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Episode 74

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Published on:

31st Mar 2025

WELCOME TO OUR KITCHEN: Introducing Cold Canning, our next cookbook!

COLD CANNING. It's our new cookbook out in the summer of 2025. We're so excited about it.

Get this: small batches, no steam canner needed, no pressure canning, a few jars to preserve, well, jams, jellies, chutneys, chili crisps, conserves, ketchups, salsas, mustards, dessert sauces, sauerkrauts, kimchi, pickles, relishes, and much more!

We're Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, veteran cookbook authors who are about to publish our thirty-seventh cookbook. And maybe our best one yet. We can't wait to tell you about it.

Want to snag your own copy. Check out this link right here!

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

[00:35] Our one-minute cooking tip: Soak dried chilies and puree them rather than grinding into a powder for many rubs and marinades.

[03:15] Our new cookbook out in the summer of 2025: COLD CANNING!

[17:37] What’s making us happy in food this week? Hard cider and fresh, local eggs!

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 my husband Bruce, we have

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written three dozen plus one cookbooks.

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In fact, this episode of the podcast

is gonna be about that plus one,

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or at least introduce you to what

the plus one is, which will be

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published this summer of 2025.

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We were very excited about it

and we don't wanna make this too

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commercially or advertising Lee.

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So we wanna kind of tell you the

process about how we came to write.

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This book that is coming out this summer,

we've also got a one minute cooking

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tip as we always do, and we'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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Now this one is from Kenji

Our one minute cooking tip.

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Now this one is from Kenji

Lopez Alt, and I just love it.

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And I do love his work too.

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So he says, rather than

grind, chilies into powder.

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When you're making chili or any

dish that requires chili powder,

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soak your dried chilies in hot water

until soft blend them into a paste

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and then stir them into your dish.

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You'll get more flavor, more heat in

every mouthful and no ground chili grit.

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But what if

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Mark: you need dry

ground chilies for a rub?

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You can't do this for a raw No.

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This

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Bruce: is like if you're putting it

into a chili, you're making chili

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with ground beef or with diced meat.

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Okay.

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Or you're making Paola.

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Yeah, I can see that.

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Or you're making an enchilada sauce.

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So his

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Mark: claim is that if you rehydrate them

under hot water and turn them into a.

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Paste.

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Mm-hmm.

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You'd have to stem them.

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Mm-hmm.

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And then you can or cannot seed them.

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Mm-hmm.

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Depending on your preference for heat.

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Yep.

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If you don't seed them, they'll be hotter.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, then his claim is that you

get more flavor, and here's

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Bruce: why.

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When you grind any dried herb, it

starts to lose its flavor oils Right.

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And starts to lose.

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That's true.

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All of its aromatics.

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That's true.

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So you don't know how long that

ground chili you're buying is now.

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He says, do this instead

of grinding your own.

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Most people don't grind their own.

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No, I know, but I wasn't even

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Mark: gonna point that out.

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But

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Bruce: it's a great idea to keep dried

chilies in your house for this And we're

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talking about, yeah, I guess when you

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Mark: dry, when you grind, wait, wait.

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I just wanna say, I guess when you, Dr.

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Grind, dried chilies, it does stand to

reason that some of the flavor, estrogen,

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even what are now the dried oils in

there, but they're still present as oils.

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Mm-hmm.

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That they would volatilize.

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In some way and escape the process.

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Whereas if you soak them, they're gonna

be, uh, more weighed down and kept intact.

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That does stand to reason.

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Mm-hmm.

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Bruce: I trust him.

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His recipes always work.

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And the guy's pretty smart.

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Mark: Yeah.

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Yeah.

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The guy is pretty smart, so.

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Okay.

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If you need, uh, ground dried chilies for

a recipe and don't eat a powder for a rub,

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consider rehydrating them and then adding

them straight to the sauce from there.

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All right.

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Before we get on to the new cookbook

that's coming out in July, let

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me say that we have a Facebook

group cooking with Bruce and Mark.

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We'd be glad to connect with you there.

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We'd be glad to further talk about

Chili's or whatever you wanna

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talk about in that Facebook group.

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You can also find us on Instagram under

cooking with Bruce and Mark, and you

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can find us under our own names on

Instagram, Facebook, and Blue Skies.

