Radio MOFAD

Episode 2 We speak with food content creator Saeng Douangdara about his new cookbook, The Lao Kitchen, and an upcoming event May 1 at MOFAD with drag performer Jujubee. We also continue exploring the street food in our Brooklyn neighborhood, DUMBO. Ivan and volunteers Aidan and Brittany visit and chat with Dustin at Cocoboys.   NOTES: Muhammad Abdul-Hadi Down North Pizza  https://www.downnorthpizza.com/ Out West Coffee https://www.outwestphilly.com/ We the Pizza: Slangin’ Pies and Savin’ Lives https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/739586/we-the-pizza-by-muhammad-abdul-hadi-with-michael-carter-and-david-joachim/ Kalilah Moon Drive Change https://drivechangenyc.org/   Paul Van Ravenstein, Monique Mulder The Pickled City https://papress.com/products/the-pickled-city   Ashley Rose Young Nourishing Networks: The Public Culture of Food in New Orleans https://ashleyroseyoung.com/dissertation-research/ Saeng Douangdara The Lao Kitchen https://www.saengskitchen.com/cookbook   James Syhabout, John Birdsall Hawker Fare https://www.harpercollins.com/products/hawker-fare-james-syhaboutjohn-birdsall?variant=32130063826978   Ponpailin 'Noi' Kaewduangdee  A Child Of The Rice Fields: Recipes From Noi’s Lao Kitchen https://doikanoi.com/book/   Jujubee https://www.instagram.com/jujubeeonline/   Dustin MacKay Cocoboys 147 Front St (on nice days) https://www.instagram.com/cocoboysnyc/ MOFAD The Museum of Food and Drink 55 Water St 2nd Fl Brooklyn NY 11201 https://www.mofad.org/ TRANSCRIPT: 00:00 Ivan De Luce (ID): Welcome to Radio MOFAD, the podcast from The Museum of Food and Drink. Hey, Bernadette. Bernadette Cura (BC): Ivan! Long time no chat.  ID: Yeah, how's it going?  BC: Actually, I see you like four times a week. I'm sick to death of you.  ID: It's only episode two.  BC: I know. But it's good. I'm going great. We had a great couple of weeks here at MOFAD. So fun.  ID: Yes, we had our event with Muhammad Abdul-Hadi, author of We the Pizza.  BC: Yeah, we spoke with him during the last podcast.  ID: And he was in conversation this past week talking about his cookbook. And there were some interesting 00:35 recipes in there that I had not noticed the first time around. It was a great way to kind of get more in depth there. One of the most interesting recipes in the book came from Chef Mike Carter. When he was incarcerated, he noticed that inmates would get resourceful with the types of um dishes they would make with their limited resources. So they would actually take Cheez-Its and ramen and make pizza dough out of it.  BC: It is a striking recipe in it's really gravity 01:05 and humor at the same time somehow. The event was really wonderful. Yeah, we made strawberry lemonade from the cookbook as well. And we also served pickle lemonade because we had a pickle event the week before, so we were, the entire museum is obsessed with the pickle lemonade, including Nazli, our president. As a matter of fact, she made it, and so we ended up serving it alongside the strawberry lemonade at the event, and it was a hit.  ID: It gave sort of a thirst-quenching 01:35 electrolyte kind of flavor. Imagine Gatorade but good. And I would imagine it would be good with a bit of tequila so I'm gonna give that a shot at some point.  BC: Maybe vodka, tequila might be a little strong.  ID: We're gonna have to do a comparison.  BC: It's happening. Yeah. Okay so we have also some events coming up what do we have coming up on Thursday April 30th?  ID: Yes we have our event From Pushcarts to Po’ Boys: How Street Food Becomes American. We're going to have food historian and author Ashley Rose Young over here at MOFAD. 02:05 BC: She was an advisor for our current exhibition Street Food City, right?  ID: Yes.  BC: So I'm so excited to have her in-house and what are they gonna be talking about, who’s she talking to?  ID: She's going to be talking to NYU Food Studies Chair Jennifer Berg. Ashley Rose Young has a new book Nourishing Networks the Public Culture of Food in New Orleans. So she's going to talk about how everyday street foods in New York, New Orleans, and all around the country became American standards and influenced our diets today.  BC: That's gonna be so 02:35 amazing. I cannot wait. And I heard tell of a New Orleans cocktail that's going to be on the roster for that event. ID: Wow, okay to embody New Orleans in a cocktail the possibilities really are limitless.  BC: I'm excited. And then after that on May 1st, we have an amazing event coming up with Saeng Douangdara and he's gonna be in conversation with Jujubee who is a drag queen from Laos and they're fans of each other. 