chad: hi everyone. thank you and welcome. it's a big pleasure to introducechef ming tsai today here at google. and hopefully we got youfed before you're all ready to start. how was everything? ming tsai: yeah, delicious. very good.
chad: great, well,welcome aboard. thank you. ming tsai: and the pricewas awesome. chad: can't beat a free lunch. ming tsai: chad, thank you. no, but seriously, thefood was awesome. we ate at root-- root, right? and had great--
it must have been king salmon,tasted like, with squash. and then we went by the japaneseplace, had the do-your-own ramen, had a pieceof hand roll, smoked salmon, yogurt, shiso raspberryand lemon verbena. and then i had oneother thing. oh yeah, [? cha xiu bao ?],the chinese place-- the first original. i can't remember what it wascalled, but really good bun. so i've eaten three lunches.
so thank you. i love this place. audience: [inaudible] ming tsai: yeah, exactly. so thank you for being here. very excited. i am here to talk about me,which is something i can do, but more importantlytalk about-- i don't even have a copy--
my new book, whichlooks like-- can i borrow your book? i can afford one, i promise. which i'm reallyexcited about. and for a cookbook, we've beencalling it "high tech." now, i understand high techand high tech. this is nothing unusualfor you guys. but what we've done-- and if you have followedme in my career, i've
been cooking 25 years. i started on east meets westback in the day with emeril and bobby and those guys. i've now been-- we're justcelebrating our 10th anniversary of "simply ming"on public television, which i'm proud and honored. i just need to do 35more years and i'll match julia child. which i will never.
and my shows and my books--my fifth book-- has been for one thing, toteach people how to cook. and to hopefully get people tocook with asian ingredients and learn some techniques,because once you actually learn a foundation andtechniques, you can actually start cooking yourself. and i say this, and most chefswill say the same thing, a cookbook is never gospel. a cookbook should be afoundation for inspiration,
that you see recipes and say,oh, that looks pretty cool. but i'm mexican and i lovejalapenos so i'm going to add jalapeno to this. and i love lime juiceinstead of vinegar. once you start doing that,you're actually cooking. and that's the pointof the book. so this is not gospel, buthopefully this will inspire you to create a foundation. so then when you do go to afarmer's market or a whole
foods, wherever you shop-- and the whole idea of the lasttwo seasons of "simply ming," it's called "simply ming onthe fly," which is you actually-- and i combine-- wewere talking about "next iron chef," that stupid show-- it was an awesome show untilthe last episode. but there's secret ingredientsand then, boom, we create a dish. but you, the viewer, haveno idea why we created
that dish that way. so the whole idea of the lastfew years of "simply ming"-- jacques pepin is agreat example. he was my first guestfor this new series. we reveal the secretiveprotein, which we truly have not seen. so i wanted to keep thatinstantaneous of "iron chef." there was turkey breastand shrimp. and i say, jacques,you get to choose.
i'm the host, you'rethe guest. so he chose turkey. and then we shopped-- we opened the reach-in cooler. we saw the herbs, wesaw the spices. and he would articulate why he'schoosing the tarragon, because back in south offrance with chicken-- and would explain howa chef thinks. and that's, really, i think agreat tool for you, because
once you understand how wecreate dishes, then you can start creating yourself. so to that note-- andi love doing tv-- we've added two kind of coolfeatures to this book. one, every recipe you'llsee a qr code. all right? so using your smartphone-- which i don't think is an iphonein this territory, but one of those smartphones--
you scan it. you have to sign up thefirst time through something called ziplist. if you've been watching my showthe last two seasons, like "american idol," there'sdigits you can text to. so if you're actually currentlywatching a show, you can text those digits. the shopping list is downloadedto your phone. so the same idea.
so now, if you want yourgirlfriend, boyfriend, whatever, wife, to shop, you canscan it and they can then shop for you. so that's, again, tomake it easy and simple for you to cook. the second thing that we'vedone-- because i do my own food styling. i actually think some cookbooksit's a disservice that it's so beautiful,the food.
you make it, then you're like,what did i do wrong? you did nothing wrong. but that's because you didn'thave a food stylist to take q-tips and glass andgels and spray it. i serve it just likethe food comes. so this i would serve like thatin the pot, family style. and some things areserved in woks. some things are servedappetizer sized. so by doing my own food,i decided to
shoot it with a camera. so now there's 80 full-lengthvideos, one for each recipe. and as we'll show youmomentarily-- yeah, let's play this littleintro thing here. two of each chapter are free. ok, i'm kidding, i'm kidding,i'm kidding. so for example, this isthe first chapter, which is party platters. so you can tell, this is liveonline at ming.com,
m-i-n-g.com, not m-e-n-g.don't confuse it with superstar over here. so the first [inaudible]-- we don't have to watch a wholeone, but if you click on it-- they're short, 10 to 12 minutevideos-- again, done just like you saw. but it walks you throughstart to finish how to make the dish. and the joy of this is then--
go ahead-- you can stop andstart it as much as you want off of your tablet or off ofyour laptop, but you have to buy the book for the recipe. [video playing] ok, he's boring. so the idea is you haveit start to finish. and i've always said this-- and thank you, cliff,by the way-- a picture's worth athousand words.
