Oysters. Cookbooks. Cooking tips. We've got it all in our magazine-format podcast on food and cooking.

We're veteran cookbook authors Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough. We've written more than three dozen cookbooks. We've been contributing editors to EATING WELL and COOKING LIGHT. And we once had the longest-standing column on weightwatchers. No wonder we love talking about food and cooking!

We're talking today about farmed oysters. Then we have a one-minute cooking tip about better-tasting nuts. Bruce interviews author Cheuk Kwan about this book, HAVE YOU EATEN YET? It's about stories and dishes from around the world of Chinese restaurants. And we tell you what's making us happy in food this week.

Thank you for being on this journey with us. Want to help support this podcast? Check out one of our latest books, THE INSTANT AIR FRYER BIBLE, available here.

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

[01:01] About oyster farming. Here's some of the information about how oysters are raised these days.

[13:46] Our one-minute cooking tip: Toasted nuts have a deeper, richer flavor than raw nuts.

[15:06] Bruce interviews author Cheuk Kwan on his book HAVE YOU EATEN YET?

[31:05] What’s making us happy in food this week? Casamara Club Sodas and coconut custard pie!

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast

Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

And I'm Mark Scarborough.

And together with Bruce, we have written three dozen\ cookbooks,

including in the for our Bible.

Ma, did you know that Bruce on his own has written two knitting books, boyfriends.

Sweaters and nits men want, and I have written a memoir, bookmark

all about my life in books.

All told, we are approaching our 40th title, which is unbelievable, and we're

gonna tell you more about the 40th title soon enough on this podcast.

But this podcast is not about any of that.

Instead we're gonna talk about oyster farming.

Oh my gosh, what?

We are so out there oyster farming.

We're gonna give you as.

Typical our one minute cooking tip.

Bruce has an interview with Chuck Kwan, the author of, have You Eaten Yet?

And we're gonna talk about what's making us happy in food this week.

So let's get started.

You know that oysters.

Clean water.

Right as they grow, they filter.

So they are the only form of farming that actually leaves the surrounding

area cleaner than when they started, which is really kind of nice.

Right?

So when you farm oysters, you're not only providing really,

really good food for people.

Yeah.

Cause oysters are delicious, but you are cleaning the environment.

So it seems like this should be a.

win win.

It

seems.

Yeah, but here's the problem.

We have unfortunately, toxified our oceans such that oysters now pick up

great deals of poisonous chemicals and even rare earth elements.

And this is the problem.

The seabed is becoming increasingly.

Polluted oysters as filter systems.

Pick all that up.

And the question is whether you should eat oysters.

Well, the answer is gonna be yes because of the advent of oyster farming.

We're gonna talk about how oysters are farmed and what the

different styles of oyster farming mean for the area where they're farmed.

But let's start with the basics.

You grow plants from seeds, right?

How do you grow oysters?

Well, Oysters have reproductive organs and interestingly, sure enough,

, they produce both sperm and eggs.

I think that's kind of life, right?

I like not plant life, but animal life has reproductive organs.

Yeah, but not every animal can make sperm and eggs, so no,

they can actually fertilize their.

Own eggs.

Oh, well, all right then . So that is, I suppose that is a, an achievement

in life . The, but you know, what happens is farmers actually stimulate that

spawning and that fertilization process by manipulating the temperature and

the food of farmed to oysters, and they can actually control the spawning and

thus get more than the standard cycles without necessarily the introduction of.

Chemical.

Yep.

Reproductive agents.

And so you end up with giant tanks with millions of free swimming

larva, which after a few weeks, they cement themselves to a platform that

the farms create from ground up shells.

Yep.

And then these platforms get placed in the ocean to grow.

Now, how they're placed in the ocean and where they're placed in

the ocean become very important in terms of the health of the oysters.

And the happiness of the people that live near these farms.

Yeah, it's true.

Now we have friends who have a second home, a vacation home in, on the Cape

in Massachusetts, and they're on the Bayside, not the ocean side of the Cape,

if you know what that means to the Cape.

But they're on the Bayside.

and they actually live not so far from a big oyster farm.

And their rocks at their beach are covered with, as we call them, escapees, , because

these things, you know, of course get loose from where they've attached onto

the farming poles that are made from the ground up shells, and otherwise

they get loose, they scattered down in the currents and their beach is just.

