A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - What's The Best Pasta Shape?

Episode Date: November 18, 2020

Today, we set out to do the impastable! We're asking: what's the best pasta shape? 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

This, this, this, this is Mythical. To any of you saying there aren't any questions a few sillier than this one, or that these results are rig-a-tonied, you better orc-head out of town, because today we set out to do the Impostable. We're asking, what's the best pasta shape? This is a hot dog as a sandwich. Ketchup as a smoothie.

Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog as a sandwich. A hot dog as 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 where we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Scherer.

And I'm your host, Nicole Hendy-Zadeh. And today we're talking about a hot topic. Nicole, this is what all the teens are talking about on the message boards. I shopped at Hot Topic when I was a kid. Oh, yeah, I got so many good band t-shirts. Yeah, yeah. I was an emo girl. Were you actually? Yes.

Did you have like the scene hair where you kind of combed it down over your eye? No, I had really curly hair and then I would just straighten my really, really badly cut bangs. And then I would just put a ton of eyeliner on and then I would wear like a him t-shirt. Did you? Oh, my God. Yeah, his internal majesty. Did they, they had the upside down heart pentagram? It was a heart-o-gram. Oh, my God. You had the upside down heart pentagram. It was a heartogram. Oh my God, you had the heartogram.

Anyways, today we're talking about what's the best pasta shape. I have known this answer for years. I think you've mentioned it briefly, but we've never actually talked in depth about this. And I don't think I've ever revealed mine to you. That's okay. Do you want to tell me yours first and then I'll tell you mine second? I don't know if I'm ready. This is like a very vulnerable position.

It is. It's a big deal. Your like favorite pasta shape says a lot about you. I made a TikTok about it. It does. Oh my God, you totally did. Yeah. I don't remember what the answer.

Okay, fine. I'm going to reveal it and then you can tell me what it says about me. Okay. But I believe that the best pasta shape is pappardelle. Pappardelle. Pappardelle. For people who don't know, pappardelle is, if you think about the long,

broad noodle spectrum, you got linguine that is quite thin. You have fettuccine that is a little bit bigger. And then you go one step up from that, even wider, is pappardelle. There's also some,

you talk about like tagliatelle is also in there. But pappardelle, these like very kind of broad, homey noodles, they cling to sauce so beautifully. It gives you a fuller mouthfeel than something like fettuccine and linguine. And I believe it is, if there was one pasta that I could have for the rest of my life, I believe it would be pappardelle.

If you like pappardelle like Josh, these is your personality traits. You like the finer things in life, but you're also a garbage raccoon. Yeah, that's me. Wait, I saw a video of a guy feeding like 30 raccoons on a park bench today. That's nice. It was wild, but that's how I want to live. I want to live in a dumpster filled with pappardelle

with a bunch of raccoons that come around and I kind of train them to be my pets, but then really they're training me to be their pets. Yeah, I think pappardelle is an accessible noodle. I also think it's a little fancier and it's really, really easy to make, which I love. The average home cook can definitely make a beautiful parpadele.

You can buy dried parpadele. So I think it's a great pasta, but I don't think it's the best. What's the best pasta? Hit me with it, Nicole. I'm ready. It's rigatoni rigate! Maggie, put in the ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Why Rigatoni Rigate is very specific. I have a list of ten reasons why.

Have you seen Ten Things I Hate About You? Is this about to be the Julia Stiles? Ten reasons I love Rigatoni Rigate. Since y'all can't see at home, Nicole has actually broken out an iPhone notes list titled 10 Reasons I Love Rigatoni Rigate. And she will now read from that. Nicole, the floor is yours. I hate reading things off of lists because I think it sounds really inorganic. But this is the first time I've ever popped out a list.

And I mean it. Okay. So it comes from the Italian rigatone, which sounds like reggaeton, and I love reggaeton music. You do love reggaeton. Mercury is in reggaeton right now. Yes, yeah, which means rigid or lined, and they're typically cylinders. What a fun shape. Cylinders, wow.

I believe that it can hold any density of sauce without any issue. Works in simple butter parm situation, a thick bolognese, chunky pesto, even in brodo, which means broth. Baked. Have you ever had baked rigatoni? Rigatoni is one of the few pastas that can withstand being baked and keeping its integrity. It can withstand any sort of sauce you throw at it. Number three, the tubes allow for all the yummy mummy. I said yummy mummy. I love that you're reading it as written. The tubes allow for all the yummy mummy bits to stay in the actual pasta shape.

Things can live in there and you won't even know until you take a bite. How fun is that pasta? The rigate, listen, I'm being serious right now. I'm listening very seriously. Okay, the ridges allow for an insane amount of sauce cling because the actual ridges are quite deep and they create these little micro channels where the sauce can exist. Where like something like a flat pasta, like a penne, wouldn't exactly do that. And then you can eat it with a fork, a spoon, a knife, and your fingers because you can literally put any...

I know where you're going. You can put your index finger in a rigatoni tube and cut it off your finger. You can put a knife through it and slurp it off the knife. And then you can stab it with a fork and you can pick it up with a spoon. Okay. It's not as messy as long pasta as I'm looking at you, Fettuccine and Pappardelle. Sorry. Hold on.

I'd like to interject. You can wrap Pappardelle around any part of your body. Let me list the parts of your body that you can wrap Pappardelle around. Your ears. Your fingers. Your fingers. Your toes. Your friend Jenna. Your friend Jenna.

Your friend Jenna. I just got a terrible visual in my mind of pappardelle bolognese just draped like a loincloth. And I kind of like it. Can I continue? Please, please. I'm sorry. Okay, number seven. Have you heard of something called rigatoni pie on the internet? We're only on seven. I didn't prepare anything. That's okay. You didn't

have to. It's better when you don't prepare. I love this. No, I love that you're so passionate. Okay. Rigatoni pie is like this new sensation where you take like pieces of rigatoni and you line it up in a, in like a 10 inch springform pan. and then you pour a bunch of marinara sauce and cheese on it, and you bake it, and it literally stands up, and it's a pasta pie, which is crazy to me. Like, what?

