August 11, 2025 • 33 mins
This week on Whyte Noise: Michael and Ryan are joined by pastry chef Courtney Breese for a sweet deep dive into the world of babka. From treasured family recipes and cultural traditions to the memories baked into every loaf, they share the stories, flavors, and love that make this treat so special.
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Subscribe and Watch on YouTube
Connect with Us: Michael Judson Berry | Ryan Wilder
Theme: “Happy Dance” by Mr. Smith is licensed under Attribution 4.0 International License. “Running Fanfare” by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under Attribution 3.0 Unported.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh hello, hello, we managed to make it back again.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
We did with the sounds of cricket or not crickets?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
What are they?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I haven't finished my coffee. At Ryan, you're outside and
it looks beautiful and they're insects making nice sounds. Kata cicadas.
Thank you introducing against Courtney Freeze is already saving the day.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah, she's already won the episode. It's over. Great, we
did it. Congratulations Courtney, it's yours. Thank you, thanks for
joining us. I was going to connect a couple dots
for everyone. So Courtney and my husband work together, and
(00:45):
we have our word this week, I'll just preface baking
oriented and James was like, you gotta talk to Courtney.
She knows what she's doing when it comes to baked
goods and delicious things. So you gotta get her.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Can I tell you that? Like when he told me
the word, it was like perfect because okay, So I've
never made Bopka. I love Bopka. But I was like,
it's actually really funny. For so I have my two
brothers for birthdays because we have not been near each other.
One lives in Florida, one lives in Texas. I always
(01:17):
ship bake goods for like their birthday. Since like I
like to bake, I can't make them a cake. I
send them like a little something. And so my brother Jimmy,
I like to use Goldbilly and just kind of find
like random good like bake goods all over the country
and ship them.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Okay, So I.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Was like, you know, like trying to like like look
for something festive, and there was a fun fetti Bobka
and so I was like, all right, that sounds cool,
like I'll send that ship that it was from a
place in Brooklyn, and he got it and he was
like like this is the most amazing thing I've ever had.
But he was like the best part, Like it's not
(01:58):
even the Bobka that's the best, or it's this bakery.
The guy is called Jake Cohen. He's from Brooklyn. I
was like, I did not know this guy was like
as big as he is like celebrities, Noah'm all this
other stuff. But Jimmy was like the photos that you
get with the Bopka is like it's those like eighty
style photos where he's in like a black turtleneck. He's
(02:22):
like holding halla bread like it's like a baby and
then you have like laser beams in like the background
and stuff, and it's like just put it in your
mouth like things.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Like that on my oh my god. Like my mother
was like, this is.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
The best part of like the gift, not even the Bopka.
And I just told James, I was like, that's so
funny that that's the word, because it's like a huge
joke now like that that that photo hangs on my
brother's fridge, which took my sister in law like a
little while to realize that there was just a random guy.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
That's a way I'm holding I have met Jake Cohen really,
we have a lot of mutual friends, and he was
at an event I went to recently. He's a character.
He's really fun.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I like literally didn't know. I just like I said,
I like love gold Belly and I was like this
looks awesome and I was like, I did not realize
this guy was like so big.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Oh yeah, I just pulled up his Instagram again. Yeah,
he has a million followers on Instagram. He has cookbooks,
he's been on Drew Barrymore. But he's just like this
kind of like hilarious. Brooklyn Gay speaking of like looking
up beautiful baking and Instagram, though, I will say, Courtney,
your page so at underscore wild Dot Honey dot Pie,
you will see some of those beautiful cakes you have
(03:34):
ever seen. How did this begin?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Growing up? I feel like we were all kind of
like artistic, Like my one brother plays guitar. I did
drawing and painting. I like to do like still life.
I did figure drawing, so your naked people, all that
sort of stuff, and I just love to bake forever.
And honestly, it ended up one day where I was
working at another solar company and like almost kind of
(04:02):
got like depressed basically, and is the dumbest thing. I
was laying in bed, I like called out of work
for like three days, and I was watching one of
those like I don't know, like Spring Baking Championship or
something like that, and I was just like I could
do this, Like I could literally do that. I like
to bake and I'm artistic, so I think when I
(04:22):
was about thirty, I just decided to do pastry school.
I feel like that's kind of how like I put
it together, Like I don't I don't necessarily use some
of like the decorative mediums the way you're supposed to.
But I feel like that's kind of like the art
side is like you're introduced to new mediums and you
kind of figure out like different ways to use them.
(04:43):
So like a lot of the cakes and stuff I do,
I actually like I have to charge more because it
takes a little bit more time. But a lot of
my images are rolled out gum paste, which is kind
of like fond and it's just next step up so
it dries out a a little bit more so it
holds its shape. But I cut out my shapes for
(05:05):
my images, let them dry out, and I hand paint
all my images.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
These really do look like works of art. These are gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
What you make?
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Vodka and food gel make edible paint?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
You had me at vodka? What's your what's your go
to like to eat or to make or like like
in general, like like you get this feeling, you're like,
you know what I need to do. I want to
do something that like I'm gonna go break away and
do this. What do you make it?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I like to make pop tarts. That's like my biggest delish.
I love making pop tarts, which is another thing that
like it's what it is one of the bigger things
I do, but I try to decorate them differently. And
that's also kind of like wild honey pie, because pop
tarts are like my little favorite thing to do, and
they're like little hand pies.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Has has James had one of your pop tarts?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
He has?
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yes, So I think I'm gonna put in a request
to have him bring something home next time. I know.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I was like when I brought in cookies the other day,
I was like, you should have brought some homes so
we had something to talk about.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
My God, only if you do it Ryan at a
time when I'm coming down to visit, because I want
to eat literally everything that's on your so cool me.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
How this works.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
What we do basically is we have our topic, which
as you know, is Bobka. We each have ten minutes
to chat about it whatever Bobka made us think of, either,
you know, sometimes we research things. Sometimes we have random
stories like we each just have ten minutes to go
blah blah. And then after we each have our little
ten minutes, you then get to pick a winner literally
(06:47):
whatever that means to you, okay, and then you get
to give us our topic for next week. And again
it could just be whatever pops into your head, but
no stress, and you also get to pick which one
of us goes first.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Let's start Michael, we could start with you.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Okay, great. Usually I never go first because people just
inherently have more faith than Ryan.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
I think it's because they're like, get the boring stuff
out of the way first and then we'll have fun
to end.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
I feel like we'll do Ryan's second, so then his
is like a little bit more fresh, so then maybe
he'll win this time.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I see, Okay, gotcha, gotcha? Okay, I've lost again. I
always lose by the way, never win this time. Actually
that's too recently, I've been on a good roll. Okay, Ryan,
let me know when I ready. We get set go Okay,
(07:41):
bop Cup. Personally, I love Popka for the friends at home.
And actually I wasn't fully prepared to do this part.
Usually again, I count on Ryan going first and explaining
what things are. So I originally came into this assuming
I wasn't gonna have to explain to what Babka is.
But here we are, Buck, is this really wonderful baked good?
