Ever grab an amazing recipe off the internet and want to thank the chef who shared it? The Food Enthusiast Dara Bunjon of JMore joins Nestor at Koco’s Pub for a holiday corn pudding story and the sharing of Koconut Shrimp tastiness on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour.
Nestor Aparicio and Dara Bunjon from JMore discuss Thanksgiving recipes, highlighting Dara’s corn pudding, which became a hit at Nestor’s Thanksgiving dinner. Dara shares her recipe, which uses frozen yellow corn, eggs, whipping cream, milk, sugar, butter, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. Nestor praises the dish, noting it was the first item to run out at his dinner. They also discuss the importance of family meals and food culture. Marcella Knight from Coco’s Crab Cakes joins to talk about their signature coconut shrimp, which is hand-breaded and served with a raspberry jalapeno sauce. Nestor promotes local businesses and upcoming holiday events.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Thanksgiving recipes, corn pudding, crab cakes, food enthusiast, holiday traditions, family table, cooking classes, memorable meals, food culture, Baltimore food, coconut shrimp, raspberry jalapeno, crab cake tour, holiday events, local business
SPEAKERS
Dara Bunjon, Marcella Knight, Nestor Aparicio
8
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T AM, 1570 tasks, Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. We are positively here at Cocos. We are on Harford road and beautiful lauraville. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. I got my lottery tickets around here somewhere. I’ve been giving so many away lucky ones for all of our guests, including Dara bunjon from J Moore and our food enthusiast, who gave me in a beautiful recipe for Thanksgiving. But I want to promote Jiffy Lu multi care because they’re sending Luke back and forth to always Mills next week, getting ready for football with the Giants. Get ready for the holidays. Our friends at wise markets obviously have been a big part everything we do as well, with my sauerkraut, milk, kielbasa and my wife, we didn’t get our turkey at wise this year, my wife was at the office, like, two weeks ago, she didn’t go to the office too much, and so he’s like, we got extra turkeys. You want one? And she said, I’ll take one. So she brought home his Turkey. It was 22 pounds, gigantic Turkey just the two of us. So we’ve had Turkey piccata the other night with some delicious paper deli, Lemon Pepper Pasta. We’ve been doing things with our leftovers, but I’m a side dish guy, so if you know about sauerkraut and cabasa green bean casserole, my wife made it delicious sweet potato pie because she went to pie school, but my wife spent six days making Thanksgiving, and about 48 hours before, maybe Monday or Tuesday. And I don’t know, Dara, I just met her 20 minutes ago, and we’re going to share some coconut shrimp out here, but you put this recipe up for corn pudding. And my wife and I, we love food, and my wife loves to cook. She’s really good cook. And I’ll take recipes of things that look like they’re in our lane, and I’ll just instant messenger over to her things. 90% of them are like, yeah, that looks good. And we don’t make it, or we think about it, or we forget about or some food of the moment. But there was something about us having corn, needing that as a side because we had mashed potatoes with rutabaga. My wife makes fresh gravy. Big Bird. My wife brines the bird, stuffs the bird goes out, gets rye bread, marble bread, like just everything she’s all in, but the corn she shucks in the summer, in August, freezes, and we have this delicious silver Queen corn and I was like, we need an idea for it. And I love corn bread and a skillet, like as a dish. And I said, why? Maybe something like that? And then you appeared with this corn pudding, which I don’t think my mother ever made corn pudding. I think I’ve had it at other like relatives houses or whatever, not something that’s ever on a menu in a restaurant, you know? So it’s a little funky monkey. And I was like, let’s make it. She made it. And I think I was, I don’t even know you, when I was giving you love on Thanksgiving, saying this really made our dish. It filled out our plate, which I think was your goal when you shared it. It’s nice to have you on how are you? I
Dara Bunjon 02:59
am doing great. Thanks for inviting me. And you are the first person of all the recipes I’ve put up and things that I’ve done that sent me a thank you notes. What? Thank you.
