Cal and Christa DeMercurio
Join us for an enlightening discussion on food, health, and sustainability in this latest podcast episode. Special guest Chef Sadie Krueger shares her culinary insights and supports local farmers, “The best thing we can do is shop local, organic, know your farmers, know where your food’s coming from.”
- Empowering youth through culinary education, building a life skill
- Insights on locally sourced vs. commercial eggs and their nutritional value
- Remembering French Chef Michel Guérard, his ratatouille known Confit Byaldi, and nouvelle cuisine
- Innovative, healthier dessert options like chocolate avocado pudding
- The impact of processed food additives on health and longevity
- Learn the acronym of NEWSTART
- The importance of using fresh, unprocessed foods for a healthier lifestyle
- For food and wine adventures, visit Greystone in St. Helena (Napa, CA):
https://www.ciafoodies.com/cia-greystone/
🔉Listen ⤵️
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Timestamp Overview
00:00 Discussing different types and seasonal eggplant varieties.
06:28 Altered DNA in raw foods raises concerns.
07:53 California’s laws on animal living conditions.
12:46 Teaching, learning, and valuable information for students.
14:14 Passion for teaching culinary skills for life.
16:49 Food industry causes unsuspected addictiveness, affecting health.
22:42 Spa cuisine originated from French gastronomy in 1970s.
24:07 Research healthier foods for a balanced diet.
28:00 Impossible Burger, meatless, organics, plastic consumption concerns.
30:50 Society evolving, returning to healthier eating habits.
33:51 Ginger and chilis are good for health.
37:59 Chef and guest discuss wine and food.
42:04 Salmon with wine creates enjoyable meal break.
45:50 Treating seafood with utmost care and creativity.
46:43 Value enjoying life and cherishing relationships.
Transcript
Christa:
Hey, food fans. Welcome to cooking like a pro with Chef Cal and me Mrs Chef, his wife, Christa DeMercurio. We’re dishing out culinary intuition, insights, and imagination to spice up your meals and make cooking more fun. On today’s episode, my Chef husband has a very special guest. Our friend, Chef Sadie Krueger, a local culinary educator teaching our younger generation basic cooking skills and healthy eating. Let’s dig in. Today’s episode was broadcast and recorded live on AM FM radio.
Cal:
Welcome, welcome, welcome to today’s show. Welcome to cooking like a pro. You have found us at KCNR at 1460 am, your talk radio here in the north station, and also 96.5. And as always, you can call in. If you’d like to call in. This is Chef Cal. I’m here with a special guest who I will introduce in just a moment. Or you can go to cookinglikeapropodcast.net, and you can type it in there again, cookinglikeapropropodcast.net.
Cal:
so welcome. I am so excited today. I’m not excited because my wife’s not here. Okay? So I want to just clear that up and she’ll hear that because she’ll turn this into a podcast tomorrow. But anyway, I just have a dear friend here that I’ve had, I want to say I’ve known for decades, but she still looks really young and I don’t. But anyway, a real dear friend, Sadie Kruger. Kruger, yes. In relation to Mike Kruger, our weatherman.
Cal:
You know, he’s got his podcast, and my wife listens to it every single morning to get the weather. I usually don’t get up that early, so I’ll catch whatever else I catch. But welcome, Sadie. I’m glad you’re here.
Sadie:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Cal:
All right. And Sadie’s got some exciting things she wants to talk about on what she’s doing now. But she’s literally like myself, kind of. One thing, I guess, about the profession is it’s kind of nomadic. You know, you kind of people roam, whether the front of the house servers or back to the house cooks. They kind of roam from restaurant to restaurant. So we’ve kind of been in geographically, probably every little nook and cranny in redding. But Sadie’s had a great career and is still continuing on that.
Cal:
And we’ll talk about that. But I wanted to talk a little bit, as we have been talking about in the area of produce, and we’ve been talking about different types and styles of produce. And I want to talk a little bit about that I actually want to give you some great information on eggplant. I love eggplant. And eggplant is still. It’s still in season. It runs between usually July and October, with the best eggplant usually being right about now in August. So we’ll talk a little bit about that.
Cal:
And this thing that’s been concerning me lately, and it’s about the produce that we’re getting and the quality of it. So whether it’s something that’s wrapped in plastic and we’re getting that through there now, we know there’s plastic in our water, plastic in the air, but then there’s plastic covering our food. And then also some of the things that I like to. I guess I like to use one word and it’s processed, you know, because that kind of encompasses everything. And now you’re a healthy eater, so.
Sadie:
Yes, and, yeah, so you hit on a big subject there. You know, the plastic, the petroleum leaching into the products, let alone, you know, the quality that you might be getting.
Cal:
Yeah. And the way that they’re changing it. And I mean, I. The more I look into this, the scarier it gets. You know, we’re talking about things that, oh, well, you know what? Here’s really what happened. And I don’t want to really talk about the depth of this for too long because I know this is a cooking show, but this is still food related. And this was really where the tobacco industry, at the end of cigarettes switched to that same addictive thought process of doing that to our food.
Sadie:
Oh, yes.
Cal:
And because of that, things like sodium enhancement, high fructose corn syrup, these things that have been modified and processed to really make food just not nearly as good as it was.
