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Episode 97

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Published on:

12th Jun 2023

Kitchen Design Trends, Our One-Minute Cooking Tip, Bagel Entrepreneur Lia Safalow, Roasted Shallots, Hard Cider, & More!

New, of-the-moment kitchen design trends? We've gathered the best from lots of sources to let you know what's in and what's out when it comes to kitchen design.

We're veteran cookbook authors Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough. We've published over three dozen cookbooks and been contributing editors for EATING WELL and COOKING LIGHT. We've become known for giant tomes like THE GREAT BIG PRESSURE COOKER BOOK with over 500 recipes calibrated for both stovetop and electric pressure cookers and THE INSTANT POT BIBLE, with every recipe proportioned for every size of Instant Pot. (Click on those titles to learn more.)

After we're done talking about kitchen design trends, we've got a one-minute cooking tip for better cocktails. Then Bruce interviews bagel (and food) entrepreneur Lia Safalow, owner of Blue House Bagels in Connecticut. And we tell you what's making us happy in food this week.

We're happy you've found us! Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:

[01:32] What are the latest kitchen trends? What's in and what's out when you're designing or even redesigning your kitchen?

[12:52] Our one-minute cooking tip: Better cocktails start with better ice.

[15:40] Bruce interviews bagel (and food) entrepreneur Lia Safalow, owner of Blue House Bagels in Canton, Connecticut.

[25:15] What’s making us happy in food this week? Shallots roasted in chicken fat and hard cider!

Transcript
Bruce:

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast

Bruce:

Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

Mark:

And I'm Mark Scarborough.

Mark:

And together with Bruce, we have, well, not only been married,

Mark:

but also ridden 36 cookbooks.

Mark:

We share a career.

Mark:

Can you believe that somebody actually shares a career and a life

Mark:

and a house and a marriage in two colleagues and the whole thing?

Mark:

It's really, honestly, thank God for therapy.

Mark:

But

Bruce:

But one of our friends believes we never fight.

Mark:

No, I know.

Mark:

This was so crazy.

Mark:

We were at a party the other night and somebody said that she couldn't fathom

Mark:

that we fought, and I thought, so.

Mark:

I can't even imagine you two fighting.

Mark:

Oh my gosh.

Mark:

I thought you don't know me very well.

Mark:

You don't know how vicious I can get because let's just face it, I

Mark:

would rather be right than happy.

Mark:

Every day of the week, so, so there you go.

Mark:

Um, in this episode of the podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark, we're

Mark:

not gonna talk about fighting.

Mark:

We're gonna talk about kitchen remodel trends.

Mark:

We have kind of tracked down some trends from country Living House and

Mark:

Garden, good Housekeeping, Forbes, a bunch of places, and we've consolidated

Mark:

them for what is new in kitchens and what are the big trends coming.

Mark:

We've got our one minute cooking tip.

Mark:

Bruce has got an interview with a woman who has.

Mark:

Opened a bagel shop here near where we live, and this is one of

Mark:

our food entrepreneur interviews.

Mark:

And I actually love these because I love listening to people's stories as they

Mark:

generate their own businesses and make their dreams of a food business come true.

Mark:

Well, this is Blue House Bagels.

Mark:

So where do you hear this interview?

Mark:

And of course we're gonna talk about what's.

Mark:

Making us happy in food this week,

Bruce:

I would love to remodel our kitchen.

Bruce:

Um, one day maybe we will.

Bruce:

And

Mark:

some of these we did.

Mark:

Okay, wait.

Mark:

So stop.

Mark:

So we moved out of New York City in 2006 and we moved to

Mark:

very, very rural New England.

Mark:

And at that point we did remodel the kitchen.

Mark:

We did not.

Mark:

Changed the footprint.

Mark:

Right.

Mark:

But we changed, we put granite in, we changed some things about the counters.

Mark:

We put stoves in and dishwashers and a big farmhouse sink and stuff like that.

Mark:

But we didn't change the footprint.

Bruce:

We didn't.

Bruce:

And that was 17 years ago.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

But, so here are some things that we might consider, um, if we are going to

Bruce:

ever redo our kitchen, and you might want to consider, well, at least these are

Bruce:

the things that are trendy right now.

Bruce:

Well, I can tell you the first thing is something I won't do.

Bruce:

Um, wallpaper is back.

Mark:

I know, you know, this is so I don't, funny wallpaper or I don't either.

