God, Nicole, I did the unthinkable last night. What did you do? Did you invest in some weird influencer cryptocurrency or something? Worse, Nicole! Oh no! I washed my cast iron. This is a Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show we break down the world’s Biggest food debates. I’m your host, Josh Scherer. And I’m your host, Nicole Enayati. And today, we are here to sell you on, it’s an incredible partnership that we just signed. It is with AJ and Big Justice. We’re calling it BafumaCoin. And that’s five big booms for our new Ethereum backed cryptocurrency, so. I don’t know anything about crypto and I don’t want to learn right now. I, um, at some point I plan on learning about Hawktua coin and what happened with Hayley Welch. I do. Everything I’ve learned about her is against my will, but also I love, I love her, her decline. I guess you could say. It’s maybe the fastest rise and fall of any person. Milkshake duck. She was the most clear case of Milkshake Duck to have ever happened. I shook her hand at a Spotify event once. She seemed nice. Um, but there’s a part of me that, you know, I don’t mean to be like the dad bootstrap. You know, you gotta have personal accountability guy. But if you paid for Hawktua coin, I don’t believe that you were ever going to do anything good with that money. You know what I mean? If there’s the story of like a single mother. Have you seen Squid Games 2 yet? No, I actually haven’t. Okay you need to watch Squid Games. If there is like a nurse single mother of three who lost her life savings in Hawktua coin I would feel really badly, but I, I would hope to god that that was not the case. That’s all we’re talking about No, we’re not talking about that at all. But for some reason it’s been a tangent for almost 45 seconds. I could spend so much more time talking about it, but we’re talking about another controversy on the internet. Should you wash your cast iron skillet? Should you wash your cast iron skillet? Well, I was always raised by the internet, you know, to not wash your cast iron skillet. That washing your cast iron skillet is a shonda. You should never, ever. ever. Water should never touch your cast iron skillet. If it ever gets dirty or if it gets crusty, you just got to use a paper towel or something just to pick up all the schmutz and all of the stuff and the gristle that’s stuck there. Empty out the oil and you reuse it again. That’s how I was always taught. But ever since I watched that one BuzzFeed video, the hands in pans one, remember, like, during like BuzzFeed Renaissance when they were making like the best overhead videos of all time? Oh my goodness. So many crescent rolls stuffed with so many things. I watched it today, this video came out 8 years ago, and it has 25 million views on YouTube alone, I can only imagine how many other views it has in like other places. The details of this person, how they explained how to wash a cast iron was so like enigmatic and attractive and cool that I washed my cast iron skillet. I have not seen this video. I think your BuzzFeed video is my Serious Eats article by Kenji Lopez Hall. Okay, I think so. I think so. Those are the things that change our minds on it. Does it talk about flaxseed oil in the Kenji Lopez Hall? Uh, they might talk about it. I more took the broad strokes away from it. It’s a polymerization and how it talks about very nerdy terms. I read it. I said that too, and skimmed it, I should say. Before, I guess, I grew up with the same, right, um. Never, never. Knowledge that, like, there would be memes where they’d show, it was like, girlfriend, wash the dishes tonight, and there’d be a cast iron in a dishwasher, which you shouldn’t do that. You should never do that. Um, but also I accidentally washed pants that I’m not supposed to wash all the time, What? And now my nice Banana Republic pants are ruined. What do you mean? I put them in the, in the, did I say dishwasher? I meant washing machine. I don’t know what you do anyways. Dry, clean your dry clean on your pants, uh, and don’t put your cast iron as a dishwasher. Right, right, right. But there was, I’ve always been fascinated with the weird gender component of it. A cast iron is, boy? Do you see a gender component? Yes. Cast iron, his boy, I, it’s not, but really, because to me that was like the memes, right? Was like, no, I’m a dude and I cook with cast iron and my stupid girlfriend put it in the dishwasher. Those are the memes that I grew up consuming. It’s messed up and I don’t agree with it, Nicole. I think it’s trad wife adjacent. You think it’s trad wife adjacent? Well, I think the rise of the content creating trad wife is newer than my thoughts on cast irons because my thoughts on cast irons have been solidified for maybe six years. Before that it was entirely different. I think it’s shifted a little bit because everyone’s like, don’t use Teflon anymore. So it’s all cast iron this, cast iron that, stainless steel this, so. That’s, that’s what I’m, I’m picking up from the gender breakdown of cookware. Yeah, we, um, gosh, I don’t know enough about the, the cancer risks of Teflon. Probably don’t scratch it up though. Probably, I don’t know. I cook with nonstick. I really enjoy it. I also cook a lot with cast iron. I think we should just get into like why you maybe would buy a cast iron pan and what you would use it for. When was the first time you got a cast iron pan? Gosh, the first time I bought a cast iron was one year out of culinary school. I got a large one from like Amazon and I loved it because it was already seasoned and I could just use it and whatever. You didn’t season it extra yourself? Season it extra but that was a mistake because I will always now season a pre seasoned Lodge or whatever brand cast iron skillet. Season your damn food, season your damn pans. And then I, I basically used it and because I’m dumb I like I washed it and it was rusted and I was like. Uh, yeah, that’s. I was like, oh no, I ruined it. I rusted my first cast iron too. I mean everybody rusts their first one, I feel like unless like you’re raised by someone who because my family never ever used cast iron. We’re just a nonstick Teflon family. We always have been. Always will be. Probably why I have hormone issues. But um. This is not a medical advice podcast. No, it’s really not. I have naturally low testosterone. Go ahead. You were saying? I have naturally high testosterone. Nice to meet you. Strong handshake. Thank you. It’s all testost. High t. It’s all the