Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Armchair Anonymous: Cooking Disaster

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

Dax and Monica talk to Armcherries! In today's episode, Armcherries tell us about a cooking disaster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are supported by Squarespace. Guys, we have a Squarespace website that's just gorgeous. That Wabi Wab, you built that yourself using all the templates, yeah? I sure did. Yeah. Easy peasy. So easy. The best part about Squarespace is it's an all in one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. You can get discovered fast with integrated optimized SEO tools, and you

can choose from professionally curated layouts and styling options with Squarespace Blueprint. Plus, you can kickstart or update written content on any website, product description, or email with Squarespace AI. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial and save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the code DAX. We are supported by Buick. Imagine having a new Buick in your life that makes everything a piece of cake. Truly, the new 2024 Encore GX is brimming

with style and substance with its confident lines, distinctive character, and the all new Buick Tri-Shield badge. It's also designed to make your life easier with incredible features, like an available in-vehicle Wi-Fi hotspot so you can stay connected while you cruise, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility, a virtual cockpit system with 8-inch driver cluster screen, and an 11-inch center infotainment screen. Available all-wheel drive with drive mode selector.

And a standard suite of advanced safety and driver assistance features. It's available in three separate trims. The well-equipped preferred, the boldly styled sport touring, or the exquisitely refined Avenir. Visit Buick.ca to learn more. Tap the banner or visit this episode's page to learn more. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shephard and I'm joined by Monica Padman.

We were just talking about this man Cookie we used to know. He used to know, we met him on a vacation. He was working at the hibachi grill. That's right. He was adorable and lovely and he wore really big funny glasses and it made you uncomfortable. Well, he had a whole character

and he did not break character. Yeah, and it made you feel antsy. Yeah, like some people love this and some people have a hard time with it. Like if you go to one of these plays and you're in the bathroom, there was an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm about this. In fact, it was Nate's cousin playing the guy. Oh. and you're in the bathroom. There was an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm about this. In fact, it was Nate's cousin playing the guy.

Where you're in the bathroom and an actor from the plays in the bathroom acting like a guest and then he's doing some schlut. You know, he's doing- Oh, you're talking about when it's like an interactive play. Yes, before the thing starts and they're like tricking you and stuff. And then the person's in character

and you know they're in character. And you're like, I gotta, do I play along? And by playing along, am along, does he or she think they're fooling me? I don't, it's too much for mental gymnastics. And Cookie had such an over the top character. The glasses he was wearing were three feet wide. And the kids were like melting down.

This was a long time ago. The kids were melting down, so Kristen took them out and then it was just me and you there. And you like have never. This was a long time ago. The kids were melting down, so Kristen took them out, and then it was just me and you there, and you like have never wanted to leave a situation more in your entire life. I was panicking. You were. Yes, glasses were three feet wide.

Hey, this is a ding ding ding. How? This is a cooking story. No, I know. And a cookie story. Well, yes, Cookie the Chef. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, yes, so this is a tell us a a cookie story. Well, yes, Cookie the Chef. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Okay, yes, so this is a, tell us a crazy cooking story. Every warning that can be given. Oh my God. You, you know, animals get hurt. Really, guys, for real? There's a animal story that I do think a lot of you won't like. for real will not like.

And it's the last story. And there's a gross, there's gross as hell things in here So this is not for you. Yeah, don't listen. Don't listen at all, but enjoy it I hope you like the introduction Please don't enjoy cooking stories Come and go, good times, take them slow. My life, I had them both. But one thing you gotta know, I'ma keep on shining. Hello, how's it going?

Can you hear me okay? Yes we can. Yes, is this Sarah? Yeah, nice to meet you guys, this is so fun. Where are you Sarah? You're in to meet you guys. This is so fun. Where are you Sarah? You're in a closet, but where in the country? I'm not in the country. I'm actually in London.

Oh my God. You're an expat or are you on vacation? No an expat. So I've been here for three years and we're actually moving back to Austin in a few weeks. So London is coming to an end. Are you sad it's coming to an end or you're excited to get home? Kind of both. I think it's run its course, but I've loved London. I met my husband here.

So it's obviously been a great few years, but ready to get back. I love Austin. You're bringing a bread home though? Yeah. You're like Meghan Markle. Yeah. Oh gosh.

Okay, so you have a wild cooking story. I do, yeah. I went to school in Boulder at CU, which is a big college town. I don't know if you guys have been to Boulder. I lived on the hill, which is the quintessential student area. It's where all the fraternities are and sororities and tons of college student houses. A lot of them are old and grimy.

So at the time I lived with three other girls, we were all students and had jobs as servers, bartenders. So one of my roommates and I, I'll call her Jen. That's a good sign when you gotta protect her identity that's off to a good start. I didn't tell her that I'm telling this story. Jen and I worked at the same bar and on this day we were on the same shift together.

So we both had an hour in between classes to run home and change and make food. We're in the kitchen kind of popping between the kitchen and the living room and half watching a show and kind of mindlessly cooking and chatting. I was making a breakfast burrito and she was making pasta. It was like pre-made ravioli that you get from the refrigerated aisle of the grocery store. Yeah, they're kind of high end. They're damp. They're pre-made.

You boil them for like four minutes. But they're still tender. They're not dried out. No. Beautiful. Exactly. I scrambled some eggs, assembled my breakfast burrito and went into the living room. And a few minutes go by and I hear Jen screaming. I

run into the kitchen and in the pot of water and ravioli there are a bunch of maggots floating around in the water. There's a bunch of maggots in the water with the ravioli. We immediately both launch into hysterics and are like, that is disgusting. We're going to sue the grocery store and become millionaires. And we're never shopping there again. She dumps the maggot ravioli out in the garbage and scrubs the pot within an inch of its life and because still needs to eat, grabs a box of spaghetti. It's like dried pasta out of the pantry and puts it in the water. We're in the living room reminiscing on how gross that was and the pasta's doing its thing.

