The Kitchen Mechanic

Today I'm talking with Kevin at The Kitchen Mechanic.

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00:00
Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year?  Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months.  So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com  Lang calendar.

00:26
because I need something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.

00:56
You can find them at HomegrownCollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Kevin at The Kitchen Mechanic. How are you, Kevin?  I'm Dandy. And where are you located? I'm located in Reno, Nevada. Oh, well, not quite Sin City, but close. What's Sin City? Which one? There's so many.

01:26
The one near you. Okay. Is it hot there?  Not yet, but it's still early. It's so, it's so, I only moved here like eight months ago.  And so I'm still getting acclimated, but you know, where I moved from, had tomatoes in the ground in March. I'm still waiting to put tomatoes in the ground here. Cause I, they, the locals say you have to wait till the snow melts off of this certain mountain peak to know that you're going to have any more frost issues. So.

01:55
I'm waiting for the snow to melt.  Okay, where did you move from? I moved from the Sacramento area.  Okay, yep, that makes sense.  I don't have you grow. Okay, I'm really garbling this. I'm sorry.  I didn't really know you could grow a lot in Nevada. Well, I'm still figuring it out. We'll see. But they have definitely have a shorter growing season.

02:24
Yeah, so I'll know for next year, you know, get my hydroponics out and get them started early and be ready for them. Because right now I'm still waiting for seeds to emerge from my little starts. So we'll find out. Okay. Well, tell me about what you do at the kitchen mechanic. Well, I mean, I retired from the culinary world some time ago, but I've kept one foot in it.

02:52
I do a lot pro bono stuff like, you know, schools do fundraising events  or like the city of Orangeville did a day of service for the city.  And  I ended up donating my time making breakfast for about 1200 people  for that event. And so just looking for opportunities to give back and, you know, do some teaching.  I started an online store. I've been off of it for a couple of years because of

03:22
everything that's going on in my life.  So I just decided to  get back on it. So  I got a cookie sale going on. But  you know, I make stuff and I sell it people over the internet or locally or whatever.  Okay, so why did you call it the kitchen mechanic? Because I am very much  not mechanically inclined.

03:51
Matter of fact, on the back of my calf, have a picture of two knives crossed with a sharpening steel going through the middle of them. I walk into Home Depot and I walk up to them and I say, see this? These are the only tools I know how to use. The only thing I know how to fix is dinner. So I need you to hold my hand. So that's kind of where it came from, the kitchen and candy, because the only thing I can fix is dinner.

04:17
That is very funny. I did a TV cooking show in Phoenix back in the 90s. And I wore an oversized tool belt with big, huge kitchen tools in it for effect. And basically, we did the whole thing there based on the premise of the kitchen mechanic. It's kind of where it all grew from. That's fun. I love that. OK. So what's your favorite thing to cook?

04:47
Well, if I had a dollar for every time I got asked that question.  And it's funny too, because a couple of chef sites that I'm on, not Facebook, people bring us,  what do you say when people like, what are your favorite thing is? It's like saying,  what's your favorite child?  The emphasis on my training is in pastries and chocolate. I was actually a senior chocolatier for Dub Chocolate Discoveries for a bit.

05:16
That's the stuff I enjoy doing for other people.  I used to teach a class for Williams Sonoma on exotic cheesecakes and so  that's kind of one of my things I'm known for is my crazy cheesecakes.

05:32
And  yeah, I lost my train of thought.  So anyways,  oh, so my passion is international cuisine.  I try to make iconic  dishes from different countries exactly the way they are supposed to be made according to  the culture. I don't try to Americanize it or make it my own or all that other stuff.

06:01
And because I think it does a disservice and disrespect to the culture by taking one of their iconic dishes and then trying to make it into something that it really is. And I think the best compliment I ever got was an Indian lady from the office that I was at at the time telling me that my butter chicken was better than hers and she wanted my recipe. And it's like to me, that was like total validation that I accomplished exactly what I wanted.

06:30
accomplished.  If your grandmother says it's good, then that means I  achieve success.  Uh-huh.  In the town that we used to live in, there was an authentic Mexican restaurant called Delia's.  And it was a Mexican family who made Mexican food the way that they were taught to make it by their parents, grandparents, great grandparents.

