A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - I Slop, You Slop, We All Slop For Slop Bowls!

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

Today, Josh and Nicole fight to defend the Corporate Slop Bowl.  Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: youtube.com/@ahotdogisasandwich To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Be the bridges I burn. Night my way. Forever. I just love my job. Get tickets now. The Devil Wears Prada. in theaters May 1st, directed by David Frankel. Yes, what time it is. It's time for this little piggy to come in a slot bowl.

This is a hot dog. It's a sandwich. No way. No way did you, you like, what's it called? You like side swiped to me, you liar. What? You said you were going to do the first one. Well, I did do the first.

Okay, let's run it back. You said you didn't want to do the pig noises. No. No, but this is me glorifying myself as a peg. You're combining the two. The theatricality of the second one with the earnestness of the first one. We can run that back if you want to. Yeah, I would really like that.

Let's do it. Guess what time it is. Wee! We! We! Okay, one more time. Stop. Guess what time it is.

That's right, Josh. It's time for this little piggy. Okay, one more time, one more time, one more time, one more time, we'll do it. Stop it. Guess what time it is. It's time for this little piggy to eat his slop bowl. That's right, Josh. It sure is.

This is a hot dog is a sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich.

the show we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host Joshair. And I'm your host Nicole Iniety. And today we're talking about how we're all just little corporate piggy drones at the little corporate piggy slop trough. Oink, oink, pitter-patter, rolling around in our own stylish as we eat from the bowls, the modern-day pig trough, the slop bowl. Yeah. We're here to talk about you say you like slop bowl or you don't like slop bowl. I'm curious what your stance is here.

I have a lot to say about the idea of a slot bowl. When is the first time that you heard what we have in front of us, we have sweet green, kava, and Chipotle, probably the most commonly referred to. The father, son, and holy spirit of slop bowls. Tag yourself. When is the first time you heard the term slot bowls used to describe this? Because that's a pretty new thing for me.

I want to say maybe two years ago, I heard people saying like, oh, my God, going to go get my slot bowl after I clock out on my corporate gig. And I was like, oh, this is a meme. How has food become a meme? So that was the first time I heard about it. I mean, I think food is memed often, but there's a weird tone to calling these slot bowls. And I think you and I have a lot more context as to why, because I've seen a lot of younger people.

We're talking like 23, 24, 25, fresh out of college, maybe dealing with the harrowing experience of... Reality of capitalism? Yeah, of having to, like, work a job. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? And then also the reality of at a lot of jobs, you might. and have an hour or significantly less for lunch. Especially in a metropolitan area.

Especially in a metropolitan area, right? I feel like I grew up watching media where people would like go out to lunch on a lunch break. How are people doing this? Dude, I have never ever been able to leave my job during a lunch break, sit down at a restaurant. You never do it. Pay. Even like at previous jobs, like sometimes even when my job was to eat at restaurants. That was off the clock.

That was off the clock and my boss ahead of me and like she straight up apologized to me years after. Oh, sorry. I said shit. Oh, God. You can't say that. But I mean, she would even say like, hey, you can't just leave for an extended period of time to eat food. And I was like, I'm literally writing out this food for my job. But legally you're mandated an hour.

Yeah. But even if you have an hour door to door, are people eating in full service restaurants? Well, I agree with you that I grew up. I grew up with seeing people, you know, the three martini lunch. Yeah, three martini lunch? What? That I've always wanted to do, side note. If you would like to do that with me, let me know.

I'm so in. We'll do that. Yeah, you can. I know, yeah, I can drink now. Woo! Let's do it. But, um, martinis and you're, dude, one and a half martinis and you're Irish good buying the party.

I'm not. I'm going to be better. I'm sorry. That was the old me. Now this is the new me. But no, I grew up with the same media like people sitting down and their power suits, having their cob salads and like, A club sandwich.

Club sandwich. Meas was. Three martinis and a bottled water. You know, like a glass of water. And it's just so weird to me that I've never had that experience. Never. But we've been in corporate, quote, unquote, jobs since the beginning, right? Yeah, I mean, at this job, like, we...

This is a corporate job. This is a corporate job. We work like a classic. Even though we look cool. We look cool. And we do fun things. Yeah, Josh is wearing a pink hat that says Genghis Cohen on it. So what?

But, like, we've never really left the office for lunch. Never. We could. There was a time when we did a little bit more when, frankly, we just didn't have as much stuff to do. Right. There's just so much stuff to do whenever you're working. I really make sure that people are preserving their lunch breaks, you know what I mean? Their breaks.

They're breaks, right? But like nobody's going out to eat. And so I think this happened during, let's at least view 2008, 2009, because that'll come into play, you know, later, right? The recession, that's when we were like 15, 16. I saw my brother graduate college and just be like, panic. There's no jobs. if you do get a job, you have to hold on to that thing

and grind as hard as you can. What did John do for his first real big boy job? I think he was very close to what he does now, just kind of like money, mortgage, finance, something, which I think was pretty rare at the time, so he felt very lucky to have this. Right. But I don't think he was ever going out

to full hour lunches sitting down, right? resting on your laurels. But like the de facto thing you would eat back then was a sandwich. You would get a wrap. You would get a sandwich, right? You would make it yourself. I think a lot of people would bring it yourself.

Because back then also, another thing that factors in a play, delivery apps were not a thing. No. There were three kinds of kids, listen up. There used to be three kinds of damn food you could get delivered. It was Chinese food and they had their own delivery person. Right, right. You know, it was probably a cousin that had, you know, a 1997 Honda Accord and they would deliver it. And there was no delivery fee that was part of their business model.

Pizza shops, the Domino's pioneered, the 30, minutes or less. The tracker. You know, tracker, you read Snow Crash by Neil Stevenson, you know, the whole thing

about delivery pizza being such unique American thing. And then very occasionally, you had your X factors. You had your Indian spots.

Indian food delivers very, very well. You had that. You could get those foods delivered. You couldn't, getting fast food delivered as nuts.

