578: Rick Martinez Is Salsa Daddy

35:34I think she just bought it. But she pretty much used that thing, I would say, almost every day for, you know, at that point, probably she was like 30, maybe 40 years old. So, you know, after it's volcanic rock, and when you get them, they're generally like an inch to an inch and a half or two inches thick. So it takes a while to wear it down. But, you know, over time, if you use it a lot, you will wear the rock down and hers had become thin on the bottom. And so she had given me like, I don't know, like two cups of cumin seeds to grind up. And cumin seeds are kind of hard. And so, you know, you kind of have to like you have to hit them with the rock and against the mocha head there.

36:25So I started doing that. And as I was tapping, literally like one tap just split the thing in half and it had three little legs and it split down the middle and it literally just opened up like as if I had cut an onion in half and like the two halves just like fell on either side. And I'm just I'm staring at it in disbelief because, you know, my mind is like completely indestructible. But then it all of a sudden hit me like I broke my mother's mulcahete. and I literally I just started to cry like I was like I was just the most heartbreaking horrific thing that a son could ever do to his mom like break her and she literally looked at me like as if nothing had happened and then reached down opened up a cupboard and pulled out another one as if it was like you know a box of tissue or something right it's just like oh here's another one and just you know swapped it out and i was like wait what i'm so confused like you had this other one and then and so that was that that was the end of of that mocha and i mean i'd still i obviously to this day i'm deeply troubled by that event but it just she was completely unfazed by it so she knew it was gonna break at some point so she had the other one on deck and then she put you in the position of having it happen.

37:49Yeah, I was the guinea pig. I mean, I think it's such a good story because it speaks to like, you know, the huge like importance that this can carry as like this tool that your mom was using all of the time. And then at the same point, you know, it's just an appliance. You can always get another one and the food is still going to taste just as good. Yeah. And I think just to that point, I think it's so, I get so many comments and DMs from people about this topic, about like, you know, cooking either with your, you know, aging parents or, or grandmother, aunts, uncles, whatever, or, um, cooking with your children.

38:30And, you know, I think, I think both are incredibly important. And I think that, you know, whether it's, it's salsa or Mexican food or something else, it doesn't really matter. But I think, you know, my most powerful, fondest, deepest, most precious memories revolve around cooking with my family and my friends. And, you know, I think it's so important to do that. I think it's so important to do that with the people that you love, whether they're old or young. And also, I think it's important to capture those memories. You know, now we live in an age where you can easily, you know, make a video of that.

39:11And my mother, my mother passed away 14 years ago. And the, the Thanksgiving, her last Thanksgiving, I was there. And I told her, I'm like, I'm going to record you making Thanksgiving. And she was like, No, no, no, I don't do this. And, you know, she didn't, she didn't want to be on camera. But I was like, I'm not asking. I'm just saying that this is what I'm going to do. and she wasn't sick or anything. I just was like, I'm going to record this so that I have this. And I know how you make what you make. And I had no idea that that was going to be the last one, but, you know, I made a point of recording everything and writing down everything that she did, um, so that I would have it.

39:54And then as it turned out, like that was the last time that, you know she made Thanksgiving dinner and I am so incredibly grateful that I have those videos because not only so that I can replicate that food but more importantly she's talking directly to me sorry I'm getting choked up now but to have her looking at me and telling me you know what she's doing step by step is so incredibly valuable, so incredibly meaningful. And I just think that everybody should do that to preserve those memories. Um, and also to preserve those recipes because that, you know, in the end, that's, that's all you're going to be left with, or that is one thing that you will be left with.

40:47And, and it's a really great way to keep their memory alive. Um, and I also think that that's why it's a good idea to cook with your children too, because obviously Obviously, you know, she ingrained that in me. I was, I was probably three when I started cooking with her. She would pick me up from daycare and I would, I would take a chair from the dining room and drag it into the kitchen. And I would just stand there. She would go and change after work. And then she would come to the kitchen and there I was just like ready to, to stir a pot or do whatever she asked me to do. Um, so I think it's, I think it's, a very important and meaningful thing to do and to pass on.

