Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:00
Hi, this is Rachel
0:04
McElroy. Hi,
0:19
this is Griffin McElroy. And this is Wonderful.
0:22
This is Wonderful, a show where we talk about
0:24
things we like that's good that we're into. A
0:26
lot of people say, who the hell are you
0:28
to tell me what is good?
0:31
A lot of times just people on the street just walk right
0:33
up to us. Yeah, they just say, who the hell
0:35
are you? They don't even say the other stuff. And I
0:37
say, hi, I'm Rachel. And I say, hi, I'm Griffin. And
0:39
then they give us $200. No.
0:43
I don't know why. That doesn't happen for me. Oh,
0:46
man, I'm always getting to here in DC. Specifically,
0:48
$200. Specifically here in
0:50
DC, you tell someone your name, they give
0:53
you $200 and a nice
0:55
firm handshake. Usually it's
0:57
a politics guy who does it. Yeah, yeah,
0:59
yeah. Because they want
1:02
you to feel like you're part of the process, part
1:04
of the machine. And
1:06
that's so huge for me. I'm
1:09
so happy to be here in the studio
1:11
with my lovely wife, Rachel,
1:13
to tell you about all
1:15
these wonderful experiences that we've
1:17
been having. I got so scared that
1:20
you were going to spring something on me. I'm so happy
1:22
to be here today because I need to tell you. I've
1:25
found a new co-host. And his
1:28
name is Reggie. He is super funny. We
1:30
are not married, me and Reggie, but he's
1:33
got a lot of big ideas. An
1:35
escape ward, and I can't compete with
1:37
that. No. I mean, you're pretty
1:39
good at skateboard. I will
1:41
say you're more of a street skater.
1:44
Reggie's more vert. But
1:46
do you have any small wonder? Like Reggie
1:48
doesn't ever come up with small wonders, so
1:50
maybe you can hedge the market there.
1:54
I'm going to say the feeling
1:56
after you get your teeth cleaned.
1:59
Yeah. And it's just like
2:01
I did a good thing and now it's
2:03
done. I
2:05
mean, ideally I wouldn't have to go back. Unfortunately I do because
2:07
it had been several years. But
2:10
I had this feeling of like, I've been thinking about
2:12
this for a while and I haven't done it and
2:14
now I did it. And that was a good thing
2:16
and I'm glad. I also
2:18
went a long time without dentistry because
2:20
of COVID. Became very easy to say
2:22
like, well, I don't want someone in
2:24
my mouth. Seems like the worst place
2:26
for them to be. But then last year
2:28
I sort of broke the
2:30
dam and I did a
2:32
lot of dentistry work last year. And now I
2:34
feel like I'm good for another three or four
2:37
years. Just kind of like kick it. And then
2:39
they tell you, they say, hey, we say every six
2:41
months, but you've been such a good boy. You've been
2:43
a good boy, go on your own dental journey. And
2:46
so that's my current plan. I'm gonna say
2:48
Taskmaster, man. We've gotten back into it in
2:51
such a big way. We fell off. Didn't
2:53
we mention that last week? Maybe we just mentioned
2:55
that we were watching it. Man, I don't
2:57
know. We've finished the most recent series,
2:59
I think, series 16. So
3:02
funny. Just, I think the best cast
3:04
front to back. Just-
3:07
Sue Perkins. Sue Perkins. I'm pretty sure we talked
3:09
about this last week. Okay, did we? Well- But
3:11
maybe it wasn't your small wonder. Maybe we were just-
3:13
Maybe just shooting the shit. Let me do that
3:15
sometimes. That's the thing on this show. You
3:18
go first this week. I do. And I would
3:20
love to hear what you've prepared for us
3:22
today. So I decided that my topic should be, and
3:25
I've kind of been wanting to do this for a
3:27
while, and it was one of those things I had
3:29
to check and make sure we haven't done this, because
3:31
I've been thinking about it, but I didn't know if
3:33
I would have enough to say, but it is the
3:35
stadium organist. Yes, yes,
3:37
huge. Yes. What
3:40
a weird facet of just
3:43
sort of sports culture, of
3:45
just like, organists are
3:47
in two buildings. One is
3:49
church, the other is sports
3:52
buildings. And I like that. It's
3:54
true. Is the
3:56
connection there that we are supposed to be
3:59
church-like in- sports arena, is
4:01
