Doughboys - Octdoughberblessed: Cracker Barrel with Betsy Sodaro

Episode Date: October 25, 2018

For the last review of Octdoughberblessed, Betsy Sodaro (Disjointed, Another Period) joins the 'boys as they discuss their journey from LA to Victorville to visit Cracker Barrel, a chain known for its southern cuisine as well as its on-site general store. Plus, a devilishly hot edition of Hot-or-Not.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a headgum podcast. A reading from the Quran, Chapter 5, Al-Maeda, The Table Spread, verse 3, translated by Talal Yatani. Prohibited for you are carrion, blood, the flesh of swine, and animals dedicated to other than God. Also the flesh of animals strangled, killed violently, killed by a fall, gored to death, mangled by wild animals, except what you rescue and animals sacrificed on altars and the practice of drawing lots.

For it is immoral. Today, those who disbelieve have despaired of your religion, so do not fear them, but fear me. Today I have perfected your religion for you, and have completed my favor upon you, and have approved Islam as a religion for you. But whoever is compelled by hunger, with no intent of wrongdoing, God is forgiving and merciful. This week on Doughboys, the conclusion of October Blessed, our month-long tour of religious

chain restaurants, with beloved yet controversial Southern restaurant and country store, Cracker Barrel. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside my co-host. A man who dishes the juiciest gossip in town, the Goss Boss, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. What the hell? Mitch, in October Blessed, we're doing Holy Ghost Spoon Man instead of Roast Spoon Man. That one was courtesy of me.

You have great gossip. I've told that. That doesn't make me sound like a good guy. You're a great, no, you have great. You have great like us. Weiger, I got some juicy gossip for you. You're like Danny DeVito in LA Confidential. Oh, whoa.

Well, thank you. I mean, that is a compliment to me. I appreciate that. Your gossip is great. I'm saying, comparing me to Danny DeVito in that movie, everything else, not really a compliment. Well, I did my best. And look, next week, we're back to insults.

Also, I declared myself the Goss Boss to you at one point. Yeah. Well, I'm just throwing it back at you. You are the Goss Boss. Roast Spoon Man at gmail.com for next week. We're back to insults. Mitch, October Blessed is at its end, mercifully? I don't know.

I mean, this has been kind of a nice month. With grace it goes. How about that? I should have sang some religious song at the end of this whole thing. Huh? Whatever. What do you mean? I should have sang some sort of religious song for everyone.

Like at the very end of the ever end of the series of you. You still have time. I can't think of. I can't think of one. Well, you got about 90 minutes till the end. I'm probably not going to do it. When do you sing songs to wrap up episodes? We never have.

I just like a like a like a nice little gospel song or something. Got it. That kind of goes. I mean that what it's this Christian thing or a Catholic that you know what I mean? Right? It's better to be all inclusive. Nick.

Yeah, I got you. Yeah, I just want to say how to spoon nation or a holy hoe, which will make sense. Right? About? Yeah, it's going to make sense. It's definitely going to make sense. Right about. Should I say?

Should it be a holy? How is it? What? How do I do for? What do I do for the? How about like that? Yeah, something like that was nice. That was nice.

I bet you liked that. That was short. Huh? Like that was a like a short drop. Well, I like when they're when they're yeah, when they're added to the appropriate length, you know, sometimes the drops go on a little too long, but that's okay. We got nothing but time here. Did your voice just go into auto tune because you had heard how your voice sounded

and your robot brain thought that's how my voice is supposed to sound and it corrected itself. I don't even know how to do that. I want to know how to do it. I'm Nick Weigler. Boy, it was worth it. Nick, it was here's a drop for October blessed. My good sir from Michael Kraft.

Thanks, Michael. Very nice. Good job. Michael Kraft, perhaps related to Bob Kraft, the owner of the Patriots. Wow. I mean, probably, right? Most likely. Yeah.

You know that there I've I've told this to you before. Mm hmm. This is there's a New England Patriots cheerleader who listens to the I shouldn't out her name without without saying it, but she like tweeted at us one time. She's like, I like dope boys. Yeah, I was going to say listens may be listened a while ago. I'm not sure if she's keeping up with a podcast. Well, she might still listen to it.

Maybe I'm starting to think maybe she's spreading it around the locker room. Maybe on game day. Tom Brady has got his headphones on. He's listening to dope boys before it goes out there. I'm getting him into a game mindset. Just getting really mad. The show sucks. I could take my frustration out of the field.

She's I won't say her name. I'll keep privacy going. She she she tweeted at us that she listened. She's which is great. Hey, if you still listen, tweet back at the show and let us know. And if you don't have your friend like and your friend tells you that you got mentioned the show, just be honest, tweet at us and say like, hey, I don't listen to the show anymore, but I heard you mentioned me and just want to check in.

I'm pretty sure that her probably her friends don't. Well, maybe she knows somebody. Someone you went to a school with or something. Mitch, we got a great guest to wrap up the month. She's an actor and comedian from disjointed another period. Betsy Sadaro is back. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

So happy to have you back. We Betsy, we took a little sojourn and we'll get into that in a bit. But before we do that, I want to discuss what our original plan was. Yes. Oh my God. So sojourn. We took a little sojourn. Oh, just sorry.

Sorry for using a synonym. We drove in a car to a place. The Soros. Oh God, I couldn't say it right. The Soros. The Soros. Oh shit. The Soros.

Dang it. The Soros.com over there. You got it up on your fucking computer all the time. Is there a is there like a Gary Larson joke? Like a farsight joke about a nerdy dinosaur being a the Soros that feels like that exists, right? I'm sure of it. Probably Gary Larson is great.

I know I like him. I love the farsight. I like the farsight a lot. I've said this. I've given this anecdote on the on the podcast before, but my mom there's like this picture that's like know your barbarians and the last one is like Mitch and my mom like framed it and gave it to me. It was also funny being like my mom thinks I'm like a big oaf.

Like she gets the joke of that. Wait, I gotta. I gotta look up this farsight. Yeah, we gotta know your barbarians. There is also a chance that she like whited out the last one's name and put Mitch. Oh boy, that would be adorable. That would be too cute.

Nope. This is this is absolutely you Viking, Mitch, Mongol, goth, Visigoth, Turk and then Mitch. And it is a spitting image. Yeah, if you didn't have a beard, that's it. Yeah, you need to get that shirt or that whole thing just tattooed on your back. That's like if I want to look more like this guy. That's the equivalent of your picture of Dorian Gray.

Except I'm getting older. Yeah, never use the power correctly. But we we we took a little we took a little drive, but we originally going to do it at the even more ambitious trip to a chain called Pizza Ranch. And so I just want to talk to people real quick about what Pizza Ranch is. But this is a had you ever because the closest one to California was in Colorado, your home state. I had I've never heard of it.

Never heard of it. Never knew it. The expansion of Colorado may be recent. It's more known in the Midwest. Okay. It was more of a thing up in Iowa. I think is where it started in Minnesota. Pizza Ranch.

I like the name. Yeah. So I mentioned to either Paul Ruster or Michael Cassidy or somebody and they were and they were like you song just left. I think he's done with the pocket. Yeah. We knew it then like this. He I mentioned to them and they said that they knew of it.

Yes. Like maybe Cassidy or something. I think he I think he was like, oh, I know of it. And it was like an Iowa thing. Yeah. Maybe it came to Colorado later. But Nick, we were going to and Betsy, you agree to do you down immediately. We we were going to we were going to we were going to take a day and fly to Colorado and

we were going to go on a Sunday and and then we were going to go there eat and fly fly back and be in Colorado for about four to five hours probably total. Yeah. And we just fit. We did the we did the math and we just sort of figured out it was logistically impossible with our availability to make work. But Nick, you know what? Yes.

I mean, I am more free. I'm not I'm not putting the blame on you. Yes. So don't relax before you get all angry. I think that if you weren't if you didn't have your job right now, I think we probably would have. We could have made it work because we could have done it on a weekday. It would have been restricted to to a single like day on the weekend.

But the so this site this this place is kind of crazy. The Christian Company, the Pizza Rantz vision. I'm taking this from Wikipedia is to glorify God by positively impacting the world we live in. Wow. And it's one slice at a time. But it's a it's a pizza chain, but it's also Western themed plus it's also Christian. So it's like it's several hats stacked on top of each other.

It's very complicated. You know, we thought it would have been just funny. I mean, it's it seems like a kind of a crazy chain to begin with. Right. Yeah. But we thought the added thing of going for a day to another state was funny. Making a pilgrimage. Exactly.

I really want to go now. Yeah. I'm around. So if you guys we could still make this happen. We could we could still we really we really could do this. It would suck terribly. We also thought about that. Yeah.

It was going to be really. I mean, that was the main thing. We're just like, this is going to suck. You don't want to get on a six in a flight. That really was. You're so full of shitty pizza and fly back. Fly back. Yeah.

There was like stuff we both had to do like like Sunday night. And there were there was a Red Sox and a Patriots game. Nick. Well, that didn't factor in my thinking. There's that. These are important things. But that's why I want to happily announce today that Nick and I will be going to the last Howard Johnson's.

Wait. Do we agree to this? That's right. All right. A chain that started in Quincy, Massachusetts. Wow. The hotel. It's it and also it was a restaurant.

I was like a like a Denny user and I have. Oh, okay. There's one left. There's only one restaurant left. There's only one restaurant left. But there are more hotels, right? I think those are still kicking it. Right.

The Hojo's around. The Hojo's. Yeah. And it's in the Lake George, New York. Wow. Oh my God. It's a big travel to get to Lake George. Luckily, my friend Luke Michaels, I think he has a place in Lake George.

Lake Lake George, Luke. We're coming up to Lake George. We're going to Howard Johnson's and we'll try to do it within 24 hours. Nick, what do you call Luke? Luke Michaels? Do you call him like Luke Sean or something? We call them Luke or Pooh. Yeah.

A lot of different names. We say Pooh. Yeah. What is that? I don't know. Someone gave he had that nickname. I just went with it. Was he okay with Pooh?

Probably not. I call them Luke or I don't think anyone else did. So your guys, so this is Luke Michaels is finding out via this podcast, assuming he listens that we are going to be staying with him to attend the, go to the last Howard Johnson. Yeah, please. Why not stay at the Howard Johnson? Oh yeah. I don't know if there is a Howard Johnson to stay at.

Oh, so there's just the restaurant. I think it's just the restaurant, I think. Yeah. Okay. Is it open 24 hours? Yeah. Stay there? Just camp out?

I do like the idea of not getting a place to stay. Camp there, eat. Just camp. Two meals. Three. They're not going to give a shit. Yeah. Just keep ordering something.

The last Howard Johnson, that could be, hey, that's a fun episode, Nick. I mean, That's good. The way you pitched it. Yeah. We don't even need a description. The last Howard Johnson's, people are going to download that in a hurry. If we walked in there and we, our plan was to stay all night eating.

They just like look at us and be like, oh yeah, these guys are all nighters. Yeah. Give them a, give them a booth. They're going to be here a while. Also, if we stay there all night, that last Howard Johnson's would be done for. That's it. We're done. Yeah.

You ate the last of it. Betsy. So as a, but we were going to go out to Colorado, you're from Colorado. I am. Yeah. We're getting, we're approaching the winter season. Fall is, fall is, fall is ending. Winter is upon us.

Winter is coming in the park. Wow. Nick. You've heard of Game of Thrones. I've seen a poster. But you're someone who likes some winter activities. Love it. Big skier.

Hey, me too. Yeah. Let's go. I would love to. I've never skied on the West coast. Yeah. Let's go. And I haven't skied now that I think about it probably in six or seven years.

You're going to be fine. Yeah. It comes right back to you. The last time I did it, I had gained some weight. And so I got, so I got on the skis and I was like, whoa, this is like hard on my legs. It's been a while. Yeah. Now I've gained more weight.

