There's lots of food news these days. We've got the latest on McDonald's plans, on new pink pineapples, on the Italian government's regulations, and on what may be the newest ice cream craze . . . which involves fried chicken skin.

We're veteran cookbook authors Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough. We've written thirty-six cookbooks, are working on number thirty-seven, and are passionate about food and cooking. Thanks for being on this journey with us. We're so glad you've joined us.

Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:

[01:04] Our one-minute cooking tip: Run the dishwasher BEFORE company comes over.

[04:21] Our take on the latest food news: a new, EXPENSIVE pineapple on the market, McDonald's plans to offer a bigger burger, the Italian government's attempts to regulate food consumption and even gelato, and the wildest ice cream flavor we've ever seen.

[20:02] What’s making us happy in food this week: guacamole with jalapeño relish and dried fig and lemon jam.

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast cooking with Bruce and Mark.

And I'm Mark Scarborough.

Together with Bruce, we have written three dozen plus one cookbooks.

In fact, that plus one cookbook has just gone into the publisher.

We are so excited about it, but we're going to save talking

about that until down the road.

In case you don't know, it takes about a year from when you turn a

manuscript in until when it finally hits the market to be a reality.

But we'll tell you about it in the months ahead.

It was an overwhelming undertaking.

And let me just say that the print off of that new cookbook

runs at two reams of paper.

I don't know how long the actual published book will be somewhere in the 300 pages.

But, uh, gosh, that's a huge manuscript.

But we're not going to talk about that.

that.

We've got a one minute cooking tip as is traditional this time about what to do

when you're having company over dinner.

We've got the latest news from the world of food.

We want to talk through several stories that have happened just

recently, and we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week.

So let's get going.

Our one minute cooking tip.

Are you having company for dinner?

Run the dishwasher before everyone gets there, even if it's not full.

Yes,

I think that this is a big one that Bruce and I do all the time.

And that is, there's a lot of prep stuff that goes into making a dinner for people.

Of course, as you know, cutting boards and dishes, and, you know, we do prep bowls.

We do the old, real, true mise en place when Bruce cooks.

So there are prep bowls and all that.

And, uh, you know, we do that.

Get it all inside the dishwasher.

And no, the dishwasher is not completely full.

I could probably fit a few more plates and a few more cups in there.

But really it's best just to turn it on and run it so that at the

end of the dinner party and when people go home there's clean dishes

that I the dishwasher and I can put the dirty ones in there, right?

You don't even

wait till people go home.

Sometimes when we have dinner parties, I do the cooking, Mark deals with the

table, he will clear a course and put those dishes in the dishwasher and run it.

Yes, and.

Let's just say, yes, we have coursed dinner parties,

coursed, plated dinner parties.

If you can believe it, we actually plate the food in the kitchen and

artistically make it something and bring it to the table in courses.

I know we're insane, but I will admit that I will clear the table.

I will get All those dishes washed and in the dishwasher.

And if it's two thirds full, I'll turn it on because I know

there's another course coming.

And it's better to do it then than to be up till three in the morning

waiting for the dishwasher again.

We are not the kind of people that want to get up in the

morning and look at dirty dishes.

No,

no, we don't do that.

However long it takes.

We do the dishes.

We do.

Even if we're up at two in the morning doing dishes, we would rather

have the kitchen cleaned up and go to bed than get up and face it.

And let me just say that in terms of this, I don't know if you know this, but

modern dishwashers, now it depends on how old your dishwasher is, but modern

dishwashers have become very efficient with water usage, increasingly efficient.

And many times a half full dishwasher uses less water than

to wash those same dishes by hand.

So You know, just consider that all of this is part of getting your life better

ready for when people come over the summer and you have people out on the deck

and all, uh, get it before they arrive, get stuff in the dishwasher and run it.

Start your evening cleanup with an empty dish.

Yeah, that's the best.

Okay.

Before we get to the food news that has happened in the world around us just

recently and what we want to talk about, let me say that we do have a newsletter.

If you, if you subscribe, you know, you haven't gotten one in about a month

and that's because this crazy monster, this, uh, demon dragon of a cookbook

has absolutely hollowed my life out.