it meant to sort of
4:03
evoke a transcendental experience
4:07
while you're watching these beautiful games
4:09
being played? Well, so organists used to
4:11
be like in movie theaters too. Right, I
4:13
guess. Like if you were doing live accompanied
4:16
entertainment, it was usually an
4:18
organist that was doing it. Yeah. I
4:21
wish they still did that by the way and didn't
4:23
warn you, but you just like
4:26
walked into Wonka, which is
4:28
a musical, but they have
4:30
just an organist sort of jamming over the
4:32
other music that is taking place. Yeah,
4:36
it always feels really delightful to me. Some of
4:38
it is nostalgia. Some of it is like if
4:40
you are somebody that went to sporting events as
4:42
a child, it is maybe
4:44
one of the few things that feel
4:46
similar, you know? Like it's, I
4:49
don't know, it's been a constant for a lot
4:51
of teams for a long time. And
4:55
there's just something, I don't know, it's like, I
4:58
find it delightful. One
5:00
time I was visiting my nani in Florida with,
5:03
I mean, my whole family was there and she
5:06
took us to a pizza restaurant
5:09
that had an organist, but he also
5:11
had like all those other like wild
5:13
supplemental, like there's a button
5:15
that sets off symbols. It's
5:18
like that, I think you should leave
5:20
sketch with Fred Willard. Yeah. And
5:23
it was a really, really, really,
5:25
really weird fucking vibe, just the
5:27
weirdest vibe. It was not suitable,
5:29
I think, for a dining experience.
5:32
I think it's also like a lot of
5:34
environments you go into just have background music,
5:36
you know? Like if you go into a
5:38
retail establishment, usually they have some kind of
5:40
music playing. But the organ really
5:42
stands out. You really notice like this is
5:44
different. I have a deep fondness for
5:46
the organ right now because I've been
5:48
incorporating a lot of organ into the
5:50
music for our upcoming adventure zone series,
5:52
which starts tomorrow, the adventure zone versus
5:55
Dracula, quick plug, check that out, it's
5:57
organ heavy. Okay.
6:00
So, organs, as
6:02
I mentioned, were used in theaters, obviously
6:04
church. They first started
6:06
appearing in sporting events at Chicago Stadium,
6:09
which is where the Chicago Blackhawks and
6:11
the Chicago Bulls played in 1929. Geez,
6:15
wow. That's a long time ago. Yeah, I
6:18
guess that is kind of the golden age
6:20
of organs. Now,
6:23
when I was researching this, they
6:25
talked about how organs were used
6:27
for, quote, a psychological accompaniment for
6:29
events, which it
6:32
was used in quotes. I have not searched out
6:34
the source on that, but
6:37
I like this term, this like
6:39
phrasing of psychological accompaniment. Yeah, I
6:41
guess so. It's really supposed to
6:43
get you hype. Yeah, that's weird.
6:46
Oh, like in 1929, I get it. Cause
6:48
we didn't have like a bunch of other stuff,
6:50
but then like, you know, I
6:52
think that Darude creating
6:55
Sandstorm really rendered
6:58
a lot of organ or other
7:00
sort of sports music completely redundant.
7:03
But I do love the, I guess the novelty
7:05
of keeping that, keeping that dream alive. I have
7:07
no idea the reference you just made. Darude
7:15
Sandstorm? I swear to God, you'd
7:17
know it. If it's, man, now
7:19
I have to play Darude Sandstorm. Oh,
7:25
yeah. Sports. Okay. Yeah. Sports. hockey.
7:27
hockey. basketball. football. baseball. Let's go.
7:29
hockey. Let's go. What
7:33
is this? This is the new theme song. So maybe
7:36
just for live shows. We would have to start the
7:38
whole show differently. We would have to come out
7:40
in jerseys. Yeah. Okay. I
7:43
don't want to have to pay Darude any
7:45
money. So,
7:47
organs, as they
7:49
are typically used today and have been
7:51
used, National Anthem charges
7:55
the short musical pieces that
7:57
foreshadow something happening. So
7:59
like. Duh duh duh duh duh
8:01
duh duh duh. Yep, yep. Clappers.
8:05
What's that? Music or melodies that get fans
8:07
excited. I don't, okay. Okay,
8:09
clappers is what we call those? Yeah, like let's
8:11
go. That's a real clapper. Yeah.
8:14
And then in baseball, the seventh inning stretch.