Sadie:
And the food colorings that cause adhd and all the other issues that they cause. But, yeah, we need to get the dyes out of the food, the roundup out of the food.
Cal:
Yeah, soil, you know, and that was something. That’s something else that I was thinking about and heard when I was researching was that the quality of the soil that we’re using. So literally, the stuff that’s growing. Got it. The stuff that’s growing is starting out, you know, with 1ft in the grave.
Sadie:
So to speak, because, yeah, it doesn’t have the same nutritional value. And spinach is like a thousand times less nutritional than it has been over time. So we definitely need some organic soil and to add those minerals into our.
Cal:
Soil, you know, it’s really about trying to rescue what we purposely screwed up, you know, and that’s what? And it frustrates me. It pisses me off. Yeah. But it’s something that needs to be corrected. And we can correct that. We can correct that by going to farmers markets. We can correct that by shopping at places, maybe wherever things are, first off, not wrapped in plastic. Maybe they’re in bins 100%.
Sadie:
And, you know, I think that’s a passion of both of ours. You know, when we would do Chef at the market and promote our local farmers. But that is the best thing we can do is shop local, organic, know your farmers, know where your food’s coming from.
Cal:
Exactly. And same thing with like a monger, like a fish monger or beef monger. You know, the expert. The monger is that expert in that. Go down and talk to the, these people. Talk to them down there where you’re getting it. Know what? Ask them what they’re growing. Are they growing it in? I mean, is it falling as non gmo and that, you know, genetically modified organism?
Sadie:
I mean, we’re talking about fish, you know, then we’re talking about farm raised, you know, versus our traditional wild caught salmon. So it has a completely different texture, as you know. You know, it’s a lot more fatty. And I. It doesn’t have that same flavor or texture that a wild caught does.
Cal:
But the fact that, again, that they’re just modifying it, that they’re really altering the DNA, correct. Yeah. And when we get these raw foods that are altered, we have to look for, again, ways around that. And I know that shopping things that, again, are in the bin, but even then, we’ve talked about that little tag that’s on there that tells you where it’s from. Now with the Internet, you can just search these things out. When you search them out, you can definitely dig down and say, okay, well, this is, you know, we talked about the hammy cantaloupe the other day, and I, you know, I just finished that today, and that was last week. It was still crisp. Yeah.
Cal:
You want, you want to, if you want to cook cantaloupe, that’s going to be the one that you want to use. But anyway, yeah, we just, we have to be aware and we have to know that, that these foods that we’re putting in our body, the old adage of you are what you eat. It’s vital. And that’s just something that we got to be aware of and ask them. I mean, is this apple coated in wax or the same thing with your cucumbers?
Sadie:
Well, eggs is such a good example, and it’s so different. The egg, when the chicken has been eating the bugs. So it’s getting the omega three s, it’s eating the grass, it’s getting the sunlight. So it’s a completely different egg than you have one that’s been a grain fed, kept in a box with no sunlight. Right?
Cal:
Yeah. Yeah. And now that California, you know, our chickens have, you know, condos, you know, because of the, the laws that have been passed. And our pigs have condos, too. And, you know, and that was one of those things where you see the government’s hand in there and they end up saying, okay, well, chickens need to have more room to run around. Well, you know, I’m, I’m not heartless, but it’s a chicken, okay? It doesn’t have a name. And it’s going to end up in Kentucky fried chicken someday or wherever it’s going to end. It’s grown as a commodity in the same way that a tomato is.
Cal:
But you do get, but if you.
Sadie:
Buy it local from the local farms, you get one that has had a better quality of life and it has a higher nutritional value, in my opinion, and it tastes better.
Cal:
I can see we’re going to clash on this. All right, folks, you tuned in on the right day? Well, you know, I grew, raised my own chicken, so I get my own eggs. And we’ve talked about that. I mean, the yolks are twice as big as the whites. They’re just luscious. They’re beautiful. You fry one up and you put it on a sandwich and you can actually taste the egg, you know, so that’s just a, you know, it’s a better product all the way around. So, you know, and so many people raise chicken, so we’re, it’s a free food source.
Sadie:
I mean, it costs money to do it, but it’s one of these things that you can ensure the quality.
Cal:
But what were we told on the food pyramid? What have we been told? Since when? How long ago did they start, you know, this campaign against eggs and saying that eggs are bad for you. Butter is bad. Yeah. And there’s so many things.
Sadie:
But which one are they testing? Are they testing, you know, a free range egg or are they testing a commercial one, you know, that’s been grain fed? I mean, you have to look at the studies.
Cal:
Yeah. And it really gets down to what came first, the chicken or the egg. Exactly. So anyway, you’ve got cooking like a pro. We’re going to take a quick, but we appreciate you tuning in. Right. Back in a moment on KCNR at 1460 am when my baby cooks her.
Christa:
Eggplant.
Cal:
She don’t read no book. She’s got a sheo kinda, kinda dirty look. And my baby cooks her eggplant about 19 different ways. Sometimes I just have it wrong with me.
Sadie:
Green vegetable eating machine. They make me strong, make me clever. They’re my favorite cuisine.
Cal:
I’m a mean green vegetable eating machine.
Sadie:
They make me strong, make me clever. They’re my favorite cuisine.
