Episode Transcript

Transcript edited by Hannah “Asher” Sham

 

Show Intro and Disclaimer

Kylo: You’re listening to Let’s Talk!. Let’s Talk! Is a digital space for students at ������������ experiencing disabilities to share their perspectives, ideas, and worldviews in an inclusive and accessible environment. The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of ������������, ������������ Foundation, or our community partners. We broadcast on our home website, , on Spotify, on , and .

Zoe: Hi, everyone. I’m your host Zoe, and welcome to our latest episode of A Slice of Life. As always, with me is our lovely guide dog, Tucker, and joining us later will be Kuma to help us prepare the meal and one of our guest hosts, Patricia. But, right here with me now I have our first guest host, Ray.��

Ray: Well, I’m Ray. What can I say? 

Zoe: Ray and I met when I used to work at Costco, as a sales associate, back in 2020… Ooh, was it ‘4, I think it was? Yeah, 2024, right? 

Ray: Well, it was two- three years ago?

Zoe: Yeah, it was like the end of 2023-ish. So, I would say between two and a half to three years now. So, that’s been a while. And, Ray’s been a role model and inspiration for me, and it’s been really great getting to know Ray all these years. So, yeah. I suppose for our first question; what are we making today?

Today’s Recipe

Ray: Well, we’re making a family pie called a “Lemon Dream Pie” with Meringue topping.��

Zoe: Oh my, that sounds fabulous! And, I’m gonna be totally honest here; I am awful at baking. I don’t know what it is. I always try to measure as perfectly as possible. Not too high, not too low, the right measuring cups, get the right temperatures. But for me, I don’t know what it is. I just can’t seem to make it work. But I imagine that this pie, even though it might sound daunting to those that aren’t too familiar with baking, is this a… would this be a simple pie to make? ‘Cause it sounds really fancy.��

Ray: Well, it’s simple. I don’t know how to say it without going into details, but we’ll go into that later- 

Zoe: Yeah, yeah, yeah… 

Ray: With Kuma? 

Zoe: With Kuma and Patricia as well.��

Ray: But, it’s sweet. It’s simple. Make it ahead of time for parties and if you make a mistake, you always have time to make another one.��

Zoe: That is true, yeah! Not to make you viewers jealous, but I sneaked a little bit of the pie when Ray made it last time. That topping was so light and fluffy, and it was like… What would you call it? A Meringue? 

Ray: Yeah, Meringue.��

Zoe: Oh, gosh! That sounds so fabulous! 

Ray: Now, meringue’s easy, but hard. Because, you have to start it and add sugars gradually, but we’ll get into that later.��

Zoe: Yeah, yeah. We’ll get into that later. That pie sounds absolutely amazing. So, let’s get to know you a little bit, Ray.

Ray: I was a 1 pound 12 ounce baby, three months early.��

Zoe: Oh my.

Ray: So that’s how I got my vision problems, because the incubator and the pressure. But I lived a good life so far. Except for diabetes. That kinda sucks, but… Been married for 29 years.��

Zoe: Oh, my. Coming on the 30th.��

Ray: Yeah. Just had it April. April was good. Me and my Patricia, as you’ll meet later, we’ve been a good pair. Each helping each other, ups and downs with life, but we’re still not gonna give it up.��

Zoe: Truly. It’s has truly been an inspiration to know you. Could you describe real quick; because you mentioned that you are a diabetic, and also what’s your level of vision loss?

Ray: Well, my vision loss was because of the incubator, glaucoma and cataract and stuff, I lost one eye, but it hasn’t stopped me from riding motorcycles, horses And jumping over in the jetty at Tillamook and stuff like that. I was less restricted when I was younger. Now that I’m older with diabetes, I’m more restricted to vision and stuff 

Zoe: �Ҵdzٳ���.��

Ray: And that sucks, but people get old too and then they die.��

Zoe: I mean, it is true. It’s a part of life but, at the same time, it’s about enjoying and maximizing the ride that you’re on, right?

Ray: �۱𲹳�.��

Zoe: And, knowing all the things that you… I didn’t know that you rode horses.��

Ray: Yeah, I had two horses. I had a Welsh when I was 18, 16, 15.��

Zoe: Oh, wow.��

Ray: “Welsh”, and then a painted pony. I rode bareback in the pasture. One time I rode bareback and the horse started running back towards the barn. And it wasn’t a barn, it was kind of a shed. So, I flipped underneath the horse while it was galloping or running.��

Zoe: Oh!

Ray: And then I thought, “Well, it’s running. I can’t get back up.”. I’m between two front of the front hoofs. So, I was around his neck.

Zoe: Oh, gosh.��

Ray: Underneath the hoofs while the horse was running. And I just said, “Well, do or die. Okay, I’m gonna land here since it’s soft.”. So, I let go, got up, and no damage.

Zoe: Oh, thank goodness… 

Ray: My other friend that was with me was, totally scared and, “Did you get hurt?” and stuff and… No, that’s my life story. I’m lucky. No hurt. No, no problem. Yeah, that was fun.��

Zoe: Fun, true. Scary for sure. Even just to listen makes my blood pump a little bit. But, that’s a really amazing story to hear that, like, you know, you went through- 

Ray: But, I’ve learned that because of my glaucoma and my retina partially detached, riding, I could ride. I can’t gallop. I couldn’t trot, but I could ride. Because of the jarring of the horse.��

Zoe: Oh. Oh, okay, okay.��

Ray: And that’s one thing with people with partial detached retina. Part of it was detached with one- “hair” kinda thing.��

Zoe: I know what you mean. �۱𲹳�.��

Ray: So, it was very loose and any jarring, or fighting… no trampolines. I found out when I was in elementary school.��

Zoe: Yeah, yeah.��

Ray: I couldn’t trampoline either.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Ray: I still did it. I did a lot of things, but… 

Zoe: Hey, we’re kids! When you’re a kid, you gotta; “The world is so big. We gotta do what we can. We gotta live!”.��

Ray: Yeah, it’s definitely lived more than any other person with my situation. Drove motorcycles on 101.��

Zoe: Oh, wow 

Ray: At the beach, Rockaway. I drove pickup trucks in the mountains, behind the beach house, and logging roads.

Zoe: Oh, wow.��

Ray: 200 cliff one side, a three-foot ditch on the other side. Luckily there was no logging roads, and they weren’t used much. But, that’s how I learned how to drive and stuff.��

Zoe: That’s quite fabulous indeed. �۱𲹳�.��

Ray: More than most people, but I was younger and adventuresome. One thing my dad did, we had motorcycles we’d drive on them log road. There was a six-foot board. We’d go over– My dad would drive over the board on a little 90 CC and would drive over the little river; little stream. No problem! But, he couldn’t drive in the logging roads without falling over and hurting his hand and my motorcycle.

Zoe: Oh, no. ��𲹱�����?��

Ray: He was showing off, but he was way down there. He lost control. But, I tried to do this three-foot board, and I got scared. I couldn’t do it.��

Zoe: Yeah, it, it is hard. Overcoming that first leap, it’s ” Oh, my gosh.” 

Ray: Well, no, it’s not a, it’s just a little creek, but still you have to have confidence, and I didn’t have the confidence.

Zoe: True. But, at the same time, it’s a three-foot board and you’re riding a full-on motorcycle over it.��

Ray: Yeah. But I did it kind of, but scared the crap out of me.��

Zoe: ���پ�����.��

Ray: Yeah, so I was lucky. I mean, things like that are… We had a good time when I was younger.��

Zoe: That does sound fabulous.��

Ray: And horseback riding on the beaches are one thing I remember.��

Zoe: Oh, gosh, that sounds amazing. Well, lucky, I suppose that’s how a lot of my creations go. I leave it all up to Lady Luck, and I’m like, “You know what? I’ll roll the dice.”. If I’m feeling really basic and I just pull two random cans of soup out, I’ll combine these.”. Sometimes it goes together really well a beef and vegetable soup and some sort of tomato-based or vegetable-based soup. Other times you get chicken sausage gumbo combined with New England clam chowder.��

Ray: �۱𲹳�.��

Zoe: Kuma has never let me hear the end of when I combined those two.

Ray: That’s a combination that I think… You needed rice to go with it or something.��

Zoe: Oh, it was horrible. I ate it anyways, ’cause I was hungry, but when you roll the dice and don’t identify what you’re pulling out of the cabinet and to try and mix together; it becomes a little bit more- 

Ray: Did you have Tucker then, too?

Zoe: Oh, I had Tucker! Trust me. I don’t think he would’ve eaten- 

Ray: Did he eat it? 

Zoe: No, I didn’t wanna give it to him. Didn’t know if there toxic ingredients were there.��

Ray: You know, if the dog don’t eat it; you know it’s bad.��

Zoe: I was pretty sure he wouldn’t eat it. It was bad. ‘Cause the gumbo was kinda watery and then the chowder was all thick. So, I combined it with a spoon. But, didn’t want to combine. That’s what the vibe was and it was horrible.��

Ray: Well, if it filled up your tummy.

Zoe: That is true and, at the end of the day, that’s how I think of some foods. I always tell Kuma, “You want some pizza?”, and they’ll be like, “Sure.”. And, I’ll be, “Okay, here’s some bread, tomato, cheese. Have fun!”.��

Ray: Now if you do that with a- What do you call it? “Baguette”? 

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Ray: Do that with a baguette. Tomato sauce, cheese, and a baguette, and then some meat or something like that. That makes an easier pizza to make than just a slice bread.��

Zoe: You know what? And you all, podcast listeners, know as well, I’m gonna see if I can surprise Kuma and see what they think about it. ‘Cause, that actually sounds amazing to do.

Ray: And it’s really simple. But, it’s good for one to two people. Just take a French Baguette. Cut it lengthways. And, then put the tomato sauce on it. The Parmesan cheese, three cheeses, whatever you prefer.��

Zoe: Parmesan, feta, and mozzarella sounds good.��

Ray: Yeah. That’s really good. And then put pepperoni or salami… sausage is a good combination. If you like vegetables- 

Zoe: Yeah, vegetables, cheese- 

Ray: onions-

Zoe: Whatever you want, really.��

Ray: … grilled, grilled onions.��

Zoe: Ooh, mushrooms.��

Ray: Mushrooms, peppers, green peppers, and stuff like that would be a real simple “pizza thing” that you could just make up real quick.

Zoe: Yeah, that sounds like a homemade “Bagel Bite”, but with a baguette instead of one of those little bagels. I’m always telling Kuma; “it combines in the stomach at the end of the day”. It’s basically as if you ate a pizza.

Ray: Yeah. It is easier to eat and less messy.��

Zoe: They’re always very exasperated with me. So, I’ll let y’all listeners know what they think of it when I surprise them with it. But, hey! Little recipe for you all. What a treat.��

Ray: Salt and pepper. A little bit of… 

Zoe: garlic, Basil?

Ray: Garlic or Parmesan. Yeah. Flakes of Parmesan or it’s all shredded stuff, so slice stuff.��

Zoe: They’re all gonna melted down. That’s why the feta, mozzarella, and Parmesan sound really good. Even just that by itself, plus a little marinara, but not- it’s like tomato paste.

Ray: You could do… Marinara is really good. You could do marinara, for sure, too. Either one. But, you’ll want it thicker. A little thicker.��

Zoe: Gotcha. Oh, gosh, look at us! A podcast about food, learning to live life and enjoy it, and treat disabilities not as a hindrance.

Ray: Don’t hold back. Do what you can do. Do what you feel comfortable with and grow from there. If you can’t do it, you can’t do it. Do it a way that you can do it with help or with, assistance I know people that’s blind and they ride bikes, They do these bike rides Might be tandem bikes. And then they can ride that way. They might not steer it. Just have a person that can steer the bike, and they ride it behind, and it’s still freedom. That was a thing for me is, when I ride in motorcycles, the freedom of the wind in your hair and the bugs in your teeth and- 

Zoe: Oh, my! 

Ray: Just having that kind of freedom that you don’t get, because you’re so restricted of what you can do. So, go boating, or go canoeing, or kayaking, or something like that. Or, what’s that one that they do- team? 

Zoe: �鲹�ڳپ��Բ�?��

Ray: No, what’s the one that they do? 

Zoe: “Dragon Boating”! 

Ray: Dragon Boating! 

Zoe: Yeah, Dragon Boats! 

Ray: Dragon boating. If you can’t see and can’t do anything, do dragon boats and do it with a team member. IRA group that did dragon boating and stuff on the Willamette; do that. That’s really fun with bunch of people, bunch of blind people, or whatever. Bunch of friends. They become friends.��

Zoe: Aren’t they still doing that? 

Ray: �۱𲹳�.��

Zoe: Isn’t that team- What was it? Lethally Blind? 

Ray: There’s a pink one for, cancer people that they all wear pink, and they’re cancer- 

Zoe: Oh

Ray: ���ܰ��������ǰ���.��

Zoe: How wonderful.��

Ray: There’s seven or eight, Dragon boats. They’re just different teams and different groups that do different things and have something in common.��

Zoe: Gosh. And last time I actually went to just to a few of the practices. But, it was so great to meet everyone. And you really meet people from all sorts of walks of life.��

Ray: �۱𲹳�.��

Zoe: And all sorts of different backgrounds. Back then I was- I think I was only 18. But, yeah. I could meet people as young as me, but there was also there was a lady who was I think 80 at the time, and she was still on the dragon boat team.

Ray: Really? �۱𲹳�.��

Zoe: Yeah, yeah.��

Ray: Age old, as long as you do exercise and don’t sit around and on the couch and watching TV and be ate, eat potatoes and- 

Zoe: Oh, granted. She was one of the most energetic and positive people I know, and she’s helped so many people. So, yeah. She’s just awesome.��

Ray: Stay young and healthy and do something with your brain. Or read. I hate reading.��

Zoe: Oh no, you hate reading? 

Ray: �۱𲹳�.��

Zoe: Oh, well. I guess if it’s difficult to read, yeah. But, I don’t know. I read just on my phone or on the computer now. But, there are some really great books. A lot of people around me and myself too have been getting into that Dungeon Crawler Carl series. You’ve been laying down some really great thoughts and philosophies on me. Can you give me just an idea of one big event that kind of describes how you feel about your culinary experience through life, learning how to cook, and, how it’s affected your life? For me, I might say that the way that I would describe my own journey is when I first started learning how to cook when I was doing those Rice-A-Ronis.��

Ray: �۱𲹳�.��

Zoe: And I was, “Oh, I can just do these in the rice cooker.”. In goes my ingredients, my water, and all my milk and butter. And so by doing that, the milk went everywhere. I destroyed that rice cooker. But, luckily, my roommates are super awesome. So, yeah. I destroyed the rice cooker. I proceeded to destroy the next rice cooker as well. But, our current rice cooker works very well. That’s kinda how I would describe my story is silly, crazy mistakes. But, I do my best. I always try. I learn from them, and I correct them to make the best possible Rice-A-Roni dish that you can make.

Ray: Yeah. One of my people says, “You made the best meatball, slow cooker recipe.” And I said, “What did you put in your recipe?” barbecue sauce and bought, all pre-made, meatballs, and they think it’s the best thing they ever tasted.��

Zoe: Sometimes it’s the simple things, and that’s what that’s one of the goals of this podcast as well, is focusing on the student experience, but also focusing on ama- making amazing, delicious meals from some of the simplest ingredients.��

Ray: �۱𲹳�…��

Zoe: ‘Cause you don’t have to break the bank. You don’t have to go and buy a gold-plated steak that you, butter-boiled, gold-plated steak, I think it is?

Ray: I would say, yeah. Chinese or Japanese steaks. Ra- ragu? 

Zoe: “Wagyu”, yeah.��

Ray: “�²������”.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Ray: Oh, my God! Those things, steaks, are just to die for!

Zoe: You know what? Those cows… Now, sorry to all you, vegetarians or, non-meat eaters out there, but purely for factual reasons I’m telling this. But yeah, those, Wagyu cows are so- are treated so well. I won’t claim to be an expert on them by any means, but, I did some reading into them and watched a few TV shows about them and it is really fascinating, just the entire industry, how well they treat those cows. Those cows a lot of them have their own “masseuses”? Massage people? 

Ray: “Massage”, yeah, which is- 

Zoe: Yeah! And, they’re very controlled special diet that they feed them, and then the meat that you get from them… Marbled with white and whatnot? 

Ray: �۱𲹳�.��

Zoe: That’s your steaks.��

Ray: ���첹��.��

Zoe: The meat that you get from these cows is pink, because there’s no visible lines of fat. That fat is so perfectly marbled with the meat that it gives you the most flavorful, tender, juicy bite ever. Oh, it’s divine! 

Ray: I don’t have those very often.

Zoe: The really good stuff is like $2,000 for, a pound. So, I won’t be having that anytime often either. But, if you can get-

Ray: Well, there’s a store that might sell them-

Zoe: Yeah, there are some other cuts of wagyu that go much less. So, for a pretty special event; a couple hundred dollars for a wagyu steak sounds good.��

Ray: Well, there’s a new Oriental Store, that’s near me on Mall 205, “99 Ranch”.��

Zoe: Yeah.

Ray: They have fish there. Did you see it? 

Zoe: I saw them and I saw they have these things called “sashimi”, and those are really… It’s a Chinese sort of- It’s hard to describe. It’s a rice crispy, but with these “big noodle flower” thi- I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s really good. But, yeah. That sounds great. Culinary experience or culinary story, do you have one for us that could describe or give off the vibe of what you make? 

Ray: It’s wonderful when you get old that you forget all those things. You don’t remember them.��

Zoe: Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.��

Ray: But, no. Then you go to the store, “Do you have any great stories?”. “No, I’m too senile.” 

Zoe: This was maybe around the fall of last year. And, this friend of ours, her partner at the time, was out with some sort of pain. And, he wasn’t able to run his food place. She’s super awesome, this friend of- 

Ray: She’ll give you the shirt off her back.

Zoe: Yeah, and she’s so generous so kind. I’m sure she has lots of contacts.��

Ray: He was out for a week.��

Zoe: Yeah?

Ray: Is that right? About a week or so? 

Zoe: It was about a week. But- 

Ray: So, it would really been a loss of money and loss of revenue if he was gone that long.��

Zoe: Yeah, yeah. And who does she call to help? She called you.��

Ray: And you.��

Zoe: Oh, no, no!

Ray: You helped in other ways in other times.

Zoe: I helped in other ways in other times, yeah. But, at that point in that week, I actually didn’t work, I don’t think… 

Ray: Yeah. No, not that week. It was- 

Zoe: But, running that restaurant and, of all the people that she knew, blind, sighted, she called you, which was just a demonstration from her of how much she respected you and your skills. So, it’s just really cool to see and it’s really inspiring. It’s something that I definitely aspire to as well.��

Ray: It does inspire. But, I would do anything for her. Because, she just seems like she bends over backwards for everybody, all her people that she works with. But I wouldn’t do anything for him.��

Zoe: I gotcha. �۱𲹳�…��

Ray: That’s life, and I’m glad to help. I would’ve done it for nothing.��

Zoe: Truly, but- 

Ray: Yeah. I would’ve did it just pure… 

Zoe: This podcast so far, our first few episodes, I focused on Bulgogi Beef. It’s not exactly, ’cause there’s no gochujang in the recipe. But, yeah, to be clear, that first episode’s recipe is not bulgogi beef, but it is inspired by the flavor. You can add gochujang, or other ingredients. Dress it up to your style. But, there’s been, a Mediterranean one pot dish, ham hock and bean stew with well soup with buttermilk biscuits, savory dishes.

Ray: These are like main dishes.��

Zoe: Yeah, yeah, like main dishes. A goal of this podcast is to not only focus on cooking, how the culinary experience inspires, but also to find these simple, amazing recipes that are delicious, that you can make at home, that are inspired really and that people can make their own. This pie, from what you’ve described to me and from what you said already here on this podcast, it does sound simple. But, so delicious, frozen or chilled, it would make an amazing pie in the summer is what I’m imagining. But, we’ll be focusing- We’ll be, getting into the baking segment later, but to round out this sort of segment, are there any other words of wisdom or any stories or just, anything about your culinary experience or background that you’d like to share?

Ray: Well, I had a lot of– five years of culinary, but I did– my culinary is dishwashing. But, then I always paid attention and that’s the one thing, try to pay attention what’s around you and learn from that. You can learn a lot if you just pay attention and ask a few questions.

Zoe: Yeah, I know one or two YouTube Chefs who have that pretty much exact same story about where they start; lowly beginnings with dishwasher. But, they pay attention. They learn where they can. They want to learn. It’s kind of like that “Ratatouille” story.

Ray: Oh, we can’t sell Ratatouille anymore.

Zoe: Oh, really? 

Ray: They outlawed it.��

Zoe: Wait, what?! 

Ray: The City of Portland outlawed Ratatouille. Now they can’t sell it at restaurants.��

Zoe: Since when? 

Ray: Just recently.��

Zoe: Wait, why though? 

Ray: I don’t know exactly. It’s just really weird. They don’t want restaurants selling that anymore.��

Zoe: That’s really unfortunate.

Ray: Well, you know what Ratatouille is?

Zoe: Oh, I know who Ratatouille is. Yeah, it’s that French, vegetable dish that has that tomato base and all those sorts of vegetables. I really enjoyed the way that they did it in Ratatouille ’cause I’m no culinary expert, but it seemed like he presented his dish in a way kinda differently than how you would expect with the slices. Sort of arranged, if you imagine, a deck of cards. But, you, kinda grip it with your middle finger and your thumb and then tap your finger on the side and then just roll your finger across the table. It was a really interesting slice arrangement and a really interesting arrangement with the sauce, with the garnish. It looked beautiful. It inspired me to try my own Ratatouille and it tasted good. But, I think I just need more practice.��

Ray: That helps too. They do a lot of practicing, a lot of things.

Zoe: Truly. So, would there be any other stories or any other experience or words of wisdom that you’d like to share before we get into our baking segment? 

Ray: Keep practicing. Some people take it 200 times before they get the recipe right, but they don’t give up and that’s the secret; learn from your mistakes and keep plugging away.

Zoe: That’s really profound.��

Ray: Because, if practice makes perfect, and that’s so true with a lot of things, don’t give up with anything you do. If it’s goal of kitchen, or activities, or friends.��

Zoe: Five years as a dishwasher and as a diabetic and with the vision impairment as well. That’s a lot of dedication and especially with the food restrictions being a diabetic. For me, I’m allergic to eggs, and you have observed me crack eggs. Please describe to the, our listeners how good I am at cracking eggs.��

Ray: Well, first we put gloves on you. So, you wouldn’t have that contamination of-

Zoe: Yeah, ’cause I’m allergic, yeah.��

Ray: You’re allergic. And then we put a nice little white apron, and it still came out clean. But, sometimes there was two ways to do it, one on the edge of the bowl or one on the table, and maybe you should switch to the tables and tap on it, and then flip it, and then crack it.��

Zoe: That is true.

