SALT PIG
Lukas and Ellie really hate washing greens. We may be two professional cookbook writers, but when the aprons come off, we eat quesadillas for dinner more often than we might like to admit. Real home cooking is improvisational, intimate, surprising, creative, sometimes mundane, sometimes memorable, and always best when debriefed with a pal. Topics include: dried mushrooms and where to use them, making stock out of arguable trash, the joy of broccoli pancakes, what not to bring to a dinner party, how we really clean our cast iron pans (even when people say not to), gauging the lifelessness of one’s sourdough starter, and a seemingly neverending discussion on how to pronounce fricassee. Join us as we get together to break down the flops, the good enoughs, and the pleasures and hilarity of home kitchen life.
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Elinor Hutton has been a writer, ghostwriter, editor, and publishing and culinary consultant since 2010. She’s worked on more than 25 books to date, including four New York Times bestsellers, most recently as the co-author of Gisele Bündchen’s Nourish. She’s also judged the James Beard awards twice, ran the test kitchen for a meal-kit company, and has worked in book packaging and design.
Lukas Volger is the author of six cookbooks, including Start Simple and Bowl, and has collaborated on numerous other cookbooks, including two New York Times bestsellers. Previously, he co-founded the award-winning queer food journal Jarry, and created a line of premium, fresh, and locally made veggie burgers called Made by Lukas. He lives in Brooklyn. www.lukasvolger.com
SALT PIG
A Summer Drop-In and Re-Release: We ❤️ Dishwashers
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Welcome to SALT PIG! How's your summer going?? Today we’re sharing a bonus episode, in which Ellie and Lukas check in from opposite sides of the northern hemisphere. Between the constraints of our short-term kitchens and lots of fun new ingredients and places to shop, we’re feeling inspired and invigorated. And getting away from home is providing plenty of healthy perspective on some of the New York/American antics that we’d otherwise barely be aware of. We’re also including a re-release of one of our earliest episodes, in which Ellie shares a chicken stock disaster and we both wax poetic about our dishwashers. Hope you're staying safe, healthy, and having a blast this summer! We can’t wait to re-connect in September, when we kick off season 2 of SALT PIG.
Hey Ellie, happy summer.
SPEAKER_01Happy summer. How's it going?
SPEAKER_04It's so good. I'm out in um around Lake Tahoe visiting family and I finished my book and it's been kind of like a very restorative time to I don't know. I just love summer. I love the vibe. I love the the easy. Just feels like nothing is nearly as stressful as other times other times of the year.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh, your voice is like giving me calm vibes. I feel like I'm not at all in that space and I'm really here for it. It's very nice to be like, oh, restorative calmness, yes. That kind of summer. That's good.
SPEAKER_04It helps when it's just like two grown men and a dog. I I think the summer must be like str more stressful when you have like young kids that are usually at school.
SPEAKER_01I mean, they're in camp, which is which is great. I feel like, but I yeah, we're also not in New York. We're in London for a few weeks and um for Tom's job and uh and it's been wonderful, but it was more of a transition than I think I I n thought it was gonna be. So now I feel like we're like really hitting our hitting our groove. I'm expecting the sort of calmness to start like ASAP.
SPEAKER_04Oh goodness. I was um I was thinking about you just the other day because there's a really good farmer's market down here, but I stopped. Um there's a coffee shop on the way, and I was like leaving early in the morning because I wanted to get the first thing, and I stopped to get a cup of coffee, and I had to wait in a little bit of a line, and the person in front of me was just like so slow, and they're like thinking about the pastry, and just like, and then the barista was like, So what what are your plans today? I'm like, guys, there is a lot. And so, like when it came my turn, I was like, large coffee, room for milk, and a blueberry scone. Thanks so much. And it was like that was the order. And she looked at me like I was such an asshole. And I and really my mindset was like, there's people in this line, we want to get her coffee. We gotta farmer's market, get back to work.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and consideration. You're considerate, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I realized like, oh, actually, I'm the asshole here. This is like promotional custom. We all chat, we catch up, what's the rush? Um and I had to like try to turn off my little New York kitchen done, whatever it is. Yeah. Are you noticing anything like that while you're in London?
SPEAKER_01I definitely feel like, yes. Even though it's like a big city, I feel like there's very much the New York energy of like, I'd like this and I'd like that, and like that. I feel like I have to like I've had to really, I don't feel like I'm necessarily like a loud talker or a shouter, but I feel like I'm like, I need to take the pace down, I need to take the the volume down, I need to just like be a lot more chill. Yeah. There's something very the like loud American thing I feel very conscious of. Maybe it's also because of my children, but I'm like, they are very loud, and I feel like I don't know, I feel like I'm like, let's try to sort of blend in a little bit more, which is really not working very well. But um, but yeah, there's been a little bit of a little bit of that, certainly.
SPEAKER_04That's so funny. And that's also why travel is so good. It just like forces you out of yourself a little bit where you're like, you can kind of like see, oh, this is how I don't know, you just get as new perspective on how what your sort of default behaviors are.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh, for sure. It's been really interesting actually to see the kids in a different circumstance because I feel like they adults, I feel like are sort of generally a little bit more conscious of their surroundings and like adapt a little quicker. The kids, I feel like uh they've adapted quickly, but I think they don't they keep saying like their teachers at camp are like really mean, or not really mean, but they're like they're really strict. And I'm like, I could see how um I think the expectations just of like, you know, kids are really, really different here. Like all the kids that we've met here have been like so incredibly well behaved, so quiet, so like so disciplined, so like all this stuff. And I feel like we come in, we're just sort of like this ball whirling ball of like energy and intensity. Um so I don't know. Very American, like very American, just sort of coming in like we're like sort of dirtier than everyone else, our clothes are sort of more worn out, we like haven't brushed our hair as recently. Like it feels very much like, you know, not as pol.