Nestor Aparicio 03:09
Oh, we drove across the city from Pikesville to have a Coco’s crab cake, and I said to you, you’re the food enthusiast I know of you. I guess. I mean, my old girlfriend, Robin was involved at J Moore. I know that people involved the J Moore, I know like, so I’ve seen Michael lesker is a lifer brother of mine, right? So, like, I see your stuff come through, but this recipe, it hit me as you said something very convincing. I’m gonna go back through Facebook because and this speaks to your credibility with me. And I think we’re all looking for credibility, and I think of you as being this food enthusiast. Want to give the exact thing that you put up, because I’m gonna go back from last week, because you said something about it. Here it is, November 26 there it is right on my right on my timeline. This recipe is so yum, trust me, made it numerous times, and it is killer with three exclamation points. It
Dara Bunjon 04:06
8is, it is, every time I make it. Now, the recipe I gave was a small eight by eight, but I have it in a bigger pan, but I figure people would it’s a lot simpler to start on the eight by eight. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 04:19
I grabbed it, and I took a shot of it, and I sent it over to my wife. 20 November, 26 What was that like, two days before Thanksgiving, right? And I saw and I’m like, well, we got caught. I want to have corn on the because when we would have done corn out, throw it in the pan, we would have buttered it up and salt pepper, you know. And it would have been delicious, you know. Would have been fine. But this was not hard for my wife, she cut back on the sugar, you know, because she always cuts back. She’s diabetic, so she’ll cut back on the sugar a little bit, so it’s a little bit more muted, which is the corn is very sweet. This white corn we had delicious, but you make yours with this yellow corn in a can, right? Well,
Dara Bunjon 04:55
it’s not in the can. Usually you can go get the frozen corn, okay? And you get the frozen. Corn, and you let it thaw, and you drain it on paper towels so it doesn’t have a lot of moisture. And you reserve a cup of the corn, the rest of the corn. You put in a food processor with eggs and whipping cream and milk sugar, butter, room temperature corn meal, baking powder, teaspoon of salt. Wizard in the food processor, and when it’s all pretty well pureed, then you add that cup you withheld, and then you pour it in the baking pan, and you bake it for
Nestor Aparicio 05:31
that’s how the pudding gets to be corny, above and beyond the corn itself, right? I mean, it was delicious. I I’m, I’m really thrilled that you’re here. Was
8Dara Bunjon 05:40
there anything left over during the dinner? Question Mark, did you finish it off during the dinner,
Nestor Aparicio 05:46
I talked about a 22 pound turkey, and it was just me and my wife, my kid and his wife came over, and they’re, you know, my kids 40, so he came over, and they don’t eat a lot. They’re not like eaters like that. But my wife made a small pan of this. She did not like we made twice as much sauerkraut and kielbasa twice as much. She doesn’t even like green bean casserole, but she got all bougie. She decided that Campbell’s cream of corn soup wasn’t good enough. She’s gonna make her own cream of corn or cream of mushroom to put into the green bean she was cooking for six days, but the corn that she made, and it wasn’t like, we’re gonna try it out. She looked at it, she’s like, this is gonna be really good. But my idea was, there’s a place called farmers and founders and farmers in DC. It’s a restaurant. It’s a chain. They do a skillet corn bread. It’s killer. It’s buttery as hell, but it’s killer. They serve it in the skillet. It’s got that warm. They serve it with soft butter to, like, melted, right? It’s unbelievable. And I said her, why don’t we do like, a corn bread? And that was where we were going, until I saw your recipe. And she’s like, wow, I’ll just make a little bit of it. You know, we want to make up too much to have left over. It was the first thing we ran
Dara Bunjon 07:07
out of question. Yeah, it’s addictive. It’s sweet, it’s it’s warm, it’s putting yum, yum. As I said, Well, you sold me, you know, I sold you, but I thank you for sending me the note, because I don’t thank you for coming to my show. Well, how can I turn it down to Coco’s? It’s my favorite crab cake. All
Nestor Aparicio 07:27
8right, so you are the food enthusiast. Jay Moore is a Baltimore Jewish living but I think of it as a website that would be a magazine that would that is a Mac but, but would be 3040, years ago. You would think of like Baltimore mag. I think of as a magazine style website. Well, it
Dara Bunjon 07:46
is a magazine. It is there is a four color magazine that is free and people can get to it as for the theme is contemporary Jewish living. But it doesn’t have to be about being Jewish. My live show that I do, where I interview people in the food world, you know, we can talk about anything that we want. We’re not tied into kosher food or anything of that nature. So they’ve given me a lot of freedom. I basically produce the show. I do the graphics. They back me up, and they actually pay me to do the show. I
Nestor Aparicio 08:19
pay to eat. Man, that’s like me. You know, I get these sponsors that treat me like family, these people like I for 33 years, you know, sports radio, I get treated like garbage by the sports teams. You know? I mean, like, literally, when I go to businesses here where people are making crab cakes in this city, and people that we all love food, we all love our food culture. I think we have a stronger food culture here than we realize. When people get off an airplane at BWI, they’re thinking of where they’re going to eat in this city,
Dara Bunjon 08:48
right? And the airport has tried to put that diversity at the airport too. So if you’re there, you have a layover, you got a couple hours. You can
8Nestor Aparicio 08:58
go, I had to go pricky scrap kick on my tour, yeah. I
Dara Bunjon 09:00
mean, you can, you can go and find almost anything. Years ago, when the International Association of culinary professionals held their Conference in Baltimore, we held an event at the aquarium, and part of it was to show off the neighborhoods of Baltimore and the foods that they have. You know, we talk about coddies, we talk about chocolate snowballs with marshmallow on it. You know, there are all types of egg custard. Egg customers, I gotta have a custard. Well, some people like egg Custer. Mine was chocolate with marshmallow on it.
