ATHLLC4944354008

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:01.960 | - Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks,

00:00:04.760 | a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel.

00:00:07.280 | I'm Chris Hutchins, and I'm so excited

00:00:08.960 | to introduce today's guest, David Chang.

00:00:11.640 | He's a culinary icon known for founding

00:00:13.760 | the renowned restaurant group Momofuku,

00:00:15.880 | but wow, has he done so much more.

00:00:18.320 | He's received six James Beard Awards,

00:00:20.560 | has three New York Times bestsellers,

00:00:22.960 | hosts two podcasts, and has four original TV series,

00:00:26.760 | including "Secret Chef" on Hulu, which comes out this week.

00:00:30.440 | With a resume like that, we could take this conversation

00:00:32.920 | in so many directions,

00:00:34.560 | but today I wanna focus on cooking at home,

00:00:37.360 | which is not only something Dave is super passionate about,

00:00:39.840 | but also it's the title of a book he released

00:00:42.160 | during the pandemic.

00:00:43.320 | And if you didn't know, Dave is on a mission

00:00:45.080 | to empower people to become masters of their own kitchens.

00:00:48.400 | We're gonna cover a range of topics,

00:00:50.060 | like his favorite easy home cooking techniques,

00:00:52.600 | some underrated ingredients, a lot of home cooking hacks,

00:00:55.940 | the biggest of which might be using your microwave more,

00:00:58.320 | a device he's called the single best piece of equipment

00:01:00.960 | in a kitchen, and so much more.

00:01:03.480 | So let's jump in right after this.

00:01:05.800 | Dave, thanks for being here.

00:01:08.680 | - Excited to be here.

00:01:09.680 | - You've really spent a lot of time talking about recently

00:01:11.560 | in the past few years, cooking at home.

00:01:13.520 | Why do you think home cooking

00:01:14.680 | and restaurant cooking is so different?

00:01:16.240 | And what are people getting wrong

00:01:17.840 | when they maybe try to emulate

00:01:19.360 | all these recipes they find online?

00:01:21.200 | - Restaurant cooking is something entirely different

00:01:23.400 | than home cooking.

00:01:24.280 | 50% of many of the things that home cooks use and do

00:01:28.660 | are distilled from fine dining concepts.

00:01:31.660 | And the rest, they're just like whatever works best.

00:01:34.620 | But I would say most of the times,

00:01:37.020 | however you cook in a high-end professional kitchen

00:01:40.300 | does not translate whatsoever in a home kitchen.

00:01:43.660 | And I jokingly say it's like learning

00:01:45.820 | how to drive an F1 race car.

00:01:48.380 | It's the same thing as a car, as a Prius,

00:01:50.540 | but very, very, very different.

00:01:52.980 | And as crazy as it sounds,

00:01:54.500 | I do think it's somewhat applicable

00:01:56.420 | because how I would drive a race car

00:02:00.060 | is very different than how I would drive at home.

00:02:01.860 | And a lot of things are just sort of unnecessary.

00:02:04.620 | And so much of professional cooking

00:02:06.260 | is about volume, exquisite knife cuts,

00:02:09.380 | getting specific kinds of ingredients.

00:02:11.800 | They're just really not at all useful for the home cook.

00:02:14.980 | And I had never cooked at home before.

00:02:17.940 | I watched my mom cook, but I never cooked myself.

00:02:20.200 | In college, I never cooked.

00:02:21.900 | So my real first job cooking was in a professional kitchen.

00:02:26.200 | And when you start cooking professionally,

00:02:28.780 | if you have friends that cook in restaurants on the line

00:02:31.020 | or something like that,

00:02:32.780 | you'll probably hear them say they never cook at home

00:02:35.300 | because they just are always too tired.

00:02:37.900 | And the last thing they wanna do

00:02:39.140 | is spend all day cooking on their one day off.

00:02:42.540 | So you fast forward, I don't know, 15, 20 years later,

00:02:46.260 | I had never cooked at home.

00:02:47.500 | And almost in all of my apartments,

00:02:49.580 | I had paper plates or those plastic bundles

00:02:52.900 | of salt and pepper and soy sauce and chopsticks

00:02:55.180 | and plastic forks and knives.

00:02:56.720 | Those were my utensils.

00:02:59.260 | And I never had anything.

00:03:00.340 | I never had a plate or cups

00:03:02.660 | until I started dating my now wife.

00:03:04.700 | She was like aghast at the fact

00:03:06.180 | that I didn't have anything to cook with or eat on.

00:03:08.820 | So literally, I never cooked at home.

00:03:10.620 | And then when my wife became pregnant with our first child,

00:03:13.640 | that's when I started to cook in earnest.

00:03:15.620 | And everything that I did

00:03:18.540 | was not how I would ever teach anybody else to cook.

00:03:21.620 | They were very, very, very,

00:03:23.620 | I would almost say inappropriate ways of cooking

00:03:26.120 | because it was almost perverse.

00:03:29.780 | The thing that allows me to do it

00:03:31.420 | is I understand food science and I understand technique

00:03:34.980 | and I can sort of reverse engineer

00:03:37.340 | how to get to the end goal of a dish,

00:03:39.420 | which ultimately is delicious.

00:03:40.540 | So long story cut short,

00:03:42.940 | I figured out a bunch of hacks that work for me

00:03:46.060 | and some of them work for other people as a home cook.

00:03:49.060 | - I love it 'cause I feel like I had the opposite thing.

00:03:50.900 | I was cooking at home a lot

00:03:52.400 | and then we had kids about three years ago.

00:03:54.940 | And it's like, where's this time?

00:03:55.960 | I don't have time to cook.

00:03:57.260 | And we went through a few cycles

00:03:59.860 | and in preparation for this conversation,

00:04:02.100 | I read your "Cooking at Home" book.

00:04:03.460 | And I was like, okay, I'm ready to get back into it

00:04:04.940 | because we went from we have no time

00:04:07.180 | and we tried hiring someone to meal prep

00:04:09.180 | and deliver food to us.

00:04:10.660 | We tried a lot of stuff.

00:04:11.800 | I'm ready to get back into cooking,

00:04:15.700 | but in a much more casual, not high stress,

00:04:19.220 | way things out like ridiculous way.

00:04:21.600 | So all these hacks are great and I wanna hear them.

00:04:24.660 | But you mentioned you have all this background

00:04:26.340 | in the science, you understand it all.

00:04:27.820 | Does everyone need that?

00:04:28.900 | Is that a prereq?

00:04:30.420 | - I think science is important to at least trust

00:04:33.940 | or to have some understanding of,

00:04:36.260 | because I think a lot of the taboo things

00:04:38.580 | in a home kitchen stem from, oh, you can't cook it that way

00:04:42.520 | or you're not allowed to do it a certain way

00:04:44.840 | because this is how it's always been done.

00:04:46.800 | And if you don't like challenging the status quo in life

00:04:51.480 | and the kitchen is probably not the easiest thing

00:04:53.600 | to sort of do 'cause cooking seems like the provenance

00:04:56.480 | of keeping it safe, keeping it simple, keeping it wholesome.

00:04:59.580 | If you believe in science, then it's a lot easier

00:05:02.520 | to do certain things that you may not normally do.

00:05:05.960 | - Okay.

00:05:06.800 | Are there some principles that we should just lay out front

00:05:09.460 | before we chat about things people just need

00:05:11.580 | to kind of either throw out the window, old wisdom

00:05:14.520 | or science to understand and lay a foundation?

00:05:17.300 | - I mean, there's so much just stupid shit.

00:05:19.540 | - Let's do it.

00:05:20.380 | Let's do it.

00:05:21.400 | - I mean, I don't even know which ones.

00:05:22.820 | You just have to see it to do it.

00:05:24.520 | Like I saw, like some people were telling me,

00:05:26.500 | oh, you gotta soak your chicken in milk.

00:05:28.060 | I'm like, why?

00:05:28.900 | Oh, 'cause it takes out the blood.

00:05:31.340 | I'm like, what are you talking about?

00:05:34.180 | Like, you're not brining it, you're just soaking it for what?

00:05:37.920 | And they don't even know, if you ask them why,

00:05:40.440 | they're like, it's 'cause my mom did it.

00:05:42.840 | That's the kind of stuff that happens where you're like,

00:05:45.680 | okay, like it's not necessary for you to do that.

00:05:49.200 | It just, it's certain things about time and temperature.

00:05:52.160 | That's all that matters.

00:05:53.220 | But I think the one that's the easiest thing

00:05:55.160 | that I talk about the most is probably the microwave.

00:05:57.600 | - Most people think the microwave is like a quick place

00:05:59.680 | to reheat leftovers.

00:06:00.800 | I, in the last week, have talked to a handful of people.

00:06:03.400 | All of them seemed like it was crazy

00:06:05.160 | when I told them we were cooking full meals

00:06:07.640 | in the microwave with like meat and fish.

00:06:10.280 | So what do you want to tell these people

00:06:12.320 | that think the microwave is not a way to cook?

00:06:15.080 | Because I think you've said it's the single best piece

00:06:17.320 | of equipment you have in your kitchen.

00:06:18.720 | - I mean, it's a joke.

00:06:19.760 | It's like culinary arbitrage.

00:06:21.760 | It's like the best play

00:06:23.080 | if you were gonna try to make a financial trade here.

00:06:25.080 | It's in like 91% of all US households collecting dust.

00:06:28.600 | And if people use it, it's usually for popcorn

00:06:31.640 | or for reheating leftovers or a mug of water for something.

00:06:36.120 | And the reality is, I mean, it's not a joke.