They already have a whole. In the fast food restaurants, they have a whole, cut through their restaurant that you can drive your car through.

And they'll throw a burrito through your window. Throw it, yeah. And that's not fast enough anymore for you.

No. So, like, it was a completely different environment when it came to, like, getting lunch. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so all of the foods that people were getting were either the delivery types of, like, maybe it's Chinese, maybe it's pizza, you're bringing a lean cuisine from home. Frozen foods, yeah.

Frozen foods that you could microwave in the office. Maybe, like, two people eat frozen foods in our office. Maybe. Hardly anybody. Maybe. That was such a bit. A can of soup. A can of soup.

Right? So these are foods that, like. This is so foreign to me. When is the last time you saw? someone bring a can of soup into an office. Dude, Los Angeles Magazine. What was that? 2002.

Me? Yeah. You think I was working at Los Angeles Magazine in 2002? How old are we? I was born in 1992. You're what, 93? Yeah. What are you talking?

That was a year after 9-11. 2012. I'm sorry. I'm so stupid. 2012. We hadn't invaded Iraq yet. You think I was 10. I have no concept.

of time anymore. I'm dumb now. I haven't been speaking to humans. I've been speaking to babies. It's different. No, it was like 2013. I remember post... 2013. Not even 2013. Not even 2013. God, 2015. Okay.

But like Postmates had just come out and we're like, oh my God, you can get all these different foods delivered. But I remember a bunch of old heads, like, yeah, they would bring their can of Campbell's Chunky soup. That's insane to me. They would pack their lunches and little things. Is that a fart?

That's someone moving... That's someone moving a chair. We're moving around. But this slot bowls, what they're called now, we call these grain bowls. Or bootables. Or bootables. I didn't have bootables. Bootables.

And I don't understand where that came from or who pioneered that term. I think I have a feeling of where that came from a little bit, right? So anyways, we're talking about grain bowls or bootables. It would be a bowl much like what sweet green especially offers where it's some grain that's likely not rice. It's likely a whole grain. Kinoa. Kinawa. I think you know I'd be the most popular one though, I think.

Especially our era. But I think that might have come from like the macrobiotic movement. M. Cafe? Like MCAfe. So this is something that was popular in the 90s where people were like, hey, we should be eating more whole grains. And you could always go to one of these restaurants that would have a whole grain bowl with tofu, roasted veggies, some sort of healthy green goddess dressing. Rainbow bowl was another word. Rainbow bowl.

But they around our era in the 2010s became known as grain bowls. And the thing about grain bowls is they were pulling. as an antidote to the undignified act of having to eat a sandwich every single day. True. Because a sandwich is a working man's portable food. Sandwiches are my favorite food on earth. Same. But this was something where it was like, hey, eating all that processed bread and maybe it's a processed lunch meat and sandwich is not good for you.

Grain bowls are the solution. This is a dignified way for somebody on the go to get all of the fiber and micronutrients and flavors. also a great vehicle for international flavors like we see with Kava, right? Or with Chipotle. Or with Chipotle, frankly, because Chipotle, you know, bowls used to be a little side show on the menu.

Now they're the main feature. They were like the side show where the vegetarians get their food, you know what I mean? This is a taco and burrito spot, and now they're selling so many more bowls than anything else, and they introduce brown rice.

But these were places where you could get, instead of microwaveing soup, instead of ordering, you know, gung-pout chicken and chameen, you could get health, steamed grains with internationally influenced flavors. Right.

And you would eat it with a fork. You'd eat it with utensils. Now, my question is, how did that thoughtful display of whole grains and veggies and a beautiful sauce, how did that turn into the colloquial slopble? That's what we're here to find out. What do you think constitutes a sloppel? What do you think the sloppel? Is it the fact that it's sloppily thrown about?

Is it the fact that once you get a deluxe? livered, it's all messed up. Is it just, what is the definition of a slop bowl? I think that's what we have to define here. That's interesting. So slot bowl, we're opening up this Chipotle right now,

and this is a great example of how this is a slot bowl, right? So I've opened up the Chipole bowl. Right. Got this fully, fully layered, all the guac, corn, corn salsa, sour cream cheese. Almost all of the guac is stuck to the lid. Yeah, but that's like a, that's like a perk.

It's like the, um, the McDLT where they separated the hot. Not in the cold. See, there you go. It's me being toxicly positive yet again. No, this is literally, this is a heavy, the wetness of the liquidy beans soaking through the compostable cardboard, which again, the compostable cardboard was a part of being a millennial. Let me tell you, you can tell where a slop bowl is from based off of the shape of the bowl. 100%. The bowl from Tripoli is iconic. The little hexagonal octagonal sweet green iconic. The kava bowl looks like every other bowl, though, and that makes me upset.

Interesting. I wish they did something a little bit different to differentiate them from like a run-at-the-mill smart of the fun. Smart and final. I like Mendocino Farms. They got the deep plastic slop bowls. Oh my gosh. And I eat their slot bowls a lot. You know what I love about it?

It also has a little hutch. Yeah. A little hush for the dressing. A little sauce hutch. They got it. But like, so I think the term slop works on multiple levels. The fact that you have eight different sauce options at Chipotle, which. So many sauce options.

Chipotle was so inspired by Subway. Subway at the time, this is a great corollary here because Subway at the time was revolutionary. Eat fresh, right? Subway right now, thinking about it, it's like the least fresh thing you could eat. It's sad. You know what I mean?

Literally plastic microwave bags full of meat that they dump onto their sandwich and then put like, you know, rusty cucumbers and iceberg lettuce on it. Rust, I've never heard it called rusty. It's known as pinking in the industry. The pinking of the cucumbers. Right, but Subway at the time,

the reason it became the largest restaurant company on earth, Rayleigh, literally more locations than McDonald's ever had was because of the time it was revolutionary to see the produce in front of you, to see the worker put it on the sandwich for you to be able to choose what you wanted. Chipotle employed that, but now they have, you know,

eight different sauces from the Glock to the sour cream, to the four sauces, to the queso, to the salad dressing. So you're loading up your grain and your liquidy beans, which are I think actually pretty well seasoned. Can I tell you something? I always tell them to drain the beans.