T in my body. Um, but like I was saying, the first time I got one, I completely screwed it up. I rusted it because dumb old me. I did not know that. Like cast iron was so porous. And the water, you have to get your cast iron bone dry, not only by like a towel or like a handkerchief, making sure it’s dry. You literally have to put it on like a flame, an open flame to dry it out to make sure that there’s. Absolutely no water in there, so it cannot rust. So my first experience was like everyone else’s, a little bit clumsy, you know? A learning experience. First time’s all a little bit clumsy. It is always a little bit clumsy, but. Teeth not gonna get there. I’m glad I had the experience, right? Of course! Otherwise, how would you know how to please your next cast iron? I think everybody goes through roughly that same journey with their cast irons. Same thing, it would have been like probably junior of college, I moved into a new apartment, and like I went to Target and I got the 29.99 Lodge pre seasoned cast iron, didn’t season it, did the same thing, cooked with it. I knew not to put soap on it at that point. We’ll get to the soap thing later, because it’s interesting. I didn’t soap mine either. Yeah, but so you thought you were safe. Yes, because I’m like, oh, there’s no, yeah, just water. Same, and then I put it in the dish rack, like a normal person, and then it rusted. Or I just put it back on the stove, but didn’t heat it. Uh huh. And so then, you know, that one rusted, I probably just ate a lot of rust. You ate rust? Is that why you’re orange? I think so. No, I’m actually very curious why I tan so orangely. Maybe I eat a lot of beta carotene. Uh, but then, then, then, then I, the next cast iron I got, I was like, I’m going to season this myself. And that was a game changer. So when you talk about seasoning a cast iron, what does that mean? You take some sort of neutral oil and you superheat it onto your cast iron. You can do it on a stove. I get nervous on that ever since I, do you remember that time I spontaneously ignited oil in the Mythical Kitchen? I do! I think about it all the time, actually. Never have me. So, oil, right, there’s a smoke point, which is, uh, like 400 degrees for some. You want it to go over the smoke point. Generally between 320 and 400. However, there’s also an ignition point, or a combustion point. The oil, and I believe for like a neutral oil, it’s like 1500. How did you get it that hot? Well, you see like grease fire, like just like a grease fire, right? A pot of oil can just catch on fire. It’s like if you’re in a restaurant and you put a pot of oil on, you forget about it. Oh yeah, yeah. Takes a long ass time for it to get up to 1500 degrees, but it can do that. How did you do that in the mythical kitchen? I don’t know. And people were warning me about it. I was gonna sear a steak. I was yelling at you. I said, turn it off. You’re like, yeah, it’s fine. Anyway, so to season a cast iron, you don’t even need to superheat the oil on the stove. You can do it in an oven. Yes. You can put it in a 400 degree oven for an hour. Right, right, right. And then you can pour that oil out, wipe it around with a paper towel, repeat that process five, six times. Make a day of it. And Mike, wait until the next NFL regular season, and then on. Sunday, when you’re just parked on the couch for like nine hours straight watching football, repeat the seasoning process five times with your cast iron pan. And then if somebody is like, Hey, do you want to leave the house? Go, no, no, no. I’m not just a bum watching football. I’m seasoning my cast iron. I’m investing in our future. What happens when you do that? That’s more a note for me. What happens when you do that? The oil creates a polymer, right? Right. Which is coating. Like a coating on it, yeah, yeah, but it’s not just a coating of oil, right? The oil, the chemical structure of it physically changes. And this is important to understand when you talk about washing as well. Sure, sure. So the chemical structure, Meggie, you’re a science person, right? Computer science, not calc science. Oh, they got polypers on computers? They have polymers on computers, right? Cause it gets so hot. Probs. A polymer is, okay, from what I understand, made up of many monomers. I’m gonna Google, hey, Maggie, can you go ahead and Google polymer? And then I’ll explain it and we’ll see how close I get. Okay, cool. So a polymer This is like almost mansplaining. Okay, thank you. A polymer This is Dunning Kruger effect at its finest. A polymer, I believe, and this is coming from my D and AP chem, is when you have um, multiple singular parts called monomers and you induce some sort of chemical change in them to make them bond to each other to create one larger unified structure that tends to, I believe, have stronger chemical bonds. And that’s the heat. And the heat is what’s allowing that chemical change to happen. It’s allowing the bonding and the chemical change. Stronger bonds to form. Meggie, can we go ahead and get a review on that? Okay, can you, can you make it bigger, cause, yeah? Okay, polymer, a substance that has a molecular structure consisting chiefly of, or entirely of large number of similar units bonded together. Josh, I think you did it. Yeah, so like, a lot of plastics are poly, plastics are polymers, right? And that’s why they’re like strong. Polymer clay. Polymer clay. Is that a thing? It’s polymer clay. You eat it or you put it on your body? No, you make earrings out of polymer clay. That’s great. I’m so happy for you. You know, everyone, it’s important to have hobbies. I have a question. Did you ever rust a cast iron past the point of no return that you threw it in the garbage? I will not perjure myself on this stand, I refine, yeah, I have, yeah, I’m not a good person. I know, I too, and I’m really bad about it. Wait, did you also, though, then, uh, YouTube search, how to restore cast iron? And then you watched a video and you went, I ain’t doing all that, I’m sorry. Oh, really? No, I took mine out of the trash and I tried. I’ve tried, too, yeah. But then I was like, I don’t wanna, I don’t have the elbow grease for this. But now that I know how to treat and take care of a cast iron skillet, I’ve had one for like seven years. Same. Yeah, and I take really good care of it to this day. I haven’t used it in like six months though. Really? I should probably use it. Yeah, what do you mostly use a cast iron for? Because I, I’m still not at the point where the