Doughboys - Grocery Store Month: Trader Joe's with John Hodgman and David Rees

Episode Date: July 2, 2020

The creators and stars of Dicktown on FXX, John Hodgman and David Rees, join the 'boys to kick off Friendly Green Grocer Mitch's Grocery Store Month and review California-founded Trader Joe's. Plus, another edition of Family Food.Sources for this week's intro:https://touringplans.com/disneyland/attractions/opening-dates https://www.undercovertourist.com/blog/secret-history-disney-rides-jungle-cruise/ https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2013/04/its-a-jungle-out-there-the-history-of-jungle-cruise-horticulture/ https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/psychology-behind-how-trader-joes-became-a-favorite-grocery-store.html https://www.southernliving.com/trader-joes-history-of-name https://www.rd.com/article/trader-joe-history/https://www.traderjoes.com/our-storyAdvertise on Doughboys via Gumball.fmWant more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On July 17, 1955, Walt Disney opened his eponymous Disneyland in Anaheim, California, a city-sized theme park that would forever alter the amusement industry the same way he did for animation. Back on opening day, decades before Disney Park's fandom became an entire identity for weird childless adults, the park's footprint was smaller, the intellectual property and use consisted of recycled public domain children's stories, and the rides were simpler and fewer. Nazi-inducing spinulator, the Mad Tea Party, drunk driving morality play, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and a water adventure that navigated through a maze of non-native tropical fauna called The Jungle Cruise. Taking its inspiration from the John Houston film, The African Queen, and stocked with animatronic,

exotic animals in a narration script of cornball jokes, The Jungle Cruise was an early hit with park-goers and endures today, with some revisions to trim its problematic by contemporary standards content. And it's a ride on The Jungle Cruise that inspired another Southern California entrepreneur Joe Colombe to borrow the already-parrowed Tiki aesthetic for his own business, a specialty food store founded in 1967 in Basadena. At first, a gourmet grocer offering mostly international delicacies, the trend-conscious Colombe adapted to the changing taste of his California customers and was an early seller of the then-health food novelty Granola, which also introduced the store's own brand. By the 90s, Colombe's concept had morphed into

a more conventional full-service grocery store and expanded nationwide into the early 2000s, becoming known for its budget-friendly wine varietals nicknamed Two Buck Chuck. With over $13 billion in annual sales as of 2019, today, this grocery chain staffed by workers in the Loha shirts has inspired the same customer loyalty that exists in the pin-collecting annual pass holders who spend the bulk of their leisure time at Disneyland. This week on Doughboys, we begin our month-long review of supermarket eats. It's… friendly Green Grocer Mitch's grocery store month with Trader Joe's. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, along with my

co-host Jimmy Buffet, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. Not an insult. Two good things. You like Jimmy Buffet? Buffets? People were saying buffets aren't coming back, but then I saw The Wind Buffet as of this episode's release will have already been open for a couple of weeks, The Wind Buffet in Vegas. Unreal. Oh, great news. That's great news. I cannot think of a less hygienic situation. It's so… I can't believe they're doing it, but I guess people demand buffets that badly. The slot machine is going to come. You're going to get three coronaviruses right in a row. Oh boy. It's the opposite of a jackpot.

It is. Nick, we should be excited. It's the first episode of grocery store month. We'll get to that in one second, because there's some dispute over the name. I do have to say that. No, the dispute is you. That roast was courtesy of Jasmine from Vancouver, B.C. who writes, I usually wouldn't roast my beloved spoon without providing a coast to accompany it, but Mitch said he'd add me on Animal Crossing like two months ago and hasn't done it yet, so screw him. PS, I've attached a picture of my cats being cute and attempt to get Mitchie to hopefully forgive me. Here's a pic of these cute cats that I think you will appreciate.

Here's the deal. I posted my friend code multiple times, and then someone… There you go. You see those cats? They are. They're cute cats. There you go. And then if someone messaged me and says, hey, add me on Animal Crossing, I know there's a lot of numbers. It's a bad system. The cats are cute, though. Okay. Well, she's alleging that you, Jasmine, is alleging that you said you would do it and that you didn't follow up on it. All right. Well, what can I say? Who gives a shit? roastspoonman at gmail.com if you want to send an insult for Mitch at the top of the show, perhaps because he has wronged you in some way. And Mitch, so you mentioned that it's

grocery store month. This is the thing. Don't open up to people I've wronged. Inbox is going to be flooded. Mitch, you mentioned that it's grocery store month. Yes, it is. Welcome to grocery store month, something we've discussed a long time. We have, but I don't like the name because the issue is this is supposed to have some sort of pun, and you just shut down that discussion immediately because that's how it works. That's what we do on the show. That's your rule. It's not dose, dose a restore. That's stupid. It's grocery store. I think it's pretty good. I actually, what I let it on is, is dose re score. It's dose re score or month of grocery store reviews.

That sucks. And it's not it. It's the grocery store month is the grocery score. You're getting thumbs down from our guests. It's awful. They know I'm right. Anyways, how do you welcome the grocery store? A lot of times the images are inverted on Zoom. Inverted? So that's a thumbs up you're saying? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. How do you welcome the grocery store month? Here's a long, long awaited grocery store month. Here's a little drop for us, Nick, which I'm going to play for us live. Wow. Here we go. Oh, this is a Christian podcast. Our listeners know that.

Yeah. I don't remember any of that. When did we do any of that? That was very recently, I think. I think that was, I think that was the Ferguson episode. Anyways, that was from NT from the D who writes, high spoon, hope all as well. It's been a tough few months, but you and YG have been a source of fun and levity throughout. I've put together a drassy drop and I hope you can squeeze into a future episode. Speaking of levity, how about some brevity? What am I trying to say? Oh God, I know the joke here. What I am trying to say is that I kept it at a tight 30 to leave plenty of time for your goose. Really love you guys, and hope you can make it back to Detroit before the world implodes under the weight of mankind's

bloated ego. Black lives matter, defund the police, get the orange buffoon out of office, and just be nice for fuck's sake, sincerely, NT from the D. Some brevity in the drop, not really in the email. That email kind of went on for a little bit. Can't disagree with the message, but good to tighten that a bit. It was a long email, but good thoughts from NT from the D, so. Thank you, NT. People wanted us to play the drops live. What a huge pain in the ass it is. It will be edited well. Thank you, Emma. Not worth it, but not worth it. We did it. The guests heard it. We bored

the guests. We wasted even more of their time. We wasted more time, but it's now a thing that we can do. And hey, speaking of our guests, let's get them in here. Our guests are from a new animated show on FXX, premiering July 9th. John Hodgman and David Rees. Hi, guys. Hi. Thanks for having us on Grocery Store Month. Thank you. Welcome back, John. Welcome for the first time, David. Docery Door? What is it? Docery Score. Oh, I thought it was just Grocery Store Month. I think that sounds tough. Grocery Store Month. Yes, you're both right that it's Grocery. It's just Grocery Store Month. Grocery Store Month. Be a good name for a hardcore band. That's a hot t-shirt. That

merches itself. I agree. There's no effort behind Grocery Store Month. It's just saying exactly what it is. It's like if we called Munch Madness Food Contest. Food Contest is better than Munch Madness. Food Contest is fantastic. Food Contest is nothing. Food Contest is great. I think we should rename Munch Madness Food Contest. Sorry, Wags. It's Munch Madness. That's Canon. I got distracted because I'm sitting here in my office in Brooklyn looking out my window and there's a cardinal and a tree. Wow. Beautiful. It's a startling bird to see. I'm not a birder, but I know a cardinal one. I see one and this is one of them. I was on this branch and then it seemed to not flying,

not flapping, standing absolutely still without moving its feet. It floated up the branch while its little claws were still holding the branches like zipped up the branch. That's amazing. It was weird. It was beautiful and then it turned into a glitch in the matrix. It freaked me out. So I got a little distracted. What were you talking about? Yeah, food contest. Speaking of New York and birds, Nali and I were in New York City about 10 years ago and we were sitting in a little patio lounge area enjoying a beverage and a hummingbird started hovering right by us, right by a leaf and the leaf was just dispensing about every 15 seconds a single drop of water that was dribbling off of it and the hummingbird was just hovering

in place and as soon as that drop slid off the end of the leaf, it would turn its head and then just very elegantly drink it. Drink each individual drop as they slid off the leaf. I was like, this is amazing. How is he able to do that? How many mushrooms had you taken? No, I've never taken any sort of anything harder than, pot is as hard as I've gone. I've done pot, I've done alcohol, I've done tobacco, I've never done any sort of hallucinogen. Yeah, I heard you do pot on this podcast. Did we do that on the podcast? Yeah, you did it on the podcast. It was my very first 420 with those boys. Wow, that's right. It was with Gabriel. Yes, with Gabriel. And as I recall,

Weigar said, you know what we should really call this? Podcast, because it's a pun. That would have been fun. I would have stuck in my memory if we'd done that. Listen, David Reese, can I just, can I, so obviously Weigar, Mitchell, we know each other, but David Reese is one of my oldest and bestest friends and my collaborator in this new animated show called Dick Towns coming out July 9th. We'll talk about more about that later. In annoying detail. But can I just, let me just introduce my friend David Reese to the Doughboys listeners, if they don't know him. Please. David is my friend. He is a genius. He is the creator of the Get Your War On cartoon in Rolling Stone magazine. Weigar,

I know you're a fan of that. Love Get Your War On. Went on to become a literal artisanal pencil sharpener. People would mail him pencils and he would sharpen them and return them by mail for money and then wrote a book called How to Sharpen Pencils, which is a great book, literally about how to sharpen pencils and figuratively about the danger of the pursuit of perfection. Hosted a couple of seasons of a really great show on Nat Geo called Going Deep with David Reese, in which he was a how-to show for things you think you know how to do like shake hands and tie your shoes. And now we're working together on this animated show, which we'll talk about in a minute. Now, David, let me introduce you to these guys. How do you guys know each other

from the podcast? I bullied my way into the podcast to promote my book Vacation Landtree Stories from Painful Beaches, now available in paperback. Wherever books are sold or left behind, I think is probably more accurate at this point. So then I went on the show and we had a very nice time conversing and very quickly I learned a lot of details of the of the of the Doughboys universe. Nick Weiger played bassoon in high school. It's true. That's why I refer to him as double read. He is married to Natalie, whom I believe you met not in high school or in college. We met in middle school, but we did not start dating until after college. That's right. Wow. Yeah. So Natalie is his wife. Weiger has the voice that sounds like that.

He is from Southern California. That's right. He's a little bit of a heat seeker. He enjoys some hot sauce. Wow. Does not like leaving Southern California. Under duress visited the state of Massachusetts to do a live show with me. The Doughboys and I was a guest on it at the Solid Sound Festival in Western Massachusetts. I only mentioned it because it was a fun time. But Weiger said the most Weigary thing that I've ever heard Weiger say and my son was there to hear it and he and he thinks about it all the time and he just laughs to himself. Oh God. Which was Mitch who was from Massachusetts and Weiger were driving out west and they were and Mitch was so excited that Weiger was in Massachusetts and he said it was fine.

And Mitch was like there was a beautiful river there and there is. There's a beautiful the North River as you go along the Mohawk Trail out to North Adams, Massachusetts. This beautiful, gorgeous river and Weiger said it was fine. It was a fine river. It got the job done. Moving water. Yeah. Got the job done. Mike Mitchell as I mentioned is an act. So Weiger is a writer or something. Mike Mitchell is an actor in the forthcoming Tomorrow War. Wow. Yes. Yeah. Is that a movie? Yeah, it's a movie with Chris Pratt. He was going to be in a movie, but then this happened. I mean, they filmed the movie, but they're going to release it.

July 23rd. 2025. Is that Guardians of the Galaxy stuff? No, it's a different thing. All right. There's a different one. All right. Chris Pratt's in it though, right? That wasn't a lie. Chris Pratt. Chris Pratt isn't it? Why would I lie about that? No. Chris Pratt was in Guardians of the Galaxy though, right? Isn't he the main guy? Yes. Yes, he is. Yes. But he's not reprising as Star Lord. This is not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is its own intellectual property. Okay, got it. But if Marvel's listening, I'd love to take over that role of Groot. You'd be a fine Groot. Yeah. Oh, thanks, Nick. Groot is the tree. Groot is the tree. Groot is the tree. Mitch is from Massachusetts as well.