Nestor Aparicio 09:31
I don’t I’m not a marshmallow guy. I’m a snowball. You know? I mean, I I’ve had it, but I’m not an enthusiast of that. So what makes you the food enthusiast? Give me your background, because I don’t know enough about you. I know you pop up. We have tons of mutual friends. I see your work. I see that you’re into food. Obviously, I write about crab cakes and talk about crab cakes. I’ve had 1000 crab cakes in hundreds of different places all over the state, and it’s been fun for me. And I wind up not just talking about crab cake. I talk about neighbor. And culture and people and but more than that, like how it brings us together. And I think that’s sort of the Anthony Bourdain, Andrew Zimmer, and probably everything Julia Child ever wanted us to know when we saved the pate was that we we base our culture around eating and eating together. We dine together. Well, one of
Dara Bunjon 10:18
8the first questions I asked guests on my show is Tell me about your family table. So why don’t I turn it around? Whoa, tell me about your family table. And growing up, my
Nestor Aparicio 10:29
mother and father were both born in 1919 in two different parts of America. My mother was born in Abbeville, South Carolina, actually, where Schultz, South Carolina. So my mom grew up in the 1920s in bad help in her house, if you know, in the south in 1925 so my mom’s background is in southern food and soul food, maybe along that line of pork chops and fried chicken, and my mom would make sweet potatoes, if I may. If I came and made you, my mom, sweet potatoes, she would cut the yams, and she would just dump the sugar and the brown sugar on top and bake them, and they would get soft, and they just change. It was, it was just like, Honey, you know, so lot of sweet but my father, her husband, my my pop Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1919, meat and potatoes. My father and I might cry telling the story, because I do this couple Super Bowl every year. My dad in 1929 star, your name is 10 years old during the Depression, right? So my dad stood in soup lines and bread lines when he was a 10 year old boy, 910, 1112, years old, and my dad would always say to me, touch my stomach. He’d say, you got $1 in your pocket. Put some food in your belly. And it didn’t even occur to me a year and a half ago when I got thrown out of the Super Bowl and the Ravens and all that stuff, that I decided to do this charity thing for, for the food bank, for Maryland Food Bank, and Carmen do Bucha, because my dad starved when he was 10 years old. But are my family table. My dad worked at the point came home every day. My mom had dinner on the table at 4pm so 4pm there was always bread on the table. White white bread. We’re a white bread family, you know, margarine for better or worse. And my mom made dinners on schedules because they were Catholic, Friday was always fish. We talked about crab cakes and and Lent, but Friday was always fish, fish sticks. She would make little salmon cakes, not coddy, but salmon out of the can. They were nasty, but they were like salty, but we always official. Friday always pasta. On Thursday, Saturday was either chili or stuffed peppers, sometimes burgers in the summer. Sunday was always like a chicken or a roast or something came out of the oven. I guess that the Irish part of my father being from Ireland, Irish background. And then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday could be anything that would be East Baltimore, pork chops, never fresh vegetables, always canned or frozen, you know, we, I grew up poor, you know, like when I talk about the crab cakes here and jumbo lump, and when I had Anthony or Andrew Zimmer and on one way to make a crab cake, and I’m laughing at him, and I’m like, we, we were poor. We had special crab meat. And my mom, and this is the East Baltimore thing with Old Bay, or that just that salty part of killing a crab cake with that salted flavor and pan frying. It is the way I ate crab cakes, like hockey pucks. I love them that way. I love them fried. Don’t tell Marcella with her big jumbo but I love them that way, because I grew up that way. So yeah, fried. A lot of fried in my house as a kid, but I grew up with a lot of love, and I grew up in a house where there was dinner served on the table every day, and it was an incredible, incredible source of pride for my father that he could feed us. Do you just having food? Was you have siblings? Step Brothers? Yes, okay.