a video's worth amillion words. because i don't care how smartyou are-- even all you guys-- to articulate in words how toroll sushi is impossible. it's really hard. the nori comes inside and thethumb goes out-- it's impossible. but obviously, with a video,you're like, oh, that's easy. it's actually reallynot that hard. but as i was saying, anyone cango on ming.com right now
and get 16 videos for free. they can then also purchase any additional video for $0.99. i personally think i'm worth$0.99, but that's going to be up to you. you can buy them all for $25,the balance of the 64 videos. and you can do all this withoutbuying the book. but when i do the video, i justsay add garlic, add soy sauce, add ginger.
i don't say how much. so obviously, because i'mnot a moron, i want you to buy the book. so ideally you buy the book withthe quantities and then you use the videos to teach. any questions on that? ceramic, second-hardestmaterial in the world next to diamond. diamond knife, impossible--
too hard, too brittle,too expensive. ceramic-- and we're selling threeof them here. there's white and black. they're all ceramic. the black ones, if this meansanything-- and probably for you guys, there'ssome engineers-- [inaudible] pressed at 2,000 poundsso it turns black.
so it's even harder thanthe white ones. both are incredibly sharp outof the box, but for a home cook, will stay sharp for up toa year, which is 10 times longer than a wusthofor global. wusthof and global and all thoseare amazing knives too. but after two weeks,they start to dull. then, what happens? well, most of you probably don'tgo home to a whetstone or a wheel to sharpenyour knives.
i would imagine almost none ofyou do, because even if you do do that, it's hard. it's a perfect 30 degreeangle and it's a skill. so you end up usinga dull knife. and then the dull knife is whatyou cut yourself with because you slip on a tomatoand your whack yourself. so the most important thing--like my kids are 10 and 12. i give them the sharpest knivesin the house to use, because they're going toactually not cut themselves
with sharp knives. they'll cut themselveswith dull knives. and then they playtag and stuff. it's awesome. one of the challenges used tobe how do you sharpen them. and you had to send them--it wasn't bad. it only took two weeks. you'd send them to costa mesa orkyoto, whichever's closer. costa mesa, obviously,for you all.
and there's a diamondwheel at kyocera. they would sharpen them forfree and send them back. you paid $8 ups. so that's not so bad. as of last year, we came outwith for $88 or something-- and katie's backed there,you should see her. i didn't know this, butit's 50% off online. kyoceraadvancedceramics.com? audience: yeah.
ming tsai: ok, thank you. audience: he's selling knives. ming tsai: yeah, good. anyway, this sharpener isa diamond sharpener. it takes two doublea batteries. it's $80-somethingand it's only designed for kyocera knives. you make three swipes oneach side, you get a factory-fresh knife.
so it's awesome. and the fact that it's doublea battery, you don't need a cord, incredibly convenient. all right, enough of that. how do you know you havea sharp knife? take something likethis, an onion. drop it. the gravity of whatever youdrop-- an apple, an onion, an orange-- should sticklike that.
i mean, that actually wentall the way through. that's a sharp knife. that's how sharp your knifeshould be, always. it's a great way to motivateyour kids to clean their room. clean your room, ha! so i'm going to start-- becausei'm sure there's one person that doesn't know howto use the knife properly. so for that one person,don't raise your hand. i'm going to show you.
the first mistake is peoplethink you grab a knife like this. well, go get a martini ifyou're like this, ok? it's like squash and golf-- supple in your hand. and the control is this-- not even two fingers, onefinger in your thumb. that's how you grab aknife, all right? here.
not this. this is the rookie move, becausethen you slip and you cut the side of your finger. it's this. your hand has three otherfingers, so they have to come along for the ride. and they go around the blade. but it's really this is yourcontrol and power. but again, really loosein your hand.
not so it flops around,but it's not tight. so there's two waysof cutting. let me just cut this in half. there's two schoolsof thought. when you're cutting, you'reactually using primarily this part-- you guys cansee this, right-- that part of the blade. basically, the inch and a half,two inches closest to the handle.
you very seldom use the frontpart, because there's so much more control, right? the fulcrum's so short here,so there's a control there. and the idea of cutting is youeither push the blade away or you pull the bladetowards you. both are equally good. i'm more of a pusher, becausethere's something about pulling a blade towardsyou i don't like. so i like to push it.
now, you'll see thekey, of course, is not your right hand. but it's your left hand. because if you're holding yourzucchini like this, you will get your nail, then,of course, skin. so what you do is youhave fingernails. and the fingernails-- that's like an inch away fromthe end of my zucchini, right? and the blade goes up anddown on my knuckles.
and that's why we're usingthis part of the knife. i'm guiding my knifeon my knuckles. and that's also why i don't liftthe blade all the way up, because then i cancut my knuckles. so by just pushing-- and when i stop, look howfar i am from it. there's no way i'm going to cutoff the tip of my finger. and it's also why i don'thave to look, because i know i just move back.