Loaded with oysters and they're, they're all farming escapees is what it is.

They are, is what they are.

Basically, when our friends go out and harvest the oysters from

their beach at low tide, they're just, , you know, part of the bottom

culture, which is, yeah, it is.

Bottom culture uses a natural sea floor as a base for oyster

farms, and it often produces oysters with much stronger shells.

But these oysters are exposed to the elements or exposed to predators, and

yeah, often not all of them survive.

And there's a whole thing about bottom culture, oysters.

About whether in fact you're avoiding the problems of the toxicity.

Mm-hmm.

of the ocean floor.

Now, some of these bottom culture of farms, as I understand it, stand up a

little bit off the muck of the floor.

They're mm-hmm.

, they're, they're flat, they're horizontal.

Yep.

But they are up ail from the muck, but they're still a question

of what's settling down there.

It.

We are not gonna solve that on this podcast.

I can tell you that there are people who complain about this and there

are other people, and not just bottom culture, oyster farmers, but actually

scientists who say, no, no, no, no.

They're, they're, if they're raised up out of the muck,

you're, you're much better off.

So it's a, it's an ongoing question.

Well, the other alternative, Off bottom culture.

Yeah.

Where oysters are grown in a controlled environment like a bag or a net or a

cage that floats in the open water.

Yeah.

And this is, you know, cage culturing rack and bag tray culture trade, Turing.

Yeah.

And each method has its own advantages and disadvantages, but the main thing is

that the oyster up off the bottom, the water flows around them, over above them.

And that makes.

, both cleaner water and healthier oysters.

A lot of, a lot of people claim that off bottom culture farmed oysters.

And I will tell you that I haven't done enough testing on this, so I

wouldn't, I wouldn't actually know.

A lot of people will say that they're sweeter.

Mm, because the water is more active around them.

The tide is coming in and out and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And they're milder flavored than bottom culture farmed oysters.

But I don't know that to be the truth.

But whether you choose oysters that were bottom cultured or floating

in their cages and their nets, you have to know that when oysters

are farmed, the waters around the farms are highly regulated, right?

So oysters, each oyster can filter 50 gallons of water a day.

It's a huge amount of water, but the water that they're in is highly regulated to

make sure that water is clean, because they will absorb pollutants, which is.

You know, every time our friends pick up those oysters off the beach and off of

their rocks, I do worry about it a little bit because no one is monitoring their

water even though it's 10 miles down, no, down the beach from the Oyster Forest.

And I can tell you, we go to a place in Portland, Maine called the

Shop, and it's fabulous for its oysters.

I know everyone goes to even Tide when they go to Portland, Maine,

but I can tell you stay away from even Tide and go to the shop.

It is so much fine.

And it's less expensive and they have Prosecco on tap , so go go to the shop.

It's up on Monjoy Hill.

But one of the things that I've noticed is that at the shop they sell not only

O Ocean oysters, but they sell main River oysters and river oysters in Maine

sometimes are in an environment where when the tide is low, the river is.

Out.

Mm-hmm.

. And so they're in freshwater.

And then when the tide comes back in, I dunno if you know this, but in Maine,

many of the rivers reverse direction as the tide comes in and suddenly

the oysters are back in saltwater.

So it's what is

like salmon.

They've spent some of their life in freshwater.

Something like in seawater.

I can tell you that those oysters that are the river oysters mm-hmm.

, yeah.

At the shop are strong.

They are strongly flavored.

Yeah.

I'm not fond of the super big flavored oysters, but a lot of people are not happy

with the oyster farms, even if they're off, especially if they're off bottom.

And who are these people?

These are the people with the views of the water from their expensive beach houses

NIMBY not in my backyard.

Not in my backyard.

And these people are in.

The Hamptons, these people are in the expensive parts of Rhode Island, and

they don't wanna look out on their water and see the floats that indicate where

the farms are, where the oysters are.

And that's, so they're suing oyster farms.

And the thing is, these people want to eat oysters.

Yeah.

They just don't wanna look out on the water and see the farms.

I will say,

Bruce knows this about me.

Just absolutely love oysters and I love them in almost all forms.

I love oyster chowder.

I love fried oysters, and more than anything I love raw oysters.