Dara Bunjon 13:59
The only reason I ask is when I was growing up, no matter what, there wasn’t cell phones, but when you sat down to dinner, there was no distractions, no newspapers, no books. I
Nestor Aparicio 14:12
agree with all that, yes
8Dara Bunjon 14:12
and that that was the source of my love for food, because you sat around the table, you felt the love of the family, and that continues to grow. So when I eat something, I feel loved. Food is a absolute passion for me. Well, you
Nestor Aparicio 14:29
brought me love in a bag. Yeah, the food enthusiast. There are buns here. She’s from J Moore. She’s the food enthusiast. You can find all of her work at J more. You can find her delicious corn pudding recipe that brought us together today. I had Cocos. You came in before even met me. You gave me a gift, right? And I’m thinking it’s got to be food, because it’s who you are, right, right? What is your background? Were you a chef? Give me your whole like, give me your story. No,
Dara Bunjon 14:52
just love food. My parents used to own a patent drug and luncheonette down at 31st in St Paul, people have written about it, and by
Nestor Aparicio 14:59
8this day. You sure? No 31st St Paul’s Hopkins? Yeah,
Dara Bunjon 15:03
sure. Hopkins area. So I used to work behind the fountain. You know, my mother was a great cook. She might have done, you know, the simpler things, but rare occasion, if lobster went on sale, she would stuff it. That might be happening maybe once every four years, or she’ll try a new recipe, you know, like a veal scallopini, but usually was, you know, the basic food. But everybody came on Friday night for Shabbat dinner because she was a phenomenal cook. She could cook a chicken, and what she did with the soup, and everybody wanted to be at her table, she actually, people are gonna go but she would make gefilte fish from scratch. She would get the fish and she would chop it in this wooden bowl. I’ve never had gefilte fish. Gefilte means stuffed and in the old world, what they would do is they’d make these fish balls and stick it in the belly of the fish, and then roast the fish. And that’s what gefilte fish is. Okay, I’m learning so it can be a blend of fishes. And she would sit there and chop it and white pepper, if my father didn’t break out in a sweat from the white pepper and the gefilte fish. But my sister and I would scrape the bowl. We loved the raw fish when she made it. So we were eating sushi before we knew what Sushi was. And I was very sad when she was moving to Florida. I went to her, you know, go by her place, and she says, Oh, they had a thing up at giant of Milford Mill. And she said, I sold a lot of stuff. And she sold the wooden bowl and the double mezzo Luna. And that bowl meant so much to me. I would have loved to have it, because that’s where she made the gefilte fish. There’s just a memory in it. And, well, that’s food, sure.
Nestor Aparicio 16:49
I mean, I have a pan that my mother had, right? You know? Yeah, it’s like, I think holidays for better or worse, right? We gather we don’t have loved ones. Or somebody said something to me last week that was unbelievable. It’ll make me cry. But I said to somebody, how was your Thanksgiving? And he said, Well, my mother died. A friend of mine from my yoga, sir, my mother died last week, but my wife made me the two sides for Thanksgiving, and I’m like, Ah, you know, to have my mom come back and make me sweet potatoes again, and I didn’t appreciate them, you know. You don’t appreciate that stuff, you know.
Dara Bunjon 17:26
But I mean, it’s the family. The family table is important, and it sets up communication with your children rather than being behind the phones. Not that I’m not behind the phones, but it’s the time to share, you know? And I would tell stupid stories from elementary school. My parents would laugh, you know, I wasn’t thinking it was stupid, but they would grin. But you know, you’re in third grade. What is a third grade? You know, what
8Nestor Aparicio 17:53
was your time to report to your family? Dinner time was when you got to you got your audience right. You got
Dara Bunjon 17:57
your audience right, right, and you felt special, and they listened. So my mother was a great cook. My cooking was more like a sideline or a hobby, and it got involved, and it became very important to me. I used to run cooking classes in the restaurants here in Baltimore. This goes back ages ago, before the Food Network, and it was called the Epicurean club, and people joined, and I would run classes like in harbor court, and they’d be in the restaurant kitchen, the chef would
Nestor Aparicio 18:28
prepare. I lived at Harbor court for 20 years, so yeah, yeah. Okay,
Dara Bunjon 18:32
8so harbor court, the brass elephant.