Like, BuzzFeed 14 million views, possibly, just on that video? Crazy. Number eight, accessible pasta while still being a little fun and flirty. This is a pasta that knows what she wants out of life,

and she's going to get it. She doesn't care who detracts from it. What I'm trying to say is this is me in a pasta shape, LOL. I wrote LOL. I'm so passionate

about this shape that someone on Twitter knew I loved it so much and they made me a shirt with a little rigatoni on it on the phone, being like, what's up, Fusilli, you crazy bastard? And number 10 is because it's delicious.

That's what this is about, right? And I'm sorry for being so long-winded, but I'm very animated right now. I don't know if you can tell. This is just a really big deal to me because I love pasta. I could eat pasta every single day for lunch with no problem. And it would probably be rigatoni rigate. It's just a beautiful, delicious, easy to eat thing. I don't think I can counter any of your statements.

So if you're a rigatoni lover like me, let me tell you what kind of person you are, your personality. You're fun. You're flirty. You're loved by many. Some don't really get you, but you don't care. Wait, what was I? What was Pappardelle?

You were a trash raccoon that also loves to find a thing in life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I'm a fun and flirty guy too. You know, I like to flirt. You know, you give the old winking gun at the bar. You know, you're up there. You're like, hey, go send that person a Cosmo, and then you give them the old winking gun at the bar you know you're up there you're like hey send hey go send go send that person a cosmo and then you give them the old winking gun uh no i i feel boring now yeah i feel boring about pappardelle but what is the point of pasta you know what i'm saying like to

me pasta is a very it's a vehicle for sauce yes and it's also very utilitarian food it's simple right two ingredients at its base flour and water, can roll it out into pasta. For me, something like penne rigate, it's Baroque. Do you mean rigatoni? I'm talking about roti. Oh, sorry, sorry. Rigatoni. Something like rigatoni rigate to me, it's Baroque.

It's got too many flourishes to it. And this is where you and I differ a lot. Crinkle cut carrots. We know too much about each other. We don't know anything about each other's personal lives. We don't ask about it. We don't care. But our food preferences, we care't know anything about each other's personal lives. We don't ask about it. We don't care. But our food preferences, we care an appropriate amount about each other's personal lives.

I'd say so. But like as far as food preferences go, the fact that you just love crinkles. You love crinkles and wrinkles on food. And I don't. And that's a very strange. Crinkles and wrinkles? Crinkles and wrinkles. Yeah.

You have the little wrinkly rigatoni. Yeah. That soaks up sauce. But does it actually soak up a meaningful amount of sauce? Not soak up. I wouldn't say soak up is the right word. I think the sauce exists within the cylindrical nature of the pasta and in the ridges in a very microscopic way. Microscopial?

In a microscopic form, yes. I think that it does hold a little bit more sauce. Not a significant amount of sauce, but that little bit that it clings onto and it keeps in its ridges I think definitely makes a difference. Yeah, and that's enough. These little like microscopic things that you take for granted that you don't think would be a big deal. But then when you actually eat it, like the difference between eating rigatoni rigate and normal ass rigatoni. Yeah. You know, it's that little like I'm getting 3% more flavor in here and that is all it takes for the edges that said i would love to do an actual test

with rigatoni regatta and rigatoni and nore regatta i think it's salini i think it might mean salini might be the uh the the smooth because i typically go for like um what are the other ones like mostaccioli mostaccioli is like the very smooth pasta too i love mostaccioli too i love mostaccioli too i love mostaccioli i and i agree with your baked point because having like a bit you can do the spaghetti pie type of thing but like no baked pasta has to be you know snub snub nose noodles is what i call them something rigatoni penne mostaccioli stuff like that but typically if i'm thinking of like a pasta especially an italian pasta that i really want to eat the slurpage is a huge part for me i want long strandy noodles okay you don't miss that at all you

wouldn't miss that at all choosing rigatoni no because i'm a pasta shoveler i shovel the pasta in my mouth i don't do i i will twirl when the when the time is appropriate and i'll slurp whenever i feel like it but yeah i just shovel the carb in my mouth. You know what I'm realizing for myself? What? I don't really enjoy Italian pasta. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I mean, just the title of this is pasta shape, but the noodle is an all encompassing, beautiful world. The noodle world is absolutely beautiful. It is large. It is broad. Every culture cooks with noodles. I think in Asharashti in Iran, even yeah, banfa, like I love rice noodles so much. Even think about, you know, Mian in China, which is where Italy got pasta from in general. But yesterday, right, I had a

box of spaghetti and I almost never make pasta for myself. It's not something that I crave very often. I do love noodles, but I prefer to go to someone who knows how to make noodles better than I do. But yesterday I made this like coconut milk, kind of like Thai curry chicken meatball situation. Lots of galangal and turmeric and basil. What? Where was I?

We don't hang out. Oh, sorry. I made that and I was like, damn, I really want some noodles in this. And so I just like boiled up some spaghetti and kind of put it in that sauce. And then I ate it with chopsticks and slur in this. And so I just like boiled up some spaghetti and kind of put in that sauce. And then I ate it with chopsticks and slurped it. And to me, like spaghetti wasn't the ideal choice.

I would have loved some rice noodles in there. I would have loved some, you know, some of the sodium bicarbonate noodles. The chewy ones. The chewy ones that have the Q, the Q factor to it. That's like the Chinese form of al dente in a way responding like. Oh, really? Referring to like the perfectly chewy nature. Interesting.

It's called Q? Yeah, it's called Q because I guess that it refers to the kind of to like the perfectly chewy nature. Interesting. It's called Q? Yeah, it's called Q because I guess that it refers to the kind of sound that the noodles squeak, you know? Oh, interesting. I'm like imagining a... Yeah. That's so interesting. I never knew that. Yeah.

And I sat there and I just was slurping spaghetti with chopsticks out of this, you know, vaguely Thai inspired broth. Yeah. And I was like, that's to me what I want from a noodle. But, you know, we don't have to want the same things out of noodles. No, I don't think so either. I think the beautiful world of noodles allow for individualistic thought and experience. But do you prefer pasta, like Italian pasta, as your favorite form of noodle? Yes.

Really? Like without question. What are your favorite pasta dishes? I love spaghetti alla norma. I'm just saying spaghetti because it's spaghetti. Yeah, spaghetti alla norma. It's like ham, peas, cream sauce. That's like an old school Italian American dish, right?