41:28Yeah, I agree with you. And I really appreciate you sharing that memory with us and a little bit of your mom. And even in this book, you have, I really love this, in the very first chapter, you have two salsa de mesa, which are kind of like the salsa on the table that you would eat with things. And one of them is your mom's salsa de mesa, which is tomato, red salsa. And then the other one is your dad's, which is pure jalapeno, which is such a crazy move. But I feel like it's such a fun insight into both of your parents and like the kind of sort of everyday salsa that they would have out. Yeah.

42:04My mom, you know, it's funny because like when I was little, like I didn't, we ate Mexican food, but they ate incredibly spicy salsas. My father in particular, but my mom definitely did too and they were they were the kind of people that uh so we had a garden and um they grew jalapenos and tomatoes and cilantro and mexican oregano and um and because we lived in texas like we had produce probably you know eight or nine months out of the year and also like they grew a lot of uh chili pekin they grew wild in the yard like and you know i I think a lot of the birds propagated them as well. But in the spring and summer, she was using fresh ingredients.

42:53And so she would go and pick the chili piquine. Sometimes she used green. Sometimes she used red. It was really all about the season. And I remember her making them. Because I couldn't eat things that hot when I was that little, I kind of didn't pay attention. And I just knew that the salsa was always there. And when they're, and even beyond the salsa, like there were times where they would just like pick jalapenos off the plants and they would eat them. Like it's a, like, like they would take a bite of food and then take a bite of jalapeno, like just raw. Wow. And yeah. And, you know, like it didn't seem odd to me at the time.

43:39I just knew that I couldn't do that. Right. And then it wasn't until later in high school that I really started eating salsa and had an appreciation for it. And then I started to like my mom had this like one little silver saucepan and she used it like sometimes she would boil her ingredients. Sometimes she would use fresh. um you know the winter time she used canned whole tomatoes um she always had like uh in the winter time she would dry the chili pekin so she picked them when they were red in the fall and then whenever like first freeze was coming she would just like lay them out uh on a sheet tray and let them dry like either in the laundry room or uh even in the garage um so there was like always like the ingredients for salsa were always there like there was never a time when there wasn't a can of whole tomatoes and you know it's not like she did that was the only thing she's for like we you know it's spaghetti and meatballs and that kind of stuff too but um like there was always salsa ready in the fridge and there was always the ingredients that you needed to make it available um and and i just remember and i i wrote about this as well a little bit but like Like when I was in high school and in college, we, you know, my friends and I might have thrown a few parties and maybe consumed a little bit too much.

45:14And my mother made the most amazing breakfast and all my friends loved her breakfast. Like they would literally like invite themselves over. So we would be completely hungover and they're like, we're going to your mom's house, right? Like she's going to make us breakfast, right? and so i'd like you call my mom like well can these people come over and can you make breakfast and you know like it was like chorizo she would make her own chorizo um she would fry potatoes she made the most amazingly beautiful scrambled eggs like they were the most perfect scrambled eggs i've ever had in my entire life um and sometimes she would make tortillas um and then there was always salsa right and it was just like you know you're hung over you're drinking you know hot coffee and then just slathering uh the salsa over everything the chorizo the beans the uh the eggs uh the fried potatoes and it was just glorious you know uh and i think that's really when i started to really appreciate salsa not only from you know through my from you know through my eyes but the eyes of my friends who were just like, you know, they weren't, that was nothing that they would get at home.

46:33Right. And then at that time, like you know, there weren't that many brands of jarred salsa either. It was like paste pecan sauce, you know, that kind of stuff. And which was, you know, obviously nothing like what my mom made. So, and then my dad, that, that jalapeno salsa, it was just hilarious. Like he, whereas my mom, you know, always made sure she had the ingredients for salsa, you know, within arm's reach. My father, you know, is like, okay, I need salsa. Oh, but I don't have anything but, you know, these jalapenos and a Costco-sized drum of garlic powder. Well, that's what I'm going to use.

47:18And I'm just like, are you insane? like what also like why couldn't you just go to the store and get other ingredients anyway that's that's what thing is going on in my mind and i just i distinctly remember like he made these my father makes the most amazing breakfast tacos and that was kind of his job when we were growing up my mom always made dinner uh and breakfast on the weekends uh and we we ate like for the you know, 20 years that I lived at home, like we always ate a hot meal at like six o 'clock. You know, that was just, that was her thing. My father, his job was breakfast. So my mom left early.