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So check us out wherever you can find us,

and we're glad to have you as a friend.

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Up next, let's talk about the new

book that is coming out this July.

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Bruce: Let me start with

the name of the new book.

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Mark: Okay.

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Bruce: It is called Cold Canning.

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Mark: It is cold canning,

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Bruce: and the reason we called it cold

canning is because you are going to make.

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Everything that you could possibly imagine

putting into a jar to set up for the year.

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From jams and jellies and

chutneys and salsas, chili crisps.

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We even have reli cheese, fermented

foods, pickles, sauerkrauts, Kim cheese,

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Mark: dessert, sauces, strawberry

sauce, chocolate sauce.

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We have laurs like your

own homemade, triples sec.

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We have all kinds of ketchups and

mustards and barbecue sauces, and

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Bruce: the reason it's cold

canning is none of those.

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Get hot water processed.

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Yep.

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So it's all small batch everything

makes one or two jars and it's

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all designed to go right in your

refrigerator cold or freezer cold.

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Mark: Okay, so Bruce set it up,

what the book is, but lemme tell

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you about how this book came to be.

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So, we, as you know, have written a lot

of cookbooks at this point in our life

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and our, we're lucky enough, I should

say, that our publisher is also our.

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Editor.

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So our publisher at Little

Brown is also our editor.

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And it's easier that way to sell a book

because ultimately you have to sell it

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to a publisher, not to an editor anymore.

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I don't know if you know this, but

editors do not have acquisition

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rights in the publishing industry.

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So editors no longer buy books.

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They have to present the book well

to their publisher and a whole

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marketing team and then sell it.

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And when you've already got a

relationship with your publisher,

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who's your editor, it's just one

step closer to selling the book.

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. So in the end, we end up going

out to lunch with our literary

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agent and our publisher editor,

and we talk through book ideas.

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We always come with some ideas.

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At this point, he's always got

some ideas and I have to say, isn't

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Bruce: that nice when your publisher

has ideas that he wants to use?

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I have to

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Mark: that he's a little bit

cagey sometimes because he says

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if he's got some ideas in his.

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Back pocket and he pulls them

out during the course of lunch

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and throws them out on the table.

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Even though we've come with some

ideas, he's, he, he hasn't yet told us

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what they are and then they come out.

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So we were sitting at lunch in a Manhattan

restaurant with our literary agent in him

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and we were talking to the Chinese food,

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Bruce: if I remember right.

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Mark: Yeah.

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And he didn't really like any

of our ideas, which is fine.

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Uh, listen, this is just a

brainstorming how to sell a book.

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Possession.

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So we started talking about it and he's

like, his mandate has changed, and this

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is, maybe you'll find this interesting.

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So our publisher's mandate has

changed from the corporation and it's

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changed in a really interesting way.

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He's been mandated not.

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To buy any more books from

influencers and to turn away

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from social media laden accounts.

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So people with 10,000, a hundred

thousand, a million subscribers

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on TikTok or YouTube or whatever.

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He's been instructed not to buy

their books anymore, and instead he's

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been instructed to go back to an.

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Old way of publishing books, which is

to look for books that will exist on

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what's called the backlist, meaning after

they're published, they continue to have

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a sales life long after they're published.

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And you might not know this, but right

now in publishing, most people look

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for the first three months of sales.

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Yeah.

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And that's it.

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But he's been instructed to look for

books that will sell over five years.

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Bruce: And the thing is.

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Even if you have a million

followers, it doesn't guarantee

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you're gonna sell a million books.

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In fact, our agent was telling us

when we had dinner with her last week

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about some influencers she knew and

the publishers paid huge money for

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their books and they sold 5,000 copies.

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Right?

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So there's no guarantee they lost like

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Mark: a ton of money on the book.

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And this is the problem is that

the Bruce is saying there's

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no guarantee and he's right.

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And also the problem is that if you are

a hot influencer right now, it takes

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about two years to publish a book.

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Yep.

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So you gotta write it.

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It's gotta get.

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Photographs, it's gotta get

printed mostly in China.

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It's gotta come back here,

be shipped back here.

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That shipping back takes

four to six months back here.