03:04 They support each other in promoting their culture. We talked about Thai food and how that's more comfortable for people. So a lot of people from Laos called their food Thai so it was approachable. Now it's going to have a spotlight shown on it with his cookbook. Excellent. Let's take a listen.  BC: Yeah.  ID: Welcome to Radio MOFAD, the podcast from The Museum of Food and Drink. 03:31 Saeng Douangdara is a Los Angeles-based personal chef and content creator. His new cookbook, The Lao Kitchen, explores traditional and contemporary Lao flavors told through family recipes. After moving to the United States with his family at the age of two, Saeng  grew up in Wisconsin, grappling between two cultures and learning recipes from his parents. After a month-long trip to Laos, Saeng discovered a deeper love of Lao cooking and founded Saeng's Kitchen. Saeng will appear at MOFAD on Friday, May 1st 04:00 in conversation with Jujubee, a drag queen and performer who has appeared on RuPaul's Drag Race. In The Lao Kitchen, she says, Saeng shares our Lao culture and food beautifully. 04:16 BC: Okay, just getting into the book a little bit. On the first page you described Lao Cuisine as funky. And I'm sure that has a lot to do with padaek 04:26 and the other fermented foods in the cuisine, is that mainly what you're talking about? Or is there like a metaphorical like other like funkiness?  Saeng Douangdara (SD):I mean, I just admire the word funky now. I think about my childhood and even the community back then, like you would hear stories about like a lot of the refugees coming in and we'd be talking with each other and it was all about hiding your food. It was all about like, oh, this is too smelly. This is too, the padaek is too funky. 04:54 And so I also heard a lot of those stories from like neighbors, our peers and 04:59 other Southeast Asian folk talking about Lao cuisine. So there was a very much of a big shift that needed to happen. And so that's when I saw, think in the 2010s, when Lao folks slowly started positioning themselves and reclaiming that word of funky. And so that's why I use funky now in a way, an empowerment word, acknowledging, yeah, our food is different and it is pungent, but if you know how to use it, if you know how to use the funk, 05:26 your food is gonna be incredible. So I'm reclaiming that word of like, it's time to shine a light, big old bright light on Lao cuisine and the unfiltered fish sauce and all that good stuff.  BC: I think it's so amazing that you have that recipe in there for the fish sauce.  SD: It took so hard to figure out, cause when you know moms, they don't measure. So I had to go and just watch her several times. Was like, Mom, how do you do that? And it takes at least a year to ferment good padaek. it's a long process. 05:55 BC: You know, after it ferments for that first three months or whatever, you add the aromatics, you add like the garlic husks. And the peel of the pineapple. You were talking in one of your videos in your Instagram about how, you know, like the fish and banana leaves is sustainable. I mean, there's so many things about traditional cuisines and old ways. Where including like those waste products, the husks of the garlic and the pineapple. 06:21 I think that's really exciting.  SD: I think that's a piece that I learned from my mom that, you know, she never wasted anything. And I think that's the generational knowledge that she carried on from Laos to America. And to be able to like... 06:34 first to see that I was like wow you really don't waste anything like everything was always used in the house every single grain of rice because you know Mom growing up was working in the rice fields to make every single grain so it's like that type of knowledge. BC: You know the work that goes into that rice. It's not just a bag that came from the store, like some abstract piece of food. There's also a flavor component to the husks, that idea that you could even get flavor out of some 07:04 like that. My dad, because there's, you know, when he makes his chicken adobo, which is like the national dish of the Philippines, sometimes people use peeled cloves, but my dad insisted on using the husk. 07:13 because it gave that special flavor and that like validated to me when I saw that recipe, I'm like, oh my God, my dad was totally right, you know, like there is flavor to be had in those things that are, that people consider garbage. So it's really interesting. And the fact that it's unfiltered, is that unique to Lao cuisine, the unfiltered fish sauce?  