First, finishing the discussion of the high cost of health care reflected as a percent of Federal Income taxes. From there New York state is proposing the elimination of coal fired and wood fired pizza ovens. These ovens produce exceptional pies. Are these really a major contributor to air pollution? Pizzaiolo Chef Andrew hand-stretches the dough on this one.
SoCal Restaurant Show
Ask the Chef with Co-Host Chef Andrew Gruel of Calico Fish House
This is Wing Land, founder of Waddles Fish Taco with my brother's Mingo and egg. When I want to know what's going on in the world of food, I listen to SoCal restaurant show on AM830, K-L-A-A, the home of Angel's baseball. And welcome back. Sadly, it is the concluding segment of the SoCal restaurant show, but the better news is as we're going to be right back here with you next Saturday morning from 10 AM until 12 noon, right here on AM830, K-L-A-A, the home of the last weekend of Angel's baseball 2024. And you can also catch us on the AM830, K-L-A-A app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show, glad to be here. And it's time to welcome my esteemed co-host, Chef Andrew Grool, back to his show. Chef Andrew, good morning. Good morning, Andy. And we're enthusiastically presented each and every week by Melissa's world variety produce. Chef Andrew, there's never enough time, but we do the best we can. I hated to have to cut you off mid-sentence last week, but we couldn't leave it there. So to reset the stage, if I can, what I think we were talking about is in terms of the money that we pay in federal income taxes, what that money goes for in terms of government programs. And you mentioned about half of it is going to repay the national debt. But there's a health care aspect that goes from there, and I think that's where we pick up that conversation. Yeah, certainly, well, I think it's just an important point to notice that 20% of that money also goes towards health care. And we talk about health care from a full over policy perspective, but we also need to think about it in regards to chronic illness, disease, the Western diet. We've talked about this at length in the past, especially when it comes to seafood. I hang my hat on that a lot in regards to getting Americans to eat more seafood for various health reasons. But that number was surprising to me when I heard it, and I think that this comes from our conversation last week about packing tips and the budget and federal income, et cetera. And I always like to bring up the point, especially in the context of the Silcal restaurant show, which is food focused, how important it is that we consider food in regards to all these elements of policy, especially when it comes to getting healthy foods to Americans and helping with the health care costs that are associated with eating not so great food. So an important thing to think about as we molt through a lot of different policy perspectives, et cetera, especially when you put it in the context of, yeah, 50% or 50 cents on every dollar goes towards paying back the debt on our spending, but then 20 cents on every dollar towards health care overall. That's a very important number. Chef Andrew, it is. And it's something as individuals we can all do something about in terms of what goes to repay the national debt, unfortunately, in the interest they're on. That is a bit out of our control. So I'm glad that you had the chance to fully discuss that. Now, Chef Andrew, shifting to something that is a little bit more gentle and that quite serious, which we're entitled to do on the Silcal restaurant show. A lot of our listeners don't realize that in terms of your background, because you do come from a background of fine dining, you also know a thing or two about pizza growing up in New Jersey. And also you had a very wonderful pizza restaurant that was in Dustin. And probably Chef Andrew, I would forecast that pizza is not outside of your portfolio for the future, but we love to watch national trends. And as I mentioned earlier in the show in the late '80s, I was fortunate enough to be on a consulting job in Manhattan, and just was curious about discovering Brooklyn, because it's a city of neighborhoods. And of course, there is wonderful ethnic food in Brooklyn. And I think that's what the temptation was for me to do exploring more than anything. But I found my way out to Coney Island, which was pretty sad at the time. Fortunately, it's come back quite a lot since then. But on this very lonely street, a goodly walk from where the subway station ended in Coney Island, and it's elevated there. There was this pizza institution called Totonos that fortunately still exists. It's somehow hanging on. But what was so wonderful about them is they only made a certain amount of pizza rounds every night when they were open. And it was not necessarily a regular schedule. But when those rounds had been rolled and cooked, that was that. They closed up the doors. But they had this ancient, which must be over 100 years old right now, brick coal-fired pizza oven. Now, Chef Andrew, from a culinary point of view, what's special about cooking a pizza with coal? Because it is tremendous. Well, it's the heat in a char, right? So with the coal, you get that really, really, really high heat on the stone of the pizza oven. And that's what cooks the pizza quickly, gives it that crackling crisp bite on the bottom of the undercarriage, if you will. And there's also, you know, there is a little bit of that smoke to the coal that imbues into the flavor of the pizza, but it's not too woody, right? It's somewhat cleaner. So originally, and I think some of it's nostalgia, right, because coal-fired pizza was the original kind of cooking mechanism for pizza in the earlier days, especially in New Jersey, New York. So there's a flavor to that that I think is familiar when it comes to coal and then the heat that it produces. And you get a similar effect, I believe, when you use wood, correct? Well, the wood is, as you know, as I say, it's a little bit, it's a sweeter smoke. It's much smokier than the coal, so you're going to really get that kind of, that's us, the wood-fired flavor. You're going to get hotter, you're going to get a hotter oven with the coal, but the wood is definitely a reasonable substitute. And that's what I did, right? They switched kind of from the coal because they were phased out to some degree from the coal to the wood-fired pizza ovens, which, you know, it's still all the rage. Now, Chef Andrew, in less than a minute that we have, what is New York State up to as far as wood-fired ovens concerned and coal-fired pizza ovens? Well, there was, I wouldn't even say legislation, there was pre-registration that was introduced in which they decided that they would want to get rid of the wood and coal-fired oven pizzas all together because of what they call, you know, neighborhood smoke pollution or the smell, right? So really, a lot of it was like the smell and it was contributing to, you know, pollution within the local ozone environment, huge pushback. And to put a scrubber on those pizza ovens, which would filter it through another layer would cost like $30,000. So I don't know if it's dead in the water, but that was a big hot topic like a few months back. And we will follow it, but, you know, again, the Department of the Ridiculous and we will pick up the conversation next week, and I think we're going to be talking about chicken. Food fans, that's our show, a tip of the talk to my co-host, Chef Andrew Gruell. My thanks to Tony here at Angel Stadium on Technical Excellence, Kudos also to Adam Bell on social media. Next week, of course, we're back here with another fresh show. And again, we're going to be talking about some of these great food festivals that are coming up in the fall that have a charitable beneficiary. We're proudly presented to you each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce and West Coast Prime Meats. Dr. and the dugout with Alan Byer takes the field next. Be safe, dine well, and good eating.