(08:01):
It's basically crupt me if I'm wrong. But it's like
a sweet bread that's like sort of in a twist
and sort of rolled together with like fine layers of
bread and then usually either chocolate or cinnamon, and it's
sort of swirled. Right, the cinnamon and chocolate is sort
of like swirled in.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I didn't say, I called it kind of like Halla
meets brioge meats cake.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Yeah, it's really soft, it's kind of squishy. It's it's
absolutely delicious. Originally, I believe it's trace back to like
Jewish cultures in Eastern Europe, right, And because babka is
a Yiddish word, right that I believe they traced it
back to, Like Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Isn't rich sweet dough like a selection on a dating app?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I think so my preference. So what I sort of
loved when I was looking into Bobka, which I didn't know,
is that in Yiddish babka directly translates to little grandmother,
which I kind of that that's what it's named after.
It's like the og like grandmother, which just made me
think of like how whenever you watch those cooking shows
(09:08):
and baking shows, like so many people are like my
grandmother taught me this, So it just made me love
bobcomor that it's literally called grandmother.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
I don't want to say. My Nata wasn't like big
big baker. She did always bake. It was like a
lot of like the box mix. It was just like
family wise, there always had to be dessert after dinner,
so it was always something. So growing up they lived
down in Florida. My birthday's over the summer, so like
my grandparents always got us for the summer, so my
Nada would have me for my birthday, always got me
(09:37):
whatever theme cake I wanted for my birthday, whether it
was like lion king or like princess like stuff like that.
So for all these years it was like Na always
made my birthday cake and they were amazing with how
they were decorated and everything else. So fast forward to
like early twenties, we're all down in Florida, like my aunts,
(09:57):
my mom, my, Nana, us kids, cousins, and we're like
talking about all that stuff. And I brought up like
Nana and all the cakes that she made. It was
like she literally asked me whatever theme I wanted and
like made these amazing cakes. And my one aunt was
(10:17):
just like you idiot, And I was like, well, what's
the matter. And I turn and I look and my
nana is sitting at like the end of the table
with that like hardcore belly laugh where like they're quiet
because they're laughing so hard.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
She was like, uh huh.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
She has bought all of your cakes from since you
were a little kid.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I love it and.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Web of grain.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
She asked you what you wanted. She would go to
the food store and tell them what cake you wanted.
And I was just like, oh my, but I was
like traumatized. I was like the fact that I'm in
my twenties and I still thought that my nana made
all of my birthday cakes since I was like a little.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Just found out Santa Claus isn't real?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
That is so key you though, especially I was going
to ask, was this part of what got you into
baking and making those beautiful cakes yourself was because you
have all these beautiful memories as a child of amazing
cakes from your grandmother. And it turns out the whole
thing was alive yep.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Have you gone over to publics? Have you gone over
republics and been like I need to meet the person
who's my inspiration.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
But so the whole joke is now like my cake
decorating is. I'm just trying to live up to Nana's standards,
like you know, her skill. I just don't know if
I'm there yet.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, one day. You can only hope and dream. Okay,
that's what I was hoping this was going to turn into.
So the reason I brought up that it's called Little
Grandma was because I was like, we just have to
talk about grandma inspirations, because that's what it made me
think of. Rissa is looking to see if there were
other cakes or breads or anything named like with grandmother
in the name, and I could actually only find one
(11:53):
of fisial one, I mean because obviously Bobka Little Grandmother.
And there's one it's called Granny Cake, which is a
Scottish cake, which is just like a sponge with raisins.
It's a pretty simple one. But yeah, it's called a
Granny cake.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
What about Grandma Pie?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
What's Grandma Pie? That didn't come up in my search?
I just made that up money, Oh rude. There is
like a company that's called the Grandmother's Cakes in New England.
But then I looked it up. It's just like a
chain like an intimates and I was like, oh, well,
this isn't like a sweet personal thing like the Scottish one.
Looks like the Scottish version of like babka. It's like
it would be their is. It literally looks like a
(12:28):
granny kit where it's like small, kind of like a
spongey cake with raisins. You're like, this feels like what
Granny would make. And I actually read an article about
it where one Scottish woman was like, she grew up
with granny cake and she thought they called it that
because her granny would you know, make it, And she
was like, no, that's what this is. My grandmother taught
me when I was a little girl. It's been around
as long as like we can remember because it was
easy and when you had lots of like wains as
(12:51):
they called them, like little kids, it was like an
easy sweet thing to whip up for after dinner. So
I'm sure other cultures must have their version. I just
don't know that granny is in the name. I think
every culture has their version of this. So I think
with my grandmother is my my father's mother was not
God's gift to cooking.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
That's where you got it from.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
That's where I get my culinary prowess from is my grandmother.
Let's just say it's being edible is like a standard
to which we barely make. But she could bake, and
that's one thing my mother gives her. She's like, she
could bake, she could make a good pie, and she
made she made this one Ukrainian bread every year for
Easter that oh crap, what's it called? If my sister's here,
(13:31):
she would know anyway, it's Ukrainian Easter bread that's literally
heartburned bread, like it says so many eggs, Like you
have to have it with thumbs because you just want
to die. Like it's pretty, but like you put it
with butter and then you just like your heart just
leaps out of you. And then my other grandmother on
my mom's side was Irish, so she made asca, credible
(13:51):
Irish soda bread. Pasca. There it is pasca. Thank you.
My Ukrainian grandmother would make pasca and you would want
to die, but it was tasty. And then my other
one had Irish soda bread that was off the charts.
But like, Ryan, do you have any granny baking? You're
not taking away from my ten minutes. Oh I'm so sorry,
I figured you were going to talk about like the
(14:12):
history of Bobka and the chemistry behind me.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
No, well, I am a little bit, but like obviously
I think I ended up doing this as soon as
I found it. It was like little grandmother, like I went
down that fun Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Well, because it's so sweet. I think it's I think
it's a lovely thing because I think everybody has this
where it's like my nanami, you know, somebody who's like
inspired me to cook. I mean, neither of my grand
grandparents got to teach me. They both were older when
I was doing so I would eat it. But I
also I think they looked at me and they were like,
bless you, You're a lost cause my sister bakes is
(14:42):
never happening.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
You know what's funny is is this conversation actually has
evolved where my ten minutes is going to go. I
just had another thought and I decided I'm going to
go a different direction because I was just realizing, like
I think all families have a bread, Like there's like
all families have some sort of bread that is like
the family bread. I don't know, Accordnaney, is that true
for you? Other? I mean other than Public's yellow cake.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
I don't know we I feel like we always had
dessert at like the end of dinner, especially like my
mom's side, but I always feel like it was it
was actually more about like the meal than it was
the dessert. So I feel like that's why, like the
desserts were almost kind of like afterthought and maybe not
like as elaborate, but bread. I don't like we really
(15:25):
didn't have too much. I feel like I'm me and
one of my brothers who likes to bake too, not
to the same extent, but like I feel like we're
the ones that kind of like are bringing like desserts
and more baked into Like yeah, so like our big
thing that I do for like family dinners and stuff
like that holidays is buttermilk biscuits all the way.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I love. Like this is probably why I couldn't fully
concentrate on that, because now I'm just thinking about yummy
baked goods everything, which I'm also going to have. The
moment we finished recording, my sister brought scones from Scone Pony.