Ray: But, then sometimes you just don’t know your own strength.��

Zoe: Yeah, I crushed my second egg. I crushed it while trying to break it.��

Ray: So, there’s a happy medium between crack it enough or the edge and not too much power.��

Zoe: Yeah. But, hey. Practice makes perfect.��

Ray: But, I’m not letting you go through two cartons of eggs though. You’re not learning from that point.��

Zoe: Yeah, no. I gotcha. But, it’s really interesting. ‘Cause, it’s really cool to look at all these restrictions and the way that people, attempt things, learn from them, and make their changes to the recipe as well. Part of this recipe is, instead of using regular sugar. This recipe, that you have, calls for six tablespoons of a monk fruit substitute sugar.��

Ray: Yeah, it’s good for diabetics and it came from a dietician from Providence, a seminar that I went to.��

Zoe: Yeah, so that would eliminate so much sugar.

Ray: Not so much sugar, but the artificial stuff, your body can’t break artificial sugars down. It can’t break it down. Then if you read in the ingredients, it’s artificial sugar.

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Ray: So, they get rid of it, but it’s still not good for you. But, that’s another story to the… 

Zoe: True, yeah. But, it’s about making healthy decisions.��

Ray: But, this monk fruit is really good and it’s sugar, but it’s made… I don’t know how it’s made, actually. That’s a good question we should’ve of asked our listeners.

Zoe: Yeah. We’ll definitely get that information, but yeah. I just didn’t even know that was a thing, so it was really cool to hear about that, and it was a really cool edit. ‘Cause, for a lot of people that are like, “how do diabetics enjoy like sweets or pies or whatnot without using all that artificial stuff?”.

Ray: Well, that’s what seems like it’s going towards, the pops are going that way. I can drink more pop; as a “diet pop” than a “regular pop”. But, that’s not true. Because it still adds up. But, it just don’t add up in the same way. People think they can drink more pop or drink diabetic sugars, and diabetic stuff and not be affected. But, they still get affected in a different way.

Zoe: Yeah. I’m really, really excited for this recipe and I just can’t wait to get into this segment. Again, thanks so much for sharing these words of wisdom, these experiences, these stories. I’m sure listeners are going to find this recipe absolutely amazing, and I hope-

Ray: I had a friend doing it.

Zoe: Yeah, and I hope this episode gives comfort to you viewers. It’s something that you can listen to while sipping some hot cocoa by the fireplace. So, with that, I’ll see you in the next segment. Bye.��

Ray: Bye. Nice talking.��

Zoe: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to A Slice of Life. We’re here in the kitchen now, and I’m with Kuma. Unfortunately, our guest hosts Ray and Patricia, weren’t able to make it onto the show today. But instead, we’ll be making you the recipe ourselves with a little added twist from an idea that Kuma had.��

Kuma: Hi, everybody. Happy Sunday that we’re recording.��

Zoe: I think it’s Father’s Day, actually.��

Kuma: Yeah.

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: Happy Sunday, everyone.��

Zoe: Happy Sunday.

Kuma: So, we are making something from Ray and Patricia. It’s called a Lemon Icebox Pie. So, it’s a Lemon Meringue Pie, everyone, with some really nice added supplemental options, I would say. Ray uses monk fruit sugar, which he says he’s diabetic, and it’s a very good sugar to use. It’s safe for diabetics.��

Zoe: That’s right, yeah. Monk fruit sugar is what he used. You at home, if you’re diabetic, you can always choose the best option for you. Monk fruit sugar was something I didn’t even know about. We don’t have that today, so we’re using regular sugar But, at home, definitely feel free to replace it with monk fruit sugar if you like.��

Kuma: So, the ingredients from Ray is one pre-made pie crust. It is suggested using a graham cracker or vanilla wafer pie crust. So, it’s gonna be crumbly.��

Zoe: Yeah. You can pick those up easy at WinCo, Fred Meyer- pretty much any grocery store for just a couple bucks. It’s not too bad.��

Kuma: Three eggs that are room temperature.��

Zoe: So, make sure to let them thaw for about an hour after you take them out of the fridge before you make the pie.��

Kuma: Yep. One can of sweetened condensed milk. So, that’s about 14 ounces.

Zoe: You know one of my favorite old desserts, Kuma? It was just literally cold strawberries with condensed milk on top. 14 ounces in this pie, huh? That sounds like it’s gonna be a nice creamy pie.��

Kuma: A third cup of lemon juice. That can be freshly squeezed, which is what Zoe and I are gonna try and go with today.

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: Or that bulk lemon juice that you can buy at the grocery store.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: Usually they have it with just the fresh produce, I believe.��

Zoe: Yeah, it’s fresh lemon juice that we’re using today. But, the lemon juice in the bottle, totally fine. That works out well. You can get those smaller bottles, but for this recipe, you probably wanna get one of those big Costco bottles that are a quart or something and it’s wonderful. ‘Cause, lemon juice goes in so many amazing recipes.��

Kuma: And then we’re gonna have that six tablespoons of sugar or sugar supplement.��

Zoe: �۱��.��

Kuma: And what I’m doing today is I’m using a pre-made pie crust. I melted some butter so I can bake the pie dough itself for a few minutes beforehand. Because, when I add in the lemon pie filling, that pie mix should already be, or the pie dough should already be halfway cooked- 

Zoe: Yeah.

Kuma: So, it doesn’t just congeal together.��

Zoe: You know what? I never even thought about that. Now, for those at home, I am not good at baking. The only things I can really bake are Frozen pizza. Yeah, but I never even thought about how the bottom of a pie… ‘Cause I’ve tried making pot pies before, and whatnot. When you put that raw dough in the oven with the insides, the bottom can get crispy, but a lot of times all the insides congeal together. So, I didn’t realize that. You just brush the bottom with just a little bit of butter and then halfway cook it in the oven? 

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�.��

Zoe: �ʱ���ڱ𳦳�.��

Kuma: So, I’ll read the full recipe with all the steps. That way everyone knows it.��

Zoe: Yeah. Starting from the top.��

Kuma: And then we’ll go into my deviations. What were you saying earlier about exploring while cooking, Zoe? 

Zoe: Oh, it’s good. It’s really good. That’s the spirit of what this podcast is. It’s great to explore, and it’s all about learning and walking through your own journey in life. This podcast we’re here to talk about it. We’re here to provide comfort, show the foibles of everyday mistakes. ‘Cause, there will be mistakes. But, that’s how you learn. And, ultimately, this is about trying new things, finding the things that work for you, and doing the things that really put a smile on your face when you know that it’s worked out. I made a curry the other night, and Kuma and I thought it was 75% of the way there. It was good but not amazing. And, really we came to the conclusion that it was only lacking, realistically, only one thing- two things; fresh chili peppers, and also a spoonful of peanut butter to bind it all together and to provide a little bit more of that nutty flavor in the background. So, it’s the things that you do when you experiment, when you test things out. You find the things that you enjoy the most.��

Kuma: Yeah. And you find fun combinations.��

Zoe: �������DZ��ܳٱ����.��

Kuma: So, from Ray, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna take those three eggs, right? The room temperature eggs. And you need two bowls. You’re gonna crack each egg individually and separate out the yolk, so that yellow part from the egg white, so that clear part. If you crack an egg yolk, so it’s runny, just get a new egg.��

Zoe: Yeah, don’t feel bad about wasting eggs. I’ll be totally honest with you, I’m allergic to eggs, so I never really work with them. So, when I tried cracking eggs, I really tried to practice. But, after cracking like, what was it? Two cartons, I only got two eggs to actually separate.��

Kuma: It takes time. It’s okay.��

Zoe: It takes time and practice, but if you break an egg, don’t worry. Just take that egg save it, put it away. You can use it for something else, or you can make it into a scramble. Very easy.

Kuma: Okay. So, we’ve separated out those three eggs. We’re gonna take those three egg yolks, and with a mixer we’re gonna beat it so it’s all nice and mixed up. Then we’re gonna add the can of condensed milk, so that 14 ounces of sweetened condensed milk- Ooh to the yolks, and we’re gonna mix again. During that process, we’re slowly gonna add a third cup of lemon juice to that yolk and sweetened condensed milk mixture. Once we’re done with that, we’re gonna turn to the actual pie dough itself. Okay? 

Zoe: Now, that’s a simple filling. Will it taste really lemony in the center? 

Kuma: That’s what we’re hoping.��

Zoe: Oh, okay.��

Kuma: So with the pie crust, what we’re gonna do is brush a little bit of butter on your pie pan Just hold on to that. So, just hold on to that 

Zoe: It’s fine.��

Kuma: Yeah, you can just leave it right here. You’re gonna melt some butter, and you’re gonna brush it onto the pie pan itself, like on the inside. And then you’re slowly gonna roll out the pie dough to cover the pie tin, okay? 

Zoe: Okay. And that’s to protect the bottom, right? Make sure it doesn’t burn or stick.��

Kuma: And if this is a raw, normal pie dough, take a fork and poke some holes into the bottom of it, okay? 

Zoe: Oh, okay.��

Kuma: And then bake it for five to 10 minutes.��

Zoe: That makes sense. Let anything underneath escape, otherwise it’ll make the bottom, like, bubble up and look weird. That makes sense.��

Kuma: So, once we’re done with that, and we’ve taken our pie dough out of the oven, and we’re letting it cool. We’re gonna pour the yolk mixture into the pie pan.��

Zoe: ���dz�.��

Kuma: Yep. Then clean that bowl. Clean the mixing bowl.��

Zoe: Yeah, yeah.��

Kuma: Pour in the egg whites, and we’re gonna beat the egg whites until it turns very light and fluffy, and that can take a while.

Zoe: Yeah. They call them “stiff peaks”.��

Kuma: Yep. That can take up to 10 minutes, I believe.��

Zoe: You don’t wanna overbeat them, though.��

Kuma: ���DZ��.��

Zoe: But, once they start to turn into those nice stiff and looking a bit white, and they keep their shape, then you know that you’re on the cusp of having them done.

Kuma: Then you’re gonna add the six tablespoons of sugar to the egg whites while it’s beating.��

Zoe: �ѳ�.��

Kuma: Okay? And, then once that is ready, then you pour the egg whites– it’s called a meringue– on top of the pie itself.��

Zoe: Now, that sounds simple, but so delicious.��

Kuma: Mm-hmm. And, then you’ll bake for seven minutes at 350 degrees or until the topping, that meringue, is lightly browned.

Zoe: Okay. You don’t wanna burn that.��

Kuma: And, then once it’s complete, let it sit at room temperature and then chill it in the fridge or the freezer.��

Zoe: Yeah. And then, whenever you’re ready to serve it, you can just take it out of the freezer, thaw it in the fridge, you can take it out, slice into it. You don’t need any whipped cream. That meringue topping is already so light, and fluffy, and sweet. It’s gonna be perfect. Now, that sounds like a simple but really easy amazing pie that you can whip together in half an hour or so, and then just put that in the freezer. Have that ready for a little party. You were telling me that you made some deviations from the recipe; trying your own thing a little bit. What were you wanting to do? 

Kuma: I wanna add mint. So, I’m feeling more of a mint julep.��

Zoe: ���dz�!��

Kuma: Like a lemon mint julep pie.��

Zoe: That sounds really good! Lemon and mint do actually go so well together.��

Kuma: �۱𲹳�.��

Zoe: And, you’re using fresh mint leaves, right? 

Kuma: �۱��!��

Zoe: Yeah. I’m trying to think of something that I would do. I don’t know, probably use some sort of mint extract. But, fresh mint just seems like it would work a lot better.

Kuma: You just want fresh mint. Okay. So what I’ve done already is I’ve melted the butter.��

Zoe: Ooh, okay.��

Kuma: I’ve let the pie dough, itself, become room temperature. So, it’s easier to roll out. I have preheated the oven to 350 degrees.��

Zoe: Lovely!

Kuma: I have my pie tin. So, I’m gonna brush the bottom of the pie tin with butter.��

Zoe: Yeah, just a little brush.��

Kuma: A little melted butter and if you don’t have a silicon rubber brush, or even a painting- like an unused painting brush, right? 

Zoe: As long as you’re gentle.��

Kuma: You can actually also use paper towels and just pour the butter in and then use a paper towel and swipe it around the pie pan itself.��

Zoe: As long as you keep it clean.

Kuma: But, if you’re gonna use a painting brush that you just get from the arts and crafts store, it needs to be a new one that has never touched paint.��

Zoe: Yeah. You keep your food and your art separate.��

Kuma: I am saying this for you, Zoe.��

Zoe: What? Why would I do that? 

Kuma: You never know.��

Zoe: You know what? That’s fair…

Kuma: I am teaching a blind woman how to bake currently! 

Zoe: That is true. So, like- No, I would never do that! 

Kuma: Are you sure? 

Zoe: I think so. You know what? I’ve been wrong before. I’ll trust you! 

Kuma: And you don’t need a whole lot of melted butter either.��

Zoe: It’s just to protect that pie dough, and you’re not trying to “flavor” the pie dough heavily, or anything. Just get that nice crisp outside without burning it or having it stick to the pan.��

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�.��

Zoe: ‘Cause no one wants a slice of pie and all of a sudden you can’t lift the bottom out of the pan.

Kuma: So, I’ve pulled out my pie dough. I’m unfolding it, cause it’s in a-

Zoe: It’s in a roll, right? 

Kuma: Yeah. Yeah, 

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: Thank you. And, I thought it was room temperature enough. It wasn’t, but that’s okay.��

Zoe: Yeah. We’ll work through it.��

Kuma: It’s just these little tiny pieces at the inside.��

Zoe: �ѳ�-�󳾳�.��

Kuma: And I’m slowly setting it down

Zoe: And if you’ve decided to use like a graham cracker crust from the store- 

Kuma: You don’t have to do any of this… 

Zoe: Yeah, you don’t have to do any of this. But, we figured for the lemon mint, sort of center, it would just hold better like, compliment it better. But, a graham cracker like crumbly crust you can skip this step and then move to the part we brush the bottom with butter and then add in the yolks, the yolk mixture. You don’t have to like pre-bake the graham cracker crust.

Kuma: So, I’ve added the pie dough to it- 

Zoe: ���첹��.��

Kuma: And, I’m just poking some holes in the bottom of the dough. So, try and give it an even cook.��

Zoe: �ѳ�-�󳾳���

Kuma: Okay. So that’s done. I’m gonna put it in the oven for 10 minutes– 5 to 10 minutes… Okay! Now let’s go over to our eggs! 

Zoe: All right! Let’s get this party started! 

Kuma: Our “eggy-weggies”! 

Zoe: And you can always do this by hand with a good whisk too; if you don’t have a mixer at home. But, it’ll just take a little longer.��

Kuma: So, what I have in front of me is some fresh mint, maybe about a teaspoon or two of fresh mint, minced.��

Zoe: Ooh. Minced.

Kuma: I got three big lemons. What I do with lemons or any citrus, when I need to use them for juice, is I roll them against the counter to knead it to, kinda, be a little bit more pliable.��

Zoe: Yeah, you wanna break up those like little pieces in there and, getting them nice and ready to be juiced.��

Kuma: Mm-hmm. And I got my three eggs. So, what we’re gonna do first is we’re gonna crack those eggs in half, okay? 

Zoe: Any tips for newbies?

Kuma: Try and crack in the center of the egg itself, okay? 

Zoe: ���첹��.��

Kuma: It can be a little bit challenging. That’s okay. If you’re having trouble separating out the egg yolks itself; ’cause normally you would go in between each half shell- 

Zoe: Yeah … 

Kuma: to separate the egg whites from the yolk, is dump the entire egg into it, make sure the yolk is not cracked, so it’s leaking. Take an empty water bottle, like a convenience store with that twist top, and suck in that egg yolk into the bottle and put it in a different bowl.��

Zoe: You know what? I never even thought about that. I always thought that was a party trick, but that actually makes a lot of sense.

Kuma: Mm-hmm. All right, ready? 

Zoe: Yeah!

Kuma: And there’s also some accessibility devices, actually, to crack an egg.��

Zoe: That is true, yeah. And whatever you’re looking for, whether you’re just getting into it, like me, or whether or not it’s just a little too difficult and like me, you’re looking for an accessibility device, without vision. It’s a little more difficult, but there are egg cracking devices that you can actually buy very cheap. Tap a button, cracks the egg and then you can split the egg open. It’s still up to you to separate the egg white and the egg yolk. But, hey! Cracking an egg without destroying it is a real victory for me at this point! 

Kuma: Mm-hmm. So, I got one egg cracked. Now I’m onto the next one.��

Zoe: Delicious.

Kuma: And the more you- Ooh!

Zoe: What happened?

Kuma: I just fully dropped it! 

Zoe: Mistakes happen! We’ll just clean it up! 

Kuma: That was hilarious! The yolk is perfectly intact! 

Zoe: On the floor?! 

Kuma: In my hand. I somehow caught it at the perfect second!

Zoe: You caught the yolk in your hand?! 

Kuma: I caught the yolk at the perfect second! I have a whole egg yolk in my hand!

Zoe: How is – ?

Kuma: I don’t know, but the egg white’s on the floor. Whoops. Oh, can you get… Can I have those paper towels? Yeah, yeah. And can you get me another egg?

Zoe: I will get you another egg. Yeah. I’ll war- I’ll try to warm the other egg real quick! ‘Cause we don’t have a fridge. Oh, I don’t… 

Kuma: That’s so impressive!

Zoe: Those are some reflexes right there! 

Kuma: Oh, oh. I’m good. Oh, my God, that just, that just… ���첹��.��

Zoe: Those are some quick s- I can’t believe you caught the yolk- and it didn’t break.��

Kuma: I don’t know! It just happened! Okay. I’ll mop it up… and I’m sure we’ll just give Tucker the extra eggshells and yolk.��

Zoe: Well, yeah, the egg yolk.

Kuma: ����.��

Zoe: He’s gonna enjoy that! 

Kuma: Oh, we’re good, folks! Okay. I’m gonna crack that third egg.��

Zoe: Yeah. I’m doing a quick warm on this egg with my own body. You don’t wanna microwave or anything.��

Kuma: ����.��

Zoe: Yeah. No, I’m doing, I’m just using my own hands to just warm this egg real quick.��

Kuma: ��-��

Zoe: I was, like, shocked.

Kuma: Oh, folks, if only you could have seen that! That was, that was- 

Zoe: We were just talking about experiments and mistakes.��

Kuma: ���첹��.��

Zoe: Just goes to show that nothing is impossible in the kitchen.��

Kuma: Oh, my God- 

Zoe: I’m just, astounded that you caught the egg yolk. It needs a minute more. I’m just trying to keep it getting nice and room temperature. But, you got that third egg ready, right? 

Kuma: Yeah, it’s already cracked. I just need one more set of egg whites. That’s all I need.��

Zoe: We can take the extra egg yolk and, I don’t know, feed that to Tucker or- 

Kuma: Yeah, with the eggshells. Oh, by the way, folks, if you have dogs and if they’re not allergic to chicken or eggs, eggshells and raw eggs, or even cooked eggs, plain cooked eggs, are very good for them.��

Zoe: Yes, they are. Just make sure to grind up those eggshells.��

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�.��

Zoe: Good calcium for them, but you don’t want them to get a spiky piece of eggshell. All right. Give that a go. What do you think? 

Kuma: Yeah, that’ll work. Now, I’m just going for the egg whites here.��

Zoe: Perfect! Don’t drop it. ���dz�.��

Kuma: ���첹��.��

Zoe: And why do we want them room temperature before we crack them? 

Kuma: It’s easier to separate them- 

Zoe: That makes sense… 

Kuma: Usually. But, I think it’s also just has to do with how they cook, I guess.��

Zoe: Yeah, an even temperature.��

Kuma: Can I give you the eggs for Tucker?

Zoe: Yeah, sure.

Kuma: Okay. Put all that in his bowl.��

Zoe: �󲹲��ܱ��dzܲ�.��

Kuma: I’m gonna wash my hands really good.��

Zoe: That’s a good idea.

Kuma: Do you have more paper towels? 

Zoe: Yeah. Here, take this one that I’m using right now.��

Kuma: It’s more for the floor, ’cause it’s literally right where I’m standing.��

Zoe: Yeah. Again, want to keep a clean workstation.��

Kuma: Yeah. Oh, I’m gonna have to let them all out.��

Zoe: And egg whites do get sticky. It’s okay, we’ll clean that.

Kuma: Okay! Okay, folks! We’re good. That was a funny mistake that just happened.��

Zoe: You literally managed to catch yourself before the mistake really hit the floor, though.��

Kuma: Don’t ask me. Okay. So, I have the egg yolks. I have the egg whites. I’m gonna juice the lemons now.��

Zoe: Okay.

Kuma: And again, we only need a third of a cup. But, what I’m also gonna do is I’m gonna save the lemons- 

Zoe: ���첹��…��

Kuma: and zest them- 

Zoe: That’s a great idea… 

Kuma: for the rind itself.��

Zoe: Yeah. Get more of that authentic lemon flavor in there, not just that lemon juice. Now, I’m super inexperienced. What’s the best way to juice a lemon? 

Kuma: You can do it with your hands.��

Zoe: Well, I’m gonna cut it in half and then squeeze it over. But, that’s kind of what I thought, but just making sure there wasn’t some secret technique.��

Kuma: And you can buy these little mini juicer things- 

Zoe: Oh, I’ve seen those! 

Kuma: But, like, from the store… 

Zoe: seems like an extra step, really. I mean- 

Kuma: That’s what I have.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: It helps catch, um, the- 

Zoe: Oh, the seeds and everything, right? 

Kuma: Yeah. And the pulp.��

Zoe: That is true.��

Kuma: So, I’m just doing that.��

Zoe: I don’t know. I think of the pulp as a- whatchama call it? “Happy little accident”? 

Kuma: Yeah. But, again, I also rolled the lemons to try and get the juice to come forward easier.

Zoe: True, true, true it’s fabulous and your house is gonna be smelling amazing with that lemon.��

Kuma: Oh, I love the smell of lemon! 

Zoe: Back when I was younger, I think one of the things that we used to do was; we would take an orange peel or, like, a lemon peel and stick it in the fridge for a day after we used it. We’d throw it away afterwards, ’cause you don’t want the whole lemon going bad or anything. But, it would get nice and fragrant.��

Kuma: Mm-hmm.