8:17
Yeah. As
8:19
you mentioned though, organists starting to
8:21
fall out of favor in the 80s and 90s.
8:26
The Tampa Bay Lightning though took out 574
8:28
seats in their arena to
8:31
install the largest pipe organ in the league
8:33
back in 2011. I like
8:35
that. That's what you kind of love. Like everybody's kind
8:37
of moving away from it and they're like, no, no,
8:39
no, no, no, no, not us. No, we're
8:41
gonna make sure people can't buy tickets. So we have a
8:43
big organ. Yeah. There are
8:46
a few teams that don't have it.
8:48
A lot of them, it's said
8:51
that it just kind of doesn't match the tone,
8:53
which I kind of understand. So for example, Vegas,
8:55
which is a relatively new team. Tried
8:58
out an organ, felt like it didn't really fit.
9:00
And I think it's kind of
9:02
like the nostalgia thing I was talking about.
9:05
Like if you have been with a team for
9:07
decades and the organ is part of it, you
9:09
hear it and you're like, yay. Yeah. But
9:12
if you've got a brand new team in your
9:14
city, you're like, wait, what is this?
9:16
Like I was just jamming out to the black
9:18
eyed peas and now there's an organ? Jokes
9:20
aside, I would be very curious
9:23
to hear how organ
9:26
adoption fell off when
9:28
jock jams became
9:32
like the conversation.
9:36
Yeah, no, so a lot of
9:38
the articles I read were
9:40
recent, like 2022. Washington
9:44
Capitals is somebody who got rid
9:46
of their organist after 22 years,
9:49
the same organist. That's the thing, that's the other
9:51
thing is that people that become the organist stay
9:54
the organist. Well, yeah, that's who all plays the
9:56
organ. It can't be too many folks. This
9:58
also happened with Vancouver. That
10:00
same year, 2022, they got rid of their organist.
10:04
I say I, it's AI
10:06
taking all the organist jobs. Of
10:10
the 32 NHL teams, only
10:12
six don't have organists. It
10:14
includes Philadelphia, Carolina, Dallas, Arizona,
10:17
Vegas, Edmonton, and I guess
10:19
now Vancouver as well. Tragic,
10:22
a tragedy. How do you even get psyched for
10:25
hockey without an organ bump in your years? Another
10:28
new team, the Seattle Kraken, brought in
10:30
an organist, very specifically, apparently. I don't
10:33
know a lot about the film Slap
10:35
Shot, but their organist is
10:37
the same organist that played in the 1977
10:39
movie Slap Shot. He
10:42
apparently cold called them when they were getting
10:44
started and was like, hey, I happen to
10:46
play the organ if you're looking for somebody.
10:49
And they brought him in and now he's just part
10:51
of the scene. I do like that. Assert
10:53
yourself. Put yourself out there. I
10:55
didn't realize that the St. Louis Blues
10:57
had a particularly notable organist until I
10:59
was reading this article about Seattle and
11:02
it said one of the peers he reached out
11:04
to for advice is Jeremy Boyer, who has been
11:06
the organist for the St. Louis Blues for 15
11:08
years. It
11:10
has a massive social media following, which I
11:12
was like, what? I mean, I don't know
11:14
what massive is. He's got, I mean, for
11:17
an organist. Right. It's a
11:19
matter of perspective, I imagine. He has like
11:21
over 100,000 subscribers. Pretty
11:23
fucking good, I will say, for anyone, especially
11:25
an organist. Probably, yeah,
11:27
pretty good. He has been
11:29
around, so I don't know a lot about organist
11:32
history in St. Louis. Ernie
11:34
Hayes for 30 years did both the
11:36
Cardinals games and the St. Louis Blues
11:39
games. Damn busy dude. And when
11:41
he passed in 2012, Jeremy
11:43
Boyer took over for both of those roles. So
11:47
the same dude plays for the cards also? Yes.