47:58She was a nurse. So she had to go to the hospital early to work. So my dad would wake up me and my brother. And usually the night before he would ask us, you know, what do we want to eat? And he would make some really, you know, pretty elaborate breakfast, like they're, you know, know french toast pancakes breakfast tacos um and so anyway he as he got older like his breakfast tacos were just like the shit like insane um so whenever i go home i'm always like dad i mean he knows what to do so so he makes he makes the breakfast tacos and then i'm like okay where's the salsa and he pulls out this jar he's like watch out it's like this one's like really hot And I'm like, it's kind of a weird, suspicious looking color.

48:44Like it's all green. And he's like, yeah, it's all jalapeno. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait. Is that a figurative statement? Like it's mostly jalapeno? And he's like, no, no, it's pretty much all jalapeno. And I'm like, I still don't quite understand this. And he's like, okay, it's literally jalapeno and garlic powder. And I was like, what the hell kind of salsa is this? I'm like, I don't understand you, old man. But OK, fine. It's, you know, whatever. My tacos are getting cold. I'm going to eat them. And I was like, holy shit, this is so good. And so that's really why it's in the book, because it's like, because I think this is a really good example of, you know, right.

49:31In my in my mind, I had that, you know, that little box of salsa is this plus this plus this plus this. And my dad is just like, whatever, like, I don't have those things. And so I'm just gonna I need some, some heat for my food. And this is what I'm going to make because that's what I have. And I was like, wow, again, like another breakthrough moment for me. And when you approach salsa, making salsa with that mindset, like anything's possible. You know, there's a there's a recipe for cucumbers based salsa. And that was the same thing. I had this random cucumber that I didn't I hadn't used and I didn't want it to go bad.

50:13I was like, I want to know if I can make a good cucumber salsa. And I did. And I was like, wow, that's cool. there's another one this is a really fun one so growing up my parents, my father had peach trees and pecan trees so we would harvest amazing peaches in the summertime and in the fall right before Thanksgiving we would harvest fresh pecans and my mom would make pralines and pecan pie and so those are very strong memories with me and so I was like I want to make a pecan and peach salsa as an homage to that, you know, that piece of my Texas history. And I was like, either this is going to be really delicious or really horrible.

51:01And I couldn't really work out in my mind how it was going to turn out. But I'm like, I'm going to just do it. I mean, whatever, you know, and, and it was, it's one of my favorite salsas in the book. Like I grilled the peaches, I toasted the pecans. It's got a little bit of citrus and habanero. And it is just like, it's not, there's like sweetness from the peaches, but then you get acidity plus the citrus. And then the pecans just add this like really toasty, nutty depth. It pairs so well with like carnitas or grilled meats, or you could put it on the steak. It would make an amazing steak sandwich.

51:39You could mix it in with a little bit of mayonnaise and have like this ridiculous like, you know, sandwich topping. It's, you know, and I think for me, that's part of the appeal of this book and also just salsas generally. Like it's a pretty low investment and low lift, right? You know, some recipes, if you make them, they're really expensive and they're time consuming. And so if you don't like the finished product, you've now wasted, you know, a lot of time and a lot of money with salsas. And I've noticed this here in Mexico. A lot of younger people will bring salsas because you don't have to spend a lot of money.

52:24It doesn't take a lot of time. You don't have to be a really good cook. And you can be like wildly creative and no one's going to criticize you for it. and then sometimes you just make something that everybody like freaks out over and loves and and and I and I wanted to adopt that mindset and and I want home cooks in the U.S. who buy this book to adopt that mindset and just be fearless in the kitchen and take whatever rules that exist in your mind about salsa just throw them away and have fun that's like the perfect tagline for the book. And it's funny that you mentioned that peach pecan salsa because that's the first thing that I bookmarked in the book is like, I need to make this immediately.

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55:41I promise. Tomatoes or tomatillos? Oh, my God. OK, so so tomatillos when tomatoes are not in season, but then tomatoes when they're in season. OK, that's fair. Flour or corn tortillas? I'll probably get hate mail for this, but, you know, I grew up with flour tortillas. I grew up with my mom's homemade flour tortillas. So that kind of like biased me for the rest of my life. Yeah, that's your trump card. I don't think anyone can come for you. Fresh, your favorite fresh Chile. Oh, God, so hard. You can do two. I love habaneros. Okay, well, so the one that I use most often is serrano. I just, I love that flavor.

