Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

DEP E99
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Francine L Shaw: I guess I'm weird about stuff. I prefer to eat some of this stuff cold. But I don't think I like room temperature food.

Matt Regusci: Got it.

Francine L Shaw: It's either hot or it's cold. Now beverages, this is odd. I will drink at room temperature, but I don't like room temperature food. Is that from working in a restaurant?

Matt Regusci: Maybe. You want to lie down on the couch and we can have a conversation and then charge you like 200 bucks an hour.

Francine L Shaw: I need to lie down on the couch and have a conversation.

Matt Regusci: So Francine, tell me about your past experiences in restaurants and how that's altered your ability to handle food.

Francine L Shaw: But ironically, when you work in a restaurant, you eat a lot of room temperature food.

Matt Regusci: Oh, 100%.

intro: Everybody's got to eat, and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points. From the supply chain, to the point of sale. Join industry veterans Francine L. Shaw and Matt Ragucci for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule.

Don't. Eat. Poop. Don't eat poop.

Matt Regusci: Hello, hello, Francine.

Francine L Shaw: Hey, Matt.

Matt Regusci: Holidays are over.

Francine L Shaw: They are, and we are into a new year.

Matt Regusci: We are into a new year, yes.

Episode 99.

Francine L Shaw: That is just phenomenal. Did you think, the big question, did you think we would see episode 99?

Matt Regusci: Given, okay, given how you are and I know you very well, I knew if I was going to go into this with you, it was not going to be a short term thing.

You and I will throw our hands up if things aren't working, but I guess when I started I figured like we would probably go a couple years before we hung in the towel. So I was pretty sure we would go, if not a hundred episodes, pretty close to it before we hang in the towel. So yeah, but I didn't know that we would end up actually having anybody actually paying attention to us.

Francine L Shaw: Okay. So those are two very different things. Yes, I am determined. I've got a lot of grit and tenacity. But first of all, I don't know that we would have done it weekly had it. We not had a good response So there wouldn't have been 99 episodes per se so most podcasts Successful two years are coming up next month.

Yeah, maybe two years I don't know. I had hoped that it would be successful But you know, I just I don't know that I really thought that We would see, I don't know what my expectation was, but here we are. And going strong.

Matt Regusci: And we have had a weekly episode. I think we missed one week in the two years that we did this.

And it was some fluke thing. Technologically, that didn't work out. We were on vacation. We couldn't fix it. One week in two years that we've missed. Yeah. That is absolutely amazing. Given how flipping crazy busy you and I are both are.

Francine L Shaw: It is sometimes a challenge. We recorded from some crazy places you recorded from hotel rooms and we've recorded from conference venues.

So we have literally recorded from around the country. So yeah, it's 99

Matt Regusci: 99 and then we have a few different ideas for what 100 is going to be. And I think it depends on other people, not just on what we end up landing on. So stay tuned because I think 100 will be a lot of fun.

Francine L Shaw: Yes, no matter how we do it, it'll be a lot of fun.

Matt Regusci: So what did you end up doing during the holidays?

Francine L Shaw: Well, my daughter and granddaughter always come home for the holidays. So then we usually go to my son's house on Christmas day and then the day after Christmas I usually cook. My son got sick, not from my cooking. Let me make that clear. So, but yeah, we just spend the time together, exchange gifts and don't do a lot of anything extravagant, but spending the time together is nice because we don't do a lot of that.

Matt Regusci: It was the same with me. So we both had people pass this holiday, which was, uh,

Francine L Shaw: we did.

Matt Regusci: I know, which is, yeah. So my grandfather who I changed my last name to, so my last name was Coons when I started many years ago and changed my last name to Regusci. When I, my wife was pregnant with my daughter, my wife was like, well, we should we just change this now before we, this is what you want to do.

And so I actually changed my last name to my grandfather. He was like my dad in a lot of ways. I worked with him. He brought me into the industry. So he was a dairy consultant. So I, that's why I talk about starting my career in dairy. As a child, I started working with my grandfather going out to dairies and, and that type of stuff.

And yeah, he passed right before the holiday. So that was when we lived in California every year, he would have, or before COVID, I guess he would have Christmas Eve at his house. And so the whole family would come over and do Christmas Eve at his house, a hundred people because we're Italian. So it's huge.

And he had 12 grandkids just himself. I'm the oldest of 12 grandkids. And Yeah, so we mourned him this holiday and luckily I'm following in his footsteps and having a lot of family members so we were, I was easily distracted with My kiddos. So we had on Christmas day, just my kids and their significant others or whatever.

A couple of them have very close to being engaged type of significant others. We have 16 people at our house. We were able to do a whole entire football game on Christmas. Which basically just my kid.

And it was so much fun, but that kind of leads into the question here or the, what we're going to talk about today is 19 items that professional chefs never refrigerate.

