Podcast Companion: On Spice Blending, and HD&C Christmas Philosophy and Stories

 

Hi all!  This week's episode is a bit of a mixed bag.  The first half is a discussion of how to blend spices, and a lamentation of the lack of non-culturally-biased sources to learn about them from.  Then, we get into the philosophy of working Christmas (or, more to the point, of making your employees work Christmas), and finally, we discuss Sicilian seafood tradition, serious mashed potatoes, Evil Elf gingersnaps, and Jesse's greatest holiday dessert fail.  Enjoy!

Note: So we got deep into holiday hours, and working your employees on holidays, and we forgot to make an important note.  Hey owners!  It saves everyone a lot of potential strife if you make "Are you available to work holidays?  If not, which specific holidays can you not work?" into a standard interview/application question, or at least, something that needs to be handled during employee orientation.  Nobody likes that kind of holiday surprise.

Time Stamps

1:00 The Story of the Mouth of the South
3:54 Listener Question: Good Books About Spice Blending?
6:46 Madras Curry
9:30 Nate’s Hail Mary Recommendation.
12:22 Jesse’s Insane Spice Research Idea
16:13 Reverse Engineering
17:52 The Spice House
20:00 Back to Curry Powder and Vadouvan
21:55 On the Dual Nature of Cinnamon
23:43 The Biggest Difference Between Nate’s Cooking and Jesse’s
27:00 Restaurant Cooking on Christmas
31:28 The Fiscal Evils of a Special Christmas Menu
32:04 On Reservations and Tickets
33:19 People REALLY DO Eat at Restaurants on Holidays
40:42 Heather’s Gingersnap Cookie
41:49 Nate’s Great-Grandma’s Spiced Chocolate Cookies
42:50 On the Feast of Seven Fishes
43:57 On Italian Seafood Simplicity
45:47 Jesse’s Feast of Seven Fishes Dish
49:50 The Difficulty of Getting Rid of Leftover Turkey, and the Worst Charcuterie Plate EVER
52:20 On the Once-a-Year Potato Puree
55:25 On 86’ing Specials and Why That’s Not a Bad Thing
56:22 Jesse’s Xmas Dessert Fail
59:32 The Tale of the Dreaded Minty Sanchez

Links

Nate referred to the work of Yotam Ottolengi, especially the book Flavor, which, full disclosure, neither of us have read.  But if you want to take a look, you can get it here, from the Evil Empire.

He also referred to the work of Olivier Roellinger.  He does have a spice book, but it appears to be unavailable in English, and expensively rare in French.  Here is a link.  Ebay didn't have it at all.  (Although they do sell his proprietary spice mills...  Kinda precious for our tastes.)

Here's that one spice book Jesse was talking about (again, we haven't read it).  But it looks kinda legit.

Here's Daniel Patterson's book on cooking with essential oils.  We're a little suspicious, but his books are normally very, very well-written.

Now this, you will want to check out.  It's a link to the online store for The Spice House, in Chicago.  They've got the real stuff.

And of course, check out Bacco, our friend Michael's restaurant in Mt. Pleasant, if you're local or of you're planning a visit.  We'd love to get him on the cast, but he's probably too busy.

Definition Links

We used a few terms that might bear some explanation.

Ras al Hanout is the Moroccan spice blend we spoke of.

Quatre Epices is the French pate spice we were discussing.

Vadouvan is the French curry blend popularized, but certainly not invented, by Pierre Gagnaire.

Speaking of Pierre Gagnaire, here is his website.  The guy's restaurants are beautiful, his food is absolutely sick, and he gets some of the highest accolades of any Parisian chef.  He just has yet to write a book that lives up to his legacy.  But we still love him, and we need to make that clear.