ramble before you get into today’s episode it’s me trevor everetts the host of the podcast trevor talks too much here to tell you about a very special episode we have uh it’s gonna be all me solo not only will i be talking too much by my darn self but i’ll be giving you all a closer look into my mind the window into the inner workings of the mythical swag lord uh so i’ll be talking a bit more about me this particular episode is all about some of the struggles i’ve had coming out of the pandemic social anxiety and how some of these new connections have me kind of looking deeper into my inner self and doing some reflection so don’t forget to be on the lookout for this episode next week by subscribing to trevor talks too much on apple spotify or wherever you get your podcast though its roots are in italy pizza is now enjoyed as a comfort food all around the world but are all the unique combinations of cheesy baked dough created equal today we discuss what’s the best regional pizza style ketchup is a smoothie yeah i put ice in my cereal so what that makes no sense hot dog is a sandwich a hot dog is a sandwich welcome to our podcast at hot dogs the sandwich the show where we break down the world’s biggest food debates i’m your host josh sharer and i’m your host nicole hendizada and today we have a very special guest with us amanda hester is the co-founder and ceo of food 52 a community-minded food publication that recently launched its inaugural show of its podcast network the genius recipe tapes which you can find wherever you get your podcasts amanda welcome thank you so much for joining us thank you for coming thank you so much for having me absolutely i have i have more in your bio can i continue to to gush over more things in your bio sure i i was supplied with a bio full disclosure me and nicole do roughly no work on this actual show very little and i even edited this down to just the important parts and holy crap it is still incredible uh okay hold on hold on a little bit i’m old so that’s why amanda is also food editor of the new york times magazine the editor of tea living author of the essential new york times cookbook and she was named one of the 50 most influential women in food by gourmet magazine this is my favorite amanda also played herself in the movie julian julia which is awesome that is very exciting one of my favorite movies i cried like so cool man what a cool bio to have i actually played julia child in that movie i could see that definitely yeah people they’ve called me a meryl streep type you know like in the sense that i can kind of transform myself into roles yeah anyways amanda today we are talking about what the best regional pizza style is obviously a topic that has many different routes it can go i think we should all just start with our own sort of answers and go from there sure amanda you want to take it away you have the floor sure thing well i’m going to start by just talking about the regional pizza that i grew up with which is called old forge white pizza in pennsylvania old forge is like a little like kind of sliver of a neighborhood in scranton pennsylvania and they are known for making pizza it’s actually they’re kind of like two players um that and they’re really just like kind of bars that made pizza and they make them on sheet pans so it’s a it’s a chic tray pizza and you get to get rectangular pieces and it’s the white pizza is actually a dough and then there’s a layer of american cheese which i know you would be a big fan of and this is white american or like the good stuff yes white uh-huh and then it’s um and i think some people might put provolone but i’m pretty sure it’s just straight up american and then uh and then it’s um rosemary dried rosemary so it’s not even fresh rosemary and like oil and salt so it has kind of like quasi roots of like kind of roman pizza bianca but done very like american style it’s almost like a chicago version of that um and then there’s also a red version but the white is what people really go to old forge for and you know as for as long as i can remember people had to like wait in line to to get in who decided the dried rosemary on the white american cheese is my favorite touch they’re like you know what would set off this american cheese sending me for a loop i’ve never done dried rosemary on pizza before i’m into it and also i love that like you said old forge is one neighborhood in scranton like a sliver and that they have developed their own regional pizza style and that’s what i think is so cool about regional pizza styles they seem to just develop from literally like two restaurants that made it and then that kind of you know becomes known yeah they were across the street from each other and yeah they were like rivals it was like you know rival high schools rival pizza places um and then no one really i mean i didn’t know of any other places that made it but it’s like they they have you know all the business in town that’s incredible nicole i i we can we can jump back and forth but i’m interested in your answer uh it’s very simple it is grandma pizza i love i love the dough i love the sauce i love the crispy little edges i love everything about grandma style pizza i think it’s what is grandma’s style pizza well i have a sheet in front of me and i can explain exactly what it is it is square i’m gonna do it verbatim square or rectangular pizza that has been cooked in an olive oil coated pan it is covered in a thin layer of mozzarella cheese and in an uncooked can of fresh tomatoes we found it in new york specifically long island thick crust and crispy oftentimes the cheese goes directly onto the dough and the sauce on top okay i know what