00:06:39.880 | It's sort of like you press a button and things get hot.

00:06:44.280 | It's like the most magical element

00:06:46.240 | I could possibly think of.

00:06:48.160 | It's unfortunate that the UX and the UI is so bad

00:06:52.320 | on microwaves across the board and the marketing of it,

00:06:55.120 | because if the microwave technology came out today,

00:06:57.560 | I don't think you'd call it a microwave.

00:06:59.000 | That's what happens when you leave it to the military

00:07:00.960 | to come up with sort of marketing.

00:07:03.280 | It'd probably be called the turbo chef, right?

00:07:06.520 | 'Cause that's what you use when you go into a Starbucks

00:07:08.480 | and they reheat all your food.

00:07:09.480 | It's a convection oven and a microwave,

00:07:11.040 | but it's called a turbo chef.

00:07:13.160 | And that's gonna be coming to a kitchen near you.

00:07:15.160 | And it's gonna be marketed as the new convection oven

00:07:17.400 | that's going to dramatically chop off 75%

00:07:19.840 | of your cooking time.

00:07:21.160 | And it will conveniently drop

00:07:22.880 | that it's using microwave technology

00:07:25.080 | to cook your food faster.

00:07:26.440 | People are using microwaves all the time.

00:07:28.480 | When they go out to eat, they may not realize it.

00:07:30.600 | But ultimately, if you understand the science,

00:07:32.960 | you're using microwaves to effectively heat

00:07:37.200 | the water molecules inherent in foods.

00:07:41.000 | And that's all that's happening.

00:07:42.800 | And it's steaming in and of itself.

00:07:45.320 | So it's the most energy efficient way of cooking.

00:07:48.740 | Again, if you cook for two hours,

00:07:50.760 | it's probably not right for the microwave, right?

00:07:52.920 | But for cooking, like say blanching some broccoli

00:07:56.120 | or something like that,

00:07:57.520 | why would I take four liters of water,

00:08:01.120 | take 12 minutes to bring that to a boil,

00:08:03.360 | steam or boil my broccoli

00:08:05.160 | when I could do that in five minutes in a microwave?

00:08:07.120 | It's just more energy efficient, number one.

00:08:09.760 | Number two, it's gonna be the most nutrient dense way

00:08:13.320 | of preserving all the stuff in your food

00:08:15.400 | because there's no osmosis.

00:08:16.880 | There's nothing happening where you're gonna lose

00:08:19.600 | any flavor or any nutrients to the water

00:08:23.120 | or to the outside environment.

00:08:24.940 | Three, you can cook cleaner than anything else.

00:08:28.380 | I don't have to add anything to a microwave, right?

00:08:32.720 | Like I don't have to add oil, I don't have to add fat.

00:08:34.660 | So it's theoretically, 'cause you can,

00:08:37.580 | make delicious things with no fats whatsoever

00:08:39.700 | if you should so choose.

00:08:41.340 | And if you look at it just as a steamer,

00:08:44.300 | basically it's really good for anything

00:08:45.840 | that doesn't need to be crispy

00:08:48.300 | or long braise for that matter.

00:08:50.180 | We're trying to break down muscle fibers, et cetera.

00:08:52.780 | So most people would think that it's crazy

00:08:55.580 | to cook a lobster in a microwave, right?

00:08:58.420 | They'd say that's insane.

00:08:59.500 | That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

00:09:01.220 | And trust me, I used to be one of those people

00:09:02.700 | and tell like, oh yeah, the science sort of makes sense.

00:09:05.900 | And not that science doesn't make just a sort of sense,

00:09:08.100 | it makes a lot of sense.

00:09:09.700 | And I'd argue that you could butter poach a lobster

00:09:13.360 | in the microwave within any day better than you could

00:09:16.480 | and more consistently than any other way of cooking lobster.

00:09:20.200 | - That's crazy.

00:09:21.040 | I haven't made it to that point.

00:09:21.900 | And for anyone listening that isn't familiar with any day,

00:09:25.300 | it's a set of microwave cookware

00:09:27.340 | that is not just for the microwave.

00:09:28.820 | The one thing you didn't put in your points

00:09:30.820 | was the thing you're cooking with

00:09:32.940 | is also the thing that you can store leftovers with

00:09:35.740 | and the thing that you can put on the plate to serve with.

00:09:38.220 | - And you can put it in an oven.

00:09:39.740 | This morning I just made package of Korean wheat noodles,

00:09:43.760 | fresh noodles.

00:09:45.020 | I had a package of like one and a half pounds

00:09:47.620 | of frozen chicken thighs.

00:09:49.500 | I had some leftover shiitake mushrooms.

00:09:51.100 | I had a couple of cloves of garlic.

00:09:52.620 | We're leaving town on Friday.

00:09:53.740 | So I just wanna use all the stuff we have in the house.

00:09:56.080 | And now that I'm at the office a lot more, the studio,

00:09:59.620 | I'm cooking all my meals ahead of time.

00:10:01.740 | So my wife or whoever's at home,

00:10:04.180 | they can still have a freshly cooked meal.

00:10:05.740 | They're just reheating it usually in any day.

00:10:07.980 | So I took a large deep any day.

00:10:11.660 | I took out the chicken thighs and I covered it in any day

00:10:14.460 | and I microwaved it for about seven and a half minutes.

00:10:17.620 | I took out a pair of scissors

00:10:19.720 | and it's still raw in the center, right?

00:10:22.100 | This block of frozen chicken thighs.

00:10:24.380 | And I just cut it up.

00:10:26.220 | Again, seems insane.

00:10:28.340 | Taking scissors, kitchen shears,

00:10:31.020 | and I'm cutting into little bits.

00:10:32.420 | The main reason why is as a home cook,

00:10:34.220 | I don't want to wash more dishes than I need to.

00:10:37.580 | I'm always worried about cross-contamination with poultry.

00:10:40.540 | So if I take the chicken raw, put it on a cutting board,

00:10:43.940 | I have now chicken all over my hands.

00:10:46.060 | I'm gonna cut it.

00:10:47.100 | So I have to wash the knife.

00:10:48.400 | I have to wash the cutting board.

00:10:49.380 | I have to wash my hands multiple times

00:10:51.180 | if you're gonna do it correctly.

00:10:53.020 | And now if I just do it in the any day,

00:10:54.860 | I don't even have to wash my hands

00:10:56.100 | 'cause I've never touched chicken.

00:10:57.460 | I put the lid on.

00:10:59.100 | I cook it for about seven and a half minutes

00:11:00.420 | so it's thawed out, but the center is still gonna be raw.

00:11:04.100 | I could cook it all the way, but there's no need.

00:11:06.580 | So I'm taking frozen chicken.

00:11:08.360 | Usually if I have to defrost it, that's at least a day,

00:11:10.700 | but how else are you gonna defrost it?

00:11:12.540 | You have to like just leave it out.

00:11:14.940 | So I've done that in seven and a half minutes to defrost it.

00:11:17.120 | Now I've chopped it up in the bits.

00:11:18.920 | I've taken the garlic and I've taken the shiitake mushrooms.

00:11:21.500 | I've added, you know, momo soy sauce,

00:11:23.620 | some dark soy sauce, some agave, some neutral oil.

00:11:27.180 | And I'm just sauteing that, added some scallions.

00:11:30.480 | And as that's cooking, I added my chopped chicken

00:11:34.020 | and all the juices that accumulated

00:11:37.300 | and pretty much saute that for like a minute.

00:11:40.220 | And then I add the noodles that I cooked,

00:11:42.140 | re-season and I'm ready to go.

00:11:44.260 | Put it back into any day

00:11:45.580 | and they're gonna reheat that for lunch.

00:11:47.900 | So again, is it pretty?

00:11:50.440 | Absolutely not.

00:11:51.820 | But I'm not like cooking for an audience

00:11:54.400 | other than my family.

00:11:55.900 | The final product looks delicious, tastes delicious,

00:11:58.680 | but it was a roundabout way of getting there,

00:12:00.580 | but it was extremely quick.

00:12:01.760 | I cooked that in 10 minutes.

00:12:03.320 | The water was boiling, I microwaved the chicken.

00:12:05.640 | So to do a delicious dish in 10 minutes, it's hard to beat.

00:12:09.520 | - I've had a great experience

00:12:10.520 | cooking in the microwave recently this past week.

00:12:12.840 | And I actually reached out to Anyday

00:12:14.760 | and they decided to offer a deal for all listeners.

00:12:17.280 | So if you want 15% off your Anyday purchase,

00:12:20.280 | go to allthehacks.com/anyday.

00:12:23.160 | But if you're an All The Hacks member, check your email

00:12:25.640 | because there's a 20% off code coming your way.

00:12:28.440 | And if you're not a member,

00:12:29.460 | you can join at allthehacks.com/join.

00:12:32.000 | Okay, I have a few more questions here.

00:12:34.120 | Are there any other unusual things you cook in the microwave?

00:12:36.760 | - I mean, lobster, listen, I say lobster

00:12:38.720 | because that's the people go, what the fuck?

00:12:40.600 | But the reality is, is if you just like eating vegetables,

00:12:45.800 | which you're gonna use all the time, every day.

00:12:47.440 | If you have kids, it's how I cook

00:12:49.920 | almost everything for my kids as well.

00:12:51.840 | Vegetables work extremely well.

00:12:53.360 | Frozen vegetables work really well.

00:12:55.160 | I make gravies in there and I can make a one-pot

00:12:58.200 | mac and cheese from scratch

00:12:59.280 | faster than a box mac and cheese.

00:13:00.840 | That tastes way better.

