Changing Ideas About Comfort Food, Our One-Minute Cooking Tip, An Interview with Sena Wheeler, Candied Jalapeños, Smoked Whitefish & More!
For most of us, our ideas about comfort food have changed dramatically over the years. We've gone from its being "sick food" to now being "blow-the-diet" treats.
Join us, veteran cookbook authors Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, as we talk about the changing notions of comfort food over the course of their thirty-six cookbook career. We've got a one-minute cooking tip about coatings in an air fryer. Bruce interviews Sena Wheeler of Sena Sea Wild Alaskan Fish about the Alaskan fishing industry and how you can bring the wild and tasty fare to your table. And we tell you what's making us happy in food this week.
Thanks for being with us. Here are the segments of this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:
[01:03] How we've watched the notion of comfort food change over the many years of our thirty-six-cookbook career.
[13:32] Our one-minute cooking tip: Think beyond bread crumbs for coating foods in an air fryer.
[15:31] Bruce interviews Sena Wheeler of Sena Sea Wild Alaskan Fish. If you want to find out more or order a box to try, click here.
[30:17] What's making us happy in food this week? Candied jalapeños and smoked whitefish salad!
Transcript
Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Speaker:And I'm Mark Scarborough, and together with Bruce as my husband, we have written, oh gosh, over three dozen cookbooks.
Speaker:It's hard to believe our latest is the Instant Air Fryer Bible, but you might want to.
Speaker:Check out the Instant Pot Bible or the Instant Pot Bible Next Generation, or the Instant Pot Bible Copycat recipes.
Speaker:We just really covered the territory with Instant Pots, so you might wanna check out some of those latest books from us.
Speaker:But this episode of our Food and Cooking podcast is not about instant pots or air fryers.
Speaker:Instead, we're gonna continue the discussion that we had from the last episode.
Speaker:Comfort Foods.
Speaker:We're really on this lately.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:We're gonna do, as usual, our one minute cooking tip.
Speaker:Bruce has an interview with Sena Wheeler of Cena Seafoods, one of our entrepreneurial food interviews.
Speaker:I love those.
Speaker:And we're gonna talk about what's making us happy in food this week.
Speaker:So let's get started.
Speaker:Did you know that Liza Minnelli invented comfort food?
Speaker:No, she did not.
Speaker:There's just no way the internet says she did.
Speaker:Oh, well.
Speaker:Oh, good.
Speaker:Well, well, she had an interview time.
Speaker:She had an interview in 1970 where she said, comfort food is anything that makes you go, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.
Speaker:And then lick her lips.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:First of all, we're talking about 1970 Eliza Minelli.
Speaker:So we're talking about cabaret Lizza.
Speaker:Minelli, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean that era of Liza Minelli.
Speaker:Secondly, who was your mother?
Speaker:Judy Garland.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So what was comfort food?
Speaker:Heroin.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cigarettes.
Speaker:Cigarettes.
Speaker:Cigarettes.
Speaker:Cigarettes and aspirin.
Speaker:So, um, and alcohol.
Speaker:Oh, that's great.
Speaker:And third, no, I, Ella's not eating comfort food.
Speaker:The.
Speaker:The thing that's interesting about comfort food is the term it's been around for a long time, and we talked
Speaker:But Bruce and I have been in this food business for long time.
Speaker:We published our first cookbook in 99, but before that, Bruce had published a cookbook, um, couple years before that.
Speaker:And then before that, we were writing for various publications.
Speaker:I was writing for this brand new internet Startup America online.
Speaker:Early nineties.
Speaker:So we were in the food business for a long time and we've seen this word change.
Speaker:And I think this is really an intriguing thing because when we started out there was kind of a notion of comfort
Speaker:I think it was palliative.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think.
Speaker:Food is what you imagined back in the day.
Speaker:So tell the Mfk Fisher story.
Speaker:Well, okay, so Mfk Fisher was a food writer in the pre Julia Child era, right?
Speaker:And her idea of comfort food, she wrote about this, um, way back when milk toast, right?
Speaker:Buttered toast, drowned in warm milk.
Speaker:Oh, season of salt, pepper, and paprika.
Speaker:She claims was her most comforting food.