Mark:

I grew up with wallpaper, so I have bad associations with it, but I was just

Mark:

thinking, I honestly, this was about something completely different, but I

Mark:

was just thinking about two weeks ago.

Mark:

I bet wallpaper is due for a comeback because it's been a long time and you

Mark:

know, there were 80 billion this old house and house remodeling shows where they're

Mark:

ripping the wallpaper off the walls and I thought, okay, that went on for.

Mark:

Maybe two decades even.

Mark:

And that means it's a bound time for somebody to just start

Mark:

being into wallpaper again.

Mark:

And sure enough, see my mother's old gold flock wallpaper's gonna come back in.

Bruce:

And we had the uh, wow rice paper, the uh oh, the rice, the bamboo.

Bruce:

It was like damn too rice paper wall.

Mark:

It was the, in my bedroom I had grass cloth.

Mark:

Oh yeah.

Bruce:

On, we had that on the wall of my bedroom, on the wall going up the stairs.

Bruce:

The kitchen was very seventies with giant like, Peter Matt's flowers and,

Mark:

uh, my, on a white background, my, my mother had gold flock Flo leases.

Mark:

It's just no wonder I'm gay.

Mark:

Um, and she had those all in the entry hall and she had them in the living room.

Mark:

And then eventually in the late eighties, she tore down the wallpaper.

Mark:

When wallpaper starting to get paste, she tore down it and she.

Mark:

Fabric, that wall that had the wallpaper on.

Bruce:

Oh, that's right.

Bruce:

There was fabric on that wall up until when we sold that house.

Bruce:

When your dad died.

Bruce:

Wow.

Bruce:

Yeah, that's right.

Mark:

So wallpaper is apparently making a comeback.

Mark:

And I find this, I don't actually like wallpaper, but I, I just,

Mark:

it just seems inevitable that it would be making a comeback.

Mark:

And I bet you that there are people who make better looking wallpaper

Mark:

than when we were children.

Bruce:

Okay.

Bruce:

Even when we were children, there was good wallpaper, but none of our parents

Bruce:

were gonna spend the money on that.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

It was expensive.

Bruce:

I mean, there's.

Bruce:

Always good wallpaper.

Bruce:

It's just so expensive.

Mark:

It was so expensive.

Mark:

And of course, you know, live it.

Mark:

Listen, living in New England, we also see wallpaper, but not I, I

Mark:

don't mean just tacky wallpaper.

Mark:

I mean, we see some of these colonial homes that have the original

Mark:

hand done wallpaper, and it is a.

Mark:

Astounding.

Mark:

You're talking basically painted scenes on walls.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

That's crazy.

Mark:

That's crazy.

Mark:

Old school stuff.

Mark:

But wallpaper is back and they're saying, so the trendsetters are

Mark:

saying that black is the new black.

Mark:

Well, black is.

Mark:

Still black.

Bruce:

I'm trying to imagine a black kitchen, but I actually can imagine yes.

Bruce:

And we're not just talking black appliances.

Bruce:

Well, I've seen a lot of black appliances.

Bruce:

Yes.

Bruce:

I've seen showcase kitchens where the walls are black,

Bruce:

where the cabinets are black,

Mark:

but black appliances, um, are in and in fact if you've been watching

Mark:

any, uh, of the trends, any, if you pay any attention to kitchen magazines or

Mark:

anything, You can see that stainless steel is well on its way out and black.

Bruce:

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Bruce:

Bruce.

Bruce:

Hate can't go go fast enough.

Bruce:

We have stainless appliances that Bruce, we just bought a new stainless

Bruce:

refrigerator because the point we needed a refrigerator and if I didn't

Bruce:

get stainless, then I had to also get a new stove and dishwasher.

Bruce:

I didn't wanna do that, so we got it.

Bruce:

We just.

Bruce:

Continuing my hatred of stainless steel appliance.

Mark:

He hates to clean it and he wants to get black glass so he can just spritz

Mark:

it and clean it and be done with it instead of using stainless steel cleaner.

Mark:

But if you have been watching any of the trench, you can see that stainless

Mark:

steel is definitely on its way out.

Mark:

The new homes tend to have black glass, and I have to

Mark:

say it does have a chic look.

Mark:

I still like the old stainless steel look.

Mark:

I have to say.

Mark:

I mean, it's what we have, but I still like it.

Mark:

Uh, I, I don't know.

Mark:

It, it looks more.

Mark:

Kitcheny.

Mark:

To me it does.

Mark:

It looks more industrial to me, and I like that kind of industrial look.

