Jeffrey Morgenthaler has made a lot of drinks.
One word that describes how you eat:Comfort
What do you eat for breakfast?
[Laughs] I do.
I dont even know what its called.
What flavor is it?
And I mix it with some frozen bananas and a scoop of peanut butter and some milk.
So its just to stave off the mean hungries.
What kind of coffee do you get?
I drink a cafe au lait.
Unless its pouring rain or I have some shit in the morning to do.
Thats a lot of walking.
Yeah, but I catch up on my podcasts, and my e-mails, and phone calls.
Thats a pretty good morning routine.
Do you have a favorite fast food breakfast?
Is it the Egg McMuffin?
I actually dont usually do fast food breakfast.
I usually do fast food late, late at night, if Im going to do fast food.
But breakfast … do they still have the McGriddle?
Thats with the syrup?
Yeah the, syrup-infused pancake.
The sausage McGriddle would have been number one.
And I like a breakfast burrito.
When do you eat lunch?
Sometime between like noon and two before I start work.
I either cook or I like go out somewhere in the neighborhood.
Do you have a usual place?
I get poke up the street a lot.
And I go toLardoandGrassaa lot.
I go to all the fast casual places in the neighborhood.
Unless Im meeting a friend or work somebody for lunch.
Its usually either that, or most of the time I cook.
Half the time I cook.
You do a lot of cooking.
Do you do big batches of things and then eat that through the week?
I wish I had a chest freezer or room for a chest freezer.
it’s possible for you to geta little one!
I dont even have room for that.
It would have to go in my bedroom, which Im not opposed to [laughs].
I like the sound toothat kind of whirrrrr.
Yeah, itd be a nice white noise.
Thats a life hack right there.
You dont need a fan in your bedroom.
You made jambalaya recently.
How long did that last you?
Theres two pints of jambalaya in my freezer, as we speak.
Do you have something that you make every week or do you like to change it up?
Just tuna, Best Foods mayo, coarsely ground pepper and sea salt flake.
Maldon or Jacobson?
Speaking of mayonnaise.
[Laughs] Lets get down to the nitty gritty here.
Do you have a favorite brand besides Hellmanns or Best Foods, whatever its called out here?
Yes, I do.
And its the Calve Raffinata.
You cannot get it here.
Where do you get it?
Of course.
Every time I go to Europe, I go the store I find the Calve Raffinata.
And it is thebestmayonnaise Ive ever had in my life.
It issothick and creamy.
Its the kind of mayonnaise that you wouldntI would never put it in a tuna fish sandwich.
You put it in a little ramekin and you dip vegetables in it.
It comes in a tube.
And you cant order it online or anything?
Ive tried and I havent found it.
Do you make your own mayonnaise?
I use theKenji immersion blender one.
I have some zaatar that somebody brought me back from Israel thats delicious.
I like black sesame seeds in my ramen.
I do like the Korean American ramen with the American cheese.
Do you do an egg in it as well?
Oh, hell yeah.
Some meat from the freezer.
I do theI think its Cooks Illustratedsteaming the egg.
Half inch of water.
Heat up to medium/medium high.
Once it starts to boil, steam for seven minutes.
How do they peel?
It is the very best method; you get em soft and you get em peelable.
They peel like nothing youve ever peeled before.
Have you done Instant Pot eggs yet?
I did and I didnt like it.
It took too long.
[Theres] just too much equipment and I didnt find them as peelable as everybody said.
Maybe I did it wrong.
I did it once.
But you like your Instant Pot?
Yes, but I dont cook meals in it.
You cook things like beans?
But I like cooking so much that anything that would like … take chili, right?
I know its great in the Instant Pot but I likecookingchili.
So Im just putting on music, and cooking chili, I dont need to speed that up.
And now I use both those tools for one or two things.
Like [with] sous vide, I do pork chopsdouble cut pork chops.
You couldnt do that the traditional way, properly.
Its better with the sous vide.
But youre right, everybody was like Oh, you gotta do sous-vide hamburgers.
Why the fuck would I want to dosous vide-hamburgers?
Why am Isous vide-ing hotdogs?
People were just like sous vide-ing everything like [hot] chocolate milk!
I have a microwave.
I dont want to roast chicken in an Instant Pot.
And I have an oven and I have an hour.
But I think microwaves were like that when they came out.
Do you have a microwave?
It came with the house.
I use it to heat water or reheat things.
I dont cook anything in it.
Its for boiling water if you need boiling water in a jiffy for [something] like French press.
Because its not better or worse than doing it on the stove top; its just faster.
Its not like the water tastes any different.
And then sometimes Ill pull something out of the fridge.
I had some [already cooked] Ortega taco meat, so I made nachos on New Years Day.
How else are you gonna do that?
Youre gonna do it in the microwave.
Thats my little microwave hack.
Thats a really good way to do it.
As long as you like keep your eye on it and dont boil it off.
Im going to superheat something some day.
And do the thing where it explodes?
What are nucleation sights?
Wouldnt that be fun?
Going back to fast food.