I'm a bean trainer. You do. I've always been a bean drainer. I like a, the bean wet, but also I like slop. I'm a huge fan of it. Do you shake your bowls before you eat them? Me either. People that shake their bowls, unless it's a salad, I think that's out of the list. I have not willfully ordered Chipotle, especially for delivery. I don't think outside of a work

context. And here, it's only for catering if it's like the option. Sure. But anyway, so you're getting the wet beans, you're getting, you might be adding four sauces on it. I do. Compostable thing, it literally slops around because a delivery worker has thrown this in the back of their car. It's not even like Domino's invented a bag And Domino's invented cars To keep the pizzas warm to deliver Now we've just hired personal burrito drivers Around and they got whatever cars

They're not making enough money to give a shit And so they're just throwing this in back So this is the slop from all their sauces Are slopping around in their sloppy compostful packaging In the back of someone's car And then it gets to you And you are a corporate pig in a corporate environment Eating at a Slop Trough

The slop is literally referential on three to four different levels. And I say all this, not believing it myself, because I am still in the mode that this is the antidote. To what? This is the antidote to the ignominiousness of eating microwave soup at your job. You can't use the word ignominious. Can you Google ignominious? Ignominiousness? I don't know what that means.

I don't know what it means either. I don't know. You're just saying slop, deserving or causing public discreet. her shame. Ignominiousness. The ignominiousness of being a Ted Cruz in microwaveing a progressive clam chowder. Oh, my God. And I'm dead serious.

Like, Chipotle is the perfect fast food for me because you get brown rice, black beans, healthy grilled protein, salsa, which are healthy, right? There's no fat in a salsa. It's just delightful vegetable. It's a vegetable forward, whole grains. I love what Chipoli does. That said, they expanded so far. fast that the quality of Chipoli just varies so crazily.

There's always a good Chipotle and a bad Chipotle within a .5 mile ladies and one another. Look at that clump of rice. This just clump of rice that exists, that shouldn't be there. It's not detracting for my meal, so I power through it. But see, this is a thing. Like, you're eating your slop bowl for health. Oh, the rice is so overcooked. People are eating their slopoles at work for convenience.

But does anybody enjoy eating a slopple? Have you ever met someone who's like, I love going to sweet green? I am that man. But is it because you're enjoying the food? Yes. Or is it because you're just doing it out of... I am a man who actively enjoys slot bowls. And I'll tell you exactly why, Nicole.

This is a really delicious slop bowl. Can I tell you why? It's good. Sour cream. Sour cream. Corm. It's really good. F*** good.

Do we say bad words? No, I just can't control myself right now. I make Josh say bad words. There's something about spring that just feels like a reset. Longer days, fresh energy. in that motivation to finally try something new. If learning a language has been on your list, this is the perfect time to start, especially if you've got travel coming up later this year.

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I thought it was sausage. Well, same, same. Same, same. I different. Hi, my name is Lloyd Lockridge, and I'm the host of a new podcast from Odyssey called Family Lore. In this podcast, I'm going to have people on to tell unusual and sometimes far-fetched stories about their families.

I've heard my whole life that she invented the margarita. And then we're going to investigate those stories and find out how much of it is true. He gets a patent one month before the Wright brothers. Oh my God. Please follow and listen to Family Lore, an Odyssey podcast, available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your shows. The best slot bowl, can I paint you a picture of a slot bowl that I love that with the way of the dodo?

Sure. So I don't have you have to paint the picture. Shop House. If I say Shop House, does that mean anything of you? Was that the Asian Chipotle? Chippole started, people don't know this. They started Asian Chipotle. And I say that knowing that Asian.

Asia is a big region, but they covered all of it. They cover all of it. Short of like Uzbekistan, but they had all of the Asian ingredients there. They also tried to do burger Chipotle and Pizza Chipotle, but those failed really quickly. What was Pizza Chippole? I don't even remember. We'd have to look this up. They were in Colorado. Isn't Blaze?

Blaze was started by the Wetzel family of Wetzel's pretzels, and LeBron was a huge investor in it. But that's Pizza Chipotle. Effectively, but like it wasn't owned by Chiboli. I'm saying literally the Chipotle brand tried to make their own pizza and burger things. But Asian Chapalais Shophouse, you could get a base of rice noodle, of rice noodles in there,

and then you could get like whatever grilled protein, they had a lovely like lemon grass chicken. And then you could get a sort of mixed pickled vegetable that was like carrot and dicon. You could get jalapenos. You could get this tamarin vinaigret. You could get topped with herbs and peanuts. It was literally a buncha or bun-tham-gah. Like my favorite Vietnamese dish, basically, like a rice noodle salad topped with a ton of crunchy vegetables. And that was in the slot bowl category.

So I think one of my worldviews, right, is that the idea of, quote unquote, slot bowl is just so many tasty foods from around the world. Think about eating a bowl of any sort of Indian curry, right? Any sub-g or shock that they'd call it. Sure. Just like an Indian entree. It's all just saucy and in a bowl and delightful. And you're eating, is that a quote-unquote slot bowl? I think Sloppel has the connotation of some sort of like tech or in-app entrepreneurship behind it.

Yes. Which leads you to, well, also. And that's new. Tell me this. Whenever you get a Sloppel and someone says Sloppel, does it remind you of the Matrix a little bit? Someone who has. Yeah, the gruel that they eat. I skimmed the Matrix.

Like I've never watched it. No, no, no. I watch it. But, you know, like my attention span is like at an all time zero low. So the scene I do remember is whenever they're eating. gruel and that's their slop. Is this the matrix slop that we're eating in order to make us more obedient? In order to make us more obedient?

