The Tamis

Boom (explosive) Everybody in the house say What's The Matter With Me? Podcast! Doesn't really roll exactly? In "The Tamis," we've started down a road and we aren't looking back behind us. The episode finds us rolling the chair around Berkeley, thinking molecular gastronomy and cooking while disabled. Shoutouts To The Sandman, Etan Rechra, Tall John and Rocky Cal Performances Scene Ladysmith Black Mambazo creeped out my wife The "Walker" fiasco Are Marshmallows Molecular Gastronomy? Turns out, they're like foam Burning Up I burnt my elbow on the BBQ again. I stumbled and my arm touched the lid. A Paucity Of Heat And Warm Water Our furnace broke. Netflix Is Middlebrow We signed up for Netflix. We're watching "Killing Eve" and "Shameless" and it's garbage. Kitchen tools I own but can't use anymore The Tamis Making Rice Crispie treats isn't the best for one hand either. Parting Shots If you get one cherry in your Manhattan, it's a reminder that you should love someone but if you get two it's a message that you are loved Peter Coyote, the life actor and San Francisco Digger was a big part of the inspiration for It Can Change, a guerilla art troupe that I was involved with in college. 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:45 - Shoutouts 00:01:43 - Ladysmith Black Mambazo at Cal Performances 00:04:54 - Ticket Subscriptions 00:09:03 - Berkeley Scene 00:10:12 - Walker Fiasco 00:13:14 - Are Marshmallows Molecular Gastronomy 00:14:27 - Elbow Burn 00:16:20 - Broken Furnace 00:17:15 - Netflix Is Middlebrow Entertainment 00:20:14 - Killing Eve Review 00:20:54 - Shameless Review 00:22:43 - HBO Is More Highbrow 00:23:18 - The Tamis 00:24:37 - E. Dehillerin Cookware 00:26:35 - One Hand Rice Crispie Treats 00:27:32 - The Meaning Of Cherries 00:29:05 - It Can Change 00:30:50 - Outro

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Yo, check, check, check. Yeah, that there we
go. Turn me up in my headphones.
Good. It's What's the Matter with Me podcast.
I'm the podcaster
of disaster.
You're listening
to the What's the Matter With podcast. Thanks
and praise for tuning in. My name is

(00:24):
John. I'm 44
years old, husband,
father,
small business owner, radio
DJ, podcaster,
and I have multiple sclerosis
and trigeminal
neuralgia.
So it started
this podcast to share where I'm going. Things
are all good. They're all good today.

(00:51):
I've been hot sauce.
It's the best hot sauce. I've been hot
sauce.

(01:16):
I got shout outs to give. Thank you
for tuning in. Shout outs to the listeners.
If you wanna get a shout out,
I'll tell you about that later. But first,
shout outs to The Sandman.
Big shout outs to The Sandman. We're always
listening to The Sandman when he's on the

(01:38):
air. So shout outs shout outs to Eaton
Recra
as usual
and Rocky. Come on always, Rocky. Shout outs
to Rocky and Tall John.
So we're back. We're better
than before
or ever or since. If you want a
shout out, I'll give you one so easily.

(02:01):
Just give me an email, [e-mail],
j o h n at h o p
p I n w o r l d
dot com. Shout out incoming.
I like that.
We went to see
Lady Smith
Black Mambazo
at Cal Performances

(02:22):
in Zellerbach
Hall in Berkeley.
We parked, I think,
where'd we we found some parking
on
University of the Year on Bancroft
or something.
The cool thing about Berkeley
Lee is there's handicap parking around, blue parking
spaces. So we parked somewhere on Bancroft

(02:43):
and rolled up there. I was in my
chair. It's cold,
but I remembered
my jacket this time. One time I didn't
remember
my jacket, and I had to be rolling
around Berkeley,
with
Nami's
jacket,
her extra jacket that she wasn't wearing because
she was wearing her heavy jacket because it

(03:05):
was cold. And she grabbed this one thinking
it was my jacket, copied me, and bought
a jacket the same color.
So when I asked her to grab my
jacket,
grabbed her jacket because it looks just like
mine, and then I had to roll around
Berkeley with her jacket tied around my neck

