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Episode 94

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Published on:

25th Aug 2025

WELCOME TO OUR KITCHEN: We're talking about chaos cooking!

Chaos cooking. A new trend. Well, sort of new. About two years old at this point, but it's found it's way into restaurants across the country. What started as a "throw it from the pantry into a pot" technique has morphed into the new version of culinary fusion.

We're Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, authors of more than three dozen cookbooks, including our latest: COLD CANNING, a guide to turning small batches of fresh produce into jams, chutneys, conserves, sauces, chili crisps, dessert toppings, and more, without a steam- or pressure-canner in sight.

We have lived through the ages of fusion cuisine and are really intrigued by this new take. It's sloppier and messier, but it's also sort of fun. Plus, we've got a one-minute cooking tip about how to cook faster. And we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week.

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

[01:12] Our one-minute cooking tip. Smaller things cook faster!

[04:41] Chaos cooking: what is it, how does it work, and how have you already had an example of it without necessarily knowing it?

[23:10] What’s making us happy in food this week: fresh New England corn on the cob!

Transcript
bruce:

Hey, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast

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Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

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mark: And I'm Mark Scarborough, and

together with Bruce, my husband, we

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have written 37 cookbooks, including

the latest cold canning, which we're

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actually gonna talk about a little bit

as a side quest inside of this episode.

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It's not really the focus of what

we're doing, but it'll come up.

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Trust me.

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Cold canning is all about how to

make small batches of condiments,

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preserves chili, crisp chili, Mac.

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Just dessert, sauces, even triple

sack, small batches at home.

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Anything that could be traditionally

put up, well, we can put it up in

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a small batch and store it in the

fridge or the freezer indefinitely.

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Check out our book Cold Counting, which

is available now wherever books are sold.

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But besides that, we have got, as is

tradition, our one minute cooking tip.

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We are gonna talk about

a trend, another trend.

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We've been on a trend phase lately,

but another trend, um, this is a

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trend you may not know about, but you

probably have actually experienced it.

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Mm-hmm.

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Even if you don't know about

it, and it's called chaos.

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Cooking.

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That's the way a lot of people cook,

is chaos, cooking, chaos, cooking.

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I'll tell you what's making

us happy in food this week.

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So let's get started.

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bruce: Our one minute cooking tip.

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As a general rule, smaller equals faster.

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Makes sense, right?

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Cut things into smaller pieces.

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They'll cook more quickly.

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And this goes for vegetables, meat,

anything you're cooking, small pieces

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of beef and a beef stew will get

tenderer before large pieces of beef.

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mark: Okay?

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So talk about that as a chef.

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Talk about like if you were making a

chicken, let's say making a chicken

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braise stew, what would you want to.

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Cut smaller in order to speed

up the time versus what?

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Would you wanna leave in larger chunks

or would you want it all smaller?

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bruce: Hmm.

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Well, things like a chicken stew

where I'm putting vegetables in it.

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If I'm putting the vegetables in

at the same time as a chicken, I'm

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gonna leave them bigger, right?

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I'm bigger chunks of carrots,

bigger chunks of parsnips.

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If I'm putting the vegetables in at a

later point in the cooking, I'll make

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them smaller so they'll cook faster.

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If I put small chunks in at

the beginning, they'll be mush.

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By the time the chicken's done.

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Right.

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Right.

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So you have to go by what.

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Are your other ingredients?

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What size are they?

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How long is the protein gonna take?

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How long are my vegetable steaks?

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Should things go in at the same time?

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Should they be cut in different sizes?

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It's all a whole algorithm,

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mark: right?

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Uh, you know, I, I've seen there's a

new product out on the market right

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now that I can, I don't know its

actual name, but I'm gonna describe

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it as onion mush, and it is a bottle

of allegedly minced onions, but you

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squeeze it like ketchup into a skillet.

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Mm-hmm.

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Onion puree.

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Yeah, it is.

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It is weird.

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And it looks really gross, I have to say.

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But this, this would be

no good for saute, right?

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'cause it would burn I

instantly, oh, you're

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bruce: not gonna use that.

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Although ginger, jarred ginger,

that's considered chopped

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ginger often comes in that mush.