Speaker:And she said in her words, it soothes the nerves, the muscles on the mind.
Speaker:Oh, all together.
Speaker:It comes right back up afterwards.
Speaker:Well, it makes me think.
Speaker:Just what you would feed to old people sitting in highchairs and bedridden and, but
Speaker:I think that when we started our career, that old mfk definition, MFK Fisher definition, it was still that tenor.
Speaker:The tenor was soft, mushy.
Speaker:Food.
Speaker:I think
Speaker:healing.
Speaker:I think of broth, I think of oatmeal.
Speaker:I think of Blem.
Speaker:Oatmeal.
Speaker:Pudding.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Chocolate pudding.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And those are things that you eat when you're sick.
Speaker:I mean, mostly I think comfort food was stuff you ate when you were sick.
Speaker:Either it made you feel better physically cuz it was broth or it was warm milk, or it kind of lifted
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think it's when you're sick, when you're ill, yeah, when you're ill, when you're ill, when you're.
Speaker:Fever, that's when you get served.
Speaker:Comfort food.
Speaker:My mother served me, oh god, here we go.
Speaker:She would make a sheet pan of strawberry jello outta the box.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:So strawberry jello in a sheet pan.
Speaker:And the reason she made it in a sheet pan is so she could cut it up into cubes.
Speaker:We had the same sick food.
Speaker:And then she would put the cubes in a bowl and pour milk over it.
Speaker:Oh, we had the same sick food.
Speaker:And that was, that was when I was sick as a kid and it was palliative.
Speaker:But I think that by the time that we.
Speaker:Entering the food business.
Speaker:Comfort food was starting to change from, let's say, fever food plague.
Speaker:I like fever food, that's plague food.
Speaker:It was changing from plague food to breakup food to a carton of ice cream that you eat after a breakout.
Speaker:It was palliative food.
Speaker:We started to think of comfort food, not as something that made you feel.
Speaker:Physically where that's all you could tolerate cuz you were stomachs was that big.
Speaker:This is something that tried to make you feel better emotionally.
Speaker:Before I met Bruce, I had this thing, God don't judge me.
Speaker:I had this thing that when I would break up with a guy, I would always make a huge bubble bath and drink.
Speaker:Don't make fun of me.
Speaker:Taylor, New York State sparkling wine.
Speaker:Hey, it's what I could afford.
Speaker:So I would sit in a bubble bath and drink a bottle of Taylor, New York State sparkling wine, and it was my
Speaker:See, that's, that's emotional.
Speaker:Not.
Speaker:Physical,
Speaker:I would eat a pound of to champagne truffles.
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker:well, you're such a fancy Manhattanite
Speaker:I, I would go to Rockefeller Center to the to torture store, and I would get a box, a one-pound box of champagne truffles.
Speaker:Of course you would do, and I would walk over to Central Park.
Speaker:Of course you would do.
Speaker:And sit and eat them all.
Speaker:Well, you know what I would do?
Speaker:I would go to La Bernan every time I broke up with a boy, I took myself to Laban and it was just fabulous.
Speaker:No, come on.
Speaker:I mean, You have lived clearly a fancier New York life than I lived, but still I think that that's a huge change.
Speaker:I think the change from when we were kids, comfort food was what you fed someone sick to comfort food is what is
Speaker:It is in the definition of comfort food.
Speaker:The problem is that comfort you get emotionally is fleeting.
Speaker:It is, and it leads to.
Speaker:More uncomfortable emotions.
Speaker:It leads to self-hatred.
Speaker:It is, it leads to depression, it leads to sadness.
Speaker:And you notice that, um, one of the things that happened, and I think that this is really important to note, one
Speaker:What has happened is that those things were relatively healthy.
Speaker:I don't know that milk, bread and milk is healthy, but still broth and all.
Speaker:When comfort food shifted over to being emotionally savvy, it became full of.
Speaker:And sugar and carbs.
Speaker:Not that bread and milk isn't carbs, but the, the, the way that it tramped is mac and cheese is this thing of like, boom, hit hard,
Speaker:And that's the shift.
Speaker:And I don't know.
Speaker:Exactly how that shift came about.
Speaker:But I can tell you we've watched that shift over the course of our career and now comfort food has come to mean, you know, ice cream.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It has things that are not physically good for you.