So I wonder, I wonder, I wonder how it would be. But I do feel like it's a little bit like, it's a little bit like riding a bike where I can get. It's very much like for me in it, like you just immediately at first may be a little shaky, but then you're like, Oh, I know how to do this. Yeah. Then a bunch. Yeah.

I'm nervous, but I want to do it. I never, I never skied a big bear. Is there, is there, is there a ski crew out here? Are there people who skied? There's some people. There are some people. I went to Big Bear with some friends a few years ago and it was pretty fun. There's a little crew.

Yeah. I want to go to Mammoth. Let's go up to Mammoth. Hell yeah. Yeah. Come and go sledding. My brother goes to Babba. I would try sledding.

I've, I've been skiing. Whoa. You try sledding. I would 100% try sledding. I'm down for it. Yes. Sledding is the shit. Have you ever, have you ever gone sledding before?

Oh yeah. I've been sledding. Yeah. My, my, my. You think I'm lying? Yeah. I've been sledding. Yeah.

I mean, it doesn't seem real. I've been on the, I've been on the circular thing with the toboggan. Is that what we call it? I've been on the toboggan. Or like it's like the circle sled. Yeah. Yeah. Is that what it's called?

It's like a little. The toboggan's like a longer. Yeah. Oh, that's the Olympic. Straight one. You, you were on a tube? No. It was in like a dish.

It was in the Christmas vacation thing. Yep. Yep. Oh. A saucer. A saucer. Yes. Okay.

Yeah. That was fun. Yeah. I've been on one of those. Some fucking sled nerd is going to tweet at us. Yeah. Oh, excuse me. Yeah.

Yeah. I love doing every winter activity. I'm going to try to, I used to play hockey too. Whoa. Hell yeah. I think out here and, and not play hockey because I'm scared of getting hurt. But like just skate. Yeah.

Get a little pass and just skate. There definitely rinks around here. I mean, there's, there's, there's one in Long Beach for sure. Yeah. But I'm sure there was one's close to LA. Hanford and Neil were playing. They were playing hockey for a while. Yeah.

Were they playing roller hockey? They were playing roller hockey. Yeah. But I mean, whatever. Same difference. I can't even roller skate. That's tough. Same thing, dude.

Same thing. I can't, I can't roller skate. I mean, skating was a thing. My dad would skate. He was a hockey player. That's cool. But he never, he like didn't want to take me to the early practices and stuff. Fair enough.

Yeah. It's also so expensive. Right. Playing hockey is so expensive. First of all, it costs just to join. Yeah. And then all of your equipment. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that, that was a part of it. I think he also like, I don't even know how good he was. I mean, if he's a Mitchell, my guess is that he was like, okay. It's okay to somewhat, it's a somewhat bad. Like we are at everything, but, but yeah, it was that sort of thing of like equipment, waking up or like going to practice at five a.m. before school or whatever. And he was like, no way.

Plus you're dropping your kids off. You never know if the coach is going to be a guy who got a DUI and was ordered by the court to coach the team. You should be a really good lawyer and common scenario. I had a cool baseball coach. And he was like a younger coach guy and we were like a shitty team and he coached us to a championship. Whoa.

That's awesome. The game winning double for crying out loud. Yeah. Oh my God. That's awesome. How often do you think about that every 30 seconds or so? I had a soccer coach in sixth grade who'd been struck by lightning. No.

Six times. Wow. And anytime he would hear thunder from anywhere, he'd be like, get inside now. Like he would freak out and we'd have to all go running in. Is this the great outdoors guy? He really, he literally been struck multiple times. Yeah. A bunch.

And he has like a crazy long white beard and just looked like he'd been struck by lightning a bunch. That's insane. Isn't that wild? The idea that like you would be, you've been struck by lightning so many times that if you want to show it, you have to hold up two hands. Like that's crazy. It's insane.

Because I like, what were the circumstances when she was struck even more than once? Do you have any idea? He must have been building one time or something, right? I mean, I believe that he probably got a direct hit, but he must have, maybe that only happened once or so, right? Right. He'd kill you for crying out loud. I don't know.

I don't know. We got to get him on the pod. I don't know if he's still alive. With that luck, I don't think he's still alive. Hey, you know, if we have any Doughboys listeners who've ever been struck by lightning or know someone struck by lightning, hashtag thunderstruck. Let us know. And also if those powers, if lightning powers came to you, I got a, I could take use of

you. I could take use of you. I could take use of you. I could put you to edit point. I could put you to good use. There it is. This is less articulate. Magneto.

Yeah, that guy, you know that I would, I would, I would have him strike you is what I'm saying. Oh, there it is. I think Neil heard is, I think your fear is, is a normal feel. I think, I think Neil heard is, he heard his leg, his knee or whatever. You get into like your mid thirties and then it's just like your body just can't, we talked about this a little bit at the, at the, the cracker barrel is just your body just can't quite keep up with what you used to do physically. Yeah.

Now when I go skiing, I like get there when it opens and then I'm done by launch. Right. Cause it is like once you start to get tired, that's when you get hurt. Right. And so, and as a kid and stuff, I would go for like eight hours all day long and nothing would be wrong. But now as an adult, I'm like, okay, I got to stop. This is going to be bad for everyone on the mountain.

I, my, my mom, when I was little, I was skiing. I started going downhill. I started like going straight downhill. Yeah. And my mom tried to intercept me and we tumbled. Oh God and her binding didn't release. Oh my God. She basically broke her knee.

Jesus Christ. And we were like on the side of the mountain and my dad and my sister were going up in the chairlift and my dad was like, hey, check it out. Look at this. Look at this stupid lady who got hurt. My dad wasn't. By the way, my dad's a good man. He said that spit on her.

He was like, he was like, he said, he said to my sister, not stupid. I'm saying like he was like no. Yeah. Look at this idiot who got hurt. Of course you would always like you would always roar with laughter with somebody who was wiped. And then they did a yard sale where all their equipment goes everywhere. The yard sale.

I've had a few of those myself where it's where my glove was like, you know, like 20 feet up the mountain. Right? Yeah. Yeah. But wait, so your dad like ridiculed you? 20 feet on that far. About my dad?

Yeah. But then he later found out it was you. Found out it was. That she broke her knee. And she never skied again. Wow. And I feel like this is like, you know, this is the 80s or whatever. So I feel like probably I think that like today maybe she'd be up and at it again.

But like, I think it like fucked her up or a lot. Yeah. Fair enough to like. There's been a lot of advances. Okay. Yeah. There have been. It's true.

Yes. Absolutely. There has been. Do you? Okay. So let's talk post skiing. You're done. Okay.

You're done with your the slopes. Yeah. What are you doing? Are you hanging at the ski lodge? Are you someone who likes like a hot toddy? What are your winter beds? Winter treats. I love just an ice cold beer.

Oh, that's a lot. Oh, interesting. It's so refreshing. Right. Yeah. To just ski all morning and then at lunch get a nice cold. I like an IPA from Colorado and just drink a beer feels it feels so good. Right.

Like growing up, I, you know, you would watch. I feel like the Simpsons and stuff and just be like, is beer really that refreshing? Yeah. And then sometimes it really goes skiing. Yeah. And it is awesome. There's been times where like in the summer at UCB or something or like in college when it was hot or something, I'd have a beer and it would just hit the spot and I it's

so it doesn't happen to too often, but every time it happens, I'm like, this is fucking yeah great. It just can even be like a nasty, nasty light beer and it still tastes so I'm thinking Bud Light every time. When I'm doing it, I mean, like I'm so good. My ski lodge when I go, first of all, yeah ski lodges are like, hell, oh, really? I love. Hold on.

Hold on. A second. You've been you've been on a saucer once. I've been to ski places. I've been to places where skiing goes on and I've hung in the lot. Yeah. Well, first of all, that for you, that's easy. If you have your boots on and it's a crowded ski, that's true.

Of course I like like a nice lodge that's on the mountain. You just take your skis off and walk right in. That's cool as hell. Yeah, but and I'm sure that there's a lot of those in in Colorado where they're like when I was skiing up in New Hampshire and stuff, there's not as many lodges that are on the mountain or so, which is which is cool as those are those are cool as hell. Awesome. I went to school near Crested Butte, this really great ski mountain in Colorado and

my favorites and they have an ice bar in the middle of the mountain that you could just like ski right up to and all the glasses were ice and you just sit outside. It's awesome. That sounds great. Yeah. It was really cool. It's crazy that they're like drink up because I know it's bad in college yet. Like I would get a little drunk and be skiing right.

This is not good if I'm having a blast, but this is not okay. You think about insane. It would seem if it was like in a public park where there's like a skate, there's a skateboard ramp and then there was just like a bar there and people were just getting fucking loaded and then just doing just like pipe tricks would be bananas. You really are a so Cal man to the core. So Cal dude thinking about a bar at a skate ramp. No, and also just like that sort of thing of like here's a beer during like because

it is it first of all it is a work. Skiing is like a physical. It's a physical. Yeah. But I love glades. You know what I'm talking about? Glades, which is like the the little those are like you go through the woods basic. Oh, they're like the little trails.

Oh, yeah. They're like the nice little trail. And to me is like Nick. I've told you this before one of my dreams is to like take a train through like like snowy Europe. I want to do that so that like go to Switzerland. It's like hit the hit the Alps man. I want to do like the or the Orient Express or something.

I want to and you want to murder to happen everyone to play their part. I'm going to bring Nick with me. And in the end it turns out that we all we all murdered you together. Yeah, no, I I that I love I love kind of like quiet, peaceful snow. You are in a text. Jane one time when I sent you I went out and walked around in the snow. Remember when I was when I was right? It's like you're having fun.

It's so calming. It's silent and I I do miss that often, especially like this time of year. Pretty much like after Halloween through January. I'm like, I really miss yeah. No, yeah, right, but then I go home to Colorado for like a week in December. I'm like, oh, I gotta get out of here. It's so hard to do anything. It was I saw the I was watching the football game and I was watching the

Broncos first, whoever yeah, and they were saying it's 27 degrees. I was like it's October 727. Dear God, yeah Denver is such a weird, a cool city and such a weird. I was in. I lived in Denver with my first job ever was there. Oh, yeah, I think we talked about that. I was there for I was there for like three or two or three months. Yeah, you're working on a production, right?

Yeah, I was working on a spooky house or is that a different one? That happened right afterwards. Okay, it continued into that the house. I came back to L.A. was the house that was haunted. Okay, yeah, then first school, but it is wild because it'll be like in the 70s in January, right, but then the next day an insane blizzard. Yeah, yeah. But it's cool.

I can change on a dime or whatever. Yeah, my big thing, by the way, when I would get into a ski lodge, I would down a fruit punch Gatorade. It'll be Gatorade. Yeah, because remember Powerade. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, I'll do that. That's a if it's only Powerade, I'll take whatever whatever sports

streak there is. I'll do. Here's my issue with Powerade. Oh, boy, little, little too harsh on the throat. It's bubbly. It's yeah. It's like a little bit more of a, it's got a little bit more bite to it than Gatorade.

Gatorade's a smoother consumption. Yeah. But yeah, you know what I like for refreshing in a ski lodge environment? I like, I think it's a great Bloody Mary scenario. That's good. That is very good. That's good. I like that one.

Like I like that. I like like a hot chocolate or if it's like a hot toddy or some sort of whatever, what are the other hot alcohol drinks? Hot toddy, like Irish coffee, Irish coffee or cider. Like a hot cider with some hot chocolate with rumple mints. Remember rumple mints? That like insanely high peppermint schnapps. Yeah.

I think it lights on fire. Yeah. It's bad. Yeah. Those were the big, when I was a boy, those were the big schnapps. When I was a boy. Oh my God. Yeah.