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Almost like a tube where

you could squeeze it out.

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Lemon grass paste too.

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Yep.

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And in a lot of Asian cooking, both

Southeast Asian and Eastern Asian

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Indian, Indian food, adding Chinese food.

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You do call for these pastes of

garlic and ginger, but Right.

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Generally in Western cooking,

you want things to be in pieces.

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mark: Yeah.

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That squeeze bottle onion mush.

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I see people, I see them

online in, uh, cooking videos.

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I see them squeezing into like chili

after it's been going for a while.

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Mm.

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And I see them squeezing it.

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Into things after it's

been going on a while.

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It's

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bruce: perfectly fine.

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You're not gonna get any sweetness

from browning those onions.

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No, you're not gonna

highlight the sugar in it.

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You're just gonna be adding a raw onion.

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You're gonna be adding a

rough onion flavor to that.

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mark: Okay, so let's my least

favorite corporate metaphor.

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Circle back.

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Let's circle back to where we were at.

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Smaller equals fat.

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'cause that, does that mean we've

gone nowhere when we circle back?

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I think that's what it means.

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So, uh, we've actually gone

nowhere for a long time, so.

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Uh, well, let's go back to

the smaller equals faster.

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So what's the point here

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bruce: That smaller pieces of food,

protein, or vegetables will cook

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faster than larger pieces of food.

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So keep that in mind when you

chop your vegetables and cut your

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meat for stews and for dinner.

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mark: Okay, so that's, uh,

our one minute cooking dip.

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We're gonna move on to the main segment of

this podcast, but before we get there, let

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me say that it would be great if you could

rate this podcast or even write a review.

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Thank you for doing that.

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This podcast, as you well

know, is unsupported.

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And if you could rate a.

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Or give it a review, even nice podcast.

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That is the primary way you

can help support this podcast.

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And don't forget if you

want to subscribe to it.

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Okay?

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We're gonna talk about chaos cooking.

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This is a huge trend right now.

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You may not even know about it.

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But, uh, we're gonna start down

this road of what chaos cooking is.

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bruce: I know for a lot of people, cooking

just feels like chaos to begin with.

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It does.

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I mean, there's just so many flying parts.

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There's ingredients.

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It does, there's knives, there's

cutting boards, there's pots,

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there's oil, there's chopping,

there's peeling, there's garbage.

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There's not garbage.

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mark: Especially, especially when

you cook a Chinese or Sichuan.

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Dinner party for people and I look at the

kitchen and realize what I have because

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I do a lot of the washing up and realize

what I'm gonna have to wash up chaos.

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It is utter chaos in

that kitchen, but it's,

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bruce: that's organized chaos.

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I mean, is it, A lot of bowls are dirty,

but I try and stack them in the sink.

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You do, and everything is stacked neatly.

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You do chaos.

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Cooking is, you know,

it's what it sounds like.

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It's messy.

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It's sloppy.

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It's this things that you

look at and go, what is that?

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What are you doing?

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mark: Okay, so let me

explain what this is.

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Chaos cooking started as this

idea that you take whatever you

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have in the fridge and pantry

and you make something out of it.

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And this means that things that don't.

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Usually go together are shoved

chaos style into each other.

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Now, let's go backwards.

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So this is a revival of sorts of a

kind of fusion cuisine except not.

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Let's talk about that for a minute.

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So talk about your experiences

with fusion cuisine.

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bruce: Well, fusion cuisine where

we are, one culture's cuisine meshes

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with another, was starting to come

around in New York City in the late

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seventies when, you know, I was in

high school and the first kind of.

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Uh, a foray into that was probably

the chino Latino restaurants, which

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if you don't, if you're not from

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mark: New York, wait, I just have to

say if you're not, you're New York.

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These restaurants are not fancy.

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These are super downscale restaurants.

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bruce: Yeah.

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These are even more downscale

than your typical diner.

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Right.

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But there are waiters and they were more

of a fusion menu than fusion dishes.

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'cause you were going to these

restaurants and there was.

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The Latino food, the yellow rice,

the plantains, the chicken, and

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then there was the Chino foods.