11:50
That's a pretty, that's a lot
11:52
of playing an instrument, I will
11:54
say. Well, and as you
11:57
mentioned, his other gig, perhaps
12:01
not surprisingly, I don't know how common this is,
12:03
but he also plays
12:07
at his church. Okay. That
12:09
is his his role. He
12:11
is the director of sacred music and
12:14
liturgy at St. Francis of Assisi's Catholic
12:16
Church in Oakville. And
12:18
also plays organ covers
12:20
of Black Eyed Peas songs every
12:23
other night. Yeah, so if you
12:25
want to look this guy up on
12:27
YouTube, I sent Griffin some links. I
12:29
particularly enjoyed his cover of Rage Against
12:31
the Machine's Killing in the Name of
12:33
it. Yeah, really, really, really
12:35
good. Part of his appeal and I
12:38
think social media following is that he will
12:42
organize, have no right
12:44
to be organized. Yeah, he
12:46
did a medley of
12:48
songs from the 2010s
12:50
that included like Katy Perry's
12:53
firework. Can't
12:55
Stop the Feeling, Party Rock Anthem.
12:57
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a
12:59
delight. There's something so charming to
13:01
me about a modern music being
13:04
played on a old-timey instrument. Yeah,
13:06
for sure. Jerry Blair, also a
13:09
young guy. He is only two
13:11
years older than me. So like
13:13
somebody... He's only two years old.
13:15
It's incredible, one, that he
13:21
can play this huge instrument, too, that he's been playing it for
13:23
15 years. That's wild. No,
13:29
I didn't think people in their 40s were playing the
13:31
organ, but apparently
13:33
he got his Bachelor of
13:35
Musical Education at the Southeast
13:37
Missouri State University and just started
13:40
playing the organ right around the
13:42
time that he graduated college and
13:44
kind of apprenticed with this Ernie
13:46
Hayes guy who... I love
13:48
that. Was the previous organist. It's
13:50
amazing when we talked about, what
13:52
are they called? Carillon bells? The
13:54
big help desk towers? And there's
13:56
like six people alive who do
13:58
that shit. I have to
14:00
imagine there's more organists, but
14:03
not like a ton more.
14:05
Yeah, yeah, anyway, this is one
14:07
of those relics that
14:11
I don't know may have an expiration
14:13
date on it, but I really enjoy
14:15
that it exists. Yeah, for sure. And
14:17
it feels like part of attending a
14:19
sports event. Especially when it is reactionary
14:22
to something that has just happened on
14:24
the field. They'll play that Na
14:28
na na na hey hey goodbye song
14:30
on organ when someone strikes out at
14:32
a ballgame, just a really fucking razzio
14:34
team. I mean, when the team scores,
14:37
obviously, when they have to, in hockey anyway,
14:39
when they get a power play or they
14:41
have to kill a penalty, it
14:43
just feels like a, I don't
14:45
know, like a touchstone. Yeah, can I
14:47
steal you away? Yes. Yes.
14:49
Yes. Yes. As
14:56
you take a look back at your performance in 2023,
14:59
your successes, your failures, why not also take
15:01
a second to take a look at your
15:03
unwanted subscriptions? Sounds like a lot of work,
15:05
doesn't it? It's 2024 now. We
15:08
are all subscribed to a million things, most of
15:10
which we don't use anymore. Well, guess what? Rocket
15:12
Money is here to help. Rocket Money is a
15:14
personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted
15:16
subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your
15:18
bills. They'll even try to negotiate lower bills for
15:20
you by up to 20%. All you
15:22
gotta do is take a picture of your bill and Rocket
15:24
Money takes care of the rest. Rocket Money has over
15:26
five million users and has helped save its members
15:28
an average of $720 a year with
15:31
over $500 million in canceled subscriptions.
15:34
I've used Rocket Money a couple times and I gotta
15:37
tell you, the number of apps that I have subscribed
15:39
to for my children that we used for like a
15:41
week and then never again, and then I ended up
15:43
spending a bunch of money on, It
15:46
was truly mind boggling. And
15:48
Rocket Money Saved me a
15:50
ton of cash in that
15:53
regard.. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions
15:55
by going to rocketmoney.com/wonderful. That's
15:57
rocketmoney.com/wonderful. One Last time, Rocketmoney.
15:59
com/wonderful. This. Year Twenty Twenty
16:01
Four Don't you think it's time you went
16:03
full throttle this? Well, I like this. Don't
16:06
you think it's time for you to get
16:08
out there and grind out that premium rice?
16:10
Well to tell you how to do that.