Mm-hmm.

But, you know, my, my dad, my now passed away, father introduced me

to oysters on the half shell, as we called them back in the day.

Oh, when?

Oh gosh, early teenager, we got this seafood restaurant in Dallas,

s and d and it was just brilliant.

The oysters were so good.

Dad and I would always each get a dozen.

I was like 13 years old, eating a dozen oysters and it was so fabulous.

And then my dad quit eating them.

He got afraid of them and he got afraid that of various bacterial

infections and it's not hepatitis, it's.

Unreal to be cautious.

No, I still eat a lot of raw oysters, but I am super cautious.

I don't really eat them at a place that I don't trust.

And by that I mean gas station oysters.

No, and I'm not gonna, yeah, I don't, I don't eat them at many bee shacks,

to be honest with you, because I don't know what it looks like they're getting

them from the water right behind them.

But I know that that's not how food distribution networks work.

I would rather eat a dozen.

Oysters, raw oysters at a restaurant with a really high end chef who is watching

his supply or her supply very carefully.

Yeah.

It's just, I We never, ever eat raw oysters at home.

No, I won't do that.

No, you

never go buy them.

Even though I love them.

We don't eat them at home.

No.

I let the chefs do it.

I don't want.

to shuck them, I'll get shell of them.

I'm not all that good at it, so you know, and I trust

restaurants with their turnover.

In fact, there's a place on a little shout out to our friend Adam who owns Cafe

Adam in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and at least as of this recording,

every Thursday night he does two bucks.

Shucks, at each oyster's, only two bucks and you can go and

eat your fill of oysters there.

And I always think about my friend Catherine, who lives in

Austin and she grew up in Baytown, Texas and Texas and Texan like I am.

But she grew up in Baytown and we were out once with Catherine and her

husband and we were eating raw oysters.

I think we were in Maine, and I remember this, this had to be 20 years ago.

And I remember this as bright as daylight that.

Sucked down an oyster.

She put an oyster in her mouth and instantly picked up her napkin

and spit it back into the napkin.

Froze.

Fuck.

And she said, Nope, not worth it.

and I, I kind of remember looking at her like with this face, and she's like, Nope.

I can tell.

She's like, growing up in Baytown, I can tell what's a good

oyster and what's a bad oyster.

And that one was not worth it.

So I must admit that I'm not that finesse about oysters, but I do know.

Once they start to get really strong, I, it takes me a moment to figure out that

I want to eat that, but I do love, love, love, love oysters in all their forms.

I don't know that I would eat a Baytown oyster.

I don't want oysters to go in warm water.

Warm water oysters are different.

No.

Ew.

That's kind of like, No, that's just wrong.

I mean, that's what dad and I were eating at s and d in Dallas is we were

eating warm water gulf oysters, and they are strong, they're meaty, they're big.

Well, at least they used to be.

They were big, they were strong, they were meaty.

They were not for the faint heart.

My mother would just sit there silently staring at us , not

daring to eat one oyster.

She claimed that once she put one oyster in her mouth and that was the end of.

I think my mom would eat a fried oyster, but I'm not even sure.

Sure.

I don't like a fried, I only like raw oysters.

I don't like them cooked at all.

But you should just know that oysters are an

incredibly well farmed item.

Mm-hmm.

. That doesn't mean that there aren't.

Poor producers out there.

There are as in everything, but it is one of the crops that can

stick around for a while as slowly all the crops are dying out.

It is one of the ones that can stick around for a while and

eating oysters isn't necessarily the worst carbon footprint that

you can put down on the globe.

So, you know.

Consider oysters and consider farmed oysters.

Mm-hmm.

, first and foremost,

keep demand up.

That's all I could say.

Keep demand up cuz they're good for you and they're really good for the planet.

Before we get to the next segment of this podcast, let me tell you that

as I always do, we have a newsletter.

You can find that newsletter by going to our website, Bruce and Mark.

Just spell it all out.

A n d m a r k Bruce and mark.com.

There's a form.

For signing up for the newsletter, I want to tell you that I have set it

up so that I cannot see your name.

I cannot sell your name.

I don't even know who you are when you sign up.

I just see a statistic that says eight people signed up for the newsletter

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So it's really great if you wanna do that, and you can always opt out It.

