302: Joshua Weissman

26:41Who's ever said that? No one says that. But if you go to Korea or Japan, it's like that is the perfect chewy noodle or chewy rice cake. The best comparison I've made to get people to understand why chewy is great is just like bagels. and they go, oh yeah, oh, I love a chewy bagel. Yeah. Cool, all right, there you go. I love chewy taffy. There you go. See? Yeah. Now people can make that connection. Cool. One pound butter mashed potatoes, you are my guy. I'm more of a 50-50 personally, but that's a little insane too, but one pound saying it right in the headline, yes, thank you. I mean, that's what it is.

27:14They're kind of a riff off of... Robichon? Robichon, thank you. Sorry, I was forgetting. They're kind of a riff off Robichon potatoes, which, I mean, frankly, they basically are. That's what they are. It's just, it's not really a, it is mashed potatoes. You know, if you like mashed potatoes, you're going to see a very similar association. But what it really is, is it's a potato emulsion with butter. Yeah. That's really what it is. That's a good sense. I mean, you got to do it at Thanksgiving though. It's like the perfect Thanksgiving showstopper. I love doing it because people are like, these are the best mashed potatoes ever.

27:46But here's the best part. You don't have to make that many because no one's going to be able to eat the normal portion size. It's so true. And I mean, that's why like buffet style with these 50-50s or one pounds can be tough because people will scoop like a bunch of scoops. Yeah. Yeah, that's not going to happen with this. You got to plate it, right? Yeah, you got to plate it, but also like if you just let everyone know, hey, start with a small amount of these potatoes first and then come back for seconds if you want more. They never do. No, definitely. It really hits you. Okay, so I never thought about caramelized onions and miso soup.

28:17And you're doing it here. and this marriage of umami sweetness is nice. How did you come up with that? I was thinking French onion soup, miso soup. And that was it. It's so smart. It's good. Yeah, because, well, it's funny. French onion soup almost is the miso soup of France, so to speak. I mean, granted, French onion soup isn't that popular in France. It's more of like an Americanized thing. But when you think of French onion soup, I would put borderline in the same category as miso soup. It's like the starter. It's very unctuous. It's very rich. It's very dark. But it's also kind of refreshing.

28:48It's kind of nice. Yeah, and the technique that you use with the onions is you kind of puree them, right? You get them kind of broken up a bit, right? I mean, I think they naturally get broken up just because they've been cooking for so long. Maybe that's why I'm thinking about it. Yeah, I think that's one thing I'm like, you've got to puree. Like, chunky soup can be a bummer, right? Yeah, yeah, I agree. And you know, like, the funny thing about the caramelized onion miso soup, you could also, like, not caramelize them and just char them. Yeah, yeah. And leave that in there, and that has its own flavor.

29:16It just smokes it up a little. Yeah, burnt char is a good point. I love your jungle juice, which is mezcal, campari, orange, pineapple, smoked salt. Man. Good stuff. It's like you're not going to get that at a Big Ten University that I attended. No. But it's pretty nice. Unless it's like one of those universities that has really snobby kids that are super rich. Which is like every Big Ten University, to be honest. Well, I guess you're right. So then maybe you will see it. After this, hey, to all the universities out here that have me speaking, maybe you should give them this book. No, but I mean, it's funny.

29:49I made that recipe because I've always hated jungle juice. Yeah. And I was like, well, I guess jungle juice isn't that different from like a, you know, a fun tiki style cocktail. And so that was kind of the inspiration of that was like tiki style cocktail in the form of just a ladle full of it. Yeah, it's the best. And like I think putting like smoky flavors with the mezcal and the salt is like a great way to like be like, whoa, this is weird. Yeah, exactly. because jungle drinks usually taste terrible. So when someone tries this, they're going to go, oh, I'm definitely going back for another one of these.

30:19They're like, what's in the punch? Yeah. So you said you're just talking to colleges. That's cool. So, like, you have a lot of college-age fans, and what do you teach, like, a 19-year-old about food? Normally they bring me in to talk about, like, career stuff. Oh, really? Cool. I think because it's, like, my age, and I'm close enough to their age range, and they happen to watch me. It's a good connector. I like doing it because I like being able to shed some light on like the perspective of, um, get close to the sun. Like there is no secret kind of energy, you know, like don't overthink it so much.