Speaker:I mean, listen, I love ice cream, but you know what I mean.
Speaker:It's not physically good for you.
Speaker:Well, there is a scientific.
Speaker:Backing to that though, I mean even the National Academy of Sciences, they did a report which claims
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And high in sugar.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Both of those substances are things your body processes into instant energy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right into It's things your body can use to make it feel better quickly to get it to do stuff.
Speaker:Now, long-term.
Speaker:But short term.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So you're, yeah.
Speaker:See, that's it though.
Speaker:When we were kids, do you remember this?
Speaker:I used to think, oh, I just couldn't wait to get my tonsils out.
Speaker:I never did get my tonsils out.
Speaker:They, they rotted out of my throat.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:From so many infections.
Speaker:It's lovely.
Speaker:But I never got my tonsils out.
Speaker:Uh, they came out on their own.
Speaker:But the reason I, I wanted to get my tonsils out.
Speaker:All it ever was was you got to sit in the hospital eating ice cream for two days.
Speaker:Do you remember this?
Speaker:And you would go have your tonsillectomy back in the day when you would spend like three days in the
Speaker:And now it's just like, oh my God, this must be just like now you do it at home, dream come true.
Speaker:But that was weird because when you're sick to get ice cream or in the hospital, you're not
Speaker:But you know what I mean?
Speaker:To get ice cream was weird.
Speaker:Now, It seems like that's the go-to with comfort food, and you wouldn't ever say, I'm going to eat, ah, I don't know, bone broth.
Speaker:I'm gonna drink a cup of warm bone broth as comfort food.
Speaker:I at least said, I don't think so.
Speaker:No, you get fired from your job.
Speaker:You're not gonna have a salad
Speaker:or a lean Turkey sandwich.
Speaker:Oh, yu holy wheat bread.
Speaker:No mayonnaise, mu mustard only.
Speaker:I mean, I I love a lean Turkey sandwich on whole wheated toast with mustard.
Speaker:Come on.
Speaker:That's not what I would define as comfort food.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Because we, we try to find something special.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:We've just had something bad happen.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Or we're in a bad way and we're unhappy, so we want something special.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Back to my Taylor, New York State Sparkling wine, something special.
Speaker:No, it is true.
Speaker:Some people are going to find boiled red lentils.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:A baby with a little bit of butter and a little chutney on them.
Speaker:That should be quite delicious.
Speaker:But that's going back to what we were talking about last time, which was childhood foods.
Speaker:This is more about what is the common conception of childhood foods.
Speaker:That's more going back.
Speaker:Probably the person who finds that Delicious had that in their childhood, probably most
Speaker:Now, if we said that's comfort food, most people would say, Snobs.
Speaker:Well, I found a way to bring some foods from my childhood to this day as comfort food that are
Speaker:Coffee egg creams to be incredibly comfy.
Speaker:I'm not gonna comment.
Speaker:You hate them.
Speaker:I know, I know.
Speaker:So for those of you who don't know, milk with chocolate syrup or coffee syrup or vanilla syrup.
Speaker:And then you add seltzer and you stir it and it gets a little head on it.
Speaker:And so it's basically sweet milk, bubbly milk with, so that's an egg cream and.
Speaker:I love a good egg cream when I'm feeling down, but I make it with skin milk and it still makes me happy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, I, I, there's, there's a way to have better comfort food, and that's a whole different discussion in
Speaker:I find it revelatory that the shift in comfort food has gone.
Speaker:Physical ailments to emotional ailments and that that shift has also caused a shift in the kind of food that is eaten.
Speaker:People don't necessarily have the giant hit of limb meringue pie when they're, when they have the flu or when they have bronchitis.
Speaker:That, that sounds great.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Liking that idea.
Speaker:So next time I'm sick, I want you to make the lemon meringue.
Speaker:Get,
Speaker:okay, fine, I'll do it.
Speaker:But I don't think that's what most people see.
Speaker:No, they save the lemon rang pie for a breakup.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Yeah, that is totally it.
Speaker:I mean, I sang for a long time in New York City when we lived there with a classical corr and.
Speaker:There was the lead tenor.
Speaker:I was a tenor.