16:13
I were and do it easy and cool
16:15
and fast. And that's with lecture To eat
16:17
Bikes Rates: are you have electric a bike
16:19
or that you are always assorted to turn
16:22
around town on. Yeah, it's it's
16:24
it's the real game changer for
16:26
me. Ah, my. Basically given up
16:28
by Keen because I have continuously
16:30
lived in hilly areas as just
16:33
like well I'll add. I
16:35
would like to bike but I need to be. A
16:37
hill person ride a bike ride
16:40
and. I'm not and so then left
16:42
her to sanitize everything for me. Now
16:44
run by fulltime. Yeah, they got features,
16:47
accessories for added safety, convenience and control
16:49
your biceps for free and fully assembled
16:51
and foldable for easy storage and travel.
16:53
Ah, and you can get up to
16:55
one hundred and fifty miles on one
16:58
charge with letters Unbeatable. Long range options.
17:00
It's more. Twenty twenty four with Lexis,
17:02
He bikes the most accessible and adventure
17:04
seabirds ever! Visit Lecter He bikes.com to
17:07
learn more and be sure to mention
17:09
that wonderful said you in the post
17:11
Check out survey that L A Z
17:13
T R I C E Bikes. Dot
17:16
Com. Hello
17:19
everyone out there! Thank you for
17:21
coming to our servers! Yes,
17:23
we are ready to
17:26
see are we are
17:28
rossing Harry. We are safe
17:30
healers. Yeah. Just as are you
17:33
have a spirit of not. Listening
17:35
to Unearth Podcast. We
17:37
have the solution for though we can
17:39
cure. You should listen to Oh No
17:41
Ross and carry Hallelujah on. Maximum fun.
17:44
I could. Have said it better myself.
17:46
Yes Ma'am yes you their gladys.
17:48
A spirit of boredom. Oh my
17:50
goodness we have the solution for you.
17:53
It is to listen to the podcast.
17:55
Oh no, Ross and and salary.
18:08
The human mind can be tricky.
18:10
Your mental health can be complex.
18:12
Your emotional life can be complicated.
18:14
So it helps to talk about
18:16
it. I'm John Moe. Join me
18:18
each week on my show, Depression
18:20
Mode with John Moe. It's in-depth
18:22
conversations about mental health with writers,
18:25
musicians, comedians, doctors and experts. Folks
18:27
like Noah Kahn, Sashir Zameta and
18:29
Surgeon General Vivek Marti. We talk
18:31
about depression, anxiety, trauma, imposter syndrome
18:33
and perfectionism. We have the kind
18:35
of conversations that a lot of
18:37
folks are hesitant to have themselves.
18:40
Listen and you won't feel as
18:42
alone and you'll have some laughs
18:44
too. Depression Mode for Maximum Fun
18:47
at maximumfun.org or wherever you get
18:49
your podcasts. I
18:56
just picked up my phone to start reading my notes and
18:58
it was just greeted with Darude's very serious. You're
19:02
doing great Griffin, keep it
19:04
up. I want to talk to you today about
19:08
appetizers. Appetizers. Oh,
19:10
you're good at this. Appetizers? Well,
19:13
I just feel like you always have an eye out for
19:15
it. Appetizers, yeah, for sure. That used to
19:17
be one of those questions when I would go to
19:19
a restaurant when they were like, oh, can we start
19:21
you off with anything? I would instinctively say no. Yeah.
19:23
Just felt like I am here to save
19:25
money and I'm only going to be focusing on
19:28
my meal. Thank you. Me though,
19:30
the extravagant hedonist that I
19:32
am. This
19:34
is like a McElroy family tradition though. It's just
19:36
always having like a selection of apps. I
19:39
like a selection. Yeah, for sure. I like
19:41
options. I will say that this
19:43
bit was inspired by during all
19:45
of our sort of holiday drives we
19:47
got into the off menu
19:49
podcast, which my brothers have been suggesting
19:51
for a while with James A. Castra and
19:54
Ed Gamble. It's a delightful show. They invite
19:56
a guest on each episode and have them
19:58
sort of devise a Dream
20:00
menu complete with drinks and starters and
20:02
side dishes and main courses and desserts
20:05
and etc. It's a great
20:07
episode with Greg Davis, host of Taskmaster,
20:11
whose bold stance on his
20:13
starter of choice was to skip it, was
20:15
to just not have a starter because it
20:18
detracts from the
20:21
main course, which feels like sort of
20:23
where you used to operate from before I...
