Good Day Google+ - Lets Talk About Food

Hey there, I'm Chef Dennis Littley, and today we're here with Good Day Google Plus. And it's always a great day on Google Plus, especially when I get to share the stage with some of my friends. And today we're going to talk about food, so I'm excited as any foodie should be. And we're going to talk about ethnic food because everybody really loves the foods that they come from. Places they come from, and, you know, they want to share them with different people. And I guess there is some typical American fare, but we've drawn so many foods from so many different countries and so many different cuisines that, you know, they've kind of melded together. So today we're going to bring you a look for some people that cook, that have cooked, and cook in strict cuisines, so they don't influence them as much, but, you know, they possibly may share some ideas on that as well. And as we talk about each cuisine, please please ask questions. Okay, you can put them into the, the bar underneath the screen that you're seeing and direct them to any of our people that are on today, any of my guests, and we'll try and answer them. But we're going to talk about the different cuisines and we're going to find the common elements, some of the things that are different about them, and some of the things they've used to adapt the cuisine to maybe modern times or not, however they want to choose. So let me run through our guest list real quick and we will talk to everyone in a bit, but I just want to introduce everyone. Starting on my far left, I don't know if it's yours, but on mine I have Betty Ann Cuerno, and she's gonna talk today about Filipino and Asian foods. And I hear you have quite a guest list watching us today from your homeland. Is that true?

Yes, that's right. I have my entire, um, province watching, my alumni network, my friends from the Filipino Women's Network, my, uh, family and all my friends and, you know, the entire Filipino community. So hello, mabuhay! Very happy to be here. Good morning.

Thank you. And I'm excited to have so many new watchers today too. That's great for me. And we have a friend of mine coming from the UK, Dan Toombs, and he's the curry guy. So Dan's gonna be with us and we'll talk to him a little while later. Thanks for coming on, Dan. How you doing today? Great, thanks Dennis.

Good to be here.

I'm glad to have you. And Domenica Marchetti, and she's going to talk to us today about Italian cuisine, so it's very nice to have you here today.

It's great to be here, and it's Marchetti because the CH in Italian is like a K. That's right.

I've been in Florida too long and they pronounce things differently.

Oh, I know, and it's, you know, Domenica Marchetti is not the easiest name in the world to pronounce, but—

And I should have known that because I've been in Florida.

Domenica Marchetti, that's how you have to say it.

Absolutely. I'm so used to EkoRiko TV with my friend Giselle.

Oh, that's just the same sort of accent.

There you go. Alright, and we have Maggie, Maggie, your last name?

Unzueta. I have a mouthful, of course Maggie's my short name, but it's actually Maria Magdalena Unzueta Venegas. Try that 5 times.

You know, I am half Mexican.

Oh, that's right, I forgot about that.

But my mother's name was Eunice and she didn't have a middle name, but my wife has always teased me because I'm the only one in my family that had a middle name. She goes, why doesn't she have one? She says she does, it's Eunice Manuela Magueto Margarita. I just go through as many names as I can think of.

Yeah, Maggie, Maggie U is usually what I hear a lot. So I've gotten used to it, I think.

I think everyone around here probably can get used to that.

Absolutely. Well, we're gonna talk about food, and like I said, if you guys have any questions about the different cuisines— and you know, not everybody cooks in the cuisine all the time. We cook in what we like and what we enjoy and what our families enjoy, and there's nothing etched in stone anymore. It's about what you like. But we're gonna talk about each cuisine and what the differences and similarities are. And if you guys have any questions for each other please engage with each other, ask each other questions on the panel. That's why we're here today. We're here to have a good time. It's friends. If you haven't met each other before, this is my favorite part of the show when I get to introduce my friends to each other. And so let's just have a good time and see where it takes us. So let's start. I'm gonna start with Dominica today because she's an old hand at this, and she's done these. I'm gonna let everybody else kind of warm up a little bit. Yes, this is my second time, so Let's talk about Italian cuisine and where you see and what you see and how you've adapted or things you've done with it.

Well, I will say that I've noticed that over the decades, since the time I was a little girl, our understanding in this country of Italian cuisine has really come a long way. You know, when I was a little girl, it was— I think what Americans thought of Italian cuisine was really Italian-American cuisine, and it was very heavily influenced by the immigrants to the US from southern Italy, from Naples, from Sicily, Calabria, those regions which all have wonderful food traditions. But, you know, from the 1800s through the 1900s, we had kind of a cuisine of its own developed, which was Italian-American cuisine. So, you know, the big meatballs, lots of tomato sauce, the New York-style pizza, the Chicago-style pizza, and these things, you know, cannot be found in Italy but they are what many Americans, until I guess fairly recently, really thought of as Italian food. Of course, in the '80s, we kind of discovered northern cuisine, and that was polenta, risotto, things made with butter, not necessarily olive oil. And from there, we've kind of evolved even further. So now we have a much better understanding, I think, of what regional Italian cuisine is. And even though Calabria and Sicily are both southern regions, the food in each of those regions is different and unique. And even within the regions themselves, there are differences in Italian cooking. And when you go to restaurants now, there's a restaurant in Philadelphia, for example, called Lavor2, and they focus on the cuisine of Abruzzo, which is the region that my family is from. And it, it's kind of considered central-south Italy. It extends east from Rome from about mid-calf out to the Adriatic coast, and it's got a wonderful diverse cuisine that incorporates the mountain cuisine, mountain foods, and from the Apennine Mountains, and also the wonderful fresh seafood from the Adriatic coast. So now we're seeing people really digging deep, digging down, and looking at Italian cuisine and wanting to explore the individual regions. And I love that. You know, the thing about Italy is it's such a small country, but In terms of food and cuisine and culture, it's absolutely vast. There's just so much there still to explore.

Absolutely. And I think just going from region to region, we see so many differences. There are similarities, of course, just like any food.

Yes, yes.

The difference is really— and like you said, even within a region, one recipe can be made so many different ways.

Yeah, that's the beauty.

And the, you know, that's sort of like I might put a recipe up for pizza rustica, which is something that Italians eat to break the Lenten fast at Easter. If you're going to break the Lenten fast, this is the way to do it. It's like this savory, heavy, tall torte stuffed with meats, salumi, salami, prosciutto, soppressata, all diced up, lots of different cheeses. It's very rich. I make it one way, but somebody— in Naples makes it a different way. They use different cured meats, and their dough might be different. And so, you know, they might say, no, that's not how you make pizza rustica, you make it this way. And, you know, so there's, there's all these little, you know, Italians are very, we're very opinionated about our food, and the way we do it is always the right way. So that's, that's one of the beauties, is getting into these discussions about what, you know, which way is the right way when No, they're probably all the right way.