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There was the roast pork and

the stir fries, but they weren't

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combined within the dishes.

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They were two separate parts of the menu.

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mark: When I moved to New York

in the mid nineties, there

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were still a few, I mean like.

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Two or three Chino Latino restaurants.

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There was one down on 14th Street.

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Mm-hmm.

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I love that place.

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The hiking district.

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It was, uh, I never went in

that place because it scared me.

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So, uh, Chino, Latino restaurant were

kind of, uh, vanguard of what happened.

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And what really did happen is in the

late nineties, this fusion cuisine really

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started to develop, and I think the one

that we as cookbook writers would know

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most about is Jean George, the jean.

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Van Corten, the the celebrity chef, and

back before he was a celebrity chef, he

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got known for doing this at that time.

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Very weird thing, which is adding

Vietnamese ingredients to Western dishes.

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bruce: Well, that was his thing.

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That was his training.

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That was his passion.

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He actually had a Vietnamese restaurant

along with his French restaurants

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he did, and then he started putting

Vietnamese style ingredients and flavors.

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Into his Western foods.

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So his French restaurants would have a

lot of lemongrass and they would have a

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lot of ingredients you normally wouldn't

find in Western or French cooking.

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mark: Do you remember when the, when

the Lower East side was, was changing

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over from the kind of rundown slum it

had become and it was starting to become

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hip and you and I went down to one of

the Vanguard restaurants down there and

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it was a Vietnamese French restaurant.

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Mm-hmm.

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And it was right.

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On the corner of, I don't even remember.

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And we sat in the window of this

restaurant and it was, it was still mostly

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held down there, but this restaurant

was one of these little beacon places.

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Mm-hmm.

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And, um, it served Vietnamese

food wi, it was the opposite of

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V it was Vietnamese food with.

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French influences.

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So, you know, instead of, uh, I don't know

what the fu it ha, instead of just regular

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fu it had some kind of really deep beef,

bone reduction as part of the broth to it.

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I, I don't know, it was Vietnamese.

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I think what was happening

had French overtones.

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Well,

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bruce: I mean.

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France and Vietnam, you

have all that problem.

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There's a long colonial history, which

is why mostly in Vietnamese restaurants

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you are given forks and knives.

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Yeah.

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And it's not chopsticks.

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Right.

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And which is why there's also a lot

of butter used in Vietnamese cooking.

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Correct.

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Because of the French influence.

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So it's not surprising that those

two cultures were one of the

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vanguards of this fusion cuisine.

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But didn't,

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mark: it started blowing out.

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Right.

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Fusions started blowing out.

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And you started getting, you know,

funky paellas made, not with seafood,

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but funky paellas made with all

kinds of things on top of their rice.

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Beef tenderloin.

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Yeah, beef tenderloin.

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And you started getting this

kind of funky, weird fusion,

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but it was all ingredient based.

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So chaos cooking is.

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Kind of a riff on that, but it is much

wilder in these social media days, and

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as I said, it started out as this way

to take whatever's in your fridge and

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just smash it together to make dinner.

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Well, that's kind of

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bruce: interesting because how many

times have people said to us over the

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course of our career, we write new books.

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mark: Oh my God.

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bruce: Can't you write a book with

what I have in my refrigerator

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with what I have in my pantry?

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And I,

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mark: uh, people say really, honestly,

we we're sending books and people will

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come to us and say, can't you write a

book about what I have in my pantry?

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And I always gonna say, yeah, if

you'll pay us a hundred grand,

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we'll be glad to write a book

exactly directed to your pantry.

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But like, we, how do I

know what's in your pantry?

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But you

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bruce: know, maybe there's a way

to take this idea and sort of.

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You know, uh, generalize it so that you

can take things that are in your pantry

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and create recipes and maybe there is a

chaos cooking book that we need to do.

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Okay.

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So

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mark: maybe, but, uh, um, I wanna say that

this has already started up with apps.

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We're getting off the topic here a little

bit, but apps are already starting that.

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You can say, I have

this, this, and this in.

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Fridge, what else do

I need to make a dish?

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And that's already

starting in various apps.

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And you can in fact do this with chat GPT.

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Mm-hmm.