And why is because my son came home from Germany, he's in the army and he came home from Germany for the holidays. And my family loves hot sauce, but he has specific type. He likes Cholula, Sriracha is a big thing. Cause like most of my kiddos are Chinese. So we have a bunch of different hot sauces that we use.

And my son was freaking out because we put the hot sauce in the refrigerator. And he was like, why do you do that? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Which then led to my mother in law sending me this post about the items that, because we had a big old argument. Like he was like, you don't need to have this in there.

And I'm like, yeah, but we do because of blah, blah, blah. Then that led into a whole bunch of other things that we have in the refrigerator that don't need to be in the refrigerator. Because we'd have people at a given time during the holidays going over two weeks. You can imagine we had a lot of stuff in our refrigerator.

So my kiddos are just trying to pull things out that didn't need to be in there. So then that led to this. I shouldn't sent this over to Francine. I was like, we have to have this conversation because I want to know, and we have not talked about this yet. I want to know if Francine wants to know what we put in our refrigerators that does not need to be in there. I thought this would be, we both thought this would be a good both learning experience and interesting conversation.

Francine L Shaw: And there are multiple reasons for people putting some of these things in the refrigerator, even though it may or may not need to be in the refrigerator.

And just a side note, my granddaughter loves hot sauce. She's not Chinese. I'm just saying.

Matt Regusci: Sriracha. Yes, totally. You know what though? Asians. Okay. I grew up in an area full of Mexicans. Like I grew up in a neighborhood where I was one of maybe five white people in a very Mexican neighborhood. Okay. So I grew up eating spicy food.

Mexican food was just food, right? Okay. Mexican spicy is a completely different spicy than Asian. Absolutely. Oh my gosh. And some of my kiddos, I'm like, how is your mouth not imploding an inferno of fiery hell with what you just consumed?

Francine L Shaw: She can eat some things that I can't touch. Well, first of all, I'd never had sriracha until I started traveling.

I love it. But there are some things that she eats that I'm just like, I don't understand how you can eat that because I would be blowing flames.

Matt Regusci: It becomes addicting. Legit. I love spicy food. And a bunch of my kids put hot sauce on like everything. And so we have, we actually save Taco Bell sauces. That should be another one too.

I like save all the different Taco Bell sauces. I grew up, Taco Bell was one of my main fast foods. And so we just have this bucket of different Taco Bell sauces. And my kiddos will put that on everything too. But Sriracha, Cholula, and Taco Bell sauce. And then I make my own like chili oil. So I'll make my own Asian chili oil and I make a Mexican chili oil too.

So there's two different, I use different peppers for both of them. So we'll put that on a bunch of stuff, but yeah.

Francine L Shaw: Okay. So let's do this.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, okay.

Number one, ketchup. You put this in the refrigerator?

Francine L Shaw: The answer to the question is yes, I do put it in the refrigerator, but not because it needs to be refrigerated.

How about you?

Matt Regusci: Yes, it goes in the refrigerator only because I don't know where else to freaking put it. My wife hates stuff all over the counters. Like absolutely hates stuff on the counters. So you've seen my pantry, Francine. Where are we going to put ketchup where people are going to find it? I don't know.

Francine L Shaw: I don't like the flavor of warm ketchup. Oh really? I prefer it cold. So that's why the ketchup is in that refrigerator. I don't care how anybody else likes it. I like it.

Matt Regusci: Restaurant, do you use ketchup?

Francine L Shaw: There you don't have really an option. They don't refrigerate Yes. No, and that was what I was my next point was that they don't refrigerate ketchup in restaurants.

Matt Regusci: Nope, they do not.

Francine L Shaw: Hanging in a bag on a wall in a lot of cases. It comes in a bag.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, or that's true like at fast food, but like at high end restaurants, one of my checklists when I would close out the restaurant, one of our checklists was Consolidating ketchups. I think that's what they even called it.

When you'd go around with the ketchup jars and pour them into each other. Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: They call that marrying the bottles. That's right. Marrying the bottle. That's exactly it. Bottles. And they're not allowed to marry the bottles because of cross contamination.

Matt Regusci: I'm sure it was known back then. My establishment didn't really care back then.

Marrying the bottles. I, that's right.

Francine L Shaw: Marrying the bottles. Or take one and put it on top of the other. You should not do that. So, anyway.

Matt Regusci: What is the number one thing people dip ketchup in, though?

Francine L Shaw: The number one thing that people dip in ketchup, you mean?

Matt Regusci: Hmm. Yeah, dip into ketchup. Correct. Yes. Dip into ketchup.

Which would lead to number two.

Francine L Shaw: My answer was going to be french fries.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, which is potatoes. So, number two on the list is professional chefs do not refrigerate potatoes. This, I do not refrigerate potatoes either. Do you refrigerate potatoes?