Zoe: Oh, those are some firm lemons.��

Kuma: Yeah, you gotta have a little bit of wrist strength. So, if it’s easier for you to use that pre-made lemon juice for cooking, go for it.��

Zoe: You gotta have a little bit of wrist strength? I’m out.��

Kuma: Oh, yes. You’re a little weak, Zoe.��

Zoe: It’s a chore to carry shopping bags home!

Kuma: I mean, it’s a chore for everyone. Not a chore. But, you have a slightly heavy bag, and it’s not even five pounds and you say it’s heavy.��

Zoe: Then my hand starts tingling. I’m like, “Oh, this is the heaviest bag ever.”. It’s my dream to one day run out of the car and back into the house without carrying any groceries home.

Kuma: It will never happen so long as you live with me.

Zoe: Hey, the message of this podcast is to bring it back to the student experience and to chase your dreams. So, someday I will achieve that dream of running back into the house with Tucker and not carrying any groceries.��

Kuma: We’re doing some very fresh lemon juice. Okay. So, we need a third of a cup.

Zoe: And how much did we get from those three lemons, do you think? 

Kuma: Almost three-quarters.��

Zoe: That’s a lot. We can save the excess- 

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�…��

Zoe: and use that for other cooking projects. Yes. See? Again, cooking is so perfect. ‘Cause even if you make mistakes, they turn into inspiration for your next meals. you can take that and on hot days like these you can make actual lemonade. Didn’t you get that one lemonade like a day or two ago and you were so happy, Kuma? 

Kuma: Oh, yeah, I got fresh lemonade from an orchard. It was in a 32 ounce container.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: And, it was just a Tupperware of lemon juice and marionberries and ice.

Zoe: Oh, so good.��

Kuma: Okay. So, we’re adding the egg yolks and the lemon juice.��

Zoe: ���첹��.��

Kuma: Right? Yeah. Am I remembering that correctly? 

Zoe: Well, it’s the egg yolks first, I believe. You start to beat them and then, you first add in the condensed milk- 

Kuma: �۱��.��

Zoe: Thank you, and then the lemon juice.��

Kuma: So, I’m gonna start beating the egg yolks, and then I’m gonna pull out the pie dough.

Zoe: ���첹��.��

Kuma: And then I’ll add in the- 

Zoe: Condensed milk?

Kuma: Condensed milk. So, the mixer will be loud.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: So, we’ll pause.��

Zoe: We’ll pause as it’s mixing just so that we don’t hurt lovely viewers’ ears.��

Kuma: Yeah. ���첹��.��

Zoe: And, we’re back. The egg yolks were just mixed up in the mixer. We slowly added in our condensed milk. We slowly added in that lovely lemon juice and lemon zest. What does the mixture look like now? 

Kuma: So, it’s a pale yellow in color.��

Zoe: ���dz�.��

Kuma: And, kinda, “Jell-O” consistency.��

Zoe: Okay, yeah. ‘Cause, we don’t wanna overbeat it either, and just wanna make sure that you, the viewer, know how it should look like.

Kuma: So, I have that. I’m scraping down the sides, and I’m pouring it into the pie tin, okay? 

Zoe: Oh, delicious. Yeah.

Kuma: ‘Cause I took the pie tin out of the oven.��

Zoe: And it’s a wonderful crust. Came out perfect. Half cooked and not going to stick or congeal together with that inside

Kuma: And I’m just scraping down the bowl so we get everything out.��

Zoe: You know what, Kuma? Aside from Shepherd’s Pie, this is actually the first pie that I’ve ever made with someone.��

Kuma: ��𲹱�����?��

Zoe: In general, yeah! I’ve never made, a fruit pie. Well, I’ve tried, but last time I tried making a fruit pie it- what’s the word? The top collapsed and covered the center.��

Kuma: Oh, yeah.��

Zoe: Yeah, and it was bad! The bottom did congeal together with the fruit.��

Kuma: Okay. So, because the pan is still hot, I’m using my spatula.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: My silicone spatula, and trying to even it out.��

Zoe: Mm-hmm. Safety first, everyone.

Kuma: The pie dough? 

Zoe: Regarding the heat and everything. Oh, yeah. We don’t wanna burn ourselves.��

Kuma: So, that’s done. So, now what I’m gonna do with the bowl is I’m gonna wash it and then add those three egg whites, start beating it. Then slowly add in those six tablespoons of sugar.��

Zoe: That’s wonderful. Yeah. We’ll come back. ‘Cause again, the mixer’s loud. But, we’ll come back right at the end to describe what it looks like, and to add the egg white and that, that lovely, that’ll be a meringue at that point- 

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�…��

Zoe: On top of that pie filling. So, yeah. We’ll be back in just a second.

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�.��

Zoe: All right! So, we’re back. We just whipped together that meringue. We took a look at it, thought it could use a little bit more time, so we whipped it until it was nice and airy. Nice and stiff, nice and airy. Didn’t look like it would fold over really easily. And so I think it’s got the perfect amount of whipping.��

Kuma: So, if you’ve seen Marshmallow Fluff and what it looks like, or marshmallow cream, we’re kinda going for a consistency like that.��

Zoe: Ooh, okay! 

Kuma: So, what I did was I added the egg whites, those three room temperature egg whites, as I was beating. And you have to, if you’re mixing it by hand, you have to beat it by hand very, very, very fast- 

Zoe: �۱𲹳�…��

Kuma: for a long while. So, be prepared for that. Slowly add in the sugar. And then I added some of that fresh mint to it. So, kinda like a sugared mint.��

Zoe: Yeah, it’s really good.��

Kuma: And what I did to the pie was then I added the rest of that minced mint. ‘Cause, I chopped it up very, very finely, and then the lemon zest just straight on top. Now I’m adding the meringue on top of it.��

Zoe: Delicious. It’s gonna be that nice fluffy cloud layer. And yeah, again, if you don’t have a mixer, just don’t be afraid. It’ll take a little bit longer, but it’ll be fun. You just gotta beat it by hand and then you’ll get a nice creamy finish. So, you’ll be good to go.��

Kuma: Gonna be a weirdo and take a photo.��

Zoe: I think it would be weird not to take a photo of such a delicious pie!

Kuma: Well, I don’t make pies very often.��

Zoe: This is the first actual dessert pie that I’ve did with someone.��

Kuma: I’m just scooping all of that meringue on top, okay? So, I have added the meringue. Kinda looks like a little mound.��

Zoe: Ooh, delicious! 

Kuma: And I’m just patting it, ’cause I want some peaks.

Zoe: Get it looking nice and artistic for the fun look and the fun textures. And, again, those are really fluffy egg whites, so no matter what thickness you use, it’s gonna cook fast. How long do we have it in the oven for? 

Kuma: Only seven minutes.

Zoe: Wow, okay.��

Kuma: Yeah.

Zoe: Well, then once we slide it in, it only takes seven minutes to bake. After that we can take it out and it’ll be tempting to just cut right into that, but don’t do it. Just let it get to about room temp, cool down a little bit. If you put it immediately in the fridge, that’s really bad. It’s really easy for it to develop salmonella, and whatnot. Getting it really hot to really cold really fast. So, just let it cool a bit and then chill it in the fridge for a few hours. Then once that’s ready to go, and once you’re ready to serve it, you can pull it out, grab a slice, and serve. There we go. We’re sliding it right into the oven. We will pull it out, chill it, and taste it. We will tell you how it turned out on our next episode, but until then, please leave comments or your own little stories or feedback about what you think about this pie and this recipe. Until next time! Thanks for joining us on “A Slice of Life”. Thanks to our special guest hosts Ray and Patricia. I’ve been Zoe. This has been Tucker and- 

Kuma: This is Kuma! Have fun baking everyone!

Outro

Asher: Thank you for listening to Let’s Talk!, ������������’s broadcast about disability culture. Find more information and resources concerning this episode and others at pcc.edu/dca. This episode was produced by the Let’s Talk! Podcast Collective as a collaborative effort between students, the Accessible Education and Disability Resource Department, and the ������������ Multimedia Department. We air new episodes on our , our Spotify channel, , and .��

Episode Transcript

Transcript edited by Hannah “Asher” Sham and Miri Newman

 

Show Intro and Disclaimer

Kylo: You’re listening to Let’s Talk!. Let’s Talk! Is a digital space for students at ������������ experiencing disabilities to share their perspectives, ideas, and worldviews in an inclusive and accessible environment. The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of ������������, ������������ Foundation, or our community partners. We broadcast on our home website, , on Spotify, on , and .

Meet the Hosts

Zoe: Hi, everyone! My name’s Zoe, and welcome to the third episode of A Slice of Life! Today, I’ve got guest hosting with us again, Kuma, because they’re going to help introduce a new miniseries on Crockpot Meals. Kuma’s taught me everything I know about Crockpot meals. And with that, I’ll let them just explain a little bit about what a Crockpot is.��

Kuma: Hi, I’m Kuma. So, Crock-Pots are a really great kitchen appliance that involves slow-cooking something all day long, even if you’re out and about. The nice thing about this is you can plug it in and they typically only have low or high settings. So, it’s really easy just to keep it going all day long, especially if you’re a really busy person like I am. There are different Crock-Pots that allow for multiple different settings as well, which is really cool. But, a Crock-Pot is just a really great modern invention for people that wanna slow-cook meals all day long if they don’t have the time to be at home all day. In my family, we did a lot of Sunday Roasts and stuff like that. Sunday Roasts are typically done in a giant stew pot that sits all day long. You boil it for a little bit, and then you bake it at a really low temperature. So, a Crock-Pot is kind of a nice bridge between that onto just like all-day cooking? 

Today’s Crockpot Recipe

Zoe: That’s wonderful. I’m really glad to hear that. Now, before you started teaching me cooking, cooking safety, and kitchen appliances, I didn’t even know what a Crockpot was. So, what kind of meals can we make in the Crockpot, and what are we making today?

Kuma: You can do a lot of things in a Crockpot. I personally just love doing roasts in Crockpots. I know a lot of people who do stews. You can do braised meat. I’ve heard of some people doing ribs, as well. I’ve heard of other people doing chicken and dumpling soup, or rice dishes even.

Zoe: That is true and, I have to say, the last time you made pot roast, you left it slow-cooking for an entire day and, gosh, that meat fell right off the bone, didn’t it? 

Kuma: It did! Yes! So, today what we’ve done is something really simple that I grew up on. It’s a 13 bean mix with pork haunches. So, pork- 

Zoe: Ham hocks? 

Kuma: Yeah, ham hocks. Wow, thank you! I added onion, bell pepper, a chili pepper, and then some Swiss Chard in there, and then also some cumin, bay leaf, coriander, salt and pepper, oregano, and a splash of lemon juice.��

Zoe: Now, all those ingredients; you can find the recipe and list of ingredients below on the same web-page or the page that you’re viewing this episode on. But, it seems so difficult. All those ingredients, all those seasonings. Once you prep all those ingredients, what do you do then? 

Kuma: Oh, you just put it in the pot. You add water.

Zoe: It’s that easy? 

Kuma: Yeah. I love adding some extra bouillon base in there. I forgot garlic. Add garlic too. I use bouillon base. I find it gives a bit of a more earthy flavor and then the bay leaf really just enhances that. The lemon juice, that acidity, really just helps those flavors pop even more.��

Zoe: Yeah! I was wondering, ’cause usually you have a little bit of sour in things like cocktails or in noodle dishes, like Pad Thai. But, how does the sour contribute to the soup here? I imagine it’s sort of similar to being like a tomato, where it accentuates the sweet and the savory as well.��

Kuma: Yeah, it does. So, the Swiss chard is typically a, pretty savory green.��

Zoe: Oh, that is true.��

Kuma: So, having a bit of lemon juice in there can help flavors like that come out. Especially with bell peppers also being slightly sweet in general. It’s a good enhancement.��

Zoe: And this lemon juice container that we got; it’s like, two quarts, we got at Costco. How much did we get it for?

Kuma: I don’t remember… 

Zoe: Oh, gosh. I think it was only six bucks at the time. It’s lasted a really long time, so it’s very economical. If you wanna splash up your meals; just a little bit of lemon juice really helps to bring out the sweetness, the savory. It’s so good! 

Kuma: �۱𲹳�!��

Zoe: So, you’ve loaded all your ingredients into the slow cooker, stirred in your seasonings, your water, your bouillon base, and you’ve just started it at low heat. Is it just as simple as that?

Kuma: �۱��.��

Zoe: Okay. Well- 

Kuma: So, a low heat cook is good for, I would say, eight to 16 hours of cooking.��

Zoe: ���dz�!��

Kuma: High heat would be four hours, or less.��

Zoe: Well, it’s just as easy as that. So, we’ve got our cooker here. How long has this soup been in the Crockpot and cooking? 

Kuma: Since 6:30 this morning.��

Zoe: Oh, and it’s around…

Kuma: 7:00 PM.

Zoe: Oh, it’s 7:00? So, it’s been 12 and a half hours! I bet that meat is gonna fall right off the bone. If you lift the lid, how does it smell? And, what’s the meat like? 

Kuma: Well, I need a spoon for that! 

Zoe: Yeah, it’s always good to taste your food so you can adjust your seasonings.��

Kuma: Ooh! Okay, okay! It’s nice and beany? It’s nice and beany. The ham hock has definitely fallen off the bone and, the nice part too is, there’s little bits of fat, still. So, it’s slowly simmering into that broth, so it’s gonna add just a touch of pork fat sweetness to it.��

Zoe: Yeah, that flavor, that lovely pork flavor!

Kuma: Yeah. So, let’s see.��

Zoe: If you’re worried about the fat, you can always skim that off too, off the surface and whatnot. How is it? How does it taste? 

Kuma: I feel like it could use a little bit more salt 

Zoe: Perfect. That’s what tasting and seasonings are for.��

Kuma: Can you give me the salt and pepper, please?

Zoe: Oh, 100%. We got us here, nothing too crazy, just a simple salt shaker and pepper grinder. But, if you have these seasonings, you can just, you can really spice up any dish. But, I don’t have to tell you that.��

Kuma: Okay. Oh, that’s much better. You wanna try it? 

Zoe: Sure! 

Kuma: Okay.

Zoe: Oh! You can really taste the pork. It’s got that earthiness from the bay leaf and the beans. The lemon juice really helps balance out the flavors. That is a fantastic soup! So, as we wait for this to finish simmering and cooling down; this could really use a side!

Kuma: It could! 

Making the Buttermilk Biscuits

Zoe: I mean, the Crockpot was just so simple. You toss everything in and we slow cooked it for 12 and a half hours. We have the meal and we didn’t even invest too much effort into it! What kind of side do you think would go well with this, though? 

Kuma: Well, if we’re going to Kuma’s childhood; Buttermilk Biscuits.��

Zoe: I’ve always thought Buttermilk Biscuits were really hard to make. I tried making biscuits and gravy once, and it turned out horrible! 

Kuma: Well, did you use store-bought biscuits? 

Zoe: I did not. Oh. I tried making my own biscuits, and they came out flat as a pancake.��

Kuma: Do you know how to bake? 

Zoe: Mostly only what you’ve taught me.��

Kuma: Okay! So, nothing wrong with store-bought biscuits.��

Zoe: That is true.��

Kuma: That is true. I love them. They’re so soft and fluffy. I think people find the gravy part to be the part that is the most challenging, and it’s really the biscuits if you’re going for making everything from scratch.

Zoe: Ah. Um- There’s a real big difference in a mediocre biscuit and a flaky biscuit that just blows your mind.��

Kuma: So, Buttermilk Biscuits are really easy to make, at least in my opinion.��

Zoe: You sure about that? 

Kuma: Yes! You’re talking to the baker in the household. I will say a piece of information that I really appreciate having, and always will share, is that you can actually buy powdered Buttermilk.��

Zoe: ���dz�.��

Kuma: Yeah. You can buy powdered Buttermilk. Because in stores they typically only sell buttermilk in, uh-

Zoe: In the cartons.

Kuma: Yeah. “In the quart”? 

Zoe: “By the quart”, yeah.��

Kuma: Yeah, they don’t do anything like a pint or anything less than that. They only do quarts. So, you have a whole bunch of buttermilk then that’s gonna go bad.��

Zoe: That’s true, yeah…

Kuma: So, what are you gonna do with it? You’re just gonna make a whole bunch of biscuits? Not everyone wants biscuits all the time. It’s whatever. So, I use this brand called The Sacco Pantry, and it’s Cultured Buttermilk Blend.

Zoe: ���dz�!��

Kuma: And, it’s specified specifically for cooking and baking. Now, the thing with this is after you open it, you need to store it in the fridge.��

Zoe: That is true.��

Kuma: So, I’ve already prepped it. That goes back in the fridge. So, for buttermilk biscuits we need three-quarters liquid cup, buttermilk. Not a dry measuring cup. You need a liquid measuring cup.��

Zoe: �ѳ�-�󳾳�.��

Kuma: You need two cups all-purpose flour, two teaspoons baking powder, half a teaspoon baking soda, a little bit of sugar, seven tablespoons of cold butter. Not frozen, cold. So, refrigerated.��

Zoe: Now, first of all, that sounds like a lot of butter. But, second, why should it be cold and not frozen or room temperature? 

Kuma: So, frozen, it’s not actually gonna curl into the pea shape nodules that we want. By having it refrigerated and cold, it’s still malleable in our fingertips. Which is really important. So we’ll get more product dispersing throughout the biscuits. If you had it room temperature, it’s just gonna melt.��

Zoe: �Ҵdzٳ���.��

Kuma: And that’s not what we want for Buttermilk Biscuits.

Zoe: These ingredients and the recipe can be found on this same page where you’re viewing the episode. But, the type of butter; I guess, I will leave that up to you. Because, Kuma and I like to use a very specific kind of butter! 

Kuma: Yes. Okay, so what we’re gonna do is you’re gonna take a mixing bowl. I would say for any bread product you are making; whether it be cake, whether it’s biscuits, bread, bagels, all your dry ingredients should be sieved through first into the mixing bowl.��

Zoe: Now, why would you sift all those ingredients into the mixing bowl? 

Kuma: It removes the clumps. So, say you bought donuts at the store, and you’re very excited about these donuts, and you bite into a donut that you really were anticipating, and you just get a mouthful of pure flour.��

Zoe: Ugh! That’s horrible! 

Kuma: Just pure flour in your donut. But, everything else is fine. You just bit into a spot with pure flour. That’s what we don’t want to happen.��

Zoe: Ah! So, by sifting it we avoid things like that.��

Kuma: Yes. So, a sift has a mesh screen on it as well. It’s really nice to use them. I have a really basic one that I bought from Safeway years ago that I use. I use it for all my baking. So, any sugar, flour, if it’s going into a huge dry mix, I’m using the sieve.��

Zoe: And you can use it for so many other things too. Draining vegetables, pasta. A very simple one is cheap, easy to buy, and you can take it home and use it for everything, basically.��

Kuma: �۱��!��

Zoe: That’s a lot of what the podcast is about. Simple, delicious meals at a very affordable price that you can make at home.��

Kuma: Okay, so we’re pouring in the flour. One cup. Two cup. Now leave the measuring spoon in the flour container, ’cause we’re gonna need a little bit more later on when we roll out the dough.��

Zoe: Now, here’s a question for you. I have a friend who, despite trying her best to make like a bread on a bread show, has always been really experimental. So, she uses things like cake flour or mixing in whole wheat flour. What are all these other “flours” and why would we use “all purpose” rather than those flours in this specific biscuit. Because, her bread has been not great recently.��

Kuma: Oh, I wish you could see the look on my face right now. So, it has to do with the gluten and protein content within the flour itself. All purpose flour has a pretty solid baseline on the protein, in the flour itself. Meaning you can use it for a lot of different things. If you want cake flour; I believe it has less protein in it. That’s specifically for if you’re making cakes. There’s pastry flour as well. There’s bread flour, which I always go for when I’m making a loaf of bread. Because, I believe it has a higher protein content in it. Whole wheat flour has a very short shelf life, as well. But, it has a very particular use, and that’s if you’re making sourdough starter, actually.

Zoe: Oh, I see!

Kuma: Or if you wanna make whole wheat bread. It’s best to keep that refrigerated, or in the freezer before you use it and after you use it. But, I would say your friend should stop.��

Zoe: They should. Yeah, we’ve been trying to tell her to stop, but she doesn’t listen! 

Kuma: Well, that is her prerogative then. I would say, though, mixing cake flour and whole wheat flour is a very bad idea.��

Zoe: Yeah. As evidenced by her many failed attempts.��

Kuma: Okay, so now we’re adding in the baking powder. So, that’s two teaspoons.��

Zoe: Okay.

Kuma: There we go. Then we’re gonna be adding in the baking soda, which is half a teaspoon. Then the sugar, which is a teaspoon.��

Zoe: And these are all easy, simple ingredients that you can get and store at home.��

Kuma: Yep! Keep them in bulk.��

Zoe: Yeah! Just like a run to Costco or the chef store, you’re set.��

Kuma: Yep. Now we’re sieving those dry ingredients into our flour.

Zoe: Okay. Okay. Oh, yeah, getting those clumps out and removing the impurities. For all you listening, for context, Kuma’s been my guide, cooking role model, and teacher for a while and around here; I don’t really know anyone outside of professional bakers really that can rival Kuma’s bread making. Kuma’s bread baking skills are legendary around here! 

Kuma: You know, I still have a lot to learn.��

Zoe: See, that’s the mark of a true bread lover, though! Because, no matter what, there’s always more to learn.��

Kuma: Okay, so now we’re adding in the butter. So, slice up your butter. We need the seven tablespoons of cold butter. You slice it up, ’cause we’re gonna be working with one tablespoon at a time.��

Zoe: Working it into that mixture. ���첹��.��

Kuma: Yes. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty when it comes to baking, unless it’s a cake. You’re probably gonna be getting your hands dirty.��

Zoe: Now, here’s the thing, though. If you’ve never kneaded dough or you’ve never really gotten your hands in there. I tell you, the first time I kneaded dough for bread, it was magical. It felt almost like the dough was alive.��

Kuma: Yeah, that’s the point! So, drop a tablespoon of butter into your flour and you’re gonna be pinching it in between your fingertips, okay? So, you’re rubbing your fingertips together, and it’s gonna slowly break up.��

Zoe: Okay.

Kuma: You’re gonna do that until you’re all finished with the butter, so all seven tablespoons are in the dough itself.��

Zoe: Okay.

