Hey, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast Cooking with

Bruce and Martin. And I'm Mark Scarborough. And together with Bruce, we have written three dozen plus wine cookbooks we're about to publish. If you're listening to this in real time, we're about to publish our 37th cookbook called Canning. It's out in just a month or so. If again, in real time, I know podcasts don't exist in real time, but. They exist in a quantum reality where you can hear it at any moment, but okay, in real time, cold canning comes out in about a month. Small batch, no steam or pressure canner. Two or three jars of your favorite things, chili, crisp salsa, matcha jams, conserves preserves, ketchups, mustards, barbecue, sauces, the whole. Oh, where do you see the book? It is really beautiful, isn't it? It's

beautiful.

Okay, so anyway, to get to what we're doing this week, we've got as usual, a one minute cooking tip, which isn't really a tip. We'll explain that. We're gonna talk about food safety recalls, and we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week. So let's get started.

Our one minute cooking tip, or. Rather than a tip. This week, we wanna share some of what you all have shared recently on what's making you happy in food. This week. We ask you to do that at our Facebook group quickly with Bruce and Mark, and you have, mm-hmm. So this past week, somebody said they had nice fat asparagus and lamb chops. Mm-hmm. We love that combination. Mm-hmm. We eat lamb chops at asparagus all the time. We just had that combination,

didn't we? Not, not so long ago. We had asparagus, we found. Uh, asparagus. Where'd we find

it? Our friend Jay, let us pick it. I went to his garden to pick rhubarb, and while I was there he said, help yourself to the asparagus. You know, I didn't know that. Asparagus travels in a garden. So you plant it one place and it starts popping up. There's nothing like fresh asparagus, right? It has a taste that's like, doesn't taste like supermarket. And it's not woody. It's not stringy.

No. No. And you found, we found lamb chops at Costco recently. Love their lamb. So we had lamb chops on the grill with. Asparagus value. Somebody else wrote in and talked about strawberry rhubarb skier. If you don't know, skier is an Icelandic yogurt. It's usually low fat, sometimes it's even fat free. I think Iceland though, they pour cream over the top of it, which returns it to its natural steak. But anyway, somebody found strawberry rhubarb skier. Doesn't that sound delicious? Amazing.

I want to try that. And then the third person that we wanted to call out said they had something called garlic breath pizza. Oh my gosh. And they loved it. I can imagine that would be delicious. Garlic

breath.

Yeah, that would be delicious. Not bread, no breath. That would be delicious to eat. But I don't wanna be around you when you're done.

I don't either. There's a pizza joint near us in rural New England. It's a beautiful place with a beautiful pizza oven and they make various white pizzas, which are heavily garlic. And I have to say that they're too garlic there for me, so I don't know what. Garlic breath pizza would be like, but holy crow, that'd be a lot of garlic. Okay, before we get into the food safety recall that we were gonna talk about, or the many food safety recalls we're gonna talk about, let's say that it would be great if you could subscribe to this podcast and it would be great if you could rate it, give it a five star rating. Can I ask for that? And better yet, if you could write a small review, even like just great podcast or Nice to hear you, something as simple as that. It keeps the podcast fresh in the algorithms because we are. Otherwise unsupported. So thanks for doing that. Alright, let's talk about food safety recalls.

If you paid attention to the news recently, you know that Costco of all places just did a recall of. Topo Chico Mineral water. Oh, one of your favorite things, Topo Chico. I do. And these is the mineral water in glass bottles. And they recalled them because it's due to a possible contamination with pseudomonas, which is a bacteria found naturally in water sources and it can cause an infection, especially if you have a compromised immune system or you know, you're not well in general. Mm-hmm. Also a number of ready-made sandwiches at Costco.