30:50What do you like? And then actually answer that question and then stop there. Say nothing else to yourself and just ask yourself the question of what do you like? If you can't answer that, you already have problems you need to fix. But if you can't answer that, which I feel like a lot of people really can, if they really sit down and think about it, then just stop yourself there and do that. Was always kind of the talk I usually have. But what do I teach? You know, I think it's just a fun, again, another way to provide value that's not necessarily about cooking, but more about thinking about food and how that affects your life.

31:23And so, you know, we do a little cooking demo. We do a Q &A session. I like the thing I love about the Q &As. I bring a ton of people on stage. Yeah, right on. And I love like just executive chefing them. You know what I mean? just like shitting on the college kids are great because they love being deprecated they're very self yeah they can admit they're like their their shortcomings yeah they love it they love it so i you know i'm basically just like razzing the crowd razzing the people on stage and they love it it's just like it's humanizing it's fun that's cool it reminds me like hugh atchison he does some of that shit it's it's it's a cool vibe to do that yeah it's good it's such a positive energy in there and being able to like make fun of yourself and laugh about like life's hard like food is great Let's call it a day.

32:03I agree. You make your own breakfast sausage in the book. I got to ask, have you had Taylor Pork Roll? Do you know what this is? Oh, we just launched a video where we slandered it a little bit. So you're a West Coast guy, right? So you're not really the Jersey dude, but what do you mean by slander? Where do we go? It was just like not what I expected it to be. I'd never had it before. We did a video recently. Is it up? I haven't seen it. It's up officially. It literally just went up like two hours ago, three hours ago. Oh, okay. It's performing really well. We're super happy. Interesting. This is a random question.

32:33Wow, interesting. It is by far the biggest video we've ever done. It is tasting and ranking every single food in America, all 50 states, the most popular dish from each state. Oh, shit. That's great. We made all the way through, tasted and ranked every single one, 50 dishes across the United States of America. And we had people vote on each state. Because what I didn't want was I didn't want people coming back to me saying, that's not the food, that's not the food. It's like, look, I'm going to put it on y 'all. Y 'all vote and tell me. Everybody voted. That's what we picked. We got to Taylor Ham.

33:06And that was one of the dishes. I cannot remember who we gave that to. I didn't know what to expect. I thought it was going to be like a smoky ham kind of. It was just like this really salty, salty, salty. It's not smoke. It's more salt. You're right. Yeah. And we put it on, I think, in a sandwich. Oh, yeah. And I was really had high hopes. It wasn't bad. It was just really salty. It's, it's, if it's the first thing you eat, agree with you fully, it's too salty. And, and, and if you've had like eight things, it's bad. If it's like the first thing, like at 8am after coffee. Totally. It hits. But like, it's a, it's a tricky one.

33:43It also depends on the brand you get, I bet too. I bet, yeah. Because the brand that we got, I feel like could have been better. Is it in a white package, the one you got? That's the one. Oh, fuck. That's the one, but you know. I was expecting it to be like fattier. It's not. It's definitely not. It's just very, just lean and salt. It has a little bit of haggis vibe to it, I think. I think it's a little bit, but haggis can be very salty. You know, it has a little bit of that. I wanted it to be good, man. I really, I had a bias tilting towards good. And when I ate it, I think I was sadly mistaken.

34:10But also it was like 20 dishes in. I mean, that's the thing. What about Michigan? Do you recall which one you had for Michigan? I don't remember. I was going to say, if you remembered every single one, I would be impressed. What do you, what do you think it would have been? So I'm thinking, well, we've got Werner's, which is like a kind of a second rate ginger soda, which I think is amazing. We have that. I'm going to say either something with maple but you know I think maybe Vermont might get maple I think Vermont got maple they got the maple creamy have you heard of that? yeah I've heard of that oh my god it's pretty good it's fucking good for Michigan I would probably say the Detroit style pizza with frico on the like cheese on the outside I think it got something like that that would be the one I would probably pick I think the square pies with cheese on the side is probably the Michigan food I wish I could remember the Coney is not Michigan food maybe the Coney dog hit your radar Whatever they voted for.