She goes back into the kitchen and immediately is like, what the fuck is going on? What the hell? It's like lots of expletives being thrown around. This time she's really freaking out. So I run back into the kitchen and in the new pasta, brand new box, there are more maggots. Oh! And we're at a loss now. We're both kind of baffled.

Yeah, I'm really confused because the first round of pasta came out of the refrigerator presumably. And now this one's coming out of the cabinet. Didn't really make any sense. Jen is really spiraling at this point. So she came from a religious background. I think she went to an all-girls Catholic school. And this is obviously weird and inexplicable.

So her mind went straight to, like, this must be the end of days, obviously. God is smiting her. Oh, it's a demon situation. Oh, God is smiting her. Oh, it's a demon situation. Yeah, it's always lurking. I wonder what happens. The devil's popping up in your pasta.

Oh! Devil droppings. Stop! I hate this. Devil sperm. Oh my God. Yeah, so she's like freaking out. She's like head in hands, I'm sure, silently repenting

for all the bad college student things we've been doing all year. And it dawns on me they must be in the water. I don't know how, but maybe they got into the pipe somehow and are coming out of the tap. Interesting. Good job. We're turning on and off the tap and waiting to see something weird, but it's just water coming out. So we're both very confused. And as we're willing maggots to come out of the tap water, so we have some explanation, I hear a popping noise. I looked at the stove and it was a maggot sizzling on the burner. And then I noticed a few more kind of crawling around on the stovetop and then one fell from the ceiling.

What? Then there were more falling from the ceiling and it was somehow raining maggots in our kitchen. This is end of days. I am starting to believe her. Now you're with her. You're hitting your knees and you're recalling the prayers you've heard on TV. Oh. That's the big reveal. It was the apocalypse. Because we lived in an old, gross college

house and I'm sure the landlord hadn't cleaned the vent in the hood for almost like 20 years, grease had built up over time in the vent in the hood and flies, I guess, must have laid eggs in the grease. And when the rising heat from the stove heated the metal, they were jumping out and falling onto the stove. Oh, they were just raining out of the hood. This is horrific. I'm delighted. I was nervous that this prompt

would only elicit fire stories because that's the most common cooking disasters, but cascading raining maggots. Wow, wow, wow. How many do you think there were? Probably 30. There were a lot. There were a decent amount of maggots from each pot of water and then on the stove. They were kind of all over.

Do you think any had made it into your scrambies? That's what I wanted to ask, what I'm too afraid to ask. After we'd called the landlord and we're like, someone needs to come clean this out right now. This is disgusting. By this point, we were kind of like laughing how ridiculous the whole thing was once we realized that we weren't being smited.

I think we're kind of at this point, like rehearsing how we're going to tell everyone when we got to work in 30 minutes. And then I went back into the dining room and saw the half eaten breakfast burrito full of scrambled eggs that I had just made on the stove and wrapped in a tortilla so I couldn't really see what I was eating and realized that this entire time I had been eating a maggot burrito. Stop. There were maggots in yourot burrito. Stop, stop. There were maggots in your eggs?

Yeah. Oh, wow. Oh my god. I mean, it's probably a good source of protein if you can get over the gross out factor. Did you almost throw up or are you fine with this situation? At the time I was pretty grossed out. I think I was almost throwing up, but I rebounded.

I still have scrambled eggs. It's fine. Oh. Wow. I would imagine though it might set some irrational fear. I feel like I'd always be checking the vent before I cook. Like, did I see any maggots up there? I mean, once that happens to you once,

now that's a reality on earth. I feel like all our listeners now, we've really implanted a fear. Yeah, I'm gonna be checking ours. That's awful, oh man. It was gross, but yeah, I guess it's a PSA for everyone listening to clean the vent in the hood over your stove,

which wasn't something I probably would've thought about before, but I definitely do now. And it makes total sense. You get a buildup of grease up there, what a hospitable place to lay your eggs. Rain, rain, rain. Oh. Chomp, chomp, chomp.

Scramble, scramble, scramble, chomp, chomp, chomp. Scramble, scramble, scramble. Chomp, chomp, chomp. Oh. Oh, that's so gross. I love it. Yeah, that was gnarly. That almost is like one of those urban legends where they get a cactus from the desert

and then they hear noise and then it breaks open. There's a spider nest inside the cactus. This is one of the classic urban legends. Or like when you're sitting on the toilet and then a snake comes up the toilet You're right. Yeah Wow, thank you for sharing that yeah Unexpected and wonderful. Thank you guys. I was wondering if I could give a few quick shout out

Of course, yes, please roll call. Yeah, you have a strong contingency of London followers, so I want to give a shout out to Taylor and Paul and Alex and Andy. We all are fans and always listen and compare notes and talk about armchair anonymous. Ah, and they're Brits. Alex and Andy are, Taylor and Paul are both American. We get on pretty well, don't we?

Yeah, we're all like cousins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's very similar. Well, a delight meeting you Sarah and welcome home I wish you an easy and painless Transplant back to the US. Thank you. I appreciate it. So nice to meet you both. All right. Take care. See you in Austin Bye guys Mmm maggots That one was for you. That's gonna have to have a trigger warning. I'm itchy. I'm itchy. I'm itchy

I got so gross. There's my phone that gonna have to have a trigger warning. I'm itchy, I'm itchy, I'm itchy. Maggots are gross. They're so gross. Remember when I found that bazillion at the bottom of my trash can outside and that you just wanna set fire to whatever they've been on?