Mark:

But I understand the appeal for black.

Bruce:

Well, speaking of industrial looks, the next thing is sort of

Bruce:

industrial, no upper kitchen cabinets.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

This is big.

Mark:

And this has been coming on for the last several years.

Mark:

Open shelving, baby.

Bruce:

I love it.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

Now, the problem with open shelving, the, the upper kitchen cabinets are,

Mark:

Actually dominantly becoming paste.

Mark:

And you can see this in architectural magazines, you can watch this in

Mark:

food magazines like Food and Wine.

Mark:

Watch how the kitchens look in there and you will see that,

Mark:

uh, the shelving is open.

Mark:

In fact, now I notice that when Bruce and I go on sets to record either cooking

Mark:

classes or cooking videos, the shelves.

Mark:

All around us are all just open shelves on sets.

Mark:

They don't put cabinets on sets anymore.

Mark:

The problem with open shelving, and I do love it, I love the

Mark:

look, I think it's very clean.

Mark:

It takes up much less space and it feels airier than cabinets and

Mark:

it takes up less physical space.

Mark:

But the problem is you've got to keep it really clean.

Bruce:

Well, it's not even just keeping it clean and organized.

Bruce:

Keeping it grease free is almost impossible.

Bruce:

Yeah, that's that tricky because kitchens are greasy and you're gonna

Bruce:

get a fine mist of grease over all of your glassware, and then the

Bruce:

dust sticks to the grease and, yep.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

I kind of don't know what I would do if we wanted an open, an open no cabinet thing.

Mark:

It's hard because the plates get greasy.

Mark:

They do over time.

Mark:

Now if you don't use them, but this is the other thing is, you know, I

Mark:

will admit that when guests show up for a dinner party at our house, I

Mark:

am one to shove things into cabinets and close the door fast so that.

Mark:

And suddenly there's a bag of flowers sitting on top of the plates.

Mark:

But you know, I mean, they are ways to shut out the mess.

Mark:

And, uh, open, uh, shelving doesn't allow you to shut out the mess.

Mark:

Everything has to be perfect.

Mark:

When I was in my twenties, I was friends with this couple in Dallas and he was

Mark:

an . Architect, and he was an architect in the kind of style of Frank Lloyd Wright,

Mark:

and they had open shelving in their kitchen, and I had never seen such things.

Mark:

This we're talking now the early eighties.

Mark:

I had never seen such things.

Mark:

It seemed so weird to me.

Mark:

These open shelves, and they were so O C D.

Mark:

That all of the, let's say, baking powder and all the, you know,

Mark:

condiments in jars were all turned out.

Mark:

So the labels faced out, you know, so look like a grocery store.

Mark:

See, that's the, but that's the problem with open shelving is

Mark:

that if you just shove your baking powder up there, it's gonna look.

Mark:

Junkie, right?

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

You gotta face it suddenly out as if it's a supermarket, so it's a problem.

Mark:

I think that if we redid our kitchen, I would argue for open shelving,

Mark:

but knowing that I was opening myself up to all kinds of problems.

Bruce:

Well, one thing we could do is get rid of so much stuff

Bruce:

that everything can go down below.

Bruce:

And we don't even need anything like that.

Mark:

I'm always for getting rid of stuff.

Bruce:

It's just, well, one thing that you can't get rid of is supersized

Bruce:

refrigerators, cuz those are big.

Bruce:

I know.

Bruce:

They're getting, you know, we bought a new refrigerator this year.

Bruce:

Yep.

Bruce:

And I swear we bought what I thought was a giant refrigerator, but it's

Bruce:

like was one of the smallest one in the

Mark:

showroom.

Mark:

I know.

Mark:

It's like label petite or something.

Bruce:

And it was French door refrigerator with 15 cubic feet.

Bruce:

And I'm like, what?

Bruce:

And this is a.

Bruce:

Small one,

Mark:

but I think that this is, if you just think about this for a second, about

Mark:

this trend for supersize refrigerators, I think this speaks to how a lot of

Mark:

people, of course, shop the salad bar the prepared foods at their supermarket.

Mark:

They bring this stuff home.

Mark:

There is more and more of a need for a refrigerator.

Mark:

My grandmother and your grandmother who went to the store way more

Mark:

often than I do daily, probably.

Mark:

Right, exactly.

Mark:

They didn't need a giant.

Mark:

Refrigerator.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

But now people have prepared foods.