00:13:02.160 | But my kids probably will still wanna eat

00:13:03.920 | the box mac and cheese.

00:13:05.280 | - And when you're making it,

00:13:06.320 | is it just throw in water, pasta, butter, cheese?

00:13:09.200 | Like, you know, you can throw it in or?

00:13:11.080 | - Well, yeah, a lot of it's, again,

00:13:13.020 | just understanding the food science of it all.

00:13:14.440 | So if I add water, just to cover the macaroni

00:13:19.160 | or any pasta shape, and I add some salt,

00:13:21.920 | but not too much salt because the salt's gonna reduce,

00:13:25.680 | right, because I'm gonna evaporate most of the water away.

00:13:28.520 | I'll say I put a cup and a half, two cups of pasta,

00:13:31.360 | cover it with water, maybe a couple millimeters

00:13:34.080 | over the pasta itself.

00:13:35.680 | I'll pop it in the microwave, uncovered,

00:13:38.240 | and it'll be there for about like nine to 10 minutes.

00:13:40.800 | I will take it out.

00:13:42.240 | Fat water now is going to be concentrated with starch,

00:13:46.600 | right, so it's gonna be almost viscous.

00:13:49.600 | But I wanna microwave it to the point

00:13:51.520 | where most of that water has evaporated.

00:13:53.080 | There is some left.

00:13:54.280 | For that same reason, when you make pastas,

00:13:56.560 | a lot of times you're adding at least a scoop or two

00:13:58.440 | of the pasta water back into the sauce

00:14:00.320 | because of the starch that's now in the water.

00:14:02.760 | The pasta's now pretty seasoned

00:14:04.920 | because of the amount of salt that I put in.

00:14:07.920 | Now, all I need to do is make a roux

00:14:10.640 | to make a bechamel 'cause that's how you traditionally

00:14:12.520 | make macaroni and cheese.

00:14:14.320 | You take flour, you take butter or some fat,

00:14:18.600 | and then you milk to it, and you thicken that up,

00:14:21.720 | turns it into a gravy more or less,

00:14:23.360 | and then you can mount it with cheese,

00:14:25.080 | and that's your cheese sauce.

00:14:26.880 | That's a lot of pots and pans already, right,

00:14:29.920 | if you're doing it that way.

00:14:31.240 | All of this is gonna be in one pot.

00:14:32.800 | After nine to 10 minutes, I'm taking the pasta out.

00:14:34.520 | I'm gonna throw maybe a tablespoon or two of butter

00:14:38.160 | right in there.

00:14:39.000 | I'm gonna add a tablespoon of flour.

00:14:41.640 | I'm gonna add a little bit of milk,

00:14:44.280 | maybe like three, four tablespoons.

00:14:45.880 | I'm gonna mix it up, and I'm gonna put it back

00:14:48.560 | in the microwave for about three minutes.

00:14:50.920 | It's gonna come back out.

00:14:52.360 | I'm gonna stir it up, and I don't have to worry about lumps

00:14:55.560 | because the macaroni itself is an agitator.

00:14:58.720 | It's like every piece of macaroni is effectively a whisk,

00:15:01.840 | so all I have to do is mix it around.

00:15:03.920 | I can even put the lid on and shake it up,

00:15:05.760 | and it's an extremely sort of like thick bechamel now,

00:15:09.760 | and now I can add in the cheese, and it's now ripping hot.

00:15:13.400 | I add the cheese in now because it starts to cool it down

00:15:16.560 | so I can more quickly serve it to my children.

00:15:18.680 | They don't have to wait, right?

00:15:20.420 | I could've added the cheese earlier.

00:15:22.120 | This is all about how do we save as much time as possible?

00:15:24.960 | So I can take the cheese.

00:15:26.800 | I can liaise it with the sauce,

00:15:29.000 | and I can help bring the temperature down,

00:15:31.420 | and I have velvety, beautiful macaroni and cheese.

00:15:34.600 | I didn't have a colander.

00:15:35.880 | I didn't use a double boiler.

00:15:37.320 | I didn't use a pot.

00:15:38.480 | I mean, that's a four-pot, at least a four-pot endeavor

00:15:41.400 | to make home-cooked mac and cheese,

00:15:43.160 | and I did it in 12 minutes in one pot and in any day, so.

00:15:48.160 | - I love it.

00:15:49.120 | Yeah, I have not gone as deep as I planned to.

00:15:51.760 | One thing I've always wondered.

00:15:53.660 | Getting the crew together isn't as easy as it used to be.

00:15:58.400 | I get it.

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00:18:23.880 | - Is the microwave something

00:18:25.540 | where you have to get the time right?

00:18:27.460 | And the way I'll ask the question is,

00:18:29.140 | is six minutes, stop it and start it again for one minute,

00:18:33.200 | is that the same as running it for seven minutes?

00:18:35.460 | Like, can you fine tune it

00:18:36.780 | or does it take a little bit of warmup each time?

00:18:39.060 | - I mean, the microwaving manufacturing divisions,

00:18:42.060 | like, they need to get their act together

00:18:43.700 | because they're all working off

00:18:45.460 | of different platforms, more or less.

00:18:47.620 | So almost every microwave,

00:18:49.180 | even if you buy it from, say, Panasonic

00:18:50.980 | or any of the big microwave producers,

00:18:54.520 | they change their wattage yearly, sometimes,

00:18:57.980 | for no time or reason.

00:18:59.540 | So every microwave is gonna be different.

00:19:02.460 | It really is crazy.

00:19:03.780 | You need to find the wattage

00:19:05.780 | and there's a lot of different things

00:19:07.300 | you can do to find that.

00:19:08.260 | But it's really getting to know your microwave.

00:19:10.900 | And the wattage really has a lot to do with the time.

00:19:14.200 | So the things that are gonna affect the microwave

00:19:15.780 | are no different than, say, cooking turkey.

00:19:17.780 | If you put an eight-pound turkey in,

00:19:19.220 | it's gonna cook way faster than a 28-pound turkey.

00:19:22.200 | The laws of thermodynamics don't change in a microwave.

00:19:24.980 | So if I put a huge piece of pork butt in

00:19:28.340 | that I'm trying to cook, it's gonna take a long time.

00:19:30.500 | No matter what the wattage is on the microwave,

00:19:32.700 | it's gonna take a long time.

00:19:33.700 | But again, if we're cooking pasta

00:19:36.260 | and I'm trying to bring some water to a boil,

00:19:38.560 | a lot of that depends on the power of the microwave.

00:19:40.700 | So some microwaves might be able to do that

00:19:43.300 | in seven minutes.

00:19:44.140 | So the microwave I have in the studio

00:19:46.020 | is less powerful than the one I have at home.

00:19:48.180 | So you can really screw up a recipe pretty quickly

00:19:51.900 | if you don't get it dialed in.

00:19:53.940 | And the other thing people don't use

00:19:55.660 | is the power levels of a microwave.

00:19:58.760 | Again, I hope to one day make a microwave,

00:20:01.300 | but the first thing I would do is change the interface

00:20:04.300 | where I don't have to press a button

00:20:06.400 | after I put in six minutes to find power level 30

00:20:10.220 | and then press start.

00:20:11.180 | It's so not intuitive whatsoever.

00:20:14.300 | The power level, all that is is if I say power level 30,

00:20:17.660 | it basically means for every like minute,

00:20:19.740 | it's only on 30% of that time.

00:20:22.280 | So the waves are only hitting 30%, right?

00:20:26.160 | It's on 30%.

00:20:27.180 | And then you can hear the microwave click on and off

00:20:30.380 | when it's at a lower power level

00:20:32.260 | 'cause it's not hitting the food

00:20:33.700 | with microwaves consistently.

00:20:35.380 | - So it's not actually reducing the strength,

00:20:37.420 | it's just reducing the time.

00:20:39.220 | - Correct, correct.

00:20:40.140 | And you can cook very, very delicate things.

00:20:42.340 | You can cook some of the most beautifully steamed fish

00:20:45.180 | in a microwave.

00:20:46.020 | Again, like I love steamed fish.

00:20:47.180 | The older I get,

00:20:48.140 | it's not just 'cause I love Cantonese food,

00:20:49.540 | just steamed fish is just dope.

00:20:51.340 | The older I get, the more I wanna eat steamed fish,

00:20:53.620 | but I don't have a double boiler

00:20:54.780 | and I'm not gonna steam fish in like a wok setup.

00:20:59.580 | You know what I mean?

00:21:00.420 | Like things that are easy to do in a restaurant

00:21:01.980 | are not so easy to do at home.

00:21:03.640 | How often do you eat steamed fish?

00:21:05.380 | Probably not that much, right?

00:21:07.060 | - It's like almost always on a skillet.

00:21:09.460 | - Right. - Or in the oven.

00:21:10.780 | - And steamed fish is delicious

00:21:12.100 | when you have a nice piece of fish.

00:21:13.160 | So like these are things that you can do.

00:21:14.780 | I could talk about the microwave all day long,

00:21:16.260 | but most people fuck up on the microwave

00:21:17.700 | by putting plastic in.

00:21:18.860 | Plastic is what is bad.

00:21:20.180 | - I read some of the science

00:21:21.180 | and I don't think we need to have a conversation

00:21:23.020 | about all the crazy things

00:21:24.720 | some people say about microwaves.

00:21:26.140 | My mom sent me an article

00:21:27.700 | when I told her we were cooking in the microwave.

00:21:29.300 | She's like, "Oh, it's 10 things

00:21:30.420 | you should never put in the microwave."