06:59
I always thought I hated Mexican food until I had their tacos. Yeah. And they're fabulous. Yeah. There's a big difference  between gringo Mexican and real Mexican. Where I grew up at in my early years, town  had quite a large Mexican population because of the industry that was located there  and in its proximity  to Texas. It was in Kansas.  And back in the day, a lot  of

07:30
Mexican people were coming over through Texas  back in the  70s. so their culture kind of got intertwined with the local Mexican culture.  And  from that point on, I never knew what gringo Mexican food was because nobody in town sold gringo Mexican.  And so I fell in love with fried flour tacos and  different relays,  authentic kind of stuff.

08:00
Yeah.  All right. So you've mentioned like a bunch of things about what you've done in your lifetime of working in food.  Can you take me back to the beginning? What got you interested in food and then talk me through till now?  How much time is this segment? Half an hour.  I'll just kind of try to paraphrase as much. I started cooking very, very young, know, 12, I guess, maybe.

08:29
at the elbow of my mom. First thing I ever learned how to make was fried chicken.  And that's always been my favorite meal, my birthday meal. Now it's my daughter's, you know, since then.  And it's funny because when I was a small child, even before that, we lived out in the country.  And again, I was very young. I found an old pan and

09:00
there were some wild onions growing  out by the shed. And I cut some of those up  and  what was it? found worms. I made sauteed worms with chives, green onions. Okay. To me that was my gourmet meal. course, it didn't taste like a gourmet meal, but hey, I was too young to know better. So I got into college.

09:30
And was cooking was kind of in the background, not really serious. And then you get into the dating scene and you know, I figured out that women responded more to think come over Saturday night and I'll make you a five course gourmet dinner versus, hey, come over Saturday night and I'll change your oil. Yeah. So, um, I just started.

09:57
building a passion for cooking from there and started in the culinary world at a Holiday Inn Resort and went through a number of experiences from that time forward  and ended up in Phoenix, Arizona,  teaching classes at a Williams Sonoma there at War Shopping Center  and that led

10:24
There was a TV producer that came by wasn't there at the time, but he said we're doing this new cooking show. It's featuring these two popular radio DJs, Beth and Bill,  and we need somebody to be the guest chef on the show. And their job is to teach Bill, who's a bona fide bachelor,  how to fit for himself in the kitchen.  And so that's where cooking with Beth and Bill  came about.  if you go to my

10:54
page, there you scroll down, there's a  link there you can click on to see a clip from the pilot episode of the show. But it's real tongue in cheek and it's more humorous than serious.  know,  we're making fun of Bill because he doesn't know anything about cooking. You know,  he's making fun of me for whatever reasons. it was a lot of fun and I did that.  And then right after that I ended up

11:20
getting recruited by a company in the corporate world and moved back to the Bay Area, Concord, California, and kind of left the the culinary world from there. Then fast forward years later, wasn't all that long ago, I got an opportunity to cook for a Greek restaurant. And I was making desserts

11:50
from there like a...

11:54
baklava, ice cream sandwiches,  fun,  stuff, but also some very traditional Greek desserts. And all my international skills, Greek is definitely in my top three. That's one of my  favorites. So I did that for little bit. And then I ended up  moving to Reno because my daughter wanted me to be closer. And I was originally two and a half hours away.

12:21
So she wanted me to be closer to her while she finished school. So I'm here for the next less than two years. She finishes and I go live where I want to live. You're a good dad, Kevin. I know. Probably the only 66 year old that you know that has a 16 year old daughter. I think that's impressive, actually. I'm 55 and my son, my youngest is 23. So.

12:50
She was the running joke is She was born the same year or same month that I got my AARP card. Uh-huh. So Rooster can still crow. Uh-huh. And when I used to you know, talk to audiences and stuff and do the usual, you know stick I would you know, would use being a geezer dad as an example and I'd say, you know, I love being a geezer dad, but it sucks for my wife because

13:18
by the time my daughter gets out of diapers, I'll be going into diapers. Mm-hmm. Yep. That sounds right. So, yeah, so I left Kandorino and still trying to acclimate, but here I am. Okay. Thank you for doing that because you were mentioning all kinds of things and I'm like, I need a timeline here. so do you cook at home?

13:46
for people and sell it or do you work at a restaurant? I do not do the restaurant thing anymore. One of reasons I retired for was because of back issues actually, guess back surgery. But I do, if you want me to come make a meal at your house, I've had people hire me to make their Thanksgiving dinners before. I've had people hire me to make a Christmas prime rib before because they were intimidated and didn't want to waste a hundred dollar prime rib.