and then eventually you justkeep going like that. you just move back andyou never-- agh! just kidding. and you never have to look. so that's all you have to do. and it's actually easy, butyou have to practice. it's not something you'rejust going to pick up. you can't play golf andsquash in one day. you have to actually practice.
and you see people use knives--whoa my god, amazing. i've been cookingfor 25 years. i've been sharpening cleaverswith my grandfather for 38 years, since i was 10. so i'm 48 now. so i've been around knives. but once you learn thistechnique, you'll realize, wow, i could have a cookingshow too, right? it's not that hard.
does everyone kind of do that? did anyone have theirfinger on the top? be honest, come on, i'm notgoing to-- this isn't videotaped. you're all professional chefs? yes, question? well, i mean, in the finale of"next iron chef," which i was in, and i lost. i got third place, lost to thetwo italian new york chefs,
which has a history. and this stays amongst us, ok,because when i told my agent-- they asked me three yearsin a row to do it. i'm like, no, no, no, pass. my agents like, pass. what do you do-- you've won anemmy, you've been on tv. why are you going to go upagainst, in theory, no-name chefs, because a lot of thosechefs, no one knew of yet. and he goes, why do it?
so finally, you know-- sandy's my agent-- i said, i want to do it for me,to show that i still have game against these 20-year-oldguys with two tattoos and four piercings. and i'm incrediblycompetitive. i mean, i race my kids upstaircases and i win. i'm like, doon! and they're like, dad!
and i'm like, what? dude, suck a-- you know. and i do it because iwon't always win. one day-- they're 12 and 10. and within five years, they'regoing to beat me. my wife's like, you'vegot to give up. i said, i'm not goingto give up. they're going to needto beat me.
so anyway. scrabble-- and sometimes i let them win,because you don't want to be so, so mean. although, i'd rather not. but my agent said look, you'renot going to win. i'm like, thanks, sandy. and he'd be like, no, no, no. you're a good chef.
it's that the winner's replacingmario batali, a new york italian chef. and you are chinese. i'm like, ok, good point. i'm like, i don't thinkit's going to matter. it's the best chef wins. all i'm saying is, in thefinals, it was marco canora and marc forgione, two newyork italian chefs. i'm not saying it was rigged.
i'm just saying that'swhat it was. when someone-- so marco canora in the finalewas cutting bread with a serrated knife. not a kyocera, becauseit actually slipped. case in point, it slipped on thecrust and it freaking got him, like, [knife sound]. i mean, it was-- you've seen the movie,right, "mary"--
"a bleeder!" it wasa bleeder, man. it was frigging everywhere. and so they had to stop tape. and they first used a little-- not liquid nitrogen, butsomething really cold. and they wrapped the crap outof it and then just kept going, because blood was gettingin the stuffing. and so it was like, hey, trymy turkey, you know? so in those instancesthey had to stop.
but in all honesty, idid enjoy doing it. it was six weeks,which i don't-- you asked why i don'tdo it again. i don't have six more weeks. it's just a long timecommitment. and to be honest, beenthere, done that. it was fun to do. move on. i'm going to buy googleor something.
actually, you guyswork for me. no, i own a few hundredshares. [clapping] no, no, thank you for-- and go to $800, please. it helps me. let me help you. all right, here's a greattip for bell peppers. and buy ones that are perfectlysymmetric, because
they're easy to do. and i'll show you why wheni break this down. sometimes they're allcraggedy and stuff. a little bit harderfor this trick. so to break a bell pepper down,i take both ends off. and this is still good. you can still use it. but watch this. you take your knife and you putit on its side to bring--
can you guys see this? yeah? can you see that here? ok. so you lay it down and then youroll your bell pepper with your knife flat on the board. that's how you breakdown a bell pepper. and obviously thatwould be trash. but then if you're doing,let's say, a stir fry or
something, you can just cutit in half, julienne. and bell peppers, i tend to putthis way for the knife. you could go this way. and because these knives areso sharp, there's no issue. it is just easier on yourblade to go this way. and just stack and dojulienne like that. easy. and that's a great little trickthat you'll use forever. and it's not just a trick,it actually works.
mincing an onion-- hey, these onions are defective,dude, there's a slice in it. so onion has peel. take both ends off. now, i find it's easiest to pickthe onion up and just go like this across once, becausethen you can take your knife and you can peel off usuallythe first two layers. when you take the first twolayers, you're going to lose
one layer of onion, but you'llsee that in that one layer of onion-- like right here, i don't knowif you can see that well. that's the inner layer. that one layer's still a littletough, so that's why you only take off thatone inner layer. so then you have an onion. now, onion is nature's easiestthing to mince, because it's in layers, right?
shrek said it, right? what was it, life is likean onion, you peel back? you have all these layers. you don't cut an onion all theway through, because an onion's attached here. so you guys can seethis, right? so i'm going to cut, what isthat, like a quarter inch. but i'm leaving this little bitof sliver so this onion stays together for me.