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You can say, I've got this, this, this,

and this in my pantry, in my fridge.

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What do I need to buy at the

store in order to make a dish?

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And what's the recipe?

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But where did this trend come from?

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So about a year ago, social media started.

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Flooded with these chaos recipe

and chaos cooking videos.

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And uh, these are, I just want to tell

you some of the ones that I saw early on.

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I saw one where someone took a packet

of ramen noodles plus the packet

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of ramen noodle flavoring, which

I think is mostly just MSG, right?

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The ramen noodle flavoring.

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Mm-hmm.

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And all they did is they.

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Boiled it up, they added the

flavoring packet, and then what

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they had in their refrigerator

was kisa, carrots and ketchup.

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And they just threw that all in

there with the ramen noodles, and

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they called it chaos ramen because

it was just crazy chaos ramen.

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Or I saw someone take, she had leftover

hard boiled eggs in her refrigerator.

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Oh.

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God and she mashed, throw those out.

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She mashed them up with chutney

and, uh, well, she said bacon.

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It looked to me like she was scraping

bacon grease out of a jar, so it was hard.

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Boil eggs and bacon grease and

chutney, uh, out of a dish.

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She was scraping bacon grease and she

mixed it together and she put it on bread

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and she called it her chaos Egg salad.

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Okay,

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bruce: well in that case, the bacon

grease is just standing in for mayonnaise.

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So she was making some weird egg salad.

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mark: She was, I I've seen ones

where they take a box of craft

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macaroni and cheese and they make

the craft mac and cheese, except they

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mix bologna and sriracha into it.

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I saw one cheese.

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Okay, well

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bruce: wait a second.

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I used to mix can tuna

in, so that's great.

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There's just protein as protein.

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As protein.

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mark: I saw one last night where somebody

was making chaos ramen as I was lying

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in bed before we recorded this today.

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I was on TikTok and I

saw somebody, he came up.

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Chaos Ramen and they had no

protein to add to it, but they

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did, which is, this is really odd.

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They had more Ella, so they just

cut up Mortadella and dropped it in

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the ramen, which I cannot possibly

imagine what that tastes like.

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So as a general rule, chaos,

cooking is supposed to be messy.

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Most of the chaos cooking videos online.

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Are incredibly sloppy.

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They're slinging food,

they're throwing it around.

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If you do hashtag chaos cooking,

you'll find a million of them.

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And also, generally what

comes out is pretty goop.

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It's pretty runny.

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It's all about it.

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Running down your face,

running all over your.

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Plate

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bruce: sounds like Tex-Mex food.

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mark: It's all about all of that.

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I, there's this guy I follow on

social media who I love so much

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who tries to eat dinner every night

with his cow and the cow, literally.

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Okay, that is true.

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Chaos.

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The cow literally slings the food.

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All over the kitchen.

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I mean, this is a whole live cow standing

in the kitchen and he's trying to like

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eat pizza and this cow is just slinging

everything all over the kitchen anyway.

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Okay.

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That's not chaos.

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Cooking.

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The chaos.

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Cooking has become, I think it is

such a thing that it has actually, um.

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Uh, invaded, uh, now I wanna say invaded.

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It's influenced actual dishes that

are now showing up in restaurants.

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bruce: Well influenced, yeah.

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What I think what's happened

is this idea of mixing unusual

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things together was taken out of

this sloppy, messy chaos, right?

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And refined and put into.

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Set dishes that you might not

expect to be the way they are,

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but they are the way they are.

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They're no longer necessarily sloppy.

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They're not messy.

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They're just sort of unexpected

things and not unexpected.

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Like the old days of fusion where

you had garlic ice cream, right?

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That was very unexpected,

but it was shocking.

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Now it's unexpected like a

little miso in a bolognese.

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Which gives an umami and an

earthiness and a saltiness that

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improves the dish where I'm not sure

garlic improved ice cream, right?

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But I can tell you that

miso improves bolognese.

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I can see

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mark: you're doing some

research for this episode.

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I found a couple of restaurants making,

uh, their version of Big Mac casseroles.

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And if you don't know, this

is big in chaos cooking.

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That is, you go and you buy.