He's from Quincy, Massachusetts. Oh, really? Yeah. Yep. Oh. And he's an actor. But normally, every summer, he goes back to Quincy to sabotage his acting career for six or eight weeks or whatever, to hang out with his own set of Avengers-like teammates in Quincy. All these tough friends that he has. What are their names? Chankton? Chankton, Micus, Groot, Frailbot. Yeah. Can't forget Wu Tang. Wu Tang. Dano's in there, of course. Marty Joio, Dano. Now I'm going to get in trouble if I don't name some of them. Scoop, LD. All right. Nick can just name the rest of them. Right. I think I'm tapped out. Foxton, do we mention Foxton? Foxton's there. Yeah. Did you guys grow up together? No. Mitch and I did not know each other until

mid-twenties. We met doing the indie comedy, indie sketch comedy scene out here in Los Angeles. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Pre-Wiger, the golden years for me. Yeah. And as always, in the Doe Boys universe, the underlying, the friction and the tension that keeps it all together is these two guys yelling at each other, which I like to egg on as much as possible. We'll leave it at a simmer for now, but it may boil over at some point during the episode. But David, you mentioned the Massachusetts thing you responded to. Are you from Massachusetts? No, but I spent a lot of my 20s post-college. I was in Alston, which is Boston, and then Central Square, which has some bearing on today's grocery store, but we can save that for when we get into it.

So I lived in Boston from 94 to 99. Wow. Yeah, it was fun. I like Boston. I had a good time. So we have some real Massachusetts history among the three of you. I'm curious, David, as someone who hasn't been on the podcast before, we always like to talk about regional food stuffs. Is there anything that particularly tickles your fancy from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? Or from your home state of North Carolina? Or from North Carolina, yes. Wow. Well, I have to say that I'm not really a foodie. I love to eat. Wow. And I love to be surrounded by food. And I have amazing food memories. But I'm not... When I seek out extreme experiences, you know, they're not usually about going to restaurants and stuff. Although I do love,

I mean, I love restaurants. I would say that my main food memories from Boston are... I used to work with some Brazilians. And so some Sunday evenings, we would go to one of the many Brazilian buffets, the Codizio, you know, when they come around with the skewers of meat. How fun is that? That was always just like a pummeling experience, but really fun. Because Boston has a big... There's a huge Brazilian population in Boston. They have some great Brazilian restaurants. There was a Chinese buffet in Lower Alston, where I lived. And the thing I remember is that... This is so awesome. The buffet had lots of standard stuff, like noodles and, you know, vegetables and stuff. But it also would put crab rangoon as part of the buffet. So it was

like bottomless crab rangoon. Bottomless crab rangoon. Yeah, the most authentic Chinese dish. Beloved across mainland China. And there was one... What is... I don't know what it is. It is deep fried cream cheese, basically. With crab mixed into it. Well, I mean, yeah, a little bit crab, but, you know, for legal reasons. It's supposed to have crab in it. Right, yeah. I'm sure it did generations ago, way, way upstream. But I think by the time a crab rangoon hit this Chinese buffet, I wish I could remember the name of it. Anyway, the most crab rangoon I ever ate in one night. We hit that buffet on a Friday night and I had 12 crab rangoon. Wow. Oh, and I said another personal eating record in Boston, actually.

Also, while living in Alston, there was a pizzeria. And they had a special where if you ordered a large pizza, they would give you a free small pizza. It was a great... It was like for eight dollars. It was a terrific bargain. And again, on a Friday night, one night, I was alone and I ordered the pizza and had it delivered. I got my large pizza and my small pizza. And I just, this sounds like a sad memory, but it's actually a happy memory. I sat in my bedroom. This is back when I didn't have a bed. I spent my first two years in Boston without a bed. I was too cheap to buy a bed. I just slept on the floor. So I was sitting on the floor in my bedroom. And I ate the large pizza. And it was kind of like, well, this is the one chance in my life,

I can just go for it and set a personal best. And then I ate the small pizza. All in one night. It was incredible. You ate the pizza and its son? Yeah. Yeah. I basically ate an entire broken family of pizzas. That orphaned pizza, it watched you eat its dad and then you ate it? Yeah. Put it out of its misery. What is more perverse? Like, what is more inhumane? Is it to eat the dad first and then the son? Or is it to eat the child in front of its parent? I feel like the latter is almost like it's...

I got a question for you. Why? Why? Why are we going to go down this route? There's no reason. Honestly, I was made completely speechless by that. I thought this was a show about food and trauma. There's a running current on this show that Wiger might be a horrible pedophile. Oh, okay. That's fun. And murderer and robot. And murderer.

I'm a nice man. Yeah. Murder and robot. That's why I was saying that he should never take mushrooms because he will become the new zodiac killer or whatever happens. If he could not take any hallucinogen, it will... I feel like it would drive you mad, Wigs. I don't think it's going to make me violent. I'm not a violent man. I'm not saying... I mean, I just think that... You think I'm just over the edge. You think I'm pre-falling down.

Look how quickly your imagination went to cannibalism there. Well, I was thinking, first off, I did not... What? What? I did not offer that. That came from you. When the film of restraint is keeping you from becoming this monster. Michael Douglas just before falling down. I have like... I... But I'm just thinking in terms of like if this was like a Greek god scenario where someone is

being punished, you know, a mortal is being punished by a Greek god. Don't try to put it off on Greek myths now. There's nobody in the world that was figurative. Exactly. Yes. The Goya painting. You're just a lazy shut-it. That legit creeped me out, double read. That was weird. Weigar, you're a lazy shut-in version of Michael Douglas and falling down.

I feel like that's the only reason that hasn't happened yet. Right. It's just that you don't want to get up and out of your apartment. Yeah, I just complain online. Let's... Well, I just... Can I quickly say to David that your crab-rangoon record... Sadly, I beat that this afternoon right before we started recording.

Really? Oh, if I had some right here, we could go live to Rangoon to Rangoon. Manu and Manu. David, are you a man with a big appetite? Are you kind of a bottomless pit? Being self-quarantine during the coronavirus, I've gained... I have... Well, I've learned a lot about myself and I've also learned a lot about my body and my appetites.

I have always had a large appetite. And for years and years, especially in my 20s, I was still kind of slim because I was biking to work, I was swimming at the Y. My friend and I had a bodybuilding website, so we were going to the gym all the time and lifting weights. Wow. So I could put away a lot of food and still present as a slender person, although I've always had love handles.

Now... You could Rangoon it up then. Yeah, I could Rangoon it up and burn it off like... Also, I was in my 20s, you know, it was crazy time. You had the hot metabolism of a thousand suns. Metabolism, ah, bookily, it was crazy. Whatever the adverb of metabolism is. Now I'm much older and it's really starting to...

I went for a walk yesterday and I caught a reflection of myself in the mirror and there is a definite punch that I think I'm heavier now than I've ever been, but I'm also eating a lot late at night and I have to say I'm hitting a lot of that two buck chuck that Trader Joe's wine and that packs it on. So I do have a big appetite. Yeah, I'm a heavy eater, I guess you would say. The alcohol is killer and I didn't realize until... I mean, as I got older, the liquid calories really just...

Like I just add on the pounds. Yeah, totally. If I'm in a heavy drinking phase where that's how I'm dealing with stress or whatever, and I will add 10 pounds in a week and a half. It's ridiculous how much you need. And so like... Yeah, and aside from the appetite side of things, it's just like that's been the toughest thing for me to control, because you just do have

moments of where I'm just like, what's the point, you know? You're talking about during COVID times? Yeah, during lockdown. And I feel like that's been a part of my life in general, that nihilism. What's the point? What's the point? Yeah, but I mean, but it particularly feels... I was put off by Weigar's turn to darkness earlier,

the cannibalism one, but I fully endorse this turn to nihilism. I'm ready for this. I'm ready to stare into this abyss. Let's go. Weigar and I bond on this whole thing. We're in the same boat here. Yeah. What is the point?

What is the point? Well, I think that across the world, I would imagine there's a lot of weight gain going on from people who are stuck at home and can't exercise as much and are probably dealing with feelings of nihilism or depression or lethargy and just, you know, like, I've definitely just been going crazy food wise, I have to say. What's the craziest thing you've eaten in quarantine? Like anything that rivals dad, pizza, son, pizza? I mean, the sad thing is because I'm not really a foodie, when I go to the grocery store,

I usually just buy the same 10 things and then it just comes down to are they eaten over the course of two nights or a single night's, you know, rampage, like a Trader Joe's sharp New Zealand cheddar cheese, just like just throw back a whole. Yeah. I feel weird talking about this. Just eat a whole brick of cheese. Whole brick of cheese. Are you biting into that thing like an apple or are you like cutting off pieces?

No, I have to, you know, I play this illusion that I'm a gentleman and a gourmand, so I cut it up into slices and then, oh boy. Okay. So I also really like their peanuts, the 50 percent salted peanuts, not the unsalted peanuts and not the fully salted peanuts, but Trader Joe's has a 50 percent salt, which is just enough. And I'll make a big bowl of those and then I'll put slices of cheddar cheese on it. Hang on.

It's kind of like a salad. And then just alternate. Fistful of peanuts, fistful of cheese, fistful of peanuts, fistful of cheese. Yeah. And drink wine, but nothing, I mean, I don't think I've done anything too crazy like, yeah, there was one night I, you know. I'm going to tell you, David, we're all doing our best. Right.

We have to forgive ourselves. Right. We have to forgive each other, but that's really weird. Bowl of peanuts, bowl of cheese, come by. Well, those are my two, I think those are literally my two favorite foods, are peanuts and cheddar cheese. Yeah, I'm a little. I mean, I've been doing that.

This did not start. Oh, forever. This is not. No, because when I go home to North Carolina to visit my parents, my dad is from Wisconsin. So he always has a wonderful, sharp Wisconsin cheese that he had shipped in from his brother and in Wisconsin. And North Carolina has wonderful peanuts.

And so when I would go home to visit my parents, come home from a night, a night's revelry with my friends at the old haunts of our youth, I would come home and plot myself in front of the TV and watch, you know, local North Carolina cable access TV and eat peanuts and cheese. I think it's a comfort, you know, it's a comfort thing for me. So you're mixing like cubes of cheese in a, in a. Slices, not cubes. I think.

So a bowl of peanuts with slices of cheese on top of it. Well, yeah, on the side, like celery sticks. Okay. You know what I mean? Yeah, you're like alternating. You're not making like some sort of like peanut nachos. Well. Oh, you are.

That actually. If I had a microwave, I would try that. David, what are the, what are the peanuts that you turn me on to that you like so much from your youth? Well, this is actually a kind of a bummer. They're Aunt Ruby's peanuts. They're from Enfield, North Carolina. They're the best peanuts in the world, but it turns out.

No, I know. Aunt Ruby was a big supporter of the infamous bathroom law, the bathroom bill that Republican Governor Pat McCrory tried passing. So I'm kind of on a little bit of an Aunt Ruby's hiatus until they get their act together. I've just been eating Trader Joe's pizzas. Do you guys, other than, other than David, do you guys have a shame, shame snack?

Something you fixed up maybe in the dead of the night, maybe when you're alone that you're like, this is maybe, this is, this is weird, but it scratches the itch for me. Not to give the game away, although I suppose it's been given away in terms of what we're discussing today, but an item that I secured at the featured grocery store for grocery store month today.

grocery store month, yeah. You're just, it's just such bullshit. I just can't even, it's grocery store month. You could have engaged on, when we were trying to pitch what it could be called and you completely shut it down. No, and I said to you, it's called grocery store month and Suster said, yep, grocery store month.

We've talked about this forever. It's a thing I wanted to do. You didn't even want it to happen. Doesn't fit the template of what we normally do in Doe Boys, but continue your thought, Hodgman. What, the template that is the shape of your brain? You have to control everything? 100%. Thank you, Hodgman.

You're welcome. Fucking control freak. And fucking regular freak. You're two types of freaks. Cannibal fantasist. No, we're friends, double read. You and I, we're friends. Yeah.

And what I was going to say is, one of the items, maybe the solution, the worst thing that I do during quarantine is just have a big huge spoonful of peanut butter in the middle of the night. Oh, yeah, of course. And then I have another one. That's not that bad. That's okay.

That's healthy. That's just protein packing. That's good. That's not good at midnight. I don't think that's so good. I'm not as comfortable with myself that I would sit there with a big bowl full of peanuts and cheese. To me, this is a thing that I would eat when no one is watching.

And I have to, when I sneak out middle of the night in a hunger pang, but I think I've found, I think I've found an item that will replace that in the future, which we'll talk about. Oh, wow. I'll tell you sometime after the break. All right, wow. I've called it cheese. All right.

Because guess what? We're podcasters, too. Judge John Hodg podcast. David Reese has the election profit makers podcast. But listen, you guys, you go ahead. I have nothing. I was going to offer up my own spoon-based shame snack, which was not something I've done since I was a child,

but I would occasionally, Jesus, take a naughty spoonful out of the mayo jar. Oh, yeah. And put it directly in my mouth. Yeah, I've done that, too. Sorry. Yeah. Really?

You've all done that? Yes. Oh, what the fuck? I used to spread mayonnaise on matzah bread. mayonnaise on matzah? It's great. That was my treat growing up in elementary school. We would go by matzah bread.

We weren't Jewish, but it would always just be at the store, and we would buy it, and it's so dry. It drives me crazy. I love really dry, crunchy things. And I would put mayonnaise on it to give it a little moisture and a little fat. It's really good. I recommend it.