and the reason i'm doing thatis if i went all the way through, this thingwould fall apart. and i'm trying to get anice, uniform mince. now, old school-- and you guyscan see this, right-- old school in france was thenyou take your knife and you come straight across,perpendicular. the problem with that, and ifyou're just learning, and if you have a really sharp kyoceraknife, you go through, it can slip and you canactually lose all your
fingertips. ouch, right? so this is a technique that-- i don't know if i invented it,but i use it now because i think it's smart. i've never seen anyoneelse do it. i'm actually going in now atlike a 45 degree angle. so then if it slips, it goesinto the board, not my finger. now, a french chefwould be like,
it's not perfect [french]. it's not. it's not a perfect square. now, you can imagine the sidesare at 45 degrees. but is that going to affect theway the risotto tastes or the stir fry tastes? of course not. it actually-- if i think i remember myphysics, i'm creating more
surface area now so it'sactually better for flavor. i'm going to use that. but i do this becauseit's just safer. so you come across this way. and then once you gethere, then you just go straight down. and when you do that, you getperfectly minced onions. so again, this is nota technique-- and people always say, well,what do you do at the end?
so this is still minced. this one is stillminced, right? now, when i get tothis end, that's the end that's attached. so i usually just do one moreslice and i just turn it on its side and then justgo through it. again, this is cookingat home, guys. no one's going to be like, yourdinner was great, but your onions were un-uniformat the end.
you can tell them to go-- the key is just gentlecontrol. that's the key. and by the way, it doeswork if you're left-handed, obviously. there are knives, though,in japan-- the sashimi knives areone-sided, and you're basically-- you are sol if you'releft-handed.
because you can't cut this waybecause it's forged that way. i don't know, what elsecan i show you. what else do you want to see? how about a dragon? no, i don't do that. it is year of the dragon, so iwant to tell you about-- so i have blue ginger. has anyone been toblue ginger? one person?
they don't let you out? i hope it was good. i've had blue ginger14 years by design. all my chef friends, mariobatali and emeril lagassi and [inaudible], they all have15, 20, 30 restaurants. i've had one for 14 yearsfor two reasons. one, for quality of product. i never want to ever hear thatblue ginger used to be a great restaurant.
that would actually crush me andi would consider myself a failure if i used to have greatfood and then don't. and two, quality of life. and like what-- i love what google does andgives you basically anything you want. and i went into your googlestore and i just stuffed my backpack and it was all free. it was awesome.
you guys are fantastic. right? thank you, cliff, that wasreally nice of you. he distracted the cashierand i like-- we got all these little thingsthat you stick into the side. but i've given in,so to speak. but i'm opening up anew place this-- before, hopefully,february 10-- and i'll tell you whythat's significant--
called blue dragon. and it's going to be an asiangastropub, small-- 80-seat, 2000 square feet-- inboston proper, not wellesley, where my currentrestaurant is. and gastropub, you maynot know what it is. it's very popular, obviously,in london started. and then dublin. and now new york. it's just reallygood pub food.
so we'll have panko-crustedfish and chips. we're going to have asian sloppyjoe sliders for $1 behind the bar. we'll have bahn mi for lunch. we'll have new style sashimis. we're going to do hackedpeking duck. so real peking duck done thetraditional way-- you blow it up and blah blah. but instead of this fancy carvethe skin then carve the
meat, which takes a real skill,for one, but is very time consuming, we're just goingto give a whole or 1/2 duck, hack it chinese style inthe cleaver so you get bone and skin and meat all in one. so of course we have [inaudible], the moo shu wrappers. then we'll have cucumber andhoisin and all that. but it'll be a really fun placeplace with great draft beers, great cocktails.
we're going to have dragonbowls, like back in the day with long straws and you getcompletely hammered. and it'll be fun. and so that hope-- but that hasto, has to open up before february 10, because right nowwe're year of the dragon. i am a dragon. so i'm either 12,24, 36, or 48. or 60. i didn't want to evenput that out there.
and i do not own an aarpcard, just so you know. but if you know chinesefolklore, there's five elements. it's year of the water dragonright now, which happens once every 60 years. so i don't know about you,i'm not going to live another 60, i doubt. that'd be 108. that'd be-- really, that'sa lot of soy sauce.
so this is my only timein my life i'm going to see water dragon. so hence the name blue dragon. so if we open beyond february10, we have to call it blue snake. better than blue rat. blue rat would be a horriblename, i think, for a let's go to blue rat. oh, yeah, i hear they have--
that'd be horrible. all right, any questions? do i have any plans openingin california? i love san francisco. i got married insan francisco. my parents live in palo alto. my dad is a rocket scientist,literally. he helps raise money for theaeronautical school. he's the foremost designerof graphite
material in the world-- composite materials. the new airbus 380, trekbicycles, golf clubs-- everything's graphite now. so the bay area would be theplace if i was going to do something outside of boston. the challenge is theni have to come here. which is no issue, ilove coming here. but then i'm really not inthe other place at all.