Speaker:And there, I know you can't hear it anymore.
Speaker:There's too much bourbon that's gone down this throat.
Speaker:But back then I was a tenor.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:Once upon, now I was an alto, but that's older.
Speaker:Doesn't matter.
Speaker:Anyway, I was a tenor in this choir, and there was this guy that endlessly had boy problems
Speaker:And every week he would show up at rehearsal with one of those hostess fried pies.
Speaker:As a, as a salve?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Not.
Speaker:one, he had a number of them and a twinki and somewhere
Speaker:over the years that I sang with that choral, he, let's say he outgrew his tuxedo several times over
Speaker:and that is the problem with comfort food being high in fat.
Speaker:Yeah, high in sugar.
Speaker:It is, it's, and especially if you're an unhappy person who relies on that all the time, if you happiness.
Speaker:So especially if it's.
Speaker:Idiot emotional.
Speaker:An immediate emotional reward.
Speaker:So what can you do to avoid the trap of all this?
Speaker:Finding comfort in food that in the end is only gonna make you feel bad.
Speaker:I think we have to say that for the next episode of the podcast.
Speaker:So I think that's what we're gonna come back to.
Speaker:We're gonna come back to what can you do in order to find different kinds of comfort in comfort food?
Speaker:And I think that's a.
Speaker:Place for us to bring what is our three part now serious comfort food to a close and move on to the next
Speaker:But before we get there, let me say that we have a newsletter.
Speaker:If you would like to be a part of that newsletter, you can go to.
Speaker:Our website, Bruce and mark.com.
Speaker:You can drop down on that page and there's a way to sign up for the newsletter there.
Speaker:I have made it so that I can't see your email.
Speaker:I can't sell it.
Speaker:MailChimp can't sell it.
Speaker:It's locked.
Speaker:So don't worry about getting anything from me except.
Speaker:That newsletter and you can always cancel it any time.
Speaker:And let me just say, there are no ads in that newsletter, so here you go.
Speaker:It's just about our life.
Speaker:It's recipes.
Speaker:It's not about this podcast.
Speaker:Oh, sometimes a little, but it's recipes maybe that come up in this podcast, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:You can find it there on bruce mark.com.
Speaker:Okay, up next, as is typical are one minute cooking tip
Speaker:breadcrumbs are not the only thing you can use to coat chicken breasts, pork chops, or
Speaker:Next time you're in the store and you reach for,
Speaker:I think this is a huge revelation for me.
Speaker:It was.
Speaker:It was when it happened.
Speaker:So you were in a store, you're reaching for the can of breadcrumbs, Italian season breadcrumbs, plain breadcrumbs, panco
Speaker:Potato chips, pretzels, corn chips, bagel chips.
Speaker:Throw those in your food processor and grind them up.
Speaker:All of those things, ground up, pretzels, ground up.
Speaker:Onion flavored potato chips.
Speaker:Ground up Fritos, make amazing coatings, ground pretzels, rest with.
Speaker:Uh, Hickory smoked almonds ground together is a really great coating, and a lot of people might already know this, but
Speaker:Pork rind, chicharone
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:What we used to eat out of the bag.
Speaker:Greasy in the sound.
Speaker:A lot of the keto recipes use those as coating instead of breadcrumbs, but there are, as Bruce says, a million things.
Speaker:There's, you can use popcorn for god's sake.
Speaker:You can't write.
Speaker:As a coating for, uh, uh, things that go in an air fryer.
Speaker:When we kind of came across as, when Bruce started testing this stuff for our air fryer books, I was blown away.
Speaker:I had no idea that you could coat a, I don't know, cod filet in ground up potato chips.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So vinegar put it in the air fryer.
Speaker:It was quite delicious.
Speaker:Let me,
Speaker:Up next Bruce's interview with Sena Wheeler of Sena Seafoods.
Speaker:This is one of our food entrepreneurial interviews.
Speaker:They catch Alaskan seafood and ship it, drop ship it fast.
Speaker:Trust us, we know fast across the country.
Speaker:Today I'm speaking with Sena Wheeler, the owner of Sena Sea, a company that fishes for processes
Speaker:Welcome Sena hi, how are you?
Speaker:I'm good, thanks.