Yeah. Green apple puckers. Oh yeah. We drank too much of that. That is awful. I'm sure my insides are not there anymore because of it. It's so just like artificial, the pucker. It's just so brutal.

Yeah. I here's my issue with Irish coffee. It makes me feel insane. The combination of heat and alcohol and caffeine. I'm just like, I feel like I'm losing my mind, but that see. I don't like the caffeine thing. Well, I get I get what you're saying. I love coffee, but the, but, but a lot of alcohol and a lot of caffeine and one

go doing in cabins is my question. What do you want me to do when you went sledding one time? What's the other cabins you're in here? The things that went on. I was, I was in Boy Scout, so we'd go on some winter adventures. I was my, my lovely wife Natalie likes to snowboard and so we'll go snowboard. I'm just going to hurt myself and I don't know how to do it. So you sit by the fire basically.

I bring my Nintendo 3DS. What a dream. Playing some Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney. I'm sipping some Bloody Marys. I'm having a great time. I'm surprised I don't pull. I'm surprised the skiers don't pull you outside. Put your face in the snow and put fucking snow down your pants.

White wash, dude. White wash the hell out of you. You never got white washed, huh? What's that? Like when, when, when kids would like push you into the snow and like rub your face down into the snow or whatever. Oh, is that what that's called? Then yes, I have.

No, I've never actually, I've, I've, I've been hazing the matter. I was never around that much snow. Hazed in that matter. I wish I could white wash you right now. White washing was always bad because like you, you get your fit and then you're like, because it happened to me a couple of times. It seems like it may be a sap and you watch it for sure, but it also, I was like, you don't know if that what's below there.

There could be dog shit or something. I remember like kids hiding rocks and snowballs and like ice chunks and hucking them and it would hurt so bad. It's insane. Kids are awful. Kids. Yeah, they really are. Kids are, they're a bad man.

How do you, how did we survive? That's insane. I, I, I don't, I, cause like I had the same thing, rocks and snowballs. That's fucked up. You don't do that. It's very fucked up. Winter mischief seems particularly harsh. It's just like you can really like, cause there's, there's, there's icicles

and all mischief seems especially harsh. Well, just see, I think you can get up to more, more trouble than you can, just cause of the presence of snow and ice. It's just, there's more ways to cause damage. Oh, I got to, there's like adults are inside more too. Oh, right. Cause there's like, I don't want to go outside. It's fucking cold.

I got a story for you. Oh yeah. Prove it. Wow. Oh, she called you out. Nevermind. The story, I know what his story is. I was sledding my, my dad took my sister and I sledding.

We get our sleds out of the trunk. It's his old, it was his old Buick closes the trunk right on my fingers. Oh no goes to unlock it drops. This is the old trunks where you had to unlock the, the, the, I mean people, I think it's probably still remember these. Yes. A lot of people drops the keys into the snow, no, and then there was like trying to find the keys as my hand was stuck in like a black sheep.

It was, it was, it was, it was, it was fucking awful. Oh no. Yeah, yep, and I went like God. What was the damage to your hands? Well, you can see him now. They, it looks like I have hand Adam who always says it looks like I have fingers from the penguin, sorry penguin from Batman to be clear. That's, wait, that's the hand that it happened to your.

No, there was, no, it was fine. No, I didn't even break it. Oh, okay, okay. I mean, it was just, it was just for, for a child that was the most pain. I had, man, getting your finger caught in a door and that happened to me so many times when I was little, I don't know how that happened. Yeah, that's brutal. I had a, I had a thing.

This was, this was a freak accident that happened backstage at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater during a show. So they had a little, there's like a little doorknob from the backstage area into the, the stage entrance and I was turning the knob and the skin on my palm got caught in the, like in the knob somehow. And so it just, when it, like I, I twisted it open and then when it spun the other direction, it just like ripped that completely, like just ripped the skin into this like gigantic bleeding gash down the, the center of my palm.

Oh my God. And I did the rest of this 30 minute show holding a paper towel to just keep the blood in from spreading. That's, that's, that first of all, that's terrifying for the audience. Did you get a shot? I didn't get a shot afterwards. That's a terrifying for the audience. You're fine.

You're fine. Yeah. That's terrifying for the audience to see you holding, gripping a paper towel, bloody paper towel. They couldn't tell. But yeah, it was, it was such like, I was like, how many times have I opened a door and then just never thought that was even a possibility? I must have just grabbed it clumsily.

Yeah. Ew. It's so crazy. That's so, that's bad. It's like trying to take doors doing that. Right. It's like trying to take a bite of food and then poking yourself in the eye with a fork.

It's like, I, there's no way I would ever think this one is impossible all the time, and also to bring it in today, to today's episode, a sign of maybe it was stigmata. Oh my God. Nice dude. The robot robot stigmata. There's wires sticking out of your little hole. There were no wires.

Very clumsy way to get stigmata. I thought it was usually more of a supernatural thing, not a weird doorknob accident, a shitty improv. I couldn't remember the, I couldn't remember the name of stigmata. I was about, I was googling and I couldn't find anything and then it just came to me. What's happening here? You look at your, your, your, when you start looking it up, you remember it.

I feel like that happens to me all the time. You googled the old cerebral cortex. It's a slow search. So outside of, outside of a ski lodge of beverages, cold weather eats in general. What do you like to eat when it's, when the winter months are upon us? Oh my God. Ramen.

Oh yeah. I love getting into some ramen and just like fun soups. Yeah. You know, I love a good soup. Um, I mean pasta, but that's the year round, but also like, it's so good in the winter. Yeah. That's sort of hearty, sort of stick to your ribs.

Yeah. Absolutely. Wait, what's your pasta of choice? My, I love, um, uh, bow tie for, for, for, for, for the, yeah. I think that's right. Bow tie is good enough. Bow tie pasta. It's just fun.

It is a lot of fun to look at. Yeah. The, and also the texture kind of holds up, but even if you over cook it a little bit, it's usually a little, a little substance. It kind of gives you a little bit of everything, like thin parts, but then a fun, like kind of chunky middle. Yeah. I love, I love a nice stew.

I'm a stew. Oh, and chili. Chili is great. It was cornbread. You put it cornbread in it. Oh, a hundred percent. Love a good chili. I'm trying.

Ooh, what else? I, I'm thinking of like now I'm thinking of because it's coming up. I'm going to be back home for the winter, but when a Nick, you know, I know this, you're sabbatical that you take to Quincy every year. Yeah, you go home for a long time. Who cares? I like my family. That's fine.

It's not a luxury not everyone can afford. Go live in their hometown for 12 weeks, 12 weeks, 12 weeks. I mean, that's insane, not overstating it by much. I was there for, I was there for four weeks. Okay. Okay. I was there for, I was there for a month in a, in a city where everything shuts down.

I'm not going to even be there that long this time. Okay. Yeah. God, God, I think you don't want me to see my, my mother, my, my, my, my, my mother, who I got to see just a couple of times a year in it. Great to see your mom. So that's kind of fucked up Betsy, that he doesn't want me to see my mom. I didn't say that.

See Mrs. Mitchell fucked up, man. That's fucked up. Let him see his mom. You can see your mom. I'd love to see your mom during the year. A couple of times. No, I see my mom. I see my parents pretty frequently.

They live in ocean side. So it's not that far away. I don't see my mom and sister frequently. Okay. They live on the other side of the country. All right. I mean, they seem to come out here a couple of times a year and you go out there for like four or six weeks at a time.

They come in, they came here. How many times they come here this year, Nick? Once. Okay. For five days. And how many times did you go home this year? Zero. Really?

What are you talking about? When did I go home? You haven't gone home this entire year? I'm trying to think. Didn't you go to, you went to Italy. You didn't stop buying Quincy when you're in. Oh, I did. You're right.

Okay. I did. For 12 weeks. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. You're right. I did go home. I went home and I went home in the summer for a week.

All right. And we're, and your, your mom was out here and you went and saw a concert, right? I remember this. Yeah. So I saw my mom twice this year. Okay. All right.

Quick crying, man. No, it's not, it's not an unreasonable amount. It's the, the, the length, the, the frequency of trips is fine. The length of the trip is perhaps larger than average, but it's nice that you can do that. You know what? Eat shit. Eat dog shit.

A fresh, wet dog shit. Oh, that's disgusting. Pretty good in the wintertime though. Still hot. Snack or whack a fucking dog shit, you fucking asshole. I'm not going to eat a dog shit for the podcast. Maybe if the Patreon hits a hundred K. I love my, there you go.

Oh my God. I'll put in 50,000. I want to see you eat shit. Don't do that. Bad use of your money. I love my mommy and I love my sister and I love that. I love all of Quincy. Oh yeah, we know that's sweet.

Nothing else. Are there fun, like winter traditions there or like, I don't know, a parade or something there is like a, I think that is it the weekend or after the Thanksgiving they have like a Santa Parade. You know what's funny is that Santa like has been like blown into the ocean multiple times. Really he par he used to parachute down. Okay, and then there's been like multiple times or like the Santa.

I hope I hopefully never got hurt, but I think he like got like blown out to see on a couple because we're right by the ocean. Right, so the Santa got so funny. Yeah, so he's parachuting down to like land on a float or something or a stage or something. He parachutes down to like come to the like, yeah, some parade or some area at the end. Yeah, so like go into a chimney. It's very impressive landing spot, make it man.

Yeah, there is, I mean, there's stuff, but I mean, I haven't done that since I was a child, but yeah, just hanging out at the house and you know what, watching some of the screeners that we get for that's nice, the perk of being in it's screener season screener season has become baby. It's when a screener seasons begun. I this is when the podcast gets really relatable. We talk about all the free DVDs that are sent to us because we work in television and I bring them home.

I've told you this before and I'm a hero to my mom and her friends and my parents are blown away. I'm a hero. It's the best time I like, uh, my mom's learning amount to people. It's a great time and it's a great for me. I feel I feel like it's the most I have accomplished when that happens. It's great. Yeah, yeah, it feels like you're like it's a little like secret.

It's just like, it's just like, oh, we won't distribute this. Don't worry. We won't upload it. Mom, which of your friends would like to see venom? Yeah, auntie Pat can borrow black panther, she's like, yeah, it's always like it's surreal to receive movies that are still in theaters that are that you can just watch at home. I mean, it's it makes you feel very spoiled working in this industry.

But, uh, uh, beyond that, uh, beyond the, uh, beyond this, this, uh, this very L.A. thing, um, uh, more generally Betsy. So we're in the midst of our religious month. Great. Okay. Did you have any sort of, what was your religious upbringing? Were you a church going full Catholic? You were Catholic.

Okay. So like Mitchie. Yeah. I went to church, had to go to catechism, I think once a month and I hated every second of it. Man, my parents would bribe me to go with Taco Bell. That's amazing. Yeah.

They were like, if you go, we'll get you Taco Bell. And I was like, okay, I'll go. Okay. I'm good. And I got in trouble a bunch. Like, but I got that Taco Bell every time I got kicked out in eighth grade because the head lady who we would call the Grinch, uh, thought I flipped her off, but I did not, I did not.

And my parents are like, you have to be honest. Did you flip her off? Cause we had that kind of relationship where I totally could have and I didn't. And, but they still kicked me out. And my parents are like, it's okay. That's nice. We won't have you go back. Wow.

Thank you. Cool. Cause apparently the woman went to her home and asked her husband, which finger is the naughty finger? Wait, what? The woman who thought you flipped her off. Yeah. I got a question for you.

She's crazy. Was she a child, uh, pretend like, like pretending to be an adult? Think of it. I think she was four children stacked on top of each other in a trench coat. Her husband was also the same thing. She was wild. She would always wear very high collars and a very tight bun. And she was just so unhappy.