Mark:

They pick up a roti chicken, they pick up blah, blah, blah, you know,

Mark:

mac and cheese, whatever they pick up that it's more and more cold.

Mark:

They've got their cold brew, they've got their, their smoothies that go,

Mark:

all that, that goes in the fridge.

Mark:

So it kind of stands to reason that . Fridges would explode in size as

Mark:

prepared foods explode at popularity.

Bruce:

That makes sense.

Bruce:

But what doesn't make sense to me is the last thing on this list.

Bruce:

I don't like it mirrored surfaces in your kitchen.

Mark:

Yeah, that one's hard.

Mark:

God, once again, keeping it clean.

Bruce:

The idea of a mirrored back splash sounds so cool until.

Bruce:

It starts to get filthy.

Bruce:

Think about your bathroom mirror, right?

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

How often do you have to clean that bathroom mirror?

Bruce:

Because it's got stuff on it.

Bruce:

Now imagine your back splash.

Bruce:

Oh, I can't even, I can't.

Mark:

Yeah, it's, it's really interesting.

Mark:

And let me tell you one other thing that's a huge trend, and this

Mark:

affects me because this is what we have is I can tell you with.

Mark:

Out ado in all of the trendsetting magazines and all the trendsetters

Mark:

out there, granite is out.

Mark:

Oh.

Mark:

As a countertop, as done.

Mark:

Uh, and we have granite when we paid extra for the kind of granite we have,

Mark:

we were so proud of this granite.

Mark:

Oh my God.

Mark:

It was beautiful when we got it almost 20 years ago.

Mark:

Yeah, I know.

Mark:

And it's gotten a little scratched up, but it's still beautiful when I clean it.

Mark:

Yes.

Mark:

The problem is the cleaning of it.

Mark:

Yes.

Mark:

The problem is keeping it shiny, and that is a constant problem with granite.

Mark:

I love the way you can just take something really hot outta the oven

Mark:

and just set it right on the granite.

Bruce:

Oh, I

Bruce:

love

Bruce:

that.

Bruce:

I don't even think about it anymore.

Bruce:

Things go right on the counter.

Mark:

What they, what all the trends that are say is in is wood, and

Mark:

that wood is in wood, wood, wood.

Mark:

It's butcher block.

Mark:

It's all that kind of surface.

Mark:

But the problem with that is butcher block a stains really easily like crazy.

Mark:

Uh, we put butcher block in our back pantry and it stains like crazy and we're

Mark:

constantly scraping out the stains on it

Bruce:

unless you like that look and you like that worn in stain look, which is

Bruce:

the thing.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

Which is why we didn't put marble in our kitchen.

Mark:

Because we said, oh no, everything will get stained up with rings

Mark:

and you have to like that look.

Bruce:

It has to, you want it to look like an old French bistro with

Bruce:

a hundred year old stained marble.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

Well, I'm not gonna be a hundred year old person with a hundred year old stain.

Mark:

I can't live that long.

Mark:

I didn't save enough money, so I can't live that long.

Mark:

So, um, the, the, the, the wood wood is what's in and granite, it's out and

Mark:

granite is already becoming super dated.

Mark:

Let me just say that we, uh, had some realtors in our house last

Mark:

year and you know, they were looking at our house and we were.

Mark:

Thinking about maybe leaving New England.

Mark:

We of course didn't in the end, but we were thinking about it and, uh, they

Mark:

did walk in our kitchen and it was this kind of oh, granite kind of moment.

Mark:

Like, like, oh, oh, that,

Bruce:

yeah, we could probably sell it anyway.

Bruce:

Right, right.

Mark:

So, um, I know it's really sad because we all loved granite.

Mark:

We paid a fortune for it, and now it's considered kind of out and passe.

Mark:

It's like the what?

Mark:

The psychedelic wallpaper from the seventies.

Mark:

It's.

Mark:

It's a marker of a time period of the late nineties and early

Mark:

two thousands to what, 2010?

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

It's just a marker of that time spot.

Mark:

Before we get to the next part of our podcast, our one minute cookie tip, let me

Mark:

just remind you that we have a newsletter.

Mark:

It's we do.

Mark:

You can sign up for it on our website, bruce@mark.com or

Mark:

click in with Bruce and Mark.

Mark:

Either place, the goal goes to the same place.

Mark:

There's a form there that you can fill out.

Mark:

I block my ability to see your email or your name, so I can't sell it, and you

Mark:

can find out all about us and our lives.

Mark:

The content of our newsletter is not the content of this podcast,

Mark:

nor of our cooking videos on TikTok.