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I don't know, three, four Big Macs, five,

six, and you line them up in a nine by 13.

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You smush them into a nine by 13 dish.

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You pour cans of soup, like random

cans of soup, like cream of celery

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and tomato soup over the top of 'em.

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You.

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Cover it all with cheese

and then you just bake it.

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And that's this alleged Big Mac casserole.

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Well, I found restaurants

legitimately serving their version.

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They can't say Big Mac because

that's of course a trademark name

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or a trademark item, but they,

they're serving their version of

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these kind of hamburger casserole.

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Okay.

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But what's

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bruce: gonna work about that

for me is that restaurants are

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going to make their own buns.

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Restaurants are gonna have.

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No really good beef.

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I assure you.

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The

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mark: places that I found are

not making their own bones and

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do not have really good beef.

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One of them is right here in

Hartford, Connecticut, and I assure

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you it's not doing any of that

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bruce: because

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mark: the

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bruce: point that people were doing

with the original big man casseroles

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was to get that taste of McDonald's.

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There is a very.

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Distinctive taste to McDonald's.

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Oh gosh, can I say this?

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You could smell it.

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Come at a mile away, can.

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mark: So we were out once, uh, driving

around rural Pennsylvania and I was

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thirsty and I wanted a a, a diet Coke.

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We stopped.

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At, uh, McDonald's, right?

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We stopped at McDonald's just so that

I could get a Diet Coke, and I got

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the Diet Coke in the drive up window.

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I drove away and I took one slurp of

the Diet Coke, and I swear to God, it

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tasted, it tasted like french fries.

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It did.

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It was disgusting.

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It tasted like it smelled.

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Like the french fries and

hamburgers and a McDonald's.

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I was like, this isn't a Diet Coke.

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This is french fries.

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Well, it's

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bruce: the same reason when

you come home from one of those

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:

restaurants, your hair smells like it.

396

:

Oh, and your clothes smell like it.

397

:

Well, those of you who

398

:

mark: still have hair

399

:

bruce: well, so those cups were

sitting in that stench for weeks

400

:

and they stench smell like it.

401

:

Okay.

402

:

mark: Okay.

403

:

All right.

404

:

Well, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

405

:

Back up.

406

:

All right.

407

:

Not, we're not gonna say that.

408

:

On air of, so we just saw, I just saw

a place that was making Ria Ramen.

409

:

Mm-hmm.

410

:

Yu and in fact, we ate at this place.

411

:

We didn't have the Ria Ramen just

a few, just a week ago or so.

412

:

This is the restaurant connected

to Mass moca, the spectacular

413

:

modern art museum in Massachusetts.

414

:

But what is Beria Ramen

415

:

bruce: Beria?

416

:

Well, Beria is a braised.

417

:

Meat, usually goat in Mexican

cooking, and it's got chilies and

418

:

spices, and it's very fatty and

greasy and luscious, and delicious.

419

:

Delicious, delicious.

420

:

And so if you take that oily,

braised, highly flavored meat,

421

:

say it's goat or lamb, and you put

that in a bowl of ramen with that.

422

:

Broth from the bi.

423

:

I could just imagine.

424

:

It's fabulous.

425

:

They pro, I think they

topped it with guda cheese.

426

:

I think so.

427

:

And scallions?

428

:

I think so.

429

:

I don't know why I didn't get it.

430

:

mark: And, and I've seen a lot

lately of pokey hummus bowls.

431

:

Mm.

432

:

And that is that instead the rice

at the bottom of a pokey bowl.

433

:

Mm-hmm.

434

:

They put hummus down there.

435

:

Sure.

436

:

Um, I've.

437

:

Seen it with Middle Eastern pickles

in it, and yet on the top is still

438

:

that pokey sauce and the raw tuna, so

it's like this weird smash of the two.

439

:

It's not fusion well,

440

:

bruce: but kind of is.

441

:

You're fusing different

cultures foods together.

442

:

To me, it's the perfect marriage

between fusion cuisine and

443

:

chaos, because chaos had both.

444

:

Things that shouldn't go together,

but they're putting together and messy

445

:

fusion just crosses cultures here.