And you say you're not a foodie. I need a name for that. A spoonful of mayo is only made grosser by Weiger saying a naughty little spoon of mayo. Well, I knew it wasn't supposed to be doing it. I knew it was breaking some household rules. That was part of the appeal. I guess my own mind blocked this out.

My own shame filter blocked this out, but I'm going to be perfectly honest. I would sometimes have a naughty little spoonful of peanut butter and then get another spoon, obviously, and then have a naughty little spoonful of mayonnaise. And by little, I mean a full tablespoon. Really? Wow.

That's gross. Yeah. I love both of those things. You know me, I don't. You should have had the mayonnaise first, and then the peanut butter would be dessert. That's weird. You did it backwards.

That was a sandwich, wasn't it? Yeah, people have a peanut butter and mayo sandwich. That is a sandwich some people will. Really? That, like peanut butter and pickles, is a sandwich I've never tried that maybe I would like, but it sounds revolting on the surface. Right.

But I trust someone who says, no, it's actually good. I've just never deigned to try it. I'll eat peanut butter and mayonnaise in quick succession. Sure. But I would never dignify them with bread. Yeah. It might work, though.

Mitch, you must have something. You must have some snack you've had in your past that you are maybe, it's maybe a little embarrassing. No. Not really. There's no food consumption in your life you're ever like a little bit ashamed of? I mean, I'm just ashamed by the amount.

What was that pizza that you were eating at the top of the professional podcast that you're hosting? It's for the podcast. Oh, it is? That's right. I thought it was an unrelated frozen pizza. An unrelated pie, mid-show? I mean, it's not unprecedented.

I don't eat pies, mid-show. I got two more things here, too, that I have to snack on. You got those things. We won't say what they are, but I got some things. You're just holding up a couple food items. Wow. Your palate is very different than mine. You're attracted to very different foods than I am.

That's interesting. This is just a small taste. Okay. All right. The thing in that crackly little bag that you held directly into the microphone is something that I was... Something that I was very tempted to get myself as well, Mitch,

but I didn't for reasons we'll explain later. For some people who listen to the podcast, that was it for them right there, that whole crinkly thing into the microphone. They're done with the... They probably turned it off now. That's what they're waiting for? I thought they got some kind of ASMR hit from it.

They're always waiting for the get... They're waiting for the crinkle. Yeah. Some people hate the crinkly. Some people like the crinkly too much. And that's basically most of our listenership. Right. One of those two polls.

Nick, can I just say some things at the top of grocery store month before we start discussing this podcast? Sure. This store, this podcast. One... This is... Oh, this is the top of grocery store month. This is the first episode of grocery store.

Oh, awesome. This is great. You started with the best. That's incredible. Forget the rest. Mitch, I mean, sorry. Nick, tell us what it's all about because you're the one in charge.

I don't. I mean, I don't have anything. I mean, they're cute up. No. This is Mitch's baby. Mitch is rubbing his eyes in frustration, but it looks like a panda bear crying. There's a few things you're going to take into consideration here.

It's pretty straightforward. We're just reviewing grocery stores, right? There's not a big list of parameters. Yeah, but there's a lot of things you're going to talk about. There's a lot of things you're going to talk about. One off the top of the bat. This is the thing. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

I'm sorry. Mitch, I apologize to you because I realize now this is not Grocery Store Month. This is Green Grocer Mike's Grocery Store Month. It's your grocery store month. Green. Ah, I just poked my eye. That's not easy to do, Mitch.

Green Grocer Spoon Man, your neighborhood grocery store. Can I be Trader Joe himself? It's just the point is it's yours. I am. Yes. All right. I am giving Grocery Store Month to you.

Green Grocer Spoon Man's Grocery Store Month. That just flows perfectly. Green Grocer Spoon Man's Grocery Store Month. That's what it is, Weigar. Look, we'll workshop it. We'll refine it, Mitch. No, no, no, no. That's fine.

The important thing is two points. One, it's yours. Totally yours. Totally your control. Two, no puns. I agree. Green Grocer Spoon Man's Grocery Store Month. Green Grocer Spoon Man's Grocery Store Month.

Weigar, that's what it is. And there's some, you know what? Here's some rules for your Weigs. Okay. There's some things you're going to take into consideration with Grocery Store Month. One, the actual grocery store itself. How's it looking?

How's it feeling? Two, the parking. The parking is also an issue with Grocery Store Month. And we can get into that today because you know what? One of the big faults of today's grocery store is the parking. Three, produce. Uh-huh. Proto, produce.

Writing this down. Produce, produce. That's all. Four. Oh, that's a category. How many lines should I say for this? I wish we'd known in advance. I would have gotten some more.

I would have focused my purchasing more on produce. That's all right. Shut up. Just shut up. Four, snacks. Original snacks. Five, frozen snacks. Six, room temp snacks.

There you go. That's everything in Grocery. Oh, wait. Seven, check out. This grocery store is going to crush in all these categories, except maybe produce. I don't know. This is a guaranteed winner because you're hitting all this

grocery store strengths and you're also hitting all the reasons I love it. Wow. That is, you know what? And I get what you're saying, but I think there's some things for me that bug me a little bit with it. Oh, wait. One last one. Eight is a hoity-toidiness.

That's the last one. Hoity-toidiness? Oh, I like this. Emma, can you remember all these categories? Sure. This is what I got. Overall impressions, parking, produce, snacks, frozen snacks, room temperature snacks.

It's okay. Wait, wait, wait. Isn't that the snacks? Sorry, sorry, sorry. I know. I don't know. That seems like another weapon. No, keep frozen.

Keep frozen and unfrozen apart. Cold not frozen snacks. So that can be drinks. Cold drinks do. What? What? A drink, it's a snack? Hey, hey, hey.

It's Mitch's grocery store month. There's a thing you've completely neglected here, which is not applied to this week's chain, which is hot bar. But that's a big part of a lot of grocery stores. They have some sort of hot food they sell. That's an issue though, Wiger. That's what I said. The Trader Joe's, the watch we're viewing this week,

should not even qualify because it doesn't serve hot food. Well, none of them serve hot food right now, right? None of them serve, I mean, you can go, you can go to some of them and get something from behind the counter. Yeah, you go to the Win Buffet in Vegas, you're fine. Also, Wiger, this is why the grocery store month, the hot food bar was going to be the doubles. That's what we talked about.

I don't think we, I don't think we, I think we settled on this in a hurry. And I think the fact that you're making up eight rules on the fly right now speaks to your lack of preparation, your lack of thought into this concept. Oh, shut the fuck up, you fucking dork. Listen to me, Wiger. I had this idea forever and I said the hot bars were the doubles. Susser can back me up on this.

You said the hot bars should actually be the main episodes, that's what we thought about. I agree, I stand by that. That's weird. Weird, it is weird. I agree, it's very weird. Hot bars should be the main, Hot bars should be the main episode?

Weird, and I said no. Well also, what are we saying? Now hot bars are gone, so it is just the episode is the grocery store. If we're going to Kroger, are we only reviewing Kroger brand snacks? Is that what you say, like everything has to be store brand? Yeah, I think that's what it should be. I'm sorry, I thought you said if we're going to Kroger

and I got very nervous for a second. Do you mean from the last season of Seinfeld, who George Costanza worked for? Freddie Kroger, you fool. Time to ring you up, bitch. We'll be back with more dough boys. We're going to break? Welcome back to dough boys.

We are here with John Hodgman and David Reese for Grocery Store Month. But before we get into that. No, no, no. Friendly Green Grocer Spoon Man's Grocery Store Month. What was it again? Friendly Green Grocer Spoon Man's Grocery Store Month. We're here for friendly, we're here with John Hodgman and David Reese

for Friendly Green Grocer's Mitch Grocery, Friendly Green Grocer Mitch's Grocery Store Month. No, you're intentionally getting it wrong. Better every time. Friendly Green Grocer Spoon Man's Grocery Store Month. Friendly Green Grocer Spoon Man's Grocery Store Month. Grocer Mike's Grocery Store Month. Would be one way to say it.

And look, and also by the way, we decided to do Trader Joe's and then after the fact we decided to say that it was Grocery Store Month. Yeah, we kind of retconned it. So this was a scramble. So there was not much time to prepare. Now what? Because we didn't prepare up to your liking,

you're just not going to take part. You're going to be a little stinker. You're going to be fucking- I'm taking part. I'm participating. You're going to be a baby with his diaper full. You're going to be just a little baby about the whole thing. If there's no hot bar, it's not a grocery store.

Look, that is my official position. But I'm going to, no, I'm going to roll with it. This is Green Grocer Spoon Man's- Oh cool, you're going to roll with it? Yes, I'm being flexible. Wow, what a great guy. You had plenty of time to pull this together. But that said, before we get into-

Before we talk about this week's chain, I want to talk a little bit about Dicktown on FXX for airing July 9th, which should be shortly after this episode releases. But tell us a little bit about the show. Well, look, I do a lot of different things. David Rees does a lot of different things, but we've been friends for a long time.

This is our first real collaboration, and it was a total delight. David and I wanted to do an animated detective show. And what we came up with was this show called Dicktown, in which my character, John Hunchman, is a former child detective, like an Encyclopedia Brown. Got it.

But now he's grown up and he's a sad man in his 40s, living alone, still solving crimes for teenagers. And David Rees plays David Purifoy, my former high school arch enemy in bully, who has also failed to thrive, and now lives and now works as my driver and enforcer and unlikely friend in Hunchman Investigations, all in the fictional town of Richardsville,

North Carolina, AKA Dicktown. Wow. And that is the concept. That was a good summary. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a mystery of the week.

Each week there's a new high school kid who comes to John with a mystery to be solved. Yeah. And each week I lament the fact that I am still only employable by children. Right. Got it. Sounds like Waggard's dream job.

John's character lives on a houseboat, which is kind of cool. Oh, I love that. I love a houseboat detective. Yeah. Houseboat detective is a trope. And in the first episode, we have our friends Gene Gray and Zach Alfinakis

doing voices. Wow. Aleph Tompkins and Janie Haddad Tompkins do voices. John Glazer, John Benjamin, all these amazing folks came in and did stuff. Kristen Schall, Griffin Newman from Blank Check, and the famous Tombstone Week. What a lineup.

It's great. You know how it's so easy to watch television these days? I mean, television, it's everywhere, right? Yeah. It's on your phone. It's on a seat back of an airplane back in the before times days. You can stream it to your screen

or your streams or whatever. Look, FX said, no, it's too easy. Too easy to watch television. Too easy. We don't want to make it easy for people to watch Dick Town. Stop spoiling these babies. We want to turn them into little detectives, too. The case of the missing TV show.

So, no, they're wonderful, of course. But if you want to watch Dick Town, and I hope you do, the first of 10 episodes comes out July 9th. Airing at 10 p.m. on FXX as part of their half-hour short-form comedy show, Cake. So, it's an anthology show called Cake. That's going to be the listing.

And embedded within there, among all the other genius cool stuff that they're shipping out to Stoner's late at night, is our show, Dick Town. Hell yeah. And then that will happen Thursday after Thursday after Thursday 10 times. And then our stuff is done.

You can continue to watch Cake if you want. But it goes out 10 p.m. Thursdays on FXX. Trust me, you have it somewhere. Or check it out the next day streaming on FX on Hulu. And then I believe later, once they all stream through on Cake, the individual episodes themselves will be available. But for now, it's... I think they're available as standalone episodes on Hulu the next day.

Is that true? I think so. We'll need more clues, but I think that's true. There's only one way to find out. Solve the mystery. Watch Dick Town at 10 p.m. on Thursdays as part of Cake on FXX. And then check out FX on Hulu to see what form it takes then. Thank you.

Classic TV mystery. Yeah, we had a lot of fun. Check that out on Cake. And hey, moving from Cake the show to Cake the food, which is something you might find at Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's headquartered in Monrovia, California, east of LA, founded by, there is a Trader Joe, Joe Colombo, who Joe Colombo, I believe is how you pronounce his name,

who started the company. It is the same corporate ownership as Aldi, which is a German grocer and has over 500 locations. So David and John, when we went to you, we were like, hey, what chain would you want to cover? David, you came back hot with Trader Joe's, specifically Trader Joe's frozen meals, which you said are sustaining you during our current crisis.

I have incredible brand loyalty and enthusiasm for Trader Joe's grocery stores. I think they're one of the great American grocery store chains. And I think of the Trader Joe's that I used to go to on Court Street in Brooklyn when I lived in New York City is probably my number three or four restaurant. I mean, my number three or four grocery store of all time for life. Wow.

I think it's just a magnificent grocery store. It's in an old bank. And because I worked from home, I was rarely like going into the grand buildings of Manhattan for work or anything. And so going into that grocery store every week was like my one exposure to grand architecture, being in that Trader Joe's with its incredibly high ceilings.

So much higher. Most New York City grocery stores have really are really claustrophobic. Right. And that Trader Joe's had these glorious, high old timey bank ceilings. And I just think Trader Joe, I just think it's the best. I think Trader Joe's, I respect it. I think its aesthetic is incredible and stimulating.