(03:25):
like it was a scarf, and it was
cold.
So I was wearing, like, a collared shirt.
I dressed nights at Cal Performances.
Anyway,
we parked on Bancroft.
I had my peacoat.
Everything was fine. We ate at the Izakaya
first
on Shattuck. They have good sashimi,

(03:46):
but it's also like, we were just like,
next time we're gonna try something new.
Yeah. You're on a date. Go somewhere new.
I'd like I oh. It reminded
me of this Austrian
restaurant
that's across the street from the Brooklyn
Academy of Music.

(04:07):
The main theater across the street there is
this Austrian
restaurant,
and I always like to
subscribe
to things in packages.
So I did the same at Cal Performances,
and that's why I went there over and
over. And bam, when I was in Brooklyn,
I had subscription

(04:28):
to their shows where you buy like four
tickets or five tickets or something. And I
would buy
two tickets to five five different shows,
and I would invite people come with me.
And it's some weird shows. I started getting
on mailing lists.
We saw

(04:49):
a guy stabbing himself in the penis
from Ukraine. Ukrainian
experimental
theater actually. And when,
a cow,
a singing alcoholic
space pig.
We saw a lot of stuff in Brooklyn.
If you wanna see experimental
theater, New York City is a okay spot.

(05:12):
And so here, I knew that
Cal, Cal has visiting artists. So they have
a thing called Cal Performances
and you can do the same thing.
Get subscribed to,
four
show
package. So, I got that and Zakir Hussain,

(05:33):
they have kind of interesting,
it's totally Berkeley.
So they have like world music, like Peter
Gabriel
style world music. Like for example,
I bought
tickets.
My four shows I bought were Antonio
Sanchez,

(05:55):
the the guy who made the he's a
drummer and he composed the soundtrack
to Birdman.
And we also saw we saw Samara Joy.
She won the,
Grammy for jazz vocal a couple of years
ago, and I was like, I wanna check
her out. She's a very

(06:15):
talented
singer,
and at the beginning of her career.
So, it's cool
to see
where that's gonna go. I'll be checking that
out. Samara Joy, I recommend that. She if
you like jazz, she rec she like did,
vocals

(06:35):
vocals and mentioned, you know, Billie Holiday, Betty
Carter,
classic
jazz singers that
where she or she's like starting out. So
we'll see where she goes. And then we
it's here Hussain
and the masters of percussion.
I thought it was cool that at Berkeley

(06:57):
I could buy
percussion.
We could go to a percussion
concert.
Just people playing drums. So we saw Antonio
Sanchez
and he played along
behind the movie,
Birdman.
So it was like a movie screening with
a live soundtrack
and it was cool. It was seeing a

(07:19):
drummer. That was cool. The other drummer I
bought is I bought tickets to Zakir Hussain
and the Masters of Percussion
tour
and Zakir Hussain
died sadly. Rest in peace, because he has
all these like,
free he,
seventies,
eighties,
ECM,

(07:40):
European
Jazz
records. So I was like, okay, I wanna
check out Zakir Hussain and see what he's
up to, but he passed away. So we
saw, it's a Mary Joy, we saw Tony
Antonio
Sanchez,
and Zakir Hussain.
Unfortunately,
there was no show, and

(08:01):
then our final ticket was Lady Smith Black
Mambazo.
That
the the guy who founded
this ensemble,
it would that consists of all of his
male children. He's from a town in South
Africa called Ladysmith.
Ladysmith,

(08:22):
Black Mambazo,
and they sing they sing on Graceland.
They're the African choir that sings on that
Paul Simon
record. So I'm like deep in the heart
of Berkeley.
There's a lot of Berkeley Lee people there
and it kinda

(08:42):
it was like a little bit I knew
it was gonna be
interesting
to get into
seeing Lady Smith Black Mambazo because it like
for example, when we were sitting down
to Ladysmith
Black Mambazo,
the music
in the audience