00:21:31.780 | And it was like this a little bit ridiculous article

00:21:34.700 | 'cause it was like, "Well, you never wanna put this in

00:21:36.220 | 'cause it might get too hot."

00:21:37.280 | And I'm like, "Well, that's not a problem with the microwave.

00:21:39.140 | That's a problem with you just making something hot."

00:21:42.280 | But there's a lot of data.

00:21:43.740 | I'll put it in the show notes

00:21:44.780 | about the safety of microwaves and all these myths

00:21:47.140 | pretty much getting debunked across the board.

00:21:49.740 | - Microwaves get people really mad

00:21:51.700 | and I see it with commenters on social media.

00:21:53.860 | Like, "You're spreading cancer and carcinogens."

00:21:57.060 | I'm like, "What the fuck are you talking about?

00:21:59.220 | Didn't you read that article that just came out?"

00:22:01.020 | I'm like, "What article are you talking about?"

00:22:04.140 | So yeah, the microwave gets people very upset.

00:22:06.860 | That's for sure.

00:22:08.220 | - To go to a few other things outside of the microwave,

00:22:10.420 | let's talk a little bit about food

00:22:11.940 | and what kind of food you're buying.

00:22:13.020 | You talked about fish.

00:22:14.220 | How important is quality

00:22:16.480 | and are there areas where quality matters a lot,

00:22:18.780 | whether it's higher quality or organic

00:22:21.300 | and areas where it doesn't matter?

00:22:22.620 | Or how do you think about what you're shopping for?

00:22:25.260 | - Well, we can just start with fish.

00:22:26.980 | Most fish in the supermarkets is hot garbage.

00:22:30.660 | I mean, it just is like...

00:22:33.580 | I mean that like even the best supermarkets

00:22:36.460 | have dodgy fish markets.

00:22:39.180 | It is not that way for a lot of Asia.

00:22:41.220 | There are certain places that do a good job,

00:22:44.820 | like Bristol Farms does a good job with fish,

00:22:46.820 | but it's still not awesome.

00:22:48.440 | I think we have a long way to go

00:22:49.900 | to sort of get to some of the best fish purchasing

00:22:52.920 | that we have in other parts of the world.

00:22:55.620 | But for the most part,

00:22:57.020 | it's really hard to understand when it was caught,

00:22:59.180 | how it was handled,

00:23:01.340 | and storing it on ice and water

00:23:03.060 | is actually not what you wanna do.

00:23:04.660 | You wanna keep it away from these things.

00:23:07.660 | Again, how things are handled in a professional kitchen

00:23:09.940 | are very different than what you see at a supermarket.

00:23:12.060 | So more often than not,

00:23:13.220 | I think sometimes the best fish

00:23:15.020 | is maybe sometimes the salt cod or the frozen fish.

00:23:18.620 | I mean, I have a lot of frozen fish.

00:23:20.620 | Whether it's organic or not,

00:23:22.460 | let's just worry about the quality first, right?

00:23:24.660 | The freshness levels.

00:23:26.060 | I know the floor on a piece of frozen fish

00:23:30.220 | is way higher than the floor of a potentially fresh fish.

00:23:35.180 | The ceiling is lower as well,

00:23:36.800 | but at least I know exactly what I'm working with.

00:23:38.980 | I do think there's probably mislabeling.

00:23:40.740 | There's just a lot of the handling is wrong,

00:23:42.460 | and I think that's maybe human error,

00:23:43.820 | but I tend to buy more fresh fish

00:23:45.620 | from fish butchers that I know or from the restaurant.

00:23:49.260 | There's a place in LA that's great.

00:23:50.500 | It's called The Joint.

00:23:51.360 | And there's a lot of fish mongers via the pandemic

00:23:54.060 | that started selling fish from wholesale originally

00:23:56.560 | to now retail.

00:23:57.740 | So I think that's gonna become easier,

00:23:59.980 | but I would predict that in the next five to 10 years,

00:24:03.020 | you're gonna see wholesale changes

00:24:04.660 | in how supermarkets handle their fish, for sure.

00:24:07.700 | Mainly because they're gonna have a longer shelf life

00:24:10.740 | of fish if they handle it a little bit differently.

00:24:13.060 | - Well, when you say frozen fish,

00:24:14.660 | do you mean like you go to Safeway

00:24:16.580 | and you see like bags of frozen fish in the freezer section

00:24:19.640 | or is this kind of?

00:24:20.940 | - Yeah, I'll take that all day long.

00:24:22.780 | I am like the worst kind of food snob.

00:24:24.500 | I eat super high end stuff and super low brow stuff

00:24:27.380 | and everything in between.

00:24:28.380 | What I want is a piece of fish

00:24:29.700 | that I know has been handled right.

00:24:31.160 | And if it's not organic, that's fine too.

00:24:33.140 | Like I have Arctic char that's frozen,

00:24:35.520 | that's not organic or wild.

00:24:38.140 | I'm okay with that, right?

00:24:39.820 | Where I'm not okay with is say salmon.

00:24:42.180 | I think salmon is a seasonal fish

00:24:44.460 | and it should be smoked or preserved.

00:24:46.580 | Ora Kings is good and that's from New Zealand.

00:24:48.620 | But for the most part,

00:24:49.460 | they're striped bass from Mexico that's farm raised.

00:24:52.580 | Not all farm raised is the same.

00:24:54.380 | I don't love farm raised salmon.

00:24:56.980 | Mainly because of how it's raised and how it's fed.

00:25:00.240 | I just try not to eat things like that.

00:25:02.440 | But do I?

00:25:03.280 | Yeah, sometimes I'll go to a Trader Joe's or something

00:25:04.940 | and I'll buy some just because I know

00:25:06.540 | it's what my kid will eat.

00:25:08.020 | And I'll take a cut of salmon that I know is okay.

00:25:13.020 | You know what I mean?

00:25:14.820 | It's really hard to judge the freshness on something.

00:25:17.780 | I guess I just opened Pandora's box

00:25:19.380 | 'cause we could talk two weeks about fish programs.

00:25:22.980 | - I'll throw people the direction of your podcast

00:25:25.060 | 'cause I feel like one of the most fun things

00:25:27.660 | that I've heard you do is you just go deep on one thing.

00:25:29.880 | So I bet that somewhere in those episodes,

00:25:32.360 | there's something on fish or something like that.

00:25:33.820 | So if anyone wants just a deep dive on any of these topics,

00:25:37.260 | I bet there's something there.

00:25:38.360 | So I'll throw that out.

00:25:40.460 | - People should buy some salt cod.

00:25:42.060 | It's a delicious thing.

00:25:43.660 | Most of Europe wouldn't be here today

00:25:45.220 | if we didn't have salt cod.

00:25:46.380 | So honestly, salt cod is wonderful.

00:25:48.620 | They take something that was plucked from the ocean

00:25:51.980 | at its peak freshness and then preserve it in salt.

00:25:55.140 | I'll eat a lot of tinned seafood too.

00:25:56.940 | That's fine.

00:25:57.980 | Just because you know exactly how it's processed.

00:26:00.060 | And another thing is frozen vegetables get a bad rap.

00:26:02.380 | But very similar to frozen fish.

00:26:04.980 | I will take frozen peas over fresh peas

00:26:07.900 | any day of the week.

00:26:08.820 | Because the starch content changes on peas

00:26:11.740 | unless you're literally plucking it that day

00:26:13.760 | and eating it that day.

00:26:14.740 | And not everyone's so lucky to live in the Bay Area

00:26:17.900 | or Southern California

00:26:18.940 | where you might be able to get fresh peas that day.

00:26:20.900 | Like there's an idea with farmers that I talked to

00:26:22.820 | like they shucked peas

00:26:24.420 | 'cause that's how some chefs want it, right?

00:26:27.140 | Because that perfect sweep this level

00:26:29.260 | before the sugar turns to starch.

00:26:31.000 | Well, that's a very hard product to come by.

00:26:34.260 | Well, a frozen pea is literally plucked

00:26:37.540 | at its peak sugar level

00:26:39.740 | and then frozen immediately, flash frozen.

00:26:41.300 | So again, the floor is definitely like higher

00:26:46.140 | than a fresh pea,

00:26:47.180 | but the ceiling is not that much lower.

00:26:49.580 | So there's a lot of things if you start asking yourself,

00:26:52.260 | is it better or worse?

00:26:53.780 | I don't think that's the right question.

00:26:55.140 | And even going back to fish,

00:26:56.440 | it's like, what are you looking for?

00:26:58.460 | Are you looking for a piece of fish that tastes delicious

00:27:01.000 | and that is of like high quality?

00:27:03.320 | I don't even mean,

00:27:04.160 | I think freshness is the word that is important,

00:27:06.700 | but even freshness isn't the right word

00:27:08.120 | because a lot of fish I think moving forward

00:27:09.840 | is gonna be dry-aged.

00:27:11.120 | So how are you going to sell a fish

00:27:13.960 | when people ask, is it fresh?

00:27:15.720 | And if you say, if I'm behind the counter,

00:27:18.280 | I'm like, no, that's been aged 32 days.

00:27:20.000 | That's gonna throw people for a loop.

00:27:22.600 | - And how much of, is this thing taste good?

00:27:25.360 | Is the food or I think you said

00:27:28.080 | like one of the most important things people should learn

00:27:29.840 | is how to season things.

00:27:31.120 | Is that equally more important,

00:27:32.840 | less important than the freshness?

00:27:34.640 | At the end of the day, I assume,

00:27:35.760 | as long as you're not getting sick,

00:27:36.960 | what's most important is, does it taste good?

00:27:38.600 | - Yeah, of course.