my next-- this other restaurant's fourmiles away or 5 miles away. i can go back and forth. but if i build one out here-- a blue ginger concept,no, because that food is fine dining. and either it's awesome or it'sno good, because a lot of good cooks and souschefs run it. blue dragon the concept, maybe,because that's going to
be much simpler food. and that's something that icould see maybe coming out. and if it was, i wouldabsolutely look around here, maybe even more than sanfrancisco proper. because san francisco properis packed with good restaurants. and a lot of great people thatlove food live out here. i mean, some of you mightlive in san fran cisco. but i'm sure a majority ofyou guys live out here.
and palo alto's a fantastic-- that's like heaven. i don't think i've ever seena cloud in palo alto. once. i'm there all the time. and you have that great thairestaurant, which name escapes me, in palo alto, onthe main street. it's a woman chef. really good thai food.
but the best thai food,for the record-- you guys travel-- the best thai food in northamerica, las vegas. a restaurant calledlotus of siam. it is freaking unbelievablygood-- better than any thai food i've had anywhereelse in the country. really, i mean it's--and it's so funny. 10 minutes off the strip. and it used to be nextto all these--
i don't know what it means-- xxx stores. it must be a website. and a wig shop. so it's in a strip mall. and the taxi drops you off. first time i was there, i waslike, are we in the right place, dude? you know, i'm makingsure i have my
wallet, looking around. and you walk in. it's this little shangri la. they have actuallydoubled its size. but it is just deliciousthai food. so if in vegas-- to be honest, it's the onlyreason i go to vegas. i'll go there for something orother reason, to cook or something and gamble--
i'm chinese so i gamble. but that's worth the trip. it's fast for you guys. you get there in, whatan hour and a half? where are you, san francisco? yeah, hour and a half, right? any other questions, comments? easy mistake-- yeah, thecommon mistakes? that's a great question,cliff.
i think people get scaredwhen they cook scallops and fish in a pan. they think they have touse nonstick pans so it doesn't stick. that's not true. and again, in one of thesevideos, i show you how you sear fish. get a good pan. that's key.
did my voice just break? it's that time of the year. all-clad is my favorite, becausethey're thick and they're three-ply. and they have aluminum. the expensive ones have copperinside, but this is aluminum. i'm talking about theinterior, right? and it conducts heatreally well. so in those pans, not innonstick, you make sure you
pre-heat on medium-high heatfor a minute or so. when you add the oil-- andi use canola oil-- the oil should dance, meaning itshould hit the pan and kind of move around. if it smokes, it'sa little too hot. don't panic. if it actually start smokinga lot, add a lot of oil. seriously. and that will coolthe pan down.
then dump that oil intoa stainless steel pan. it's still good, it justhelped cool it off. don't panic and add wateror something stupid. that would be, ding, not good. but the oil should dance. and when you add the oil to ahot pan, your seasoned piece of salmon or scallops, when youadd it to the pan, will not stick at all. it's when you add salmon orscallops or something to a pan
that's cold and you add oil tothe cold pan and then heat it up, it's not the same thing. because the oil changesits properties when it hits a hot pan. and it's much more viscous. it does stick-- and this is the same for all youguys that like to grill-- don't do the rookie moveand try to see if its stuck or not.
you can tell if its stuck. don't try to un-stick it,because you're just going to rip it. let it sit there. let it cook. let it crisp up. it will un-stick itself, onthe grill or in a pan. you might have to takea little bit effort. but to be honest in a restaurantwhen we're cooking
fish and scallops, it's 70%cooked on one side. and you kind of flip it on theother side and it's gone. it's not 50-50. so it's ok that that one sidegets that nice, brown, almost crunchy caramelized flavor. especially scallops. i use that as an example becausethose will shred. if you try to un-stick ascallop, especially the dayboats and the taylor bays,the small ones, if the pan's
no good, it's goingto just shred up. non-sticks are fine, but youcan't get good caramelization with a nonstick. so i like real pans. woks, i love too. one of my favorite tools orappliances at home is a cast iron wok, this big redone made by creuset. and it's thick. because we have a wolf range,which is a great range.
but the burner's 20,000 btus. my wok burners at blue gingerare 80,000 btus apiece. so that heat is so intense,nothing is ever going to stick. but to generate that heat athome, if you use an all-clad wok is good. but creusets are eventhicker, so they can really get super hot. and the other tip is make sureyour wok doesn't have the wood
handle or plastic handle. make sure it's stainless steelall the way, because the trick you have is you put it into youroven at 550 degrees for 10 minutes to preheat the wok. then take it out-- obviouslywith a towel. obviously, leave the towel onthe handle, because someone's going to come overand grab it. in france, they put flouron the handle. and i was in france thefirst time like,
chef, what's that for? i burned the crap out-- it would've been nice if hetold me, but there's a learning curve. they have those great suedekind of slip-on things. and you put it on the handle. those are the best, becausethey won't fall off. but once you pre-heat it at 550,then you could put it on your hot flame.
