Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Speaker:And I'm Mark Scarborough, and together with Bruce as my husband, we have written, oh gosh, over three dozen cookbooks.
Speaker:It's hard to believe our latest is the Instant Air Fryer Bible, but you might want to.
Speaker:Check out the Instant Pot Bible or the Instant Pot Bible Next Generation, or the Instant Pot Bible Copycat recipes.
Speaker:We just really covered the territory with Instant Pots, so you might wanna check out some of those latest books from us.
Speaker:But this episode of our Food and Cooking podcast is not about instant pots or air fryers.
Speaker:Instead, we're gonna continue the discussion that we had from the last episode.
Speaker:Comfort Foods.
Speaker:We're really on this lately.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:We're gonna do, as usual, our one minute cooking tip.
Speaker:Bruce has an interview with Sena Wheeler of Cena Seafoods, one of our entrepreneurial food interviews.
Speaker:I love those.
Speaker:And we're gonna talk about what's making us happy in food this week.
Speaker:So let's get started.
Speaker:Did you know that Liza Minnelli invented comfort food?
Speaker:No, she did not.
Speaker:There's just no way the internet says she did.
Speaker:Oh, well.
Speaker:Oh, good.
Speaker:Well, well, she had an interview time.
Speaker:She had an interview in 1970 where she said, comfort food is anything that makes you go, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.
Speaker:And then lick her lips.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:First of all, we're talking about 1970 Eliza Minelli.
Speaker:So we're talking about cabaret Lizza.
Speaker:Minelli, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean that era of Liza Minelli.
Speaker:Secondly, who was your mother?
Speaker:Judy Garland.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So what was comfort food?
Speaker:Heroin.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cigarettes.
Speaker:Cigarettes.
Speaker:Cigarettes.
Speaker:Cigarettes and aspirin.
Speaker:So, um, and alcohol.
Speaker:Oh, that's great.
Speaker:And third, no, I, Ella's not eating comfort food.
Speaker:The.
Speaker:The thing that's interesting about comfort food is the term it's been around for a long time, and we talked
Speaker:But Bruce and I have been in this food business for long time.
Speaker:We published our first cookbook in 99, but before that, Bruce had published a cookbook, um, couple years before that.
Speaker:And then before that, we were writing for various publications.
Speaker:I was writing for this brand new internet Startup America online.
Speaker:Early nineties.
Speaker:So we were in the food business for a long time and we've seen this word change.
Speaker:And I think this is really an intriguing thing because when we started out there was kind of a notion of comfort
Speaker:I think it was palliative.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think.
Speaker:Food is what you imagined back in the day.
Speaker:So tell the Mfk Fisher story.
Speaker:Well, okay, so Mfk Fisher was a food writer in the pre Julia Child era, right?
Speaker:And her idea of comfort food, she wrote about this, um, way back when milk toast, right?
Speaker:Buttered toast, drowned in warm milk.
Speaker:Oh, season of salt, pepper, and paprika.
Speaker:She claims was her most comforting food.
Speaker:And she said in her words, it soothes the nerves, the muscles on the mind.
Speaker:Oh, all together.
Speaker:It comes right back up afterwards.
Speaker:Well, it makes me think.
Speaker:Just what you would feed to old people sitting in highchairs and bedridden and, but
Speaker:I think that when we started our career, that old mfk definition, MFK Fisher definition, it was still that tenor.
Speaker:The tenor was soft, mushy.
Speaker:Food.
Speaker:I think
Speaker:healing.
Speaker:I think of broth, I think of oatmeal.
Speaker:I think of Blem.
Speaker:Oatmeal.
Speaker:Pudding.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Chocolate pudding.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And those are things that you eat when you're sick.
Speaker:I mean, mostly I think comfort food was stuff you ate when you were sick.
Speaker:Either it made you feel better physically cuz it was broth or it was warm milk, or it kind of lifted
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think it's when you're sick, when you're ill, yeah, when you're ill, when you're ill, when you're.
Speaker:Fever, that's when you get served.
Speaker:Comfort food.
Speaker:My mother served me, oh god, here we go.