Speaker:So your company only catches and sells wild seafood and not farm.
Speaker:I'm gonna ask you why is that better?
Speaker:Um, I have four main reasons, and number one is it just tastes the best.
Speaker:The wild salmon is just taste and texture is miles ahead of farm salmon.
Speaker:Um, the other reason.
Speaker:Is for your health.
Speaker:It's gone out and eaten wild, so it's gonna be just better for your health in terms of omega-3 S and all the nutrition.
Speaker:The third reason is for the salmon and for the salmon is actually as wild fishermen, we work with the
Speaker:Fish four, always conserving enough stocks for the next year.
Speaker:So it's really that maintenance and maintaining the fish stocks also farmed harms the wild stocks,
Speaker:So the more fish farming, the harder it is on the wild stocks that are also trying to be in those rivers and waterways.
Speaker:The fourth reason.
Speaker:Is for the planet.
Speaker:If you think about it, we have to protect those rivers and streams, oceans and waterways.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So that the wild fish can just do what they do.
Speaker:They can go out, they can eat wild nutrients, what they're supposed to do, and then they return and we get to feed our people.
Speaker:And we can only do that when we.
Speaker:Protecting those wild spaces.
Speaker:So really focusing on wild instead of going, well, maybe there's another way to do it.
Speaker:Really protects those areas.
Speaker:Yours as a family business goes back generations of wild fishing.
Speaker:Tell me a story.
Speaker:I used to fish on my dad's boat in the summer, so when I was in high school and college.
Speaker:And I can say when you're just running, the dolphins come out and they will play in the wake and they'll play in the bow.
Speaker:And you might see that on a pleasure boat and think, oh, that's so sweet.
Speaker:But it's incredible when they're doing it.
Speaker:Like on a fishing boat, you're out there in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker:It looks like you could be on Mars.
Speaker:You can't see land in any direction, and you have this wildlife coming and playing.
Speaker:It's really.
Speaker:Was it your grandfather or your great-grandfather that started fishing?
Speaker:Well, it goes back farther than we know.
Speaker:My grandfather immigrated from Norway where he learned to fish from his father, who learned from his father, and they were a
Speaker:So when my grandfather immigrated and a couple of his brothers came, every brother that came over, they would get a boat.
Speaker:Uh, that's what they did.
Speaker:And your current boat, who's, who's captain in that boat?
Speaker:My husband is the last fisherman in the family right now.
Speaker:But my, my grandpa fished and then my dad, uh, like my husband, he was the son-in-law.
Speaker:So it was my mom's dad who fished.
Speaker:And then she married my dad and he started fishing.
Speaker:He went one time just to make a little money.
Speaker:He'd never do it again and fish the rest of his life.
Speaker:And then my husband came in similar.
Speaker:He's the son-in-law.
Speaker:It's also sometimes I say being the fisherman wife is what really is through our lineage, which is interesting.
Speaker:Well, as a fisherman's wife, you're sort of running the business on land and your husband's alca, so all your fish is caught in Alaska,
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So my husband fishes in Alaska, and we have other fishermen too that we know and trust.
Speaker:Um, he, he's a very great networker, so we know a lot of the fishermen up there.
Speaker:We have a processing plant in Alaska.
Speaker:The, it doesn't all go to Cy, but the cream of the crop goat, so the best fish, the top quality goes to Cy,
Speaker:I have tried your fish and it truly is premium.
Speaker:When I opened the box, I found center cut, perfectly trimmed filets of sockeye halibut.
Speaker:The fish cooked perfectly, held together on the grill was the texture and the quality of the fish
Speaker:Or is it just the fish itself or is there some other family secret to producing such amazing seafood?
Speaker:It's all of the above, honestly.
Speaker:For one, we're starting with the very best fish.
Speaker:So for fish, you want cold water.
Speaker:The colder the better.
Speaker:We fish out of Alaska where it's very cold and very pure.
Speaker:So, um, the salmon is Copper River salmon, which has its own.
Speaker:Name about it because that river is very swift, it's very cold, it's very long.
Speaker:And so those fish, that species of fish that always return to the Copper River, they put on more omega three s to make that journey.
Speaker:And so those fish have higher Omega three s, which makes it taste better and better for you.