seasoning on mine’s pretty good, but I’ve seen some people, I got really jealous of their super slick cast irons. I was thinking it was the other way around, like you were like disgusted by what they were doing. I’ve also seen that, where it’s just like, dude, the iron is physically chipping off in your food because this isn’t seasoned properly. You know? And there’s like, they’re trying to fry eggs and they’re scraping at it and then there’s little black chips on the eggs. Anyways. But no, people who have like really worn seasoned cast irons to where they’re cooking like fried eggs. It’s like nonstick. It’s nonstick. It’s better than nonstick at some point. Yeah. Because nonstick degrades over time. And so if you get that perfect cast iron, but I’m still not at the point where I’m like, Oh, I’m going to make a fried egg. I’m going to bust out the cast iron cast iron for me or for like, I’m making cornbread Mac and cheese. I’m like, I want to sear a steak. I sear a steak. Like I sear my steak. Stakes in cast iron skillets. Yeah. Always have and always will. What are, what are the advantages to cast iron? Like, if somebody out there, one of y’all, has never bought a cast iron pan, has never cooked with it, maybe you’re intimidated because there are so many rules about it. It is so intimidating. That’s what stopped me when people were talking about how it’s a cardinal sin and you’re a bad person to wash a cast iron soap. Right, right, right. But what is your advice to people who are trying to buy a cast iron, why they should use it? Well, I was always told that the iron goes into the food more. That is, I believe, true. Which I do believe is true, which is fine, but for me it’s just, it’s, it’s, it gets this beautiful heat. It’s not an even heat. It’s not even. Was it even when you do it? I think so. I wouldn’t say it’s an even heat, but it is a very more even than my other pants, yeah. More even than your non stick pants? Yeah. Really? I disagree with you. Maybe mine’s just not that great, but it retains so much heat that I think it can, it can sear things really, really well. So like if you’re the kind of person that like loves a really well seared chicken, if you’re a person that really wants a well, well seared piece of steak or a protein like that, I think it does a great job. Also, whenever cooking vegetables, it makes this beautiful caramelization that I think is very unique to cast iron cooking. Um. I mean, it’s very easy to bake into like I’ve made, like, like you said, cornbread. I’ve done like, uh, upside, like apple upside downs, like an apple crumble situation. And I just think the edges get so crispy and delightful that you just can’t really get with any other tool. I mean, you could potentially like, you could take a casserole dish and you could oil it and you could butter it and you could, but there’s something about that, like latent extreme heat that’s just held in the cast iron that I don’t think you can get. Elsewhere, I think held is the operative hot there. It stays hot. So the handle is hot you got it. You got to use like a little towel or a little she’s a little silicone thing that it comes with Never never never that goes in the bottom drawer that I never open but then i’m like, where’s the cooking twine? And then I finally find it in the drawer with all my right tiny little things that I never use. Um no, the, uh, cast iron retaining heat is really interesting, like, I cook on electric burners at home, which isn’t ideal, I would love a gas burner, but I have a gas burner. Thanks, Cal, thanks Gavin Newsom, you can dine at the French Laundry, but I can’t have a gas stove. He took away your gas stove? I don’t know, California passed some law, but I think most places I have a gas stove, I’m a little bit I think places can get grandfathered in, I think most of America is banning gas stoves, and also I think they probably really do cause negative health effects. But okay, whatever. Um, electric sucks to cook on. Um, but I can’t have like a walk, right? And I love to make little stir fries. The key to a walk is that it gets really, really hot because you have it on a big burner and there’s a lot of surface area and you keep the food moving. So it never steams. Is it typically as a walk, typically made out of stainless steel? Uh, yeah, carbon steel, stainless steel. I don’t really know what that means. Um, but I would, I can basically use my cast iron like I would a wok because of the heat retention. So basically, if you keep things moving consistently in a wok, and it’s hot enough, they kind of don’t steam. So everything stays nice, fresh, crispy. A lot of Chinese cookery is based off of that. You know what I mean? You pre blanch your vegetables so it can all get wok cooked in 30 seconds. If I try and make like a stir fry at home in a nonstick pan and I’m putting in, you know, a pound and a half of chicken and then all the veggies, whatever. How big is your, how big is your pan if you’re adding a pound and a half of chicken? I, okay, so if I’m cooking a dinner for two, I budget a pound of chicken. Per person? No, no, no, half a pound, half a pound of chicken per person because to me that gets you, if it’s chicken breast, that’s about 60 grams of protein. So I’ll actually go six ounces on breast. Okay, that’s if it’s thigh, I go eight ounces because that’s about 45 grams of protein. And then I do another portion of Julia. for Julia for lunch. Oh, so if I’m cooking at home, I’m doing a pound and a half of chicken. Um, you do that in a nonstick pan. It sizzles really, really hot when you put it in, but the pan isn’t going to be as thick and retain as much heat as a cast iron. Right, right, right. So eventually that sizzle dies and starts steaming. And then you just have the steamed overcooked wet veg in your Kung Pao chicken. Totally. Right. Cast iron. Been there. Cast iron is so unique in that it holds the heat so well that you can just. Keep it moving and it keeps sizzling uniform, right? So like cast iron It is really versatile and I would recommend that. Yeah, I think everyone have one. Everyone should have one How do you feel about the people that are like diehards that are like I am never gonna wash this I’m gonna make fried fish one day and then I’m gonna make a strawberry rhubarb crumble the next like how do you feel about that? kind of That kind of cast iron cookery because for me, I don’t want my cast iron when I’m making like a dessert to taste like fried fish. I just don’t. Like that doesn’t