you’re talking about because i’ve had it at do you know pizzeria supreme i think pizza suprema which is right near madison square garden in new york city and it’s sort of known for it’s like classic new york style pizza but they do a grandma pizza that’s really good i just love the way the cheese kind of creeps up on the top and gets all crispy and delicious and then you fold it over on the super soft goopy cheese and it reminds me a lot of pizza hut pizza in that it’s like a cakey super soft pillowy dough and then it’s this beautiful like clean sauce and then the cheese and then i don’t typically get toppings on it i just do uh dough sauce cheese and a little bit of parmesan and a little bit of chili flake and i’m good for like the rest of the week we have a combined two total trips to new york you and i and you haven’t been to new york yes i have been to new york city twice so like we are both coming at this from a very disadvantaged angle uh that we both grew up in california which i think a lot of people would say like does not have a distinct piece of culture except for the fact that california style pizza is my answer for the best regional pizza so what was that like what’s the story behind and i’ve never been to one but i just know of it california pizza kitchens uh is our church it’s where we pray to the barbecue chicken pizza gods you can shake the rest so yeah so cbk which now i believe is it’s actually very sad cpk is bankrupt um and they actually went to auction and they had no interested buyers so cpk is likely on its way out uh amanda i don’t know you know food 52’s greater aspirations but if you all want to buy the california pizza kitchen i think you can get it as a distressed asset for pennies on the dollar so this is my official pitch to you for that the people at mythical they sure were not into that idea i wrote a whole pitch deck but no california pizza kitchen has a very incredible story behind it um the person who created their original menu his name was ed ladoo and he was actually hand-picked by wolfgang puck to start the pizza program at spago he was working at a restaurant in the bay area called prego and a lot of people sort of trace the modern you know fancy topping pizzas uh to alice waters at chapennes because they have a wood-burning pizza oven they put you know figs and mostarda and all that on it uh and so this dude ed ledoux was plucked by wolfgang puck he went to spago spago did the famous peking duck pizza with the hoisin which is still on the menu and they have the smoked salmon pizza and he also created a barbecue chicken pizza there so two investors looking to start a restaurant stole ed ladue he was only 27 years old at the time stole him from spago and they launched california pizza kitchen with this idea that you can put like crazy wacky toppings on pizza but for me it’s that movement of like breaking down what makes a pizza a pizza then build it back up again into a product that’s greater than the sum of its parts is what makes california style the best because i don’t think there would be a nancy silverton and moza without the hard work put in by california pizza kids wow i didn’t know when asking that question that i was going to get such like a thorough history yeah that’s off the dome amanda i thought that shea panis was known more for like the grilled pizza uh kind of grilling it over you know wood fire and that that was sort of the whole kind of like romance of california cooking i think there were i think um california pizza kitchen or like ed ladue specifically took this sort of you know uh idea of that like rustic wood fired thing and they almost like pop culturified it to like oh people seem to like this different thing being done in california with pizza we are going to sell it to the masses by shoving barbecue chicken on it because like i mean chapennese obviously i mean they’re the dish that i best know them for is figs on a plate um which i think who there was a critic that knocked him for that and i can’t remember who it was but anyways i mean they were all about you know very much the simplicity of cooking despite instituting i think the bones of the fusion food movement with california cuisine and like all the great chefs that came from there i mean david leibovitz jonathan waxman all these people um but yeah to me like there would be no cpk without cheap and nice and there would be no nancy silverton and moza without cbk ergo cpk is the best style but it sounds like there is soon to be no cpk so um like if you were to revive it what would you do how would you fix it and bring it back to life and make it thrive i think sometimes the phoenix needs to stay buried in the ashes i don’t think cpk necessarily needs to come back because other people have taken up the mantle and literally right before we started recording this nicole goes you’re gonna you’re gonna bring up neo-neopolitan pizza aren’t you and i was like you dang right i am so right now there is a really cool movement especially from la pizzaiolo’s thinking uh daniela uriti at pizzana which has caused a lot of waves uh who they’re taking very legitimate sort of neopolitan techniques i think he’s like a fourth generation pizzaiolo and he’s taking that and he’s you know creating pies with you know mexican chorizo and cilantro crema uh you have guys like zach pollock at costa buona who are doing you know smoked pineapple on their pizzas that are made with you know a 72 hour dough and whatnot so i think you have a lot of people who have taken up the spirit of california style pizza that has sort of just broken down all these rules of simplicity and purity because neapolitan pizza is something that