SPEAKER_04I do notice that even when we visit uh Vincent's family in Australia, like the kids are just a little bit more buttoned up than the kitchen. Maybe it's a Commonwealth thing.
SPEAKER_01It maybe it is. I'm like, well, we're also like, I mean, we're sort of obsessed with roll doll anyway, but we're like really obsessed with roll doll here because it's sort of the thing. And um, it is funny to read about all these, like, you know, he's obviously sort of obsessed with like bad teachers and angry adults who hate children, but I'm like, so maybe that's also maybe I'm getting a little overly influenced by that, but I'm like, yikes, we're really like, does anybody everyone feels a little cooler here than they do in the States?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Very nice, very accommodating, but like not warm exactly. Oh.
SPEAKER_04Healthy perspective.
SPEAKER_01Healthy perspective. And like I'm, I mean, I love London so much. I'm just like, the food here is amazing. Um, whether it's like the ingredients or the restaurants or any of that. Like we've just like, I feel like we've eaten so well, it's probably like the number one that and like the art and architecture. I'm like uh like a pig in mud or whatever the expression is.
SPEAKER_04What are the what what I I mean, you don't hear often that like London food is well, I guess you do more recently, but what what's what's been your favorite stuff that you've eaten?
SPEAKER_01I mean, like, I guess I feel like when you come here, like restaurant-wise, like like any Mediterranean, Middle Eastern food is just like so delicious and rock solid. Lebanese, Turkish, anything in that realm is amazing. Um there's a huge, it seems like the Vietnamese food here is just like like leaps and bounds a thousand times better than New York City. That's sort of a hot take. But um, there's plenty of yummy Vietnamese food in New York City. But here it just feels like, first of all, there's just so much more of it. It's everywhere. Um, and it's so good. I feel like in in New York it can feel like, you know, you can get like the room temp the bun, the room temperature noodles, or you can get pho, or you can get ban mi, but it's like here I feel like there's just entire categories of a menu that like are harder to find. Um especially in like more like they're I feel like maybe you can go to like a really fancy Vietnamese restaurant in the States, or you can go to kind of a Bon Mi or Pho place. But here it seems like there's like this middle category that's like sit-down, but still kind of family friendly, not too expensive, but like a huge menu with tons of different stuff. So that's like been such a treat to have all this Vietnamese food. Um what are the restaurants like in Tahoe?
SPEAKER_04Oh, the restaurants here are actually pretty bad. It's uh it's very like um we always joke that you go to the a restaurant as one of those menus that are 20 pages long and you can get everything from pad pie, like shepherd's pie, to hamburgers and pizza and pasta. Yeah, I don't know. Right. It's just like nothing. There's kind of everything, but also nothing.
SPEAKER_01No specialties, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So we whenever we go out to eat, which is not very often, it's just kind of like pub food. You just go for like burgers and fries and that kind of thing. And but with all this great produce, it's been so I just love the summer because cooking is so easy. You're like throw something on the grill and then have a big salad, and that's it. And it's yeah, I can do it every single night, every single meal, and it's so good. And these tomatoes and melons, and I'm gonna make some um I'm gonna do some like chili ferment, you know, like do some pickled um salt-rind, like Fresno chilies, because those are only in New York for a very short window of time. And like I just saw them last week and I was like, I'm gonna buy a pound of these and just do this now.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04Enjoy it later.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh. It's so fun to have um access to that kind of stuff. I feel like similarly here, like there's definitely been some ingredients that like that are you can find in New York, but they're they're considered sort of specialty ingredients. Like, I feel like Halloumi, for example, it's like so hard to find like reasonably priced Halloumi in New York City. Whereas here it's just like in every grocery store, it's cheap and you can just you can just have it all the time. So I've just been like eating halloumi all the time. For some I'm just like living it up with halloomy, for example. Um yeah, it's really, really fun. And I find food here to be kind of inexpensive relatively to New York. Maybe it's just like not being in New York, but um but I've found like you can get pretty nice stuff for just not nearly as much money. So that's been really fun.
SPEAKER_04What is the big supermarket there? Uh Waitros?
SPEAKER_01I love Waitros. I love Waitros. I love Waitrose. The neighborhood that we're in, we've stayed in before, and there's a waitress in the neighborhood. And as we were like trying to find a place to stay, we were like, oh, we could stay in this neighborhood. And in the back of my mind, I literally was like, and there's a waitress there. So we like booked this place, everything was great. Then um, before we got here, I was like on a Google map, like looking something up, and I was like, oh, there's the waitress on the map. And then I saw that it was temporarily closed. And I was like, no. Luckily, it opens soon after we got here. So I've been like, I literally I go to waitress like practically every day. I'm just like, it's it's fantastic. I love it. The produce is like is sort of whatever, but like the cheese, the the like special chutneys, and like I had to really not really restrain myself to not like buying the most extensive pantry. I was like, we are not here long enough for me to be like stocking up on pantry items, but it's really hard not to when they're so fun.