Yeah, I think talking to any Italian grandmother or any ethnic grandmother, their way was the right way.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So, well, thank you. That was, that was a good overview of it. I know what you're talking about with the Northern Italian in the '80s, because that was about the time I really got involved in restaurant cooking, and that was the big rage. And it was all Northern versus Southern sauces, you know, introducing the cream and the cheese, the different things, as opposed to the Southern that was always olive oil-based. Yeah, it was a big thing.

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, I know I went into some real authentic regional cooking for a restaurant I opened, and it was more than the clientele could bear because it was a little too authentic.

So that's really interesting. I hear about this a lot from restaurateurs and chefs who really want to bring authentic Italian cooking, you know, to Americans. And these are Americans who are educated about food, people who, you know, have traveled, but still they have have their— I don't want to say stereotypical, but the things that they like, and if you try to take it away from them, they kind of get upset. I know that some chefs in restaurants struggle with people who order spaghetti or pasta as a side dish. No! You can't do that. I mean, you can do it, but that's not how the food is meant to be savored. I think as a chef, you always want to educate your customers. At the same time, you also want to make them happy, so you've got these dilemmas that come up.

Yeah, I think that goes a long way with how we eat as Americans and how we're viewed as ignorant is because we don't really know European cuisine and the different courses. The spaghetti or the risotto would be your prima piatta.

Right, exactly. You would have a small judicious amount, and it would be sauced judiciously. The pasta would be tossed with the sauce. You don't pour the sauce on top of the naked noodles. There are a couple of rare instances in which you do this, but normally you toss the pasta with the sauce, you add just a little bit more sauce and maybe a sprinkle of Parmigiano, but you don't get these laden plates of pasta. So it is a primo piatto because there's not that much of it. It's a taste of your pasta. And Italians do love pasta, and many, many of them still eat it every day.

I would. I pretty much can have it just about— I'm not Italian, but I could have it every day. My wife gets tired of it, but we do have a bunch of different shapes, so that breaks the monotony.

Shapes and sauces, yep.

Absolutely, gotta love it. All right, I'm getting too excited about food. I'm gonna move on now to Maggie, and let's talk about my ethnic cuisine, which I've been happy to find more of it down here in Florida. Much— my wife does not like Mexican food, I hate to say.

You mentioned that. I can't believe that, knowing you, but you know Just listening to what Dominick was talking about, yeah, it's the same. I feel the exact same way. The Mexican cuisine is so different from region to region, and what we get here in the US is mainly northern food, the enchiladas and the tacos and things like that. But you go to southern Mexico, and I lived there for a very, very short time, but their food is completely different. It's probably a little closer to what Caribbean cooking is like because you have the pineapples and mangoes and salsas with mangoes and pineapples, and it's delish. I mean, it really is delish, but it's so different. It's different from what people have perceived Mexican food to be. And it— oh, so I was gonna tell you, 'cause Dominick, I wanted to mention when when, uh, with Lent, we have a dish called capirotada. Um, have you had that, Chef? Have you ever had capirotada?

No, I don't think so.

What does that mean? Can you translate?

It's bread pudding.

Oh.

It's a bread pudding, but it's a Mexican bread pudding.

It's—

oh my gosh. Okay, so I love this dish.

Well, let's talk about it.

Come on.

Yeah, I want to know.

Spill the refried beans.

Come on. Because it only happens now. It only happens on Fridays usually. And of course my mother's is the best. But it's, uh, everybody has a different way of cooking it. Even in my family's little town, like everybody cooks it differently. Some people make it on the stovetop, a bread pudding on the stovetop. And we have a bread, it's a roll, but it's a long roll, it's called bolillo, and you cut it, you slice it into really, really small slices. And the way that we make it, I should just post this recipe because it's so good. Yes, you should. I mean, it's just, it won't last long in my household.

I would love to give it a try because I love bread pudding too.

But you put it inside, well, we put it in a stock pot, a large stock pot, and we just layer it with bananas and peanuts and coconuts, and you have a liquid. We usually put it with, or make it with piloncillo, which is a brown sugar and it's a reduction sauce, kind of, sort of, and you just let it kind of simmer. Oh, I forgot the cheese. The cheese is the best part. Of course, knowing me and my bacon popcorn, I don't know if you guys saw my show with Larry Fournier, but I probably put some bacon in it. That does it. Oh my gosh. It's just really like, aha, like light bulb goes off.

So is it savory? Is it a savory bread pudding?

No, it's sweet.

It's really sweet and delish, and it's filling. Yeah, it's good. It sounds good. Yeah, but one of the things I did want to mention about Latin or the Mexican food that I'm seeing here in the US, it's just so different from what is happening in Mexico. I live in San Diego, for those of you who don't know me. I live in San Diego, Coronado to be exact. But, you know, we have a very, very big influence with Mexico. I mean, I could practically throw a stone and hit Tijuana. We have such a strong Mexican influence here, but I'm starting to see on both sides— I'll tell you about here first—

the fusions.

So again, going back to Larry Fournier, I'm going to be on his show on the 6th, and we're doing our very first bilingual show.

Oh, cool!

Yeah, Spanish being, you know, my native tongue, so I'm going to be speaking some español. And yeah, so we're going to be doing a little bit of both. It's fun. And talking about fusions, this is a steak chimichurri quesadilla. And you can see what it looks like, and it's just unbelievable. And I'm fusing kind of what I have here with people just loving quesadillas and stuffing them with different things and chimichurri down in South America, you know, Mexico quesadillas kind of thing. So, and yeah, where I came up with it was seeing all these different fusions going on in the Americans trying to take stuff from different people. And similarly across the border— sorry, I'm talking too much. So similarly down, you know, south of the border, they— I'm seeing more fusions happen. More fusions. Oh yeah, I was at a Mexican restaurant over there and they served sushi.

Wow.

This is a Mexican chef, this is a Mexican chef, high-end restaurant, and he, it was brilliant. Oh, it was such, I mean, he probably doesn't, he's never been to Japan.

Was it true sushi?

What's that?

Was it true sushi or was it his interpretation?

No, it was true sushi, but here's the take to it. He served it with jalapeños on the side, of course, and some salsa, you know, just in case it wasn't fiery enough or whatever. Sorry, UPS just rang. But, but yeah, so there's that.

Wow.

Well, I know growing up in Texas I got used to Tex-Mex, and that's what my grandmother made. You know, she was from Mexico, but we lived in Texas, and I guess they were close enough to the border. My grandfather was from a little town called Agua Calientes.