Speaker:But even with our halibut and our black cod, those are all Alaskan, and the colder the water, the better you're starting with.
Speaker:So we start with really premium quality fish, and then everything we do from the moment it's brought
Speaker:So the clock starts ticking the minute it's brought out of the water and the handling on board.
Speaker:So it shouldn't be flopping around on the deck, building up lactic acid and getting warm.
Speaker:It needs to be immediately chilled and bled, things like that.
Speaker:From the moment it comes on the boat, everything we're doing is preserving that premium quality, and that's the way we think of it.
Speaker:So we ate those beautiful center cut filets.
Speaker:What happens to the rest of the fish?
Speaker:Well, we actually utilize quite a bit of the fish.
Speaker:You'll see those center cuts.
Speaker:And then we have tail portions that you'll see sometimes, and we sell irregular cuts.
Speaker:So the, the little bit smaller pieces, um, we sell a little bit of a discount.
Speaker:We have irregular cuts, but then we also take every little piece that's not even a portion, a little piece.
Speaker:And we smoke them and we have spreads.
Speaker:So we have these smoked salmon spreads.
Speaker:So we're using the little trim pieces for that.
Speaker:And then we go so far as to, um, scrape the backbone with a spoon.
Speaker:And this is, it's an Alaskan technique for people that live in Alaska.
Speaker:They call it scrape meat.
Speaker:And it's known to be the best.
Speaker:It's just this little bit of meat that holds onto the backbone.
Speaker:And then you scrape it with a spoon.
Speaker:You get one spoonful on one side, flip it over and you get one more spoon.
Speaker:But you do that over and over, you're gonna get a lot of scrape meat.
Speaker:So we also utilize that scrape meat, and you can buy a one pound package and basically you, it's like burger.
Speaker:You can make patties with it or do fish tacos or anything.
Speaker:And then we also take a whole bunch of that and we have it.
Speaker:Patty's made.
Speaker:So we really do focus on using every little bit of that because we're, we're using a wild, natural resource.
Speaker:So we feel like we need to use every bit.
Speaker:I've never heard that expression.
Speaker:Scrape meat.
Speaker:Is that how it's labeled?
Speaker:We called it chop.
Speaker:If you live in Alaska you call it scrape meat.
Speaker:But I'm thinking on the package, you know, I'm going, ah, that doesn't sound a little appetizing.
Speaker:One, one of my favorite fish is black cod and.
Speaker:Does the fish differ depending upon where it's caught?
Speaker:And why are you labeling it?
Speaker:Sable fish,
Speaker:two parts.
Speaker:It does matter where it's caught.
Speaker:So black cod is like a lot of fish, but it's affected by the temperature of the water.
Speaker:So there's, um, black cod in down in California, or it's caught more south.
Speaker:And it's going to be a lesser quality, more of a mushy texture, and the farther up north it's caught in those cold waters.
Speaker:It's gonna be a better black cod.
Speaker:I do feel like we have a really good black cod and people do talk about it.
Speaker:That's just where it's caught up in the cold waters.
Speaker:And then two parts, calling it sablefish is really interesting because it's more often called Table on the East.
Speaker:But also growing up on the West coast as fishermen, we call it black cod, and that's
Speaker:But when you're selling it, the F D A mandates that you call it stable fish.
Speaker:And so basically it is called black cod when you're catching it.
Speaker:And it's called stable fish when you're selling it.
Speaker:And so since we do both, it's very confusing and I call it sable fish and then put in princess black cod because
Speaker:Hey, Sena, when someone's buying fish either directly from you or at a local fish market, What are some of the label
Speaker:I'd say number one, look for wild.
Speaker:And it always is labeled wild, even in restaurants these days.
Speaker:Um, on a menu, I always look of course, and I'm just, I'm not, I don't like to be a pill or ask.
Speaker:The waiter or anything because, um, that's not real well received, but I look at the menu and
Speaker:And they're gonna write the word wild on the menu.
Speaker:So look for the word wild above.
Speaker:Anything else?
Speaker:Okay, wild.
Speaker:Um, don't get caught up in natural and sustainable.
Speaker:Those terms are, are sort of, um, loose.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:I've seen, you know, plenty of sustainably caught farm fish and, you know, I don't know what that means.
