Around the Kitchen Table - Let's make Caponata

Everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley, and welcome to Around the Kitchen Table. Today we're going to have some caponata. It's one of my favorite dishes, just pasta. Although you might think everything's my favorite dish, well, pretty much it is. I love to eat. But caponata is a wonderful dish to serve in the summertime. It's made with some fresh vegetables. Eggplant, zucchini, olives. It's pretty simple to make. There's a lot of different recipes for caponata, and this is one of them. This is one of the ones that I've made. Somebody had asked about a variation using raisins this morning, and yeah, you can put raisins in, you can put capers in, you can change the herbs up, you can make it a little spicier. But you know, it's just a wonderful relish to use to serve with grilled meats, grilled seafood. We're going to do it on pasta today, but you know, it's just a really tasty easy dish to make that can help make your dinnertime more flavorful. It's a great topping on sandwiches as well. I've got my co-host Susan Sarah with me. How you doing, Susan? Good to see you back.

Hi, everybody. Hi. Good. I'm doing great. It's a beautiful, almost summer day here. I love the idea of caponata because I love the idea of easy and those fresh tastes, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you're putting in it. I've looked at a whole bunch of recipes. I found one with 4 or 5 cloves of garlic in it, so I'm not so sure about that one. But this will be fun. And I'm totally going to stump the chef because I have a bunch of questions and you know, about where you— where and how you can use it and what all is in it. And I wonder if it's just one of those things that you just kind of put stuff together.

It very well could be. You know, it's— I think it falls under the category of what you might have had fresh in the house at the time or Probably varies depending upon what you're serving it with too. Now you can make it a little more attuned to if you were serving game or if you were serving seafood or if you just want to put it on a salad. This would be great on a pasta salad too with everything that's in it.

Yeah, that's true. And you know, last week we talked about outdoor kitchens and this dish or relish, it makes me think of, you know, just easy, making things easy and eating outdoors. And this week again, I entertained outdoors for Father's Day. And, you know, it's those types of things that I think you can make in advance, right, to just kind of, you know, enjoy outdoors. And, you know, I discovered one amazing product product that I want to tell you about. And you know, I mean, you certainly have your heat down there in Florida. And I mean, when it gets 75 and sunny up here, hey, I'm roasting. And I know you'll laugh at that. So what we did is, you know, we can't sit in the sun for any period of time. So what I found was this thing called a shade sail. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. I never heard of it. And so it's this thing you can get on Amazon or I guess places like Target or wherever, and you just kind of hang it up. It's this big piece of fabric and some kind of nylon fabric. And the one we bought was really big. It was 17 feet by 17 feet. And you know what? It instantly— you have instant shade. It instantly cools down the area. And you know what? Then you're outside. For an extended period of time. It's amazing.

It really is something that how much things change when you have shade. I mean, especially here in Florida, I mean, it'll get 20-30 degrees cooler just by going in the shade. And I've seen the shade sails, and I've actually seen them made out of actual sails from sailboats, and that was pretty cool. You have the numbers on it, the different designs like they have on the sails. So, you know, yeah, it's a great idea. And, you know, a lot of them are shaped like a sail, so if you've got kind of an odd-shaped backyard, you know, it really lends itself to fitting over the base.

It really does. And, you know, but the other part of it too, you know, when I'm thinking more about, you know, dining and entertaining outdoors, you know, it'll protect your food a little bit, a little bit more than than sitting out in the sun. And I think my next mission is going to be to look for products or kind of figure out how you can keep foods cool outdoors. You know, I mean, that I think would solve so many problems. Do you have any ideas or thoughts about that? What do you do down there?

That's rough. The heat can kill stuff faster than anything. Other than icing it down or freezing, you know, using those freezer packs and keeping things cool that way. You don't have a lot of options, although I did see some outside— not the refrigerator, but they're for beverages that you plug in. They're little bins and different things like that. So I mean, there are some alternatives, but really, if you're gonna have food out, I just would not have it out for extended periods of time., and you have to really, as much as it may hurt, you have to really watch how long you've got it outside and what kind of food it is. A burger isn't going to— once it's cooked, you're not going to have too many problems with it, but if you're putting potato salad out there or something with mayonnaise, you've got to really be careful because you don't want to get someone sick with bacteria building up, which it multiplies pretty quickly if you're not careful.