35:00All I got to say is if you're from Michigan and you're like, that was a terrible choice. It's like, okay, well, then you can blame y 'all self. Yeah. Because we got like hundreds of votes for each state. Yeah. And then let's talk about the fast food burger showdown, which is highly entertaining. Oh, it's fun. I'm not going to spoil the show, but can we say like who is in your top three? Totally. Like who is in your top three? So top three, if I remember accordingly, was not necessarily in this order, was In-N-Out, Shake Shack, and Steak and Shake of all places. Buddy, these are like absolutely part of my rotation.

35:38Yeah, they're great. But Steak and Shake was a surprise to be in the top three. I think that was the biggest surprise of them all because Steak and Shake, I would argue, may very well be one of, if not the most underrated burger spot in the U.S. Simply because it's a dying thing. Like, I don't know that they're going to go out of business, but, like, they're dwindling. You know, there's not many locations. We had to— You were in Southern California. You did, like, hike around. Where did I—I think we had to go to California to get there. And then we found out that there was one really far away from us in, like, Dallas or something like that.

36:11But that's cool. I have one in my hometown in Kalamazoo, Michigan. They're amazing. So good. And the shakes aren't bad either. So I'm glad to hear that. How was the production for that? Was that a, that's a lot of work that went into that video. We push it, man. I mean, you know, we really, people have no idea how much work goes into this. Enormous. You know, I'll put it into perspective. That one video was three days of, was it three or four? three or four days of filming across multiple states, by the way, across those three or four days. And sorry, actually, prior to those three or four days was probably one and a half to two weeks of pre-production, as in like how many places do we go to?

36:54What really is every burger place in America? And how, like, because technically there are thousands, right? We can't visit thousands. It'll be a four-hour video. What's our, so we had to define some lines. and then after that it was three and a half to four weeks of editing because it's just like dude the amount of footage holy fuck so we're talking like a month and a half for one video a big production and you have a lot of crew on there you have a lot of team how big is your crew about so originally we had about 13 people on the team we've chosen to lean it up because it was just too many people to keep track of and there were just a lot of people not doing things Oh, okay, yeah.

37:34Or not doing enough. You know what I mean? Like one person just doing this one thing. I'm like, ugh. Is that, Josh, is that your decision when you start to lean your crew down a little bit? Yeah, a combination of my decision and also like some people were just like, it's a big, it is, if you're going to work for me, just know that you're not coming to, you're coming to work your ass off. Yeah. It just is what it is. Everybody's working their ass off. Don't come to me talking about how hard you're working. Like everybody, me, my director. Yeah. Everyone. It's, you know, we're building. And so, you know, some people, you know, it was too much for them, so we let them go because they're not enjoying it.

38:11And so I realized I'd rather have a leaner team that is willing to work harder, upload less, and collectively do something that we're all passionate about, that we all love. You've got to be straightforward when you're hiring people. Yeah, I like having groups of people that are all fighting for the same thing. Does the algorithm bug me out in YouTube? I feel like it's like you put something up, and then there's like this weird algorithm thing happening that doesn't perform. I mean, they perform millions. You get millions of views regardless, but you're not getting like 10 million for everything, right?

38:40Yeah, I mean, like, I don't know. It's, there's definitely levels to it. It depends on what application you're talking about, but YouTube, I think, is pretty good about it. Here's what I've learned about the algorithm. The algorithm is only a reflection of what people click on and watch. And YouTube has done the best job at making a really legitimate algorithm. And the simple reality is, if you're gonna come up with an idea, do you think 100 million people care about it? Truly, gotta ask that question. And like, answer it as honestly as you can. Do 100 million people care about your chihuahua?

39:20Probably not, right? You may love that thing. You may even be willing to jump in front of a car for that. That's you though. You gotta be able to rip your biases away from what you make. to look and see, well, do how many people care about this thing? And fast food burgers is clearly indexing high. Yeah, pick things that are as broad as possible. Start learning about what are the things that do well. I mean, I'm not like the end-all be-all seeing eye, but like, let's look at this. Not everyone cares about food, right? Yeah, no, it's true. Mr. Beast does things that everybody cares about. Throwing a Lamborghini in a gigantic shredder.

39:53Okay, cool. That's something that literally anybody on planet Earth could click and watch. Or giving away money. Or giving away money. Everyone kind of likes that. Everybody, what's the number one question when you're sitting in a room full of like a bunch of random dudes that have probably been drinking? Oh, would you eat poop for$100 million? It's like, yeah, Jeff, I probably would. I probably would because I would, yes. You know, it's fine. $100 million, yeah. $100 million? Yeah. Hell yeah, dude. Well, how much, you know? And then the people get in and then it's like this fun conversation. Yeah.