Oh and they are downstairs and I wait to dive
in shout out to also Scone Pony. I don't know
that they taste like scones. They're just like cake. They're
just like a big piece of cake that you like
convince yourself as a breakfast food.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Okay, I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, I'm thrilled like they they are delicious. It's dessert
for breakfast, and I'm very happy about it. And I
put on a stretchy shorts and enjoy my day.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I've wanted, always wanted to do a Kathleen Turner themed
scone shop and call it Romancing the Scone. Oh, it's great,
and then have all the different scones named for various
roles that that she that she's been in. That's that's great.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Especially can you just only have drag queens working there with.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Like deep voices.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
I'm glad it worked out that I could lead you
into your ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
This is so rare because winning ten minutes apparently is
winning ten minutes, because yeah, yeah, the rails.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
No, you saved by party with your amazing story. Are
you ready, I'm ready, let's do it?
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Okay, so bopka, So I obviously hit a lot of
the same history, the Polish Ukrainian background, the little grandmother part.
But then I got into a little bit of the
history to like how do we get to where it
is today? And it didn't originally have chocolate or cinnamon
in it. It was just kind of like a like
a sweet bread that was served in a loaf, but
(17:31):
we started adding things to it, or actually those cultures
and Jewish culture ended up adding things to it in
like the nineteen tens to nineteen thirties, and I got into,
you know, I got into like why or what kind
of drove that a little bit, and like it's a
lot of the like straightforward kind of things that you
would expect. So, like the early nineteen hundreds was obviously
(17:54):
a period of heavy industrialization, so you had a greater
mixing of cultures. So the Eastern European breads obviously, or
the people making them is the right way to put it,
got greater exposure to the French and the Austrians, who
have a lot more fun with their sweetbreads, or were
having more fun with their sweetbreads at the time in
terms of having cinnamons and chocolates and various other flavors.
(18:18):
So we had that influence. The other part that I
liked was talking about the fact that like post World
War One and World War II. Going back to that
idea of the little grandmother, is that post those wars,
people drew back to what they knew, They drew back
to their kind of like heritage or back to the
things that made them feel comfy and at home, and
(18:38):
thus there was a greater reliance or a greater desire
to participate in foods and culinary things that reminded you
of home. The other thing that was a big driver
and really Bobka as we know it today was a
lot of Jewish immigration into the city, and modern Bobka
is very much driven by a New York City style Bobka,
which is, you know, as people moved into the city,
(19:00):
there's a great merging of cultures. There's also very reasonable
access to ingredients, and as I had mentioned, industrialization drove
you know, essentially commercialized availability of various ingredient ingredients. So
that's you know, that's where we kind of got to
where we know Bobka today. The other thing that I
thought was kind of like cool history on all of
(19:22):
this was that Bobka had a resurgence in the nineties
And do either of you know.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Why, No, No, I have no idea Seinfeld. I was
gonna actually, I was going to say, was it on Seinfeld?
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Yeah, So there's a very famous chocolate Bobka episode on
Seinfeld where Elaine wants a very specific chocolate Bobka to
take to a dinner party and that cinnamon podka will
not is not what she wants, it's not appropriate, And
it obviously goes through the typical kind of Seinfeld like,
you know, realizing you're not what you're going to get,
(19:55):
bothering to try and get there, and then ultimately resigning
to your outcome, and that all the humans that goes
into it. But it's kind of interesting, but that was
the episode that really brought Bobka into mainstream and made
more people aware of it and want to try it,
and then gave it kind of uplift to where it
is today. And if I'm being honest with you, I
(20:16):
don't think I knew about Bobka until that Seinfeld episode.
And I was I think recall being like, what the
hell's Bobka? I just I was like, it must be
delicious if they made a whole episode out of it.
But I will say I do love I am a
cinnamon vodka person. And then like you're either a chilolate
Bobka person or a cinnamon bodka person, and I am
a cinnamon bodka person. I think cinnamon and sugar is delicious.
(20:38):
I'm such a chocolate fan cinnamon. Yeah, okay, you win. Congratulations,
I've now double lost. But obviously this made me go
down the rabbit hole that I feel like we all
kind of did, which is that kind of reflection of
little grandmother, that homey feeling. There's things that make you
feel like at home. And I was originally going to
talk a little bit about my grandmother and she had
(21:00):
I don't know that it was actually a victory garden,
but they had a good acre sized garden that produced
a lot of different things and a lot of different
dishes that to this day I still love very much.
This is also side note the grandmother that I have
a number of hilarious stories to tell about that for
some odd reason, we've yet to get to any of them.
My grandmother is a very funny, little old country woman
(21:25):
who is now ninety six years old and unfortunately a
bit out of her mind. But I have to say
left a hell of a legacy within the family. But
what you reminded me of Michael in terms of like
talking about the pasca, was that the family bread or
that like let's call it the heritage bread in my
family are these lard dinner rolls that my great grandmother
Bobo used to make. And it was quite the process.
(21:48):
It was five pounds of flour I think over almost
an equivalent amount of lard. It's a yeast bread and
it has a double rise to it. So I have
this massive bowl. Although I found I now have a well,
I still use the massive bowl, but I use a
really big KitchenAid mixer now to need the dough because
(22:08):
it's such a pain in the ass. I mean, my
great grandmother's forearms were like she's built like a linebacker.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Some of those old ladies when you see them make
because some of those nonahs, you know, and they're just
like boom, Like it's like you should be a massuse.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
You got to get that lard equally distributed into that
flower otherwise like it just doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
I definitely I cheat a lot too. The only thing
I want are the buttermelt biscuits that I actually like
woll massage the butter into the into the flower. But
like when I'm doing pop tarts food processor all the
way safe, so much time, or you just hit it
a couple of times.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Does the massaging affect the flavor? Like if you massage
the butter, does it change the flavors post if you
used like a mixer, I don't so.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Or the texture I don't think so I'm a freeed
with buttermelt biscuits. I'm like, I've never done them in
like the food processor started them, and I'm like, the
time I do, I bet you they don't taste the same.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I was gonna say. The funny part about Bobo's roles though,
is like it was one of these recipes that has
been handed down through experience, although my grandmother did document it,
and I now with the documented thing, I'm the one
that makes the family roles when we get together. But
Bobo lived in like so Bobo. I interviewed Bobo like
(23:25):
back in the sixth grade because she was the oldest
living family member and we talked about the price of
things and like asked questions of her like do you
remember the Great Depression? And I remember that whole discussion
because she was like, no, she goes one we were
too poor and two we lived out on the countryside,
and we virtually bartered for everything, as it was like
(23:46):
we would grow things and trade things with others and
so on and so forth, so like, and she lived
in a very quaint little home. But if you went
to that home, that quaint little home, it always smelled
of now and very specifically mothballs. That's what napolene is.