Yeah, that's true. I'm on a mission. I'm going to be looking at different products and ideas, and I think I'm going to future show, I think I'll share some with you. And today we're talking about campanata, and we, we don't have an official guest, but you can say that we're both the guests. And you know, when I was thinking about campanata and all the, the colors in it and the fresh, you know, the, the fresh foods, I was thinking that our audience may not be aware, but I, I'm a amateur photographer, and I've been a photographer since I was a teenager. And back in the day, I had my own darkroom, so I've been doing this forever. And so I was thinking about this caponata, and then I was thinking about color, and then I was thinking— it made me think about decor in the kitchen. And, and then I was thinking, well, you can't— you don't really arrange your decor to what you're eating, but what about food photography? What about photography in the kitchen for to kind of change things around? So I'm going to be sharing some of those thoughts and ideas and, and hope to get some thoughts from our audience too on it.

Sure, yeah, food photography is fun. People use Instagram Anybody on social media now has found that they can take pictures with their phone and load them up. I use Instagram for fun for the most part, but I have a serious camera that I use for taking food pictures too. I'm old school too. I started back in the '80s, I think it was, taking pictures seriously, and I had a Pentax 6x7 and shot just in white. I worked for him for developing everything. So yeah, I kept waiting for the digital craze to just pass by. You know, I thought, oh, this just won't last, it'll never last.

Oh yeah, no.

It took me a while to—

Yeah, I know, it seems like it did. So yes, so that's going to be fun. I mean, it's a whole new topic for us, so we can compare lots of notes. So go ahead, what do we do first?

Okay, let me get started with the caponata then. Today I roasted my vegetables because I went out to use my grill and there seemed to be a leak coming from the hose that fed the grill, and try as I may, I couldn't get it to stop the gas from coming out. So I figured it's better not to use it today. So I did use my oven and I cooked up some eggplant. What I did was I cut the eggplant into slices I very simply oiled it up and I salt and peppered it, sea salt, black pepper, very simple. I put it in the oven and roasted it on one side. I actually had the broiler on. Then I flipped it over and did the other side. I drained it on paper towels to try and get rid of the grease because in the oven there's going to be a little bit more grease than you probably would have on the grill. It will dry out a little bit more.

Chef, did you say that you salted it? You salted it before you put it—

Yes. I— as soon as I cut it, I put it in some olive oil and sea salt and black pepper.

Right. Okay, that's what I thought you said. And what are— what are they, about a quarter inch, eighth inch, a quarter inch slices thick?

There's— yeah, quarter. Some of them are a little thinner, some are about an eighth inch. I'm just going to dice them up. So you just don't want them like— this is probably a little too thick, and this is a quarter, so I'd say about an eighth of an inch. You just have to be careful, especially with zucchini because it is so fragile, that you don't overcook it. It doesn't turn to mush. This is real close. If you make them too thin, that's exactly what will happen. From here, all I'm going to do is I'm going to slice these into strips. I have everything else prepared, so it won't take a lot of time to put it together. I'm just going to cut these into strips. I like a heavily eggplant-based caponata because I love eggplant. I do too! It lends itself really, really well to a dish like this.

I do too. You know, I'm always searching for the perfect eggplant Parmesan, so I think we've got to do that.

Absolutely. You know, I don't quite do it the way some people do in terms of preparing it. Okay, so this is kind of— this is real close to being a little overcooked, but it's just a little soft. And you know, it's really tricky. I do better on the grill because I think I have a little bit more control of how it cooks and it stays a little drier. When you do it in the oven, you tend to get a little bit more oil than you might want.

Okay, so for that matter, then you could do it on a grill pan Indoors, right?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Yeah, you know, it's really— they're such a delicate vegetable. It's a very time cooking item, so you just want to watch it. So that's good for the eggplant. Save this to eat later. And the same thing with the zucchini. Just gonna put them on top of each other and knock these all out. Quick.

Again, we're just going— Now the eggplant, once you put that salt on it and you roast it, does it let out some of the moisture? Is that the purpose? Is that part of the purpose of it?

Well, I put salt on it to season it, but yeah, it will get some of the liquid out of it. But you know, this is still pretty moist eggplant. It really didn't lose a lot of moisture. I know people salt it to get the bitterness out, they say.

Yeah, I always hear about that, salt the eggplant.

I got to tell you, I never do when I make parm, and it's never bitter. I never have a problem with it. Anyway, in the pan I have some diced up eggplant, some diced up zucchini. I'm very simply going to add some tomato. Some diced green olives, and you can use black if you want to mix it up. If you want to use some niçois or something else in it, that's fine. I have a little bit of crushed red pepper for some heat, a little bit of sea salt, and actually I have a little sugar. And I know there's people probably cringing.