14:16
And I told you earlier, you know, I do the pro bono look for opportunities to give back  and  Yeah, that's pretty much it You know the guys always say hey  If you want to have a nice romantic Valentine's dinner for two hire me and I'll come over and fix it and serve it all romantic Reunion your day. Yeah, just fun stuff  Nothing too serious Okay, you brought up prime rib

14:45
I have tried to do that once and it did not turn out really well. So what's the secret to a good prime rib? Low and slow. Uh huh. Ignore these recipes that say turn your oven up to 500 degrees and put it in there for 30 minutes and then do this and do that. Um, it's just, it's so silly. Um, there's a technique called reverse sear. It's gotten really popular, you know, for cooking large steaks and tri tip and stuff.

15:13
And I apply the same principle to make a tri-tip. You put it in the oven, you cook it at 165 until it reaches the internal temperature that you're looking for, like 125 probably for rare. And when it reaches that point, let it sit until you're ready to get close to eat. And then put it in the oven under a broil and brown the top part, the fat cap and bada boom, beautiful.

15:43
Okay, that's what I did wrong. I followed the directions on the recipe. should have just found you and talked to you first. Yeah, well, you know, going back to Mexican food, everybody has their version of tacos. One's not necessarily better than the other, but sometimes, you know, keeping it easy is the best solution.

16:05
Yeah, I actually just went through this with our tacos. I hadn't made tacos in three years because I was sick to death of making them with ground beef.  And I understand that if you make a taco with really nice sliced thinly sliced steak, it's probably gonna be a lot better, but we had ground beef. So I was craving tacos and I looked up a recipe and it was like, oh, you just use a little bit of tomato paste and a little bit of water, some cumin, some garlic.

16:33
and a little bit of salt and pepper and ta-da there's tacos and I was like that sounds way too easy.  And I made them and I was like  this is as close to what I understand a taco to be as I've had in years. And I was screwing it up before because I thought you were supposed to use tomato sauce and it was supposed to be  wetter I guess is the word I would use but no it's supposed to be more like a paste.

17:04
So, we've now incorporated tacos into our meal plan like once every two weeks because everybody in the house is enjoying eating them again. Now, do you do yours with corn tortillas or do you flour tortillas? Flour. Yeah, I don't love corn tortillas. I like flour tortillas. I do not like the flavor of masa.

17:28
But I do like  a good cornbread or a good corn muffin, but that's a totally different taste. Yeah. For the ones that you make with crema corn in them, it's so good. Yeah. So moist and it's really nice.  Mm-hmm. Yup.  And the other thing, I saw that you had a  series on your Facebook page for Thanksgiving turkey.

17:58
Yes, I do. I've been doing that for decades because my passion is teaching. I love to teach people that are intimidated by cooking or unsure of themselves or whatever. I'm here for those people. it's kind of my favorite. The only celebrity chef that I like is Alton Brown because he teaches. The big thing people finally discovered

18:28
Was brining brining your turkey brining this actually any protein you can grind And that was you know, that was became a big deal. I learned about it in 1993 from cooks illustrated Who I used to also test recipes for But you know, asked people, you know, do know what you're doing? You know why you're brining they say well supposed to make it juicier, you know why? And they don't know why and so just like Alton is like

18:56
If you understand the science  and biology behind what you're doing, it helps you to better understand  your cooking.  so part of that  series is explaining why you brine and what brining means in the whole scientific breakdown. Because  so many these chefs, say, do this, do this, do this. And  no explanation why or what it

19:25
does or anything so  I'm totally the opposite.  Okay well  I have made a lot of Thanksgiving Day turkeys in my lifetime and I have never brined a turkey so tell me why  why do you brine a turkey? You introduce a saline solution to a protein what it does is it causes the protein strands in the muscle to unravel

19:51
And when they unravel, become loose, they attract water molecules and then those water molecules get trapped within the protein strands.  And so in the process  of cooking  very slow, low and slow,  that  moisture that's trapped in the protein strands gets redistributed throughout the meat  and helps it  become juicier.