SD: Yeah, so I would say within Southeast Asia, there's other types of unfiltered fish sauce, but I usually like to focus on how Lao 07:43 people create our own padaek or unfiltered fish sauce because it is very much with the ingredients that are in the staple Lao cuisine. So like in padaek, we use the sticky rice husk. So when like you're making your growing sticky rice and before it becomes that shiny white grain, you get the husk, the brown husk around it. And that's what they use actually to make padaek. But in the book, I say, if you can't have access to it, you can still use lightly toasted sticky rice powder to kind of get that similar taste. But essentially, 08:13 I focus on that because I think of you think of Vietnamese food they use them more of like the see-through filtered maybe fish sauce that is clear we use some of that but mostly I would say padaek is like our salt in Lao cuisine. BC: I saw you on Instagram doing a tasting of fish sauces. Which is your go-to fish sauce and if like which is the most common one that you recommend? SD: I had to ask my mom this question because I was so she had you know several bottles of fish sauce and so there is depending on like 08:42 whether the dish is going to be cold like for papaya salad where you're not cooking it or if it's going to be in a stew where you are cooking it versus if you're going to make it put at it in padaek. So those are like three different variations but I would say like if you're cooking it one of my favorites is probably Red Boat and Three Crabs. I think those are really good middle of ground understanding like 09:04 for this recipe because some fish sauces can be a bit more salty. So I usually tell people with whatever fish sauce you're going to try, stick with it. And then because the saltiness is going to range, so you have to play with the saltiness.  BC; Yeah, the Filipino ones are really salty. And also, well, I think it's great that you said Red Boat because that one you can get at most mainstream stores. 09:26 I wanted to ask you a little bit more about kind of like how Lao cuisine has had to be categorized as Thai in this country just to be, you know, approachable by American standards. What's that all about?  SD: Yeah, no, please. I love that question. I love talking about it because that is the misconception that, oh, like Lao food is just Thai food or like it. 09:49 People don't even know about the country Laos. And so essentially when I hear that or when I tell them, it comes from a long history. So the first history is the piece that when Lao refugees came to the United States, they already weren't feeling, you you're coming as a refugee with little to nothing with you besides knowing how to cook. 10:08 And so at that time there was also this surge in Thai diplomacy through food. so at the same time, the country Thai was pushing this internationally. then so of course, know, Lao people were the neighbors and they kind of clung on to that because that was the most accessible and like instant like, I don't have to market anything, but I can still somewhat share my food. But my food is going to be on the secret menu. And then Thai food is going to be the public menu. Within the Midwest, you have several, hundreds actually of 10:38 Thai restaurants owned by Lao people. And then even going back a little bit further, that idea of like, oh, Lao food is here, Thai food is here. That also I came from because of the history of Thailand and Laos through colonization and just the wars back there. I think back then, if you were to talk to different neighbors within Southeast Asia, they always saw like Laos as almost second class citizen because they are eating padaek, unfiltered fish sauce. They're eating sticky rice, or eating with their hands. 11:08 So the cuisine became known as this second class option. But I think that hugely shifted because if not many people know, but now it's becoming popular. But Esan region of Thailand, that's where they're literally eating Lao food, but they call it quote unquote Esan. So it's this rebranding of the cuisine that almost wasn't as respected back then, but now they're loving it because it is being rebranded. And so I like to mention that.  BC: It's so annoying.  SD: It is so annoying. But that's why it was so important to write the book. 11:38 And so I write all of that in the book and I think it's so important that people understand history and context that food doesn't have borders but the people are in, you'll see noticeably. 