you know there’s literally a whole guidebook on what it needs to be to be considered neapolitan the crust can’t be more than three and a half centimeters tall and all that and so california took the best elements of that and then broke all the rules and said screw you here’s a smoked pineapple pizza and i love them for that yeah cpk has a frozen line amanda so you can also just get the frozen one okay yeah run right out for that hey hot doggers we wanted to tell you about our exciting upcoming event mythicon heck yeah we do mythical is our first ever immersive weekend experience with the mythical kitchen rhett and link and a big old bunch of the mythical crew there’s a carnival a dance party live podcast it’s gonna be huge it’s on october 28th to the 30th in austin texas for one weekend only so you don’t want to miss it check out mythicontickets.com for ticket availability event details and any updates tickets are on sale now including packages chalk full of super exclusive merch and a very special sunday brunch with your favorite mythical crew members and we all know your favorite mythical crew member is nicole that’s right over to mythicontickets.com right now to check out availability i’m out in the hamptons and at some like kind of fancy store there was there were t-shirts that said pineapple on pizza person um and i was like you know nope that’s that’s not me i’m not that’s never been me um are you pineapple on feet on pizza person that was our first podcast oh we were so young is if uh pineapple belongs on pizza and we both were a resounding yes well we both grew up again growing up it’s so it’s such a regional thing because we didn’t grow up with you know what i’d call like a pizza culture you know for us pizza is you go to costco you get a 700 calorie slice of floppy wet cheese yeah and that’s pizza so we didn’t have these like you know brooklyn pizzerias at our disposal we had cpk yeah so we didn’t you know grow up with any of these sort of rules so for us it was like pineapple on pizza you know why not i think you have to come at it from an angle first of why not as opposed to why yeah agreed i love pineapple and pizza and there’s tons of different regionalities that put you know where you go to sweden there’s actually a there’s a persian armenian swedish pizzeria in glendale god bless the greater los angeles area um and the dude makes a pizza that is very common in sweden that has banana and shrimp on it and curry and curry powder that’s right banana shrimp and curry powder yeah yeah it’s okay and does it do i personally enjoy it no it’s kind of gross if you break it down but it’s one of those things that you know based on where you grew up it’s just if there’s no initial rules coming into it saying you shouldn’t do this then you kind of just do it and people you know enjoy those flavors it gets propagated and passed on and i think that’s one of the coolest things about pizza what would you not ever put on a pizza [Music] kiwis kiwis that’s a big thing kiwis very specifically we both went to kiwis kiwi mang i think any sort of tropical fruit other than pineapple but what makes pineapple special on that i don’t know i think it’s because i was conditioned that way so just so you know amanda i i kept kosher in my household for a long time so my pizzas were typically pineapple onion jalapeno so those are my fun toppings and so i think i’m just conditioned to enjoy pineapple on pizza but mango on pizza makes my head hurt the idea of that just seems wrong kiwi seems wrong papaya seems wrong strawberry fruits certain fruits cannot be on pizza i mean it’s funny having that strong reaction to that i lived with two italian roommates in college and their strongest revulsion to anything on pizza was chicken which to me makes a little bit of sense they were also incredibly anti-chicken on pasta because they were just like you have the pasta that’s separate you have the pizza that’s separate then you have your meat course you have your second year and so forth other kinds of meat on pasta but i think they’re like uh you know kind of accent accent meats something that’s like heavily flavored like like a guanchale is you know different yeah spec like those things are adding you know different kind of character and flavor to a pizza but chicken you know which should be like a main protein they were i can’t i cannot tell you how confusing i’m with them like i i don’t i don’t want chicken on my pizza or my pasta but at the same time i can’t really explain why again it’s like conditioning maybe it’s just because it never was and so therefore i feel like it never should be and actually my sister one of my sisters was became an exchange student in germany and um her host family to try to make her feel welcome they decided they were like let’s serve her pizza when she arrives and they served her pizza with pineapple on it and she like immediately called home and was like i want to come home no i wonder where they got that idea i don’t know maybe cpk it could have been but i mean the pineapple and pizza thing it was started in canada but then it gradually moved to australia where it was literally for a long time the number one pizza topping in all of australia which to me as well it’s like literally supplanting more than pepperoni which also most people from italy seem to have a strong revulsion against like american-style pepperoni i don’t love pepperoni now i do now i just like the little cups you know the little cups that pearl when the cups curl i know i’m having a good time with my pepperoni pizza yeah is it a prince prince street i don’t know prince street the new york pizza print prince prince street pizza is that the