00:27:39.480 | The reason I talk about water

00:27:40.640 | is if you store it in ice and water,

00:27:42.400 | it sort of accelerates the production of ammonia in fish.

00:27:45.520 | So it's counterintuitive to like keep fish away

00:27:48.720 | from sitting on ice, right?

00:27:51.120 | So it doesn't matter what kind of fish,

00:27:53.840 | if it tastes like ammonia, it's not gonna be delicious.

00:27:56.120 | So we put that away.

00:27:57.360 | Let's just say I use a block of frozen fish, right?

00:27:59.760 | I get some frozen sockeye salmon.

00:28:02.120 | What I'm looking at that is really is like, okay,

00:28:04.320 | I could turn this into something that's tasty, right?

00:28:07.120 | In and of itself, maybe not so delicious

00:28:08.920 | as say a king salmon, but what could I do?

00:28:11.240 | I could add some soy sauce.

00:28:12.280 | I could add some herbs.

00:28:13.280 | I could add a little sugar.

00:28:14.280 | I could turn that into teriyaki.

00:28:15.640 | So I'm just trying to always figure out

00:28:17.600 | like how do I make it tasty?

00:28:19.840 | You can make good food with bad product,

00:28:21.480 | but it's really hard to do consistent, basically.

00:28:23.880 | - And when you're trying to make things tasty,

00:28:25.160 | do you think there's some underrated ingredients

00:28:27.520 | that people should be keeping in their kitchens

00:28:30.520 | to make things taste better

00:28:31.600 | that they're probably not using right now?

00:28:33.280 | - I mean, yeah.

00:28:34.240 | People should cook more with MSG, but they won't.

00:28:37.200 | - Why?

00:28:38.040 | Like as someone who's done zero research,

00:28:39.600 | other than I feel like I know that there are a lot of people

00:28:42.200 | that say no MSG, which inherently makes me assume

00:28:45.320 | it's not good, but based on what you just said,

00:28:47.640 | makes me think maybe that's totally.

00:28:49.600 | - Show me one scientific report that proves

00:28:51.920 | that like MSG is actually bad for you.

00:28:54.400 | - It's usually these like really faulty double blind studies

00:28:57.280 | like always a screwy study.

00:28:59.400 | You can be sensitive to MSG, but you can't be allergic

00:29:02.720 | 'cause it's a glutamic acid.

00:29:04.520 | You die if you are allergic to glutamic acid, right?

00:29:08.120 | You need it to survive.

00:29:10.360 | It just so happens that it can also be very delicious.

00:29:13.760 | And when you dry age beef,

00:29:16.840 | you produce and harness more glutamic acid.

00:29:19.200 | With the production of certain fermented foods

00:29:22.320 | create a lot more umami, MSG, monosodium glutamate.

00:29:25.640 | So the artificial form is created

00:29:28.440 | and that's what you can sprinkle on,

00:29:29.800 | but it's naturally present in so many fucking foods.

00:29:33.240 | Parmesan is basically just dairy MSG.

00:29:36.120 | I've talked about it a lot in like say

00:29:37.880 | our "Ugly Delicious" episodes.

00:29:39.200 | The reason I get so upset about it is

00:29:40.760 | because it's these similar to the microwave.

00:29:43.680 | It's something that is widely held to be true on what?

00:29:47.160 | You know, and these are the ideas that I really like

00:29:49.480 | in food and culture in general.

00:29:51.640 | I love searching for the bad ideas.

00:29:53.400 | And I ask myself, why is it a bad idea?

00:29:54.920 | Is there like overwhelming data

00:29:57.720 | that supports it's a bad idea

00:29:59.400 | and the hypothesis is tested?

00:30:01.720 | Or did some dumb ass, you know,

00:30:04.040 | stupidity and bias and prejudice say it was a bad idea?

00:30:07.080 | More often than not,

00:30:08.120 | those are the things that happen

00:30:09.240 | to be the things that I care about.

00:30:11.200 | And MSG is one of them.

00:30:12.360 | And there's a few factors that happened in the '60s

00:30:17.240 | that created a lot of the MSG syndrome stuff,

00:30:20.680 | but people eat MSG all the time.

00:30:23.480 | When you eat a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich

00:30:25.480 | and you go to get a Popeye's crispy chicken sandwich

00:30:28.680 | and people love it,

00:30:30.200 | those same person that says they're allergic to MSG,

00:30:32.640 | they're eating MSG.

00:30:33.880 | Almost every snack food that you get,

00:30:36.440 | delicious, delicious chips.

00:30:38.640 | You know what they have?

00:30:39.840 | MSG.

00:30:40.840 | To me, it's funny because people eat it all the time,

00:30:42.920 | both naturally and artificially in their foods,

00:30:45.800 | whether they realize it or not.

00:30:47.560 | Yet it just so happens that if it's like Chinese food

00:30:50.440 | or Asian, then it's bad for you.

00:30:52.800 | I'll leave it at this.

00:30:53.920 | The marketing behind MSG and the faultiness behind it

00:30:56.960 | is so great that currently,

00:30:59.120 | that if you go to any supermarket,

00:31:00.600 | people buy it all the time in MSG and it's pure form.

00:31:03.520 | Uncut, pure MSG.

00:31:06.240 | It's in your supermarket right now labeled not as MSG,

00:31:11.240 | not with some dragon Asian bullshit font on the packaging.

00:31:15.840 | Accent.

00:31:17.280 | You ever heard of accent, the seasoning salt?

00:31:20.080 | Yeah.

00:31:21.080 | Right now, people buy it.

00:31:23.400 | They add it all the time, a lot of secret family recipes.

00:31:25.920 | And if you look at it, it says the only one ingredient,

00:31:28.720 | monosodium glutamate, produced by Ajinomoto,

00:31:32.120 | the largest producer of MSG in the world.

00:31:34.680 | So people add chicken bouillon cubes.

00:31:37.600 | You know what that is?

00:31:38.440 | It's basically a cube of MSG.

00:31:40.520 | I'm not saying dump MSG in.

00:31:42.360 | There's things that they can do

00:31:43.600 | to make the food more delicious.

00:31:45.240 | They do that with Parmesan.

00:31:47.120 | People add Parmesan to everything.

00:31:48.640 | Why?

00:31:49.640 | Oh, it tastes good.

00:31:50.480 | Why does it taste good?

00:31:51.880 | Oh, 'cause it's Parmesan.

00:31:52.720 | I was like, oh, 'cause of the buffalo milk bullshit?

00:31:55.680 | No, it's 'cause it's got a lot of glutamic acid in it.

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00:34:48.360 | So MSG, any other things you keep out a lot

00:34:51.440 | to either spice things, flavor things?

00:34:53.640 | For me, I could probably put gochujang

00:34:56.320 | on a lot of things and my kids will never eat it,

00:34:58.880 | but we use that a lot in our house.

00:35:00.960 | - We use a lot of olive oil.

00:35:02.720 | I have like several kinds of olive oils at home,

00:35:05.360 | mainly for like health benefits

00:35:07.040 | 'cause I have to eat certain diets

00:35:09.320 | 'cause as I get older, my cholesterol,

00:35:10.920 | but in general, I think olive oil is a beautiful thing

00:35:14.280 | because there's so many flavors and heats to it,

00:35:17.000 | especially if it's fresh or fruity.

00:35:19.240 | There's cooking olive oils.

00:35:20.680 | There's dressing olive oils and everything in between.

00:35:23.080 | So I think for me, it's like a baseball pitch.

00:35:26.640 | I have like three olive oils on hand all the time,

00:35:30.160 | one to cook with.

00:35:31.560 | And again, like I'm not cooking with the super fragrant,

00:35:34.440 | very expensive olive oil

00:35:36.400 | because all those fragile compounds that make it delicious

00:35:40.320 | will be destroyed in that violent cooking process.

00:35:43.520 | So there's no reason to do that.

00:35:45.760 | I mean, besides the own Momo products,

00:35:47.360 | I use savory salt in everything

00:35:49.320 | and that doesn't have MSG

00:35:51.040 | because there's other ways to harness it.

00:35:52.880 | The one thing I don't add all the time

00:35:54.240 | to my food is black pepper.

00:35:55.920 | I just don't do it blindly and religiously

00:35:58.840 | like everybody else.

00:36:00.320 | Salt and fat are the two big difference makers,

00:36:02.840 | if I had to think quickly,

00:36:04.160 | with home cooking versus professional cooking.

00:36:06.600 | The amount of salt and the amount of fat

00:36:08.000 | used in a professional kitchen is quite frankly gross

00:36:10.800 | compared to what you would use in a home kitchen.

00:36:12.800 | - And you talk about pepper and spices.

00:36:14.920 | Do you use spices a lot?

00:36:16.440 | Like do you have, the average American home

00:36:18.160 | has the spice rack with 25 different things.

00:36:20.840 | - Yeah, I mean, that's another thing,

00:36:22.440 | whether it's La Boite or SOS Chefs,

00:36:24.880 | there's so many great spice shops.

00:36:27.080 | I tend to stay away from like the stuff.

00:36:29.400 | Do I have like garlic powder and onion powder

00:36:31.240 | and stuff like that?

00:36:32.080 | Yeah, but do I have a kefir lime leaf

00:36:35.400 | and do I have razza whole new,

00:36:37.160 | do I have different spice blends?

00:36:39.560 | Absolutely, and I think black cardamom, green cardamom,

00:36:42.960 | things that I purchase in small amounts,

00:36:45.400 | mainly because it has a shelf life

00:36:48.960 | and there's no reason to buy a large amount

00:36:51.560 | because by the time I get to the end of it,

00:36:53.280 | it will have gone bad.