Speaker:She would make a sheet pan of strawberry jello outta the box.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:So strawberry jello in a sheet pan.
Speaker:And the reason she made it in a sheet pan is so she could cut it up into cubes.
Speaker:We had the same sick food.
Speaker:And then she would put the cubes in a bowl and pour milk over it.
Speaker:Oh, we had the same sick food.
Speaker:And that was, that was when I was sick as a kid and it was palliative.
Speaker:But I think that by the time that we.
Speaker:Entering the food business.
Speaker:Comfort food was starting to change from, let's say, fever food plague.
Speaker:I like fever food, that's plague food.
Speaker:It was changing from plague food to breakup food to a carton of ice cream that you eat after a breakout.
Speaker:It was palliative food.
Speaker:We started to think of comfort food, not as something that made you feel.
Speaker:Physically where that's all you could tolerate cuz you were stomachs was that big.
Speaker:This is something that tried to make you feel better emotionally.
Speaker:Before I met Bruce, I had this thing, God don't judge me.
Speaker:I had this thing that when I would break up with a guy, I would always make a huge bubble bath and drink.
Speaker:Don't make fun of me.
Speaker:Taylor, New York State sparkling wine.
Speaker:Hey, it's what I could afford.
Speaker:So I would sit in a bubble bath and drink a bottle of Taylor, New York State sparkling wine, and it was my
Speaker:See, that's, that's emotional.
Speaker:Not.
Speaker:Physical,
Speaker:I would eat a pound of to champagne truffles.
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker:well, you're such a fancy Manhattanite
Speaker:I, I would go to Rockefeller Center to the to torture store, and I would get a box, a one-pound box of champagne truffles.
Speaker:Of course you would do, and I would walk over to Central Park.
Speaker:Of course you would do.
Speaker:And sit and eat them all.
Speaker:Well, you know what I would do?
Speaker:I would go to La Bernan every time I broke up with a boy, I took myself to Laban and it was just fabulous.
Speaker:No, come on.
Speaker:I mean, You have lived clearly a fancier New York life than I lived, but still I think that that's a huge change.
Speaker:I think the change from when we were kids, comfort food was what you fed someone sick to comfort food is what is
Speaker:It is in the definition of comfort food.
Speaker:The problem is that comfort you get emotionally is fleeting.
Speaker:It is, and it leads to.
Speaker:More uncomfortable emotions.
Speaker:It leads to self-hatred.
Speaker:It is, it leads to depression, it leads to sadness.
Speaker:And you notice that, um, one of the things that happened, and I think that this is really important to note, one
Speaker:What has happened is that those things were relatively healthy.
Speaker:I don't know that milk, bread and milk is healthy, but still broth and all.
Speaker:When comfort food shifted over to being emotionally savvy, it became full of.
Speaker:And sugar and carbs.
Speaker:Not that bread and milk isn't carbs, but the, the, the way that it tramped is mac and cheese is this thing of like, boom, hit hard,
Speaker:And that's the shift.
Speaker:And I don't know.
Speaker:Exactly how that shift came about.
Speaker:But I can tell you we've watched that shift over the course of our career and now comfort food has come to mean, you know, ice cream.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It has things that are not physically good for you.
Speaker:I mean, listen, I love ice cream, but you know what I mean.
Speaker:It's not physically good for you.
Speaker:Well, there is a scientific.
Speaker:Backing to that though, I mean even the National Academy of Sciences, they did a report which claims
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And high in sugar.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Both of those substances are things your body processes into instant energy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right into It's things your body can use to make it feel better quickly to get it to do stuff.
Speaker:Now, long-term.
Speaker:But short term.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So you're, yeah.
Speaker:See, that's it though.
Speaker:When we were kids, do you remember this?
Speaker:I used to think, oh, I just couldn't wait to get my tonsils out.
Speaker:I never did get my tonsils out.
Speaker:They, they rotted out of my throat.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:From so many infections.
Speaker:It's lovely.
Speaker:But I never got my tonsils out.
Speaker:Uh, they came out on their own.