Right. You know, listen up that bun. Got to loosen up that bun, loosen up that collar. Right. Have a little fun. That's act two of that movie. Put your hair down. Is there a, it starts flipping people off now.

I know what the naughty finger is. I wish that'd be rad. So she wasn't a nun. She was not a nun. Okay. Cause I don't know how this, I wasn't raised Catholic. So I don't know how this, all this, this nun business. Well, I hope, I hope she wasn't the nun.

Terrifying. Very scary. Valic. Valic. I haven't said that name too many times in here. What, what's goes on? I haven't seen the nun. What's the nun's deal?

I'm a spoiler, a spoiler. The nun is the V word I just said, which I'm afraid to say over in my house again. The March? Yeah. Now, Conjuring world is meeting up with the Harry Potter world. Weird. It's wild. Everything's a crossover, but it's basically like a devil that like possessed

the nun, right? Well, the fuck is the story about it? I got to say the story was, I feel barely there. I was, I had so much fun the whole time. Yeah. Cause there were some fun scares and stuff, but there was, there was a lot of words like, wait, what is going on? This is, this is in the, in the, in the Conjuring verse, which is now.

Well, Betsy, we should talk about this too, because this is a big part of religion is believing in ghosts in some way. Sure. The Holy Ghost. For one Catholicism, such a spooky religion. It is spooky as well as a like religion in general spooky, but yet let alone. Yeah, they're like the Holy Ghost, right? Yeah, ghosts are like spirits are there devil is that that's devil.

All this doesn't reminds me of the Diablo franchise. It just always like that's what I always think of Catholics as being. Do you have some fucking one, like video game that reminds you every fucking normal human experiences in life? Yeah, yeah, I do absolutely. The, the not you song. I just remembered that you tweeted something about a video game the other day to it was about sports, speak up on your tweet.

Yeah, I'm watching the League of Legends World Championships live. It's really exciting. Oh my God, he sports is the new sports. I applaud you, you song what you applaud him because he sports is the new yeah because he's he's he's he's a he's proud of what he's watching. He's putting it out there. But the devil yeah, yeah, the devil that well gothic architecture, but they a lot of it. I still this from someone, but that's like the first that's like the

first real horror movies and hard and the for back in the day when there were no films, these paintings and this are this horrified in these sculptures. That's that's kind of the first horror that we there are a lot of stories, of course, too. I remember sitting at church looking at Jesus on the cross and being terrified and I constantly was just waiting for his head to like move and I would go. I would always remember I'd be like, okay, it's to the right, it's to the right. And then the next week, I was like, it's going to be to the left.

It's going to be the fucking black. I would it was horrified happens in Exorcist three if you I love Exorcist three, one of the greatest scares in the world. Yes, like the, you know, the oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's you just made a gesture with her hands. I knew exactly what she was talking about. Yeah, it's like you're shooting a basket. Wait, what was I saying, Nick, before I got into all this? Oh, the nun, yes, that basically in the conjuring reverse. Oh, yes, the nun. The thing was, is that

like the thing basically like all these stories were like, oh, they're based on true events or never. They're based on. They're supposed to be based on true events. So like all of them would be like, well, this is scary, and I don't really maybe believe that this happened this way, but like maybe like this, like the things that were going on is what was claimed to being happened. The nun was a movie where like it just wasn't that like a guy to investigate something, and then he like was in a grave under dirt. Like it was like what found books

underneath them in that grave. It was insane ever that part. It didn't like. Oh, look at these books. I bet they'll explain something. It's like, wait, you know what? Yeah, and I were there, but it's so, but it was fun, and so it was just like a like a made up ghost story, which you could argue all of them are, but but there's a lot of I think you're a believer in in in spirit. Yeah, for sure, but you're now you're not. You're not really religious anymore. No, yeah, I feel within the last few years. I've been able to get. I've been really good at getting rid of my Catholic guilt. Oh, that's great. Yeah, it took a long

time, and like I think it kind of gave me OCD. Yeah, because I used to be very, I used to be very scared of the devil and I would have to knock on wood to make sure that nothing happened. Right. Yeah, but now I'm starting to really just be like fuck that man. Right. That's I I also I have OCD and I was at the gym today and I didn't get off when the numbers landed a certain way. Six, six, and especially like six hundred and sixty six miles. Wow. You know what? This is why I stay away from the gym. We'll take him. I hate the gym, man. We'll be back with more to boys.

Welcome back to Doughboys. Betsy Sadara our guest, Cracker Barrel, our chain this week. That's right. Before we get into it. Yes. Well, there was also a creepy thing that happened at Cracker Barrel. But what do you what do you consider yourself now? Are you kind of agnostic? Betsy, or you don't have to even categorize yourself, but do you do? Are you an atheist? Are you agnostic? Are you still Catholic? But it's just kind of Catholic. Unfortunately, like my family and my parents were very liberal, like they're very liberal and yeah, and growing up, they were very much like the Bible is more of just literature to teach you

lessons. Right? Like they were never that hardcore with us. Yeah, but I kind of go back like I like the idea of there being something out there. Yeah, but also I just have a feeling there's nothing. Yeah, like that's fair. Yeah, or but I like and like energy. I think energy goes somewhere. Yes, and that's and that's what you think basically spirit. Yeah, I think so where it's just like oh, there's residual energy. That's kind of that's kind of my explanation for it, even though people think it's insane. But I but I but I that's what I think too. Yeah, I think that yeah, yeah, it's got to go somewhere. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, here's my

thing about ghosts. Oh boy. Why are like why aren't there more like animal ghosts? Because I would feel like that would be a thing, right? There'd be like horse ghosts and like spooky zoo animals. I will say Marcy. Yeah, she just talked to a psychic and the psychic just told her that her dog from growing up is playing with her cat right now. Whoa, in the spirit realm, in the spirit realm. That's wild. Isn't that nuts? Because Marcy was like, Oh, my cat will go into my roommate's room and I'll hear like the closet door opening and closing and nobody's in there except my cat. And then the psychic was like, Oh, yeah, your

cat's playing with your dog Ozzy. Wow. Isn't that weird? That's wild. So there's one. Okay. But I do. What if there are a bunch of like horses just hanging out? Man, I'd be I like I love the idea of animal ghosts except for the prospect of bug ghosts, which I think is that's nasty. I don't want to see that shit. Like if you like if you become a spirit and there's like a bunch of bugs, I was like, I don't want to deal with this. What a bummer. I think I mean, also, I think to be a ghost, there's going to be more to the I think like a maybe a cockroach had some unfinished business or something sticks around. Oh, no, but I don't

think that I don't know and who knows who knows about insects. I feel like I don't know. I would like to think Wally and Irma will be in heaven with me. Oh, yeah, and I will be a cat as well. Finally, embrace your fursona. Do you believe in what's the word? I'm reincarnation or like past life, all of that. I can get behind that a little bit. Sure. Why not? It seems fun. I don't know who the hell knows. It could happen. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think I guess in like a cloud Atlas way, it would be cool. Like a sort of like if that the true, true

the future. Maybe I'll be old Georgie. So I was going to say that our chain for this week maybe falls into this kind of a agnostic, not a hundred percent religious religious category. I think agnostic is overstepping it because it's not. Oh, it's, it's, it's not overtly religious, but it is. I think we, you know, we, we pulled some friends from the south and everyone was kind of like, yeah, it's religious enough when we were kind of searching for something that would fit this criteria. Well, here's box we put ourselves in with this theme. Well, because we didn't, of course, we

didn't want to go to Pizza Ranch. That didn't happen. Yeah. We took a two hour, about an hour and a half trip. The closest Cracker Barrels in Victorville, California. Back to Victorville. Right. Where we went to the original Steak and Shake back in the day. The original Steak and Shake. Yeah. Not the original. The first one in California. Oh, great. Okay. For some reason, Victorville, which is on the, on the drive to Vegas, has become a Southern California like test market for chains that are coming westward. So there's a, there's a whole There's everything. Every chain is out there. We were out there and it just,

it seemed like it was just chain restaurants. But yeah, the only Cracker Barrel in California as of now is right now in Victorville. It feels Southern. It feels religious. It feels like a place people go after church. Right. Yes. Yeah. That's what it feels like. But then at the same time also, hey, maybe we're recognizing the agnostic non-religious side of things too in this month, which is also important, Nick, or maybe we're recognizing the official state religion of the U.S. Capitalism. The only thing we worship is the almighty dollar almighty

dollar. It wasn't even that, right? It was like all ID, all ID, all our senses. It's a good show. The, so, uh, and yeah, Cracker Barrel does kind of have the, you know, it does kind of have some of those scummy associations, whether it's, whether it's religious related, related to the religiosity of the owners or not was hard to find out, but certainly to their conservative religious beliefs, which are often conflated with, you know, with the Christian right. But in, in terms of like, they had some employment discrimination, some customer

discrimination lawsuits that appear to be in their past, but are definitely a part of their history as with many chains. But I will say this is, I do like Cracker Barrel's food and this is a place I hadn't been to in a while. I can't remember if this is my second or third visit and I honestly can't remember because it's been years and I was a kid when I went, but I, but I can't remember if it was in Arizona or if there was a location that was in California at one point in the past and it closed. But it was, it was certainly was nowhere near where, where I grew up when I went to Cracker Barrel

originally. Betsy, you'd been to Cracker Barrel before? Just this past summer, the first time in Georgia. Yes, you went in the South, right? Yep. Yeah. And it was packed again. It felt exactly like that one. It was packed and just little old ladies working in the store. Right. Yeah. It's got a very, I gotta say it's got a very homey. It's got, it's, it does have a good old, even the one in California has a good old homey Southern vibe to it.

Yeah, but I had been before too. I had gone when I was going down South Atlanta for to go to double sessions for crew during spring break and we stopped at Cracker Barrel. Very cool. And then also when I was a kid, I think on a trip down to Florida, like I had been there a right two to three times or something before. And I remember like liking it. It is a place that like so many people, I think, who are living the South are like Cracker Barrel is like, yes, they love Cracker Barrel. Yeah, Drew Tiber ever since I met him, cannot stop talking about Cracker Barrel. And that's who I went with in Georgia.

Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely it's a Southern obsession. And yeah, you were right, Mitch, in terms of like the theme, because there's this the big country store, which is the, you know, before you get into the dining room, there's this giant country store with a whole bunch of chotchkees for a sale. But then inside the restaurant proper, the theming is just so over the top, like the walls are just covered with a bunch of different, like, you know, just like erratic, like a sampling of Americana. Spooky. Yeah, there's so much stuff up. Yeah, there's like, there's like paintings of haunted children.

It's like part of it. Yeah, it's creepy. But then there's also like, yeah, there's like some weird scary paintings by the bathroom for sure. There are some creepy paintings, but all over. Yeah, photographs. No, some souls were trapped in there for sure. Yeah, but there's in cracker barrel. Yeah, I think so for absolutely. There was a there was a DVD pack that I was to attention to busy paying attention to that. The Kurt Russell right Disney Kurt Russell, what I was like this is so old like apple dumpling gang. It was it was it was a Kurt Russell Ford for movie DVD pack of when he was a child, but he was like

of all the like for Disney movies. Yes. Yeah, the four Disney movies in here's here's what I was gonna say. Here's a creepy thing about that Walt Disney's last words wasn't was that the last thing he said was Kurt Russell. He asked for Kurt Russell. It was something like that or like like Russell or something. I forget. I know it's possibly apocryphal. Yes. Yeah, wait Walt Disney. Last words Kurt Russell. It's that's yeah. He said Kurt Russell or it must be Russell. What were it? What was it exactly? It must be Russell. That makes it seem weirder. I can't remember exactly what it was. I think it was Kurt

Russell is the thing at the end of the movie. He's trying to clear it up. Russell is the thing. Oh my God, that's creepy man. Yeah, it's got very strange. This weird this weird click baby article on countryliving.com isn't shedding any light on this. We'll have to look this up later. But countryliving.com is your home page. But yeah, the Cracker Barrel Country Store is very strange because it's got like, you know, a wall of Yankee candles and then it's got like a bunch of just like, you know, like the world's largest Reese's Pieces cup. And then it's got

like World War Two propaganda films on VHS. It's just like it's so weird Mario Pez, which I bought. Yeah, it's Mario Pez. It's got like cheap like Spencer's gift crap and then like, you know, stuff for grandma and then like like actual vinyl records of Otis Redding. It's very strange and people were losing their minds. They really were. Yeah. It felt like people went to Cracker Barrel to like go shopping. I was I was really blown away at how packed it was. Yeah, it was it was packed the whole time. The volume of customers was amazing. Go ahead, Mitch. I was gonna say, let's start with it. Let's start with the top of the day.