Oh, that's a few— that's a good amount of sugar.

Tablespoon, and I have a quarter cup of vinegar. I'm making a sweet and sour caponata a little bit. It's what we like. Again, if there's something in it that you don't like, leave it out. It's not something that's etched in stone here. I'm going to toss this. I also have a little bit of fresh basil, and I added a little bit of fresh parsley in too.

Oh, love that. Look at that. I bet that makes all the difference. Look at that. Beautiful.

If you like it a little heavier on herbs, this could use— this could take twice as much of the chopped basil if you really wanted to. This could use some capers in it if you wanted to add a little bit of a salty element to it, and that would change it up a little bit.

Now, what do you think? You know, I was wondering about that capers And olives. I mean, do you think that's a bit much, or is—

I think you have two different flavors. I mean, a caper is really distinctive and different from an olive on how it tastes. So it's going to add another element of flavor, another layer of flavor to it. And we like olives, so I make this a little bit heavy on the olive side, which, you know, again, if you don't want as many olives in, it's a real simple solution just to leave some of them out.

Yep. Oh, that's beautiful. Look at that. Wow, I love that pan cam.

That is one of the nice things about this, and we're going to talk— I'm just going to show you how I will use it tonight. Let me change the cameras here. I know that's nice to have. And did you notice I had a different color coat on today?

I was going to mention that before, right after we got started. I absolutely do love it, love the room.

It's plum.

It's plum. Yes, it is plum.

Okay, I feel like I should be breaking out into show tunes, but no.

Yeah, but where's your embroidered name? I don't see that.

It's on there. You know, my wife said the same thing. She should have got it in white. It's right here. It's in black.

Oh, okay, okay. There it is.

Yeah, yeah. I was sorry, I was going to do it in gold, but I didn't want to seem too pretentious, so Go for the gold, always.

Definitely.

I'm going to put a little pasta on and I'll show you how we're going to serve this, one of the ways you can serve this. And then we will get talking about some other things.

Yeah, that's what I want to stump you on. How many ways can we serve it? How many uses do you have for caponata?

Well, I will tell you what my favorite uses are. And we'll go from there. One of my favorite ways to eat it is, of course, over pasta. We're going to do that, but probably my second favorite is on a sandwich, is on a nice Italian meat sandwich, almost like a muffuletta. Yeah, not quite an olive tapenade, a little different. And there's times, like you mentioned garlic. Yeah, personally, and again, personally I would never put raw garlic in this because it would seem a little too hot for me in terms of raw garlic, but roasted garlic in this would be outrageous.

Yes, outrageous, absolutely. Now do you know that kind of—

Oh, I mean, that's another one. Yeah?

Yeah, I think—

It's a bruschetta top.

Uh-huh. I think the audio is going back and forth a little bit. I feel like you're in, you know, the Middle East or Asia or someplace, you know, with that delay, I think that's what we're having.

Yeah, I see the little time lag too. So I actually have you on two cameras here, and I see it going back and forth a bit. Sometimes one's ahead of the other, so it could be something on my end here too with what we're having today in the internet.

Oh yeah, who knows. Now what about caponata on— would you serve it with grilled fish?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I actually—

What kind of grilled fish?

I like it with a whitefish, with a mild snapper, mahi-mahi, tilapia, flounder, monkfish even. Anything— not so much tuna. Again, it would go with it. Maybe it's because I don't like tuna as much or steakfish as much., but you know, it would go with them very well. So I mean, I actually have a post that I did, caponata on a grilled fish, and I forget which one it was, might have been tilefish. Works wonderful with it. Works really good with grilled chicken breasts. Like I said, you can use it as a bruschetta topping. You could serve it on little arugula leaves, or not arugula leaves, Oh, what's the other one? The one that's really good for you and I can never remember it.

Oh, if it's really good for you, why do you never remember it?

You don't know it. Oh boy, that pains me. It starts with a B. Starts with a B, okay. See, now I'm stumping both of us. We need some help from the audience.

It's a green. It's some kind of green.

Yeah, it's a bitter green. It's got like little scooped-out leaves.

Not Boston lettuce. Not Boston lettuce, no.

We'll think of it. Endive?

Endive.

Endive. Belgium endive. There we go.

There we go.

I knew it started with a B, but Belgium.

I know my food. I know my food.