And yeah, I've been there.

Okay, that's where he was from. And then we actually have a town in Spain for our surname, because his relatives came from Spain originally. My grandmother was a squat little Mexican woman, and my grandfather was this blonde, blue-eyed, 6-foot-2 tall Spaniard. So there was a big difference.

But you said you don't make a lot of Mexican food yourself, right, Chef?

No, because, you know, I never learned. My mother could not cook to save her life, you know, God bless her. She was a nurse. No, she was one of the older, and when she was old enough, they sent her along with her older sister right to nursing school, and they became professionals and nurses. And younger ones— she was one of 10— were the ones that learned to cook in the household with my grandmother. And so she never had that passion for it, which is probably why I did, because I loved food. And with her working all the time, you know, it was my job to feed us sometimes, you know, when I was hungry.

Well, it served you well.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I, you know, my first memory of food was putting waffles in a toaster when I think I was old— I wasn't old enough to even know to plug it in, not understanding why they didn't get hot but eating them anyway.

So, and that's the thing that's so important for me with my son.

So this is my kitchen. La da da! But anyway, so he helps me in the kitchen and he has his own little apron And it's cute, I love it, it's so important for me to have him in my kitchen cooking with me, next to me, even when he doesn't want to. He's kind of getting to that stage where he's too cool to cook in the kitchen with me. I'll put on music, I'll bring in his toys, I have his toys in here, it's like, you come into this kitchen, chop, cut, stir, taste.

As he gets older, he'll understand that that's a good way to impress ladies too.

Absolutely.

Oh yeah, are you kidding me? It's hot, literally.

Well, let's move on now, and we're gonna— we'll come back though, and let's talk to Betty Ann. And Betty Ann, let's talk about Filipino and what you cook and how you learned to cook and what your influences are.

Thank you. Good morning. I'm very happy to be here. I just want to say there's a lot of talk about Filipino food these days, and a lot of people have been saying to me, hey, Filipino food is trending now, so you're in the right place at the right time. I beg to disagree. Filipino food is not a trend. It's been a tradition for generations before me, the present, and it will be for generations to come. Filipino food is not a trend, it's a tradition to savor. Geography and history have played a large part with the formation of the Filipino cuisine. For nearly 500 years, the Philippines, which is a tropical country in Southeast Asia, was colonized by Spain. So Spain's influence left a deep imprint in our cuisine, our culture, our family values, our religion. After that, for nearly half a century, the United States colonized us. And then after that, we took what influences we had from our neighboring Asian countries: China, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, India. We took all of that and made it our own. So our cuisine, Filipino food, has a little of everything. In fact, when Maggie was speaking and was telling us about all these delicious flavors, you know, it's sounded all very familiar. Did you know that the galleon trades brought the tamales to our country? And yes, so there's a lot of Filipino foods that are influenced by these. Oh, I'm sorry, my family network is texting me and wishing me good luck right now.

You're doing fine.

Well, thank you. Um, I was about to say, uh, if you like Chinese and Japanese food, then you will find something to like in Filipino food. If you like Spanish, Italian, Mexican, uh, French food, then you will find something in Filipino food that you like. That is what Filipino food is like. It's a layer of many different flavors. They're salty, savory, spicy, predominant in every dish I cook are what I call the Blessed Trinity. There's garlic, onions, ginger, peppercorns, bay leaves, okay, and then often we have vinegar, soy sauce, and on another note, we also add fish sauce and shrimp paste. Now the reason for this is, I go back to the geographical location. The Philippines consists of 7,100 islands, and a lot of the towns and provinces are located coastal, by the coast. So you see a lot of seafood dishes, you see a lot of influences, dishes that have shrimp paste and fish sauce. And this is because of the geographical location. Filipino food also predominantly has ingredients from major crops. Major agricultural crops in the Philippines are rice, sugar, coconut, and bananas, and pineapples. So you're going to see a lot of these ingredients in our food, and it's a very interesting mix. Now when I came to America over 25 years ago, I packed with me in my suitcase my mom's old cookbooks, her recipes, cooking gadgets, the mortar and pestle which we call in the Philippines the almeres, leche flan pans, you know, even cooking spoons and flatware. In fact, when I arrived in the United States, people at the airport, when, you know, in customs, when they were checking my bags, saw all these things through the X-ray, and they said to me, "Ma'am, we have spoons here." And I said, "I know, but those are my wedding gifts, and some of those belong to my mother, so there." We have spoons here, I love it. And I still do that. Every year I go back to the Philippines, sometimes twice a year, I try to avoid the tourist traps. I go back to my home province. I connect with family and friends, and every conversation begins and ends with the discussion about food. I try to bring back recipes from my hometown. I try to bring back cooking gadgets that you can't find here in the States, and I think Dominika has seen that. They featured on American Food Roots an heirloom cookie mold, and I bake pan de San Nicolás, which is a heirloom heritage cookie recipe.

Yeah, so what Betty's— I want to tell people what American Food Roots is. What Betty's referring to is a website that I'm co-founder of called American Food Roots, in which we explore why we eat what we eat, and we tell America's food stories. So this is You know, this discussion is very much what American Food Roots is all about. And so I would encourage people to go check out the website. It's, you know, we all come from somewhere and food is what we bring with us when we, you know, leave our homes. I mean, and it's what we— when we want to connect with where we're from, we cook, right? It's the best way to connect. And so Betty was kind enough to share share her wonderful recipe, this lovely cookie. I have yet to make it. I'm dying to make it, Betty, and I will do it one day.

Oh, thank you.

But I don't have that cookie mold. But anyway, so if you search the site, you'll find that recipe and many others as well. And what you said about bringing stuff back in the suitcase just makes me think so much of my family, because when I was growing up, we spent our summers in Italy. In those days, you couldn't really get good Parmigiano-Reggiano. It was hard to find. There's still a brand of anchovies that are very hard to find here, and so whenever I go to Italy to research for my cookbooks, I come back, I have tins of anchovies just stuffed into my suitcase. And other things that you just can't find. We want those flavors. Although I don't know about Filipino ingredients, Betty Ann, but I know that it's It's so much easier now to get, you know, some of the best ingredients from Italy, things that we couldn't get 25, 30, you know, 40 years ago.

