. ButI think Swiss sounds free.
I think Swiss can freezepretty, pretty well.
So you can also just divvyit up and then freeze it.
I think that would be good.So it's final question.
Thank you Elizabeth and family
and leave your comments, questions

(01:01:59):
to [e-mail].
You can also send me themin Instagram through, uh, DM
or through a video DM if you like.
Let us know what you thinkof these taste tests. Okay.
This is the second one. If you like 'em,
if you love them, we're gonna do 'em.
We're gonna do more of 'embecause I like 'em. I do.
I get a little snack too when we're
uh, you know, it's rough.

(01:02:20):
It's rough out here. Yeah. You
- Know, it is.
I it's rough for me. I have to listen
to your stomach growling the whole hour
that we're here recording. Yeah.
- It stopped it.- If you have suggestions
of things you want us totry and taste tests. Yeah.
- These are two sweet ones.Know two sweet ones we've done.
But it can be spicy.
Like we could do peppers, we can do,

(01:02:41):
we could do, we could docrackers. I mean we're
- Gonna try, we'll do anything.
We have a few Italiansodas that we're gonna try.
Ooh, that sound good Next time.
So that's not gonna helpyou with your like, desire
for snacking, but it shouldbe, it should still be fun.
But yeah, I mean we're open totrying anything really. Yeah.
- The olive extra virginolive oil taste test.

(01:03:02):
Probably by the time you hear this,
it will probably be up on Patreon.
If you're not subscribed to the Patreon,
you should consider subscribing.
You get about one or twoextra podcasts per month.
And I also throw on some cooking videos.
So that olive oil taste testwas filmed how long ago, Tara?
- Like last summer. Last
- Summer.
And we never got to putting it on YouTube.

(01:03:23):
Actually, we weren't sure about it.
- It was before the, the kidswere still in school. Yeah,
- It was a long time- Ago.
So it was before the summer. So it's
- On Patreon now and I'mhappy to put it out there.
So if you're not subscribedthere, take a look.
We do appreciate all of the support.
We'll see you next time.