We left. Yes, we left here. Yeah, at about nine a.m. Yes, Saturday morning, right? Yeah, we don't up Nick. It was a very it was a gray, windy, rainy day. It was almost like we were driving into a scene from the movie White Squall. Oh my God, that's right. It's almost like the windows of my car had been placed by screens and White Squall was playing on each of them. Right? Do you agree Nick? Yeah, I did almost run over Gina Davis. Is she in there? Do you know what? Yes. No, I'm gonna say yes, no matter what. Yeah. Uh oh. I don't know if she was in it. Fuck. No, I agree. It's like the the 405 Freeway was in fact the

choppy waters of the Pacific because we were in the movie White Squall. So we were so yeah, it was quite a drive over there. There was a it was gray. There was a lot of rain. Here's the thing that I really appreciated that I discovered. She was not in it. She was not in it. Okay. Was she in a boat movie? I don't care. I'm sorry. She was definitely in a boat. She had to island. Were you thinking to cut through an island? I think that's the one. Wow. What a movie to reference. I forgot that existed. Is she a pirate? Yeah, I think she's a pirate then. She's a lady pirate. Nick, you know what? We may as well have renamed my silver

2010 Nissan Ultima the Albatross because we were basically in White Squall for crying out loud. Did you Google the name of the ship from White Squall? No, I remembered it. Yeah, but here's the thing that here's a feature of the Cracker Barrel that I liked is that there there is a thing not to make reservations, but to get on the wait list on the mobile app. And so we got like we were talking about actual reservations because we had no reservations going to this place, baby. No. No, no, no. Yeah, the reservations that you make in a restaurant to reserve a

table. No, I'm not talking about the trepidation that you would have about embarking on something. So but you can you can get on the wait list. And so about 30 minutes out, I hopped on the wait list. So when we got there, basically our table was ready. It actually worked really well. Right in. But I will say this, Betsy, when we walk, you know, there was a rocking chair that was moving back and forth by itself. It may have been because the conditions were outside were like the movie White Squall, right, but Betsy and I liked to believe that there were some ghostly on just rocking back and forth. Yeah, it was spooky. It was a

bunch of rocking chairs is very scary, especially when nobody's sitting in them. Yeah, they were. We did. We you and I did sit in. We did. You know what we were telling? We were telling ghost stories. We were. Oh, yes, I was telling you. Yeah, yeah, and then afterwards they were. Maybe we were in a spooky mood and we and it looks like, but they were they were rocking back and forth themselves, but that's a nice little feature outside to have all the chairs and chairs that I believe you can buy their for sale. Yeah, they're for sale. You can buy all those rocking chairs. Yeah, they saw you were about to sit in a Mitch and they were

like you broke it. You bought it, buddy. Price tag on that one piece. Yeah, I'm going to say this. Yeah, rocking chair too spooky to have in the house. Way too spooky. Yeah, I can see that way, way, way too spooky. And these are like porch rocking chairs. Kind of that. I don't know if they would go well in the in the in your living room. No, you want some sweet tea. You want to be you want a big deck you can lay out on if you got one of those. Yeah, you don't need that inside. No, rocking chair inside is bad news. I don't want to see that thing rocking. Oh, thank you. So

so we got there. We were seated fairly quickly and we got I will say this despite how impacted their dining room was they seem to have more than enough servers and our service was very, very attentive and very friendly. Yeah, she was like cracking jokes with us. She was nice. She's great. And and so we we started off with some beverages. I just got myself a cup of Joe cup of classic diner coffee. That was a good good nice black coffee there. You know, I didn't know what to do. I felt like I should have gotten sweet tea and I fucked up. You got while I'll let you get into your beverage. I got multiple beverages. You

got three beverages. What the fuck is wrong with that? It's insane. No, it wasn't. You know what? Betsy, this little rat, he doesn't say anything about it while we're there. Did you have an issue with me getting three beverages? No, I support it. I'm one. I'm down for drinking a bunch of different. I was trying to try a bunch of different stuff. I was just surprised. It was it was odd. I didn't fucking. Hey, hey, Mr. One Cup of Joe over to next to me. I got to the show. That's what this fucking podcast is about, baby, trying multiple try stuff. I got. I started with an iced tea. Yeah, I had an iced tea and you

had an iced tea as well. You inspire me to get the iced tea, but I was gonna go breakfast. So I ordering the iced tea was my mistake. Right. I shouldn't have got the iced tea, but I was like, oh, I should get an iced tea because it seems like they brew their own iced tea and but I should have gotten a sweet tea because that's more in line of what the place feels like. And then there was I got a little shot of raspberry. They put like a little shot of raspberry syrup in it, which I could barely taste. It was very much at the end and it would like you it just tasted like a regular iced tea, which kind of made me be like I want

something else. So I also got myself a fresh squeezed orange juice and a cup of coffee. Yeah, and guess what? I was loaded up with fucking piss. Yeah, when you got into use that urinal, it was kind of like a scene out of the movie White Squall. A warmer white squall. So and Betsy, what'd you think of that iced tea? Good classic solid. Yeah, you were saying you were saying that you were you're not a sweet tea person anymore. No, it destroys my stomach. Right. Like it's too

sweet. It's so intense. Yeah. Yeah, I used to really enjoy it. And now like I feel as soon just like this coffee does this like as soon as it gets in my mouth, I have to like go diarrhea. Like where my stomach is just like, no, get it out. And it's not even in here yet, but let's get it out. I don't know. Yeah, it's yeah, it'll get me. That's very funny. There's some stuff like that. I get it. I get that feeling. Some stuff just sets you off. Yeah, some stuff sets you up. It's you sound just shivered. No, you're okay. You song. I just have to go to the bathroom. Oh,

you have to go. Really? Yeah, I just have to. I just have to go pee. I don't know. Okay. What happened? Nothing happened. I just been drinking water. Oh my God. That was insane. Man. I don't know what went on there. I think that I think I think my pee. I think my full of pistol got a woman and he started to shiver. I was worried because I mentioned diary and I was like, Oh, does he not like diary? Who does who? Who? Who doesn't? Who? Who? Who doesn't like diary? My question. I was hard to figure that out. I'm I'm I'm perking my ear up from the bathroom. It sounds like fucking white squall. Whatever you song is doing.

Well, as a really first of all, I was a bunch of young like like young actors that got big right because it's like a what? What are you gonna say though? I was gonna say, isn't there like a weird like crazy like porpoise scene or something in that movie? Yeah, like kill like a porpoise or one of one of one of the like the rich kid like kills a kills like a dolphin. I don't think I've ever seen this because I thought it was Cutthroat Island. Yeah, when does it take place? It's it's it takes place like in the like or like 1950s or 60s. Okay, it's it's it's yeah. It takes place a little bit, but the 1900s like

not not too too long. Yeah. Okay. Okay, or is it even later than that? Is it like the 70s or 80s? I don't remember such a foggy memory of this and I'm kind of inflighting it with that movie about what's that that rocket movie is like called like sweet November or something. Are you worried, boys? What the hell is that called? I know what you're talking about. It's a totally different movie. It's it's it takes place. It takes place in the 60s. There is in the 60s and there's a scene in it where wait is is is Kurt speaking of Kurt Russell? Is he is he in it? I don't know. Oh my God, if he is this is if he is this is

fucked then Walt Disney's ghost is here right now. Jeff Bridges. Jeff Bridges. Okay, close enough. All right. There's a scene. There's like a sad scene where the ship is sinking and he's like looking at his wife through like she's like stuck on the other side of class and like she's and I think she really did go down with the ship. Like it's based on a true really the actress. The actress went down. Oh my God. It was a very realistic movie where I want to wow. So we got into food. I got the I got the the cracker barrel sampler for my entree. You know you and I were about to order the same thing you and you were you usually

do you. You were very nice with this. I was going to give you a compliment, not to your part and say you could order too many drinks or something like that, for instance, but a lot of time if you you and I this is a weird thing that's been happening where you and I will both be thinking of the same thing. Right. As we've done this podcast for too long or what the deal is similar tastes similar palettes, but you'll you'll always you'll always let you'll give you'll let me take what I you'll usually say you get that. I'm going to do something else and then you usually will go somewhere wildly different. I was happy to defer, but

what you got was actually very close to what I remember getting, which was the the country fried steak and eggs. You didn't. You got the country fried chicken, I believe that's right. Yeah. And then the with the apple side. Yeah. But I'll describe mine first and then I'll let you guys describe yours and we can talk about what we thought the cracker barrel sampler. I think is a good entry point for cracker barrel. If you've never been and want to try one of their their dinners because you get a little bit of three different mains, you get the chicken and dumplings, the meatloaf and then you get your choice of the sugar cure to the

country ham and with the country ham, the salt, the more savory version and you get three country sides on top of that. So you could just get a so many options. Yeah. I got a classic green mixed green side salad, which I know is a little boring, but I like to try places salads to see how they stack up the hash brown casserole, which is one of their signatures and the breaded fried okra and then made from scratch biscuits or corn muffins. The server offered us the option of one of each and I 100% did that because I want to try and both. So I got I got to try eight different things on this plate. Betsy, what was your what was your meal?