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And then it's gotta get distributed in

this country, in the United States and

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in Canada and other places as well.

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So it takes about two years.

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Mm-hmm.

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And listen, if you're an

influencer, you're probably.

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Out of favor in two years.

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That's true.

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You're no longer an influencer.

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Bruce: And Mark says it takes

so long to ship it back.

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'cause things come on.

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Container ships.

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They do.

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And if you're lucky, they get back.

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We know about some authors whose

unfortunately the containers containing

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their books fell off the ship.

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Yep.

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And went right to the bottom of the ocean.

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Yep.

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So they miss their pub date with no books.

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Right.

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And that's real problem.

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So

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Mark: we're sitting there with our

publisher editor at lunch and we're

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talking through this whole thing and.

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Of course he's got an idea in his back

pocket, and he comes out with this idea

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because he's talking about longstanding

books, about how long canning books last

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that is Ball, uh, cans, you know, ball

jars published a series of canning books,

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I don't even know, 10, 15 years ago.

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Mm-hmm.

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And those are still inm

print and still selling well.

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So he's like, well,

let's do a canning book.

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Both Bruce and I have to say.

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Backed up at the idea and we didn't back

up up 'cause we were afraid of canning.

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Bruce is an inveterate canner

and cans all summer long.

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Mm-hmm.

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We backed up from the idea 'cause

we thought, well isn't this market

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completely saturated by bulk canning

at other big homesteader cookbooks?

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Bruce: It is.

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And so what happens then is Mark and I

have to take this idea that's thrown down

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on the table that we are not afraid of.

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Mark: Why don't you guys

write a canning book?

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Bruce: Yeah.

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Okay.

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So, and if you've seen any of our TikTok

videos, you know that I never say no.

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And you do whatever they want.

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But you do it in a way that you want.

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So we had to sit back and think, well,

how can we write a book about canning

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that's not like every other book out

there, but that will still be something

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that will last and be around forever.

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Mark: As you can see, this process does

in fact take months by the time you

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develop ideas and we pass all our ideas.

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Through our agent before we

ever go to this lunch and she

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s out what she doesn't like.

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Then we go to the lunch, then we all talk.

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Then this idea, let's say canning comes

up and we've gotta go back and this is

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gonna take us six weeks, two months.

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Mm-hmm.

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To think through this idea, to jot

down a million notes and think it

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through to figure out how to write.

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And let me just say, you may not

know this part of the process to

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ultimately write a 40 to 50 page.

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Business proposal.

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Mm-hmm.

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Pitching the idea and how it will sell.

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Bruce: And the book

itself has 425 recipes.

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Yeah.

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So we also in that proposal, have

to create a working recipe list.

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Right.

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So what do we imagine is

going to be in this book?

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And this is after we've now convinced

our publisher editor that the

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kind of canning book we wanna do

is all small batch and you don't

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have to use hot water processing.

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That was the key, right?

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That was the idea for us

that no one has really.

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Done that.

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Mark: The old name for this is

refrigerator canning, and we wanted to

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expand the book beyond what refrigerator

canning, because refrigerator,

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canning sounds like blueberry jam

and peach jam and pickle, apricot

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preserves, pickles, and maybe pickles.

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Yep.

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But it doesn't sound like the full

range of ketchups and mustards

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and sauces and barbecue sauces.

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And.

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All this stuff that we wanted to

put in the book, 'cause we wanted

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to make it anything that you can

make in a small batch, put it in

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a jar and keep it in the fridge.

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Or better yet, the freezer, the fridge for

two to three months or the freezer for a

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year or more until you're ready to eat it.

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And indeed, you can put blueberry jam.

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Or ketchup in the freezer for a year.

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Bruce: So as we came up with

the recipe list, our inspiration

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came from so many places.

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And one of my favorite jam

makers, is from Maine.

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Mm-hmm.

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And that's nervous.

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Nelly.

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We've talked about her about that.

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I probably thought he was

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Mark: gonna say Stonewall

Kitchen, didn't you?

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But No.

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Bruce: Okay, well, we'll

talk about that in a minute.

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Uh, Stonewall Kitchen makes jams.

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Yep.

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But nervous Nelly makes.

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Incredible jams.

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It does that taste like fruit.