appeal to me. It doesn’t. You don’t want the fried fish flavored cobbler? No, I don’t. Why’d you order it? Um, no, so. Like we said, cast iron is also porous, so So porous! People will say a restaurant might have a cast iron pan or even a cast iron griddle top that they’ve cooked the burgers on for a hundred years and they say that this is the reason our burgers taste so good it’s because all that burger flavor is soaked up into the pores which is a little bit true, True! Their burgers are probably good because they use a lot of butter and lard but, um, you know, uh, for your home cast iron the flavors are going to Stay in there a little bit similar with like a molcajete made out of volcanic rock, right? Okay, you grind one spice in there. No matter how much you sort of wipe it out and clean it out It’s always gonna taste that yeah, but you cook other things and it changes over time I’ve never personally had an issue with that. I’ve had issues. Have you really what’s the last thing issues? But I’ve been to people’s houses. We’ll have one sweet I mean like who’s gonna do that though? Who’s gonna do the fish cast iron? No, people don’t do that. I mean, there’s cookbooks dedicated to cast iron cookery and there’s a dessert section. You think people are going to go and get a separate cast iron? No. And I, yeah, it pisses me off because it’s like the people that do that and then they take care of their cast iron. That’s one thing. If it’s properly seasoned and it has that nonstick, that really beautiful sheen, the polymer has been made. If the, what is it? What’s patina? If the, if the patina has been constructed, sure. But do you think the average Joe is out there building a patina? No, they’re not out The average Joe, the construction worker, uh, who is on the reality show trying to woo women because they think he’s a millionaire. Oh, I loved, Joe Millionaire? Joe Millionaire, that was that, yeah. Joe Millionaire was hot. Hey, Joe Millionaire, come on the podcast. Just call, I just want to talk. What’s his name, Evan? I don’t know, he was so hot. Can you Google who Joe Millionaire is? He probably cooks, he probably cooks, uh, cast iron food. He seems like a cast iron guy. Joe Millionaire was a babe. I think his name was like Evan something or other. His name isn’t Joe Millionaire? No, that was a good name for a show though. Evan Marriott, original Joe Millionaire. he was the Marriott? Oh, that’d be funny. No, I don’t think so. I think they changed his name to Joe Millionaire on the show. And they said, Joe Millionaire, he’s the inventor of millionaires. Like, your name is Mythical Chef Josh. Correct. When are you getting that legally changed, by the way? Uh, pretty soon, man. Julia’s gonna be Mrs. Julia. Mrs. Josh. Mrs. Julia Chef Josh. Mrs. Josh. Um, okay, so if you’re talking about the hardos who insist on never putting water or soap in their cast iron, because these are two different things. We should eventually tell people that they should wash their damn cast irons. Uh, because that’s the biggest debate, but washing means different things. One is, should you ever put water in it? Uh, I’ve always been a, sure, water it. Just dry it. Yeah, and then make sure it’s dry. Yeah. But there are people who go, no, you should only, one, you can superheat it until it turns to sort of carbon. And then just scrape it off? Scrape it off, and then wipe it down with oil again. There’s people like that. You’re probably going to get a lot more aromas in your cast iron that way. However, I look at those people Like a romantic, right? Like I look at them as like, Oh, this is a bygone time where life was simpler. And I love that your cornbread tastes like fish. You know, I think that’s really sweet that they’re so proud of their pans. They want to leave all the history. In it. Okay. I don’t personally do that myself, it freaks me out a little bit, despite knowing that all bacteria is killed if you superheat that pan, especially to 1500 degrees, that stuff’s turned to straight carbon. What about the hardos that use salt? The hardos that use salt? What does the salt do? I don’t, I think it’s because it’s an abrasive, like it helps pick up all the stuff, but I’ve seen like people use like kosher salt with like oil and then they gather it all up and then they get rid of it. Is that? Is that? Okay. So when you. molcajetes than I have cast iron pans, but you use salt in the molcajete to use Well, what I do first is I submerge it for like a day, and then I remove it, then I use rice first. Yeah, you grind the rice into it. I grind the rice, like I do multiple passes until it’s no longer gray, and then I do salt, and then I do like garlic. Yeah, is that normal? I think that’s what I do. That’s how I was. Maybe it’s the same thing with cast iron. Um, the biggest debate though in cast iron, the thing that gets people the most worked up is when soap touches it. I want to use soap. Why do you want to use soap? I don’t know. Soap equals clean to me. Soap equates clean. I maybe this is disgusting. I don’t use soap like Kind of for a lot of my pans sometimes if there’s schmutz on the outside if I’m do you ever put it in the dishwasher? Do you have a pans? No, never. No, be serious. No, I don’t I don’t I don’t like to use dishwashers in general Okay Like I would never use a dishwasher if it wasn’t for Julia insisting that we do it cuz she’s like sometimes you clean dishes and They’re not clean and I’m like, you’re correct Yeah, sometimes I put him in the dishwasher and then I don’t take all this stuff off and then David goes He just looks and he touches it He doesn’t even verbalize it. He just touches the, the, the like bowl and I’m like, speak boy, speak. What is it? And he’s like, dirty. I’m like, sorry, what do you want me to do? But I love that me and you have similar roles in our house. Yeah. Yeah. It’s so funny. We’re the same person. Uh, we just got that. Um, That said, the Lodge Cast Iron CEO has said before. What has he said? That he washes his cast irons with a little bit of soap. He’s like, don’t soak it, don’t scrub it too too hard, but gently washing it with soap will not do anything to degrade the polymerization on that pan. What is this person’s name? Uh, what is their name? Can we Google it? Lodge, Lodge Lodge Cast Iron. CEO. Mike Otterman. Don’t come after him, Luigi. This might have been before, that might have been an old CEO. Mike Otterman, wash, cast, iron, with, soap. You made a really funny joke, I think. It was funny. I