I mean, honestly, because of the matrix, they were eating, they were eating the gruel as a form of revolution. Do you think we're eating slop as a form of revolution? I think millennials really tried, this, God, this is getting really deep. You're welcome. You're welcome. I think that one of the big differences, I've talked about this, the fair amount between millennials and the generation before us and the generation after us.

is that we thought we could bring about revolutionary change by acting within the system, by working for purpose-driven companies. It's not like that. Right? By voting with our dollar for purpose-driven brands like Chipotle. Vote with your dollar. Chipotle got rid of GMO corn in 2016. I went, I'm supporting something good.

Sweet green. Sweet green was revolutionary. Sweet green used to name Nicole the local farms on the board. You'd walk into any sweet green because I'd walk into any sweet green because I I don't believe in delivery food. That's not Chinese Indian for pizza. They're just, they travel so well. It's so hot when it gets to you.

But anyways, like, Sweet Green, you'd walk into any Sweet Green and they would have a board that named the farms where the lettuces were from. I remember that. And at this time, we were talking about think global, act local, eat from local farms. And you were Sweet Green saying we've used technology to combine local farms with commerce. And people are eating that. And then now Sweet Green. just loses $50 million a quarter.

They're not profitable. They've never been profitable for 20 years. Sweet green has never been profitable, and they are incredibly, they're everywhere. They're literally on every single corner, and they still haven't made a dime to put in their own pocket. They just put it back into the company. And honestly, and into their executives.

Sweet green used to be really, really, remember when Sweet Green first came out? We were like, oh my God, these flavors are insane. I can get spicy cashew dressing with these blackened tofu bits, and then these mushrooms that have, like, ginger, you can literally see the ginger hairs on there. I was like, this is a craziest most delicious

salad place I've ever had. Moroccan spice roasted carrots with crispy chickbees. Great, like, so innovative. And now I feel like it's the same thing over and over and over again. I haven't enjoyed a sweet green in a really long time, unfortunately. I think that might be a me thing. No, it's not. Is it, are you sure?

It's gotten one, less exciting to worse. In the same way that Subway got less exciting, right? the last sweet green I got I always just click harvest bowl because it's got the things that I want I always click harvest bowl do you know what I do with it now if I have time I can guess what you do I don't know if you can I'm gonna I'm this is what I remember from five and a half months ago look this chicken from Chip it's just not cut it's just not where's a quality control where's a QC cut there's no everything's worse now go ahead what do I do um I think you take the sweet green you put it in its own bowl and then you microwave it for 36 seconds nope what do you do now boil it what do you mean

I take my harvest bowl from sweet green I put it in a pan with a half cup of water and I boil it. Like, but there's apples in there. That's fine. You boil the apples? Boil the apples. What are the other ingredients in there?

This isn't a harvest bowl. I literally told our runner, I told our runner to get the most popular chicken bowls from every single place. So this is not the harvest bowl. This is something else. The ingredients are green leaf kale. brown rice, sweet potato, chicken, goat cheese, like apples, almonds, and then addressing,

I just couldn't stomach the idea of chewing through all this raw kale. I've never loved raw kale as it is. Sure. I love cook kale. And one day I was just like, all of these ingredients can cook. You can cook kale with rice with sweet potatoes with chicken. Goat cheese will just emulsify in there as a sauce. I don't care.

There might be a grape or two. That's fine if I get a hit of hot grape. And I just boiled my salad. Screwed up. Now that is a slot bowl. That's stop bowl. But like these places used to genuinely be the revolutionary guard of food that we thought

sort of meant something. Look at this, dude. This is quinoa or cusscus? That's quinoa. Now, quinoa. We didn't know what it was doing to those farms in Bolivia back then. We just saw Gwyneth Paltrow talk about it. We got excited.

You know what I mean? But like this at the time really seemed to not only mean something, but it stood for something. And I do think that at some point, it tasted better, all of these companies that people are calling slot bowl companies are dying. They're tech companies, right? They're tech companies first.

They invented new POS systems to introduce their apps to get people into reward programs. Yep. That now Starbucks and Taco Bell have taken huge influence from. Right. You know what I mean? But now I think we're seeing all of these companies like really, really fail. And I think a lot of it, you see, Truff hot sauce rebrand?

They rebranded? Truff hot sauce. Just talking about like, I'm really reckoning. I'm literally, I'm literally reckoning with our generation's cultural influence is fully, it is fully, it is falling off the cliff into Mountain Doom.

You know what I mean? And Truff was the millennial brand. How could we forget? And I think it's a great product. It's awesome on breakfast bretos. It's a lot sweeter than you expect. But like Truff, sparse packaging, capital letters,

You know what you were getting. You knew what you were getting. The packaging, there was like this cool diamond bottle cap that was the shape of a truffle. It was bold. It was in your face. They pioneered a targeted marketing on Instagram and food blogs. And then they delivered on being a heavy truffle flavor, which was like, oh, this is. They did it.

This is like a value version of a luxurious experience that millennials loved. Not even value. They were selling hot sauces for 1799. I think it was like $12. I think... Compared to like a tapatio for $2. It was a luxury product period. It was.

But for like truffle, right? As opposed to paying $30 for a truffle supplement at a restaurant. Fair. You get 50 servings of truffle flavor for $12 that we could afford. You know what I mean? Truff recently now, I think they have 30 different skews. No? Dude, yeah.

I knew them when they had three. Maybe the Hidden Valley Ranch was like the big deal. Yeah, but it used to be like black truffle, white truffle, and then they came out with a truffle oil. That was it, right? dude, they got like three pasta sauces. They got like six hot sauces. No way.

And so now they're on grocery store shelves. But that's what we're, that's what like CPG brands are supposed to do. Correct. You keep innovating. You keep growing. But there's a point where it becomes a bubble. An empire. And you can't, not everything needs to be an empire.

