37. Pyramid Scam, 5 Course Dinner Prep, My Daughter Max

In this episode, I discuss the good and bad of the food and drug administration's flip flopped food pyramid, the details of a 5 course dinner I did on Saturday 1/10 and my amazing daughter Max

I tweet terms like gourmet, pasture raised, organic, biodynamic, farm to table etc

I shout out to Singapore and the UK etc for new countries downloading the show.

I would like to get an email from listeners from:  Helsinki, Parana, Hereford, Belp, New Delhi, Alajuela and Singapore or anyone outside of Georgia.... Jkauffman16@gmail.com

Just a quick email telling me how you came upon this podcast!  Thanks

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:18

Folks, good evening. It's me. I'm back, Jesse Kaufman, the dysfunctional foodie. And in today's episode, it's just going to be me and you. No guest to interview, just talking about what's on my mind, if that's okay. And I will tell you that we're going to discuss the following things. We're going to talk about the new 2000, well, the USDA's official reversal or yeah, flip-flop of the food pyramid. That was hard for me to say, wasn't it? Yeah, the food pyramid's changed, and there are there's some good news and there's some really bad news. And then we're going to discuss. You know how I got rid of the foodie term and I said I wasn't dysfunctional anymore? Well, those two things are true. And there's another term that I want to discuss, which is the word gourmet, and we're going to tweak that one out a little bit. And I want to tell you that I'm just spent the last hour and a half preparing, doing whatever I can, the mise en place. And many of you know that term, mise en place is the items you can do to put in place, literally means put in place in French, the prep, the things you can do to get ahead so that when, you know, in a restaurant, when the orders come, you have the diced tomatoes and the saute, the caramelized onions and the shallots and whatever, you know, all the cucumbers are already diced. Those are the mise en place. You don't have to do everything in the exactly in the minute, as we say in the business. So I've been doing the mise en place for my four-course dinner, which is now turned into a five-course dinner this coming Saturday. And I'm excited, you know, I do this as a benefit. I don't get paid to do this, but it's it's a pleasure. It's for an organization called Circle of Friends. They have a cafe. They had two, but one close, they have a cafe, and they hire individuals with disabilities. And I never talked about my daughter, Max, but Max was born one pound, six ounces at birth and was a micropremie and has had some problems, many surgeries, et cetera. She's uh fantastic, leads a almost normal life, super funny, great conversationalist. You'd never really know it was a problem, but Max does have its stability, and we deal with this every day. And so it's it's great for me because I'm directly involved. And these folks have given Max a job in the cafe, and they're very patient with her. She does some barista things, and she, you know, her father's a chef, right? So she's in the kitchen and she worked in my restaurant for many years, busing, bar backing, etc. So, Max, shout out to you. And this Saturday is the four-course dinner that's become five course. I'll tell you more about that in this episode. So hang in there, hang around. So, with regard to this five-course dinner that I said I had coming up on Saturday, well, here I am. It is the following Friday. So Saturday came and went, and it's been a week since I did that dinner, and here's what the menu was. We started off at reception with Brazilian cheese breads. Now, what's cool about these guys is that they're gluten-free because they're made with tapioca flour. Super simple to make. They cook up in about 10 or 15 minutes, they're cheesy, and they're just delicious little cheese balls. We stuffed them with vegan sausage or plant-based sausage. And I did find, I found one at Publix or wherever I got them that I love and I've gone back to. And once again, I keep using it because it's got a great smoky flavor and it tastes just like meat. And the actual ingredients inside are not all these processed things. And that's one of the problems with, you know, the impossible burger and all this kind of stuff. They end up being worse for you than the actual hamburger, but uh these V sauces are good. That Brazilian cheesebread platter was surrounded with plantain chips, which are just tasty. The next course was spinach and mushroom-filled raviolis. Now, the raviolis were butternut squash raviolis. So I made the pasta myself. Haven't made much pasta in my day. So there was a big learning curve there. It was fun. So what I did was I blended the butternut squash and I folded it into the actual dough. So the the sheets that came out of my pasta maker had the butternut squash evenly distributed throughout the pasta. Okay, laid them out, put my little wild mushroom, I used uh oyster mushrooms and sauteed spinach and garlic inside, closed them up, crimped them around, and then you know, cook them for about 90 seconds and had them ready for service. I served those raviolis with little chunks of butternut squash that I had reserved on the side and caramelized with a tofu alfredo cream sauce. Tasted just like an alfredo sauce. Very cheesy, very garlicky, really delicious. The next course was a salad of hot honey goat cheese, stuffed Belgian endive leaves. Really pretty. We piped it out in a piping bag, so it looked real pretty in the end dives. I had, I pickled some rainbow radish, took the bitterness out, laid them on the plate, and on top of each one I put a candied walnut. I put a mound of arugula in the center of the plate, topped it with a cucumber and hicama salsa with some red onion in there. So mounded in the center, leaves shingled up, and those little radish and walnuts around. Really pretty plate. For the entree, it was a filet mignon and scallop combination. Got some beautiful