11:48 I think of central Thailand, the curries, jasmine rice, the very light papaya salad, that is essentially what was marketed for Thai diplomacy. But it wasn't until this shift now that Esan is becoming popular. But I always try to tell people, look back in the history, the Kingdom of Laos, that was a huge part of it until the French divided the line through the Mekong and then all those Lao people, boop, and then here is boop. So there's a little history of it.  BC: Hug Esan, the restaurant, that's going to make food for the event at MOFAD, 12:21 I was wondering about that. Do you have a relationship with that restaurant?  SD: There were two Lao restaurants in New York City. Unfortunately, they closed down. I was good friends with them.  BC: Was it COVID?  SD: Yeah, COVID and after effects of that. I was reaching out to some of my friends in New York City. Is there any Lao place or what other options? They mentioned Hug Esan. They catered their wedding, so it was through mutual friends, chit-chatting back and forth. And even the Hug Esan website acknowledges the Lao history there, so I thought this was the perfect partnership. 12:58 BC: I saw that. SD: I think a lot of the time Esan people are kinda stuck in the middle. And so it's like, I feel for them. And I think for me, it's just being able to share and include when possible. So our Esan  brothers and sisters will be part of the New York City event. I’m really excited 13:18 for them to share their food as well.  BC: That makes me so happy that you connected with them through your friend. I'm gonna get a little political here.  SD: Yeah, let's do it.  BC: Because the reason that the Thai government does that kind of soft diplomacy, gastrodiplomacy is so that, you know, on a global level, people have a good impression of that country. I'm not really well-versed on the political situation in Thailand or in Laos. 13:48 Like what is the Lao government like right now, the regime and all that?  SD: Even going back to why Lao people are in the United States, we are in the United States because America bombed Laos, the most bombed country in the world even to this day because of the Vietnam War slash American secret war. That's no longer a secret that the CIA actually has kind of showed all the files. 14:10 And President Obama was actually the first president to actually go back, acknowledge and support and fund like, hey, it's our bad, we're going to remove that. So I think for me as a diaspora from Laos living in America, it's very complex emotions, I would say. You you can feel gratitude and you can feel pain and suffering all at the same time. It's not exclusive, but I would say within those political realms, there's always neighbors, right? So like Thai and Lao. 14:38 both countries haven't always seen eye to eye because of the wars that have been through the decades and the back and forth 14:48 wars within each other. So I think with Thailand, I would say very smart of doing, you know, food diplomacy, like you said, make sure that, you know, they're in a good position within this world. And I think for Laos, it is much more underdeveloped and, you know, the people are still trying to heal from all the wars, the attacks. I look back in history and I see there, Laos has always almost been the punching bag in terms of like wars and what's been going on. So I think finally, to be able to even acknowledge these pieces 15:18 of history is so crucial because it often gets bypassed through our textbooks. I would say, I think it's more of survival. Southeast Asia, Thailand, doing what they need to do for their people, I understand. And at the same time, I think to Lao people, I think finally finding their voices, whether through this book, through their art, um through the diaspora, it's finally uh kind of shifting the history a bit. 15:47 BC: I know that you took your trip to Laos for a month to get to know the food a lot better and that you're planning to also travel more there with groups in the future. But what is the current government situation there now? Like what is the regime like in Laos?  