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They're not that sweet.

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They're great

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Mark: flavors.

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You've actually been to her factory.

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It's actually her home.

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Yeah, her home where she ships

everything out of from her own kitchen.

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Bruce: And we've talked about her

before on this podcast, and people

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have gone and bought jams that

said they know about her through.

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So her hot tomato chutney is mm-hmm.

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Absolutely.

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Ex.

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And her raspberry.

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Just her raspberry jam.

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And maybe it's the raspberry.

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She's growing.

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'cause she does grow

most of her own fruit.

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Yeah.

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It's truly amazing.

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So we were thinking about all the

delicious things we had from her.

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And then when it comes to

Stonewall Kitchen, well we

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wrote their first cookbook.

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We did.

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And so we had a lot of experience

cooking with condiments.

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We did.

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And we wanted to try and bring that

experience to this whole process.

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Yeah.

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And also the other one that is.

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In my memory from even before I knew Mark

was a jam maker that's at the Union Square

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Farmer's Market in New York, and she'd

been there, like I said, 30 years ago.

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We were, we just saw

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Mark: her there.

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Bruce: We were just in New York a

week ago and they were still there.

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She was selling some of

the same amazing flavors.

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It was bets.

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Farmhouse.

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It was really good stuff.

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So the inspiration for a

lot of recipes came from our

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experiences with these people.

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Yes,

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Mark: it's true.

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But I wanna come back to what I

said before, since we're talking

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about how this book got formed.

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We are not, as you probably

know, social media influencers.

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Yes.

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Do we have a TikTok challenge?

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Yes.

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Do we have cooking with Bruce and Mark?

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Right.

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Do we have a Facebook page?

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Of course.

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Do we have an Instagram page?

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Of course you have to in today's

publishing marketplace, but we're

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not big influencers, and so because

we're not big influencers, we still

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have to write cookbook proposals.

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If I were an influencer with

200,000 followers two years ago.

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A publisher would just approach me and

say, uh, just we want a book named after

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your TikTok channel, or named after,

uh, whatever you're doing, like the

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baking yester yearbook, which is great.

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His channel is very amazing and funny

and interesting and all that stuff, but

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he doesn't have to write a proposal.

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We still have to write.

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Business proposals for

our books and submit them.

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And then believe it or not, I submit

the business proposal to our agent.

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She rewrites it, gives it back

to me with all her comments.

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I then rewrite it from that point,

then it goes to our publisher.

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He rewrites it with all of his comments.

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Doesn't really rewrite,

writes a lot of comments.

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It's so glamorous, isn't it?

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It's so glamor.

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It's totally glamor, glamorous.

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It goes.

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Back then to me, I then rewrite it

again, and now he's ready to present it

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to the marketing team and to his boss,

the CEO and all that kind of stuff.

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He's ready now to present and

say, I want to acquire this book.

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So it takes a long time

to make a proposal happen.

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And again, we thought we had

come up with this kind of wild

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idea, cold canning that wasn't.

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Like any other canning book, but allowed

us to blow out long beyond canning

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because when, again, when I say canning,

you probably think grape jelly or

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strawberry preserved or stuff like that.

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And they're in there and

they, they are in there.

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But so, uh, a range of conserves,

which are lower sugar, fruit and

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concoctions, usually with nuts in them.

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Chutney, relishes.

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We make pickles, we make refrigerator

fermented kimchi and refrigerated,

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uh, fermented sauerkrauts.

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It takes longer to ferment in

the refrigerator, but it is so

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much safer in the end to do this,

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Bruce: and they're so delicious and they

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Mark: are.

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So delicious.

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And this is the other thing that we

loved about this coal canning idea and

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how we pitched it, is that when you can

for shelf stability, so you're gonna

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make something to sit on a shelf for a

year like my grandmother used to, you

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have to adjust the pH and you have to

be very careful that all of this is

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absolutely perfect to avoid botulism and

other horrible things that can kill you.

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In cold canning.

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You don't have to do any of that.

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Nope.

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We didn't have to worry about

the pH of a single thing.

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'cause going straight from the stove

into the fridge or into the freezer.

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No.

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Yep.

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Steam canner.

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No pressure canner.

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Mm-hmm.