Everything smells like mothballs. And like Bobo always had a
(24:10):
faint odor of naptaline. The food that she brought always
had like a faint odor of naptoleine. And we joke,
like Bobo's roles are still the peak rolls, and to
this day that we joke that the all the ones
that we make today, the main thing they're missing is mothball.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Oh. I mean that's actually really sweet.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Because it was just it was like pervasive through everything,
and it's like one of those things that like it
wasn't like a bad odor or smell. It was just
it was just her for lack of a better way
of putting it. So yeah, I mean, that's that's the
main thing it makes me think of. But there, I mean,
the role itself is so rich and then once you
(24:56):
bake it, it goes through a double rise, and like
the best way to have it is with a nice
pad of butter and apple butter. I don't know how
you guys feel about apple butter, but oh yeah, apple butter.
But it's like it's rich to begin with, and you're like, yeah,
let's smear some more butter on. It isn't that most
things though, Like when is more butter bad?
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Yeah, I'm totally okay with things like swimming in butter
for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Ye oh yeah, yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. How much
time do I have? Did I? I don't know, maybe forty
eight seconds? Oh well, that's perfect. I don't know. That's
that's the kind of comfort it made me go back to.
And I guess it was a combination. You know. My
grandmother tried. My grandmother for multiple years tried to make
them and would do it. They wouldn't rise, and they'd
(25:44):
end up like hockey pucks and she'd throw a fit.
And my grandmother's move for any food that like didn't
make it was to just throw it out in the yard.
So I remember she made this, And the thing is
it's like five pounds of flours, so we're talking a
sizeable amount of rolls. Yeah, and those bad boys were
like ah and thrown out, thrown out into the yard,
(26:08):
you know, and then you watch critters come.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
By not eat them. I was gonna say, terrible, this
is this is a hilarious version, like version of snow
White or like Cinderella. Like the animals are like, ah, running.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Away like hockey pucks.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
They're like literally bludgeoned by these these biscuits. I was
gonna say that sounds like whenever I've tried to make
my sister's chocolate chip cookies, they come out, Oh my god,
it's it's my sister makes amazing chocolate chip cookies and
I have tried and they come out like hockey. It's
it's a real shame.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Like you just have to good chocolate chop cookie just
has to be like underbaked. Oh yeah, and you just
let them sit to like basically to just let the
dough solidify after cooling down. My because I do get
compliments on like there's certain things like with cookies and
stuff like that. My secret is I just love Mexican vanilla.
(27:09):
It adds a totally different taste to like whatever it
is that you're making. Because even that like vanilla cake,
people will be like it's vanilla, but it's not like
what is that, It's just it's Mexican vanilla. Like there
almost has like a kind of like hints of like
cinnamon and certain spices to it. And I just love that. So,
like for cookies everything, it's my go to.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
What about yum? What about Madagascar and vanilla?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I I'm just joking it, but like they do all
have like different like kind of like notes to them,
So it depends on where you get it from.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
A friend of mine is is from Mexico, one of
my very good friends, and she had a I was
at her house recently with her and her mother and
her husband and her husband's also Mexican, and we had this cake.
It was like a celebratory cake and they hide a
little plastic babies in it, and there's like three of
them and if you get one of the babies then
(28:03):
you can like make a wish and it's supposed to
be good luck. It's this very traditional, sort of dry
like round cake. But I was like, how hilarious if
you did a version of that for bob Kas and
you hide like a little plastic grandma in it and
like as you eat it, like you look for the
little Grandma and it's like a little old like Jewish lady,
like who's bent over with her.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Black Find the Bubby's find the Bobby, like you find
the Bubby and the Bobka, and if you find the bubby,
it means like a year of good luck maybe good
good there's a question mark on it.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
It's like good luck.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Aren't like the little baby things? Isn't that like the
Is that the Marty Grassy?
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Do you think king Cake?
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Yeah? Yeah, That's what I'm thinking of.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Of king Cake. We have this grocery store in Woodstock
and it's called Sunflower Market, and you know, it's you know,
like I think everyone identifies with the fact that it's
nice to have a very local grocery store, like somewhere
you can pop in and you can get milk, or
you could get vanilla if you're baking or whatever else.
But this effing place. What I would say is like,
(29:02):
if I wanted to go there and get vanilla number one,
it's going to be at least twenty to twenty five dollars.
And it's not just going to be vanilla, it's going
to be Madagascar and vanilla that was collected under a
full moon by local indigenous people when there was a
warm breeze on a after a strong summer day, because
that was when it was peak vanilla, you know. And
(29:24):
that's that's what this whole effa is worth every suck,
and that's what this whole place is like, Like, it's
not just coco. It's not just coco. This was coco
collected in a small region of Africa that few people
know about, where you must hike twenty six miles and
your personal sweat is actually part of what brings forward
the aroma when you pick it. You know, this sort
(29:45):
of bullshit, but like at the same time, I'm like,
I'm really happy that they're supporting free, free trade growers
and yeah, weird shit.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So yeah, all right, so court me, you now have
the really fun task of choosing the winner, whatever that
means to you. You also feel free to pick yourself too,
because you, I think had a great story. I would
thank you.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
I don't know. It's a tough one. Ryan was a
bit more educational on it.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
That's pretty standards.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Rely on you to go first.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
But I think we're gonna go with Michael because.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Why because I complained so much?
Speaker 3 (30:32):
No, but you did bring up the whole like grandma
thing and everything else, and it was a fun time
and I feel like everyone enjoyed that conversation.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So I agreek you.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
I agree, But I did like the history on Babka.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
That was good.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Yeah, I loved that. I'm good for a little history.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Oh. I learned so much from you. All right, So,
and what is our topic for next?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah? Can we do so if I say metal? Like
rock metal? Does that work?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Oh? Like the music like a rock metal band?
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yes? And Aussie just passed.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Oh I'm sorry, maybe it's a bad tompic.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Okay, I love that topic. We haven't talked about a
music thing in a minute, So this is this is great.
And I know next to nothing about hard rock, like
that was not a I am a little old man
who listened to like show tunes and like Elia Fitzgerald
growing up. So this is this is great. I may
actually do a fun little dive on this one.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
It's funny. You were like you were like metal. I
was like, oh, gold bag no.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I was like the Olympics. I was like winning a medal.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
I I don't know, because I knew that I was
going to have to pick a word all that I
could think. So I like my two brothers, like I said,
like one plays guitar and was a huge metal head
growing up. He's an electrical engineer who used to have
very long hair and was a huge metal head. So
it was a very funny combination. But I was like,
(32:04):
you know, we'll go with Jimmy will these metal for this?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
All right? Well, thank you so so much, thank you,
thank being here, thanks for having me, so nice to
meet you. And I can wait for a set like
to get together and eat. Yeah, it's going to be.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I think generically there's a good, really good food culture
at the place that you guys work because I also
love all the well I love Matt the yes, the chef,
and all the stories of all the things that he makes.