Kuma: You’ll find that the dough, in and of itself, kind of becomes a little bit more congealed together. Maybe a little bit darker in color by just a shade.��

Zoe: I see. I see.

Kuma: Tablespoon three.��

Zoe: Ooh, very nice. When you’re working with these mixtures, really use your eyes and use your sense of touch to work it in because even without vision, even without the sense of smell for me, even just going by touch; master those skills. Master feeling how the mixture should feel.

Kuma: Okay, tablespoon four. You want it to be cold butter. Refrigerated butter. Otherwise, it’s gonna melt too quickly.��

Zoe: Now, if it melts too quickly, what will that do to the biscuits? I can imagine- 

Kuma: It wouldn’t make it fluffy.��

Zoe: Ah!… That’s probably what happened to me then! I remember using room temperature butter that I got last time.��

Kuma: Yeah, don’t do that. In some recipes it is great to be using room temperature butter, or sometimes even melted butter. It really depends on the recipe that you’re following. Okay. Now, I will say, baking is more of a science than an art. Okay, tablespoon five of butter. So, you need to be very precise in baking. I would say follow the recipe for baking as closely as possible until you get a hang in the kitchen and you feel really confident in your skills.

Zoe: Now that makes a whole lot of sense. For me, the lesson especially has to be that even though things taste good together, that doesn’t always mean that the flavor profiles match. Like this soup here is so simple but so delicious. After I left home and I was on my own, didn’t know what to do, striking it out in the world for the first time really, this was actually the first meal that Kuma served to me and offered to me, after we had first met. So, I look at this meal with a lot of nostalgia. It was so warm, comforting, and just absolutely delicious! 

Kuma: Okay, now we’re on tablespoon six. Also, yes, this was the first meal I gave you, and I thought you were- 

Zoe: I think I cried! 

Kuma: Yeah, I thought you were a little bit crazy when you started crying!

Zoe: Listen! Good food is close to the heart! 

Kuma: Bear in mind, we both know we have very different upbringings when it comes to food and everything. But, for me this is peak childhood. This is poor kid meal that we have, and you don’t even need to use ham hocks. You can use stew meat- 

Zoe: Oh, yeah… 

Kuma: chuck roast, even. Well, stew meat is just chuck roast chopped up.��

Zoe: Weren’t we thinking about beef shank, or something else this time? 

Kuma: Yeah, beef shank, yeah! You can use beef shank, too! 

Zoe: What about like chicken breast or like maybe even chicken tenderloins or thighs?

Kuma: Yeah, as long as you chop it up. You can totally use the bones in there if you wanna add a little bit of extra flavor profile.��

Zoe: Some of the, like nutrition from the bones.��

Kuma: Turkey leg.��

Zoe: Oh, yeah, turkey leg! That’s true! 

Kuma: Giblets…

Zoe: You can slow cook the bones afterwards to make like a stock as well. If you’re vegetarian that’s still no problem at all. You can remove the meat, add in substitutes. Because, at the end of the day the only thing that was non-vegetarian was just the meat.��

Kuma: Okay, now I’ve added tablespoon seven. So, it’s a little bit more crumbly now. But, it’s still holding together.��

Zoe: Ah, I see. What does it mean if it’s crumbly, but starting to like fall apart? 

Kuma: Well, that’s the thing. With buttermilk biscuits that’s kind of how you want the dough to be, with the dry ingredients, before you add in the buttermilk.��

Zoe: Ah, gotcha! 

Kuma: If that makes sense?

Zoe: Yeah, ’cause I think another thing too was that I overworked my dough last time and I used the room temperature, thawed butter. So, I think that those were the two primary things contributing to why these turned out so bad!

Kuma: Yeah, I would say, again, just follow the recipe as closely as possible until you actually feel confident in what you’re doing.��

Zoe: That is true. To any new kneaders of dough out there, it is good to knead the dough well, but definitely don’t overwork it, otherwise you start to break down the gluten in the dough, and it turns out just yucky and flat.��

Kuma: �۱��!��

Zoe: So, work it well, but don’t work it too hard! 

Kuma: Exactly! Okay. So, now we have it all ready. Now we’re gonna add in the Buttermilk. Remember, I prepped this earlier. So, if you’re using fresh buttermilk, go ahead. We only need a three-quarters cup Buttermilk. Pour that into the dough. Well, the dry ingredients, that has the butter in it. Now, we’re gonna mix it all together into a soggy dough. This is where you’re getting your hands dirty!

Zoe: Does this recipe use eggs? 

Kuma: Nope! 

Zoe: Oh, wow. That’s a plus for all you people like me who are allergic to eggs out there! 

Kuma: Now, your hands are gonna get really dirty.��

Zoe: Yes, they are! 

Kuma: That’s perfectly okay. Don’t be afraid of it. I promise you it’s fine.��

Zoe: This is cooking. If your hands aren’t getting dirty, you’re doing it wrong! Now granted, a clean workstation and do your best to keep things tidy.��

Kuma: Could you get me a knife real quick? 

Zoe: Yeah, sure

Kuma: Scrape down my fingers.��

Zoe: Oh, okay. Let me get you- This one’s nice and dull.��

Kuma: No, it is not! 

Zoe: Not this one? ���첹��…��

Kuma: No! That’s a kitchen block knife, to scrape down my fingers?

Zoe: Oh, you’re scraping down your fingers? Oh, I’m sorry. Here, let me get you like this- 

Kuma: Whoa!

Zoe: Let me get you a spoon. Why would you ask for a knife?!

Kuma: ‘Cause the knife works just fine! Oh, my God, it almost had me! 

Zoe: Sorry, I thought you were scraping down something else. I didn’t realize that you were scraping down your fingers. Then I proceed to hand you like this foot-long kitchen knife! 

Kuma: Yeah. That’s a good way of hurting yourself in the kitchen, okay? Don’t do that.��

Zoe: Kitchen safety, everyone! Make sure that you’re careful with your utensils, and especially if you’re going to try this recipe. Make sure your slow cooker is somewhere where it’s safe. It can’t easily be exposed to water, it can’t cause any fires. ‘Cause safety first, everyone!

Kuma: Goodness, almost had me! 

Zoe: I did almost have you- …

Kuma: Chop off my fingers!

Zoe: I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! But, yeah, flavor profiles and good combinations! Even if it’s simple, as long as the flavor profiles really connect, it means that it’s gonna be absolutely delicious.��

Kuma: Do you wanna try my weird trick for the dough?

Zoe: No, not right now. I’m not encouraging students to… 

Kuma: Okay, okay, okay. Okay, fine! We’ll cut that part out! 

Zoe: Yeah, we cut that part out. Sorry, I don’t wanna encourage students to do so! 

Kuma: We can all be weird together! 

Zoe: Yeah, Kuma has this odd little trick the way that they test dough and- 

Kuma: It works out perfect! Okay?! Every time! 

Zoe: They taste the dough! 

Kuma: Okay, so now we’re pouring some flour onto our workbench.��

Zoe: Okay! 

Kuma: All-purpose flour. We are plopping the dough straight on there.��

Zoe: And, your workspace is just a counter, right? So, you’re just pouring it on the counter? 

Kuma: I put it on a cutting board.

Zoe: Ah, gotcha! Yeah, ’cause I know people do it on a counter, a clean cutting board. If you’re doing it on a surface, like your counter, then make sure you sanitize it well.��

Kuma: Yep. Okay, so now we’re gonna slowly be pressing the dough down. It’s still gonna be a bit soggy. Which is totally okay. So, think of it as like a half solid paste. We’re not gonna overwork it too much, but we still want it to be like a solid thing. So, that’s why I said keep the flour out. ‘Cause we still want this to hold its shape.

Zoe: Ham Hock and Green Soup plus Buttermilk Biscuits. So simple, but so delicious. Sometimes the simplest things are the best! It’s the reason why everyone loves their barbecue chicken pizza! I would tell y’all the kind of pizza I ordered yesterday, but Kuma can’t cover their ears and also I’m pretty sure they would hate me for telling y’all.

Kuma: Maybe we should not take you to any buffets or anything like that.��

Zoe: That’s probably for the best. Last time I went to a Chinese Buffet, I made this amazing smorgasbord of all sorts of vegetables, meats, and topped it all off with chocolate and tapioca puddings. Oh! And a banana with red sauce on top, with strawberry sauce. So, it was kind of like a meal, dessert all in one. It was like- 

Kuma: That sounds- 

Zoe: It was like awful benefits … 

Kuma: That sounds like a stomach ache waiting to happen.��

Zoe: No regrets! 

Kuma: Okay. Well, that’s you… I’m sure you had some regrets.��

Zoe: The only thing I regretted was not putting more of that delicious teriyaki chicken on there.

Kuma: Okay, so now the dough is starting to firm up after we’ve been kneading it on our floured surface. If you have some of the dough sticking to your surface you can easily just wipe it up with your fingers and knead it back into the rest of the dough.��

Zoe: We don’t wanna waste any of this lovely dough, do we?

Kuma: No, we do not! At this point, it’s still a very soft dough. You can easily mold it.��

Zoe: Is it tacky, or is it starting to become more of a just soft and buttery? I don’t know how best to describe it! 

Kuma: I would say “tacky”.��

Zoe: “Tacky”. More so tacky? 

Kuma: Like sticky tacky, right? 

Zoe: Yeah, yeah, yeah! 

Kuma: So, it can still hold its shape and it’s still moldable.��

Zoe: Yeah. All right, I got you! I got you! 

Kuma: Okay, so now we’re going to… 

Zoe: And see, I worked it past that point last time, so I definitely overworked it.

Kuma: Yeah, we don’t want that. We’re going to pat this into a rectangle on the board, or as much of a rectangle as you can get. You can use the heels of your hands.��

Zoe: Okay. Would you use a roller or like a- 

Kuma: Yeah, you can! 

Zoe: Yeah, you can even use your forearm as a roller, I guess you could also do it that way.

Kuma: Uh… I wouldn’t suggest it. But, yeah… 

Zoe: I guess you can get your forearm nice and dirty, so yeah! Just use your hand! 

Kuma: So, now we have a rectangle. You’re going to fold one end of the dough over into thirds. You’re gonna do three rolls of the dough.��

Zoe: Okay, three rolls.

Kuma: I am going to be taking my rolling pin. I’m gonna be adding a little bit of flour to it.��

Zoe: Just to make sure the dough doesn’t stick? 

Kuma: Yeah, just a tiny little bit. And, I’m gonna roll out the dough. While this is all happening, make sure your oven is preheated to 450 degrees.��

Zoe: Nice and hot, I see.��

Kuma: It is, yes! 

Zoe: And, remember, careful with hot ovens. You wanna make sure that there’s no things to dry in the oven, or you keep other materials in the oven, make sure they’re all out of there. We don’t want anything burning.��

Kuma: Yeah. We’ve rolled out our dough. Try and get it to, I would say, half an inch thick. Now you’re going to cut out the biscuits. Now, if you’re somebody who doesn’t have a lot of baking gadgets; you can use, if you have, small drinking cups that are two inches in “circumference”. Or, not “circumference”, “diameter”. Diameter, 

Zoe: Diameter.��

Kuma: You can easily add a little bit of flour to that rim and use it to punch out the biscuits.

Zoe: That’s actually brilliant! Why did I never think of that? 

Kuma: I have biscuit and cookie cutters. So, I’m gonna use that. And again, I’m gonna add flour to that.��

Zoe: Ooh, okay, okay.��

Kuma: Just a little bit. So, the oven is preheated. We’re cutting out our biscuits. There will definitely be leftover dough from the biscuits, which is okay. ‘Cause you can easily roll that back up and use it to make more biscuits.��

Zoe: That is very true. Just roll it up. And would you press it out with a rolling pin again?

Kuma: Yeah. I would do that, yeah.��

Zoe: Okay, yeah. ‘Cause, last time I didn’t even press it out with a rolling pin. I just squished it with my hands.

Kuma: Well, I mean, you can. But, there’s nothing quite like fresh biscuits.��

Zoe: There’s a reason that my biscuits came out awful, and I’m assuming your biscuits here are gonna turn out spectacular.��

Kuma: So, now we have our pan. We’re gonna spray down our pan a little bit.��

Zoe: Is this a muffin pan, or is this just a regular baking sheet?

Kuma: Just a regular baking sheet.��

Zoe: Oh, wow. So, cheap, easy to buy. If you keep it clean and put one of those- What are the wax things on the bottom called? 

Kuma: Oh, Silicone Baking Mats? 

Zoe: Yeah! Yeah, silicone baking mats. It makes the cleanup so easy, and it makes it so you don’t burn food to your baking sheets, and it really helps increase the longevity of them.

Kuma: Mm-hmm. But, spray it down with just a touch of oil. We don’t want the biscuits fully sticking. So, now we have those biscuits that are cut out and we’re gonna set them inside. So, in total, out of this dough, I have 10 biscuits. Out of this whole doughy dough. Those will expand too, so make sure they have room to expand.��

Zoe: 10 biscuits, that’s a lot of biscuits. But, they are delicious! My guide dog, Tucker, he’s a fun, goofy guy. But, he’s also kind of picky. He’s a very quiet dog, but the last time he barked was when Kuma’s focaccia bread was sitting on the counter and he saw it. I was standing nearby and he jumps like straight up into the air and goes, “Woof!” 

Kuma: �۱��.��

Zoe: These days, whenever I’m cooking or whenever I’m doing something in the kitchen, he does not come and check it out. He’s just like, “No, thanks. I’m all good.” But, if Kuma’s in the kitchen doing anything arbitrary in the hopes of getting like a taste of their bread or a treat from them, they will sit right outside the kitchen and just watch.

Kuma: Should we tell the public about why he does that? 

Zoe: I would consider it a learning opportunity. So, yes. Now, we have a special name for our the meals that I make. I won’t say directly, but just know that they’re terrible! So, if it’s like a “Zoe Meal”, that means a certain thing. Because, when I first moved in to my new place and Kuma was teaching me cuisine and lending me their cookware and everything and being just an outstanding person. I was basically a complete cooking newbie. I didn’t know anything about it. I was under the impression that when you combine a lot of things that you really enjoy together, then they taste better together. For instance- 

Kuma: Which is not true all the time.��

Zoe: That is not true. A “Zoe Meal” is when you do something like; “I love Junior Mints and I love Hot Pockets. Let me put Junior Mints between these two Hot Pockets, microwave it so the Hot Pockets cook and the Junior Mints melt then together, and then put more over it so it’s like a chocolate confection with Hot Pockets in the center!”. I can tell you from a friend’s experience, it’s not very good.

Kuma: No. No… Okay, so we’ve rolled out our dough. We’ve cut out the biscuits. We’ve placed them on the pan. You’re gonna take a little bit, maybe a tablespoon max, of buttermilk, put it in a cup, and you’re gonna take like a little silicon cooking brush and brush the top of the biscuits with it.

Zoe: And, those brushes are just like a couple bucks.��

Kuma: Yeah. They’re really easy to buy. So, we’ll use them for cooking and baking. A lot of people use them when making barbecue. ‘Cause they’ll sop the sauce all over the meat. Okay, so now our oven is preheated. Everything is ready. We’re gonna take the pan and put it in the oven. Because I bake frequently, my recipes tend to just say the timeframe of, “bake until this color.” I will say that’s not for everyone and it depends on the oven you use as well. So, I would say, typically, 10 to 15 minutes or lightly browned on the top.��

Zoe: Lightly browned. I’m sure if you’ve ever had like a really nice crispy, flaky biscuit then you’ll know what it looks like. You don’t want it to go dark brown. Then it’s starting to burn! 

Kuma: Yep.

Zoe: Ooh, that heat! 

Kuma: Okay, so now that’s in the oven. Now we can clean up! 

Zoe: So, while you’re cleaning up, Kuma, you’ve told me a lot about the Crockpot Cooking, the biscuits. But, since you’ve been such an inspiration and taught me so much, I’d like to ask you some questions about; let’s say your background and what a Crockpot means to you.��

Kuma: Can I pull up this bowl first? 

Zoe: �۱𲹳�!��

Kuma: Okay, let me do that.

Zoe: That’s what the cleaning’s all about! 

Kuma: Then we can circle back to your questions, because I just dropped something and it made a loud noise. Let me do this real quick, okay? Plus that “dough bowl” has to soak.��

Zoe: If you’re cleaning, you can always soak the bowls and whatnot. I’m really thankful that you agreed to come and be a guest on this episode as well. Because, next week I’m planning to invite a guest on who will talk about what it’s like cooking and eating not only without vision, but with diabetes as well! It’ll be really interesting because she’s going to likely give us a recipe for a dessert. I’ve really never actually thought about what dessert would look like or what even shopping would look like without vision for someone who has to watch their sugar and calorie intake. So, it’s gonna be really amazing! But, for this week, Kuma, thank you for helping me start this miniseries on Crock-Pot meals! How much did you get this Crock-Pot for? I’ve always wondered.��

Kuma: Oh, I bought it used, so I spent less than $10 on it from Goodwill.��

Zoe: That’s so nice. It could be a little bigger, but at the same time you can get one of these easily for 10/ 20 bucks from Goodwill. That’s amazing! 

Kuma: You can get bigger ones- So, this is a four-quart one. You can get a six-quart one. I think they sell ’em, at minimum, $30? 

Zoe: That’ll hold a lot of stuff. I know a friend who made Lamb Rogan Josh.��

Kuma: Ooh, yummy! 

Zoe: Yeah! It was really good in the slow cooker. ‘Cause they slow cooked the lamb neck until it was… Fall apart- You could have eaten it with a spoon, I tell you! 

Kuma: Give me the recipe! Please! I love a good lamb recipe! 

Zoe: Oh, goodness, yes! Just seasoning it to how you like. Tasting is always nice. So, can you tell me a little bit, while these buttermilk biscuits are slowly getting ready to be eaten, can you tell me a little bit about what Crock-Pots or like, you know, Crock-Pot cooking has meant to you growing up, and how they’ve influenced your life and how you see cooking?

Kuma: Kind of just what I said earlier about it being a good way for my family to make hot meals. I grew up with divorced family and a single parent taking care of me, working 12/14 hour shifts sometimes. So, him getting this all ready before he’s going to work, and I am his child who has to eat, and he has to eat too. It’s a good way of having a hot meal ready after a really long day.��

Zoe: That sounds so amazing. You were in the kitchen for not too long, and you prepped everything and just got it into the Crockpot, but it seemed so easy, and I was done. All I had to do was season. There was so little effort involved, but a big time investment. So, for you folks who are at home and you’re on the edge like, “I don’t know if I should.”, this can make such amazing meals. This can make a pot roast. You can make wonderful Indian Curry dishes. You can make this soup, other soups, things that need to pressure cook. When I tell you that really good slow-cooked pork comes out falling off the bone! 

Kuma: And that’s low heat- 

Zoe: That is low heat… 

Kuma: for a long time.��

Zoe: What was that place that we ordered from? Well, not ordered from. What was that place that we went to that was practically the best barbecue in Portland, I would even say! That’s a personal opinion, but still! 

Kuma: Reverend’s Barbecue.��

Zoe: That’s right, Reverend’s Barbecue. The pork ribs that he gave us, fell off the bone! It was so good!

Kuma: Where were we? 

Zoe: Yeah, you were talking about a hot meal, ’cause your dad would leave for work. You needed to eat, he needed to eat and this seems a lot healthier than taking even a Pasta Roni and just whipping it together; it seems so much easier than those frozen meals too, so much more nutritious.��

Kuma: It really just depends on who you are as a person. It’s totally up to you. I love a good soup. I love a good stew. Stew with a grain next to it. That’s the life for me.��

Zoe: Do you remember that time, that you and I went to one of my favorite childhood places back then, that I remember? I would come to Portland to play like table tennis, and sometimes afterwards, out of necessity, we would go shopping at this place called “Phu Bon” in Portland. Do you remember last time, Kuma, that you and I went to Phu Bon like about a month or so ago? 

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�.��

Zoe: What did I get from the deli again? It was like a really delicious Banh Mi, right? 

Kuma: Oh! I think you got a like- 

Zoe: Like a Barbecue Pork Banh Mi?

Kuma: Yeah, I think it was barbecue pork, or it was some Marinated Pork Banh Mi.

Zoe: It was a really good meal, and it was only five/ six bucks, I think? 

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�.��

Zoe: What did you get again? ‘Cause, I got so clapped by whatever you got! 

Kuma: So, folks, let’s bear in mind; Zoe cannot see anything! 

Zoe: Or smell. I have no sight and no smell- 

Kuma: Or smell. We were at the deli, and I looked down and I saw on their menu they had this thing called fish stew and it looked really good. Now, I would say maybe my definition of stew is a little bit different from theirs, which is perfectly fine. To each their own. No judgment. But, we’re talking fish steaks sliced straight through the vertebrae, skin still on that was simmering in a pot with, I think, onions, garlic and ginger was in there? 

Zoe: Yeah, yeah.��

Kuma: And it looked really good! Really, really good! It was only… I think I only paid- 

Zoe: It was like seven bucks.

Kuma: Yeah!

Zoe: And, you got a small and the thing was huge! 

Kuma: Yeah. And Zoe, our dear listeners; I think the terminology was, “batshit insane”. You called me “batshit insane” for getting that.��

Zoe: I didn’t call you “batshit insane”. I called you “bonkers off the rockers”.��

Kuma: Okay, well close enough to me! 

Zoe: “Bonkers off your rocker”, or something like that.��

Kuma: Close enough to me. Granted, I also knew she couldn’t see it, but it looked really good. It smelled really good.

Zoe: For context, the last time that I talked about fish stew consistently with Kuma, has been, “I’m gonna get it. I’m gonna get this British Fish Chowder with Curry Powder and Mashed Peas on the side!”, and Kuma was like, “If you bring that home into this house, you are disowned!”.

Kuma: Zoe.��

Zoe: Yeah? 

Kuma: Bless your stupid little heart.��

Zoe: Ah! No! 

Kuma: Bless your soul… 

Zoe: Thank you. So, when I heard that Kuma was getting fish stew from this hot deli, I was immediately like, “What? That sounds horrible!” Again, because I had no prior conception of what it was, or how they had made it. But, it was so different from what I expected. The container was a big cylinder, and I don’t think you even managed to finish it.��

Kuma: No. It was multiple meals.��

Zoe: Yeah, you steamed some rice and you got multiple meal. It was only seven bucks! What was the flavor like? 

Kuma: It’s been a month. I’m trying to remember! Oh, no! 

Zoe: No worries! 

Kuma: So, the fish fell right off the bone. That was slightly sweet. With that fishy taste. Then the aromatics. The ginger, the garlic, the onion. But, then also-

Zoe: There was like this earthiness to it too that was seamless.��

Kuma: Yeah, basil maybe? 