So I haven't had time to write a newsletter, but they'll be coming soon.

If you'd like a newsletter from us, and it's not necessarily about content on

this page, podcast, but about recipes, about things we're making, and sometimes

just about life in rural New England.

You can sign up for that on our website, cooking with Bruce and mark.

com or Bruce and mark.

com.

Scroll down the first page and you'll see a place to sign up for the newsletter.

I don't capture email.

I don't even know that you have signed up.

All I see is a number count.

Three people signed up today.

That's literally what I see, but I don't know anything else.

And I don't allow this.

The provider, the mail provider to capture your email.

So no worries.

And you can cancel at any time.

All right.

Up next, food news from the world around us.

Okay.

For the last couple of years, when I go to the supermarket, I have been seeing this.

These fairly expensive pineapples, about 10 bucks each, they're pink

and glow, they are everywhere, right?

Everyone talks about them.

They're grown by Del Monte.

And that's not what the news is about.

It's about a new one that Del Monte has come out with called the Ruby glow.

These pineapples are, have been hybridized for a special color.

This kind of ruby red glow.

Think of ruby grapefruits and pink glows.

And they've also sweetened up even more.

I know it's hard to believe a pineapple sweetened even more,

but it has, and they even have red shells and yellow flesh on them.

And some of that shell color can leach a little into the flesh too.

Um, but you know, they, They're pretty expensive as they are,

but, uh, well, Melissa's produce, which is an online produce giant

is actually changing things up.

They are selling them for

396

per pineapple.

Now these pineapples Del Monte grew them and they were releasing

them last year, only in China.

Now they are coming to the U S and Del Monte claims there will only be five

pineapples thousand of them available this year and next year, only three thousand.

Oh, so good pineapples are worth extra.

I agree with that, but not in 390 extra.

The best pineapple I ever had in my life was about one dollar.

I got it on the street in Bora Bora.

Mark and I had worked a cruise ship doing a cooking show.

We got off the ship.

I bought a pineapple from some woman on the road for a dollar.

We brought it to the dining room on the cruise ship and when they came

around asking we wanted for dessert.

I pulled my pineapple out of the bag.

Well, I think that, you know, let me just say, and I'm going to be really

irritating here, but I'm sorry if you own a Tesla, but I would like

to burn your Tesla and all Tesla's because what Tesla's have to pineapples

because Tesla really established solidified a growing trend, which is

that you hit the luxury market hard.

And then after you grab the luxury market, the 150, 000 car, you

bring down the price and put.

out lower price models.

And this has become so much the way product is rolled out.

You roll it out to the high rollers who can afford 396 pineapples.

And then, you know, over time, this will slowly roll down and they will still

be the 396 ones, but then there'll be 96 ones that are kind of like the 396.

And then, you know, there'll be, they'll come down finally to 40 ones.

I won't even pay 10 for those, you know, those pink glow ones.

I know, I

get it.

I get it.

I get it.

But it is the way that the products are rolled out these days.

They're rolled out first to the luxury market and then down.

396 just seems absurd for a pineapple, but there you have it.

If you love your mother and you're listening.

No, I don't

love my mother that much.

Oh,

okay.

Um, so McDonald's, here's some more food news has, uh, confirmed that it's

teams around the world are working on rolling out a more satiating hamburger.

I haven't eaten a McDonald's hamburger in years, but I have to tell you,

that we all know this problem that you shove in that 590 calories of

a standard McDonald's hamburger.

And about an hour and a half later, you're hungry

hour and a half.

Yeah.

By the time you swallow the last bite, you're reaching for the extra size French

fries.

Yeah, exactly.

So they're going to try to build a more satiating burger.

I don't know what this means.

I think it probably means they're going to up the artificial sweeteners.

I, this would be my guess and drop the real sugars.

It's sugar.

That's the problem.

Like your sugar makes you feel.

Full fast.

And believe it or not, there is plenty of sugar in that hamburger.

Yeah, in the bun.

Big Mac and the sauce and everything else that goes in it.

And it's going to be bigger.

So if you're used to getting the Big Mac and think that's big enough at almost 600

calories, you can now get the Big Mac.