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They come in every one to two weeks.

Their recipes, their Bruce's knitting patterns, their cogitations on

life, all kinds of weird things that happen inside of that.

Newsletter and we'd love it if you could subscribe.

So check it out.

So up next, as is traditional, our one minute cooking tip

toast your nuts.

Toasted nuts have more flavor than unt toasted nuts.

I Okay.

. They do.

Pistachios, pecans, walnuts, cashew.

I'm gonna tell you that I was really good and I passed up a thousand

times to comment on bottom culture.

So I, I wanna tell you that I got out of that and now you're asking me to get out.

Toast your nuts.

Toast your nuts.

Okay, toast your nuts.

I'm just gonna sit here

and put them in salads before you grind them up to put them in cakes.

But here's the thing.

Toast your nuts in the oven.

Don't toast them in a skillet.

They don't brown evenly.

Yeah.

You get burn bits.

You have to shake them, put them in the oven, 350 degrees and a single

layer on a sheet pan and let them go.

Check them at five minutes, check them at seven minutes.

As soon as they're lightly brown and smelling good, you're done.

Yeah.

I will tell you that.

toasting nuts.

In an oven is a much better solution.

You don't end up with those bitter brown black spots on the nuts.

If you watch them starting at about the fourth to fifth minute

and then forward, you do have to not step out of the kitchen.

Up next Bruce's interview with Chuck Kwan, the author of the

brand new book, have you Eaten?

Stories from Chinese restaurants.

Today I'm speaking with Chuck Kwan.

He's the author of the new book.

Have you Eaten yet?

Stories from Chinese Restaurants Around the World.

Chuck visited Chinese restaurants on five continents, including stops in Madagascar

and above the Arctic Circle in Norway.

And through stories of the people he met.

His book focuses on how food is at the center of the diasporic Chinese identity.

Welcome, Chuck.

Thank.

Conversations about the Chinese diaspora often lead to discussions about

adaptation, ingenuity, and resilience.

, why did you decide to approach it through the lens of food?

Well, it's ubiquitous that you will see Chinese restaurants everywhere.

I, I see them in small towns, north America.

I see them in massive population.

And because food has always been associated by the Chinese, people

as sort of health and wellbeing and.

Title of my book is Have You Eaten Yet?

Which is a colloquial kind of greeting.

People see each other in Chinatowns, and asking about,

basically asking, how are you?

Perhaps this is because, in the ancient times, China always have

that famine and poverty, and war people may not have enough to eat.

So asking if anybody's stomach is full, it's akin to asking, you know,

how are you or how are, are you?

So I thought that, you know, food would be, the, the one very interesting

angle to approach the story of diaspora.

There are

Chinese restaurants everywhere, one goes.

And I've heard you say in other interviews that more than any ethnic

group, Chinese immigrants gain a toehold in a new land through their cuisine.

Do you think that comes from the Chinese culture?

or is that coming from the acceptance in the land and the places that

the Chinese people are coming

to?

I think both.

, but certainly I, I believe the Chinese immigrants have

always, , been more, I would say more adaptive to this environment.

And that's because of survival and the fact that o only one of

my 15 Chinese restaurant owners have ev any training as a.

The rest of the people were perhaps engineers, farmers, you know, coming

from different background and it just so happens that you can make Chinese food

easily without speaking the language.

You can serve your customers, you can have your kids, , be the front of the

house and, and, but you can hide it in inside the kitchen and, and do your thing,

, without having to speak the language.

So it is in a sense, , overcoming the barrier of assimilation and,

, and being accepted into society.

And what better, you know, ambassador is food.

, , in terms of, , you know, getting acceptance, well,

food in China varies greatly from region to region.

But is there a thread that ties it together?

And if so, do you see that common thread?

Throughout the world where Chinese food is being served,

in a sense.

Yes.

, I, but I have to caution you, you know, when you use the word term Chinese

food, it, it, it basically represents about 56 ethnic minorities groups

in, in China anywhere from Tibetans to Mongolians to Uyghur Muslim food.

However, the, the kind of food as we know in North America and.

probably around the world, are Cantonese food and Cantonese is famous for using

the walk, using fresh ingredients.

And with the walk and the ula, you can pretty much create anything you want.

Mm-hmm.

