Keeping Purchased Condiments, Our One-Minute Cooking Tip, An Interview with Lauren Chitwood, Haiga Rice, Coconut Water & More!

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

And I'm Mark Scarborough. And together with Bruce, we have written three dozen cookbooks are currently writing yet another, but our latest published and out on the market is the Instant Air Fryer Bible. Don't forget, there's also the Instant Pop Bible and the Essential Air Fryer Cookbook, the only cookbook that sizes out every recipe. Every size of air fryer on the market. That was a task. Wow. A hill to climb. But we're not gonna talk about any of those books in this episode of our podcast.

How long do pickles last? It's a good question, right? One that Epicurious answered in a rather lengthy piece entitled, how Long Do Pickles Last? Mm-hmm. I think that's actually really important cuz we fill our refrigerators with all sorts of condiments. Pickles are condiments and we fill our fridge with these things and they stay in there for months. Sometimes years and we still need to,

okay. There's no pickle that has ever stayed in my refrigerator for years because I don't believe there's ever enough vinegar in the world. But I know people do do these kind of things and we, we, Bruce and I go through pickles and pickled jalapeno rings like you can't believe. But still, nonetheless, I know that there are a lot of pickled and fermented ingredients like kimchi, right, that stick around a long time in people's

refrigerators. They do. We went to our fridge after I saw this article online, and I found a ton of pickles of all varieties in there. None of them were open this year, so now we know they've been open for at least 6, 7, 8 weeks. And so the question is how long are they gonna last? And part of that has to do with whether they're shelf stable pickles or refrigerator pickles. So, We need to talk about what the difference between those ones.

Well, you know, so shelf stable, just to say shell stable pickles are the pickles that you see on the shelves in the supermarket, not in a refrigerator case, versus the ones you see in a refrigerator case. That's just basically the difference. So you, for example, most of the time when you buy kimchi, you are gonna find it. In a refrigerator case.

That's really scary. Uh,

Well, it's not scary cuz I love it, but I have to say that when I open those country radish kimchi from. They do bubble. It does instant, instantly bubble.

Well, it's a live food. Yeah. I mean, it is absolutely a live food. So here's the thing, every pickle that is shelf stable has a used by date on it. And that's very misleading because those used by dates can be a year or even two down the road, right? But that used by date really should. open by date because once you open it, now you're working on the same philosophy as a fresh pickle, which only lasts about two months most before it starts to go bad.

I think that that's right. I think you, if you see that date on there, that's the date at which, as Bruce said, you have to open up, but then two months you are safe, but there are signs that you're not safe. They are. Some of those signs include mold. Don't eat pickles with mold on it.

Oh God. Don't eat anything with mold on it. Mold mean cheese. Oh, that's edible mold. That's no.

Well, actually hard cheese, but you know, even semi firm cheese, like semi firm mozzarella or cheddar if it's got mold on it, the old thing was always cut it off. Those mold fibers can, in fact, oh, they can look far deeper than you think.

I thought you were talking like the mold on the outside of BRI that's supposed to be there. Right. Okay. That's different. That, that is very different. That's very different. Um, if they're soft and mushy. Pickles are not supposed to be soft and mushy. So if that's the case, throw them out.

Right? And if they have a terribly bad smell, you must throw them out. And I should tell you that Bruce makes kimchi every summer, and there's a recipe on our YouTube channel for Bruce making kimchi, and it's delicious. But this last summer, a lot of things went on in our lives and we were not able to get through the vat of kimchi. He makes every summer. I mean, he literally makes it five gallon bucket. Yeah, a vat. And we do go through it. I love kimchi, but we do go through it.

The other thing is bulging. Yep. Now it is true things like kimchi and sauerkraut, if they have live active cultures will produce gas. And you may have a little bulge, but basically, especially in shelf stable pickles, if your lid is bulging, get rid of it. Especially in anything that doesn't have any live bacteria going on.

And this goes for a kimchi two. Um, if it's fizzy, be careful and not, we're not talking about fizzy when you first open it, but if you open it and it fizzes, okay, fine. It's a. Bacterial product, great. But then if a month later you open it and it's fizzing noticeably, now you're in danger. You have broken the seal on it, so be careful. This is not a good moment. Fizzy pickles, fizzy mustards, all of that are re fizzy. Chow chow. If you're from the south, I know what that is.

Oh, it can. Absolutely. So let's talk about mustard.

In fact, can I just say, yeah, that, uh, which I never say, but this has nothing to do with any fermented or pickled project. But I can tell you because of personal experience of actually hunting for houses once that I have actually seen peeps mold, and I would tell you that, that there's sugar mold. I would tell you that peeps cannot mold, they're too chemical to mold. And we looked at a house once when we were moving to New England in which there were boxes and boxes of moldy. Peeps

on the dining table when Mark says he's talking, there was at least 500 boxes. This is a hoarding house,

a complete hoarding house that she was trying to get rid of. And I can tell you peeps do mold. So be careful.