40:24Okay, well, he just brought those to life. He's like the modern day, hyper high level game show. And everybody loves a game show because it's about money, something everybody cares about. So anyway, long story short, you got to kind of like find your genre and see how broad it is. Food is more niche and we more people watch our show than just about any food show ever. No, it's it's true. And you're like the executive, the programmer of the Food Network, plus parts of NBC, plus parts of Disney, plus. Yeah. Plus HBO. I mean, you've got this audience that everyone covets in these in the places I just mentioned.

41:00I think it's hard to do in a corporate setting. I don't blame Food Network or any of the well. How deep can I do? Did they pass on a Josh Wiseman show? Like back in the day? Um, I don't think they passed on it. They you know, they they we had little conversations here and there that never I didn't. They basically were trying to get me to come to them. Yeah. And I was very much of like, you know, I don't want to be told. Remember what I said earlier? I don't want to be told what to do. And I think that what I was going to say a second ago was like, you know, it's very hard to be corporate and have all these layers and be able to creatively pivot aggressively.

41:40And a lot of the food ideas that I think will perform really well cannot go through a hyper bureaucratic system. they have to be very wide open especially for how much the food audience space has changed yeah it's the way you Babish, Laurent Dejeuner Doobie Doobop, like all these folks are just like crushing it and changing the way we think about food media like real good on This Is Taste we ask guests about the discerning taste so Josh to close this interview here's a little rapid fire fast and furious taste check are you ready? yes the best breakfast wait how long do I have to think or do I just go?

42:16You're going. Okay. Bacon, egg, and cheese on a brioche bun. I know it's not very New York, but this is me, okay? Not New York. Yeah, bacon, egg, and cheese on brioche with a spicy mayo. Oh, mayo is the best. You're going to say ketchup. I was like, we're out. We're done. Yeah. It might be a little ketchup in the mayo, but not on the sandwich. Love it. The best dessert. Best dessert. Ooh. I would say, you know, honestly, simple chocolate chip cookie. Chewy, fudgy, salty. Birdies. They serve it on a plate. Yeah. That place in Austin. That's fire. Really great. Favorite American fast food chain?

42:50In-N-Out. Favorite cookbook of all time? Ooh. I would say, I can't remember her name, but it's a book called All About Brazing. Have you ever heard about this book? Completely. Molly Stevens. Yeah, Molly Stevens. Legendary. I love that you call it Molly. Molly is amazing. She's been on the show. She hosts a great podcast. Dude, she changed my life. Legitimately, with that book. Yeah. Because I'd already picked up a lot of skills as a kid, but I cooked at it through that entire book and it made me like take all the skills that I had learned and made me realize this is why I learned these things.

43:28Technique. And it made me realize the power of technique. And if you have all the little building blocks, once you have that epiphany moment, that's when you're on your way to becoming a real master. Really cool that you said about Molly. I think she writes her cookbooks like you. She's very, very, very, very focused on testing and making sure it works. So cool. You should have her on your show. Would love to. Molly, hit me up. Your favorite recent cookbook discovery. You know what's kind of crazy? I haven't, like, read a cookbook in years. Buddy, you've been writing them. It's all good, man. Years.

44:01Is there one that, like, maybe is within reach? Yeah. You know, the most recent one that I really sat through and, like, went all the way through and went deep on was the Noma Guide to Fermentation. Cool. I've always been into fermentation, but it was cool to see the way that they approach it. It's a little bit more fine detailed, a little bit more Michelin, a little bit more, oh, wait, why don't we do it in a jar? Why don't we just do it in a vacuum-sealed bag? I'm like, fuck, that's so good. Yeah, yeah. And they got the hand on the cover. I mean, come on. So good. And it was on the bear. I mean, it's a great one.

44:27They killed. All right. Your favorite New York City restaurant classic edition. Classic edition? Yeah. So nothing, we don't need to go new wave. I know you talked about, I mean, I love that you called out the Wilder guys and Contra. That actually might be classic, but one more. Russ and Daughters because it just, when I take friends there, it just feels like New York. I can hear Frank Sinatra in there. You know what I mean? Even, I know a lot of people are going to probably judge that, but like, I don't know. It's like my childhood, you know? I mean, I grew up Jewish father. My brother's Jewish.