Speaker:But the reason I, I wanted to get my tonsils out.
Speaker:All it ever was was you got to sit in the hospital eating ice cream for two days.
Speaker:Do you remember this?
Speaker:And you would go have your tonsillectomy back in the day when you would spend like three days in the
Speaker:And now it's just like, oh my God, this must be just like now you do it at home, dream come true.
Speaker:But that was weird because when you're sick to get ice cream or in the hospital, you're not
Speaker:But you know what I mean?
Speaker:To get ice cream was weird.
Speaker:Now, It seems like that's the go-to with comfort food, and you wouldn't ever say, I'm going to eat, ah, I don't know, bone broth.
Speaker:I'm gonna drink a cup of warm bone broth as comfort food.
Speaker:I at least said, I don't think so.
Speaker:No, you get fired from your job.
Speaker:You're not gonna have a salad
Speaker:or a lean Turkey sandwich.
Speaker:Oh, yu holy wheat bread.
Speaker:No mayonnaise, mu mustard only.
Speaker:I mean, I I love a lean Turkey sandwich on whole wheated toast with mustard.
Speaker:Come on.
Speaker:That's not what I would define as comfort food.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Because we, we try to find something special.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:We've just had something bad happen.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Or we're in a bad way and we're unhappy, so we want something special.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Back to my Taylor, New York State Sparkling wine, something special.
Speaker:No, it is true.
Speaker:Some people are going to find boiled red lentils.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:A baby with a little bit of butter and a little chutney on them.
Speaker:That should be quite delicious.
Speaker:But that's going back to what we were talking about last time, which was childhood foods.
Speaker:This is more about what is the common conception of childhood foods.
Speaker:That's more going back.
Speaker:Probably the person who finds that Delicious had that in their childhood, probably most
Speaker:Now, if we said that's comfort food, most people would say, Snobs.
Speaker:Well, I found a way to bring some foods from my childhood to this day as comfort food that are
Speaker:Coffee egg creams to be incredibly comfy.
Speaker:I'm not gonna comment.
Speaker:You hate them.
Speaker:I know, I know.
Speaker:So for those of you who don't know, milk with chocolate syrup or coffee syrup or vanilla syrup.
Speaker:And then you add seltzer and you stir it and it gets a little head on it.
Speaker:And so it's basically sweet milk, bubbly milk with, so that's an egg cream and.
Speaker:I love a good egg cream when I'm feeling down, but I make it with skin milk and it still makes me happy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, I, I, there's, there's a way to have better comfort food, and that's a whole different discussion in
Speaker:I find it revelatory that the shift in comfort food has gone.
Speaker:Physical ailments to emotional ailments and that that shift has also caused a shift in the kind of food that is eaten.
Speaker:People don't necessarily have the giant hit of limb meringue pie when they're, when they have the flu or when they have bronchitis.
Speaker:That, that sounds great.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Liking that idea.
Speaker:So next time I'm sick, I want you to make the lemon meringue.
Speaker:Get,
Speaker:okay, fine, I'll do it.
Speaker:But I don't think that's what most people see.
Speaker:No, they save the lemon rang pie for a breakup.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Yeah, that is totally it.
Speaker:I mean, I sang for a long time in New York City when we lived there with a classical corr and.
Speaker:There was the lead tenor.
Speaker:I was a tenor.
Speaker:And there, I know you can't hear it anymore.
Speaker:There's too much bourbon that's gone down this throat.
Speaker:But back then I was a tenor.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:Once upon, now I was an alto, but that's older.
Speaker:Doesn't matter.
Speaker:Anyway, I was a tenor in this choir, and there was this guy that endlessly had boy problems
Speaker:And every week he would show up at rehearsal with one of those hostess fried pies.
Speaker:As a, as a salve?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Not.
Speaker:one, he had a number of them and a twinki and somewhere
Speaker:over the years that I sang with that choral, he, let's say he outgrew his tuxedo several times over
Speaker:and that is the problem with comfort food being high in fat.
Speaker:Yeah, high in sugar.