Nestor Aparicio 18:35
Oh, food’s coming here. This is going to be one of my favorite things to share with you. So we’re Coco. So you have to keep, keep telling me about this, because you’re, you’re you’re you’re on your epicurean delight, I know, yeah, once you start smelling the shrimp, it’s over with you. You want to go eat it.
Dara Bunjon 18:49
Okay? So, you know that’s sort of was the sideline. And one thing led to another, to another, to another. And I actually became friendly with people from Harper Collins and the publishing company, publish company, cookbook. So when cookbook authors were traveling and they needed somebody to food style for them, I’d go to Washington, here in Baltimore, I was, you know, a media escort. I would drive them around. So I got to know them, which is great, because now I’m doing the show. I call up, you know, Susan Herman Loomis in Paris, and I said, Will you be on the show? She goes, yeah. So, you know, it’s like neighbor sports.
Nestor Aparicio 19:28
I’ve been doing sports so long. You can get, yeah, I get a coach on the show to talk. I can get matched over to talk about Justin Tucker this week and kicking if I you know, but that’s, that’s a beautiful, that’s a relationship that you keep. I had a beautiful neighbor of mine that was a foodie when I lived in harbor court. She has since passed. Her husband was a very famous heart surgeon, and her name is Marlene, and she lived in the penthouse, and she was a widow, widow widow. Were widow, widow widow. She’s a woman, right? So. So she had us to her house one night for dinner, and she and her husband had been all over the world, and her passion, it was so neat for me to see this. She had plates all in her kitchen and and menus that were autographed by chefs. I had never seen this before. This is 15 years. I mean, I’ve been to people’s houses where they got autographs of Brooks, Robinson or Johnny, you know, whatever, whoever, rock stars, presidents, whatever. But I thought, and with every one of those plates she she would say, this was our meal in Paris, and this was the chef and this week, and I thought, wow, you know, memorable meals. And I think about my memorable meals that I wish I had. Sometimes, you have pictures of them now, right? We all, we all post pictures. I’m we’re gonna have a picture of us with the delicious coconut shrimp that we have out here at Cocos as well. But I think the memory in Hermes, a very wealthy woman, but in her mind, this silly little plate that you know and and a menu that wouldn’t be sold on the internet or, you know, be any, but it was, it represented a special moment in there and in their travels, literally, in places you would go. I That’s what Anthony Bourdain is, right? Like as a memory, really. That’s what that is, right? I,
8Dara Bunjon 21:16
I met him a couple of times, but at star chefs in New York, and he was signing books, and I was putting together composite cookbook from different chefs. And I, you know, I, while he was talking to him, I said, you know, I’m getting recipes donated. So he gave me his email address, he signed the book, whatever, sent numerous emails to him, never heard back, and we go off the air. I’ll tell you the email address, but I have the book. I sold my collection, and I said to somebody, I said, Here, here’s your piece of gold. I didn’t need it anymore, but I have some of Julia Child’s kitchen things, everybody’s passion you go after and you save. I have, you know, her, Charlotte mold. I have tea towels. And these are all, you know, little notes from her that she sent to me. So I was
Nestor Aparicio 22:12
a kid that cooked like in OMAC school. I mean, I remember seventh grade. My mother always taught me to cook. I helped make food. You asked me about my childhood. I helped make my my mother make dinner four or five days a week. I mean, I was always involved in making food. I helped my wife, but my wife sometimes is more like out of the way with the knife up, and like all of that, she doesn’t want me to be the shoe, you know, but I guess I I care. I eat three times a day, like everybody else, I try to be selective about what I’m eating, but no, but I think about my child like Justin Wilson, the Cajun chef that you know, just on Wilson, guarantee I this is 40 years ago when cable television came on. I would watch him cook recipes, and young can cook making noodles when enjoy your child, obviously. But that was really the gateway in the 70s and 80s, after Electric Company and Sesame Street, that the only place they really did now, they do it on Channel 11 every week, and they have a chef in and they’ll do all of that. But I think like in that period of time, there was Julia Child and everything else is sort of an artery of that from Natalie,
Dara Bunjon 23:19
Dupree, sure, and Natalie. You know, I’ve been friends with her. I’ve she’s been on the show. Keep you on your mic. Keep going. That’s right, she’s been on the show. Sarah Moulton, and some of these, you want to look,
Nestor Aparicio 23:33
8I do want to look. I did this. Dairy is giving me a gift you made. You made something special for me. You already gave me the recipe, and you came over here. I mean, it’s better. This is gonna be good here. Good. Here. Hold on, I’m open it up. Only gift I got for the holiday so far, I’m opening. Here we go. What do we have? Oh, wow, biscotti. It’s like Steve biscotti only, but it’s, it’s biscotti. No, it’s not bishati. It’s biscotti. She may be biscotti.