Yeah, just get rid of it. Have you ever had any maggots in your kitchen? Knock on wood. Okay. Wait, no, please. Oh, knock on wood for real. Yeah, because that, I think I would move out. I would never go back.

Hello! This is unexpected. Hi! That I think I would move out. I would never go back. Hello. This is unexpected. Hi. How are you? You're in the military and you seem to be- Crouched. At work. I am crouched and I am at work, yes.

Oh, fun. Where are you? I'm in the state of Oregon. Oh, okay. Not too far. What branch of the service are you in? United States Air Force. I'm in the Oregon Air National Guard and I'm on annual training. So I have a civilian job and then I'm part-time military.

How long have you been a reserve? I started active duty right out of high school and then I joined the reserves and now I'm in the Air National Guard for the state of Oregon. Oh, I'm sorry. So I guess I didn't know the distinction between. So how does that work?

Most of the stories that you hear are about kids who join right out of high school and they go off on active duty. Active duty owns you and they tell you where you're going to live and what job you're going to have. So I lived all over the world and 9-11 happened. So I went to war and then I decided I wanted to have kids. And so I got out to follow an active duty spouse who was in a coast guard, which then meant more traveling and moving around wherever there's water. With that, I was able to be in the reserve

component. And then when we moved back here to the Pacific Northwest, there aren't large reserve units here, but the National Guard is the largest serving capacity in the state. So I transferred into the Guard. Okay, I guess that's probably where I was stupid is I thought the reserves became the National Guard when they were needed. There are lots of statuses, but the easiest way to explain it is that there's a federal mission and then a state mission. So you could get called up to do a federal mission when the president says, we need your

help. But we can also get called up when the governor says, we need your help. That was the missing piece for me. One's federal, one's state. Well, thank you for your service. Yes, yes, absolutely. Okay, so you have a crazy cooking story. I do. This involves an ex-husband,

and I conferred him yesterday to ensure that I had the whole thing right. You're still on speaking terms, that's good. We like that. We do have children together, so yes, we're on speaking terms, and all is good. He added some really wonderful elements too, so I'm excited to add them to the story. What if it had rekindled the whole thing like a movie?

Like a double me-cue? Some kind of reverse me-cue. That would be scary. Okay, so we grew up here in the Pacific Northwest and fried food is not something that we do at home. You go out for fried food, and when we were stationed at Coast Guard Station Lake Worth Inlet in Florida, we lived in military housing, right? Usually on big installations, there are lots of places for military families to live.

The Coast Guard's a little different. Housing is rare because their stations are really small. But in Florida, there's this very fancy place called Jupiter Island, where a lot of very wealthy people live. And there's a historical lighthouse. Have you been? Well, I know that Burt Reynolds lived in Jupiter. Yeah, I think Celine Dion had a house there, Tire Woods house there. The yachts that would drive by this housing unit were larger than the houses that we lived in that were built in the forties.

They're single story. So the government housing was actually on Jupiter on the island with all the mansions. We were just before, we were like the gate right before you got to the mansions and the island. But our little Coast Guard beach was on the inlet where all their yachts drove by. And so we'd be on our little beach and they'd be working out in the gyms on the where all their yachts drove by. And so we'd be on our little beach

and they'd be working out in the gyms on the back of their yachts that were bigger than the gym for the Fulksguard families. Wow. So important to the story, we had a one-year-old daughter at the time and we lived in this single story built in the 1940s, Cinderblock home. Well, you're allowed to decorate and paint, which I had just done, lime green. Florida is always wet. It's always damp, right? Nothing really dries. So being new to the South, my husband at the time said, would you like to fry something? I was like, okay, I'll give it a shot. I'll try some deep frying. So when I was in high school, I worked in a restaurant and I watched the fry cooks and I thought I could

recreate that in the kitchen. So I took the largest chili pot we had and I filled it to the brim with Oopsies. Okay. Canola oil. Yeah, problem number one, yeah. Like eight bottles of canola.

And I turned it on high and I thought, this is great. So my toddler's toddling around, new to the Florida heat. She's in just a diaper. My husband was outside. I thought he was putting together a piece of furniture, but he says he was doing yard work. So he was just in board shorts. I strangely enough don't recall what I was wearing,

but I remember the two of them pretty clearly. And I battered the shrimp, I dressed them in panko breadcrumbs and they were waiting for the oil to do what I remember the deep fryers in the restaurant doing, which was bubble. And so as soon as I saw the bubble, I went, okay, I can dump these in.

I kid you not, the first shrimp I dropped to this chili pot, the entire chili pot flames went up in front of my face and immediately to the ceiling, which only yesterday and my husband reminding me that I had just painted did it click. The paint is what caught on fire. Apparently I was not worried by this. I became very placid and I picked up my naked daughter

and I walked outside to the carport and in the softest, calmest, sweetest voice, which he told me yesterday, it was the nicest I've ever been to him. Yeah. I said, the kitchen is on fire. So he walked in thinking I had a hot pocket in the microwave and that little metal sleeve had caught fire because of how calm I was. And meanwhile, the flames had now rolled from the ceiling and they're now coming back down

the door on the opposite side where we were coming and going in and out of the carport. And so his first instinct was to go straight to it and And he goes, oh, I can't do water. Well, he burned his nipples in the flames. He said that was the most painful. And then he remembered all military housing has a fire extinguisher. So he went to pull the pin on the fire extinguisher, but somebody had gotten smart and put zip ties around.

So he pulled hard to where he slit his finger open and ended up needing three stitches. Oh my Lord. But the adrenaline was busting so he wasn't thinking anything about it. Meanwhile, he's got blood dripping all the way down his arm and his chest. Burnt nipples. Exactly. He picks up the pot and he runs it outside and drops it into the sandy driveway. And I'm just standing there looking at him like, what happened? And he goes, what happened? I was like, I filled it up. The oil was bubbling. I put one piece of shrimp in there.