56:25And it's just such a good, such a good flavor for so many salsas. But I love the fruitiness of an habanero. but I don't use them quite as often but I yeah but I love that flavor okay and then your two favorite dried chiles oh um the one that I use most often is guajillo and I just think it's like a really great all-purpose uh dried chile and I think it's widely accessible to you know all home cooks in the U.S. um the one that I probably love the most and it's really really hard to find even for me it's only grown in oaxaca it's called chihuacle and there are a number of different varieties there's like a black one a red one and a yellow one i love all three of them the yellow chihuacle is so good um i i use it in the recipe in the book even though i knew that most people would not be able to find it but it's just if you ever see it you should just buy it it's like it's fruity it's uh it's bright it's got like such a unique flavor and then that color is just really, really stunning.

57:34It's used to make moles. I used it for one of my salsa machas. I really love that a lot. Okay. I'm going to seek this out the next time I'm in Oaxaca. It's called Chihuacole? Chihuacole. Chihuacole. Okay. A lesser known salsa that you think should reach widespread ubiquity like on salsa bars? So it's probably lesser known in the U.S. Like I think it's probably more common here um it doesn't exist at a lot of taquerias but i think it's it's a really interesting technique so basically you can make um you can like fry up uh uh chilies and and onions like a lot of them and then just like blend them like on high with the oil that you cook them in and you get almost this like mayonnaise like texture like it's really light and creamy and you can use a ton of chiles and because of the oil and the air it doesn't read as super hot and i mean just imagine like caramelized onion garlic chiles um but as an aioli right and then you know you can pour you can um use a little bit more oil and it's more of like a pourable sitch or you can use, you can blend it really hard and then it gets like really sort of like mayo consistency.

59:04So it's spreadable. I think it's a really, really good salsa to have and to use and to make. That sounds super cool. What's it called? I mean, usually just people, there's really not a name for that style. It's usually just like something cremosa, right? So it's like salsa habanero, you know, cremosa. And usually the creaminess is because it's got the oil in it. If it's got crema in it, it's usually con crema instead of like creamy. So with cream versus creamy. Yeah. I love the like salsa aioli descriptor. It just sets off so many light bulbs in my head. Oh, they're so good. Highly recommend. Okay.

59:49My final question is your favorite drink to like turn down the heat when you're eating something that's maybe a little too spicy? So I love, it's kind of like the drink that I order like always whenever I go to any taqueria. It's called Limonada. It's basically like a Mexican lemonade, but I like it mine with Topo Chico. So it's like key limes, like lots of key limes. So when I make it at home, which I actually do quite often, it's like five or six key limes, topo chico ice and then a simple syrup to taste and it's delicious wow i can't wait to make that at home to pair with all of the salsas that i'm going to make rick this has been so much fun thank you for coming on the show oh thank you for having me i really enjoyed talking to you

1:00:42emma christensen this is taste thank you for coming on the podcast Oh, thank you so much. I'm happy to be here. It's so fun to get to chat about your great new book. And I guess to start, I'm wondering if you could tell me what draws you to the world of drinks as a writer and editor? Oh, my goodness. Well, aside from just I love drinks and I enjoy a nice beverage, I also just love the challenge of making these things myself at home. There was a time in my life when, well, I had these friends and they invited me over. They're like, we're doing a brew day. And I was like, what are you talking about?

1:01:18Went over, watched them do a brew day. They were brewing a big five gallon batch of beer. This was like 15 years ago. And I was just hooked ever since like anything home brewed, I'm there. Would you say that you're like a science person? I would say I just love to know things. I love to understand how things work and how they come to be. So if that makes me a science minded person, then yes. Yeah, I guess I'm wondering if I have to have been good at chemistry in high school to make my own drinks at home. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. You just need to come with a curious mind and a experimental mindset and a love of learning the process.

1:02:02and you are good to go. Okay. I think I can do all of those things and I guess have like a good guidebook to help on the journey. And that helps. That helps. You know, I've written one here for you. Yeah. So I want to talk about it. The book is called Hard Seltzer, Iced Tea, Kombucha, and Cider. Why group all of those different kinds of drinks together? Well, except for the cider, I've done one other book that was all about hard cider, except for that one. None of them were things that I had done before. And so that was appealing just for me personally. But then kind of for the broader world, these are all drinks that have become really popular in the last, I don't know, like five or so years.