Dara Bunjon 23:57
Sports joke, cranberry and pistachio. Try one. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 24:01
I’m gonna my wife came home with bread that was just like this for the turkey. She had a cranberry Nut Bread that she bought, thinking it would be really good as leftover. You made this fresh for me. Well, I got Zeke’s coffee in the house. This is gonna go great music’s coffee. Enjoy. Thomas is here, absolutely, man. John is here. She is the food enthusiast. She’s from jaymar. Follow her work, get her amazing Corn Pudding Recipe. What are your favorite? You said your crab cake here Cocos is your favorite? Making that up, that’s real. We’re gonna eat some of these delicious coconut shrimp.
Dara Bunjon 24:40
I have to ask you, was this your idea and they made this, or it was something that they had on the menu and that you love? Oh,
8Nestor Aparicio 24:46
no, no, no. Marcel has been making these forever. Hey, Marsh, you got a minute? I want you to talk about the coconut shrimp. Can you come in now? I’m gonna get Marsh back in here, because she’s been talking off camera with her SIG back here. I don’t know whether you’re I think you’re on three. Hold that up. There you go. Can you give her your story on these coconut shrimp by the way? Dara Marcy, there we go. Marsha, here, I got the right mic for you. Yeah? I think you do. Yeah, we gotta give put your mic on. Thank you. So she’s the food enthusiast like Anthony Bourdain. Julia Child be talking about all this incredible stuff her mom made this place, and the crab cake is 11 ounces here, because that was her mom’s hand size, right, right? So she makes this uniquely, weirdly big softball from the crab cake here. And everybody knows about her crab cakes. And I feel like it’s my role as promoter, spokesperson, partner, radio ads at your web but we do everybody who spent crab cakes, I think, and listen, I love your crab cakes, and I love your cream of Craps. I’m doing a cream of a cream of a crab soup tour next summer, not just cream, but I’m gonna go everywhere and try both, including you. We’re gonna kick it off with you in August. These are the coconut shrimp, and I saw them on the menu. And I tend to love shrimp. I like fried shrimp, and I order them and not knowing anything about this raspberry jalapeno, because usually when you get a coconut shrimp, you get, like, a mango. Get, like, a Mango, Mango marmalade, or whatever. What is this for her? Because I have defined this and she she’s the foodie. She’s I said, there, this is one of the top five things in the city. Well, I said, this is one of the top five things I if people were to say to me, like my brought my friends in from Arkansas, we sat here, you’re getting the coat. You’re gonna try. If you eat shrimp, you’re gonna have to have one of these, because I think they’re uniquely delicious, and not just that. I don’t know any other place I can get this particular item,
Marcella Knight 26:30
right? Well, when you go out, you want to try whatever is like that place is known for. Obviously, we’re known for our crab cakes, but it’s always nice to have a little
Dara Bunjon 26:43
Yeah, so it’s a host of some Mayor
Marcella Knight 26:46
8the coconut shrimp are hand breaded. Here we have someone that breads the coconut shrimp on Tuesdays, like, literally for eight hours stands there and hand bread. This was ready yesterday, but you don’t Right, right? And our Raspberry jalapeno sauce is made from scratch. It’s a little sweet, a little hot, and it is. It’s just delicious. It’s a great combination.
Nestor Aparicio 27:13
There. A lot of people have had coconut shrimp and other places appetizers, and they’re frozen, right? I mean, it’s like, I mean, the conferences go wherever, you know, even if they’re Gucci, they’re frozen, right? I can go to the wise markets and get coconut shrimp in the aisle, the Margaritaville brand or whatever it is. They should
Dara Bunjon 27:30
usually dried out. You do steam shrimp here. And it’s like, if you’re going to get shrimp salad or anything shrimp, you get it where they’re doing a lot of shrimp. So these are not overdone. See,
Nestor Aparicio 27:43
she’s digging this. See, I’m getting, you’re getting the real, you’re getting the real. Here, she could talk about this on her podcast.