00:36:54.800 | So I have a lot of small jars of like one or two,

00:36:58.200 | like I have two pods of cardamom.

00:37:00.680 | I have like two things of cinnamon.

00:37:02.560 | - I would imagine that the average person listening

00:37:04.600 | right now has not replaced the spices

00:37:07.880 | in their spice rack for over a decade.

00:37:09.840 | - Well, longer than that, I'd probably say,

00:37:12.920 | some people right now, I bet you,

00:37:14.280 | if you look into your spice rack,

00:37:16.240 | if you bought an existing home,

00:37:18.760 | there's probably the spices of the previous owner

00:37:21.480 | still there.

00:37:22.320 | - So I have talked in a past episode about,

00:37:26.040 | you're not gonna get the flavor you want

00:37:27.600 | out of dried oregano if it's 25 years old.

00:37:31.040 | - It dissipates.

00:37:32.120 | Like I don't understand why people would think

00:37:33.960 | that it doesn't.

00:37:35.040 | If film and cinema like degrades over time,

00:37:38.040 | why would it like a spice?

00:37:39.480 | It just does.

00:37:41.520 | I think spice is a huge thing.

00:37:43.000 | Spices in general are an amazing way to unlock flavor.

00:37:46.400 | For home cook too, like the freezer.

00:37:47.680 | I don't think people use the freezer enough as a pantry.

00:37:50.960 | I view anything as a freezer

00:37:52.600 | as almost like a shelf-stable product.

00:37:54.640 | And freezing foods are the best way to preserve

00:37:59.640 | and to ensure quality.

00:38:01.640 | So whenever I cook at home now,

00:38:04.680 | whether it's an any day or not,

00:38:05.840 | like I made chicken soup and I hate throwing food away.

00:38:09.480 | So I'll serve enough chicken soup for dinner for the night,

00:38:13.080 | even though I'm not home, it's all set up.

00:38:15.320 | And then I'll preserve the other half

00:38:17.520 | into smaller containers and put them in the freezer.

00:38:19.680 | So I can just reheat that at any time.

00:38:21.320 | So that's a huge tip.

00:38:23.440 | People don't use the freezer enough

00:38:25.080 | 'cause I think it gets a bad rap.

00:38:26.720 | - I mean, when it comes to kids, we'd be like,

00:38:29.320 | "Okay, well let's make oatmeal

00:38:31.160 | and then freeze like small pieces of it

00:38:33.320 | so that you could throw in the microwave

00:38:35.120 | and heat it up real quick."

00:38:36.520 | If we make a lasagna, double the recipe,

00:38:38.440 | make a massive lasagna and freeze half of it.

00:38:40.440 | - Exactly.

00:38:41.360 | Well, another thing on reheating, just for people,

00:38:44.040 | not all ceramic is good in a microwave.

00:38:46.200 | Most are, depending on the glaze, but not all plates.

00:38:49.760 | This is another bullshit thing.

00:38:51.640 | If you look on say Amazon or most places that sell a plate

00:38:55.240 | that says it's microwave safe,

00:38:57.760 | they're straight up fucking lying.

00:38:59.040 | 'Cause if it's plastic, it's plastic.

00:39:01.200 | And there's a ton of stuff out there that's plastic

00:39:03.760 | that says it's microwave safe

00:39:04.920 | and it's not microwave safe 'cause it's still plastic.

00:39:07.400 | Even containers that you might buy as a microwave dinner

00:39:09.880 | in a plastic that says it's microwave safe,

00:39:11.600 | it's not microwave safe.

00:39:13.120 | I wouldn't microwave in that plastic.

00:39:15.160 | And the only things you can microwave safely are silicone,

00:39:19.040 | certain shapes of metal and glass, that's it.

00:39:21.840 | - Yeah, I think the metal one will throw people,

00:39:23.200 | but that's for another conversation.

00:39:24.960 | You talked about how you could just cook chicken

00:39:26.800 | straight out of the freezer.

00:39:28.160 | I think one of the things that we've found ourselves

00:39:30.200 | is you buy ingredients and you're like,

00:39:31.120 | "Oh, it's expiring, throw it in the freezer."

00:39:33.840 | Is there an argument to just put it in the freezer

00:39:35.280 | right out the gate?

00:39:36.320 | If you're not sure if you're gonna use it for a while?

00:39:37.920 | - Yeah, that's basically how my mother cooked.

00:39:40.960 | She was like, "First in, first out,"

00:39:43.280 | instead of, "Last in, first out."

00:39:45.920 | - Yeah, my grandparents did a little bit of that,

00:39:47.760 | but then sometimes you'd be like,

00:39:48.800 | "This thing expired two years ago."

00:39:51.080 | - Yeah, I mean, it's crazy because sometimes I find myself

00:39:54.680 | doing the same thing.

00:39:55.520 | Like, let's just say it was like block of cheese.

00:39:58.040 | My mom would buy so much damn cheese

00:40:00.360 | and then freeze all of it.

00:40:02.640 | Buy a new block of cheese, take out the frozen one

00:40:05.920 | and put the fresh one in the freezer.

00:40:08.400 | I find myself doing some things like that, for sure.

00:40:11.160 | - So let me ask you a few rapid fire things,

00:40:13.320 | 'cause I know you have some strong opinions

00:40:14.760 | that are a little contrarian.

00:40:16.680 | Peeling?

00:40:17.640 | - Not for everything.

00:40:18.760 | I mean, peeling carrots, I think, is dumb, for sure.

00:40:22.400 | - No, I mean, that's what people are here for,

00:40:23.720 | is like, "What am I doing wrong?

00:40:24.800 | "How could I be more efficient?"

00:40:26.680 | - I mean, yeah, just take a clean sponge

00:40:28.520 | and you can wipe it down.

00:40:29.680 | I mean, carrot peeling, for example,

00:40:32.720 | even potatoes, if you just wash it,

00:40:34.560 | but a lot of it's just aesthetics,

00:40:36.720 | but a lot of that flavor's in the skin itself.

00:40:39.360 | - What about ginger?

00:40:40.200 | I feel like that's the most pain in the ass thing to peel.

00:40:43.080 | - No, ginger's easy to peel if you just use a spoon.

00:40:46.360 | How do you peel ginger?

00:40:47.840 | - I've peeled with a spoon,

00:40:48.840 | but sometimes the ginger's, like, so small.

00:40:50.720 | If you get a big piece of ginger, great.

00:40:52.460 | If you get one of those, like, fraggle all around,

00:40:54.760 | like, trying to dig around and break off the nubs

00:40:57.320 | and all that stuff, I'm like...

00:40:59.400 | - But you gotta peel with the right amount of pressure.

00:41:01.400 | Even with a spoon, if you peel it,

00:41:03.040 | you can cut through those knobs with the spoon.

00:41:06.040 | But in general, sometimes if I'm lazy,

00:41:08.680 | I'm not peeling the ginger.

00:41:09.680 | I'll just give it a quick wash.

00:41:11.200 | - Fruit, wash all fruit?

00:41:13.280 | - Yeah.

00:41:14.400 | If I go to the farmer's market

00:41:15.640 | and I get, like, berries and blackberries and raspberries,

00:41:18.440 | I don't wash them.

00:41:20.280 | I wash them before I'm gonna eat them.

00:41:22.280 | - My wife has been experimenting

00:41:23.760 | with what's the way to make berries last the longest.

00:41:25.840 | And, like, the answer is not wash them

00:41:27.880 | and put them in the fridge wet.

00:41:29.440 | It's, like, get them as dry as possible.

00:41:31.760 | Like, put a paper towel around them.

00:41:33.920 | Do what you can.

00:41:34.800 | That gives them a lot of extra shelf life, we've found.

00:41:37.000 | I feel like I grew up in a house

00:41:38.360 | where it's, like, you get a chicken breast or chicken thigh,

00:41:40.160 | and it's, like, trim off all the fat of the chicken

00:41:43.400 | and then cook it.

00:41:45.040 | Waste of time?

00:41:45.960 | Or are you trimming all that fat off?

00:41:48.320 | - That's a sad dinner, or whatever that is.

00:41:51.360 | That's your friend.

00:41:52.280 | Why do you wanna cut that out?

00:41:53.520 | It's for your life.

00:41:54.400 | It's ridiculous.

00:41:55.960 | - Okay, and then last, you talked a lot about kids.

00:41:57.760 | Any tricks for people with kids

00:41:59.120 | that have made your life easier?

00:42:00.640 | - I'm probably not the right person to ask,

00:42:02.080 | 'cause I think if they ever develop

00:42:03.760 | some kind of eating disorder, it's because of me.

00:42:06.320 | 'Cause I make them whatever they want.

00:42:08.000 | I'm the worst kind of parent.

00:42:09.600 | They tell you, offer one thing to your child,

00:42:12.200 | and if they don't want it, then you should just, like,

00:42:14.200 | hold it aside 'til they eat it later.

00:42:16.200 | Not me.

00:42:17.040 | I can't.

00:42:17.880 | I end up making, like, sometimes four things.

00:42:20.600 | (laughs)

00:42:21.680 | Five things until they eat something.

00:42:23.680 | Because as a parent, all you want to see

00:42:25.400 | is them consuming some kind of calories.

00:42:28.120 | That's all I want.

00:42:29.280 | I've been known to make quite a few things quickly for them,

00:42:32.680 | and I think they understand the power

00:42:34.040 | that they wield over me now.

00:42:35.040 | But I would say, as a quick thing to try for your kids,

00:42:38.320 | is a crepe.

