Hey, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is

the Podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark. And I'm Mark Scarborough, and together with Bruce, my husband, we have written 37 cookbooks, but 41 books between total between the two of us. Yep. With knitting books and memoirs and all that stuff. A lot. We've published a lot of books with a lot of publishers, but this is our podcast about the major passion in our life, food and cooking, something that has driven us for the past. 26 years, probably longer than that, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, publishing for 26 years. Mm-hmm. But longer than that in our lives, I think we both were known for throwing lavish dinner spreads and doing all that kind of stuff before we started this career.

And I did go to chef school at 18.

And you did? And you did develop recipes in a test kitchen in New York? Mm-hmm. For who? I don't remember. Oh, the food group. Okay. The food group. Well, anyway, this is our current. Podcast about food and cooking. We've got a one minute cooking tip. As usual, we wanna talk about childhood favorites that we still think are better even with all of our current food snobbery. So even though we might be able to now make these things much. Better these days. We still harken back to the old childhood way these things were, which may not be the best way possible, but still call to us dramatically. So we'll talk about that, how we connect to foods from our childhood that, uh, maybe escape our current food snobbery and we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week. So let's get started.

Our one minute cooking tip. When you're dealing with large winter squash, butternut acorn, that kind of squash buttercup. Um, sure. Uh,

what's some others or

kobocha? Kobocha, what's that

blue one? Is that Hubbard? Hdd, blue Hubbard. Squashes. Right. And pumpkins,

yeah. Right. Do not pick out a pairing knife from your drawer. Don't be silly. Get a big knife. You want a large chef knife, at least eight inches or 20 centimeters. And here's a tip for you. First slice off the top and bottom 'cause that will make it easier to stand on a flat surface so you could cut straight down. Don't try and save flesh by cutting only the outside edges. It's okay if a little flesh goes away. What we found is if you microwave that squash for up to two minutes, it will soften the skin to make it even easier. Yes.

Just slightly. Do you don't want it to get really hot 'cause it will actually explode. Mm-hmm. And you don't wanna cook it. No. So you wanna really just do the microwave for maybe up to two minutes. Yep. You can even try one minute and see where that gets you. It'll soften the skin to take it off easier. But as Bruce says, if you take off the top and the bottom, even above. Pumpkin. Then it'll stand flat on a cutting board, and you can slice it down now through the middle and create two halves. Same with an acorn, SWAs, that technique, et cetera. Use

it for everything. You could even cut the top and bottom off an onion or an apple or anything round to make it sit flat on your cutting board so it's easier to cut

as Bruce is sitting here across from you with. Uh, part of his finger cut off from having to slice a tomato that he didn't cut the bottom off of. Mm-hmm. I also

just sharpened my knives.

Mm-hmm. And he cut the tip of his finger off. So here we are. Um, so there you go. There's a good way to deal with, uh, winter squashes that are coming in right now. So before we get to the big central. Part of this episode of our podcast, let me say that it would be great if you could like this podcast, if you could rate it, if you could subscribe to it on whatever platform you're on. This is the way that you can help support our otherwise Unsupported podcast. And if you can write a review, that is the best of all. Even something as simple as nice podcast, it helps us in the analytics. Thanks for doing that. We do see a lot of increasing numbers around this podcast. We really. Thank you for that. Thank you for the people tuning in from Australia and New Zealand and from the UK and Canada. Thanks for all of that. We hope we keep you entertained now by telling you about childhood favorites. Mm-hmm. That we can't improve on despite all of our snobbery now.

Just say, despite all our snobbery now,

despite all our snobbery. Now

Mark, why don't you start, tell me something from your childhood that you love, even though you could probably make better now.

Um, well, I can't make it better now, but I'm s. Certain my chef husband can. So I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and I grew up going to a Dallas institution called L Phoenix. Mm. If you're from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, you probably know l Phoenix. It is sloppy gloppy me. Mexican Tex-Mex Food's not Mexican food, TexMex food. It is greasy and fabulous, and I have to tell you that I still crave El Phoenix meat enchiladas. So much so that a couple nights ago. I asked Bruce to make enchiladas and he was like, oh, you know, he's gonna grind these chilies and do that. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I want El Phoenix meat enchiladas. And so I went out online and found a recipe that replicated El Phoenix's version of this. So this trained chef

that you're married to. Opened cans of enchilada sauce.

