Hey there. Welcome to “Apron’s Off,” the show where we stop cooking and just hang out with each other because maybe we like each other? We are paid to like each other. That’s true, that’s true. Which is the best way to have friends- just pay for them. That’s true. That’s right and today we’re going to be talking about the dishes that made us absolutely fall in love with cooking. I love love. That’s good. But yeah, let’s show off the dishes that have inspired us to be where we are today and kind of just tell the people what it’s all about. Yeah. You wanna start off, Lily? Yeah! All right, tell us what you got. This is my dish and- Wow! Did you expect it to be this beautiful? I want to like… the crowd in Oprah. It’s an appetizer! Wow. Yeah. So this is based off of crying tiger sauce but it’s a crudo dish and the first restaurant I worked at after I decided not to do finance anymore was called The Raymond in Pasadena. Mm-hmm. And this is Chef Johnny. Shout out! He taught me this dish. It has palm sugar and Thai chilies and you basically take a mortar and pestle and just mash it up. Mm-hmm. And then you add in cilantro, and Thai basil- Beautiful. …and lots of fish sauce and lime juice. And it was really the dish that taught me like the balance of all those sour, salty, umami- Oh! That’s very cool. Yeah, so if you wanna try it… So this is after culinary school? This is before culinary school so that’s also the thing- Oh! She was working at a restaurant before. Yeah, be was like the first chef that believed… I didn’t know what a salamander was, I didn’t know how to hold my knife right. A salamander’s like a lizard except it exists both in water and on land. Yeah. And its skin is porous and actually absorbs water so it doesn’t need to drink. Also, you can put stuff in it and it burns really easily. That’s right. The sally. And, yeah. Yeah. The sally. Well I have my fork ready. Okay, let’s try this dish! Okay, what is the fish that you use? Red snapper. And that was like a whole other thing, learning how to filet fish. I ruined so many fish, but yeah, I mean, I would have to like try this, season it, and adjust like 20 times and then I would send it back to Chef Johnny and he’d be like, it needs this and this… Yeah, flick it around! Um, and it just… I learned a lot from it. That’s so good! That is so good! That’s so good. It reminds me of a lot of like Vietnamese dishes that I… those were also some dishes when I like moved up to little Saigon, they like really taught me like, oh, balance of sweet, of acid, of herb, of spice. All that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Damn that’s good! That’s gorgeous. Yeah. It’s like a super simple dish, but I feel like cooking for me… it redefined what cooking meant ’cause like- Totally. …I used to think it was following a recipe and hoping it turns out good. Yeah. But it’s really just like understanding the ingredients and like know how they change every single day. Like I asked for a recipe for this and he was like, he laughed at me. And he was like, “no, this is not a recipe, you literally just have to taste your food and just adjust as needed.” That’s an incredible thing. Like one day a Thai chili will be spicier than the other day. Yeah. One day your cilantro will be a little bit greener tasting. Yep. So I think it’s really interesting that he taught you that- Yep. …skill because it’s a really really good skill to have- Yeah. …when you’re in a kitchen. And that follows my general theorem, that cooking isn’t about recipes or proportions or ingredients or time. It’s about vibes, man! It is though! Cooking’s just vibes. You gotta vibe and flow through it. Mm-hmm. With sauces like this, it’s all based on vibes. I’ll say that. Hmm. But like, cutting a fish properly is something that like- Technique, yeah. Technique that you need or else… imagine if the fish was like like this much thicker, it would’ve changed the dish. Yeah, it would be a different dish. It would’ve. Are you guys gonna like eat that? Or like, can I keep eating? You can eat it! Keep eating it! Well no, I don’t wanna be… but you know when you go out to like a fancy restaurant with your friends and there’s like, you know, a really like high-ticket app, it’s like a $34 like crab thing- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. …and they all take one bite- This is for sure $34. …and they’re all talking and you’re just kinda like standing there with your fork- Especially crudo dishes, there’s always like five pieces. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you’re like, “I just want the whole thing to myself.” But there’s four people. Do I have anything in my teeth? Yeah, you want me get it? Yeah. Oh, you- Can I get it? Wait, no. Pull your bottom lip down. Well then you can’t even see. Wait, this fork was in my mouth. Do you consent? Okay. Ah! You stabbed me! Hold on, I’m sorry! I didn’t stab her! Oh yep, you got it. Now you have to eat it and swallow it. I’ve just pushed it… there you go. So now it’s on your tongue, you’re good. Yeah. All right, cool. We’re good? We’re good? Yeah. Okay, that was a beautiful dish. Are you ready for mine? Yeah! Let me just push your dish. Yeah, yeah. Oh, Josh, you could just take it, man. Yeah, just eat it like a bowl of cereal. Okay, yup. That’s fine. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s really interesting. Each bite would be like eight bucks at a restaurant. Now you got a lot of green in your teeth! You got a lot of green stuff in your teeth! You think I care?! No, okay. Should I talk about my dish yet? Oh wow. Oh wow, you’re really… Okay. This is my dish that made me fall in love with cooking. Wow! Oh! Pretty! So, this is a… sorry, can you hold that? Thanks. No, like put it down over there. Okay, so this is a with a vanilla cake with vanilla bean Chantilly cream and a plum compote. You do it fancy, huh? Yeah that’s fancy. So, this is when I was 19 years old and I had a job at a chocolate store: my first ever food job. And again, I was working as a sales associate. And then I kind of… there was a research and development kitchen in the back and I basically knocked on the door and I’m like, “hey, can I hang out with you guys? I think this is a really cool job.” And they’re like, “sure, come on in!” And I’m like- I know that feeling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I went in and then I had no idea what I was doing, right? So during my stage, which is where you kind of go in there and you work “for free,” except it wasn’t like necessarily free ’cause I was still getting paid my wage- Oh, that’s good. Kind of? It a little bit sticky. That’s so much of the restaurant industry. Yeah. “I was working for free and was kind of paid a wage.” Yeah. Mm-hmm. So it was a little bit sticky in that situation, but they basically had a little cafe and they had a bakery section, and then at the end of the day, we would take all the things to go or we would donate them, whatever. So they gave me this cake and then they said, “okay, Nicole, you have 45 minutes; do something with it.” So scary. And I said “okay.” So instantly- Wait, at your job they just went full like “Chopped” episode? Yeah. Pretty much. Wow! Yeah, yeah. It was like a slow day, like it was raining outside, it was like no one was coming in and they’re just like, “we have time to kill, we wanna see what you can do, here you go, have fun.” So scary, yeah. So I’m like, “okay, I guess I’m gonna have fun.” The cool thing about this job was in the back there was this incredible spice rack of spices from all over the world. Like it was the first time I saw things like like Galangal root- Mm-hmm. …or long pepper, or Li Hing powder. So I was completely flabbergasted and they told me to use it and I said, “okay.” So I go in and I didn’t really know how to use a mixer, so I made hand whipped cream by hand. And then I realized that, before that, I learned something about soft peaks. Mmm. So it’s wherever your whipped cream is like nice and soft and it’s not necessarily… I’m sorry I did that, you’re gonna eat this. But like it’s like whenever the whip isn’t like too whipped so it’s like fluffy, it kind of cascades over whatever you’re doing. So I made a soft peak whipped cream and then they had vanilla paste, which I thought was the coolest thing in the world! Mm-hmm. I’m like, “vanilla paste, what the hell?!” So I threw that in there, I threw some salt and some sugar to make it like a really nice balanced topping and then there was like, one of the girls used to go and just go to the farmer’s market during like our breaks. Sorry, I had to lick my finger. Like she would go and she just got like a bunch of plums or like a bunch of stone fruit- Mm-hmm. …and then they told me I could use free reign, whatever’s in the kitchen, so I took like three of her plums. Stole a couple employee Yoplaits from the fridge! I stole some plums, I chopped them up, I added sugar, a little bit of salt again, Chinese five spice powder which I was not comfortable using. Oh! Ooh! I used lemon juice and yuzu juice because they had both of those things and then I just cooked it down into like a compote-y syrup thing and then I presented a plate just like this. Wow! Wow! I presented this exact plate. So if you’d like, Josh we have a- Okay, wow. We have a fresh fork. We have a fresh one. I was trying to get my own fork and then I dropped a thing. So yeah, dig in! This was the dish that made me fall in love with cooking because I told myself, “if I can make the people that I work for happy, then who knows what I can do, and if I have a blank slate, like a little piece of cake, who knows what I can achieve!” Mmm! So this is what made me fall in love with cooking and the artistry that is food. Tastes like Christmas! Really? The plum compote, yeah! The warm slice and plum compote! It’s really nice. Yeah. I feel like I’m learning so much about all of your like thought processes that went into cooking and I’m… now I’m gonna be ashamed