It's the last Cooking Issues of 2012! Tune in to hear Dave Arnold and Nastassia Lopez answer your cooking questions. Listen in to hear Dave offer advice about adding color to red velvet cake, and talk about the right reasons for going to culinary school. Dave mediates a listener debate about knife sharpening; what's the best sharpening system for your application? Dave talks about his favorite kitchen gadgets, and why people always cook a turducken wrong. Hear Dave's newest french fry recipe! Can you carbonate solidified fruit juice gelatin? What's the best way to cook a venison leg? Find out on this episode of Cooking Issues! This episode has been sponsored by Fairway Market.

"If you expect to expect to go and pay a huge amount of money (for culinary school), and then make that back as a line cook, then I don't know if that's necessarily money well spent." [16:15] -- Dave Arnold on Cooking Issues

Freedom Fries Ain't Free! This week on Let's Get Real, Erica gets real about how war created foodiness; how foodiness created a nation of obese SUV driving potato people, who then needed oil for their SUVs (and now for their mobility scooters), and who now can’t pass the army physical fitness test because they’re too fat to fight. Tonight she is joined by special guest and First Gulf War veteran Corporal Chad Pagano to take us down the foodiness foxhole full of M.R.E.’s and, now, Marys. Hear him retell stories of food, hunger and everything in between in the military. This program was sponsored by Fairway Market

"They have portable field kitchens they would set up behind the lines. Generally depending on the tactical situation you could end up going there three times a day. As an infantry man you'd be lucky if you got in there once a day. The food was pretty bad for the most part."

--Corporal Chad Pagano on Let's Get Real

This week on Cooking Issues, listen in as Dave solves issues ranging from blow torched meat to Maillard reaction eggs. Hear about Dave's experience "fluffing" up the Food Network stars and talking to kids about liquid nitrogen. Find out which carbonation/infusion technique is for you and learn about lilikoi, control loops and ultra sonic french fries. Got an idea for Dave's new break song? Send it to us! This episode was sponsored by Hearst Ranch - the nations largest single source supplier of grassfed and grass finished beef.