He goes, wait, this was a deep fry, a shrimp fry. He's what kind of oil is this? I was like, canola. He had no idea what had happened. I had no idea what had happened. But thankfully his assignment at that time in the Coast Guard was to manage that 60 acres and all of that housing. And so he ended up getting to work at home well before COVID ever allowed us to do so by scraping off that entire ceiling, repainting, putting in new sheetrock. For whatever reason, the

fire didn't spread to either side of the stove, so none of the cabinets caught fire and they were all that plasticky apartment. So we really avoided true disaster burning the place down. Yeah, let's go over some PSAs about oil right now. That's fair. I think the one problem a lot of us who get into hijinks with hot oil is A, you're used to boiling water and water starts boiling and water can only get to 212 degrees and then turns into steam so it's never above 212 that oil you think it's gonna bubble it doesn't bubble it's the shit you put in there that causes the bubbles it's getting hotter and hotter and that shit can get fucking thousands of degree I mean not really but it can get so hot yeah I've put

things in they They just explode. There's like any water in there. Well, that's what my friend just asked me. He goes, that shrimp had to still be wet. The water in the shrimp is what had to have caused that explosion. Because to this day, I've never fried again. I've never tried again. And when I was retelling the story to make sure I had all the details right,

he even asked, what kind of oil would you use now? I was like, I have no idea. He was like, not canola. I don't think that's the issue. I think you can fry in canola, but part of it is the amount. You wanna fry in like a small amount of oil and then you flip your piece of shrimp.

Versus submerging as you do in the professional environment. Correct. I had a tradition of doing a lot of deep frying for Super Bowl, that was my thing. Back when we were broke, we would get the breaded prawns from Costco, really go all out.

And I had a big, like you're talking chili pot, and I would go a third deep, so it could still be in there bubbling around. It will bubble, you just don't have to do it like that. And I would recommend people don't do it like that. And I would recommend people don't. Don't do a couple gallons of 700 degree. You do a thin layer where like it can at least get half of your meat and then you flip it.

Well, that's our PSA. And then also as everyone should already know, you don't ever add water to a grease fire. That's important to remind people. Yeah, cause if your husband would come in and start spraying water from the kitchen all over it. Well, what's really funny about this whole story is that one of my first jobs in the military

was within the food service industry. In the Air Force, it's called services. We do food, fitness, lodging, mortuary, and fatality search and recovery. That's a wide net, those last items. You know what the connecting factor is? Meat. Refrigeration connecting factor is? Meat. Refrigeration.

Refrigeration. So we've got the equipment packages already built and associated with the career field. So you have to learn and know all the things so that when you deploy, you could bounce from any one of those, we call them functional area codes. Wow.

Were you ever at Qatar or Bagram? I think that I was probably deployed the same time you were on your USO tour. Ah. I was in Kyrgyzstan when you were there. Okay, we went there. I did 07 and 09, and I feel like we did two different zones on both those trips.

I got Robin Williams on my USO. Oh, hell yeah. That's great. That's awesome. That's a big one. It was big, yeah. This is gonna say a lot about the career field. We manage any morale, welfare, and recreation events

in a deployed environment. So when you set up a bare base and there's nothing there, you have minimal things to keep you occupied. So we play a lot of bingo. We do different competitions that don't require a lot of physical stuff. And so when Robin Williams came through, I was running the bingo tournaments.

And so we asked him to call bingo and he did it for us. He played the last round of bingo with us. And then he went on and did his HBO special, which was very special. That's so cool. What year was that? 2003. Hold on. Wait, nine eleven was 2001. So this was 2002. Nine eleven is confusing. I often trip up on what the data that was because of the eleven.

Yeah, but even though that was because of the 11. Yeah, but even though that should help us because one. Yeah. September 1st, 2001. Or was it? No, it's- September 11th, 2001. See, here's my confusion.

You're seeing it. Oh boy. Well, wow. I'm glad you made it. Me too. This also goes to say like the most dangerous thing in the military is generally not the fighting. Oh, so true.

The accidents that are not at all related to combat. One last piece of this story is that years later, after my husband got out of the military, he went to culinary school in Portland and then he was teaching and he uses this story to remind people. So he does your PSA regularly for those who are just starting their culinary life.

Oh, good for him, because he's got a personal antidote, but you're the fall guy. He's not culpable at all. He just gets a detail of poorly managed. He should be telling us what oil to use. What he'd like to tell you is that he's lost sensitivity forever in his nipple region. Oh no, I don't know how he's existing.

I bet he's deriving so much pleasure from that erogenous zone. Oh man. That would suck though. I hate when just I wear the wrong shirt and my nipples get raw. I'm sure you ladies know all about this. I can't imagine having burnt nipples

and then wearing a shirt. It must be agonizing. I'm now on his side, poor guy. Yeah, oh boy. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. Great meeting you. Thank you for the opportunity. There are a lot of armchairs here in the International Guard.

It's a thing that comes up all the time. People get really excited when they learn that we went to the live show or we've got t-shirts that we've made. I think 90% of my communication these days is related to one of the shows on armchair on Brooklyn. That makes us so happy. That is so, so sweet.

And what a great representative you are of us as people. Thank you. All right, take care. Bye. That was my first impulse ever to salute someone. I always wave goodbye now, because you've got me waving. I felt like I was supposed to maybe salute

at the end of that. Did you get that urge? No, no, okay That's fair um, I have some You know oil burn came out or a maggot buying it from the ceiling Okay, maybe that's a positive for this no maggotsots are gonna drop out, because they could have. They were brewing. And we did have a barrage of weird insects on that tape. I know.

