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Hi, I'm Samin Nasrat.
And I'm Rishi K. Sherway.
And we're Home Cooking.
This is episode 21 of our four-part series, the second episode of our new season.
Yeah, and the first time ever. that we're recording in person.
Yeah, now you have to look at me.
I know.
You can't just turn away.
It's true.
I normally put a post-it note over your face on my screen.
Welcome to LA.
Thank you.
It's nice and hot.
What did you eat recently that you're excited about?
Oh well, yesterday we had a birthday party for a lovely six-year-old in my life Vega, and she wanted an ice cream sundae birthday party.
So I made a ton of toppings.
I made the burnt honey hot fudge from my new book, Good Things.
I made salted caramel sauce.
I made marshmallow sauce, peanut praline.
And then here are the two new things I'd never made before that I think you would be interested in.
Caramelized Rice Krispies and Caramelized Corn Flakes.
Caramelized Rice Krispies.
What does that end up looking like?
You just take some sugar, put it in a pot.
When it starts turning caramel, you add Rice Krispies.
And then you stir, stir, stir, stir, stir.
And the Rice Krispies get a little toasty but covered in this like brown, like plain sugar caramel.
And then they dry up super crunchy into little clumps.
You can kind of break it up.
Okay, so that's what I was wondering.
But it's like a sprinkle.
It's like a crunchy sprinkle.
It's not like a... Oh, no, it's not like a bar.
It's not like brittle.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the cornflakes are like that too.
Okay, here's a philosophical question.
Did you imagine when you were making all these toppings that people would choose one or two?
Or were you thinking that there's going to be somebody who's going to put all of them on there?
I thought I would put them all on.
Okay.
But I feel like choices are really important at an ice cream sundae event.
Yeah.
The other day I was thinking about how, the first time I experienced one of these places like a frozen yogurt place where you can add your own toppings.
You can have gummy bears, and also toasted almonds, and also coconut, and also Cap'n Crunch.
Like so many different genres of things.
And then you'd see people... putting all of those things on there.
And I'm like, what about the thing you're eating?
Totally.
And also like, I feel like so much depends on the base flavor of the frozen yogurt or the ice cream.
Sometimes I want to go in a fruity direction.
Other times I want to go in a nutty direction.
Other times chocolatey.
Yeah.
So I feel like consistency is key.
And I'm always trying to imagine a complete package.
You know where I'm like.
Oh, I am getting chocolate, you know soft serve, or chocolate ice cream or whatever, and so i'm going to add to that almonds and coconut.
So i'm making you're making your ideal chocolate chip cookie in your ice cream, in my ice cream.
I feel like it really speaks to a certain kind of personality.
You know like, whether you go in that route where you're creating one identity for your.
So you're telling me you're a perfectionist editor with your ice cream and your audio.
Big surprise.
Or, yeah.
Total chaos.
And you're like, I want all the flavors and every bite's going to be different.
And maybe these things don't go together, but they're all things that I like.
Yeah.
It's hard to choose.
Especially when it's homemade like that.
Like there were also homemade brownies.
There were so many good things.
So it's very hard to choose.
Honestly, when I looked over at my girlfriend Ebony's ice cream, hers looked like topping salad.
Like it was very little ice cream, mostly toppings.
And I was like, that's a good way to go.
Yeah.
Okay.
Which was the most popular of your toppings that you made?
I think the Rice Krispies were a hit and also just the hot fudge.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And were you nervous or self-conscious about any being more popular or less popular?
I was nervous or self-conscious about how salty I made everything which is very salty, and how dark I caramelized things which is very dark, like to the edge of almost too bitter.
But I like that.
And I think that the bitterness is a nice balance.
To the sweetness, but it sometimes is not necessarily six-year-old friendly.
Luckily, there were only three six-year-olds.
And how sophisticated of a palate did those six-year-olds have?
Honestly, most of them just went for the rainbow sprinkles.
So they're kindred spirits with you.
Yeah, it's true.
It's true.
Like, when you make something, especially when you make multiple things, do you ever feel bad for the one that gets the least?
Yeah, I normally make like quadruple batches of everything because my worst fear is running out.
And I really did my best to only make single batches of everything.
And so I was like, oh, everything will get eaten.
But almost no adults ate ice cream.
There was just leftover everything.
So I didn't feel bad about any one thing, except maybe the marshmallow sauce, because I made all this other stuff in advance when I had a little more time, knowing that yesterday I would only have a little time.
But the marshmallow sauce you have to make right before, because...
Otherwise, it starts turning into one giant marshmallow in the bowl.
Yeah.
Still not a bad option.
No, not bad.
Not bad.
It's like Mitch Hedberg's joke about Escalator being out of service.
Yeah.
You're like, well, then it's just stairs.
Yeah.
Apologies for the convenience.
Yeah.
So it was like that.
It was like one giant bowl-shaped marshmallow.
Yeah, that was not the most popular hit, even though I was very excited for people to see homemade marshmallow sauce.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, that brings us to the first question because we got a question that plays right into this.
Okay.
Hi, Samit and Rishi.
It's Carolyn.
