BORDERLINE SALTY

On today’s episode of Borderline Salty, hosts Rick Martinez and Carla Lalli Music weigh in on the best ways to use MSG, growing to love nopales, and how to take care of your cast iron skillet, whether it’s been in your family for generations or brand new out of the box! Also, Carla shares a kitchen nightmare story from her days as a personal chef.

This week’s recipe book: 

As always, we’d love to hear about your cooking conundrums at 833-433-FOOD (3663). 

Find us on Instagram @borderlinesalty

Find full episode transcripts and more about the podcast on our website borderlinesalty.fm. 

If you can’t get enough of our hosts – we don’t blame you! Subscribe to Carla's newsletters here and find links to her Instagram and YouTube channel at www.carlalallimusic.com. 

You can pre-order Rick’s cookbook “Mi Cocina: Recipes and Rapture from My Kitchen in Mexico  here, watch the companion Mi Cocina video series here, and find all of his socials at www.rick-martinez.com

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

Rick Martinez: Hi, I'm Rick Martinez, I'm a cookbook author and lover of the color orange, especially in caftan form, standing on the beach with the wind rustling through my hair. 

Carla Lalli Music: Woo, and I am Carla Lalli Music. I am also a cookbook author, professionally trained chef, and I am a full-on fire sign Leo, born in the year of the Rat. Rick and I have been solving and laughing our way through food problems together for more than a decade in test kitchens, in videos and at magazines. 

Rick Martinez: And now we're doing it here on Borderline Salted, the show where we take your calls, boost your confidence and make you a better, smarter, happier cook just like us. 

Carla Lalli Music: Today will weigh in on MSG, nopales, and how to take care of your cast iron skillet, whether it's been in your family for generations or brand new out of the box. 

Rick Martinez: But Carla, today's the big day we get to hear your kitchen nightmare story. 

Carla Lalli Music: Indeed, it is my turn this week. But before we really get into it: Sugarman, Rick Martinez, tell me something good. 

Rick Martinez: Well, I've got a story for you today. I have to admit something. One of the very few downsides about living in Mexico is that there are not a lot of great places to get good cookies and you know how much I love cookies. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah, that seems like a major potential real estate fail. 

Rick Martinez: Right, right. Well, I have to say I was going to the panadería yesterday. I was just going to buy some bolillos and I happened to see a tray coming out of the oven. It was a tray of polvorónes, which are a very iconic Mexican cookie. It's slightly sweeter than a shortbread. Very, very thick. And it usually has a little bit of cherry jam or strawberry jam, dolloped in the middle. OK. And they were warm and they smelled amazing. 

Carla Lalli Music: It was like they saw you coming. 

Rick Martinez: I know, and they literally like, he's walking down the street, pull em out of the oven quick. He's going to buy a lot. And sure enough, they were right. Yeah, I might have bought four. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yum.

Rick Martinez: They're also big, like the size of my head. So they were very, very good. 

Carla Lalli Music: Well, as long as you enjoyed them warm, that's what matters. 

Rick Martinez: I mean, how could you not enjoy a warm cookie? So, Carla, tell me something good. 

Carla Lalli Music: Well, Rick, I have a confession. I know in the past, especially the very recent past we have bonded and shared together, our just total disdain and borderline disgust and dismissiveness of air fryers. 

Rick Martinez: Ugh.

Carla Lalli Music: And I was right there with you. Like, there is nothing I like less than a single use appliance that takes up a ton of room and just only does one thing like, I have no, I have no patience for it. 

Rick Martinez: Or room for it. 

Carla Lalli Music: Well, I have to inform you --

Rick Martinez: Oh god. No, no. 

Carla Lalli Music: I recently got a pretty big toaster oven upgrade on the toaster oven I've had for probably 10 years. And one of the functions in this toaster oven is an air fryer function. 

Rick Martinez: What?

Carla Lalli Music: And when I saw it, I was like, Why? You know what I mean? It's like bake, broil, toast, bagel, pizza and then air fry. But I'm trying this thing out and I've been air frying some stuff. 

Rick Martinez: What? 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah, I did it. 

Rick Martinez: Oh my God. 

Carla Lalli Music: I know. 

Rick Martinez: My world is shattered. 

Carla Lalli Music: It actually works really, really well. 

Rick Martinez: OK, but but to be fair 

Carla Lalli Music: yeah.

Rick Martinez: It's not just an air fryer, it's a toaster oven, right? It does other things. 