I think the whole way that they that they present. I think Trader Joe, I'll put it like this. Trader Joe's has a very unique aesthetic of abundance that runs very counter to most American grocery stores. And ironically, kind of makes me even more excited to eat their food. And I think Trader Joe's is the best. And I think their snacks are the greatest. I think their frozen snacks are terrific.

And I think their room temperature snacks kick ass too. Wow. Yeah. What about that cold but not frozen snacks? Cold but not frozen. I don't like those kinds of snacks. I only like extremes. Got it.

Wow. That includes like pre-made sandwiches and so on, Weiger, by the way. Trader Joe's does have a few things in there. I don't know if you would call it their deli case, but they do will have little to go things. I think little sandwiches. Yeah. Some pre-packaged salads, pre-packaged salad.

I never get that stuff. I just go for groceries. I love groceries and I've eaten so many fucking groceries since this coronavirus started. I haven't had takeout but like three times in the last three or four months. Right. Right. I'm really homesteading.

I love grocery stores very much. And when I am driving, when I go, when I'm with my family and I see a grocery store and I say I'm going to go in there, my children beg me to not do it because they know they will not see me for hours. Wow. I find them profoundly calming, interesting. I love looking for weird regional or off brand foods. I just love the feeling of that cold AC on my upper arms.

And I love the chaos of certain grocery stores or supermarkets. And I love the clean lines and curated atmosphere of others. I just love going in there. That feeling of I can make any food I want tonight. I buy any of this. What I'm saying is I love grocery stores. And yet, even though my quick glance at the Wikipedia page just now informed me that the first Trader Joe's is a West Coast chain.

It started in Pasadena or something. Probably talked about it already. Yep. The first East Coast store historically, the first historic East Coast Trader Joe's, Brookline, Massachusetts. I've been to that Trader Joe's. That's what I wanted to talk about. How exciting.

1996. 1996. Exactly when I was living in Boston. And I have a memory of going to this crazy grocery store called Trader Joe's and being like, this place is so funky. I've never been. Is this a chain or is this one man? I didn't know Trader Joe wasn't just like, my name is Trader Joe and this is my bodega.

Welcome. One of Brookline's famous local eccentrics. Yeah, right. I remember going to that Trader Joe's and I was probably there very early because that's when I was living in Boston and looking around and being like, wow, this is really crazy. It has like clip art cartoons on the walls and everything's handmade, but it kind of feels like a chain. Like what is this grocery store?

Yeah. And I would go there too when I would be coming home from college or visiting, well at the point I was living in New York, but I'd go there too. But here's the thing, as much as I love grocery stores, I never thought of Trader Joe's as a grocery store until today. What did you think it was? Because I would go in there and I'd be like, people are wearing these Hawaiian shirts. Everything, all the shelves are low.

Everything is branded Trader Joe's. There's a lot of prepackaged snack food. And I was like, oh, this is just a novelty. This is a novelty store. You thought it was like a Halloween store? Well, just like this is like, you know what, I mean, I think probably I think probably because of the same kind of semi-problematic cultural appropriation of Trader Joe's taking the tiki style.

It reminded me a lot of old school Banana Republic. You remember old school Banana Republic when it was a quote unquote safari store? Right. Mitch, you ever go to the Banana Republic in Quincy Market with the Jeep coming out of the window? Oh yeah, I've seen that before. That sounds awesome. Like a planet Hollywood is like crashed into it? Yes.

Yeah. It was all like Indiana Jones themed and all of the clothing was like safari vests and pith helmets. I mean, for a weird 13-year-old only child like me, it was heaven. That was exactly where I went. And though I might want to buy all of my clothes and pith helmets there, no regular person, that would be a spice that no regular person would do their whole wardrobe shopping with this novelty store that would get maybe one pith helmet for a sundae or whatever and otherwise go to a normal clothes store.

That's how I felt about Trader Joe's. Yes. You can't go and do all your grocery shopping there. It was like a dinner party store is what you mean. It's like this is where you go before you're 24 and you have your first dinner party in your new apartment. We're going to go to Trader Joe's and get some cheap wine, some cheese and crackers. Bean and cheese tucky toes.

Right, some funky stuff in a bag. But I'm telling you, it's a legitimate grocery store. That's what I figured out today when I went into your Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's is a real grocery store. Hodgman, did you ever buy yourself a nice little outfit and then go upstairs to the comedy connection at Faneuil Hall and take in Robert Schimmel on stage or something? No, I was a catcher rising star guy in Harvard Square. That's where I saw Jerry Seinfeld before he had his show.

How exciting. Jeremy Chipman said, do you want to go see Jerry Seinfeld to catch your rising star? I said, I don't know who that is. He said, oh, he's a great comic I saw on Letterman. And I went and he was good. There you go. I went there. What a rising star to catch.

I caught that rising star. But you know what? Wow. He shook me. He shook me. I could have destroyed his career right then. I could have held him down. I was like, no, no, no, no, no.

Don't talk to Larry David. Me, I'm going to be your collaborator. Barely escaped my claws. Hodgman, that Pizzeria Regina in that fanio hall is also not bad. It's one of the better ones. I don't want to go down the Pizzeria Regina walk. Yeah, there'll be a 10 minute detour. I've only got two days to record this podcast.

I will say that your characterization of it as a specialty store, Hodgman, is interesting because SoCal is the home of Trader Joe's. I grew up with it, and it was in Long Beach, the weird store down by the marina, that really was akin to, I'm trying to think of another chain that's similar, but like a cost plus. I don't know if everyone's familiar with cost plus. Not at all. Like a world market, like a place where it would be.

Yes, where you kind of go in and it's less about like we've got proper groceries. Like I watched the slow dissolve over the decades as it turned into a more traditional grocery store offering just produce and proteins like you would at a standard store. But it used to be a place where you'd go and get weird nuts and liquor and specialty sodas. It was like an imported candies. It was like a specialty food store that eventually became. I was talking about Trader Joe's. Old Trader Joe's now?

Old Trader Joe's was like a specialty food store that became a grocery store. So yeah, it definitely has those elements in terms of how, like I think just in terms of how the store is presented, it's still kind of, you still kind of feel that heritage a little bit. It's kind of swimming against the current actually, you know. It's gone from being niche and oh, isn't this an interesting little cracker to kind of becoming more of a general purpose place for your staples, whereas so much of America's food culture has moved in the opposite direction,

where there are people who will just walk around all day just going from interesting food store to interesting food store, right? Things have gotten more specialized and Trader Joe in his wisdom has become more general. But not too general. It's still, the stores don't have a massive footprint versus some other, you know, like Megalith grocery stores. It's still a smaller, more compact store with streamlined fare. A lot of times they offer one of, you know, its category.

There's one brand of chicken that you can get. That's the best thing about Trader Joe's. I love that. But it's all Trader Joe's picks. It's mostly Trader Joe's brand and some of them are other picks that they have. I think it's over 80% Trader Joe's brand. Yeah. Well, see, that's what, it's like, you know what, David, you say you're not a foodie

and you kept saying that over and over again with such dripping contempt for foodieism. And yet Trader Joe's is your favorite grocery store. That's, that's a, I think one of the reasons that it's, it's, it grew in popularity, particularly during the high food network era of the late 90s, is people were deciding that they were going to, that they were going to do what they were doing on television and start paying attention to food in a different way. And Trader Joe's offered them a sort of wacky permission structure to look at food as a

lifestyle accoutrement, as opposed to just a slab of meat they eat at dinner. So when you go into Trader Joe's, you're like, what is this? Why am I waiting in line for the Jungle Cruise? What's happening here? It's a curated world. And that, and it's specifically, literally curated is like, we have those one chicken thigh. We have marinated this for you. Like it's this like fast casual lifestyle brand that you are a part of the moment you enter into it.

But the, but the reason it works is because they have, it's the thing about abundance. Okay. When I go to a big, huge massive grocery store and there's a whole aisle that's just tomato sauce. And it's like being at the Home Depot, it's like simultaneously very comforting because, oh, I live in a time of abundance and plenty. Nothing bad will ever happen. I'm surrounded by tomato paste options. But then also I get creeped out because it's like, you know, there's just a lot of food waste

and it's just kind of a gross feeling. It's too much. And then you go to Trader Joe's and Trader Joe's is like, we have Trader Joe's tomato sauce. Take it or leave it. Boom, done. Trader Joe's out. You know, it's like the Apple store. This is the, this is the thing you can buy.

It's kind of like that, but it's yeah. Yeah. And so that's why I like it because I get anxious when there's too many options. You know, like analysis paralysis, analysis paralysis. Yeah. Trader Joe's I think is good for someone like me because I'm sure the tomato sauce is going to be fine. You know, like I don't need a bunch of options.

I'll go crazy and I don't have my palate is not sophisticated enough where I'm like, oh, but they don't have the tomato sauce that has whatever the onion in it. Don't get me wrong. I had a great experience there today at that one in the bank on Court Street. That's what I went this morning. And what I learned when I went there is maybe it's changed and evolved as Nick said, or maybe I just couldn't see through my own prejudices that that is a it's a legit grocery store that I could get everything there and I will.

I will go again. Hodgman, you bring up you bring up you bring up a good point that it feels like you're in line for the jungle cruise. But an issue I have is there's no ride. It doesn't give you the ride. You know, it's all the store is the ride. Boy, the store is the ride. You know what?

I have another issue too. There's cartoons everywhere. There's stuff to read. There's little signs. There's all these different types of food. Yeah. That's what they learned. That's what they learned from Disney.

The art of queuing all that queuing all those lines are are are very cleverly decorated to keep you engaged. I love the jungle cruise, but hasn't there ever been a time when you get on that boat and you're like, I wish I could go back in that line. Just a bunch of dumb robots underwater. Jungle jungle cruise maybe is the example of the line is better than the ride. I think that that's that is a huge possibility. I was going to say Trader Joe is also missing out on a big opportunity to have a mascot.

Like I said, I mentioned this for a little bit before, but Trader Joe himself, just a rough, a gruff guy who fucking trades. He trades for groceries. You auditioning? Are you auditioning? I maybe I'm auditioning a little bit. You know what I had to do? Do you know what I had to do to get you those peanut butter stuff pretzels?

I had to trade my soul away. Things like that. One quarter portion. Is that Trader Joe? Little un-car plot. Now I'm worried about Greengrocer Spoonman's objectivity over the course of this month. If you're trying to offer yourself up as the face of Trader Joe's. Look, I'm going to audition for every mascot.

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. I hope you know what? I hope they hear this. I hope he gets it. I hope he leaves this podcast and becomes a huge star. I don't want to hold him back the way I almost held back Jerry Seinfeld. Well, we should get into what specifically we got because there's a lot to discuss and

there are eight categories to break down apparently. It's actually 10. It's finalized now. All right, fine. There's 10 categories. So David is holding up one of the items that he demanded we get. And I did get them. This is one of the frozen meals.

These are the mac and cheese bites. David, do you want to describe these and why you are such a fan? Sure. So I started picking these up at my local Trader Joe's a couple months ago. The packaging. What they are. These things are so terrific. These are breaded deep fried balls that are stuffed with mac and cheese.

Yeah. And you put them in the oven and you heat them up and then you just go nuts. And so I was in the frozen food aisle looking for fun stuff to heat in the oven. And I saw the image of these breaded balls. And I love breaded ball stuff like takoyaki, you know, like the deep fried breaded octopus balls you can have. Japanese cuisine stuff. It's so good.

So I looked at it and then I saw, oh, wait a minute. It's actually filled with mac and cheese. I'm not crazy about mac and cheese. Yeah, you saw that it was going to be stuffed with crab ringoon. Yeah, exactly. I used to eat a lot of mac and cheese. I used to eat a lot of Annie's mac and cheese, the one with the bunnies when I was again in my 20s.

And I felt like maybe I've eaten enough mac and cheese, but I have to try this because if they can pull this off, then that's a moonshot and I want to ride on that rocket ship. So I took them home and, you know, you just heat them up. They're frozen. You heat them up in the oven. And then I thought, I don't like their serving suggestion. Their serving suggestion looks like you're supposed to dip them in like, what is that, marinara sauce or something?

They picture marinara sauce, which I expected to be included in the box. Oh, no, no, they just give you the balls. You have to sauce them yourself. And I thought, well, they're not mozzarella sticks. I don't want to do marinara sauce. So I came up with my own custom dip that I'll share with everybody, which is really simple. Life hack. It's just mayonnaise and sriracha.

And so you heat up these mac and cheese balls and then you can eat them with a fork and dip them in a mixture of mayonnaise and sriracha. It's so freaking good. It's the most excited I've been about food since quarantine started. Trader Joe's mac and cheese bites. That's a great ball hack. Yeah. Mayo and sriracha will plus up pretty much anything.

I will say I got some of these. I was again, taken aback that the marinara dip and sauce is not included. But that said, I put them in the oven. It's clear. You'll never let that betrayal go. That is a grudge you'll take to your grave, obviously. 100%. Yes, of course.