20:17
And of the big mistake that most people make when comes to turkeys, they're still cooking it to their mom's standards of like 180 degrees, know,  particle board white meat.  And it's like all the bad stuff, the capillobacter  and  all the bad stuff is  killed at 163. So  what I tell people is, okay, there's

20:42
process called carryover cooking where you take the product out of the oven and because of the heat that's built up it will keep cooking. So it's like you take it out  at about 160 and the carryover cooking will take it as far as almost 170 because you always want to your turkey set for about 30 minutes before you carve it up and I guarantee it'll be the juiciest turkey you ever had. Might have to brine the next turkey I make in

21:11
September we try to do a turkey every month from September through March Yeah,  and if you look up the recipes just ignore all those recipes that say adding all these herbs adding sugar I did just salt water just salt water And how long how long do you let it sit in the brine? It depends if you're using table salt or kosher salt  I like using kosher salt because it's not as harsh as table salt

21:38
One cup of that to a gallon of water and I usually let it set overnight So if I'm cooking if I'm making it the turkey on Thursday, then I'll brine it Tuesday night And Wednesday morning, I'll take it out of the brine rinse it off real good dry it real good and put it on a rack in a pan in the refrigerator and what happens is the evaporative effect of being in the refrigerator pulls all the moisture out of the skin Yeah, and so it makes it crispier and also

22:07
it makes it prettier after  you bake it.  Don't baste the outside with butter because it doesn't do anything for the meat. All it does is create brown splotches on the skin. Just baste it with either clarified butter that doesn't have any fat solids in it or any  milk solids in it  or peanut oil. But I'll have to send you a picture of my turkey when we get on.  It makes a picture perfect bon appétit turkey if you follow that.

22:37
that process. Well, thank you for the science of why brining works with a turkey because I've always wondered and never looked it up in my life. Appreciate that.  And the other thing that I would add here is that anyone who thinks that it's hard to make a turkey, it really isn't hard. It's just time. You have to have time to devote to it. Right. If you put the time and effort into it, it's well worth it.

23:06
You know, cause anything worth  doing is worth putting the time and effort into it.  Absolutely. Yes.  Yeah. And my God, do not use those stupid baster bags and whatever they call them, oven bags. my God. don't want a soggy turkey. want a crispy turkey.  Yeah. Soggy turkeys gross.  Um,  and I don't really want to disparage Butterball turkeys. If people like Butterball brand turkeys,  have at it.  I don't love them.

23:36
at all. inject that  and you do not want to  brine a butterball turkey or any turkey that has  been injected with solution or whatever they want to call it because it's high sodium and you'll end up over salting your turkey if you brine it on top of that. Just buy a good old Foster Farms fresh turkey or if you like spending money you'll get one of the boutique turkeys like willy willybirds.

24:05
you know, what you'll pay like three times the amount per pound for. Um,  but they're fresh.  They're everything free, you know, and they're just really, really good. But foster farms fresh, you know, Turkey with no injections, nothing. That's what you want.  I agree with you. Okay, good.  Um, so, um, we're rolling into summertime here in Minnesota. I mean, we, we just had our really

24:34
first nice spring day on Sunday, like 74 degrees with the high, no real wind. It was just beautiful outside. And that means that it is, I hate to cook in the summertime season coming up. So, so what do you suggest for people who don't really want to spend a lot of time and heat up their kitchen in the summertime? Do you just suggest sandwiches and salads and things or  what would you say? Well, you know,  you asked me earlier what

25:03
You know, I cook for myself at home. I don't cook for myself hardly ever unless I'm wanting to treat myself. I get up in the morning, I have a bowl of cereal with some blueberries and some yogurt. And then later midway in the day, know, I'm not going be a pervert yourself. I make myself a loaded salad, which is basically mixed greens with arugula and spinach and candied pecans and orange slices and gorgonzola cheese.

25:33
You know, and that's my treat for my lunch or my dinner.  And of course I'm in a weight loss mode. So that helps with that. you know, a couple nights ago, I felt like treating myself. So I made some,  some beef short ribs on the grill and baked potato and some corn on the cob. And that was my treat meal for the day. So, you you cook for other people, don't really feel like cooking for yourself.