But I'm saying an empire grows big enough. What empire hasn't gone extinct? All empires go extinct. Bingo. And that's what we're seeing here, right? It's just merely like. You're not expecting that, weren't you? Like the Visigon.

And it doesn't mean that the empires were unsuccessful at what they did, right? It doesn't mean the Romans or the Mayans were unsuccessful. It just, it's what happens. It's the natural life cycle. So Truff right now, they did. I was talking to somebody yesterday at Expo West, and they used the term rebranding. Reblanding. Oh!

Instead of rebranding, it's a portmanteau of bland and rebrand. Smart. I like it. But they have to now that they're on shelves, people just see like just Truff and nobody's going to take the time to like, the hell is I'm not going to pick a, up and read it. And so they have to now put, you know, more illustrations of what the product is, more descriptive terms.

They now have to compete with everybody else. And so now they're just another hot sauce brand, right? Just in the way that Subway is just another bland sandwich shop. Side note. Good. Sweet green sauces are absolutely phenomenal. Their dressings? You need to try their dressings.

Dude, unbelievable. That's the crazy thing about these slot bowls. Oh, my God. I think they make really good food. Holy crap. In a vacuum, if you were to, like, be able to go into a Chipotle and grill up their chicken and make a taco with their hot salsa, some cilantro and onion, that's a good braided-a-boom, grilled chicken taco.

I stand by that. The problem is they've expanded so, so, so fast that you can never keep quality control. And then this happened when Chipotle got so many people sick in, like, what, 2016, 2017? You know? There's, hey, if Sweet Green wants to just bottle their. sauces and sell them in like a little fridge somewhere, that would make a lot of money. There are literally brands now. I can't think of exactly who fits this, but brands that no longer exist, restaurants

that have completely gone extinct and their only legacy is a frozen product. You mean the stakes? What stakes? Pat LaFrieta. Pat LaFrida. Was that a restaurant? No, no, I'm talking like chains. I'm talking like, God, I can't exactly think who it is.

But something like Cineban, for instance, right? Cinebun now is making more money off of their frozen stuff. Insane. Then they're like these legacy brands because malls died, right? So things like Antianns, things like Wetzels, things like Cineban, Orange Julius, for instance. Yep. They've all just sort of died out because malls are where people look at them. Right.

But that said, they still have Cinebun, I think, makes the best cinnamon roll on the planet outside of the ones from Vancouver that we got for Finn Wolfhard's last meal. That was dink. But anyways, like, yeah, they're now just a frozen food guy. company. Yeah. And there's a world sweet green is just a

salad dressing company now. Oh my gosh. I have only had Kava once. So I'm very excited. Giant lettuce leaf man. But see, that's no,

that's for, the reason why the guacamole sits on the top is so you can buy the chips and get it out with the chips. See? Silver lining. No,

Chipolio's never meant to be delivered. That's just the crazy thing. The burritos are already mostly cold by the time you get them because there's so many cold ingredients in there. There's so many cold ingredients in the, yeah.

Why do they do they do that? What are you supposed to do? Because they, They didn't want, they didn't mean for you to get all nine sauces. Okay, this is the Haris. But they have nine sauces and now people go, why my bowl is so sloppy? I added six different sauces and sour cream and guacamole to it. Why is it sloppy?

Why is it sloppy for the decisions that I made? Anyways. This is the Harisible from Carissa bowl with avocado. So much avocado and chicken being paired together. This is so identical to Chippole. It's so funny. It's just Mediterranean. Chapolet.

There's so much Mediterranean influence already. It's Levant Chippole. In Mexican food. Chippole in the Levant. I wonder how it tastes. Oh, there's corn. Is that a rogue Brussels sprout? Dude, there's just a whole Brussels sprout stem.

God damn it. Chicken's good. God damn it. Is this an example, though, of, I remember talking to Neil de Gausseson about this, where he was like, I was like joking, like, well, not joking, but we asked the question, who would you want to eat your last meal with?

I mean, when dad were alive, and you were like, I love Isaac Newton, but his first question would be, are you a king? I see that you're eating multiple types of grain. And, you know, kind of illustrating this fact that we live in such a tremendously privileged food culture, right? Of course. Where we can get all of these options delivered to our house. It doesn't feel special because life feels bad. I think a lot of stuff's going on in the world, but also we live in an environment where everyone's scrolling through their phone. going on in the world no matter what.

So, so much so that being able to eat any food in the world, any food in the world no longer pleases you. And so that's a bummer for these companies who work so hard to feed you all the best foods of the world. You know what I mean? But that said, I'm eating 15 different ingredients in here. Imagine making this at home. It would take a lifetime. It would take so long.

I do. I make my own Chipotle breed bowls at home. But that's because you spend an entire day. I have the document to make, because Josh, if you have the time, I have a time. you have the desire. I spent 12 hours. Your name is mythical chef Josh. Thank you.

You've legally changed your name. And I only have one job. I mean, I work more than that. But you know what I mean? Like I have weekends off and that's a luxury in itself. Think about a 20-something that lives in New York moved in and lives in a literal shoe closet. They don't have the luxury of being able to make a cucumber taziki sauce with a beautiful honey here we used to chicken.

They don't have that ability. Neither do they want to. You even said like people aren't eating the way that they used to back in the day because there's no need. You have everything at your fingertips. There's no need for this. What comes next? Soylent.

What comes next to Sill? Have you been seeing Huel around? Of course. There's heel. There's Soilent. Soilet was a thing, I feel like back in this era, and it's the reason we clowned on Soilent Soilent One is a reference to... Soilent One is a reference to... Soilent Green is people. Yeah, but Soilent Green is not the name of the book, right?

I don't know. It's not from Logan's Run, is it? Is it just called Soilent Green the book? I just know the movie. I didn't know it was a book. Also, spoiler. Spoiler green is this people. They have this universal refillable food supply.