Carla Lalli Music: Exactly. So the air fryer function when you turn it on, it automatically presets to a pretty high temperature 400, and the fan goes into like super convection mode. So it's a high fan, high heat, which is what air frying is. It's a convection oven. But a lot of people don't have ovens with a fan. And now I get it. 

Rick Martinez: OK, great. My faith in humanity is restored. Thank you. 

Carla Lalli Music: Really good for frozen scallion pancakes that I got at H Mart. And also dumplings. You just like spray the dumplings down with some olive oil that comes in a can or whatever and stick them in there and they're yeah it's good. 

Rick Martinez: That sounds so good. Alright. I'm hungry now, and we've only just begun. 

Carla Lalli Music: Well, are you ready to dig in to some of these caller questions? 

Rick Martinez: Let's do it. 

Carla Lalli Music: Borderline Salty, you've reached us during working hours. 

Emily: Hi, my name is Emily. So I am terrified of cooking with bay leaves because my mom convinced me when I was little that they were like murder leaves. That, if you like, leaves them in your dish, then they're going to like, Thank you from the inside and you're going to die. So like, how do you get over that? Are bay leaves necessary? Do you really need that one leaf in your pot in order to make the dish taste good because they seem like murder leaves to me and I've never been able to handle that.

Rick Martinez: OK, Emily, the murder leaves will not kill you. 

Carla Lalli Music: Have you ever heard this before? 

Rick Martinez: Never heard about the murder leaves. 

Carla Lalli Music: Me neither. Never. 

Rick Martinez: I love bay leaves. I grew up with them. My mother had a giant bay laurel tree in the yard. My father hated it because he would run over the low branches and then the whole yard would smell like chopped up bay leaves. 

Carla Lalli Music: Wow. 

Rick Martinez: Which was actually sort of incredible, but they're super, super pungent when they're fresh off the tree or freshly mown. Like, it was this sort of cross between a mint and rosemary, but like had this sort of piney licorice-ness about it. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yes, I was going to say there is an anise flavor to it as well. 

Rick Martinez: It's very common in Indian cooking and Mexican cooking. So, for example, in curries and moles, to start off with whole spices and herbs like full bay leaves and then just blend them up or grind them up into that finished sauce, and they're absolutely delicious. And so I really like bay leaves a lot. 

Carla Lalli Music:Yeah. To me, the idea that you could actually accidentally swallow a whole one seems like very hard to believe because they're quite sturdy. They're not leathery, exactly, but they don't flop around like a sage leaf or something. They stay pretty rigid. And I put them in whole to the pasta fagioli that I make on the weekends because I'm too lazy to go fish around and pull them out. I decided that whoever gets the bay leaf that it's a sign of good luck. So this is how I've avoided like having to go in with the tongs and actually find the bay leaf is like whoever gets them at the table, it's like the baby in the king cake. So congratulations. But like, nobody accidentally ate it. 

Rick Martinez: Right, well, you know way to change the conversation. But also like, I mean, you know, like if you're eating a sauce, it's not like a tiny little pea that you're just going to swallow. It's a big leaf. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah, more than being like shanked from the inside. My fear or my cautiousness around bay leaves is that they do have a strong flavor. So I'm always surprised when people say, you know, is it worth it? Can you really taste it like, I feel like bay can be very forward and that that's where you have to be careful. 

Rick Martinez: 100 percent, a good bay leaf is essential to adding that pop of flavor. Welcome to Borderline Salty. How can I help you? 

Travis: Hi, this is Travis.. I am scared of using MSG, and I know that all of the chefs that I admire use it, but I don't know what cuisine it's traditional to. It feels like I'm just sprinkling some magic powder on my food, and it doesn't seem like a real ingredient to me. It seems like cheating. I don't know. I don't trust it. I don't like it. I don't use it. But I know that I probably should do all of those things. So help me out here. 

Carla Lalli Music: Alright. So before we get into like why Travis is afraid of MSG, let's talk about what it is. People do not realize that all MSG is is a synthesized version of a naturally occurring amino acid that's in tons of foods. So it's in seaweed. I think that was where it was first discovered was on sheets of kombu. And what it does when you taste it is it fires up the receptors on your palate that can detect umami seasoning, right the fifth season. So it's that savory taste, the mouth filling taste. So it's not only in seaweed, it's in aged cheeses, it's in mushrooms, tomatoes, seafood. People think that MSG is an artificial ingredient. It's not. It's a synthesized version of this amino acid. So this way of thinking about MSG is just another example of othering Chinese immigrants and Asian cuisine in general.