20:25
Yeah, there was this idea like, well, I don't want to fill
20:28
up before my meal. I don't
20:30
want to pay for additional food that I was not coming
20:32
here for. Right, a wild
20:35
sentiment. I know, I know, I
20:37
know. Now I really appreciate it though. Yes,
20:40
when we go to a restaurant, I
20:42
feel like, one, it doesn't happen that
20:44
often these days. It is hard for
20:47
us to get out to a restaurant
20:50
with or without our children. A
20:52
huge draw for me is like
20:55
experiencing that restaurant. Like getting a
20:57
feel, I like to feel like
20:59
I've gotten a feel for
21:01
like what that restaurant's whole vibe is
21:04
all about. I love going to a
21:06
restaurant, like finding out what the like
21:08
big all-star item on the menu is
21:10
and trying it and just
21:12
feeling like there's an understanding there and
21:15
appetizers are the easiest
21:17
way to accomplish that in my
21:19
book. Can I ask you, and you may not be aware
21:21
of this, but when you get a menu, you
21:23
look at the entrees first and then go
21:25
to the appetizers? Absolutely not, wild. No. Oh
21:27
really? When you read a book, do you jump
21:29
in at chapter 15? I
21:32
always like, I figure out like, what do I want
21:34
to eat? And then it's like, oh, do any of
21:36
these things up top look good too? I
21:39
start with the main and then double back on
21:41
apps, but I didn't know if that's how you
21:43
did it. When I am choosing an appetizer
21:45
and a main course, I am
21:47
building a narrative. Yeah, of course.
21:50
For the meal. The two things have to be in
21:52
conversation with each other. So like, it's
21:55
hard to tell which one I look at first because
21:57
I'm kind of looking at both of them at the
21:59
same. time to write a
22:01
story of food. Or
22:04
I guess reading the story that
22:06
the restaurant has built for me. There's
22:10
some appetizer staples that I will always like spring
22:12
for if I see them on a menu. I
22:14
love an egg roll. I love an oyster. I
22:18
love a, if we go
22:20
to like any kind of like Tex-Mex restaurant, like
22:22
I will want to get chips in either guac
22:24
or queso. Okay, so if I'm feeling naughty.
22:27
And these are not things that you can make
22:29
a whole meal out of, right? Like I
22:32
would not ever have a meal of egg
22:34
rolls. But as
22:36
like a little bonus bite, that's always
22:39
very, very exciting for me. If
22:42
we are going to like, I genuinely,
22:45
jokes aside, do like to kind of like
22:47
think about how my appetizer is going to
22:49
pair with the main course. Yeah, if we
22:51
go to a Japanese restaurant and I know
22:54
I'm going to be eating raw
22:56
fish or some other sort
22:58
of sushi experience from my
23:01
main course. I like to
23:03
start out with something like fried and greasy
23:05
that is not going to be anything like
23:07
what I'm going to have for my main
23:09
course. And I think that's why you
23:12
get so many options in the vein of like Takoyaki
23:15
or Gyoza or I
23:17
love a croquette, like a potato
23:19
croquette. There's something fried and
23:22
kind of greasy and then you
23:24
get that just a peak
23:26
of freshness with the sushi experience
23:28
at the tail end. And
23:31
then there's of course like restaurants where the
23:33
apps are sort of the star of the
23:36
show, be it a cheesecake
23:38
factory or a Chili's or you
23:40
know, an Applebee's, which
23:43
we don't hit up, I would say a
23:45
lot these days. It still really surprises me
23:47
a lot when I'm at a restaurant like
23:49
that. And it's like your apps can range
23:51
from like garlic bread to like
23:54
crab rangoon to like
23:56
pretzel bites, you know,
23:58
just like every. app you could think of. But
24:01
that's great because now you've just given me
24:03
an even greater challenge in writing a food
24:05
story tonight. Yeah. In
24:08
the Cheesecake Factory. Writing a food story
24:10
at the Cheesecake Factory is like improv.
24:12
It's like your audience has yelled at
24:14
you like a bunch of really incongruous
24:17
sort of suggestions and it's up to you
24:19
to kind of like make a narrative out
24:21
of it. As you know,
24:23
my tastes have become slightly more refined and my
24:25
access to like very good food has developed,
24:29
you know, tapas is just all
24:31
appetizers. That's basically what that is.