Speaker:It is, it's, and especially if you're an unhappy person who relies on that all the time, if you happiness.
Speaker:So especially if it's.
Speaker:Idiot emotional.
Speaker:An immediate emotional reward.
Speaker:So what can you do to avoid the trap of all this?
Speaker:Finding comfort in food that in the end is only gonna make you feel bad.
Speaker:I think we have to say that for the next episode of the podcast.
Speaker:So I think that's what we're gonna come back to.
Speaker:We're gonna come back to what can you do in order to find different kinds of comfort in comfort food?
Speaker:And I think that's a.
Speaker:Place for us to bring what is our three part now serious comfort food to a close and move on to the next
Speaker:But before we get there, let me say that we have a newsletter.
Speaker:If you would like to be a part of that newsletter, you can go to.
Speaker:Our website, Bruce and mark.com.
Speaker:You can drop down on that page and there's a way to sign up for the newsletter there.
Speaker:I have made it so that I can't see your email.
Speaker:I can't sell it.
Speaker:MailChimp can't sell it.
Speaker:It's locked.
Speaker:So don't worry about getting anything from me except.
Speaker:That newsletter and you can always cancel it any time.
Speaker:And let me just say, there are no ads in that newsletter, so here you go.
Speaker:It's just about our life.
Speaker:It's recipes.
Speaker:It's not about this podcast.
Speaker:Oh, sometimes a little, but it's recipes maybe that come up in this podcast, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:You can find it there on bruce mark.com.
Speaker:Okay, up next, as is typical are one minute cooking tip
Speaker:breadcrumbs are not the only thing you can use to coat chicken breasts, pork chops, or
Speaker:Next time you're in the store and you reach for,
Speaker:I think this is a huge revelation for me.
Speaker:It was.
Speaker:It was when it happened.
Speaker:So you were in a store, you're reaching for the can of breadcrumbs, Italian season breadcrumbs, plain breadcrumbs, panco
Speaker:Potato chips, pretzels, corn chips, bagel chips.
Speaker:Throw those in your food processor and grind them up.
Speaker:All of those things, ground up, pretzels, ground up.
Speaker:Onion flavored potato chips.
Speaker:Ground up Fritos, make amazing coatings, ground pretzels, rest with.
Speaker:Uh, Hickory smoked almonds ground together is a really great coating, and a lot of people might already know this, but
Speaker:Pork rind, chicharone
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:What we used to eat out of the bag.
Speaker:Greasy in the sound.
Speaker:A lot of the keto recipes use those as coating instead of breadcrumbs, but there are, as Bruce says, a million things.
Speaker:There's, you can use popcorn for god's sake.
Speaker:You can't write.
Speaker:As a coating for, uh, uh, things that go in an air fryer.
Speaker:When we kind of came across as, when Bruce started testing this stuff for our air fryer books, I was blown away.
Speaker:I had no idea that you could coat a, I don't know, cod filet in ground up potato chips.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So vinegar put it in the air fryer.
Speaker:It was quite delicious.
Speaker:Let me,
Speaker:Up next Bruce's interview with Sena Wheeler of Sena Seafoods.
Speaker:This is one of our food entrepreneurial interviews.
Speaker:They catch Alaskan seafood and ship it, drop ship it fast.
Speaker:Trust us, we know fast across the country.
Speaker:Today I'm speaking with Sena Wheeler, the owner of Sena Sea, a company that fishes for processes
Speaker:Welcome Sena hi, how are you?
Speaker:I'm good, thanks.
Speaker:So your company only catches and sells wild seafood and not farm.
Speaker:I'm gonna ask you why is that better?
Speaker:Um, I have four main reasons, and number one is it just tastes the best.
Speaker:The wild salmon is just taste and texture is miles ahead of farm salmon.
Speaker:Um, the other reason.
Speaker:Is for your health.
Speaker:It's gone out and eaten wild, so it's gonna be just better for your health in terms of omega-3 S and all the nutrition.
Speaker:The third reason is for the salmon and for the salmon is actually as wild fishermen, we work with the
Speaker:Fish four, always conserving enough stocks for the next year.