SPEAKER_04So fun. And I also feel like the packaging is really inviting for some reason. Like it's like a more the sizes are more reasonable. If there's something the more streamlined about and like user-friendly about how everything is packaged.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I totally agree. Yeah, some of the packages, yeah, the sizes are a little bit smaller, which is great. I'm like, oh, like sure, I'll buy like a little jar of miso for like a pound fifty. I'm like, yes, I'll do that like in a second. All I need.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's all I need. And like, and it's sort of no commitment. So yeah, it's that's been so fun.
SPEAKER_04I feel like Commonwealth snacks are kind of underrated. Like Australia has the best hip by all the crackers, the oh god, they're so good. And the flavors. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And there's like they have like trash, really great trashy snacks. Then they also have like really great healthy snacks. Like they have like the most delicious crisp breads that are made of all these like yummy seeds. And again, it's like it's not, it doesn't cost like ten dollars as it would in the States. Whereas like here, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna buy these incredibly fancy crackers and then actually eat them instead of like, you know, being like they're too expensive for me to eat.
SPEAKER_04I'll just oh they're uh we're hoarding them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'm not hoarding. I'm not hoarding here. It's like I can't hoard, so it's been a a certain amount of freedom.
SPEAKER_04The snack mixes. Do you see those like sort of chopped style Indian types of like snack mixes with like there's one I don't know if there's common in the UK, but I I assume it's a thing that came via England, Australia. And they have this, it's called a bouja mix. And the main thing are these like soy crisp cracker things. They're like little, they look like little um like mini, many like cereal-sized churros, but they're like really savory and salty and crunchy and really good. Show about the snack mixes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. We've got like a thing of crisps or a couple things of crisps, but I haven't like really I haven't I haven't explored that aisle, especially by myself. So that will be my next treat tomorrow. When I go back tomorrow.
SPEAKER_04Oh, fun. I'm so glad this is uh that you're having a good time and we're gonna re-release here one of our um earlier episodes from the archives.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, then we'll record some new episodes in September, but um but for now we just we were gonna check in anyway, and then we're like, oh, we'll record it. Why not?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and we're somehow at like halfway through the summer, which I'm trying not to think about, but I know. It probably won't be until September when we do go back on the air.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that's right. So a little a little reminder that um salt pig exists for any super fans out there. Do you know what you're making for dinner tonight? It's very early there, so you may not have really wrapped your mind around it.
SPEAKER_04Well, we're going to see the Odyssey tonight. We're going down the car. So we've been excited to see that movie. And um I just heard about this um, it's called Centro Market, a big like Mexican grocery store.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That has a big hot bar sort of like I mean I somebody was telling me that they did a party and they had it catered with all this food from this grocery store. We're gonna so we're gonna go check that out and probably get stuff for dinner from there.
SPEAKER_01That sounds so fun. Sort of like the takeout equivalent there. The thing I keep making here, which has been fun, like some other ingredients that um I feel like are are like more affordable and more prevalent here, like produce-wise, like leeks, for example. I've been cooking leeks, which has been really fun. So I've been making this like pasta sauce. I've been making it like once a week just because it's really easy and I feel like um everybody likes it. But like cooking down like leeks, um zucchini slash corgette. It's been fun with all the vegetable um changes. Um and like tomatoes, and just like with the lid on, just like cooking it down to absolute mush and then mixing it with like pasta and parmesan. Super simple, but it's been such a treat um to just like go and just get whatever looks really delicious and then just like cook it all down and eat with pasta. So that's what we're doing.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that sounds great.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I was actually just thinking of you yesterday because I'm trying to get a new recipe out in my newsletter, and um, it's kind of a riff on your marinated beans.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Grilled eggplant in it. So you grill the eggplant, and then you sort of like quick pickle some garlic and chilies and uh onion or shallots, and then throw the eggplant in there and a bunch of olive oil, and it's kind of like a it's a little I feel like eggplant is hard to maintain like any kind of like loose consistency. It sort of like thickens up, and maybe it's the starch and the beans too, but yeah. It's maybe a marriage between like marinated beans and caponata type of yeah.
SPEAKER_01Ooh, that sounds great. That sounds great. I just made some caponata actually this week um because it was like there were all these amazing eggplants and stuff, and I was like, gotta do something. I mu so much prefer caponata to like ratatouille. I don't know where you fall from that. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because uh you need the sweetness and the acid.
SPEAKER_01Totally. And I'm like, I want to throw some, yeah, some golden raisins and some olives in there and stuff or capers. Oh, that sounds good. I'm gonna look for that in your newsletter. Okay. Well, we'll just catch up soon. But it was so nice to see your face.
SPEAKER_04Yes, you too. And I'm so glad you're having such a good summer.
SPEAKER_01Thanks.
SPEAKER_04And eating so well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, likewise. Um, all right. We'll enjoy those farmers markets and let's just talk soon.
SPEAKER_04Okay, sounds good.
SPEAKER_01Okay, talk to you soon. Bye. I have a horrific story to tell you.
SPEAKER_04Okay, I'm excited for this.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so um, everyone in my house has been sort of sick for the last like couple weeks, and I was asking the kids and Tom, like, what might make them feel better, like what I could cook to make them feel better. And Henry was like, Oh, can you make me this soup that I've made in before that's like a sausage bean soup? And I was like, Great, no problem. Make some beans, get some bean broth, that whole thing that I always make, like like chorizo and kale and beans and bean broth. It's like pretty straightforward.