24:35
If we go to like a place
24:37
with like a chef's tasting menu, small
24:39
bites, fuck yeah. Like yeah, absolutely. That's
24:42
an appetizer marathon and I'm here for
24:44
that as well. I'm just
24:46
saying when you get appetizers with your main
24:48
course, you get two dinners and
24:50
that is just efficient.
24:53
It is hard to track the
24:55
exact origin of appetizers because it's
24:57
not that outrageous of an
24:59
idea to have a little dinner
25:02
before you get dinner. Well,
25:04
and the way I always view it too is like
25:06
how hungry am I? If I am super hungry and
25:08
it's going to take a while for my food to
25:10
come out, like give me something to pass the
25:12
time. That's a good point. I get the
25:14
changes based on what you're bringing into the
25:17
experience. But across a broad range of cultures,
25:19
there are different takes
25:21
on appetizers. There's
25:23
the Russian zakuska, the
25:26
Middle Eastern mezze, the
25:28
Swedish smorgasbord, the Italian
25:30
antipasto. All the
25:32
way back to like ancient Rome, dinners
25:34
were usually two main courses with a
25:36
bunch of little bits of like fish
25:40
and cheese and veggies
25:42
and other stuff mixed
25:44
in there which they called promosus. Ancient
25:47
Greeks did something similar called it propoma.
25:51
It's really cornered the market all the
25:53
way back to like the Middle Ages
25:55
with your hors d'oeuvres, your
25:58
canapés, your entremets. your
26:00
mozzarella sticks. Entremies also sometimes
26:03
weren't food, it would just be like a
26:05
little bit of art that they would bring
26:07
out, which is wild. I don't want that.
26:09
I don't want that. I don't
26:11
want that. I'm sorry, I can't finish. I'm full up
26:13
on art. I felt all the way up on art.
26:17
They would just know that it is good
26:19
to bring out a bunch of little dishes
26:21
either before or between the main courses. The
26:24
order of which specifically in France became
26:27
sort of more and more formalized throughout
26:30
history. Though
26:32
there are a lot of different sort of versions of
26:35
appetizers throughout history, the logic
26:38
behind appetizers in sort of ancient cultures
26:41
was pretty uniform and it was to have
26:43
a little bit of food to
26:45
stimulate the appetite before you ate
26:48
a lot of food. That
26:50
seems weird to me, I will say,
26:52
because I have never tucked into a
26:56
order of mozzarella sticks thinking like,
26:58
this is really going to get
27:00
me hungrier for the
27:03
meal that is to follow. I know
27:05
I am always robbing Peter to pay
27:07
Paul. I am not
27:09
like starting up my eating engine
27:12
by having a bunch of mozzarella
27:14
sticks. This leads me to a question.
27:16
Do you consider a basket of bread
27:18
an appetizer? Yeah, sure. I
27:21
mean, not legally, but
27:25
it is a starter. It is a pre-think.
27:28
I feel like we've talked about starter bread
27:30
specifically on the show before. I'm trying to
27:32
broaden the horizons a little bit by including
27:34
all sort of starters because
27:38
I know I'm not getting hungrier by eating an
27:40
appetizer. I am reducing my capacity for the main
27:42
meal, but I don't care because that's the last
27:44
benefit in my book of the appetizer. And I
27:47
swear by this, whether I'm out at a restaurant
27:49
or ordering out from like a nice restaurant, it's
27:52
why I almost always spring for
27:54
appetizers. If you eat the appetizer,
27:56
you eat less main course, which
27:58
means leftovers. That's something you
28:00
have taught me. Yes. This
28:03
idea that the appetizer is part of your
28:05
meal and that when you get
28:08
full, you will probably still have entree left,
28:10
which is good news. That's lunch.
28:12
That's tomorrow's lunch and that's amazing. We
28:17
don't have the opportunity to go out to restaurants
28:19
a lot and so I feel like choosing food
28:22
when we do have that experience is
28:24
somewhat stressful because you wanna do
28:26
it, you wanna win dinner. You
28:28
wanna do the right thing. And
28:30
I feel like knowing that I
28:32
can have a few different options
28:34
via appetizers takes a lot of
28:37
the weight and stress off of
28:39
that decision. I
28:41
just, I love appetizers.