Rick Martinez: Right.

Carla Lalli Music: This all goes back to the basic myth of so-called Chinese restaurant syndrome. The truth is, very few people have a reaction to MSG at all. And this whole thing was just an ideology rooted in racism. So, yes, MSG is a magic powder. It's a great ingredient. 

Rick Martinez:  It's an amazing magic powder. To me, this is like salt, it's just like sprinkling another seasoning on something that's going to fire your taste buds like tomato powder. If you dried tomatoes and grind them up, or if you dry mushrooms and grind them up, it's the same thing, right? It's just concentrated glutamic acid. And if you sprinkle those things on anything, you sprinkle on a tire like, I would probably eat the tire. 

Carla Lalli Music: I love it on popcorn. That's sort of like an everyday daily use. And honestly, like if you want to start cooking with cucumber salads or a fresh melon salad. Just taste it by itself with some lime juice on it and salt, and then taste it again with lime juice, salt and some MSG. And it will, like you said, take this thing that you think you know the flavor of and it tastes good and turns it into something that, like you just can't get enough of. So I would look up, Jenny Dorsey's written about this a lot. Get on the internet. The people who run Omsom have done tons of content around MSG and why people have this cultural bias against it. And then taste it with an open mind. Because it tastes great. Next caller, please. 

Laura: Hi, guys, my name is Laura, and my cooking fear is working with my brand new cast iron that I purchased. It's a 12-inch and I know I can do a lot of things based on things I see all over the internet and especially on your feeds, but it's intimidating, especially with seasoning, how to clean it, help me be more confident with using it. I'd love to get your advice. 

Rick Martinez: I love cast iron and I'm very, very, I don't know, obsessed probably is a good word to use, with the finish of them in the seasoning of it. So seasoning your cast iron basically means that you're building up a nonstick surface on the pan. The way that you do that is you're creating layers of carbon by burning off oil. So the way that I like to seasoned my cast iron pans, whether they're brand new out of the box or they're a pan that needs a little bit of love and care after it's been sitting in the drawer for a couple of years, I like to rub it gingerly with oil, put it in a low oven, maybe 300 degrees, let that bake on for a couple of hours and then pull it out, wipe it down and repeat the more layers of the oil that you put on it, the more nonstick it will become. And if you keep it up, you will actually be able to fry eggs in it without it sticking. It's amazing. 

Carla Lalli Music: 100 percent. A lot of pans these days come, they'll say, on the box pre-seasoned. So it's not fully seasoned the way that Rick is describing. And that's an extra step that you should take at home. You're not going to open the box and it's raw cast iron, either, where it's like, you know, has that very dry kind of chalky bronze look to it. This is going to be deep in black and glossy. I love my cast iron and cook with them all the time because you don't have to wash them. They wash themselves.

Rick Martinez: And I think that's another thing that people don't realize. Well, first of all, I'll never, ever put it in the dishwasher. I also never use soap. So to me, the proper way to clean cast iron is water, and I will either use like the little scrubby part of a sponge or I have like a separate little cast iron brush and you basically just remove all of the food that is stuck onto the pan. And if something is like particularly stuck on, that's when you can pull out the scrubby or the brush, or for really, really, really stuck on foods, you can get salt. So it doesn't have to be completely dry, but just pour in some coarse salt, whatever salt you have around. And then just like start rubbing it in, the salt will act like sandpaper, and it'll scrape off all of the stuff that stuck to your pan. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah, maybe it can't go in the dishwasher, but that's a good thing. This is like this pan will withstand the test of time like you should be able to hand them down. 

Rick Martinez: Oh, 100 percent. I actually want my dad's cast iron skillets. One of them is my grandmother's, and it's just like so completely smooth and nothing sticks to it. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah.

Rick Martinez: The other thing this is sort of the extra step that I go through, but the way that I dry my cast iron is dry it with the towel, put it back on the stove, heated up on high. I just take a piece of paper towel, maybe a half teaspoon of oil and then just like, rub the whole thing, keep it on high until it starts to smoke, then turn it off. And that's my little like, I love you kiss before it goes to bed back in the drawer. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah, my mom always dried her pans over a gas flame. Or it would work on electric, too. So just like drying off any moisture that's left so that you're making sure that rust doesn't form, if you've just gotten your first cast iron skillet and maybe you haven't worked out this gorgeous patina of love, use it to cook things that have a lot of fat in them. So making bacon in them or, you know, shallow frying some chicken cutlets or, you know, frying up some tostadas in a shallow amount of oil. Like all of those things, your pan is going to be really happy because it's this nice, oily environment, the pan's getting hot. And so it's going to soak all of that up. It's a porous material. It's going to absorb that. It's going to make your pan really happy and healthy and get it on its way. 