I blame it on old age, on me. You can use this just as a relish served with any other thing you want to serve it with. Think of it in terms of that. It's just something to put out with other foods. Like I said, Lisa likes to eat this just by the spoonful. If there's any left over when we're done, She'll just sit there. I mean, if you wanted to make it a little different, you could— I mean, this is probably sacrilegious as far as Italians are concerned, but I was even thinking you could put some roasted corn in here.

Oh, what was I thinking? I was thinking of something also that was sacrilegious. What was it? Yeah, oh yeah, I was wondering if you could put sort of like prosciutto and proteins, like Italian salami, prosciutto, and almost make it like, you know, a little bit of a protein side salad sort of thing.

You're making it into an antipasto, and I think what I like there would be to put it in with some small-shaped pasta like some shells or rotini or something and add your proteins in there, some salami or prosciutto or some cheese, and then mix it with it too, and you'd have a really wonderful salad.

Okay, let me ask you this, if this is a totally wrong idea or if this would be fun. What about caponata and ricotta cheese mixed together? Any relationship at all?

You know, I have never thought of it, but it might make— I'm afraid that if you baked it, you'd have to make sure you put enough egg in it because everything's gonna run. There's gonna be a lot of liquid in it. It might be really tasty together with fresh, just eating it like—

That's what I do.

Like, almost like you eat yogurt. Yeah, a little bit of spoon of that would surprise me.

Or on the pasta, maybe put a little dollop on the side of it.

That'd be wonderful. Buffalo mozzarella too, you know, one of the two.

Okay.

It's a different kind, it's not quite caprese, but it's the same thought. So yeah, it's a great idea.

Good, good. Hey, listen, what about, what about, you know, you have, yeah, caprese, What about putting that on tomatoes, right, and then that, and then caponata, and then whole basil leaves for a whole other mixture?

You know what else you could do? I'm just thinking. You could take an eggplant parm, or you wouldn't even have to parm it. You could just grill circles of eggplant and do a double eggplant kind of thing, grill them, and then put a spoonful of this on. And maybe melt a little cheese on top of it, or a little Parm— or a little Romano cheese on top of it and make a real nice little appetizer.

Love it. Oh yeah, an appetizer, that's good.

You know what I forgot? I forgot to put a little olive oil on this too. Oh yeah.

It doesn't need much, but it does need some olive oil. Yeah. Oh yeah.

That's better. This would be a good time even to break out some of the good olive oil, just to hit it with a little bit of drizzle of good olive oil to really enrich these flavors. It's going to be pretty strong. You've got a lot of olives in it, so it's going to have a really nice flavor as it is. I have the pasta on, and that's cooking, so we're almost ready with that. Let's see. We have some comments here.

Yeah, my tracker isn't working, so you do the comments today. Okay, I'm not working. I didn't work it right. So you go ahead.

Checking is to see what's good cooking. What's cooking good looking? There we go.

I think that was directed to me, Chef. I think that was directed to me. I'm kidding.

I think so. No, definitely wasn't me. Cheryl Deuce is checking in. Coach Moore is checking in. Carmen Mandic is here trying to serve as many cold dishes as possible when entertaining outdoors. Many foods that are usually served warm can be very tasty served cold or room temperature even. So, you know, that's a good thing to remember. All right, so we're good. And I want to talk a little bit about photography if you like, Susan.

Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, well, you know, like I said, a couple minutes left. Sure. Like I said, I was thinking about the color of the caponata, and then I was thinking about decor, and I was thinking of the reds and the greens and that just made me think of decor in general in the kitchen. And what I, what I feel is very important is, you know, there's so many permanent elements, Chef, in a kitchen. You have the cabinetry, you have the countertops, you have the appliances. Nothing— there's no pillows to change, you know, there's no rugs to change. You have such permanent elements. So what can— what doesn't have to be permanent is the decorative layer, and that can take place in the nearby breakfast area, it could be on the backsplash, it could be on any available wall space, and I think it's really great to be able to change this decorative layer because it keeps the kitchen fresh, it keeps the decor fresh. I mean, who wants to go into the kitchen not only day after day, but year after year with the same things that you're looking at. And we know kitchens, you know, they'll last 10, 20 years. So I like to build in the potential for change in kitchens, which made me think about photography because, you know, with all these new apps and these wonderful point-and-shoot— you can have a point-and-shoot that has that the images are 20 megapixels and you can do them in raw. There's raw and JPEG type of imagery. So point is, anyone can be a good photographer. And how nice is it to be able to take pictures whether they are of food or your children or vacations or just your backyard flowers and then have an ever-changing sort of palette or decorative layer, which is what I like to call it, in the kitchen. One thing that I'm excited about most recently— so the point is everyone is a photographer. That's number one. If you don't think you are, you are, because these apps, so many apps help you be that, and I'll talk about that. But one type of use of photography I'm really excited about is murals, photographic murals. And so tell me when you're ready with the pasta chefs. Tell me when you're ready for the grand presentation.