large scallops, about a four-ounce piece of filet. They were served over a cauliflower, sweet potato, and Yukon Gold potato, hash brown or potato pancake. Pancake down, filet, two huge scallops on top, and then I wash, I slid a little, a little seaweed paper right on top of the filet to sort of be a little mini plate for the scallops. And then around the plate, sherry gastric. Do you know what a gastric is? It's when you bring vinegar and some sort of sweetener together, right? Honey, maple syrup, sugar, and then you just cook it down, and then they work beautifully together, especially with red meat. And that was the entree. For dessert, we served each couple one French apple tart and one tiramisu. Bada bing and bada boom. It was good. Again, a benefit I was happy to do, fun to do. Christy was there as my sous chef helping me. It was fantastic. So that's what I did last weekend. Now, on to the next thing I want to talk about today. We were talking about the uh the whole are you a foodie thing, you know? And I said, no, don't call yourself a foodie anymore because freaking everybody's a foodie. Well, what are if you're not a foodie, what are you? Are you a gourmand? Are you a culinary enthusiast? Do you have a label? Do you enjoy eating and possibly cooking what is considered haute cuisine? Haute cuisine is French. Do you prefer comfort foods and what are they? What is craft beer or food? Is your food well sourced or cared for? Are the foods, animals, veggies, and fruits from a biodynamic farm? Do you know what biodynamic is? Let me explain that one. So biodynamic, I believe, is when you've got like a farm and you're you got animals on the farm, and they're, you know, they're they're pooping in the in the fields and and they're fertilizing the crops, and you know, the sun is shining and the land is good, and there's no pesticides, and the people are happy, and everything, and the animals are part of it, and it all kind of comes together, kind of like back in the old days, and it's not forced, and you're producing healthy organic food. That's biodynamic, I believe. Is your food uplifted? Is it classic with a twist? What is New American cuisine? Is farm to table a lie? I mean, everybody's using farm to table, so they're really getting it from the farm and it goes straight to the you know through the kitchen to the table? Is farm to fork the same thing? A trendy way of spinning farm to table. What is the movement forks over knives? Well, I'll tell you. So that's what forks over knives is. Are there any new terms developing? Molecular gastronomy? Have you heard of that one? I haven't really played around with any of that stuff. Some of it looks pretty cool, but I just wonder. Then there's terms that people throw around left and right, you know, organic, pasture raised, wild caught, free range, grass fed, and grass finished. Sustainable. And what was the footprint that that company left on the earth? Is it overwhelming sometimes? Yeah. What should you do? What can you do? I don't know. I want to eat pasture-raised things that aren't finished with the pasture because that means that they let them out for 10 minutes a day and then they get to eat some grass and go back inside in confinement. I want organic and pasture raised because just organic, they could be cooped up eating some sort of organic, crappy feed that really wasn't meant for that chicken or that cow. They're in the pasture, at least they're eating grass. And, you know, sustainable, it's important, but really doesn't speak to the quality of the food. I want to I want to eat healthy, clean food. I want to abide by the staying away from the dirty dozen, which are the top 12 usually produce items, you know, fruit, vegetables, that are known to have the most pesticides. Know your dirty dozen. Don't buy them unless they're organic. And then other things you can, you know, bypass on the organic thing. I know food's expensive, but that is for me, it's no excuse. Spend your money on food. Stop buying the$6 freaking Starbucks and stop buying fast food and eat a little bit less and drive a car that doesn't cost$60,000 and just feed your vessel with healthy food. Speaking of your vessel and food, this kind of blew my mind recently. Foods that you eat, are they are they alive? Like when you eat them? That's a weird thing to ask, right? But what happens when you leave onions on the counter and potatoes for a while? They sprout. These things are still living, right? When you take a the nub of a romaine lettuce, the back the end that you cut off, and you stick it in water, in four or five days you have new lettuce. This shit's alive, brother and sister, out there. So when you're putting live food in your body, that's a beautiful thing, right? You know, people pray and they say, Oh, thank the Lord for this food. You know what I'm thinking? I'm thanking the food itself. I'm thanking the water I drink. I'm thanking that food for the pleasure I'm getting in the mouth. And the longer you chew, the more pleasure you get, right? So slow down, don't eat like a dog. And I'm thanking the food for nourishing this vessel. But the food is alive when it's a fruit and a vegetable. So you get a green banana and in three days it's yellow. It's not dead. There's whatever energy and coming off of that thing, and you put it in your body, and you are better for it. So eat your veggies, eat your beans at every meal. Maybe one last thing. Food pyramid. So they flipped it upside down, or what did they do? Well, the one thing they did good was they they de-emphasized processed foods. Excellent. They they threw meat and whole dairy at the top. That was a bad move because a lot of people will be influenced to eat more saturated fat than they should. They didn't change the fact, the fact, the science, they got that right, that you should only have 10% of your diet should be from those kinds of foods, saturated fat. And there will be implications with all the government agencies like schools and whatnot that must follow the guidelines