And I was wondering if you could help me with my shoofly pie problem.
And that problem is primarily that no one will eat me and my sister's shoofly pie.
Perhaps for obvious reasons, such as the name.
But for context, this is a important piece of heritage for our family.
My mom is Pennsylvania Dutch, and this is a really popular pie in the region.
We ate it all the time growing up.
And Whenever we bring it to events, no one will eat it.
That's really sad.
And it could be the name or it could be that it kind of looks like it could have come out of a cat's litter box.
Or it could be just the bland-ish flavor.
It's made with molasses and...
A little bit of spice in there.
But basically I was wondering if you could help us figure out some ways to like modernize the recipe or like make it a little more appealing.
Basically do like a fun spin on it so we can kind of like acknowledge our roots and then also share it with a more modern audience audience uh, would love to know your suggestions.
Thank you so much.
Bye, i love this question.
I have never had shoofly pie.
I've definitely read about it, so i'm just looking up yeah, right now, what it is exactly.
There are all these like classic american pies and it sounds like this one's a pennsylvania dutch yeah, version.
Yep, you know, the whole thing about pie is that it's like all-purpose, inexpensive way to use up something that you likely have a glut of.
And or how do you make something out of nothing?
So there are a lot of these like buttermilk pies or yeah, chess pie seems like a southern sort of analog to shoofly pie.
Because the shoofly it's very brown sugar and molasses-y, and chess pie is sort of a custard that's made with just sugar.
But it's basically sugar pie, So what are they trying to use up?
That one I think is not about using up.
It's about we don't have very much to turn into a dessert.
So we have some sugar and here's a crust.
But it also looks like there's two different types.
Let me just do a little homework real fast.
I need a old USB cable pie.
To use up all your old.
Yeah, yeah.
It's true.
It's true.
Okay.
There are two types of shoofly pie, wet bottom and dry bottom.
Rishi.
Sorry.
Here's a description.
It's a classic Pennsylvania Dutch treat combining a rich and flavorful molasses crumb cake layered with a gooey molasses bottom baked in an all butter pie crust.
Oh, have you ever had those cakes that are called magic cake or impossible cakes?
Impossible cake now sounds like it would be a bad idea.
Just a cake made out of vegetarian meat?
Basically, it's like you mix up your ingredients and you put them in the oven to bake.
And as it bakes, the pie or cake separates.
And so you get two distinct parts to your cake or your pie.
So there's ones where it'll be a cake part and a flan part, or a cake part and a pudding part, and it's separated and it's intentional.
I mean, maybe it was once a mistake, but now it's intentional.
And it sounds like shoofly pie has that, where the ingredients separate and part of it becomes more cakey and then on top becomes more pudding-y or custard-y.
So that, to me, sounds delicious.
I think the problem is if things are too sweet, and molasses is a very specific kind of sweetness that I feel like often is at its best when it's highly spiced.
Things like ginger molasses cookies or, you know, in the fall, in the winter, we eat all these warm spice things.
If molasses isn't balanced properly with salt or spice, sometimes it can be so cloying and almost burn the back of your throat with its sweetness, which I could imagine happening in like an improperly balanced shoofly pie.
Okay, so I've only had shoofly pie one time ages ago.
Like in Amish country, my family one time went on a trip to Pennsylvania.
I love hearing about your family trips and the foods you eat.
Yeah, we went to Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Amazing.
We went to the Hershey factory.
Of course, you know, like my dad, your dad had to see it yeah, and i also was very excited to see, you know, where chocolate was made, and i remember we had some food from like an amish stand a couple times.
I can't totally remember where we picked it up, but i remember eating, like yeah, a moon pie.
I remember having, but i think i also had shoofly pie and in my memory it tasted like a brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tart.
Well, that sounds good.
Yes.
So my feeling for Carolyn is, if that's true, I think it's a branding problem.
Yeah, I do think it's a branding problem.
And I also think I don't know what your recipe is Carolyn, and I haven't tasted really ever shoofly pie, so I'm using my imagination here.
So I think some tweaks to maybe the base part of your recipe might be Maybe you change it up and it's not an all butter pie crust and you do a graham cracker crust or another type of cookie, like maybe speckaloos or specklaas.
I think that's how you say it in Dutch.
I would definitely make sure you have plenty of salt in there, probably a lot more than your grandma was using.
Because I think when things are made with only sugar, they can fall really flat.
And then I'm trying to figure out like all of these recipes and the pictures of shoofly pie have some sort of topping.
There's like a crumb-looking topping.
Like a streusel-y kind of thing.
And it seems like the topping is another opportunity.
Like, I think, updating your topping.
So let's see what we've got here.
While you're looking that up, I'm going to make my pitch to Carolyn, which is try bringing the exact same pie.
And just because all things nostalgic and retro are big hits, just call it Brown sugar Pop-Tart pie.
Exactly.
Right?
Don't you think people will be like, oh, I loved that growing up.
I'm going to have that.
Totally.
Do people still eat brown sugar Pop-Tarts?
I mean, my mom never let me have any Pop-Tarts, so I wouldn't know, but I think so.
Yeah.
Do you want to try one?
Do you have one here?