the spot in it’s like deep brooklyn oh another no i don’t think that defaults see foreign you have to go out there you should get all the way out there you don’t know if you’re gonna get in it’s like a club yeah club in l.a well when um the pizza the pizza from luca and brooklyn yeah that was great came out to la to do a pop-up i mean we stood like in line in the rain to get there before my publicist girlfriend who loved very much snuck us through the line uh and got us in but i mean yeah that’s like kind of part of the experience sometimes that was really good people guys really got brooklyn i mean i i have nothing but respect for despite my pedantic rantings about california style pizza like the you know brooklyn new york thin crust big floppy slice it’s very sturdy on the bottom to me is kind of the like platonic ideal of what a slice of pizza should be but maybe i’m romanticizing that because i’ve grown up in california my whole life and i’ve like you know never had that sort of endemic experience in new york the closest thing i got to that was mulberry’s pizza mulberry’s pizza what’s that oh it’s like new york style pizza in like the streets of beverly hills that’s hilarious if you ever come here just try it and then tell me how you feel about it because that’s the only experience i’ve had with new york style pizza yeah because i’ve never gone i again because i’ve never been able to get it get a reservation but what do you make what do you make of it of moza yeah so moza for me might be pound for pound the best pizza in l.a i i’ve probably said like nine different restaurants when people ask me what the best pizza in la is but i think if i really think long deep and hard about it i think moza is the best pizza in los angeles i think what nancy silverton did with that dough recipe is like some form of alchemy interesting it is it is so sturdy and so it has this delightful just glutinous pull and chew to it but it’s so incredibly thin but it’s not like a good neapolitan pizza right apparently you’re supposed to like eat from the inside out and it’s a little wet on the bottom and that’s like kind of part of it but this takes all that beauty of that thin crust super high heat neapolitan pizza and just makes it like sturdier and apparently if i’ve read some interviews of her talking about her dough recipe and she was like i just broke all the rules that italians said not to do like i you know put milk in it i used you know a an incredibly hard flour and and all this stuff um and so she you know kind of i think she got maybe even like tried yogurt in the original dough recipe that sounds that makes sense add to the protein structure a lot of sense to put yogurt in pizza dough yeah and then i mean also you know she has this uh great relationships with so many local farms in la and so she gets all the best produce so you know they have their um squash blossom pizza uh-huh yeah i i didn’t like it when i went it was didn’t can i tell you why it was too salty and it was too oily i love oily pizzas i do not put the napkin on the pizza to take off the extra oil no it was it was so oily and salty i was like was it the dough that was salty no it wasn’t the dough it was everything on top of it it was like super it was like maybe five years ago to be honest it’s been a while i should give it another shot nancy i’m gonna come by and give it another shot but to be honest my favorite pizza it actually closed it was called sodo it was my favorite pizza in the whole entire world it was gorgeous it had this black leoparding around the crust the sauce was perfectly tangy and just like the most beautiful dollops of cheese on it and i thought that was my favorite pizza by far it was soto that’s neoneopolis so they the oven at soto actually reached over a thousand degrees oh my gosh yeah which again most people would say that’s too hot but again cali pizza coming in cpk opening up that rule book dude is cooking pizzas at 1000 degrees for literally like 45 seconds and pulling him out and it was so incredible and now he’s doing uh like brooklyn style thin crust pizza with superfina yes which is pretty solid they do the cup pepperoni yes that was very good pizza that was very good pizza but who’s doing that oh it’s the chef from soda his name is steve samson he kind of took this neapolitan dough recipe uh that he used to just you know make these personal style pies a thousand degrees and he basically took that same dough and now he’s doing like big ol floppy new york take out pizza um and it’s it’s really incredible it’s a really great hybrid size wait what’s that place called superfina i have a whole list of wrecks for when you get out to la all right i look forward to that 2020 2024 yeah so living in living in new york i mean do you have like a lot of opinions about pizza from your new york experience are you still is your heart still in the scranton white pie oh no no i i i’m pretty like i like all pizza i’m you know i’m half pretty happy whenever there’s pizza in front of me um for a long time so we live in brooklyn heights and for a long time when we first moved there we used to go at least once a week to grimaldi’s i became so touristy like we just couldn’t get in anymore and so and then it and then they had some like they’re like sold and had some lawsuit and so now we just don’t go anymore at all but that was like a great um classic like new york style pizza um yeah we go to roberta’s now and then i mean i we sort of like you know we’re sort of pizza nomads but i don’t do the places where i have to go and like wait outside in line um it just feels like i don’t know kind of takes away from the the joy of of uh like pizza to me she