Francine L Shaw: No, I don't.

Matt Regusci: We have in our pantry a special drawer for potatoes, onions, that type of stuff.

I don't. Yeah, you're not supposed to refrigerate potatoes at all. And this is, so some of this stuff that I do refrigerate is also a quality thing. So that's like with you, with ketchup, you like the flavor of ketchup better when it's refrigerated. Quality for potatoes is actually worse. So you're minima, you're lowering the quality when you when you refrigerate them.

Okay, so this one surprised me.

Number three is mayonnaise. Do you refrigerate your mayonnaise? 100 percent refrigerate my mayonnaise. I do too. Okay, so the thing says this one may surprise you if you grew up on stories of people getting sick at picnics from mayonnaise for food containing mayonnaise. But it's true.

Store bought mayonnaise is acidic enough to keep safely at room temperature. Don't believe me? According to Hellman's, aka Best Foods, top selling mayonnaise company in the U. S., this product can be stored at room temperature for up to a month after opening or two months in the refrigerator. The problem is actually the food you mix with the mayo.

I buy mine in the jar and use it to refill a squeeze bottle. I only ever reach into the jar with utensils, blah, blah, blah. So, okay. So the mayonnaise now, if you're making your own mayonnaise at home, that's very different than mayonnaise in the jar, but given how much acid is in the mayonnaise in store bought mayonnaise, I guess it can last at room temperature for a month.

Okay. For the same reason at which we keep our ketchup in our refrigerator, we will be keeping the mayonnaise in the refrigerator.

Francine L Shaw: Right. And you've ever seen the mayonnaise when it gets warm? Like separated? Hot.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. Yeah. Like the oil separate? Yeah. So I guess you can, I think for quality purposes, I don't use ketchup and mayo in a lot of things.

It wasn't really a condiment that I used a lot as a kid. The next one, mustard, definitely is. I put mustard on almost everything. I don't think I can eat warm mayonnaise.

Francine L Shaw: I could not eat warm mayonnaise and I love mayonnaise. I'm not eating warm mayonnaise.

Matt Regusci: I only put mayonnaise in egg salad and tuna salad is the only two things I put mayonnaise in.

And I just the thought of that's supposed to be a cold sandwich to me. So that would not be, that would not be good.

Francine L Shaw: Now the carbs are typically the problem at the picnics. You know what I mean? The potatoes and the macaroni and.

Matt Regusci: Oh, and once you start mixing it with things, the pH changes completely.

Francine L Shaw: But, yeah, I'm not keeping my mayonnaise in the cupboard, I'm sorry.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. And then.

Francine L Shaw: People tend to stick the dirty utensils in the mayonnaise, which creates the problem, because now you've got bacteria, again, cross contamination that's been introduced into the.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, I use my hands, I just scoop it out like this.

Francine L Shaw: This is mine!

Matt Regusci: It's so disgusting. Like, I could picture that in some nasty movie or something like that.

Some dumb 90s movie of some kid sticking his hand in mayonnaise or something.

Francine L Shaw: You made me forget what I was going to say. Okay, mustard. Did we talk about mustard?

Matt Regusci: No, mustard. I love mustard. I put mustard on everything. Do you like mustard?

Francine L Shaw: Yeah. Yes. I like mustard.

Matt Regusci: Oh, man.

I don't know what it is. And it's, I realized that I am unique because in my family, I'm like the only one who eats mustard.

Like my, none of my kids eat mustard. My wife doesn't like mustard, which is crazy because my wife is British. So I'm like, don't British people put mustard on everything, but oh my gosh. And yes, we do put the mustard in the refrigerator for the same reason why we put the ketchup in the refrigerator.

That's because my wife doesn't like shit all over the counters. Okay, and I keep slipping and saying that word and it's because you could picture my wife saying that right like On the cover on the counters

Francine L Shaw: I don't like stuff on the counters either. So i'm with her. Yes.

Matt Regusci: So mustard goes in the refrigerator for you, too.

It does soy sauce refrigerator or no,

Francine L Shaw: no

Matt Regusci: Okay, so soy sauce again is in the refrigerator specifically because my wife does not like things on the counter. We... maybe I need to find a spot...

Francine L Shaw: I've seen your kitchen, Matt. You've got cupboards.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, we have cupboards, but they're all filled with other crap. Like I gotta find a place.

When I say I, by the way, in conjunction with my wife, I need to ask my wife if we can maybe find a spot in the pantry that we have condiments that don't need to be refrigerated. Because yeah, soy sauce goes in the refridgerator.

Francine L Shaw: You're allowed to refrigerate it. It's just,

Matt Regusci: what about I know, but the amount of crap I got from my son for this, because he was like, this is all hot, this is all cold, and I'm putting in a hot food, and blah blah blah.