Whoops. Oh wow. There have been a lot of recalls recently and uh, I don't wanna get political about this, but as you know, it's become tougher to find those recalls because some of the information has been deleted from US government websites. We're talking about US food recalls, by the way, here. Not just Canadian or European, but these are us. And as you know, that information has become tougher to source. You can find it. Easily, and there are ways to do this from manufacturers, if you will do a keyword search for food recall or just recall. If you do that in Instagram or in TikTok, you can find manufacturers who are announcing their recalls

and recalls aren't. Only because of contamination from bad things. You know, there are nine major food allergens that are identified by the FDA in the US and these are, you know, things we all eat and drink every day. Eggs, milk, wheat, fish, soybeans. The sesame seeds, tree nuts, peanuts, shellfish. And if any of these allergens are in a food, it must be labeled on the package. And sometimes if that labeling isn't done, a recall is done.

Yeah. And it's not always labeled. And let me say that we've learned this over the years from writing cookbooks, for example. Um. Oats are not always labeled that they may contain wheat protein. Now you might say, what does wheat protein have to do with oats? The problem is that most oats are processed in facilities that also process wheat, and there is some residual wheat. Dust, no matter how hard they clean the facility. So they're not required to say this on a packaging of oats that there may be wheat residue. And if you have an issue with wheat, and particularly if you have celiac, then you want to make sure you get certified free oats and these are made then. In a facility, they're processed in a facility that assures you that they do not process wheat in any way along with those oats. Just look for those labels if that's important to you.

So here's what happens. Food recalls come out and people food out. So we wanna give you, you know, four steps to take. If you see there's been a food recall. Okay? And the first one is. Don't panic. No, don't panic, right? I mean, there's no need to panic. Most food recalls are really not associated with foodborne illnesses, right to begin with, right? As we said, it could be as simple as a food allergen and many recalls are issued just because there's a potential. For the food to be contaminated

and also don't panic because if you are an otherwise healthy person, you will most likely survive a foodborne illness outbreak. Now, there are some foodborne illnesses that in fact require hospitalization, but by and large, even a campylobacter or a salmonella contamination. You will most likely not guaranteed, but most likely survive. You will be very sick.

I was, I had such an infection. You did from foodborne illness you did a couple of months ago and yes, I was sick for about 12 days, but I recovered and I'm feeling fabulous and nothing terrible happened to me. We never found out what it. Was that I ate, we made an

assumption.

Yeah,

there's, we made an assumption. It was Ca Bruce said, camp Loob backer. If you listen to our podcast, you probably know that. And we think it was from, uh, chicken. And we think he was skinning chicken thighs and did not properly wash his hands before he did other things.

Like put my fingers in my mouth. Yeah.

But somehow taste something with his finger or something. And he ended up with kelo backer, uh, infection. Now we don't know that. We can't trace the pathogen. No. And he was very sick. But he did recover. And mostly you will recover. But let's say if you're immunocompromised, if you have a specific sensitivity, if you're older or younger, in fact some foodborne illnesses will require a hospitalization, particularly salmonella and Camp Lo back.

Yeah. 'cause they need to IV you and get fluids into you. Mostly it's 'cause of dehydration and that's, that's the most dangerous part

of those space. And you know why you're dehydrated, moving up. I wanna talk about enough food prod podcast, but you know why you're dehydrated. Okay? So, uh, the, uh, a second step for this is don't panic and don't eat the food. If you know that something has been recalled, just don't, I don't know why people do this. I don't know why they go ahead and eat what's there, but you, we have a rule in our house, and I think you should institute this rule in your house, and that is, if it seems. Like, you shouldn't eat it. Don't eat it. So, you know, I mean, if the eggs had been in the refrigerator a month and the date says they're still good, but you would even question, oh gosh, should I, I mean, these have been in my refrige a long time. Don't. Or if you open a jar of. I don't know. If you open a jar of jams and you see something weird white or wiggle.

Or wiggling,

oh gosh, no, don't eat that. But you see something even white on it and you think, well, maybe that was, I'm not making this up. Maybe that was marshmallow cream. I don't know. You were, one night you were desperate for food and you were dipping a spoon from marshmallow cream into jam. I don't know. But let's just say, and then

into insulin, let's just say

you were doing that. Even if you see that and you're not quite sure what that is, please throw it out. Yeah, please don't wait. We just do not. Eat anything that we're unsure of. And I, I will say that we are a little crazy about this. We throw out leftovers probably before we should throw them out, but we don't let them sit more than five days. Well,

the six days the USDA says. Four days and we push it. And I know some people go a week, some even go two weeks with leftovers and they don't get sick. And that's okay. But we are not gonna do that. And some people feel they just don't wanna waste it. And because we did say in step one that, you know, you're probably not gonna get terribly sick, or maybe it was just the potential for contamination. You know what, why take the risk. That's what we say. I don't feed it to your pets either. No, no, no. They may even have a more sensitive system than you do. Pets can get food poisoning too. That's so don't think that just because it's not fit for you to eat means it's fit for your dog to eat.

