From Quebec to Philly: Chef Alex Kemp on Fries, Stocks, and Spice Bags
Cooking Issues with Dave ArnoldShow Notes
Dave is joined in studio by chef Alex Kemp, a Quebec-born, Philly-based chef and co-owner of multiple neighborhood restaurants, for a wide-ranging hang about food, restaurants, and questionable late-night decisions. Alex talks about growing up between French and English Canada, separatist grandparents, and how he and his wife juggle two restaurants, a third on the way, and a nine-and-a-half-month-old. The crew ranks fried foods (why french fries and perfect fried chicken rule, and why tempura and hand-pulled noodles might be overrated), gets specific about schnitzel, fish and chips, fried okra, shrimp, and ketchup loyalty, and admits that Heinz is untouchable. They detour into hot dogs, pears as the heartbreak fruit, heritage apples, apple butter, and Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. A caller from Dublin asks about lobster bisque: how long to cook shells, why over-extraction goes chalky, fortifying stocks in short passes, using gelatin, and whether enzymes like chitinase are worth the trouble. Dublin also brings “spice bags” and proper Guinness into the conversation. Jack checks in with a North Korean restaurant story and the table debates whale, monkey, and one-and-done Guinness's. Dave and Alex close on old-school French technique, why real seasonal menus are a logistical nightmare, and the pleasure and pain of running truly market-driven neighborhood restaurants. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Cooking Issues with Dave Arnold
Dave gets into Ashmead’s Kernel apples, acidity, and why terroir makes fruit data unreliable before laying out plans for his ultimate outdoor cooking setup: tandoor, Roman-style hearth, masonry oven, commercial deep fryer, wok burner, and a whole lot of propane. Plus: the return of paper-bag cooking, dairy-free mashed potatoes, what to do with a country ham bone, male vs. female rabbit, getting pu-erh tea flavor into baked goods, browning breakfast sausage, low-temperature pasteurization, blood bread, cucumber cocktails, and the pursuit of better home seltzer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Author Brian Hoefling joins Dave and the crew to explore Dryads: Spirits of the Trees, his deep dive into distilled spirits made from tree sap and other tree-derived sugars. They get into Sri Lankan arrack, Filipino lambanog, maple spirits, wild fermentation, palm sugar, garum, Roman cooking, and the surprising range of things humans have figured out how to ferment and distill.
It’s an All-Tangent Tuesday as Dave and the crew debate the unwritten rules of restaurants: bringing your own crushed red pepper, sneaking food into movie theaters, why some places refuse perfectly reasonable off-menu requests, and whether chimichurri disqualifies steak frites from being steak frites.
Dave Arnold is joined by Nastassia and Jack for an old-school Cooking Issues episode covering the etiquette of dining alone, phone calls at restaurants, and what guests should—or absolutely should not—bring to a dinner party. The crew gets into garlic fermented in honey and food-safety concerns, the right way to cool and store leftovers, fresh versus dried yeast, and Dave’s plans for an elaborate Peruvian-style rotisserie. Plus: cocktail texture, LA’s chaotic hillside architecture, Majordomo, upcoming travels to Houston and Paris, and the only universally acceptable answer to “What can I bring?”: wine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dave Arnold is back at Rockefeller Center with the crew, and Nastassia kicks things off with a beer can chicken experiment that went spectacularly wrong: green chicken, burning skin, emergency Popeyes, and a last-minute rescue by Daniel Patterson. Dave also reports back from Lima, with thoughts on Peruvian chicken, ceviche, pisco sours, ancient adobe cities, cocktail bars, and the city’s formidable traffic. Then it’s on to listener questions: getting Flavacol to stick to air-popped popcorn, the limits of long low-temperature brisket cooks, red versus white clam pizza, and more. Plus: undercooked eggplant, broken glass disasters, mushroom versus butterfly popcorn, New Haven clam pies, and the deep-fried-self art project that thankfully never happened. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.