I don't have one here, but I could get you one.
Yeah, I'll eat one with you.
Okay.
Okay, so this topping looks like it's pretty classic sort of streusel-y, just like flour, sugar.
This one has shortening.
So if you're using shortening anywhere in this pie, I would say switch to butter for all fat uses.
I think this is where we want a delicious streusel.
And or you could do something crazy and bake your pie with no topping and then top it with some kind of crazy sort of caramelized rice crispy or something similar.
That's adding a crunch to what sounds like it's a very – like soft and mushy thing.
So what we'll do is I'll look for some of my favorite streusels and link to them in the recipes for you.
But to me a good streusel, especially if you're going full brown sugar like this is mostly just butter brown sugar.
I would use a lot of like flaky style maldon salt.
You might add a little bit of cinnamon into that.
And then it's all about that texture.
It looks like these ones are quite sandy and really sort of crumbled.
I like streusel when it's in bigger clumps.
And it gets kind of like coffee cake kind of topping vibes.
Crumb cake.
So yeah, or crumb cake.
And so I would go in that direction.
To me, like I wouldn't be able to resist that.
Yeah.
Well, hopefully that helps, Carolyn.
And I'm excited.
Now I want to make this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Let me know if you do make it.
No, I'm never going to let you know if I make it.
We learned what happens.
Oh, yeah.
Especially if it turns out delicious.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We could call it a Shu Rishi pie.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you so much for the question.
Okay.
You ready for the next one?
I'm ready.
Okay.
I'm combining three different questions here, but I'll start with how things began, which is with a question from Rebecca.
Okay.
Okay.
Hey, home cooking friends.
I work an onsite job and with groceries getting more expensive, I'm definitely leaning more towards budget-friendly and healthier recipes for stuff to bring to lunch.
One that I always kind of come back to is tuna salad.
And I've tried a few different recipes in the past, but I feel like the one that I keep on coming back to has some sort of like Greek yogurt or mayo base.
And I try to throw in dill, celery, red onion, stuff like that.
And it's good, but I would really love some new recommendations about how to sort of spice up a tuna salad and also work in more veggies to it.
So it's also on the healthier side.
I'd love to know what ideas you have or what your go-tos are.
Also open if you have any chickpea salad recipes that you would also recommend for a quick and easy take-to-work lunch.
Thanks so much for your help.
Okay.
And then there's a question that we got so long ago from when we first started the podcast.
Okay.
Five years ago.
Yes.
Okay.
That I had flagged as like, I really like this question.
I really like this color.
But we never actually got to it.
Okay.
But I thought while we're on the topic, let's listen.
This poor person's just been waiting to consume their chickpeas for five years.
This is Carla.
Hi, so my name is Rishi Kesh.
My name is Carla.
I'm a student at Texas A&M.
She's already graduated.
She has a PhD.
And really excited about your podcast.
I just looked at my pantry.
For some reason, I have about 10 cans of tuna.
Is there anything I can do with these other than tuna sandwiches?
I don't even have bread because people have stockpiled bread.
So I'm really down to just eating plain tuna.
Anyway, please help me out.
I appreciate you both very much.
And here's the last question that just, I love it.
I love it.
This is Samantha.
So my husband has a fear of white condiments, which is really strange and hilarious.
So we're talking mayo, cream cheese, sour cream, ranch dressing.
He won't touch any of it.
And my problem is that I love chicken salad.
I love tuna salad.
I love egg salad.
I love lots of things that have mayo in them.
So I was wondering if you had any recipes for chicken salad, egg salad, tuna salad that don't use mayo.
That might not scare him.
Thank you.
Love you guys.
The fear.
I'm like, oh.
So I gave you a little triple-decker sandwich.
Yeah.
In one answer, can you answer all three of these questions?
What to do to make a better tuna salad sandwich?
What to do with cans of tuna?
And also, no mayo.
No, have you met me?
That's like too condensed and efficient.
I want to give all of these people thorough answers and there is some overlap, but I don't, yeah.
Okay.
Where I think I should start is by saying I love canned tuna, but I really love canned tuna from the Mediterranean that comes packed in olive oil.
So, like the Italian or the Spanish canned tunas, which tend to be more expensive, but my work around is buy and get from my favorite store Costco, which has a really affordable olive oil Italian packed tuna, this Portofino brand.
That's very delicious.
And it's.
You're not paying, like you know 15, like you do when you buy Ortiz, which is like.
Also, the thing is is that tuna is yellowfin tuna.
It's just a more flavorful, fattier tuna.
And a lot of the time, what people buy packed in water or what is sold often in the States as light tuna is albacore, which is a completely different fish and has a different flavor and different texture.
So that's part of why I prefer the Italian tuna.
And Spanish ones.
So, that being said, that already, if you're going to spend a little bit more money on, it will just up the quality and the flavor of whatever you're starting with.
Now, whatever tuna you have, I also grew up eating the classic oh, like lemony celery oniony, maybe dilly tuna salad.
That's a very good go-to.
But in the last several years my favorite has been I've like ripped off this thing called picante tuna salad, which comes from the fancy deli near my house called Market Hall.