I told him he was not allowed to make an enchilada sauce. He had to use canned red enchilada sauce. And rather

than what I would normally do by making my own tortillas, I took store-bought tortillas, dipped them in canned enchilada sauce. You bet. And I layered them up with shredded pre-bagged cheese. Did I find fancy cheese and grated? No, no. I got pre shredded. Free bag cheese. I think you got

Tex-Mex

blend right. Or Mexican blend or something. And then the meat sauce was canned tomato sauce and chili powder. Mm-hmm. And just shredded up meat. And it was, you loved it?

I did. Mm-hmm. We actually served it to people at a dinner party as part of a bigger, larger Tex-Mex, well, Mexican food spread. This was the real Tex-Mex thing. Everything else. Well, well, uh, now I say that there was also. Sloppy chili Cato from El Phoenix there too, so I can't help it. You know what, uh, you can I behind brew, make a better enchilada sauce with dried chilies and all that kind of stuff. Have we written recipes that are far better enchilada sauce than this? Yes, but I knew that the El Phoenix sauce had tomatoes in it. I knew that it was, it was kind of weird and sweet and delicious and I, I can't make it better. Mm-hmm. So, there you go. Bruce made me a, an nail phoenix meat enchilada casserole, and I loved it. Okay. Your turn.

One of my favorite childhood things to eat ever was Bono, Turkish Taffy.

Okay, so I just, as I had to explain Dallas and Elish, you're gonna have to explain Bono, Turkish, Chevy to those people who don't live on the East Coast

Bono. Turkish Taffy was a candy that came in a flat bar, so like imagine the length of a Snickers bar, but only a quarter inch thick. And when you peeled off the foil wrapper, you had this. Basically tongue of hard candy that you crack it and then chew it and it got soft and it came in strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, and my all time favorite banana flavorings. And I used to buy a bag of these and eat these banana. Bono Turkish taffy things, and they were amazing. We tried to improve it or at least recreate it. We did. We wrote a candy book back in the early two thousands and I tried to recreate Bono Turkish taffy, and I came close, but I even this trained chef couldn't recreate that spectacular, hard to soft, cracky chewy now. The banana flavor was easy because fake banana flavor is fake banana flavor. Okay. So which

is stop, stop, stop, stop. Mm-hmm. So fake banana flavor, if you don't know is a thing. Yeah. And it, it bears very little resemblance to bananas, I suppose. Tangentially related to bananas. It's no, it is not case. Like a banana. It's a chemical banana. Yeah. Right. A banana passed through a nuclear waste site. So first of all, if

you imagine. Ripest banana you can possibly imagine that is on this side of fermented. That's getting close. Also slightly flavor. Flavor. And back to the

nuclear waste side.

Go on the flavor of like banana laur used in banana daiquiris. Yes, exactly. There it is. So if you've never had a frozen banana daiquiri, you're coming close to the flavor of Bono, Turkish Daffy, fake banana. And to this day, that banana flavoring is available in every. Asian supermarket I ever go into and I keep it in the house. And I have been known to put a few drops of banana flavoring into my banana breads you have? And people go, oh my goodness, it's so banana.

No it is not. It tastes like fake banana, but okay, love it. Whatever. Um, okay, so I'm gonna say now. Say something from my childhood that my food snobbery cannot improve on. And that is, and don't gross out on me, but that is cherry pie. And when I say cherry pie, I mean canned cherry pie filling. I, I'm serious. Corn

starch thickens. I'm

serious. The gloppy canned. Cherry pie filling is what I grew up on. And even two weeks ago, I pulled a bag of sour cherries outta the freezer, sour cherries that Bruce had picked, and he had pitted them and he had frozen them. And I made a sour cherry pie. I legitimately made a. A filling. I made my own crust for it and I was vaguely disappointed. You were the only one. I know. Everybody else liked it. It was the best pie I had had in years. Where is the snotty sloppy gel me bit between the chairs, the lured red color. You might as

well just buy those Drake's hand pies and eat them. They're so gross. I like the hostess

fruit pies. Oh yeah, cherries too. Yeah. Just canned cherry pie filling. I grew up on it and I can't help it. It it, it, I was disappointed in this homemade pie I made because I thought it's not right. It needs the canned cherry pie filling. Mm-hmm. My, my mother would doctor canned cherry pie filling with, uh, a quarter teaspoon of almond extract. She would stir into it and that would doctor it

what was with our parents and doctoring things. My mother and grandmother to this day still. Dr. Jarred Gefilte fish. Oh, well

that's disturbing. And

they think as long as you reco it with fresh carrots, it tastes like homemade. It tastes like snot. It tastes like