Mark:

Yes, there are cooking videos on TikTok as well as Instagram.

Mark:

Reels, check all of those out.

Mark:

And now without any further ado our one minute cooking tip.

Bruce:

Better cocktails.

Bruce:

Start with better ice.

Mark:

What do you mean by better ice?

Mark:

Ice is Ice is ice

Bruce:

is Ice is not ice.

Bruce:

If you live in a city with heavily chlorinated water and that's the ice

Bruce:

you're putting in your gin, you're having gin with chlorine, uh, we're

Bruce:

having a vodka tonic and chlorine.

Bruce:

Ah-huh.

Bruce:

So make ice out of nice spring water and you'll have much better cocktails.

Bruce:

Think about it.

Bruce:

When you shake up a drink, like 80% of your drink is ice melt.

Bruce:

You don't want crappy ice.

Mark:

80% seems a lot, but okay.

Mark:

It is.

Mark:

You're right.

Mark:

It better Water does make four better drinks, and if you do live in a

Mark:

city, consider using bottled water for your next party to make ice.

Mark:

I know that sounds ridiculous because then you're gonna have to go

Mark:

get yes ice soup trays, ice trays.

Mark:

And now you can be as old as I am with an ice cube tray, but um, you can go get

Mark:

them and then burn your fingers on the metal trays just like I did as a kid.

Mark:

Hey, you know what?

Mark:

We were tough.

Mark:

Listen, I wanna tell you something growing up as I did, if you don't

Mark:

know it, I'm here to tell you that.

Mark:

The news every night had to remind people that they had children.

Mark:

This just cracks me up.

Mark:

Do you know where your children are?

Mark:

That's the childhood we had is our parents had to be reminded, oh, whoops.

Mark:

I got a kid.

Mark:

What do you know?

Mark:

So we grew up tough.

Mark:

We got burned on ice trays.

Mark:

You can too, make better ice for better cocktails.

Mark:

Before we get to Bruce's interview, let me say that it would be great if you

Mark:

could rate and subscribe to this podcast.

Mark:

We are unsupported and your support there is actually what helps keep

Mark:

us in the airwaves because it helps us be found by the algorithms.

Mark:

Thank you so much for doing that.

Mark:

Even just a comment like Nice podcast does wonders for us.

Mark:

Alright, up next Bruce's interview with Leah Slo, the owner of.

Mark:

Blue House Bagels, a brand new bagel.

Mark:

Re not very far from where we live.

Mark:

This is one of our food entrepreneur interviews.

Mark:

I love these.

Mark:

So up next, Bruce and lots about bagels.

Mark:

Today

Bruce:

I am speaking with Lisa Safolow.

Bruce:

She is the owner and master bagel maker at Blue House Bagels.

Bruce:

And.

Bruce:

Lia makes some of the best bagels I've had anywhere and of all places.

Bruce:

Their shop, blue House Bagels is in Canton, Connecticut, just a few

Bruce:

miles outside of West Hartford.

Bruce:

Welcome, Lia.

Lia:

Thank you.

Lia:

Thanks for having me.

Bruce:

As Mark, my husband and I have discussed many times on this podcast,

Bruce:

we are pretty picky about our bagels and we're huge fans of New York Bagels over

Bruce:

the softer, sweeter Montreal style bagels.

Bruce:

And clearly the old myth that it's New York City's drinking water that

Bruce:

makes their bagels so great isn't true.

Bruce:

Because you are not in New York and your bagels are great.

Bruce:

So how did you create such delicious New York City style

Bruce:

bagels in Northern Connecticut?

Lia:

So our bagels are a little, a little bit different in, in the fact

Lia:

that we are sourdough based and it's a three day fermentation process.

Lia:

So basically, We use sourdough, uh, sourdough starter.

Lia:

We use unmated unbleached flour.

Lia:

We use kosher sea, so all our flour is also kosher.

Lia:

And we start the process three days before we actually serve the bagel.

Lia:

So we form our dough, we let it proof overnight.

Lia:

I'm giving away my secrets.

Lia:

And then, uh, on day two, we form our bagels and they proof again overnight.

Lia:

And then on day three we top and bake our bagels.

Lia:

With it being an all natural product, we're not using any softeners like

Lia:

most bagel shops use, you know, we bake everything fresh that morning.

Lia:

I think that makes a huge difference.

Lia:

And all of our bagels are between 4.5 and five ounces.