Speaker:Um, so I would say wild above all.
Speaker:And then also watch for Alaskan.
Speaker:Uh, you know, like I said, all of our fish is Alaskan.
Speaker:There's no.
Speaker:Farm fish allowed in Alaska at all, which is why the rivers are still pure.
Speaker:There hasn't been, um, adulterated by these other species or the diseases.
Speaker:So look for Alaskan too.
Speaker:And then the watch out, there's a few code words for farmed, and one big one is Atlantic.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So if you see Atlantic salmon, there's no commercially caught.
Speaker:Atlantic salmon these days anymore.
Speaker:So Atlantic salmon is code word for farm salmon.
Speaker:If fish is labeled sushi quality and some of yours is, is that licensed eat it raw or would you suggest it always be cook?
Speaker:There's different regulations for different fish, but for salmon, It has to be frozen to be sushi
Speaker:It means it's frozen.
Speaker:There are FDA charts, that's time and temperature.
Speaker:So either really cold or really long, or both to kill any potential parasite, like you shouldn't eat it raw.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:If it hasn't been frozen.
Speaker:And so sushi quality means frozen to a point that would kill parasites.
Speaker:And so once it's frozen to that point, I would say if you like it, eat it raw.
Speaker:Go ahead.
Speaker:Sena, you have three kids.
Speaker:Did they ever go through an, I don't like fish phase?
Speaker:I mean, how, how is a fishing family in a fishing business, would you have dealt with that?
Speaker:And do you have tips or suggestions for people who do go through that whose kids won't eat fish or their spouses won't eat fish?
Speaker:Yeah, actually I do, I talk about a lot and we have, we host a lot and we have friends and we
Speaker:And um, I have a lot of parents almost, you know, they kind of.
Speaker:Kind of secretly tell me, you know, oh, oh, I kid, just don't be offended.
Speaker:But they don't eat fish.
Speaker:Listen, I, I don't go there at all.
Speaker:What I do is, um, I just serve with positivity and I try not to upfront it with a lot of, oh, you're
Speaker:So I would say as parents, leave it totally open.
Speaker:Don't start with, oh gosh, we're having fish tonight.
Speaker:Oh, I, I made you chick.
Speaker:You know, something else.
Speaker:Um, stay really positive.
Speaker:My mom's biggest thing growing up was never be apologetic when you're serving food.
Speaker:I put it out with a smile, and when I know that I've got a tough kid, I kind of lean into it.
Speaker:You know, it's a challenge for me.
Speaker:And so I will start by, um, every, our, our fisher happens to have a picture of my husband, um, fishing.
Speaker:And so I, I show them, look at the fish, here's the fisherman.
Speaker:And Richie caught this, and I talk about being out on the boat, so I.
Speaker:Do stories about fishing and it kind of gets some interest.
Speaker:Have them kind of watch what we're doing and then I just serve it.
Speaker:Really excited and really happy to have them try.
Speaker:And then here's the other key.
Speaker:I put it on their plate and I serve.
Speaker:Food on everybody's plate.
Speaker:And I tell my kids, you don't have to eat anything you don't want to.
Speaker:Just politely don't, I don't wanna hear about it.
Speaker:It's not dinnertime conversation, what you do and don't like, but find something on the plate that you do want.
Speaker:So I serve the fish to everybody, including, you know, the, the picky eater.
Speaker:And then the key is I don't even look at.
Speaker:I don't mention it again and I don't look, and usually the fact that nobody's looking, they eat it.
Speaker:And especially when people are loving it and talking about it, they're gonna try it.
Speaker:And oftentimes they just covertly eat a little bit and maybe, um, you know, they'll have a little bit more next time.
Speaker:And so I say, You know all about the positivity and if they're not loving this one, don't make it a big deal.
Speaker:It's not like if they don't love salmon one time, it's not that they don't like salmon, just cook it a different way.
Speaker:Put it in fish tacos or do this.
Speaker:There's tons of recipes.
Speaker:Don't, don't do this.
Speaker:Like, oh, they don't like that.
Speaker:If they didn't eat it one time, cook it a lot of different ways.
Speaker:And then my, the other tip I give, and you know, of course this is very self-serving.