slimy snot. And they always

talk about, Ooh, I made gefilte fish. I bought it, but I doctored it. Oh,

okay. So it's your turn. What's something that from your childhood,

you know, at this point, if you've listened to this podcast enough that I love. Hamburgers, like I love them more than anything you do. And I know how to make an amazing hamburger, but I grew up eating White Castle and there is nothing like a White Castle. I'm sorry. No matter how now it is true, it doest taste anything like a hamburger I make now. No, but I cannot. It does like anything except grease. You can't, you can't recreate that. It's like, so if you don't know White Castle. They're flat little square patties that maybe they're an ounce of meat and they have five holes, and then like, it's the number five on a dice. Mm-hmm. And they're cooked on a big, flat top griddle with lots of onions and oil.

What? Wait, what? We just learned that name of that pattern of the five on a dice? Yeah, it's a Quin C pattern. There you go. Something like that. Yeah. Didn't you

learn on this podcast? Okay. And then they put the buns on top. So the buns steam with the grease, onion steam coming through the holes of the patties, even as a. Kid, I would eat five or six of them. Oh, my dad would go buy a giant sack. Okay. So to this day, no matter how good a hamburger I can make, I nothing will beat a White Castle. So I'm

gonna say that I did not grow up with White Castle. I, I keep wanting to tell this. So I did not grow up with White Castle, and Bruce was appalled when I was in New York, living in New York with him that I had never been to a White Castle. So we went. Out to the A b, C outlet, which was in the Bronx. But if you don't know, A B, C is a very high-end furniture and design store in Manhattan. But they had an outlet back in the day in the Bronx where you could get stuff pretty on, pretty good bargains. Mm-hmm. So we drove out to the outlet and he's like, oh, there's a White Castle right out there in the Bronx by it. We're gonna stop at the White Castle and eat White Castle because you've never had it. So we got to A, B, C, and I want to say that. I couldn't get to the bathroom fast enough. It was like an emergency. It was, wow, that is a greasy mess. And that, no comment. But I, I was lucky to make it then back to our apartment in Manhattan without soiling the car that, wow, that was really gross. Okay, so here's something from me that I just can't improve on, and I have tried and tried and tried to improve on it, and I know that every Southerner is about to kill me. So kill me. I don't care. I cannot improve on canned biscuits. Oh, they're so

easy.

Popping, fresh. Just, I'm sorry. I can't do it. I, I grew up with them outta the can from my mother. My, did my grandmother make homemade biscuits? Yes, she did. Well, your

grandmother was a baker. I, exactly. That was her job. She

made homemade biscuits with butter and shortening and buttermilk and, yes. They were fine, but my

fine, I'm sure they were

spectacular, but my mother made canned biscuits. You know, the kind, you crack on the edge of the counter and open the can. And to this day when I make homemade biscuits, I still am vaguely dissatisfied with it because I think mm, well, you know, I mean, it is. I could do just as well with a canned biscuit. Okay. The canned

biscuits is like comparing a donut to a bagel.

I, I mean,

it's no's.

I just,

I can tell you

that what I'm hankering for, to drag through my egg yolk. Mm-hmm. Is that stupid canned biscuit. That's easy. I

could get some of those. But your mom also did really interesting things with them. You know, she would

Oh,

fill them and stuff them and bake them and, and cover them.

Okay. I don't like that. None of that. I like. She doctored them and she did. Um, I'm sure my mother had all kinds of weird things. My mother wa thought she was a very creative cook and she was actually a very terrible cook. So, uh, uh, sometime I'll tell you about liver and bananas together. Together. At last. At last, yes. Um, anyway, but canned biscuit, because are just something that I, I can't explain it to you. It's like right outta my childhood. And yes. Have I followed Natalie Dre's perfect recipe for biscuits and am I. Studied all these recipes for how to make the perfect southern biscuit. Yes, I have. And I always make them, and I always think nice. Then they're amazing. I should have bought a can 'cause it's what I wanted. So anyway. Okay, there's mine. Do you have another one?

I do. This is something my grandmother served as a side dish and you could get it also in kosher delis.