1:02:44And I just felt like the people need to know that you can make it yourself if you want to. Yeah, I want to dig into this like motivation a little bit. I think, you know, at least for myself living in New York, every time I go to the grocery store or the bodega, it feels like there's twice as many drinks in the refrigerated aisle as there were before. In this moment when there are so many things that we can buy in the store, how would you kind of pitch the case for making your own drinks at home? Well, one, it's super fun. It's just a fun experiment. It's a fun thing to do at home. It doesn't take up a lot of space.

1:03:18You don't need a lot of fancy ingredients. It's just a cool hobby to have. But besides that, when you make things yourself, you can make whatever you want. You can make whatever flavors you want. You have access to the entire grocery store of spices, of juices, of fresh fruits, of seasonal things. It's only limited by your imagination. So if you have kind of always wondered like, oh, what would it be like if I combined this cherry seltzer with a ginger beer soda. Like you can make that. So yeah, I think just like exploring the possibilities of where you could take this is why I think people should do it themselves.

1:04:05Yeah, I think that totally makes sense. And I know at least for myself, like when I had my kombucha brewing phase at home, I felt so empowered that I knew how to make this thing that I loved to drink so much. And also, like, I think, you know, I would maybe buy myself kombucha as a treat like once or twice a week, but I wouldn't buy it every day because that's just kind of crazy. But, you know, once I was making it at home, like, I always had access to this thing that I liked. And I think that is kind of special as well. Totally. And you do, I mean, it's not like a huge money-saving adventure because you do, it's like, you're, yeah, like, well, I mean, the equipment is an upfront cost and then you can use it forever.

1:04:44Like, I'm literally still using the same set of equipment that I bought 15 years ago when I started doing this. But there is some cost savings there. I think I do one gallon batches and you usually get about 10-ish bottles out of that, 12 ounce bottles. And it depends on what you're making, but a batch of seltzer is basically just, you're making fermented water and then adding either juice or spices or fruit to it, that comes out to, gosh, like, actually, you might save a lot. I haven't done the math on this, but you might save a good amount of money. That would be what, like five bucks to make a big batch.

1:05:24And it's now like, what, like 10 to$12 to buy a six pack at the store. It's getting expensive. So yeah, go save money. Yeah. I'm so curious what your fridge situation is like? I feel like it must be so full of drinks. We just moved into a house situation with an actual garage and the former owners left behind a fridge, which is in the garage. And so the garage is my fridge. That's where I keep all of my various experiments and bottles. And I'm like, oh, what do I feel like tonight? Let's go out to the garage fridge and see what we got. But yeah, when I was working on the hard seltzer book, my kitchen was like a mad scientist laboratory.

1:06:08I had a whole section of the counter that was just fermenters. I have like, when I do these cookbooks, I have like six to eight fermenters going at once. And these are little one gallon guys. So I just line them up on my counter and you walk in and you see these like bubbling, burbling experiments on my counter. I love that you have a second fridge in the garage. I feel like if anybody deserves that, it's you. It's a that is not how everyone, you know, not everyone has that. So I feel very lucky. But but most of the time, I mean, you don't need to actually store everything in the fridge. Like you only need to store things in the fridge if you're going to be drinking it soon.

1:06:50But once you bottle these things, they're stable for a long time and you can just stash them in a cupboard or in a closet or behind the bookshelf or wherever you want to put them. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I guess I want to dig into your developer brain and what it was like for you to work on this book. did you feel like you had a certain perspective in terms of like I really want these flavors or like these variations on these drinks or how did you kind of decide like what your version of the hard seltzer the iced tea the kombucha and the cider would be I approached this book and all of my books um very much from like a teaching mindset so my goal is to really give you you guys here on this podcast, as well as everyone listening, to give you guys the skills and the tools to make any of these beverages and to make anything you want to make.

1:07:45So I really thought through like starting with the basics, starting with how fermentation works, what is the equipment you need? What is the basic ingredients that you should have on hand? And then each chapter, the hard seltzer, the iced tea, the kombucha, and the ciders starts with a base recipe so that you can use that to do whatever, to add any flavorings or any ingredients that you want to, but it's like the, that's the template recipe. And then through the chapter, they start with like the easiest recipes. Like the hard seltzer chapter starts with a lemon hard seltzer, which is just like you make a fermented water basically, and then you just add lemon and you get a gorgeous lemon seltzer.