Cal:
All right, vegetables. Yeah. Coming out of our vegetable segment. And actually, I apologize, but next week, if you tune in, we’re going to be talking about eggplant because me and Chef Sadie, who is joining me here at cooking like a pro. Welcome back here on KCNR. This is Chef Cal with my special guest again, Sadie. And Chef Sadie, I like to say Chef Sadie. So, yeah, but, so we’ll talk about eggplant next week because we got kind of caught up in something that’s very passionate for both of us, which is the quality of the food that we’re consuming.
Cal:
But I want to talk about your most recent venture. So tell me about that.
Sadie:
All right. Well, I started working at a high school, California heritage youth build academy, and they wanted to start a culinary program. They currently have a construction program that they’ve had for about twelve years. And it gives kids a hands on experience and it helps them earn their certifications while they’re there and to get a head start in the workforce. And it’s also approved through AmeriCorps, so they get that AmeriCorps experience. So, yeah, so I’ve been there a year and I got the program launched and we’ve got kids that are in the AmeriCorps program and they’re earning their certifications and they’re working in the industry. And it’s exciting.
Cal:
It’s very exciting. It reminds me of something very similar to back when I go into high school. Remember back in the 19 hundreds? Okay. The Rop program. So this was actually in the seventies when I was going through high school and I went to the RoP program. So it was a almost like a journeyman program, something that was teaching them a specific skill, life skill that they’d be able to use back then. Whether it was wood shop, I’m not sure how woodshop’s a life, obviously, life could be. That’s what you do.
Cal:
But auto shop, and then the culinary arts was one of those as well. So this is just really kind of an extension of the thought of teaching our youth how to do something. Like once they boil the water, what do they do with the water?
Sadie:
Right, exactly. So they’ve renamed it. The new acronym is CTE. Certified technical expert education, I guess.
Cal:
Well, very good. Well, I know that I’ve been blessed to have taught in high school as well as college like yourself. And I think that it’s great that people learn the, from the foundational level, from the ground up, like I learned through a friendship. Friendship which teaches you kind of from the ground up. And they need that. They need instructors that can kind of come from that perspective and show them this is really going to be valuable information, cutting things in the right size or just things that, to be honest, when we’ve done this long, it’s easy not to just kind of fly by it, which frustrates me when I watched I food network and my blood pressure goes up because they’re not doing it right. But. So what else is going on with this program then? Is it available to anyone that’s in a high school or how’s it.
Sadie:
No, it’s specific for California heritage youth build academy for that school. But, yeah, it’s students 16 to 24 in need of a high school diploma. So it’s a lot of students, maybe they weren’t fitting in the traditional model, and they want to try this school, and they’re better with their hands. And so that’s where there’s different programs to really cater to the needs of the students and help keep them engaged. And there’s also an adult education option for students that are 25 and older, like a home study in person hybrid. So, yeah, they have it all.
Cal:
Wow. Well, you know, the teaching has always been, of course, something that’s been, you know, dear to me because I had an awful lot of, you know, Chefs that spoke in to my career in the decades past, whether by throwing pans at me or, you know, they, especially when you have the european Chefs, I like to use the word, they’re more colorful. So they’re more colorful. Yeah, that’s code. Okay, just in case you weren’t sure, that is code. But again, that teaching, especially when it comes to food, this is a skilled that they’re going to be able to use for the rest of their life. And I’ve mentioned before, there’s very few things we’re going to do more than sleep, except for eat, so why not do it right?
Sadie:
And it’s a life skill that they can take with them. And as we were talking earlier about the packaging. Right. Of our food, anything processed that’s been shipped, the quality is a lot less than you would get, if you were making at home, quality ingredients. So I believe that this pertains to their health too. So it saves them money, improves their quality of life, and can give them a job, you know, and employment.
Cal:
That’s a great point, you know, Chef, because I never had anyone tell me that something was bad if it was wrapped in plastic. Trust me, that was kind of the last concern. But, you know, then again, food used to be more natural. And as it’s been more developed, again, we use the word processed refined. You know, that. That parmesan cheese that you shake in little, you know, green can. It doesn’t stick together for a reason. Okay.
Cal:
And it isn’t because it’s all cheese, because cheese sticks together. So the idea is how much, you know, I don’t know how much of.
Sadie:
That powder coating, you know, kind of like in a traditional salt, it’s filled with talc. Right. Which is something you’d put in your shoe.
Cal:
Yeah.
Sadie:
So that’s the anti caking agency.
Cal:
Anti caking. It could be. I don’t know, I kind of wonder if it’s just like ground sawdust or something like that. But. But you’re right. So something is doing is. Is causing it to behave a certain way. And part of that behavior is how is just the longevity and the shelf life of it.
Cal:
What can we do to take this food product and just make it last longer?
Sadie:
Well, that’s what they did to flour. Right? So weevils don’t get in it. Nothing gets in it. They bleach it. It’ll last for just about, I don’t know, flour and sugar. Right. And it’s been bleached too. So it’s good to killed anything.
Sadie:
And it doesn’t have that same nutritional value. And it kind of looks like cocaine. Right. It’s highly addictive.