Well, you know, that's true, Domenica. And I've been able to recreate Filipino dishes from back home here in America by finding, by substituting with local ingredients that I find in the neighborhood. Grocery. But to go back to your topic about putting things in a suitcase, do you know that, I don't know, for some reason at the airport they already have bookmarked and earmarked and highlighted any Filipino that comes through customs? Oh God, I think the dogs are trained to sniff shrimp paste, soy sauce, And whatever Filipino ingredients we bring back with us, they don't even need to look at my passport, though I have an American passport. But you know, when customs people see me, they immediately ask me, "Did you bring tocino, longganisa?" Oh, is that right? Yeah, they rattle off the entire list. And I look at them and I just, you know, I pretend I don't know what they're talking about. Oh, I hope nobody's listening to this, Pocolano.

No, nobody is.

Go on. It's just us. It's just us.

You can tell us.

Sometimes I do, you know, well, within reason, and I know what's allowed and I know what's not allowed. You know, you're not allowed to bring fresh agricultural produce, but I try to bring whatever I can. And the reason is, when I come back, I try to recreate the recipes that I grew up with, and I've raised my two sons on it. So I don't want them to forget. This is why I keep doing what I do. I don't want my sons to forget where they came from. I want them to keep cooking Filipino food, and they do. My sons are all grown now. They're watching and they're cringing that I'm mentioning them. But I'm very proud that now that they're all grown, they, they go look for a Filipino grocery near them and they cook in America. They're cooking in their apartments Filipino food and sharing it with their friends. So yeah, I'm very proud.

You've done your job then.

Thank you, Tim, Toby. I know you're dying of embarrassment, but I'm very proud of you guys.

Well, not to be left out of talking about suitcases, I know when I came back from Italy and France the first few times, my suitcases were packed with yellow label tea because we couldn't find it over here from Lipton, which is completely different, and coffee. I was always packing with espresso, and then I found, like you said, I found mail-order places to get it so I didn't have to. But coming back from Sorrento one time, they were checking my luggage. The customs guy from Italy was so disappointed that I hadn't brought back any limoncello.

Limoncello?

No limoncello?

You didn't bring back—

No, and now there's recipes all over the web for limoncello. You know, it's actually quite easy to make.

Yeah, and I have, I have made it. Yeah, that was— it's just funny when people think— and then bringing home— growing up in Texas and moving to New Jersey, well, try and find a tortilla, it ain't gonna happen. And whenever we would go back with a suitcase full of tortillas, you know, so that was our main concern coming back. That and Dr Pepper, we couldn't get that at first. Either. Yeah, make its way north. Well, we got one more cuisine to talk to, and he's sitting there so patient. I went through all the ladies first. Now, Dan, you're joining us today, and this is really interesting for me. You are an American living in the UK, and you cook Indian food.

Yes, I do. Yes, I moved here about 20 years ago, fell in love with Indian food, and started buying all the cookbooks and all. And making Indian food as often as I could. And then about 3 years ago, when I started the Curry Guy blog, I went to my family and said, listen, I'd like to cook—

I think we lost you there, Dan.

Oh, bummer.

And now finally we get to him and we lose him. Yeah.

Hopefully he can make his way back because I'd love to hear his take.

Yeah, well, that's what I thought was so interesting is how he created Indian food and learned to make it and his adaptation of it.

Mm-hmm. And it's probably a riff off the British adaptation of Indian food anyway, right? I mean, that's fascinating, and that's what's, you know, that is what makes America so interesting is You know, we— like Betty Ann said, she has to adapt by using local ingredients when she makes her Filipino dishes over here, and I adapt as well. I mean, I travel back to Italy every year, or as often as I can, but I live outside of Washington, D.C. in Virginia, and so, you know, I like to incorporate local ingredients, and so some— and I also feel there's an affinity between Italian cuisine and southern cuisine, you know, like grits and polenta and prosciutto and Virginia ham. And so it's kind of fun to play around with these ingredients, you know, in these two very different cultures.

Oh, we lost him.

He may be coming back on us. And you were talking about your website too, if you could later on, if you could put those, the link to that.

Yes, American Food Roots. I have my DomenicaCooks.com website, which is devoted to Italian home cooking, and then American Food Roots, which is, you know, where we explore, we talk about what American food really is and all of the different influences and, you know, how our families influence what we eat and how our regions influence what we eat. You know, there is regional American cooking.

Oh, absolutely. So if you can put that American food roots on the table.

Absolutely, yes.

Dan, you are muted, so if you can unmute yourself. Well, let's get back to you.

Okay, I think I'm back now.

There you go. Okay, let's talk about your Indian roots then.

We live way out in the country, and I think that's probably part of the problem.

All right, so how did you get started with Indian food, and what really got you motivated to cook Indian food? Indian food?

Well, I moved to the UK about 20 years ago, and Indian food is very big in the UK. So when I moved over, I started buying all the cookbooks, trying to recreate what I had in the restaurants and all, and really enjoyed it. But the books were all different to what you get in the curry houses around the UK. So I started trying to talk people out of their recipes and learning to do stuff at home. And about 3 years ago, I talked to my family and said, "Listen, I'd like to do nothing but cook Indian food for the next year," which is when I started my Curry Guy blog. And the whole idea was to get the family into the kitchen cooking together and learning a different cuisine and just really hands-on, taking everything, taking the cooking to a different level. So that's where we're at now, is we've been doing it for— we're well into our 3rd year now. And we cook pretty much every day, and it's all Indian food.

What were your really greatest influences though? Where did you draw your recipes from and adapt them?

Well, I learned a lot from the cookbooks I purchased, so I went and I— for like 20 years I cooked from the books and I learned a lot of the techniques and made a lot of food anyway, a lot of Indian food anyway, but The main influence I've had, especially since social media, especially since Twitter started and all, is I've been able to talk a lot of chefs out of their recipes because it wasn't too long ago, maybe 5, 6 years ago, Indian chefs were not giving away their recipes. There's even a book called The Curry Secret, so you try— people try to figure out how to recreate that Indian food. So you were learning it from Indian chefs, from authentic I have, especially more recently, now that with the Twitter thing going and with the blog going, I'm able to get a lot more chefs to share their recipes with me so that I can make them at home. And so that's— yeah, all along the way I've been trying to talk people out of recipes, which is what I've done my whole life, really.

So I'm curious, Dan, have you traveled to India?

I've never been.

So that's so interesting to me, and I think, you know, it's possible to, especially with social media and the internet, it is possible to learn a cuisine. But I'm wondering if you ever feel like you'd want to go there.

I'd love to go there someday. We're thinking about doing it over Christmas this year.

Oh yeah.

Yes.

Sounds good. Indian food is very big here in the UK. It's kind of like Mexican food. Mexican food over in the States.

Right, yeah.

You drive around the States and see a Mexican restaurant on every corner, and that's what it's like over here in the UK. Right.