Speaker:Try premium fish.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:It could be that you're giving them poor quality fish.
Speaker:So, um, you know, farmed fish, farmed salmon, for example.
Speaker:It, it's, the texture isn't the same and the flavor's not the same.
Speaker:It's a little bit more like gelatinous.
Speaker:And so for texture people it's sometimes more of a problem.
Speaker:So kids, Actually they just like good food is what I, I've found.
Speaker:So try giving them really good fish.
Speaker:I think I agree with that.
Speaker:Really high quality fish.
Speaker:Tastes great.
Speaker:You guys are pulling amazing fish outta the water.
Speaker:Processing it.
Speaker:Shipping it.
Speaker:A Cena Wheeler, owner of Cina Sea.
Speaker:Thanks for spending some time and talk to me about what you guys are doing.
Speaker:Hey, thanks.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:I think that the salmon that we had from Sena Seafood.
Speaker:was Astounding.
Speaker:It was delicious.
Speaker:It was just, it was delicious.
Speaker:Amazing.
Speaker:It was so lean.
Speaker:I, I, I just was kind of blown away by it.
Speaker:I think we must eat a lot of farmed salmon.
Speaker:You and I.
Speaker:Yeah, I think we do.
Speaker:And she's right.
Speaker:Wild salmon.
Speaker:And I didn't know before we spoke that Alaska does not allow, Any fish farming at all.
Speaker:So isn't that kind of amazing?
Speaker:If you go to buy fish and you see the word Alaska on it, you know, it's wild.
Speaker:And the halibut, we also had halibut from them and it was so lean.
Speaker:It was unbelievable.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm glad I cooked the rich fatty coconut curry
Speaker:we did.
Speaker:I asked for a Thai coconut curry with that halibut and.
Speaker:Boy, was it delicious?
Speaker:Okay, our final segment as is traditional.
Speaker:What's making us happy in food this weekend?
Speaker:I'm gonna go first.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:I never go.
Speaker:First go.
Speaker:So my first up is candied jalapenos, and I love these more than I can possibly.
Speaker:I'll tell you so Bruce makes me a big jar of candied jalapenos, and I'm gonna tell you how to do it.
Speaker:You use equal parts by volume, equal parts, distilled white vinegar and sugar.
Speaker:You put that in a big sauce pan, you bring it to a simmer.
Speaker:You slice up fresh jalapenos, take the stems off, slice up fresh jalapenos, drop them in there, let it boil.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:Three, four minutes, something like that.
Speaker:Take it off the stove.
Speaker:Cool it, dump it in a big canning jar you're in and it's so easy.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:You cannot believe how good these are on top of avocado toast
Speaker:and I make big jars.
Speaker:I'll like slice up 30 jalapenos at once.
Speaker:30 big jalapenos.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And use like three cups of sugar and three cups of vinegar.
Speaker:Oh, sometimes I throw a big pinch of salt and also some human seeds in it for a little extra flavor.
Speaker:Oh, it there, uh, again on avocado toast.
Speaker:Unbelievable.
Speaker:What's making me happy in food this week goes with the pickled jalapenos and that's smoked whitefish salad.
Speaker:I've probably mentioned it before, but I do love it.
Speaker:Um, I grew up in a family that ate all that appetizing.
Speaker:If you don't know the word appetizing, it's what?
Speaker:Jews call smoked fish and bagels and locks and all that stuff.
Speaker:Some of us who called that too, so, okay.
Speaker:Go on.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Well, we called it appetizing and I didn't eat it growing up.
Speaker:Because I didn't eat fish.
Speaker:I just didn't like fish.
Speaker:I wouldn't eat it, and I missed out on 30 years of deliciousness, including smoked whitefish out too.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Beat yourself.
Speaker:Absent more about it.
Speaker:So I buy the whole white fish now at the kosher market, even at Whole Foods, they sell chunks of the white fish.
Speaker:They do take the skin off, take it off the bones, throw it in the food processor with mayonnaise and
Speaker:Put it on a cracker with those pickle sweet jalapenos.
Speaker:It is delicious.
Speaker:Uh, we have a lot of whitefish salad around this house because it is so tasty and such a
Speaker:That's the podcast this week from cooking with Bruce and Mark.
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