Episode 98 • Cooking
Rinse
Stir
Overcooked
Oven mitt
Thaw out
Story
Rebecca: Hey, how’s my favorite chef?
Susie: Shut up, close the door.
Rebecca: What?
Susie: I have no idea what I’m doing. What was I thinking? Offering to cook a Thanksgiving meal for 12 people. I don’t even know how to make an omelet.
Rebecca: Calm down. We’ve got this, okay? I’m going to help you. Alright, so what have you done so far?
Susie: Well, I washed the vegetables.
Rebecca: Okay, good, that’s a good start. Where are the vegetables?
Susie: There.
Rebecca: What’s- what’s this? Is this soap?
Susie: Yeah, the recipe said ‘wash the vegetables’ and so I did.
Rebecca: Oh, sweetie, you’re not supposed to wash them with soap, you’re just supposed to rinse them! Okay, never mind. What about the soup?
Susie: Yeah, it’s over there.
Rebecca: Oh, no… Did you- did you stir this? You need to stir it every now and then while it cooks, otherwise it sticks to the bottom, see? Okay, listen… You did make the pasta, right? There’s very little that could go wrong with that.
Susie: Yeah, no. I think I got that right. Here, taste it.
Rebecca: Oh my- Susie. This is way overcooked. How long did you leave it in the water?
Susie: Yeah, I don’t know… 15, 20 minutes? Okay, maybe it was 30, I forget. I got distracted, I’m sorry.
Rebecca: Okay. listen. It’s Thanksgiving. The most important thing is that we get the turkey right. Is it in the oven?
Susie: Yes.
Rebecca: Alright, good, see? Now pass me the oven mitt and let’s… Susie, why is the turkey cold?
Susie: Uuhm, because it was frozen.
Rebecca: You didn’t -? Susie, you have to thaw it out before you cook it! This is still frozen!
Susie: I- I-… Maybe if we put it directly on the fire then…
Questions
That sounds like it was me in the kitchen. I swear to God, I am a terrible cook and those are probably mistakes that I would have made myself.
Rinse
'Oh, sweetie, you’re not supposed to wash them with soap, you’re just supposed to rinse them!'
• If you rinse something, do you wash it with or without soap?
If you rinse something, you wash it with just water, without soap.
• Why would you rinse something?
Especially with things like fruits and vegetables. What you want to do is really get most of the chemicals off, or I don't know. I don't even know if by just rinsing them. if you just put them under the water, you can get rid of chemicals. I'm guessing not, but at least you've got that impression. At least, I don't know, it's something that you got to put in your mouth and, I guess it's better if you wash them. If you rinse them if you put them under the water for a while to get rid of-- To be honest with you, I don't know why you would rinse them, my mom taught me to rinse them.
• Do you always rinse fruit and vegetables before eating it?
I do because my mom taught me that you've got to do it. I see people sometimes that buy grapes from the supermarket and they leave, and as soon as they leave, they take a couple of grapes and they eat them. I'm always like, "No, you haven't washed them. You can't do that, you're going to die." Obviously, I don't tell them, but I think that. To be honest with you, I don't think that rinsing your vegetables, or your fruits for a couple of seconds does anything to it. I don't know if it's just me, but yes, I always rinse my fruit and the vegetables that I eat before eating it.
Stir
'Oh, no… Did you- did you stir this?'
• What can you stir? A liquid or a solid?
You can only stir something that's liquid.
• If you stir something, how do you move it? With circular motions or with an up and down motion?
If you stir something, you move it with circular motion. Your hand makes little circles or big circles, even.
• What do you usually use to stir something?
I think you can use anything that's long enough to get into the liquid for you to hold it and move the liquid around, but I think most often it would be a spoon. If you are stirring your coffee after adding in the sugar, you just grab a spoon and begin stirring it.
• How do you stir your beverages? Clockwise or counterclockwise?
Clockwise is in the direction in which the clock goes, or the hands go, whereas counterclockwise is in the opposite direction. I stir my beverages clockwise, so in the direction of the clock and I thought that everybody did that. Just the other day, I noticed that my boyfriend stirs his drinks counterclockwise. I thought it was really interesting. Think about it for a second and see if you remember how you stir your drinks.
Overcooked
'This is way overcooked. How long did you leave it in there?'
• If a food is overcooked, has it been cooked too much or too little?
If the food has been overcooked, it has been cooked too much.
• What happens to a food if it’s overcooked?
It depends on the food. Things like-- If you overcook chicken, for example, it gets very, very dry. It's almost hard to swallow and to even chew. Then things like pasta, it gets really soggy. The consistency is not right.
• When was the last time you overcooked something?
I think it was the pasta that we made. A couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend and I made fresh pasta. Usually, I am super picky when it comes to pasta, being Italian and all. I always make sure that he doesn't overcook it, but this time it was fresh pasta, so it was a little bit different. I think we might've left it in the pot for too long and by the time we got it out, it was definitely overcooked. It was like this giant blob of-- It still tasted good, but it was just like the consistency just was not right.
Oven mitt
'Now pass me the oven mitt and let’s…'
• What is an oven mitt? A glove or a hat?
An oven mitt is a glove that you would use in the kitchen. It's this big glove made out of fabric.
• What is the purpose of an oven mitt?
Well, the purpose of an oven mitt is to use it when you have to touch something that is very hot in the kitchen. Things like, I don't know, when you have to open the oven or get something out of the oven or maybe move a pot that's hot. You would have this glove on you, the oven mitt, so that it protects your hand, and you don't get burned.
• Do you have an oven mitt?
I don't have an oven mitt in this house. I've had an oven mitt before, but I never really use it. It really grosses me out. There's something I really don't like about sticking my hand in an oven mitt because, I don't know, it feels weird inside, there's lots of little bits and pieces. I just think it's really gross. I prefer to use something else. If I have to touch a pot or if I have to open the oven, I'll use something else usually, not an oven mitt.
Thaw out
'Susie, you have to thaw it out before you cook it!'
• What can you thaw out? Something that’s hot or something that’s frozen?
It's usually- well, not usually, it's something that's frozen. When something is frozen, usually you thaw it out.
• If something thaws out, does it get colder or warmer?
If something thaws out, it gets warmer. You would have something frozen, you leave it outside of the freezer for a while and so it starts to thaw out. It's not to melt, they're two different things. To thaw out just means that it slowly stops being frozen so to say.
• Have you ever forgotten to thaw something out before cooking it?
Yes, quite a few times, especially it happens a lot with fish. Sometimes my boyfriend and I will buy a chunk of salmon and because we don't eat it right away, we put it in the freezer, and then when we want to cook it, we'll just take it out of the freezer and thaw it out. Usually, in the morning we have the conversation of what are we going to have for lunch? A lot of times we will say, "Oh yes, we can make the salmon. We just need to remember to get it out of the freezer." Sure thing, we never remember. We always make these elaborate plans of what we can do with the salmon and then come lunchtime, we're like, "Uh-oh, we forgot to thaw it out." That's probably why we don't eat salmon very often.
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