And they make, it's so good.
It's like bad good. and it's wait why bad good well it's like just not it's not bouge it's like canned jalapenos like diced canned jalapenos that have a very specific taste i've tried it with fresh ones it's not the same because they're pickled yeah yeah it's like it's like the subway sandwich yeah like pepperoncini or something yeah so it's canned jalapenos diced up tomatoes cilantro tuna mayonnaise and And then this is the curveball ingredient.
A lot of chopped up romaine.
So it's like somewhere between a green salad like you kind of are fine just eating spoonfuls of it, because the salad is built into the tuna part.
Yeah.
And I'm trying to answer your sort of work problem or the make it home, eat later problem.
So for that I would say, if you're like assembling this into a mason jar, I would maybe put everything like mix everything and make it delicious and leave the romaine out and And then you could sort of bring separately romaine leaves like a heart of romaine and then make yourself lettuce cups for lunch.
You know something like that.
And if the mayonnaise is not your thing, I think this would also work with like Greek yogurt.
But I really like that combo because it tastes kind of like tex-mex cuisine or something like.
It's just a different spin on tuna.
Yeah, i also think like you could totally go a different direction.
I think any crunchy vegetables are nice in there, so obviously celery fennel is a really good one.
I probably wouldn't do carrots, that's maybe a little too crunchy, but i would totally do cucumbers, just anything to like.
Bring a little vibrance and counteract the mush of the tuna mm-hmm, and all the other mushy stuff.
If you're in a Tex-Mex world, what about jicama?
Is that too crunchy?
No, I think jicama would be great.
Yeah, and so fresh and watery.
I think you want those watery, crunchy, fresh things.
And then for me, what I would do with vegetables is really bring the lettuce cup.
The lettuce cup is a great underutilized... mechanism like delivery mechanism and if you're if your thing isn't romaine hearts i also think you could just bring a single belgian endive and sort of like use that one cup at a time now for our fear of white sauces I think you could make this recipe with no mayonnaise and maybe just do an olive oil base and like push it with some extra lemon or vinegar.
But I would recommend going a totally different direction.
And instead of trying to like fake the mayonnaise, there is a broad sort of category of salads that just don't use the creamy sauce.
And use olive oil and vinegar as the dressing base.
I know you didn't ask about potato salad, but a really easy way to think about it is potato salad or pasta salad where, as Americans you know, with picnics we imagine those things to always be mayonnaise.
But in other parts of the world potatoes are boiled and dressed very simply with olive oil vinegar.
Or even just a vinaigrette you already had, like a mustardy vinaigrette.
And that's a super satisfying light potato salad.
So I think that could work really well for chickpeas, for canned tuna or especially, I think, for egg salad.
I think a really delicious thing to do for egg salad is to boil your eggs.
And then separate the whites and the yolks and mash the cooked yolks in a bowl with olive oil.
And that's, you know, if you think, what is mayonnaise?
It's egg yolks and olive oil.
But this way you're kind of making your own homemade creamy sauce.
That's not a white sauce.
It's not mayonnaise.
That can just become this sort of substitute that becomes then the base for your egg salad.
Honestly, you could also do that for one of the other salads too, if you wanted to introduce it into the chickpeas.
There's also a recipe in Good Things for a chickpea salad.
And I really love also bean salads and grain salads and those kinds of things.
And I think the beauty of the like mixed things salad is you spend one amount of time and energy making it and then you could eat it for many meals, right?
And kind of often gets better.
Like there's a kind of an arc of quality.
It's like okay when you make it, and then it's really good after it sits for a while, and then it sort of starts declining again.
But like I think that's the kind of stuff where it's like very good to make in the morning or the night before and bring to lunch, or very good to make today and eat for the next two days.
And again the key with anything like that, where you're adding something like very starchy or bland, like the chickpea, the bean, the pasta into something you're going to eat at room temperature, you really want to make sure the seasoning is nice and high.
So adding salt as an ingredient, but also adding salty and or pickly things to the salad, and also making sure that it's nice and moist and like oily enough.
So it's fine if it's not going to be mayonnaise, but just make sure you use a generous amount of olive oil and also lots of herbs.
So I think in the book the chickpea salad has an olive oily dressing, dill and then cucumbers and maybe some pickled onions or macerated onions.
But I think that's kind of a basic rubric for any chickpea salad or bean or pasta salad is like your well-seasoned, well-cooked base starch and then make sure it's coated with enough fat.
It really has to have enough acid.
I might use a mixture of lemon and, let's say, white wine or apple cider vinegar, or my favorite right now is the seasoned rice vinegar.
And then you could grade in a little lemon zest and then choose an herb. dill, cilantro, parsley.
Basil is great right now.
Mix all that up.
And then comes your like little flourish.
So if you eat cheese, you could crumble in some feta cheese.
You know, also be so yummy is like at the end, a drizzle of chili crisp that has the crispies, because then you're getting like something spicy, but also crispy bits of garlic or shallot.
You could even this is kind of curveball, is.
I wouldn't put this in early, but at the last minute you could put like toasted breadcrumbs for some crunch.
Toasted Rice Krispies.