Turns out, uh-oh, they're grinding people to make the soil green. A company about 10 years ago literally comes out with something called Soylent. Right? This is the same reason that Palantir is named Palantir, the company. You know what I mean? It's the Lord of the Rings references, nerds. But anyway, so Soilent was a drink that promised to have all of the macro and micronutrients you could ever want. And so if food is a burden, do you just drink,

Soylent. And it was like very universally clowned upon by most Normies. A lot of people drank Soilet as well. It was big in the tech scene. Normies were like, no. Why would you ever want Soilent when you have kava, when you have sweet cream, when you have Chipotle, why would you ever want that? Because these are joy. Nicole, we need to realize that this.

This was a form of legitimate joy. Was. 10 years ago. Was. I can't taste any of these ingredients individually anymore. I took a bite of kava It did I felt nothing

I tasted sour I tasted sweet I tasted spicy Did a bite of that Bring me any joy In the way that taking a bite of I had a bite of It was like

Maiti makini curry From a Punjabi restaurant Blew my so Ignited my serotonin levels Right Like you would never imagine Single bite of curry Rocked my socks

Kava Chubuay I feel nothing It tastes like wall We need to stop being optimized. We need to stop optimizing everything. We need to eat like peasants again. Boom. Back to gruel.

Back to gruel. But actual gruel. We need to just take a hunk of bread that we made ourselves. A hunk of cheese that you got from a monger, a cheese monger. And maybe some canned fish, maybe a little raw onion. And just eat that and enjoy your life. And be glad you're alive at a time like this. No, seriously, this is all.

The optimization has come to a point. And I'm tired. Like you said, I'm bored. Yeah, yeah. The server purpose, it's to fuel you, sure. But I don't find the love anymore. And I think it's devoid of love. And we love food because it is an expression of happiness, joy, feeding people.

Unfortunately, these don't have that. Do they make you feel good? Are you getting all your macros? Are your nutrients? Yes. But where is the love? Where is the joy? All right, Nicole.

I got Horissa on my breath, and we've heard what you and I have to say. That's not to find out what other wack yetis rattling in any of yours. It's time for the second we call opinions are like casserole. There was one thing that we didn't talk about that I wanted to talk about with regards to. So these are all like in the fast casual space. Right. And there was always this split where like they didn't want to compete with fast food. So your big brand, your McDonald's, your Wendy's, your Taco Bells, all that.

But in the past three months, in the past quarter, they found this is an interesting status. that they track in the industry, it's percentage of orders that were ordered on a discount. Right? So basically, if you were... What do you mean by like in-app purchases and stuff? In-app purchases, whether it was like, hey, this meal is a buy one, get one free, Chalupa, or we got 30% off, you know, Gorditas today, or this is a McDonald's, McValue, two-for-three-dollar special.

They track percentage of orders basically where people are like, oh, I need the deal. And it was higher than ever. That's me. That's how I grew up. That's how I am. But it's like a weird recession indicator where it's just percentage of people looking for deals. And these companies have never played in that space before. They're going to start.

And so they are going to have to start or they're going to die because all of these Chipoli saw a massive stock dip. They're going to start. But yeah, that's such a funny recession indicator. 40% off barbacola coming to your postmates real soon. The barbacola is about to turn. Sell the barbacola. Hey, y'all. Mail carrier here, getting ahead of the summertime.

Okay. Carrier of mail. It's virtually always hot here. My cassero opinion is, please don't try to bake lasagna or make any kind of food in your mailbox in the summer. Like, please. What? Whenever it's hot where you live, like, none of us want to reach in because we're trying to go quickly because they want us to go quickly. and a handful of tomato sauce and pasta.

I haven't experienced it yet, but I'd like to avoid it. Please don't go get any food in your mailbox. Hold on. A lot going on here. Love you all. Have a good one. Love you too.

Stay safe out there. Thank you for carrying mail. That is such an honorable job, and I love that you get over. Take it 10K steps. Very important. What? What?

Wait. Is this like cooking an egg in Arizona? I think so. An egg on the, egg on your dashboard or on your baking cookies. Yeah, yeah. Question though, because you seem to imply in the first part of the story

that this is something that happens weekly if not daily that you're reaching in, trying to earnestly put mail in somebody's mailbox and then like boom, someone's making a souffle. But then you said it's never happened to you. Is this an urban legend that has passed from mail carrier to mail carrier? It's on a Reddit thread somewhere.

You know, this is like the snake coming out of the toilet. You know what I mean? someone told you out when you're a kid and then you're... Snopes. Snopes. Can we somebody, Logan, can you please snopes this? See if there's Snopes, people baking things in mail boxes? Snopes, lasagna, male.

And I believe the lived experience of your fellow male carriers, you're doing the Lord's Work out there. That's a crazy thing. And now it's killer clown syndrome, right? Where there were never any killer clowns in the woods, but there's one news report that says, killer clown in the woods. And then, you know, some slip-knoth fans

who were smoking, you know, smoking a dooby in the basement. I go, hey, you know, it'd be funny. we got these slip-knought masks already. Let's go dress like clowns and go stand in the woods. So there's like a weird copycat syndrome of something that's never actually happened, you know, and then suddenly you're reaching in, boom, you got a big Ziti all over.

The other day, I was driving past a movie theater in Burbank, and I saw someone wearing a scream mask and a scream outfit, and I'm like, this is promotional. But like maybe it's not promotional. The jaded part of being L.A. You can't even scare people anymore. because you just assume it's promoting a new film. Exactly.

Literally not scared anymore. What does that say? I can't read. The news advising people how to cook their lasagna in a mailbox. So the news is telling people to do this? The lame stream media is out here. 24-hour news cycle. Trying to get, they got something.

You know, if they're not scared you about, you know, what ingredients are in your freezer they're going to kill you for dinner. They're telling you to bake a lasagna in a mailbox. War with Iran, tired. How to make a lasagna in your mailbox wired. Hi Josh. Hi Nicole. Hi, Judy. I'm from Iowa. Hi.