SPEAKER_03Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, but Tom was like, Oh, like what sounds good to me, separate conversation. Tom was like, oh, some chicken broth sounds really good to me. And I was like, great.
SPEAKER_04Like just like a cup of chicken broth?
SPEAKER_01Well, like a chicken broth soup of some sort. Okay, sort of like. But I was like, I was like, oh, okay, so I'll make some chicken broth. And I was like, you know, so I went to the grocery store and I was like, I'm gonna actually really throw myself into this instead of just like, you know, the old carcass and some water and calling it a day, I'm gonna like there was this chicken, these chicken thighs on sale, and I was like, great, like this family pack of chicken thighs, probably like 10 chicken thighs. I was like, I'm gonna really make an effort here and make like some very special chicken broth. So I brought them home, I put them in a pot, I put water. Then as I was making Henry's bean and sausage soup and like cutting up celery and carrots and onions and stuff, I was like, oh, you know, I'll put in like the bottom of the celery and I'll put in some carrots and I'll cut up an onion. And I was like, then I had also bought all these other ingredients. I was like, the kale stems from the kale that I was putting into Henry's soup, I'll put those in my chicken broth and this cabbage core, I can cut that out and throw it in my chicken broth. And like, so I was like, this is gonna be some really rockin' broth. Um so I cooked, and meanwhile, I'm like, I'm sort of I'm like majorly multitasking because I'm making the soup number one, then I'm making the broth, I'm like talking on the floor.
SPEAKER_04Two pots on the stove.
SPEAKER_01I have two pots on the stove. I was like, no problem. Like, I can handle this. So I make the sausage soup, everything's great. Um, and then I have like leftover, like chopped up onions, carrots, and celery to add to my eventual chicken soup that I'm making for Tom. And at that point, my chicken had been like, my chicken broth had been simmering for like an hour or maybe even less. So I pulled the chicken, was done. So I was like, I'm gonna pull all the chicken thighs out, pick all the chicken meat off of them, put the bones back in, like keep cooking it. I was like, I'm doing all the tricks. So I did that. Um, then it cooked for like another hour, and then I was doing this sort of final big stir. It was in like my enormous Le Crusade, and there had been so much stuff in it, and I had been so distracted I hadn't really given it like a really big stir, I guess, this whole time. And then this very troubling piece of like yellow, what looks like paper, sort of floats to the top. And I was like, what the heck is that? And at first I thought it was like a piece of chicken skin. It was not a piece of chicken skin. I eventually realized it was one of those disgusting absorbent pads from underneath the chicken.
unknownOh gosh.
SPEAKER_01And it had just been like simmering away for hours with all this stuff. And it took me like a solid five minutes, like just by myself, to be like, this chicken broth is done. Like, there's no way anyone can eat this chicken broth and the chicken. But I was like I mean, I then I was like, then I did this quick Google search. I was like, maybe that absorbent pad is like made out of like cornstarch or something. Like maybe it's maybe because people do that all the time, maybe it won't be a problem. It's not made of cornstarch, um, it turns out, according to the internet. There's not a lot of information on the internet about what those are made of, but it's um it's not it's like a bandage. It's like it's like a diaper. I mean, it's like the worst possible. Uh so I was like, I guess that whole this huge pot, it was probably like like, I don't know, it was a lot of chicken broth, and it was so many chicken thighs, and I'd like so I just dumped it all and it was like so sad.
SPEAKER_04That's horrible.
SPEAKER_01I know. I know. Talk about food waste.
SPEAKER_04I was like, Did you even try a taste?
SPEAKER_01I didn't actually. I mean, it's funny because I was so distracted. I was just like, it really kind of grossed me out. I mean, and it's my own fault for just like I've like sliding the whole chicken in the pot without like you know, using like just handling them. I just sort of thought I could just like throw them all in.
SPEAKER_04Oh God. That's so I mean, have you ever done the thing where you're like straining the broth and then you end up pouring it all down the sink?
SPEAKER_03Have you really?
SPEAKER_04Um you take your mesh strainer and set it in the sink, and then you're like Like, okay, let's drain the broth.
SPEAKER_01Let's dump it all. Let's pour it all down the drain, all that work.
SPEAKER_04Oh it sucks. It's just like the most demoralizing thing ever.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04No, I am really impressed though. I like that trick you mentioned in there about when you use like raw chicken rather than carcasses, and then just cooking it until the chicken's done and then throwing the bones back in there. That's such a great tip because it does change the flavor of the broth, too.
SPEAKER_01It does change the flavor of the broth. And sometimes, like, I mean, when you poach chicken, it will like make some broth, certainly. But it's like it could use still a little fortifying like it's the time if it's only like 40 minutes of chicken thighs in there, it's like you could use some more time.
SPEAKER_04Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then especially to like extract it all from the like bones and stuff.
SPEAKER_01Totally. Yeah, I was actually going to ask you, do you ever put like I just put this a little vinegar in there, like a little white vinegar in? Because I've heard that it like extracts something from the bones, but I realized as I was putting a little vinegar in there, I was like, I don't really know if that's true.
SPEAKER_04Aaron Powell I had never heard that before.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_04I've always like seasoned the broth with vinegar if I like sip on it on its own, but never as like um having a purpose beyond flavor.
SPEAKER_01Right. Interesting.
