Today on Cooking Issues, Dave Arnold hopes to make your cooking life a beach. Nastassia Lopez calls in from the beautiful beaches of Rhode Island to talk with Dave about the new Booker and Dax Searzall. What does it sear? Everything! Learn more about the safety logistics of their new contraption throughout this installment! Dave talks with some callers about pH and pickling, as well as pizza steels and their ability to stand up to uneven heat. Is it safe to use gases from paintball canisters to carbonate beverages at home? Find out if it's possible to turn Dr. Pepper into a powder, and learn how to make a red velvet cake without using dyes or beets! Can you name five things that Nastassia actually likes? Hear the list on this week's Cooking Issues! This program has been brought to you by S. Wallace Edwards & Sons.

"For preservation, you need a vacuum- and the better the vacuum, the happier you're going to be." [41:00]

"Dehydrating things with sugar can be very difficult because the more you dehydrate things, the more that sugar wants to resist losing that last bit of water." [45:40]

-- Dave Arnold on Cooking Issues

On this episode of The Caffeine Stream, Nicole Slaven welcomes back Anne Nylander of Tamp Tamp. They brew some fresh coffee using a French press and then the Aeropress.

This week on Taste Matters, Mitchell Davis is joined by William Drew, editor of Restaurant Magazine, the publication that organizes the World's 50 Best Restaurants list. Tune in to learn more about how polling works and what the list means for restaurants lucky enough to appear on it. Hear why William thinks taste and flavor is once again rising above novelties, gimmicks and experience in restaurants. This program was sponsored by Whole Foods Market.

"Being on the list is an affirmation rather than an end goal. The reality is that it's an extremely effective business tool. As soon as a restaurant gets on the list, it always means it will now be full starting the next day."

"Perhaps in recent years [taste and flavor] has been overtaken by worthiness or providence of where the food is coming from, or trickery and theater. Those things are important and can play a role, but it seems taste and flavors are back at the top of the agenda for chefs and restaurants and that's where it should be."

--William Drew, editor of Restaurant Magazine on Taste Matters