28:44
Yeah, no, I know that about you. By the way,
28:46
as you were talking, I was thinking about how a
28:48
restaurant that served very large portions and called
28:50
themselves tomorrow's lunch would be. That's huge. Would
28:53
be great. That's really, that's a really good
28:55
one. I wanna get that on record. 2024,
28:58
Rachel McElroy tomorrow's lunch. Unfortunately,
29:01
that isn't how any of
29:03
this works. I've
29:05
learned, unfortunately, after generating so many
29:08
great ideas. You mean you can't just
29:10
say TMTM? No, I've
29:12
learned from our lawyer and lawyer
29:14
team and legal guys that
29:16
that's not actually anything. Hey,
29:20
do you wanna know what our friends at home are talking about?
29:23
Hannah says, my small wonder is my hiking boots.
29:25
They have been keeping my feet warm and dry
29:28
through all the snow, sleet, slush, and rain we've been having. We
29:30
have not been having, we had a fucking lot
29:32
of rain over the last week. No snow. I
29:35
know. A bummer, but I
29:37
do love, I do have a pair of
29:39
heavy, like
29:42
winterized boots that I
29:45
always feel fucking great when I wear. I
29:47
wear my rain boots yesterday. And
29:53
it was really exciting because when you purchase something
29:55
like that, you know that you're only gonna be
29:57
wearing them like maybe 12, 14 days a week.
30:00
out of the year, at least if you live in a
30:02
place like this, it's like, oh, this is one of those
30:04
times. Yeah. I will say when I wear them,
30:06
I have to sort of like reacclimate
30:09
when I drive so that I
30:12
don't just like slam the pedal down
30:14
with my incredibly heavy, powerful and impervious
30:16
boots. This one was
30:18
sent in by, I think I'm supposed to come up with a clever
30:20
name or something, who says, my wonderful thing
30:22
this week is the sound of a flute. I
30:24
work as a machinist at a company that makes
30:26
flutes. And every now and then I can hear snippets
30:29
of flutes being tested while I'm on break. It makes
30:31
my job feel whimsical. Wow. What
30:33
a fucking job, man. What a job
30:35
to make flutes, but also just like be
30:37
working and just feel like, that feels like
30:40
a video you would watch on Mr. Rogers. Like
30:42
we went to a flute factory and then you
30:44
just watch in awe. Yeah, I can
30:47
hear Mark Summers saying, we
30:49
all love flutes, but how
30:51
do these sweet silver tunnels of
30:53
sound get made? Join
30:56
me today. What's that show called? How
30:59
It's Made? How It's Made. That's a good name for
31:01
it. Yeah. Thank
31:03
you so much for listening. Thank you to Boin
31:05
and Augustus for these, for the theme song Money
31:07
Will Pay. You can find a link to that
31:09
in the episode description. Thank you to Maximum Fun
31:12
for having us on the network. Go to maximumfun.org,
31:14
check out all the great shows there. Again, I'll
31:16
plug it. The Adventure Zone versus Dracula starts tomorrow.
31:18
It's a fun, lighthearted romp to
31:20
kill Dracula and you can get in on the
31:22
ground floor. Yeah, this one's for everyone. This one's
31:25
for everyone except Dracula. He
31:27
probably wouldn't like some of the stuff that
31:30
we say about him. Yeah. We
31:33
have a new merch over at macquariemerch.com,
31:35
including a Three Brother Wolf t-shirt. Oh,
31:37
that's so good. Which rules, and I'm
31:39
very happy for. We got some nice
31:42
fungalore merch coming down the pipeline, which
31:44
I'm stoked about. Every time
31:47
I see a piece of Macquarie merch, I
31:49
go through this internal lore of like, is
31:51
it weird if I wear that? But
31:54
this Three Brothers Wolf thing. I
31:57
think that specifically. I probably couldn't.
32:00
probably couldn't wear a shirt with you. This is my
32:02
husband and his brother's on a shirt. You
32:05
could wear it just not where I am
32:07
with you all the time. Yeah, that's true.
32:11
Wait, is that? Is he on your shirt? You see
32:13
it. But that's it. Thank you so much for
32:15
listening. I love doing this show every week. It's a
32:18
nice little break. Me
32:20
too. And I hope you all
32:22
feel the same way, dear listener. And
32:25
we'll be back next week with
32:27
more good stuff to tell you all about. Join
32:31
us then for another
32:33
exciting installment of the
32:35
Chronicles of Darnia.
32:38
Love it. Thank
33:00
you. Maximum
33:17
Fun. A worker owned network
33:19
of artist owned shows. Supported
33:22
directly by you.
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More