feels like it should be easy like yeah not something you have to like work super hard for but so i i did um when i worked i worked in italy um at at a bakery called uh four no campo de fiori in rome and they actually were known for their their meter pizza do you know the meter meter pizza is that the pizza with the scissors yeah so it’s like yeah you currently scissors it’s like literally like it’s about probably like eight to ten about eight i’d say yeah like eight inches wide and then a meter long and you we we we baked that you mean it’s baked in the bread oven so the idea is that you get these like kind of like long slabs that can go deep into the oven and then be pulled out easily and then snipped um and people would wait in line for that but it was like it was the line moved quickly because you were just like getting it to go and it was it was like a pizza it was they had two kinds of pizza rosso and then pizza bianca but it was not the wait the old forage white pizza it was like pizza bianca was literally just like kind of oil and salt and then the um the rosso which is really good um was just um crushed tomatoes with a little salt um and oil and that would just basically kind of be brushed on the top but i was thinking about it when you were talking about that nancy saying that she breaks all the rules of dough making because i noticed that sometimes when they were making the dough um they would if they had extra egg whites left over um from you know making like pastries and other things they would just toss them into the dough and i don’t know what effect it had but i was always sort of intrigued um that you know because that seemed like an unconventional uh detail that’s really interesting i i do think there is some degree that as americans i mean who grew up with reppin american cheese on pizza reppin pineapple and pizza bbq chicken pizza i think we do tend to kind of fetishize this idea of simplicity in other cultures you know like we read an article on um you know some some website that goes like in naples they never do x to their dough and we kind of take that as truth and then when you’re actually there they’re just like no yeah we got extra egg whites you throw them in the dough whatever you know but i also feel like but they have the discipline to like like not throw dried rosemary on top of their white pizza you know what i mean like they just like they know how to keep it simple um i also think like the flower there and the water there is different and so you get this like the doughs there just are so much more supple than american dough and maybe nancy like uses you know imported flour or something or like a lower gluten flour but um yeah i do think that like the the crusts in italy are just it’s hard to hard to compete with what they you know i guess what they’re able to kind of produce in the in the local environment yeah and then even when you’re importing those ingredients you know to the states or whatever you know the flower is literally like kind of dying like they’re not cooking with live flowers the term i’ve used a lot i’ve heard a lot of pizzas use um and ditto with the cheese and everything we actually went to a local mozzarella producer in california out in the kind of inland empire in farm country and he was talking about these italian pizzerias in l.a and how they want to import everything from italy even though he’s like i have he’s like i’m italian i have been making cheese for 35 years my sons my beautiful italian volleyball playing sons they all make cheese too my cows are less than a mile from where the milk gets siphoned off into the tank and gets put in the cheat and into the you know to the factory to make the mozzarella and he’s like you know what they’re doing in italy it’s it’s nothing different and you’re worsening the product by importing it you know he’s like this the the whole key to why all the italian ingredients are so good is because everything is locally farmed and processed right there uh and so this kind of you know cool moment where he was like i am italy like it’s the knowledge that you’re seeking uh what was his name i didn’t go with really great mozzarella i’m sorry he didn’t go with you yeah and he was he was talking about a pizza restaurant in la that uh tried his mozzarella on their pizza and said like this is much better than the stuff that’s imported but we’re going to import it because then we can say all ingredients imported from italy and it was this kind of like really like i don’t know kind of a shameful metaphor in a way it was wack it was wet that’s whack yeah that’s unfair this kind of adherence to old standards it’s like are you making the best product possible or are you doing this because you think people will pay a premium people will pay a premium people people like foreign they like foreign they like foreign things around here we got to go to italy though i’ve been to italy america you’ve been in italy yeah you’ve never been in new york but you’ve been in italy yeah what when uh like four years ago before i met you it was really fun amanda we’re banking on you taking us on a field trip to scranton and italy the two cultural capitals and have italy be the the uh the kicker that’s really a good idea i i do love the like kind of influences of americanized products especially process we were on an instagram live recently you know how much i love processed food and i’m fascinated by it um but the old forge pizza reminds me of like st louis style pizza oh my god which i think we’ve talked about the best regional pizzas i think st louis style is the worst regional pizza and again i’ve picked fights with too many cities st louis is fine they