SD: Yeah, I forgot to mention, but yeah, so like even for me growing up, my parents, you know, they fought with the US, so they were scared that I was going to go back to Laos. I grew up with all these stories of their trauma. And so even for me, 16:17 was passed on to me and I was so scared to go back to Laos. I thought I would never go back, but it was through actually connecting with friends in Laos and like that network that really helped ease my nerves and my anxiety. And it since going for the first time in 2019, it has been such a eye-opening experience. I would say the Lao people over there and the government is very much open and accepting of people coming back to understand their roots. You know, we, like to think that 16:47 You know the past is the past but we definitely need to learn from it And are now like you said I bring since 20 It's this will be the fourth year of my Lao foodie tour that I bring people 15 to 20 people with me to experience Laos and it can be people from the diaspora but we've also had so many people that just are so interested in Lao cuisine and want to learn more and it's a beautiful way of connecting with travelers that have like minded of wanting to eat food and travel through three different cities in the north for nine days 17:17 And so I would, I always encourage the diaspora to go back and visit because they, we're very much connected. We still have our aunties or uncles or grandparents that are still living there. So it's that bridge finally that, that we're connecting again.  BC: That's exciting that you go back a lot and help people to reconnect with their roots. Speaking about roots, maybe growing roots here in this country, you're talking about your mom made her own fish sauce and that your dad grew herbs. 17:46 That must've been really hard for them to replicate these recipes from the book I have it here.  SD: It took them time. So right now in this moment, they have all the right herbs and the padaek that's filtered for two, three, five years. And my mom is actually the padaek lady. Everyone comes to her house to get the good padaek. Exactly. So I think that took years in the making in terms of sourcing the plants and the herbs. ‘Cause for my family, we still have to drive an hour away to Madison, 18:16 Wisconsin to like hoard our sticky rice because we eat my mom buys pounds and pounds so she has it ready for the winter months, I would say in the beginning it was hard But my mom was able to find those substitutions and I think that shows the resiliency of immigrants, of refugees like you were able to make it work. I am at the last chapter Lao American Fusion because that shows actually what my mom also did when she she was raising us like I Remember memories of eating sticky rice a spicy dip we call jeow and then like Johnsonville Brats 18:46 and I thought that was like, oh, is that Lao food? But it tasted so good. I still have such wonderful memories of that. And so I think it's the accessibility, like they'll make it work. If you really want to eat it, you'll make it work.  BC: Well, you said that she's the padaek lady, does she have like an actual business, like a license and everything?  SD: So of course not. It's under, low key. I mean, it's not low key now, but like it's no, my mom loves like her friends. It's usually 19:16 networking through the community, the friends, like, oh, you have padaek? Can I buy some?  BC: That's so awesome. I love that. Just to share something with you, like we had actual aunts or uncles who 19:30 opened a store, uncles, because they weren't really related. You know how it is. I had an uncle who opened a Filipino store in town so that our community could get our stuff. Because otherwise it was an hour drive to find the Asian store that had, and they weren't even always Philippine products. They were Vietnamese. The idea that your parents actually grew their own plants. Like I didn't even think about that. Oh my gosh. That is so brilliant. But nobody in your community, like, 20:00 opened their own store? SD: I mean later in the years there were other like Cambodian communities in Janesville and so we started getting pockets of like smaller markets but they wouldn't have like the large markets that you could find all the ingredients so when you needed certain things you could find them in Janesville but then those started like closing as well because you know they didn't do well in this type of town. 20:22 BC: Speaking of Lao cuisine in America, were there any cookbooks in this country that you looked at? Did you like them? Were they good? Were they bad?  SD: Ah I mean, Lao cuisine in mainstream cookbooks, they're very limited. So I'll go backwards in terms of. 20:37 The recent one within at least the US was in 2018 Hawker Fare, but that was a Lao slash Thai Esan. So it wasn't like, for example, it wasn't Lao centered, like just the focus. So it was that one. And then you look back even before then there was a lot of self-published books. 