Yeah. What about Worcestershire sauce? In the frigerator. Same reason.

Francine L Shaw: Oh yeah, I don't frigerate that either.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, soy sauce doesn't need to go in the frigerator because soy sauce is just salt. Nothing is going to contaminate soy sauce. This also says the same goes for Worcestershire sauce, which is also the same thing, yeah.

Which is also just basically salt. Oh man. I gotta get a separate section. This is bad.

Alright, tomatoes. Refrigerate or not refrigerate?

Francine L Shaw: It depends. It depends. So, I prefer to eat them cold. So, I typically put them in the refrigerator. They don't have to be refrigerated. They grow outside for God's sake. You know what I mean?

Matt Regusci: Yeah, that's not a good example. All of our produce grows outside. Except for sprouts and mushrooms.

Francine L Shaw: Technically, most of it does not have to be refrigerated if you're going to eat it right away. You don't have to. Oh, right. Or fairly soon, you don't have to put it in the refrigerator if you're cutting it up.

And gonna... yes, you need to put it in the refrigerator, but usually I put it in the refrigerator because I prefer to eat it cold. But if they're grown, like garden grown, I don't always, for some reason, put them in the refrigerator. I don't know. It's weird. And that's a basket or something I might put them in.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. So, in my house, we have, uh, my in laws live with us. We all live together and they have like their own separate kind of house that's connected to our house. Our kitchens are connected via a hallway. So there's like a garage, mudroom that separates our two kitchens. So it's pretty easy to get to each other's kitchens.

All of that stuff. My mother in law has a couple areas in which we put all that produce. So peppers, tomatoes, avocados, like that type of stuff that, that actually refrigerating it lowers the quality of the product. We have a special place on her counters for that because my wife doesn't ever go over there because my wife doesn't cook.

So, yeah. Maybe we can put the condiments on my mother in law's side. She'll love that. I don't think so. She's not going to love that.

Francine L Shaw: She needs the tomatoes and suddenly there's no tomatoes because. There's condiments. Oh my god.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. So even in the industry, I don't know if people actually care about this, but In like huge distribution centers for grocery stores and for Sysco and Sysco Foods, U. S. Foods. These are the people that sell produce and whatever to grocery, to restaurants. They're the distribution for restaurants. In their big distribution centers, they have frozen and they have the different cold rooms with different temperatures and then they have tempered coolers. Tempered coolers are like 50 degrees.

That is where they would put like potatoes and tomatoes and that type of stuff.

So they have different rooms specifically for produce at the or in meat and eggs and all that stuff but for the temperature at which they're supposed to be at well yeah. Tomatoes is in a temperature cooler. Okay so seven hot sauce. Cupboard. That does go in your cupboard.

Francine L Shaw: Yeah Yes. Not in the refrigerator.

Matt Regusci: Okay.

Francine L Shaw: A lot of this stuff has gone in my cupboard, not in my refrigerator.

Matt Regusci: Since the conversation started off with this, obviously hot sauce is in, is in my refrigerator. So that needs to change. So we're going to put it in my mother in law's. Oh my God. I can just.

Francine L Shaw: I hope your mother in law is listening to this.

Matt Regusci: She probably will actually.

Francine L Shaw: I can't remember her name, but yeah, I hope she's listening to this.

Matt Regusci: Oh, so we've lived together. My in laws and my wife and I have lived together off and on for over 20 years. Yeah. Over 20 years in some way, shape, or form. So when I say this, like I can picture the conversation about this would go and it would not go well.

Francine L Shaw: I'd be locked in the connecting door between like, I love you guys. But.

Matt Regusci: When you live together in a house, like we do, where it's a communal type of a house, territory is very protected. This is my spot. I like joking that I'm gonna put shit on her side, but that will never happen.

Francine L Shaw: I need my space.

Matt Regusci: Okay, avocados.

Francine L Shaw: I have an avocado in my refrigerator right now.

Matt Regusci: Okay, so do you usually have them in your refrigerator, or is it because you're wanting it to last longer, or what?

Francine L Shaw: Well, it would be in my refrigerator because I get so weird about stuff. I prefer to eat some of the stuff cold.

But when I'm... I don't think I like room temperature food.

Matt Regusci: Got it.

Francine L Shaw: It's either hot or it's cold. Now beverages, this is odd, I will drink at room temperature. But I don't like room temperature food. Is that from working in a restaurant?

Matt Regusci: Maybe. You want to lie down on the couch and we can have a conversation and then charge you like 200 bucks an hour.

Francine L Shaw: I need to lie down on the couch and have a conversation.

Matt Regusci: So Francine, tell me about your past experiences in restaurants. And how that's altered your ability to handle food.

Francine L Shaw: But ironically, when you work in a restaurant, you eat a lot of room temperature food.