SPEAKER_04That's kind of a good trick. Oh God, I'm sorry. That's so especially it's like when you when it's not like the garbage type of broth that we typically make where you just like empty out the freezer of all the vegetable scraps that you've been saving. When you go out and buy all the stuff and use it.
SPEAKER_01And I was like, I was really proud of myself because I was like, oh, like this cabbage, I'm not even going to use the cabbage now, but I'm going to throw the core. I'm going to like cut the core out and like put it in there. It was so dumb. So dumb. So anyway. Sad chicken broth.
SPEAKER_04I'm sorry about that. So um we put our first episode out, and then we never actually explained why we're doing a podcast.
SPEAKER_01Or who we are.
SPEAKER_04Or who we are, or anything. We just kind of like dove straight into it. So I was thinking that maybe we spend like a minute just discussing sort of the genesis of this thing.
SPEAKER_01Let's do it. I mean, basically, I think the genesis is like we were at the Brooklyn Inn and we were like having some martinis and sort of being like, ho ho, home cooking, isn't it fun to chit-chat about like, you know, dried mushrooms?
SPEAKER_04We have so many opinions and you know increasingly fired up as the martini glasses accumulated.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Totally. Totally. And we were like, maybe we should do a podcast. And then we had a bunch of other ideas that we like sort of pursued, and then we're like, let's come back to that podcast.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well, and I also feel like we had I mean, because we both work on cookbooks and we met working on a cookbook and we both spent all day sort of immersed in the world of home cooking as it exists in cookbooks. And then one of the things we always talk about is like what we actually cook when we aren't working. And so it would be kind of fun to explore that in a podcast format and just continue these fun conversations that we have over drinks, but do it for everybody to listen into.
SPEAKER_01Totally. Totally. And we should mention like the briefest of intros. Like you are the author of how many books?
SPEAKER_04Seven. Seven cookbooks.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's pretty impressive.
SPEAKER_04I know. It actually surprises me sometimes because it just feels like you I I you publish them and then I don't know, I'm just like moving on to the next thing. So I sometimes even forget that they exist.
SPEAKER_01Right. Well, what I find so impressive about that is like you're not a col those are those are not even counting necessarily like your collaborations and that kind of thing. Like those are just books like you you pitched them, you created them, you you're the author of them, and they're out there on the world. They are like they are a hundred percent yours.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I know. I can't really I can't believe that. And then so you have you're a very established, well-respected like a cookbook doula, like uh some people, some people, yeah, that's a that's a term that people use.
SPEAKER_01Or it's just like a collaborator, I guess. Although lately I've been like maybe this is like dinner party, dinner party conversation. I feel like people ask me what I do, and then I go on this very awkward, like two-minute description that's not very concise. But I guess I'm just a writer. And then I happen to have sort of honed in on cookbooks specifically. So I've helped people like I help people usually write their first cookbooks, but then I've also done like more memoir projects or more lifestyle projects, but um helping people. So I'm more on like the writing side, which is great. Um and then you do writing and you also do recipe development. So you have like a whole other skill set where you're like creating recipes from the ground up and using them for your own books or for other people's books. And that's how we met on a project a few years ago. And um and that's our story.
SPEAKER_04And now now we have salt pig.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, now we have salt pig. And the topic today is dishwashers.
SPEAKER_04Yes, a favorite topic.
SPEAKER_01Yes, a favorite topic and a very important thing in the home kitchen. Um, I've found having not always had a dishwasher in my life, I'm really grateful for my dishwasher. And my dishwasher just uh finally uh stopped working. It had it had some sort of I know. It had had some we inherited it when we moved in and it seemed pretty old, but it seemed fine, and um it wasn't anything special. And then um and then it started the door, like goes all the way to the floor. Do you have a dishwasher?
SPEAKER_04I've seen that before.
SPEAKER_01So we have to like prop it up with this salt, like canister of salt, which makes everyone crazy, and it's because the kids like jumped on it. Anyway, Tom kept being like, once that happened, Tom was like, Can we just get a new dishwasher? And I was like, it's just the door and it works fine. And then it's now started to the last time I tried to run it, it like didn't the little pod pod of dishwasher stuff like didn't dissolve or something for some reason, and it just was sitting in the bottom dishwasher and it looked like it had been set on fire.
SPEAKER_04Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_01I know. So sometimes with with like machines, I tend to be like, oh, I'll just like wait a couple days and then try again, which I tried with this, and sometimes it sort of came back. But then once I had this sort of smoky dishwasher pot, I was like, maybe, maybe time has come to time for it.
SPEAKER_04Well, this presents an opportunity. I'm sure dishwashers have come a long way since whenever that one was made.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell They really seem to have come a very long way. I mean, the I think I ordered one that's coming on Saturday, and it's um it has a third rack, which I'm quite sure.
SPEAKER_04Oh, the one where you can sort of line up the cutlery on top.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Exactly. Does yours have one of those?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well, I mean, similar we so we both live in New York, if anybody who doesn't know that, but um I also have had decades where I've not had a dishwasher as I've been writing cookbooks, and now I'm living in the first apartment where I've ever had a dishwasher. And it's such a game changer. Oh, yeah. I don't think I could go without it. If mine broke, I would have to replace it immediately. It's now a non-negotiable part of my life.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Oh my God. When this broke, not only did I I had the a full, full dishwasher full of dishes that took me days to get through just to my own. I'd be like, I'll do another set this morning, like and scrub like another 12 dishes, and then like I it took it was awful. It's awful. It's awful not having a dishwasher. Because it basically just means your sink is constantly full of dishes.