An

800 gallery burger, and they claim it's going to be more satiating,

and that's how they're going to sell it, is more satiating.

I, I, I don't know.

I have no idea if that works.

Okay, here's another piece of food news.

The Pearl District in San Antonio, Texas is a place full

of galleries and restaurants.

We know it actually well from having been there.

And it's really lovely.

It is.

And there's a newcomer to the area called The Pearl District.

Pullman market and the Pullman market is getting great reviews

on their creative Texan food.

Yeah.

And just to say, I am from Texas and, uh, just to say when I was a kid, Texan

food meant Tex Mex, but in the years of my long, incredibly long years of my

life, longer by the minute, the longest my life, there's Become an actual Texan

food subculture that's not Tex Mex.

So, one of the things that is a specialty on their menu that I think is

interesting enough for me to bring up the idea that we need a road trip down

to San Antonio to eat this ice cream.

Yeah, go on.

Don't do it.

Don't just set it up.

The ice cream is made with chicken.

So, leftover chicken parts are used to make a chicken stock so reduced that

they then turn that into a caramel swirl.

A chicken stock caramel swirl.

Swirl for ice cream, and they serve it in a crispy chicken skin waffle cone.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't want that.

I don't know.

Bruce and I made a road trip from Austin once out to Snook, Texas.

And the reason we did that is because there was a dog.

Diner at road cafe roadside cafe.

I don't know what you call it And mostly it was a bunch of Harley Davidson's parked

in front of this down and dirty place.

Just a Harley What did we

show up in?

We showed up in a Hummer picture These two gay guys from New York

getting out of a Hummer amongst a million Harleys and you'll get

it in your head What's going on?

So anyway, we went there to try chicken fried bacon.

That's battered chicken Dipped bacon, deep fried, served with cream

gravy, served with cream gravy.

So we tried it, but I don't know.

It's the chicken stocks, caramel swirl, and the ice cream doesn't bug me as

much as the chicken skin waffle cone.

That really, that's the part I really

want.

I love chicken skin.

I don't want it for dessert.

Oh yeah.

I don't mind it.

I'll try it.

Oh, I just don't think I could do

it.

I mean, we, look, we wrote an ice cream book many, many years ago.

The first book we published in 1999.

And we did try some savory ice creams in there.

We have an avocado ice cream.

We do.

Which is really delicious.

We did do a garlic ice cream, but it didn't make it to the book.

No, we cut it.

It just tasted like frozen Alfredo sauce.

Yeah, it was

not.

Neither of us liked it.

I wonder if I would like it now.

There's a lot of garlic ice cream and roasted garlic ice cream out

on the market, and I wonder if I would like it, but I'm not sure.

So, here's another piece of food news.

Euronews has reported that Milan, in Italy, of course, Milan, the city

government has filed a legislative paper that would bar pizza, ice

cream, and takeaway drink sales.

After 12.

30 a.

m.

on weekdays and after 1.

30 a.

m.

on weekends, uh, and public holidays.

And this ban would mean that bars and restaurants are required

to close all outdoor areas.

And here's the kick on this.

They are doing this for free.

particularly for tourist season.

Well, I get it.

We have been in Italy.

We have been in Spain and we've stayed in tourist areas, and it can be really

annoying when a bunch of screaming people are out on the streets under your

bedroom window, getting drunk and being annoying in the middle of the night.

Well, it didn't have anything to do with it.

We

were in Italy.

We

were in

Portland, Maine once in an Airbnb, I think, right downtown.

And it was like 5 million drunk college students in just below our window.

Well, this is happening

in the States to Miami has an anti spring break tourist ad campaign

this year in 2024 trying to deter college kids from coming to Miami.

They are touting their curfews.

They are touting the police presence.

They are touting.

They're carding everybody.

Well, they're like.

Do not come to Miami for spring break.

This is the same thing, right, with Venice.

This isn't about food, but about Venice, and it's now entry tax to get in.

If you're not staying in Venice, you have to pay a fee.

Right now, it's really weird.

It's just like on random days, and you have to know when those days are.

And it's five

euros.