So like, I just like I feel like I should
work there so we could eat.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Well. I'm trying to convince him. I was like, if
I if I just prep dough at home, like cookie dough,
can we can we bring it in and just bake
fresh cookies for the day instead of pre made Oh
my god, but next time I'll make a little box
for James to bring home.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
And oh, remind everybody again what your Instagram handle.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Is Underscore Wild Period Honey, and it's h O n
E Y Period Pie and I can't remember. It's a
little quick blurb from the Beatles White album. It's one
of their songs, so nice.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Very cool.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yes, definitely go check that out and and we'll be
back for for metal, for metal,
Oh hello, hello, we managed to make it back again.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
We did with the sounds of cricket or not crickets?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
What are they?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I haven't finished my coffee. At Ryan, you're outside and
it looks beautiful and they're insects making nice sounds. Kata cicadas.
Thank you introducing against Courtney Freeze is already saving the day.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah, she's already won the episode. It's over. Great, we
did it. Congratulations Courtney, it's yours. Thank you, thanks for
joining us. I was going to connect a couple dots
for everyone. So Courtney and my husband work together, and
(00:45):
we have our word this week, I'll just preface baking
oriented and James was like, you gotta talk to Courtney.
She knows what she's doing when it comes to baked
goods and delicious things. So you gotta get her.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Can I tell you that? Like when he told me
the word, it was like perfect because okay, So I've
never made Bopka. I love Bopka. But I was like,
it's actually really funny. For so I have my two
brothers for birthdays because we have not been near each other.
One lives in Florida, one lives in Texas. I always
(01:17):
ship bake goods for like their birthday. Since like I
like to bake, I can't make them a cake. I
send them like a little something. And so my brother Jimmy,
I like to use Goldbilly and just kind of find
like random good like bake goods all over the country
and ship them.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Okay, So I.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Was like, you know, like trying to like like look
for something festive, and there was a fun fetti Bobka
and so I was like, all right, that sounds cool,
like I'll send that ship that it was from a
place in Brooklyn, and he got it and he was
like like this is the most amazing thing I've ever had.
But he was like the best part, Like it's not
(01:58):
even the Bobka that's the best, or it's this bakery.
The guy is called Jake Cohen. He's from Brooklyn. I
was like, I did not know this guy was like
as big as he is like celebrities, Noah'm all this
other stuff. But Jimmy was like the photos that you
get with the Bopka is like it's those like eighty
style photos where he's in like a black turtleneck. He's
(02:22):
like holding halla bread like it's like a baby and
then you have like laser beams in like the background
and stuff, and it's like just put it in your
mouth like things.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Like that on my oh my god. Like my mother
was like, this is.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
The best part of like the gift, not even the Bopka.
And I just told James, I was like, that's so
funny that that's the word, because it's like a huge
joke now like that that that photo hangs on my
brother's fridge, which took my sister in law like a
little while to realize that there was just a random guy.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
That's a way I'm holding I have met Jake Cohen really,
we have a lot of mutual friends, and he was
at an event I went to recently. He's a character.
He's really fun.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I like literally didn't know. I just like I said,
I like love gold Belly and I was like this
looks awesome and I was like, I did not realize
this guy was like so big.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Oh yeah, I just pulled up his Instagram again. Yeah,
he has a million followers on Instagram. He has cookbooks,
he's been on Drew Barrymore. But he's just like this
kind of like hilarious. Brooklyn Gay speaking of like looking
up beautiful baking and Instagram, though, I will say, Courtney,
your page so at underscore wild Dot Honey dot Pie,
you will see some of those beautiful cakes you have
(03:34):
ever seen. How did this begin?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Growing up? I feel like we were all kind of
like artistic, Like my one brother plays guitar. I did
drawing and painting. I like to do like still life.
I did figure drawing, so your naked people, all that
sort of stuff, and I just love to bake forever.
And honestly, it ended up one day where I was
working at another solar company and like almost kind of
(04:02):
got like depressed basically, and is the dumbest thing. I
was laying in bed, I like called out of work
for like three days, and I was watching one of
those like I don't know, like Spring Baking Championship or
something like that, and I was just like I could
do this, Like I could literally do that. I like
to bake and I'm artistic, so I think when I
(04:22):
was about thirty, I just decided to do pastry school.
I feel like that's kind of how like I put
it together, Like I don't I don't necessarily use some
of like the decorative mediums the way you're supposed to.
But I feel like that's kind of like the art
side is like you're introduced to new mediums and you
kind of figure out like different ways to use them.
(04:43):
So like a lot of the cakes and stuff I do,
I actually like I have to charge more because it
takes a little bit more time. But a lot of
my images are rolled out gum paste, which is kind
of like fond and it's just next step up so
it dries out a a little bit more so it
holds its shape. But I cut out my shapes for
(05:05):
my images, let them dry out, and I hand paint
all my images.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
These really do look like works of art. These are gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
What you make?
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Vodka and food gel make edible paint?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
You had me at vodka? What's your what's your go
to like to eat or to make or like like
in general, like like you get this feeling, you're like,
you know what I need to do. I want to
do something that like I'm gonna go break away and
do this. What do you make it?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I like to make pop tarts. That's like my biggest delish.
I love making pop tarts, which is another thing that
like it's what it is one of the bigger things
I do, but I try to decorate them differently. And
that's also kind of like wild honey pie, because pop
tarts are like my little favorite thing to do, and
they're like little hand pies.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Has has James had one of your pop tarts?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
He has?
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yes, So I think I'm gonna put in a request
to have him bring something home next time. I know.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I was like when I brought in cookies the other day,
I was like, you should have brought some homes so
we had something to talk about.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
My God, only if you do it Ryan at a
time when I'm coming down to visit, because I want
to eat literally everything that's on your so cool me.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
How this works.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
What we do basically is we have our topic, which
as you know, is Bobka. We each have ten minutes
to chat about it whatever Bobka made us think of, either,
you know, sometimes we research things. Sometimes we have random
stories like we each just have ten minutes to go
blah blah. And then after we each have our little
ten minutes, you then get to pick a winner literally
(06:47):
whatever that means to you, okay, and then you get
to give us our topic for next week. And again
it could just be whatever pops into your head, but
no stress, and you also get to pick which one
of us goes first.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Let's start Michael, we could start with you.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Okay, great. Usually I never go first because people just
inherently have more faith than Ryan.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
I think it's because they're like, get the boring stuff
out of the way first and then we'll have fun
to end.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
I feel like we'll do Ryan's second, so then his
is like a little bit more fresh, so then maybe
he'll win this time.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I see, Okay, gotcha, gotcha? Okay, I've lost again. I
always lose by the way, never win this time. Actually
that's too recently, I've been on a good roll. Okay, Ryan,
let me know when I ready. We get set go Okay,
(07:41):
bop Cup. Personally, I love Popka for the friends at home.
And actually I wasn't fully prepared to do this part.
Usually again, I count on Ryan going first and explaining
what things are. So I originally came into this assuming
I wasn't gonna have to explain to what Babka is.
But here we are, Buck, is this really wonderful baked good?