of mine. Wait, so did they like it? Yeah! So they all ate it and they were like, “this is great Nicole, good job. See you tomorrow.” Mmm! You got the job. So it was like really nonchalant, but the whole time I was like panicking and sweating and nervous and I was like, “45 minutes? What can I do in 45 minutes?” So I kind of just did like the most simplest thing slash the most creative thing I could think of at that time. I think that’s important though, is to just make food taste good- Yeah. …and not necessarily get too creative with it. Yeah. ‘Cause I think people tried to do that. Yeah. And this is just like really, really good. Yeah, it was good, it was easy, and I had no idea it would turn this beautiful color which it did turn this beautiful color whenever I made it. Yeah. So yeah, just one of my silly little creative ventures, I guess. Josh! What did you- Well, mine’s stupid! I’m scared! No, don’t say that! I didn’t know you were both making good things! Okay, well don’t be stupid. This is unequivocally the dish that made me fall in love with food. I made it when I was 10 years old for the first time. And I remember I was 10 years old. Check this out! This is spiced crepes with seafood risotto filling. This is neither a crepe, nor is that risotto inside. What had happened was, I’d always really loved food and I never had… you’ve heard about my disappointing childhood. Yeah. I never had access to good food and I always dreamed of eating fancy food that I saw other people eat, that I saw people eating on TV, and then when I was 10 years old my dad finally got a full-time job as a special ed teacher in LA County and he was making $50,000 a year! Woo! Yeah! And that was the most money that I could have ever possibly imagined, so I was like, “we are rich now, baby.” Yeah. Still had like a lot of debts, there was like child support, you know, but anyways- Yeah. … the point is, can now afford to go to a grocery store, which is pretty crazy. And so I was 10 years old and I took an interest in cooking and my dad was like, “hey, I’ll do all the other chores if you just want to cook for us every night.” Aw! Aw! And so from the time that I was 10 years old he would give me a budget and there was like a Trader Joe’s right across the street, I would walk over to the Trader Joe’s with like a $20 bill and I would buy up ingredients, and I remember they had this super, super cheap, it was like a mixed seafood bag that they still have there today. Hmm! Yeah. It’s baby squid scallops and shrimp, I believe. Okay. Okay. And back then it was like five bucks for a bag of a pound of this, so I bought that, got some rice, goat cheese- Ooh, fancy! Hmm! …which they had on sale. Very fancy! Because I like… I knew all the terms- Yeah. …and I was a latchkey kid watching Food Network and I just didn’t know how it all went together. We didn’t even have like internet at the time. Yeah. And so, like internet existed, we just didn’t pay for it. I’d have to go to the library to use it, so I didn’t have access to any recipes. And I was like, “I think I know what risotto is, I think it’s creamy rice.” Boom, goat cheese, milk, rice just boiled minute rice. And so I stirred that together and then I just threw the frozen seafood into like a pan and cooked it with some mushrooms. Oh, nice! Okay. Mm-hmm. Terrible combination, but that’s what I did. Very bad. And then I mashed it together into the rice and then I was like, “I feel like I want this to be more burrito-like than it currently is.” So I made what I called spiced crepes, which was Krusteaz pancake mix, it was like 9 cents cheaper than Bisquick- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. …and I thinned it out with a bunch of Frank’s Red Hot hot sauce. Spiced! Mmm! And I made this and I tasted it and I’m like, “I’m a dumb child, I probably think this is good.” But I was immensely proud of it cause it sounded very fancy and then my dad ate it and he loved it- Aw! Aw! And one day, what really made me fall in love with food, what made me understand the power of how like food could lead to self-esteem and pride, and the thing that really kicked off my, you know, decades-long cooking journey after that, was when he had a potluck at his school for all his new teacher friends and he asked me to make a bunch of these- Aw! That’s very cute. .. to give the new teacher friends so he could say “my son made this” and was so proud. And so this is like a genuine very sweet memory to me. And I have not tasted it since I was probably 11 years old. I eventually learned how to cook and stopped making this. But this was a signature dish for a solid like four month period in my life. That’s very, very sweet. I can’t wait to try it. I feel like the idea is there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like a risotto burrito. Yeah. Risottorrito? Sure! Yeah, it’s nice and dense. That’s good. Mm-hmm. This has been faithfully recreated. It’s almost gummy to the touch. Just like how you made it? I think this is before I knew that you had the salt food. There’s no salt! Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. But you do get a little bit of fake maple flavor from the pancakes. Mm-hmm. I’m trying to imagine like a potluck of like tenured teachers all eating this and just going like, “mmm” and my dad’s like, “my son made it!” Let me get a mushroom. So you actually did it? You made… like for the potluck? Yeah, I made like a dozen of these. How many did you make? You made a dozen? I made like a dozen, brought ’em, you know, cut ’em up. Mm-hmm. It’s a starch on a starch. It’s not that bad! But you say “seafood risotto with spiced crepes-” Yeah. That sounds- Buzzwords! Buzzwords! Buzzwords, baby! And 10 year old me was really into that. Yeah. I think you should recreate it and like use the techniques that you know now to just like- Make it better. … make the same dish, but yeah. Nitrogen-frozen squid! Gross! It’s not bad! I understand why this is a stepping stone for you. That’d be really fun, to actually like make this using what I know now. Yeah. Yeah! You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It’d be really good! See you next time in another episode! Yeah! This tastes terrible, to be clear. It’s not that bad! It’s not that bad. I get no salt, lots of soft. Yeah, roast 10-year-old me, Nicole! Yeah, lots of gummy, soft- Uh-huh. … but there’s some yummy pockets. I got a mushroom, unexpected! I got a piece of seafood, very unexpected! Mmm? Mm-hmm. So, it makes sense! Oh! The bell! I was supposed to respond to that. It was the bell! Do you know what that means, guys? Pavlov, you have failed! No! Do you know what that means? What does it mean? It’s time to answer some advice! I mean the rice really turns into a brick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very brick-like. Yeah! Jessica Sayler says, “how do I tell someone who says they hate salt… even on a steak or other meats…” I’m sorry, let me take that back, ’cause there’s no salt in this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a good segue! How do I… Okay, Jessica Sayler says, “how do I tell someone who says they hate salt even on steak or other meats that I have been sneaking it in for years ’cause they are wrong? And no, they don’t have a health reason and, no, I don’t go overboard with the salt. It’s a light pinch with a little MSG.” Uh… Lily? Lily? Let’s start with you. Um, I don’t know how you’re friends with them if you’re related to them, but I would just… I don’t trust them at all. You should probably just not be friends with them. You don’t trust them?! You don’t trust a person- I don’t trust the person that doesn’t like the salt! I don’t trust the person who lies to their friend for a long time, that’s crazy! Okay it’s- Hold on, hold on, hold on, let the 30- No, we’re gonna fight with this! Let the 30 seconds go! Let her- They clearly don’t… they like the salt because they’re eating their cooking. So… Can I respond? Yeah, sure. Go ahead. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. I think what they like is having an empathetic friend! I think if you tell a friend that you don’t like something it’s not your job to convince them, it’s certainly not your job to trick them! You know? Like, do I agree with them? Not necessarily, but sneaking salt to your friend, you don’t know what sort of health issues they may have lying- It said! She- We don’t know! We don’t know! They don’t have health issues! Oh, I’m sorry, you’re a doctor now! Now Lilly’s a doctor! Dr. Lily! It says it! Dr. Lily, tell them what they should be doing with their lives. I don’t know. But they should just not be friends with each other then. I don’t know, maybe- They should eat this. Not a pinch of salt. Yeah, that’s true. What would I do, you ask? Yeah, Nicole! Let me go ahead and answer that. What I would do is just not do it anymore because now it’s known in the public and that friend will probably watch this video. That’s true. And they will look at this name and say, “I am friends with a girl named Jessica Sayler” and then it will just create a lot of problems for you, so if you have like skeletons in your closet that are similar to this- Yeah. …just don’t write them in. No. Just don’t do that. That’s true. Don’t damage your friendships over these videos, please. I think I got that a lot. Don’t do that. We do that enough for ourselves. Mm-hmm. We don’t need you to do that, okay? There’ll be a podcast and they’re like, “my name’s Michael J and I work for a large energy company in Salem, Oregon” and I was like, “do you think that’s gonna keep you anonymous?” Yeah. Yeah. Crazy person! Keep it anon! Maybe her name really isn’t that? That’s true. Maybe. Maybe. But, yeah, your friendship’s kind of over. Sorry about it! Mm-hmm. Well, thank you so much for stopping by! We’ll see you next time! We love you so much! I view all friends as just potential subscribers. That’s shady. Why? 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