that flame will keep thatwok screeching hot. so that "ch" sound you get whenyou wok stir, you want to always maintain. quite often in a lot of recipebooks when you put in the whole recipe, [fizzling sound]. then you're braising. it still will taste good, butyou're not going to get everything that wok stirringis great, which keeps vegetables crisp and sealsin the flavor of
the meat and whatnot. so you want to keepthat "ch" sound. and by the way, i kindof wish i had a pan, but flipping food-- easy. really easy, but practice,just like cutting. you have to actually take driedrice or dried beans, frijoles, and put them-- a cup.
and all you do-- and i don'thave a pan, but all you do-- and you'll do this. go to your back yard, whereno one's watching you. don't do it here in frontof your peers, or you'll spill it. just pull the pan, but at thevery last moment you pull, you just flip the frontedge towards you. within one minute, you'llbe flipping your food in a cascade.
and we do that notto show off. we do that because in a realkitchen, we don't have places to put tongs and spoonsand stuff. and we're using both handsto quickly mix stuff. it mixes stuff better and italso doesn't break stuff up like a spoon and tongs would. so there's a reason weflip food this way. but it's a great technique. and again, i showit in the book.
it's a great technique. again, don't grab the pan likethis, it'll go everywhere. is very-- it's like almost everything. do it softly, in a way. i mean, when you hit a keyboardhard, you're not typing any faster, right? top three restaurants. that's so hard, but i'll try.
one's closed, which is el bulli,which is ferran adria's restaurant in la rosas. so that's not really fair. i'm not going to tell you howgreat my 37, 5 and 1/2 hour course meal was because youcan't get there anymore. but it was. thomas keller, right hereat french laundry. he's one of the best in theworld, not just the country. much respect for him.
great friend, amazing chef. just so freaking disciplined. you can walk-- and he does quiteoften in his kitchen, walks around in white socks. no shoes. because his kitchen floorsare that clean. which is a japanese mentality. when i worked in japan, inosaka, we had rubber boots on. and we were hosing downeverything during service.
it wasn't just afterwards. but i think keller'sunbelievable. best pastry chef in theworld is pierre herme. pierre herme, i got to workwith in paris at fauchon. he was the youngest executivepastry chef ever at 28 at fauchon. just a big, jolly guy, althoughserious as hell. and he had-- just to talkabout perfection-- he had a box, huge box, next tothe "four," the oven, where
he has five layers likea gigantic pizza oven. we do all our croissants andall these [inaudible] en pomme, the apple-filled ones,and pan au chocolat, and things like that. they were twice the price atfauchon than any other boulangerie in paris. so there were five francsapiece rather than 2.50. we're talking 15,18 years ago. and if it had a blemish--
like a micron of croissantskin off, in the box. and he had one rule-- eatas much as anything you want, all the time. so when you first get there,there's all these amazing belgian chocolates,croissants. and you just stuff youface and after a week you don't eat anymore. it's like when you first get togoogle, you're like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
and you eat everything. and then it's like,oh, lobster. eh, veal. it's like alaska-- eagle! eagle! and then after three days,you're like, eagle. eagle. oh, two eagles. you know.
but pierre-- i have a funny story, pierre. this was '86. and a lot of you-- i don't know, some ofyou weren't alive. so i got there like 5:30 inthe morning and he was sweating and swearing at his[inaudible], which is a gigantic copper pot,220 volts. and he was cooking this reallywet, nasty-looking stuff.
i'm like-- and i speakfluent french. i, you know, pierre,what are you doing? [french] and he's just swearing. i've never seen himmad and swearing. he basically told me this wasfresh pumpkin and he was commissioned to make 20 pumpkinpies at like $80 a pop, fauchon style,for thanksgiving. so either some rich americanclient or something wanted 20
pumpkin pies. and if you've ever tried to cookfresh pumpkin, it's just a watery mess. and you can never getthat great puree you get out of a can. so he's swearing and yelling. i'm like, chef, ican help you. and i was the lowestout of 20 cooks. basically, you know, what canyou, lowly cook, do for me?
and i'm like, i can get youcans of pumpkin puree. and he's like, "que?" because my dad, again, he waschief scientist, but he was at wright-patterson air force base,so civilian, so being a ses senior executive, brigadiergeneral level, he had access to the px,the us embassy. i'm like, i can get you can. you want the cans or not? he goes, yeah, yeah.
so i get to the embassy,we call the people, they let me in. i bring two cases back oflibby's pumpkin pie mix. and he opens them up and he'slike, ooh, [french]. because it's actuallyreally good, right? i mean, libby's is thebest, in my opinion. it's got the little sweetness. it's got the cinnamon. and then he's like, [french]--
what's the recipe? i'm like, recipe's right here. he made that recipe off oflibby's can-- evaporated milk, sugar, this, eggs. of course, his pastry crustwas awesome, pate sucree-- delicious. it was actually the bestpumpkin pie i've ever had in my life. but here's the best pastry chefin the world reading a
libby's can. so fricking funny. true story. and one of the moments i thoughti was going to be actually literally killedby a chef-- it never happened-- was alsopierre herme, obviously a great mentor of mine. but he also was famousfor blowing sugar. so i don't know if you knowabout blowing sugar, but just
like blowing glass, you getsugar so fricking hot-- i don't care who you are unlessyou're iron man, it's so hard to touch. but you can make a ball, youcan take straw, whoosh, you can blow it and you can makeanything, just like glass. so he made-- and it took himlike a week and a half, which is a long time for him-- made a mickey mouse. so this was when france wastrying to get euro disneyland.