Speaker:So it's really that maintenance and maintaining the fish stocks also farmed harms the wild stocks,
Speaker:So the more fish farming, the harder it is on the wild stocks that are also trying to be in those rivers and waterways.
Speaker:The fourth reason.
Speaker:Is for the planet.
Speaker:If you think about it, we have to protect those rivers and streams, oceans and waterways.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So that the wild fish can just do what they do.
Speaker:They can go out, they can eat wild nutrients, what they're supposed to do, and then they return and we get to feed our people.
Speaker:And we can only do that when we.
Speaker:Protecting those wild spaces.
Speaker:So really focusing on wild instead of going, well, maybe there's another way to do it.
Speaker:Really protects those areas.
Speaker:Yours as a family business goes back generations of wild fishing.
Speaker:Tell me a story.
Speaker:I used to fish on my dad's boat in the summer, so when I was in high school and college.
Speaker:And I can say when you're just running, the dolphins come out and they will play in the wake and they'll play in the bow.
Speaker:And you might see that on a pleasure boat and think, oh, that's so sweet.
Speaker:But it's incredible when they're doing it.
Speaker:Like on a fishing boat, you're out there in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker:It looks like you could be on Mars.
Speaker:You can't see land in any direction, and you have this wildlife coming and playing.
Speaker:It's really.
Speaker:Was it your grandfather or your great-grandfather that started fishing?
Speaker:Well, it goes back farther than we know.
Speaker:My grandfather immigrated from Norway where he learned to fish from his father, who learned from his father, and they were a
Speaker:So when my grandfather immigrated and a couple of his brothers came, every brother that came over, they would get a boat.
Speaker:Uh, that's what they did.
Speaker:And your current boat, who's, who's captain in that boat?
Speaker:My husband is the last fisherman in the family right now.
Speaker:But my, my grandpa fished and then my dad, uh, like my husband, he was the son-in-law.
Speaker:So it was my mom's dad who fished.
Speaker:And then she married my dad and he started fishing.
Speaker:He went one time just to make a little money.
Speaker:He'd never do it again and fish the rest of his life.
Speaker:And then my husband came in similar.
Speaker:He's the son-in-law.
Speaker:It's also sometimes I say being the fisherman wife is what really is through our lineage, which is interesting.
Speaker:Well, as a fisherman's wife, you're sort of running the business on land and your husband's alca, so all your fish is caught in Alaska,
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So my husband fishes in Alaska, and we have other fishermen too that we know and trust.
Speaker:Um, he, he's a very great networker, so we know a lot of the fishermen up there.
Speaker:We have a processing plant in Alaska.
Speaker:The, it doesn't all go to Cy, but the cream of the crop goat, so the best fish, the top quality goes to Cy,
Speaker:I have tried your fish and it truly is premium.
Speaker:When I opened the box, I found center cut, perfectly trimmed filets of sockeye halibut.
Speaker:The fish cooked perfectly, held together on the grill was the texture and the quality of the fish
Speaker:Or is it just the fish itself or is there some other family secret to producing such amazing seafood?
Speaker:It's all of the above, honestly.
Speaker:For one, we're starting with the very best fish.
Speaker:So for fish, you want cold water.
Speaker:The colder the better.
Speaker:We fish out of Alaska where it's very cold and very pure.
Speaker:So, um, the salmon is Copper River salmon, which has its own.
Speaker:Name about it because that river is very swift, it's very cold, it's very long.
Speaker:And so those fish, that species of fish that always return to the Copper River, they put on more omega three s to make that journey.
Speaker:And so those fish have higher Omega three s, which makes it taste better and better for you.
Speaker:But even with our halibut and our black cod, those are all Alaskan, and the colder the water, the better you're starting with.
Speaker:So we start with really premium quality fish, and then everything we do from the moment it's brought
Speaker:So the clock starts ticking the minute it's brought out of the water and the handling on board.
Speaker:So it shouldn't be flopping around on the deck, building up lactic acid and getting warm.
Speaker:It needs to be immediately chilled and bled, things like that.