00:42:39.160 | Do you make crepes for your kids?

00:42:40.280 | - I don't think I've ever made a crepe for my kids.

00:42:42.000 | I've made it before kids, but.

00:42:43.680 | - All right, well, again, there's restaurant crepes,

00:42:46.240 | and then there's home cooking crepes.

00:42:47.640 | And most of the things I say that I cook at home,

00:42:50.480 | I would never cook it that way in a restaurant, right?

00:42:53.040 | In a restaurant, you need a specific shape

00:42:54.960 | and thickness and aesthetic.

00:42:57.160 | So you need one egg to one cup of milk

00:42:59.320 | to one cup of flour, basically.

00:43:01.720 | And you could add olive oil or some kind of butter,

00:43:04.400 | melted butter, and I put that into, like, a little blender,

00:43:07.680 | and that's it.

00:43:09.000 | Very, very quick.

00:43:10.360 | On a nonstick pan or a black steel,

00:43:12.920 | you just pour a little bit over medium heat,

00:43:14.760 | and then, so you want to get the right thickness,

00:43:17.480 | but it doesn't matter.

00:43:18.760 | You just want to get as thin as layer as possible.

00:43:20.760 | And then now you can turn that into just about anything.

00:43:23.720 | I can turn that into sort of crepe pancakes.

00:43:26.480 | So it's not necessarily traditionally pancakes,

00:43:28.480 | but then I can sort of roll them up

00:43:30.240 | like they're a crepe Suzette or something like that.

00:43:32.320 | And then, just what I'm trying to do

00:43:34.360 | with something that is like a crepe

00:43:36.920 | is constantly change the shape and form of it

00:43:39.480 | so it looks like it's different to them,

00:43:41.920 | and put different feelings in.

00:43:43.320 | So if it's a crepe,

00:43:45.040 | then I can get it more crunchy on the bottom.

00:43:48.400 | I can get it super crisp, like it's almost like a tortilla,

00:43:50.880 | and I can put cheese and ham,

00:43:52.880 | and I could turn that into like a crepe quesadilla-like thing.

00:43:56.600 | Or I could even crack a scrambled egg in there,

00:43:59.400 | put some cheese and some bacon, and roll that up.

00:44:01.280 | So it gives me a lot of flexibility.

00:44:03.280 | And I found that if you are sort of stuck in your ways

00:44:06.760 | of presenting something to a child,

00:44:08.520 | then you're gonna be limited.

00:44:10.160 | And I think being able to tweak things on a daily basis

00:44:13.840 | prevents them from getting bored from eating.

00:44:16.160 | So the crepe is the only thing left in my pitching arsenal

00:44:19.680 | that they still can't hit.

00:44:21.840 | (laughs)

00:44:22.760 | - And part of this is just getting comfortable

00:44:24.080 | with experimenting.

00:44:25.000 | Any words of wisdom to someone who feels like,

00:44:27.680 | gosh, they have to follow a recipe

00:44:28.920 | for everything they're doing?

00:44:30.920 | - Well, we wrote a book during the pandemic,

00:44:32.600 | "Cooking at Home."

00:44:33.920 | And I posit, even though it sounds ridiculous,

00:44:35.960 | that recipes are actually responsible for bad cooking.

00:44:38.720 | Because if you follow recipes, and I see this a lot,

00:44:41.640 | like if I post something, or I make something,

00:44:44.520 | and someone's like, oh, how'd you make that?

00:44:46.200 | And I give them like, I did this, this, and this,

00:44:47.880 | and they ask like, no, what are the exact measurements?

00:44:50.200 | Most of the best cooking in the world

00:44:51.880 | happens with no recipes.

00:44:53.640 | It just so happens that in America

00:44:55.440 | and some of the Western world,

00:44:57.040 | people can't cook without recipes.

00:44:58.560 | I find it that long-term, it probably hurts your ability

00:45:02.280 | to develop intuition.

00:45:03.920 | And I love recipes to a degree,

00:45:06.280 | but I also think that they're not the best thing for you

00:45:09.280 | if you wanna learn how to be a better cook.

00:45:11.440 | Because if you're cooking at home,

00:45:13.120 | it's improv every night.

00:45:15.120 | It's not a scripted Broadway play.

00:45:18.360 | - Or at least it should be, maybe.

00:45:19.640 | We did something a little crazy.

00:45:20.800 | Neither my wife or I are Korean,

00:45:22.280 | but there's this thing, you probably know it,

00:45:24.320 | it's like, "Somchil Il."

00:45:25.960 | It's like the 21 days after you have a baby,

00:45:28.200 | someone comes to lose you.

00:45:29.120 | So we'd learned about this and we thought,

00:45:31.160 | well, that sounds like something great.

00:45:32.560 | Like someone's helping take care of mom and the baby.

00:45:34.960 | So we hired this woman to live with us

00:45:37.160 | for, I think it was like 30 days after our baby was born.

00:45:39.560 | We did it again.

00:45:40.600 | She then went and did it with both my sister's kids

00:45:43.280 | and no recipes.

00:45:44.720 | For 30 days, she cooked three meals a day,

00:45:47.080 | zero recipes the entire time.

00:45:48.760 | And we were like, "Oh, we're doing it all wrong."

00:45:51.840 | She was like, "What if I try to make a pizza

00:45:54.080 | "out of a kimchi pancake?"

00:45:55.840 | It was just so creative.

00:45:57.840 | And I don't know, it just changed our perspective

00:46:00.520 | on how we cook.

00:46:02.360 | - Well, I'm glad you got the sangheuri.

00:46:04.640 | Sangheuri is the pronunciation.

00:46:06.360 | But it's like the fourth trimester is a big deal in Korea.

00:46:08.960 | Yeah, I'm glad that you did that.

00:46:10.240 | But also, my mom never gave me a single recipe.

00:46:13.360 | I wish she did sometimes, right?

00:46:15.040 | But if you have a recipe that you want from your mom

00:46:17.600 | or your aunt or your uncle,

00:46:19.560 | I think what you find more often than not,

00:46:22.040 | what I'm guilty of, and I'm sure everyone else is,

00:46:24.120 | "Hey, text your mom.

00:46:25.920 | "Hey, can you tell me how you make that dish?"

00:46:28.520 | And then, "Can you give me specifics?"

00:46:30.840 | I think probably what would be more impactful,

00:46:32.480 | and I don't wanna seem cheesy or hokey,

00:46:34.200 | is get on a flight, spend a long weekend,

00:46:37.560 | and make it with them.

00:46:38.800 | That's what I think is missing in a lot of these things,

00:46:41.000 | is the recipe can actually prevent you

00:46:43.200 | from actually learning how to actually make it right.

00:46:46.480 | For example, I've lived in Los Angeles for two years,

00:46:48.400 | and I don't know the names of any of the fucking highways,

00:46:51.200 | because all I do is follow GPS, right?

00:46:53.080 | I'm never going to follow the names.

00:46:54.560 | People ask me, "Hey, you just go on Wheelshare,

00:46:56.280 | "and you're here?"

00:46:57.120 | I was like, "I don't know, and I'm never gonna know."

00:46:59.080 | I understand that most people's cooking

00:47:00.680 | is like car GPS for them.

00:47:02.520 | - I know you're not focused as much on the restaurant thing,

00:47:04.480 | but I asked some listeners

00:47:05.680 | if there's any questions I should ask you.

00:47:07.080 | One thing people want to know is,

00:47:09.120 | when you go to a restaurant,

00:47:10.840 | how do you decide what to eat?

00:47:12.800 | Is it just whatever you want,

00:47:14.000 | or are you trying to figure out what the best thing is,

00:47:16.160 | and what tactics do you have for someone who's like,

00:47:18.040 | "I wanna find a great restaurant, have a great dish,

00:47:21.400 | "and I don't know anyone."

00:47:22.400 | It's not like I'm friends with the chef.

00:47:24.160 | - I think first and foremost, probably do some research,

00:47:26.840 | but don't just follow Yelp, right?

00:47:29.080 | Or let's just say you do follow Yelp,

00:47:30.640 | and you find that there is sort of truth

00:47:33.280 | to say a restaurant that has a three-star rating,

00:47:36.840 | or like a three-and-a-half-star rating,

00:47:38.360 | but that restaurant has a lot of fives and a lot of ones.

00:47:42.160 | That right off the bat looks something

00:47:43.840 | that's probably gonna be awesome, right?

00:47:46.000 | If you dive deeper into the data,

00:47:47.680 | and you realize most of the people that give it ones

00:47:49.880 | are people that don't understand the kind of cuisine.

00:47:52.240 | Most of the people that give it fives

00:47:53.640 | are the people that do understand the cuisine.

00:47:56.520 | That's probably a good thing.

00:47:57.440 | So the numbers don't always tell you the truth,

00:47:59.440 | what's behind it.

00:48:00.800 | I also think it's probably best to just use the guides

00:48:03.800 | that are there to do your own discovery.

00:48:06.320 | Finding what's best is sort of ridiculous.

00:48:08.720 | And I know that's easy to sell and easy to explain,

00:48:11.720 | but for example, if you go to Tokyo,

00:48:13.400 | and you go to any of the really sushi expert aficionados,

00:48:17.240 | right, that I know,

00:48:18.880 | if you say, "Hey, I wanna go to the best sushi restaurant,"

00:48:20.960 | they're gonna erase you from their phone,

00:48:22.800 | 'cause this is like, you're just a dumbass to them.

00:48:25.400 | It's so overreductive.