Here's my hot take. I am from Ohio originally. And one thing that my family always did was put an obscene amount of salt on our fruits. Oh, interesting. But almost all of our fruits. And when I moved to Iowa, the first time I did that, the people here were absolutely flattered. guested. What do you think about that? Salty fruits. Love to hear your thoughts. Would you like me to go first? You go first. Number one, I've been cross-pollinating my chickens from these bowls. So much fun. I just love picking out the chicken out of bowls stuff. Surely Sweet green has the worst chicken of the group.

I like all the chickens. Sweet green chicken, I don't know, it's all that's kind of really I like all the chickens. Let me tell you, I love to salt my jams, but that's because there's added sugar in there. And I love like a like a piece of toast with butter. jamming a lot of salt. That's good. Salting your fruits. Now, that seems like something my mom might do just to, like, be cool about it. Something about blood pressure, like having grapefruit and a little bit of salt, like, helps with your blood pressure. Does that sound familiar to you?

No, okay. No way, man. Well, it sounds like somebody, something could have said it, right? Yeah. It sounds like an old country belief. Yeah, I don't hate it. I mean, like a cherry, like a stone fruit with a little salt, sounds delicious. strawberry with salt, not really.

Grape with salt, not really. But stone fruit and salt, I can get behind. I can do it. Talk about regions in America. We grew up in Southern California. Yeah. Where there's something called tahin. Oh, yeah.

And so that is a mixture of salt, citric acid, and dry chilies, basically. That is delightful on fruit. We have, me and Jules, we got the Costco two-pack. We didn't even shop a Costco. How do we have a, anyways, we got the two-pack. You're going to start shopping at Costco so much more when you're like a lot. I love fresh... I know.

I love fresh mango and a lot of pineapple. Pineapple's like probably my favorite fruit, even though it burns the hell out of my mouth. But yeah, even oranges. Sumo oranges. Dusting tahin on there is great. I love sumo citrus. I've never just put straight salt on fruit.

I associate this with the South for some reason. I've talked to a lot of Southerners who talk about watermelon and salt. I like that. Which watermelon tahin is also good. Yeah. I've just never... Watermelon's never been close. It's one of my least favorite fruits in fact.

It's also one of my least favorite fruits. I'm not a big watermelon salt. You know, I love cucumbers and salt, but people say cucumber kind of straddles the line between fruit and vegetable. Yeah, it's like colloquially a vegetable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also the fruteros in L.A. Like the fruit stand people.

There's always peppino. There's all those cucumber. There's all those hicc-I-luck. I love hickama. Hicama and salt? Yum. Oh, hickama and anything, man. Yeah.

Anyways, yeah, that's really interesting, though. I found a Reddit thread because I was trying to Google what regions is associated with. And this person, this is on our, ask an American. Is it true Americans don't put salt on their fruits? But this person never says where they are from. But their name is John Prine. Which sounds like a Western European.

Could be. Scotland. So I don't know. It's really interesting. I don't know where that exactly comes from. But I love just seasoned anything, basically, right? Yeah. See, a little bit of salt in the fruit, set it off.

Melanzo, a little bit of sugar. I was going to say. And then you shake it up and it kind of compresses it. In the south, they probably put a lot of sugar on their fruit. Why? Just because. They like sweet stuff in the South. They do.

Yeah. Sweet tea. Sweet tea. My God. So much sugar. It's delicious. But I don't know. I just made some sweet tea.

Do you really? Yeah. So much sugar. I had a Thai tea protein powder yesterday. Yeah. Clear protein. That's another trend. I just got back from a big food expo.

Josh had fun. I had a lot of fun. Diamond Crystal kosher salt. I walked up to them and I literally said, hey, God bless you for the work that you do and making your salt. And then the guy just hands me a three pound box of salt. And it was where you go, buddy.

And it was like the kid in the commercial or mean Joe Green throws his jersey. But anyways, then Julia was like, yeah, when we moved in together, he threw away all of my soul. salts. I was like, you only need the one salt. And then the guy goes, well, check this out.

Maybe you need two. Black lime infused salt. Oh. And I said, oh. You don't need to innovate. Like Persian, like Persian, like, like Persian fit. I love black lime. And they go, what?

It's just, no, it's just like trendy. And I go, yeah, well, it's, yeah, it's like, it's a really huge ingredient in Persian cuisine. Uh-huh. In Corma-Sabzi, it's really nice. It's a wonderful. And the guy goes, yeah, it was just trendy. I don't know. And I'm just like, okay, whatever, dude.

Yeah, it's great, though. But I don't need it. I don't need to optimize. You don't need to innovate all the time. They don't have to do it. You made the best salt in the world. And I bet it's, I run through it constantly. If I'm a black lime, I'll buy black lime, throw them in a Khorashd.

You know? Yeah. Hell's to use black lime. Huh? I'm like pickles. What do you use black lime for? I like to use black lime while I do powdered black lime on, do you know what Tel Obgush is? Obgush is like a literally means meat water.

Oh. Yeah. You've had Gondi before? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I put it with like Gondi is y'all's matzaballs. Yeah, Gondi is ours multa balls. You put a little bit of black lime on it. It's really good.

So good. Can I say something about the chicken from Kava? Absolutely. A medieval king would have just... A medieval king would have just slaughtered a thousand peasants to get the amount of spice that is on a single piece of kava chicken. This is so well-seasoned. It's a very well-seasoned piece of chicken.

And we live in such an an anachronistic time. And it doesn't make you happy. Isn't that crazy? I know. A piece of chicken like this doesn't make you have. Happiness can only be found within yourself. Isaac Newton would go feral for that piece of chicken. Go feral for this, man. Crazy. Hi. Hi. I love that voice around, by the way. Oh. Anyway, my opinion or question is like, why do so many people hate on the butts of the loaf of bread? I know I love burger buns. Huh. Oh. Oh. Or essentially just two butt ends of bread. Oh. You know what I mean? Yeah. Anyways, that was it. Okay. Love you guys.