got their spare ribs they’re chilling they have toasted ravioli i love me toasted ravioli but st louis style pizza is actually on uh unleavened crust oh it’s like a cracker which which to the chosen people like us we call that matzah and we grew up eating matza pizzas on passover yeah and so in st louis they do not live in their crust and they just put processed cheese called provel which is kind of like a white american on it and so to me i don’t know what the best is we got a couple answers in in in the chat right now but the worst for my money is st louis it almost seems like they’re trying to make it bad yeah i think that’s just the st louis aesthetic you’re a bully you’re all right official closing remarks after we just uh ruined st louis everyone from st louis please go give us one stars on uh itunes actually don’t the five stars really help don’t do that it hurts me in the coldest feelings uh but final answers i’m sticking by california as the best does anyone change their mind i’m not changing my mind sorry not happening amanda your heart well i i feel like i haven’t really experienced the california pizza enough i i’m happy with my new york pizza you know i think we’re all we’re all clinging to our region come out to l.a come to we’re going to give you a burbank style pizza no no no no just buy the frozen stuff just buy the fruits because i have hot cheetos and pineapple on it you’re going to love it okay great awesome [Music] all right nicole and amanda we’ve heard what you and i have to say now it’s time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling around there in the twitterverse it’s time for a segment we call opinions [Music] we get how do we get worse at saying that i am better weak over week i know if you’re better and i’m worse than we i have a very melodic voice all right nicole you kick it off okay y v e l underscore 1 says soup is not a meal i do not agree with that soup is definitely a meal have you ever had a french onion soup or clam chowder that’s a meal big old bowl of fud that’s that’s going to leave you feeling like it was a meal big ol bowl of food how do you feel about soup as a meal amanda oh sorry i didn’t know okay so i need to weigh in too i was sort of like yeah i agree with you yeah yeah i’m always like hungry after i have soup but when i thought about like [ __ ] or something like that yeah soup can definitely be a meal you just have to you have to be eating the right soups correct soup means many things i think i i don’t believe soup exists i don’t believe soup exists i think the definition of soup is too broad what that’s have you ever heard like a biological taxonomist talk about how fish don’t exist no what do you mean i what are you talking about fish is too broad to actually be descriptive of any actual category of animal therefore it means nothing same as soup because the difference between a little shooter of gazpacho at a wedding that’s a soup and a giant honking bowl of ramen that’s too broad soup doesn’t exist that’s my answer all right at jade underscore iemrg bubbly is superior to lacroix and that the flavor is stronger no all seltzers taste the same spin drift it’s all a scam except for spin drift which has actual fruit juice in it that i enjoy um i’m with you yeah i actually but i can’t really speak with authority since i’ve only had la foreign not the other one um but i’ve had lots of spin drift it definitely stands out all the other ones taste sort of fake it’s weird they do but apparently yeah the lacroix key lime i’m drinking the key lime it literally tastes like vanilla pie it’s like you fell into a pie factory it’s very odd i’m still gonna drink it though but they use the term naturally essenced on lacroix right but naturally also whenever you see the word natural on ingredients list you pretty it’s like a signal that like it’s definitely far from natural yes yeah there’s a big uh movement to try and ban the word natural from food packaging yeah because 70 of respondents said they associated the word natural with healthier and there’s just no legal requirement to use the term natural although skippy natural peanut butter human boy i love it foster the peyton says popeyes is greater than raisin kings no question have you had raising canes before no um it’s like is it regional in hell yeah so it’s well it’s i think it’s a midwest regional they their whole thing is fried chicken tenders so literally all they have are like chicken tenders fries and like cane sauce and bread yeah texas toast yeah it’s a very uh beige plate they only sell brown food yeah literally beige they’ll give you like a cup of like uh the the most wilted wet coleslaw that’s heating from the fries that’s sitting on otherwise it’s all brown i prefer popeyes to canes all day every day raising canes to me is the most overrated regional fast food restaurant i like it pains me to say that um i i like zaxby’s is great whataburger’s perfectly fine i love me some taco john’s all this stuff but raising canes to me their cane sauce has celery a ton of celery seed in it and i cannot stand the taste of celery celery seed celery root any of that and so that’s on me i’ve stopped putting celery in mirepoix yes you have you and josh are the same i love celery in my mirepoix yeah it’s just like it’s kind of like bitter and i don’t know it just doesn’t it’s like metallic i don’t it doesn’t i feel like it doesn’t add anything positive what do you think it does i i don’t know it just feels wrong it feels wrong to not put celery in my mirepoix break the rules be the cpk of the stu world like sometimes you know i’ll do a little sofrito and put the green pepper in but like no i need i need the celery i