Lia:

Each bagel gets weighed for it goes, you know, on our trays.

Lia:

So, and, and the reason why we decided to do this is because I also couldn't find a

Lia:

good, I mean, our, the big olds are, are.

Lia:

Or great around here, but, um, you know, my husband, uh, is from New York.

Lia:

Uh, we lived in New York, uh, for a while, um, while he was in med school.

Lia:

And, you know, we just wanted a place where people can get a really good

Lia:

bagel in a really nice atmosphere.

Bruce:

How did you learn how to make bagels?

Lia:

So, my kids love bagels and they, you know, we've always.

Lia:

Migrated to, you know, to bagel shops.

Lia:

And my husband, uh, became diabetic.

Lia:

And so I started making bagels at home using, um, you know,

Lia:

just all natural ingredients.

Lia:

Um, and I, you know, with my little mixer, I was able to make 12 bagels.

Lia:

And it took forever.

Lia:

And again, I didn't have a commercial kitchen.

Lia:

I didn't have any of that.

Lia:

So then I was, I bought a little bit of a bigger mixer, um, and I was burning out

Lia:

the mixers because the dough is so dense.

Lia:

Um, so, so basically, um, you know, my husband was able to eat these

Lia:

bagels and his blood sugar didn't.

Lia:

Spike and, and it kind of remains level.

Lia:

And he really loved bagels and he was so sad that he couldn't have any bagels.

Lia:

So, you know, about two years ago we found this building and it was

Lia:

pretty much in horrible shape, but we thought, oh, What a great idea.

Lia:

We're just gonna open a bagel shop.

Lia:

So we had to, you know, go through the town and, and you know, we had to get

Lia:

city water piped in because there was an indoor well, but here we are and, um, I'm

Lia:

glad we got to this point and I'm glad everybody's enjoying the bagels because

Lia:

that's, you know, it was kind of like, oh, what if people don't like these bagels?

Lia:

We did all of this, but, um, You know, it's, it's been good so far,

Lia:

so I'm really happy and, yeah.

Bruce:

Well, your bagels have an amazing surface.

Bruce:

They're the plain bagels are a little bubbly.

Bruce:

They're chewy.

Bruce:

Are these bagels boiled?

Lia:

They are not.

Bruce:

Okay.

Bruce:

How does that work?

Lia:

So we have a special oven.

Lia:

It's a steam oven, so it actually sprays the bagels with a fine mist

Lia:

of water, which acts as boiling.

Lia:

So they, uh, the process, um, the oven is set at, um, such a

Lia:

temperature and, uh, hydration.

Lia:

There is steam that happens for a certain amount of time, and then it

Lia:

stays in that steam for a certain amount of time, and then it vents out.

Lia:

And then the baking happens at a certain temperature, and then we drop

Lia:

the temperature at its final stages, and then we, we serve the bagels.

Bruce:

You've got the classics, you've got plain bagels, which

Bruce:

again, that surface, that bubbly, crackly, chewy surface is amazing.

Bruce:

You've got poppy sesame.

Bruce:

You make some unusual untraditional flavors like

Bruce:

chocolate and cheddar jalapeno.

Bruce:

Do you use the same sourdough base for those unusual as you do for the

Lia:

plain?

Lia:

Yeah.

Lia:

All of our bagels are sourdough based.

Lia:

We will not, we don't put anything out that is not, we also do stuffed

Lia:

bagels, the bacon, egg, and cheese.

Lia:

We'll do french toast bagels.

Lia:

We also have the rosemary olive oil and the zar, um, bagel, which people love.

Lia:

But yeah, so basically we're able to do the stuffed bagels because we're

Lia:

not boiling them in a, in, in a pot.

Lia:

Mm-hmm.

Lia:

So we can actually stuff the bagel and, and put them in the oven and the steam,

Lia:

you know, will hold everything together.

Lia:

And so that's.

Lia:

You know, that's one of our little secrets as well.

Bruce:

What's a french toast bagel?

Lia:

We dip the bagel, uh, before it's baked in a french toast mix.

Lia:

So we do egg and cinnamon and vanilla, and we do like a little

Lia:

egg, cinnamon, vanilla, and.

Lia:

We, we have like this local bourbon, um, maple flavor that

Lia:

we throw in there as well.

Lia:

And then we also put on the top of the bagel, um, some brown

Lia:

sugar and cinnamon topping.

Lia:

Uh, and we bake it that way.

Bruce:

We have a disagreement in our house about certain flavors.