SPEAKER_04I'm sure with like four people and I mean when it's just Vincent and I I was able to stay on top of the hand washing and it does like teach a valuable skill of cleaning as you go because it becomes unwieldy so quickly.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_04Um, that that did like really hardwire in me, the cleaning as you go. Yes. But the dishwasher, I was like, when we moved in here, I put so we have these like some nice plates and things. And I've read and heard from people that you're like, you know, nice nice uh uh like cutlery and nice plateware. It's not what I'm what's the word I'm looking for, like dishes. China is it China? If it's I don't know, this is just Oh, yeah. That's a good question. I don't know. I don't know. But um you're not supposed to put it in the dishwasher. But I did anyway because I was like, well, this has never been in a dishwasher, and it'd be nice to like have it get properly cleaned that way. And I was so I was like shook by the way there was no longer this greasy film. It was like this, it felt it was like uh it just felt cleaned for the first time. I was like there was no sheen on anything. It was like the front, the back, the edges. There were things that I thought were like permanent stains, and they were gone with like one one cycle in the dishwasher.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_04And so I now I know it's probably bad for some of these plates, but I'm just doing it anyway because Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I do it anyway. I mean, I my favorite dishes are these. Um I'm super into China. Love Love some Spod, especially. And Tom gave me these adorable spode dishes, these like four shallow bowls that are called the Queen's Bird, and it has this adorable little sort of aristocratic bird in the middle of it. And it's great, they're beautiful, and we use them all the time because they're like the only shallow bowls we have. So I feel like any like, you know, soupy things that we eat, we use these bowls. So it's every time we run the dishwasher, those bowls are in it. And um, maybe it's my old shitty dishwasher, maybe it's I don't know, I'm using too harsh of a detergent, but they have definitely faded in the dishwasher. There's just no getting around it.
SPEAKER_04Aaron Ross Powell Like the design on it or the overall color design?
SPEAKER_01Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I mean, what do they say is the reason for not putting nice things in the dishwasher? I've always thought it was about like all the activity will cause things to like clink around and chip and potentially break, but is it does the soap destroy the finishing?
SPEAKER_01I think it must be the soap. And I have to say I don't buy like high-quality dishwashing soap. Okay. Maybe I should. Maybe this is that doesn't surprise me for some reason. Yeah, I'm using pretty, pretty low quality stuff and and it's having an effect, and I still can't change for some reason. I'm just like, well, that's the cost of living, I guess.
SPEAKER_04That's the life I've chosen. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01But I was I was thinking of you as I was um hand washing those, these all these things in the last few days, because I was like, this probably would save the bowls if I just hand wash these. And I was like, but man, I hate hand washing things. I mean, I feel like I still I'm not like a I want to know where you are in the spectrum. I'm not like a pot and pan dishwasher person.
SPEAKER_04Aaron Powell No. No, I have strong opinions about that. In fact, when Vincent loads the dishwasher, it always drives me nuts when he throws like a large pot or a large bowl in the dishwasher. I'm like, you can have 12 plates and you're choosing this one bowl.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Totally inefficient.
SPEAKER_04Drives me up the wall.
SPEAKER_01But um, I re- I basically re like I redo when anyone else is using the Trevor Burrus. Yeah, there's only one way to load a dishwasher.
unknownTrevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01And it's my way. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_04But I don't know. I was also surprised to learn that even if you're like using the dishwasher multiple times a day, it's more efficient basically on every level than hand washing or dish-like hand washing your dishes is hugely wasteful.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I'm sure. I mean, I I think I I we should look this up, but like I think it uses something like only like three or four gallons of water or something. That's totally unfortunate.
SPEAKER_04It refuses the same water over and over again. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01Right. And it's just like blazing hot, I guess. So it's well, okay.
SPEAKER_04The thing with it being more energy efficient is that you have to use the eco setting. But that just makes it take that's like a really long cycle.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_04But it's also cleaner, it's better, it's more sanitary, it's um it's like better for washing your dishes, probably even if it's like not fully packed. Do you like do you pack yours to the brim?
SPEAKER_01I pack it to the brim. I mean, Tom's like, so we're gonna run this tonight? And I'm like, are you crazy? We could fit like three more dishes in there. Like, we're not running this tonight.
SPEAKER_04But what about like needing all those dishes that are in there the next day?
SPEAKER_01Again, it's it's not right. It doesn't make sense, but it's somehow who I am. I mean, we have a lot of dishes, so I guess like it's we're not usually running out. Sometimes we'll run out of silverware, but not um not that often.
SPEAKER_04Aaron Ross Powell I feel like we constantly run out of like not the big spoons but the small spoons. Oh, yeah, the small spoons yogurt or whatever. Those are gone.
SPEAKER_01Those are gone like basically immediately. Yeah. And somehow we're missing a bunch of small spoons. I blame the children, but I'm like, spoons. Yeah, I tend to be very like sparing in the afternoon snacks.
SPEAKER_04I'm like, well, you can have a spoon for your yogurt, but if you use that spoon, you're scooping the yogurt out of the top into the bowl, you're gonna use that spoon to eat the yogurt too. Totally.