need that like weird metallic bitterness throughout my food i was i was making i need the gross give me the bad taste a little bit of bad taste makes the good taste taste gooder why have we talked about the idea of putting poo smell in perfume so much lately yeah dude exactly ambergris is a whale vomit whale vomit yeah whale vomit makes the other things smell more delightful so celery makes the other foods taste better i guess that is like the argument of like drinking a negroni before a meal it’s like this tastes so bad you need to get the taste out of your mouth i love negroni we both love to grow things that’s okay it’s my favorite what’s my favorite drink yeah yeah it’s our favorite too we once had a like a cocktail happy hour out in the parking lot with the whole company and they hired bartenders to come in and nicole and i for some reason had all the ingredients for you guys they’re like we’re going to throw you a party in the parking lot oh you no they got to bounce out of the bounce house amanda this is a nice parking lot in burbank got the best parking lots in all of the northeast san fernando valley trust me but we we made negroni’s in 16 ounce deli cups yeah and just nursed a giant negroni the whole day and it was a lovely day i took a nap in the bounce house i did i was in there for like 20 minutes no one noticed okay you took a nap in the bathroom i did it was really good i didn’t know that where are we at all right we got jade i e m rg grilled cheese dipped in homemade applesauce is so good yeah it’s like a it’s like a dirtbag cheese plate you know you get like the you get the what’s the quince jam embryo you get the membrio you get the manchego that little rustic farm bread this is just that this is the old forge style pizza of an italian cheese plate or a spanish cheese plate and i’m into it me and amanda are shaking our heads like no bro you spend all the time like crisping the grilled cheese to get like the perfect crispiness and then you just make it soggy with apples was applesauce yes homemade applesauce homemade though they specified i’m not opposed to eating those two things at this like at the same meal but like you know you gotta have like the separator on the plate well do you do you dip because i’ve never understood tomato soup and grilled cheese i don’t know very much i did ketchup i’d have my grilled cheese and then have my tomato soup but yeah like otherwise you ruin like much of the pleasure of the grilled cheese it’s not that the flavors don’t go nicely together but it’s like you want that crispy crunch we we’ve talked a lot about my favorite texture in all of food is something crispy that has been ruined with something soggy like like the crust on a chicken parmesan for example like one when i make chicken parm i do like to leave like 30 of the edges uncovered in sauce so you do get some of that crispy but i love like a fried thing soaked in a wet thing that’s my favorite actually regional pizza styles pizza montanara from naples it’s a fried pizza dough then slather and sauce and cheese so they cook it like wet you know like neapolitan wet yeah yeah fresh motts so it’s like fried but wet fried but wet that’s my favorite texture that sounds so appealing you watched me dip a uh cheeto fried jalapeno popper into a caramelized cream egg yolk so should not be surprising amana navid says eggs are amazing and versatile this is a good opinion not controversial group no not controversy not a bad opinion eggs are my favorite thing to eat all the time i eat eggs all the time yeah all right at photo mojo measuring cups and measuring spoons can both measure wet and dry things i deferred to amanda oh yeah i’m just gonna put this one on you because i use some footballs i use them for both but i maybe they’re i don’t know i don’t know i don’t know we’re all exposed as frauds right now yeah um yeah sure i yeah i don’t i don’t actually like i think it’s eight ounces of volume i think that yeah where would this not work in a pound is the same world around that makes it i actually know a pint and a pint in australia is literally 20 ounces well there you go did you know that i do if you get a pint of beer in australia it is not 16 ounces it’s a 20 ounce beer whoa the uh what what i said whoa okay i thought you said a boat because i thought a boat was a unit of beer in australia because if you look up australian beer units there’s like 15 of them and they all mean something different it’s like oh you want you a mini schooner and it’s like i don’t i just like a cup of beer please oh my gosh so i yeah i’d use any measuring cup to measure anything i suppose the biggest issue in measuring anything is we have gone through this recently with trevor who you met yesterday our budding stand-up comedian um he will measure flour for a recipe and test it and then i’ll do it on camera measuring the flour and it always ends up different and i’m like trevor how do you measure your flour are you like packing and scraping are you you know like sifting and then scooping and he goes like i don’t know i measure it how i measure it and i’m like well i need to watch how you do it then because our things have been turning out differently well everyone says you’re supposed to dip and sweet but i actually don’t think that that that does work well you should i always whisk my flour and then i take a spoon and drop it into a measuring cup and then and then scrape it off which yes one could argue is highly tedious um and it is but i i think that you you have better baked goods yeah i mean obviously you should weigh your dry ingredients but i don’t really do that and so many recipes don’t have if i want to yeah you do all your