I did chicken and dumpling right and then a kale and Brussels sprout salad. Yes, with like oh God pecans and like crayon dried cranberries right is pretty good and and then the fried okra right and Mitch. What was your what was your entree? I got myself grandpa's country fried breakfast, which was two farm fresh eggs with grits and your choice of fried apples or hash brown casserole. I went with fried apples and then plus chicken fried chicken and it comes with all the all the fixings, which is sawmill gravy, homemade buttermilk biscuits, real butter and the

best preserves and jams. Then I also ordered for the table to be fair. Yes, the hash brown casserole, but what was it called? It was the loaded one. The loaded which I can. Can you have that in front of you, Nick? Or I can. I think it's got some meat on top of it, right? That's it's got some meat and cheese and bacon bacon bacon bacon, which here it is loaded hash brown casserole. It's not loading. It looks like it just looks like it's bacon and cheese. Yeah, and it's delicious. It was it's so good. And then also for the table as well. Just me. I ordered some blueberry pancakes. Yes, this is three buttermilk pancakes with

wild main blueberries and served with wild main blueberry syrup. Also a big pad of butter on there. And then we got some some standard syrup on the side. Uh-huh. And also I should say I got my eggs scrambled for the for the fried Sam, the grandpa's fried breakfast or whatever the fuck it's called. I don't care. Grandpa's country fried breakfast. Right. Grandpa's country fried. Jesus Christ. Grandpa's country fried breakfast. Right. High school theater kids are going to start saying that to warm up before I grandpa's country fried breakfast. They do it perfectly. Never mess up. Yeah. We got

that vocal warm up done. Let's go to this production of white squall. It's it takes place in a they have a water tank. I should we should we start talking about it? Let's get into it. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'll just say that I thought my I of the three entrees. I think the chicken and dumplings was the big winner. It's just like it's just really well done. I like that the dumplings are like are like a little gooey and chewy. The chicken is really you know that the chicken tenderloin is great. The gravy is really great. The meatloaf is solid. It's a solid. It's a solid. I have the meatloaf. It tasted maybe like dry or

something, but not not the taste was there. Just like it would have been a good taste. I just you gave me a little bite of yours. I liked the chicken dumplings and like you said, but then also it was just there was it was a little dry. It was it was a little a little disappointing, but not bad. This sounds like a slam, but it's like it's like Boston Market tier. It's like not like it's not like this mind-blowing like oh, you got to try the meatloaf and Cracker Barrel. They have better things there. And the ham was very solid. You know, nothing to write home about, but you know, like a well executed ham. I'll

say of the sides, the the greens green side salad was very fresh. So it looked like it was there was water. It looked like it was like a glistening with some some water. It looked freshly washed or something. Yeah, but it wasn't like so much. It wasn't like, you know, sometimes you get that salad that's wet and the dressing will just slide off of it. Yeah, it wasn't that at all. It was just like fresh produce and they were there were nice greens in there. The hash brown casserole, I think is a home run. Like that's just a really, really great. That's it. That's the one. That's the one. The texture is great. Like the

Christmas on top and then just like, you know, how how savory it is when you get into those those lower layers. It's just very dense, very flavorful. And it's great fried okra. It's just it's really well done. It was so good. Yeah. Yeah. I could eat that all day long. Yeah. And here's the thing. I didn't even want to dip it in ranch. And usually I want to dip anything fried in ranch. Right. But it was so good on its own. Yeah. A lot of moistness with the okra inside and just like a nice just like the right amount of breading. Yeah. Not too much. Like it didn't it didn't feel heavy either. Right. Which is always nice. Yeah.

Just with I think a cornmeal crust and it just just just really just really well done. What did you think Betsy? Give me your thoughts on the chicken and dumplings. What you all said. I love them. Talk about a good like winter. Right. Meal. So hearty. I had never had them before. I didn't really know what to expect. It was so delicious. Yeah. And those dumplings I could have eaten just a bunch of those. Yeah. Yeah. Chicken was great. But I was just I was there for the dumplings. Yeah. The dumplings are great. They were so good. And like I don't are they not cooked or how do they do that? That's a good question. It is a little I'm curious

about the the logistics of putting those dumplings together because it's it's definitely a lot doughier versus like the biscuit which has you know a little bit more texture to it. Yeah. It seems almost it seems almost like they're putting just like raw dough in there. But it works great. Yeah. I love raw dough. It's delightful. I'm sure it's more complex than that. Yeah. And then the the biscuits in the corn muffins. I mean both just winners. They're both just very solid. It's just it's just what you like better. They're both very good. They came out which is always nice. Yeah. That warm. You guys were nice enough to to give me a

little bit of the cornbread because mine didn't come with it and the cornbread was was was really good. Yeah. It's great. I put a little of that. There was there was some blackberry jam or something or like there was some sort of jam with butter. Like there was a butter and I don't know what the jam was but it was great. They was huckleberry jam or something. It was great. It was it was amazing and they don't look like anything special. Like it's not the best cornbread you'll have but it's very very very solid. Very solid. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. I think that's the baseline of quality there is very solid and some of

the stuff is quite good. Mitch, talk about your entree a little bit. All right. So the country. So grandpa's country fried breakfast. The two eggs were scrambled. I got some ketchup because I like a little ketchup on my egg. They didn't give me a time and all it comes with a little orange slice to which was fine but it but get that out of the way quickly. Here's my orange. We get it. We get it. We get it. I borrowed it quickly. My orange juice wasn't the it was fresh squeezed orange juice, but it wasn't the best. I thought the coffee was good. Nick. I had a little cream and sugar in there. I thought it was a decent coffee. How do

you feel dinner coffee? Yeah. And like you said, the the tea was good, but I couldn't taste the raspberry. Now on to the meal. The eggs were the the eggs were tiny, but the eggs were good. They were fluffy and warm. They were good. That chicken fried chicken with the gravy on top of it was fucking really good. Yeah, it was good as hell and it worked really well. I never usually do. I never get steak and eggs. I never I never do like a chicken fried steak or any sort of big protein like that with my meal, but I was like, hey, I might as well. It seems to me and I really was eating it up. I got to tell you this. Nick, I eat with

you a lot on the on these things. I fucking went nuts. Yeah, I ate a lot of food. You both saw this is. I've eaten a lot of meals with you. Nick. I went. This is this is the most I've ever eaten. I think any at any of the restaurants we went to. I was I was I was on a tear that morning. It was you cleaned your plate. I cleaned my way down. It was really something. The the the chicken was that good. Right? The the fried apples are like fine. The fried apple slices. They're they're good. They're just like an interesting. It's almost like a dessert. They're for kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're kind of it's a very strange.

Think of it. They're very sweet. You're right. But they're good. I mean, they're not bad and they're they're an interesting thing. It adds to like what this place is. I'm like, oh, that's interesting. I never usually see that. They're tasty. Yeah, but they were good to try. I loved the loaded hash. The hashbrown castle. It just was maybe my favorite thing. It was really great. How could you go wrong with a bunch of potatoes, cheese and bacon? But I feel like you could. I feel like I guess maybe I feel like there's places that would make that and it would. I've had like loaded mashed potatoes and stuff at other

places. I know different from hashbrowns, but and they haven't been good. We talked about this before. Yeah, or maybe even just like it's not worth it because I'm like I know how unhealthy this is. So it better be really, really good and that it feels like it's worth it. I actually like I'll just say this and this is perhaps. I were perhaps not on the same page here, but I like the the the plain hashbrown castle over the loaded one. I think it just I think just like the unadorned version. I kind of like yeah, but they're both they're both quite good. I mean you're wrong as hell. Yeah, you sound fucking crazy, but okay,

whatever man, the the the loaded the loaded hashbrowns are there. I think just all the the quality of the ingredients are are are good right. So it tastes good and then the biscuits. I loved. I'm not usually biscuits in gravy. I mean, like I just didn't grow up eating it, but I was I was dipping my biscuits into that gravy that they gave and it was they were delicious. Yeah, and I had so I put some butter on and dipped it in. I tried some biscuit with a little more of that spread the huckleberry jam or whatever. It was great. I did. I had the what? What's it called the grits, which I also never eat. Oh,

yeah, you got grits with it. I got grits. I think I put a little salt, maybe no salt. I think maybe just pepper and I put some butter in there at first. Yeah, I did that really good and then I put some maples, one of the maple syrup bottles I put in there and I tried it and I never like grits, but I was when I was when I was kind of messing around with it. The pepper and butter was great. I never thought it would be good. It was really good and then the and then the the maple syrup also like a good, but very different way to eat it. Is that a conventional way to do it because I don't think I've seen that before. No idea.

I googled and I put in like with maple syrup and people did do it. Okay, but but I was like, how do people usually eat these because alone? I had them alone. I was like, these are weird and plain. I don't normally eat them. There's gonna be a lot of opinionated people about how they eat their grits. I know that people care about Nick. What's a good hashtag? Hashtag kiss my grits. That's right. Tell us how you like them and kiss my grits. Yeah, I like I'll say this. The best when we're in South Carolina, I had some shrimp and grits from this place. Hominy Cafe a couple of times in Charleston and that was just like such

a fantastic meal. Yeah, it's just like it's that that dish done well is like so great. But yeah, grits on their own. They're a little bit, you know, yeah, there's it's it's like any sort of a one of those sort of soupy grain sort of cereals. It's hot cereals. It's just like it's a little plain. I was having fun. I was I had some of your I tried to buy your chicken dumplings. I tried a bite of your meatloaf and I had a piece of your okra and I thought all those were good. Not things I usually get either grabbed an old man's BLT and just took the bite.

It's weird. And then also we had the blueberry. Yes. Oh God, they were fucking good. They were really fucking really really good. They came out looking amazing. And that's like Valley of Butter. The Valley of Butter was a was perfect. I want to live in that. But I owe me to me too. It was so good. And I'm not a big. I'm not a big pancake head. Yeah, as they were so good. They were fantastic. Yeah, really, really well done. Also you and I, Nick, you had your first kind of bite of the pancake. Betsy and I split that kind of Valley of Butter area and it was so good. Yeah, we poured. I tried both of the syrups. They

gave us a blueberry syrup and then also we I asked for the just plain maple syrup as well because it's like they serve you warm little bottles of it. Right. The blueberry syrup. I thought like was for blueberry pancakes. It seemed too kind of weird. Like like it was a bizarre thing where I was like too much. Yeah, too much blueberry going on. Yeah, it's nice that they give you the option where you have the other one as well. I kind of like the blueberry syrup. But I if I was having that full order because those those are they're big flapjacks. They're they're they're big. They're their dinner plate size and then they're just loaded

with blueberries and they've got all of those with that blueberry syrup. And with all that butter, it would have just been super happy. Turn into that girl from Willy Wonka. Oh, yeah. Like that reference, right? I don't know her name. I don't know the part. People know what you mean. You know Willy Wonka, that show. We had a. We had a roll you out of the rest. And then we're going to drain you or whatever. Yeah, we were like, how do you get it out? And then Nick said to us, I jack it out. He was jacking a bunch of blueberry juice. Jesus Christ.

Oh, I went too far. It's true, Nick. It's true. Let's go back to the white wall references. It's working better for me. And then we we closed it out with the we got a little dessert. We got the double chocolate fudge coca-cola cake. I'll read the menu description. Oops, we double the chocolate. We what started as a happy accident. It was an accident. Yeah, it's like salt berries. Oh my god. Big oops, but it worked out for him. Now it makes the famous cake so special. Served with rich, creamy vanilla ice cream. Really good cake. You know, the coca-cola element, I think they just use the Coke as a sweetener and lieu of the

sugar. It's not super you can't really taste that much. Yeah. But it's a great chocolate cake. It's very, very good. It was so moist. Yeah. And like, and once again, it came out so hot, right? And delicious and melting the ice. Oh, it was really good. And once again, I'm not a big cake head. Oh, man. And this was really, really good. Are you more of a pie fan? I think so. Sweets kind of in general. I'm not too into interest. I think my number one is kind of more like ice cream. Oh hell yeah. I could get behind ice cream, but even then it's a pretty rare right craving, but I I will not. I'm not. I'm not a big sweet

guy either. I don't usually go crazy on sweets. Yeah, but I'll never turn down a chocolate cake and this was a good version of it. It was it. It wasn't like the best. It wasn't it really wasn't like the bed like I wasn't like. Oh, this is better chocolate. There's better chocolate. There was better chocolate cakes, but it was just it was it was it was good. It would hit this. I think it would hit the spot in the context of a chain restaurant dessert. It's it's a very good execution. Yeah, and the vanilla ice cream with it was good. Yeah. At this point, I was so stuffed. I like you said I cleared my play. I I fucking I

was it. I was the closer in this in this in this meal. Nick I was closing out meals. I was I was I was I was I was going nuts. Yeah, you were like Kira Sedgwick, baby, and I was like, what okay gears, but but yeah, Craig Kimbrel, the Red Sox Closer, right. He also gives up home runs. Forget him. I ate so much. Yeah, it was great. It was a gigantic man. I mean, we went a little over the top partly because of the odyssey out there, partly because,

you know, of the we just want to try a bunch of different things, but I will say when we got the bill at the end, pretty affordable, not bad considering how much stuff we got for three people. I mean, a lot of times these chain restaurants, you can spend more money than you realize you're going to place like a red lobster or something. Yeah, this is it's it's pretty affordable. I think if you're going to if you're going to take your family out after church or something, it's a you're not going to spend too much money. So yeah, I mean, let's I mean this this this reads like a rave, but let's but we're going to have