, and I think that's, that sort of points to the adaptability.

Of Cantonese food in the early days in, in, in North America.

Now, how?

However, of course you know, in, in the late last two or three decades,

you'll see the introduction of more quote unquote exotic, you know, Citron

food, Hunan food, Shanghai food.

But in, in general, they all have that kind of very flexible and like the.

you know, where everything has to be classical and cuisine and approved

by Paul pacu or anybody else.

Chinese food is it's like a mass popular thing where everybody who can, you

know, get their hands on walk and then cook something for their customers.

And if the customers like it, hey.

You know, why not?

So I think, I think in that, that has the common people denomin kind

of dimension to, to Chinese food.

Let's continue that idea of authenticity.

Mm-hmm.

, I mean, is there really anything such as authentic Chinese food, even inside

China, more or less outside China?

I

can ask this question quite a bit.

And I would say, , you know, authenticity is a loaded word, . Mm.

I define authenticity as something that you grow up with basically

that, you know, like the Italian grandmother, spaghetti sauce.

Mm-hmm.

, you know you would say, wow, you know, that's why I grow up with, and this

is authentic to where I come from.

I think you can say that very.

and people certainly would accept that.

Yeah.

But I would not use the word authenticity to describe Chinese food in general.

You mean?

One person's authenticity is another person saying impersonation,

hence using that argument.

I would say, you know, Chinese American food is authentic to a

Chinese American who grew up here.

Chop suey is by itself not a.

Dish.

Mm-hmm.

As everybody mix it out to be and egg roasts and, you know,

sweet and sour chicken balls.

If I was growing up in a small town America, I, I would say, well, hey,

that's authentic, because that's the kind of Chinese food that I've been using.

I'll tell you a story.

In, in Toronto there's a big haka population.

Mm-hmm.

haka people came from India, and so they.

restaurants here serving the kind of food that they make in

Calcutta which is half a blend of.

Chinese ingredients with Indian spices.

Hmm.

And then the clientele are all Indian and Pakistani taxi drivers.

And you know, you ask why?

Well, that's because that's the Chinese food they're used to back in Mumbai.

Back in Calcutta.

Mm-hmm.

. So when they come to Toronto, they want their home version of Chinese food.

Hence, you know, to them that's the authentic Chinese food.

Having eaten all over the world, what's the most interesting.

Where you found Chinese people serving up, and I use the words of

quotes, Chinese food, I would say

Madagascar.

I have never been there before.

I write my book and I didn't even know there were Chinese in Madagascar

until somebody pointed out, Hey, you might, you might try to go there.

So I, I landed in Madagascar, not knowing anything, and then I

was served a boat of one times.

Basically, my friend says, this is our national dish.

And basically just I home one time soup, but it's taken over , it's

taken over the, the cuisine.

And I equate this with kind of how the Bris will call, you know, chicken

tea masala as their national food.

Right.

, you know, it, it just shows you the truth can travel everywhere.

So Madagascar to me was Interesting country, not just because I've never

been there, but I also never thought there were Chinese settlement.

But in fact, there have been immigrants who were there for five, six generations.

So, and they're all racially very mixed.

Into the local population.

So that's, to me is an eye opening country for me.

So

in Madagascar, you found wonton soup that has taken over

as a national soup in Canada.

You have Indo-Chinese food that is being imported sort of in its current state.

But is there any place in your travels where you found a true

fusion of the local culture?

And Chinese

food, I would say in Peru, Peruvians have this cuisine called

chifa, which by the way is based on Chinese word means to eat rice, and

it is a very, very unique blend.

you know, you can't really call it Chinese and you can't really call

it Peruvian, but then it is the national cuisine of Peru in a sense.

So there, I would say it's, it's a very, very fusion, but I would

hesitantly use the word fusion.

I would use just say hybrid.

You know, fusion means you, you completely melting one another.

You can still distinguish.

Parts of it that is Inca or Spanish, you know, Peruvian.

But of course many parts of it are Chinese in origin, like

fried rice and fried noodles.

Can

you give me an example or two of the dishes that the family you visited was

serving in their restaurant that inhabit this idea of hybrid Peruvian Chinese food?

There is a dish called chicharon which in norm and different

Latin American countries use the word chicharone differently in Peru.