Let's Yeah, and do be careful. So let's talk about mustard, ketchup, and other condiments that we tend to open and just leave in the fridge for months. Look, we wouldn't do that with a jar. Pasta sauce, right? No. If I opened a jar of marinara, nope. And I used half of it for a recipe, I put the other half in the. I'm not going to eat that sauce two weeks later. Yeah. I know. It's gonna be not healthy even if I don't see mold. So why do we do that? And we should with ketchup and mustard.

And, and, well, we should also add, because this, you brought up the, the, the pasta thing, um, discoloration around the rim or discoloration around the. Outside of the, uh, uh, the ingredients inside, you know, right on the surface is also a bad sign.

If there's dried and rusty stuff around when you open the lid. Yeah. Or look on the inside of the lid if, mm-hmm. maybe you don't see mold down in your mustard, but if there's mold on the inside of the lid mm-hmm. chuck it. So, okay. Get rid of it. The U S D A actually has a rundown on what they recommend in terms of how long you should keep things in the fridge and ketchup with so many of us open and keep in there for months. Other sweet tomato-based condiments, like chili sauce.

And we're talking about for, for anybody who is crazy enough to make their own ketchup, we're talking about industrial produced ketchup. Mm-hmm. homemade ketchup lasts much shorter. It is not got the shelf life that industrial ketchup has. Nope. So it'd be very careful if you can't catch up in the summer. Be very careful After you open it, give it about a. In the fridge and then get rid of it.

Chutney. If you have like mango chutney or rhubarb chutney or anything like that according to the U S D A, give it two months. And again, we're not talking about homemade chutneys. Yep. We're talking about process jarred, chutneys, and pickles.

Right. And, and I don't mean pickles like dill pickles, I mean pickles. As in East Indian pickles like lime pickle.

Yeah, those I would put all in the chutney category. Yeah. And as Mark said, mustards, whoever sees the mold well, it's the interesting thing, the U S D A gives them the longest refrigerator shelf life that you can keep most mustards open for a year in your fridge.

yeah and olives. If you open the container from the supermarket or if you buy them in a jar or can, we're talking about two weeks once it's open. Mm-hmm. be very careful about all these products because they can cause problems and you don't want any of the problems that they cause. Remember, uh, used by date is really probably the open by date. Mm-hmm. But once you open it, now everything is ticking. Now the clock has started ticking. Now that said, there.

Good idea, even if it's not bulging.

I didn't touch 'em because they had been in my parents' pantry for so long that I didn't. I know this seems wasteful. And listen, none of us. Food waste, but I assure you, a little food waste is better than a lot of food poisoning. Before we get to our next segment on the podcast, let me say that we have a newsletter. Would you like to be a part of that newsletter? There's all kinds of. Tips and tricks that come out in the newsletter. It's got some heartfelt bits about our lives.

Here is an easy, quick. Pasta idea, and Mark and I like to call this calendar cooking and this idea we published in our book, the Kitchen Shortcut Bible. So you take a calendar and put it in your sink. Hmm. Then you put in quick cooking vegetables, like little cauliflower flour rats, sliced string beans, shredded carrots, thinly cut zucchini. You put these quick cooking vegetables in the calendar, in the sink. Mm-hmm. then cook your spaghetti or other pasta as usual, but use a. very large pot.

Before we get to the big interview in this podcast, let's say, it would be great if you would subscribe, if you would rate it, we are unsponsored, so you, which means we can talk about pickles all we want. So if you could rate it, that would really help us in the analytics and help us keep going. You can find that rating on Spotify, on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcast where it's found and if you go to the trouble and drop down the page, you can even write a review.

Today I'm lucky enough to be talking with Bourbon lover and. Alcohol Free Spirits entrepreneur, Lauren Chitwood. She and her business partners created the brand called Spiritless, and their flagship product is Kentucky 74, which they call a beautifully distilled non-alcohol spirit for bourbon cocktails. Welcome, Lauren.

Thank you, Bruce. I'm so excited to be here.

I wanna start with the basics. Can you tell me what is bourbon if it's not an alcoholic beverage?

I know. What a loaded question, right? We, we went to great lengths to try to give the consumer as many touchpoints to understand what this might be like while obviously, you know, honoring the, the, the treasure that is bourbon. So, you know, I, I live in Louisville, Kentucky, you know, bourbon. In our blood and all around us here in, in these neck of the woods.

You say this is a distilled spirit and people think, well, what comes out of the still is alcohol, so how do you create an alcohol free? Product coming out of a still without giving away all your trade secrets.

It's a wonderful story. So, you know, what we knew was that the consumer was making purchase decisions about these incredible spirits based upon how, how these products were made. Right. At what age, et cetera. Right. And you know, when we looked at the space broadly, what we saw in the competitive set was that it was all water with a bunch of flavoring in it. And we just. That doesn't feel like a spirit to me. You can't call yourself a spirit. We know better than that. Right?