Zoe: I think it was basil. ‘Cause, I don’t know how they made it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had slow-cooked it in a crockpot. The flavors were spicy. They popped. They came together most beautifully, and that fish was so tender and so flavorful. It was so good! 

Kuma: You thought I was… 

Zoe: I thought you were absolutely insane for getting it.��

Kuma: Yes, and then I proved you wrong. Like almost always … 

Zoe: yeah, on the ride home, I was like thinking to myself, “Oh, I’m so happy I got a Banh Mi, and Kuma got some awful little fish stew thing! They’re gonna know pain when they get home!”. Then there I am like being like, “Oh, this is a good Banh Mi.”, and Kuma’s over there being like, “This is the best dang fish stew ever!”. I was like, “No… There’s no way. I must have some…”. Sort of evil villain-esque and then being like, “It can’t truly be that good.”. I tell you all folks listening at home, it genuinely was! I still need to find the recipe for that, because if I could slow-cook a fish stew like that! I would be over the moon!

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�!��

Zoe: How are the biscuits looking so far?

Kuma: They’re not quite golden yet, but they have risen, and the nice part about buttermilk biscuits with the butter and the buttermilk is they slightly separate just a little bit. So, we’ve probably got about 10 more minutes, just based off of this- 

Zoe: I suppose, yeah. That’s the art part about being fluid, knowing exactly when they’re done. ‘Cause if you have like smaller biscuits, they’re gonna cook faster than if you have big plonk biscuits.

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�.��

Zoe: So, yeah. It’s all about having your time, having your measurements, but cooking to your own tastes and your own desires. Like this soup, maybe somebody might find it not salty enough. Maybe someone might find it too savory. Maybe someone might want a little bit more pepper, or a little bit more lemon juice, or white wine vinegar. It’s all about being able to customize, turn it into what you enjoy, and what can fit your diet as well.��

Kuma: Mm-hmm.

Zoe: For me, growing up, having to play a lot of professional table tennis, it was very important that I get the right nutrients. So, it’s something I always like to think about. But, cooking wise, I’ve only ever thought about the eating aspect of it, never like combining different ingredients like carrots, corn, potatoes, beef, all the things you need like your starchiness, your meatiness, your vegetables, your greens.

Kuma: Mm, girl… 

Zoe: is it that good?

Kuma: You’re just like, “Flavor is everything,” and it’s like there’s so much more than flavor! 

Zoe: That’s true. Part of it is also how I grew up, just having a lot of very flavorless food and consistently bland food. So, going out into the world, trying some foods for the first time; I never had a “gyro” until I was 23, yes. A “gyro”? 

Kuma: “Gyro”.��

Zoe: Gu- gyro? 

Kuma: “Gyros”! 

Zoe: If anyone has any feedback on how that’s pronounced; I always heard that people called it, “gyro”.

Kuma: So, what I’m doing right now is I’m pulling out the bones.��

Zoe: Oh, okay. And if you take those bones, you could pressure cook those, right? 

Kuma: Yeah, you totally can. I would just say, because it’s filled with like spices and everything, maybe not.��

Zoe: Ah, that’s true, yeah- 

Kuma: That’s just me, personally.��

Zoe: Although, the way that my mother used to put it; she would pressure cook the bones until they created a stock and were so soft that, according to her, you could feed them to dogs. I wouldn’t personally do that, because pork bones they don’t splinter like chicken bones, but if they have like a hole in the center they can get caught in dog teeth, or if it’s too hard the dog can injure themselves. So, always be careful about what you feed your dogs.��

Kuma: �۱𲹳�.��

Zoe: But yeah, growing up, we had this pressure instant multi-cooker. But, it was interesting because we never really used it to its full potential. Mostly we just cooked like rice or porridge or, occasionally, some pork. But, I never learned about what Crockpots really could do here. This is such an amazing, hearty, and delicious soup. Pre knowing Kuma, I would’ve never known how to make it. So, in a way, I suppose this heals my trauma and it also makes me jealous of the Crockpot. He’s mine now! 

Kuma: You’ll get your own Crockpot! 

Zoe: I will! 

Kuma: Okay? That’s not the issue. What was I gonna say? 

Zoe: I don’t know. Will Santa bring me a Crockpot? 

Kuma: Santa’s bringing you Ugg Boots, because that’s what you asked for.��

Zoe: That is true. I do want a good pair of Ugg Boots.��

Kuma: Oh, I know! Fiber. We were talking about fiber. You had mentioned fiber. So I would say a lot of people don’t actually have a good fiber intake nowadays.��

Zoe: That is true, yeah.��

Kuma: Beans are the most common way of getting a good source of fiber. People don’t eat a lot of beans. Which is to each their own.��

Zoe: And I know that some people are like, “Oh, the calories or the carbs”, or whatever. But, if you’re worried about that you can also go with like some good celery. Raw celery is really good.��

Kuma: I would say, too, it helps prevent colon cancer. It’s not just good for your body, but beans provide a very good fiber content and also really good protein content. So, if you’re a vegetarian and you don’t eat meat, beans are a good way of getting it; or vegan, too.��

Zoe: That is true, it’s really good to get lots of good fiber. Doesn’t spinach have a lot of good fiber too? 

Kuma: “Iron”.��

Zoe: Oh, “Iron”! Gotcha! Spinach has always just been a real favorite of mine, ’cause it’s got flavor, it’s got depth, and you can eat it raw on sandwiches. You can have it in a salad, in soups- Oh, it’s got so many wonderful uses!

Kuma: We’re gonna pull out the biscuits now.��

Zoe: Okay. How do they look and smell? 

Kuma: That’s a hot oven. Nice and golden brown! 

Zoe: I don’t actually hear anything. Is that normal? 

Kuma: Huh? 

Zoe: I don’t hear anything. So, I suppose I won’t be able to tell by, if you can hear me by listening to them whether they’re done, but… Oh, yeah, if you tap on them, they’ve got this nice sorum hole, but also you can tell that it’s a nice thick biscuit sound to them. They’re not sizzling or anything. So, our buttermilk biscuits are done and the soup’s ready. Let’s go ahead and plate it up and see how everything tastes together! Thank you. That’s such a nice warm bowl of soup, and with a buttermilk biscuit too. Oh, divine! 

Kuma: So, the biscuit is in there. I like having a grain that sops up the soup- 

Zoe: sops up that soup, that lovely broth! 

Kuma: Mm-hmm. So, why don’t you try it? 

Zoe: Okay! 

Kuma: There’s the biscuit.��

Zoe: Along with some broth, yes.

Kuma: Hope it’s not too hot for you.

Zoe: The beans have integrity. They’re not mashed. They’re really good. The soup has flavor, and the biscuit has that nice doughiness. It’s so delicious! It’s like when you just pour cereal into the milk and it’s still crispy, but it’s still in the milk! It’s kind of like that. It’s so good. Oh, I’m crying a little bit.

Kuma: If you can’t tell, this is a common occurrence in our household where Zoe cries over food.��

Zoe: Yes. But, yeah, what are your opinions on the meal? Give it a taste. I can’t wait! 

Kuma: I think it’s delicious! I don’t know. I cooked it! 

Zoe: Truly, but yeah, I need the chef’s seal of approval! 

Kuma: Oh, goodness. Okay. Okay… oh, my God, so good! All this childhood, right there.��

Zoe: The biscuit is just so full of flavor, so amazing. If y’all can’t tell, one of my main roles is to exasperate Kuma!

Kuma: She has succeeded this time.��

Zoe: Yeah. But, at the end of the day, when you taste it and you hear nothing; usually, for me, that’s a good sound. Because, that means that they’re so enjoying the flavor that they have nothing to say.��

Kuma: Can I go enjoy my meal now? 

Zoe: All right. Well- 

Kuma: I’m hungry, okay?! 

Zoe: Yeah, we’ve been cooking for a long while, and thank you for listening, everybody! So, with that, thank you again, Kuma, for guest hosting this new miniseries on Crock-Pot Meals. Tucker and I are signing off, and Kuma’s gonna say bye to you in a second as well. Thanks for listening, everybody! 

Kuma: Bye-bye! Enjoy your meals! 

Zoe: Yay!

Outro

Asher: Thank you for listening to Let’s Talk!, ������������’s broadcast about disability culture. Find more information and resources concerning this episode and others at pcc.edu/dca. This episode was produced by the Let’s Talk! Podcast Collective as a collaborative effort between students, the Accessible Education and Disability Resource Department, and the ������������ Multimedia Department. We air new episodes on our , our Spotify channel, , and .

Episode Transcript

Transcript edited by Hannah “Asher” Sham

Show Intro and Disclaimer

Kylo: You’re listening to Let’s Talk!. Let’s Talk! Is a digital space for students at ������������ experiencing disabilities to share their perspectives, ideas, and worldviews in an inclusive and accessible environment. The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of ������������, ������������ Foundation, or our community partners. We broadcast on our home website, , on Spotify, on , and

Meet the Hosts

Zoe: Hi, everyone! Welcome back to “A Slice of Life”. This is episode two of our podcast. I’m your host, Zoe, we’ve got our co-host Tucker as well, and today our guest host is going to be someone I consider my adoptive older sibling. Someone who’s had to educate me practically about most of the things that I know now about safety and flavor combinations, and their name is Kuma. Hi, Kuma!

Kuma: Hello, everyone!

Mediterranean Pasta Overview

Zoe: So, today we’re going to be making a dish that’s definitely been something that embodies the idea of simple, yet tasty, and something that will sustain you with lots of nutrients and nutrition. Kuma, could you explain a little bit about this recipe? 

Kuma: Yeah, this is called a one pot Mediterranean pasta dish. A lot of stuff you can easily find anywhere. Like the title says, it only uses one pot and it’s very, very straightforward. We’re gonna do a chopped red onion, three garlic cloves minced, or as much garlic as you would like, a cup and a half of vegetable stock, dried oregano, so about a teaspoon or two, 1.5 ounces, so that’s about one can, of diced tomatoes, eight ounces uncooked spaghetti noodles, a whole bunch of spinach; basically, spinach wilts very quickly, so you can use a whole bag of spinach for it. One cup cooked chickpeas, so that’s about one can of chickpeas that you can buy in the canned section of the grocery store, a cup and a half feta cheese, Kalamata Olives, and then salt and pepper, of course.

Zoe: And those are, like, some wonderful canned goods that you can use. Because, I know that you soaked the beans and then you cooked them earlier. But, we can definitely use canned ones as well. You said 1.5 ounces of tomatoes? And that was- 

Kuma: 14.5.��

Zoe: Ah, 14.5! 

Kuma: Wow, I’m sorry.��

Zoe: No sweat at all. So, what are we starting with? How do we start everything off now that we’ve got our ingredients? 

Prep Tips and Cut Gloves

Kuma: Well, first, let’s make sure you have all your ingredients in front of you, right? So, all the ingredients, the red onion, the garlic, the stock, the oregano, the spaghetti noodles, the diced tomatoes, the spinach, the chickpeas, the feta, the Kalamata olives. That’s gonna take a little while, right? You’re gonna take your onion and your garlic and prep it all. I’m just peeling off the skin of the onion. I’m pretty sure there’s a fancy word for “prepping”. But, I’m just saying, “it’s prepping”.

Zoe: Well, at the end of the day, simple is easier. “Prepping”, whatever other words to call it, and I’ve always had issues “prepping”. It’s been tough, and learning has been tough, especially without any sense of sight or smell. Originally when I started learning how to prep food, ’cause I was so bad at knife cuts, I would always wear these things called cut gloves. These are gloves that are really helpful, really nice for protecting your hands from accidentally cutting or injuring yourself. They’re pretty cheap, too. You can pick them up from Kohl’s, Fred Meyer’s, pretty easily. So, if you’re afraid of the knives or any of the danger, go ahead and get yourself some cut gloves. Those are great.��

Kuma: Okay, so I’m just … I peeled the onion. And, I cut it in half. What I did with one onion, one of those halves, was I cut it in half again, horizontally towards the stem twice, and then I made some vertical knife cuts down, so we’re gonna have more of an even chop on the onion.

Zoe: See, I’ve always just cut mine in a grid pattern, and I know that would bring some larger chunks, some smaller chunks. So, I suppose that your method can make things a whole lot more even, right? 

Kuma: Yes. I’m not saying I am a prodigy at kitchen knife cuts, when it comes to chopping. But, this is something I learned working in restaurants.

Zoe: Oh, absolutely. This is something that you’ve tried to drill into me as well. Because, as you know, my knife cuts, while passable, are not the finest.��

Knife Cuts and Flavor

Kuma: Well, if you think about it, to have knife cuts like this means that every bite is gonna be even in what is being served. So, say you cut half the onion larger than the other half of the onion. Then you’re gonna have larger chunks of onion and smaller slices of onion, and when you mix that all together and serve it, someone is gonna get more onion in their dish than another person. So, it won’t be a consistent flavor profile across the board.

Zoe: And, not only that, but I think you’ve told me before, right? Doesn’t the size of stuff and the way that it’s cut, like ginger, or if you julienne, long, thin strips like of a carrot or something, doesn’t that also change the flavor profile? 

Kuma: I believe so. It gives it a more interesting texture and body across the board, as well. Let’s see. How can I explain it? ‘

Zoe: Cause, I’ve noticed when we use like matchstick-length pieces of ginger, the ginger becomes much more fragrant and robust, when I’m frying it for ginger pork, for instance.��

Kuma: Yeah. So, say we wanted big slices of onion, yellow onion, specifically, for a sandwich. Or, we were making Onion Rings, right? 

Zoe: Oh, yeah, yeah.��

Kuma: So, the name “Onion Ring” is very synonymous to how you wanna cut the onion. You want a full slice of onion so you can batter it and then deep-fry it. But, you wouldn’t do that with small cuts of onion.��

Zoe: Especially ’cause, with those small cuts, you don’t wanna always go high heat all the time because you don’t wanna be like… I would illustrate it with a point from when I was first starting to learn how to cook. So, as part of this podcast, we love to tell inspiring stories and stories not only about learning, but growth too. So, when I was young, I had the best idea in the world. “Look at this. Frozen chicken breasts. More heat.”. The specific phrase I said to myself was, “twice the heat will make it cook twice as fast.”.��

Kuma: Yes. Which is not true.��

Zoe: I can tell you- yes, from firsthand experience, my chicken breast came out still frozen in the center but practically burnt on the outside.

Kuma: Yep. Okay, so we’ve chopped our onion and our garlic.��

Stovetop Setup and Oils

Kuma: What we’re gonna do on the stove is you’re gonna take a large stock pot, not a medium or a small one, a large one. Zoe, don’t forget, noodles expand when they’re cooked.��

Zoe: They do! They do! I cannot forget that from my countless amount of times to be like, “Oh, not too many noodles.” All of a sudden, my pot is overflowing with noodles.��

Kuma: Exactly. So, we’re gonna heat this over medium heat.��

Zoe: Uh-huh.��

Kuma: And you’re gonna add oil. So, I personally just use Extra Virgin Olive Oil. For those of you that don’t know, actually, there’s different types of cooking oil, but also within that even more subcategories. So, say you have a Light Virgin Olive Oil, that’s used for salad dressings and sometimes marinades. It really depends on the marinade. But, if we’re talking Extra Virgin Olive Oil, that’s the one you wanna be cooking with. It has a higher smoking point than Light Virgin Olive Oil. Light Virgin Olive Oil, again, is for dressings and marinades, and it has a very low burning point.

Zoe: Ah, so it would burn if you tried to use it.

Kuma: Yes. It’s not the one you wanna use to stir-fry.��

Zoe: Gotcha. The virgin part of olive oil actually means that they don’t strain it too much, or they don’t put the oil through a strainer. So, it’s still got those little bits and pieces of olive in there. It’s really nice. That’s something with Light Virgin Olive Oil too, is that if you try to stir-fry or cook at a very high temperature, not only the oil will start to smoke, but those little bits of olive in there will start to burn, charred, and black, and you don’t want that happening. So, Extra Virgin Olive Oil have a higher smoking point, so it’s better to cook with, huh? 

Kuma: �۱𲹳�.��

Zoe: I’ve always just used vegetable oil, and I have noticed that sometimes a little drizzle of sesame oil is good, but I never cook with straight sesame oil.��

Kuma: No, that one again is also more for marinades or topping.

Zoe: Yeah. Usually, when I’m cooking, I just drizzle a little bit for flavor. But, I always use the vegetable oil, ’cause it’s just so reliable.��

Kuma: Okay. So, let’s get back to the recipe.��

Zoe: ���첹��.��

Kuma: We have the pan heated and a way you can tell, if you really want to, is just put your hand over the pot, and you can feel the heat coming up from it. You can also sprinkle water on it. But, again, let’s remember oil and water don’t mix by themselves.��

Zoe: That is correct.��

Kuma: Oil will jump up. So, Zoe, don’t do that… ‘Cause we don’t want you to hurt yourself. ���첹��.��

Sautéing and Heat Lessons

Kuma: So, the oil is heated up. I have the onion and garlic ready to go and we’re gonna add that to the pot, and we’re gonna cook it until it’s brown and translucent.

Zoe: Ooh, okay. Okay. And when it, when you’re cooking the onions and getting that color on them, that browning- 

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�…��

Zoe: what’s that process called again? 

Kuma: �����ܳ�é���Բ�?��

Zoe: Oh, no. Where the onion becomes brown. It’s, uh, caramelization.��

Kuma: Caramelization. Thank you.��

Zoe: Yeah, yeah, yeah.��

Kuma: But, that’s over low heat for long periods of time. That’s not what we’re doing right now. We’re just browning. So, it’s sauteing. Okay, you ready? 

Zoe: Oh, absolutely! Let’s hit the pan. And, is that sizzle, the sound you want when it hits the pan? 

Kuma: �۱��.��

Zoe: Nice. I remember this one time when I was learning and I was like, “Okay, I got my onions here.” Went to the pan and just like, “Plop.”. You were like, ” Is the stove on?” And I was like, “Yeah, it’s on. I just put the onions in.”. And, you were just like, “Why isn’t it sizzling?” And I’m like, “Oh, I just turned the stove on!”. That’s not great, is it? 

Kuma: No, you want the pan to be preheated before.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: But, here’s the thing, too. If you have it too hot for too long, you’re instantly gonna burn everything.��

Zoe: Especially, ’cause the oil will start to smoke and whatnot too. You don’t want that charred oil, ’cause if you’ve ever gone out to and had a meal from outside and you bite into it and it’s deep-fried, or something. But, then this bitter flavor just permeates through your mouth and nostrils. That’s because some places will actually reuse their frying oil. When that happens that char, that sort of burnt-ness, will permeate throughout the oil. And because it keeps getting used over and over again, it’ll just flavor the oil bitterly. The same thing will happen if you have your pan too hot for too long and start to burn your oil. Your food’s gonna taste bitter, so you don’t want that to happen.

Kuma: Yeah. So, our onions and garlic is kind of starting to sweat a little bit.��

Zoe: Uh-huh.��

Kuma: Which is really nice because onions already contain a lot of liquid, same with garlic, same with a whole bunch of other vegetables.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: So, it’s just kinda extracting the- 

Zoe: You’re releasing the flavor and the moisture.

Kuma: Yeah, the l- the liquid, the water. �۱𲹳�.��

Zoe: And that’s why onions are just so nice. They have a wonderful, complementary, flavor. When you let them sweat, let them just release that flavor. Oh! It flavors the rest of your dish beautifully! 

Kuma: It does! So, we’re gonna let this cook for- Usually, this takes about five minutes.

Zoe: ���첹��.��

Kuma: But, watch over it for sure. We don’t wanna leave something cooking by itself in case something goes wrong. Zoe is a “prodigy” of walking away when things are cooking, and then comes back surprised when things are overflowing.��

Zoe: You know what? I meant for that spaghetti to have a crust on the bottom, okay?

Kuma: Are you sure you did?! 

Zoe: Pretty sure I did! It made it as if the spaghetti was its own bowl! 

Kuma: That’s not- appetizing… 

Zoe: I meant to do that. Okay?! 

Kuma: Sure you did. Sure you did.

Budget Cooking Resources

Zoe: But, all these things I learn and these stories, they’re really wonderful. Where did you learn about this one pot dish from? 

Kuma: I think I got it specifically from this website called “Budget Bytes”. For those of you that don’t know, I grew up very poor and a lot of my cooking was kinda just “farmer’s meals”. But, when I started living by myself, at 18; I really had to deep dive into cooking just for myself, as a person, to sustain myself. Budget Bytes is a great website where it shows you budget-friendly meals. So, say you have a budget of $10. It will show you that. It encourages you to use canned ingredients, dry ingredients, don’t skimp on the frozen ingredients either. They’re called ” IQF”, which stands for “individually quick frozen”, and that’s actually a really good way of getting nutrients from fruits and vegetables that are still almost in the prime, ripening stage. You still get a lot of those nutrients that the human body needs to thrive, if you can’t afford to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.

Zoe: Yeah. “IQF”, I always wondered what that meant. I knew it was good, but that’s wonderful to hear. ‘ Cause, with those IQF mixed vegetable bags, sometimes I’m like, “Oh, I don’t know what to use this for.”. Like a can of sweet corn. It’s hard to tell sometimes and be like, “Huh, what can I use all this sweet corn in?”.

Kuma: Oh, you can use it for a lot of things.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: You can use it in stir-fries and stuff like that, soups as well, stews- Zoe really loves making shepherd’s pie, and I really encourage her to use the corn for that.��

Zoe: It’s an easy dish that’s tasty, but very rewarding. It’s one of the first dishes I actually learned.

Kuma: She’s gotten a lot better at that recipe too! 

Zoe: I’ve gotten a lot better, in general. I remember when making salsa for me was taking a can of that sweet corn, mixing it with raw onions and a bowl of tomato soup, like just straight up tomato soup, and calling it salsa! 

Kuma: Did you really do that? 

Zoe: Yeah, a couple times. I was like, “You want some salsa?” And you’re like, “That was horrifying.” 

Kuma: Oh, I don’t remember this! Maybe I blocked it out for a reason! 

Zoe: You might have blocked it out from memory! 