44:59Like, we go and we eat fucking, you know, white fish and bagels. Ashkazee food is fire. It's amazing. It's great. Favorite LA restaurant classic edition? LA restaurant classic edition. If it's not going to be In-N-Out. all the delis are gone man yeah it's so sad and canters isn't good right yeah yeah you once was once was of course once was uh you know maybe old school canters yeah if we wanted to go that route sure a few more a couple more uh the chef you would want to work under and learn from oh there are a lot i would have said you know it's funny we're kind of like we're kind of friends now we're instagram friends now uh but renee red zappi for sure just because I like his tenacity.

45:43Yeah. And he builds, you know, he's built a universe, built a world around him like yourself. I see the comparisons. Favorite vegetable? Broccoli. Comes up like, you know, the guys who know know. That's the one. So good. It's great. Last one, favorite sandwich? Favorite sandwich. Patty melt, 100%. But it has to, and it's not a patty melt unless it has this, has to have fried onions on it. Oh, yeah, definitely. It can either be shoestring onions or it can be onion rings. I don't care. It just needs to be a onion that is deep fried. It has to have that sweetness. Josh Weisman, it's been a pleasure.

46:13Thanks for joining us to taste. Thank you so much for having me.

46:24Hey, Liza, we're here with three things. What's going on? Not much. I have, you know, more than three things on my mind, but three big ones. Three big ones. What do you have for your first one? My first one is that I went to this restaurant called Bolivian Llama Party when I was in Queens recently after going to Costco. Have you been to this restaurant? You know what? I've not been to the one in Queens, but around the corner from our office is a little food hall and a food court and Bolivian llama party was there and he's to go. It's great. Yeah. Are there gone though? It's called turnstile. Oh yeah.

46:55I hate going there because it's in the subway. Yeah. I'm not a fan. It sounds, it smells like candles or something down there, which I can't. It does. I can't with like eating food and candles? Well, I might have to go see if they're still there because I had a saltania for the first time. What is that? I don't know what that is. A saltania is a Bolivian. It's kind of like if you cross an empanada with a soup dumpling is the best way I can explain it. Stop it. It's incredible. It has this kind of like sweet, spicy, it has raisins in it, kind of like stew. And the way that you make it is you mix in gelatin so that it's kind of congealed.

47:28And then when it's fried, that kind of unsets and it's really juicy. It's definitely a messy thing to eat. And I think that the crust has plantain in it. It has that sweetness and also this really beautiful yellow color. But it was amazing. And now I'm craving them all the time. Is there any dipping sauce at all? Yeah, there's, you know, the kind of classic Bolivian salsa. I can't remember the name of that right now. Very like green, acidic, bright and punchy. But it's very, you know, it's self-sourcing, as the British would maybe say. Self-sourcing. Yes, it is. Every Britishism. Yeah, I like that.

48:00So that's my first thing. What's yours? I am just going to say that right now we're recording this in late October, and we have entered Panettone season. Yeah, they're everywhere. They really are starting to get everywhere. Are you a fan of Panettone? Yeah, you know I didn't have it that often, and then I had the great pleasure of being sent a Framroy Panettone last year, which maybe is what you're about to talk about. That's kind of like the bougie gold standard of Panettone, and it was quite good. Well, panettone is a food that delivers and lands in multitudes, I must say. There is the Roy, and actually Roy was at the end of my list.

48:36Because, yeah, I love Roy. Like from Roy, if you can get it from Roy, you're loved, you know, you're cared for. But I received a panettone from Giada De Laurentiis, which was super good. And I just, I thought about panettone for a while and did a little research. And there's like so many panettones at Italy. If you happen to live near an Italy, you can head there starting now. And there's like four or five versions there. One is Olivari 1882, which is this bakery outside Venice that does a total version of panettone. And I think we should break down what makes panettone good. When you think of panettone, what do you think about?