And it's good Indian food too. I did my junior year abroad in London, and the only food that was good— almost the only food that was good at that time, that was back in the '80s— was Indian. So when we wanted to go out for food that actually tasted good, we would go have Indian food. Now I know that's changed since the years I spent in England, but But yeah, I do remember it was very good.

There are some brilliant restaurants over here now, and the curry houses are all still very good.

Uh-huh.

It's a nice cuisine. It's nice to go out for a curry every now and then. It is very big over here.

Hey, John, I have a question for you. Yeah. I was recently on a Hangout with Richard Wooding, who's down in South Africa. And he showed me a menu of a Mexican restaurant that he goes to, and I was just blown away. So tell me about the Mexican food in the UK. What do you think, especially coming from America and knowing what Mexican food actually tastes like? I mean, what's your take on UK Mexican food?

I hate to say it, but most of the places I've been are quite substandard. But there are some good restaurants, there are a couple of good restaurants that I've been to. But most of them are—

go ahead, I can hear you.

Yeah, there are some good Mexican restaurants, but usually they're family-run, people that moved over here. There are a few of those, but most of them are the big chains and they aren't that good.

That's true.

Can I ask Dan a question, please?

Sure.

Yes.

Yeah, have you tried Filipino food in the UK, Dan? I know there's a large population of Filipinos in the UK.

You know, I haven't tried it here. I've had it quite a few times over in California.

Oh, what do you like?

What do you like to eat? I love it. Don't do that to me.

Have you had adobo?

I wouldn't know the names of it. I just know that when I go, I absolutely love it.

Okay, I'm sure you did.

Well, England luckily has finally taken culinary to their hearts and has gone away, because I mean, I know the first time I thought about going to England. I don't want to go to England. I can't eat well there. Now they have all the other good flavors coming around, Italian food. It seems like they've gotten a little bit better with their cuisines, and we're not just eating cold meat pies.

There are some brilliant restaurants over here now.

Oh, yeah.

A big improvement from 20 years ago, I can assure you.

Can I just add a little something, Dennis? Sure.

Dennis Littley.

Absolutely. On the reverse side, as far as reverse engineering is concerned, a lot of people have asked me how I got acclimated living in the United States. Well, you know, it's been nearly 25 years and I feel like this is home already. You know, I don't give it a second thought. But one of the reasons why Filipinos are able to adapt easily to living in the United United States is because there was a very strong American presence in the Philippines. Some people may not be aware that we have, we had some of the largest United States military bases in the Philippines. Like for example, up until 1991, we had Clark Air Force Base in Pampanga. It was the largest Air Force base outside of the United States. Then we had the U.S. Naval Base in Subic Bay, Zambales. We had Sangley Point in Cavite, and we had Camp John Hay in Baguio. All of these are located in Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines. Now what did this do to us? The presence of military bases in this very populated areas influence our culture and our cuisine. See, now when Americans are around, then they bring in American food through the commissary. And I remember as a child, I used to travel with my mom to the neighboring province, and for some reason we could get into the commissary and buy American food. You know, provinces were— this is military bases were located, they gave us a liking for things like steak, coffee, chocolates, canned goods, American magazines which influenced our cooking, gave us more recipes to play with. See, our taste buds got used to the American way of life, American American cooking. And so, you know, so it was pretty easy for me to start living here. It felt like, you know, it didn't feel like a foreign land.

It felt more familiar to you. Yeah, I think so.

Janice, I have a question. How do we address people's questions? There are some interesting ones. There is one that somebody asked that I think is really interesting, and that is Do we do that? Can we answer it here on the top? Yes. Okay.

I have some pinned already. There was one from Dick Lowry. Oh, okay.

Yes, that's the one that's so interesting. Yeah, who asked, he said that the European Union wants to ban the use of European names like Parmigiano, Feta, Gorgonzola, and it sounds like mostly cheeses, but probably other, oh, ham as well.

Yeah, made in the United States as food as belong. Ham, Greek yogurt, Valencia oranges, and prosciutto. And he did leave a website address too. So he wanted to know what we thought about that.

So I don't know how others feel about this. I guess I have mixed feelings because I think these names now are so much a part of our lexicon. I mean, you know, feta, gorgonzola, and they're sort of a point of reference too. You know, we all have an idea of what what gorgonzola tastes like or what feta tastes like. I mean, there's good feta and there's bad feta, and there's good gorgonzola and bad gorgonzola. I think, you know, I have mixed feelings because I certainly don't consider the stuff in the green can to be Parmesan or Parmigiano or anything like it, you know. So, and I understand the desire to protect, you know, those foods as they are meant to be. I'm wondering how others feel about this this issue.

You know, can I chime in here?

Yeah, yeah.

I'm also a wine blogger, not just food, I do wine. So it's kind of like champagne.

Right.

It has to be from the Champagne region in France. And I completely respect that. I completely respect that that is theirs. But now we've just adapted to sparkling wine. You know, here's some sparkling wine. Oh, never had Prosecco? Oh, it's— you know, but I think we're just going to adapt. If it does happen, We'll just adapt to the new terminology of whatever it is. You know, it's like, that's our new phrase that we're going to use. So I mean, if they decide to just own that phrase, whatever name, I don't have any problem with it whatsoever.

No, I think sometimes it might be a little late to put the cat back in the bag there. But if they do do it, like you said, we'll adapt. You know, things will go on. We're not going to stop eating American-made, some of these cheeses. And maybe it'll help get rid of some of the— some of the better ones that we see getting imported. Because I know I get my Gorgonzola, right? If I don't get the right one, it's like, oh yeah, I finally got my wife to eat it, and now I get some bad Gorgonzola. This is crap.

Yeah, well, and there's so many wonderful American cheeses now too, which is— oh yeah, just great. Yeah, yeah.

And I think artisan American cheeses are going to come a long way, and maybe that'll force them to even get better.

And which—

so I don't think it'll be a bad thing. And I'm still going to look for my imported prosciutto when I want something good. You know, it's just the way it is, but until you can find me something better American-made in food. But here's another question. Here's one from Kim Baltman. Oh, I lost it. Where'd it go?

Uh-oh.

Here it is. Again, I haven't done this lately, and here we go. Okay, question for the panel: Do you see a trend towards families cooking cooking together, sharing recipes, etc. Seems like a whole generation missed that during the convenience age in the U.S.