Rick Martinez: So what Carla's really saying is this is your excuse to eat a lot of fried food. So take it for the team, team cast iron, but nothing is going to stick to this pan. Line two, you're on. 

Tim: Hey, guys, my name's Tim. My dad was a hotel chef and I just kind of grew up just cooking a lot and loving it. And I have two little kids. Let me cut to the chase. What do you do when you burn out? Like, I still know that I like doing it, but like, sometimes I'm just like, I don't know if it's my kitchen, do you like to buy a new thing? Do you start looking at your cookbooks again, like, what do you guys do? Because like, I'm looking to put a little spice back in the spice cabinet, if you know what I mean. 

Rick Martinez: Oh, Tim, I'm feeling actually a little burned out now, TBH.

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah, you're kind of where I was right after finishing and sending the book off to the printer. So much creative energy goes into something like that. So much cooking and then on top of it, you know, just being home all the time, not having the luxury of being able to eat out and I 100 percent burnt out like so over it. 

Rick Martinez: Yeah, but I think the thing to remember is that you can burn out because of the pressure that you're under, the anxiety, the things that you have to do. But what is always there and what I have forgotten at times is the passion and love of food and eating is always there. And the trick for me is remembering and finding ways to trigger those memories of the passion. So like, I've been super burned out when I worked in restaurants, and I was really worried at one point that that environment was going to affect my feelings about food and sour me to cooking. Right? And there was a moment where I was walking home and I walked through the Union Square Farmers Market. I was exhausted, I was dirty, probably had just worked a brunch and seeing the produce, seeing the farmers, seeing all the people buying and tasting and then starting to taste myself. It was like an injection of joy and happiness. And even though I was, like, still really exhausted, just seeing all that food and seeing all the passion and creativity, that just reinvigorated me, I was like, this is what I love. 

Carla Lalli Music: I think what Tim is talking about, too, is when you're cooking and you have a family to feed and you are tapped with this responsibility, it's your role. It is work. And when cooking becomes work, you can lose exactly what you're talking about. You lose that connection to like the creativity of it, the fun of it, the playfulness, the being on the journey of like, what's going to happen, and for me, something that's been really helpful kind of as a constant is to go shopping without a recipe in mind, go shopping for food without knowing what you're going to do. And then it recreates exactly what you just described. Because when you go into shop with a list, you look for the things on the list. And because we are human beings who can focus and put those blinders on, when you're looking for a specific thing, you're not seeing all the other things. So just going even to the store, you've been to a million times without a list and noticing, Oh, they have this here. Oh, I haven't seen that ingredient. I did this last night with Cosmo and we went into a place that we go into all the time and kind of just looked around and put the meal together as we were walking through the store. And that will kind of reconnect.

Rick Martinez: Even just trying that new restaurant or that restaurant that you've been wanting to try for a long time, but haven't. Or maybe it's not even in a restaurant. I mean, for me, like it might be a little street vendor or a taco stand, you know, but it's just that it's something new. I want to taste someone else's food. I want to get new ideas. 

Carla Lalli Music: Totally. I love that idea of the rest stepping away. Don't beat yourself up about it. 

Rick Martinez: 100 percent. Treat yourself. A lot of the questions we get on the show are people opening up to us about what has gone wrong for them in the kitchen. In this next segment, total kitchen nightmare. We'll be bringing on a crew of people we are inspired by to share their own kitchen meltdowns. 

Carla Lalli Music: We know we seem to have all the answers, but that doesn't mean we haven't had our healthy share of stressed moments in the kitchen. True nightmares. 

Rick Martinez: So Carla, are you ready to share your kitchen nightmare? 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah, I feel like I am, because it's just on the top of my subconscious at all times. I think about it all the time. 

Rick Martinez: Oh my, really? Oh my God. 

Carla Lalli Music: I do. I really do. And this goes back many, many years to when I was out on my own and I was private shopping and I was catering and I worked for a really, really wonderful family. Ralph and Jane, amazing people. They were great eaters. Their kids were awesome. And as a private chef, it was like a dream job because they would let me really pick out whatever I felt like making for them. And I knew their likes and dislikes and their preferences, and I would just, you know, make dinner and whatever. One night they were planning a seated dinner party. It wasn't the usual just cook for the family of four. It was, I think, a 20 person dinner party. And they had relatives coming from overseas and we set the menu and decided on big cuts of steak and Ralph, he liked his meat, black and blue. So I had decided to get like a pretty fancy cut of meat because with them, like the budget was no question I could do whatever, and I ordered an entire strip loin of prime beef off the bone. 