49:17I think lots of fruit studded evenly throughout. and that like spongy plush texture. Absolutely agree. Like that, like it's almost like whispery. It's like very, it's, you can pull it apart. It's very, the bread is enriched. I mean, it feels very rich and decadent. And then you've got the like booze soaked stone fruits, dried stone fruits and raisins and et cetera. And I just love, I love that kind of bite to them, you know, that you get when you break into it. so yeah I think it's one of these foods that maybe if it's a lesser version it kind of turns you off I think it's quite good and also if you have panettone that you're maybe not eating and it's getting a little stale panettone bread pudding is just fantastic and just to add panettone french toast amazing Mauricio Leo the author of The Perfect Loaf is on his own panettone journey and I had him in and we talked about it on an episode we'll have him on the show soon but I've been following him on Instagram and he's trying desperately to make his own version and it's looking pretty great.

50:22Well, I'll have to check in on that. That seems like quite the saga. It's not, that's the thing. It's not easy to make either. It's very challenging. Yes. Especially for even a professional. It's really hard. It's something that many professionals won't even tackle. Well, that's why you should just go to Italy and buy it yourself maybe. What's your next one? My next one is that I had the garlic noodle recipe that Kenji Lopez-Alt did for the New York Times for the first time recently, which apparently was their most popular recipe of the year last year. No way. Have you had this before? No. Tell me about it.

50:51I don't think so. It is so good. It is very simple pantry pasta where you're simmering like truly a huge amount of garlic and olive oil. And then you add oyster sauce, soy sauce, and fish sauce to that. So it's this very like umami satisfying pasta, but it's also like those are all very strong flavors. But the garlic, there's so much of it that that kind of balances all of it out. And it's just a pasta that I keep thinking about. What's the noodle choice? Spaghetti. Yeah. I think like any noodle that you wanted to use, like obviously there's some Asian pantry ingredients being used. But I think it's quite nice with just kind of Italian spaghetti.

51:30But I think with like fresh ramen, that would be so good. It's interesting. That trio is actually in the japchae recipe in Koreatown. It's exactly that trio of soy sauce, oyster sauce, and fish sauce with garlic. But, of course, a little more sugar and maybe some meishol, which is like a kind of fruit preservative or preserve, that is. A fruit preserve. And it's sweet and also umami. So I feel – but I like it with Kenji's version with a lot of garlic and with regular, like, pantry pasta. It sounds good. Yeah, I think it's really good. and next time I'm going to have to add a little bit of chili crisp on top.

52:06Oh, definitely. Oh, that sounds good. I like that. Yeah, I recommend it. What's your next thing? I have just recently, as in the last day or so, been hip to this really cool book called Negatives, a photographic archive of emo, 1996 to 2006. Whoa. Kind of my shit. I love it. It's by an author named Amy Fleischer Madden. She's the founder of Fibler Records, early home of Dashboard Confessional New Found Glory and Recover. I feel like I emailed Amy a few times back in the day when I ran zines and wrote about music a lot. But man, it is a cool book. I'm going to link to the show notes. Features photos from Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional, My Chemical Romance, Texas is the Reason, and then some lesser known emo bands like The Anniversary and remember Hot Rod Circuit.

52:52I do not. Were you ever connected to emo in your... I mean, like the first names you just said, like Jimmy Eat World, like that vibe, yes. But I have friends, I think that holds like MCR all of that a lot more dear than I do. It's really been fascinating to see emo, especially like second wave and third wave emo come back for a younger generation, for Gen Z and even younger, even high schoolers now and teenagers. And I mean, I love the music. It's incredible and it's very much of an era and it's rooted in punk and hardcore, but definitely emo is its own thing. And I just really love the way this book brings all this like behind the scenes photography.

53:29most of it's on film and I think Amy did a terrific job. That sounds great. Yeah, and they also had a couple moments from some of my favorite polyvinyl records bands. Were you ever into polyvinyl records? No, I feel like I have to go do a lot of research after this. Yo, polyvinyl records, Paris, Texas, Rainer Maria, Braid and Of Montreal's, I would say best album, the 2004 Satanic Panic in the Attic. Oh, I do like that album. That's a great album. That's their only polyvinyl records release. Uh-huh. Is this like a Athens, Georgia based label? No, they were based in Champaign, Illinois. Oh, okay.

54:06But Polyvinyl, I'm sorry, but of Montreal definitely. They're from Athens. Yeah, they were part of Elephant 6 and they were definitely in that Athens zone with that great label Elephant 6, which kind of hewed away from emo when it was more like Django Rock. Yeah. And this was like their only polyvinyl records release and they went major and they, you know, they were big of Montreal. all. They were big and I was just thinking about I have to do research, but you're recommending this book to me. So I know exactly where to start. It's a it's called Negatives, a photographic archive of emo. Fantastic.