(08:01):
It's basically crupt me if I'm wrong. But it's like
a sweet bread that's like sort of in a twist
and sort of rolled together with like fine layers of
bread and then usually either chocolate or cinnamon, and it's
sort of swirled. Right, the cinnamon and chocolate is sort
of like swirled in.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I didn't say, I called it kind of like Halla
meets brioge meats cake.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Yeah, it's really soft, it's kind of squishy. It's it's
absolutely delicious. Originally, I believe it's trace back to like
Jewish cultures in Eastern Europe, right, And because babka is
a Yiddish word, right that I believe they traced it
back to, Like Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Isn't rich sweet dough like a selection on a dating app?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I think so my preference. So what I sort of
loved when I was looking into Bobka, which I didn't know,
is that in Yiddish babka directly translates to little grandmother,
which I kind of that that's what it's named after.
It's like the og like grandmother, which just made me
think of like how whenever you watch those cooking shows
(09:08):
and baking shows, like so many people are like my
grandmother taught me this, So it just made me love
bobcomor that it's literally called grandmother.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
I don't want to say. My Nata wasn't like big
big baker. She did always bake. It was like a
lot of like the box mix. It was just like
family wise, there always had to be dessert after dinner,
so it was always something. So growing up they lived
down in Florida. My birthday's over the summer, so like
my grandparents always got us for the summer, so my
Nada would have me for my birthday, always got me
(09:37):
whatever theme cake I wanted for my birthday, whether it
was like lion king or like princess like stuff like that.
So for all these years it was like Na always
made my birthday cake and they were amazing with how
they were decorated and everything else. So fast forward to
like early twenties, we're all down in Florida, like my aunts,
(09:57):
my mom, my, Nana, us kids, cousins, and we're like
talking about all that stuff. And I brought up like
Nana and all the cakes that she made. It was
like she literally asked me whatever theme I wanted and
like made these amazing cakes. And my one aunt was
(10:17):
just like you idiot, And I was like, well, what's
the matter. And I turn and I look and my
nana is sitting at like the end of the table
with that like hardcore belly laugh where like they're quiet
because they're laughing so hard.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
She was like, uh huh.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
She has bought all of your cakes from since you
were a little kid.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I love it and.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Web of grain.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
She asked you what you wanted. She would go to
the food store and tell them what cake you wanted.
And I was just like, oh my, but I was
like traumatized. I was like the fact that I'm in
my twenties and I still thought that my nana made
all of my birthday cakes since I was like a little.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Just found out Santa Claus isn't real?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
That is so key you though, especially I was going
to ask, was this part of what got you into
baking and making those beautiful cakes yourself was because you
have all these beautiful memories as a child of amazing
cakes from your grandmother. And it turns out the whole
thing was alive yep.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Have you gone over to publics? Have you gone over
republics and been like I need to meet the person
who's my inspiration.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
But so the whole joke is now like my cake
decorating is. I'm just trying to live up to Nana's standards,
like you know, her skill. I just don't know if
I'm there yet.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, one day. You can only hope and dream. Okay,
that's what I was hoping this was going to turn into.
So the reason I brought up that it's called Little
Grandma was because I was like, we just have to
talk about grandma inspirations, because that's what it made me
think of. Rissa is looking to see if there were
other cakes or breads or anything named like with grandmother
in the name, and I could actually only find one
(11:53):
of fisial one, I mean because obviously Bobka Little Grandmother.
And there's one it's called Granny Cake, which is a
Scottish cake, which is just like a sponge with raisins.
It's a pretty simple one. But yeah, it's called a
Granny cake.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
What about Grandma Pie?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
What's Grandma Pie? That didn't come up in my search?
I just made that up money, Oh rude. There is
like a company that's called the Grandmother's Cakes in New England.
But then I looked it up. It's just like a
chain like an intimates and I was like, oh, well,
this isn't like a sweet personal thing like the Scottish one.
Looks like the Scottish version of like babka. It's like
it would be their is. It literally looks like a
(12:28):
granny kit where it's like small, kind of like a
spongey cake with raisins. You're like, this feels like what
Granny would make. And I actually read an article about
it where one Scottish woman was like, she grew up
with granny cake and she thought they called it that
because her granny would you know, make it, And she
was like, no, that's what this is. My grandmother taught
me when I was a little girl. It's been around
as long as like we can remember because it was
easy and when you had lots of like wains as
(12:51):
they called them, like little kids, it was like an
easy sweet thing to whip up for after dinner. So
I'm sure other cultures must have their version. I just
don't know that granny is in the name. I think
every culture has their version of this. So I think
with my grandmother is my my father's mother was not
God's gift to cooking.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
That's where you got it from.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
That's where I get my culinary prowess from is my grandmother.
Let's just say it's being edible is like a standard
to which we barely make. But she could bake, and
that's one thing my mother gives her. She's like, she
could bake, she could make a good pie, and she
made she made this one Ukrainian bread every year for
Easter that oh crap, what's it called? If my sister's here,
(13:31):
she would know anyway, it's Ukrainian Easter bread that's literally
heartburned bread, like it says so many eggs, Like you
have to have it with thumbs because you just want
to die. Like it's pretty, but like you put it
with butter and then you just like your heart just
leaps out of you. And then my other grandmother on
my mom's side was Irish, so she made asca, credible
(13:51):
Irish soda bread. Pasca. There it is pasca. Thank you.
My Ukrainian grandmother would make pasca and you would want
to die, but it was tasty. And then my other
one had Irish soda bread that was off the charts.
But like, Ryan, do you have any granny baking? You're
not taking away from my ten minutes. Oh I'm so sorry,
I figured you were going to talk about like the
(14:12):
history of Bobka and the chemistry behind me.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
No, well, I am a little bit, but like obviously
I think I ended up doing this as soon as
I found it. It was like little grandmother, like I went
down that fun Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Well, because it's so sweet. I think it's I think
it's a lovely thing because I think everybody has this
where it's like my nanami, you know, somebody who's like
inspired me to cook. I mean, neither of my grand
grandparents got to teach me. They both were older when
I was doing so I would eat it. But I
also I think they looked at me and they were like,
bless you, You're a lost cause my sister bakes is
(14:42):
never happening.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
You know what's funny is is this conversation actually has
evolved where my ten minutes is going to go. I
just had another thought and I decided I'm going to
go a different direction because I was just realizing, like
I think all families have a bread, Like there's like
all families have some sort of bread that is like
the family bread. I don't know, Accordnaney, is that true
for you? Other? I mean other than Public's yellow cake.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
I don't know we I feel like we always had
dessert at like the end of dinner, especially like my
mom's side, but I always feel like it was it
was actually more about like the meal than it was
the dessert. So I feel like that's why, like the
desserts were almost kind of like afterthought and maybe not
like as elaborate, but bread. I don't like we really
(15:25):
didn't have too much. I feel like I'm me and
one of my brothers who likes to bake too, not
to the same extent, but like I feel like we're
the ones that kind of like are bringing like desserts
and more baked into Like yeah, so like our big
thing that I do for like family dinners and stuff
like that holidays is buttermilk biscuits all the way.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I love. Like this is probably why I couldn't fully
concentrate on that, because now I'm just thinking about yummy
baked goods everything, which I'm also going to have. The
moment we finished recording, my sister brought scones from Scone Pony.