Yeah. No, don't, yeah. No. My favorite construction. Yeah. In English language. Yeah. No. Yeah. No, don't, uh, may I need that so much. I can't believe I even said it. Yeah, no, don't just feed them to your pets. And again, just always. Err on the side of safety. For example, I'll tell you something about me. This is a little bit in, in, uh, food safety and food recalls, but it's not exactly something that's recalled. But let's say I come to your house for a picnic and let's say it's a, you know, a an all afternoon into the evening affair. I don't know, it's just come as you are, come whenever you want to, and I arrive at five o'clock. Let's pretend, and I know that that salami has. Been sitting out on a picnic table in the summer since noon when the party started. I can almost guarantee you I won't eat it. Mm-hmm. I can almost guarantee you a pass on it because I just am skied out a little bit and it stops me. And I'm not saying you are being unsafe and I'm not. You might be, but I'm not saying you're being unsafe. And I'm not saying that you're doing anything wrong. I'm just saying that it's my comfort. Yeah. And my comfort is no, thank you. I, I don't, I don't want to eat that.

I feel the same way about. Oysters that are presh. Oh. Oh no. If I show up at a restaurant or a raw bar or your house or a wedding and there's a table of shucked, oysters and clams, no. It has to be shuck to You went to a wedding to order for me. Yeah.

We went to a wedding long, long ago, and it was in the open sunlight that they were standing around shocking oysters, and it was. Beating sun in the summer, beating down in the afternoon on a table full of oysters. And were those oysters sitting on ice? Yes, they were, but the sun was beating down on them. Did I eat those oysters? Mm-hmm. No. It was all about my own safety. So don't panic. Mm-hmm. Don't eat the food and don't open

the food. Yes. Resist the temptation to even. Open it and check it. You know, some, most of the time you can't see, smell or taste the bacteria or viruses that might be causing the illness. Yeah. Let's stop there. So what

do, wait, wait, wait, wait. Sorry. Let's just start there for one second. Mm-hmm. Let's say that Campylobacter, salmonella, and other bad food borne pathogens. If they smell, if you smell something with them in it, it is way beyond the moment when it can make you sick, the moment when it can make you sick. These things are odorless and tasteless. Mm-hmm. So remember you can't see, smell or taste them. And if you can, it is way beyond the moment when you should eat this stuff.

Yeah. And if you do open it because you just. Had to see, and then you were smart enough to decide, well, oh no, I'm not going to eat it. Make sure you wash your hands thoroughly. You gotta wash 'em with soap and warm water. 20 seconds. You want to get everything off of it and throw it away. Do not look. What are you looking at it for?

Yeah. I don't know. And let me tell a story about this for a second. Okay. So almost every summer, Bruce makes kimchi from scratch. And in fact, his kimchi recipe is. In our new book, cold Canning for a small batch of it, and it's refrigerator kimchi, so it isn't, uh, fermented at room temperature, which means it's a really safe way to ferment it. It takes longer to get the kimchi to get a bit of funkiness and spiciness going with it. The cabbage. It does, but you can do it in the fridge. Um, you know, Korean mothers are gonna say, no, you bury it, bury it in the backyard, or put it out on your patio all winter long. Korean mothers are gonna say no, but you can do it. Okay, so. Bruce made a container, a big container, a big batch of kimchi. I love it so much. And you know, by August we opened this container outta the back refrigerator, and it smelled horrific. It did not just smell funky. It smelled rotty. Oh, it was bad. It was like the

septic system backed up, smell. It was really gross. He

threw it out. And I told this story to a Korean friend later and he chastised us for throwing it. He said, oh, that's just it. It's gotten really, really good by this one. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It, I'm sorry. It, it steps over my boundaries. Mm-hmm. And I cannot do it. So again, don't panic. Don't eat the food, don't open it if you know how to recall. And.