to get to our final thoughts to see what our actual rating is. So here's how this will work. We'll each go around. We'll sort of give our closing argument, if you will, and then rate this from we've been a we this our last of the October blessed ones. Mitch, what should we do zero to five? Halos zero to five halos. That sucks. That's great. That sucks. How about how about a zero to five white squall lifeboats? You know what? Yeah, zero to five heavenly white squall cellboats seven zero to five albert, a ghostly albatross. There you go. Ghostly albatross. This

makes sense. All right, Betsy, you're again. And there's halos above the albatross. Yeah, of course. Yeah, we know, Mitch. Yeah, when it's a ghost ship, there's always a halo above it. Come on. You know that I really enjoyed it. And here I was very surprised because I was ready to feel terrible for the rest of the day. Right. Like, and I knew that I was like, I'm going, I'm going to eat a shit ton. I'm going to want to just sleep my day away, which I'm fine with. But I actually felt good. I agree with you. I felt a little wild in the car ride home. But then once I kind of stood up and was moving, I was like, OK, I

don't feel terrible, which is always a nice, a nice surprise, because I feel terrible often after I eat. No, I get that. I'm sick. I feel terrible constantly. Yeah. But I really enjoyed it. And it was like those that chicken and dumplings was so damn good. Yeah. I will probably think about it often, which is pretty nice. I want it again. And I want what it's got. Yeah. It looked it looked really good. So I'm going to give it. I'm going to give it for what is it? Ghost white squalls ships. Yeah. Yeah. With halos on top. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I'll give it four of those. Wow. Yeah. Go ahead, Mitch. I

get why people in the south love this place. It's an interesting place. What they're trying to do, which we write on that they really knock it out of the park. It feels at home. The everyone there was very friendly and nice to us. The lady out front took our picture for us. She took multiple pictures. She got a good one. There is the rock and chairs you sit in. There's a weird country store where you can get whatever. I got some Mario Pez, a couple Mario Pezes that had Mario Luigi, Donkey Kong and Peach, I believe. Yeah. And then I got two boxes of those. And then I also got a Reese's Advent calendar,

which has a bunch of different a bunch of different treats on the different days. I had a really good time. It was I didn't feel. I probably felt a little worse than you guys, but I ate a ton of food and I did, but I didn't feel as bad as I thought I would and I did have a day where I kind of just I think I would just kind of watch the the Red Sox and like yeah laid around and then I didn't. I didn't need again until like that night after a show. I didn't eat for a long time. I had a show later that night. I had a couple drinks and then I had like a like a couple del Taco burritos, a lot of but but that that was

like at midnight, but I had a blast for review sake. I also had a glass of water to to mush everything down. It's worth saying. Oh yeah, it's worth noting. I had water to. All right, we'll add water man. I got to say for what it does for what it is. The food is was so good. I got to give it five forks. Oh yeah. I can not give it five forks. It's it's great. Yeah. Cracker Barrel's great. I get why you're all in love with it down south. Yeah, it's interesting. It in Victorville. It weirdly feels actually weirdly feels like it kind of does work there because it's this weird place that you drive through in the middle of nowhere. Sure,

but like that those this cracker barrel makes so much sense down south and and it's good. It's a good thing. It's a great thing. You got going down there. Look, I know that the place maybe know maybe isn't has some bad politics has some bad owners has some bad things going on like a lot of these chains, but yeah, but but and and I don't know how I ties into our religious thing well because it did have that vibe of kind of like a Sunday after church lunch spot, but time, but I'm going with five ghostly heavenly albatrosses with hellos over their heads. Wow. What else can I say? Nice. Yeah, you both make very good points. You both speak to the just the

the quality of the product and I think especially the quality of the service resonated with me. They were just like they were just they were so busy, so friendly and so efficient. It was like clearly they just had this operation down. That was really a sight to see. And yeah, the food was great. They delivered all these these these especially for a chain to deliver these, you know, this level of quality for these sort of classics just execute them in such a great manner. And you know, I'm not someone who's who's from the South. I'm a lifelong SoCal surfer, dude, but I can still appreciate this sort of cooking and this is this is a really these were really well executed American favorites. And and yeah, I just had a wonderful

experience. You know, it just comes you know, again, it comes down to to Mitch's point of like what this chain is trying to accomplish. And I think it's trying to deliver these comfort food in a comforting environment and make you feel at home while they're doing it. And I think they knock that out of the park. For that reason, welcome to the Golden Plate Club, Golden Collection Plate Club, right? Golden Collection Plate Club Cracker Barrel, because I am also going to give you five ghostly albatrosses with halos on top of them. Yeah. Very, very wonderful time I had there. Hope some more locations up here. Wow. Wow. That's great Cracker Barrel. Good job, Cracker Barrel. You earned it. It did feel like you're at your grandma's

house. Yeah, 100%. Your grandma who likes to collect awful, awful, creepy things. Yeah, she's maybe a little bit of a hoarder. Yeah, yeah, but it's fine. It's fine. Survive the great depression. So you're like, yeah, hold on to whatever. Let her have all her spoons. It's fine. My grandma had symbols. Oh, right. Yeah. Too many symbols. Hey, you know, show sketch. Oh my God. Wait, is it? Is that your grandma's maybe? No, I mean, it's a what is what is the thing that he keeps knocking? Oh, the story of the story of Everest? Yes. Yeah. I forget what's on that shelf that he knocks over. Very, very funny sketch. It might be. It might be symbols. Oh,

I'm going to get a call from Bob. He's calling right now. He thought it was symbols. Hey, that was our review of Cracker Barrel. It's time for regular segment. We've got to decide if something is a little too spicy. This is another October blessed edition of Hot or Not. Oh my God. Me mouth on fire. Me tongue on fire. Feeling hot or not. They see us tasting. Their mind is racing. Is it hot or not? All right, Mitch. That's so good. No, thanks, Betsy. Don't say that. I loved it. I loved it. Thank you. It's probably my greatest career achievement. Yeah, Betsy. Yes, because this

is the Doe Boys theme month and Nick is, you know, OCD and weirdo too, and he has to make it hot or not. The real thing today is you're sending Nick and I to hell. Oh yeah. I've been dreaming for this day. You want to throw us into the pit of hell. Yeah, we're doing the death nut challenge. Oh my God. The cat. So it's Carolina Reaper Carolina Reaper peanuts fused with pepper X. How do we get this? Does someone send this to us? I got it. You got it. Okay, one tortilla. One tortilla chip was easy. Are you ready for the death nut challenge? I'm going to read this quickly. There's there's five levels. One getting started warming up heat and flavor pain sets in and then finally the fifth one is the death nut. The first one is ghost peppers

plus Carolina Reaper powder second step scorpion butch scorpion butch tea pep butch tea peppers. I don't know what this is plus Carolina Reaper powder three is Carolina Reaper Peppers chocolate butella and Carolina Reaper powder for his Carolina Reaper Peppers seven pot dugla. I don't know what I mean. This is seven pot brain strain and Carolina Reaper powder. Oh, this is a wheat. No, it's campy. I got on my God pepper X peppers is the last one Carolina Reaper Peppers more more moruga scorpion plus Carolina Reaper powder. All the stuff just sounds like fake Halloween names. What do we say to have you read the dense copy? This is easier. Yeah, here's what the challenge is. I don't know if we have to live by this.

Betsy, you're just going to do the first one with us great because it must Nick taps out and you want to do it. Okay, but we'll see. It says extremely hot wear gloves. We're not going to do that. No liquid or food is allowed until completion. She you entire contents of each level compartment for at least 15 seconds. Then it says wait 90 seconds before advancing the next level. We probably won't do that. Yeah, just for condense the condense time and then after eating contents of level five the death nut you must endure a five minute burn. So we're definitely not going to do that either, but we'll just see how far we go. We're just going to taste all of these. We're just we're just going to go one by one. So he's going to be a lot of dead air. How are you guys with

heat in general? Are you fine with it? Yeah, I mean, I like to characterize myself as something of a heat seeker. I like I like things spicy. Okay. Yeah, but yeah, this this is going to be I'm not someone also though who usually like challenges himself. I'm not one of those guys who gets like that blow it out your ass hot sauce, you know, like it like I don't want to just eat a straight ghost chilies or whatever. This is the first one. He's got spoons. Yeah, hold on. Okay, Betsy's going to get one as well. This just looks like it's about the size of a corn nut. And it's got some sort of a powder, just sort of like cinnamon looking powder, honestly, just a just sort of a brown powder. This one, this one should be easy. This is an

intro one. Okay, so I'm going to take a bite of this one. Oh my God, okay. Well, this one, it's already hot already definitely has some heat to it. I'll say that. Oh my God, it's already hot. It's spreading. Yeah, this is going to be this is going to be hard. Mitch, this is going to be awful. Why are we doing this? Oh my God. Yeah, Mitch, I already hate this. This is going to be terrible. Oh, shit. That's one of five. That's the beginning one. Oh, this is going to be bad. This is going to be very bad. It's bad. It's hot already. Yeah. I mean, that's like, you know, that's indurable, but I can just tell whoa, I might throw up. If we're going to grow from there, this is going to be really, really cool. Oh

my God. Give me your bowl. I'm handing my bowl over to you. Hot. Hot. I'm using utensils for these so that we don't get them on our fingers in lieu of gloves. Mitch is giving me the second level. That's all right. Hey, this one hurt. That just burned so good, baby. It's all right. Oh, it's such a good burn down my throat. This one's like a darker brown. Oh my God. And Betsy, have some milk there if you want it. Thank you. I'm going to try it. All right. We are on level two warming up. And I should say that we had three of the first level. The rest of them, they're only two. That's why just me and Mitch are doing it. And we're not trying to exclude. Betsy shouldn't do this. Yeah. This is, this is brutal. Okay. We're going to try the second level

now. Oh my God. Yep. It's hotter. Oh my God. But not bad. It's got a good nut flavor. This one tastes better. Yeah, it definitely tastes better. That's nice because it's always a bummer when it's just pure heat and you taste nothing. Yeah. That does really. This one is, it's got something. It's got a lingering burn to it. It's got a lingering burn. It's a little deeper, but I almost, it almost, I like it like almost more. No, this one, this one is better than the first one. It's, it's maybe a little bit hotter, but it's like a, just a better flavor profile. Definitely feel some, some steam starting to shoot out. I'm still feeling that first one pretty good. It's got some lingering. How would you rank these so far? The first one is hot, hot maybe.

It might be hot, hot and a half. And the second one I think is hot, hot. I think we're going to get a hot, hot, hot territory pretty quick. As we were saying, is this hot hell yes or heavens no. So I think we've got, the first one is hell yes and a half. Second one, two hell yeses. Okay, great. And we're coming up, we're coming up on that. I mean, nothing's going to be lower than, than hell yes. I'm also always giving you the smaller peanut. So actually that's probably the surface area. Yeah. You're probably right. All right. So this is the third level flavor. Third level. Yeah. Definitely feel my tongue burning. Oh my God, you guys. So this one has like a, just like a brown, it like looks like it's covered in curry powder almost.

Oh, shit. I know it's hotter than curry powder. It's actually, oh no, no, oh man. Yeah, this one catches up on you. Catches up on you. Oh, there it is. Yeah. Oh my God. This one is opening my eyes. Bitch's eyes are watering. My tongue is really hot. Yeah. This is really, this is a hot, hot and a half. Yeah. This is a hot, hot and a half. We're almost hot. We're almost a hot, hot, hot. Hell yes. Times three. Boy, this is not good radio. I was just like barely able to speak because we're in a lot of pain. We're going to get this next level. We're going to get this awful exercise over with. That one's starting to hit the back of my throat. The last level, look, there's two big, there's two big ones in each of the last level.