Toasted Rice Krispies, yeah.
I kept my solutions in the salad range, but you know me.
I love tuna so much.
There are many other uses.
Another one for if our friend still has her 10 cans of tuna in the cupboard.
A classic Italian sauce is called tonnato.
It's like tuna mayonnaise lemon, maybe a little garlic, and you puree the crap out of it.
And it turns into this very like creamy, thin sauce that traditionally is eaten with slices of roasted veal, but it's also good with like any other meat, or tomatoes are delicious dipped in tornado sauce.
And then of course the tuna pasta, which is my comfort zone.
Yeah.
And This one from the book, this like spicy tuna pantry pasta.
I started making this when I was like 23 and I lived in Italy by myself.
I had no money.
I ate most of my meals at the restaurant where I worked, but then, once in a while, I was at home and I had the tiniest studio apartment with the tiniest kitchen.
But sometimes I just wanted to eat something different from what was being served in every place you could go.
You know, Italians, like many other people from cultures, just want to eat their own thing.
And sometimes I needed to eat like a flavor from somewhere else in Italy.
And I had tasted this pizza when I first arrived there.
I just like walked to some random pizzeria and I saw a pizza on the menu that was like pizza with spicy tuna arugula.
I think that's all it had.
I think the tuna had been crumbled on there and chilies and baked.
And then afterward there was an arugula salad on top, which I had seen pizza with salad on top, but I had never seen pizza with tuna and salad.
Like, And I just ate it and it was so good.
It was one of those things like you go to a new country, you have this experience and you're like these people know what's up.
I never saw it anywhere else again.
But I love that combination.
So I was always trying to recreate it for myself.
And in Italy, one of the pantry ingredients that's like very commonly available and really good if you live by yourself or just one other person is, is you can get canned cherry tomatoes and they come in a small 15-ounce size.
Instead of here, when you open a can of tomatoes, it's almost always twice as much.
It's the 28-ounce size.
Yeah, yeah.
And so the smaller can is very practical when you live by yourself, because you very rarely need that much tomato for one pasta.
So I took to making this pasta with a can of cherry tomatoes, canned tuna, whatever chilies and parsley, or I would sometimes put arugula on top, and I ate it all the time.
I always like cook it with a red onion and I still make it.
It's just kind of the one of my comfort foods and it's so sort of like tuna-y and delicious.
And what's funny is I was making it recently like we were –
I often don't want to leave the house and I'm like, what can I make out of what we have here?
And so there was one night where I was like, oh, I'll make tuna pasta for dinner.
And my girlfriend was like, okay, like begrudgingly, she was like, okay.
And then later when I made it, she was like, wow, this is really good.
I was like, I know it's good.
I wouldn't make anything bad.
And I realized like she had been imagining tuna noodle casserole, which honestly I also love tuna noodle casserole.
But this is a completely different, it's just very fresh tasting.
It's not cooked to death.
There's no cream in it.
It's just tunas, chilies, oil, an onion, some garlic.
It's really good.
When you put the arugula on it, do you think it still counts as a salad?
No.
No.
It's just pasta with some arugula on top.
I mean, I don't do that that much anymore, honestly.
Our go-to thing is put arugula on pizza.
Oh, yeah.
Isn't it really good?
It's so good.
It's so good.
Because then I'm like, oh, I've had a salad.
Yeah, I've had three leaves of fiber.
I've snuck in a salad into my pizza.
So there's lots of options.
Yeah, lots of options.
I'm going to say you can tune a salad to whatever frequency you want.
Thank you so much for the questions.
The good news is I don't have to respond.
In words, I could just have a big sigh.
Not only are we back with a new season of episodes, we've also got brand new home cooking merch.
We finally put our tomato can home cooking logo on a shirt.
You can get it as a t-shirt or a sweatshirt or a tank top, or even a onesie for little baby home cooks.
Plus there's a tote bag with the drawing of the round salt can thing that has Samin and myself and our dogs Fava, Bean and Watson on it.
It is the pinnacle of tote bags.
And there is a pun in there if you think about how pinnacle is spelled.
There's also a special shirt in honor of our special recurring guest, the man with hot takes and a surprisingly high-pitched giggle, my dad. known to Sameen and all my close friends as Sameesh Uncle.
He has his own shirt that says, Team Sameesh Uncle, featuring three little jars of saffron.
And he undoubtedly has very strong opinions about their color and flavor.
And of course, there's also still the OG sweatshirt with the drawing of the can of sardines and the inexplicable shrimp Jenga forever shirt.
And all of this stuff was illustrated by our wonderful Mamie Rheingold.
And all of it is available at homecooking.show slash merch.
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Okay, this is a question that we got from Audrey that I really love.
It's not strictly a cooking question, but I think a very important one.
Okay.
Hi, Samin and Rishi.
My name is Audrey, and I'm calling...
About maybe a neurotic question.
I am constantly reorganizing my fridge and every time I feel like it's not quite oriented in the most ideal way.
And I'm curious if you two have found any rhythms with your fridge that work best for you.
That was my cat.
Oh, that's my cat, Ruthie.
Oh, really cute.