I remember we had a conversation once, I think it was about McDonalds and Jack In The Box.
Are those your go-tos?
Ive kind of gotten back into Carls Jr.I hadnt had it since the 80s.
They built a nice one.
I think its on Columbia.
Thats terrible.
I mean its wonderful.
Especially for you because you get off work late.
I mean most of the time I do not need fast food late at night.
Are they?
[Whistles] Theyre those breaded ones.
So theyre extra crispy.
Do they do curly fries too?
Or is that just Jack In The Box?
I think they do.
I cant remember if I got curly fries when I was there.
Curly fries can be tough, though.
They need to be crispy, and sometimes theyre underdone, particularly if theyre super long and dense.
Dense and tightly coiled?
Tightly coiled, yeah.
You get that, and youre like eh, this is kind of like soft potato.
What else do you get besides the French fries at Carls Junior?
Every fast food place, I usually just get the regular cheeseburger.
Whatever the plain, small cheeseburger is at that fast food [establishment].
Now I do branch out a little bit.
Ive been branching out a little bit.
I just dont want like a monster fucking giant fast food burger.
With like too much stuff on it that just slides off?
Yeah, too much shit on it.
I think a problem in Portland in general is that burgers are too unwieldy.
This was a burger town and now I think its more of a pizza town.
Hot take.
I mean, its becoming more of a pizza town.
But I know that some people are real…
Oh, yeah.
Wasnt there a thing where Michael Russell said something about the pizza being good in Portland?
[Anthony Falco called it Americas greatest pizza city.]
Someone said the pizza in Portland was really good and people got pissed.
Yeah, people got very upset.
That is a dumb thing to get upset about.
The pizza in Portland is fantastic.
Where do you go?
Oh, God!Checkerboard, which is Kens.
And of courseKens, also.Nostrana.Pizza Jerksgreat.Ranchpizza is great.Scottiespizza: great.hey Louiseis fantastic.Handsome Pizzais pretty good.
Now its just like, you have to have a burger and nobody really cares.
Like a chef-driven burger.
Have you hadBurger Stevens?
Its the best burger in town.
Like, far and away the best burger.
Its basically a facsimile of the Shake Shack burger.
You also like the ultimate cheeseburger at Jack In the Box?
Its like one of the best burgers in the world.
I like that one.
I like their Sourdough Jack a lot.
Its so good, and that one has a lot of mayonnaise on it.
[Laughs]
Thats why Im into it.
I have noticed that people who are into food tend to be really into mayonnaise.
Is there a correlation?
I dont know.
Or maybe thats just the bang out of person I like.
Yeah, you just gravitate towards people who like mayonnaise.
Do you ever put mayonnaise on anything where youre like Oh, Ive gone too far?
No, but I did read people are doing peanut butter and mayo.
Is that a thing?
An internet thing now?
I havent heard about that.
There was mayonnaise and banana.
Somebody is trying to get mayonnaise and peanut butter started.
Im probably good on that.
I dont need to cross the streams.
I put mayonnaise on all the normal shit.
I mean, sometimes I do a fried spam sandwich with mayonnaise, things like that.
Its like fried baloney!
Toasted white breadgriddled white bread.
Have you ever had a tomato sandwich?
Just white bread, mayonnaise, tomatothats it.
Do you get the Japanese bread?
Its the very best version of cheap white bread that youve ever had.
Its the perfect white bread.
Besides the spam and mayonnaise sandwich, do you have a go-to sad meal?
Yeah Indian fooddelivered Indian food.
Lamb korma, usually some butter chicken.
I get garlic naan, and a shit ton of it.
I dont eat Indian food like some sort of pro.
Its a comfort food, right?
Because its all butter, and fat, and delicious, and yeah thats my sad [meal].
I dont want to go out.
Do you have a go-to diner order?
But then you put a bunch of American fuckin sausage gravy on top of it.
Usually I try not to because Im almost 50.
I cant eat fucking chicken fried steak.
Do you have a movie theater snack?
I always get nachos.
You gotta get nachos.
But I get popcorn, and thentwothings of Reeses Pieces and pour them into the popcorn.
The popcorn and Reeses pieces moveIll do that at home.
That was going to be my next questionhow do you make popcorn at home?
With just olive oil, and butter and then popcorn salt.
I thinkyou need to make popcorn salt.
In the food processor?
I just do a spice grinder, but yeah.
Which I think is like the Alton Brown thing.
So you cook it in olive oil and butter?
Yeah, I do it on medium.
Yeah, I just use a ton of it.
Do you measure it?
The woman who runsSquirlin Los AngelesIm blanking on her name.
[Her name is Jessica Koslow.]
So shes my hero because she really savedIve always liked popcorn on the stove but I neverlovedit.
Its completely changed my life.
It tastes like movie theater popcorn!
And its so much crunchier!
But if you do half olive oil and half butter it works great.
And dont use extra virgin, use the shitty yellow stuff, like Napoleonlike $4.95 for the small.
We talked about french fries a little bit.