of the food pyramid. But just don't be fooled. And don't, it's not a license to go, oh cool, I can have as much dairy and you know red meat as I want now because eight out of nine people on that advisory board were have ties to the meat industry and the dairy industry. Eight out of nine people that said this is what we recommend based on the science bullshit. We know that, I mean, nothing's changed. Like I said in my first episode in 2023, December 2nd, I've been reading all the books that my mother had in her house since the 50s and 60s, and they all say the same thing. Eat a whole foods, plant-based diet, limit your dairy, limit your animal protein, seldom red meat, and you're good to go. Nothing has changed. Eat your nuts and seeds and stay away from those saturated fat items. You heard me about my pro about protein in my last episode. You're getting enough protein without even trying. Stop thinking about it. You're fine. It's a hype. Somebody's you know paid lots of money to go out there and say, Oh, you gotta get more protein, get your protein on. I already covered that in my last episode. You're good to go. You know, eat some beans, eat some chicken, eat salmon, eat the things you know are scientifically proven to be good for you. Every once in a while have a burger if you, you know, there's nothing, hey, a great burger is good, but once a month, you know, knock out knockout fast food. Sometimes it's difficult to remember and to manage yourself. But if you give yourself a not a mantra, but a standard, and you say to yourself, I know that this whole eating thing is difficult, and I have cravings, and we all do, and we're all used to eating three meals a day when really, you know, maybe we need one or two. We're that being hungry is not something that most people ever really experience. What we experience is withdrawal from the serotonin rush of eating, the pleasure of eating. We want that warm, fuzzy feeling. It's emotional, and that's what we crave. It's not that we're hungry. Eat less food. So, as I've told you all, you know, for months now, my next project is I'm opening up this um restaurant and bar inside of the Pickleball Club of Georgia. And it'll have 33 indoor courts. It's a massive place, 110,000 square feet. I don't own it. I've just been tapped, as they say, to do the food and beverage and you know, open the restaurant and execute all things, food and drink. And so I've had been having a good time working on that. You know, that's what I do. I do this podcast and I talk to you folks, and then I work on my menu. So I was, you know, putting together. So when you when you create a menu item, whatever it is, call it shrimp picta, you have to buy and make a list, you have to have an order guide, right? With let's think about shrimpata for a second. Shrimp, capers, butter, a little heavy cream, maybe, white wine, a little bit of flour, shallots, and then linguini, garlic. So right there, you have to order seven different items. So you know how many items I have on my order guide right now? As of this moment? 274 items. So, yeah, it gets uh a little kooky and uh overwhelming, but hey man, I like it, it's fun. So working on that right now. I'm gonna end with this. Give yourself a goal this week. I don't know if you want to lose weight or if you're listening to this podcast because we you like talking about food and gourmet stuff, and maybe your health is perfect and you're not focused on the whole longevity thing that I keep diving into. And you're here for just talk of gourmet and foodie and elevated food, and I love it. But uh if you're focused on health and losing weight, then give yourself one of these goals. Maybe this week you'll say, okay, this week no fast food. Or this week, no cheese. Or maybe this week no bread. See what happens. And also at the same time, make a goal of I want to put in this vessel things that are good for this vessel. I want to put in the the best gas in my car possible so this machine runs super lean, like salmon, broccoli, blueberries, you know, nuts and seeds and beans, and the list goes on. So think of it that way. Give yourself a goal. All right, my friends, I'm gonna sign off for now and I want to thank all the new the new listeners. You know it's tricky sometimes when you're listening to a new podcast to decide whether to start from the beginning or to listen to the newest episode. But I would urge the new people, the ones from Singapore, there's 63 downloads, thank you. The UK nine, Kenya seven, Netherlands seven, Ecuador, five, Brazil, oi, gente, tudo bem, uh, Finland, did I say Tunisia? I would urge You to either you know look through the the titles of the episodes. Like, for example, if you want to go to the first episode, then you'll hear about how I started. You know, I I spoke of the 10 simple things to do to solve all your problems, you know, and they were eat a whole foods plant-based diet, you know, limit dairy, reduce the animal consumption, red meat seldom, you know, read all your labels, don't eat fast food, cook, you know, cook at home, eat less, calorie reduction, you know, have willpower and common sense, and don't eat foods that have pesticides and chemicals and you know, reduce or eliminate sugar, sleep and exercise. And then I expanded on each one of those. And then for other people, I you know, for the people that are trying to lose weight, I think it's episode 10 where it says lose 10 in two weeks in 22024, something like that. Just a real cool, concise way of knocking down 10 pounds in three weeks. And for other people that don't cook a lot but know they should, I think there's an episode called Slice and Dice. So look through the the titles to find one that appeals to you. And stick with me. We'll I'll do all the research so that you don't have to, so that none of you can feel dysfunctional in this crazy world of fad diets and those zempic pills and you know, upside down food pyramids and whatnot. So signing off until next time, and thank you very much. Talk to you soon. Bye bye.