No, I'm talking about the eggplant and tomato one. That's alla norma, isn't it? What am I thinking of? I don't know. Sorry, we're Googling. Yeah, give us a sec, Meg. We're Googling. Yeah, pasta alla norma is with eggplant and breadcrumbs, right?

No, just eggplant. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't know what... I think you're thinking of a farmer's style. I forgot what it's called. Yeah. Ham, peas, and cream.

Yeah, yeah. I like that. I don't know what it... It's like a bootleg American carbonara. Yeah, and they put like... Some people put mint on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about.

I just don't know what it's called. I love pesto. I love my mom. Did I tell the story of of bitch sauce no so my mom bless her she's the best woman in the world she uh she read in a magazine somewhere about pasta puttanesca oh i know and you know about pasta it has olives cap and beautiful, fragrant tomato sauce. And the sailors would come and come to the houses where the women would make it and, you know, have a good time with the pasta and the ladies. And my mom, so she takes the word of ladies of the night and turned it into the B word. So she would make a sauce that didn't have olives, didn't have capers,

just a really delicious tomato sauce. My mom only makes her pasta sauces from scratch, which I love about her. We never grew up with Prego or Rago in the house, ever, never, ever. You missed out on the Prego. No, I didn't. No, I didn't. And so every now and then, like when I would come home from school with my friends, my mom would lay down just a blanket of newspapers on the floor, put a pot of bitch sauce pasta on the floor, have me and my friends sit around the pot in front of the TV and just go in with bowls and put bitch sauce. Oh, my God. So that's one of my favorite pastas. I also really, really like carbonara, big carbonara person.

I don't like cacio e pepe because whenever I make it at home, it becomes a cl a clumpy disgusting mess and one time i tried to make it for my fiance and uh it was bad and i was embarrassed oh that's so funny my my sister-in-law um knew she had been dating my brother for maybe like six months at the time i think they were still in college and i was like a teen like 18 19 but you know she knew that me and my brother really like to cook and she doesn't really like to cook but she wanted to kind of like prove her, you know, worth, I guess. Yeah. This is kind of one of the first times I really sat down with her for a long time. And she was making carbonara.

And this speaks to another point about the sauce and pasta being dependent on each other. Sure. Like there's certain pastas you don't want the sauce. Rigatoni, rigate. It's funny. She actually used rigatoni rigate. Okay. To make carbonara, which you should know is not a good pasta to make carbonara.

It's okay. It's not the best. The trouble with it is carbonara, right? It's a sauce that's made from raw eggs that are mixed together with typically some sort of rendered like guanciale or bacon fat. Sure, yes. And the bacon pieces and then Parmesan cheese. Then you add the hot noodles to the sauce. You stir it, and the heat from the noodles will gently warm the sauce,

pasteurize the eggs, cook it just slightly. But when you're doing that with spaghetti, you have so many strands of noodles and there's so much steam trapped in between them that the steam is actually what's heating up the eggs. Whereas you use rigatoni rigate, you're not getting all that steam together because they're such large noodles that have such, you know, they don't hold heat as well. It takes a little bit more practice to be able to transition between different pasta shapes for different sauces. But when you learn and like you're actively like learning and like, you know, trading things and, you know, doing your best, you can get it. Yeah, it's okay if you make a mistake one time.

Anyway, so she just served us like undercooked pasta with like raw egg on it. And we're like, oh, Hannah. And then my brother and I were just like, we're going to go ahead and get up and fix this uh that's nice of you guys and i love you to death but i will never forget the first meal you cooked for us hannah i would have eaten it with a big smile on my face and then gone to a pasta restaurant she doesn't cook she's she's uh she does other things oh my god she makes such incredible scrapbooks with all of our family photos that's kind of really special and is also like an actual rocket scientist. But she's a good scrapbooker. Great scrapbooker. Do you like any stuffed pastas?

That's a good point. Because we don't talk about like how bomb stuff, like we just talk about like shapes, like flat noodles, long noodles, short noodles. We never talk about like the filled pastas, which is like endless possibilities and double the carbs. Well, here's the thing. Filled pasta is

not pasta. I don't believe filled pasta is a pasta in the sense i know this is a very controversial statement but we use the term pasta just refer to any sort of flour water possibly egg dough right okay but to me a filled pasta is a dumpling like if you get out of here hold on hold the phone i don't like if you look if you look to east it's always gonna get look to East, it's always going to get here, Nicole. It's always going to get here in the podcast. No, no, but I'm being dead serious. There's an episode of David Chang's Ugly Delicious where it was David Chang arguing against, his name Mario Carbone, is that his name?

He owns Carbone in New York. And they're arguing who has better dumplings, Italians or I think David Chang maybe just said Asians. who has better dumplings, Italians or I think David Chang maybe just said Asians. But they were comparing like, you know, the shumai, the har gow, the whole like Chinese dim sum offerings to Italian filled pastas because those are just dumplings. Well, can't they be both? Can't they be pasta dumplings? But if you think about like all of we conflate Italian filled pastas with non-filled pastas. I'm not saying conflate necessarily, but like if you look at, you know,

any sort of Asian culture, right? Like the difference between like dumplings and noodles seems a lot more clear cut in a way. Maybe, maybe I'm oversimplifying that. Not really, people put dumplings in broths and stuff. Yeah. People eat dumplings with noodles. But they're two like, it still seems like they're two different categories, like dumplings versus noodles. And they wouldn't be like conflated in the same. Is there one encompassing word that would cover both dumplings and noodles? I don't know enough about any sort of Chinese based language. But I've always thought that was really interesting, the way that we treat like.

But it's the dough. But the dough is, the doughs are different in Asian cuisine, right? Like the noodle dough and the doughs are different in Asian cuisine, right? Like the noodle dough and dumpling doughs are different. But the doughs for pasta and filled pastas are the same. Are they though? But it depends. They're just a little thinner. But there's so many different –

They're just a little thinner. Oh, I didn't think you'd cut. Oh, I didn't think you'd cut. But there's like different – another thing is people don't kind of realize how many different sort of methods there are for making pasta as far as like egg to flour ratio as far as different types of flour being used because like this is another whole situation on i i don't like al dente pasta to me a true al dente pasta i know true true al dente pasta to me tastes undercooked and this is not i know where you're going nicole it's not just because i have soft teeth what What? I'm sorry. My infliction just, he's getting higher and higher because I don't know what's happening right now. I'm so upset.