Matt Regusci: Oh, 100 percent. Gosh, it's so true.

Francine L Shaw: You eat a lot of food standing up. You learn how to eat very fast.

Matt Regusci: Very fast. Very fast.

Francine L Shaw: You're always the first one done eating at the table. Clearing away the dishes before anybody else has done eating. Everybody gets really annoyed with you.

You're cleaning constantly. Take away people's dishes before they're done with them. My daughter in law, she listens to this podcast.

I still have a tendency to do it, but when she first started dating my son, she'd set a glass down and she would not be done with that glass and it would disappear. So true. I remember her saying to me, I don't care. Remember she said, I will put this in the sink when I'm done with this, or I will let you know when I'm done with this. Don't touch my glass! Because it's no soon.

And it comes, it seriously comes from working in a restaurant.

Matt Regusci: Clearing tables.

Francine L Shaw: Yeah. Even though I worked in quick service. It still is ingrained in you after all of those years that when somebody sets something like that down, you clean it up. I still do it. My husband gets so irritated with me. It's like, where did my glass go?

It's just every, almost every day. Where did my glass go? It's in the dishwasher. Get another one. Last night he was cleaning out the refrigerator and he needed a spoon to scrape out a bowl and I put all the spoons in the dishwasher and he wanted a spoon. So I reached in the drawer to get another spoon because in our world Even though i've not worked in this world for 20 years, you would never hand somebody a dirty spoon. Oh 100%. i've already put All of the spoons in the dishwasher if I can pull a spoon out of the dishwasher to give him a spoon even though he's Just scraping out the bowls No, I reached in the drawer to give him a spoon and he's like, just grab one out of the dishwasher.

No! I'm in my head. This is the conversation is I'm like a dirty spoon.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. For this one, you definitely need to lie on the couch and have a conversation because he's literally scraping food he's throwing into the trash.

Francine L Shaw: I know, but my reflex, my brain is, I just reached it. Just the thought process of grabbing one out of the dishwasher never ended in my mind until he's just grabbed one out of the dishwasher and his tone is like, what's the matter with you?

Matt Regusci: Come on, dummy. What are you, what is going on? I know you're smarter than this.

Francine L Shaw: And I'm like,

Matt Regusci: So avocados, for quality purposes, should stay on your counter until it's ripe, because it will not ripen in the fridge. So one of the problems with avocados is, you buy avocados generally unripened. They're close to being ripened, but they're not fully ripened.

So that's why people will put them in paper bags or whatever, because then it'll be within its own ethylene and then it will ripen faster. If you leave it on the counter, it will ripen within a day or two, depending upon how unripe the avocado is that you have. If you're not going to be using that, that quickly, then I would say leave it on the counter until it's ripe, then throw it in the refrigerator and it will keep it from spoiling faster, but when you pull it out, it will be ripe.

Got it. Because if you just put it in the refrigerator, you probably have this Francine, you do this all the time, then you pull it out and it's like hard.

Francine L Shaw: Well, I tend to buy them almost right because I'm going to eat it right away.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. Fresh basil. Don't buy it. You know what? I don't really buy it either.

I will buy this. So fresh basil, you can just leave on the counter. I don't use basil a lot either, even though I'm Italian, I do use, but it's usually dried basil. I just use it in Italian seasoning or whatever, but my mother in law loves fresh basil on a bunch of different stuff that she makes like for herself, avocado toast and all that different type of stuff.

So when I'm at Sprouts or a grocery store, I will buy the basil plants. Then she can just use or whatever and then trash. It's like the best way for fresh basil. They're not that expensive. Sometimes they look pretty nasty though. When you're looking like it's come on guys, come on produce section. You should be doing a better job of keeping your basil plants where people actually want to buy them.

But when they're nice and they're bushy and they're good, then I get it. Okay.

Stone fruit. So this stone fruit is like peaches, plums, nectarines, cherries as a stone fruit as well. Although sometimes people don't categorize it as that. But yeah, peaches, plums, nectarines, that type of stuff. Do you put that in the refrigerator or on the counter?

Francine L Shaw: In the refrigerator.

Matt Regusci: I go back and forth. I do this just like I would an avocado. Okay, so we have in Colorado. Actually I've been blessed living in California and in Colorado. Like the stone fruit is absolutely amazing in both those places. So I grew up eating this stuff all the time. I would leave stone fruit on the counter until it is ripe.

Then I put it in the refrigerator if we're not going to use it right away. But for the same reasons, it really doesn't ripen well in the refrigerator. It doesn't. So once it gets to the ripening point, then I put it in the fridge. See, I buy this stuff. Yeah, I tend to not only because we have such a large family that I like buy a lot of it.

And so then I want to stage out the ripeness.

Francine L Shaw: So I want to eat it if I'm buying it, even if it's not ripe.