Some of them might have even been. Maggots. Seamen sperm. No, Satan's sperm. Devil's sperm is what you said. Satan's sperm probably works better because of the alliteration. handsome. Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves you simply choose a question to be

automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Hello? It's a ghost. Oh, there you are. Oh, it's a handsome ghost. Hi. Hi. Oh my God.

This is surreal. For us too. Yeah. A handsome ghost just popped up on our screen. We heard the ghost and then we saw the ghost. Brian, where are you? I am in a clothing-filled closet in Madison, Wisconsin. Oh, Madison, Wisconsin.

Oh, I'm in a clothing-filled closet in Madison, Wisconsin. Oh, I'm in a clothing-filled closet in Madison, Wisconsin. Oh, I'm in a clothing-filled closet in Madison, Wisconsin. Oh, I'm in a clothing-filled closet in Madison, Wisconsin. Oh, I'm in a clothing-filled closet in Madison, Wisconsin. Oh, I'm in a clothing-filled closet in Madison, Wisconsin. Oh, I'm in a clothing-filled closet in Madison, Wisconsin. Oh, I'm in a clothing-filled closet in Madison, Wisconsin. Oh, I'm in a clothing-filled closet in. Brian, where are you? I am in a clothing filled closet in Madison, Wisconsin. Ah, Madison, Wisconsin. Are you in academia? I was previously in academia. I was a badger previously and then made my way back here as the family started to grow.

Okay, Brian, you have a cooking story. I have a cooking story. Actually, I was in Madison and then I moved back to New York City, which is where I'm sort of from, from Long Island originally, but I moved back to New York City to pursue a culinary career there. This was in 2012. I was sort of a young aspiring chef

and I moved back to New York City to work at a restaurant called Eleven Madison Park. Yes, very fancy. Very fancy, yeah. Rob might be familiar with it. Rob, do you know it? I do. Great, I'm the only one here that doesn't know it. Yeah.

So it's a very, very fancy restaurant. We'd be cooking for celebrities quite often. I got to do a private dinner for Jay-Z and Beyonce. Like, we got top, top celebrities on a nightly basis, but we also got people who saved up for a year for their wedding anniversary to come. So it was a special place to work because people were putting out a lot of money

for a three hour experience that they really never wanted to forget. So the stakes are just very high. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like Disneyland. They've gone with the intention of having the best day of their life. That's a good place to start. Yeah, all that to say, very, kind of like Disneyland. They've gone with the intention of having the best day of their life. That's a good place to start. Yeah.

All that to say very, very high intensity environment, big kitchen, lots of cooks. And I don't know if you're familiar with like the French brigade system. So most fine dining restaurants are based off like the French military. Oh, it's very regimented and all of the new cooks kind of come in at the bottom. So you start at the cold appetizer station, Gourmanger, and then you work your way up to hot appetizers. And then you start cooking the vegetables. And then maybe one day you start to touch meat.

You work your way up all along these stations sort of building up the experience. And I had been there at that point about a year and a half. And I was what was called the tournante. So we were open seven nights a week. If you're really, really busy restaurant, you're obviously trying to maximize profits and you need to be open all the time. So you need someone to give the cooks who work the stations every night a day off. So you need someone who goes around

each day to work a different station. You're sort of like a jack of all trades, master of none. You've done everything in the kitchen, right? So I've worked all the stations and now I need to just help people get days off. So it's very stressful because you never really know what you're walking into. You're not necessarily as good as the person who does it every day, but you sort of have this wily experience of working each station. You kind of know how to work smarter, not harder, all the tricks to get you through the day. And this story takes place on a night where I was working the meat roast station. So some people might be thinking Levin Madison

Park is a vegan restaurant. And that is true. They are now a 100% vegan plant-based restaurant. But in 2012, we served meat up through I think 2018 or night something like that. Oh I didn't even know this well I didn't even know about the restaurant but while they switched that seems like a crazy rebrand. It was a crazy rebrand I remember hearing about it and it was a very very bold choice especially if you're spending $300 a person then that's drinking tap water and that's not including tax and tip. It's a very Expensive experience and to not get meat

I think for some people rubs them or whatever But this takes place at a time where we're cooking a lot of meat and the most famous Dish at the restaurant was this whole roasted duck and it was a honey glazed duck We got these ducks from New York. We would dry age them in a refrigerator for two weeks and then we would glaze them in honey and lavender and roast it. People would like fly across the world for this duck. Very crispy skin on the outside, almost like a crackling. Mmm.

Oh, I want this. It's a shame that this doesn't exist in the world anymore. So basically the ticket comes in and I'm working the meat row station. And again, I had worked the meat row station very comfortably for a long time. Actually, it was probably the station I was most comfortable in, in the whole kitchen, probably too comfortable, which is like why I'm getting to talk to you today ticket comes in, I, you know, take the duck out. It's a very sensual experience.

You dump honey all over the duck, and then you rub the honey all over the duck into all the crevices and into the skin. You cover it in lavender and coriander and saw all the great stuff. You roast it. 25 minutes later, duck comes out of the oven and it's sitting there. Beautiful golden brown, whole roasted duck.

So at this point, the sous chef, who's kind of like running the line, it's their job to sort of plate all the dishes and then they go out into the dining room. They ask the vegetable cook who's on the meat side, hey okay we're bringing up two duck, fire two sides. So they start to get all the vegetables ready so that the sous chef can plate all the vegetables on the plate and then when everything's ready, bring the duck. So I hear, all right, Brian, bring the duck. Bring the duck.

So I grab the duck, I pick up my knife and I think I'm shoving my knife into the duck and immediately I shoved the knife into my wrist. Oh. Oh. Ah. Ah. Oh.