(09:03):
was Peter Gabriel.
So it's like we're we're here at this
very of a time,
performance
and we're we're evoking
a kind of eighties,
like, the their performance at Ladysmith Black Mombazo,
they mentioned Nelson Mandela

(09:23):
and, you know, so it's like Peter Gabriel
eighties live
South Africa. Remember there is famine in Ethiopia.
I'm surprised we didn't discuss famine
in Ethiopia because it was really like an
eighties
Berkeley
scene.
And
the the troop is all this this guy

(09:45):
who's passed away now, all of his children,
of of male children, and there's, like, 11
of them. Lady Smith is where they're from.
It was
a scene. And then I had my wheelchair.
Right? So when the show was over,
so many people with walkers
needed the elevator. And that was fine, but

(10:07):
I was like, oh my gosh. Like, this
is a scene of a moment of forty
years
ago. Pete these Berkeley
Gray Haired people were like, Ladysmith
Black Bombazo.
They're all like reliving
their past. The Berkeley,
Nelson Mandela,

(10:27):
you know, defeat of apartheid
past.
It's like Berkeley's
finest moment. Felt there were some kind of
like progressive
Berkeley,
I think,
thing in the air.
Anyway, there were so many old folks. And
then, when we left, there was like a
whole fiasco with the elevator. There was a

(10:49):
lone elevator,
and there was a lot of people with
mobility
issues, which is fine. I I that's fine.
I'll wait. I had no problem. But there
was, like, a a kind of
fiasco, the walker
fiasco. So this lady
got up from her seat, I guess, and

(11:11):
got in the elevator
and forgot her walker.
So she got down one floor and then
she, like, stopped the elevator. She stood in
the doorway being, like, I left my walker
up there. And she kept yelling it to
people,
like, because
I understand,

(11:31):
like, she was in a hard spot. I
wasn't mad at this lady. It was fine.
But people
there were other and, like, I was sitting
in my wheelchair. I was the only one.
Maybe there was one other person there with
the chair. I was like, I'm sitting here.
It's fine. And then all these people with
their

(11:52):
mobility like
canes
and trekking poles and all sorts of different
things
are all waiting and this lady is in
the door of the elevator a floor below.
After like a minute or so of nothing
happening,
maybe it stretched to a couple minutes or

(12:14):
more. And, there was grumbling. People were not
happy. I was sitting there. I was like,
well, I'm sitting. And, then the lady
appeared. She hit the button and went back
up to the Third Floor, and then she
starts talk she gets out of the elevator.
In the elevator,
there is like a Cal student working the

(12:35):
elevator. They're like, what are you doing hanging
in the door?
They're having this whole discussion.
People are upset, and
it's like I'm just behind 10 people that
So, anyhow,
she gets
I end up getting in the elevator with
her, going down to the Second Floor,

(12:56):
couple other people, and we get out and
she starts yelling, walker, walker.
Like, I don't know what that what I
think she wanted someone to bring her her
walker, maybe, but it was like a whole
thing.
So it it the bottom line is if
you go to Ladysmith
Black Mombasa, you're gonna have, like,

(13:18):
70
year old plus
Berkeley
people,
and they're all gonna have walkers, and they're
gonna be acting crazy.
And so it's like, Lady Smith, Black Mombasa
is of its time. It's like calcified
in time. And it only really makes sense
if there's apartheid and Mandela.

(13:40):
I don't know. But they're they're like there.
Berkeleyites.
Oh, it's cooking with the kids. We made
these chocolate cookies
with Cocoa Krispies.
We talked about that. And marshmallows have been
on my mind. And,
I was kind of thinking, are marshmallows

(14:01):
molecular
gastronomy?
And I asked AI that, and it said,
yes. The creation
of marshmallows
can be considered
an example of molecular
gastronomy
as it involves understanding
and manipulating
the chemical
and physical properties

(14:21):
of ingredients
to achieve a specific
texture and structure.
Molecular
gastronomy
is the study of food preparation
and cooking as a scientific
discipline,
focusing on chemical and physical transformations
that occur during cooking.