Okay. We're going to split up. Do you want the bigger one now or later? Give me the big one now. Yeah, no shit. I'm not an idiot. Oh my God. All right, here we go. This is the second to last. Oh, this one's gigantic. And it looks, it looks hot. Yeah. This looks like a piece of, I mean, this piece looks like a piece of dog food. It's covered in cocoa powder. This is going to be awful. My nose is running. Here we go. Oh my God. Mitch, I hate that we're doing this. Oh no. This is tough to watch. This one is hot. It is hot as fuck. Oh no. That's really bad. Oh no. I'm really uncomfortable. It's really bad. I didn't like eating that. Oh no. I mean, I like a spicy food. I'm something to be eating. Yeah. That is really, really spicy. Boy, that's

tough. My face is turning. I feel like it's turning red. I mean, that's kind of his default state. Nick, your eyes are red. I'm very watery. Yeah, they're watery. Oh my God. It's like I've been smoking a big bowl, buddy. Betsy, what's the hottest thing you've ever eaten? Probably like a chicken wing where it was just unreal. And I'm not like, I don't mind hot stuff, but I'm not a seeker. And like that one, it just where it was like immediately I started crying, nose running, hiccups. Yeah. Just ooh. Yeah. I'm dying over here. This is the last one. This is the death nut. Oh no. Mine is huge, Nick. Right. Oh God. Yeah, this is a substantial death nut. Mine's a little smaller. Here we go. Oh my God. Very dark. We're gonna see how this goes. I'm already in a lot of

discomfort. Oh no. Can't tell you. Can't tell you, but I know this is gonna be bad. Maybe the other one's burned off all of your feeling. Oh, that could be something. So now you can't feel anything. Oh, no. Whoa, that's bad. That's really hot. Boy, bad. You saw, oh yeah, thank you, buddy. You saw I was gonna get some baby dolls, but it was starting running. Oh God. Nick is hiccuping. This is rough. Thanks, buddy. I will say that between the last two, the last two are both so spicy that it's kind of like, it's like an acidic flavor in your mouth. It's like, it's, it's hurting my mouth. Yeah. Oh God. Yeah. It's a lot. It's a lot. I mean, it's, I mean, I feel like I might die. Oh no. Are you, do you want to drink milk? Are we holding

out for milk? I want to drink it so bad. Yeah. Let's go for the milk. Yeah. Yeah. We fucking who are we trying to impress? Oh yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. I'd say though that last one is one of the hotter things I've ever had. I mean, since like, you know, like I've had things in Thai restaurants that are similarly hot, but this is just like concentrated spice. Oh God. Oh man, milk works so well. It's insane. Yeah. Oh boy. Well, uh, well Betsy, what do you think? Did you guys see anything weird? Um, yeah, I saw my, uh, both my dead grandfathers and they were just giving me thumbs down. They were in hell. Yeah. Ooh. I'm chugging milk. Like I've never chugged milk before. Boy, that is, that is quite a relief

that Dairy Peer. Here's, here's the, here's the scary thing of all 250 cows. And this milk, 250 cows. Homebode. Man. Oh boy. Sorry for me off the mic for a second. We had some dead air. How are you guys feeling? How's your, how are your tummies? You brought us right up to the gates of hell. Yeah, you're welcome. How are the gates looking? There's little Nikki was there. He was there. He was greeting you guys. He was ready to greet you, but then you started drinking milk. How are you guys feeling? I think this milk's not going to work. Oh no. I'm afraid that the milk is not going to work either. Oh no. I have more milk too. If you guys want, we might need to steal some of your milk, please, please. We might need to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Please. Well,

I'm going to keep rolling with this. Also, I feel, is there something salty, isn't salt good? Oh, I don't know. It's really bad. All right. We're not doing another one of those again. We proved our point. Yeah. You guys are brave. Milk, milk. Yeah, we are brave. You guys are true American heroes. Brave. I'm okay for him. Okay. All right. We still got. Hey, you suck. I think there might be some ice cream. Mmm. That's what I need. A whole bunch of dairy. Oh my God. Yeah. It's still going. Oh my God. Oh, all right. Well, that was hot or not? Oh, the death. The last one without a doubt is hot, hot, hot. The hottest, one of the hottest things I've ever eaten in my life. Just like a restaurant by your feedback. Let's open the feedback. And hey,

we got a voicemail today. Let's listen to this one. Hey, my name is Cara. Hey, Nick. I just realized that you don't have the same birthday August 28th, maybe. I was just wondering what's your ideal birthday meal layout plan look like? Are you eating with friends with your wife? And where are you eating a fancy meal? Just your favorite food? What do you have on your birthday? That's my question. Bye. I was literally just holding cold milk in my mouth through that question. Yeah, my birthday is August 28th. Oh my God. I'm doing the same thing. This is intense. Did you say your birthday is August 28th as well? No, my nose is. Oh, okay. Yeah. So we're on the same general range. What do you like to do for

your birthday with your birthday food wise? Food wise? I'm trying to, you know, honestly, it's a lot of times ordering pizza and Taco Bell at the same time. By the way, I've almost beaten this now, Nick. Oh, great. I'm close, but it keeps coming back. Oh my God. You know what it is? I'll say this about it. Nick, you look insane. There's milk in his mouth and it's, and his eyes are red in the water. You know what it is? It's the pain on your tongue just keeps coming back. Yeah, specifically my tongue. I'm still feeling it from just the first one, like still a little bit of like on my tongue. Oh, yeah. Oh my God. Yeah, I feel like it's, it's going to be a rough morning tomorrow. Yeah. Oh, was that a shit reference? Yeah, it's a shit reference. It's got a belly full

of fucking hot sauce and milk. It's going to be brutal. It's so little though. It's such a, it's such, they're little tiny peanuts. Right. But it just loaded up with. Nick, this is the first time I've seen you crying. I don't know. I don't know. I don't like how it feels. Yeah, I would say for my birthday, usually it's just like a, it's just a small thing. I'm not someone who gets a, this is such a bad radio. Man, we were doing such a bad job right now. Why do we do this? Why do we do this? I have a thing of ice cream over. I'm just licking it. Nick, I'll talk now. I can do it. I'm in a little better shape than you are physically. Yeah. What do you like to do for your birthday? I get pizza. I go to DeSanos. I've done that.

Yes. I love DeSanos so much. I just, I just went there. I will invite a few friends out and we'll just go to DeSanos and get a bunch of different pizzas. I love it. It feels like such a classic pizza place too. Like where you go after a soccer game or something, you know? Oh, that's so fun. I'll say this. I went to DeSanos. I went and saw Venom. And then I, so the last few years, Nick, you're almost going to be close to okay now, right? You know what? It's, it's traveled down and now it's just burning my stomach. My stomach is dead. There's no, there's nothing left down there for me. Do you want to lick some ice cream? I think I'm okay for now. I don't want to lick the thing that Mick, Mitch was just licking. So I went to the last few years. I've done a

you song has brought us the weirdest shit you song. What the fuck crackers and Hershey's syrup? Okay, I googled it and while it's not milk chocolate, here's some Hershey's syrup. I found a Mitch's kitchen. Okay, it's crackers. Yeah. I don't know how old that Hershey's syrup is. I every year I'll usually do. This is what I did for my birthday. I went and so but every year I'll usually do pizza and then a movie. Great. I went to DeSanos had a bunch of different pizza. Went to the movie had a coke because I'll allow myself a full Coca-Cola on my birthday. I had a couple ciders at the at DeSanos and a beer and then I also got a popcorn with butter.

Good. And then after I went to a bar had a few more drinks and then afterwards I got more pizza at garage pizza. Good. That's a good night. But then usually on my birthday, like it's usually pizza. It's my favorite food. Yeah. And then I'll do the day after because I'll usually be drinking or something or the day before I'll do like some sort of like fast food or you know, like I'll do like a Wendy's chicken sandwich or something or a burger. One of my one of my like Taco Bell, one of my favorite type of places. I'll treat myself for like a day and a half of stuff. And then didn't do any cake this year, but I like to try to get in some sort of cake-ish, some sort of cakey meal. Yeah. Right. I like a sensible lunch. Are you still really that bad?

It's my stomach now. My stomach is just like on fire. Jesus. You're not feeling that? You're not feeling anything in your stomach at all? I'm done now. My stomach is just like brutal right now. I mean, like my nose is snodding. I mean, your hair is smoking, but you're done. Yeah, here's more milk. Given that milk. Thanks Betsy. Yeah, but I will say this. The, I like to get, I like a sensible lunch because I don't like to feel like too stuffed on my birthday because they just don't like that feeling. I'm just uncomfortable and I like to be able to do some things. But for dinner, I like to go to, you know, I just, I just usually do something low-key with Natalie and we just go to one of our favorite local restaurants. A lot of times for me it's a

hillstone because I'm a big hillstone fan. Hell yeah. So I'll go hit up a hillstone for my birthday and, you know, get myself a steak or something or some sort of entree like and get myself a little dessert and then some cocktails. And then you won't see anybody, right? You won't see just, just Natalie. Yeah, that's all I need. I like that. Yeah, that's good. I like that. I don't know. I'm a low-key guy. You know what I won't have on my birthday? What? A fucking death nut. Yeah, Jesus Christ. The only death nut I want on my birthday is from coming so hard. My heart explodes. The real death nut. Jesus Christ. Oh my God. Do you have a question or comment about the word? Oh, you know what? I'd let us know your birthday favorites. Hashtag, uh,

hashtag birthday treats. I love it. I love it because I just want the episode to end now. I love it. That's great. Okay. Your stomach is hurting, huh? That sucks. Well, yeah, but I think it's, I think it's getting better. I think it's just like, it's just all that is, is mashing together. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you email us at Doughboy's podcast. What are you talking about? My stomach. Jesus, sorry. So I'm not constantly testing the limits of my body by pumping garbage into my, down my esophagus. That's right. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you email us at Doughboy's podcast at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail on the Doughboy's delivery line at 830 Godot.

That's 830-463-644. And to get the Doughboys double our weekly bonus episode, join the golden or platinum plate club at patreon.com slash Doughboys. It took a death nut to see you cry. Yeah. How does it feel to cry for the first time? Maybe ever. I cried before. I wept in my life. Betsy Siddharo, thank you so much for, for making time for us. Thank you for having me and hanging out. That was really fun. You're, you're a delight. You're the best. Do you have anything you'd like to plug right now? Well, I actually, I have two podcasts that you, you guys should check out. One is a funny feeling that's also on head gum. Yes. Where it's all ghost stories. Mitch has been on it. Nick. I'd love to come on it. Come on it.

Where we listen to our friend's ghost stories and just kind of talk about the paranormal. And then another one called horny for horror, where it's me, Manu and Adam, and we just celebrate the genre of horror. That's awesome. Yeah. So check them out. Check them out. Two awesome shows. One of the funniest people around. Check that out. And hey, if you're thinking about doing the death nut challenge, maybe put a gun in your mouth instead. I would say the one chip challenge is much, much better. Hey, Nick, that wraps up October. October blessed is over. Wait, no, there's one more double. Yeah. There's one more double, but this wraps up the main line episodes. But yeah, I think I hope people have enjoyed being with us in the spiritual journey

that ended fittingly with us going to hell. Going to hell. And there we are. And what can we say besides amen? Amen. Do you remember that part in church at Good Friday service where you have to scream, crucify him a bunch? I did not do that. That's fucking intense. Yeah. Because they like reenact the whole crucifixion and like stuff. And you as the congregation have to scream, crucify him. And me and my sisters would do it so loud and intense just because we thought it was so insane. Guys, let's shout that at you song. Then I guess I'll end this with crucify him. Bye. See you.