SPEAKER_01But then I'm like, but don't put it back in the yogurt container. Like tend to be really ridiculous about that. But wait, so go back. So so you don't put pots and pans in there just for space issues or also for other people.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I mean, I so I did right when we moved in, I was like, it's similarly with the plates. It was like, okay, these have never been properly cleaned, so I'm just gonna like run a cycle and put all the pots and pans in there. But then now I find Is that impactful? Yeah. Oh my God. It was the same thing where it's like, how does this just like like my finger? There's like a little bit of resistance when I like rub my finger across the bottom or the sides, or even like the bottom. It's like this is crazy. I thought that was like patina, or I thought that was kind of like permanent seasoning. And it's uh it's actually just filth cooking all my food in all this time. But I don't so it's like the saucepans and the handle, and then I feel like that gets in the way of loading up plates or like Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes I'll throw a lid in there because you can slide it in.
SPEAKER_01That's easily, easily added. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But um in general, I just don't put big stuff in there.
SPEAKER_01No. No. I wonder though if I'm gonna have like a new I feel like with this new dishwasher I may have like a new a new way where I'm just like, I just run it every day and that's just how I do it. And get into some A friend of mine does that, and I'm like, I see the benefit of just being like, every night I do it. We run it at night anyway. I'm like, every night I do it, every morning I empty it, and that's just sort of how we go about the day.
SPEAKER_04Aaron Powell Yeah. And then it's I mean, I it sounds like you should if if the reason that you're not running it like that every day and the reason you're packing it full of dirty dishes is from some kind of efficiency standpoint.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_04I think that you don't have to feel guilty about that. In fact, you should feel better about I don't know, not having to hand wash all those spoons that you have to like fish out of the dirty dishwasher or something.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell No, it's true. And then maybe I'd have room to throw in like a rice pot once in a while. Yeah, and then get a little deep clean. Yeah, I'll just use the eco setting. If if I mean my dishwasher now doesn't even have an eco setting, so I'm really excited to yeah. I mean it's think it's quite it could be like twenty-five years old. Oh, yeah. It's pretty pretty old. Okay. But I do feel I wanted to ask you about um wire cutter, because I feel like I'm such a slave to wire cutter. Do you use wire cutter for things?
SPEAKER_04I do, yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I was like looking up dishwashers and I was like, obviously, I'm just gonna basically just do what wire cutter tells me. But like the one that it recommended was out of stock, and I was I was sort of like flummoxed. I went down this rabbit hole of like reading reviews and stuff, and I was like, this is such a time suck. I just can't I can't do it.
SPEAKER_04So I just went and in the end, isn't it just a dishwasher? I don't know. Is there like a lot of it is I don't know.
SPEAKER_01I don't know. You'd read start reading these reviews and you're like, I guess I guess it's very nuanced. People are like, you know.
SPEAKER_04I've had to do not for never for wire cutter, but for other publications like product reviews. And it would be like I'd be assigned things like stockpots or like a whisk or like a cutting board. And you there are, yes, of course, there's like certain things, features that are like more user-friendly friendly if you're a certain type of cook or if your priorities are you know one way or another. But in the end you have to like come up with some strong stance about why some stock pot that's got an extra quarter-inch girth on the handles or something is like better than any other stock pot. And now I kind of read like I enjoy wire cutter, but I I find um it's just like too much. It kind of like makes shopping seem a lot more complicated than it is.
SPEAKER_00That's really interesting too.
SPEAKER_04Just too much information, too. It's like if I didn't have this information, I'd just go someplace here near where I live and buy a dishwasher and I'd probably be perfectly fine with it.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, that's the funny thing, is like it's yeah, I don't actually want all the opinions from wire cutter. I just want someone to tell me what dishwasher to get because I don't know. So yeah, in a way, I think I'd probably be more satisfied just going to like the appliance store and just being like, what do you recommend? I want to see the website. I probably can give you a really good recommendation too. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see how that goes. But I am excited that it has this third rack because I feel like it is gonna kind of change everything.
SPEAKER_04Well, and what's nice about that is then you clear space on the bottom where you don't need the basket for all the cutlery.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So there's like six more plates you can squeeze out.
SPEAKER_01I mean, maybe um I take it back, I'm not running it every night. It's I'm gonna run it like every two nights. Like it's gonna have so much space.
SPEAKER_04It's so funny getting excited about this. The other thing about dishwashers, I just saw a TikTok where somebody deep cleaned their dishwasher. And I had been noticing on mine, so we've been here for about a year, that like, you know, where it seals, there's like the plastic, the rubber thing that makes it like airtight, watertight. Yeah. And then there's an exposed piece of like ours is stainless steel, but there's an exposed piece of metal around there, and then there's like metal in like the hinge where the door closes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And that's all looking like kind of grody.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And so this TikTok was doing a deep clean of the dishwasher, and they had one of these, like all these content cleaners. They have this like um, it's like a brush with a motorized head that spins. And so they're they're like spraying, they pull all of the racks out and they like soak them in some giant sink that they have. But and um like nothing. They pull out the drain filter thing at the bottom, which I also, really, really groaty if you don't stay on top of it. Horrifying. It's that's gross. That I knew to do. But then uh so took that out, did a deep clean, and then just like sprayed this kind of like foaming cleaner over everything, and then took this brush, which is and then went all through those all through those corners, all into the hinge, took the like with the rubber sealy thingy around the dishwasher, soaked and cleaned that, and I was like, this is beautiful. Like I could totally get into deep cleaning my dishwasher.