446

:

We're crossing cultures and we're

getting really great things.

447

:

Okay, I'm gonna disagree.

448

:

mark: I'm gonna just because I'm gonna

say in the old fusion cooking, when Jean

449

:

George Ton put lemongrass in, let's say I,

I, I, I don't know, braised beef that was.

450

:

A melding and a balance.

451

:

This strikes me as just two things

smashed up against each other.

452

:

There's the hummus and the Middle

Eastern flavors, and then there's the

453

:

pokey and it's dressing, but on top

of it, and it strikes me that they're

454

:

just smashed on top of each other.

455

:

It's, it's weirder.

456

:

It's less balanced to me.

457

:

Same with Bi Ramen.

458

:

It seems like you've

just taken two things.

459

:

You've pushed them up against each

other, but this chaos, cooking

460

:

has even invaded what we do.

461

:

And this is, now I'm gonna

bring up Cole Canning.

462

:

We weren't really trying to.

463

:

Be chaos cooking.

464

:

But when we got to the salsa matcha, you

wanna explain what a salsa matcha is.

465

:

So

466

:

bruce: salsa matcha, if you're familiar

with Chili Crisp, which most people

467

:

are familiar with, chili crisp.

468

:

But this time, which is, you know, the

seasoned Asian hot, spicy oils with

469

:

the layer of crunchy chilies and onions

and garlic underneath it, salsa matcha

470

:

comes from Mexico and Cru in fact.

471

:

And it is a similar thing of dried

chilies, but there's always a nut.

472

:

There's always a dried fruit.

473

:

There's always an aromatic flavor and

you fry each of these ingredients, the

474

:

chilies, the nuts, the dried fruit,

the aromatic, and then you put them all

475

:

in a food processor and impulse 'em up

together, probably as originally done

476

:

in a mortar and pestle and chopped up.

477

:

But nice.

478

:

It was I the food processor.

479

:

So like one of my favorite recipes

for salsa matcha in our book is

480

:

something you would probably never

ever find south of the US border.

481

:

No, you wouldn't.

482

:

And that's.

483

:

Two kinds of dried chilies, including

maritas, which are a little smoky,

484

:

dried cranberries, walnuts, little

ginger, and it's an amazing and maple

485

:

mark: syrup.

486

:

First

487

:

bruce: little

488

:

mark: sweetness and maple.

489

:

It's a cranberry maple salsa macha.

490

:

This recipe be very, very new.

491

:

bruce: It's a New England Salam.

492

:

Macha.

493

:

Yeah.

494

:

mark: It's so crazy that CN

actually picked it up this week.

495

:

So I mean, it's, it's, we

weren't intending to be fusion.

496

:

Or we weren't intending to be

chaos, but it ends up being in

497

:

the spirit of chaos, cooking.

498

:

There's a, uh, chili crisp.

499

:

Bruce mentioned this in the book

that, uh, he made that is just

500

:

completely non-traditional and it's

made with Nori, the dried seaweed.

501

:

And these got this weird.

502

:

Seaweedy taste to the chili crisp that was

kind of in the spirit of fusion cooking

503

:

or in the spirit of chaos, cooking.

504

:

I don't know that we were

trying to actually do it, but

505

:

bruce: no, I don't think I was

ever trying to do chaos, but

506

:

I was trying to find unusual.

507

:

Flavors to put into other things,

but only in ways that work.

508

:

Right?

509

:

So you talk about things that

are balanced versus not balanced.

510

:

If you think it, it's chaos

only if it's not balanced right?

511

:

Then none of our recipes are chaos.

512

:

But they started out in

the same kind of idea.

513

:

mark: And I, I, I should just

say one last thing, and this is a

514

:

bonus side point I, in researching

for this episode, I saw several.

515

:

Bars, very, very hip bars that, uh, offer

chaos cocktails and chaos Cocktails means

516

:

that the bartender grabs anything and

everything and pours it into a shaker

517

:

and shakes it up and pours it out to you.

518

:

And it can be as insane

as Bailey's and Ousel and.

519

:

Fuck.

520

:

bruce: And people are paying for this.

521

:

They are.

522

:

Do you remember?