Yeah, and you have to have a QR code in order to get in and you can ask.

It's, it's almost sounds weirdly world war two issue can be asked

for your papers at any moment.

So, so the tourist police can scan your code.

But the point here is that tourism has just absolutely blown out of control.

I am.

Scared to tell you that Bruce and I have both developed a terrible

allergy to tourism, and we just can't deal with crowds very much, which

is why we end up, uh, on vacation in extremely rural northern Maine, because

trust me, ain't nobody there but us.

We live

in rural New England.

We travel to rural places for holidays.

Right.

Oh gosh, what is happening to us?

Oh, it's because we've become so allergic to crowds, but I think

Milan is just trying desperately to figure out how to deal with crowds.

If food is a good way to hit tourists,

it is.

And food is something people go to Italy for.

Of course, one of the big foods people go to Italy for is gelato.

And in Italy, there is now proposed legislation from the country's

government that would fine ice cream makers that add excess air.

into their gelato to give it a fluffier texture.

Yeah, if you don't know, um, in the industry parlance, Bruce and I have

written several ice cream books, and in the industry parlance, the amount

of air whipped into ice cream or gelato, or, let me go really old here

and tell you how old I am, ice milk.

Nobody

knows what that is.

I know, that's from my childhood.

Or sherbet, or any of that.

What it's called is overrun, and there's a percent overrun, and that

means how much more air got put in by volume So you started, let's say, with,

um, I'm going to use volume amounts.

Let's say you started with a quart of, uh, of ice cream mix.

If you end up with two quarts of ice cream Oh my god,

it's a hundred percent.

You have a

hundred percent overrun.

Now, Bruce gasped, but just so you know, uh, really downscale store brand ice cream

often has an overrun up near 300%, which is why when it melts, you know, like cheap

ice cream and it melts, it gets foamy.

That's because there's so much air in it.

Well, currently artisanal ice creams and gelatos in Italy contain

between 20 and 30 percent air.

So that gives them a chewiness and a really great mouthfeel.

That's about

right.

Don't you think?

Yeah, I mean, we, when you're writing ice cream books, we often.

I, I aim for about a 30%

over overrun.

We did, and industrial versions in Italy don't go up to 300%,

but they can go up to 80%.

Proposed legislation would cap it at 30%.

Wow.

And if they go over that, companies are facing 10,000 Euro fines.

Well, I think this is all part of the.

overwhelming move to try to control the food supply.

And I think I'm going to be very political here, and please don't come at me,

but I think most of this is misplaced.

I don't think that this actually works all that well.

I do think that we have to find solutions to an increasingly competitive and

increasingly compromised food system.

But at the same time, I'm not sure draconian measures like

this are what work, but I could

be wrong.

I don't know that they work, but I am really glad that someone is looking out

for quality here, that it's not even just safety, that I think it's really important

to know that quality is important too.

And if you, especially in a country like Italy, where food is so part

of the culture and gelato is so like part of it, that if you start

to change it too much, it loses.

Everything.

I mean, we, we saw this, we've seen this globally a bit with the attempt to

moderate or control food in some way.

And one of the ways it happens is that, um, a different way than this than fines

is that you'll find price supports for, let's say, organic products or price

supports for chemical free products.

And so the government will step in if you produce, uh, let's say, let's go

back since we're talking about ice cream.

die free and chemical free ice cream.

And the government will then reward you with a tax credit or

even just an underwriting grant to continue doing what you're doing.

But the problem is, and you know this as well as I do, the problem is that

people accept these grants and then they just pocket the money as a salary.

They don't drop the price.

No, exactly.

They don't make

it more affordable to have delicious.

It's chemical free organic ice cream.

They just make a bigger profit.

Exactly.

And they just pocketed his salary and his bonuses.

So that has never really worked.

There have got to be solutions.

I don't think a 10, 000 euro fine just because you use a synthetic

dye is necessarily the way to go.

Or put too much air

in it.

I know.

But again, the food supply is getting increasingly difficult

because after all, it's not a You got to feed all the billions of us.

And I know all the billions of us don't have to eat ice cream.

And yet at the same time, we have to eat something.

We have to eat ice cream.

