Podcast Companion: TK and Jesse Discuss Festivals, Competitions, Vegas, and What Makes Cookbooks Work (or Not)

 

Hi everyone!  Sorry about the hiatus!  The guys have been really busy with family, paying gigs, or (in Jesse's case) insane quests to get a comic book produced, so there has been a bit of a time crunch.  Nate couldn't be with us this time, since we ran right up into the Charleston Wine and Food Festival, which, mercifully, has concluded, so we can get back to arguing about corn dogs on a more regular basis.

No real theme today.  Jesse and TK set out to talk about what makes great cookbooks great (and what makes the bad ones lame), but there was a lot of conversational meandering about all aspects of chef culture before they were actually able to focus up and get on topic.  Enjoy!

Time Stamps

1:02 Jesse’s Charleston Wine and Food Hot Take
2:35 Tarver and Jesse’s Beer Crushing Vendetta
5:10 On Restaurant Week
8:36 Jesse’s Chopped Audition Story, Amid a Broader Discussion of Top Chef
13:11 Why Iron Chef is the Best Competitive Food Show
20:19 TK on the Overriding Positivity of the Great British Bake-Off
21:12 Jesse’s Bobby Flay Confession
25:05 Tarver’s Vegas Adventures
25:20 Tarver and Jesse’s Roku Coincidence
29:00 On Robuchon’s Potato Puree
30:14 Gagnaire’s Was Overrated!
30:47 On Skydiving
34:02 The Guys Get On Topic: What We Look For In Cookbooks
35:16 When Recipes Don’t Work

42:22 Pie Crust Talk
52:17 Beauty Counts in Cookbooks… But Pretentiousness is a Thing
58:21 On Michel Bras’s Legacy
59:53 On the Importance of Photography in Cookbooks
1:07:00. A Cookbook’s Duty of Safety
1:16:36 The McDonald’s Fries Conversation

Links:

Jesse made reference to his blog post on how to tell how much one can trust a cookbook during the 'recipes should work' discussion.

TK and Jesse both raved about 'Roku.'  The restaurant they were talking about is Raku, located in a Korean strip mall, far from the Strip.  Beware, there is a place called Sushi Roku on the strip, and a careless web search during the taping of the episode is how the dudes got crossed up.  At any rate, it's a truly astounding restaurant.  

The guys made reference to the inspiring and beautiful Culinaria series of food compendiums.  Just a fabulous series. 

More books the dudes referenced: our beloved Ma Gastronomie, the works of Patricia Wells and Paula Wolfert, Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques, Rytek Kutas's fantastic sausage and curing book, Lennox Hastie's brilliant Finding Fire, the madcap redneck genius of Marc Veyrat, and the utterly beautiful work of Michel Bras, whose eponymous cookbook (called Essential Cuisine in English) has his most famous (and beautiful) dish, la Gargouillou, splashed across the cover.

Finally, in our discussion on cookbook authors' (and publishers') duty to reader safety, we discussed the potential legal ramifications, and Jesse pledged to do at least 5 minutes of research.  Well, he made good (just barely).  Here is a post from an interesting blog called Rights of Writers that specializes in legal issues pertaining to authors, that happens to discuss this exact subject.

Recipes:

So TK was talking about a pie crust recipe that looks like it has too much fat to work, but actually works like a charm.  Here it is!

Ingredients:
27.6 oz. AP flour
.6 oz. salt
3 oz. sugar
1# butter
2 oz. yolks
4 oz. water

Method: 
Cut butter into dry
Mix wet and incorporate

Meanwhile, Jesse was talking all kinds of noise about the Peacock and Lewis crust, and here is the ratio and modified method for that:

Ingredients: 
1.5 C. AP flour
1 t kosher salt
.5 t sugar
1 stick butter, diced and frozen 10 minutes
2 T lard, divided, frozen 10 minutes
2-3 oz. ice water

Method:
Cut fat into dry, making sure there are several large bits left
Add just enough water for it to come together
Once it comes together, gather it into a brick and cut into 8 equal chunks with a dough scraper
(Ideally on a cool marble counter), mash each chunk flat with the heel of your hand.
Stack up the mashed pieces, reform into a brick, and repeat cutting and mashing process.
Quickly, gently shape the dough into a flat puck and chill at least 2 hours before rolling.

Best pie crust Jesse's ever used.  {I'll try Tarver's next week, with a brown sugar-chess pie!}