The amount of blood that shot out of my wrist, Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uhhhhh uhhhhh uhhhhh uh rt tunish, right? You're in the middle of dinner service, your heart is pumping, you're hot, you're tired. So you're almost like a throbbing vein in your ribs. I see the wall just covered in blood. I immediately dropped my knife, grabbed my wrist with my hand. And there was a prep cook in the back of the kitchen. I make eye contact. He was staring at me like deer in the headlights. Like, what do I do? I say, go to the office, call 911. So he immediately runs into the office, calls for an ambulance.

Now, of course, because it's been 30 seconds since the sous chef called for the duck, he comes back because, God forbid, we're a minute late on a plate, and he's like, where the fuck is the duck? This world. It's a lot. So he sees finally what's happening.

And thankfully, he gets another manager over. And they're like, OK, we have three walk-in refrigerators in the kitchen. We very quickly, and I think cleverly, go into the walk-in refrigerator to try and slow my heart rate down and cool my body off to slow the blood. Has anyone done a tourniquet yet? We have kitchen towels wrapping around. And someone is holding my wrist above my heart. So I'll

never forget it because one of the dining room managers came in and he said okay ambulance is coming why don't I get your stuff out of your locker. For the life of me I could not remember the three numbers that I've been using for this locker for almost two years. My brain was like, you know, I was not there. They're like, okay, forget that, get in the ambulance. In the ambulance, they start to sort of wrap me up more professionally. And at this point, I get to a local New York City hospital

and I remember at the time, and this might not be true, but if you're less than 25 years old in New York, you go into the pediatric unit. Oh, wow. And I was like 22 or 23 at the time. So I am sitting in the waiting room of the ER, you know, in my fucking like chef whites. I look like an idiot. I have blood on me and there's kids and parents and books and toys. So they take me back. And now at this point, like I know I'm gonna be okay. So now I start to calculate how many stitches do I need

so I don't get shit when I go back to work. You want a lot, right? I can't go back to the kitchen with less than 10. Yeah, agreed, agreed, yeah. At this point, I'm hoping like, do they need to take the- Yeah, prosthetic would be the best return. There's nothing worse than going back to the kitchen after them being forced to do work for you. Luckily, it was probably like eight,

nine, or ten stitches. I don't know if we got the double-digit mark. I had just sort of nicked the artery in my wrist. So like it didn't require any extra surgery. I had basically just put the tip of my knife through and I'm not as vascular as you are Dax. Well, don't sell yourself short Yeah, we don't know. Yeah, I Have some pretty thick veins and I obviously just hit those and creating that sort of explosion of blood So I have to go back to get all my shit from the kitchen I scurry back tail between my legs and it's probably like midnight 1 a.m At this point all the other chefs are cleaning up.

I walk into the kitchen and it's just an immediate onslaught of like, you fucking idiot, how did you do that? French brigade style. Exactly, like we had to cook an entire new duck because of you, like you put us in the weeds, all this kind of stuff, so of course with love. Well, that answers my question and I hate to admit this, but the whole time from the second you said you stabbed yourself, I've been dying to know if the duck had gotten

blood on it or was salvageable. Were you wondering? It's kind of like when I've had motorcycle accidents, my first thought is, is the bike totaled, not what is my body. And shout out to Dimitri. He was the chef de cuisine. That night I asked him when I came back and he was like, no, we had to throw the duck out.

So that duck did not make it to the plate. I mean, you just can't do it. No, you can't serve it to a customer, but I think they should have saved it for you because who gives a shit if some of your blood's on it? Like you should have been able to eat that duck. Yeah, I agree. And you should have ate it with great prejudice.

So they should have sat me down at a table and been like, this is your punishment. Eat this whole duck right now by yourself. This is your a hundred dollar fuck up. It was one of those nights that you simultaneously appreciate the chaos and I miss the chaos of the kitchen, but also like I'm so happy. I ended up working there for another six months a year, but that ended up being just like my last job in hospitality working in a kitchen.

Yeah, you got to be built for it. Certain breed. Yeah. My body sort of started to shut down. I had like health issues and everything and I just had to walk away. Well, let me ask you, did you even feel it or did you notice you were bleeding? I didn't feel it. I knew immediately that my knife didn't go through the skin of the duck.

The skin is this crispy. I knew right away. I saw it happen. It slid off the surface of the duck and just straight into my wrist. And then you saw the blood immediately. You know that you've done something terribly wrong. Do you watch the bear? I watch the bear. Some people in the industry don't love the bear. I think for the most part, the bear does as good of a portrayal of

the hospitality industry as anything has ever done. And I think the bear is pretty accurate. A lot of the people who write on the show and act on the show are in the industry. So I think that just gives it that feel that you're really in the kitchen. And had you read Kitchen Confidential at any point before you started?

Of course. I was like the idiot young cook who's like, oh, this is fucking sick. Doing blow and staying up all night and boozing it. It's this romanticization of the lifestyle. I feel like every young cook either watches Top Chef or something had to get you to want to do it. And definitely like Tony Bourdain stuff made a generation of young cooks for sure.

Yeah. I read that book was zero interest in ever being a cook. And I was like, Oh, I would have loved that world. And I was already sober when I read it, but I was like, that would have been great for me. You would have been great because you talk about like motorcycle racing and how it distracts you from everything else. And that's what it's like working in the middle of it, like a dinner service.

You can't think of anything else. It's order after order after order and it's precision and it's doing everything perfectly each time. You don't have time to think about any other problems. And then it's the nights, it's the weekends, it's not getting paid any money, which I think is a little better now. But at my time, I was getting paid nothing. Barely enough to get high. That was a great peek behind the curtain.

