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Welcome the season finale of The Curious Cook. We've a very, very, special guest, Raphael
Miranda. He's the weatherman for NBC, and we're so honored and excited to have him here
on the show today. We are going to be making blackberry prosecco and Dirty Monkey Parfait.
This is delicious, exciting, and a very unique recipe, so let's get started.
First thing we're going to do is muddle the blackberries. Squish them up nice and good.
There we go. We're getting nice and juicy here. Getting into a blackberry paste. Add
the crème de cassis, mix it in. I'm going to add a splash of lime, and make a little
bit of lime rind. Just a pinch. Give it a little tap, mix it up. I'm going to pour that
into one of these cocktail glasses. Pour in the berry mixture and top it off with your
prosecco. There we have our blackberry prosecco. Let's hope that this is the first time Raphael
will have ever tasted his cocktail. If you want, you can do a frozen version.
You make it the exact same way. Put it in the freezer. After about two hours, you can
stick you little popsicle stick in, let it freeze overnight, and voila.
Let's start making our Dirty Monkey Parfait. I feel excited just saying that. Three graham
crackers. Get them really crumbly. This is where you really get your hands in there.
You know that you really made this from scratch. There we go. Add the sugar. Add in your butter
and we're going to simmer it. Just going to heat it up, stir it around, going to saute
this till it gets a little bit golden brown and crispy. It smells warm and yummy. I'm
going to take that off the stove and work on our next layer.
In bowl, we're going to add confectioner's sugar because why have regular sugar when
you can have powdery white goodness? We're going to add in some whipped cream cheese.
It's very important that it's whipped because it's going to give us that amazing texture
that we love. We have to have butter, so it's creamy, thick, and good. That's an eighth
cup of butter right there. I'm going to mix it all together. Oh my gosh, everything is
white and yellow and fluffy. I think heaven might look like this. I'm not quite sure yet.
This is the beginnings of goodness. One-and-three-quarters cup milk, two boxes
of Jell-O pudding. This is my Bill Cosby moment, instant pudding. I'm going to whisk it for
two minutes, and then we're going to let it stand for two minutes. We're going to add
our white mixture into our dark mixture and mix it up. Here we go. All right, darlings.
Now it's getting really mixed up. Now we're going to add our whipped cream, and this is
very important how you mix it. I'm going to put a nice size dollop, and then I'm just
going to fold. You want to maintain that fluffiness. I'm going to do another dollop. This is the
delicate part. Take time to do this because you want to maintain that fluffy whipped cream
texture. Fold it and then you apply a little more force. You mix it. Beautiful, but we
still have the whipped cream fluffiness. First thing, put in a layer of graham crackers.
Here we go. Now we're going to put gently and carefully the mixture. Then, we're going
to pat it down with a spoon. I'm going to add a layer of white fluffy whipped cream.
It's gorgeous. Flatten that down. Add some slices of banana. This is like a layer cake
but fluffier. It's like a sundae but more interesting. Flatten that down gently. This
would make an incredible gift. Imagine putting a lid on this, and another layer of whipped
cream. Top it off with bananas. Here we go, and who could resist a Dirty Monkey Parfait?
Welcome, Raphael. Welcome, thank you so much. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
Oh my gosh. I'm a huge fan, by the way.
You are? I think I'm your number one fan.
Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I'm a fan. Every time I see you, your smiles, you give the weather,
it makes me smile. I have a lots of friends who are fans of yours as well.
Thank you. I have made for you blackberry prosecco. This
is the cocktail version and this is the popsicle version.
We get two versions. Yes!
I'm so lucky. I know. This is the Dirty Monkey Parfait.
There's bananas and a chocolate pudding and butter and whipped cream and everything. Let's
do a toast. Ok, there's much.
Thank you for coming on our show. Thank you for having me. Cheers.
Cheers. Mmm-mm-mm.
You like it? Delicious. Refreshing.
I just think that mimosas are overused. I agree.
They should be replaced with more creative cocktails.
This has more antioxidants, maybe? Yes, it does.
Something good. You're right. We should take a sample of the
popsicle version. This is fabulous for summer parties.
Now which one has more alcohol in it? Its equal.
Ok. Mmm. Ooh, this more has more alcohol in it.
It does taste that way. This is our Dirty Monkey Parfait, so just dig in.
Just a light snack. This is just a light snack.