Rick Martinez: Wow. 

Carla Lalli Music: So it was just this, you know, I think a six or seven pound single piece with a beautiful fat cap of prime beef that I was going to season and roast in one giant piece and then cut it into the individual portions for the guests. And it was the day, you know, I'm prepping and I seasoned it and I got it all set up on the roasting rack to cook, and I just wanted it to be perfectly rare at the perfect time. So when you're cooking and catering, you have to sort of plan all this stuff out. There was an an hors d'oeuvre hour, there was a cocktail hour, there was a first course and you want a little time between the first course and the second course and then you want to serve the main. And I was trying to cook the steak gently so that it wouldn't get gray and overcooked on the outside, and they were almost done with the appetizer, they were about to clear, and I'm taking the internal temperature of the steak and it's like sixty nine degrees, you know? 

Rick Martinez: Oh my god. 

Carla Lalli Music: 82 degrees, 88 degrees. And for everyone listening, the target temperature I was looking for was around 115, 120. So I cranked the heat on the oven because, you know, more heat is more faster. And I was making the sides, which I think was there was a potato thing, there was a vegetable thing. So I'm kind of getting all of that stuff ready. So the second that the steak is ready, everything else is ready. I don't have to keep them waiting any longer. While I'm doing that, I start to smell like delicious, beefy smells and I'm like, Oh my God, I can smell it. You know, it's like with baking. When you can smell the crust, it's like, it's cooking. So I'm like, Ooh, I really smell the beef now. Turn around and put the thermometer in there, and the temperature is at like 140 145.

Rick Martinez: Ahh. Oh my god.

Carla Lalli Music: I know that's a well-done piece of meat. 

Rick Martinez: Really well done. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah, when I say well done, I don't mean I did it well. It was, oh, well done. So this is what a curve of meat roasting looks like, which I did not know. It goes really, really slow until it hits a certain temperature, and then the temperature will start to increase much faster. So it's like something exponential happens. And that happened while I wasn't paying attention. So I'm like, Fuck, take it out on the outside. It looks great, on the inside. I know it's going to be gray. To make matters even worse, I had kept everybody waiting, you know, while the beef was finishing, so I couldn't even let it rest, which would have been a really important time for it to settle down, even to be like a temperature that that I could slice into without burning my hands. But I didn't have time like the veg was ready, the potatoes were ready. So I start cutting into the steak. And not only was it well done, but as soon as I cut into it, all of the juices that were inside of this protein just start running all over the counter. So now I have well done and dry. 

Rick Martinez: Oh my God. 

Carla Lalli Music: I plated at them all, and I sent it out to the dining room and I was in the kitchen. I was just like, Ralph is going to be so disappointed. Ralph is going to be so disappointed. Like all I could think about was he wanted seared on the outside and blue in the middle. And they finished dinner and I sent the dessert which I have no memory of. And they had coffee. And then the dinner was over. I was cleaning up. Ralph and Jane came into the kitchen and Jane was like, dinner was wonderful. Everyone loved it. And I looked at Ralph and he looked at me and I could just see like, it was like the disappointment was just flowing back and forth between us. Like, I was so disappointed in myself, and he was so disappointed in the steak. And he just looked at me and he was like, what happened with the steak? And I was like, I overcooked it, it was horrible. Just like, done dishonor to my family, I had thrown dishonor. 

Rick Martinez: To beef all over the world. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah, I had really let down, like all cows everywhere. 

Rick Martinez: Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah. Now let's let's spin it. What have you learned? 

Carla Lalli Music: First of all, I learned set a timer, even though it seemed like nothing was happening with the beef. If I had temped it and been like, oh, it's still at like 103, I should have set a timer for like, check it again in seven minutes, eight minutes, whatever it was, didn't set a timer that was on me. I also learned any big roast, this is true for turkey. That's true for a standing rib roast. It's true for whatever the temperature is going to climb very slowly at the beginning and at a certain point, the temperature is going to go much faster. So that was a really good lesson to learn. And uh, if you have to make people wait for the food that you are serving them, make sure it's worth the wait. So even though I was in a panic that everybody had been waiting, I should have at least waited the 10 or 15 minutes more that I could stomach for the meat to like, cool down, because the juices would have redistributed, it wouldn't have been as dry. It was always going to be well done. But I should have let it rest. I made a bad situation worse by rushing. 