SPEAKER_01Really?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I totally that made me very excited. Only because I had been noticing that there was this like buildup in that, specifically in that space like around the hinge and around the sides, and I was like, this sounds kind of fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I've done like a wipe, a wipe through, but like but but that's I've never used any sort of motorized scrubber. That that I'm like, I don't know where these people like have the have the capacity for I don't know.
SPEAKER_04I don't think it's a compulsion of of some sort.
SPEAKER_01I think it is. I think it is. But um yeah, I but the cleaning out the thing, the really disgusting thing, that's that's a necessity.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But that reminds me, have you ever seen the movie Um Rachel getting married?
SPEAKER_04Yes, not in a long time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. There's this great scene in it where um where the dad is having like a competition with someone about like trying to fit more dishes in the dishwasher or something like that. And I just thought it was like the most charming part of a movie ever. I was like, if only someone invited me into a competition of like fitting things in the dishwasher. I was like, that is I crave that.
SPEAKER_04I'm like if I probably exists. I bet that that there's that there are such events.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I'd totally, I'd totally do that. Um but uh yeah, but I did want to so what are you making for dinner tonight? I wanted to know.
SPEAKER_04So I have been um working on some new recipes, one of which I just um put out in my newsletter, but it involves sticking slabs of tofu in a waffle iron.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, I saw that it looked amazing.
SPEAKER_04Waffled tofu. It's really good and very, very easy. It's kind of the same thing. It's like a panini press if you think about it. But it wouldn't have occurred to me to put tofu yeah, exactly. Or to put tofu into a panini press. But um I have all this leftover waffled tofu. So it's like you season you cut take the block of tofu and cut it into like three or four thick wedges, and then you season it with salt and pepper and whatever. I'd use some like nutritional yeast, but you could do chili powder or I don't know, any kind of like seasoning blend or just something like that. And then you sprinkle it with uh starch, like cornstarch or arrowroot powder or like potato starch, I'm sure would work as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And kind of like dredge it in that mixture.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then grease your waffle iron.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um and just with like a spray. Yeah, I brushed a little bit of olive oil or avocado oil in there. And then just I mean, throw it in the waffle iron and let it like press down and cook until it's like brown. And because of the starch, it gets kind of like crispy all over. And the waffle, which somebody, a commenter, articulated this, and I was trying to understand like why it was so good and why this made so Such a difference, but basically the waffle iron extends like the surface area with all the little crevices. Totally. So there's like crisp more crispiness and like more of that seasoning exposed. It's so good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And um, so I have a ton of that left over, and I'm gonna try to like revive my waffled tofu into a like snap pea tofu situation with some kind of like tahini sauce, which I have yet to figure out.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell Like a stir fry kind of thing, or just just mix it with a sauce, guys.
SPEAKER_04I think it's just gonna be I'll definitely like stir-fry the snap peas. And whenever I make those, I like drizzle on honey so that it gets like kind of glazed.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then I'm gonna throw I'm gonna cut the uh tofu into little like matchsticks. Yeah. And like throw them in there at the end to reheat. And then I think that I'll just kind of stop there. I feel like sometimes if there's too much going on in the stir fry, it's like don't really like know what to pay attention to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um but then I'm gonna put that over rice or maybe noodles. We'll see.
SPEAKER_01Sounds great.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. What are you fixing for dinner?
SPEAKER_01Um Margaret requested peanut noodles. So yum. Yeah. So we're gonna do that.
SPEAKER_04How often do you like entertain your children's dinner requests?
SPEAKER_01Pretty often. Um because they I'm like, if they like what they're eating, then they'll eat it. So I'm like, all right.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01I'll do that. But yeah, and peanut uh Tom's out of town, so I was like, it's a good it's a good sort of solo meal for the three of us. But it's just like, you know, peanut butter, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil.
SPEAKER_04Um all to taste, because you've made it so many times. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, all to taste. Though I feel like maybe I need to look into some recipes and see if anybody has any. Do you have any like interesting additions to that?
SPEAKER_04Aaron Powell Yes. I had been um working on a peanut sauce that's like half peanut butter and half miso. Oh so it's all kind of the same stuff, but you just like cut the difference of the peanut butter with with miso paste. And I've also done it with other with that cashew butter and almond butter.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I've done it with tahini like done a half and half tahini peanut butter thing. Um that works well too because it has that nice texture. Yeah. But oh that's interesting. Oh, and sometimes I put in like maple a little maple syrup or something to sort of round it out a little. But I think we'll just have that with like some tofu and broccoli. Oh noodles or something.
SPEAKER_04But it's like a very virtuous weeknight dinner. Yeah. Both our houses.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, totally. Yeah. Tofu, tofu experience.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Do you um have a special place for your tofu or do you just buy like the kinds in the little tubs with soaked in water?
SPEAKER_01I just buy the kinds in the little tubs. Um yeah. But it's um I try to buy organic just because it uh the soybeans. Yeah, the soybean thing. But otherwise I'm pretty pretty flexible. It's just like I just get like firm, though I do want to explore some other tofu firmnesses. But yeah. Anyway, I will enjoy your tofu dinner and I will too. You too. Um and uh we'll just talk soon.
SPEAKER_04One last thing. If you enjoyed this episode or any of our episodes, could you do us a huge favor and leave us a rating and or a review on whatever podcast listening platform you are listening on right now? Um that sort of thing really helps give us a little bit more visibility and helps us find new listeners. And um, we really want to keep this thing going for as long as possible. Thank you. Till next time, bye bye.