Kuma: Okay.! Okay… So, our onions and our garlic is starting to brown and turn translucent. Oh, lord, I can’t believe you actually did that…

Zoe: I mean, some of the stories you’ll hear on this podcast, you might not believe your ears. But, it all comes from a place of learning. I left home when I was 21. 22 actually, is when I left home and struck out on my own. I had such a sheltered life that I didn’t know how to do, basically, anything. I didn’t know how to cook. Very little experience even cleaning. So, my first forays into cooking were definitely disasters! But, I didn’t let that discourage me. That’s the thing! I really enjoyed it and I didn’t let it discourage me, even when the bottom fell off of my pepper shaker and I was just shaking whole peppercorns into my mashed potatoes. It gave it a nice crunch! Don’t get discouraged, because these resources, like “Budget Bytes”, that provide these recipes, these wonderfully budget-friendly meals and help you use up ingredients that you wouldn’t know how to use otherwise, they’re just fantastic. Puma, isn’t this meal vegetarian? Does Budget Bytes- 

Kuma: It does, yeah.��

Zoe: Oh, nice! 

Kuma: I believe they also do vegan meals as well, and they might even have a way for you to specifically search by an ingredient. So, some websites call it an ingredient index. Say you have an abundance of cooked chicken in a can. Now, cooked chicken in a can sounds gross! But, it’s also a great way of getting protein, and what you can actually do with that very easily is make chicken salad sandwich.��

Zoe: Yeah, yeah, yeah! 

Kuma: Kind of like egg salad sandwich, but chicken salad sandwich with mayo and ketchup… Not ketchup. I mean, if you wanna add ketchup, you can, I guess.

Zoe: A little.��

Kuma: Sriracha, onion, celery, and you serve that on bread with lettuce.��

Zoe: I’ve done that before. I think you’ve served it to me before, and it was really good. I was like, “This was canned chicken? Never had it before, but it sounds scary.” And then I had it, and it was good. And, I think you also thinned out the mayo just a little bit with a touch of lemon juice too, right?

Kuma: Yeah!

Zoe: Yeah, that was good!

Kuma: ���첹��.��

Build the One Pot Sauce

Kuma: So, our onions and our garlic is brown.

Zoe: It sounds different!

Kuma: Yeah! Because, it’s cooked down a little bit so that protein and sugar content is slightly broken down. So, the cellular structure of the onions and garlic has been broken down just a little bit more. What we’re gonna do is now we’re gonna add our stock, our diced tomatoes, and our oregano. So, again, our stock is 1.5 cup stock, a 14.5-ounce can of diced tomatoes, and then about a teaspoon, or two, of oregano. Okay? 

Zoe: Now, hold on a second. I thought we were out of vegetable stock.��

Kuma: We’re gonna make our own.

Zoe: Oh, really? 

Kuma: So, there’s this great thing called “Bouillon”.��

Zoe: Uh-huh.��

Kuma: And, you can actually get it in cubes. But, I’m specifically using the brand, “Better Than Bouillon”, and it’s a seasoned vegetable base.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: I really like it. It’s listed as organic, but it’s made with a lot of ingredients you would randomly find in the kitchen, too. So, it’s a very easy, quick stock you can use- 

Zoe: I’ve had that before. Yeah, and it tastes good! There are other flavors, too, right? Yeah. Like garlic, chicken, and beef.��

Kuma: �۱��.��

Zoe: Wonderful. That bouillon always tastes really nice to me.��

Kuma: All right. So, now we’re gonna add the water.��

Zoe: Uh-huh. Whoo! 

Kuma: Which that’s the sound we want! 

Zoe: Yes! That “whoosh!”, right? 

Kuma: Yes. And then I’m gonna do a spoonful of the bouillon into it.��

Zoe: Okay! Nice and flavorful! 

Kuma: We don’t need a whole lot.��

Zoe: It is very, very concentrated. So, if this is your first time having Bouillon, Bouillon comes in as kind of like a powdery, like cube or, right now, “Better Than Bouillon”, it’s more of like a paste. Like a nice moist paste. If you just take like a fork and just dip the tines in and then give it a little taste, you’ll taste how concentrated it is. So, we only really need like a spoonful.��

Kuma: Mm-hmm. And so now we’re also going to add our 14.5 ounces of diced tomato.

Zoe: ���첹��.��

Kuma: Okay, ready? 

Zoe: �۱𲹳�!��

Kuma: Now, with cans, in Oregon, there’s a very specific “recycling” for them. So, to recycle these cans you need to; one, wash them out and then also get rid of the lids because those can actually cause harm.��

Zoe: Oh, okay! 

Kuma: So, we can do that after.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: And then we’re gonna add in our diced oregano.

Zoe: Yeah. Now, for some cans too that are in like preservative water or like a brine, you can get rid of those and just give it a quick rinse to get rid of that. These tomatoes are actually in like a tomato juice, right? 

Kuma: Yeah, they’re in their own juice.��

Zoe: Which is good. Yeah, so we’re using the juice from the can.

Kuma: Okay, so we’re mixing all the ingredients in the pot together first. For me, it looks very dark in color and I can see very clearly the onion, garlic, tomatoes because it’s chopped tomatoes, or diced tomatoes in a can, and the seasoning. But, the bouillon is what makes it darker. So, if you’re using a different stock base, it’s gonna be looking a little bit different. But, that’s perfectly okay.

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Add Pasta and Boil

Kuma: So, now what we’re going to do is we’re gonna be adding the noodles… 

Zoe: okay.��

Kuma: And bring this all to a boil.

Zoe: Now, we haven’t pre-cooked our noodles and- 

Kuma: No, you want raw noodles for th- or not raw noodles … dry noodles! 

Zoe: So, raw noodles for this dish particularly, right? 

Kuma: �۱��!��

Zoe: Okie doke! 

Kuma: And, again, we’re doing eight ounces of spaghetti noodles.��

Zoe: Nice.��

Kuma: Now, for this one, it’s better to use spaghetti noodles because they’re slightly thicker than Angel Hair, and Linguini Noodles are a little bit too thick. Now, Zoe- 

Zoe: Yeah?

Kuma: Did you know noodle types actually have a purpose when it comes to cooking? 

Zoe: I did know that, yes! 

Kuma: Okay! So, noodles like these are really good at clinging to the sauce- 

Zoe: Yes!

Kuma: Specifically. Which is really what we want for this.��

Zoe: Different forms of pasta, it’s practically an art form. The different things that they do, the way that they interact with the cooking process. Even something like ravioli, which might not seem like, “Oh, just pop open a can of Chef Boyardee’s Ravioli and pour it in, microwave it, and you got a meal in minutes.”. It’s not just as simple as that, because if you wanna make really good ravioli; there are even processes where you cook it in butter, and have this wonderful golden brown surface. As it starts to get there, just add a little bit of cold butter, and just keep it at that temperature, keep cooking it. Like when you were teaching me and I was like, “Oh, isn’t this how we make risotto?”, and you were like, “Nope! That’s not even close to how you make risotto.”.��

Kuma: Do you wanna tell them that story, or should I?

Zoe: Go for it! 

Kuma: So, for those of you that don’t live with Zoe, we’ve explained she has a very interesting cooking history. I would like to put in perspective that most of her cooking knowledge comes from watching British Chefs.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: Now, I’m not saying all British Chefs are bad. Let’s support Gordon Ramsay, ’cause he’s a wonderful man and a wonderful chef.

Zoe: Yeah! Some British cooking is good.��

Kuma: Well, that’s because they’re not making British food.��

Zoe: That’s true… 

Kuma: They’re making French Cuisine, Spanish, Italian, and all these other recipes from around the world! There’s a reason why a lot of British cooking is not Michelin Star Rated.

Zoe: I suppose so. But, at the same time, there are some great things about British cooking. For those of you out there that love your English Breakfasts, I respect it very deeply! I just find it difficult to have beans in the morning! 

Kuma: Not only that, but it’s Barbecue Beans, right? Baked Barbecue Beans? 

Zoe: It’s some sort of baked beans and then there’s like a toast… I remember the first time that we were reading about it; for me, it was that- I think the Black Sausage? 

Kuma: Yeah, Black Pudding.��

Zoe: Freaked me out a little bit. For you, it was kinda everything else.

Kuma: Yeah, I will admit that. I will fully admit that.��

Zoe: Yeah, but here’s the thing about British Cooking; it’s sort of like a Melting Pot. Similar to how people have thought about America throughout history. A melting pot of many different things and religions and different cultures. So, for the cooking that I, personally, learned was; I picked up a habit of mixing together a lot of things I probably shouldn’t. For instance, salmon pate over toasted bagels. I ended up learning that what I learned as “pate” was not actually “pate”, but some other unholy combination of cooked salmon cream cheese, spring onions, and Tabasco sauce with Horseradish? 

Kuma: �۱��.��

Zoe: So, to an extent, if you really enjoy it, you can have that on toasted bagels for breakfast. But, for me, it was kind of like, ” Oh? These things can go together? I better put my favorite combinations together.”. One thing you are gonna learn about food is that things don’t always go together. One night, I was like, “Oh, I’m so hungry.” I made some fortified vegetable soup. “You know what this could use? A little bit of tomato.”. So, add some tomato. “Ah, you know what? This could use a bit of sour, like some lemon juice.”. Add a little lemon juice. “Ooh, a little too strong! Now I better add some potatoes to help thin out the flavor.”, plus, I love potatoes. “Ooh, this needs a little bit more of an actual consistency or an actual solid. Let me put some stale bread in there so I can treat it like a German bread soup. Reuse that bread for something ’cause it’s going stale. I can put it in soup!”. What turned out was one of the most unholy combinations of food I’ve ever created, and one that I unfortunately ended up having to toss away. But- 

Kuma: Um, you’re missing one very important detail, Zoe…

Zoe: No, I don’t wanna share it! 

Kuma: Yes, we’re gonna share it! But, also, as you can hear, our pot is boiling. So, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna turn this to medium low, we’re gonna cover it, and this will cook for about five to ten minutes. The goal is to make a light marinara sauce.

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kitchen Horror Stories

Kuma: Now, the thing with Zoe’s cooking, she likes to give her guide dog, Tucker, the leftovers.��

Zoe: If they’re safe, yes.��

Kuma: Well, as we’ve come to discuss this dish– her weird, nightmare fuel dish– she called Tucker out and held the pot down to him, and what did he do? 

Zoe: I was at the other end of the hallway, crouching down with the pot out, and he walked out of my room, looked at me, stood stock still, for like three seconds, and turned around and walked back into my room and jumped on the bed!

Kuma: So, what does that tell us, Zoe? 

Zoe: He smelled it, he did not like what he smelled. Probably didn’t like what he saw either! 

Kuma: ���油���ٱ���!��

Zoe: ������…��

Kuma: So, we don’t trust Zoe in the kitchen.��

Zoe: What? But, I’m a great chef! 

Kuma: No, you’re not.��

Zoe: I remember this one time I ended up gluing together… Again, we all love all sorts of ways of cooking. But, the way I learned to cook was a lot of mixtures of stuff. I was hungry at home one night, and I was like, “Oh, I could just combine two of my favorite things.”. So, I took like a bowl of, Junior Mints, and I melted them down, then I took like a bowl of cheese and I melted it down, and then I glued together two Hot Pockets with the Junior Mints, and I covered it with the cheese and had it. It was fantastic. Nothing else needs to be said about it. Kuma’s kind of giving me this shocked vibe. I can’t see, but…

Kuma: No comment!

Zoe: It’s all about the learning process. These days, now that I’ve learned so much more about flavor profiles, combinations of things, I really do feel like I can do my original mentor’s, their vision, justice. The ideas of combining together things that actually make sense. Someone thought that mashed potatoes and shepherd’s pie filling would go great together! And, it did. So, it’s all about finding those right combinations. While I may have made mistakes in the past, I think I’m a whole lot better now.��

Kuma: You’ve gotten better, that’s for sure.

Food and Frugal Upbringing

Zoe: But, tell me, how has food influenced your life? Especially learning how to eat cheap and how has that influenced your ideas about nutrition as well? 

Kuma: Well, growing up in a farming family; the mentality was use what you have. I was also raised by a single father. So, a lot of that was “Hamburger Helper Meals”. Poor American single father and Hamburger Helper meals with a mixed vegetable mix thrown in there… Try saying that five times fast.��

Zoe: Mixed vegetable mix, yes.��

Kuma: A frozen vegetable mix, thrown into that, and then a sort of protein added to it. It was kinda like Zoe’s meals, and that’s perfectly okay. But, what my dad very much taught me was he let me name those meals. So, a lot of time, I called it, “Glop Number 27”.��

Zoe: Any particular reason? 

Kuma: No. We numbered it very differently every time. But, it was very much just a way to get me involved in the kitchen.

Zoe: ���첹��.��

Kuma: As time went on, he got a little bit more money and we got our own chickens. Now, my father grew up on the farm, as well, but I grew up on a backyard farm. So, what that meant was we had a garden that we worked with. We grew a lot of our own fruits and vegetables that we actually ate. We had chickens. Now, the great thing about chickens is they are also kind of scavengers. So, we could give them a lot of the leftovers, the trash part that we couldn’t eat, like actual roots that were growing in the ground from onions; that little hairy part, nodule at the bottom. Any leftovers that went bad we could give to them. They were very happy, healthy chickens. But, we also would eat those chickens when they got old. So, they would lay eggs. We would use those. You can use eggs for a lot of things. During the summer, spring and summer, chickens lay a lot of eggs, so what can you do? 

Egg Brining Traditions

Kuma: You can actually do a brine to preserve the eggs long term.��

Zoe: ��𲹱�����?��

Kuma: Yes. I can’t remember the exact ratio off the top of my head, but it’s a very, very, long-standing thing people have done for a very long time.��

Zoe: I think in China they call the specific blend that they use and the thing that they call the eggs at the end are 1,000-year-old eggs.

Kuma: �۱𲹳�.��

Food as Love Language

Kuma: Also coming from a farming family, specifically my family, a lot of it is in the South.��

Zoe: ���첹��.��

Kuma: In the South, in particular, food is seen as a love language. Specifically, somebody comes into your home, you feed them. It’s part of our thing, it’s what we do, and it’s because a lot of us; poor as fuck. So, what’s something that we can share with people that we have? Food.��

Zoe: Yeah, and our love of food.��

Kuma: Exactly. But, then also if you think about it in history, in American history in particular, multi-generational families. That was a huge thing, so we would always have food. Now we’re less so multi-generational families, which is perfectly fine. That’s okay. But, then you have the Great Depression too, where people didn’t have a lot to eat.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: It was seen, I believe, for a lot of people as a very nice thing to just give somebody else food when they came to the house.��

Zoe: I remember reading Grapes of Wrath in high school.��

Kuma: You know, I never read that.

Zoe: Oh, it’s a very interesting read, but- 

Kuma: ���첹��…��

Zoe: Yeah, for any of you listening that are a little too young to read it or maybe don’t remember it anymore; it’s about a family just doing their best and trying to survive in the Great Depression. But, what are you doing right now with the ingredients?

Prepping Feta Cheese

Kuma: Right now I am taking out the feta cheese.��

Zoe: ���dz�.��

Kuma: I’m gonna be cutting it up into pieces.��

Zoe: And, no fancy knife cuts, right? Just nice small pieces? 

Kuma: Yeah, it just wants to be kinda like crumbled vibes. We’re not mashing it.

Zoe: �Ҵdzٳ���.��

Kuma: Feta’s a very crumbly cheese in general. It’s seen as a softer cheese.��

Zoe: Yeah, yeah, yeah.��

Kuma: That’s perfectly okay too.��

Zoe: Right now we’ve got a block of cheese, so if you had like a block of cheese, you could just pull out like a box grater or like just a grater- 

Kuma: ����…��

Zoe: You can’t use that for these? ��𲹱�����?��

Kuma: It would not go through the grooves of it.��

Zoe: ����.��

Kuma: So, you can use a knife to chop it or your fingers.��

Zoe: I’ve always used like a grater to shred Parmesan, mozzarella, like- 

Kuma: So, Parmesan’s a very soft cheese as well. Well, not Parmesan- Mozzarella. Parmesan is a harder cheese, so you can actually shred it, but Mozzarella is an incredibly soft cheese.��

Zoe: �Ҵdzٳ���.��

Kuma: So, you wanna use a knife on that one.��

Zoe: Gotcha, yeah. It’s just more efficient and the cheese comes out better, is that right? 

Kuma: �۱��.��

Zoe: Gotcha. Hey, you learn something new each day. It’s always nice to have a little bit of shredded cheese. ‘Cause you can freeze it too, right? 

Kuma: Yes, you can.��

Zoe: You and I have just taken a bag out of the freezer and thawed it a little bit, and then just whenever we wanna use it, like a lasagna soup, our homemade enchiladas, or anything like that, just a little bit of shredded cheese. Oh, perfection! Or grilled cheese even.��

Checking the Pot

Kuma: Okay, about 10 minutes have elapsed.��

Zoe: Right.��

Kuma: So, what we’re going to do is we’re gonna take off that lid and we’re gonna look at our pot.��

Zoe: How does it look and how does it smell? 

Kuma: Ooh! It looks very nice! My noodles actually stuck to the bottom a little bit. So, you know what that means is I’m gonna add a little bit more water.��

Zoe: Water or oil? 

Kuma: Water.��

Zoe: Okay. ‘Cause I remember that if we’re cooking spaghetti, the spaghetti noodles start sticking to each other while they’re boiling, just a touch of oil will really help them be their own little singular noodles and they’ll not stick to each other. So, in this pot, in particular, when they’re cooking down with other ingredients just a touch of cold water will prevent them from sticking to the bottom? 

Kuma: It helps actually with this process called, “deglazing”. It just means I also had the pan on a little bit too high as well. Which is perfectly okay. Again, I make mistakes in the kitchen too. I’m not saying everyone’s perfect in the kitchen.��

Zoe: Oh, everyone makes mistakes and it’s all about the learning process. It’s about learning how to cook, eating happier, healthier, and being prouder of yourself.

Kuma: But, we did get that light marinara sauce we were going for.��

Zoe: Ooh, very nice, especially with those diced tomatoes.��

Kuma: �۱��.��

Zoe: Oh, delicious! You could do things with fresh tomatoes or fresh ingredients, but here we’re just using canned, like a can of diced tomatoes.��

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�.��

Zoe: And it’s working out wonderfully, huh?

Kuma: Yes, it is! 

Zoe: Yeah, so if you’ve got canned ingredients that you’re not using or that you don’t how to know how to use; I hope this podcast as a whole gives you ideas.��

Kuma: Okay. Now what we’re gonna do is you can heat the pan to low if your noodles didn’t stick to the bottom. I, personally, just turned off the pan.��

Spinach and Toppings

Kuma: I’m gonna add the spinach.��

Zoe: Ooh, okay. And again, spinach cooks really fast, right? How long do you think you’ll have the spinach in there? 

Kuma: Oh, it’ll only be a few minutes before it’s fully wilted.��

Zoe: Oh, okay! 

Kuma: You don’t even need to do a whole lot. I’m just gonna put the lid back on it. Let that sit.

Zoe: What do you think you’re going to garnish the soup with? ‘Cause I know a lot of people like cilantro or sour cream on their soups, but this doesn’t seem like the soup for that.��

Kuma: Well, it’s not really a soup. It’s just a pasta dish.��

Zoe: Yeah, a pasta dish. Sorry.��

Kuma: So, we’re gonna top with that feta cheese.

Zoe: Uh-huh.

Kuma: And then we’re also going to top with Kalamata olives.��

Zoe: ���dz�.��

Kuma: Now, Kalamata Olives are olives that are brined. So, they have a very particular salty taste. They’re very delicious. If you’re like me, who loves a good cheese olive mix, I love to go to the deli at the store and peruse their brined olive selection and then their fancy cheese selection.��

Zoe: What was that fancy cheese you got at- What was it? Grocery Outlet? And you got this amazing cheese one time.��

Kuma: Well, it was at Grocery Outlet, and it was a “French Cheese”. It was a very soft dessert cheese, with lemon in it.��

Zoe: Was there espresso, lavender, and lemon? 

Kuma: Oh, there was another one too. Yeah, that one was an espresso lavender goat cheese roll.

Zoe: Oh, my gosh.��

Kuma: So, it was lavender that was finely chopped and mixed into the cheese, and then the roll of goat cheese was rolled in espresso. So, it had a very strong flavor, but it was very, very nice as well.��

Zoe: I didn’t know cheese could relax me. This here is our nice feta cheese with our Kalamata Olives. What do you think? Would a little bit of fresh mint help it any? 

Kuma: I think a little bit of fresh mint would go a long way in this actually.��

Zoe: Ooh, lovely. What did we just buy yesterday? I think we went to this lovely shopping center in Portland on 82nd, called “Fubonn”, they had absolutely wonderful ingredients.��

Kuma: It did.��

Zoe: Granted, I didn’t know that eating frog legs was a thing, or snails. But, hey, now I know! 

Kuma: Well, we can do some adventure cooking later in the future if you want.��

Zoe: True.

Kuma: As you know, frog legs are considered somewhat of a delicacy, depending on the region and who you’re talking to.��

Zoe: Was the meat “bouncy”? I’m sorry I said that! 

Kuma: Zoe.��

Zoe: I’m so sorry.��

Kuma: Zoe, Zoe, Zoe.

Zoe: It doesn’t sound like a soup or a stew right now. It really does sound like you’re mixing up and stirring the pasta, getting all those ingredients combined, all those flavors.��

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�.��

Chickpeas and Olives

Kuma: So, now what I’m going to do is I’m going to add in the chickpeas.��

Zoe: ���첹��.��

Kuma: I believe I said about 14.5 ounces. So, like one can.

Zoe: About that much and they’re already cooked, so they’re softer, right? 

Kuma: �۱��.��

Zoe: So, we don’t wanna really mix too hard or we’ll mash the peas.��

Kuma: Oh, that’s perfectly okay too, actually.��

Zoe: Yeah. I remember this one time I had poured in actual sweet peas. I was mixing it and I was like, “Oh, no, it needs more time to cook,”. So, I was like, stir, stir, stir, stir! I stir very vigorously sometimes. Then I was like, “Where are my peas? There are no peas in here. Oh, no, they just mashed into the food.” 

Kuma: Did you really do that? 

Zoe: Yeah, with the shepherd’s pie that one time. Do you remember? 

Kuma: No, I don’t! 

Zoe: Yeah! At least the corn didn’t dissolve.��

Kuma: Oh, goodness! So, we got fresh mint. What I’m doing is I’m just tearing off just a tiny little bit of the leaves and shredding it with my fingers. But, also, here’s the thing about fresh mint; it’s a very subtle flavor, so it’s really good in fresh salads. But, I’m using it more as just a small topping right now.