Yeah. But the- 10,000 years ago when your robotic form is traveling through the galaxy, where was the marinara sauce? I will say that these are ones that definitely- It is not logical. They pictured the marinara. There is no marinara.

I am the last living life form. On whom can I take my vengeance? I am Gigalo Joe. From AI? I was wondering. I couldn't make that. Couldn't print. That's Jude Law in AI.

Yeah. Yeah, right. Boy, me as Gigalo Joe is going to disappoint a lot of- Disappoint a lot of patrons. Remember how Gigalo Joe always hung around with that kid robot? Weird, right? It's tracking. And I'm like your teddy wags.

Oh, boy. I'll meet you at the flesh fair, my friend. Let me say the mac and cheese bites were very, very good. They really benefit from being in the oven or the toaster oven, because that's the only way they crisp up. I don't think- They don't even have microwave instructions on the box. They do not.

You're not supposed to put these up in the microwave, but I thought they were very, very tasty. And the way I basically went through all of my Trader Joe's options, because Trader Joe's is pretty much my default grocery store, but we almost never buy these kinds of things. We basically never buy frozen meals prepared- It's just not what we go for. You're not in the frozen snacks category at all?

We're not really in that category at all. It would be like we'll buy a salmon filet and some bok choy and cook that up if we're going to the grocery store. But I will say that the mac and cheese bites were- The way I categorized these things was worth the calories or not. The mac and cheese bites definitely worth the calories. I thought they were delicious. I thought they were a real highlight of this whole experience.

Hodgman, did you get those as well? Of course I did. Of course I did. In honor of my friend David Reese and this podcast. Wow. Yeah, of course. What did you think of them? Let me say this.

I could not believe my eyes when I don't heat things up in the microwave, but when I saw that that box did not have a microwave instruction, I was like, oh, this is something special because- Because I think there is pretty much a law that any pre-prepared thing that's got to be heated up, like that they have to put the microwave on because no one's ever going to do the oven at this point. People are too lazy.

They're like, Trader Joe's like, no, you got to remember how to use your oven at the very least. Heat it up to 425, preheat it, put it on a baking sheet 17 to 19 minutes. Now I did 17 in the middle rack of the oven. Real specific. Yes. I did 17 and then I observed the two minute cooling period that was also asked of me.

And I put them out and the two human children who live in my house, one of whom was a very picky eater said, I want to eat that. And she did, which was like delicious. And then my son, who's a more Catholic in his taste, just ate the rest of them, loved them, barely saved one for me. My only thought was, even though I observed the resting period, the cooling period, for a frozen snack category item, this is dangerous, dangerously hot in the middle, even after only 17 minutes.

You got to really let those things mellow because I came close to burning them. Or cut them in, split them with your fork in the bowl and let it steam off for a minute and then cool it off with mayonnaise. It's like the pork soup dumpling. You got to puncture it a little bit to let some of that steam out or else you're going to get a real hot mouthful. Mitch, did you get those? I learned my lesson.

Did you get those mac and cheese bites? I certainly did, Wags. What did you think? I got a, the number of items I got is probably, I mean, I got quite a bit. I liked the mac and cheese. We all got a lot of items. I don't think we're going to be able to spend a bunch of time on each of them. But let's, we'll just highlight a few.

But tell me about the mac and cheese bites. The mac and cheese bites, I thought were well, Nick, they were well done. I cooked them in my air fryer. I cooked quite a few things in my air fryer and it did the job. They were great. I mean, the thing that beat them, the only thing that beat them of kind of the frozen snacks I got were the mozzarella sticks. And those were just some great A mozzarella sticks from Trader Joe's.

Really? They were better than the mac and cheese bites? I liked them better than the mac and cheese bites. They were really, really good. Do they have mozzarella sticks with peanuts stuck into them by any chance? I feel like the, I wonder, it feels like the mac and cheese bites are almost engineered for oven heating. And I feel like the mozzarella sticks maybe wouldn't heat up in the oven as well,

versus you having the air fryer is kind of like a little cheat code. I feel like that might have plus them up a bit. Well, my feeling with the mac and cheese bites was that they were still, they're still like a little bit hard to handle. They're still kind of like, they're still messy by design because they're mac and cheese bites. Yeah. And the mozzarella sticks, the mozzarella sticks were pretty perfect. I mean, it was like if I went to a restaurant and got mozzarella sticks, it was great.

And I also had, from sadly, left over from one of my diet meals, which shows you what goes on on this podcast and how I'm just going to die in a couple of years, no matter what. I had a side of marinara sauce that I used for dipping with my mozzarella sticks and also the mac and cheese bites. But here's the most important question. Did you have to, was that a third party marinara sauce or did they finally supply the marinara sauce as they promised? It was, I don't know.

That's a good question. It came from one of my zen meals, my zen foods meals. Right, but it wasn't included with the, they didn't include the marinara with the mozzarella sticks. They did not, no. Yeah, that to me seems like an oversight. Yeah, seems like a little bit of a deficiency. I'll speed through the rest of my refrigerated slash frozen meals, just to touch on them.

The mac and cheese bites were the highlight. The other highlight, also mac and cheese, hatch chili mac and cheese. This was like a frozen, this was a microwaveable entree. Natalie recommended this. And let me tell you, as something of a heat seeker, I like my food spicy. Just the little bit of hatch chili went a long way towards making this not just taste like a cheesy mush. That hatch chili hint I thought was great.

I really enjoyed that one. The other ones I got, meat lasagna, which was a refrigerated not frozen dish. That gave me higher hopes for it, thinking that would be a little bit fresher. But it just was a pretty flavorless lasagna. I mean, I just, totally not worth the calories to use my metric. The kung pao chicken, which was frozen and which you heat up in a skillet, actually came together pretty nicely. And this reminded me of, this was a, it had dark meat chicken, mixed vegetables,

peanuts, and then a spicy soy ginger sauce, which came frozen. And pretty straightforward, pretty brain dead to heat it up. Reminded me of my two working parents growing up, and this would be sometimes a quick meal that they would prepare as like a frozen, some sort of frozen stir fry they'd get from the grocery store, get from Costco. Kind of reminded me of that. I think this was a pretty good version of that. Not super flavorful.

I think you probably would benefit from adding this, adding a little sriracha or your hot sauce of choice, just to give this one a little bit something. I also got a palak paneer, which is their take on an Indian dish. I had some leftover naan, third party naan, that it was able to, to, to sop up a little bit of this with. Decent, it was fine. I heated this one up in the oven and it came out okay. It was a nice approximation of what you might get from a,

from a decent Indian restaurant, but of course, nowhere near that caliber. Little gingery for my taste, ginger very forward. But overall, I think these, these meals were pretty good. Let's, let's run down the, the, the other frozen meals, the other refrigerated frozen stuff that you guys got. David, let's start with you. Well, the thing that I had been eating up until recently when I got spooked about the conditions at meat packing plants, not to make Mitch mad at me, was the steak and stout

pie. You get two, I, that really caught my eye. Those things crushed. They're so freaking good. You get two of them, you get two of them in a box and you do, and it's the same thing. Put them in the oven and then take them out and customize them. I put cream cheese on top. And there's such a weird, no, cream cheese on top.

Yeah. I wanted to try it. I thought melting cream cheese on top of it would be really good. It was so delicious. I'm crazy for those two. I like the way you think, David. Yeah. Now I regret not, I didn't think I could get them ready in time before we recorded. Well, they have to heat for I think 45 to 50 minutes. Yeah.

Yeah. The form factor of those pies is so remarkable because they're about the diameter of a drinking glass and they're like nine inches tall. They're like towers. I love those things. Those are great. Steaky pie. Yeah.

Yeah. And I've had a lot of the Indian ones, you know, like you were just talking about puncture them with a fork, throw them in the oven, and then it comes out and it just tastes like mediocre Indian takeout. But that's fine. Yes. Because the thing about Trader Joe's is it's not just whether it's worth the calories, it's also whether it's worth the money.

And Trader Joe's stuff is priced pretty fair, you know? You're not going to break the bank into Trader Joe's. I was surprised by how. I agree with that. How little my bill is. I've come away sometimes from Trader Joe's being like, there has to be a mistake. There's no way I only spent $30, you know? Right.

It's great. So when I think about it in terms of money, I always think it's a good value for money. And all those Indian dishes, of course, are always going to be pitched straight down the middle. That's a sports metaphor, because I don't know what it means. But you know what I mean? It's like, they're going to be aimed at it. They're not going to be aimed at Nick Weigar's something of a heat secret palette. Right.

Right. The spicing is going to be pretty bland. And you could jump, you could, you know, doctor it up yourself. Yeah. You should plan on adjusting the seasoning. Hodgman, what did you get frozen dish wise? Look, frozen, look, I'm just, here's what I'm going to say. Yeah.

I don't make lists. Wow. I tell stories. I went in there. I went in there with a mission. My friend David Reese said the three things that he most cared about that I try were the mac and cheese bites, New Zealand sharp cheddar and veggie chips. So I knew I was going to get those three things and then I was just going to look,

see what caught my eye. And I picked up a few things. I just did a little improvisation as I was in there and grabbed a few things that caught my eye. That's called Trader Jazz. Here's some cream corn. Yes. And I'll grab some, some brown gravy. Just see where it goes.

Play some, play some play. Emma, maybe you could put in some sort of royalty free, bebop jazz bed underneath this whole tale. You got it. Thank you very much. So I went to the store. First, first thing I did was get the mac and cheese bites. And it was a little hard to find them because I'm not a regular shopper there.

Right. I had asked, I had asked the guys, the two guys in Hawaiian shirts were having a very deep conversation about whether the famous mural of the smiling clown at Coney Island inspired the Joker. And it took me about 35 minutes to get their attention. So I got asked them when the mac and cheese bites were, they were having a good time. Good guys. Got them.

Wait, what's the answer? Yeah, what is the answer? No. No, the Joker was inspired by the French film, The Man Who Laughs. I didn't have time to tell them because I, you know, I was like, I could have schooled them pretty hard, but I decided to let them have a good time. They're working. They're essential workers.

Yeah. They don't need, they don't need me fact checking their banter. Then I got that New Zealand cheddar. And then I could, I didn't, the veggie chips to me, David looked a little banal. Yeah, they are. I felt like I've had that a lot. Okay. So I decided to, to, to, you know, go wing instead of going long and play the notes you

don't hear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I got a bag of fried okra. Wow. All right. You know, like crispy, air fried okra, right? I never seen that. Hydrated.

Uh-huh. Yeah. And then the other things I picked up were just along the way were some, some spicy salmon, frozen dumplings, because I'd never heard of that before. Spicy salmon and dumplings. And I got a super, in the, in the, what we call the cold snacks and drinks or refrigerate, I don't know what the category is. I got a vegetarian burrito because I thought my, my daughter might eat that.

She didn't. She wanted that mac and cheese bite. And I got, um, I got, I got a Cubano inspired wrap. Now I love a Cubano sandwich, Cubano sandwich, classic sandwich of South Florida, uh, invented in Florida, by the way, not invented in Cuba, but invented in the Cuban American community in South Florida. It is, of course, roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickle, and mustard on a, like a kind of French bread or, you know, a long, long white loaf, but then pressed down.

Now this, and, and, and then I also got some cocktail sauce because I needed some. So this was impulsed by, by the end. Yeah. The, the Cubano to me was like, can they do this right? How can you get a Cubano sandwich out of a refrigerator case and have it? That sounds really gross. Yeah. And I was, and I was, you know, this was going to be, I was skeptical, you know.

Oh, and I got the snack that I told you was the, the, the, uh, the, the more wholesome recreation of eating peanut butter out of a jar in my underwear at midnight. Bomb us. Bomb us. Bomb us. B-A-M-B-A-S. It's a, it's a, essentially, it's a Trader Joe's invention, as far as I can tell. It's a Cheeto, a puffed, a puffed Cheeto, but instead of cheese flavor, it's peanut

butter flavor. Got it. And it's incredible. I know it sounds disgusting. Oh, it's really good. Really? Yeah. As soon as I got home, I, I, I took those out of the bag and I'm like, this is going to

be a good afternoon. Right. I'm going to, I'm going to need a real nap after this. Yeah. And I prepared everything the way that I was supposed to prepare it. I had the okra, the, instead of the veggie chips. And I would say, uh, it, it was fine. It was not, it was not too okra-y, maybe not enough okra-y.

It wasn't a lot there. A lot very airy and crispy. I had your New Zealand cheddar, very beautifully balanced, sharp cheddar cheese. Love it. Not a lot of funk to it, but I enjoyed it. Spicy salmon dumplings, thumbs down. Salmon shouldn't be in a dumpling. That was a terrible idea.

Wow. That's just, it's, it's like someone shoved a locks into a, into a dumpling wrapper. Was no good. I'm not going to eat those again. There's probably nobody that could pull that off. Cubano, I'm looking at it. I'm like, the, the, this thing is doomed from the start because a Cubano, one of the defining factors of Cubano is that it is pressed flat in an iron.