Check the recall notice to find out what you should do with the food. We said throw it away, which is what we like to do. But when a manufacturer recalls a food product, they often give instructions on what you should do with it. Usually they'll indicate one or two things. They'll say, return to the store where you bought it for a refund. Right. Or they will tell you to throw it away and throw it away properly so animals cannot eat it.

Yeah. Especially as we have encroached on habitats in suburban developments and exurb developments. We all know that there are coyotes around there. Are foxes around and my brother lives in an expert outside of St. Louis. There are foxes in his neighborhood. There are coyotes that run around his neighborhood because of course it's way out from St. Louis. And he, if you live in a place like that, or if you live in a place as we do way out in the New England woods, you really cannot just. Toss food scraps out into the woods. Mm-hmm. 'cause animals will eat it and they'll get sick. And you don't wanna kill off your foxes because they're taking care of your rodents. Mm-hmm. And your room, all those kind of problems. Mm-hmm. So you wanna keep those animals healthy as you can, and you don't want them to be accustomed to the fact that there's food around your house.

Oh no. Then they'll be back all the time. Don't throw

them out. And I think that we should add here, so we've got our four steps. Don't panic, don't. Eat the food, don't open the food and check the recall notice to find out what to do with it. But I should also add here that we are big advocates of returning food to a store, not even if it's necessarily recalled.

Mm-hmm. We

have returned much food to stores. We have con back with the receipt and ask for the money back, and I think this is really important. So you open a jar of something and you think, wow. Gosh, that seems funky or that seems discolored or open a jar of pickles and it's suddenly got this brown liquid on top of it. And you think I'm, uh, uh, should I eat that? The answer is no. And furthermore, take your receipt and take it back to the store. That's right. And take it. Stores aint no, this is not good.

And you know, a lot of stores even have policies where they will double your money back if you are unsatisfied. I know our local supermarket, they're always having announcements as I'm shopping, is like we are committed to your happiness. And if you're not satisfied with any food that you get home, we. We'll double your money back. And I have brought back meat that I have opened packages and it has smelled bad. I have brought back bottles of oil that I've opened and they've been rancid right? Stores are very happy to give you your money back and keep you as a happy customer.

There's a, a high end grocery store about 30 minutes away from us. It's a small gourmet grocery store. And years ago, Bruce bought. Lamb shanks from the store and he got them home and he opened the package and it smelled rotted. It smelled horrible. And yes, lamb does have a strong smell, but this wasn't just the lamb smell. This seemed more so he packaged it back up and brought, you know, I mean, they're expensive lamb shanks. And he brought it back to the store and the guy's like. I'm happy to butcher, said, I'm happy to give you your money back, but I don't want those, like, take those away. You didn't need to bring those in and prove it to me. He's like, I'll just give you your money back. Uh, I don't need to see those. Now, I will admit that Bruce is an, um, what a repeat customer. Mm-hmm. At this store, a known quantity at this store. So he's not just some rando coming in and returning the packaged meat, but still, nonetheless, the guy's like, don't bring that into my store. What am I supposed to? Do with it. Just throw it out and I'll give you your money back.

If you run into this problem, my suggestion is call the store first. Ask to speak to the butcher counter or the, the fish counter and tell them you were just in, you just bought this. It is not good. What would they like you to do? You want your money back, but should you bring it back or not?

And this seems like a real, sorry, I was stepping on you, but this seems like a really big problem in high-end grocery stores with cheese anymore because, uh, a lot of them. Cut cheese into wedges or into pieces, and then put it under cellophane. Right. And sell just the wedge because nobody wants to buy the whole wheel. Yep. Or the whole piece. And um, unfortunately, what happens is that cheese goes rancid over a while, and if you open that package and you detect the slightest amount of ammonia. In the odor, seal it back up and ask for your money back because that cheese is not to be eaten. Mm-hmm. And remember the softer the cheese, the faster the mold goes through the cheese. Yes. You can cut. Mold off of hard, hard cheeses like really aged parmigiano riano, or really aged o asiago. You can cut down, oh, I don't know, about half an inch or a centimeter below the mold and take it off and throw it out. But anything softer than that, remember those little, uh, what do they call the mycelium networks? The spores, the mycelium networks are, yeah, are going down through the cheese fast. So if it's breed, if it's a soft cheese, no. If it has the slightest ammonia, odor, no.