said, I said, I said, don’t come after him, Luigi. Oh, you’re making a joke about murder. Do you want me to stop? No, I think it’s funny. You think murder’s funny? In the right context, yeah, it’s so funny. Okay, so here’s what Mike Otterman has had to say about his cast iron music. Okay, tell us what the CEO said. Cast iron CEO. After dinner, I’ll scrape it out in hot water. I will use soap and rub it down in the interior, particularly if I do salmon or something like that. Fish! Then, I put it back on the burner on low, straighten up the rest of the kitchen. When it gets to a nice warm temperature, I spray it with oil, turn off the burner, wipe it down with a paper towel, leave it on the burner until it cools, and then I obviously never put it away. It looks better when I’m done cooking with it than when I started it. Cute! Cute! Also, I love having a cast iron sitting on the stove at all times. Me too. Until my mom came over and she said, what are you doing? Your house is a mess. So I had to put it away. I always keep it. Wait, this is the thing. I always keep a frying pan on the stove. I generally use my ninja never stick. I cook with ninja never stick pans at home. They are very, very affordable. They heat to a very, very high degree. I can get up to 1500 degrees without degrading the nonstick, which is really neat. Listen as nonstick technology. continues to progress. It will get safer. It will get better. This is all the same. I’m never sticking this. I’m never going to stainless steel. I, you know, I think I will reach self actualization when I do use all clad stainless steel. I think as as a person, once I have that set, I need, let me tell you, I need it. It doesn’t need to be all clad, but I need a stainless steel set and then I need to lay cruset set. And once I get those two sets, huh? Is it like crusade? Am I saying it wrong? Look crusade. I’ve been le cru setting it the whole time. You’ve been le cru setting it? I don’t know, it’s like LaCroix, you know, LaCroix, it’s I feel stupid! How do you pronounce it? I don’t know, but let me tell you my let me tell you. So, I need to have my stainless steel pots and pans, and then one cast iron skillet or two, and then, um, le cru say. For Josh. Oh, it’s La Crusade. Okay. La La Crusade. So it’s a La Crusade. La Crusade. The, the La Crue with a soft Z sound. La Crue. There you go. Um, my La Crue set all the, the red ones though. I only want red ones. Don’t gimme any other color than the red ones. Okay. And then I’m gonna have a Red Vi. I already have a red Vitamix and then a red, um, a red, uh, KitchenAid. And I feel like I’ll reach self-actualization. Don’t you feel that way? Do I feel if you get all of your red cookware appliances and pans that you will reach self actualization? And the stainless steel. I know what you mean, it’s like that can fix me, all my personality flaws will suddenly go away if I have the right cooking tools. Um, It’s like me when I finally get my meat grinder and ice cream maker, I’m like, that will fix me. Yeah, but it won’t, huh? It won’t. No, you have to do the internal work. Um, I don’t want to. It’s a very restaurant y chef thing to only cook in stainless steel, right? Yeah. A lot of restaurants operate on stainless steel. My problem with stainless steel is You do have to use a lot of oil in it. That’s true. Right. And my dietary goals, my fitness goals, right? I’m eating, I’m already getting so much fat from eating a half a pound of chicken thighs, you know, that I’m like, I don’t want that extra oil just to fry an egg. I’m fine. Just eating this egg. And I’d like a quick fried egg, give me a nonstick pan. I’m down to do that. Fine. I would love to be a pure cast iron boy. You know what I mean? One of those people who busts out his cast iron just to fry an egg. I guess that to me is self actualization. Okay, I was gonna ask. You know, that’s gender affirming for me. You know, and that’s what I want. It’s just to cook everything in a cast iron. You know, steak, egg, salmon, cobbler. Cobbler. Yeah. Okay, well You ever see the Hot Wilderness Guys? They’re cooking out in like the There’s like a frozen riverbank. I do know those Wilder Hot Wilderness Guys. And they’ve just brought a sack of like jalapenos and onions and cilantro out into the snowy woods and they’re Yeah. Cutting a steak with their Bowie knife. They’re probably like Azerbaijan or something doing it. Throwing a cast iron onto a fire. So hot. That’s hot. I want to be that hot. I’m not. I’m a city boy at the heart. Cooking on my little electric stove. Have you ever thought about just like moving to like a compound? It’s almost all I think about these days. Are you serious? Yeah, yeah, like, leaving Los Angeles, and then, like, like, getting, like, a little compound, and inviting, like, five of your friends? I don’t need to be one of the five if you don’t want me to, but I think it’d be cool if I was. I don’t think we’d Oh, okay. We should do separate compounds, yeah. You don’t want to be in a compound? No, it’s not that I don’t want to. I just think we both have Separate friends. Yeah. Oh, I’m sorry. Did you? I know now I feel terrible. Did you think that we would be compound friends? I can’t say Le Creuset. I don’t want to be in the same compound as you. What’s going on? What happened to what we’ve built the past five and a half years? So, you don’t want me to come on your compound, but whatever. But Josh, tell the people. Should you wash your cast iron skillet? You should do whatever the heck you want with your cast iron skillet. You can wash your cast iron skillet with soap. The Lodge cast iron CEO literally says that. That he does that, it won’t reduce the polymerization on your seasoning that you have. However, if you don’t want to wash your cast iron, that is also perfectly fine. If you want to use water or soap or just wipe it out with a paper towel, that’s all cool. The most important thing you can do for a cast iron is in the preparation, is in the actual seasoning of it. Like anything in life, with knives, the best knife is a sharp knife. With cars, right? The car that runs the longest is the one that’s been the most well maintained. I literally need to get an oil change right now, but that’s totally fine. I follow my advice on cast irons. The biggest thing. People shouldn’t, like, freak out. A cast iron pan is just a pan. If you see somebody putting a cast iron into soapy water, don’t freak out. It’s similar with washing chicken. It’s fine. You can wash chicken