Well,

I think

so.

Ice cream is one of those things that we actually can't have in the house.

We just came off a photo shoot for the, the book that went in, the big monster

of a book that just went in and Bruce bought three really nice high end ice

creams for a one shot in the book.

And yeah, we were making.

Okay, we're making a banana split.

I'm telling you.

So he made three different flavors of ice cream.

He bought three different flavors of ice cream for his banana split shot.

And they stuck around here for a couple of days after the shoot.

And then I was like, you have to throw those out because if they stick around

the house, I will just eat them down.

And I, I can't just sit here and eat ice cream every night after dinner.

I love ice cream.

What

do you think the overrun was in those?

Um, I don't know.

It was a little higher than I think, 20 or 30%.

Oh yeah.

Oh, definitely wasn't chewy.

It was a little.

Creamy, airy.

No, because

you bought quarts, and so it's not the, the really fancy pints.

My guess is those things were pretty good, but my guess is 75 to 80 percent overrun.

Somewhere in that neighborhood, maybe 65 to 75%.

Somewhere in that neighborhood, I would say is the overrun on those.

They, they, they were very airy.

But they made a beautiful scoop for the photo.

They did.

That was what was really nice.

They did.

And they, they melted really quickly, which is sometimes another

sign of a, um, a high overrun.

If you stick a container of a really premium ice cream in the microwave

for 10 seconds to soften it, it won't necessarily soften very much.

But the higher the overrun, the more quickly it will soften in those 10

more quickly it will start to melt.

And so, uh, those did, you know, I'd put one in the microwave for 10 seconds and

it would be really melty around the edges.

So, the overrun's going up on those.

Okay.

So that's what's happening in food news this week, this month.

Pineapples and McDonald's burgers and chicken skin, waffle cups, and Italian

government's attempt to legislate food consumption and food production.

That's what's going on in the world around us.

What's going on in the world here is what's making us happy in food this week.

Guacamole.

with jalapeno relish on it.

Now, jalapeno relish is one of the recipes in this new book

that we had just finished.

It is.

We'll talk more about other recipes in there.

Yes, there was an ice cream sundae and photographed and jalapeno.

But not with jalapeno relish.

No, but actually that might be kind of good.

Oh!

I liked it with the, I liked the, The jalapeno relish I made with guacamole.

It is good.

And that is what I've been eating.

And instead of buying regular tortilla chips, I've been buying the

tostada chips, the big round ones.

I think they're crunchier and thicker and I like

them better.

And you should understand that we live in Hispanic food desert in New England, so

we actually have to take what we can get.

If you live in other places, you probably have access to

much better chips than we do.

I have, I've enjoyed that too.

In fact, last night, the jalapeno relish, I put it on a baked potato with butter

and it was quite delicious for my dinner.

So what's making me happy in food this week is another item from the book.

We just wrote.

And in fact, another thing that just got shot in the photo shoots from

the book that we just wrote, and that is a dried fig and lemon jam.

And I put it on my toast this morning and it's so chewy.

It's like the best.

Best filling of a Fig Newton ever, but with a little lemon zest in it

and without the cookie dough around.

Yeah.

No cooking.

Well, I had toast, but it's, it was, it's so chewy and oh my gosh, that stuff

will set you up for a war campaign.

I mean, it's, it's hearty stuff, dried figs and lemons in this preserve.

It was really good.

I taught a book group online this morning on, uh, Um, really difficult

post colonial novel, and I didn't flag during the two hour discussion.

So that tells you something about, uh, dried fig and lemon jam.

And it's figs.

It keeps you regular, too.

Oh, well, it always has to end there on this podcast.

So that's our podcast for this week.

If you'd like to be in touch with us, we'd like to be in touch with you.

Thanks for being on this podcast, but you can find us on social

media under our own names.

We have a TikTok channel called Cooking with Bruce and Mark, and

we have our own social media feeds.

But.

On Facebook and on Instagram.

And every week we tell you what's making us happy in food.

So tell us what's making you happy in food this week at our Facebook

group, Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

And if it's really fun and exciting, we'll talk about it here

on Cooking with Bruce and Mark.