1:08:28And then it goes all the way through to the harder things. So toward the end of the chapter are the more nuanced things or the things that have more ingredients or they're just a little more complicated. So you could really, if you wanted to, you could start small and then work your way up. Or if you just want to dive into gin and tonic hard seltzer from day one, you could absolutely do that. I like that. It sounds like it's a kind of book that can really grow with you as your own kind of like ambitions and ideas for making drinks do as well. Totally. That is 100 % my goal. I'm curious if you could talk about like maybe a recipe that was the trickiest to perfect for the book.

1:09:07I'm always curious about like how things kind of evolve and come together. Yeah, I would say the kombucha chapter or like developing that base kombucha recipe, that was tricky. And full disclosure, the kombuchas are probably the trickiest ones to make at home. Everything else is pretty straightforward. And the kombucha is pretty straightforward once you wrap your head around it. But basically, you have to make a batch of regular everyday kombucha like the kind that you were making. You have to make it so that you're making that daily kombucha or that regular everyday kombucha, that you're making it on a regular enough cadence that the SCOBY is really strong, that you're getting a nice fermentation in there.

1:09:51And then once you've made that basic everyday non-alcoholic kombucha, then that becomes your base for making the alcoholic kombucha. So it's a little more time. It's a little more tricky. Kombucha by its nature, because you're working with these wild yeasts and the SCOBY, which is kind of like a weird thing that you have to get to know because it's kind of a living creature. Just by the nature of kombucha, it tends to be a little more, I don't want to say challenging, but you need to go in with a little bit of a learner's mindset with that one. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Does your SCOBY have a name?

1:10:30You know, I've never named it. I probably should. I don't know. I feel like when I like ultimately, I don't know if I'd say I killed my SCOBY as much just decided that it was time for us to move on. But I had named her and it did make me feel worse about it. So hold a little funeral. Thank her for her service. Yeah. And go on her way. Yeah. Maybe I'll do like the 2.0 version after reading this book. And then on the flip side, is there a recipe that, you know, maybe surprised you in terms of like it was more unexpectedly delicious than you thought it would be or it was actually easier than you thought the process would be?

1:11:06Oh gosh. So many, honestly. Well, the ones, the two that really stand out to me that I was like, wow, this is really, really tasty is the Hurricane Hard Cider, which is based on just kind of a nudge to the Hurricane cocktail from New Orleans. And that one just, that was a total experiment. I wanted to kind of experiment with these cocktail inspired and tiki bar inspired inspired, uh, uh, drinks in the book. And so that was a total experiment. And like the first time I made it, I was like, this is delicious. No notes done. Like it was, it was so good and it was pretty. And then in the seltzer chapter, the pineapple hard, uh, yeah, the pineapple hard seltzer was just like, I could just drink that every single day.

1:11:52Like it's so tasty and delicious. Um, and then overall to the easiest one, uh, recipes in the book, the seltzers ended up being surprisingly easy. Like at first I was like, gosh, I don't know. Can you even make hard seltzer at home? Like, I know it's possible. I know I've heard people do it, but like, is it worth it? And then like, once I started doing it, I was like, oh, this is super cool. Because like I've said a couple of times now, I think you basically are making, you're fermenting water and you're making hard water, which if you want to drink that, that is by all means go for it. And then you're just adding flavor to it.

1:12:29And it's so easy. You can make a batch in just a couple weeks. And I was amazed. I was surprised. When you say hard water, is that like the same thing as moonshine essentially? Or what's the difference? Moonshine is distilled. So moonshine becomes like gin or whiskey. It's a more, you're like taking the booze kind of out of the liquid. And what's the word I'm looking for? I'm making a gesture with my hand that none of you can see. You're distilling it. You're just making it more concentrated. Whereas making hard water, basically you're taking a gallon of water, you're adding sugar to it, you sprinkle on some brewing yeast, and the yeast eats the sugar, and that makes alcohol.

1:13:15So you're left with this more or less flavorless water that is alcoholic, that has booze in it. And then from there, if you wanted to just make like plain hard seltzer, you could just make it fizzy and drink it that way. Or you can just add fruit or juice or any flavorings you want to that. Yeah, I know that like you're not making this for the apocalypse, but it does make me think that you would be a really good person to have in that situation. Because this has been my pitch to several like neighborhood groups, friend groups. I'm like, hey, you want me on your team in the apocalypse? Like I'm going to bring the booze.