Oh and they are downstairs and I wait to dive
in shout out to also Scone Pony. I don't know
that they taste like scones. They're just like cake. They're
just like a big piece of cake that you like
convince yourself as a breakfast food.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Okay, I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, I'm thrilled like they they are delicious. It's dessert
for breakfast, and I'm very happy about it. And I
put on a stretchy shorts and enjoy my day.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I've wanted, always wanted to do a Kathleen Turner themed
scone shop and call it Romancing the Scone. Oh, it's great,
and then have all the different scones named for various
roles that that she that she's been in. That's that's great.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Especially can you just only have drag queens working there with.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Like deep voices.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
I'm glad it worked out that I could lead you
into your ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
This is so rare because winning ten minutes apparently is
winning ten minutes, because yeah, yeah, the rails.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
No, you saved by party with your amazing story. Are
you ready, I'm ready, let's do it?
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Okay, so bopka, So I obviously hit a lot of
the same history, the Polish Ukrainian background, the little grandmother part.
But then I got into a little bit of the
history to like how do we get to where it
is today? And it didn't originally have chocolate or cinnamon
in it. It was just kind of like a like
a sweet bread that was served in a loaf, but
(17:31):
we started adding things to it, or actually those cultures
and Jewish culture ended up adding things to it in
like the nineteen tens to nineteen thirties, and I got into,
you know, I got into like why or what kind
of drove that a little bit, and like it's a
lot of the like straightforward kind of things that you
would expect. So, like the early nineteen hundreds was obviously
(17:54):
a period of heavy industrialization, so you had a greater
mixing of cultures. So the Eastern European breads obviously, or
the people making them is the right way to put it,
got greater exposure to the French and the Austrians, who
have a lot more fun with their sweetbreads, or were
having more fun with their sweetbreads at the time in
terms of having cinnamons and chocolates and various other flavors.
(18:18):
So we had that influence. The other part that I
liked was talking about the fact that like post World
War One and World War II. Going back to that
idea of the little grandmother, is that post those wars,
people drew back to what they knew, They drew back
to their kind of like heritage or back to the
things that made them feel comfy and at home, and
(18:38):
thus there was a greater reliance or a greater desire
to participate in foods and culinary things that reminded you
of home. The other thing that was a big driver
and really Bobka as we know it today was a
lot of Jewish immigration into the city, and modern Bobka
is very much driven by a New York City style Bobka,
which is, you know, as people moved into the city,
(19:00):
there's a great merging of cultures. There's also very reasonable
access to ingredients, and as I had mentioned, industrialization drove
you know, essentially commercialized availability of various ingredient ingredients. So
that's you know, that's where we kind of got to
where we know Bobka today. The other thing that I
thought was kind of like cool history on all of
(19:22):
this was that Bobka had a resurgence in the nineties
And do either of you know.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Why, No, No, I have no idea Seinfeld. I was
gonna actually, I was going to say, was it on Seinfeld?
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Yeah, So there's a very famous chocolate Bobka episode on
Seinfeld where Elaine wants a very specific chocolate Bobka to
take to a dinner party and that cinnamon podka will
not is not what she wants, it's not appropriate, And
it obviously goes through the typical kind of Seinfeld like,
you know, realizing you're not what you're going to get,
(19:55):
bothering to try and get there, and then ultimately resigning
to your outcome, and that all the humans that goes
into it. But it's kind of interesting, but that was
the episode that really brought Bobka into mainstream and made
more people aware of it and want to try it,
and then gave it kind of uplift to where it
is today. And if I'm being honest with you, I
(20:16):
don't think I knew about Bobka until that Seinfeld episode.
And I was I think recall being like, what the
hell's Bobka? I just I was like, it must be
delicious if they made a whole episode out of it.
But I will say I do love I am a
cinnamon vodka person. And then like you're either a chilolate
Bobka person or a cinnamon bodka person, and I am
a cinnamon bodka person. I think cinnamon and sugar is delicious.
(20:38):
I'm such a chocolate fan cinnamon. Yeah, okay, you win. Congratulations,
I've now double lost. But obviously this made me go
down the rabbit hole that I feel like we all
kind of did, which is that kind of reflection of
little grandmother, that homey feeling. There's things that make you
feel like at home. And I was originally going to
talk a little bit about my grandmother and she had
(21:00):
I don't know that it was actually a victory garden,
but they had a good acre sized garden that produced
a lot of different things and a lot of different
dishes that to this day I still love very much.
This is also side note the grandmother that I have
a number of hilarious stories to tell about that for
some odd reason, we've yet to get to any of them.
My grandmother is a very funny, little old country woman
(21:25):
who is now ninety six years old and unfortunately a
bit out of her mind. But I have to say
left a hell of a legacy within the family. But
what you reminded me of Michael in terms of like
talking about the pasca, was that the family bread or
that like let's call it the heritage bread in my
family are these lard dinner rolls that my great grandmother
Bobo used to make. And it was quite the process.
(21:48):
It was five pounds of flour I think over almost
an equivalent amount of lard. It's a yeast bread and
it has a double rise to it. So I have
this massive bowl. Although I found I now have a well,
I still use the massive bowl, but I use a
really big KitchenAid mixer now to need the dough because
(22:08):
it's such a pain in the ass. I mean, my
great grandmother's forearms were like she's built like a linebacker.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Some of those old ladies when you see them make
because some of those nonahs, you know, and they're just
like boom, Like it's like you should be a massuse.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
You got to get that lard equally distributed into that
flower otherwise like it just doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
I definitely I cheat a lot too. The only thing
I want are the buttermelt biscuits that I actually like
woll massage the butter into the into the flower. But
like when I'm doing pop tarts food processor all the
way safe, so much time, or you just hit it
a couple of times.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Does the massaging affect the flavor? Like if you massage
the butter, does it change the flavors post if you
used like a mixer, I don't so.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Or the texture I don't think so I'm a freeed
with buttermelt biscuits. I'm like, I've never done them in
like the food processor started them, and I'm like, the
time I do, I bet you they don't taste the same.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I was gonna say. The funny part about Bobo's roles though,
is like it was one of these recipes that has
been handed down through experience, although my grandmother did document it,
and I now with the documented thing, I'm the one
that makes the family roles when we get together. But
Bobo lived in like so Bobo. I interviewed Bobo like
(23:25):
back in the sixth grade because she was the oldest
living family member and we talked about the price of
things and like asked questions of her like do you
remember the Great Depression? And I remember that whole discussion
because she was like, no, she goes one we were
too poor and two we lived out on the countryside,
and we virtually bartered for everything, as it was like
(23:46):
we would grow things and trade things with others and
so on and so forth, so like, and she lived
in a very quaint little home. But if you went
to that home, that quaint little home, it always smelled
of now and very specifically mothballs. That's what napolene is.
Everything smells like mothballs. And like Bobo always had a
(24:10):
faint odor of naptaline. The food that she brought always
had like a faint odor of naptoleine. And we joke,
like Bobo's roles are still the peak rolls, and to
this day that we joke that the all the ones
that we make today, the main thing they're missing is mothball.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Oh. I mean that's actually really sweet.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Because it was just it was like pervasive through everything,
and it's like one of those things that like it
wasn't like a bad odor or smell. It was just
it was just her for lack of a better way
of putting it. So yeah, I mean, that's that's the
main thing it makes me think of. But there, I mean,
the role itself is so rich and then once you
(24:56):
bake it, it goes through a double rise, and like
the best way to have it is with a nice
pad of butter and apple butter. I don't know how
you guys feel about apple butter, but oh yeah, apple butter.