00:48:27.120 | I think what they wanna say is like,

00:48:29.640 | "Do you understand the nuance?"

00:48:30.960 | And to understand that at any given moment,

00:48:32.920 | there might be like five to seven

00:48:34.680 | serving the best stuff that night.

00:48:36.720 | So a lot of it is like the feeling, the price range.

00:48:39.920 | And I think doing the homework never hurts,

00:48:42.320 | but the best thing to do is just to go out there

00:48:45.960 | and do it yourself.

00:48:46.800 | And I think the hard thing clearly is,

00:48:48.280 | people are on a budget

00:48:49.280 | and they can't go eat out all the time.

00:48:50.920 | So I think at that degree,

00:48:52.520 | it really doesn't hurt to go to the places

00:48:54.160 | that are like tried and true.

00:48:55.720 | For example, in New York, if people were saying,

00:48:58.440 | "Hey, where do I go?

00:49:00.320 | "My parents are there.

00:49:02.440 | "Grandparents are coming."

00:49:03.760 | And like, "It's a good celebration for like eight of us."

00:49:06.600 | And they really wanna like blow it out.

00:49:08.360 | I'd say like, "Go to La Bernardin."

00:49:10.040 | Or even if it's late, "Go to La Bernardin."

00:49:12.120 | Because like, it's the kind of restaurant

00:49:13.360 | that can make everyone happy.

00:49:14.480 | And it's delicious.

00:49:15.320 | And it's not like a four-hour tasting menu.

00:49:18.600 | If my friend who I know likes to spend a lot

00:49:21.880 | of their disposable income on high-end restaurants,

00:49:25.720 | and I know that like they're coming to town

00:49:27.560 | and they want something, I'm just like,

00:49:29.240 | "Okay, I got a table at Brooklyn Fair."

00:49:31.200 | Each restaurant probably has a purpose, right?

00:49:34.800 | Some are catch-alls, some are specific.

00:49:37.920 | If I was in San Francisco,

00:49:39.440 | we'll think about Corey Lee, the great chef, my good friend.

00:49:41.560 | He has Banu, and he has San Juan, the Korean barbecue spot.

00:49:45.180 | One is for a specific occasion, for dining.

00:49:48.560 | Dining is very different than eating.

00:49:50.640 | Dining is feeding your brain simultaneously,

00:49:52.720 | and eating is San Juan, which is delicious,

00:49:54.820 | and everyone gets it.

00:49:55.660 | So again, part of it is understanding and reading the room.

00:49:59.000 | I think before you even figure out where to go

00:50:01.520 | is like, "Who am I eating with?"

00:50:03.000 | And like, "What is the desired result?"

00:50:04.960 | And if you're thinking like,

00:50:05.960 | "Hey, I just wanna check the box.

00:50:07.440 | "I wanna go to a three-mission-star restaurant,"

00:50:09.780 | then like the mission guide isn't always the best indicator,

00:50:12.720 | but it gives you a sense of what is there.

00:50:15.960 | And even all those lists give you a sense

00:50:17.880 | of where to go and what to eat.

00:50:19.400 | But at the end of the day, I think going in the chat rooms,

00:50:23.280 | just reading everything possible.

00:50:25.520 | Instagram is a great, great feed.

00:50:27.760 | Like if you find gourmands out there, if you follow them,

00:50:31.200 | like Little Meg in Japan is a perfect example.

00:50:33.240 | I think she's one of the great connoisseurs

00:50:34.680 | of food in the world.

00:50:35.720 | Where she eats is the good shit.

00:50:38.920 | You know what I mean?

00:50:39.960 | And that's what we have right now.

00:50:41.480 | We live in a world where you have instant information

00:50:45.100 | to a degree, and you have people

00:50:47.640 | that are doing the work for you.

00:50:49.400 | You just gotta find those people first.

00:50:51.240 | So before even going online,

00:50:53.760 | I would probably find the people that you follow,

00:50:56.240 | that you might, like, you get a sense of,

00:50:59.800 | oh, if they like something, I might like something too.

00:51:02.240 | And they're almost like a proxy.

00:51:03.680 | So that's another recommendation that I would have.

00:51:05.920 | Follow people online.

00:51:07.200 | - One tactic I have always used is find a restaurant

00:51:09.200 | that you like, five, 10 years, and go look it up online.

00:51:12.440 | And invariably, there's probably a restaurant you like

00:51:14.720 | that's like a three-star restaurant.

00:51:16.320 | And you're like, whoa, it breaks your brain

00:51:17.920 | because you just assume that a three-star restaurant

00:51:20.640 | on Yelp might be bad.

00:51:22.240 | And it just changed my perspective.

00:51:23.880 | I was like, oh, I actually like this restaurant.

00:51:26.120 | The internet says it's not a great restaurant,

00:51:29.120 | so maybe I don't always have to trust the internet.

00:51:31.240 | - I'm looking for the either/or numbers, right?

00:51:34.400 | If it's a three-star restaurant where every review's a three,

00:51:38.120 | that's probably not for me.

00:51:39.200 | I'm looking for, wow, you either love it or hate it.

00:51:42.640 | - Cool.

00:51:43.480 | When I was doing some homework, I was looking at,

00:51:45.040 | you got a show coming out on Hulu,

00:51:47.240 | and you mentioned you could cook with anything.

00:51:48.880 | And I watched this one scene in it

00:51:50.200 | where someone's cooking with, like, a closed steamer.

00:51:52.080 | So talk a little bit about "Secret Chef,"

00:51:55.000 | because I didn't get a preview, I didn't get to watch it,

00:51:57.840 | but it looks pretty interesting.

00:51:59.680 | - This was a show that we were working on for a while.

00:52:02.040 | So I was excited.

00:52:02.920 | I can't believe of all the pitches that we made for Hulu

00:52:05.160 | that they actually said yes to this one

00:52:06.720 | because it was the most insane one.

00:52:08.680 | It was also gonna be the one that was a big budget

00:52:10.680 | and we were gonna need a giant soundstage.

00:52:12.920 | So we shot it down in Atlanta

00:52:14.040 | where they shoot Marvel films and everything,

00:52:15.680 | like these huge airport hangars.

00:52:17.520 | And we built this crazy setup

00:52:19.160 | where the contestants never saw each other

00:52:22.360 | while they were cooking without revealing too much.

00:52:25.280 | And then as the challenges happened,

00:52:27.040 | what we wanted to do was make it where it was a game.

00:52:30.520 | It wasn't just about the food.

00:52:31.720 | The food was a vehicle for the contestants to play a game.

00:52:35.480 | So it was different kinds of strategy

00:52:37.280 | and different elements that I don't think you've ever seen

00:52:40.080 | in a food reality show thing.

00:52:42.960 | And I was excited about the challenges we put them in

00:52:45.800 | because I think they're very fresh

00:52:47.520 | and they're things that you've definitely not seen on camera.

00:52:50.480 | And if you haven't seen it,

00:52:51.880 | I don't even know what I'm embargoed to say or not to say.

00:52:54.520 | So I'm gonna err on the side of being conservative here

00:52:58.400 | because I don't want to get Disney upset.

00:53:00.000 | But one of those challenges,

00:53:01.520 | I will say that we gave everybody household products,

00:53:04.960 | things that you would not normally cook with

00:53:07.400 | to make a meal out of.

00:53:08.720 | And one of which was a clothing steamer.

00:53:12.480 | And they were supposed to cook

00:53:13.960 | something beautiful with that, possible.

00:53:17.120 | I saw that in the trailer,

00:53:18.200 | but I don't know what they came up with.

00:53:19.760 | So I'll have to check it out.

00:53:21.280 | - It's a fun show, "Secret Chef."

00:53:23.920 | I was really excited that we could finally get that out

00:53:26.280 | in the world.

00:53:27.360 | - Awesome.

00:53:28.200 | Anywhere else you want to point people?

00:53:29.800 | - We have some stuff coming out with Major Delma Media.

00:53:32.160 | We have some products.

00:53:33.760 | We have some more shows coming out.

00:53:35.880 | We have the podcast and we have a few things coming out

00:53:38.960 | on the Momofuku side from the consumer product goods

00:53:41.680 | and from the restaurant side coming up soon as well.

00:53:44.360 | So just stay tuned.

00:53:45.680 | - I'll put a link to all that in the show notes

00:53:47.240 | and thank you so much for being here.

00:53:49.320 | - Thank you, Chris.

00:53:50.360 | - Wow, I learned so much in this episode.

00:53:54.120 | And while technically I got a jumpstart

00:53:55.920 | cooking more in the microwave last week,

00:53:57.920 | I'm even more excited to keep it up.

00:53:59.960 | And if you're excited to do the same,

00:54:01.840 | I did reach out to Anyday to set up a special deal

00:54:04.240 | for All The Hacks listeners.

00:54:05.680 | So if you go to allthehacks.com/anyday,

00:54:09.320 | A-N-Y-D-A-Y, you can get 15% off your first order.

00:54:13.720 | However, if you're an All The Hacks member,

00:54:15.640 | I got them to offer an extra 5% off for 20% off in total.

00:54:20.520 | So if you wanna become a member and get that extra deal

00:54:23.000 | and some of the other deals we have set up,

00:54:25.160 | head on over to allthehacks.com/join.

00:54:28.440 | And if you have any cooking hacks to share,

00:54:30.520 | please send them my way by email to podcast@allthehacks.com.

00:54:35.520 | Okay, that's it for this week.

00:54:37.120 | See you next week.

00:54:38.000 | (upbeat music)

00:54:40.580 | (electricity buzzing)

00:54:43.740 | [BIRDS CHIRPING]

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