Chicharone, it's almost like a barbecue roast pork that you find

in Chinatown in North America.

It's their version the way they cooked it and so forth.

And it's also pretty much like a national dish, but it, it actually, you know,

the origin of it is using soy sauce and everything else is basically Chinese.

So there is an example of, of kind of the you would call it total fusion

of, of Chinese and Peruvian cuisine.

Jack, tell me about

your experience with Chinese restaurants in Israel.

It wasn't very easy to find anything that was reminiscent to

you at first of anything you knew.

Was it?

No, it wasn't bad.

I mean, it's just not, to me it, I, I was looking.

Chinese restaurant owners because I want to tell their stories in

my, in my film and in my book, but everywhere I turn, the, the restaurants

were run, were run by Israelis.

Maybe with a Thai cook.

So you have in your, in your menu, because the cook is from

Thailand, and then you might have Malaysian you know, servers.

So I, I couldn't find anything for a long time.

And then suddenly I ran in hafa, I ran into a, a Chinese restaurant.

The, the outside sign has, Proper Chinese characters.

Handwritten Chinese characters.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Saying Happy New Year.

And then I, I said, okay, this might be a good one.

So I, I, I just walked into the restaurant and the restaurant

owner is Chinese from Vietnam.

He was actually a boat people.

He fled Vietnam, but got accepted by Israel as one of the 400 at that time,

400 Chinese immigrants coming into Israel.

And then of course, I found my restaurant owner.

and he does make a very, very good Chinese food, but of course,

He has a cater to Israeli taste.

So his restaurant is basically you know, halal and no pork.

And no alcohol and so forth.

But, so basically he has opened a Chinese restaurant that is basically very Israeli.

But then the food I tasted are, are fairly authentic.

The people

you met in your travels that you write about are just fascinating.

I love your storytelling.

You've eaten all over the globe.

Can.

Have some advice for travelers who are looking for great food

that's off the beaten path, and also maybe even off the menu,

be adventurous.

And you know, you never know what you got.

I, I, in, in South Africa, I had a dish called ostrich meat in black bean sauce.

It, it's like beef.

Mm-hmm.

. It's not, it's red meat.

Actually, I thought, I didn't think ostrich meat would be red

meat, but it is and done that up.

It's no different from a beef with black bean.

. So you never know what you're gonna get, but certainly, you know, if you got turned

off by ostrich, then you, you certainly won't have the experience that I had of

trying something new and adventurous.

And the other advice I would say, if, if you go to a, a, a fairly quote unquote

authentic Chinese restaurant, look at what the other Chinese are eating.

Don't be shy about asking the restaurant owners if they say, Hey,

can I have something off the menu?

Because that's what I do when I travel.

I, I, I, I run around and I, I would poke my head into the kitchen and say,

can you make me something authentic?

Announcing that to them that I'm a obviously Chinese.

I want my real Chinese food.

Yeah.

So don't serve anything on the menu.

When you

would do that, would you ask this question in Chinese or

the language of the place you are?

Whatever.

I can detect . Okay.

I can, I'm, I'm pretty good at detecting where people are coming from.

And of course, even within Chinese there are different dialects.

True.

So you have to kind of, you know, know that you hit the right dialect.

But certainly I think showing my face and just announcing them

in whatever language that I am.

A also in overseas Chinese, I am a part of the member of the di Chinese diaspora.

that gets me welcome everywhere.

And do you have a favorite dish?

And if you do, does that dish differ from country to country

that you've traveled in?

My favorite dish is pork belly brace, pork belly.

There are different styles of pork belly, but certainly the haka.

Pork belly is the kind of the standard bearer.

A actually, surprisingly I found this wonderful pork belly in, in Mumbai,

India, in Mauritius and in Peru.

And in

each of those places were they preparing the pork belly with the

preserved mustard greens with the macai.

So they were able to find those ingredients and, and offer that

up even in other, around the.

That's right.

Hey, you know your, you know your pork belly

. Bruce: I do know my pork belly.

It is also one of my favorite dishes to make and to eat.

Oh man.

Chuck, this has been so much fun talking about your travels and your

experiences with Chinese food, your book.

Have you eaten yet?

Stories from Chinese restaurants around the world.