Cal:
They wring it out. Well, again, that’s what the industry has done is it’s caused food to be. To come into this category of being addictiveness that we never really thought about. We think about, you know, when we use the word addiction, we think about a variety of things, whether it’s opioids, whether it’s, you know, just the challenges that go on with the many things from alcohol to any smoking that can be addictive. And now we have to watch out for our food. So, yeah, it’s just something to be aware of. Something that I think that as we pursue trying to be healthier, wanting to live longer, wanting to fulfill whatever our purpose is here, which we all have a purpose, and then an expiration date. So I want to take that purpose and I want to use it to the fullest extent.
Cal:
And getting the healthiest food that I can is a big, huge part of that. So it’s a. That’s going to be an ongoing conversation that’s going to take a while before we get to the end of that one, so. All right. This is Chef Cal here at cooking like a pro. We appreciate you tuning in, Casey, and.
Sadie:
I’m real, but I have a lot to say on that.
Music:
Do you like healthy food or do.
Music:
You like junk food?
Music:
Do you like healthy food or do.
Music:
You like junk food? I like chocolate bars and I like apple pie.
Music:
Oh, this is the night. It’s a beautiful night when the McFarlane or look at the stars, they have stars in their eyes on this lovely.
Cal:
Welcome back. Welcome back to cooking like a pro. This is Chef Cal. You found us on KCNR and we always appreciate you tuning in. That’s always a. It’s just a fun thing to know that we’re hopefully helping out there again. If you have a question and you’d like to. To reach out, you can do that.
Cal:
And you can just leave a question if you’d rather not go on the air. But I. It’s fun to go on the air anyway. 530-605-4567 and one thing I got up this morning when I was looking at the little bit of news that I look at. I don’t want to get too upset before I’ve had my coffee. And I noticed that Michelle Gutard passed away. And I don’t know if that name means anything to anybody in our listenership, but just truly an amazing Chef. And it’s sad.
Cal:
It’s unfortunate that so many of these older Chefs, and especially these ones that I’ve had the opportunity to work with, like Michelle Richard was one and Charlie Trotter that have passed on way too soon. And actually, the reason I’m writing my cookbook, I’m like, okay, well, I better get this stuff written down. But anyway, Michelle Gauchard, to give you just kind of an overview of it. There was food in France. France didn’t like, invent cooking, but they kind of get credit for it because they started writing things down first and recording them. And the first big recording of that. And when it comes to culinary, it goes back to Augustus Escoffier. Now, escoffier actually wrote the menus for the Titanic.
Cal:
That’s not why it sank. I’ve actually done that menu. I’ve done that special menu several times, it’s like 13 courses. I did it on the 100th anniversary of the Titanic. Then I think I did it in one of my restaurants and I did it at another one. And it was fun, fun event.
Sadie:
Awesome.
Cal:
But nobody drowned it, so it made, it made. We actually gave everybody little cards and they could find out the end of dinner whether they drowned or not.
Sadie:
Like a murder mystery dinner.
Cal:
Yeah. The ones that, that didn’t drown were, had to pay, so. But anyway, if you remember the movie Ratatouille, it was one of Michelle Guitard’s recipes, which was for the ratatouille that was actually used in that film with the thin slice, the way it did it with the green sauce on it. So just an amazing, amazing Chef that had three Michelin stars, which. That’s as many of those as you can get.
Sadie:
A.
Cal:
He invented something. Well, let’s go back to Scoffie. Did what? Something was called hot cuisine. It’s h a U t e. Hot cuisine. Hot means high. It means it was the first cuisine, it was the highest cuisine. So this was a scoffier.
Cal:
And this was actually the cuisine that Julia Child brought over to America. Did you ever see that movie Julia and Julia or Julia and Julia. Do you see it? Oh, you need to watch that. Yeah, you need to watch that. It’s good. There’s a gal that copies her recipes and over the course of a year, like one, I think it’s one a week or something. But anyway, it’s a great show. But anyway, during that movie, his recipe was used.
Cal:
But what he did is he took, and you can tell when you look at the ratatouille, which is usually a stewed dish, and you can look at the delicate way it was put together. He took hot cuisine and took it to a different direction, which we knew at the time and still know it today, is nouvelle cuisine. Nouvelle, it means lighter. It’s food that was actually nouvelle means new, but the food was lighter, higher emphasis on presentation.
Sadie:
So the original California cuisine.
Cal:
Yeah, what we called spa cuisine, what we call, yeah, I remember when cuisine Nouvelle came out because California kind of renamed it spa cuisine, whatever reason. I don’t know. I just remember that happened. But it came from, you know, the french gastronomy of the 1970s. And so that’s when it made this big, this big change. So, you know, he was, he was an amazing Chef and rest in peace, Chef. So there’s, you know, there’s a lot of, I kind of look at, especially in writing this book that, that we’ve been given gifts and talents, skills, understanding, stories, even. And we’ve had these, and we accumulate these throughout our life.
Cal:
And the purposes of these are to share with other people. And I think that’s the idea behind it, because there really isn’t nothing new under the sun. That’s what scripture says. That’s just the way it is. There’s nothing. I’ve often said this, that I could live. I’m 110 years old and still don’t know a 10th of the cuisine that’s out there. It’s just too vast.
Cal:
You know? The world’s too vast. I know. Even when, you know, when I get an opportunity to cook with you, I mean, you’re using ingredients that I just, you know, that are. That are foreign to me. And you’re buying them over at, you know, Moore’s flour mill or something.