523

:

mark: And, and the, the idea here

is that the K Wait, wait one second.

524

:

The idea here is the KA

cocktail is only once.

525

:

Yeah.

526

:

Like you're getting the only one

of these that will ever be made.

527

:

I never do it

528

:

bruce: again.

529

:

Do you remember on, uh, public access tv?

530

:

Back when we lived in New

York, there was lolly.

531

:

I do.

532

:

And Lolly was on once a week

and Lolly made cocktails.

533

:

mark: Boston, I think.

534

:

bruce: And she's had a blender and she

was in her kitchen and she had about a

535

:

hundred bottles of booze in front of her.

536

:

And she would just pick them up

and dump them in the blender.

537

:

Yeah.

538

:

And it was, that was

serious chaos bartending.

539

:

It

540

:

mark: was like Bailey's and

Midori and Strega, and she would

541

:

just keep adding stuff to it,

strawberry lur, and then she'd

542

:

bruce: taste it, oh, it needs banana.

543

:

And then she put some banana liquor in it.

544

:

It was the most disgusting.

545

:

Okay, well

546

:

mark: mix up, but, but

547

:

bruce: you know, you know,

people are paying for it.

548

:

I

549

:

mark: know that I, it's a thing now that

people are paying for chaos cocktails

550

:

because there's this idea that you're

gonna get the one and only of this made.

551

:

And I saw one bar in

particular in Las Vegas.

552

:

That was actually doing it so that

when you, and it's super expensive,

553

:

and when you order a cast cocktail,

the bartender actually gets blindfolded

554

:

and then just grabs bottles.

555

:

And supposedly this is supposed to

make it all, you know, like, uh,

556

:

an original drink just for you.

557

:

I, I would need no.

558

:

Yeah, no, uh, yeah, no.

559

:

Everybody knows what, I think a mixed

drink is an ice cube in bourbon,

560

:

so I can't imagine doing that.

561

:

But anyway, it's a thing and it's a trend.

562

:

So that's our talk about chaos, cooking,

how we intersected with it, where it

563

:

may have come from outta fusion cuisine,

but how it's not really fusion cuisine.

564

:

It's far weirder than that.

565

:

You can hashtag chaos cooking

on any platform and you can

566

:

find lots of people doing it.

567

:

Uh, before we get to the last

segment of this podcast, let me

568

:

say it's great that you're with us.

569

:

Thanks for being on this journey.

570

:

We appreciate your selecting our podcast

out of a giant landscape of podcasts.

571

:

Thanks for doing that with us.

572

:

And now, as is typical, the last

segment of our podcast, what's

573

:

making us happy in food this week.

574

:

bruce: Corn on the cove.

575

:

It's that time of year.

576

:

Wow.

577

:

You stole mine.

578

:

That was actually gonna be mine.

579

:

mark: Okay, come on.

580

:

bruce: I drove from our house out

about 45 minutes to a farm stand

581

:

that is a pick your own place and

they had corn and it was probably

582

:

some of the best corn I have had.

583

:

He up here in New England.

584

:

mark: Say you drove out

there, he drove out there.

585

:

You drove out there, uh, because last

year you went out there and bought

586

:

about a billion San Marzano tomatoes.

587

:

I picked them

588

:

bruce: myself too.

589

:

mark: Right.

590

:

And the plants were basically down,

it was the end of the season and

591

:

they were down and on the ground

and you were picking them up off the

592

:

ground in order to make tomato sauce.

593

:

Mm-hmm.

594

:

bruce: And I did, and I got

some tomatoes yesterday.

595

:

They had a few San Marzanos

that were pre-picked.

596

:

And I did get a small bag

and it was enough to make.

597

:

Two quarts of, uh, marinara sauce.

598

:

mark: Yeah.

599

:

Are you gonna go back when they go down

and try to salvage, like perhaps you

600

:

were on a salvage mission last year.

601

:

bruce: I was, I was.

602

:

It was kind of messy.

603

:

It was like walking on

tons of rotted tomatoes.

604

:

Yeah.

605

:

That

606

:

mark: I, I have to say,

and here's my thing.