Yeah, I really enjoyed that. That was kind of like an education on the whole chef system. Oh, I'm sorry that happened, but Glad we got to talk to you. Glad you got to talk. Me too. If I could. the chef at 11 Madison Park, the chef de cuisine for most of my time there was Chef James Kent. He passed away on June 15th,

very suddenly of a heart attack, and he was an unbelievable mentor. He impacted so many lives in the restaurant community. He was like a father to me. He really was an amazing influence on that restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, and on so many different restaurants and cooks.

And I just wanted to dedicate that story to him. So this one's for Chef James. So yeah, I really appreciate you guys being able to let me tell it. Are you married? I have a girlfriend. She offered to buy more clothes to help with the sound quality but politely declined. Yeah, because I think Brian, you're such a catch. I love your catch. You don't understand. The only thing I wanted was validation from you. If you would just comment on me.

Oh, you're gorgeous and charming, yeah. Oh, you're incredible. You guys are the best. Thank you. All right, take care, brother. Bye. Yeah, what a babe. Yeah, I was going to say that after we got off.

That he was a babe? That he was a catch. Oh, yeah, yeah. Were you gonna use that exact word? That's the right word for him. Because he's adventurous and fun, and he's got this cooking history. You love chefs.

Second to magicians? If you had your pick between being married to a magician or a chef, what would you pick? A chef, obviously. Just because of the day-to-day? Yeah. Well, what if he did magic for you, though, every day? No.

Okay, we solve that. Hi. Hello, is this T did magic for you though, every day? No. Okay. We solve that. Hi. Hello, is this Tanya? I'm Tanya. Tanya. Help me out. Tanya, conventionally with an O or no? No.

Always with an A. I think often with an A. How do I know if someone's Tanya? Tanya Tucker. So my parents, they fought over it and my mom won cause I was born during the Indy 500 and my dad wanted Tanya with an O and my mom wanted Tanya with an A

and he didn't get to go to the race. Oh my gosh. So he lost on both fronts it sounds like. So there is a decision to be made Monica. You can spell Tanya with an O. I've never seen it. I've only seen it that way. Wow.

What do you think is more common Tanya? I get Tanya all the time, but I like being original. So my husband's from Hungary and my daughter spells Ava with an E. So we kind of have that in common. Spell Ava for me with an E. E-V-A. And it's Ava?

Yeah. Oh God, there's a lot going on over there. Where are you at? I'm in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Oh, wonderful. Well, I love Grand Rapids, Michigan. Oh, wonderful. I love Grand Rapids, Michigan. You've got a picture over your left shoulder of the Mona Lisa, and I think Mona's holding a cat in the photo.

I do a lot of pet art, and I love it when they're kind of derpy and silly, so we're in my art room right now. Oh, fun. Did you paint that Mona Lisa with a cat picture? No, I painted the banana the derivative of the comedian Okay, and I did these magnets and I have like a kitty derpy thing right here. You're fun Thank you. I can already imagine that you fucked up something in the kitchen. I just want to say that and that's a compliment Oh, thanks. Do you get a lot going at once? I do because I'm a Gemini

So I have to kind of multitask. But in this story, it was actually my mother who was cooking. Oh, okay. Great. Set the stage for us. What year? Where are we at? All right.

So we are in early 90s and we're in Wayland, Michigan. That's where I used to live. Where's Wayland, Michigan? It's 30 minutes south of Grand Rapids. Oh, okay. It's just me and my mom and my sister and my brothers are at my granny and grandpa's for the weekend. My mom, recipes weren't available, so she really loved Chinese food, and she loved to

eat something and kind of figure out what the ingredients are. She's like an armchair chemist. Yeah. So on this day, she wanted to try sweet and sour pork. She's in the kitchen and she's doing her thing. And then I'm about six years old and we have this bird named Homer. We're in the den and I decide while my mom's cooking that I'm gonna get Homer out.

And Homer is a cockatiel and it's my brother's bird. He's really beloved. He's named after the Simpsons because we love the Simpsons. And he can like do the Bartman when you go like this. He can like dance. Oh, wow. Are these the type of birds too

that live for a really long time? How long do these birds live? They usually live, I don't know, maybe 20 years. I'm just guessing. Okay, I've heard about people who have these birds that live like 50 years and then they die and someone's got to take them over. Have you heard about this, Monica? It's the larger ones, the parrots, I think. Okay. So Homer, I decided to get him out and his wings aren't clipped. So my mom's cooking. And then I'm trying to get Homer and I'm being like a good little girl. My mom said never to force him to be on your hand. I know this is a cooking story, but it'll. So I'm trying to get him to go on my hand. And then he like flies off and he lands on the ground. Now we live in a ranch style house and it's kind of like a horseshoe. So we're in the den and then there's

the living room, the dining room, and then the kitchen. Homer jumps down and then I'm following him and I'm trying to pick him up, trying to get him to go on my hand and he jumps up and he flies a little bit more and I try to get him to go on my hand again. And meanwhile, my mom's in the kitchen, sweet and sour pork, and she's cutting up the vegetables, heating up the oil. And she's cutting up the meat and she's getting it ready. Oh, God. We're going to need a big trigger warning. Yeah, this one's going to definitely require a trigger warning.

I know. I'm trying to get Homer, and then he finally gets sick of me and he books it and he's like head height flying through the house and I'm trying to go after him and he goes from the den to the living room through to the dining room and then he makes a right hand turn and my mom's just doing her thing. She's about to take the pork meat and put it in the 10 inch diameter pot that's half filled with oil. And she's about to, and then she hears the fluttering of the wings behind her and she turns around and she goes, Homer, no.

And Homer, he flew and then he missed her shoulder and then he landed in the pot. No, stop. No, Homer. Of all the places you couldn't fly to. There was only one eight inch area in the whole. This is awful. You're in so much trouble. Is your big brother's bird?