Throw it out. Get your money back. That is the key. We are going to emphasize that again and again. Follow those steps. Don't panic, don't eat the food. Don't even open the food. Check how the manufacturer wants you to dispose of it. Get your money back if the food is bad.

Just to remind you, we have a new book coming up this summer called Canning. It is a small batch canning book in which you can make two or three jars of this or that. Everything from mustards to barbecue sauces to jams, to preserves to, I don't know, chutney, conserves, sauerkrauts, SALs salsa, matcha chili crisp saut dessert toppings. Dessert top. Yeah, dessert top. And even get this because we expanded the thing to mean anything that can be set back and preserved so you can make your own Triple Sec. Mm-hmm. And your own sham board, your own raspberry liqueur. We've got 425 recipes in this giant. Super colorful, well photographed book. Check out cold canning for this summer to put away the things that will make you happy in your future freezer for a few months and not make enough to survive the apocalypse. Okay, our final segment of the podcast, as is usual, what's making us happy in food this week

For me, it's vegan chili. For those of you who don't know, mark runs a number of book groups and teaches lit classes and libraries all over the Berkshires and Western Connecticut. I do, and he's been running the Norfolk Library Book group for 15 years.

Fifth. 15 years as of this week, how many books? 192 books read in 15 years.

We had a celebration at the library and our house for Mark this past weekend to celebrate 15 years. 192 books. Mm. And we had 30 people here, and I made three kinds of chili and one of them was the vegan. Chili, the ultimate vegan chili from our Instant Pot Bible, and it is so delicious. It is. So

it is what I ate. Bruce had a beef chili and a Turkey chili and a vegan chili, and I ate a vegan chili. And I can't tell you how many people participate in this group. This group now meets solely online. It went online with the pandemic and then it picked up an international clientele for me. Mm-hmm. The UK and Ireland and Europe and even Macau. And it. Picked up this big international clientele of met readers. And so there were some people there from far away even who came mm-hmm. To this celebration. And, um, I, so many people stopped me and said, are you a vegan? I was like, no, no, I'm not. But I really liked the vegan chili

and as good as the vegan chili was though, there was leftover of that. What there wasn't leftover was my Beef Mole chili. The beef mole was inhaled and decimate

another recipe from one of our books, right?

Yeah. That was from our Great American slow cooker book, and I diced up five pounds of chuck and it was three kinds of dried chilies and cinnamon and sesame seeds and raisins and cocoa, and I didn't have any of that. I had vegan. I went

leaving it and I didn't go vegan for the dessert because what's made me happening through this week is one of the two cakes that Bruce made. It's a sheet cake from our book sheet cakes and slab pies. Yes, we do make our own recipes, and this was a snicker doodle cake. So imagine a cake in a sheet pan that tastes like a snicker doodle. Cookie. Mm. Then this is not in the book. This is Bruce's now what Renovation? Mm-hmm. Of the snickerdoodle cake. Mm-hmm. So there's a snickerdoodle cake, and then he covered it with lemon curd and then made a marshmallowy Italian meringue to spread on top of that and browned

it with a blood George.

Yeah, so it's like a meringue with lemon curd on this snicker doodle tasting cake. It was amazing. It was amazing. People took home plates of it, made it, it was sheep cake after all. It made a billion pieces. People took home plates of it. They kept saying, oh, this is my breakfast. So it also made me very happy. Okay, that's the podcast this week. Thank you for being with us. We appreciate your support in this very crowded podcast landscape, and we appreciate your taking the time to be with us

and every week. We tell you what's making us happy in food. So please go to our Facebook group Cooking with Bruce and Mark. Tell us there what's making you happy in food this week. 'cause we want to know and when really interesting and sound really fabulous. We are talking about it here on cooking with Bruce and Mark.