so there was a beaut-- to the freaking t-- black buttons, the ears,the whole nine yards. just to give him a photograph,he can do it. gigantic mickey mouse, right? and he was very proud of it. [inaudible] were like, oh, mygod, (with french accent) mickey, mickey. that's mickey in french.
and he put it in the back roomto let it dry two days before it goes up into the room. so this is where allthe freezers were. yeah, uh-oh. and so i'm back there andi don't know what-- you know, sometimes youjust do things and you're like, wtf-- that's "where's the food,"by the way, just in case. i said, god, i wantedto touch his belly.
so i touched his belly. and just like in "animal house,"right, when john belushi's like, whoa, a-- my fingerprint of mythumb ended up right on mickey's belly. i'm like, holy sh-- i'm looking around, makesure no one saw me. i mean, he would have killed me,a week and a half of work. and i just scurried away.
and for the next three or fourdays, i woke up every night screaming and sweatingand crying. and the dream nightmare washe's lining us all up. let me see your thumb. and they're like this. i literally thought, should iburn my thumbs and then, oh, [french], chef. i was like, cut my thumbs off. i didn't know what i--
and then, fortunately it gotinto the window and then you never saw it again. and you can't patch it. the color's in the glass, inthe sugar, so you couldn't have painted over it. i mean, i was just so sol,but he never saw it. so hopefully he doesn'tsee this video either. thanks, [chinese]. nice to see you.
all right, sir. oh, you know, let me answer-- continue-- one japanese restaurant,nobu matsuhisa. matsuhisa, in la, whichi just was again. his original, i think,is phenomenal. if money is of no object andlarry's taking you out to dinner, go to masa in new yorkcity, where its $400 a person for omikase, before sake.
you'll drop $800, $1,000 each. so you really need larry. but it's pristinesushi, sashami. it's uni risotto with whiteshaved truffles. it's foie gras shabu shabu,which i know you can't have here anymore. and best chinese is hard. it's so hard. best dim sum, i think, in sanfrancisco, is a small place
called ton kiang, t-o-nk-i-a-n-g. it's geary and 21st avenue. ton kiang, fantastic dim sum. wu kong is fantastic. yong sing is fantasticdowntown. but ton kiang in the avenues. clement street's the newchinatown, right? we lived up in the avenues. and note this, though.
a block more north, on 22ndbetween 22nd and 23rd is a great place called tommy's, thebest margarita you'll ever have in your life. i'll be there tonight. because actually, if you're insan francisco, come to see the squash tournament. there's a huge squash tournamentdown there in-- embarcadero, is it? something like that.
outdoor squash, the best squashplayers in the world. anyway, and i'm abig squasher. and again, my brother-in-law'sa coach at stanford. so we're all going totommy's tonight. but the bartenders have armslike this, because they squeeze every lime to orderfor every margarita. i could go on and on and on. but those are good. robichoun, of course,fantastic in france.
but those are the tops. last 20 years, what'shappened to food? a lot and nothing, whichis good and bad. there was this whole moleculargastronomy the last 15 years-- exploding this andall of that. and liquid nitrogen. and if you can do itwell, it's genius. so ferran adria, jose andres. so jose andres at minibar indc, is literally an 8-seat
kind of sushi bar. and there you can geta fantastic meal. it's impossible to get areservation, but you can google it somehow. closed saturdays. no, just kidding. and there's a guy named grantachatz in chicago, alinea. genius. so when you do it right, it'sreally the most amazing,
extraordinary diningexperience ever. but when you do it wrong,it's stupid. bubble gum taco? why? why would you do abubble gum taco? there's no reason to. and i can't do it. i mean, i'll do pineapplecaviar, because you can use things that-- but that'sfor dessert.
but it's not my forte at all. it takes an army of people. and then when you do it well,you charge a fortune because you have an army of people. but alinea right now, isprobably the best of all the places that do itin the world. there is noma, in copenhagen,who's rated best chef in the world. he does.
rene redzepi does alittle bit too. i've never been there. it's too far. the whole local movement-- you being californians are thestrongest, which is great, because you have a 12-monthgrowing season, so you can actually do it. but sourcing locally, usingall the local, fishing sustainably, that's alwaysbeen the way in
europe, to be honest. we just went away with itbecause we discovered canning and preservation. and freezing. so when america discovered thatin the mid-1900s, that kind of ruined everything. because up until 90 years ago,it used to be all your food came within 100 miles toyour house, period. but then once you brought infrozen tv dinners and canning,
campbell's soup and this, thenyou could get it from everywhere. so thankfully peopleare realizing-- and we have a four or fivemonth growing season. and there's lots of tubers andstuff in the winter as well. so even in boston, we cando as much as we can. i'm a huge-- look, if you get organiclocal, that's the best. but an organic tomato fromcalifornia or from napa
delivered to boston versus alocal tomato that i can get in lexington, local is better. one, it tastes better, becauseyou lose so much nutrient balance and flavor inthe air coming over. two, it's so much better for theworld because you're not taking gas. i mean, i used to servefiji water. that's stupid. water from fiji?