8Dara Bunjon 27:49
It’s not enough. It is quality. I give you a three yums on that. All right,
27:56
is there a four yum? No, there’s only
Marcella Knight 28:00
three. What’s our Yum scale
Dara Bunjon 28:02
8three’s top.
28:05
All right. All right. All right. Jesse,
Marcella Knight 28:06
all right. Our coconut shrimp guy, I’ll be glad to hear he’s doing a great job, job security. Derek
Nestor Aparicio 28:12
Bucha is here. She is from, um, from J Moore, and she is the food enthusiast. Marcella is here. She is, uh, putting together a big Santa, doings around here. We talked about in our last segment. But I’ll give a chance to talk about again, Saturday. We’re doing Santa here, but the neighborhood here is all Christmas up. The weather outside is frightful. Come on in here, and you can give you Zeke’s coffee in here, even though they’re up the corner and Thomas is going to be here a little later on. But this is a very spirited time. And how much of this do you sell? I mean, coconut shrimp, is this a top seller, or
8Marcella Knight 28:43
has become one of our top sellers next to the crab
Nestor Aparicio 28:46
cake, because it’s an intense thing to put together, right?
Marcella Knight 28:49
It’s a lot of work. Like I said, I have someone that makes Tuesday. That’s his job, makes all the shrimp for the week, eight hours standing there prepping the shrimp. Well, it’s, it’s it’s time consuming, just like our crab cakes are simple recipes, but made with love and care, and I think that’s what makes it so delicious.
Nestor Aparicio 29:13
8I don’t tell people not to get the crab cake when they come or get the crab cake, but don’t sleep on the coconut shrimp.
Dara Bunjon 29:17
Okay, while you’re waiting for the crab cakes to come get the shrimp. Well, this is one of
Nestor Aparicio 29:22
the problems with a restaurant like this, and this is my problem in eating out. I have my go to so if I’m living in Perry Hall and I’m driving down here, or living anywhere that’s not here, and I’m driving over to Cocos, and I’m gonna do it, and it’s my couple every couple times a year I come or whatever, and I’m really jonesing that big old crab cake. You get to grab cake, and that’s what you get, you know. And you’re like, Honey room for any they look good. But I, you know, whatever, don’t sleep on a coconut shrimp. Make sure you get those. And I’ve been trying to do that with all, not just my sponsors, but anywhere I go is to say people know about your signature thing. There’s something else going on. You make great margaritas here too. I mean, there’s a lot of things you guys. Do here, but I think this is one of my favorite things in the city that nobody knows about,
Marcella Knight 30:06
that they need to know about good they smell amazing. Would you like one?
8Nestor Aparicio 30:12
I’m gonna let you enjoy. Dara is gonna get out of here. She’s from J Moore, and she is the food enthusiast. Please find her and your podcast is available. J, more correct,
Dara Bunjon 30:20
right? The show the food enthusiasts on J Moore living.com or their Facebook page. J Moore living and I do the show live every Thursday. So tomorrow, at one o’clock, I’ll have another guest on, and you can sit there and send in your questions whether my guest has been from Paris or local.
Nestor Aparicio 30:40
Check it out. Ask them if they’ve had the corn pudding yet. Tell them, I endorse it. Okay, we’ll do she put a status up. It was delicious. She put a status up. Never tried. We ran out of it. That was the whole point. The whole point, if you made it was the first time you ran out of we will get you the recipe for is very easy to make. So
Marcella Knight 30:56
8is it desserty or as a side no side dish.