You're both of my brothers and I'm the little one. And he's in there and it's core memory like this is my earliest memory. Do you remember Terminator 2 and like the bad guy goes in the lava? Uh-huh. All the lava is just going like this and spraying everywhere. That was the bird. And then my mom, she gets the lid

and then my sister comes out and she's like, mom, get Homer. And she goes, no, it's too cruel to take him out. We have to let him die. He's done. And so we just sat there while he finished. I know no one can listen to this. I know, I know.

But listen, PETA, sometimes there's accidents. It was a horrible, tragic accident. I'm not an animal person, so I don't know what anyone's supposed to do in that situation. I don't fully disagree with your mom, like what he's just going to be burning. Well, yeah, additionally, I'd say the bird flapping its wings in the hot oil, potentially spattering hot oil all over the place, like there's many motivations at that point to get a lid over that pot.

Oh, how did he taste? Stop. My dad, when I called him yesterday to tell him, oh, I'm gonna be on my favorite podcast and I'm gonna tell the Homer story. And he goes, when your mom cooked it, it had no meat. What was she doing? It had no meat on it.

So I remember that. And then I remember like going in the refrigerator. I don't know what my mom was thinking, but she put Homer in a box afterwards. Do you follow up questions? So she puts the lid on, that's gotta be horrific while everyone's waiting for that to end. And then she turns off the heat, obviously,

and then she pulls him out. In what shape was he in? Do we know? Did you see? I don't remember that part. My poor child brain blocked out the rest of it by remember looking at the shoe box, but my brothers were coming home that Sunday, like the next day, and so my mom was frantic.

They didn't have internet, so she was like in the They didn't have internet. So she was like in the phone book calling pet stores. Like, I don't know. She was just trying to like soften the blow of my brother's bird dying. And then we tried to go to a few Meyers when they had a good pet store back then.

Yeah, good in quotes. I remember too. No luck to get a new one. Was her goal to pretend it was the same or just go, but we got you a backup? Homer couldn't be replaced. Like RIP Homer. Yeah.

He knew tricks and stuff. Oh my gosh. My brother, Chris, he would record himself saying like pretty bird, pretty bird on repeat and then playing it all day. This sucks. It's just very traumatic. This is perfect timing because that happened to my mom and my mom loved that bird last month, my mom, she babysitted my sister's house

and she brought her chihuahua, Lily. And then when she went in the garage to park the car and she let Lily out, the chihuahua, she hit the garage door opener and then the garage door, she guillotined Lily. I'm not joking. I'm not joking. Like I told my siblings, she has the worst luck.

Oh my God. But she's kind of like one of these husbands that somehow has lost three wives. At some point you gotta start getting suspicious. Like, what happened? She fell down the stairs, oh that one did too? Also the last time we had, well one of the last times we had a really upsetting animal incident story,

it was the woman with the bunnies. Yes, drove over the bunnies. Yeah, strove over the bunnies. And people were upset by that, obviously. Obviously she was the most upset by it. But then she had some other bad luck. Remember? The dog had fallen off the hogger. I feel like these things happen to people specifically.

They happen. I love these pets and accidents happen, and it's unfortunate, but it does happen. We love these pets, but it's just a fact of life. So I know it's a cooking prompt, like it was cooking. It was cooking. She was cooking. She was cooking. So she deep fried Homer. You'd think a bird of all animals would be able to just fly back up before falling in.

Well, it's when she turned her hands, he always would fly and land on her shoulder. And then it's when he turned that he just like missed the landing and just boom. Jeez, blind landing. Right in the grease. Oh man, that's gruesome. How mad were your brothers?

Did they let it out on you or were they kind about it? They were fine, I don't remember that, but they have made up for it over the years like everything I loved like something they killed No, no, no, just to like mess with me. We went camping last weekend and we did bring up gerbil gate I thought my gerbil squeakers died of starvation like as my mom said while that my dad's for the weekend But then like everyone is laughing around the campfire and I'm like what happened like there's always these secrets So that we want because they don't want to tell others. Wow.

But we had a good time. You guys have lost a lot of pets. You have, you've been through a lot of animals. I feel like if we kept talking, there'd be more. I know, I know, I think we might need to. Well, yeah, we raise our own meat here. You're in it. Yep.

Wow, that was quite a story. Poor Homer. Poor Homer, RIP Homer. Poor brothers. I care less about them. I care more Poor Homer. RIP Homer. Poor brothers. I care less about them. Poor little six year old. I care more about you as a six year old. My girls would try to be grown up.

And your mom. You know, when you're six. Yeah, of course. You're being extra careful, but it gets away from you because it is too big of a task for you. Well, Tanya, what a- Horrific story.

Horrific story. Thank you so much. It was very nice to meet you. Yeah, really fun meeting you, Tanya. I'm so happy for all your success. I'm such a fan and you guys deserve it and you guys are what the world needs. I love you guys so much, so thank you.

Oh, thank you. We love you, Beth. All right, all my love to Western Michigan. Bye. Bye-bye. Yeah, that's a Michigander right there. Oh, she's awesome. Can you feel the spirit?

Well, that was great. I knew cooking would deliver. As I said earlier, I was nervous they'd all be fire stories, but that wasn't the case. The fire in our home growing up was, did you guys ever have a kitchen fire monogam? No. I wonder how common they are.

It's always oil, or the occasional rag gets left next to a burner. That's scary. Well, now I'm scared. Okay, well be extra careful in your kitchen. I will. When you go home tonight, okay? Okay.

All right, love you. Bye. Do you wanna sing a tune or something? I wanna do a theme song. Oh. Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show So here I go, go, go We're gonna ask some random questions

And with the help of our cherries We'll get some suggestions On the fly, a rhyme dish random questions and with the help of Armcherry's Bookits and Suggestions On the flyer I'm dish, on the flyer I'm dish, enjoy!