safely. You don’t have to wash your chicken. You can wash a cast iron efficaciously. You don’t have to wash cast iron. It’s a pan, and it’s a good pan, and I think everyone should have one. Wash it, don’t wash it. As long as you maintain it and cook delicious food in it, that’s all that matters. Nicole, what do you think? Should you wash your cast iron pan? I think you should wash your cast iron pans. There’s been all of this hullabaloo about not doing it, doing it. I think having a clean dish that will allow you to do whatever you want with it, as long as you maintain it the right way, you can do whatever you want. But I’m gonna wash mine, and I hope you’re gonna wash yours. Clean pan, clean mind, clean soul, that’s what they say. I’m still not washing my legs. The soap drips down! You really need to scrub your legs. It’s upsetting how little parts of my body I truly wash when I shower. You need to scrub your I don’t I almost don’t wash anything. Do you have a loofah? No, I shower at the gym. I’m buying you a frickin loofah. What, am I gonna bring the loofah to the gym every day? Yes! Absolutely not. Yes! I could use eh. What do you need? Well, I could use one of their small towels that you use to wipe down equipment as a washer. The eucalyptus ones? Yeah. Don’t put that in your audience. Oh no, in my hoo ha? Josh, I think 2025 is a year for personal growth. I don’t know how you feel about that. Speak that into existence, sister. Yeah, I mean, like, everyone’s like, oh, I’m gonna start working out, I’m gonna start eating better, but me, I wanna learn a new language. I think it’s just gonna expand the way that I see the world, and the way that I can communicate with other people. I think it’s really important. Well, how do you plan on learning that new language, Nicole? Rosetta Stone, obviously. Obviously, the thing I love most about Rosetta Stone, listen, I took foreign language in high school. Same. You did. You listening out there probably did. I’m not great in a classroom setting. I need an actual immersive experience, and that’s what Rosetta Stone gets you. You can actually practice as if you were a native speaker. Rosetta Stone is the most trusted language learning program available on desktop or as an app, and it truly immerses you in the language you want to learn. They offer Spanish, French, Italian, German, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Arabic, Polish, and so much more. There’s no English translation, so you really learn to speak, listen, and think in that language. It’s an intuitive process that’s designed for long term retention. With Rosetta Stone’s built in True Accent feature, you can get feedback on your pronunciation, so you can perfect your accent. Mmm, esta bien! Their lifetime membership has all 25 languages for 50 percent off. That’s a steal! Start the new year off with a resolution you can reach. Today, a Hot Dog is a Sandwich listeners can take advantage of this Rosetta Stone’s lifetime membership for 50 percent off. That’s a heck of a deal, Nicole. Visit rosettastone. com slash hotdog. That’s 50 percent off. Unlimited access. to twenty five language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your fifty percent off at rosettastone. com slash hotdog today. Alrighty, Nicole, we’ve heard what you and I have to say, now it’s time to find out what other whacky opinions are rattling out there in the universe. Time for a little segment we call, Opinions are like casseroles! Josh, you have given me so So many abandonment issues today. You don’t want me on your compound. You didn’t sing with me. I’m sorry. I was trying to like drum a beat while you sang. I was trying to support your rhythm section. Well, you’re supposed to tell me you can’t just do it. You were a David Letterman and I was the bald guy with glasses. What was his name? Phil. You know what I mean? I’m sorry. I’m trying to support you. I just, well, listen to an opinion. Don’t support me in a way that is unsupportive. Well, now that’s a real life lesson for people out there. Hi, I’m Ryan. I’ve never done this before. But you’re doing great. I think that if you put bananas near bread, any kind of bread, it tastes really gross. It tastes like bananas. No one I’ve ever met has ever felt this way before except me, but I feel really strongly about it. Thank you. I love your podcast. Oh, thanks, Ryan. Wow. Polyethylene. Tell me, talk to me about polyethylene. Is it polyethylene or just ethylene? I don’t know, something, what does poly mean, multiple? Poly is when you have multiple poly equals multi, so poly, lots of ethylenes. I, well, yeah, I mean, I don’t know. Anyways, I just know the one ethylene, but there’s the ethylene that bananas emit, which is maybe what you’re talking about. So yeah. Bananas, uh, I don’t know if there’s a way to quantify this, but I think they like, emit a lot more ethylene, which is the gas that naturally ripens fruit. Right, so I believe if you put other fruits next to bananas, they are literally absorbing the ethylene and they’ll ripen faster. Yeah. Like you put avocado, uh, next to a, in a bag with a banana. There’s like, there’s like graphs out there that’ll tell you like, put this with that for ripening. Don’t put that with that to make sure everything stays nice and neutral. So yeah. But you know what they say, you don’t like the right is your banana. Wait, 10 minutes. Uh, bananas ripen really fast is what I’m saying. And so it would make sense that if you put some sort of food next to a banana, especially something as porous as bread that absorbs so many odors, like if you have. Exposed bread next to a banana. Yeah, it’s probably going to absorb the ethylene. I wonder if anybody’s done a, uh, what’s that thing called? A research paper on this. Of bread near nanners? Yeah, what do you mean? Nanner adjacent breads? Yeah, I wonder if anyone’s done like, I don’t know, like, uh, what’s that? I’ll do a home experiment tonight. I got, uh, I have the perfect crappy bread heel that I was already, like, dreading using, you know what I mean? The thing is, the heel probably won’t collect as much. No, it’s got a good enough fa sorry, it’s got a good enough face, though. It does? Okay. It’s got a good enough face. But it’s not double okay, okay. It’s not just like cause yeah, the crust might yeah, but I have like, uh, three bananas. One crappy bread heel. I’ll let you know, but you’re not, you’re not crazy. I believe you. I think, I think you’re right here. And I think ethylene does kind of