I don't. I, I, and there's a restaurant in LA called Felix that. Have you been? I have never been, but I don't know if I want to go because I love the chef Evan Funke, but apparently he like very much cooks his pasta to an al dente that some would consider undercooked, including the late great food critic, Jonathan Gold. And he was like, he wrote this beautiful thing where he's like, I believe chef funky and I, this is my Jonathan Gold impression. I believe chef funky and I have fundamental differences about the doneness of pasta. You know, he like said that. And it was basically saying like, yo dude undercooks his pasta. And I agree with that when I eat pasta, especially good fresh pasta, I want that sumptuousness. I want the tenderness. I don't need to have the bite.

Maybe I like al dente boxed pasta and I like well-cooked, quote-unquote, fresh pasta. Because there's a big difference. Some people say you can't get true al dente with fresh pasta. Yeah, I don't think you can either. You're just eating raw dough. Yeah, agreed. Okay, I agree with you on the note that fresh pasta should be cooked to perfection yeah quote unquote like not too toothsome not too not too soft but box pasta when it has just that little little faint ring like whenever i look at a

rigatoni rigata and i bite in the middle of it and there's a little little faint ring of like whiteness it like brings me so much oh no you get the oh that's just like raw uncooked flour i know my pasta is done when there is no more white ring. Just a baby one. Like a dispatch. Don't want to see any of the white ring. Like the size of the tip of a needle around. Are you serious?

No. To me, that's undercooked. But again, this is all a matter of preference. And that does affect what kind of noodle you like. It's my cue. I love thin, ribbony pappardelle. It's my absolute favorite. Or tagliatelle.ardelle it's my absolute favorite or tagliatelle i think there's a lot of different names for it and this is like a particular style if you go to

a restaurant called wovo which they ship their pasta in there before do you like it no do you do you like it because their pasta is not chewy enough it was dark well the restaurant was just dark god you're one of those oh you're one of the people that goes on yelp and is like there were a lot of restrictions in the area on parking and i didn't like that and my wine was served two degrees warmer than it should okay no sometimes depends on my mood no it was so dark i felt like i was eating pasta in a nightclub which i've done which i've done before. One time me and my friends went to a club and the guy had pizza and pasta at his table.

I'm like, I'm going to that table, baby. Some people get bottle service. Nicole gets noodle service at the club. Literally, he got mulberries and he was passing the big box around to the table. And then right behind him, he had a tray of spaghetti and meatballs and he was passing it off to everyone. I miss... Who goes to a club and just passes out spaghetti and meatballs?

My kind of friends. Some strangers, man. It's LA. Maybe we should hang out. I want to go party with you. You never told me what your favorite filled pasta is. You have ravioli,

you have tortellini, you have caramelle, you have agnolotti. Yeah, yeah. We got sidetracked. I've actually, funny thing is me and Julia have been really into making pasta lately from scratch. We got, you know, the whole pasta attachment, KitchenAid, been playing with different egg to flour ratios, et cetera. And we've been doing a lot of filled pastas.

Cool. We did this awesome like braised beef cheek tortellini that was really fantastic. And those are actually really fun to make and not as hard as, I mean, I'm sure to make them perfect as hard, but you make a pretty damn serviceable tortellini. So I dig that. But there's one kind of thing with filled pastas that get to me and it's the reason I hate farfalle so much or bow ties. The center. The center. The center. It's hard. And again, as someone who's allergic to undercooked pasta, something like tortellini, you're getting the folds that are inconsistent so to me agnolotti is probably the perfect filled pasta because it's just symmetrical i love agnolotti i had the agnolotti from bestia with saffron i don't know what it was it was like

a cacao saffron situation oh is that yeah i know the exact thing you're talking about so mind-blowingly were there current there was like currants in a demi-glace sauce? I think so, yeah. Ah, so good. Yup, yup. Everyone goes to Bestia for the bone marrow and gnocchetti. Nah, nah, nah. Go for the cacao and currant. I think it was actually paccheri technically, but it was like very similar too. I don't know. They said agnolotti on it.

Oh, did it? On the menu. But I actually got that bone marrow dish one time and I went with my chef from school who's like my very good friend and he's like maybe like 40 years older than me. Like he's my buddy. So we went to Bestia one time and then we had the bone marrow and then he took his cup of water and threw some water in there and then mixed it up and it completely changed the dish.

Did it make it better? So much better. It probably is emulsified water into the bone marrow to make it a real sauce. We've done that three times at different restaurants where he literally takes his cup of water. I love that. Because water is such an important ingredient in pasta, not only pasta, in cooking,

but in pasta making a little dash of water, typically pasta water, but water from your glass at a restaurant completely changes the emulsification and the mouthfeel of your pasta dish. Yeah, that's a big thing. A thing I've noticed when cooking pasta, and especially at a restaurant where you know something's going to sit

for a couple minutes before it ever reaches the table, is that if you think your pasta looks perfectly sauced in the pan, that's going to dehydrate and soak up by the time. So you have to like leave it in a puddle. But if you plate it in a puddle, then it's going to like leave weird marks and whatever. So yeah, that's a brilliant thing. Just splashing some water in there.

Literally, we would just go like, he did that at the nomad hotel too one time oh that's fancy yeah we did that at the nomad we did it at bestia and i forgot the other place we went i think it was a it was a seafood restaurant called the called the black cat and sunset it was an old restaurant yeah that was um it was a seafood spot seafood spot. David. God, I used to know the chef. I used to have to know all these things. You remember? Yeah. What is that dude's name?

He started... Was it The Hungry Cat? I think it was The Hungry Cat. Seafood restaurants. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Behind Sunset. Behind all the places and stuff. I used to...

This is shocking, like, knowing who I am now and what my business is, which is mostly making, like, fast food readers. And we do some nice fancy food. But, you know, you've all seen the show. You've heard me and Nicole talk. But like having to be a fancy person. I mean, I was essentially a food critic. You were. In L.A. for L.A. Magazine. I would have to, you know, make a reservation under a fake name. What was my oh, my fake name was Torbjörn Jakobsson. But then people it's such a. Isn't that the kid from Hey Arnold Torbjörn? Is there a Torvald in... I don't know where I got Torbild from.