I love you.
Bye.
Bye.
Okay.
I just went into your fridge to get some water.
Yes.
And I was... struck as I always am by the insane organization in there.
Well, I know that you have a shoebox in your.
It's not literally a shoebox, but it is the dimensions of a shoebox.
Oh, it's not?
This whole time I've been thinking it's literally a shoebox.
Oh, that would be amazing if I put an actual shoebox in the fridge.
Because I have like a lifelong... relationship to fridge organization.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What were your impressions of my fridge?
Well, I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before.
I mean, I think let's give credit where credit is due.
I'm guessing that most of the fridge organization is due to your wife, Lindsay.
No, it's definitely a team effort.
Oh, it's a joint effort.
Yeah.
The two of us have kind of different approaches to housekeeping.
Which could be summarized as...
And Lindsay is whatever the opposite of a hoarder is, throw everything away, maybe even before.
I mean, you know, like the other day I was making something and I turned back to the counter to get the fork that I had.
Oh, and she had already washed it.
She'd already washed it.
Yeah, exactly.
I was like, I still have to eat my food.
And, you know, similarly, like... So she's like extreme...
Organization.
Minimalist.
Yeah.
Extreme minimalist.
Yeah.
And very like zoomed in.
And my particular pathology is sort of like everything should have a home place.
Everything.
So are you the source of the lazy Susan of condiments?
Yes.
And I still sometimes Lindsay will put stuff in there based on size and I'll be like, no, no, no.
Categorically.
Yeah.
There's like a sparkling water area.
Yes.
This is maybe my favorite thing that I think I've mentioned before here is that there is a mason jar with a homemade Brother P-Touch label maker made label of aquafaba, which is the chickpea liquid.
Yes.
That I'm guessing.
That's all, Lindsay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Also, these people have no children.
We make up for it by just buying more glassware to put leftovers in.
Those are our children instead.
Okay.
So I think the takeaways from Rishi's fridge are like categories and homes for each thing.
So I also, this is the shoebox to which you were referring.
I have a box that is where all of the sort of like condiments that let's call them from cuisines around the world that I use less often but I don't want to throw away.
Like I go through phases where I eat so much Mapo tofu which requires, like a black bean paste and a chili sauce.
So I always want to have those, but then there are sometimes months pass where I don't use them.
So things like Those, maybe different chili sauces or fermented things they all live kind of in one box to keep them from knocking around.
I have a very small fridge.
It's like a 24-inch Euro-style fridge.
My kitchen is so small.
Yeah.
That's so funny.
I've been in your kitchen so many times.
In my head, that fridge is huge because there's always so many good things to pull out of it.
Yeah.
Now that I think about the physical dimensions of your kitchen, is that called a galley kitchen?
Yeah.
Yeah, it is a small kitchen.
I also have my work kitchen, my studio kitchen, which has a much bigger fridge.
And this is where I think some of my more helpful advice can come for you.
As a young cook, my first paid job was a position called garmanger at Chez Panisse.
It's a French term that would translate to keeper of the food.
And you are responsible for keeping all of the walk-in fridges organized, keeping a full inventory, putting things in order so that it's called first in, first out that the older milk gets used before the newer milk that just arrived.
Yeah.
And just making sure that things are accessible and going to be seen and grabbed by cooks who are in a hurry and just are coming in like carrying 50 things or whatever.
So everything has to be labeled.
Everything has to be in an accessible place and also in a like an instinctive place and in an instinctive order, you know.
So that idea of zones and categories, as well as food safety.
Like you would never put raw meat above anything really, because there's a chance that like, it could drip down.
So there's all these kinds of things that you learn about how to put food away, to keep it, And a lot of those skills and just sort of habits.
Those are how I organize my own life.
And I would say a big one, a lot of people are now familiar with from the bear and other cooking shows, masking tape and labeling your food and even labeling zones of your fridge or whatever area, which helps not only you but anyone else who's going in there or trying to help and put stuff away to put it back where you're going to look for it.
I think, being able to create a system in your mind where you know where to look for something and you realize oh, I'm out of pickles.
Add that to the shopping list, rather than like I bought another jar of pickles.
And then I come home and you realize oh, there are three other partially open and partially eaten pickles.
So I think creating zones, whether by having containers like a Lazy Susan or mine, is just like from Target, like a plastic box that I just put all my condiments in.
The big fridge I have in my work studio is kind of lacking in terms of drawers.
And so I bought little sort of plastic drawers that are clear.
And I think this also speaks to you saying using glass containers is really important.
I no longer put things away in the old yogurt containers or anything like that, because I always forget about it and then come back three weeks later and it's moldy.
So I always use clear containers that I can see. ideally that I can stack.
And when it comes to stacking and efficiency, round containers are less efficient than square or rectangular things, because there's no wasted space in a small fridge.
So I think just coming up with systems, whatever they may be, for yourself, that you can sort of commit to and internalize, is going to be the way that you're going to get the most out of your fridge.
So I would say clear containers, clear labels, clear zones, and also like, yeah, storage things.
Yeah.
I also think, you know, one of the big constraints is the architecture of the fridge that you have.