607

:

And so while we're gonna talk

about this for a second, I have

608

:

to say that, uh, people go crazy

about corn in the summer, and I am.

609

:

Less than crazy something.

610

:

I don't like it.

611

:

I just don't go insane for it.

612

:

And when it comes in, it's about now

in New England when our corn is coming

613

:

in, yeah, I wanna have it a couple

times and then I'm done with it.

614

:

I'm actually done with

the concept of corn.

615

:

It's really.

616

:

Odd with me and I, it's

not that I loved it.

617

:

Mm.

618

:

I loved it last night.

619

:

One of the things, I think it has to

620

:

bruce: be good though.

621

:

There's nothing to be good there.

622

:

Nothing worse than bad corn.

623

:

And

624

:

mark: one of the things I think that's

happened since I was a kid, 'cause when

625

:

I was a kid, I loved corn on the cob.

626

:

And I think one of the things that's

happened is over the years, the

627

:

hybrids have gotten sweeter and sweeter

and sweeter and now it is so sweet.

628

:

It's just unbelievable house.

629

:

It doesn't even taste like corn anymore.

630

:

bruce: Right.

631

:

That's

632

:

mark: the problem.

633

:

Right.

634

:

That was I, I mean, I was eating it last

night and I was putting butter and salt

635

:

on it and I loved it, but I said to.

636

:

Bruce, this almost tastes like dessert.

637

:

Mm-hmm.

638

:

It's really close to dessert.

639

:

Mm-hmm.

640

:

But, um, you know, a couple times a

year, I do really love fresh corn.

641

:

Good

642

:

bruce: sweet corn.

643

:

Like that is really a, a treat.

644

:

And I can even see up a dessert

the same way I can imagine

645

:

sometimes a sweet potato.

646

:

Oh,

647

:

mark: chaos cooking.

648

:

Now I can

649

:

bruce: see a sweet potato too.

650

:

We're gonna dessert too.

651

:

Gonna make

652

:

mark: a corn apple pie.

653

:

No, I'm just gonna serve corn.

654

:

No, it's just corn apple pie

with anchovies on the top.

655

:

And

656

:

bruce: no, let's just say after a dinner

party, everyone gets an ear of corn

657

:

mark: and ketchup ice cream there.

658

:

That's my chaos.

659

:

Cooking pie.

660

:

Oh, so

661

:

bruce: was my grandmother into chaos

cooking when she used to make me her

662

:

Sion with cream cheese when I was a kid.

663

:

And she would boil thin noodles

and she'd melt cream cheese in it

664

:

and squirt ketchup, and that was

her, you know, creamy tomato sauce

665

:

mark: that makes.

666

:

We barf.

667

:

We're going end on that.

668

:

Uh, yes.

669

:

Great.

670

:

I'm glad you had that grandmother.

671

:

I'm glad I didn't.

672

:

Um, we're going to end

on that for this podcast.

673

:

Thanks for being with us, as I say.

674

:

And please come back next week for

another episode of Cooking Bruce Martin

675

:

bruce: and with all the AI out

there in the world, you don't

676

:

know what's real and what's not.

677

:

Know that every time you tune

into an episode of Cookie.

678

:

Bruce and Mark, it's real.

679

:

It's us.

680

:

We're here.

681

:

No AI here at Cookie, Bruce and Mark.

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About the Podcast

Cooking with Bruce and Mark
Fantastic recipes, culinary science, a little judgment, hysterical banter, love and laughs--you know, life.
Join us, Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, for weekly episodes all about food, cooking, recipes, and maybe a little marital strife on air. After writing thirty-six cookbooks, we've got countless opinions and ideas on ingredients, recipes, the nature of the cookbook-writing business, and much more. If you've got a passion for food, we also hope to up your game once and a while and to make you laugh most of the time. Come along for the ride! There's plenty of room!

About your host

Profile picture for Mark Scarbrough

Mark Scarbrough

Former lit professor, current cookbook writer, creator of two podcasts, writer of thirty-five (and counting) cookbooks, author of one memoir (coming soon!), married to a chef (my cookbook co-writer, Bruce Weinstein), and with him, the owner of two collies, all in a very rural spot in New England. My life's full and I'm up for more challenges!