Speaker:From the moment it comes on the boat, everything we're doing is preserving that premium quality, and that's the way we think of it.
Speaker:So we ate those beautiful center cut filets.
Speaker:What happens to the rest of the fish?
Speaker:Well, we actually utilize quite a bit of the fish.
Speaker:You'll see those center cuts.
Speaker:And then we have tail portions that you'll see sometimes, and we sell irregular cuts.
Speaker:So the, the little bit smaller pieces, um, we sell a little bit of a discount.
Speaker:We have irregular cuts, but then we also take every little piece that's not even a portion, a little piece.
Speaker:And we smoke them and we have spreads.
Speaker:So we have these smoked salmon spreads.
Speaker:So we're using the little trim pieces for that.
Speaker:And then we go so far as to, um, scrape the backbone with a spoon.
Speaker:And this is, it's an Alaskan technique for people that live in Alaska.
Speaker:They call it scrape meat.
Speaker:And it's known to be the best.
Speaker:It's just this little bit of meat that holds onto the backbone.
Speaker:And then you scrape it with a spoon.
Speaker:You get one spoonful on one side, flip it over and you get one more spoon.
Speaker:But you do that over and over, you're gonna get a lot of scrape meat.
Speaker:So we also utilize that scrape meat, and you can buy a one pound package and basically you, it's like burger.
Speaker:You can make patties with it or do fish tacos or anything.
Speaker:And then we also take a whole bunch of that and we have it.
Speaker:Patty's made.
Speaker:So we really do focus on using every little bit of that because we're, we're using a wild, natural resource.
Speaker:So we feel like we need to use every bit.
Speaker:I've never heard that expression.
Speaker:Scrape meat.
Speaker:Is that how it's labeled?
Speaker:We called it chop.
Speaker:If you live in Alaska you call it scrape meat.
Speaker:But I'm thinking on the package, you know, I'm going, ah, that doesn't sound a little appetizing.
Speaker:One, one of my favorite fish is black cod and.
Speaker:Does the fish differ depending upon where it's caught?
Speaker:And why are you labeling it?
Speaker:Sable fish,
Speaker:two parts.
Speaker:It does matter where it's caught.
Speaker:So black cod is like a lot of fish, but it's affected by the temperature of the water.
Speaker:So there's, um, black cod in down in California, or it's caught more south.
Speaker:And it's going to be a lesser quality, more of a mushy texture, and the farther up north it's caught in those cold waters.
Speaker:It's gonna be a better black cod.
Speaker:I do feel like we have a really good black cod and people do talk about it.
Speaker:That's just where it's caught up in the cold waters.
Speaker:And then two parts, calling it sablefish is really interesting because it's more often called Table on the East.
Speaker:But also growing up on the West coast as fishermen, we call it black cod, and that's
Speaker:But when you're selling it, the F D A mandates that you call it stable fish.
Speaker:And so basically it is called black cod when you're catching it.
Speaker:And it's called stable fish when you're selling it.
Speaker:And so since we do both, it's very confusing and I call it sable fish and then put in princess black cod because
Speaker:Hey, Sena, when someone's buying fish either directly from you or at a local fish market, What are some of the label
Speaker:I'd say number one, look for wild.
Speaker:And it always is labeled wild, even in restaurants these days.
Speaker:Um, on a menu, I always look of course, and I'm just, I'm not, I don't like to be a pill or ask.
Speaker:The waiter or anything because, um, that's not real well received, but I look at the menu and
Speaker:And they're gonna write the word wild on the menu.
Speaker:So look for the word wild above.
Speaker:Anything else?
Speaker:Okay, wild.
Speaker:Um, don't get caught up in natural and sustainable.
Speaker:Those terms are, are sort of, um, loose.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:I've seen, you know, plenty of sustainably caught farm fish and, you know, I don't know what that means.
Speaker:Um, so I would say wild above all.
Speaker:And then also watch for Alaskan.
Speaker:Uh, you know, like I said, all of our fish is Alaskan.
Speaker:There's no.
Speaker:Farm fish allowed in Alaska at all, which is why the rivers are still pure.