(14:42):
Marshmallows
are made by whipping
air into a gelatinous
mixture of sugar, corn syrup, and gelatin
creates a foam like structure.
You heard it here first.
Marshamallows.
They are molecular
gastronomy.
I burnt my elbow, you guys. That I

(15:02):
well, I hope no one no one was
eating it. It's not any kind of gastronomy,
but
from a molecular
standpoint, my elbow is burnt. I was barbecuing
outside,
and I got up from this wooden stool.
I didn't plant my knee or my right
leg properly. And what happened is I fell

(15:24):
forward a little bit onto the barbecue, and
I burnt the hell out of my
elbow that this happened, like, a week or
two ago,
and I'm still wearing, like, I'm still having
to change the bandage every day. So it's
almost we're healed. We're almost healed

(15:44):
putting aqua four non adhesive
bandages.
I I was like, when do you have
to go to the hospital?
And, it's when you have, like, you really
burnt yourself. Like, when it's white or black,
it's all the skin is burnt, and that's
not what happened. I I got up, I

(16:05):
didn't stick my,
right foot and I fell forward in my
arm. My right arm
was in between me and the barbecue
lid
and the lid was hot. So I didn't
even realize it That I knew I had
burnt myself, but I didn't realize how badly.

(16:27):
And in the morning, my elbow was, like,
different textures
and, like, weeping and,
so I was like, I gotta and we
took a week until we figured out, like,
how to wrap a bandage
properly.
And, you know, so I I didn't have
great first aid, but now I've got a

(16:49):
regimen and everything is clearing up. Last week,
our furnace was broken, so we had no
heat and no hot water for, like, five
five days,
maybe. I six days because I I didn't
shower on Friday, and then I didn't have
the opportunity

(17:09):
again, except, like, sponge bath till the next
week on Thursday.
So our furnace broke,
some gasket,
popped, something. They replaced the part, they had
to get it
UPS or whatever. It took forever,
and it's not like the warmest part of
the year. The house wasn't that cold, but

(17:31):
cold shower,
cold water, that was cold. So sponge bath
and
boiling water on the stove, it was just
not great.
But that week is over.
That was the last week. We fixed
the furnace. So the elbow is on the
mend,
the furnace is fixed,

(17:53):
and other big changes
in life, we signed up for Netflix.
You know, I I don't like having you
know, I miss the the days
of television,
cable television. I don't really like
streaming
services,
and I feel like Netflix is, like, pretty

(18:13):
basic. Like, a lot of the programming
decisions
are, like, middle of the road,
middle brow.
And that's I like weird stuff. I like
Hulu because
it has a little more
live TV
and then all it feels a little more

(18:34):
Wild West
with the content.
I think YouTube
is good, but it's a little too
SEO
ed
out. It's like it's clogged with content on
YouTube. You know, it's the second biggest search
engine behind Google is YouTube.

(18:55):
People just searching. So there's
a lot of that search engine optimization
content,
which I don't really
like. I like when it's like, woah, I
never heard that. I don't like when they're
like, people look for this, so we're gonna
try and I I think I'm looking if
I'm looking for something

(19:16):
that everyone else is looking for,
I feel like I'm looking for the wrong
thing. That's not I wanna be surprised.
I don't want
what I know. I don't wanna
see what I've already seen.
I don't wanna listen to what I've already
heard. That's why I like the radio.

(19:38):
That's why I liked
the Internet
in the nineties. It was more like the
Wild West. Now, it's everyone's trying to monetize
everything,
and I kinda think that sucks. It's not
very good. That stinks.
Excuse me.
That stinks.
So, I feel like Hulu

(19:59):
has a little bit of this
wild content,
and
it's like a little stupider.
And there's a live programming.
So I'm like, oh, I I like Turner
classic movies because I'm like, oh, I've never
heard of this or that. Yeah. I learned
through that, and that keeps my attention.

(20:22):
And with Netflix,
I feel like it's like they have board
meetings, and they decide what people wanna see,
and I'm I'm not that person,
really. I that's not my
what I want. I wanna get in some
stuff I never heard of. So we signed
up for Netflix.