That's a great question. I do see that. You know, I, I think people have rediscovered cooking in this country, which is wonderful, and I hope families are cooking together. I have a friend who has a business called the Six O'Clock Scramble, and it's kind of a menu subscription service, and she really encourages people to cook together and eat together. We're all so busy, it's so difficult for us to make dinner during the week and sit down and eat together, but I try to do it in my family. I work from home, so for me it's probably easier than people who have to go to work every day. But since I write cookbooks and I write out of the house, I'm lucky I'm able to do that. I also see though at the same time this parallel trend, which is if you don't ever want to cook again, you don't have to because there is so much food around. Around us. There is drive-through fast food places, there is prepared food sections in supermarkets, at the Wawa, at the gas station. I mean, you literally can get food everywhere. So I think it still is a decision that families have to make, a conscious decision that they are going to spend time and effort doing this. It's so worth it to have that time to sit down around the table together. And as Maggie was saying, to cook together. I have a daughter who is she loves to cook. She doesn't care to cook Italian because I do that, so she loves to cook Thai food and Vietnamese food, and she's made wonderful homemade sushi. But like Maggie, it just fills my heart when I see my kids in the kitchen.

I want to also say something going back to cooking at home. I think the recession kind of changed everything for us. Because people couldn't afford going out to eat, and they were kind of forced to go— and you know, to watch these shows.

But food is so cheap!

Well, no, I'm talking about just a few years ago, and it kind of changed a little bit. You know how people couldn't really afford going out, and they wanted to taste good food, so they started going to blogs and, you know, watching these shows on TV. Okay, we have to go and learn how to make risotto or some of these different dishes that they wanted to eat at home. I understand that things are changing a little bit, a little bit, but it kind of also changed restaurants too because, you know, they had to make it a little more affordable. So you have these restaurants, or at least here in San Diego I've seen a lot of restaurants pop up where they are affordable, you know, they're much more affordable now to eat at. So I think the recession, or, you know, a few years ago, definitely changed the way Americans eat and eat at home.

Can I add to that, please? Sure. As far as food, home cooking is concerned in our home, it's always, I mean, I don't see food as a trend and I try not to look at trends. I just cook, put it on the table, and we eat. Now, Filipino food has always been served family style, like big platters are put in the middle of the table and we pass it all around. You know, Filipino food is not served à la carte with small portions. No, it's always been big portions, whether it's home cooking, a party, or a big family event. It's because we see food as a blessing. We see food, we view food as something to share because it's something we love. Home cooking Cooking has always been a norm for Filipinos. It's because our way of life has always been to pick produce from the backyard and cook what is on hand, what ingredients are available. So eating out has been an exception for us, as far as our family is concerned. Now and then we do that for special occasions, But I've never seen home cooking as a trend, you know, that's coming back. No, like I said, our food, Filipino food, is a tradition to savor.

Yeah, for you it never went away.

No, it's been here. Social media, yeah, social media just gave it more importance and prominence. That's the way I see it. It's not something that's, you know, oh, it's in fashion now.

Well, you know, Betty Ann, that's how I was raised. I was raised with my mom cooking and that's what we ate, you know. But being a mom of a 6-year-old, you know, it's hard to compete. I've written this many times. It's hard to compete with chicken nuggets, you know, because he loves his chicken nuggets and he loves his pizza and he wants all of this. And it's like, what are you making me? Yeah, I don't want chile con carne. It's like, what do you mean? He's like, I want something different. And I think that's another reason what's kind of prompted me to kind of make even fusions for him, because he is such a great source of inspiration, a great source of inspiration. In my cooking, he's in it. He's in it. He wants to taste something, I'll change my food a little bit just for him so he can eat certain things. I'll sneak in, sneaky mom, sneaky veggies come in here or there. I would love to, I wish I had that, I wish I could just go back to the way my mom just presented, just what Betty Ann was talking about, the here is your food, this is what you're eating, now, and here's a little treat.

You can do it, you can do it, you just do it.

I have hope, I have hope for this kid, it's like please, come on, food. Oh, another thing about my son, I think I mentioned this to you, Chef— I speak to him in Spanish only, only in Spanish. So oh, my son's a redhead like ginger red hair, green eyes, the whole bit. And you know, I speak to him in Spanish so when we're cooking he responds in English. That's the bad part about this whole thing that here's me blah blah blah and he says yes mom! Anyways yeah. Yeah, that's my take.

I found it here in the UK anyway that a lot more families are cooking at home and turning their back on the supermarkets as well. There's a lot of good farmers markets and farm shops, and people are using those and getting the family in the kitchen and cooking a lot more.

Yeah, the farmers market is such a wonderful thing that has happened, you know, I here in the US, and it sounds like over in the UK as well, over the last few decades we can get all this wonderful fresh produce even if we don't have gardens ourselves, and we can cook seasonally, which I think people had— many people had to relearn how to do. American cooking used to be seasonal, and then we, you know, the convenience era came along, and now we're learning how to cook seasonally, which is just terrific.

The food tastes so much better too when you purchase seasonally.

Absolutely.

We have another comment and question up here from Jenny Field, and it's, uh, would you consider the Indian food in the UK to be authentically Indian or more like Mexican food in the US, more Tex-Mex? Is it Indian filtered through the lens of the British palate, or is it pretty true to what you'll find in India?

Dan? It's nothing like what you'll find in India, really. The Indian food that's here in the UK You have to remember that after the days of the British Raj, at the end of the British Raj, a lot of people migrated over here, and many of them didn't know how to cook, but they opened restaurants because that was the way they could make money. And that just progressed, so like in the '70s, '60s, '70s, and '80s, people didn't go to the curry house because the food tasted good, they went there because at 11 o'clock the bars closed and the only the only place they were going to get a drink was if they went to a curry house at the end, because that's where they would serve the liquor until 3 o'clock in the morning. But then the food did start getting better, and it really is a lot different to what you're going to find in India or Pakistan or Bangladesh, any of that old part of India. But it's a style of cooking that people love here, and I just fell in love with it when I moved over here. I just thought it was absolutely brilliant. So it is a different style of cooking. I would say it's very much different, just like the Mexican food in California is a lot different to what you find down in Mexico. That's the same thing you're going to find here. You're going to have the same spices. You're going to have the garlic and the ginger flavor in there. You're going to have some kind of a garam masala or different spices like that. But it's done differently. It's done on a faster— you have to— there's no slow cooking here. You have to have everything prepared so that you can get everything out on the table very quickly. So they usually start with a— here in the curry houses, they start with a curry base, which is a base sauce, which is really nothing more than a vegetable stock, which is then blended down. So it's just a very smooth vegetable stock. And to that, they add whatever. They might add lots of chili and some vinegar to make a vindaloo, or add some cream and some saffron, and some garlic and some cardamom to make a korma. And so that is a base sauce for everything, which is not done in India. In India, everything would be done separately and as we prepare on the day.