Torvald was the jock kid from Hey Arnold that Hey Arnold tutored so he could pass his classes. Oh my God. I've never... I didn't watch a lot of Hey Arnold. I would make reservations under the name Torbild Jakobsson and then I would get there and be like, do you have Torbild Jakobsson on the list?

And then people start talking to me and I had this whole like fake backstory. And for me, like, if you actually wanted to do a fake name, you'd be like, you know, Dave Smith or something like that. Torbjörn Jacobson is pretty noticeable. So it turns out restaurants started noticing that Torbjörn Jacobson was me because a lot of restaurants would actually have like pictures of me under their host podiums and all i mean also probably there's probably only eight interesting there's probably only eight full-time food writers in la at any given moment um probably more with the way the la times have been hiring but so you know these pr firms who represent restaurants they're like we're gonna get pictures of all these people

who may be writing about it for major magazines and we're gonna give it to you write descriptions of them and it's really funny because there was another dude who kind of looked like me who wrote for like a competing paper and apparently on my sheet at a particular restaurant in Culver City it said like Josh looks like other guy thinner

so I'll just give him a grab and be like ha they think I'm thinner than you but yeah I'll never forget I went to Osteria La Bucca very I love that place. Love Osteria La Buca very I love that place they had this very cool kind of Italian ramen dish and it was my first time out with our truly anonymous food critic

no one had a picture of this dude his name is Patrick Q he is a lovely man brilliant writer but I felt very out of my depth I was like 23 years old and the you know sommelier comes with the wine and Patrick he's literally like a trained poet who cooked on the wine and Patrick, he's literally like a trained poet who cooked on the Spanish Riviera.

What? And he like takes the sample of wine and he like puts it up to the light, examines the hue and then he tilts his head, he goes, and kind of chews the wine and then he just goes,

I believe this is about three degrees above cellar temperature. If you could chill it down for about another eight minutes and then bring it back, that would be lovely. Oh my God. And I was like, what a baller.er oh my god i would love to hang out with

people like that every time i get the wine poured i just drink it going yeah that's great that tastes like wine i want to drink it with spaghetti me time they're like because all my friends like nicole you're the food person like try the wine and i'm like i'm like yeah okay yeah i'm the food person and then i go yeah that's really good and And then I'm just like, what did I even drink? Like, you could have just. Yeah. Ooh, this is Spanish. Yes?

Okay, yeah, yeah, it's Spanish, it's Spanish. We talked about our favorite pastas. Now, tell me about your least favorite pasta. Ooh, angel hair, capellini, useless, too thin. Orzo. Oh, orzo, yeah. Orzo. Buy orzo.

Get rice. Just get rice if you're doing orzo. But no, I mean, there's a lot of like pastas that kind of grew up. We just grew up eating a lot of angel hair because it cooked in four minutes. My dad loves angel hair. Prefers angel hair. Angel hair with prego, roasted garlic and herb sauce. I'll still eat it.

Again, even the worst pasta is still pretty good. Except man, Orzo really sucks. Yeah, Orzo sucks. There's some good Manestra. Manestra is a really delicious baked Greek orzo dish. And I think orzo has very longstanding roots in Greek. I also do not typically enjoy Israeli couscous or fregola, as it's called. The pearl? The pearls, yeah.

You don't like pearl couscous? You like the actual hand? Yes. Handmade actual North African couscous is really fantastic. Yeah. But just the little balls of pasta, I don't dig. North African couscous is really fantastic. Yeah.

But just the little balls of pasta I don't dig. One thing that I do love is how insanely myopic and specific pastas can get. Yeah. And restaurants will like compete to see who can have the most obscure pasta. Stropasazetti. Strozapretti. What's that one? Strozapretti is a great pasta.

It is a DNA double helix, essentially. Do you know Radiatore? Yeah, radiator pasta. Radiator. Looks like radiators. I had it at Elemento. Yeah, I had it at Elemento too. Yeah, I had it at Elemento and it has fenugreek

in the sausage mixture. Oh. That's why it tastes like hormisapsi. Yeah, it tastes like hormisapsi. Like if you were to actually go down to my favorite pasta shape,

like I love pappardelle and this other pasta shape satisfies the same things that I love. It's like big, broad, sumptuous. You slurp the sauce. It gets stuck in the corners of your mouth.

But it's called mandili di seta. I don't think I've ever heard of it. Again, so many of these things are so original. But mandili di seta, it's I think

known as handkerchief pasta. I've seen it with pesto sauce. Yeah, yeah. It's a very pale green pesto. Handkerchief pasta. So good. Interesting. I've never had it.

Because it reminds me of, hold on, what is, it's the Chinese chung fun. Chung fun, the rice rolls that you get at Dim Sum. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It's basically, again, so many of my favorite Italian pastas are just like noodles that I enjoy eating in other cultures. Yeah, it sounds like it. Yeah. That's so interesting. There's another one called corsetti stampati.

I know the one with the stamp. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a stamp. You mean stamp pasta? Stamp pasta. That's fun. Yeah, that's just fun. We should do a mythical kitchen one.

Beagley, Beagley, or also known as Peachy, is another fantastic obscure pasta. It is hand-rolled spaghetti. No. Oh, no. What's that? Risoni is also what Orzo's called. There's so many different names for all these pastas oh they my it's my issue with peachy you said yeah peachy peachy is uh it can get no

people don't know how to cook it yeah you gotta boil it for a long time because it's literally just one giant and again this is just chinese hand-pulled noodles this is the uh southern italian version of chinese hand-pulled noodles. That's just this rolled out giant spaghetti strand. I have not had a good... Every single restaurant I've had peachy before. I don't think they call it peachy, but like... I think Beagley is the other name. And peachy, I believe, is a slang term for male genitals.

Oh, cool. Someone told me that recently. Interesting. So that's exciting. Well, other than that, every single time I've had it, it's just been an undercookedooked chewy mess and not an enjoyable chewy again it's that weird al dente that fresh pasta doesn't really give you so i guess i'm just not a big peachy fan lasagnette lasagnette it's essentially a frilled version of pappardelle essentially like think about you know the curly lasagna noodles

it's like that but they're very um thin maybe like a centimeter or less wide so it's like a frilled lasagna oh my god i've seen people eating these on the on the instagram holy crap yeah and then they like sell it as like super large lasagna noodles and i'm like yes give me more. I love, oh my God. I just want to eat a bowl of pasta. Like actually, I got to do too. And I'm not, I had like what? Teriyaki meatballs five minutes ago. I've been eating Taco Bell all day. That is true. That is absolutely true. That's not just me being on brand. A very cool trend I saw recently that I'd really like to try. And apparently it messes with a lot of trypophobic people. This is shout out to atfoodsofjane on Instagram. She is the absolute pasta queen.