20:54 One of the more recent ones that was self-published but was a really beautifully created one was Chef Noi’s in Vientiane. So she passed away last year, but she was able to keep her legacy through the book. And so that's also one book I recommend because it is a huge 500 page book, but  beautifully photographed as well. Only available in certain spots. I think in Europe it's actually available, but in Laos. And I would say the first one in 1975 or so forth 21:24 was actually The Traditional Recipes of Laos by Pia Singh and I call that as like the Bible of Lao cuisine because that was like the first that was actually published and written down because a lot of these recipes are word of mouth and so that recipe wasn't published by the chef but it was published by the British ambassador because during the war the chef had already passed but the British ambassador asked his wife if it was okay that he take these recipes and publish it and that was the last wishes of the chef and so 21:54 because he published these recipes in the book, a lot of the proceeds were able to help the Lao refugees around the world. And so I think that is such an impact of recipes, of cookbooks. It is not just a physical thing, but it is this bridge that kind of connects all the people together. And so I hope The Lao Kitchen opens more doors to having more Lao recipes because there are a lot more, there a lot of more stories. And actually I had to cut down the recipes, but I have so many more recipes I'd like to 22:24 share as well.  BC: To talk a little bit about the event coming up at MOFAD next week. So excited. You're going to be in conversation with Jujubee and I didn't and I know that they also did an intro into for the cookbook. How did you guys meet? Like how do you guys know each other?  SD: So Jujubee, oh my gosh, I'm a huge fan of Jujubee so I can't wait for the event as well. But Jujubee has been a rising star for Southeast Asia, the community within the drag scene, but also just 22:54 a really incredible person. So Jujubee is a Laotian American drag queen, actress, singer, and they were on RuPaul's Drag Race a few of different seasons and just so beloved within the fan base. And so for me as a kid, I watched like, also queer, watching these types of shows like 23:14 I was like, wow, there's a Lao person on there. Like we are accepted. We have to be a drag queen, but we're accepted. And for me, it was more of like, okay, I need to, it was very inspiring and like. 23:27 I want to find my own path and journey on what that looks like. so actually Jujubee, I've never met Jujubee in person, but we've connected online on Instagram. So that's my connection of what we've always talked back and forth and within the like community base of like different Lao events, Jujubee has always, you know, supported in various ways and like showed up. And so this is another thing that Jujubee is showing up for. And so I'm so grateful.  BC: Wait a minute. You guys are meeting in person for the first time at MOFAD?  SD: Exactly. First time. 23:58 BC: I'm so pumped for that. Oh my gosh. We have sold so many tickets for this event. I'm telling you, it is one of the most popular events on our roster this spring. Partially Jujubee, partially you. The book is beautiful. Like the pictures are so great. So just to finish up, I'm going to ask you the four speed round questions that we ask all of the people that we talk to for the podcast. Um, so let's start with that, with those. What is the one dish that takes you right back into your childhood? Like transports 24:26 you back to the table when you were a kid? SD: It is gang nor mai Lao bamboo stew. It is so good. That's the forage, my mom foraged for everything and then she foraged and then it was just in that bowl of soup gang no mai.  BC:That's in the book right?  SD: It's in the book yep.  BC: All right gonna make that. Since we're The Museum of Food and Drink we got to talk about dranks. What is the one beverage that you have to have during the day that you can't live without? Not water. Because everyone wants to say water. 24:55 SD: I mean, oh, okay, this is what, okay, just thought, oh, this is a good one. So pandan water, it's not just water, it's pandan scented water. And it's naturally flavored. So pandan is a leaf, you see a lot of extract that's used in desserts, but this one, if you can have access to a real pandan leaf, you let it steep for a couple of minutes, it's like tea, and then you put it in the fridge, and then when it's cold and ready, add ice, and it's one of the most refreshing things you'll ever experience. 25:25 It’s wild, I would highly recommend.  BC: So you make your own?  