Sadie:
Quinoa. What’s quinoa?
Cal:
Yeah. You know, so you start getting. Yeah, and these things that are so good for. For you and just researching out there, and you do so much of this. What would be one of your go tos if you were a person that was listening to this and you wanted to have a healthier diet? I mean, are there certain websites you go to or what kind of information would you give a person that said, I want to eat healthier would be your thoughts? Well, first off, we already talked about you’d want to do, you know, healthier foods to start with.
Sadie:
Well, okay, so there’s an acronym that I like. It’s called new start.
Cal:
Okay.
Sadie:
Okay. It stands for nutrition, exercise, water, sun, temperance, air, rest, and trust. So those are kind of the principles.
Cal:
I’ll never remember that.
Sadie:
That’s why newstart.
Cal:
Right?
Sadie:
And it’s just like, kind of a. It’s a whole system, right? It’s not just like, oh, I’m gonna eat this apple, and I’m healthy. Right? So we do need proper nutrition. We do have to have enough fiber, right? We need enough protein. We need fats, and we need some carbs, right? But I think, you know, you brought up the food pyramid. It’s. We turned it on its head. We’d probably be better off, right?
Cal:
We would.
Sadie:
And, you know, we know, like, less carbs, probably, right? And more fat, like healthy fats, like avocado and some nuts and seeds, not.
Cal:
You know, all those things. You know, the vantage. The advantage we have now is all those things are available to us. I mean, I can get bluefin tuna caught today, tomorrow from Japan. I mean, it’s just. It’s so crazy with the way technology has given us this open door to all of these opportunities of these ingredients.
Sadie:
I love it. I mean, literally, we can get anything we want, the best quality ingredients from around the world. Right. It’s at our fingertips. But we can also get this garbage food at our fingertips. So it’s really just jump food.
Cal:
Jump, right? Yeah.
Sadie:
But I can get Goji berries the next day, Amazon prime.
Cal:
And, you know, you can go down to Cottonwood and get fresh. Chef, did you go on a field trip there? Did you go, okay, I was wondering if you went on. Okay. Yeah. And I remember the organic. Remember that trip we took to Fetzer? We took the team down there to. Or that was a class. No, that was the Chef’s association.
Cal:
We went down there and organic farming, organic grapes and all the. The methods that they use, is that called an oncologist or in college, I don’t know. It’s something like that. But it’s that person that’s an expert in just producing food that’s pesticide free, where they would use plants next to it, that maybe those had certain aphids that would feed off of other things. So it’s just a way of being able to.
Sadie:
Some call that biodynamic gardening.
Cal:
Biodynamic? Yeah. Well, it’s like the deer that come in my backyard and eat my tomatoes. Yeah, well, I might have to get another freezer. You know. I mean, I’m a. I’ve got a lot of recipes for venison, you know, and my son doesn’t want me to shoot Bambi, but I told him, it’s not Bambi. It’s. He goes, Bambi’s mother.
Cal:
I said, no, it’s her dad. You know, it’s Bambi’s dad. But my dad was thinking about this, because last week, my dad gave me a whole bunch of really cool information and stories that I shared on when he was raised and growing up, where they had to, you know, whatever, they had to kill something in order to have something on the table to eat.
Sadie:
Yeah. And nowadays, you can become a vegetarian and get enough protein. You can become a vegan and get enough protein.
Cal:
Where did that come from? I was talking about killing Bambi’s dad. And you switch it to vegetables.
Sadie:
I was just saying. And your son, who’s like, oh, I don’t know if I want to eat that. In this day and age, people, they used to not have enough nutrition if they. And now you can.
Cal:
The impossible burger, you know, a burger that’s called impossible should have meat, don’t you think? I mean, because if it’s called impossible, that makes it sound like it’s going to be quite the treat. But anyway. But you’re right. But organics, folks get the organics get things that haven’t seen a whole lot of plastic and certainly aren’t covered in plastic. I mean, there’s some studies that basically say we’re eating a credit card a day, you know, worth of plastic. And.
Sadie:
And the petroleum, it’s also in the lotions. It’s in the makeup, so it. Yeah, and it has phytoestrogens in it, too, which could throw people’s hormones off. And I think it’s causing more havoc than people know.
Cal:
Well, there you go, folks. And I’m, you know, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but, you know, there is something coming out of the back of the airplane. Okay? Now, I don’t know what it is, but some days they fly by. I live by the airport. Some days when they’re up there, they fly by, and there ain’t nothing back there. And some days I wonder, you know, it looks like they’re sky writing my name or something like that.
Sadie:
Well, they still do crop dusting, too, you know, and so they’re directly flying pesticides over it, and they’re spraying it. So, I mean, we know that there’s some, you know, they’re spraying stuff on the food. That is stuff that we might not want. Right. If you’re doing buying organic, that’s, like, the best thing you can do. So I was turning it back around to, what can I do?
Cal:
So turn it around to buying the best product that you can buy. And again, it’s out there. It’s out there. Whether you have to order it online, it’s out there. If you have to. If you want to get up, go to the farmers market. There’s a variety of them here in town.
Sadie:
There’s several. Yeah, we have.