Speaker:There hasn't been, um, adulterated by these other species or the diseases.
Speaker:So look for Alaskan too.
Speaker:And then the watch out, there's a few code words for farmed, and one big one is Atlantic.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So if you see Atlantic salmon, there's no commercially caught.
Speaker:Atlantic salmon these days anymore.
Speaker:So Atlantic salmon is code word for farm salmon.
Speaker:If fish is labeled sushi quality and some of yours is, is that licensed eat it raw or would you suggest it always be cook?
Speaker:There's different regulations for different fish, but for salmon, It has to be frozen to be sushi
Speaker:It means it's frozen.
Speaker:There are FDA charts, that's time and temperature.
Speaker:So either really cold or really long, or both to kill any potential parasite, like you shouldn't eat it raw.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:If it hasn't been frozen.
Speaker:And so sushi quality means frozen to a point that would kill parasites.
Speaker:And so once it's frozen to that point, I would say if you like it, eat it raw.
Speaker:Go ahead.
Speaker:Sena, you have three kids.
Speaker:Did they ever go through an, I don't like fish phase?
Speaker:I mean, how, how is a fishing family in a fishing business, would you have dealt with that?
Speaker:And do you have tips or suggestions for people who do go through that whose kids won't eat fish or their spouses won't eat fish?
Speaker:Yeah, actually I do, I talk about a lot and we have, we host a lot and we have friends and we
Speaker:And um, I have a lot of parents almost, you know, they kind of.
Speaker:Kind of secretly tell me, you know, oh, oh, I kid, just don't be offended.
Speaker:But they don't eat fish.
Speaker:Listen, I, I don't go there at all.
Speaker:What I do is, um, I just serve with positivity and I try not to upfront it with a lot of, oh, you're
Speaker:So I would say as parents, leave it totally open.
Speaker:Don't start with, oh gosh, we're having fish tonight.
Speaker:Oh, I, I made you chick.
Speaker:You know, something else.
Speaker:Um, stay really positive.
Speaker:My mom's biggest thing growing up was never be apologetic when you're serving food.
Speaker:I put it out with a smile, and when I know that I've got a tough kid, I kind of lean into it.
Speaker:You know, it's a challenge for me.
Speaker:And so I will start by, um, every, our, our fisher happens to have a picture of my husband, um, fishing.
Speaker:And so I, I show them, look at the fish, here's the fisherman.
Speaker:And Richie caught this, and I talk about being out on the boat, so I.
Speaker:Do stories about fishing and it kind of gets some interest.
Speaker:Have them kind of watch what we're doing and then I just serve it.
Speaker:Really excited and really happy to have them try.
Speaker:And then here's the other key.
Speaker:I put it on their plate and I serve.
Speaker:Food on everybody's plate.
Speaker:And I tell my kids, you don't have to eat anything you don't want to.
Speaker:Just politely don't, I don't wanna hear about it.
Speaker:It's not dinnertime conversation, what you do and don't like, but find something on the plate that you do want.
Speaker:So I serve the fish to everybody, including, you know, the, the picky eater.
Speaker:And then the key is I don't even look at.
Speaker:I don't mention it again and I don't look, and usually the fact that nobody's looking, they eat it.
Speaker:And especially when people are loving it and talking about it, they're gonna try it.
Speaker:And oftentimes they just covertly eat a little bit and maybe, um, you know, they'll have a little bit more next time.
Speaker:And so I say, You know all about the positivity and if they're not loving this one, don't make it a big deal.
Speaker:It's not like if they don't love salmon one time, it's not that they don't like salmon, just cook it a different way.
Speaker:Put it in fish tacos or do this.
Speaker:There's tons of recipes.
Speaker:Don't, don't do this.
Speaker:Like, oh, they don't like that.
Speaker:If they didn't eat it one time, cook it a lot of different ways.
Speaker:And then my, the other tip I give, and you know, of course this is very self-serving.
Speaker:Try premium fish.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:It could be that you're giving them poor quality fish.
Speaker:So, um, you know, farmed fish, farmed salmon, for example.