It is a, it is a hot sandwich. It's not, so I took the liberty. If there were no heating instructions, but I took the liberty of putting it in a pan and toasting it one side and the other side cast iron pan. And I was also heating up the super burrito in there too. And that was working well. And then when I took the cast iron pan with the mac and cheese bites out of it, I had an inspiration.

I slammed that cast iron pan down on top of the Cubano. Press it down. That's awesome. I took a picture of it, you guys. I'll send it to you. It's the most incredible life hack of my, of my days. We'll put this up on our social media. I'm excited to see it.

The mac and cheese bites cooled as the pan cooled. The thing got pressed. I enjoyed everything. I had the mac and cheese bites. I told you how I felt about them. I had the, the super burrito. Mmm, fine. Here comes the Cubano sandwich.

It was incredible. It was so good. Wow. Trader Joe's number one. Trader Joe's is the best grocery store. This was a completely authentically tasting, awesome Cubano. It had real ham. It had real roast pork.

The pickles were incredible. That incredible lime green. The mustard was so bright yellow. It's exactly what a Cubano should be. And the flavor was incredible. The Swiss cheese was perfect. And at one, at one point, my wife came over.

She had a, she had a little laser eye surgery for a retinal issue the other day. Oh boy. And, and she, and she realized she needed to go and to see the doctor today. Everything's fine. I had just driven her to a follow-up appointment that morning.

We drove back and it's weird thing going into Manhattan, like, you know, in spacesuits, kind of. Right. And then, and then I get this whole thing going and I'm having this Cubano and she says, I got to go to, I got to go back to the doctor because there's another thing I got to do. And I'm like, well, I can't drive you in

because I've got to record this podcast. That was the sacrifice that I made for you guys. And she said, she said, it's fine. I'm like, thank you for understanding. But the entire time we're having this conversation, I'm like, can I just get back to the sandwich? It was so excited. Like, I had this huge, I kept saying like,

I'm so sorry you have to go back. That's such a pain. I'm sorry. I can't do it. She's like, no, no, it's fine. It's like, I'm, I understand. I probably, I would seem more sympathetic, but I wasn't shoving the sandwich into my mouth

at the same time. When it hits, it hits. When they get something right, they get it so right. And I think a huge part of shopping at Trader Joe's and probably a lot of grocery stores is just taking a look at something called salmon dumplings and being like, they're not going to be able to pull that off.

I'm not going to take the risk. You know, I'm just going to live on Mac and Cheddar Bites for the rest of my life. But I'm glad for this platform. And I'm grateful for it. So I can say to the people, do get the Cubano inspired rap, but do know you have to heat that up.

You got to heat it up. Otherwise it's not going to work. I would never have dained to try it were it not for that endorsement. That sounds, it sounds delightful. I just wanted to comment on Bomba real quick because I looked them up. I assumed they were based on the name.

We've tried them, Nick. We've had Bomba and I'm remembering because I was like, I was like, are they Latin American in origin? But no, they're from Israel. They're the best selling snack in Israel or Bomba peanut snacks. And this is Trader Joe's riff on them.

All right. So there you go. I had no idea. I had no idea either. A Spoon Man, what else did you get from, what else was your, give us your whole rundown of Trader Joe's real quick. I got 27 items total.

Jesus Christ. Which came out to just about 80 bucks. It was a- I swear it's the best. Yes. The price point is very good. It's sick. Here's what I didn't,

here's what I bought with intentions of trying, but I didn't have it. Strawberry chai drink, non-fat lactose free milk, honey o's, which I've had before, organic mango fruit bars, three cheese pizza, which I've also had before

and I think is great. Temporary chicken with sweet and sour sauce, pork gyoza, organic mango fruit bar, apple, oh, I already said, sorry there. Oh, so I had 26 items.

I'm a fool. Apple raspberry dried fruit bar. And then here are the things that I ate, limes. Organic, ate or drank. Organic cold brew hibiscus and lemonade. Organic watermelon jerky,

movie theater popcorn, organic beef jerky, limeade, sublime ice cream sandwiches, hold the cone, ice cream cone, mozzarella stick, tater tots,

mini chicken tikka, mini chicken tikka samosas, Jesus. French fries, mac and cheese bites, spicy chicken wings, soft pretzel, bambino,

mini cheese pizza, just the lobsters. What are these? We'll talk about them in a second. Fruit snacks and an apple strawberry dried fruit bar. I got two of those. I just had one.

That's my whole rundown. What a haul. Yeah. Yeah. I just kept grabbing. And I ate quite a bit. And ate highlights. It's an incredible list.

Like, like, like. Not, not a great story. Like hodge. I see I'm more of a list man. Not a story guy. Yeah. This is a list podcast. I got you.

I apologize. Wouldn't have anything really interesting. That was an asshole thing for me to say and I apologize. Like Hodgman, I woke up in the middle of the night. It was 3 a.m. And I said,

there's no way I'm going to eat all this food tomorrow. So at 3 a.m. No. Wow. No. I prepared. Yeah. I had some,

I had some of the movie theater popcorn. I had a, I had a piece of, actually that's not true. I take it back. This is my, this is my favorite story of all time. At 3,

at 3 a.m. I had a hold the cone ice cream. Shout out to Harris Whittles, whose idea that was basically and they are very good. Sublime ice cream sandwich, which is one of the best ice cream sandwiches in the game. I also got that.

It was delightful. Mozzarella sticks, tater tots, mini chicken, tikka samosas, french fries, mac and cheese bites, spicy chicken wings.

You ate all of that in 3 in the morning? At 3 in the morning. It's not as bad as it sounds. I did like one piece of each one basically. Oh, okay. I see. Got it. It was a tasting menu.

It was a tasting menu at 3 a.m. And then today I had the Bambino cheese pizza and I had the apple strawberry fruit bar, just the lobsters and the pretzel. And then when I got back from my run last night, I did the watermelon, organic watermelon jerky and the beef jerky and the popcorn and the lemonade.

What is watermelon jerky? It is the worst thing I've ever had. It's terrible Jesus Christ. It's terrible. Huge strike out by Trader Joe's there. I mean like... What is it though? It is.

It's a piece of watermelon. It's basically dried watermelon. They're like, let's take the wettest fruit and turn it into the driest snack. What could go wrong? It doesn't make sense. The idea of it just doesn't make any sense.

Trader Joe, I know that I did him as a gruff trader man, which I do think is the best character for him, but he is in many ways an organic Willy Wonka. Instead of a river of chocolate, he's got fucking oatmeal or some shit. I don't know. And there's like some things that are going to work great

and you're going to get these great turkey burger patties that you can cook up real great. And then there's going to be these organic fucking watermelon jerky slices that are the worst thing on earth. And sometimes they just don't get it right. But their original stuff is very, very, very, very good. When it hits, it's really great.

That frozen pizza is one of the best frozen pizzas, that frozen cheese pizza. Is that the one you're eating? That one is great. That was the one I was eating at the start of this episode. And also I want to say, my experience as far as going there, I don't like parking to Trader Joe's

and I don't go to Trader Joe's that much because it just always seems like such a chore. To me, it is just like it's just, it's going to be crowded. There's going to be like Beverly Hills type mums who stare you down if you're getting their way while trying to grab some cheese or something. And the checkout can kind of be chaotic.

But I will say this, of all the places I've gone during the lockdown or the quarantine, Trader Joe's had it down better than any place. They were early. They were very, very early to adapt with social distancing, with putting arrows on the floor plan

to make it very clear where this was to be. And when we talk about the queue, the line experience there, they've got the queue all set up and socially distanced inside the store and outside the store. So yeah, I agree. I've been going to Trader Joe's regularly throughout

and this versus like a Rouse, which is our Kroger out here, it's night and day. It's such a better, they've got the system solved and they put a lot more thought into how it's executed. Nick, when you got there,

so a guy came out and was like, you can't bring bags in, which was good because I had a bag, so I put it back in my car. And then he said, everyone keep six feet apart. He was doing, he was telling everyone what to do.

Then when you got to the front, someone gave you a pump of, of what you call it? A hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer. As you as Trader Joe's hibiscus watermelon organic hand sanitizer. I took a swig of it.

It was great. And then you get your car and you go in there and yeah, you follow the arrows. And then on the way out, they also gave you another pump of hand sanitizer on the way out. It was, it was the most well done.

It felt like they cared. They wouldn't allow anyone in the store without masks. It was, they, they did it well. So yes. A fight broke out in mine this morning. Really? Oh my God.

Really? See? Well, a couple of people were, were spoiling for a fight. I was, I was in line to check out. So I had my feet on the painted footprints where I was supposed to be standing, socially distant.

And so they'll, you know, because you can wait, you have to wait in line six feet apart from each other. The line kind of snakes around the store. So all of a sudden we just heard near the doors, you know, 30 feet behind me,

a couple of people, I think there were guys going like, you want to start something. You want to be starting something. I think that's fight talk, right? Yeah. Classic fight talk. But I mean, it was,

Or, or a Michael Jackson song. Yeah, I definitely, but it was, it was one of those feelings where when, when a real fight is about to happen or is happening, everyone's confused because it's such a,

such a rupture of reality, that you can feel that energy. I didn't even, couldn't even hear what they were saying, but I just felt this weird energy and I turned and it got louder. And all those Hawaiian shirt employees just moved in very calmly,

de-escalated, and took care of it. It was weird for them too. But as, even though I was ragging those guys for talking about the Joker, instead of telling me where the Mac and Cheese Bikes were,

that when, when real stuff is happening, they were on top of it. I really appreciated the staff there. I thought they were great. They de-escalated like Steve Wilco on the Jerry Springer show. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. Wise, I got, I got to tell you, with my limeade, which I really liked the limeade, I used the Spindrift, the Spindrift Raspberry Lime Flavor, mixed in some of that limeade

and it was a great combo. So anyone, anyone who is looking to make a nice little treat, cut some of the calories from the limeade. I have a similar, I have a similar take on that, which we'll get to in one second, but we're up against the clock,

so we should get to our final thoughts. So, uh, so really go around. Let me quickly run down everything. Wait, if we go through 10 categories a piece, this is going to take 40 minutes. Are we really going to go, we're going to do 10 categories a piece? You can do them quick for God's sakes,

but no, we don't have to. All right, man. Wait, wait, Mitch. Whose grocery store month is this? It is my grocery store month. Why? No, say it like you mean it. Say it like Trader Joe.

It's friendly. It's my grocery store month. Why? I forgot what grade you're saying. You're still worried on that character. Right, yeah. There was a minute where he was like, Lord Humungous from, uh, Mad Max.

I don't know. So we'll work that out. Go. Take, there's friendly, uh, green, wait, friendly grocer, spoon man's, grocery store month. Right. It was, it was great.

That green grocer was in there. It is. Friendly green grocer. Friendly green grocer, spoon man's, grocery store month. There's 10 categories. Overall impressions, this includes the name and mascot.

Uh, or what you thought of my mascot, the Trader Joe's gruff guy that trades for the items. Parking to produce. Yeah. No, we go, we've gone through this list several times. Yeah. Just say your overall, let's do overall impressions first.

And then sorry, I got to, I'm going to take control back. I'm sorry. Snacks, frozen snacks. I'm always, I'm always, I want, I want you to run free, but I'm always a double-read at heart. Woodwinds for life.

Control freaks for life. Cold slash snacks. Slash drinks. That's right. That's right. He's just going to keep going. He's just going to roll over there. Check out.

I keep going. Check out hoity-choitiness. Bagging in carts, price. And then disqualified because of the current situation is hot bar. That's the 11th category. Sorry, Wags. Hot bar is eliminated. Okay.

So here's what we'll do. We'll each go around. We'll give our closing thoughts on Trader Joe's. Touch on any of those categories you feel like you, like you want to touch on. And then end by giving a, I guess instead of a fork score, perhaps we should give a cart score this month, Mitch.

Out of 10 carts. And so you just think of every category. Oh, 10 carts. So instead of zero to five carts, it's out of 10 carts. That's right. It's grocery store month, Weigher. So we've changed the thresholds for the clubs as well. That's right.

Okay. All right. We'll figure all this out. But John Hodgman, you've done the show before. We'll start with you, your final thoughts and your cart rating on Trader Joe's. All right. So the overall report is this is a real grocery store.

That's the thing I didn't understand. We touched mostly on the novelty snacks and the frozen delights and the gummy lobsters. We didn't get to talk about that, Mitch. A bag full of gummy lobsters, only lobsters. Thought about that. Thought about you. Thought about New England.

I think there is still a very strong novelty store aspect to it. But you know, second, what's the third category produce? They add a lot of it. It all looked good. Don't know what to say about it. I got some kale. I'm not going to review that. It's kale.

It's good. Everything seemed good. Parking was not an issue because of where the situation... I... Parking was not an issue because it was in Brooklyn. I walked. The checkout was fantastic and organized as we say. We've been through all of this. The hoity-toidiness.