smell like bananas because that’s, you know, bananas emit so much of it that I think we associate that smell. Like I smell gasoline. I smell bananas. I smell gasoline. I think, Ooh. What’s gasoline made out of? I don’t get the next opinion. Petroleum. Google. Yeah, but there’s other things in it. I’ll Google a gasoline, but also the smell. Oh, gasoline is odorless. Gasoline ingredients. Gasoline is odorless, right? And they add a smell, they add a, there’s a term for it, and to let people know if there’s a gas leak. Is it yum yum juice? Because I love the smell of gasoline so much. If I could just, like, stand, like, next to a gas station and just, like, breathe in the fumes, I think I’d be ha I’d be ha I’d reach self actualization. It’s Benzie. Hello, this is Kat. From Raleigh, North Carolina, but I’m originally from Vermont. Go Catamounts! And I want more savory granola bars. Now you know. Now you know. Nuts and seeds and things like that. Um, I don’t know why it has to be sugary when last time I did it, salt was also a preservative. So, let me know. Tell him. Tell him, Josh. It’s not the preservation that you need the sugar for. It’s to turn it into a bar. The sugar is what holds the bar together. You ever wonder why like chewy granola bars are just like so kind of wet It’s because the sugar is providing Structure and i’m sure there’s a way to make like a savory nut bar or whatever without that much sugar Um, but I will tell you this is a product that now exists on the market We i’ve had it before savory granola bars kind savory roasted nut and grain bars or whatever So kind bars, which I think did a great job of like We grew up on chewy granola bars or kudos bars or whatever Whatever. Quaker. Nature Valley. Yeah, yeah. Quaker. And they’re like, they’re sugary. They’re basically candy. And Kyne comes in and they’re like, hey, this is Dark chocolate. There’s whole nuts on there that you can see. I have a lot of respect for what kind did in the industry. And now they’re making savory. I had their Rosemary nuts and sea salt, and it’s, it’s good. The taste of Rosemary love, a good salty, herby nut. The problem for me with them is there’s so much sugar because that’s what’s holding. Or I think they use brown rice syrup or invert sugar. Yes. That’s what’s holding the bar together. You are right. And so I was eating this thing and I was kind of like, this is just so sweet and so savory at the same time. And I was like, why the sweet? And then I noticed the kind of caramelly pull from my teeth. And so I think that’s an actual like chemical reason why it can’t be purely savory. Well, you could do a savory sweet one. Well, yeah, that’s exactly what kind kind did and it’s like it’s a pretty good product It’s just not something that I have you ever heard of a handful of nuts Hear me out What you do is you buy nuts and you grab them with a handful and you go so passive And you’d go and you know slam a handful of nuts the ceo of kind mexican jail Big fan of him. Mexican. Why did I not expect you to say Mexican, Julia? I don’t know, I don’t know, but I’ve seen all of our things. I thought you were going to say Persian. Oh no. And I thought you were going to say, you know, I went to school with his daughter. I know everybody! First speed 16, crazy. I do know everybody. Hi Hot Dog is a Sandwich. My name is Sophia and I’m from Northern California. Hey! My question for you is Does a terraria town is a buffet. Oh, thank you. Well, I have another question. I have another question. One, can I, can I ask a, can I ask I that they love Tosca RIAs? Go ahead. Okay. Are, uh, I, are you eating the buffet option as well as just going to the Cho? Because whenever you go to Truca RIAs, you get the option. You either get the buffet, you could get the buffet and the meat, or you can just get the meat. So that’s my question to you. So Well, well, Sophie talking about me being cent. I’m kidding. Sophia, have you ever been to a place called the Sizzler? Because I will say the sizzler has a similar structure to most churrascarias. Yes, I’m using the Brazilian pronunciation of churrasco. At most churrascarias, they will have the meat portion where they’re generally going table to table. I don’t know if that’s all churrascarias. That’s the one that I like. Yeah, the ones that we go to. That’s not true. I like the ones where, no, I like, no. They come around, the meat are on giant swords, and they slice them off directly on your table. Um, and then there’s like a separate buffet setup, that you go, you get your salad, your hearts of palm, sometimes they’ll have beef stroganoff. Yeah, they do. Fried fish. Yeah, fun little treats like that. Is a shahaskariya more akin to a steakhouse or a buffet to you? It’s the perfect medium. It’s the perfect medium, but if you had to, if you had to put it into a category, because I think this is an astute question. Whenever you go, what is it called on the door? It’s a Brazilian steakhouse, right? They say steakhouse. They say steakhouse. But in terms of like the American steakhouse concept, right? You wouldn’t go to Korean barbecue and say like, I’m going to a steakhouse. Despite the fact that you’re probably there for cuts of steak that are cooked. That’s true. Well, you’re doing the cooking yourself. So it’s a completely different action than a steakhouse. But I’d say a steakhouse is also like pretty different from a shuhasqueria where they’re coming around tableside Shuhasqueria is dim sum. Yeah tableside carts. You’re just choosing some and is dim sum a buffet No, I would okay. Here’s my official take here. I do love this question. I do. I really really do. I think a shuhasqueria is It’s own separate experience. They do have a buffet inside a shuhasqueria, but that’s like calling a McDonald’s with a ball pit a playground. Don’t trust anybody if they go to McDonald’s and say I’m going to the playground. That’s a weird thing. It has a playground. It’s not a playground. I was that kid. But I would say once shuhasquerias get more popular, which I hope they do, because God, I love them. South American grilled meats are incredible. I think it’s going to be more recognized as its own thing. Like KBBQ. Like Korean barbecue. Okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go ahead and lean more so towards that it is a type of steakhouse instead of a type of buffet or a type of anything else. I am going to say that a Brazilian barbecue experience is a It is a different experience, but it is a steakhouse nonetheless. I