Like we have a really, really annoying refrigerator because it's like the only brand that fits there and it's got this thing where if you open the bottom drawer in the fridge part, you can't open the drawers above it because it gets stuck.
Oh very, very annoying.
But you know, you can adjust the shelves both in the main part and on the sides and that's really important and i think, like maybe some people don't take full advantage of like i'm just talking about my dad's fridge now.
Can you imagine the chaos?
I cannot imagine.
400 partially opened jars of Goan curry that he consulted on.
And so many like store-bought packages of like parathas and things like that.
So when I've tried to go in there, like one of the things I had to do was like oh, let me move some of the shelves.
But one thing that I found that's helpful is going from like a gradually increasing size from top to bottom.
The smallest amount of shelf space is at the top and then middle and then larger.
And then the tall stuff can get stand up on the bottom.
I will say it's funny.
I was making fun of your label maker.
Now I'm thinking literally everything in my work fridge is labeled with either a label maker or masking tape.
It just makes it easier, especially when there's more than one person.
And also when there's just one person like me who doesn't always pay attention, it just helps.
To have zones clearly marked.
The most dangerous part of the fridge for sure is the back of the lowest tier.
Yes.
That's where the thing is going to go moldy.
Yes.
My solution for that, which Lindsay absolutely hates, is that's where I keep all my old film.
Oh, that's a good, I feel like that's a good solution.
I think at this point she's like, when are you going to shoot that film already?
But at least it's not yogurt.
It's true.
Well, I hope that helps.
Yeah.
I kind of want you to send us a picture.
Oh, that would be great.
Actually, maybe everybody should send us your picture and we could do a photo carousel of the most remarkable.
Especially if you have like the art of fridge organization.
Yes.
And you're proud.
I pitched Samin ages ago on a YouTube series of just organizing people's fridges.
So you know, subscribe to our non-existent Patreon and at a certain non-existent tier we will come over and organize your fridge.
Thanks.
Awesome.
So you have no more questions for me, but I have a question for you, especially because we skipped right over the part where I ask you what you've cooked or eaten recently.
But here's a little twist.
Since I'm here in LA, people need to know where our very important dinner date tomorrow is.
Oh, okay.
Yes, yes.
Well, it's very exciting.
We're going to Houston's.
And what's Houston's?
For the people who don't know.
The shorthand that I usually introduce this restaurant with is it is a place where everyone, No matter who they are, when you walk in, you can be made to feel like a privileged businessman.
Yes, like a CEO.
The thing about Houston's is, whereas some restaurants have it our way, Houston's have it your way.
And there's nothing you can ask for.
That's impossible.
So you want big ice for your cocktail?
We have big ice.
You want French fries instead of a baked potato?
You can have that.
One of my favorite things there is the grilled artichoke which comes with this remoulade sauce, and it's so good.
And then I get a veggie burger, which comes with French fries.
And they're like, would you like ketchup or spicy mayonnaise?
You're like, I want more remoulade.
And that's what I'm like, what I want to do is dip my French fries in the remoulade sauce.
And they're like, OK.
It is a national chain and sometimes they're called... Hillstone.
Hillstone or other names.
Other things.
Yeah.
But a lot of chefs are obsessed with Houston's because of its like incredible sort of ability to deliver consistency.
Yeah.
And incredibly high quality service.
Yeah.
Which is like one of the Michelin star things is consistency, right?
Yeah.
And I feel like there was a Bon Appetit story maybe eight or nine years ago that was about this like cult of people obsessed with Houston's and how they were trying to figure out how the company does what they do.
And it's still, I think, family owned by the family that founded it.
Yeah.
And they're very sort of clear with their vision.
And I think they're quite private.
So they were not like giving a lot of their info to the journalists.
But I know Dave Chang, for example, from Momofuku is like obsessed with with it.
And one time we were at like an awards banquet.
And usually after these awards banquets, all the food people go out to eat.
You know whatever restaurant he was like.
Where are you going after?
And I was like, oh, we're going to Houston.
He's like I'm coming too.
The biggest table you can get at most Houston's is for six people, because all the tables are booths.
There's no bad table.
They're all good tables.
And so when we called to make our party for 10 people, they were like, oh no, we can't do that.
And I was like, but it's for this famous Dave Chang, this famous chef.
And they're like, we don't care.
And I kind of love that, that they give everyone the same treatment.
And so what they did for us, which was really nice, was they put us at two sort of next door Yeah yeah, to transfer your martini into a new chilled glass, which is a hallmark of like extraordinary service.
What's funny is Rishi and I are going to very excited to go to Houston see veggie burgers and French fries.
And like, what's the other thing?
Oh, the artichoke dip.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When I lived here and I had zero money to my name.
That would be the thing that, like You, would save up for a special veggie burger at Houston.
Yes.
That was like the celebratory meal.
It's still my celebratory meal.
That's what I'm saying.
Since then, because at the time in the early 2000s, getting a high quality veggie burger was like unheard of.
Yeah.
To go to a nice restaurant and have a veggie burger.
Yeah.
Let alone one that was actually delicious.
It was like the height of luxury.
And they just won my affection early on.