Love the pod. Bye. I love whenever our listeners are smarter than us. It's very smart. Because I've never thought of that. But I'm smarter. I'm smarter. How do you know?

Tell you why. Have you ever taken an IQ test? No. Don't believe in it. Don't believe in it. Racist fruits. Intelligence, quotient tests are racist? They're racist.

What? I don't know, maybe. Have you ever had your IQ tested? No. What number are you? I have no idea. I tried to get tested for autism. And they kind of just said, we don't, we don't know.

They literally, they literally, they literally, I love that so much. They were like, they were like, yeah, your numbers are like all over the place, but they don't line up with any of the diagnoses. I love that. But they're weird. But they're weird. I was like, but surely they've created it. They said you're weird to you?

They were like, they were like, they were like, they were like, yeah, but there's, you know, a lot of different aberrational splits, you know, whatever. And I was like, surely whatever collection of numbers you've gathered from this four-hour test, there's a word for it that you've created. And they went, no. I think you should be take the test. Do you want to create one? Let's we take the test.

I know. And I've heard people taking the test with different observers. Yeah. Whatever. But what we're talking about? But bread. But bread. So here's the thing.

I agree with human theory that is literally a crust that forms over a burger bun. But imagine you take the bottom burger bun, right? And you saw that bottom burger bun in half. This hot dog or hamburger? Hot dog. Bottom of the hamburger bun saw it hot dog style. Okay. Okay.

I think. I don't know. Hot dog would be up and down. Hamburger would be like... You shave it across the equator. So imagine you're shaving that... So this is hamburger. Hamburger style.

Sorry, you're cutting the bottom part of the hamburger bun, hamburger style. So you're shaving it. So it's only about, let's say, a quarter inch thick. Uh-huh. And that's the butt of the hamburger bun. Right. That's the worst part of the hamburger bun. You know what I'm saying?

There is no part of the bun that is better or worse. It is too all-encompassing to be separated like that. I disagree. So I guess what I'd proffer here is the bottom part of a hamburger bun. Let's say as it is, you're not sawing it enough. Okay. Let's say the crust of that represents, you know, what we're talking about? 5-6 micrometer thick.

You know, let's say. But no, I'm being dead serious here. Let's say the crust of the bottom part of the hamburger bun represents 5% of the total bread flesh in there. Fair. When you get that butt piece of the bread, that is like 40% crust to good bread flesh ratio. Because a hamburger bun is baked for what, 12, 13 minutes? Uh-huh. A whole ass loaf of bread is baked for like an hour, meaning the crust develops much thicker and much harder.

Sure. The crust on a standard white loaf of bread is a lot thicker and tougher. Like a Pullman loaf? Like a Pullman loaf, yeah. Think about that butt end of the Pullman loaf. Like, I still eat it, right? I joke before that I throw it away because I beat childhood poverty. But no, I like eat it.

I'm just never as happy about it. You know what I mean? Especially not as happy as if I had a hamburger bun. Because when you're baking a loaf for like 45 to an hour, full Pullman loaf, right, to get that internal temp to the right point that it arises, that crust is setting so much harder. So it's a different crust. You're right that it is phenotypically similar. It's phenotypically similar. But it creates a different relationship to time and flavor and texture.

But it's still a great observation. I love that. And also you fold that butt end in half. Boom, that's a hot dog bun. That was childhood delight right there. But only if it's like Wonderbread or wheat bread, it doesn't work with sourdough because sourdough is like it doesn't have that give. You know what I mean? No, no, no.

You want to do one more? Sure. You do one more? Let's do one more. I like this part of my day. This is fun. Hey, Josh and Nicole. Love the show.

Thanks. So my food casserole opinion is salmon patties. Salmon croquets for the uninitiated, but here in Alabama, they're just salmon patties. canned salmon, grocery store variety, saltine crackers and an egg cracked in. Do not drain the salmon. Leave the juice in. You're going to want that. They should be served with honey drizzled over the top. Okay. It's delicious. It's salty. It's sweet. You think it's like salmon with maple syrup.

I know it's what you're thinking. No, it's not that at all. It's not that classy. But it's good. He's try it. I believe you. I want to eat that. And I agree with leaving the juices in because they eat to rehydrate the crackers. 100%. I don't know. I grew up, I grew up calling these Ristles. I did not. R-I-S-S-O-L-E-S. And I literally Googled salmon ristles.

We would make it almost exactly as you described, canned salmon. Sometimes there's like bones in it, but they would get softened from the canning process. And it's safe to eat? Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know. I ate them when I'm here. It would just mix some crackers. Yeah, fry them up in a pan.

And then we would put, not honey, but fancy sauce, which is ketchup and mayonnaise. That is fancy sauce. But I literally Googled salmon ristles, and it just said salmon patties. So yeah, same sauce. Same. That's great. Sounds delicious. Bring back. Not tin fish, canned fish.

What's up the people? Well, hey, we did it. Another successful podcast. Yeah, I guess so. That's exciting, man. Hey, thanks for coming around the podcast. We got more of them coming out all the time. They're on Wednesdays now.

We got a whole new YouTube channel. It's called a Hot Dog as a sandwich. It's on its own channel. It sounds exciting. Which is very cool. I like this more better. Me too. You know what I feel safer over here.

Yeah. If you want to leave your opinions, call us a 33 Dog Pod 1. The number again, one more time. just for you is 833, talk pod one. There's so much guacamole's stuck to the lid. I forgot how to talk. I don't know what I mean. There's a weird skill to have, you know what I mean?

Oh my God. People think that we don't have skill. We don't have skill to exercise that skill. We go over to the mythical kitchen channel and entirely separate channel now. And you can watch us do all kinds of things. Sometimes we cook food. Sometimes I'm crying in the arms of Shaggy from the live action Scooby-Doo in the 2000s. Zoinks.

Zoinks, indeed. See you all next time. Thank you.