54:37What's your final one? My last one is another restaurant experience that I had recently that I really liked, which I went to Hainan Chicken House in Sunset Park. Have you been there? I've not been there. I've heard about it. I've read about it. I think Sitsama wrote something about it in the last year. Yeah, I think they got a Times write-up over the summer also, but it's just like such a good Malaysian place in Sunset Park. The Haini's chicken is like what I came there for, which was so good. It was a rainy – it's been raining a lot in New York. It was one of those rainy Saturdays where you kind of don't have anything better to do than to just like go on a food mission.

55:07And it was so great. They had really good like classic milk tea. I had some fried pawpaw for dessert. Oh, cool. How do you fry pawpaw? I don't know. With great difficulty, I would imagine. But it was very great. And like all of the ladies working there were like so lovely and friendly. And it just made me wish that I lived closer to Sunset Park so I could go more often. Sunset Park is really cool. I haven't been back in a while, but I have a couple of friends who live down there. And I think it's a great neighborhood worth maybe doing some editorial around. Maybe we should write something about Sunset Park.

55:38Yeah. There's so many great different like immigrant communities that have really like established great dining destinations in Sunset Park. I wanted to go bowling afterwards at Melody Lanes. but I stepped one foot in there and I was like, okay, this is like children birthday party. Not ready to fight all of these dads in Sunset Park for a lane. So just went to Greenwood instead, which is honestly a great one to activity. Wait, you hung in Greenwood Cemetery in the rain? Yeah. Speaking of emo. Speaking of Scorpio season, yeah. And you did a little like drive, listening to music, went to go see Basquiat's grave.

56:11Apparently like one of the inventors of the hot dog is also buried in Greenwood. That's, wow. Fun fact. Wow. Wait, how do you invent the hot dog? I thought it was like a German food from like way back. Maybe they like commercialized like the hot dog press or something. Look, we should fact check me. Maybe we should do a Sunset Park and then Greenwood Cemetery double feature. Food history. Have you ever had a drink at the bar at Melody Lanes? No, this was my only experience was like not making it past the entryway. They have a bar? They do and they have a bartender. And Punch wrote a great profile of him back in the day.

56:44And if you've ever been, and I have, and that guy will talk your ear off. Okay, I'm going to have to go read that because I bet he's seen a lot of things. He's seen something. He's an interesting character. He also dresses the part. It's great. Okay, what's your last thing? Hudson Valley steelhead trout. Oh, it's so good. Yeah, you've had it. Okay, let's talk about it. Yeah, I wrote a big feature story for Bon Appetit a couple years ago about the future of sushi and sustainability with fishing and I had this steelhead trout at Rosella, which is this great sushi place in the East Village that does all like locally caught or farmed fish instead of like overnighting their seafood from Japan.

57:22Yeah. So that's when I first had this. They're doing it up in the Hudson Valley. And then there's also a good trout person in Bushwick. Absolutely. And to add to that, I love what they're doing with this product. And it's up in Newburgh. And I love I just love the the clean finish of this trout you can buy it raw or you can buy it hot smoked or in law as locks or cold smoked but i like cooking it i like doing a really simple like a lemon and and kind of baking it on low heat and just kind of getting it to that perfect temperature i'm really making sure you're not charring it overcooking it um and really i think for the value too you know it's really you can get like a package of it for under 30 bucks shipped to your house or you can pick it up in New York City at many markets.

58:07I will link to the website in the show notes. It's some of the best fish I've had. It's so clean. I just love steelhead. I love this fish. Well, I'll have to go have more of it. Yeah, it's a good one. And again, farmed fish, it's a tricky topic. And I think it gets neutral to negative in most people's impression, but we eat so much of it as a culture. And I think when you find good farm-raised fish, you should celebrate it. Yeah, I think also especially in the context of diminishing fish populations around the world and the amount of people that need to be fed, I think that farmed fish and even like cell-cultured fish will be a way of the future.

58:41Maybe not quite now, but five years from now. And so especially if you're having good practices and the flavor is prominent as well, it's totally like worthwhile. It's so worthwhile. Thanks for sharing your three things. Anytime.

59:03time.