Matt Regusci: We have a completely different grocery buying technique, Francie. When it's two people versus 16, we were buying in bulk. It's going to last us like a couple of few weeks. So, yeah.

Francine L Shaw: So, the exception to this would be if I'm going to buy like a bushel or a couple bushels of something and I'm going to can it, I'm not coming home and putting all of that in my refrigerator.

it would sit out until it gets ripe and I'm going to then peel it and can it or whatever. In that case, it would not be, I would not refrigerate it. And then of course, if I've not had a chance to do it and it's ripe, now I'm trying to shove all that crap in my refrigerator. Right.

Matt Regusci: Or freeze it, like we were saying on the interview with Andy Kennedy, where you're like, If I can't can, I freeze? So.

Francine L Shaw: Can we talk about the potatoes again for a second? Yeah. Acrylamide, when they're cooked, it's a chemical substance that can form in starchy foods that are cooked at high temperature. Right. If you store them in the fridge, that's what it was.

Matt Regusci: We actually test that. So in Ellipse Analytics for Clean Label Project, we test for acrylamide.

So acrylamide is a chemical that is produced when you cook starches at a high temperature and fast. So it's found to be cancerous. And so when you're refrigerating potatoes and then you cook them and you're trying to get them up to temp fast, you're going to create more of acrylamide than if you, if they are not.

Very good, Francine. Thank you for bringing that. I didn't even think of that.

Francine L Shaw: That's what it increases by storing them in a refrigerator. I knew there was something, but I couldn't remember what it was.

Matt Regusci: Nuts. Do you keep nuts in your refrigerator?

Francine L Shaw: No.

Matt Regusci: No, we don't either. I will keep almond flour or that type of stuff in the freezer because now that you've processed it, it loses its quality very quickly.

So that type of stuff I'll keep in the freezer, but the just nuts themselves, no.

Francine L Shaw: No.

Matt Regusci: Okay. We agree on that one. Chocolate. You are the expert and connoisseur of chocolate. So is chocolate going in the refrigerator or no?

Francine L Shaw: It depends on how much I purchased.

Matt Regusci: What? How much are you purchasing that you need to stick in, you need to stick chocolate in the refrigerator to keep? Okay. So, so you go to, you have a Costco and Sam's Club card just for chocolate. Is that all you just buy that in bulk?

Francine L Shaw: Actually, I do not have a Sam's Club card. Okay. Cool. Club or Costco or BJ's card. I, we did, we're not members.

However, and this is even more funny. I don't buy chocolate. My husband buys it for me.

Matt Regusci: Nice.

Francine L Shaw: Yes, he is. I really do. I have an amazing husband. I really do have a very good husband. So it depends on how much chocolate I have or what it is because I really, even though we talk about this a lot, I don't eat as much as it sounds like I eat.

I certainly don't want it to go bad. But currently, yes, there is chocolate in my freezer.

Matt Regusci: Is there What type of chocolate is in your freezer? What, is it just like pounds of just milk chocolate?

Francine L Shaw: Look at the look on your face right now. You are just utterly

Matt Regusci: Well, I'm so glad we did not have this conversation about this article before this show.

This is eye opening. Seriously, though, how much chocolate do you have? Are you buying it by the pounds? And.

Francine L Shaw: This drives my son insane. We have this drawer in my house only because he doesn't like his kids to have a lot of sugar. And they do not by any means have a tremendous amount of sugar, nor do we indulge them with as much sugar as he thinks that we do when they come to our house.

But we have a drawer that has candy in it. Typically, more of that candy goes bad than we eat, but especially my grandson, oh my god, he's so cute, will open this drawer and be like, do you know what's in here? Yeah, we do.

Matt Regusci: Oh my god, that's the type of stuff that the grandkids are going to talk about at your funeral.

Grandma Francine's chocolate jar.

Francine L Shaw: When actually it's Papi Tim. Damn, there we go. Open this drawer. And it's, there's like all kinds of stuff in this drawer. And so I, a lot of times I have to throw it away. Cause I don't even know how long it's been in there. And anyway, so there's this in this drawers right now.

It's a big drawer, but it has to have like Hershey kisses and all kinds of stuff in there. But in my freezer right now. I don't even know what's in there. There's peppermint patties are in there. There might be Kit Kats in there. There's not pounds of milk chocolate in there.

Matt Regusci: Okay. So we do have pounds of milk chocolate in our freezer, but it is specifically for chocolate fountains.

So we throw a lot of parties. Like my kids have cast parties or during COVID we did all the dances. So we ran prom and. All that different type of dances that kids would get during high school. We want to make sure that they still had that experience. So we actually had the date. We have a courtyard in our house.