I will. I'm just Getting it ready now. I've got the pasta out and I've actually oiled it just a little bit. Now from here you can do one or two things. You can either put a little cheese on now. Let's get a little— of course you're going to serve it with more cheese. And then we're going to put on dollop on Nice. A little bit more.

Okay, so, uh, now you just put on the cheese.

There we go.

Oh, there you go. Beautiful. I see that it is, it's amazing. I mean, it's so simple. It took you all of 5 minutes. I love the dish. Love that dish. The white dish just does it justice. Love it. Yep. I mean, first of all, who doesn't love pasta? Second of all, the visual of it, the colors, it's just so, it's so appetizing. I think it's very appetizing. This delay seems to be getting longer. Oh, I think he dropped out and came back in. Are you back in with us?

You there, Susan?

Yeah, you're back.

I'm here. I don't know what happened there. We have Yeah, I'm here. Wait a little bit.

Okay, good. I think that's better. I think that's better. The dish itself is beautiful. The visual is beautiful. It just looks appetizing, Chef.

Thank you.

That's much better. I think that audio is much better.

Let me kill this other one to get rid of it, and then we will just stay on with the two of us.

Good, good. I think that's much better already. Beautiful job, inspiring, easy, summer, you know, it's all good.

Yep, and it's something, you know, takes— and this will hold up really well in the refrigerator too. So, you know, you can make this when you make it, you know, I'm sure it's not going to hang around more than a few days because it is just so delicious. But I mean, you can make it when you have time, and then when you come home from work, you want a nice Meatless Monday, Monday. And of course you can add more than this to it. You can mix it around and really get the flavors all through it. And you serve this with a loaf of bread and either some sparkling water or a glass of wine, and you have a very nice light summertime meal.

Yeah, it looks terrific. It looks terrific. So, yes, that inspired— that your dish totally inspired me to, you know, to think about this decorative layer in terms of photography in the kitchen. I'm sure many of us, if you love food, you're inspired to take pictures of food also. And why not put them in your kitchen or you'll put them on your blog. Learning how to be creative with photography can enrich so many parts of what you do during the day and how you live. One thing I want to show you, I began to speak about murals, which is one way I love photography. I love to use photography. And I did a mural when I designed a kitchen, and I'd like to show it to you. So I'll screen share it. You're going to see a big picture of my face. It looks like I'm looking into the distance, so ignore that. But I'll show you the image. Of a mural that I put in a kitchen that I designed that anyone can do. Anyone can do this. And Chef, you and I, you know, our good friend Lori Lazor from Customized Walls, she helped me. I took the image and she helped me with this mural. So I'll show you this right now. Here it is. Okay, so this is a— it's a small picture, but I hope you can see it. Now, this is looking from the kitchen island into the dining area, and the next image I'm going to show you is head-on. You can see the table, you can see a cushion behind the table as a banquette, which is seating for the table, and, and what you see is the mural. Now, that mural. It's, it's of a pathway to a beach. I took the picture— this is a picture that I took in Denmark. So, and then what I did was I did a series of treatments onto this image, and then I sent it to Lori from Customize Walls to make up a mural, which is probably somewhere around 8 feet wide, I think, by about 6 feet tall. So then I put the mural on the wall and then I thought, well, I have this, I have this old painting, let me put this on there and see what happens. And so I did and I think it's pretty cool. What do you think?

I do, it looks like a window into the picture. It's really pretty cool, and that's a beautiful image too, the walkway.