Rick Martinez: But you are a better cook for your nightmare, and that's all that counts. 

Carla Lalli Music: Yeah. Borderline salty is all about celebrating food and cooking and removing the barriers to our culinary adventures. With that in mind, before we go, we'd like to give time to the foods we maybe don't love yet and open ourselves up to giving them the try that they deserve. 

Rick Martinez: That's what our next segment No Thank You, Please is dedicated to. 

Carla Lalli Music: And this week we're talking about nopales! So, Rick, for our listeners who don't know what are nopales? 

Rick Martinez: Nopales are cactus paddles

Carla Lalli Music: Oooh, everybody loves a cactus paddle. 

Rick Martinez:  Actually, lots of people do, and I was not one of them for many, many years, in fact decades. It all started when my grandmother went to the backyard, cut a paddle off, cleaned it and threw it in the skillet, sauteed some onions with it, threw in some scrambled eggs or some beaten eggs and scrambled it. I think I was maybe three, maybe two and three quarters, but I distinctly remember the first bite was like undercooked onions, which I was like, No, no, no, grandma, we don't do that. But the more egregious error was the slime of the nopales. And this is one of the textures that I am just not very fond of. When I was little, I just referred to it as like, it was like somebody spat in my eggs. 

Carla Lalli Music: It's hard. It's a hard texture. 

Rick Martinez: Yeah. And so I decided at that young age that I was never going to eat nopales again. It was not until I was in my 20s, and the restaurant had just opened in Austin, where I grew up. And on the menu there was a duck, I believe it was a confit duck and enchilada with nopales.

Carla Lalli Music: Yum! 

Rick Martinez: And all of those other words sounded so incredibly delicious that I was like, You know what? I'm going to try it right because like, it's been 20 years. Like, maybe, maybe I was a stupid little three year old. And to my surprise, I loved those enchiladas, and there was not a trace of the consistency that I had feared for so many years. 

Carla Lalli Music: I think I've just been really lucky my whole life. I've had them, but they are crunchy and juicy without having that slimy, sticky texture. Now I know I maybe haven't had one as fresh as what you had experienced. 

Rick Martinez: Yeah, I mean, I think that's, you know, when your grandmother literally walks 12 feet to the cactus plant and just like slices them off and they're going to they're going to drip a little into your eggs, sadly. 

Carla Lalli Music: Well, that's why we say try and try again. 

Rick Martinez: That is so true. Ever since then, I have continued to try nopales. And, you know, sometimes I like them, sometimes I don't. But I've gotten to a place now where I actually really like them, so much so that I actually even put a recipe for nopales in my book. 

Carla Lalli Music: Oh, your book, which I believe is out today? 

Rick Martinez: Carla, stop it. 

Rick Martinez: Today, May 3rd, is the birthday of my new cookbook Mi Cocina in stores now. 

Carla Lalli Music: You can find Rick's cookbook -- and you better -- and both of my cookbooks "That sound so good" and "Where cooking begins" wherever you like to put your paws on your books. 

Rick Martinez: Borderline Salty is an original production by Pineapple Street Studios. I'm Rick Martinez 

Carla Lalli Music: And I’m Carla Lalli Music. You can find our social handles in the show notes for this episode. 

Rick Martinez: Natalie Brennan is our lead producer.

Carla Lalli Music: Janelle Anderson is our producer. 

Rick Martinez: Our Managing Producer is Agerenesh Ashagre.

Carla Lalli Music: Our assistant producer is Mari Orozco. 

Rick Martinez: Our Head of Sound & Engineering is Raj Makhija.

Carla Lalli Music: Mixing and Engineering by Davy Sumner and Jason Richards.

Rick Martinez: Our assistant engineers are Sharon Bardales and Jade Brooks.

Carla Lalli Music: Original music from our very own Raj Makhija!

Rick Martinez: Additional music from Vincent Vega, spring gang, and Glove Box, courtesy of Epidemic Sound.

Carla Lalli Music: Legal services for Pineapple Street are provided by Bianca Grimshaw at Granderson Des Rochers.

Rick Martinez: Our executive producers are Max Linsky and Jenna Weiss-Berman. 

Carla Lalli Music: We appreciate Emily, Travis, Laura and Tim for calling in this week. 

Rick Martinez: And a big thanks to you for listening. Talk to you next week.

Carla Lalli Music: Ciao for now! Adios! See ya!