There's no butter in here, right? None.
Just about a pound. It's so good. Raphael, you are the weatherman for NBC.
Yes. It's such an honor to have you here. How does
somebody become a weatherperson? Weather was always my passion growing up.
Really? Believe it or.
Really? When we got cable when I was 13 the Weather
Channel was what I was most excited about. What do find fascinating about it?
Just the power of weather. Like Mother Nature and watching the patterns
and the cycles. Mother Nature, how it effects everyone. There's
no escaping weather. It's the great equalizer, which I love.
It's true. We all have to deal with the heat together,
the rain, the snow. And it affects our moods, especially New York.
When it's hot people get grumpy, when it's beautiful and cool people are sunny and friendly.
Yeah, I become the hero for the days when it's like yes the weather's awesome, and then
I try to hide when it's horrible which is a lot.
I really think your passion shows through because you have a little smile when you give
the weather. I really think it comes through and that's what makes it such a pleasure to
watch you. I got yelled at the other day during the heat
wave because they were like, "You were way too excited about that heat, Raphael." I was
like, "I was?" I didn't even realize it, but I must've like it's 100 degrees outside.
That's so cute. You're just so excited to tell the world about the patterns.
I am. This is what I think a lot of people wonder,
are weather anchors or weather people secretly excited when there's a catastrophe like a
hurricane or anything because it's like such exciting news?
A hurricane, that's scary and bad news. Definitely not, especially after last year, Hurricane
Irene. Yeah, that was scary.
But a blizzard still gets my juices going. I like blizzards too, though because...
There's something about an approaching nor'easter that you just...I don't know. When I'm in
my house I run from window to window to see if it's snowing or not. I'm like a cat pacing
in the apartment. You are so destined to be a weatherman. This
is really your calling and that's beautiful. When I was working in retail instead of doing
my job I would be hiding on a computer tracking radar usually. It is fate that I actually
do it for a living now. Wow, that is amazing. How did you go from
retail to weatherman? I actually sent an email to a weatherman that
I used to watch when I was growing up, and I said, "How can I become a weatherman," and
he responded. Wow. That's amazing. Congratulations to you.
It's really great. Thank you.
I know that you're out, as gay. You have a husband, everything. Were you always out?
Did you come out after you got your job at NBC? How does that work?
I've always been out, but on TV there's another level of coming out because you can out publicly
as we've just seen with Anderson Cooper. Anderson Cooper.
Yes, go Anderson. Very happy for him. I've been out since I was 19, but I had my TV coming
out a few years ago when I was doing the weather because right before weather there was a relationship
segment. When they were tossing to me one of the anchors said, "Raffy," they call me
Raffy, they said, "How does you deal with this type or relationship issue?" I was like,
"My husband, blah, blah, blah." That was my chance.
Was this planned? No.
They just do it? I didn't know the question was coming, but
I made the choice to be honest and talk about what was going on.
It's such a brave choice. What was the reaction both at work and publicly?
You could hear a pin drop. It was like, "What," but then everyone came up to me afterwards,
guys from the control room were like, "Good for you, Raffy. That's so awesome." I got
a huge response online from people who had never seen that before and were just really
supportive. You activity did it the way in an ideal society
we would just say my husband, my wife, blah, blah, blah, there's nothing different.
Yeah, and instead of hiding it it's so much easier just to be who you are.
Yes. Did you have any negative emails or any backlash? Was it all positive?
Oddly enough, it was all positive. It seems a little utopia to say that, but it really
was. None of the hate mail got to me anyway. I didn't get any directly. If it's out there
I didn't see it. It was a great response. It's fantastic. Congratulations. Can I call
you Raffy now? Yes, of course, you can call me Raffy.
It's been such a joy to meet you. I've never met somebody with a passion for weather, and
now when I look at the weather and I watch you on TV I'm going to know that this really
comes from true passion. Thank you so much for coming, Raffy.
Thanks for having me. You're so sweet. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for watching
to everybody. Check us out online, write us, email, Facebook, Twitter. Make up your own
recipes. Do these. Add a twist. Take a picture and share it with us. We'd love to hear you.
How can people get in touch with you, Raffy? I'm on Facebook. I'm no Twitter. Tell me if
I'm getting too excited about the next heat wave or blizzard. Feel free to express that
to me. Thank you so much.