Speaker:It, it's, the texture isn't the same and the flavor's not the same.
Speaker:It's a little bit more like gelatinous.
Speaker:And so for texture people it's sometimes more of a problem.
Speaker:So kids, Actually they just like good food is what I, I've found.
Speaker:So try giving them really good fish.
Speaker:I think I agree with that.
Speaker:Really high quality fish.
Speaker:Tastes great.
Speaker:You guys are pulling amazing fish outta the water.
Speaker:Processing it.
Speaker:Shipping it.
Speaker:A Cena Wheeler, owner of Cina Sea.
Speaker:Thanks for spending some time and talk to me about what you guys are doing.
Speaker:Hey, thanks.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:I think that the salmon that we had from Sena Seafood.
Speaker:was Astounding.
Speaker:It was delicious.
Speaker:It was just, it was delicious.
Speaker:Amazing.
Speaker:It was so lean.
Speaker:I, I, I just was kind of blown away by it.
Speaker:I think we must eat a lot of farmed salmon.
Speaker:You and I.
Speaker:Yeah, I think we do.
Speaker:And she's right.
Speaker:Wild salmon.
Speaker:And I didn't know before we spoke that Alaska does not allow, Any fish farming at all.
Speaker:So isn't that kind of amazing?
Speaker:If you go to buy fish and you see the word Alaska on it, you know, it's wild.
Speaker:And the halibut, we also had halibut from them and it was so lean.
Speaker:It was unbelievable.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm glad I cooked the rich fatty coconut curry
Speaker:we did.
Speaker:I asked for a Thai coconut curry with that halibut and.
Speaker:Boy, was it delicious?
Speaker:Okay, our final segment as is traditional.
Speaker:What's making us happy in food this weekend?
Speaker:I'm gonna go first.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:I never go.
Speaker:First go.
Speaker:So my first up is candied jalapenos, and I love these more than I can possibly.
Speaker:I'll tell you so Bruce makes me a big jar of candied jalapenos, and I'm gonna tell you how to do it.
Speaker:You use equal parts by volume, equal parts, distilled white vinegar and sugar.
Speaker:You put that in a big sauce pan, you bring it to a simmer.
Speaker:You slice up fresh jalapenos, take the stems off, slice up fresh jalapenos, drop them in there, let it boil.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:Three, four minutes, something like that.
Speaker:Take it off the stove.
Speaker:Cool it, dump it in a big canning jar you're in and it's so easy.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:You cannot believe how good these are on top of avocado toast
Speaker:and I make big jars.
Speaker:I'll like slice up 30 jalapenos at once.
Speaker:30 big jalapenos.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And use like three cups of sugar and three cups of vinegar.
Speaker:Oh, sometimes I throw a big pinch of salt and also some human seeds in it for a little extra flavor.
Speaker:Oh, it there, uh, again on avocado toast.
Speaker:Unbelievable.
Speaker:What's making me happy in food this week goes with the pickled jalapenos and that's smoked whitefish salad.
Speaker:I've probably mentioned it before, but I do love it.
Speaker:Um, I grew up in a family that ate all that appetizing.
Speaker:If you don't know the word appetizing, it's what?
Speaker:Jews call smoked fish and bagels and locks and all that stuff.
Speaker:Some of us who called that too, so, okay.
Speaker:Go on.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Well, we called it appetizing and I didn't eat it growing up.
Speaker:Because I didn't eat fish.
Speaker:I just didn't like fish.
Speaker:I wouldn't eat it, and I missed out on 30 years of deliciousness, including smoked whitefish out too.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Beat yourself.
Speaker:Absent more about it.
Speaker:So I buy the whole white fish now at the kosher market, even at Whole Foods, they sell chunks of the white fish.
Speaker:They do take the skin off, take it off the bones, throw it in the food processor with mayonnaise and
Speaker:Put it on a cracker with those pickle sweet jalapenos.
Speaker:It is delicious.
Speaker:Uh, we have a lot of whitefish salad around this house because it is so tasty and such a
Speaker:That's the podcast this week from cooking with Bruce and Mark.
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