Zoe: And fresh mint doesn’t taste like mint toothpaste or anything.��

Kuma: No, it does not. It’s very, very good to make tea with.��

Zoe: ���dz�.��

Kuma: So, that’s why I got it, was I wanted to use it for tea. But, you can use mint in a lot of things too; as a light refresher to it all. Now, what I’m gonna do is, this is nice and all mixed up. I’m going to add the Kalamata Olives to it.

Zoe: Okay. These are Kalamata olives and the ones that we have are already in their own brine. Is that right? 

Kuma: Mm-hmm. And, they’re pitted. So, Olive Pits, the seeds, they’re stone fruit. So, they’re very, very solid. Kinda like how apricots, and nectarines, and plums have that hard pit.

Zoe: Or, like a cherry or avocado? 

Kuma: Yeah. So, olives are like that too. You don’t need a whole lot of Kalamata Olives too. Let’s be real, Kalamata olives have a very strong salty taste, kinda like capers. So, you need to be very mindful about how many you add.��

Zoe: I assume that they’re a nice snack too, right?

Kuma: Oh, yes!

Zoe: ‘Cause like a snack- 

Kuma: If you like things like that, like I do, yes! 

Zoe: Like that, plus some cheese. Maybe wrap it up in like a tortilla, or something.��

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�.��

Zoe: Very easy, right? ‘Cause a snack is small but it should be bursting with flavor! 

Kuma: Don’t add that to a tortilla… 

Zoe: Don’t add that to a tortilla?

Kuma: No.

Zoe: That’s my mind thinking of combinations that I think would be good in theory. But, I’m not sure how it would could be good IRL.��

Kuma: Okay. So, I’ve added some feta. Gonna mix it around.

Zoe: What about flatbread? 

Kuma: Yeah, you could do flatbread.��

Zoe: Yeah, flatbread with olive, tomato, and cheese. Oh, that sounds good. Or, like a pita pocket- 

Kuma: That sounds more like a girl dinner, I’ll be honest.��

Zoe: Ooh, that sounds like a great snack. Stick it together with a toothpick, and then you gently grill it, or put it on the pan for a little bit.

Kuma: ���첹��.��

Serving and First Taste

Kuma: Now we’re gonna serve it! 

Zoe: Let us serve! 

Kuma: Can you get a bowl, please? 

Zoe: Oh, absolutely! I’ll get two bowls! One for you and one for me! 

Kuma: Did you break that bowl? 

Zoe: No! No! I didn’t drop a bowl! 

Kuma: Okay-

Zoe: I dropped something else! Nothing appears to be broken.��

Kuma: Okay, so you will need tongs for this.��

Zoe: ���첹��.��

Kuma: The classic, double-check the tongs still work.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�!��

Kuma: You click it! I mean, tongs always work unless they don’t. But, it feels like the classic move. Okay. So, those tomatoes should add a little bit of acidity to it, which should really help bring out a lot of that flavor in it as well.��

Zoe: Lovely.��

Kuma: Let me get you some garbanzos and, uh- 

Zoe: I can’t wait to taste it! Because, this seems so simple and we made it in about 45 minutes-

Kuma: it takes less than that.

Zoe: Yeah, ’cause we’ve been talking so much and I’ve been distracting you and trying my best to help. But, dropping things along the way! But, it’s so simple and the ingredients are so easy to get, and it’s vegetarian too. I’m so excited! Aren’t those lovely tongs from IKEA? 

Kuma: Uh… ����.��

Zoe: I know that, that time we went to IKEA we got lots of stuff. I got potato slicer from there, actually! But, they do have lots of pretty affordable cooking equipment that’s of decent quality as well, right?

Kuma: �۱��.��

Zoe: Yeah. So, if you’re not sure where to start you can grab a decent pan and some knives and spoons, tongs, or whatnot. In reality, like any metal with an edge, you can use as a knife. You just do your best with what you’ve got in the kitchen. That’s what it’s all about. So, we’ll sit down to eat. I’d just like to ask you a few more questions…

Kuma: Well, would you like to try the first bite? 

Zoe: Oh, absolutely! It’s still nice and piping hot! So, yeah, I’d just like to ask you a few questions while we enjoy our meal.��

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�.��

Zoe: How does it smell? 

Kuma: Tomatoey, so a bit of that acidity with the Kalamata Olives. Does it need more salt or pepper? Plus, this is also a great meal to pack for lunch.��

Zoe: Yeah. I don’t think it needs more salt and pepper. Maybe just a touch of pepper. But, it almost tastes like a spaghetti, but really leveled up! 

Kuma: Mm-hmm.

Zoe: ‘Cause of the vegetables. ‘Cause we basically made our own sauce. That spinach too, that wonderful, fresh flavor of the spinach, the saltiness of the olives to balance everything out. This is my first time doing this dish and tasting it. I would absolutely do it again! 

Cooking and Mental Health

Zoe: So, Kuma, I did wanna ask; because, I know that you and I have both had a lot of struggles with mental health in our life as well. For you, if you’re okay sharing, how does cooking help you overcome those struggles in life? ‘Cause, for me, I consider it very much. Mental health is extremely important. Depression and CPTSD are really crippling things that can basically be really disabling as well. How does cooking help you with those things in your life, or how has your life shaped around those ideas? Or how do you overcome those disabilities? 

Kuma: Okay. Well, cooking is a skill that really has been, for humanity, taught through family to child, or loved one to child. Sometimes it’s born out of necessity of the kid not knowing how to cook themselves, they don’t have anyone to teach them, and they just try it by themselves. So, cooking is about survival, realistically, but there’s also an art involved in it too, that allows a lot of creativity, as well. Zoe loves doing creativity with her cooking, and sometimes it works. Most of the time it does not. For me, some of that creativity comes down to a little bit of Oregon classics; which is popcorn with a little bit of oil and nutritional yeast?

Zoe: It’s good! 

Kuma: It’s an Oregon classic! I will admit that through and through. Other times too, I will do like a sunny side up egg over leftover rice with soy sauce over it.��

Zoe: That sounds good.��

Kuma: And that’s just like a really quick, easy breakfast I can make. Part of cooking with mental health stuff is, it’s how I show people I love them. Because, I’m still poor as a person. We’re in this economy where if you’re not making like over $100,000, you are still one paycheck away from losing everything. Part of the things I can do to show the people I do love them is making food for them, and I love making bread. I love going up to a friend and be like, “I made you a loaf of bread. Will you try it for me and tell you what you think?”. Because, sometimes it’ll be a new bread recipe, and they love it because they know I care for them, they know I can give this to them, and it’s made with a lot of love in it. But, if I also wanna get into the nitty-gritty about the psychology and the therapeutic part of it, there’s this thing called, “Somatic Therapy”. Which is about, for a lot of people who have trauma, a good way of processing feelings if we haven’t been taught how to express feelings, or stuff like that, is learning how to move. It helps move those feelings through our body. For me, personally, sometimes I will just get on the phone with a best friend and chop onions for an hour. The onions will make me cry and that’ll help if I need to cry. But, also, it’s just a nice way of I’m doing something else and it’s very nice to just get my body moving. Or, I’ll go to the gym and stuff like that. But, cooking too is, in and of itself, Somatic Therapy.

Zoe: That’s true and, not only that, those onions that you chop you can freeze for later, right? 

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�.��

Zoe: Yeah. Those vegetables, if you have too many carrots or any other things, you can always just freeze them for later, ’cause sometimes we’re just too tired. For me, sometimes, a really, really deep slump will hit me and I’m like, “Ugh, I just don’t have the energy to chop like onions, or tomatoes, carrots.”. I can just pull out those frozen ingredients and use them, right? 

Kuma: Yep! Granted, if you want something with a very strong crunch in it, you might wanna go with something fresh instead of frozen. But, that’s perfectly fine too. There’s no judgment in cooking whatsoever. Unless you’re Zoe making one of her, “Disaster Meals”.��

Zoe: “Disaster Meals” is a very light way of putting it. Remember that time, I was like, ” Oh, I’ve never had Vienna sausages before!”, and, without washing the brine off, put them into the rice in a rice cooker, and boiled it all together? I was like, “Where are my sausages? Oh, they dissolved into the rice.” That’s about right.��

Kuma: Yes. But, I will also say, folks, please don’t use canned spinach. This is just a personal tip, but don’t use canned spinach. Unless that’s all you can get, no judgment. But, I’m just saying it has a very briny flavor that doesn’t wash away.

Zoe: I mean, we’d all like to be Popeye with his magnificent muscles on a deep level. But, canned spinach, it dissolves if you try to cook with it. ‘Cause, as you saw here with our fresh spinach, it wilted really fast. The spinach is nice and soft in this bowl, and it has wonderful flavor. But, that brine, the preservatives in those canned spinach, it’ll just dissolve pretty much. I found it very hard to use canned spinach and canned collard greens personally.��

Kuma: Yeah, you can use frozen or fresh.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�.��

Kuma: But, I’m just saying, canned spinach is not- 

Zoe: It’s not the way to go?

Kuma: No, it’s not. But, that’s okay. To each their own.��

Zoe: To each their own, for sure. Does this feel like a meal that you could actually serve to someone and show them as a love language that you care? 

Kuma: Yeah! So, here’s the thing about this meal, is it’s really quick and easy. If you really want low effort too and if you’re just not feeling it, or you’re sick, and somebody you care about is also sick and you live together; this is a really good recipe to make for that too. ‘Cause, it has a lot of those nutrients that the human body needs. We have a lot of iron and fiber from the chickpeas. Hey, guess what? People need fiber.��

Zoe: Yes, they do.��

Kuma: Eating beans is actually very good for you. Then you have those tomatoes, onion, garlic- you have all these wonderful ingredients in there if you just use the right proportions to mix it all together. I would serve this to somebody. Pretty sure I have served this to a family member, and they were very happy with it.

Zoe: You have now! 

Kuma: Well, a different family member. You know what I mean! 

Zoe: I know what you mean. But, yeah. Beans, they do have good fiber, so I will never stop trying to get you to eat an English breakfast.��

Kuma: I would rather die.��

Zoe: Ah, sadness. Truly.��

Kuma: But, yes.��

Quick Meals Wisdom

Zoe: The last question I have for you here; you said quick and easy, but a big theme on our podcast is just because it’s quick and easy doesn’t mean that it’s bad or that simple equates to bad. When was the first time, or what’s the first experience that you can think of that really taught you that, even when making something with your hands, having it be quick and easy doesn’t make it bad at all? It can make it sometimes the most fabulous. Because, for me, while you’re thinking about that question; we’ve come back to a few times, but the shepherd’s pie was the third recipe I learned how to make and considering cooking bacon in the oven as a recipe.��

Kuma: Well, do you remember how I make mac and cheese?

Zoe: For context, I’ve made mac and cheese before. Like with Kraft Mac and Cheese, and it always turns out horrid.��

Kuma: Well, you make mac and cheese in a very particular way. The way I’m talking about, for me, is even with Kraft Mac and Cheese, that boxed mac and cheese, I love that. I grew up on that. So, what I do is I’ll cook the pasta. I make the sauce, but I also throw in onion and garlic powder and a ton of pepper into it, too. Maybe I’ll add like a little bit of some spicy kick to that sauce, like sriracha or something, to make it just a touch spicy.��

Zoe: Or, cayenne.��

Kuma: So, for me, that’s still good. Even if some people see it as poor person’s Mac and Cheese. Because, cheese can be expensive.��

Zoe: �۱𲹳�!��

Kuma: Cheese can be expensive! It’s still a good way of turning something into its own. And, side note, you can also make Baked Mac and Cheese with that Kraft Mac and Cheese.��

Zoe: Oh! First time you served me that, I was in food heaven.

Kuma: Yes, you were very happy.

Zoe: ‘Cause, that’s one thing is you’ll find your own particular niche, your own particular touch for things. When I make my mac and cheese, to preface, I’ve made like actual mac and cheese with like actual cheese once and I used a lot of cheese. So, I get where Kuma’s coming from, but it was good. My mac and cheese were like those like boxed things. I never add anything. It’s just like the water, the sauce packet, the macaroni. Maybe, I’ll add like some onion in there. One time I added potato; did not work. And, one time I added bacon; that did help. But, it was just nowhere near as good as your mac and cheese, Kuma. It feels so simple and easy, but there’s still so much room to improve and so much depth that you can really get to when cooking. So, I’m just really, really impressed. I am so thankful that you’ve come to share your recipe with us today. I’m really honored that you would share your experience, your growth, your lessons about learning how to cook, and overcome adversity as well. Do you have any final words for our viewers, aside from the fact that this dish is positively, mind-blowingly, amazingly good? 

Kuma: �۱𲹳�!��

Budget Food Resources

Kuma: So, if you’re broke, people tend to think of food pantries as the really destitute go to. That is true. The food pantry is for people who can’t afford to buy food.

Zoe: There’s a lot of built-in stigma in that.��

Kuma: But, it’s also perfectly okay to go to food pantries. I survived off of food pantries in college. My college had a food pantry. I went to that on a weekly basis. I was on a first name basis with the people who ran it. They were very kind! They had a lot of fresh vegetables from the local college garden too. Then I also went to Catholic Community Centers. Now, I’m not Catholic, but that was where I could, back home, find food pantries outside of my college; through the Catholic Community Services.��

Zoe: No matter who we are, people are willing to help, right? 

Kuma: Yes. I can find a lot of stuff there, and you can find a lot of stuff at food pantries that we don’t always think of. Also The Dollar Tree too; The Dollar Tree has a wonderful selection of spices. But, we’re also in Oregon, so we have WinCo, and WinCo has a lot of great spices too in their bulk section. Now, bulk shopping is a great way to buy things.��

Zoe: Yeah, Soy Sauce, Garam Masala for my curries.

Kuma: You can also buy pounds and pounds of rice or beans or flour or seasonings for very low, in the bulk section. That’s the purpose of the bulk section. You can also get dried fruit. I have a jar of dried raisins, so I can add that into pancakes or cereal in the morning as well, or into granola bars.

Zoe: Dried mushrooms? 

Kuma: Yeah, dried mushrooms too. �۱𲹳�.��

Zoe: Yeah. ‘Cause we got some, and you can just rehydrate them and use them in your cooking too. It’s great. There are so many wonderful things, like beans that you can cook and freeze for later, or vegetables, even rice that you can cook, put into the fridge. If you need to refresh it, just run it under a little bit of cold water.��

Kuma: �ѳ�-�󳾳�!��

Zoe: Stale bread even! One trick that I learned was you can actually pour a little bit of water over it, and then put it in the oven and bake it. Now you do want to tent it in foil, but you wanna bake it, and it will rehydrate the bread and bring it back to life. Same with tortilla chips. If you’ve got some stale tortilla chips, if you bake them it dehydrates them and gets them nice and crispy again. Just on a low heat. We don’t wanna actually cook them on a high heat.��

Kuma: Yeah. All right.��

Signing Off Credits

Kuma: Well, how about we sign off and go eat our lovely dinner? 

Zoe: Sounds like a plan. I’ve been nibbling at it, ’cause I just can’t resist. So, that being said, Kuma, go ahead and sign off.��

Kuma: Good night, everybody. I hope you have a glorious time cooking and enjoy yourselves!

Zoe: �ұ��ǰ����dzܲ�!��

Outro

Asher: Thank you for listening to Let’s Talk!. ������������’s broadcast about disability culture. Find more information and resources concerning this episode and others at pcc.edu/dca. This episode was produced by the Let’s Talk! Podcast Collective as a collaborative effort between students, the Accessible Education and Disability Resource Department, and the ������������ Multimedia Department. We air new episodes on our , our Spotify channel, , and .��

Episode Transcript

Transcript edited by Hannah “Asher” Sham

Show and Host Introduction

Kylo: You are listening to Let’s Talk!. Let’s Talk!, is a digital space for students at ������������ experiencing disabilities to share their perspectives, ideas, and worldviews in an inclusive and accessible environment. The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of ������������, ������������ Foundation, or our community partners. We broadcast on our home website, , on Spotify, on , and

 [Intro Music]

Zoe Liu: Hi, everyone! Welcome to “A Slice of Life”, the podcast where we go over the ������������ student experience. Talk about what life is like in Portland, discuss amazing life stories that people have, and tie it all back into our culinary journeys. Our individual journeys of learning how to cook, learning amazing recipes that you can make from simple ingredients right at home, and explaining how those recipes and the culinary journeys that we’ve all been on inspire us to achieve more, to be greater, overcome challenges, and chase our dreams! I’m your host, Zoe, and I’ve got my little co-host friend, Tucker, with me. He’s my guide dog and I’ll be taking you on our introductory episode. So, sit back, relax, grab a cup of tea, coffee, and let’s go right into A Slice of Life. The first thing you might be wondering is, ooh, what is the name of this podcast? It’s about the mission of the podcast and it’s a hilarious pun too on just the culinary journey. Ultimately, the goal of this podcast, the mission of this podcast, is to interview people and to have them share their amazing and unique life stories. It’s to inspire you. It’s to be about the student experience at ������������ because, while it may seem daunting, ultimately there are so many amazing things that you could do right here on campus and there are so many amazing recipes that you could do with the simple ingredients that you get here on campus. It’s easy to watch some cooking show and be like, “Ooh, this is fun!”, switch the brain off. But, it’s sometimes difficult; “when do I make this recipe at home?”, “Where do I get these amazing ingredients?”, “Where do I get , or a ?”, “How do I make this ?”… But, cooking doesn’t have to be super fancy. It doesn’t have to be like restaurant level quality. It just has to be simple. Something that you’re able to be proud of, something that you can take and be happy about sharing with friends, family, and loved ones. So, we’ve talked about the goals of the podcast, why the podcast is named the way that it is, and the fact that we’ll have guest hosts from episode to episode on the podcast. Today, it’s just me and i’d like to give you a little bit of an introduction to me, Zoe. Who I am, what my story is like, and how everything ties together back into the podcast. So, let’s get to know each other a little bit. I wanna give a quick note that it’s going to be a common thing on the podcast that the stories that we share aren’t always gonna be all sunshine and rainbows. Difficulties in life exist because like Tom Hanks and Forrest Gump said, “life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”. Sure, there’s some sweet parts to it. There’s a lot of really tasty stuff. But, there’s also the bitter, the things that we don’t enjoy nearly as much, the things that might shock us or that might make us just a little bit uncomfortable. So, I am going to give a trigger warning before any more difficult parts that are coming up. But, ultimately, even though there are going to be challenges and there are gonna be difficult parts of the story to hear, there are also going to be amazing resolutions to these problems. That’s what this podcast is all about. Life stories, overcoming challenges, chasing dreams, no matter how far away they seem, and inspiring you, the viewer, to believe in yourself. Just as the people around me have inspired me to believe in myself. So like I mentioned, my name’s Zoe and I was born in good old New Jersey, but I came to Oregon when I was two. So, I’ve really been raised in Oregon. I do consider Oregon my home and you can’t call yourself a true Oregonian without loving a little bit of that rain! So, from an early age, I was always really advanced; I had a really strong focus on academics. In elementary school, way back in even the third grade, I was starting to take more advanced courses, taking classes that were meant for older kids, and in fifth grade I ended up taking some university courses. That summer, it was Chinese, Algebra II, and then throughout middle school I was also jumping way ahead. Taking university courses, high school courses, even calculus. By the time I was in the eighth grade, I ended up taking the GED, getting my honors GED, and applying to Oregon State University where I was accepted into the Honors college program. I ended up deciding to follow my father’s footsteps and deciding to major in electrical engineering and it really was so wonderful, something I truly enjoyed. Now, at the same time that all this was going on, I was also training as a professional table tennis athlete. This is something I look back on super fondly, because I would spend hours playing with my dad, my brother, training with my coach, training with amazing people. I am actually several time Oregon State champion, and when I was around 14/15, I was nationally ranked. I believe I placed number eight in the under 15 category at the nationals, and I did pretty well in the under 21 category as well. Now as all this was going on, as I entered high school, as I was training in table tennis, doing academics and studying hard to get my bachelor’s when I was 18, I was actually having a pretty difficult home life. With my father, it was difficult because he was never at home a lot of the time, he had a lot of business elsewhere, and, though he really loved us, we just never really got to see him all that much. And, my mother was an extremely negative force of my life. There was a lot of physical abuse, emotional abuse, a lot of trauma associated with that, and it really just kept building up and up and up. Even though I had just gotten a teaching assistant position and I was really enjoying it. I just felt like there was nothing I could do. I just couldn’t go on anymore… So, 18 days before my 18th birthday, pure coincidence, I ended up making an attempt on my own life and it ended up leaving me without my vision and without my sense of smell. It was really difficult for a while, because I didn’t know what to do. Everything was pain, everything was different. There was so much regret. But, when I got back home, eventually, I started taking classes from this wonderful organization called the , which I will reference from time to time. The OCB, if you will. There are such wonderful people there, such wonderful teachers and students. Everyone has an amazing story. And I was really starting to get a hang of how to learn to live without vision. But, ultimately my mother pulled me out of those courses and pushed me back into academics a little bit too soon, I ultimately believed. But, even though it was difficult going back to campus without any vision and having to relearn how to live life, it was still a wonderful experience because there were so many people that were genuinely wanting to help me, genuinely concerned. And that’s kind of where the seed of the podcast was planted. The student experience and especially on ������������ campus, if you’re new, can be sometimes really scary. You don’t know what to do. You don’t know what to think. And. It’s hard to take that first step. For me, having lost my vision and my sense of smell, I did not step into the kitchen to cook for years. I would say, maybe half a decade even. But, with my focus on academics, it was really a lot and having to relearn life. I kind of started to just dissociate a little bit, breakdown. In 2022, at one year after getting my guide dog, Tucker, I ended up leaving home and striking out on my very own. Sure I was scared, but I ended up meeting my two current roommates who I come to think of as my adoptive siblings, my family. They’re ultimately the ones that have really inspired me to push myself forward, to do things that I might not feel as comfortable with. Because, even though I’m disabled. It’s not a disability, if you think of it merely as an inconvenience. Now, no journey is without mistakes and if you’re listening to this podcast, it’s likely that you’re living in Portland or that you’re a student of ������������ campus, and a lot of us have a rice cooker at home! For me, the first time that I started using , I was like, “I kind of know how to cook rice, but what about a Rice-a-roni? Yay!”. So, I cooked a cheddar and broccoli Rice-a-roni in my rice cooker and, having poured milk and butter in there, it ended up overflowing, going everywhere, and kind of ruining the rice cooker. Now, yes, that was a mistake. But, ultimately the way that I think about mistakes are that; mistakes are an opportunity to learn. They don’t become folly unless you consistently make those mistakes over and over again, without attempting to change. For me, that was very easy! Milk boils and really becomes frothy, and it does not go in the rice cooker! Now, even though I had started using things like the rice cooker and other appliances; for me, personally, I thought it was still impossible for me to use something like the stove without my sense of sight or smell. ‘Cause, I had thought for a long while, how will I know if something’s burning? How will I know if things are okay? I remember at the OCB when I was taking a meal preparation course; I was marinating mushrooms to make these vegetarian burgers, like these big portobello mushrooms, and I ended up like using a balsamic glaze that my teacher had gave me instead of a balsamic vinegar. The glaze had a lot of sugar in it, so when they hit the cast iron pan that I was using, it started to smoke and I didn’t even notice. But, it’s again, an opportunity to learn. It’s an opportunity to take a little bit of life and use that to your advantage. Since then I have not set off the fire alarm! I properly ventilate I use the stove fan. I make sure to use proper cooking times. I’ve gotten to this point where even if I’m cooking something on the stove, I can feel something with my spatula and tell about how done it is; whether it’s a meat or vegetable or like even a grain. So, yeah, these have been wonderful life experiences that I’m really excited to share with you on this podcast, A Slice of Life. If you’re able to take something away from this podcast, feel inspired by the stories that you hear, and maybe even find a favorite recipe. Next episode, that I’ll be doing very soon, is going to be focusing on going to a food pantry on campus because they’re fairly easy to find and, if you sign up, you can get a food box. I’ll go there in person, talk to some of the people waiting, maybe some of the people that are working there, do some quick interviews and bring home a food box, because I myself also volunteer at a food pantry and I know how important food security is to so many people. Using the ingredients from a food box, you can truly make some amazing, absolute bangers of meals. You wouldn’t believe it, but using in combination with some sauces and spices that you can buy for cheap, at like WinCo or Fred Meyer, I was able to make dishes as complicated as Osaka ginger pork, Japanese ginger pork, to Taiwanese Pork, to Corn Beef Hash, Salt Crusted Baked Potatoes… Delicious meals. My roommate, Kuma, who I’ve come to see as my adoptive oldest sibling, has shared some of the recipes that they’ve learned to make with food boxes as well. Amazing, delicious recipes like Beef, Bean, and Cheese Enchiladas with a Homemade Enchilada Sauce, or something that they’ll be sharing, if I feature them on one of the next episodes too, a Mediterranean one pot soup dish. It’s absolutely divine! Now, the important thing to remember here is that all these stories and all this cooking ties back into the student experience. It ties back into the things that you can do right here, in Portland, on campus, and using the simple ingredients that you can get on campus. I wanna be able to achieve the goals of this podcast to inspire you and for you to take a little bit more away from this podcast and enhance the student experience that you’ll be living through. So, having gone over the podcast, the goals of the podcast and introducing myself, I’d like to take us into the kitchen for our very first recipe. Today it’ll be just me in the kitchen doing a sort of Bulgogi Beef recipe. I want to mention to be safe with any utensils that you may use. Be safe with kitchen prep stuff. Always make sure to wear an apron, have proper sanitary conditions, and to always wash up. But, for a quick overview of some things that you’ll need, you’ll probably need two cutting boards or trays, you’ll want a nice sharp knife, maybe a few sauces that I’ll explain, a few vegetables, like carrots, maybe some bell pepper that I’ll be using in the recipe, along with rice, some beef, whether it’s sliced like slices of beef or ground beef, even ground pork or slices of pork tenderloin work as well, and, if you could get some of those ready and some Soy Sauce, some Rice Wine Vinegar, a little bit of, maybe some Sesame Oil and some spices then you’ll be good to go. So, I hope you’ll find it really lovely, tasty, and I’m excited for you to join me on the upcoming kitchen segment of our podcast. So, see you in a bit!