Cal:
What’s the one that we cooked out? That’s the one behind, we would do.
Sadie:
The Redding farmers market behind the city hall on Saturday morning.
Cal:
Yeah. Yeah. And that was, that was a good one. And, um. And it’s getting. It’s gotten bigger. I mean, as the season, as we go further into the season, we’re able to start getting more and more things. You know, I was kind of frustrated at the beginning there because it’s like, okay, come on.
Cal:
Am I gonna have to start cooking green tomatoes? Come on, guys. Okay, let’s.
Sadie:
And it’s 730 to noon Saturday. Yes. You gotta get up early.
Cal:
Gotta get up early. But, well, I mean, if you’re not getting up for a new, if not going up for noon, you probably don’t care what you’re eating.
Sadie:
Early bird gets the red tomato.
Cal:
There you go. Exactly. Exactly. But anyway, it’s worth the time. It’s worth the effort, because, again, the saying of garbage in, garbage out.
Sadie:
Yeah. And it’s not just, you know, how they talk about eating honey that’s local and you get the benefits of that. It’s the same with our produce. So it directly improves our health and supports our economy at the same time. And then you know where your food’s coming from, right. Instead of having to depend on Cisco to bring it in, you can, you know, support the farmers. And then they start growing more, and then there’s more and more available. So it’s like it’s a domino effect.
Cal:
You know, I truly think that this, this whole season of just, you know, society here, at least in the states, it’s. It’s all evolving around, like, everything comes, you know, full circle. And I’ve seen it. I’ve lived long enough to see a lot of those things kind of come back around. You know, when you say, when you make chicken and dumplings and it’s something that they’ve never heard of, you know? You know that, you know, because the things that we were raised on, and that was just, you know, 55, 60 years ago for me and half that for you. But. But I think that it’s going to come around to where people are going to start seeing the need to eat healthier when, you know, you’re taking a handful of pills in the morning and a handful of pills at night, trust me, I take way more than I wish I did. And I’ve been, you know, going through that process.
Cal:
Go to your doctor and say, doc, I want to quit taking these, okay. And figure out the best way to wean out the things that you need. Because, you know, it got to a point where, you know, and I, and I know I’m getting a little bit older, but it’s like I can’t even remember why I take that. So, you know, is it, is it solved the problem or is it necessary anymore or is there a healthy alternative? And that’s one of the things with, when you start getting into your turmeric and these healthier spices that are out there that are almost used as they’re really medicinal.
Sadie:
They are. They figured it out in east India how to use medicine and make it taste good. But, yeah, our leading cause of death is heart disease. Right.
Cal:
You know, the top I heard this today, nine of the top ten diseases that we have, the chronic complaints we have are related to food. Nine of the top ten related to food. That’s just. Was it that way.
Sadie:
I mean, back when we were kids, it was not. And here’s the thing, we can fix that. So one of my things that I really got passionate about is that there was a program that you could actually reverse heart disease. They have it, the dean Ornish program. So he scientifically proven, you know, it’s, I believe it’s like twelve weeks and you can literally reverse heart disease. So when you go and get a stent, it doesn’t actually reverse it, but it will help. Right. So.
Cal:
And then who’s fighting against that? Of course, you know, the pharmaceutical companies, the medical institutions, and, you know, the.
Sadie:
A pill for every ill. Yeah, yeah.
Cal:
And again, and I think that, you know, doctors need to also become more aware so they can give their patients options. Like, you know, you can take, you know, X, Y and Z, or maybe you can go a little healthier and start getting more. Maybe it’s more fiber, so you’re gonna eat more roughage. You know, maybe it’s the seasonings that they have. I know the medicinal components and things like cinnamon, and there’s just about every spice out there has a healthy physical benefit.
Sadie:
You know, ginger, cayenne, you know.
Cal:
Yeah, ginger is a great one. Ginger is a great one. And I know that captaseum, when I can eat peppers and I can get that, that active ingredient that creates that, that spice, that captase them that you can, that, that’s very good for your heart and it’s very good because sweating is the body’s way of air conditioning itself. So you’ll notice in different areas of the world, asian areas of like South America, where chilis are really, you know, it’s a real dominant ingredient that you see everywhere.
Sadie:
And for the lungs, it helps open that up and. Have you ever had a hot shot?
Cal:
No, but I.
Sadie:
It’s with cayenne in there. A quarter teaspoon your lemon juice and ginger juice and you just shoot it. So it helps if you have a cold coming in.
Cal:
Oh, yeah, I could, I could see that. Yeah, I could see that. I have those things. So I may have you text me that and I’ll. And I’ll give it a shot. When it comes to me, if I really want to do a shot, pickle juice is one of my go tos. You know, pickle juice is great for cramps. You know, if you’re getting cramps I remember when we used to run, they’d give us, you know, salt pills.
Cal:
But a lot of the bikers, I noticed this on the Tour de France one year. I was watching it and they were eating these, like, power bars, but they were made out of pickles or made with pickles. And I started getting into it and, you know, I used to have a restless leg syndrome and now it doesn’t bother me a bit. So anyway, pickle juice, save your, after you get your pickles. Now, after you’ve eaten all of your pickles, then save the juice.
Sadie:
And if you don’t like pickles, you can also take a pinch of celtic gray sea salt. And then, you know, drink your water after that.