I mean, this is the thing that Trader Joe's got to reckon with. It is a little hoity-toity. It is not a run-of-the-mill grocery store. It presents itself as some kind of weird adventure. It's got an affectation to it. And the appropriateness of that affectation, I think, is a reasonable thing to question at this point. I won't tell you the story about my son's Tiki-themed birthday party

in the year when Tiki torches suddenly became very, very, very... Oh, boy. The Charlottesville birthday party. Yeah. But in any case, and honestly, it is that theming of Trader Joe's that is so attractive to so many people that had turned me off for so long. I, that Cubano sandwich and the overall experience and the price tag, honestly, I mean, I just presumed

because of the theming that this was going to be a money grab. But it was... I bought lots of stuff, not for the show, but just for my family to eat. And it was a very, very reasonable price tag at the end of the day. So out of ten carts, with the ten, the supermarket that is closest to perfection in my mind, the Jensen supermarket in Blue Jay, California. Wow.

Wow. Well, I'm going to do a whole podcast about that, a ten-part podcast about Jensen's, one for each aisle. Walk the aisles with Hodgman. That's not a podcast name. Never mind. I'm going to give this an eight. Eight.

Wow. Eight out of ten carts. By the way, Walk the aisles. That is a podcast. That's a home run. Walk the aisles with Hodgman. It's not a good title. It's hard to say.

It's a great title. Walk the aisles. Run the jewels. Walk the aisles. Run the jewels. I was trying to figure, I'll run the jewels. I was trying to think of a run the jewels thing. All right.

David Rees, your final thoughts on Trader Joe's and your cart rating out of ten carts. Trader Joe's is a wonderful grocery store. I really honestly look forward every week to biking to my local Trader Joe's and filling up my gigantic Japanese courier bag with groceries and biking home. I loved doing it when it was a part of my life in Brooklyn.

I love doing it now that it's a part of my life in Los Angeles. It is probably the only grocery store that doesn't increase my stress level when I enter it. Because it is perfectly to understocked with food. I feel very calm and confident when I go through the aisles of Trader Joe's. As to its overall aesthetic, I associate Trader Joe's in my mind

very strongly with Harry Belafonte. Harry Belafonte is one of the great heroes of my life. I think he has the most beautiful voice. He's obviously very strongly associated with Calypso music and part of Harry Belafonte's mission as a performer was to show that there are different traditions of folk music throughout the world and he would dip his toes into all those different traditions.

So that's why you have Harry Belafonte singing Havana Gila along with the Banana Boat Song, along with American Spirituals, along with everything else. And I think that spirit of sort of dorky, friendly curiosity is very sweet. I'm not sure that Trader Joe's aesthetic is quite that innocent, but I do take comfort in the fact that they very dorkily try to make Indian food

or other, quote unquote, ethnic cuisine. I guess that can be considered problematic, but because I don't consider the store a cynical corporate entity, it doesn't bother me as much as if some other grocery stores were doing it. I think the Mac and Cheese Bites are one of the sensual highlights of my time in quarantine and I have to say that the checkout experience

at the Court Street, Trader Joe's, is the single best queuing and checkout experience. I cannot, literally cannot imagine a better checkout process for any transaction than the checkout process at the Court Street, Trader Joe's. It is an absolute pleasure to queue in that line and watch your progress as you approach the register. I give Trader Joe's eight out of 10 carts.

Eight out of 10 carts. Wow. How could, how, that seems lowed, honestly, David. I don't think a grocery store can achieve 10 out of 10 carts. I think the game is- What do you do to Jensens with me? Yeah, that's a great grocery store. I know, I get their liverwurst sandwiches

and we have a good time when we're driving around eating our sandwiches, but that's a seven at best. How low ground? And that's a, that's a- Hodgman, Hodgman is incensed. Hodgman, did you just bang your gavel? No, no.

Bang that Cubano frying pan. Oh my God. Boy, the gavel's not messing around. Hodgman brought the gavel onto the camera. It is a big, it is a, it's like a fucking, it's like a croquet mallet. It's a big boy. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna,

Wiger, I hope you get, I hope you get brained by that thing one day and it can be a podcast mystery. Nick Wiger was killed by John Hodgman's mallet. Or, suddenly, suddenly it's not a mystery. We have a deep town episode about a croquet tournament that goes wild.

Wow. Nick Wiger was brained by John Hodgman's croquet mallet by John Hodgman. That's not a mystery. The only mystery is why it takes so long. No, I'm just kidding. Wiger, I adore you. You know I do.

It's how I hope to go. I'd love to be administered some judge-dread style instance justice by your hand. But Mitch, let's get to your, your TJ's review. All right. I like Trader Joe's a lot. I think that it's original. First of all, yes.

Is it, is it, is it slightly problematic? Is it, is it taking all these kind of different foods from around the country and kind of putting a white, like a stuffy white upper class spin on them and making it easy? You know what I mean? I don't know.

Or sort of, or sort of exoticizing, like in a kind of cutesy way, exoticizing. I mean, sure. When the Mexican food is Trader Jose's, when they switch up. Yeah, I think they've discontinued. I don't think they do that anymore. But they used to have like a different,

they changed the name of Joe to, to fit whatever culture the food was from. Oh, yeah. To me, that, to me, that all feels like very late 90s. Like our hearts are in the right place. We just don't, we just don't know what we're, we don't know what the ramifications, the full, not all of us studied deconstructionist literature at Yale,

like me. I also did, by the way, but I took it as, it was just one semester I went over there to get, took just the one class. Oh, remember the series of college days novels, Mitch and John at Yale. We're wearing fur coats and boater hats and crashing all the whiff and poof parties.

Those were the days. I was a crew boy at one point. I know. I will say this, that as far as their originals go, that's a blind, ice cream sandwich, the whole, the comb, the Harris Whittles idea, like I said before, the lime, the limeade, that movie theater popcorn, the mozzarella sticks, all these originals, fantastic, so good.

And, and just really, really high quality food. Trader Joe's loses points for me in the chaos of the parking lot and in the eyes of the upper class men and women who stare me down when I'm in the, I'm in the supermarket. I think it's a great, great supermarket. I think eight average, average score of eight all around would put it into Green Grocer Mitch's, help me out here, Weigher. Great idea.

The free, not the freezer section. Friendly, Green Grocer. Friendly, Green Grocer Mitch's. It gets the, it gets the green thumbs up. A green, a green thumbs up. That's what the golden plate equivalent is. Get the Green Grocer Mitch's green thumbs up. All right.

It gets the Green Grocer Mitch's green thumbs up, except I'm going to give it seven carts and a basket. It gets, it gets seven carts and a basket. And a basket is a half cart. The basket's a half cart. Got it. It's still very, very, very good. It just, to me, the test is, do I go there a lot?

And I don't. I don't like to go there. You go to the Trader Joe's in Silver Lake too, like David Rees? Yes. I, yeah, I went to the, the one on Hyperion. On Hyperion. Yeah. That parking lot is a mess.

It's much better to bike. Yeah. That's easily, that's easily worth a half cart to merit for sure. I would even knock it down a cart. If I was driving there in a car, I would dock it as well. That's pure chaos. I think it would get up into the, into the eights, Weigher.

I'm still honestly questioning because I do think the originals are so good. I think that they do produce and all their produce is fresh. And it's also delivered in a way that's like easy. And like Hodgman was pointing out that it's like smaller and just more manageable. It's almost sold, which maybe, hey, maybe it's a waste of packaging, but it is also like, oh, you get four tangerines and this little thing. And it's very easy to handle and you can just put them on the shelf at home and they're great and just stored away.

Yes. So I am, I'm, I'm, I'm. I hate walking out of a supermarket juggling 35 tangerines, can't hold them in my hands. But yeah, I'm going to go seven, seven carts. One, sorry. Seven carriages, one. Seven, seven carts, one basket, I think.

Yeah, seven carts. Thank you. Yes. I mean, I think I'm, I'm mostly with the consensus here, or just to touch on the other snacks that I didn't touch on, that I didn't get to earlier. I got inner peas, which is a crunchy green peas snack, basically like a, like a, a, a snap pea chip,

which was just kind of insubstantial and flavorless. And also just seemed to have similar carbs to a potato chip. So I'm not sure what I'm getting out of it. I got the natural turkey jerky, which had good jerky flavor. Love that. Love that. Eat that a lot. Great jerky.

The nacho cheese tortilla chips, which was like, which was like their nacho cheese Doritos. And they were just not nearly as good. They were, they were like a stale nacho cheese Dorito. The Sublime Ice Cream Sandwich, you mentioned Mitch, which I got, and I thought that was delightful, a great sweet treat. It's got the, this ring of mini chocolate chips on the outside

on the circumference, which is great. And then a watermelon cucumber cooler. Like you mentioned, Mitch, this is one that benefits from diluting it a little bit. I think that this was Natalie's idea to take about half of it and put the rest like a little bit of sparkling water in there, because it is, it can be a little bit too sweet, but it is a nice refreshing flavor and a little bit of effervescence

helps cut against it. You guys touched on, you know, the, like, it's kind of, it's kind of the, this, this general Tiki pastiche, which is, you know, we've seen a lot of Tiki bars, which is kind of ambiguous and not necessarily really tied to any specific culture. And yeah, that is an element of, of Trader Joe's marketing and their in-store experience.

That, you know, I'm not necessarily the person to speak on to how appropriate that is or isn't. I know that, I do know that Tiki culture is, like, just a thing that exists. But the thing that I find problematic about Trader Joe's is kind of the corporate practices, because I think they have good products and I think they have great workers.

The people who work there are, by and large, just some of the best employees in food service. If you work at Trader Joe's, thank you for your service. But I, you know, there have been a lot of questions about how they source their food. If you work at Rouse, fuck you. Everyone who works in the food service sector, we are in your debt, could not do this show without you.

And I would say that the, there are many questions about how they source their food, how they package their food, which you touched on, Mitch. A lot of their packaging is very, very wasteful. Their labor practices aren't necessarily great. They punished some of their workers recently for wearing Black Lives Matter masks and threatened to close a store

as a result of some workers attending a protest. That's not good. Shout out at Trader Joe's Union, who is organizing their workers and doing some good work with the employees there. So I think just to speak in general, because this will come up throughout, not just during grocery store month,

but it comes out in general with this podcast, is that we're never endorsing the company because a lot of these companies are all run by ghouls. Even a place like Trader Joe's that puts a liberal face on their franchise, on their company, they are overall just like, generally have some onerous business practices behind them. And that's certainly the case here.

Oh, I was not aware of that. That said, I am going to go with Mitch in terms of evaluating the fare and the service experience that you get from a Trader Joe's. And for me, that lands me in the hand-holding club with you, Mitch, with Green Grocer,

with Friendly Green Grocer, Mitch. I am right there with you, seven carts and one basket, seven and a half carts, just out of the Green Thumb Club. Seven point five. But don't bring it for itself. Nick, it's changed.

It's a Friendly Green Grocer, Mitch's Grocer's Freezer Club. It didn't get into the Grocer's Freezer's Club. Wow. Didn't get into the Grocer's Freezer Club. But there will be other opportunities for other entries. Didn't get into the walk-in. Didn't get into the walk-in. You know what?

I'm going to amend my score because I was not aware. I don't know how I missed it, but I was not aware of those labor practices. I was just scanning the Wikipedia. I didn't get down there. I was so excited by seeing that Brookline was the first East Coast location.

Didn't get down to the controversy around that. So I'm going to dump my score down half a cart and join you guys seven carts and half a basket. Oh my God, you guys. Sorry, David. All right, guys, that was our review of Trader Joe's. It's time for a segment. I've got a food-related survey

and Mitch, David, and John will compete to guess the results. Let's play The Family Food. Official theme song of The Family Food is the Richard Carn era family feud theme song remix. David, I'm glad you got it. A lot of our listeners, I feel like, don't get the pun. But it is a pun. So if you do get it, hit us up on our social media.

Let us know what you think it is. So here's how it works. Whoever gets the most correct without collecting three strikes will win. And the category, top six answers, are on the board for the biggest grocers in America. I will say that Trader Joe's is not on this list. We were guessing the biggest grocers in America.

And if you guess a brand of an umbrella company, I will give that to you. Because a lot of times, this is maybe a company that you maybe aren't familiar with the name of, but you're familiar with the stores in their arsenal. But if I pick store A that is owned by Megacorp and David picks store B that is owned by Megacorp, only Megacorp is on the board, right?

Yes. Correct. Okay. Yes. Okay, so here's how the, so we know the rules. Let's get into it. Mitch, you've played the family food before. Would you like to go first?

Sure. Okay. Top six answers are on the board. Six biggest grocers in America. Oh, I got to say which one? Pick one. Yeah, that's how it works. Get, take a guess.

My answer is top six grocers in America. Wait, you pick one. You got to pick one. I pick Ralph's. Ralph's. Ralph's. Ralph's. Pick is Ralph's.