But it's like it's rich to begin with, and you're like, yeah,
let's smear some more butter on. It isn't that most
things though, Like when is more butter bad?
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Yeah, I'm totally okay with things like swimming in butter
for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Ye oh yeah, yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. How much
time do I have? Did I? I don't know, maybe forty
eight seconds? Oh well, that's perfect. I don't know. That's
that's the kind of comfort it made me go back to.
And I guess it was a combination. You know. My
grandmother tried. My grandmother for multiple years tried to make
them and would do it. They wouldn't rise, and they'd
(25:44):
end up like hockey pucks and she'd throw a fit.
And my grandmother's move for any food that like didn't
make it was to just throw it out in the yard.
So I remember she made this, And the thing is
it's like five pounds of flours, so we're talking a
sizeable amount of rolls. Yeah, and those bad boys were
like ah and thrown out, thrown out into the yard,
(26:08):
you know, and then you watch critters come.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
By not eat them. I was gonna say, terrible, this
is this is a hilarious version, like version of snow
White or like Cinderella. Like the animals are like, ah, running.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Away like hockey pucks.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
They're like literally bludgeoned by these these biscuits. I was
gonna say that sounds like whenever I've tried to make
my sister's chocolate chip cookies, they come out, Oh my god,
it's it's my sister makes amazing chocolate chip cookies and
I have tried and they come out like hockey. It's
it's a real shame.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Like you just have to good chocolate chop cookie just
has to be like underbaked. Oh yeah, and you just
let them sit to like basically to just let the
dough solidify after cooling down. My because I do get
compliments on like there's certain things like with cookies and
stuff like that. My secret is I just love Mexican vanilla.
(27:09):
It adds a totally different taste to like whatever it
is that you're making. Because even that like vanilla cake,
people will be like it's vanilla, but it's not like
what is that, It's just it's Mexican vanilla. Like there
almost has like a kind of like hints of like
cinnamon and certain spices to it. And I just love that. So,
like for cookies everything, it's my go to.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
What about yum? What about Madagascar and vanilla?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I I'm just joking it, but like they do all
have like different like kind of like notes to them,
So it depends on where you get it from.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
A friend of mine is is from Mexico, one of
my very good friends, and she had a I was
at her house recently with her and her mother and
her husband and her husband's also Mexican, and we had this cake.
It was like a celebratory cake and they hide a
little plastic babies in it, and there's like three of
them and if you get one of the babies then
(28:03):
you can like make a wish and it's supposed to
be good luck. It's this very traditional, sort of dry
like round cake. But I was like, how hilarious if
you did a version of that for bob Kas and
you hide like a little plastic grandma in it and
like as you eat it, like you look for the
little Grandma and it's like a little old like Jewish lady,
like who's bent over with her.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Black Find the Bubby's find the Bobby, like you find
the Bubby and the Bobka, and if you find the bubby,
it means like a year of good luck maybe good
good there's a question mark on it.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
It's like good luck.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Aren't like the little baby things? Isn't that like the
Is that the Marty Grassy?
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Do you think king Cake?
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Yeah? Yeah, That's what I'm thinking of.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Of king Cake. We have this grocery store in Woodstock
and it's called Sunflower Market, and you know, it's you know,
like I think everyone identifies with the fact that it's
nice to have a very local grocery store, like somewhere
you can pop in and you can get milk, or
you could get vanilla if you're baking or whatever else.
But this effing place. What I would say is like,
(29:02):
if I wanted to go there and get vanilla number one,
it's going to be at least twenty to twenty five dollars.
And it's not just going to be vanilla, it's going
to be Madagascar and vanilla that was collected under a
full moon by local indigenous people when there was a
warm breeze on a after a strong summer day, because
that was when it was peak vanilla, you know. And
(29:24):
that's that's what this whole effa is worth every suck,
and that's what this whole place is like, Like, it's
not just coco. It's not just coco. This was coco
collected in a small region of Africa that few people
know about, where you must hike twenty six miles and
your personal sweat is actually part of what brings forward
the aroma when you pick it. You know, this sort
(29:45):
of bullshit, but like at the same time, I'm like,
I'm really happy that they're supporting free, free trade growers
and yeah, weird shit.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So yeah, all right, so court me, you now have
the really fun task of choosing the winner, whatever that
means to you. You also feel free to pick yourself too,
because you, I think had a great story. I would
thank you.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
I don't know. It's a tough one. Ryan was a
bit more educational on it.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
That's pretty standards.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Rely on you to go first.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
But I think we're gonna go with Michael because.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Why because I complained so much?
Speaker 3 (30:32):
No, but you did bring up the whole like grandma
thing and everything else, and it was a fun time
and I feel like everyone enjoyed that conversation.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So I agreek you.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
I agree, But I did like the history on Babka.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
That was good.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Yeah, I loved that. I'm good for a little history.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Oh. I learned so much from you. All right, So,
and what is our topic for next?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah? Can we do so if I say metal? Like
rock metal? Does that work?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Oh? Like the music like a rock metal band?
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yes? And Aussie just passed.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Oh I'm sorry, maybe it's a bad tompic.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Okay, I love that topic. We haven't talked about a
music thing in a minute, So this is this is great.
And I know next to nothing about hard rock, like
that was not a I am a little old man
who listened to like show tunes and like Elia Fitzgerald
growing up. So this is this is great. I may
actually do a fun little dive on this one.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
It's funny. You were like you were like metal. I
was like, oh, gold bag no.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I was like the Olympics. I was like winning a medal.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
I I don't know, because I knew that I was
going to have to pick a word all that I
could think. So I like my two brothers, like I said,
like one plays guitar and was a huge metal head
growing up. He's an electrical engineer who used to have
very long hair and was a huge metal head. So
it was a very funny combination. But I was like,
(32:04):
you know, we'll go with Jimmy will these metal for this?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
All right? Well, thank you so so much, thank you,
thank being here, thanks for having me, so nice to
meet you. And I can wait for a set like
to get together and eat. Yeah, it's going to be.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I think generically there's a good, really good food culture
at the place that you guys work because I also
love all the well I love Matt the yes, the chef,
and all the stories of all the things that he makes.
So like, I just like I feel like I should
work there so we could eat.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Well. I'm trying to convince him. I was like, if
I if I just prep dough at home, like cookie dough,
can we can we bring it in and just bake
fresh cookies for the day instead of pre made Oh
my god, but next time I'll make a little box
for James to bring home.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
And oh, remind everybody again what your Instagram handle.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Is Underscore Wild Period Honey, and it's h O n
E Y Period Pie and I can't remember. It's a
little quick blurb from the Beatles White album. It's one
of their songs, so nice.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Very cool.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yes, definitely go check that out and and we'll be
back for for metal, for metal,
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