1:13:53It's very important. I read a whole article about doomsday preppers and like the kinds of things that they keep in their bunkers. And one of it is like airplane travel size alcohol bottles so that they can trade with people for other things. So you can be trading hard seltzer for other things that you need. I can and I will if if that day comes. So this book has a lot of great information about the kind of materials and supplies that homebrewers need. And you strike me as a very organized person. So I'm curious how you kind of tracked your ferments that you were working on, how you wanted to adapt things differently.

1:14:31Should people have a kind of like journal where they can be tracking where things are at in the right stage and how they want to tweak things for the next time? This is a total choose your own adventure hobby. Like you can get as intense and detailed and nerdy about it as you want to, which is my side of the spectrum. or you can have more of a chaos approach and just go into the kitchen one day and be like, I want to make this recipe and boom, you make it. Personally, I use Google spreadsheets and I keep everything in there. I track like, okay, what recipe is it? What day did I start it? What day did I add the fruit?

1:15:07What day did I bottle it? What were my tasting notes? Like I keep track of all of that stuff. And then, yeah, when I was developing the book, if it wasn't quite right, then I would do version two of the pineapple seltzer or whatever it was. So I love Google Sheets. That's like my, that speaks my language. I know a lot of other people out there do the same, like people who are nerdy like me. There are, there are some like apps that you can use to both like store recipes and keep track of your, your brew days or your fermentations that you're doing. they're more geared toward uh beer brewing and uh mead making and cider like that kind of side of things so but i'm sure you could adapt them to doing any kind of ferment that you wanted to do um or yeah just keep an old-fashioned uh pen and paper journal that works too i think i had like a sticky note on my kombucha jar that i would write like i would check off if i had like you know fed it or taken off the scoby or done whenever i needed to do that day and it worked pretty well honestly Yeah, that's smart.

1:16:09I use a lot of painter's tape. I just like write like the day or like, don't forget to add the blah, blah, blah spice or whatever. Like, I'll just like stick those right on the jar where I'm fermenting things. I love that. We're talking a lot about like homebrewing and drinks today, but I know that like in your own professional career, you're at Simply Recipes. You were an editor at The Kitchen previously. I'm curious if you think that homebrewing, like this side of your brain is the same as when you're cooking and like developing those kinds of recipes or if you think that they're kind of like separate practices?

1:16:44Oh, that is a good question. I think there's a lot of the same skills that go into it that go into developing like a chickpea recipe for dinner and then developing a hard cider recipe. It's all about like for me, you know, I've been doing this for years and years and years. And so I can almost like taste what I want in my mouth. I'm like, okay, I want to make a pineapple hard seltzer. This is kind of what I want to taste like. I think I'm going to need fresh pineapple or I'm going to try fresh pineapple. And then I'll also try juice. And then my brain starts like thinking about like, oh, am I going to need some lemon in there to bump up the citrusy flavor?

1:17:23Or maybe I'll use lemon peel instead of lemon juice. Like that, my thought, that's where my like thoughts start going. And then I start writing it all down And I make like my notes about like, don't forget to try juice and fresh pineapple in there. I'll kind of work it out that way. So I guess this is a long way of saying like, yeah, I think it is kind of the same process. I think the only difference with fermentation is that it's a longer process. Like it basically takes, you do a week for the primary fermentation, which is literally just the yeast eating the sugar. And then you add the whatever flavorings you want to add on that.

1:18:03You let sit for at least another week, or you could go a week or two on that. Then you bottle it. It needs to sit in the bottle for another week. So within like three to four weeks, basically, you have your finished batch ready to drink. whereas when I'm developing a recipe that's like you know one night and we'll have that for dinner I guess because it's a longer process if I do want to tweak it like if I make this whole batch of pineapple hard seltzer and then I get to the end and I'm like oh man that's just like not quite what I had in mind then I have to start it all again and think about it think it through again whereas like if I'm developing a chickpea recipe for dinner I could start working on that in the morning and make it five times before dinner and then have have my recipe done.