Oh no, I know where this is going.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Noodle gel. Oh, so the word gel just means pudding. And so noodle pudding. Now it means different things to different families. A lot of families. Cool cake, right? Okay. Cake

pudding. Yeah. Okay, go on. So

in a lot of families it included cottage cheese and sour cream, and it became a dairy thing. But no, my grandmother served it with meat meals. So it would be a side dish to pot roast or a side dish to meatballs. So what it

is, mind to wait before you start what it is, I just want you to remember, this is a. Side dish. This is not a dessert. This is sort of

your Jewish version of snicker salad, I think. Mm-hmm. I think it is. So you boil egg noodles and then you drain them and you put them in a big bowl and let them cool a bit. And here's what you're gonna mix into them. You're gonna mix in some oil. Some sugar, some beaten eggs, and a drained can of fruit cocktail. Oh God. And you're gonna pack that into a baking dish pack

being the important word, and you're gonna

bake it until the top is browned and the noodles get crunchy and dark. And you're gonna slice it into squares and you're going to eat it alongside meatloaf pot roast or pot roast or sweet and sour meatballs. Oh, sweet, sweet and sour. So you can just basically have dessert all night long. Um, and kosher delis do make it as good as my grandmother did, and I actually have never made it. I don't want to make it because I want to get it from the deli. I want it to be just the way my grandmother made it. And

when you're talking about that, you're talking about really delis meat. Kosher meat restaurants. Yes. Koko Becausecause. They're not gonna put any dairy

in it, right? Kosher meat restaurants have it. Kosher meat delis. Um, like Ben's Deli in mm-hmm. Bay Terrace in Queens. Or the Kosher or the Kosher Not, yep. These wonderful places. Yeah.

Um, I will tell you that my goyish heart rises up and strikes back at you because I just can't deal with the noodle gel. I love Delicate in food. I love delis like crazy, but I just can't go down that road, down the Noodle Kugel road. No, and I'll never ask you to go down the Snicker salad, bro, so mm-hmm. That's a whole thing. If you don't know what Snicker salad is. Google it and you'll find out. Um, okay, so those are things that we can improve on from our childhood despite our current food professionalism and snobbery, we bet you have your list too. So

please go to our Facebook group cooking with Bruce and Mark, and share some of your childhood favorites, things that you love that you would never think of improving on, even if you know how.

Okay. That is the standard pitch now, the standard end. What's making us happy in food this week, and I'm gonna start, okay, so remember I was talking about that El Phoenix casserole and having people over, and I mentioned that chili queso. Well, it was really good, and in fact, all of these Yankees who I live amongst in New England, were undone by said chili queso. Now I wanna tell you that Bruce made it. Not with Velv Vita. No, no, no. I Instead he made a bechamel, which is apparently the real A Phoenix recipe, and then you melt. But the beel with

half and half, not

milk. Okay. A bechamel with half and half, and then you melt cheese into it. And then yes, a can of rotel tomatoes and chilies. If you don't know what that is, we probably can't be friends, but a can of rotel and it was just absolutely fantastic. We sat out. On our outdoor dining porch outside last night, it was a cool fall night, and I watched all these Yankees get this poor chi in queso over guacamole on their plates, so they don't know really what to do. They're just Yankees, but still, and nonetheless, I loved it and it made me very, very happy.

What made me happy is what I served for dessert. After all of that, it was good. I had never made a banfi pie before. If you don't know what that is, bananas and toffee equals banoffee. It's a British thing, and it is usually done in a graham cracker crust, but it can be a sweet pie crust too. I use graham cracker crust and then you make a Dolce dce. You can burn sugar and add milk and make a whole pudding, or you could cheat like I did, which is took cans of sweet and condensed milk. Boiled them in water for three hours, which in

the sealed can, if you don't know this, yep. In

the sealed can. And you have to maintain the water two inches above the can, the whole time, less the can explodes, and then you let it cool at least four hours before opening it, and you have this. Beautifully dark caramelized Dolce dce, and I spread that in the bottom of the crust. Top that with sliced bananas covered with whipped cream and shaved chocolate.

It was good. Let's just say that chili queso and enchilada casserole and banfi pie. You look at the number of guests you have and you count the number of bathrooms you have, and you go from there. So, okay, that's the podcast for this week. We hope you've enjoyed the podcast. We certainly thank you for being on this journey with us. We thank you for taking the time to let. Us into your podcast landscape, as they say in the industry. So thanks for that and thanks for being here with us.

And besides our Facebook group cooking with Bruce and Mark, we have a TikTok channel cooking with Bruce and Mark. So please go there and check out all the videos of both of us cooking things for each other and making all sorts of jams and chutneys and things out of our new book called Canning. And even though there is a world of AI out there and you don't know what videos are real and aren't. Always are always real. No AI here on cooking with Bruce and Mark.