SD: Yeah I have a pandan tree right outside so I make my own.  BC: Oh dude! So there's not a brand that you can recommend like for us people that can't grow pandan?  SD: I mean yeah so there's not a brand but there is like if you go to Southeast Asian or Asian markets and go to the frozen section usually they're in the frozen section so just de-thaw it wash it and then use it the same way just boil it. That's amazing! Okay I love that. So as far as street food, 25:53 because the current exhibition at MOFAD is Street Food City, which talks about the history of street food vendors in New York City since the beginning of the city up until now. What's the best street food that you've had?  SD: I mean, street food is iconic in Laos. I think that is like the main spots to eat. One of the things is probably a papaya salad. Like every corner will be making their own version of papaya salad,  26:19 the funkiness, like, oh, it's so good. So I would say it would be papaya salad. And actually living in Los Angeles, I started my own street food cart. It was called Thum and Thum. And I was on the streets making a lot of papaya salad next to like the taco stands.  BC: Oh my God, when did that happen?  SD: That was in like the 2019, 2020. And I retired it, but that was a period of time. 26:40 BC: What do you want to see more in street food? Like if you were going to see anything on the street out of a cart or a truck, what are you looking to get? It could be Lao, it could be something else.  SD: I love the play, like California food is always like, you know, some type of other culture mixed in with like the seafood. So I love like a taco, but like different meats and mixtures, like a Korean taco or a Lao taco. So those types of things. I love the play with food. 27:09 BC: Well, I saw your fusion taco at the end of the book that's used with made with, is it a fried rice paper?  SD: Yeah, you mold it into a rice paper, the rice paper shell. And then once you deep fry it, it just stays in that mold.  BC: It's, oh, I love that recipe. It's so good. That looks so good. I think maybe you and I need to start a truck. I think so. Maybe we'll do a pop-up while you're here in New York.  SD: There we go. Jujubee, pop-up. That's all we need.  BC: Oh my God, it's gonna be so good. 27:39 Alright, well thank you so much for hanging out with us at Radio MOFAD.  SD: Yeah, thanks for having me. This was a lot of fun. 27:53 ID: We just got some ice cream from the Cocoboys and what do you think?  Brittany Wyche (BW): You know it's really good. I've never had Thai milk tea before so it's like a different flavor than how like a boba tea or something like that. But yeah, no, it's really good. I really enjoy it,  Dustin MacKay (DM): And would you like some roasted peanuts, some coconut shavings, some condensed coconut milk, some sprinkles? What do you want?  BW: Let's try the condensed coconut milk. 28:22 DM: It's blue with butterfly pea flour, condensed coconut milk, add a little salt to it to make it salty. ID: Wow, that looks incredible.  Aidan Gelber: I would like kid-sized Thai coffee and condensed coconut milk.  ID: The coconut shell sounds really cool.  DM: You scrape out the inside of the coconut shell, but we leave all that meat in there. 28:46 And as you're eating, the ice cream is melting and it's mixing with that young fresh coconut meat. And it's really delicious that way. So that's like a nice little treat at the end.  ID: We should probably do two different flavors, right? Because it's two scoops, right? Yeah. Yeah.  DM: This young coconut meat, I cooked it down with some sugar for a while until it gets soft and sweet. And then we have some roasted sweet corn and a salted coconut milk caramel that is swirled throughout.  ID: What are your influences here? You've got this sort of Thai 29:16 thing going on. Then when I think of coconut, I think of all sorts of backgrounds and cultures and food.  DM: Yeah, so I got the idea for the business living in Thailand for a couple of years where they eat a lot of coconut stuff, coconut water, they have coconut ice cream. And so that's where it started. And at first I was kind of leaning into more Asian-inspired flavors, but then... 29:43 Gradually I started doing all sorts of different things. So we could be doing like a Mexican hot chocolate one week or... 29:51 You know, like a Bahamian rum raisin or something like that. It kind of goes in any direction in the world, you know what I mean? But a lot of people do still think of us as being like a Thai ice cream place, which that's fine. But like really, I don't want to be boxed in in any way, you know what I mean? I could do... 30:14 a Scandinavian specialty tomorrow if I wanted to.  