recipes come in with grams on them like who’s nicole trying to watch this okay gristle mcthorne body wow says yeah that’s a name pickled carrots are better than pickled cucumbers that’s not true at all no way no way pickled pickled green beans are the king i feel like those are like they’re like two different it’s like two different species right it’s like carrots are a pickled carrot has like you value for it’s like the sweet the the sweet tangy and then with the uh cucumber it’s like more about the like refreshing tangy so like what i don’t think you can compare them yeah what is the functionality of your pickles sir or madam i don’t gristle mcthorne oh they’re irish mcthornbody yes um yeah it all depends what like the functionary pickles it’s like my like favorite pickle maybe is i mean the vietnamese pickle that we’re familiar with on pawn me like which is you know the daikon and the carrot but the carrots you gotta rub them with the salt to get like really break them down ugh that’s my favorite pickle but yeah again pickles are different different utilities all right at alina dot lin sandwiches are just deconstructed salads in between bread i will say i am fascinated by the idea that you could have a salad and a sandwich that contain the same macronutrients carbs fats proteins the same amount of bread and meat and vegetables yet one is a salad and one is a sandwich as in if you took a you know a tuna salad sandwich and you chopped it up and you toasted the bread into crotons and then you put it on a plate that is suddenly a salad and not a sandwich i am fascinated by the sound the salad sandwich paradox this is some big brain stuff this person definitely went to college this is crazy blown my mind i mean i think it might work for some sandwiches but i’m thinking like what about like the you know ham and butter sandwich that’s the salad who makes the ham and butter salad no the the butter is the dressing the ham is your protein and bread technically i’d argue comes from wheat which is a vegetable i’ll get it no i’m kidding but yeah i do think and especially when people are i mean you know i growing up in orange county so many times you heard the phrase i’m being healthy i’m ordering a salad yeah and then i love looking at like the tgi fridays salad calorie counts and like you know the fried chicken buttermilk salads like 1900 calories fried chicken buttermilk yeah all the words i call them naughty salads okay this is our last opinion marshmallow dan says chocolate cake is better when you shake pepper on it cuts through the richness now do you think they’re saying black pepper or chili pepper because i used to work at a chocolate store and we had this amazing chocolate bar that had guajillo and pasilla chilis ground into it and i would make a cake with that chocolate bar shaved over the top at boyo boy was that a delicious experience so i do agree that like putting like a dash of pepper or like a dash of like cinnamon in a chocolate cake it can definitely cut through the richness but only if it’s those two black pepper no i think i dig peppercorn i said some really great like pink peppercorn especially pink peppercorn and white chocolate yeah of course i’ve done really gorgeous but even bla any peppercorn or um or chili pepper go really well with it i even like a little bit like horseradish and i had a really great dessert at providence don’t know if you’ve heard of it two michelin stars no but the pastry chef did a really cool dish that was uh mustard flour and honey panna cotta and had that slight horseradishiness to cut through mwah yeah i’m into it yeah i think i’m gonna pass on the pepper no one’s forcing you no one’s forcing your hand at the pepper and on that note thank you for listening to a hot dog’s sandwich amanda thank you so much for joining us uh where can we hear more of your food opinions and please plug plug away on the new podcast network or anything you want oh great yeah please subscribe and uh download the genius recipe tapes which is our newest podcast and um and and please come check out food52.com we’re also at food 52 on um on instagram tik tok um all the socials and um yeah come hang with us we’ll do that i am a huge unabashed fan of food 52 i have been reading for years and so honestly this is a huge pleasure having you on thank you so much oh thank you it’s been great hanging out with you likewise and if you want to hear more from us here in the mythical kitchen we’ve got new episodes for you every wednesday if you want to be featured on opinions or like casseroles you can hit us up on twitter at mythicalchef or nhendizada with the hashtag opinioncasserole for more mythical kitchen check us out on youtube we launch new videos every week and of course if you want to share pictures of your dishes hit us up on instagram at mythical kitchen we’ll see you next time amanda i’ll see you next time you’re coming back right yeah come next year yeah come back all right anytime come hang out [Music] thanks for listening to this episode of a hot dog as a sandwich and hey before you go we wanted to remind you that season two of stevie’s podcast best friends back all right is underway this season expands on stevie and negan’s friendship from last season but explores all new themes and ideas yeah episodes will feature an open conversation with a gynecologist who just happens to be nakeen’s sister the ins and outs of eel sex and a deep dive into the most embarrassing items to be found by security at the airport things get crazy this season so be sure to follow best friends back all right on apple podcast spotify or wherever you get your podcast all right i like that me too all right all right all right