Booked everything out. So we love throwing parties. It's been something that we've done for Years, and so we actually have a chocolate fountain. So we have chocolate in the freezer But the chocolate and I do probably yeah, but it's like specifically for the chocolate fountain and it goes We'll go months without using it.

So we don't want it to go bad. My grandkids would love that All of that stuff. Yeah marshmallows all the yeah anything. I would love frozen pound cake is good Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: Marshmallows and strawberries and that would be amazing. But yeah, so if we get a bag of candy or something like that, we would probably freeze that.

So I have a really bad habit of eating like a piece of chocolate before I go to bed. Usually a lot of times I'll eat like a piece of chocolate before I go to bed. Bad habit.

Matt Regusci: Obviously your husband doesn't think so since he's buying it for you and he's probably like, I want this woman to be in a good freaking mood when she comes to bed, so here honey, I'm gonna buy you a chocolate.

You're not disagreeing!

Okay, uh, on that note, coffee. Do you refrigerate or freeze coffee?

Francine L Shaw: Up until right before Christmas, I didn't have a coffee maker.

Matt Regusci: What? Oh, yeah, keep talking, because I need to go refill my coffee.

Francine L Shaw: No, up until right before Christmas, I did not have a coffee maker. Well, that's a lie. Okay, so I had a Keurig coffee maker with coffee, the coffee pods.

But I didn't, it was just one of those small, single cup. And I didn't really like it. No. So I didn't have a real coffee maker. So I spent a ton of money buying coffee, which is ridiculous. So there was this coffee maker. Well, we talked about it at the one conference. Remember I talked to Woody about it at the conference.

We talked about the, Coffee maker. And so I bought one. I, well, I looked at Braville and there was another brand. Oh, duh. DeLonghi. I looked at both of them and I've been looking at these for three years because they're ridiculously expensive. Like crazy expensive. And I really wanted these couldn't make a decision as to which one I wanted.

And so anyway, I finally made a decision and I bought one on cyber Monday. I think it was because my husband was like, he was going to buy me one and I bought it myself. He was gonna buy me one for Christmas. I just ended up buying it myself. I didn't know he was going to do that. So anyway, yes, I really like it.

So now I have a coffee maker. I went from none to like this ridiculous coffee maker. Just like the dog. We went from none to 250. It's none or extreme, but there's no moderation with me. Okay. So I do not married to me.

Matt Regusci: You and my wife are too similar. And you've already know that my wife is the same way. My wife and I are very similar in.

We will penny pinch on things that don't matter, but things that we use a lot. We're the cry once mentality. So we'll, for instance, I completely agree with you on spending money on coffee maker, but I have the mocha master and I even bought one for the office or my lab that makes, it's huge. It makes a ton of coffee because, Hey, here we are.

We're a clean label project and we're testing all these different types of stuff. And we have a Keurig too. I use Keurig, but it's one of those, if I have nothing else, I'm going to use the But we have a Nespresso that we use for espresso making and we have this Mocha Master. There is no need for coffee to go into our refrigerator or freezer.

I buy coffee. in like bulk and we go through it so fast. Yeah. I will drink a pot of coffee myself. I couldn't do that. I love coffee. Absolutely. 100%. One of the greatest inventions. I just, I could not. Benjamin Franklin is quoted for saying God loves us because he gave us beer. I actually think that we know God love us because he gave us coffee and tea.

Love tea.

Okay. Apples. Refridgerator?

Francine L Shaw: Again, sometimes it's, sometimes I don't.

Matt Regusci: So this is a quality thing for me. Apples are in the refrigerator because I like apples cold. And my kids like apples cold.

Francine L Shaw: I sometimes I don't.

Matt Regusci: Not the freezer, the refridgerator. Yeah. One of the reasons why we can get Washington and Michigan apples all year long is because apples can store all year long.

It is fascinating. The apple industry is fascinating.

Francine L Shaw: Ironically, my ex husband worked in a cold storage facility when we first Got married young. We got married very young. He was 18. I was 19 and we were going to use the phrase piss poor broke. We were broke. And I swear to God for a year, we ate egg sandwiches and applesauce.

That was our diet plan, egg sandwiches and applesauce. And he worked in this cold storage facility. And sometimes the apples that were in there. They wouldn't take or they would, that year would end or whatever. And for some reason they didn't take these apples. And so that's, I didn't have to pay for the apples.

So that's why applesauce, I made applesauce out of these apples. And you would go through and these were pallets of bins of apples. And I would have to pick through these apples to make this applesauce. And yeah, so yes, I do know that.

Matt Regusci: Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: Fun times.

Matt Regusci: Apples in America, American history, modern American history is fascinating.

There was this, we were doing this trivia game thing during the holidays. And one of the trivia was how many varieties of apples are there? And I said, first off, Of course, like being a food expert also, this question is ridiculous. Nobody knows how many varieties of apples there are. And of course they had like a number, but it's ridiculous.