Is your experience, your conversations with these Chinese restaurant

owners around the world, what they went through, how they have

assimilated into communities, how Chinese food is the link that joins

so many people around the world.

Thank you for spending some time with me this morning, and

thank you for this amazing book.

Thank

you for having me.

I

think probably when we travel, we eat at more Chinese restaurants than

we eat at any other kind of restaurant.

It's

fascinating how the Chinese diaspora is so focused on food and

that, you know, that is such a way.

To gain a toehold into new cultures.

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah.

It, it, and it, it is a great way to experience a different

kind of cuisine than you maybe.

Mm-hmm.

experience if you travel and, you know it's.

Great.

The Chinatown to support Chinatowns, they were heavy, hard hit during the pandemic

because of kind of racist sentiment.

Mm-hmm.

, they were very hard hit.

So it's great to support them.

Grace Young is doing Hercule job supporting Chinatowns

right now with her work.

And then shout out to her for doing that.

And I don't know, we eat a lot of Chinese

food.

We do now.

I also make a lot of Chinese food.

We You do.

Alright.

Before we get to our last segment, as is usual, let me say, it would

be great if you could subscribe to or rate the podcast on any platform.

You can rate it by giving it stars . Five stars are best.

Thank you.

And if you wanna drop down on the Apple platform or Audible, you can

simply leave a comment that says something like, great podcast, just.

Easy little bit.

We'll do wonders for our unsupported podcast.

That is otherwise just here because you're here.

So shout out to us and we are shouting out to you right now.

Our final segment as is traditional.

What's making us happy in

food this week?

Kaza Mara Club, adult sodas there.

Non-alcoholic.

Have we done this?

We have.

We've actually talked about them as a main focus of the podcast

when we did non-alcoholic drinks, and these are really good there.

They're seltzers that are infused with herbs and spices

and they're not very sweet.

No.

And what I've decided I'd like best is mixing a little alcohol into them . And

so I take the one, it defeats the purpose.

No, it doesn't, cuz it's a beautiful base and I just pour a little

aperol into the one that is an orange base and Oh, my goodness's so

delicious.

Yeah.

The, the Amro one is my favorite.

Mm-hmm.

. Very sophisticated.

It's very adult.

It's a little bitter.

It's got no alcohol in it, and I am like 14 calories of can I know.

I am really into it lately, and I think it's just kind of a brilliant alternative

to not necessarily drinking all the time and I'm not being a prude, I.

Person.

I just had a dinner party.

And let me just say that I as we used to say back in the day, tied one on

such that the next day I was basically worthless till about one in the afternoon.

So let me just say that I'm not being a prude about these things, but it is nice

to dump the alcohol from your life and not always have it present at every turn.

Oh, what's making me happy?

Yeah.

What is in food This week is actually a coconut custard pie.

Mm.

Yu We just had that dinner party where I said I tied one on, and Bruce made a

four bone prime rib standing rib roasts.

It was crazy.

We had 12 pounds

of rib roasts.

We had a bunch of people over.

We played bridge, and then Bruce yanked out this giant rib roast out of the oven.

It was delicious.

He made a potato gant.

But at the end of the dinner I made dessert and I made a coconut custard pie.

It is such a beautiful custard.

Eggy pot.

Mm-hmm.

. The recipe is in our cookbook, the Ultimate Cookbook, which

we published years ago.

That book, we at the time, thought was going to be the absolute

defining moment of our career.

It ended not.

Not being so, but it is a 900 recipe cookbook of everything from soup

to nuts to four different kinds of lasagnas and all that stuff.

Anyway, there's a recipe in there for coconut custard

pie, and it is so delicious.

If you like egg custards, this is basically egg custard pie with lots of

coconuts.

That was so delicious.

That was like, I, I had to send everybody home with it because otherwise , otherwise

I would've eaten the entire thing we did.

We had, we, we, we told them needed to take it or it had to go out

of the trash cuz otherwise I would just eat it down with apparently

another bottle of red wine that night.

So.

There you go.

Well, thanks for being with us on our podcast this week.

Thanks for taking part on this journey with us.

We appreciate that you're here and we appreciate that in a

very crowded world of podcasts.

You have chosen to stick it out with us, and we hope you will

come back and download another episode next week and the

week after and the week after that.

So you won't miss a single episode of cooking with Bruce and Mark.