the amount of energy and wasteit takes to bring water from fiji when i have waterright here-- they have these great systemsthat you guys have. use your tap waterand filter it. add bubbles. so i think that movement is hereto stay because people are realizing it'sjust smarter. and combination because ofrecession and times are tighter and family structureis the topic of every
conversation, regardless ofwhether it's the political season, but it always is, isdining family and cooking more family style. and cooking more simple food,which is a lot like this book. i do not try to be a fancyfine-dining chef at all in the cookbook, because who wantsto cook that way? it's really more about how canyou entertain, how can you make great, tastyfood cheaply? most of these dishes are $20or less for four people.
hi. five minutes left. cutting me off, wow. there's nothing, i think, moresharing than cooking. and if you're a father ormother or a boyfriend, girlfriend, and you actuallycook for your spouse or your family, you're givingsomething. and it's cliche, but youare giving your love. you're giving part ofyou and offering it.
and it doesn't take that muchskill if you just follow a basic recipe. like, my kids scream and lovebrussels sprouts, cauliflower, bok choy, broccoli-- anything, because what theysmell first is oil and garlic or oil and onion. that smell, like chocolate chipcookies and baking bread, is just smell that isan aphrodisiac. they're like, oh my god,what do we got?
they're like, brusselssprouts, yeah! i mean, i don't know how manykids-- you know, yeah, brussels sprouts, highfive, you know? because they know it'sgoing to be coated in this garlic oil. and they will eat anything. and look, they're 10 and 12. do they eat chicken fingersand french fries? yeah.
they're normal kids. and do i sometimes have drivethrough, i'm like-- oh, you're! no, i'm not. no i'm not. glasses don't helpfor some reason. aren't you the--? go. give me the fingers.
and that's something i'mvery serious about. don't give your kids "kids'food." what is kids' food? give them the food you'reeating, develop-- especially at one and two years old,once they start-- give them real food. don't give them a tablespoonof sambal, no. but give them real food. let them-- but my 12-year-old, david, hewill out-eat me in chili now.
and we go to sichuanrestaurants. there's mala soup. it looks like the valdezoil slick of chili oil on top of the soup. and we just kill it. and he loves it. but his palate's been developedfor 11 and 1/2 years, literally sincehe was a baby. so build palate and then kidswill appreciate all foods.
and look, i like chicken fingersand french fries once a month, maybe. and the other thing-- it's a side note aboutfood and nutrition. well, two things. follow me at @chefmingtsaiif you tweet. so do that please. two, go to ted.com t-e-d--you know the website. you guys are on the web a lot.
so ted.com would have actuallya larry page or a bill gates or a bill clinton ora dr. maya angelou. they're the leadersof any industry talking about something. search doctor william li, l-i.he has started something called the angiogenesisfoundation, started by judah folkman 20 years ago. angiogenesis, in a nutshell,is going to be the next 50 years of how we're goingto keep disease-free.
you are what you eat. and he has proven that if youeat the right groups of food-- some are logical-- green leafyvegetables, mushrooms, a certain type of olive oil,cooked tomatoes over raw tomatoes, dark chicken meatover white chicken meat-- which is a great thing fromchefs' point of view, because it's cheaper, tastesbetter, all that-- because there's k2 in darkchicken meat, which helps your blood better.
angiogenesis is somethingnaturally occurring in your body. menstruation, placenta creation,scab formation is angiogenesis. you need it balancedand you're fine. when it's imbalanced by a baddiet, the blood vessels go to cells you don't want to get fed,which are cancer cells and fatty cells. you get a cancer tumor,you get obesity.
so if you eat the right groupsof stuff, you can actually never get sick. you'll never need a drug. so that's powerful stuff. and dr. li and i havepartnered together. and we're trying tohelp, actually. we want to change theworld by food. because drugs now, you developa drug, it costs $20 million to develop the drug.
by the time it's devolved, it'salready half obsolete because the diseasehas changed. and two, you have this long ofthings that happen to you if you take the drug, includingdeath and suicide. which are pretty bad sideeffects, i think. i mean, it might have curedthis, but now you're suicidal. anyway, i think there'ssomething to be said about that. any other questions?
i think my time is up. so listen, i'm hereto sign books. you don't have to buy books. but if you do, my childrenmay go to college. i have katie back there,kyocera, i've known for well over a decade. we have three of these knives. they're incrediblyaffordable now. kyocera, when i started withthem they were twice the cost
of wusthof and whatnot. they're the same price. this is our newest. this is a micro-serrated. so for tomatoes or bread,unbelievably sharp knives. they're all incredibly sharp. christmas is december25 this year. hanukkah's right aroundthat too. get a sharpener.
and i thank you all very much. appreciate it.
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