That's interesting. That's a different take on it. We have another question here from And it was, "What's the best oil for high heat stir-fry Indian dishes?" Dan?

The best oil is going to be— well, in most of the restaurants and also in India, they use vegetable oil, but the most authentic is what they call ghee. Ghee is a clarified butter, but it has— it's more of a— it's It's fermented in a way. It has a slightly different flavor. I don't believe you can make it. It's just if you were to make clarified butter, that is a ghee, but it has a different flavor to it somehow.

Excellent. I want to do a couple quick shoutouts. Andy Lines is in there, and she just mentioned that her 18-year-old son has no interest or capability for cooking, so I've taught him how to order out and compile a few non-cooking recipes, use the blender, and clean up for the Chef, where her 16-year-old son is a natural chef and makes up recipes all the time, just like his mother.

Nice.

So thanks for being here, Andy. Tina Willis is in the house too, and she's also saying about cleaning up after the chef is a very important skill. Yes, it is, and I tend to clean up after myself most of the time, otherwise my wife would have too much to do. Bradford Lowery's in the house. We did see Mia Voss in here earlier and she said hello. We consider ourselves Thelma and Louise.

She's here, she's in San Diego. I saw her yesterday, she's here in San Diego.

She mentioned that, she said hi to you from San Diego. I'm glad she got to come out there and meet with you guys. You guys are having way too much fun out there with the hurls.

Yesterday's hurl, yeah, I'm just glad everyone hid their cameras. Cameras.

Did you watch part of yesterday's show?

No, I did not. I had a rough day yesterday, so I was off the internet most of the day, but I will go back and see it. Yeah, I'm a little jealous. I wanted to go out there with them, but I— you know, it wasn't— the timing wasn't right.

So it was a lot of fun yesterday.

It's hard for me to leave Florida right now too, because I just am loving Florida so much.

So Chef Dennis Littley Can I just quickly add about, in connection to what Dan was saying about influence, I have to tell you, Dominica, that Italian food is well-loved cuisine in Manila, in the Philippines, and Italian food is big over there.

Is it very different?

Oh, yes. Here's where the difference lies, and my sons have noticed that when I serve spaghetti, it's sweet and it's smothered in sauce. Contrary to what you said earlier. And I had to explain to my son, "See, I'm not apologizing," I said. And like I said earlier, geography has a lot to do with the way Filipino food has evolved. One of the major crops, agricultural crops in the Philippines is sugar. And sugar, back then, was a cheap extender to a meal. Like, you know, like the other crops. So sugar was always added to spaghetti sauce.

So you develop a taste for sweet things too.

Yes, correct. So therefore, when my sons are not home, I revert to spaghetti Filipino style for my husband and myself, right? When my American-raised sons friends come home, and my son is engaged, by the way, to an American Italian, so I'm trying to learn. We— I revert back to— I try very hard to cook spaghetti the Italian way, and I know I'm not succeeding because I see my son's faces. So what I do is I make my son cook pasta when they're—

There you go. That's the answer.

And that's the end of that. But Italian food, Mexican food, Indian food, Chinese, Japanese, these are all very well-loved cuisines in Manila, in the Philippines, among Filipinos. And I have to tell you, Maggie, hablo español muy bien.

Hablas español? Ah, qué bien!

Yes, because Spain was a colonizer for nearly 500 years. My great-grandfather grandmother was from Spain. I spoke Spanish before I spoke English.

The way that you're describing the spaghetti, my mother, when we were younger, she used to make this spaghetti sauce that was sweet, and it was, she called it spaghetti, and I thought, what is that? Now looking back on it, yeah, like I remember introducing my mother to basil.

Isn't it amazing how we did not use basil for the longest time, or fresh basil anyway, yeah.

I'm talking about dried basil, and she still, and when she, same as Betty Ann, whenever we go over and we're making spaghetti, which usually does not happen, but if she is, it's usually more geared to the American tongue, but I've seen her do her little sweet sauce, it's cream creamy. It's good, but it's not what I have in my mind, my taste buds.

Well, with a Mexican mother and a father who was English-Irish that had absolutely no idea about Italian cuisine other than he did enjoy it, my mother used something called Spaghettini to make sauce.

What's that?

Oh my God. It was a box mix of spices that you added to tomato sauce. Paste.

Oh, see, no tomato paste. I never ever put tomato paste in my tomato sauce, ever. I do not like that—

I don't either—

that pasty flavor. I use tomato paste very rarely. Yeah, yeah, and I only put it in my Bolognese sauce, which is not a tomato sauce, it's a meat sauce, and there's a big difference. I just never liked that concentrated tomato flavor except in certain instances in which it's called for. Yeah. Interesting.

I sent her as a child— I even knew then that this was not spaghetti sauce. I had no idea, but I knew this can't be right. I remember sending her— I made her go to the lunch ladies at school because their spaghetti was better and get the recipe from them. That was what my father my mother was used to. We had kidney stew. He was English-Irish, and my mother learned to make some of those foods, so that was what he knew. That's like the days of Chung King was our Chinese food. When I think back to those times, here we thought we were adventurous explorers eating different foods. The only thing, the good thing that did come out of that was my father was stationed in Louisiana growing up. He was in the Army, and I was born in an Army base. And shrimp were a throwaway food that the poor people ate. When we ate shrimp, we would go through a whole 5-pound box, pretty much.

Wow.

It would be fried shrimp until you couldn't eat fried shrimp anymore, or shrimp cocktail. That was something that he did instill. Even now, somebody sets me out a plate with 8 fried shrimp on it, I'm going, "That's a nice appetizer, but where are the rest?" That's the first course.

Okay. Well, can I just add something, Chef Dennis? I wanted to say that as a country and as a people, there's something noteworthy about Filipinos is we have the tenacity as a people to face natural calamities and consequent food shortages after that. You see, Typhoon Haiyan was just an example. In November, and after everything is said and done, these catastrophes and calamities only serve as a stimulus for our imaginative cooking. See, nothing edible is thrown out in Filipino culture. We summon all our creativity to come up with the next dish out of what we have: leftovers, backyard produce, agricultural crops, We plant, you know, whatever we have on hand because to us food is a blessing, food is a sign of prosperity, food is to be shared with the people we love. We love to share what we love to do and what we have, our Filipino food. So that's, in essence, that's us. That's beautiful.

Yeah.