ID: Right, right. Man, I wonder what that would be. Maybe some pickled herring or something. Oh yeah. But I love this concept. And so how long have you been out here?  DM: This is going to be our third summer in Dumbo, fourth summer in total, and started as a very, very modest... 30:43 can't even call it a cart outside of McCarren Park in the summer of 2023. Really I had two Yeti coolers and I would have the ice cream inside the coolers and I would work off the top of the cooler. And you know, we started building it up little by little over time.  ID: Yeah, what was it like to build it up from just that little tiny bit?  DM: Well, I used to put the two coolers on the back of, on a trailer on the back of my bike and I would ride that. But I had a couple of like pretty scary 31:13 incidents where like the trailer like tipped over and you know it's kind of dangerous and I told my mom about it and she she was very concerned so she helped me subsidize a it's called an icicle tricycle which is like a three-wheeled bike that has a like a big cooler attachment on the front of it and it's specifically geared towards 31:35 selling ice cream or sometimes people you know do ice coffee on it and they install taps and stuff on it. So I had that for a while and that was good. Using the icicle tricycle, using that cart, I had to use dry ice to keep everything cold and that could be you know considerably expensive if you're using 10 sometimes 15, 20 pounds a day in the middle of the summer and not to mention every morning I would have to go and get it and there aren't so many places 32:05 that you can get it anymore. So I would have to go to this one place, shout out Big Freeze in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, where I’d pick up my dry ice every morning. But I thought, look, if I could just get a generator to power this freezer, then I wouldn't have to bother with that anymore. So now we have the freezer and it's got a big Jackery battery down here. And yeah, charge it up overnight and then you can rock all day long.  ID: And then do you drive your stuff here in the morning?  DM: No, no, we actually 32:35 are licensed inside the Red Coffee Stand. So we make all the ice cream in there. But I have a partnership with the Red Coffee Stand, so they operate during the day. I make the ice cream in the night. And of course, I keep everything inside. So we're basically two businesses sharing the space.  ID: Yeah, it sounds like a symbiotic relationship, because when you want coffee, maybe later in the day you want ice cream. It works. And I've been to the Red Coffee Stand many times. Shout out, Red Coffee Stand. 33:04 Awesome coffee. That's so cool. So you started out really in the streets, really on your own. And now you're kind of, you were able to get a partnership and you were able to stay out on the street and kind of keep that vibe. 33:20 And so you've actually been to MoFAD before.  DM: I have, yeah. I did an event two summers ago where it was me and Kartik who owns Doosra snacks. They make like a spicy chickpea puff with peanuts and chocolate. It's really delicious. So we both were there serving and actually we did a collaboration on our products. We mixed his chickpea puff snack into the ice cream with some vanilla and it was really delicious actually.  ID: Wow, that sounds amazing. We're gonna have to do that again sometime. 33:50 DM: Gonna have to do that again sometime.  ID: I agree, that sounds amazing. 33:56 ID: Saeng Douangdara will appear on Friday, May 1st in Conversation with Jujubee to discuss The Lao Kitchen. Purchase tickets at mofad.org. Radio MOFAD is by Ivan DeLuce and Bernadette Cura for The Museum of Food and Drink. Thank you for listening.     

Episode 1 Meet our hosts, and hear their conversation with upcoming MOFAD program guest Muhammad Abdul-Hadi of Down North Pizza in Philadelphia.   NOTES   Muhammad Abdul-Hadi Down North Pizza  https://www.downnorthpizza.com/ Out West Coffee https://www.outwestphilly.com/ We the Pizza: Slangin’ Pies and Savin’ Lives https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/739586/we-the-pizza-by-muhammad-abdul-hadi-with-michael-carter-and-david-joachim/ Moon Drive Change https://drivechangenyc.org/ Street Food in DUMBO: Thai Sidewalk https://www.seamless.com/menu/thai-sidewalk-jay-street-and-front-st-brooklyn/4965712   MOFAD The Museum of Food and Drink 55 Water St 2nd Fl Brooklyn NY 11201 https://www.mofad.org/