Go give her a follow. She posts the best pasta porn I've ever seen. But it is a giant long fusilli noodle. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, it's literally like a two foot long fusilli noodle that's curled up like a snake. Yeah, this is what's in right now. It's those long, weird, frilled or swiveled noodles that food bloggers and mukbangers are eating. You don't get it.

This is what I wish my job was. I have a cool job right now, but if I could just eat long-ass pasta all day and have people watch me. I feel like you would be really good at that. I feel like that, again, you have a fantastic role here, and I wish you the best in your future career endeavors and all that. But mukbang is. Yeah, I know. I feel like you'd be so good. I feel like you have that commanding personality, you know, that could like really get people hooked in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big time. And I feel like you'd be happy more than anything. I'm happy here. Yeah. Talking about pasta shapes with you. But we're talking about pasta shapes. But imagine just eating pasta all day.

Yeah. You could just do that. Yeah. God, I feel like I should air bud you right now. like just leave buddy get out here like nicole leave go chase your dreams pasta in front of an iphone didn't he wasn't air bud owned by a clown yeah he was owned by an abusive clown but then um a small boy gets him played by kevin zieger's great great role uh very well acted. And then the dog teaches him self-esteem through playing basketball.

But the weird thing is, is that they put the dog in a basketball uniform and then put him on the court. And then they're like, a dog can't play basketball. And then someone's like, show me where in the middle school Ohio basketball rules it says a dog can't play. And everyone's just like, yeah, I guess. Like, no, this is a safety issue for the players. Like also that is an- Safety issue for the dog. Safety issue for the dog.

Safety issue for everyone. Dog is short. Dog ain't that tall. What if the dog got hurt? I mean, that dog bites a kid. Yeah. Which is reasonable. Like kids get bit by other kids in basketball.

You don't think a dog- Did you get bit? Yeah. Oh, I get bit all the time. Yeah, I bit people. You bit people? No, I didn't bite people.. Did you get bit? Yeah. Oh, you get bit all the time. Yeah, I bit people. You, you bit people? No,

I didn't bite people. You were a bite child? No, no, no, I don't, I don't deal with kids that bite. Air Bud is,

I mean, and then, and then, and then not only was that dog a basketball prodigy, then an Air Bud golden receiver, he becomes a football prodigy. Then an Air Bud world pup, the dog can play soccer.

Then an Air Bud spikes back. Is it the same dog? Or is it like Air Bud? No, they killed the dog after every movie got a new dog. no, no, no, I'm talking about the storyline. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it the same dog? Or is it like Air Bud? No, they killed the dog after every movie got a new dog. No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about the storyline. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it the same Air Bud or is it like different universes of Air Bud?

I think it's the same Buddy, but then they His name is Buddy? Yeah, yeah. Air Bud. Buddy. So like Air Bud. Shut up! But then, but then, Buddy, we should just have a second podcast. Josh complains about movies while Nicole recaps the plot. Then the dog has puppies.

And then it's a whole situation. Oh, my God. What I think then, I think the next one. Is it called Air Buddies? I think it actually is. Shut up! Then there was Space Buddies where the dogs were in space. I think, though, I think, I think they need to make like a badass drag racing street car driving Air Bud.

Oh, I thought you were talking about rupaul's drag race dogs shantae you stay so i think nicole what we've learned in all this is that the airbud franchise really needs to keep going indefinitely and the moment the airbud franchise stops making movies is when i think we stopped making this podcast deal what if they stopped a long time ago yeah they may have yeah i don't think we should bank this podcast. Deal. What if they stopped a long time ago? Yeah, they may have. Yeah, I don't think we should bank on it. But let's talk about our noodles. Let's talk about our-

Back to noodles, back to noodles, back to noodles. Our final statement on our noodles. I think that I'm not budging and rigatoni rigate is the best universal noodle for pasta. I think pasta is such a subjective matter. And again, I'm always the one who rushes in like the Kool-Aid man going, whoa, subjectivity is a farce. But no, this is something where if you are a pasta lover and you have any sort of strong opinion about it, I defer to you. It's like Trevor says, when someone's talking about something he doesn't care about, I do care about this and I certainly have opinions.

But he just goes like, I'm not emotionally invested in this. It's like I'm not nearly – Nicole, you blew me away with that list and your passion about that today like my love of pappardelle is almost like a default like look it's a good safe noodle it soaks up some sauce it's a little bit thick yada yada yada but you I mean you had a literally a 10-part list about why and I love that I mean that's like the essence of what this podcast is about right it's all about the passion behind food sure and just arguing why and you literally came with a filibuster in hand and that iris act I literally now am craving rigatoni rigate with some like totally bs mushroom ham and peas situation baked with like random shredded mozzarella from the

smart and final on top great Great. And I want that. I'm so glad that you liked what I said and what I do and that you want me to leave here and be Air Bud. So thank you for the time that I was here and I'll see you next week doing the same thing. All right, Nicole, we've heard what you and I have to say, but now it is time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the Twitterverse. It's time for a segment we call...

Opinions are like casserole! Most of these come from Instagram, but we keep saying Twitterverse. Twitter, not very many daily... Did you know that Pinterest has significantly more daily users than Twitter? Pinterest? Yeah. I love Pinterest. I love Pinterest, too.

Great food blogger resource. Great way to compile recipes. No, I don't use it for that. Oh, you're on there for wedding. You're on there for wedding inspiration. I know you are. Me, too, girl. I just want to ring.

All right. We got Kim Lawrence on Twitter. It says, Ratatouille is just super chunky, almost overrated pasta sauce. Kim, say it with your chest. Don't put almost in there. Lean in, girl. Ratatouille is over. Well, I don't know if it's overrated pasta sauce.