Bruce:

I love cinnamon raisin bagels.

Bruce:

Um, mark considers anything other than plain and maybe pumper nickel

Bruce:

to be sacrilege until he tasted your olive oil, rosemary bagel.

Bruce:

They're the perfect cross between the texture of a bagel

Bruce:

and the flavor of focaccia.

Bruce:

What inspired that bagel?

Lia:

So I grow herbs.

Lia:

I have a lavender plant that I'm going to be experimenting

Lia:

with soon, but I love rosemary.

Lia:

Um, I love growing herbs.

Lia:

We have a full garden now here on site.

Lia:

Um, and we plan on, you know, using that for our, our guests,

Lia:

so the rosemary, olive oil.

Lia:

My family's Italian.

Lia:

My husband's Jewish, so, so rosemary, olive oil is kind of in my blood.

Lia:

Um, so I decided to make, uh, rosemary infused olive oil and

Lia:

we just brush it on the bagel.

Lia:

Uh, we do, I add a little bit of the, uh, sea salt to it and we love it.

Bruce:

Lia, are there any flavor bagels you would consider too

Bruce:

far and have opted not to make?

Bruce:

Or is anything game in your bagel kitchen?

Lia:

I think everything's pretty, you know, it, it all depends on what people

Lia:

like, and we're experimenting and people will, uh, you know, put things in our

Lia:

suggestion box that they wanna see.

Lia:

And, and when we do them, sometimes they sell and sometimes they don't.

Lia:

It's a learning process.

Lia:

We're willing to experiment and try whatever, and if it sells, great.

Lia:

If it doesn't, then we just take it off our shelves.

Bruce:

So many bagel shops love to advertise that they're hand-rolled and.

Bruce:

Yours aren't.

Bruce:

So why did you choose to go with a rolling machine?

Lia:

We do hand roll some bagels, and I'll explain why.

Lia:

The machine is just a cleaner process when it's going through the machine,

Lia:

where it's not being handled as much.

Lia:

It's just quicker, it's cleaner, and we do have to hand roll certain types of

Lia:

bagels and they're very time consuming.

Lia:

And the more you handle sourdough, the more it kind of deflates.

Lia:

So we wanna try to eliminate.

Lia:

The hand rolling as much as possible.

Lia:

Um, so we have to hand roll cinnamon raisin bagels here because we're,

Lia:

we're actually hand cutting slits into the dough and putting the,

Lia:

um, cinnamon sugar and raisin.

Lia:

Mix right into the, um, slits.

Lia:

So the cinnamon will kind of break down the sourdough as well.

Lia:

So we kind of wanna be very gentle with that and that can't go in the machine.

Lia:

And then also our chocolate bagels cannot go in the machine either

Lia:

because it's a stickier dough.

Lia:

So those all have to be hand rolled as well.

Lia:

So sometimes when you come in, you'll see that we don't have cinnamon

Lia:

raisin out on the shelves and we don't have the chocolate on the shelves.

Lia:

Um, and that's because.

Lia:

It's so super time consuming and we just wanna get our regular bagels out and then,

Lia:

and then if we have time, we will do the chocolate and the cinnamon raisin bagels.

Bruce:

Well, if you always have the olive oil, rosemary, and you always

Bruce:

have your plain bagels, it's worth a road trip to Canton, Connecticut.

Bruce:

Check out.

Bruce:

Lou House Bagels in Canton.

Bruce:

Leah Slo is the owner and the head bagel maker.

Bruce:

She's making incredible bagels here in Connecticut Hill.

Bruce:

Thanks for, uh, sharing some time with me this morning.

Lia:

Thanks for having me.

Mark:

It was so funny when they opened and it's a still a bit of a hike for us to go.

Bruce:

It is.

Bruce:

It's a bit, it's about a 30 minute drive.

Bruce:

30 minutes, yeah.

Mark:

But a good bagel is worth it.

Mark:

It's a.

Mark:

Hike.

Mark:

And I have to say that we were both very snotty and we drove past it.

Mark:

We're like, oh God, what is it?

Mark:

Connecticut bagels.

Bruce:

Oh my God.

Bruce:

The New Yorkers are just like, oh, gross.

Bruce:

Oh my goodness.

Bruce:

They're so good.

Mark:

They are really great bagels and the olive or Rosemary bagels are delicious.

Mark:

I ate them with smoked salmon and cream cheese the other day, and they are so.

Mark:

Tasty.

Mark:

It's ridiculous.