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Time to Cook

Zoe Liu: Hi everyone! Welcome to the kitchen and the cooking segment of our podcast! So, a lot of people often ask me, “Zoe, what’s the thing that you do to relax the most?” Or, “you seem so optimistic. How can you just stay that way all the time?”. For me, a huge part of it is being able to cook, being able to make the things that I love, and being able to really experiment. Because, sure, cooking might seem like a difficult endeavor. It might seem really daunting at first. I mean, for me, the first time I stepped foot in the kitchen, I tried to make a Rice-a-roni in a rice cooker! I poured milk in and I didn’t realize that milk would boil over, so I ruined my rice cooker! But, it’s the little lessons like that that make the cooking journey so wonderful. You don’t have to go outside to buy expensive foods. You don’t have to think, “oh, I can’t do it at all!”, because cooking really is one of the most empowering things that you can do. If you’ve ever had bulgogi beef, this is a recipe very much inspired by that. It’s a very nice savory, but a little bit sweet, very comforting dish that you can make with ingredients that are easy to get and with not that much time needed. So, with that being said, why don’t we get started? The first thing I’ve done is I’ve laid out all of our ingredients, and this is one of the easiest things to do to make sure you don’t get confused or stressed. We have our beef, our vegetables, our spices, seasonings, sauces, and of course our rice. For me, I do love to use a good Basmati Rice and I have here a rice cooker. Now, if you don’t have a rice cooker at home, really easy to do, you can cook it in a pan as well. Just put your rice in, wash your rice three times thoroughly get rid of that starchiness, and then with your rice and a flat layer on your pan, you can pour water in. If you put your finger, like your index finger in, and you just touch the surface of the rice, if the water is up to your first knuckle, that’s about good. And then you can go ahead and start simmering it. Because I have a rice cooker I’m just gonna press down and it’s going to cook. So, moving over here to our vegetable prep station, we have here our vegetables, our sauces, and our seasonings. Now, a lot of the time, especially in college, there’s just not enough time to do anything. So, it’s hard to marinate your meat. But, you don’t need a really extra long marinade to have a flavorful, creative, and fantastic dish. Sometimes all it needs is just 10- 15 minutes in a nice flavorful and savory marinade. Today the marinade that we’re going to be using is very much Bulgogi inspired, but it’s a bit adjacent. First here, we have our spices. So, why don’t we go ahead and grab these. We’re going to put into our bowl just about a teaspoon of onion powder, a teaspoon of garlic powder. Go ahead and grab our garlic out as well. Just like a teaspoon of coriander. Now this part’s definitely not something that you need per se. But, I find that, especially if you’re using beef, the coriander really helps bring out the flavor of the beef, really makes it more robust. Then, of course, one of my favorite ingredients, cayenne; to give it that nice little kick. So, you’ve got our spices in our bowl. We’ve got our spices and we’ve got our sauces. But, we can also add in a few ingredients into our marinade here. For instance, what I’m going to do is I’m going to get my garlic, which I’ve already mixed up nice and fine, and I’m going to add about a teaspoon to this bowl. Now garlic helps bring up that lovely flavor and give it some wonderful aromatic flavor too. Now, we have on the side a little bit of ginger. It’s really easy to get ginger at the store and it’s really easy to get ginger puree or ginger paste as well. But, I personally love a bit of fresh ginger, and so you can just take your fresh ginger and you can peel off the skin, just that papery skin with like a spoon or a knife. Very easy to do. Now you can take your ginger and there are a lot of ways to prepare it. You can grate it, you can mince it nice and fine. You can even actually take some ginger, that you’ve peeled off the skin off of, and put it in the freezer. Have it frozen and, when you need it, you just pull it out, grate it up, and you’re ready to go. Here though, I’m going to give it just a nice, good mincing. Now, it doesn’t have to be exact, some nice coarse slices. ‘Cause it’s not a rocket science; it’s about making food that’s easy, but that’s also delicious, healthy, and that has the flavors that you love. Perfect! So, we’re gonna take just like maybe about half of this ginger, and add it to our marinade. There we go. Then we’re going to put set aside half the ginger as well. It’s nice because I like to have the ginger there, not only in the marinade, but also just to add to the pan to flavor all the other ingredients as well. So, now that we’ve got our spices set, we can pull out our sauces over here. I have a nice dark soy sauce. Now, it doesn’t have to be dark soy sauce it’s like a sweeter, thicker version of soy sauce. But, you can just use regular soy sauce and add a little bit of honey or brown milk sugar. It’s really up to you. We just pour in about a one and a half tablespoons. You can kind of eyeball it or change it to your desired quantity, because the best part about being able to cook at home is that you get to choose how long you cook things and how much of it there is. Just grab our whisk too, or you can use a fork to whisk this together if you like. Now we’ve got our rice wine vinegar. This helps give it that nice sour flavor. It balances out the flavor of the sugar. It helps bring out that savory and that sweet. So, we just add a little bit of that in there. That’s perfect. Then a good part of a Bulgogi Beef Marinade is actually something called “Gochujang”. Now you can find this at like your local supermarket; WinCo, Fred Meyer. It’s only three or four dollars. A lot of these ingredients are very cheap and they last a long time. Now “Gochujang” is like a fermented chili paste. It helps give it that nice flavorful kick. You can also use some red pepper flakes if you like to, but “Gochujang” gives it that really nice unique Bulgogi flavor, but you can’t really find anywhere else. So, let’s add some of that in. That’s lovely! If you don’t have rice, wine vinegar, or you don’t have any of these other ingredients, don’t worry. They’re very cheap and they’re very easy to get at the supermarket and they last a long time. So, we’re gonna go ahead and give this a nice whisk. That’s beautiful. Because we’re going to be marinating the raw meat, we’re not gonna be able to taste the meat as we cook it, and we’re not gonna be able to taste the marinade either. So, now is a good time to just take a fork and go ahead and dip the tines into the marinade and just take a little taste. Oh yes, that’s sweet, savory. Just that hint of sour too. That’s going to make a lovely marinade. And a lovely sauce too, because all this marinade is gonna go into the pan while it’s cooking too. Now, for our meat, I have here one pound of ground beef. It doesn’t have to be the whole pound. You can make however much of it you like. You can even use other meats like pork or chicken. But, the thing is, this is traditionally bulgogi beef. We’re just using some beef. You can even use slices of beef as well. But, for me as a college student and for the student experience, it’s really easy to just grab some ground beef and have it ready to go whenever I need. So, we’re going to go ahead and unpack it, and we’re going to add it to our marinade. Now, I have some vinyl gloves on, you just make sure that your hands are clean. But, now what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna give that meat a nice mix. Make sure to use your hands and mix it all in. Get those lovely flavors all working together. Get that seasoning all incorporated into the meat itself. Make sure to toss it, split it up, mash it all up with your hands because you want every single bit of meat to have that lovely flavor. We want a very even bite in flavor. We don’t want to just toss the meat in, let it not incorporate anything, and then you don’t get those even bites of flavor. And, that’s what’s really important here. See, the beef already is starting to get softer. It’s starting to absorb that marinade. So, our meat has been mixed and is currently marinating, and that’s the beauty about making food like this. You don’t have to marinate it for crazy amounts of time. Just give it a good 10- 15 minutes while you’re preparing your other ingredients, and that’s gonna give you loads of flavor; loads of saltiness, that sweetness, that sour, that we all know and love! Now that our meat is marinating, we can set that to the side and we can grab out our sharp knife and go ahead and prep the rest of our ingredients. Now over here I have one onion and I’m going to just slice it across the roots. We’re going to go ahead and discard those ends and peel off that papery skin. Sometimes there’s this also thin membrane like skin, it’s a little bit slimy, you don’t want that in your food either. So, if you feel that or you see that on your onion, go ahead and give it like a nice rub. Peel that off as well. Then we’re going to slice our onion into rings. Now we’re just going to give a nice, thorough mincing. It doesn’t have to be too fine. We’re not trying to make a paste here, but we’re just gonna dice it up nice and thoroughly. Now if you wanted to use onion powder too you could, but these onions are really easy to get for cheap at your supermarket or even at the food pantry. That actually is going to be a focus of this podcast, which is affordable and tasty cooking, and I’m going to be doing a miniseries in the future as well where I go to a food pantry, interview some of the people there, take home a food box and use those ingredients to cook a lovely meal. Because on campus there are actually a lot of food pantries that you can easily make use of. If you don’t make use of them, it’s a real shame because there’s just a lot of opportunities, a lot of ingredients that end up going to waste. We want to just eat healthy, make cheap, delicious food while still being able to focus on everything else that’s important in life. We’ve got our onion, all nice and finely chopped. So, we’re going to go ahead and grab a bowl, scrape up our onion and add it to our bowl. My two other vegetables that I have here are my bell pepper and my carrots. Now, the carrots you can buy them and peel off the skin and chop them up. But, sometimes it’s a little bit of effort. So, what I’ve done here already actually is I’ve bought some pre-sliced carrots. It’s been sliced in a manner called a “Julian”, being like thin matchstick. They’re already nice and prepped, they’re ready to go. So, I can just take those out and add them into my mixture whenever I need to. But, for our bell pepper, we’re gonna go ahead and slice off the top and bottom, and slice open the bell pepper. And, there are those like seeds in this side. Just take a spoon or take your finger. Go on and scrape those out. Then we take our bell pepper and we’re going to slice it into nice medium sized strips, because we’re not going to julienne this bell pepper. But, we’re going to chop it up into nice even pieces. That bell pepper is going to give you a nice, wonderful flavor. You can add other vegetables if you wanted to. Again, that’s the beauty of being able to cook and make your own food. You can decide whatever you want to add into this recipe and you can make any edits that you want. So, we’ve got our vegetables chopped up. We’ve got our onion, our bell pepper, our carrots, and all that leaves is, well, the cooking. So, we’re gonna give our hands a quick wash and head on over to our stove! Now you don’t need any fancy utensils or pots or pans. It’s nice to have a wok, but you don’t need it. Right now, all I have here is just a basic Teflon Frying Pan, and I’m gonna go ahead and add just a little bit of olive oil. You don’t need too much, just like about a teaspoon. Because, we already have that lovely flavor, those lovely oils coming from the beef itself, and we don’t want to make everything too greasy. We’ve got about a teaspoon of olive oil and we’re going to start heating that up over medium high heat. Of course we wanna turn our fan on. Now. It’s important to have good ventilation as well, whenever you’re cooking. Because, if you don’t, it’s sometimes easy to set off the fire alarm or to burn things. Me, myself, on top of not having any vision, like I mentioned earlier in the podcast, I actually don’t have a sense of smell either. There was one time I remember I was trying to make these lovely vegetarian burgers. I had these big portobello mushroom caps that I had marinated in some Italian herbs, soy sauce, and olive oil. Of course, I wanted to use a balsamic vinegar to add to the marinade. But, I didn’t have any, so what did I use? I used a . Now, for those of you that aren’t sure what that is. It’s like a balsamic vinegar, but it’s a lot sweeter. It’s got a lot more sugar to it. It’s a lot thicker. When you put it into a pan at high heat, that sugar will smoke. And, because I wasn’t able to smell it, that sugar and those mushrooms started to smoke and it ended up setting off the fire alarm. Now, it wasn’t a big deal because I moved it off the burner, turned off the burner, went outside, and made sure that everything was okay. But, you don’t want to have things catch fire or set off the fire alarm in a dorm or apartment or anything like that. So, it’s always good to make sure that we’re nice and careful when we’re doing something like this. So, our oil’s starting to heat up and we are going to go ahead and take our ingredients, and get them ready to add to the pot. Because, these things are gonna cook nice and quick and we don’t want things to burn. But, we also don’t want to undercook things. So, it’s important to have the timing nice and down. Now, the oil’s just about ready for the food to be added to it, so I’m gonna go ahead and grab a spatula. I am going to grab my onions and my ginger, and we’re gonna go ahead and add that to our pot. When it hits the pot, we want to hear that lovely sizzle. That’s how we know that everything’s just starting to come together. Now we’ve got a nice even layer on our pan. Let’s go ahead and grab our carrot. Let’s go ahead and add those in. It doesn’t have to be exact or anything. You can use whatever ingredients and how much of it you want. For me, I’m using about two thirds of a cup of Julianne carrots. We’re gonna give that just a quick stir, make sure everything’s incorporated together and a nice flat layer on the bottom of the pan. When we’re cooking, we don’t wanna move it around too much. We wanna give the ingredients time to warm up and cook. An old teaching instructor of mine once told me that, the marriage of the ingredients in French, it’s the “Mirepoix”. The marriage of the ingredients is really important, because the first few minutes are when the ingredients start to cook, combine, and all those lovely flavors start to release. As those onions are starting to sweat, let’s go ahead and take out our beef and our marinade. We’re gonna come back to our pan, and if you’ve already sliced your beef then this shouldn’t be too much of an issue for you. You won’t have to break up the ground beef or anything. But, because, we’re using ground beef today, we’re gonna go ahead and pour everything in there. Make sure to use your spatula get all that meat out, that lovely marinade. ‘Cause that marinade is going to turn into a nice, thick sauce. We want to go ahead and break up the ground beef with our spatula here. We don’t want a big, thick chunk of meat. My friends and neighbors are gonna be smelling this over the fence and they’re gonna be like, “Oh, Zoe! What are you making?”. And, I’ll be like, “Oh, my famous Bulgogi adjacent to beef!”. It really is so simple, even taking this to things like potlucks parties, people are always asking, “Wow, Zoe! How did you make this? It tastes amazing!”. And, I just tell them that it’s sort of my own little take on Bulgogi Beef. Nothing too special, nothing too wild. We’re using simple ingredients, we’re combining them in a way that really works. Really brings out the flavor in everything and ultimately tastes good and makes you feel good about eating! So, now we’re going to go ahead and give that beef a little bit of time to just cook through and wrap and brown. You could hear that marinade sizzling. We’re going to go ahead and give it a few minutes. And while we’re cooking the beef, let’s go ahead and check on our rice. Oh, perfect! Our rice is done! So, we’re going to go ahead and unplug our rice cooker. And, we are going to bring over our pot of rice. Now you might really be asking me like, “Zoe, I get it. Cooking is fun and everything, but why should I cook? What’s the point of it?” That’s a big reason for why I’m actually starting this podcast is because, I want to show people that there’s true joy not only in life. Not only in learning lessons and listening to the trials and the experiences of other people, but being able to have control over what you eat, over the things you do, and being able to really do things for yourself. After I lost my vision, I was sure that I’d never be able to cook again. Doubly so, because I didn’t have any sense of smell. After losing my vision, it was about, a good five years or so until I stepped into the kitchen and actually tried cooking for the first time. Of course, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing. But, I learned and I never gave up. Sure, there were discouraging moments like when my milk boiled over and made a mess, or when I cook things the wrong way and I thought to myself, “oh, dang, what a waste.” But, for the people around me to encourage me to tell me a mistake is not something bad. It’s an opportunity to learn. For people to tell me that, to tell me that I could do it, it really helped me move forward. It really helped me believe in myself. Ultimately, it’s given me a lot of confidence. Because, as someone without vision and as someone without a sense of smell, it’s hard to tell when food’s done cooking, or when it’s browned nicely, or even when you can just turn the burner off and let the residual heat finish cooking like a Benedict, or something. But, with practice, with experience and with persistence, cooking has really taught me that I can really do anything I put my mind to. So, now that our beef is starting to cook up nicely. We are going to go ahead and go back to our vegetables. Now, notice how I didn’t add the bell peppers straight away. That’s for a pretty good reason, actually. Bell peppers cook pretty fast and we don’t want them to get mushy or anything, so we’re gonna add them towards the end. But, we’re going to go ahead and grab just a little bit more of our ginger. Go ahead and add that in. Just a little bit left. Then we’re going to go ahead and add in some freshly cracked black pepper. Now we don’t even need to season it or add salt, or anything, because there’s gonna be all that lovely salt coming from the soy sauce, all that lovely flavor coming from your spices, from your rice wine vinegar, and especially that “Gochujang”. So, that’s gonna cook up really nicely. Now all we have to do is let it reduce down! That marinade, as you can hear, is bubbling away. As we cook it for just a few more minutes, it’s going to reduce down. It’s gonna thicken and it’s going to turn into that lovely sauce that we’ll mix in with our rice and turn into that beautiful Bulgogi Marinade. We’re gonna go ahead and grab our bell peppers now. If you wanted to add other vegetables too, like cabbage or, maybe, even some spinach, or kale, that would work too. Mushrooms would also work. Add in our bell peppers, and give that a quick stir. So, as our food finishes cooking, this is just a really good chance to think, reflect, and feel proud of yourself for being able to make a wonderful recipe like this. Because, yes, it’s easy to go outside, but it’s also expensive and it’s not as healthy. Sure, you can make cup noodles too, but ultimately there’s very little that can beat the lovely flavors of a home cooked meal. So, the beef has been cooking. It’s been a few minutes, and the sauce has reduced. It’s nice and thick. It’s glossy. And, we don’t wanna overcook our meat. We don’t wanna burn our meat. So, we’re gonna give it a quick stir. And we’re going to go ahead and grab our pot of rice. Now, we’re gonna turn down the heat to low, just keep everything nice and warm, but we don’t wanna burn our food. We’re gonna take our pot of nicely cooked rice, and we are going to go ahead and add that into our vegetable and meat mixture. Now, it’s as simple as just taking our rice- You don’t have to mix it, you don’t have to do it this way, but I just find that it’s a lot easier and especially if you have leftovers it’s very easy to just take all this put into a Tupperware, then just store it in the fridge. It’s a lovely lunch or dinner for the next day too. You could pour the mixture and the sauce over the rice. I just find that this way, it’s a lot easier on the run. That’s what a lot of this podcast is about; connecting it with the student experience and being able to do the best things to support being a student and whatever that busy life entails. Now, I’ve turned our burner off and I’m just gonna continue just mixing it, incorporating all those ingredients together. Our rice, our carrots, our onions. And, of course, for our final touch; you can top this with, if you have, scallions. But, right now on hand I have some sesame seeds. So, we’re going to go ahead and grab our sesame seeds, and just give that a nice shake. Then we give it one final good thorough stir. I know! I know your mouth must be salivating at the sight and smell of that lovely dish. Alright, so we have our final product and we’re going to go ahead and grab a spoon, and we’re going to give it a taste! Oh, and that’s lovely! It’s spicy, it’s savory! Mm! And the sesame seed give it that lovely crunch to finish it off. Well, I do believe that this is ready to be plated! So, if you’ve enjoyed this episode, I hope you’ll tune back in for the next episode of A Slice of Life with me, Zoe, and I’ll catch you for the next episode! Thank you all for listening!

 [Outro Music]

Asher: Thank you for listening to Let’s Talk!, ������������’s broadcast about disability culture. Find more information and resources concerning this episode and others at . This episode was produced by the Let’s Talk! Podcast Collective as a collaborative effort between students, the Accessible Education and Disability Resource Department, and the ������������ multimedia department. We air new episodes on our , our Spotify Channel, , and