Dara Bunjon 31:01
So it’s but it’s sweet, a sweet
Marcella Knight 31:03
side dish, kind of like a sweet potato dish,
Dara Bunjon 31:06
but corn, but corn, corn, right, right. I
8Nestor Aparicio 31:09
was so disappointed my wife custardy. I
Marcella Knight 31:10
bet it’s custardy, it’s eggs,
Dara Bunjon 31:13
it’s corn, it’s cream, it’s milk, and you sort of all the ingredients. You withhold one cup of the corn, and the rest of you process, add the whole corners kernels back and take it. That’s it. It’s real simple. Sounds. I pulled
Nestor Aparicio 31:31
8it out on Tuesday for Jen. Jen’s like, that looks simple enough I can make now. She had been making cranberry from scratch, the turkey my wife does, like, goes crazy. And then she says to me, on a Saturday before, she’s like, I’m gonna make a pie. And I’m like, the kitchen is only so big, like, you know, like, buy a pie, you know? She’s like, No, no, I want to make a sweet potato pie. She made the sweet potato pie was unbelievably there’s still a piece left in the fridge, and I’m surprised I haven’t stolen it, because, I mean, we’re gonna fight over the last piece. We’ve had a great, great Thanksgiving. We’re gonna have great holiday season. We’re at Coco’s pub. We’re gonna be at Gertrude this week next week. We’re at fainties on Wednesday. We’re at a meat cheese on the 17th. They don’t have a crab cake. Don’t tell anybody, but I’m doing a crab cake tour at a place where they don’t have a crab cake because it’s a meat cheese and they have meatballs, and it’s a holidays and they’re my friends. And I think I’m gonna get Nancy Longo to come over make me a crab. Make
Dara Bunjon 32:22
me a crab cake. I was just gonna say, because she does the smoke crab cake. Oh, from peer
Marcella Knight 32:27
point, peer point, yeah, comparison, one year, many years ago, it’s on our wall over there. Oh, here point. And you and us, yes, years ago.
Nestor Aparicio 32:38
And do you know Nancy a little bit?
8Marcella Knight 32:40
I don’t know her, but she’s really good friends with one of my friends, who keeps telling me, I need to go in all right. And Nancy’s
Nestor Aparicio 32:46
like family to me. She fed my wife was really like, close to dying at the hospital. Nancy would absolutely insist that I stop by and get dinner. Oh
32:55
yeah, big
Dara Bunjon 32:57
8heart. And Dan Rodricks is doing feast the Seven Fishes with Nancy at Pier point two nights in a row.
Nestor Aparicio 33:05
I gotta promote that. I got Dan on tomorrow, so Dan’s gonna tell me about that. So Nancy’s a legend. She’s done taste of the NFL every year, so at the Super Bowl every year. So I’m always involved with her, with that charity, they do it for hunger, with Wayne kostrosky out of Minnesota, so she doesn’t do it anymore, because the NFL screwed up. And, yeah, they screwed all the chefs. They had all these incredible that’s how I know Anthony Zimmern and you know all these people that would come every year, but Nancy’s awesome. So we’re gonna be Demetris on the 17th, and then on the 18th, we’re gonna be a Costas with cheetah shock from the go, Go’s, it’s, our holiday. Send off. My wife’s already gonna be up in New Hampshire, freezing by then. So thank you so much for the biscotti, not bishati. Thank you very much for the shrimp sharing, and really for your corn pudding recipe that it’s probably like Mr. Sam Gibson’s sauerkraut and kielbasa. It might be coming with me the rest of my journey. Well, it might be a thing. I
Dara Bunjon 34:01
think you’ve made it legendary.
Nestor Aparicio 34:03
My wife even said to me, we’re going back to the sauerkraut and we’re gonna go back to the corn pudding for Christmas. She’s so we’re gonna make your recipe again, because she’s still got the white corn in the freezer. Marcellus here, Thomas is gonna be here from Zeke’s over six. Gonna sit down. We’re gonna talk coffee. We’re gonna have some eggnog. We’re promoting the fact that Santa, the real Santa, is gonna be here this Saturday. And of course, the all your shopping, come on out to laraville. Make sure support local business. It goes without saying, Small Business Saturday every day, small business day when you own an am radio station and you own a bar in the corner of laraville that you’ve turned into a crab cake institution. So we’re here at Cocos. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. I have been giving these away. I have not had anybody tell me they won. I gave Darrow one. I hope she is a big winner. Raven scratch. Also, we have peppermint scratch offs coming our way two weeks from now as well. Also, our friends at Jiffy Lube multi care getting Luke back and forth, not this week, because it’s by week, but he’ll. Be plenty, plenty busy next week, as the Ravens get ready to play a lot of football through the holidays, and I plan to eat a lot of corn pudding and drink a lot of eggnog, gaining weight from my eggnog. I’m Nestor. We are wnsda. Am 1570 toss the Baltimore back for more from Cocos eating coconut shrimp, and my co host rasig will be back in the spotlight after this. You.