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No difficult ceiling of the bottles.

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Nothing.

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You screw the lid on a bowl of bottle

and stick it in your freezer and

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you're essentially done an amazingly

quick process to make three jars,

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let's say, of strawberry preserves.

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Bruce: One of the things I learned

in, in writing this was the

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variety globally of chili sauces,

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Mark: right

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Bruce: of chi from

chili crisps to sandals.

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There's kind of West

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Mark: African chili

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Bruce: sauces in there.

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Yep.

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To salsa matcha.

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And I was not that familiar with

salsa matcha when we started this.

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This Texas boy is, yeah,

I wasn't, and I was.

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Undo by it.

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So it was so much fun for me to

learn a new technique, a new style

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of chili sauce, to create five or

six variations using different dried

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chilies, different seeds, different

nuts, different dried fruits in it.

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And I had so much fun writing this book,

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Mark: right.

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And I think that that's.

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All how this book came about.

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It's gonna be out in July.

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If you wanna see us making one of these

chili crisps, that's a Chinese condiment

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:

of dried chilies in a billion aromatics.

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We're gonna make it on am

Northwest Morning television.

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Um, probably it will have.

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Aired about a week after this podcast,

episode drops, and you can check out

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AM Northwest from Portland, Oregon.

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They have a YouTube channel with

all of their segments on it, and

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you can watch us make this chili

crisp on air with them, right?

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Right from our own kitchen.

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We do this once a month with them

and we shoot the whole thing.

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We don't shoot it.

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It's live in the studio.

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We do it live with two iPhones and

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Bruce: Zoom.

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Mark: Zoom and the host

in Portland, Oregon.

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So you can see us make

a chili crisp there.

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You got to the YouTube channel

am Northwest and, uh, see us

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:

make this chili crisp there.

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That is a recipe from the book.

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So that's a little introduction

to what's coming out in July.

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You can tell we're super excited

about it because it really is an

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:

interesting and new venture for us.

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We've moved away from air fryers and

instant pots, and we've moved into

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something that we feel is incredibly

creative, both for us and maybe for

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:

the people who might buy this book.

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Okay, so that's all that we

can say about the new book.

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At this point, we probably banged

on enough about it to let it go, but

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let's say that it would be great if

you signed up for our newsletter.

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:

We have a newsletter that is, uh,

sometimes directed toward this podcast,

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sometimes, uh, it's other things beyond

this podcast, lifestyle stuff, stuff

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:

about our life in New England, et cetera.

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You can find that on our

website, Bruce and mark.com,

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:

or cooking with Bruce and mark.com.

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:

By the way, you cannot sign up for this

newsletter anywhere but there on the

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:

landing page of our website, I cannot

capture your email from social media,

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:

from Instagram, from Facebook, et cetera.

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:

Just remember, it's really

bad, even in dms to post your

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email address on social media.

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It's capturable.

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:

At that point by bots and by others

who are, let's say, nefarious intent.

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Okay.

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That's enough for this bit.

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:

Let's move on to what's making

us happy in food this week.

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Bruce: Roxbury Russett Hard cider.

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Mark: Oh, right.

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Bruce: We were recently in the smack

dab middle of Pennsylvania, and if you

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Mark: listen to us, you heard

about our road trip to Gettysburg

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:

Bruce: and they grow

a lot of apples there.

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It's a, a big sixth largest apple

growing region in the country.

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Mark: That cracked me up when he

said that it's the sixth largest.

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I was like.

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Not the largest or next

largest, but the sixth that was.

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So instead of just saying it's one of

the largest, you had to like quantify it.

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:

Yeah.

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Sixth largest apple growing regions.

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Bruce: So we'd been out to dinner and we

ordered a bottle actually of Arkansas,

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black apples hard cider with dinner.

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And we love Arkansas.

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Black apples, we can get

them here in New England.

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We can, but we love that cider

so much that it's made by

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Plowman's Cider that we found.

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They had a store of tap room, a

tasting room in downtown Gettysburg.

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So we went in and we bought like

a case of the Arkansas Black.

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We bought out,

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Mark: we bought out the

last of last year's supply.

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Then

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Bruce: we saw on their shelf.

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There were six bottles of

Roxberry Russett cider.