That sounds fascinating. Being able to take all the flavor from the wood and then get rid of the alcohol and be left with that sort of concentrated essence of bourbon with without the alcohol. But what about this process and what about Kentucky 74? Makes your product different from all the other non-alcoholic bourbons on the market

process alone is, is probably the biggest differentiator. As I said, almost everything is water and flavor, and we wanted something that had enough heft to it and had enough body to it that really allowed it to walk the walk of a, of a spirit of a cocktail. And I think ethanol is a magical molecule. It has a, an obviously a very incredible sensory component. Also melds flavors and, you know, there's, there's all kind. Interesting things that ethanol brings to the table.

across the board. Though most non alcohol experience do lack something, you said that there's gonna be something missing and one of the things is the burn. Now a lot of people enjoy that burn, even if it's a mild burn. So how do you address that? At Spiritless,

broadly across the space, there are people that are trying to mimic that burn, um, and they're doing it with pepper and for. You know, as, as easier ears and drinkers, we said, this feels like a chicken wing. This doesn't feel like a spirit to me. And I know there's people that are really looking for that and need that, but for us, we said we want something that is a sipper. We want something that feels complex and, and and deep and has that heft to it.

You talked about jalisco 55, that's your second product. Tell me about that.

When we founded Spiritless, one of the things that we wanted to do was to be able to walk in a bar and order classics, right? Have an old fashioned, have a margarita, and you know, that was, that was a big piece of our inspiration. I think the other side of that is, you know, In the non-alcoholic spirit space broadly, there's certainly a lot of a, a lot of different flavors and experiences out there.

Hey, Lauren, do you see a place for alcohol free spirits like your Kentucky 75 and HESCO 55 on the bar for everyone? Or is your market strictly for folks who don't partake in alcohol?

I think that one of the most shocking statistics that we've now been able to kind of prove and um, and check an enormous scale is that 75% of the consumers who consume adult non-alcoholic products like spiritless, like non beer, also consume alcoholic products. Hmm. Right. So what, what people are now realizing is these are incredible tools in your toolkit, right?

Well, I think you and your partners have created an amazing addition to this category. Lauren Chitwood from Spiritless. Thank you for spending some time with me and talking about your amazing products.

Oh, listen, thank you. I appreciate you hosting me, Bruce. We're thrilled to be here. My pleasure.

So this whole thing of spirit free spirits is becoming quite a trend, right?

It really is. And I love the fact that, as she said, that the majority of people who drink. Spiritless spirits and her products also drink alcohol. That this is not just interesting for people who don't want alcohol, but for people to add it to their toolbox of things so they can have, you know, so let's say you really like to have a drink, but you ca as she said, you can't have more than one or more than two, right? But you want to keep.

It's a really great idea and it's a great idea also, if you, um, you know, in New England where we live, we go to a lot of dinner parties and. Inevitably cuz it's so waspy. Inevitably there's cocktail hour before the dinner party. Inevitably hour or two. Yeah, two hour cocktail hours before the dinner party. And you know, it would be really great to be able to sip on a Spiritless bourbon or tequila because somebody's opening an ice bottle of wine with.

Well, I'm loving my coconut water. It's just something that is like, I don't know. I really. But it's interesting. So I've drunk coconut water for a long time, but what I have come to realize,

I'm gonna insert and say I despise coconut water. I, I just despise it. I know you, it makes me just wanna run out of the room. So please go on

with, well, I drink it water because I like it and not because like the advertising on it. And some people say, oh, it's so hydrating. Okay. You know what else is hydrating? Water, water. Water is hydrating. I drink it cuz I like it and it's actually not terribly high in sugar. So I thought until I started looking at all the labels, some brands, even if they say, No sugar added are sweeter than others. And how do you know how much sugar's in it? Then look at the nutrition info on the label.

Right. It, it is a, it is really important if you're interested in controlling your sugar content to always read the labels. It's always important to anything to read the labels. What's making me happy this week in food is Haiga Rice, and if you don't know what Haga Rice is, I'm here to tell you that it is something that you should explore in your life. Haiga Rice is a great kind of median point between white rice and brown rice, right?

It is. Brown rice has the bran around the. kernel and the germ under that brand. Right? Right. The germ is where a lot of the flavor and the oils and some of the good nutrition right from rice comes from, and the bran is, the bran is just pure roughage.

Yeah. The brand is fiber and it's, it has dietary reasons to be there, but it is the fibrous content of the brown. Right. Nice

Haiga. Rice. Removes the bran but not the germ, which is really weird. So you get all the flavor of brown rice, you do get more nutrition than white rice. You don't get quite as much fiber as brown rice. No, but you do get more fiber than if you ate plain, regular milled white rice. Right? And it. Cooks as fast as white rice, which is really nice.

H A I G A. You can find it at H Mart, you can find it at Asian supermarkets. Sometimes you can find it at large gourmet supermarkets. You can always find it online. It's a great way to kind of. Ease yourself into eating brown rice, which is of course highly nutritious brown rice and very good for you. But if you're a little afraid of the whole brown rice commitment hiker rice cooks like white rice, it tastes a little bit like brown rice. It's a great median point between the two.