Cal:
You know, I put that celtic sea salt in my, in my coffee every morning. And because I use that black rifle coffee, that veteran owned coffee company, and it just makes the flavor. So that’s what it does is enhanced it. I mean, I just put just a few granules in there and stir it up and, boy, I tell you, wakes up your coffee in it and it tastes fantastic. So that’s one thing that, you know, it’s. That’s another thing that you can.
Sadie:
That could be the new coffee. Remember everybody was putting butter in it for a while. Now everybody’s gonna be putting salt in there.
Cal:
Just a touch, just a touch. Just a touch. But anyway, and then I made some bread and butter pickles too. That’s one of my favorites. I loved the bread and. Bread and butter pickles my father in law, my wife’s dad, used to use to make for us. It was always something special when we got a chance to have those. So we’re gonna go ahead and take a break here with Chef Calla, cooking like a pro.
Cal:
You found us on KCNR. We will be back in just a moment.
Music:
Forget about your worries and your strife I mean the bare necessities are Mother Nature’s recipes that bring the bare necessities of life wherever I wander. Wherever I roam I couldn’t be found out my big home. The bees are buzzing in the tree to make some honey just for me. When you look under the rocks and plants and take a glance at the fancy ants then maybe try a few.
Cal:
When boy meets. Here’s what they say. When the moon hits your eye like a bigger pizza pie, that’s more air. When the world seems to shine like you’ve had too much wine, that’s more. Oh, there you go. You just can’t be old Dino. Old Dino. All right, Morre, welcome back to cooking like a pro.
Cal:
This is Chef Cow. I’m here with our special guest, Sadie Kruger, and we’re just chatting about a little bit of everything, some food related stuff. And in our last little segment, we’ve kind of gotten into the habit of talking about wine. So we’re gonna be talking about, about wine. I know that we’ve done a lot of wine tasting in the past together and worked with a lot of vintners, and that’s one of the things I love about going to the wine country, because it’s kind of like what we were just talking about. You’re talking to the food mongers, the experts, the people that are picking it in the field and that sort of thing. They’re picking the, you know, picking the fruit, they’re picking the vegetables, they’re picking the lettuce, whatever it is. Same thing in the wine country.
Cal:
You can talk to the winemakers, you can talk to people that know all about how to make, you know, the product and, you know, why it comes out in, you know, different ways, different, different styles.
Sadie:
I love touring the wine country, and one of my favorite culinary classes, I think, was at Greystone, and we got to taste all the wine and olive oils.
Cal:
Oh, yeah. I tell you, if you get a chance to go to Greystone, it’s the old brothers. What are they called? It’s. I don’t remember what the I. Christian Brothers. Yeah, the old Christian Brothers winery. And I don’t know if they imagine they still make wine. I mean, I’ve toured it, and the place is ginormous, but I’ve been to some classes down there, and it’s what it is.
Cal:
It’s the west coast version of the CIA. And when I’m talking about food, and I mentioned CIA people, just what, you know, I mean, okay. Yeah, I’m sure they’re listening right now, but this is a different CIA. This CIA is the culinary institute of America, and. Bye. Well, probably most Americans, it’s considered the top, the top Chef school, you know, in the world, I imagine. Well, if you ask them, I’m sure that’s what they would say. I know enough of them.
Cal:
I know enough of them very well, matter of fact. But anyway, yeah, there’s great to be down there again. I ran a winery for a couple years down in Napa Valley, and that certainly helped me a lot to appreciate the effort that goes into it and the process. And I know that the trip that we took together down there with the class where they did a cooperage, where they showed us how to toast the barrel. And so you can get that flavor, that flavor out of the oak. So there’s just a lot of things. There’s a flavor of the grape. There’s the crush, there’s the seed, there’s the skin.
Cal:
There’s the temperature.
Sadie:
The timing.
Cal:
Yeah, the timing of the year. That’s why when you get down in those, those coastal areas, you get those long, warm summer evenings, and they just help the grapes to be able to develop, become a little more complex, be able to get those different flavors. And part of the, again, when it comes to wine, drinking or tasting, again, number one rule, drink what you like. But if you want to get into something where you’re trying different things and you’re excited about maybe seeing if you can expand your wine understanding, because it is something that goes great with food. It is the food. It’s not cooked like beer is, but it’s still a recipe process. There’s a lot of things in there. There’s bacteria that’s introduced at times.
Cal:
But anyway, so there’s just, what are we going to match this with? And in order, again, to match it with something, you kind of need to know where it is as far as flavor profile. So it’s like, you taste the wine and it’s like, okay, what kind of flavors do I get? And do I want to match this with something else, or do I want to make a contrast, whether something like a spicier dish with maybe a sweeter wine so the wine balances it out? But I don’t know, do you have any wine combinations that you’ve had in the past, like beef and cabernet?
Sadie:
I mean, those are the classics, right? You know, some chardonnay with my salmon, maybe a little riesling as dessert. I like kind of the sweeter wine.