It's basically a super chunky pasta sauce. Yeah. I dig that. I think it's a great side dish. Yeah. I almost feel like the veggies are so chunky that I can't necessarily enjoy it with a pasta shape. But I see what you're saying, Kim, and it makes a little bit of sense to me. I'm someone who very much, when I'm cooking at home, it's a lot of just

utility foods. Like I'll make special meals for me when I really want to, but most of the time, it's like, I want to meet, I want to veg, I want to starch. And like something like ratatouille is a perfect thing that you can batch cook. And it's like tasty, it's warm, it's comforting. It's vegetables filled with flavor. Yeah. Got some fiber in it it got your riboflavin it's a good meal prep situation yeah and it's in again like this is peasant food it's french peasant food it's not supposed to be the best thing you ever ate in your life connor from milk is cow sauce eating eggs straight such as hard-boiled fried or poached is. Who on earth looked at a chicken, seeded, pooped out an egg,

and thought, hmm, I might eat that? Let me just explain to you, man. Eggs are delicious. They're building blocks of food, unless you're a vegan. And they're delicious. And don't be such a hater. Expand your horizons and eat a dang egg.

If I see any animal poop out a hard solid shiny thing i'm gonna crack it open and see if i can eat it that you can quote me on that one because that's a little miracle like it's not like you're seeing an animal an animal just drop a dookie like this animal poops out just like this perfectly symmetrical geometric shiny shape that's wild of course i'm gonna crack it open and eat its insides yeah come on connor i'm mad at you connor this sucks the other day i just cracked four eggs in a pan that should not fit four eggs took a shower came back they were all perfectly sunny side up and then i just ate it with my hands because that was where i was at yeah i love eggs yeah love me some eggs all right noah endicott says i think sweet chili sauce is an underused condiment it is extremely versatile

and can be put on almost anything this came up when we did best dipping sauce. A lot of people threw Thai sweet chili sauce out there, which I think is delicious. I think it is a majority sugar. It's corn syrup. A lot of corn syrup, especially the stuff that we're going to like get in the States. You know, there's a lot of like Thai chili sauces that I've had that are like incredibly sweet, but very, very fragrant and delicious. But I think a lot of like Thai chili sauces that I've had that are like incredibly sweet, but very, very fragrant and delicious. But I think a lot of people who like Thai sweet chili sauce are mostly in it because they like just putting sugar and wet on their food. Yeah, it's too corn syrupy for me. I think it's delicious when it's utilized in Thai food and some other Asian cuisines.

I like it on pizza. You like it on pizza? Yeah, I like to dip my fries in it sometimes, but I do think it's a little bit too corn syrupy, and I just don't like eating that with corn syrup. When I was a kid, a total lachy kid, I mean, from the age of, like, eight, and I would microwave myself hot dogs until they slightly exploded. And I would put it in a bun with Thai sweet chili sauce, and I would roll the hot dog around so it gets glazed in the sweet chili sauce. And that, to me, is still a delicacy to this day. So I do agree. I love Thai sweet chili sauce. But as far as universal dippability goes to me, I'm missing out on a lot. Also, I'd probably

go eel sauce over that. Give me some eel sauce. It's like teriyaki with some funk. I love eel sauce. I love eel sauce. DF from DCMFD88M says, leftover pizza should be folded over itself and reheated in a waffle iron. Good idea. Agreed. Way to go, DF. Good job, DF. We agree. Yeah, yeah.

Because this is actually a kind of interesting point. It's like leftover fries are never going to be as good as fresh fries. Leftover pizza, some people like to eat it cold. I'm not the biggest fan. I like cold pizza. You like cold pizza? Yeah. I like cold fried chicken.

Cold any chicken. But leftover pizza, no matter which way you heat it, and I have my particular method. I like microwaving it and then hitting the bottom in a pan. It like melts the cheese. It doesn't get it too crispy. But I like this idea of just changing it entirely. Yeah.

Like screw it. We're going to turn it into a new dish. This is a good idea. Yeah, it's smart. All right. Nate Schreider says, fajitas are just Mexican stir fry and Philly cheesesteaks are just American stir fry sandwiches. I mean, well.

I guess. What do you call stir fry? I guess it's just the lens that he's looking out of it. Also, fajitas are very interesting historically. Fajitas typically referred to a specific cut of meat that was like grilled over open flame. that was like grilled over open flame. And then all these restaurants started adopting this kind of like, not necessarily Mexican, but like what they were referring to

as Southwest American lens, thinking about chilies and apple bees and all these places. So they started doing sizzling fajitas where it was just bell pepper and a random cut of steak kind of chopped up in a pan. And so that kind of changed the game and took it out of that.

But I guess it just depends on what you mean by stir fry. Is anything kind of chopped up and cooked on a griddle or any flat surface stir fry? Again, I think our buddy Nate here is looking at it specifically from a stir fry lens. And I love that. Yeah. It's a different way to look at food. I like that. Ken Fleming says, the best chicken condiment is HP brown sauce.

It checks all the boxes. Sweet, tangy, delicious, not too overpowering. It's like barbecue sauce's hotter British half brother. I hate brown sauce. I hate A1. I hate all of these steak sauces. It's just like, I can't enjoy it. I'm sorry.

It tastes like raisins. It tastes like raisins. It tastes like raisins and liquid smoke and sugar. I believe for you that you like it, but I just can't wrap my head around it. I'd rather just dip it in ketchup calling HP brown sauce barbecue sauce is hotter British half brother it's good not hotter you ever like you ever have that friend who like they look at someone could be a celebrity could be someone on the street and they're just like oh they're hot and then you're like you have

very peculiar taste which is not bad but you're like that person, societally speaking, isn't classically... Yeah, but the fact that you have a look and a type that you really enjoy is kind of very beautiful and speaks to the diversity of experience that we can have in this world, and that's what HP brown sauce is. It's definitely not objectively hotter than barbecue sauce, but I

understand... It's unique. It's unique. It's like you got a birthmark on your face. It's kind of hot. Yeah. Hot, hot birthmark. Hot birthmark. No, beauty mark. Beauty mark.

Did you know that I don't have a birthmark? Really? Yeah. Do I? I think that means that my soul is new. Like I didn't die in a past life. Oh, like you weren't reincarnated? Yeah.