26:03
Mm-hmm.  Yes, and you just reminded me I have to I have to start looking for a new grill our grill has died so  Cooking outside is the thing that saves us here in Minnesota from mid-june till end of August Yeah, a four burner char broil brand Home Depot has a blowhouse  I'm on my third one of those  And

26:32
love it to death. Of course, I have the big five burner version, so it's like 70,000 BTUs. it's  called my Charb-A-Q.  Uh-huh. But their four burner version is really nice  and really, really good. And that's the key. Yeah. We have a fire pit with the ring, the rack that goes into it so you can actually cook on an open fire  the way God intended.

27:00
And we can we can definitely do some stuff on that we have done a hobo dinner, do know what a hobo dinner is?  Yep, it does a Boy Scouts. Yeah, we've done that and they turn out great on that fire ring. I love it.  But I  actually  prefer cooking steak over coals.  So I'm with you on that. Yeah, and

27:27
Really cooking is so much fun once you get into it and you get hooked onto it.  It's so fun because there are so many different techniques you can use. Right.

27:38
like I learned how to make gravy  with cornstarch and that was the way my mom did it. And then I learned that, I can make gravy using flour and butter or flour and some kind of fat, whether it's pork fat or beef fat or whatever.  honestly, it's all gravy. know, a cornstarch gravy is a gravy. A roux gravy is a gravy, but it just depends on what you're trying to accomplish, I think.

28:08
Right, yeah, I mean, there's a place for.

28:13
cornstarch gravy and there's a place for flour gravy. know? But yeah, and that's another thing. Actually, I somebody that asked me to teach him how to make gravy because so many people are so intimidated by making gravy and it's really such an easy process, you know? So always feel bad when people talk about or are scared about making gravy. It's like, you can do it, you know? I always tell

28:43
I always tell people when they ask me about how to do a roux, I always tell them you're probably going to burn it the first time. Throw it away. Do it again. Exactly. Don't give up. And like if I'm making chicken gravy, like, you know, my mom, she used all the pan drippings and you know, made from that. But I, I changed from that because it's just, it's grease. There's really not that much flavor in the grease. know, there is a little crumpley.

29:13
But I started removing the oil and  using  clarified butter to make the roux. And then I just throw in a chicken bouillon  cube, pint of heavy cream and pint of half and half and good to go.

29:33
I just made myself a great friend.

29:38
What? I said I was craving biscuits and gravy last week so I made a batch of biscuits and gravy. Yeah, I've talked more about biscuits and gravy for dinner in the last six months than I have in my entire life. I finally figured out how to make it so that we all three like it. And we found some ground pork from a store that we really like. So I finally figured out how to make sausage gravy and biscuits.

30:04
and we have it probably once a month in the winter time because it's not the least, it's not the most fattening thing you'll ever eat, but it's also not the least fattening thing you'll ever eat either. Yeah, that's definitely an adult indulgence thing, you know, and here's a really cool idea I ran across making miniature biscuits. We're talking about biscuits that like, you know, of silver dollar, small and then

30:32
put those in a bowl and then pour the gravy over them. Kind of like eating biscuit cereal, you know, little small biscuits. It's little fun that way. It looks really cool. Yeah. And honestly, I, I don't eat a lot at a sitting. So for me, that would be great. Cause like I have one biscuit about the size of, I don't know, silver dollar. And I'm good. That's good.

31:01
My husband however would eat like six of them. So if I made the smaller ones Maybe I could talk him in all eating three instead of six. I used to be this I used to be the same way as eating through my Weight loss journey. I have learned to significantly reduce my intake and it's made a world difference. Oh, Yep Absolutely. Okay. So the last two episodes I've recorded I've started a new thing and I'm asking people to describe

31:30
their thing they're doing with one word. So how would you describe what you're doing?

31:37
you

31:40
turn

31:43
Living. Living? Living, surviving. But is it just surviving or are you thriving?  What do you think? Well,  I've had a lot of challenges since moving here and it doesn't help that I'm not really fond of Reno.  But I'm here not for me, I'm here for my daughter and so that supersedes any complaints I have. But it's been tough. It's been tough.

32:14
And so I'm just trying to get acclimated, trying to get situated. that's kind of where the surviving came from, I think. Are you enjoying the time you're getting to spend with your daughter, though? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Okay, good. It was very few and far between that I got to come up and see her. Okay.

32:34
All right, well, Kevin, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and keep doing the good work. And I love that you moved to be there so you could be with your daughter. That's fantastic. Yeah, I am. I'm glad I did, too.  Thank you for your time. All right. Have a great day. You too.