And you know, I think I find with most ethnic Hispanic people, they waste not, want not. Italian cooking is very much—

Cucina povera, yeah, which is of course all the rage now. There's a soup in Italian cooking called, I think it's from Tuscany, acqua cotta, which means cooked water. It's basically— Betty, you mentioned the holy trinity of Filipino aromatics. In Italy, it's onion, celery, and carrots. You just dice those up and bread, water, whatever other vegetables you have on hand, and salt, and of course a good drizzle of olive oil at the end. And you know, you can turn— it's like stone soup, you know, it's delicious by the time it's ready to eat.

I love bread soup too. Oh my goodness, one of my favorites. Yeah, well, yeah, we've learned to cook some. So real quick, we're at the end of this. I'm going to go through the panel one last time, and I want you to tell me If you had to pick one dish from your culture, I know it's a hard, hard question, just tell me one of your favorites. One of your favorites. Monica.

Oh, do I have to go first? Oh my goodness gracious. Okay, I'm going to give you one of my favorite Abruzzese dishes. It's called maccherone alla chitarra, which it's kind of like a square cut spaghetti, and it's kind of a sturdy pasta. The noodles are cut on this instrument called a chitarra, which means guitar. It's strung with wires, and you roll your pasta sheet over it, and so these square-cut noodles are what come, you know, are the shape. And you sauce it with Abruzzese ragù, and that's different from other ragùs. You start with chunks of meat that you brown, and then you add, you know, your aromatics and your tomatoes, and you let the sauce reduce sauce cook, and then at the end, you actually take the meat out, so it's really a meat-flavored tomato sauce. You will see that dish all over Abruzzo, and sometimes it's served with teeny tiny, I mean, like smaller than chickpea-sized veal meatballs, and just mixed right into the sauce, and it's delicious and hearty. I'm just going to pick that because that's the first thing that came to my head.

That's good.

Now let me ask you a question. Since they pull that meat out of there, what do they do with it?

Well, of course Italians are resourceful. They would never throw it away. They would either serve it as a, you know, the secondo, or if there weren't enough for secondo, they might chop it up and use it as a ravioli filling.

Very good.

Yes.

That's what I wanted to know because I knew it didn't get the trash can.

Yes, yes.

Maggie, what is your favorite Mexican dish?

Okay, I— yeah, that's hard. But I'm going to go with tamales. Tamales de res, beef. They're just beef tamales. My grandmother, God bless her if she were living, I love them.

Love, love, love.

And during Christmas time, we give them to each other. So you're always left feeling like a big tamale at the end of Christmas time because everybody takes over buñuelos, which are these fried tortillas with cinnamon and sugar. Or they'll bring over tamales, so everybody has different tamales and you have big tamaladas, which are tamale parties. Yeah, tamale parties, that's the way to do tamales. You get kids in there, I mean, I remember my grandmother's house during Christmas time, I'm talking big macho men with their boots, you know, sitting there making tamales. You know, everybody's making tamales, that's the way to do it.

Boom!

And you go over someone's house and there you are slathering it on, you know, and rolling them up and, you know, it's one big party. That's how we party in Mexico.

We make tamales.

I'm with you on that one. I think tamales have to be my favorite Mexican food. And I remember growing up, we'd go to the tamale factory and I think it was like a dozen for a dollar. And we'd sit home and I'd peel them off, eat them warm, and I'd have to have a glass of milk with them. So old habits never go away. Our farmers market, there's a woman selling tamales and I'll buy them. If I don't eat them in the car on the way home and make a total mess, I pull out the milk when I get home and finish them off.

Yeah, I mean, it's— yeah, I'm hungry. I'm hungry.

I want a good taco right now. All right, Betty Ann.

Okay, oh, I've been waiting for this. Well, it's hard to pick. It's like asking who is your favorite child, but I would say, I would say a favorite of mine and in most Filipino homes will be our national dish, the adobo. I always have a Pyrex of adobo in our house in my refrigerator, and I make a fresh batch every week. If you come today, I'd serve you some. Adobo is best served with rice. I have a pound a pound of pork belly chopped up in chunks. I have a pound of chicken, and I mix it together and cook it in a stew of garlic, peppercorns, bay leaves, cider vinegar, a hint of soy sauce. You know, I mix it up, marinate it the night before, then I put it all in a pot and it stews, slow simmer for a couple of hours. And the house smells so— I can't describe to you the feeling. The aroma of garlic is all over the house. It's, you know, it's like, imagine it's like a smoke going through the curtains, under the table, all over, through the kitchen, through the dining room, the living room. It seeps through everywhere. But it's delicious. It's very versatile because of the way it's cooked. You can travel with it, you can bring it to the potluck, you can serve it on the dinner table, you can serve it at the party. If there are leftovers, I pan fry it to a crisp, you know, little flakes like what I did last night. It's on my Facebook wall. And I put it over garlic rice, which I cook with the drippings. So you can imagine it's garlic on garlic.

Anytime you mention drippings, it's a one That's a wonderful thing.

Forgive me, I'm going to start drooling here.

Amazing. Well, and then I end that meal with fresh ripe Ataulfo mangoes, which are my favorite. Everybody knows I'm Mango Queen on Twitter, and it's because it's my favorite fruit. So that's my favorite meal, and it appeals to a lot of Filipinos. And even if we have guests who are not Filipinos, you know, they enjoy it.

I can see why. And last but not least, Dan, what is your favorite Indian dish?

I've had a lot of favorites over the years, but right now it has to be— it's a southern Indian dish, it's called dosas. Not sure if any of you have heard of them. Yeah, absolutely amazing. It's rice and urad dal lentils. It's like a white lentil which is then soaked in water overnight and then ground for about 50— blended for about 10 minutes into a really creamy batter and then fermented for about 36 hours, and then you just make a crepe out of it. And those are stuffed with either a spicy mashed potato, or for me, I like to put what they call keema in it, which is a ground beef that has lots of different Indian spices in it, or even lamb curry goes well. They're just— they're really— they're a different flavor. If you've never had a dosa, you've got to try one.

All right, I'm coming over for dinner.

I'm so hungry. I know, I know. We have really run the gamut of some delicious flavors today, and I thank you all for sharing them with us and being here today with us.

Well, thank you.

It's been a lot of fun, and you know, this is the first time I've had a whole foodie lineup on, so this is a whole new show for us. For us.

It was so much fun.

Thank you, Chef.

My pleasure, and thank you all for being here today, and I'll see you soon again. See you next week for Good Day Google+. Bye, everybody. Meet somebody new on the Plus, follow all of our foodies here, and enjoy. There you go, say goodbye in your language. Ciao.

Adios. Bye.

Salama.

Bye.

See you all.