Mark:

I'm so glad that people can follow their dreams and open their own food business.

Mark:

And in the spirit of that, let's talk about what's making

Mark:

us happy in food this week.

Bruce:

Shallot.

Bruce:

Roasted in chicken fat.

Bruce:

God, I know it seems obscure, but Mark and I did.

Bruce:

Have you seen your cardiologist again?

Bruce:

Uh, next week.

Bruce:

Okay, great.

Bruce:

Um, mark and I do a monthly morning food segment on a

Bruce:

Portland, Oregon morning TV show.

Bruce:

And this morning we did roasted chicken in a bunt pan with potatoes and shallots.

Mark:

And did you know, a bunt pan will act as a vertical roaster for chicken?

Bruce:

And it's nice in all the.

Bruce:

Fat drips down into the bundt pan where your shallots are.

Bruce:

Mm-hmm.

Bruce:

So your shallots, poach, and roast in the rendering.

Bruce:

Chicken fat.

Bruce:

It's confit.

Bruce:

It's shallot.

Bruce:

Conf feet.

Bruce:

That's, so, that's what's making, I had that for breakfast.

Bruce:

That's good.

Bruce:

That diet.

Bruce:

There

Mark:

are potatoes down in there and shallots and the chicken roast in this.

Mark:

Vertical roaster.

Mark:

It's delicious.

Mark:

It's kind of amazing cause there recipe from our book, the

Mark:

Kitchen Shortcut Bible mm-hmm.

Mark:

And a book that never really got the play that I thought that it needed.

Mark:

I mean, not that I think I'm so great, but it's big in Portland.

Mark:

It is apparently cuz they keep wanting us to have back on and have more

Mark:

recipes from the kitchen shortcut Bible.

Mark:

So up next we're doing, uh, kind of, uh, Downscale pan aux

Mark:

chocolate in a waffle iron so yo,

Bruce:

I think I have to go upstairs and practice them right now.

Bruce:

Just get ready for one.

Mark:

So what's making me happy in food this week is actually a hard cider,

Mark:

and this is what's kind of amazing to me, is I don't like hard cider,

Mark:

but person I were on NPR radio last week out of Albany, New York, and we

Mark:

went and we had dinner at a We Ha.

Mark:

And we went and had lunch at a ramen shop Bruce found, and then we walked,

Mark:

oh, half a block down the street to where

Bruce:

nine pin cider, the

Mark:

nine pin cidery, and nine pin hard cider is totally delicious.

Mark:

I, my problem with cider is it's the hard cider is sweet.

Bruce:

Well, they do have blueberry cider.

Bruce:

Oh no.

Bruce:

Berry cider, but

Mark:

No, no, no, no, no.

Bruce:

They have some really good dry ciders they call it, uh, cider Monster.

Bruce:

Mm-hmm.

Bruce:

And there's, they have a large format.

Bruce:

750 ML bottles that they only sell there.

Bruce:

So we bought, oh,

Mark:

it's no good for anyone listening to this podcast unless you're in Albany,

Bruce:

but they do sell nine pin other varieties of nine pin elsewhere.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

So we bought six of those large format bottles.

Bruce:

I can't wait to break into them.

Mark:

Yeah, check out nine pin cidery.

Mark:

They are actually sold nationwide at this point, and they're from Albany and.

Mark:

They make a really delicious dry cider.

Mark:

There are some sweet ones too, but for me and my money, I can get a dry

Mark:

cider and it is totally delicious.

Mark:

And it made me preach.

Mark:

It made me very, very happy.

Mark:

I even had a hard cider with ramen.

Mark:

I know.

Mark:

Don't come at me.

Mark:

Don't at me.

Mark:

Don't at me.

Mark:

I can't help.

Bruce:

It took we had a lemon grass.

Bruce:

We had a spicy lemon grass brisket ramen

Mark:

We did.

Mark:

That was so good.

Mark:

And I had a a nine pen size hidder with it, and it was delicious.

Mark:

That's our show.

Mark:

For this week, thanks for joining in.

Mark:

We know that there are a lot of podcasts out there and you could be listening to

Mark:

a lot of them, but you're choosing to listen to us and we really appreciate it.

Bruce:

Do you have a cider that you like, hard cider?

Bruce:

Go to our Facebook group cooking with Bruce and Mark and tell us about it.

Bruce:

We love Discover New Ciders and you can share all of your loves with us there.

Bruce:

Cooking of Bruce and Mark, and we'll see you back for another episode

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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!