(20:42):
What are we watching? Right? That's the question.
We're watching Killing Eve. Killing Eve on Netflix
is a spy thriller where
a bored m I five agent Eve
Pilastri,
played by Sandra Oh, tasked
with hunting down a psychopathic

(21:04):
assassin
villainelle,
played by Jodi Comer. So it's like the
villainelle novels. The two become obsessed with each
other.
Killing Eve, it's just some garbage. It's middle
of the road.
You know, it's Villanelle. My wife likes Sandra
Oh. My wife likes it. What can I

(21:24):
tell you? Then also, we've been into Shameless.
Shameless
is kind of interesting.
It has William H. Macy
and it has the dude from the bear
and it's produced by Netflix. It's kind of,
I mean, come on. It's middle brow. What
can I say?
Shameless. The Netflix

(21:46):
series
is a comedy drama
following the dysfunctional
Gallagher family
in Chicago,
who struggle with their alcoholic father
and navigate everyday
life with minimal parental guidance, often getting into
trouble. The series centers around the Gallagher family,

(22:07):
a group of six siblings living in the
Chicago housing project,
largely
self sufficient
due to the neglect and alcoholism
of their father Frank and the absence of
their mother.
So we've been watching that. There is a
bunch of profanity and
sex in it. So, it's like the late

(22:28):
show,
but it has the actor playing the main
character, Carney,
in the FX show, the bear is Jeremy
Allen White, known for his role as Lip
Gallagher on Shameless.
So it's a late show, there's lots of
sex, nudity, swearing,
but it kinda like touches the father is

(22:49):
like out it's absent because he's an alcoholic,
but it's kind of touches something where I'm
like, I'm not really present in a way
because I'm disabled. So kind of this would
be like if no one cared in our
fa it's not like our family, but it
has some kind of resonance.
Okay. That's my Netflix ad. It's middle brow,

(23:12):
middle of the road garbage, and I'm watching
some garbage.
H HBO is like more high brow and
more like, you know, if you wanna keep
up with what the other people
in the
Intelligentsia,
Glitterati
are watching, you gotta get HBO.
We haven't gone there yet, but I think

(23:33):
we could. We signed up for Netflix. To
be honest, I prefer Hulu. Netflix
is middle of the road.
Live content is the Wild West. Thank you
for listening to What's the Matter with Me
podcast.
Let's talk about the Tammy.
The Tammy is a kitchen tool that I

(23:56):
have,
but I can't use anymore.
I got my Tammy
in Paris,
from Deloran.
A tammy, also known as a drum sieve
or
chai nie in Indian cooking. I didn't know
that. It's a kitchen utensil
shaped kinda like a snare drum

(24:18):
that acts as a strainer,
grater, or food mill. A tammy has a
cylindrical
edge made of metal or wood that supports
a disc of fine metal,
nylon, or horsehair mesh.
To use one, the cook places the tammy
above a bowl and adds the ingredient

(24:38):
to be strained
in the center of the mesh.
The food is then pushed through the mesh
using a scraper or pestle.
Tamies have been in use since the middle
ages.
So the mesh is kinda tight and you
just kinda
scrape a scraper. We used to use it

(24:59):
for, like, making chicken liver,
or other purees can go through
and it makes a very fine puree. So
we bought it at Deloran.
So Deloran
is a cookware
store
in Paris and I had my
honeymoon with my wife in Paris,

(25:21):
and so we did a lot of good
stuff. We went to this cookware
store called D'Eholerin,
pronounced or spelled d
e h I l l e r I
n,
Dehilleran.
It had already been
dating back to 1820,
the brand got its start by producing

(25:44):
copper pots and pans.
In the 1890,
it moved to its present location
on Rue Coquilaire,
where it also
expanded
to sell general cooking items.
Deloran was awesome. They had like swords and
stuff. They had things

(26:04):
for cooking that you're like, no one has
cooked with that thing for a hundred and
twenty years. So they had everything. We got
a tammy there. We got a copper pot,
it was so fun. Don't skip, eat the
Lorraine.
And, when you go to Paris, it's like
the coolest
cookware store