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Now we love Roxbury, Russett

apples too, and he said they

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only made a few cases this year.

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That's all that was left, so we tasted it.

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We loved it once again, and we bought

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Mark: them.

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We bought out their yearly supply.

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They have to wait until the fall and

apples come in to make any more cider.

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:

I don't know if you know this,

but a hard cider is quite a thing.

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:

Oh yeah.

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:

The kids are totally into it.

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:

If you go to Asheville, North

Carolina, you'll see CEAs

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:

everywhere downtown and then.

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:

All out in the mountains around Asheville.

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:

You could spend days going

from cidery to cidery.

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They, they're like wineries.

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:

Mm-hmm.

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You go in, you get small

tastes of each of the ciders.

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They make, they often have food available.

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They have patios, beautiful

places to sit and drink the cider.

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They, it's a, it's a really fun

thing to do around Asheville

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:

is to make a cider tour.

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:

We should do that sometime.

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:

We should put together a whole cider

tour around Asheville, North Carolina.

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:

Okay.

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:

With other

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Bruce: people.

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People pay us to go.

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Sure.

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Mark: People pay us.

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How about we just all get a group of

people and go, but sure people pay us.

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We could put together a cider tour

of North Carolina around Asheville.

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:

That sounds like a lot of fun.

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:

Okay, so what's making me

happy in food this week?

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:

And it's a bit of a surprise.

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It's eggs.

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:

Now I know this is kind of funny,

but, uh, eggs are a source of

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political and social discontent

right now in the United States, but

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:

Bruce: social discontent over eggs.

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:

Mark: It well, it is and

it's quite the issue.

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And I don't wanna get into politics

right now, but I just wanna tell

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you that in our part of New England.

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Eggs are still $5 a

dozen from local farms.

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:

Mm-hmm.

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:

Organic.

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Bruce: You see the chickens

running around the yard.

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It's really nice.

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In

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Mark: fact, recently around us in

New England, the egg producers,

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these are all small local farms,

began an egg war, and so you could.

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See some of them cross at the five on

their signs and put four because they were

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:

on an egg pricing war with each other.

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:

So we actually go to an organic

farm and buy two to three dozen

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:

eggs at a time, at $5 each.

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:

It's kind, it's amazing.

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:

Now I wanna tell you that these

eggs are not fully washed, not at

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:

all washed, don't have chicken.

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:

Um, stuff on them, and they still have

little pieces of hay stuck on them, so you

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:

do have to wash them before you cook them.

540

:

And because they're not washed,

they'll actually stay longer.

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:

It's a whole thing about

the coating on the shelf.

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:

They can even

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:

Bruce: stay at room temperature.

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:

Yeah, like

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:

Mark: they do in Europe, they can, because

you keep this coating on the shell that

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:

is washed off in industrial production,

but we don't, uh, I have to say, we

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:

bring 'em home and put 'em right in the

fridge, but the local eggs are so tasty.

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:

They're so beautiful to look at.

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:

In the pan, they have a gorgeous,

dark yellow, or even orange color.

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:

They are extraordinary.

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:

Easy dinners.

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:

Uh, we just had a dinner the other

night of I had an omelet and Bruce had a

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couple of fried eggs and that was dinner.

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:

Uh, I know we usually do these elaborate

meals and I had an omelet and we had

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:

fried eggs and toast and that was dinner.

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:

But eggs make me very happy, and I'm

glad that we live in a world, part

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:

of the world where in fact, eggs are

not a source of political or social

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:

contention, but rather an egg war amongst

the producers to reduce the price.

559

:

So that's our podcast for this week.

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:

Thanks for listening into us.

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:

We appreciate your support.

562

:

If you can rate this

podcast, that would be great.

563

:

If you can write a review of

it, that would be greater.

564

:

We appreciate your support because we

are otherwise unsupported, except through

565

:

your listens, likes, and comments.

566

:

Bruce: And every week we tell you

what's making us happy in food.

567

:

So go to our Facebook group, as

Mark said, cooking with Bruce

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:

and Mark and tell us there what's

making you happy in food this week.

569

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Because we want to know, and if

it sounds really delicious, we

570

:

may try it and talk about it here

on cooking with 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!