So in order to keep a homestead, like a homestead, like 40 acres or whatever, you had to build a house and plant apple trees. And Johnny Appleseed is based off of an actual person. And they would go out and plant apple seeds in every homestead. So you would have all of these different varieties of apples and apples are great because they store And so you're rape you were able to get year old apples that you were able to turn into applesauce because apples store So damn well, but through that we were able to create all these varieties just Like not even knowing what was going to pop up or is this going to be a good cider variety?

Is this going to be a sweet apple? And depending upon the type of apple and the acidity of the apple is how it's going to store, right? So honeycrisp doesn't store that well because it's a super sweet apple. Everybody really likes honeycrisp But like some of the tartar apples store amazingly well because they have higher acidity then when they go through and they go Okay, this is This apple tree from this seed didn't produce very well, but then they would graft on apples that did.

So in an apple tree, you could have three or four different varieties, some of these old apple trees, because they would graft like. Multiple varieties sometimes on an older apple tree. That was a complete and total tangent, but

Francine L Shaw: it's interesting

Matt Regusci: So we just have a few more here and we'll go quick nutella peanut butter.

Francine L Shaw: I had never even eaten nutella till my daughter in law heard this on the podcast and got me some

Matt Regusci: Oh, do you like it?

Francine L Shaw: I love it. Yeah, I love it. So, the answer to that would be no I wouldn't put it in the refrigerator peanut butter, no. Unless it's like natural peanut butter.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, I can see that because the separation. Yeah Yeah Same with us. We keep peanut butter in the pantry. So baby, where are we keep the peanut butters?

Where are we going to end up storing all these? The condiments?

Francine L Shaw: I love peanut butter. I eat a lot.

Matt Regusci: I love peanut butter too. Peanut butter, Nutella. My kids love both of them. We have both of them.

Francine L Shaw: I'll eat it out of the jar.

Matt Regusci: Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: I'm the only one who eats it.

Matt Regusci: Now do you change spoon?

Francine L Shaw: No, I keep the spoon in the cupboard right on top of it. And just use that spoon.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. Okay, honey. Do you keep honey in the refridgerator?

Francine L Shaw: No.

Matt Regusci: We don't either. Honey stays so very close to where the peanut butter is. So I'm thinking of finding a spot for all the other condiments.

Francine L Shaw: Get a basket, put it in your pantry and put all the stuff in the basket in the pantry.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, I gotta maybe clean some crap up and then put a basket in there.

Okay, cucumbers. Do you keep cucumbers in the refridgerator? Yes. Me too. But it's also, I think, a quality thing. I just like cold cucumbers. I don't like hot cucumbers or cucumbers. Citrus fruit. Do you keep like oranges and that stuff in the refrigerator as well? I do. Yeah, I do as well. And it's because of the same thing, the texture.

Francine L Shaw: But yeah, cold, yeah, cold orange. I, yeah.

Matt Regusci: I like cold oranges. Yeah. And cold, we use so much citrus. We put like lemon and lime in almost everything. Love it. Okay, so last but not least, fresh peppers. Do you put that in the refrigerator?

Francine L Shaw: Yes.

Matt Regusci: No, we do not. We don't put peppers in the refrigerator. Sorry. No, I was gonna say that's also like on my mother in law's side, where the

Francine L Shaw: Just throw, just put everything over there.

Yeah. Just get one of those baskets that hangs from your ceiling with multiple tiers and just Your wife will love that. She'll love it.

Matt Regusci: Okay, so another one, a bonus one, onions. Do you keep onions in the refrigerator or in the pantry?

Francine L Shaw: So Right now, the answer to the question is yes, they're in the refrigerator.

I don't like to keep in the refrigerator, but I don't have in this house anywhere else to keep them.

Matt Regusci: Ah, same with me. You don't have like storage space because you don't like on the counters like my wife. Yeah, we keep onions in the pantry until we're about to cut them. So if it depends on the depends on the type of cooking that we're going to do.

But if we know we're gonna, we're going to be cutting a bunch of onions. We will stick them in the refrigerator just to keep the crying down to a minimum.

Francine L Shaw: So this is very interesting. I wear contacts. So my eyes don't water when I cut onions. Really? I don't know if it's the contacts or what it is, but no, they don't.

Matt Regusci: My mother in law wears contacts. She cries. She cries all the time. This episode is like about my mother in law.

Francine L Shaw: She's gonna love it. What's her name? I can't, I don't remember.

Matt Regusci: Lynn.

Francine L Shaw: So Lynn, I'm very sorry that you need to put up with Matt.

Matt Regusci: Lynn Foster. And my father in law is William James Foster. He goes by Jamie. It's like the most British name you could possibly have. Okay. Well, on that note, don't eat poop. Don't eat poop.

No.