But do you have a favorite French fry shape?
I cook fries at home a lot, because I do steak frites.
Thats one of my favorite things to make it home.
How do you cook your fries?
But buy them frozen.
So with frozen, youre getting a twice-cooked fry?
Otherwise youre just getting like McMenamins fries or In-n-Out fries.
Thats not how you make french fries.
How do you feed yourself at night?
How do you get through a shift?
Well, theres staff meal which is…you know, they try.
But I get home by midnight; Im not here until four in the morning.
So I can go home, and make steak frites, or something that takes an hour.
RisottoI like making risotto at home after work.
Maybe, but thats how I relaxis cooking.
I can even put open my laptop and kind of eyeball a TV show while Im doing it.
I imagine the staff meals here [at Clyde Common] are pretty good?
If they have time, or theyre inspired, but they have to do it every fucking day.
Its like a mom that has to do it every day.
Whats your favorite thing that your mom made?
Okay, I actually made this the other night.
We call it mom tacos.
I even bought taco sauce.
You know, taco sauce?
You know what that is?
I mean I knowwhatit is, but I dont know exactly what its made of.
The La Victoria taco sauceIts Taco Bell mild sauce.
Its the same brand?
It tastes almost exactly the same, which is a hack!
Because for $1.99 you might get a bottle of La Victoria, and its essentially the same thing.
Do you have a favorite appliance, or a favorite kitchen tool?
I actually have a panini press.
Which is kind of funny.
A fucking panini press, like, what year do you think it is?and he said Look.
I go to Whole Foods, I get a sandwich.
I brush both sides with olive oil, and I put it in the panini press.
I take a pre-made sandwich and heat it up, or just something from the fridge.
Its not a great quesadilla but itsaquesadilla.
you’re able to do a lot of kind of dumb shit in there.
Because how much toast am I eating?
But Im not eating a piece of toast every day, unless youre like Wallace of Wallace and Gromit.
How do you make your scrambled eggs?
Do you make scrambled eggs?
So you get those really tiny curds or large curds?
Large curdslet it set, push, let it set, pushdo that like six times.
I like the large curds.
I like the small ones, but its a lot of work.
But usually what I do is just fry them on medium heat.
I just want some eggs that are cooked.
YoudoInstagram a lot of food though.
I also justI dont drink at home.
I dont really drink that much.
So I dont have anything to take pictures of, other than food.
Because Im not coming home and making myself a Mai Tai at the end of the night.
I used to, but now I come home and I make risotto.
But Im sure youhavea home bar?
I have more liquor than either of these bars that I manage.
Its disgusting how much alcohol is in my house.
Its just there to, like, look at, but Im not buying it.
Its just there and people send it to me.
Im not going to the store and buying bourbon or whatever, theres just a shit ton of bourbon.
I would say that if theres an apocalypse, that we should all just meet at my house.
I dont want to fight for my survival every day like the people in The Walking Dead.
Because what are you fighting for?
So lets all meet at my house and lets just kill ourselves with alcohol.
And well just drink until were dead.
Its funny, because everybody Ive told this to is like Yeah.
I dont want to grow watermelons and eat those, I just want to eat all the frozen pizzas.
And the same thing with a drink; you should have your go-to, whatever it is.
It doesnt matter to me.
You know people say What should I get from my home bar?
and I say, Well, what do you like?
If you just like vodka, then get six vodkas.
I think theres this idea of like Oh, you should be prepared for whatever guest.
Its not a bar!
People shouldnt be coming up to your kitchen counter and ordering a drink.
It should be: Im having a dinner party.
Youre all coming over.
Were starting with sidecars.
You dont get to order!
If somebodys serving martinis you dont say No, I want mine made this way or whatever.
Just like you dont say Ill take my whatever with no onions.
Youre at a dinner party at my house, youll eat what I serve.
Unless youre, like, deathly allergic to onions.
Well, I wouldnt have you over.
If youre deathly allergic to onions were probably not going to eat together.
Thats fair.
People put a lot of pressure on themselves to have everything at home.
Thats what I made.
Thats what you might have.
Go ahead, I guess.
But Im not gonna make you a separate drink outside of that.
Youre gonna have blackberry margaritas and were gonna eat mom tacos.
Do you go to Trader Joes?
I dont like Trader Joes.
Theres too much prepackaged food there.
Its weird; I have weird lines that I draw about food.
That offends me more than the fast food and I dont know why.
I cant explain it.
The only pre-prepared meal that Ill keep and eat at home is the frozen pizza.
Salt would be salt.
Im not enough of an experienced cook to use soy sauce or fish sauce as my salt.
Fat would definitely be butter, and acid would probably just be vinegar.
What drink are you proudest of?
That Ive introduced to the world?
Maybe the…uh, thats a hard one.
It may be one of the better things Ive come up with.
Thats really good.
But its worth noting thatyour eggnogis the only eggnog I like.
That actually might be it.
But thats because I am 100 percent an eggnog fanall types of eggnog.
I think that you have to be to come up with something that good.
You have to love it.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