(26:24):
in the universe.
Went to, like, a uniform cooking
uniform store and bought some giant aprons.
There is a lot of good in Paris,
if you wanna buy cookware, they have it.
You know? So, like, it's hard to use
the Tammy with one hand because it's like
a snare drum. You gotta hold it with

(26:46):
your one hand and then
work the ingredient
through with your other hand. So with one
hand, it really doesn't work anymore.
And so it's like a kitchen
utensil.
I love it. It's one of my favorites.
I got it on my honeymoon, but it's
not for me,
going forward. I hope the kids will enjoy

(27:07):
it. Recently,
we were cooking,
myself and both the kids actually, we were
cooking. We were trying to make rice crispy
treats, and that wasn't the best idea for
one hand
because the similar we had to heat the
marshmallows
and in the bowl
with the butter in the microwave,

(27:28):
and it grew so large. The bowl we
had wasn't big enough.
It it we lost a bunch. We and,
you know, so a butter and marshmallow, and
it's like, you don't wanna lose your butter
and marshmallow mallow of what you're making are
rice crispy
treats because all you have left then is
rice crisp. And that's rice crispy

(27:50):
treats
that had the treat part removed. Just rice
crisp. Not the best for one hand, but
it's good to make something with glad glad
we did it best for one hand.
Another
one
idea,
if you get one cherry.
If you get one cherry in your Manhattan,

(28:12):
what does it mean? I was thinking about
that. If you get one cherry in your
Manhattan,
I my thought was, if you get one
cherry in your Manhattan, it's a reminder
that you should love someone. You should be
like, oh, that's great. I I should be
thankful and loving towards someone. But if you
get two cherries in your Manhattan, it's a

(28:34):
message that you are loved by someone. Because,
I mean, they give you two cherries.
And I asked,
Google, I'm all about interviewing
the AI.
And I was like, how many cherries in
the Manhattan? And the
the SearchLab
AI overview told me.

(28:55):
A classic
Manhattan cocktail is traditionally
garnished
with one or two Maraschino
cherries.
Some recipes
suggest one cherry, others recommend two. So that's,
you know,
if you get one, what's the meaning of
the garnish? It's if you get one, you

(29:15):
you can say, hey, I I should pass
this on. This one cherry is a good
to be loving and generous and kind toward
my fellow man. And if I get two,
it's like, hey, man. Someone born in on
thick here. I'm loved.
So, something that I think,
you know, something that we had to pass

(29:36):
on. Something that
got to me when I was in art
school,
studying
uselessness
and loneliness.
I stumbled across
I lived in the Western
Addition at USF,
and I was very close to the Upper
Haight then. And so I would walk down

(29:57):
to Haight Street. I you kinda would walk
down to the Panhandle and then up a
couple block. And the diggers,
Peter Coyote,
the actor
later became an actor. He was a member
of the Digger, San Francisco
Diggers
in the sixties.
A group that for practice the form of

(30:20):
performance
art they called life acting or guerrilla theater.
So that was really influential
when we were in art school. We started
this thing this thing called It Can Change,
myself and
this other artist, Anthony.
And we started It Can Change, and we
said It Can Change can be anything. It

(30:42):
can change.
Doesn't have to stay the same and did
a lot of projects
where we had artists make clothes. That was
a clothing project. We had their free record
label.
We had food where in Lower Manhattan
in Soho,
started
the food

(31:02):
restaurant
like that had been made originally
by Gordon Matta Clark, and we're kind of
redoing it, re glowing up that idea. So,
Peter Coyote and Life Actor,
Guerrilla Theater,
that's where we were in art school, I
guess. Well, that's gonna wrap up the show

(31:24):
for today. Thank you for tuning into the
What's the matter with me podcast, probably
the greatest podcast
on Earth and every other planet as well.
Thank you for tuning in. Send me an
email, [e-mail],
j o h n at h o p
p I n w o r l d

(31:46):
dot com. And I will give you a
shout out. That is on that is something
I can guarantee
to you. That is I will give you
a shout out. Send it on me. Thank
you for tuning in. Catch you next time.