But I'm very excited to take you there.
Again, we've been there before.
It's our favorite.
Yeah.
The other thing I wanted to tell you about, and maybe we'll get to do this.
I've been very excited about this idea of the Trader Joe's friend tour.
Oh, like show each other what your favorites are.
Yes.
Yeah.
Because I feel like I will hear something from somebody about like oh, this is my favorite thing at Trader Joe's.
And I'll be like, not only have I not tried that, I've literally never seen it.
That is invisible to me.
Yeah.
And sometimes, yeah, I want to know about these things.
So Mary, the other day, I asked Mary to take me on her Trader Joe's tour.
Oh, what did she give you?
She showed me, it was the golden berries?
Golden berries, yeah.
Golden berries.
Super weird.
I'm not sure.
They were cool, but I'm not sure.
They're really sour.
Oh, it's the same as, it's a Cape Gooseberry.
Yeah.
Yeah yeah, they look like a little tomatillo on the plant.
They're like a little sticky yeah, and they're sticky because the little ones yeah, they're super sour.
I really like them.
Yeah, are they fresh or are they dried?
They're, they're fresh.
Oh yeah, you can get fresh cape gooseberries at trader joe's.
Yeah, that's crazy.
Wait, do you want to know my like top things that maybe you haven't?
Well, i want you to take me and show me around.
Okay, but shouldn't we tell our friends?
Okay.
What are your top two?
Well, my new number one is the chocolate-covered honey grams with dark chocolate and sea salt.
Oh, that sounds good.
Like a honey graham cracker.
Yes.
It's sort of like dark chocolate covered pretzel, which is already a thing that I love, but sweeter.
Oh, that sounds good.
And also has that like brown sugary caramel-y thing going on.
That sounds delicious.
Yeah.
My two favorite things are the Taiwanese scallion pancake.
It's in the freezer section and it is so good.
Like as good as a restaurant?
Because that's my favorite thing.
It really is.
And even like my Taiwanese friend, Emily Su, who was on our last episode, like she approves the Two thumbs up.
And that I just always have in the freezer, because then I can, for breakfast or dinner, have a scrambled egg or two on a scallion pancake with cilantro, some sesame oil and chili crisp.
Yeah, a very good breakfast or dinner.
And then my other thing, it's a really weird niche thing that I learned from a friend.
Again, the same thing where like I had no idea.
It just was a section I maybe never even went to.
And if I had, I would not have seen this.
Yeah.
It's like this freeze dried ginger powder.
It's in the tea area in these little packets and you can mix it into water, hot or cold.
And because it's freeze dried ginger, you dump it in a hot water and it tastes like you just steeped fresh ginger in the hot water.
And it is so good.
And it's like $2 for a box of eight.
So you might not remember this.
Did I already introduce you to that?
Because I was sick and you actually brought a box over here one time when you were in LA.
It's like the best.
Now we get them all the time.
Yeah, they're so good.
Yeah, that one's really good.
Yeah.
Okay, and that ends the unpaid corporate sponsorship section of this episode.
Yeah, totally.
Oh my gosh.
We're just sellouts for zero dollars.
Yeah.
And that's it for this episode.
Yeah, that was wow, Rishi.
It was not nearly as painful looking at you for one hour as I thought it would be.
Okay.
Well, thanks so much to Mary, who's here over my shoulder.
Yeah, Mary Dolan and Amalia Mourinho.
Yep.
And Zach McNeice.
And Mamie Reingold, who does all of our artwork.
Yes.
And to all of you who have listened and are hopefully going to... Come see us in person.
Go to chowsamine.com slash appearances if you want tickets.
And if you have questions, please send them to us.
We might actually pull some questions to do in person at our events in San Francisco Boston Austin Houston, Dallas and Los Angeles.
Yeah.
So if you're coming to one of those shows especially and you have a question, please let us know and put in the subject line the date.
The city of the thing so we can know to pull those for those cities.
Yeah.
So let's see if I remember my script.
Yeah.
I'm Samin.
I'm Samin.
Yes, that's true.
Oh, stay well, take care of each other and be together.
No, I normally read this stuff off of a screen, people.
Home Cooking is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.
It's a network that helps artists independently, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Nailed it.
Yeah.
Network of independent, artist-owned, listener-supported podcasts.
And you can learn more at Radiotopia.fm.
And then you say, for transcripts and recipe ideas that came from this episode.
Oh, visit ShrimpJanga.com or HomeCookingShow.com.
HomeCooking.show.
Oh, HomeCooking.show.
You can subscribe to Samin's sub stack where she's sharing all kinds of fun things and videos.
And it's been delightful to read and subscribe to.
There's a lot of opportunities for Rishis to make puns in the comments.
So if you really are a super fan, you can fully happening there, where she's got a sub stack called accept cookies, where he generally writes about stuff that i discover two to three years before i and then before she tells me about it.
Yeah, so find us on there and come to a show and until then, stay healthy, eat well and take care of each other.
And thanks for listening.
And thanks for listening Until next time.
I'm Samin.
And I'm Rishi.
And we'll be home cooking.
Radiotopia from PRX.