1:18:45So there is some like just how you how you think about your time with that, and just having a more experimental attitude toward it. Because fermentation is, we try to control every factor that you can to make it as reliable and as repeatable as you possibly can. But it's yeast and yeast sometimes just does what it wants to do. And so you kind of have to just like respect that, respect the yeast choices and just go with it. Yeah. Yeah. I think to me it almost, it feels more similar to baking than cooking in some way and that you have the yeast and you have maybe like you can't intervene at a certain point in the same way that if you're cooking something on the stove, you can kind of take it off the heat or something like that.

1:19:32Yes, that is correct. Yeah. So I guess as someone who thinks a lot about drinks, do you buy into the whole drink of the summer thing? Do you have any predictions for what people might want to be drinking this summer? I enjoy watching those debates and then trying them, drinking them. For someone who has worked in this industry for so long, I'm actually terrible at predicting trends. But if I had to predict, I'd probably say some version of the, some version of an Aperol spritz, I think. Like, I feel like we had, Aperol spritzes had their moment a year or two ago. And I feel like it's time for like other kinds of spritzes or like, let's make an Aperol spritz, but add passion fruit to it or, you know, something like that.

1:20:21Like something that takes that trend that happened and then takes it to the next level. Yeah, I think you're right. I agree that sometimes it's more fun to just watch what bubbles up to the top and then try it for yourself. Oh, bubbles up to the top. That was a good. So I want to play a rapid fire game with you to close today. So I'll give you some questions and I'm going to make you play favorites and tell me the first thing that comes to mind. Oh gosh. Okay. I'm ready. Okay. Your favorite cookbook right now. I think I have to give a shout out to my girl, Georgia Friedman. She just came out with a cookbook called Snacking Dinners.

1:21:02Full disclosure, I saw an advanced copy and I endorsed the book for her. It is awesome. It's like, it's like, it takes like girl dinner to the next level where, and it's perfect for summer because you're basically just like collecting a bunch of snacks and calling it dinner. But of course she has a lot of guidance, a lot of refined ways of talking about it or you can upscale it or downscale it however you want. But it's a super fun cookbook. It's also gorgeous. Shout out to the photographer, Lila Seed. And yeah, I think it's a great book. I love the sound of that. I'll have to check it out. Your favorite home brewing book that is not one of your own?

1:21:40All right. I'm going to pick two. One is the beer making book from Erica Shea and Stephen Valland. They run the Brooklyn Brew Shop. If you're in Brooklyn, you maybe have seen them around farmers markets. I actually don't know if they're doing farmers markets still, but that's where they got their start. I love their beer making book. It's just small batch brews, fun flavors, interesting combinations, and they're cool people. So I like that. And then the big book of kombucha by Hannah Crum is if you want to, if you're interested in kombucha, that's the book to get. Like it is everything A to Z, all the information sets you up for success with making kombucha.

1:22:21I love both of those. Your favorite like classic cocktail? Oh, I love a good gin gimlet. Make it nice and sour and I'm there. I think that gin is very good for like spring also. It feels appropriate. A drink that you think should be more like popular or mainstream? you know i feel like the sidecar is unappreciated um a sidecar is cognac cointreau and lemon juice uh there might be some sugar in there maybe some people put sugar in there anyway it's just like sweet and sour it's cozy but still refreshing like i love a sidecar honestly year-round like in the summer it feels like refreshing and like a nice summery drink and in the fall it feels kind cozy and like it's like an orange color so it just like matches the season um so yeah i'm gonna go sidecar it does it all okay and finally a recipe from the book that you would recommend people make as we get into the kind of spring like outdoor drinking season oh okay if you want a little more of a well it's not more of a challenge but it's a offbeat flavor um i love the plum yuzu recipe plum yuzu hard uh hard seltzer um so take some fresh plums uh chop them up throw them in your your hard water that you've made and then yuzu juice you can buy at grocery stores you can buy it online um and that combination is just so lovely and it's beautiful it's like the plums depending on which like kind of plums you use and you can use any plum that you want it gives it this like pink, like almost like a Barbie pink color.

1:24:04And it's just so fun. I love that one. Yeah. I love that. I think that sounds so great. And I've had so much fun talking with you. I'm going to go find myself a kombucha right now. I love it. Thank you so much. This has been super fun.

1:24:23This is Taste is hosted and produced by Matt Rodbard and me, Eliza Abarbanel. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell, logo and guest illustrations by Ellie Skrzat. Visit Taste online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.