Cal:
I like that with the salmon, because with salmon, it has all those omega three s in it, that oil. So you get a wine that cuts through that, and if not, it’s definitely going to make the meal more enjoyable, because without it, you just. It’d be nothing but just, you know, salmon, salmon, salmon. And to be able to break that up, and I know that in the culinary side of things, we would call that break in their mezzo. An intermezzo is the break that they take in, like an opera or ballet when they take a break, they take this little break in the middle to give everyone a chance. Whatever they do when they take a break, go to the restroom or grab a drink. So in a meal, you want that break. You want something that’s going to, you know, help you enjoy, you know, things to the greatest extent.
Cal:
And by doing that, cleansing your palate. So each time you take a bite of something, you taste it almost all over again and you just get a true natural flavor. Plus, you know, if the flavor matches, it’s just something that’s. It’s just a great marriage.
Sadie:
Yes. And the red wine’s so strong, you know, so something kind of bold, you know, goes well with that blue cheese.
Cal:
Yeah, blue cheese is. Blue cheese is always one of my favorites. With a really good, robust red wine that has a lot of tannin in it. And also chocolate, because chocolate has acid, and that acid counterbalances the tannin in wines, which comes from the seeds and the.
Sadie:
That’s probably my favorite. Chocolate with wine.
Cal:
Chocolate with wine, yeah, it’s just a chocolate bar and a bottle of wine. Almost. Don’t need a glass, you know? Yeah, it’s usually, it’s chocolate. Some nice, really nice chocolate. Okay. Maybe a nice 70% or so cocoa and then. And then a glass of red wine and. Or a bottle and a straw.
Cal:
That works. That works.
Sadie:
A nice glass really makes it, though.
Cal:
You know, the glass does. It helps hold in those. Those esters. And you’re able to enjoy it. The aroma and the big part of it.
Sadie:
Right. Having kind of a wider size matters. Yeah.
Cal:
Yep. I know that. Like, the pinot glasses of the biggest round ones. And then the cabernets are kind of tall, but, you know, you want to be able to swirl. You want to be able to see the viscosity of it. Right.
Sadie:
You feel fancy.
Cal:
Yeah. Well, then you can see the legs.
Sadie:
So, you know that it does have the glass.
Cal:
It has a body. Has a body to it. So, you know, legs are important. And, you know, again, there’s so much to enjoy in the same way. There’s so much to enjoy with your food. But in order, again, kind of coming full circle here. It’s just like we started out, this discussion, Sadie, it’s. You’re not tasting true natural food if you’re not getting true natural food.
Cal:
Right. If you’re not getting foods that are fresh and, you know, and ripe and unprocessed and un, you know, refined.
Sadie:
Are you comparing it to box wine? Is that the difference?
Cal:
No, the box wine. Yeah, it’s. Yeah, that would be my. My mom. My mom likes box wine. You know, it’s convenient. You know, it’s. You can carry it around.
Cal:
It doesn’t have a. You don’t need a cork. Doesn’t have a cork.
Sadie:
Pairs well, with everything.
Cal:
Pairs. Pairs well with everything. There you go. But again, it goes back to what you enjoy, in the same way we were talking about wine just now. Also food. You know, do what you enjoy. And I know that Charlie Trotter, for example, a famous Chef that left us too early out of Chicago, just a very dear guy. I enjoyed my time with him.
Cal:
And one of the things he would take, like, a fresh halibut and poach it in veal stock. So when you’re thinking about seafood being poached in a white seafood stock, the French would never go for that. It would be like blasphemy. But for him, he only had one enduring goal, and that was to treat these products the best that they can and give the guests the most, you know, the highest, most wonderful experience that they can. And I think that that’s kind of the end goal. You know, you go to the farmer’s market with something in mind, you know, say, whoa, hey there. Look at that zucchini. Oh, look at those blossoms.
Cal:
Oh, we could stuff those with something.
Sadie:
That’s an experience, right? If you had stuffed squash blossoms, don’t you feel like that’s an experience you would remember?
Cal:
Of course, yeah. So it’s just not, again, it goes back to what I’ve said probably on every show, which is, in America, we eat to live, okay? And we need to change that, folks. We need to live to eat, okay? We need to live our lives so we can eat and spend that special time with family, with friends, doing what’s most important in life, creating memories, memories that are gonna last. And I know that when I look back when I was younger, those are the things that make a difference now, those family times, those opportunities to be able to share moments. And food’s always around when it comes to great events, birthdays, anniversaries.
Sadie:
But then it’s kind of centered around cake, right?
Cal:
Cake.
Sadie:
You know? So it’s kind of maybe rethinking what you want to do as far as something healthy. Right? Maybe bring some chocolate avocado pudding. Oh, you can think outside the box.
Cal:
Well, no, I have tried that. You did give that to me once.
Sadie:
But they say a party without a cake is a meeting.
Cal:
Oh, is that what it is? But again, I think that, again, what we do is we just. We need to take these times, these opportunities to live life to the fullest extent, okay? And food is a real central, central part of that. So why not enjoy it? Why not go out and get the freshest product? Why not go out and get these these wonderful ingredients you can work with. So, anyway, we really appreciate you tuning in today at cooking like a pro. I’d like to thank my special guests. Sadie, thank you for showing up. I appreciate that. And we’ll be back next week.
Christa:
Thank you so much for spending time with us. Until next time, we hope you’ll be cooking up a storm in the kitchen. So we’ll be with you again next week with food, flavor, and fun right here on cooking like a pro podcast.