Yeah, but you know what, I didn't even have a tripod. It's so easy, and what I'd like to do too is show you a few other images of— let's see, oh, I have to stop the screen share. Okay, here I am. Yeah, I'd like to Well, let me first actually give you a few pieces of advice that have been helpful to me in photography. Again, once I spoke about how change in the decor, it just keeps things fresh in the kitchen. And anyone can be a photographer. What you want to do too is you want to have fun. You want to shoot at different angles. Everyone thinks to shoot head-on at eye level. And that's where most people shoot. But if you, if you, if you try different angles, you try, say, a super close-up, or you go under and shoot upward, you will get angles and a different viewpoint that you could never even, even, you know, guess that you could get before. So, so doing things differently is the key to creativity. Also, you can think about color. I mean, to have a decorative layer in the kitchen with photography, you may want to think about doing a number of images in a theme, which might be a color theme. You may want a topic of food. I know I have done a big series in my breakfast room, of course, of my grandchildren. And, you know, my grand— and they were just some close-ups, and it was a whole theme. And then another time I did another theme, maybe of a vacation spot or a theme of architecture or a theme of food, things like that. So you can, you can really give your kitchen a fresh look several times a year. By just doing photography. And you know what? It's so inexpensive. It can be very inexpensive. A print can cost, oh, $2 for a print or a few dollars for a print. A mural might cost you a little more, but a mural can be somewhat permanent. You can have a mural on— I mean, even if it costs you $100 and you have it in your breakfast room wall for a year, It's really worthwhile. So I like to do that. Are you there, Dennis? Because I think you're kind of back and forth.

I'm here, I'm just having something, some problems with my, my, my signal.

Okay, that's okay.

It's dropping in and out on me.

Okay, hopefully people will hear me. I want to tell you about a couple of great apps, and I think they might be— they're available in the iOS, the Apple App Store. I'm not sure about Google Play, but one is VSCO, has amazing filters that mimic film from the old film, and they have— there are just so many. They're very elegant. The filters are very, very elegant. So I like VSCO. That's one of my favorites.. There's one that's a little bit under the radar that's called Mextures. That's M-E-X-T-U-R-E-S. Have you heard of it, Chef? It is really— it's just cool. No, I have not. You should really look it up. It makes you look like the most hipster, cool, Exclusive Photographer Ever. And it's not just, you know, I think we can get tired of those vintage type overlays. And yes, they're fun, and yes, they're nice, but there's more to life than the vintage filters. And sometimes we just need a little more inspiration. So those are two that I would, I would really recommend. I would also recommend, you know, shooting in RAW, your camera shooting in RAW rather than JPEG, because you can, you have a wider dynamic range of being able to— you know, if you see those super white spots, they're called blown-out highlights. And so you can rein them in in most cases if you shoot in RAW. And this is for more advanced photographers. I like to use— sometimes I use Lightroom and I use I shoot with a Nikon, so actually the Nikon software does a, does a better job than Lightroom and what comes out of the camera. So I use that, and I also have some super amazing cool plugins to Lightroom, one of which is called— I have the Nik Collection, which I'm sure many of you have heard of, which Google has recently purchased, and they— lots of cool cool effects. But one that has even more effects, it's by ON1 Software. ON1 Software, and it's called Perfect Effects. And what they have is textures that can be overlaid onto an image and it just looks so dreamy. It can look dreamy and subtle or it can look grunge. It can look like grunge. All kinds of things. So, you know, that's where the fun is. And once you implement some of these aids, photographic aids, you know what? You look like such a professional. And creativity, just like in food, Chef, creativity does not have to be, you know, well, certainly it's not one way, you do it this way with a little variation. Find your own creativity, just like in food. But, you know, make it your own, do it your own way. There is such little right and wrong, and that is really new to amateur photographers, I'd say, only in the past few years. So, you know, so don't, don't be afraid, you know, if you think you're making a mistake. There are people who will say, "Oh my gosh, I've never seen anything so wonderful." So, you know, just go for it. And just like in food, just try different things. Now, how about you, Chef? You do a lot of photography. Do you have any thoughts on photography, whether it's food, or do you use photography for your own decoration in your home? Oh, there's a big lag. There is a very— oh, the lag is big.

Me, or I can't hear you, or what? I think we're cutting out. Are you there?

I'm here.

I'm sorry. Yeah, I can see a storm. It's really good. I don't know if that's affecting me here. Shouldn't. We have cable.

Okay, maybe we should wrap it up for today.

Yeah, I think we're with the issues. I don't know, Kathleen DeCosmo said she had problems too, so it could be just system-wide too. You never know. Google could be doing something. But let's call it a wrap while we still can.

Okay.

Ask everybody to come join us next week for Around the Kitchen Table, and we'll share some more. Put some of your links in there to some of those photo things in the comments, and people can come back later and check some of those apps you were talking about. Alright, so let's call it a day while we still can, and thank you so much for coming to Around the Kitchen Table, and I hope you enjoy the empanada, and check for me next week, and I'll have some other ideas up for you. Okay. Take care.

Bye-bye, everybody.