Or do you want to go down this rabbit hole? But I've had like a past life regression once and it was really interesting. Who are you in a past life? Oh my God. Do you really want to know like right now right now um we're not doing anything else okay i went i it's i went to poland i went to concentration camps and i had a past life regression at a concentration camp what yeah yeah who were you what what the hell this is wild i wore a green coat and had short hair with red lipstick on oh my god God. Taylor says, I know you guys had a discussion

about grilled cheese where it smells, but I put leftover spaghetti bolognese in a grilled cheese one time and it blew my mind. Hashtag carb overload. Yes. Put carbs in your carbs. Screw you, Gordon Ramsay,

you limey piece of crap. Is that racist against the Brits? What does limey mean? I don't care. Like he has lime disease? No, like limey. It's like a, you know, prejudiced term against the Brits, but they're fine. I can call them that.

What? Limey. Limey? Yeah, limey. Write something on Google. Is that offensive to say? I don't know, but put your spagable on your grilled cheese. Live your life.

I love you. Bryce Hamburger says, baked beans on top of cheesy potatoes is the best side dish combo, period, with a T. Okay, I wouldn't know, and I don't like the idea of this. It sounds like it would give me the tummy gurgles. Yeah, yeah, beans and potatoes are substitute goods. Yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah, it's like putting mayonnaise and avocado on a sandwich.

Or mayonnaise and a fried egg, or avocado and a fried egg to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay, I can put mayonnaise and avocados on a sandwich, egg to me Yeah yeah yeah Okay okay I could put mayonnaise And avocados on a sandwich But avocados and an egg Can't do on a burger No they can't Slit each other out

Not on a burger They can't slit each other out Yeah Shouldn't be there Beans shouldn't be on potatoes It's like It's the reason I don't like Mashed potatoes

Is because I love Refried beans so much And I would always rather I would just rather Have a large plate Would you put lard In your mashed potatoes No I put mayonnaise

In my mashed potatoes Why is no one Putting lard In their mashed potatoes That's what I'm saying People should put boneard in your mashed potatoes? No, I put mayonnaise in my mashed potatoes. Why is no one putting lard in their mashed potatoes? That's what I'm saying. People should put bone marrow in their mashed potatoes. That's what I'm talking about. Bone marrow mash? Oh, my God. I just found one that speaks to me in an experience.

Go for it. Alphabet Flight says, I like to drain my ramen and put ranch and Parmesan cheese like the shaky kind. That was the only way I ate it as a kid and still do sometimes. This is a shout out to my good friend and sophomore year of college roommate, Andrew Rickards. I once wrote a blog post about him calling him the worst cook I've ever met.

His signature dish, aside from vinegar chicken, which was boiled chicken soaked in vinegar, was what he called pasta al rancho. It was spaghetti boiled, mixed with ranch dressing while it's hot and added breadcrumbs and shaky Parmesan cheese on top. Ew. Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Rickards? Andrew Rickards, yeah. Andrew Rickards. Inventor of pasta al rancho. Andrew Rickards, this is Nicole saying, ew. Ew, that's gross. I don't like this. My other roommate, though, Marcus, Marcus Begley, love you to death, he used to take taquitos, like the frozen kind,

Marcus, Marcus Begley, love you to death. He used to take taquitos, like the frozen kind, and he would eat equal amount taquitos and bricks of cheese that were equally sized as the taquitos. Yeah, that's my kind of guy. Marcus? Yeah, Marcus. I would be friends with Marcus is what you're trying to say. Marcus, come on the show, man.

What are you doing? Marcus, if you eat taquitos and bricks of cheese that are the same exact size at the same time, call me. He also turned me on to Arizona Gunslinger Hot Sauce because he would dip that whole mess into Arizona Gunslinger Hot hot sauce marcus do you want a job come right here renegade arts says butterfingers are chocolate covered sawdust bars i love butterfingers actually uh no it's not the sawdust candy what is it what's an example of sawdusty candy necco wafers yeah necco wafers smarties yeah no butterfinger is. Butterfinger is American halva.

Yes. Right? It's American halva. Halva. There's different kinds of halva, right? Yeah, there's like the floss halva, but the chewy, crunchy kind. Yeah. It's honey and sesame paste.

Yes. Or tahini. Tahini, yeah. That's like heated up until it's at this kind of beautiful like hardball stage. It's a candy, yeah. Oh, God, so good. Butterfinger is just a peanut butter halva. That's all it is. Yep. that's like heated up until it's at this kind of beautiful like hardball stage. It's a candy, yeah. Oh, God, so good. Butterfingers just a peanut butter halva.

That's all it is. Yep. That's it. Oh, my God. I found one that I'm mad about. Do you even sous vide, bro? I don't use it often, but I hate seeing I ain't boiling my meat in a bag in grilling slash smoking groups.

This is a 48-hour sous vide chuck roast seared at 700. Poor man's prime rib. I don't like food communities that act as gatekeepers and try and use this very insular language to make people think they're doing things wrong, right? It's like the same way that this sous vide dude feels about the grilling and smoking people talking crap about sous vide. It's the same way I feel when people are like, you don't sous vide your chicken breasts. It's the only way to blah, blah, blah. No, like a gadget doesn't make you a better cook. I agree that sous vides have incredible uses.

I agree that smoking and grilling on live fire does taste absolutely delicious. That said, if you don't have access to either of those things, you can still be an incredible cook, cook the best food of your life and really live a full culinary journey. You don't need the gadgets. You said it, Josh. I agree with that 100%. I do enjoy my sous vide machine very much, but it doesn't make me a better or worse cook. Bingo. Yeah. Except it does have a timer on it, which I really appreciate it. And it like beeps at you whenever.

Yeah. I sous vide a Hot Pocket for two days once. Oh. It's pretty gross. That's not what I expected you to say, but I'm proud of you for saying that. And on that note, thank you for listening to a hot dog is a sandwich. If you want to hear more from us in the Mythical Kitchen, we got new episodes for you every Wednesday. If you want to be featured on Opinions Are Like Casseroles, you can hit us up on Twitter at MythicalChef or and Pandizadeh with the hashtag OpinionCasserole. For more Mythical Kitchen, check us out on YouTube where we launch new videos every week.

And of course, if you want to share pictures of your dishes, hit us up on Instagram at Mythical Kitchen. Send nudes. Noodles. Noodle pictures. Send us noodle pictures. Yeah, that came off wrong. It's a pun if you write it out. Send noodles. Send pictures of noodles. Oh god, why am I like this? this.