Give me, the judges need to check one thing real quick. Oh boy. Okay. Okay, here we go. Mitch, you are correct as we hear the good answer sound from the SNES video game family feud. You could drop those in later, you know. No, I think it helps to play them live.

Ralph's is owned by the Kroger company, which is number two. Number two answer on the board. I mentioned that earlier that Ralph's was owned by Kroger, but I had to double check and it is correct. So there you go. According to foodindustry.com, Kroger, number two. So Kroger is out now.

No one else can guess Kroger. Kroger is out. If you guess, if you guess like Smith's market, which is also owned by Kroger, then it does not count because that one's already off the board. Do you want to say some of the other ones? Since Kroger is off, or no, that would be process of elimination. Right.

Yeah. I mean, I'll just say Kroger, Harris, Tweeter, Smith's, Ralph's are some of their brands. They're biggest brands, all right. Yes. All right, Hodgman. One of the top six grocers in America. Top six, you say.

Top six. Kroger is off the board. I'm going to shout out to New England. Stop and shop. Wow. Whoa. Stop and shop. That's a great guess.

Stop and shop. One second. The judges are researching. Okay. Here we go. Good answer. Yeah. Wow.

Stop and shop is correct. Stop and shop is part of a whole Delhae's USA, which also owns Food Lion and Hannaford. Hannaford. Number four in the nation. John Hodgman, you are correct. All right. David Rees, one of the top six grocers in America.

Two answers are off the board. I'm going to assume number one is Walmart. Oh, wow. Wow. I mean, I can tell we are playing with a pro. Good answer. Yeah. Good answer.

Yes. Walmart is number one far and away the biggest grocer in America. Wow. As grim as that is that more groceries are sold at Walmart. Than anywhere else. $288 billion in sales. More than double the second place Kroger. Wow.

So three are left. Mitch, you want to take a swing at it. Three more of the six biggest grocers in America here on the family food. Weigher. Yes. I'm going with Wegmans. Good answer. Oh, good answer.

Good answer. Wegmans. The judges have to check. Very popular. Very popular. Boy. Oh, sorry, Mitch. Wegmans is not on the board.

Wegmans does not compete with the big boys, unfortunately, although it is a beloved regional chain. Sick. All right. Hodgman, you're up again. Mitch has one strike. Three answers are left on the board. This is in the United States.

In the United States. Yes. According to foodindustry.com. Hodgman, are you wearing Dano's decap? Tiger's cap? I was wondering when someone was going to notice that. That rules. You guys did a classic hat swap.

You did a hat switch. Hat swap. Hat swap. Yeah. This thing, this is the second time I've worn it. He kept your Nordics hat? Yeah, I kept the Nordics hat. It was a trade.

It was a trade. Yeah. Wow. All right. Sorry, thanks for that distraction, but I can't not helping me come up with anything else. Mm-mm, food lines off the board. What about Costco?

Costco. That was on my shortlist. I think that's a good guess. Wow. Let's find out. Whoa. I'm surprised. Costco not on the board.

All right, David. Mitch and Hodgman each have a strike. There are three answers remaining. Do you want to take another swing at it? Yeah, I'm going to press my lock and say target. Target? Target is the guess. Target sells a lot of groceries.

Survey says. Like Walmart, it has shifted a lot of its business towards groceries, but it is not in the top six. Oh, interesting. All right. All right. Okay. Three answers remaining.

Mitch, back to you. Well, hang on. Let me just make sure I understand the contours of the game at this point. Yes. We each have a strike. Yes. There are three answers on the board.

They're each of these is some anonymous megacorporation that we've never heard of. Right. But it operates a brand that you're familiar with. Right. And so the rest of this is going to be us guessing random supermarket chains. And hoping one of them is owned by a Colossus.

All go down in flames. Right. All right. Yeah. This is good. That's compelling content, in other words. It's more of a list at this point than a story, but that's fine. With all that being said, my answer is Albertsons.

Good answer. Albertsons. Good answer. Albertsons is Mitch's answer. Survey says. Wow. Wow. Good answer.

Wow. The SNES family feud agrees. Albertsons number three operates Safeway, Albertsons, and Vaughns. It is merged with Vaughns. Wow. That's big, yeah. All right.

Two remaining. The number five and number six answers are up on the board. John Hodgman, back to you. I would request, if possible, that should I get this one wrong, that I be awarded two strikes so that we can end this faster. Got it. Although Albertsons was a surprise bit of drama. All right.

So this is for two strikes potentially. Two strikes potentially. And I am going to guess. Jensen's supermarket in Blue Jay, California. Boy, it really feels like you just took a dive there, if I'm to be honest. Like you're hoping to try to get the podcast over with. I have a family.

Which may be a service to our listeners. You get two strikes there. Give me another strike. Okay, I'll share my screen again. Play the sound effect again. Two strikes for John Hodgman. You have been disqualified. It's down to David and Mitch.

Send me back to the green room. All the views on that YouTube video are wager, by the way. I'm going to honor some Midwestern heritage and guess. ICA? ICA. Oh, wait a minute. ICA is the market. ICA.

I could see them being owned by a gigantic. Isn't that, isn't it? IGA. Oh, IGA. IGA. IGA market. Is it IG? It's a, I remember it from 90s, from 1990s Ohio.

So I think you're right. I think it's IGA. Let's, you know what? We'll say this is also for two strikes. Yeah, sure. And I say that perhaps telling what the answer is going to be. Fair enough. Mitch, you have won the family food.

Let's see what the other answers are remaining on the board. As we put this segment down, like a racehorse that broke its leg. The number five public supermarkets and number six, H-E-B, which is well known in Texas. H-E-Butt Grocery Company is the official name. Never heard of it. Yep. H-E-Butt.

H-E-Butt Grocery. That's their mascot, H-E-Butt. That was the family food. Just like a restaurant, we value your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. And hey, we got a voicemail today. Let's take a listen to this real quick. Hey there, boys.

This is Andy from Ohio. I'm just calling to see what kind of foods aren't in gas stations that you wish were in gas stations. Like for me personally, I'm on the keto diet. I'd like some more card three options. And on a side note, I got a new cat. What should I name it? All right, thanks, guys.

Go Cubs. Go Lakers. Love you. I'm guessing by the time this episode is released, the cat. Thank you, Andy, for Ohio for the call. The cat will have already been named. But if anyone has any cat names, in addition to any gas station foods they wish were present.

Anything come to mind? Mitch, any gas station fare you wish existed? The doesn't already? I misunderstand. Yeah. Yeah, that you wish a gas station carried this, but it doesn't. Okay, I got you. I got you.

I mean, he hit on low carb options. And I think that's always a thing. Sometimes they'll have some hard boiled eggs there, but those are always suspect. I think that's just the issue with low carb stuff is hard to produce at scale, and it tends to be stuff, except unless you're dealing with like jerky and the odd nut. I'll tell you, many years ago I was in Oxford, Mississippi,

working on a magazine story. And I went into a shell station, and they were offering barbecue in a hot case. This is a gas station food that does exist, but only in one place. Yes. And they're offering barbecue ribs in a hot case. And I decided sort of against my better judgment to try this gas station barbecue. And it was incredible.

Wow. And the kid who was working the hot case goes, yeah, actually this shell station, sorry. The kid who was working the counter explained that the barbecue, this shell station is separate. The barbecue is being made out back by this guy. It's called B's barbecue, and I can't remember his name, but he's a guy who does competition barbecue.

Like one of the best barbecuers. And his outlet is this shell station. And he walked me back and he showed me this massive smoker that he had back there, where he's been refining his barbecue technique forever. It was Memphis style dry rub pork rib barbecue, and it was incredible. And it's like, why not have that in every gas station? Like it doesn't take that long to learn how to pump out some pretty good ribs on a smoker.

You could be doing it all day long, and everyone will buy that stuff. That's a great answer. That's amazing. The hot case in a gas station, I mean, when you see it and they do it right, it's always a welcome surprise. There was one, I worked at a building that was right by a gas station that had a hot case. It had more conventional hot food. But it was not bad for a budget lunch.

David or Mitch, anything that comes to mind as I wish a gas station had this, but it does not. I think hot case is a good name for the cat. Oh, that'd be great. That's my contribution. I'm always happy when a gas station has a good banana, but that doesn't often happen. So a good banana I think would be nice. Yeah.

I, Nick, I got a couple things. One, I would like a good burger because I feel like every gas station burger is bad. So a good cheeseburger or burger and a good chicken sandwich. And then here's my thing that's not available that I'm going to toss out there. Churros. Oh, a churro would be fun. Sure. A churro, a nice churro for the road.

You hold it in the paper, you're eating it as you're driving. A churro, yeah. On the sweet treat front, I like that makes me think of like a case of like a like a thrifty style, just case of ice cream by the scoop. If they had, if they had just like a few ice cream flavors, they could scoop you out something into a dish or on a cone on a hot day or on a road trip. How fun would that be? You don't just have the ice cream novelties that you get out of the freezer,

but they'll actually scoop something for you. I'd love that. Tough, tough driving though with a cone. I guess you can do it with a cone. You can do it. Yeah, you can drive with a cone. I call, I call Wally as a nickname Bubba, and I think that's a good cat name. I always, I call Wally Bubba.

And then I'm looking here at these, at this Better Homes and Gardens list of funny cat names. I'm sure there's some killers on that list. I'm gonna, I'm gonna say that number one, and they actually have Bubba here at number four, but number one is, is, is Bill Clauseby. So this, this list needs to be updated a hundred percent. Oh boy. Yeah. It needs to be updated.

What's the date on that list? 2020. Oh no. No. Oh boy. Better Homes and Gardens. Get your, get your home and garden in order. The new Edge Lords, Better Homes and Gardens.

They've rebranded. It's 2015, which I don't know, I don't know where that line's at. Still. Yeah, still. Um, suspect. Claudia with, with a claw like CLAW. That's QW. Sure.

Claudia. That's pretty good. Cuddles. Cute. Uh, Empress. Foxy Cleopatra. I mean, there's a lot of good stuff here, but Bubba is my Nick's, my nickname for, for Wally.

And did, did, did they say what type of cat it was? Oh. No more details. No more details beyond what was on the call. Just a, just a cat. Here's, here's a good one. Madame Meow. I always enjoy a cat that has a boring human name.

Right. That's good. Like I've, I am still waiting to meet a cat named Scott. And I would like, I would like Andy to name his cat, Scott. All right, Andy, you got some options. You can go with Scott. You can go with hot case. You can go with Bubba.

Or if you want to be an edge lord, you can go with Bill Clauseby. Let us know what you decide on. Hit us up on our social media. And if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at dopeboyspodcast at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 830. Go Doe, that's 830-463-6844. And to get the Doughboys double or weekly bonus episode,

join the Golden or Platinum Play Club at patreon.com slash Doughboys. John Hodgman, David Rees. Thank you guys for, for lending us so much of your valuable time. Tell us once more about Dicktown and anything else you would like to plug. Dicktown premiering July 9th on Cake, which broadcasts on FXX, also available the following day on Hulu. Ten episodes, Mystery of the Week, starring John Hodgman and David Rees. And I host a podcast with two friends called Election Profit Makers,

where we bet on political outcomes with our actual money. Wow. It's an incredible, I gotta, I gotta let everyone know. Election Profit Makers is in the rare air pantheon of podcasts that, anytime I'm in a bad mood, I listen to it and I'm in a great mood. Oh, thanks. Wow. So it's, it's, I mean, even though it is about politics and those are not so fun,

you and Starley Kine and John Kimball talking about anything is one of the greatest things. And there's a whole- Sounds like the opposite experience of this podcast. No, you guys are- It brings me joy. But it's you guys, it's you guys too. You guys are in that rare air pantheon too. Anytime I, anytime I'm in a bad mood, I listen to you and I'm in a great mood.

So that- Wow. Wow. So Election Profit Makers, check it out. Election Profit Makers, I was an Election Profit Maker. I made 30 bucks by betting that Antonin Scalia was going to be the next Supreme Court Justice to die. Really? Yeah, I did, but didn't work out though.

Was this just a bet among friends? I just bet on Predict It, which is one of those online- Yeah, that's what we use. Online gambling platforms. That's what they use. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it didn't turn out so good. You're the man who gave us Gorsuch.

Right. Thanks. I also host the Judge John Hodgman podcast on the Maximum Fun Network. Shout out to all our Maximum Fun members. Thanks so much for supporting us. Lots of good podcasting. You guys can check out. And hey, that'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys.

Until next time, for The Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. I'm Nick Weigher. Happy eating. Happy grocery store month. Yeah. Sounds so friendly. Want more Doe Boys? Check us out on Patreon.

Join the Golden Plate Club for an extra episode every Tuesday, The Doe Boys Double, which you can listen to on your favorite podcast app. Or join the Platinum Plate Club and get access to our Discord Server, The Doe Scored, to connect with fellow Doe fans and me and Mitch. Subscribe for the price of a combo meal only at Patreon.com-doe-boys. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com-doe-boys.