think it’s the funnest steakhouse you can go to. Sophia, I dream of a future where you don’t have to put these things into categories. That’s the future that I dream of. Great question, great opinion. Decentralized, talking about cryptocurrency. Decentralized steakhouses. Meet Emporium. Hi, this is Marina from Ohio, and I just have a complaint. Every time somebody talks about difficulty swallowing, Nicole is quick to jump in and say, Oh, fascia! No, fascia is just swallowing in general. I’m sorry. This fascia is difficulty swallowing. A fascia. He’s absent of swallowing, so inability to swallow. Alright, thank you for letting me rant. I’m so sorry. Wait, what did you do? I don’t know, I did something where I said aphasia was dysphagia and aphasia. I’ve been talking for a long time on this thing. They just put a microphone in front of me and they said speak and I said okay. No, no, no, no. Mistakes are going to be made and I’m stuck. Hey, what if you’re wrong? You know, how many podcasts do you have? Don’t you talk crap with my friend Nicole. She’s a nice lady. Am I being supportive in the way that you feel supportive? Yeah, yeah! Don’t you ever call in again! Let’s do it again! No, you can call back. Ohio sucks! No, hey, hey, hey, hey. I like Ohio. Go Buckeyes. I found Columbus a little underwhelming. Buckeyes? I’ve had a great time in Cleveland. Buckeyes. That’s the name of A dessert. From Ohio. And a team. It’s actually a tree. It’s a tree with a lot of roots in indigenous medicine. Isn’t it also a team? It is also the name of the Ohio State football team. And it’s peanut butter balls. It’s also peanut butter balls that look like the nut on the tree. I’m going to tell you right now, I will make mistakes and I will never stop making mistakes because I’m a human being and I appreciate you for calling me out because sometimes it feels good to get called out a little bit. Do it again. If you ever hear me do anything wrong again, just call and say, Nicole did this wrong. I love it. Meggy, can you Google, I’m not looking this up, can you Google what the seventh track on Lamb of God’s self titled first album is? I think it’s self titled, but Lamb of God’s first studio album, seventh track. Dang! Wait, scroll down, ninth track. Dang. Look up Lamb of God, Buckeye. Damn, I thought I had this right. Lamb of God has a song called Buckeye as well. What album is this on? That’s not important anymore, but wait, wait, no, scroll down, scroll down. Meggie, what album? Oh my god, this was, ugh. It wasn’t Lamb of God, it was on Burn the Priest when they were going by the name Burn the Priest. So this is before they were even Lamb of God. Well, I feel stupid now. I apparently said the wrong word for the wrong problem. You’ve ruined Nicole’s day. No, actually, I feel so much more invigorated to make more mistakes and get called out again. I don’t wanna draw any conclusions from that. Uh, hey guys, this is Ethan from Chicago. I don’t believe you. I’m here with my daughter making homemade munchie mix. And I have a opinion that Fritos make a better ingredient than they do chips. You know, like, Fritos, like, just on the side of a sandwich kind of sucks. But if you add, like, a chili, yep. Right. If you add the chili, great. Burrito, amazing. Just the chip? Kind of sucks. What do you think? I want to make a burrito and put Fritos in it. I’m curious, okay, so, let’s break this down. Fritos, right, plain flavored Fritos, intense corn flavor, great crunch, but why do you think it would fail as a stand alone chip? I kind of agree with him. Instinctively, I agree with him. I will always, always stan corn flavor. I think just pure corny corn flavor’s really good. But would you say the same thing about, like, a ruffle plain chip? I would never eat a plain flavored potato chip over, like, a barbecue, or a flaming hot, or a honey mustard. Plain chips I have no, unless I’m dipping it in something. What about salt and pepper chips? No, I’ve go straight past them. Oh my god, oh my god, I love plain chips. No, give me more black pepper on there, maybe. But like, they’re never peppery enough. What? You know. I love plain, I love a plain chip, I love a, I love a pure chip, I like the corniness of Fritos, I like the potatoiness of Lay’s and saltiness. So, I don’t really necessarily agree with this because I love corn. A lot. I think, I think the interesting thing with that is the flavor of a Frito is so strong, but the flavor is ultimately something that comes from nature, which is interesting. And I like that. Right? Whereas like a Flamin Hot Taki is also a strongly flavored chip. Not in nature. Don’t find that in nature. None of those things are found in nature. Uh, so I think that’s interesting. I think it’s maybe why it might play really well with other foods, especially talking about chili and burritos, like especially with Mexican foods. Right. Getting, it’s a punch of very strongly toasted corn flavor, Right. and if you have the best corn tortilla you ever have should have a strong corn flavor. Correct. But um, oh, there’s one mega corporation that owns like 89 percent of the world’s tortilla production. It’s called Gruma. The Gruma group. They own like Guerrero and all those. brand. Mission. Yeah, I think, I think they own Mission. No, Mission might be an American company. But anyways, like all their corn tortillas, they’re, they’re very processed. They don’t taste that much like corn. You know what I mean? So you’re adding a Frito to that. You’re like getting this big corn punch. It’s an astute observation. I think it’s both. I think I’m not, I’m not going to be, I’m not going to be in the middle for this. I’m just going to go ahead and say it’s a good standalone chip and I disagree with you. How does that feel? Huh? Now I’m craving a side of plain Fritos with just like a ham mayonnaise and American cheese sandwich. Right, right. Can we do that? You can do whatever you want, you have free will, buddy. I already ate a big fistful of ham for breakfast. Oh yeah, fistfuls of ham. That’s my new metal band. Well on that note, thank you so much for stopping by the podcast. Uh, if you liked it, that’s, that’s great. That’s what we try, that’s what we shoot for every time. Yeah, if you want to leave an opinion, call us at 833 DOG POD 1. The number again is 833 DOG POD 1. New audio episodes out every Wednesday. New videos out on Sunday over YouTube. And we make a lot of other YouTube videos on Mythical Kitchen. You should watch that. See you next time.